Translation of the pieces from the diary about D. Martin Luther, kept by D. Conrad Cordatus in 1537, which are not found in the Table Talks. At the same time as a table of contents for those who want to read through this diary in the original order.
Tischr Cap.
just
§
2. a teacher (which I would like to have) God did not make, but He wants a speaker. 2)
All spiritual sins go against the sanctification of the name of God, as when one thinks he worships God as a saint, yet he deals in false religion, or does works according to the statutes of men, or affirms false things with an oath to God, or teaches false things by the words of the devil, and boasts and swears that he teaches the truth of God. But it is not the same with bodily sins. For the robber who kills, or the debauchee who commits adultery, does not sin in this way, but follows the inclination of his flesh.
It is certain that a great change in all things occurs as often as the pure word is preached again after it has been rejected or polluted for a while, as after the deliverance of the Jews from Babylonian captivity, the change and desolation of the Babylonian empire followed; after the gospel was preached from Zion, Jerusalem perished; after the word of God was preached in Rome, Rome ceased to be Rome. What else can the Germans expect, who hear the word of God and despise it?
The pope has also ceased to be wise, for it is a folly that he tries to deceive under the appearance of religion, which all men understand to be a deception of the devil. That he tries to fortify his kingdom by force is a similar folly, because he is not able to do so.
(6) It is by reading that the word has remained under the ministry, not by preaching; for in the pulpits the text of the gospel has always been spoken, and it is certain that by this some have been saved. For it is the Holy Spirit with the word of Christ who makes it alive when he wills and in whom he wills.
1) The numbers in front indicate the numbers of the relevant sections in the Latin diary of Cordatus.
2) The duplicate of this number in Cordatus, No. 1786, has differently: "(as I would like him) GOtt leidet nicht" etc.
(11) If you are a private Christian, you shall not be angry with any man. For anger belongs to the worldly regiment, not to the gospel or to a solitary Christian's life.
12. the iron eaters are bold in blasphemy, not manly in chariot.
A Christian is bound by a double obedience, to God and to his prince, and this double obedience is dissolved only when the prince commands what is against God. Then he must obey God more than man.
(14) I hear that our grooms and brides have become so evangelical that they refuse to give a bite to the disciples in the old way. Therefore, I will truly arrange that when they come into the church to make the covenant, nothing else shall be sung to them but: O poor Judas. They have learned to be so free that they alone compel us to serve them in all things, but furthermore they do not want to give us a jot. Yes, what we have without them and not from them, they do not grant us. That is also right, because they do not have to be the people who want to reward us.
Table speeches
Cap. §
19. we must be like God, who throws away everything and squanders it; he throws away the heavens, the earth, gold, silver, grain, and makes his sun rise on the good and the evil; the latter have always outnumbered the good.
Late experience comes from long misuse of time, and the mind that considers nothing never comes to experience.
(24) I am very hostile to all those who sit under the blessing of God and have very little or no cause to sin, but are in all sins, and very great ones at that. But who should not love the authorities if they also sin, since those who are forced to preside over them also necessarily sin often-and all the more seriously and often, in fact, the higher secular or spiritual authorities they are? Tyrants, too, are the devil's governors on earth.
(25) If I were not in the service of God and in marriage, I would go away so that no man would know where I had come. But I would do this out of anger and impatience against the ungrateful world, in order to flee from the world, not because of any carnal sins, so that I would not give a damn, but because of the evil world itself, because it is a despiser of God and a blasphemer of Him and of all things that are rightly God's in the first place.
Every private person takes care of private affairs, as a doctor does not take care of the person, but of the sick 1), and the authorities take care of the community. That is why it is in great danger.
Jerome is neither a theologian nor an orator, but like such a man, whom in our time is called Altensteiß. Augustine grew up by arguing with the Pelagians and is a faithful upholder of grace. Gregory is a ceremonial man, and to such an extent a justice-monger [justiciarius] that he dared to assert that it was a mortal sin to happen to be
1) Instead of Socratem, which the manuscript offers, aegrotum must be read.
would only let a fart go. Ambrose, however, is simple in faith, a witness against reliance on works, and would easily surpass all if he had had to suffer opponents.
Table speeches
Cap. z
30. a heretic, if one changes the word, is rightly called an idolater, from the idols they worship, each one a separate one, and which he has devised for him... Toller saint [Tol heiling] is a very clear and appropriate term by which to call a heretic.
31 (Contained in Lauterbach, February 2, p. 19.)
32 Verbum Domini Manet In Eternum [the word of God remains forever], that is how Luther interprets the initial letters. [They can also mean: Universa Disciplina Monastica Inanis Est [the whole monastic system is void], also: Verbum Diaboli Manet In Episcopis [the word of the devil remains in the bishops].
46. May the merciful God have mercy on me, a sinner, and give me grace and a grave, for the world cannot stand me, nor I the world.
There are two things in the world. There are two things in the world that a Christian should always take seriously, God's word and God's work.
When someone at the Diet of Augsburg said to Phil. Melanchthon, "Philippe, what do you want to do?" he immediately answered, "Win.
When the bishop of Salzburg argued at the same time with Stromer, a councilor of Nuremberg, and, in order to overcome him, argued that the king of France, who was a prisoner, had given the emperor Carl a great deal of money for his ransom, and that after that he was still pouring it in: How will you now hold yourselves? The latter answered: "We will command the matter to God the Lord. Lang answered, "A goose would have told me that. Namely, this is how such a great bishop spoke about the trade that concerned God's word, and about which one was in dispute with such great seriousness at that time, and in the great danger of Germany, this is how the bishops speak when they hear that the people place their hope in God.
55 To the pastor in Zwickau, the very good man Hausmann, he said: "Dear man, if you demand from all my property what is convenient or necessary to you, you will do me the greatest favor; but if you do not,
you offend me deeply. For, since all my things belong to the poor, how should I not make everything I own into a song? But that my wife bought a garden, she did it for herself, not for me, and against my will, not according to it. When I [Cordatus] objected to him 1): Why did you allow her to do it, since it was not your will? He answered: "I can neither bear her pleas nor her tears.
How often did he say to me [Cordatus] when I was in Wittenberg for the sake of the word: Cordatus, if you have no money, I still have some silver cups.
When I [Cordatus] had followed the preacher Hausmann, the pastor of Zwickau, and we both left the ungrateful, rebellious people, he said to us and those sitting by: 2) It would not be so dear to me if six hundred florins were given to me, as it is dear to me that you both have gone away, that you are safe and sound and that you both sit with me. This man had such great charity.
(58) Because there are many private disputes and many other harmful things in the Roman Empire, Daniel did not hide this when he speaks of the Empire, which is weak in parts.
(59) The opinion of those who think that the celibate state was invented by the pope for the sake of making the priests richer, since they live without wives and children, is false, because under the appearance of religion, which the celibate state pretends to be, the pope has raised himself and all his people to the greatest power and to such prestige that he also has kings under his feet.
Since at the hour of death, when we depart, the angels of God will carry us 3) to bring us into Abraham's bosom, what harm will it do me if a miserly peasant afflicts me with theurge, or a shrew tramples me underfoot, or an angry prince tears off my head?
The fact that walls were built around Wittenberg [said Luther] would be of no use, because they were started without calling upon God, since a Christian should not transplant a little plant without first calling upon his God. But that such a great, long and high wall would be torn down, which could not be built in one or two years, nor could it be rebuilt 4), looked almost like treason. Then he added: "In these dangerous times, I have nothing to put in front of these gaps but an Our Father.
62 Someone said that the Epistle of John was written in simple words and could be easily understood. To this he answered: Yes, it is easy, but no one wants to think about it.
When the woman brought to Luther the little cakes she had just eaten, he said: "If the peasants knew their status and situation, they would already be in paradise. But being in paradise is the knowledge of God without sins, but the peasants live in the midst of the creatures of God, from which God is known etc.
64. praetereuntes, repeated three times, forms a hexameter, according to the number of syllables, and also in the same way it forms a sentence, which nevertheless requires a suppositum (something that is spoken of), an appositum [a closer determination that stands by it] and a casus after itself. But it is put like this:
Table speeches
Cap. §
1) Instead of at yuoä, sä yuoä will be read.
2) Instead of ussistentikps read assiäsntikus.
3) Instead of portuni exituri will probably be read portuturi.
4) Instead of reueäiüoure read rkueäiüeari. ,
Table speeches
Cav. §
Praetereuntes praetereunt es [aes] (sicut thesaurum infossum) praetereuntes, [The passers-by go past the ore (as it were a buried treasure), not paying attention). That is, they do not know that ore is buried there. He said, however, that such things are incidents, not sagacity; what sagacity cannot do, chance does.
When he looked at the sky at night, he said, "He must be a good master who has built such a vault without pillars.
67. "They have Moses and the prophets." If the Anabaptists should say for the sake of these words that we must go back to Moses, they are answered that Christ did not speak here for Christians, and he does not set it up as a doctrine, but he tells a story; although I believe that Christ alone was present when this happened. 1) [Luc. 16, 19. ff.]
The kingdom of God is not in speech, it is not in washing alone, but in power. This he adds against hypocrisy, which speaks and says many things about good works and does not do them.
If I said that ten years ago I had recognized the ungodliness of the mass, the veneration of the saints, purgatory, and such things as indulgences, I would be lying, even though I knowingly and deliberately preferred to close my eyes to many things rather than dispute them. For I thought, according to reason, that this new deal was to be covered up rather than revealed, because of the Word of God. But as the Zwickauers now prefer to use force against the servants of the Word, so the papists acted with me at that time and brought about what they now feel and are sorry for.
The true and proper goal, says Solomon in the so-called "Ecclesiastes", is: Let it go as it goes, because it wants to go as it goes.
It is my sincere opinion that there are more noblemen in the countryside and rulers in the cities of Duke George who are heartily favorable to the truth of the gospel than among our Elector. Likewise, as far as despisers and persecutors are concerned, I think there are fewer of them there than among us.
Doctor Lazarus Spengler from Nuremberg is the only one who introduced the gospel in Nuremberg, and so far he alone has managed to keep it there.
Although the right is somewhat on your side, a Christian must avoid an evil example in every way.
In the prophecy of Lichtenstein [Lichtenberger], the monk who has the devil standing on his shoulders with his hands stretched against his head is undoubtedly Luther. Now, since a certain pope had interpreted this to mean that all his teaching and life would be of the devil, Philipp Melanchthon, the right
1) So in the original. The text seems to us to be corrupted.
Table speeches
Brother [Luther's], this is by no means to be understood in this way, but rather it means repulsions which Luther suffers from the papists, in that the devil drives them, and this is indicated by the feet of the devil standing on them, with which he kicks Luther, and by the hands with which he hits the head or pulls the hair.
Animals are more cunning than men; therefore, the more barbarous men are, the more cunning they are. This can be seen in the stories of barbarian empires.
(89) He who carefully reads the books of the kings would become a mighty preacher. [He would become a mighty preacher.
God has decreed that all men shall eat their bread by the sweat of their brow, and He has decreed that whoever does not want this sweat shall be forced to suffer the sweat of an evil conscience. And since God has decreed this as a punishment, the devil also decrees it this way, but for the sake of avarice.
Idle minds cannot pay much attention to the article of justification because they do not need it.
The bishops would rather perish in a pleasant way in the name of the devil than be saved and remain in the name of the Lord. For if they would counsel for general and particular peace as we do, they would remain in their goods according to the body, and be blessed according to the soul.
These verses are in the title: De foro Competenti, and are without doubt against the papists:
Composito late fetenti, quaeso, ciba te, Qui putas exclusum crimen per temporis usum
(i.e. Feed yourself with a widely malodorous dish, you who think that a wrong becomes right through the length of time). That is, he who thinks that an evil becomes good by lapse of time, or a sin becomes a virtue by age, let him eat dirt.
98. purely natural [pura naturalia], or that which grows from the earth, must be eaten to preserve the natural moisture. Of the kind are fresh peas, apples, pears etc. 1)
Baptism is called a bath of the Spirit because of the Holy Spirit, who is given by the power of the promise in the words of baptism: "he shall be saved.
Dignity is that which is considered best. Where the mob rules, freedom is considered dignity, which in fact is more a licentiousness of the great crowd. Where few rule, wealth and nobility are held to be dignity. Where there is the best state, virtue is considered dignified.
(Wrampelmeyer.)
105. Even though we have no favor from our neighboring persecutors,
Table speeches
§
[like] Duke George, we certainly have these, that by their tyranny they bring about that this country is not filled with sectirians.
106: "Do not go into judgment with your servant" [Ps. 143, 2]. This forgiveness of sins, for which he asks here, is necessary, not only in the ecclesiastical sphere, but also in the world government and in the household, yes, in all classes and arts. For, where it is not, what can exist? That is why that pagan also says: The highest right is the highest wickedness.
Campanus writes "against all" (that is the title of his book), but not against himself, as he believes. But he writes more against himself than against all.
Martin Cellarius claimed against me in all ways that my profession was greater than that of the apostles. People of that kind are vain and proud. But they call this their innate pride and malice, which has become even stronger in their minds through their presumption, plerophoria and certainty of the Holy Spirit.
Fish belong in the water, a thief to the gallows, the devil to hell. Therefore, no one should help them, for that is where they belong.
When he came to the small town of Kahla by order of the prince to admonish Carlstadt and the other iconoclasts, they had placed here and there hands, feet and the head of a large image, a crucifix, around the preaching chair on which Luther had to climb when he wanted to preach. Although he was very upset about this impertinence, he did not mention it with a single word, but preached with conciliatory words about the need to carry one's cross and to obey the princes.
Afterwards, since I [Cordatus] was sure that he would not have kept silent out of fear of those people, and asked him for what reason he would have wanted to keep silent, he answered that it was pride against pride, and their very hopeful spirit, which was diabolical, should have been thus repaid like with like.
The noblest jewel of a city is when it knows that the prince wants it well, and to know that it does not have a gracious lord is its greatest evil.
The right of those who sit there [4 Cor. 14:30], of which my new friends are now writing, is that they speak and I remain silent. But that they say I never wanted to suffer this right, so I experienced it differently ten years ago [at Worms] in such a large crowd of contradictors. Furthermore, let the emperor say, and let the pope answer, whether I have not endured the right of those who sit there.
A fine is not a punishment, because people are either rich or do not value money obtained in any way. But the punishment of disgrace, or corporal punishment, or capital punishment, these are the real punishments.
120 The sermons of the women only make sad, because they are drifting, and if they speak the truth, it falls to them. But he called by this name the long speeches of his wife, with which she constantly interrupted his best words, 1) and D. Jonas had the same virtue about him.
Whatever the Fathers have said about the Trinity, or the origin of the Persons in the Divine Being, they have been careful to affirm that the Trinity is eternal, and in it there is no other time.
1) Cf. no. 111a. Tischr. Cap. 1, § 9.
Table speeches
Cap. g
than the present, not past nor future. That is why they say that the Father always begets, the Son is always born, the Holy Spirit always proceeds from the Father and the Son.
If he [God] had not preserved the Bible for us through his great mercy, it would undoubtedly have long perished at the instigation of the devil, so much is he hostile to it, and not without cause, since he has also heard the papists in the churches cry out this verse: "The Lord spoke to my Lord," and has certainly understood from this that he will one day inflict upon it the harm that it is now experiencing.
I often wrestle and talk with my God about Christ: You, my God, have given me the man whom you willed to be the Christ and to be called Jesus, that I should believe in him. Therefore I believe in him, and I will cleave to him as a poor sinner unto the end.
All the enthusiasts with whom I have had conversations have attacked me with the greatest and most presumptuous audacity. In addition, one takes the greatest certainty, which, however, has finally become easily disgraced. Thus, of all of them, Marcus attacked me first, who answered me when I finally asked him to desist from his presumption: God Himself shall not take away my teaching. When I finally demanded a sign from him, he said that I would get enough signs to see. From this I did not yet suspect the evil of the peasants' revolt, because I spoke to him simply and sincerely, and therefore I said to him: "My God will probably forbid your God that you do not do a sign. And since he had said, among other outrageous words, that he could immediately recognize people at first sight in such a way that he could also reveal to them the thoughts of their hearts, I challenged him to reveal the thoughts of my heart. To this he immediately answered boldly: I now move this in my heart that his teaching is true. Since I denied that this was true, I did not want to tell him then what I thought, although he asked for it if he did not return tomorrow. When he returned, I told him what was the case, because I had these words of Zechariah [3:2] in mind: The Lord rebuke thee, thou Satan etc.
A short time later, Nicolaus Storck, his Zwickau master, came to me. When I told him this about Marcus, he replied that Marcus must speak as he [Storck] wished. This Storck laughed very much at the idea that a handful of water should make people blessed, and I did nothing with him by saying that this water was powerful enough to bring about blessedness, because God's word was connected with it, which would bless and bring it about.
After these came the pupil of both, Münzer. How proud he was, and how arrogant in his teaching, no one can say.
After him came a certain turner, a child of Marcus, who said, "My father sent me to you. And I said unto him, Who is thy father? He answered, God; and I said, He also is my father, so we are brothers. Now what message do you bring from our common father? That God was very angry with the world, for he had seen, he said, a great house in which many revelers were sitting. God stood by them and threatened them with two fingers. From this vision his message was revealed to him. I said that I had known this before, but if he had something new and special [privatum] to tell me, he would like to say it; from the whole of the
It is known in the Scriptures that God is angry with the world. Then he went away angry, because I despised his fine admonition.
But I believe that I have endured about sixty of such people, and I have seen that all their proud doctrine has been rejected and perished like the dust of the earth, just as Carlstadt's [doctrine], who always wanted in every way that we should all submit to his doctrine. We certainly could not do that. Otherwise, willing to serve him with my body and fortune, which he strove for with equal zeal, I certainly would not have refused him, but I did not want to obey his teaching because I was not allowed to, and as far as my teaching is concerned, I say with Christ: My teaching is not mine, but His who sent me. Therefore I cannot profane him, as the world desires. Thus I am exercised by the ungodliness of the devil's servants, and the proud blasphemy of Campanus cannot challenge me. That will also fall in a short time, and he will come to his place.
Our God is such a God, who does not care about the strong, yes, he rejects it and works on the weak. That is why it is easier for him (if I may speak of God in this way) to convert man in his infancy than for us old people, who are drowned in the devil's kingdom.
Table speeches
Cap. K
Just as the Jews, after three days, forgot the misfortune they had endured in Egypt and, according to their passions and desires, would rather be in it again than endure in the wilderness according to God's will, so do our satiated listeners and those who have forgotten the burdens that pressed them under the papacy. One also finds such people who would rather live under the papacy than in the freedom of Christ.
Muenzer, Carlstadt, Campanus and people of the like are inveterate devils, for they direct their thoughts to nothing but harm and revenge, and as such people dare and presume more than can be said at the time and in a place of peace, so at the time of danger they find themselves more fearful than a man can believe. This I have experienced. I have seen a frightening example of this fear in Carlstadt. When he lived in my house for more than eight weeks at the time of his expulsion, and no one knew about it, our Elector came to us across the Elbe bridge. He went to the window and in my presence he looked out towards the bridge through a broken triangle [triangular window pane], which was under the window panes, which were otherwise all whole, but immediately he went away. When I asked him why he was leaving, he answered, pale and trembling, "So that he would not be seen by anyone. Of course, I thought that the falling leaf, of which Moses speaks [3 Mos. 26, 36.], reminds of a cause for fear, however small it may be, but the enthusiasts are immediately afraid, where there is no cause for fear at all.
The illness of the spirit, which is called sadness, and death are siblings and children with each other. Yes, Jesus Sirach 1) says [30, 25] that many die from sadness, and that there is no benefit in it. In German there is a very beautiful saying against it: Guter Muth ist halber Leib.
1) In the manuscript erroneously: Salomon. This wrong reading probably arose from the fact that Loolo "iastions (Jesus Sirach) was read for Loolomastos (Ecclesiastes Solomon), and Solomon was substituted for it by the scribe.
I [Cordatus] had written these words in my pocket book [in tabulas meas]: Luther [said] to Philippus: "You are an orator in writing, but not in speaking," because I liked the sincerity of both the speaker and the hearer, who wanted to persuade Melanchthon's Luther that he should not answer again to the book which the pastor in Cologne [Arnoldi] had published, whom Luther calls the assassin of Dresden Masers. But what I had written did not please Philip. Therefore he demanded my pocket book from me and often repeated this request, because I used to write in it what I had heard. Finally I gave it to him, and after he had read a little, he wrote this distich in it:
Omnia non prodest, Cordate, inscribere chartis, Sed quaedam tacitum dissimulare decet.
[Cordatus, it is not well to write everything on paper, but a silent man must be able to conceal some things].
133I [Cordatus] have always recognized that it would be a brazen presumption that I, whether standing in front of the table or sitting at it as a table companion, wrote everything that I heard, but the benefit overcame my shame. The doctor, however, never said a single word that he disliked what I was doing. Yes, I prepared the way for others to dare the same, especially Veit Dietrich and Johannes Schlaginhaufen [Turbicida], whose lumps (I hope) I will unite with mine. The whole crowd of the godly will be grateful to me. I wanted to add this because I was very upset by the poetry of Philip. But now nobody imitates us. Furthermore, if someone copies it against my will, let him copy it only with such a heart as I have written it, namely a simple-minded and pure one, and let him praise Luther's words with me more than the oracles of Apollo, the words I say, not only the serious and theological, but also the seemingly entertaining and insignificant ones.
Table Cap.
talk
The world regime is either presided over by a few or by many, and yet, if God does not preside over it, it is neither well administered by a few nor by many.
The tragedy represents the royal life, and the comedy the civil or private one. The latter begins with the highest majesty and ends with the utmost misfortune, but the latter has a sad beginning, a middle full of anguish, but a calm and cheerful end. Not different is the life and death of the kings, the citizens and the peasants. The rich man does not want to die, and the poor man desires death.
139. the right of the sitters is not that you attack the teacher or the preaching pastor in a hostile way, let alone that it is right to despise them, but it is a friendly union in love over a word of God which you think can be argued about. 1)
The explanation or treatment of the Scripture has a similarity with the one who first purifies the earth for the sake of silver, then also the slag, which is certainly not done for the sake of the silver itself, which is beautiful and bright by nature.
1) Cf. no. 118 of this appendix.
Table speeches
Cap. K
but for our sake, for whom the earth and the dross stand in the way, so that we do not see the silver. This is how one must judge from the word of God.
The moral teaching of Aristotle [Ethicorum] and the book which we call "Ecclesiastes" [Ecclesiastes] have the same doctrine, (only) that Aristotle
measured the respectability of life according to what the best reason prescribes, but the "Preacher Solomon" according to the keeping of the commandments of God. Furthermore, if someone had said to Aristotle: "Don't you see that everything you write about the respectability of life has no continuation if it is to be carried out in life, just as what you teach about housekeeping and the rule of the world does not? Aristotle would answer that he sees this and almost despairs of men and equally of doctrine and the prestige of government, because men despise punishment as well as doctrine. But the "Preacher Solomon" would answer: Do what you do diligently, be it with teaching or negating. If men do not obey you, do not cease to do what is your duty, and: Let go etc.
In all creatures we see a kind of image of our death and resurrection, because in winter everything seems to be dead, but in summer it seems to live. Yes, even in individual things both are perceived. For all things hear in some measure, and in some measure they live. Thus the age of the youth is a foreshadowing of the resurrection, but that of the old people denotes death.
Such great promises as we see in the Scriptures prove most strongly that this is by far the greatest thing that the devil and the world inflict on the believing man, otherwise this supreme Lord would not take on us so vehemently with His promises.
151 A liar must have a good memory [Quintilian IV, 2, 91], because everyone is justified or condemned from his words.
From the left and from the right we now suffer enemies of the gospel, tyrants and false brothers. But He who is greater than the world has given us a promise that is stronger than all enemies, namely: "I am the Lord your God.
There is no one who can burden the world with greater harm than the farmers. For they alone possess the field and have from it everything that comes directly from the blessing of God.
The more one preaches, the madder the world becomes; indeed, I would that I were forced by some occasion to refrain from preaching, that is, that the devil might have an opportunity worthy of the world and preach what is his in a freer way.
156. the church is in a constant decline, as it is written of her (Ps. 118, 13.]: "They push me to fall."
1) Cf. no. 80 of this appendix.
2) Cf. no. 160 of this appendix.
160 The Sophists have this theological rule that man can earn grace by purely natural powers [ex puris naturalibus], and they have expressed it by this little verse:
Ultra posse viri non vult Deus ulla requiri.
Table speeches
Cap. 8
[God does not want anything to be demanded that is beyond man's ability]. But they are seized here as transgressors and untruthful people, as in all other things. For what is spoken of the world's regime and of the household, and that well [spoken], they have drawn to spiritual things. Furthermore, that it is said: Let it go as it goes etc., belongs to "Ecclesiastes Solomon", and is a saying, which appropriately says, that if someone in his office or in his housekeeping takes care of his things diligently, but still cannot do what he wants, he should say: Let it go etc.
161 When I asked [Cordatus] what the lust of the eye was, he answered that it would not be necessary to carry water into the Elbe if it were not completely dry; but he added that it is written that the eye is not satiated by sight [Eccl. 1:8].
162 I also asked [Cordatus] from where the papists could have invented the feast of the Assumption of Mary; he answered: by abuse.
Zwingli does not want a world regiment, but he wants an aristocracy. But governing is not in brooding, but in practice, since we see that even the best-ordered kingdoms are overthrown and fall.
The Ten Commandments are the source of all laws. Duty is the practice of virtue, as each one should observe. Where there is a school and disputation, there are also sects.
The Peripatetics were so called from walking about, because Aristotle taught in walking about, as we do in sitting; the Stoics from the Stoa, which is a vault or hallway under which they taught. The latter were more polite and taught very good things according to reason; the latter were harder and coarser, as the Franciscans and Carthusians are with us, although both placed the highest good in virtue. Furthermore, they claimed that there were some middle good things [media bona], e. g. the
Life, good health, which the Stoics denied. The third were the Academicians, who did not differ much from both. They were so called from a building near Athens in which they taught. The Epicureans, however, said that pleasure was the highest good that pleased and did good to everyone. They made a distinction, however, that some pleasures were according to the soul, others according to the body. This sect mocked the Cyrenians, and so surrendered to the pleasure of the body that they said it was no good but feasting and humbling.
Death is the least of all evils, and it is the so-called natural order, except for those who fear it, just as the law is not a law except for those who are under the law. Thus the comet that now shines in 1531 in the month of August is a comet only for those who see it.
Reason slandered the words of the tax collector and said they were unjust, for it said that a sinner is worthy of punishment, not mercy. But the words of the Pharisee it seizes as holy, mostly because he has lived as he speaks and has done these works, since God commands them by the law.
Table speeches
Cap. K
I have lectured, written and preached for twenty years, and now I have much greater powers than I had twenty years ago.
Anger often does to men what water does to hot iron; it cools them down.
The Italians call Pope Clement the Seventh the Wisdom of the World, because of his excellent experience in all the cunning of this world, and the Pope must be truly of such a nature, that is, so excellent above all, that he is inferior in wickedness to no one in the world. The fourfold thing he intends, I recognized before the Diet of Augsburg was assembled. First, that under the pretext of the Lutherans, whom he wanted dead, he wanted to free Italy from the presence of the emperor and in some way send him to Germany for his benefit. Second, if the Emperor did not want to kill the Lutherans, he saw a future opportunity to start a new conspiracy with the King of France and the Venetians, which has now happened. Thirdly, if he does not succeed in this, he will start a war against the emperor with the help of a very large treasure which he has and of which he, as a cautious man, has not wanted to make use until now, since he realizes that one should not start such a difficult matter too hastily. Fourthly, even if this war should not be at all happy, he will prefer to associate himself with Turks, Tartars and all the most godless knaves than with the truth, with which he will never be satisfied. For the pope is of the devil; on the side of the lies alone must the popes stand. Furthermore, how much and what he wanted and still wants above all else, he has never been able to accomplish and will never accomplish, namely, that he wanted to make sects among us. Furthermore, his master, the devil, was finally able to do this, but he was able to do it because of our excessive security, satiety and ingratitude.
This certainly happened in turn, except for the war in which he himself was defeated and took Rome. For the (pope) who followed him, I don't know his name, is said to have summoned the Turk, who devastated Austria again this year. Furthermore, we have never had stronger false brothers than in this year. Incompetent people are now philosophizing about the article of justification; their leader is Philipp Melanchthon. But God will be our help in this, too. Amen. Anno 1537. 1)
Preachers, parents, or rulers 2) should only consider that God lets his work go on, and that he does not care at all, that one needs (the work), 2) as he wants, as the sun shines over good and evil, and the grain grows in the same way for all. Even a lewd woman gives birth to her bastard just as an honorable woman gives birth to her son. But God bears this abuse, meanwhile He does not cease to be a just judge, and this time, of which it is written: some will go into life, others into eternal fire, is always present with Him.
176 I cannot tell you with how great joy I was filled when I found the right use of the sacraments in the papacy, just as I found the right use of the sacraments in the priesthood.
1) The last paragraph is to be regarded as an addition by Cordatus. The sharp words against Melanchthon refer to a bitter dispute of Cordatus with Melanchthon from August 1536 to July 1537 about the doctrine of justification. By the incompetent people (caussariis) are meant especially Cruciger and Jonas. Toward the end of 1537, this dispute ceased altogether because Luther silenced Cordatus. How? is not known. (Wrampelmeyer.)
2) Instead of K1i6tor68 in the manuscript, probably r66tor68 is to be read. - Likewise instead of "mer" probably "one".
Table speeches
I cannot attain with words how much I have labored to be righteous. But now this worry of mine has completely ceased, after I have realized and believed that before God another wants to be righteous for me.
God has reserved three things for Himself: judgment, vengeance and glory. For to the first belongs a perfect righteousness, which is in God alone. Therefore, to hold authority [i.e. to judge] is his [God's] alone. Secondly, a perfect power is necessary, power to punish and to help. The third is only due to the one who is perfectly good, but only God is good. But since these three things are granted to the authorities and parents by the order of God, it is proper that we obey them with all reverence; whoever does not do so, contradicts God's order etc.
The whole way of preaching or rhetoric is to divide, explain, summarize or conclude. If you want to preach about faith, you must distinguish between the faith that is among men and that which is from God. Then you must explain the justifying faith. Third, it is necessary to summarize that only the justifying faith in Christ justifies.
Just as all those who teach the youth well first instruct their students to read Virgil and Cicero most carefully, and then others, not only to read and learn them, but also to evaluate them, so also he who wants to do theology in a profitable way should read John and Paul, but the Fathers and all those who wrote after the Evangelists and Apostles should be read and evaluated.
The world wants to deceive or be deceived, therefore the world has nothing to do with truth.
(185) I have done the best I could with teaching, but I seem to have accomplished nothing but loosening the reins of the wild beasts, which is the gratitude of the world, in relation to which I can also say: You have deceived me, O Lord, and I have been deceived.
The parable of Paul in the letter to the Romans 7 [2-6] is not as easy as some believe. But there are four terms in it: a physical man and a woman, a spiritual man and a woman. In the first marriage (that I say so) the man dies and the surviving woman shall be free, in the second the man lives and the woman dies, who nevertheless shall be free by her death and marries another etc. But he wanted to connect with this equality an inequality [dissimilitudinem], because the law remains in the flesh.
The science has to do with the particular and individual, but the astronomy has to do only with the general. If a boy is born only in this star and becomes a farmer, he will excel; but if he should become a fisherman, or anything else, he will excel [also].
193 Natural heat does not consume food in men, but He who said, "Not of bread alone."
Table" Cap.
eden S
The first purification in the kingdom of Christ is that of the conscience, the second is civil and concerns civil matters. Up to now we have advised the consciences, now, God willing, we will have to deal with the civil things of which the church has need, namely, that the pastors and church servants have their livelihood etc. That is why the visitation has begun.
197. Is not the 'holy Christian faith contrary to the Lord's Prayer? For in the latter it is said that the church is holy, but in the latter we ask for forgiveness of sins. But this knot is untied by the fact that one man is, as it were, two men, the inward man, who is holy by faith, and the outward man, who is a sinner because of the flesh. Add to this that in the Christian faith we confess that the sins are forgiven, which we ask for in the Lord's Prayer.
199. forgiveness of sins comes from God, who works it [effective], through faith it gains form [formaliter] [in us], further from the sacraments, which are means for the forgiveness of sins, as the instrument [instru- mentaliter].
If I had infinite worlds, I would give them all to fully understand what I teach.
Where Moses appears to be smallest, there he is largest, namely when he speaks of things; but where he appears to be largest, there he is smallest, namely when he writes laws. But Moses was the source of the whole scripture, which he himself well knew, because he says Mos. 32, 2.): "My teaching drips like the rain."
Moses speaks in the most simple way, yet God, according to His wonderful wisdom, shows that He is not the only God of the Jews, and by this one thing He shows the abolition of the entire Law.
203. anger is the ruler of the world, because the ruler who does not know how to be angry is unfit to be put in charge of a community, completely unfit when he is already in such a position. Of this it is written: God aroused the spirit of the Medes and [Ps. 76, 13.]: "Terrible is he that taketh away the courage of princes."
Sharp questions and equally [accurate] answers must be made flesh and blood to carnal people, for with coarse people one must speak coarsely and answer [coarsely].
Since we and the saints use the word of God together, and both parts boast of the correct interpretation, it may seem very doubtful from where one should be certain.
The testimony of the Holy Spirit inwardly, outwardly the agreement with the brethren, makes us certain of the doctrine that we must adhere to the Lutheran part, not the Zwinglian.
The reason of Augustine in the place where he says: "I did not believe the Gospel" etc. is this: I believe the general church, not the Arians; but this cannot be valid, because likewise the Papists could say that they find nothing of Luther in the Scriptures.
It is a folly, or at least foolish, to present to those whom one wishes to instruct in dialectics: what, how, how great [quae,
Table speeches
Cap. §
qualis, quanta]. If I were to write a dialectic, I would treat only the second and take out of the categories [praedicabilibus] only one particular, so that if I had to preach about chastity, I would explain it first; then I would speak of its advantages, thirdly of its disadvantages.
It is not probable that the ancestors of the Jews were so nonsensical that they would have seriously meant the fables they invented, which their descendants do. For what is more foolish than to consider as true what they invented about their Shophor [i.e. Shor-Habbar - bull of the field]? It is an ox and so big that it grazes every night all the grasses from the pastures of the whole world, which God makes grow again by the nightly dew. I believe, however, that those wise people mainly illustrated to their children the death that takes away people of both sexes and of every age every day, in that God puts other people in their place, as when I am taken away from that great ox, my son and daughter are put in my place for me; when they are taken away, others will also follow them. But that they add that that ox will be slain at the last day, and every man will eat his piece of roast from it, signifies that death, which kills us, shall be slain, and die in respect of every one of us, that he may no more hurt any man, for he shall be cast down at our feet. This is how I understand the fable of the largest fish of the sea, called Leviathan, with whom God plays three hours every day, that it is the devil, whom God allows to trouble people, but whom God restrains when he wants. But the fact that a movement of his tail brings about a movement of the earth means a very great confusion which he causes in the world.
Since no one can in all ways do what he wants, nor do what we certainly should do, let each one do what he can in his office and say: "Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed," etc. as when the emperor wants to settle the disputes of Germany and the Germans do not want to. We would like Carl to believe the Gospel, but Carl does not want to. We have nothing more than to pray a blessed and dear Our Father, and let it go as it goes etc.
As God creates everything from nothing, so He brings everything back to nothing. For what was Alexander the Great? Nothing, before he was. What is he now? Nothing at all. This is how God does it in the rebirth. For before He makes you a new man, that is, frees you from your impurity, into which you have come through the corruption of nature, it is necessary that you first become nothing. For God makes you nothing through the atonement and then something through faith.
No one denies that private affairs belong to private men, therefore the schools, the maintenance of the church servants and priests, and the like, which are public affairs, will not be given to a private man, but to the authorities. A peasant may give a penny for confession and a piece of bread, but he will not give the whole neighborhood to feed the priest or keep his house in repair, for these are works of majesty, not of the peasants. 1)
1) In praise and honor of God, we must note here that here in America, citizens and farmers, who in our republic are, however, also co-rulers of the country, build and maintain both churches and schools (lower and higher), feed and pay preachers and teachers, and even provide students and pupils at all higher educational institutions with housing and food. This is done for all religious denominations, because the authorities do not care about religion at all, just as in Germany the Jews maintain their church system themselves.
217 If the universities [universales scholae] were not maintained at the expense of the princes, people would soon see that private citizens do not take care to promote public studies.
Whoever wants to study theology and achieve something, let him be a fool and he will be a theologian. The highest art of a future theologian is to distinguish very carefully between the wisdom of reason and the word, or the science of God. For those who mix the two, mix heaven with earth.
The best pope [and therefore the worst man] of all in the past time was Julius [Il.), but in our time, who will also surpass the best [popes) of all times, the best pope is this Clement the Seventh, because he is the worst [man) among all who have ever been, and by far the worst. In addition, he is also a bastard. And the pontificate does not belong to any other men than the very worst. For the papacy cannot suffer a divine government, which is the word of God, over itself, nor the world regiment, nor the house regiment, but a certain middle one among these, that is, a purely diabolical [regiment]. That is why only the devil's real sons can preside over it. And if by chance a good man is placed before him, he still becomes evil by the nature of this realm; of which a frightening example was Leo X, who before was a very good man etc.
The world is not governed by religion, but by superstition and tyranny, and not by equity, because the world is under the teusel, and since we preach that faith makes free, and the world hears this, it wants to be free in every way, but in a carnal way. Thus it turns the true religion into superstition or rather into the lie of the devil.
In spiritual things there is only one cause and one end; as God's word has God as its cause, but justification as its end. But the sinner, who is the matter, is the thing with which it has to do [causa circa quam]. But if one assumes in spiritual things a material and formal cause in the proper sense of the word, this can only be done by an equation, but not actually. The formal cause in the word is wisdom, truth, virtue, these are invisible formae, they are recognized only by their effects [effectibus]. 1)
The first epistle to Timothy is intended to be the right method of Christian teaching, for it speaks first of the law, then of the gospel, as Paul mentions it himself. Thirdly, he comes to the practice of faith; such is the prayer for the kings [1 Tim. 2, 2. ff.).
223. It is a positive law [given by men] and indeed of great importance for the world, but the natural law is greater, but the greatest is the law of divine and eternal wisdom. But above all is the law of grace,
Table speeches
Cap. §
1) Cordatus has remarked on this in the margin: formae? [These words refer to the dispute of Cordatus with Melanchthon mentioned in No. 174 of this appendix. In a lecture by Cruciger on the First Epistle to Timothy on July 24, 1536, which Cordatus attended, the latter took grave offense at the following words: Christ alone is the cause for whose sake it happens seansa proptsr cMsiol; but meanwhile it is also true that man must do something, that we must have repentance seontritionkiol, and by the word straighten the conscience to obtain faith. Thus our repentance and our efforts Wnatns] are causes of justification, without which it cannot happen [sine qnidns non]. In the course of the dispute that now began, it turned out that these words came from Melanchthon, whose Dictates Cruciger had used. Now the dispute flared up with Melanchthon himself. (Wrampelmeyer.)
Table speeches
which may [easily] be more depressing than inspiring. 1) Furthermore, I would like to see someone who could actually distinguish between the natural law and the divine law. Also the ceremonies are from the natural law, because the ceremonies are also ordered for the sake of the divine service etc.
The third commandment is about worship, ceremonies and the law of God.
The law is the law, even the law of God; whether it concerns morality, or judicial procedure, or ceremonies, all laws bind the conscience in the same way. But how is it that they have said that only the ceremonial law is abrogated? Who will free us from the others? We must fulfill them, say those lovely people.
226 On the nature of the peacock. - The peacock boasts and struts in a wonderful way with the richness of its feathers. But when he looks at his feet, he immediately begins to scream and lets his feathers hang down in fright. He is also said to be very jealous and envious, as Aristotle testifies. Besides, he has a hoarse and unpleasant voice.
The peacock is an image of heretics and swarm spirits, for they too are proud in the manner of the peacock and boast about their gifts, which are never substantial, but if they could look at their feet, that is, the foundation of their teaching, they would lower their feathers in fright and humble themselves. Yes, they also suffer from jealousy because they cannot stand pure and right teachers. They want to be all alone and suffer no one beside them, and are jealous beyond measure, like peacocks. Finally, they have a hoarse and unpleasant voice, that is, their teaching is harsh and sad to the sorrowful and godly people, for it depresses the consciences more than it straightens and strengthens them.
beauty of its feathers attracts the eyes of passers-by, the doctrines of the heretics have a great appearance among the great multitude, and deceive and delude the hearts of inexperienced and simple-minded people, either by teaching new things, or what is contrary to the reason of men.
228. of the nature of the crows. - The crows are said to be very loveless [atrropfoc]. For they immediately leave their hatched young and fly away, and God feeds them wonderfully thereafter, Psalm 147, [9.].
By the crows are depicted the false and unfaithful teachers and pastors of the church, who leave their young, that is, the Christians who are entrusted to their care, either because of the belly or because of the danger, but Christ Himself feeds them wonderfully afterwards and preserves them in the midst of the wolves, as it happened under the papacy, where God has preserved His own wonderfully above all comprehension of human reason, so that they were not deceived by human statutes.
229. of the nature of the heron or $ ñùäéïý. - The nature of the heron
is wonderful. For when he has settled down in a river, he shall stand motionless on his feet. Then the little fishes swim up, attracted by the smell or the sweetness of the feet, and stay with him. Afterwards he catches and devours them, and as the heron brings a pious behavior as a witness, so the sin brings with it an evil conscience.
1) These words might be understood from Tishr. chap. 13, 15: It is extremely difficult for a man to believe that God is gracious to him.
The essence of sin is depicted in this bird, which lures people to itself with unbelievable loveliness and certainty, and subsequently brings the lured to ruin.
Table speeches
Cap. K
231 Of the eagle. - It is said that the male eagle leads his young, if they are not yet fledged, into the desire and exposes them to the rays of the sun. When he sees that they keep their eyeball immobile against the rays of the sun, he recognizes them as his own, in that the sun is, as it were, a witness that he is their true father. He shall not only fight with the smaller four-footed animals, but also with the deer. He sits down on their horns, throws a lot of dust into their eyes, which he has collected on his flight, and hits their faces with his feathers. He also fights with the dragon. The dragon is viciously greedy for the eagle's eggs, so the eagle attacks him wherever he sees him. The dragon, however, ties up his wings with many twists, so that sometimes they both go down at the same time.
The scholastics said that he who does as much as is in him lives well morally, deserves grace de congruo, but not according to the mathematical, but according to the physical, that is, a divisible means [medio]. 1) If they had spoken this of righteousness before the world, it would have been beautiful. Furthermore, God simply demands righteousness according to the mathematical means, because He is simply and completely righteous, therefore He does not consider anyone righteous if he is not completely righteous, and who (like God) cannot suffer sin completely.
Physics is about the movement of things, but mathematics is about their quidditas and their forms. But one must speak of Christ neither according to mathematics nor according to physics, but rather what his benefit is, what he has brought us etc.
The fact that we do not serve our neighbors according to our wealth is the reason why the rich want to increase their wealth, so that they spend much of their pleasure on their bellies, buildings and games. Wealth, and holiness even more, make people mad and so foolish that they do not serve their neighbors, even that they do not know who their neighbor is. Where can one find a bishop now, who is on alms? When have elders and monks done what their rule requires, according to which they called themselves holy? This holiness does not let them see Lazarus lying at the door.
Holiness, wealth, wisdom, power prevent people from loving God and their neighbor. And yet they are all great evangelicals. People dare to say that about them, and God remains silent. You have to let it go, because the more you rebuke them, the more they will be inclined to do what you rebuke, to defy us; let it [i.e. stay with that] that we rebuke them. But when I preach the word of God, you do not defy me, and I will be undaunted, I know that well. [We must suffer these things, and from the multitude also look to the little flock that is obedient to the gospel. The Lord will find the wicked in his time.
(236) Christians must exercise their faith by abstaining from sins, which is the performance of good deeds, so that our profession (as Peter teaches [2 Ep. 1:10]) may become stronger and more certain from works. But through sins it becomes weaker and finally ceases altogether. From good deeds we gain the testimony of faith, but from evil deeds we gain the certain testimony that we have sinned against the law.
No. 489.
Table speeches
Cap. §
have passed away the faith. But the mad mob does not care now how the law will be abolished, nor how it will be fulfilled. Therefore, when they have to die, they will think about the fulfillment, and when they see that there is no more time, they will despair.
237 No one can judge of laws, whatever they may be, except he who has and understands the gospel.
It is God who has subordinated all and everything to certain laws, but He has not subordinated Himself to any law. Therefore, no one prescribes laws to God who has willed that he himself be free from all laws; but rather, the authorities
should be mindful that it is subject to the laws.
Hilarius was the greatest fighter against the heretics among all the Fathers, even Augustine cannot be compared to him. Cyril was also a great and excellent disputator. Jerome wrote nothing good because he was at peace. Ambrose, however, overloaded with official duties, was very hindered, and since he did not have a fight with heretics, he did not make much use of his great gifts, and almost all the fathers were harmed by one thing, that they led a contemplative life, not a practical one, or had the administration of a pastoral office, such as the care of the poor, sick etc.
The man who sits at the right hand of the Father wants to rule for a short time, and the world does not want to suffer him for a short time, but says constantly: "We do not want this man to rule over us", nor does he have to rule for the sake of him who says [Ps. 110, 1]:
"Sit at my right hand." And this king stands thus, as if he lies down and is ruled by all, as if he is completely powerless. It is still written [Ps. 135:6], "Whatsoever he will, that will he do in heaven and in earth." Who is wise? He who understands this dominion.
251 It is natural that he who demands benevolence from others should himself be benevolent toward others.
The appearance of the coming of the Lord will be in power and in spirit. The impetuosity of the guns has the appearance of power, but the spirit is the art of printing, by which the impiety of the papal rule will be destroyed.
The third book of Ezra is nothing, for it enumerates the names and repeats what he had brought in the earlier books; the fourth is not so little as some think that it has little use. But it seems to be written after Christ's birth and without order, like Revelation. When he thought of it at another time, he asked me [Cordatus] very earnestly to read it through, saying that I would find in it the very deeds and works of our time.
262. By faith men know what they know, namely that I live, eat, open my mouth etc. What does a lamb or an ox know of these things? This is how the matter stands in the whole world.
Even our listeners call our steadfastness and our eagerness in words imperiousness, because they see or hear nothing from us but what they hate.
Table, Cap.
-just
§ 34.
267 Doctor Brück mentioned this as the last words at the Diet of Augsburg, when the Prince of Saxony wanted to leave and had heard that those who had confessed Christ would be threatened with all hardships: Well, if it cannot be otherwise, we know that all the gates of hell are useless against this doctrine of ours. Since the emperor did not understand what these "gates of hell" were, he asked about them. Namely, the judges of religion and the protectors of faith have such insight.
In my time there was absolutely no use of dialectics in the schools, but they only recited it with poor general words and categories, and although they argued about them terribly, they did not recognize any use. But I, when I want to preach, still do not think about the categories. When I have to speak of faith, I do not think about its greatness, quality, or essence, but I first consider where it comes from, or what is its causative cause, that is, the Holy Spirit, that it is a gift of God, which is bestowed through the ministry of the Word (which is the active cause). After that I consider the formal and the material cause that he takes hold of Christ. Then I also consider the final purpose, which faith gives us, namely righteousness, and likewise what it gives to God, namely glory. etc.' Here I also consider the fruits of faith: good works, thanksgiving for such great benefits, which are offered to us through Christ; then I carefully separate this faith from that which is called historical and from other things, so that no ambiguity remains. Such a consideration opens up to me the whole essence of faith, which I could never arrive at through the categories, and in this way it is more easily and simply understood and learned by children and others. But one can also explain faith and other things that have to be preached through the categories, if one has noticed them in such a way that one can simply speak out of them what one wants or what one has to preach. The knowledge of the causes, however, is more excellent, for it is finely straightforward when one wants to speak of things in terms of what they are.
By the abundant and immeasurable mercy of the Lord, we easily recognize the immense wickedness of men, who with the greatest ingratitude despise everything that He gives them without ceasing.
We will not suffer the false brethren in any way as long as I remain alive. But if they will confess that they are ungodly and without Christ, we will tolerate anything from them, even if they kill us. 1)
Even though I have had all faith and trials, the amount of tribulations finally forces me to understand the text about the faith that does not remain [Matth. 13, 3]. For we see how many false
1) Similar thoughts Tischr. Cap. 39, U 3. 13. 24.
Table speeches
Cap. §
Brothers (like the Zwickauers), 1) who in the past had vigorously taken hold of the faith, now do everything evil to the servants of God under the Christian name. Yes, they want to be the best Christians. Such people are the word of the sower, which falls on the stone and the sand. But I carefully considered this knowledge when I was in Coburg and compared it with the Scriptures.
Thieves and others who are deprived of life because of their misdeeds are happier than we are in that, when they are put to death, they at least civilly recognize their sins, but we neither civilly nor spiritually.
It is the devil who disguises himself in various animal forms, for God does not play in such mummery, but lets the creature be which he has created.
Cursed is anyone who preaches to these stubborn "Zwickauers" who do not deserve it. I will die as an enemy of this city, and when I am dead, I will fight with them and all my enemies who unjustly persecute me because of the word of God. I know that for sure.
I have condemned Zwickau for myself and cursed it in the name of the Lord, especially the leaders, because it will remain unrepentant, and not only this, but also this they demand of us, that we should approve the ungodliness of what has happened, what they are doing against the Word and its servants.
The people of Jessen would have once almost become Zwickauers for me, but I was soon after them, scolded them, but they denied me [i.e. denied it]. The von Zwickau are great lords and have many good patrons at court, therefore they do not allow themselves to be scolded, nor do they have any need to follow.
279 I got used to not being angry for a good while, but the Zwickauers got me out of that rule.
280 Before I would have communion of faith with those of Zwickau, I would have my neck thrust out with a plank, and not once alone, but ten times.
To Torgau he said: I do not want to have fellowship with the Zwickauers, so that they know that either I am damned or they are damned.
The way one does to the world, one cannot govern it. For if coarse and unlearned people are placed at the head, as the world would be worth, then the commonwealth is in a bad way and becomes worse every day. But when very talented people are put in charge, they tear down more than they build. You have an example of both in Cochläus and Erasmus.
The reason of Erasmus is that there is no God; therefore he plays safe in the greatest serious things. And where it would be most in place to assert firmly, he ridicules and plays with ambiguities, which pleases people of his ilk very much; therefore no one dares to speak against it.
1) The dispute with the Zwickauers in 1530-1531. The servants of the Word are Hausmann, Cordatus and Sora" nus. - Luther's stay m Coburg was from April 15 to October 5, 1530. (Wrampelmeyer.)
Table speeches Cap. K
296. the body [venter] denotes the begetting, as Jn. 7, [38P. "From whose body shall flow rivers of living water."
297. However great the power, it will not rule, but wisdom.
When riches accrue to a farmer, he is more burdened than adorned.
The words of God to Cain [Gen. 4:6, 7] are the words of the father [Adam], who undoubtedly had the Holy Spirit, who teaches the children good things through their parents and chides them for their faults. But Adam soon after the beginning suffered such a sad case in his sons, because his flesh was sinful. 1) Because from this cause all unpleasantness happens to the people.
When Samson said that his strength was in his hair, it was because he wanted to escape the woman's insistence. But he alluded to the vow of the Nazir by implying that he had this strength from God and that if he sinned against him, he would lose his strength by cutting off his hair for the sake of sin. This is what happened. Furthermore, that of the foxes seems very similar to a fable, as does the story of Jonah in the belly of the whale. But what God's word says cannot be a fable; one must believe that these are miracles of God.
The promises of the Jews have passed through the whole world. Therefore, not only one Job believed from among the Gentiles, nor Naaman alone, but also many others, and when Abraham was dead, he left behind him all the lands full of the knowledge of God.
I do not presume to judge in worldly matters, but I do presume to judge in spiritual matters to the extent that I can certainly judge from two or three words what kind of faith someone has, whether he is sound in doctrine or not.
Although it is nothing great that those who have the wisdom of God understand the wisdom of the world, it is believed to be impossible for a theologian to understand it.
(310) Since the smallest star seen is greater than the whole earth, there is no reason for us to doubt about the dwellings in heaven; for so great a people as now obey the Turk could inhabit one star.
Man is a liar, active and passive, that is, he commits and suffers the lie. For he who relies on the children of men is deceived.
If we know the devil, how can we not know the advice of the pope, who is the most handsome of his members in the world?
>32.
1) In the original: ut suu xeooatrix caro. That the translation given by us is correct, results from the following sentence.
Table speeches
Cap, §
I believe that what is happening to us now happened to the holy patriarchs. For since they had families in need of protectors, they had no protector, and the authorities, to whom it belongs to defend all, were opposed to them. But the Scripture indicates this in very few words by the quarrel that arose over the well. [But we also have a lack of defenders.
That the peasants become so insolent is not to be wondered at, for there is no one to govern them seriously or to prescribe discipline for them. And the only pity of their situation is that they do not become completely insane or rage beyond measure, since they are so neglected by the authorities.
316. creation is not only that God made everything from nothing, but also that He alone sustains all things, otherwise the devil would destroy everything in an instant with fire, or by winds etc.
317. Love, considered according to length [duration] and breadth, that is, that it will never cease, and in this temporality serves more than faith, is greater. (1 Cor. 13, 13?
The citizens and peasants only look at the money and the salary of the ecclesiastics in terms of what they receive, but not in terms of what they give; how much they have to take in, but do not look at how much they spend.
It is impossible that the doctrine of faith, where it is in fact, could produce satiety or contempt against itself, but it produces hunger and admiration in the believers.
It is wonderful and almost regrettable that everything that happened before the flood was described so briefly.
Those who made happiness a goddess were wise men, for they saw that everything that happens in the world is not governed by human reason, nor does it endure through human powers, but through divine ones. etc.
In Paradise, people began to strive for divinity, which [God] has also given to this day to those who are in authority, that they may rule, decree and care for all their subjects. But since most of the time [not], indeed never, what a benevolent authority desires comes to pass, God drives people to freely reject the divinity they freely strive for, and those who are most kindly disposed in the office of authority, because of their ungodliness, throw their rule at God's feet and say: Rule thou, for thine is the government. I do not know and cannot rule from now on.
There is not so great a displeasure against me in this world as my displeasure is against the world.
This distinction is made by Christ, that the pious have but a fragment of bodily things in this world, and a full and entire blessing of all the spiritual things of God in that life; but that the ungodly have all the fulness of the things of this world, but nothing in eternal life. And so what is said comes to pass:
Divisum imperium cum Jove Caesar habet.
[And Isaac blesses Jacob, but Esau receives the possessions of this world.
327 Staupitz said that it was the highest science which all had to learn that things were not right in this world.
We can neither bear the shortcomings nor their remedies, neither happiness nor unhappiness, neither health nor sickness, neither wealth nor poverty, neither life nor death, neither God nor the devil. He added an example from experience. In this year 1531, the soil had borne all too abundantly, for no one could have rightful profit in such great abundance, but in the past years everyone complained about the so very small yield of the soil.
Markolf rightly indicates that at every court there must be an excellently insolent and foolish man, who does not obey the prince, but seeks his own, as at our court Ritese 1)) is. He also implies that the wisdom of the world is not so great that it cannot be mocked or ridiculed, or even drivel. His poem, however, is quite suitable for the Germans, because the Germans, when they come out as poets, always have the dirt and the butt in the mouth.
The law of nature is implanted in us as heat is in fire, and is in us as fire is in pebbles. Its use, however, is such as one makes of the mirror. But it cannot be separated from the divine law.
331 The sophists said that it is not necessary that all understand the faith clearly [explicite], but veiled [implicite], that is to say, it is
The understanding of Scripture is not necessary for everyone, by which one disputes against the heretics, but it is sufficient that one holds the concept of salvation from one or the other passage of Scripture.
It is in vain that God has the gospel preached to the world, for men abuse it, and yet it must be preached. For in no other way can it be taught to the world than with this mischievousness, that he [God] lets the law be preached to the world, and when the law is preached, he secretly creeps into some people through the gospel after the preaching of the law.
The Holy Spirit must rule the Church, otherwise it is impossible for all flesh to rule the Church; but when the papists arrogated this rule to themselves, to what an abuse has it come! Namely, they have come to call the conspiracy, which was made when a few bishops at a council thought more wrongly than any man can suffer, the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, from which then finally flowed the rule of the Church.
Hans Metsch is my enemy and I am his enemy, not because he does or has done evil to me, but because he wants to be and be called a Christian and yet does evil against me and others. Let him give out this [Christian] name 2) and let us not only offer our hands to his kicks, but let us also offer him our whole body, so that he will trample it underfoot, especially since he is in public office.
As the Turk rules with the rod of iron, so the rule of the pope is by the lie, and as both are earthly regiments of the world, so both are certainly of the devil.
Through repentance Christ receives people in all positions of life, however glorious and holy they may be in the eyes of the world, so that he may show the world through the preaching of faith what he wants all people to do, namely, believe. These two things are inseparable companions in a godly man, otherwise they are separated from each other. For Judas was repentant, but not believing, and all who misuse the gospel now most certainly believe that they are believers, since they are not repentant.
Table speeches
Cap. K
1) This name is probably wrong here. Cf. No. 758 of this appendix and Luther's letter Dec. 6, 1532. Walch, old edition, vol. XXI, 357.
2) Instead of nsrnini, read nomini.
Table speeches
Cap. §
As repentance in the name of Christ abhors all life as evil, so faith seizes with the most willing heart the best [life] that comes from the Word.
In the year 1483 I, Martin Luther, was born of my father Johannes Luther and my mother Margaretha. 1) My fatherland was Eisleben. My father died in the thirtieth year [i.e. 1530], my mother, named Margaretha, in the thirtieth year. In 1517 I began to write against the pope. In the year '18, Doctor Staupitz absolved me from obedience to the Order, and left me alone in Augsburg, where I was summoned before the Emperor Maximilian and the Pope's legate, who was there at the time. In the year '18 (cf. No. 569) I was expelled from the communion of the Church by Pope Leo and thus absolved [from obedience to the Roman Church] for the second time. In the year '21 Emperor Carl expelled me from his kingdom, and so I was absolved for the third time, but the Lord received me.
And these follow one another, or exert their effect. Namely, in the time of safety and peace, presumption, disputing (against the known truth) and hardening prevail, but in the time of fear and tribulation, the other three, despair, envy and impenitence.
For in the time of security the wicked is confident and presumptuous, and it seems certain to him that his works please God, and he simply wants to be righteously fine, as the Pharisees constantly want. This is the presumption. When they are rebuked by someone, they become proud and resist the truth that is held out to them, and although they know that it is the truth, they do not want to let go of their presumption. Therefore, this presumption is followed by arguing against the recognized truth. If they do not give up this, they will become so hardened in presumption and in arguing that they will die in their sins, hardened, angry and incorrigible, like Emser and his like, who used my writings and yet disputed my writings until they died.
The reverse is the case with the other three, and at the time when someone begins to feel the wrath of God, like Cain and Judas. These first despair and do not trust that their sins will be forgiven; they believe that they are greater than the forgiving mercy of God. Afterwards, when they see that they are rejected, they envy all men their salvation and want no one to be saved, and all sin with them. They remain obstinate in their envy and despair and do not allow repentance, and as obstinacy is a kind of impenitence to the end in the time of certainty, that is, in presumption and strife, so impenitence to the end is a kind of obstinacy in the time of fear, that is, in despair and envy.
342. In the year 29, the Duke of Saxony wrote me a letter from the Imperial Diet at Speier, which also contained this: it had been publicly warned that none of the princes should hear the preachers who boasted that
1) In this number, there are quite a number of erroneous statements in the original. However, because it is quite generally known and recognized that it behaves with the dates as corrected by us, we do not consider it necessary to spread about it further. First, the year 1484 is given as the year of Luther's birth. Then twice Hanna as the name of his mother. Further, that Luther began to write against the pope in 1516. Finally, that he was excommunicated by the pope for the first time in 1519.
Table speeches
they were evangelical. After that, a mass was held for the Holy Spirit. I answered Luther: "These are fine fellows who raise their hands and strike Christ in the mouth so that it snaps, and then ask him for the Holy Spirit. O woe! Yes, he will come soon, I mean, the devil. You will see that they will not be able to do anything with their way at the Diet.
349 I cannot get it into my head that Ferdinand's advice and undertakings should go out happily. For he has burdened himself too much with the blood of 1) innocents, which cries out to God. And this word, which he spoke to Speier, will be the cause of his downfall: As soon as the train against the Turk would be paid, he wanted to kill the Lutherans soon.
All zealots, when they hire ministers from the churches, do not take those who can teach the people, but those who want to help their pastors in their zealotry.
354 Philip once said about Erasmus that he had said that he never wanted the Gospel of John to be written. When I said, "Well, that's not true," Philip swore that it was true.
356 It is not necessary to think of the transgression, but of Christ, that he is presented to us. This works united faith to blessedness, but that works despair to damnation.
359. 360. 361. 362. These four numbers are an excerpt from Luther's letter to D. Wenceslaus Link, July 14, 1528, Walch, St. Louis edition, vol. X, 1534-1537, 88 5-16 and Walch, old edition, vol. XVII, 2697 ff. In the Table Talks they were Cap. 24, § 86 and Cap. 26, § 71, and are omitted there by us, as we do not consider it necessary to translate these four numbers here either. Where these pieces are found in De Wette, Rebenstock and Bindseil, may be found under Cap. 24, § 86 of the Table Talks.
Just as no one is to be forced into the faith and the gospel, so it is not to be permitted under one and the same authority that they secretly blaspheme the word of God, but they are to be summoned so that they may hear and be heard, so that plantations of sedition are not cultivated. With their serpentine hissing they flee the light, therefore they must be dragged before the public, so that they may win, be defeated, or by force 2) remain silent.
Since the Ten Commandments also teach what belongs to the worldly regime and to the household, the people are to be forced by the authorities to attend the Catechism sermon, which must take place very frequently. Whether people believe the gospel or not, obedience is necessary for all of them, which they owe in the worldly regime and in the household. And those who want to live among a people must learn their way of life and customs, yes, even the catechism, if not for their own sake, then for the sake of their children and their servants.
1) Seckendorf, hist. Luth. I. § 139. 2, reports of severe persecutions in Austria, Würtemberg and Belgium, which Ferdinand imposed on the Protestants. (Wrampelmeyer.)
2) The "v" is to be resolved with "vi".
Table speeches
Cap. K
According to the Cordatus, No. 365 at the beginning, and No. 366 at the end, these two numbers do not seem too far from Luther. But because Rebenstock II, 39 a.-406. and Bindseil II, 40-43 communicate the former number in much more detail, the latter in excerpts under the heading: "Wie man mit Schwärmern umgehen soll, Unterricht D. Martin Luthers an den Herrn fd. i. Pfarrers Johannes Mantel in Mühlhausen", we have translated both numbers. The latter is found m dm Tischreden Cap. II, § 12. See our note there. We leave the former here:
The Sacramentarians must first be persuaded (says Philip) that they are not pissed in their opinion, although they have some probable reasons. Therefore they are to be questioned in familiar conversation what they could oppose us. Then the faith of the ancient fathers is to be held against them, of Augustine, Cyprian, Hilarius, whose opinion of the Sacrament is clear, and that of Augustine on infant baptism. If they confess that they are uncertain, then they are to be seriously admonished that they should not teach anything uncertain, but keep their opinion to themselves; it is a sin, because what does not come from faith etc.
This is the way to study successfully in theology, that you read some chapters in the Bible at the time (loco) of prayer, early in the morning and in the evening. After that, the method of the Christian faith is to be learned from Paul's letter to the Romans and the letter to the Galatians, and when you have familiarized yourself with the letter to the Colossians, you will easily understand all the others, as Paul teaches afterwards. Then read the Gospel of Matthew and Luke, and consider the passages in which Christ speaks of repentance or faith. Thirdly, the sermons of Christ in the Gospel of John are to be read. Then one must go back to the Old Testament, and especially to the first and fifth books of Moses and the Psalter, whose teaching is to be connected with the teaching of Christ. All this is then understood all the more correctly when an application in life is added and the challenge which teaches to pray. Afterwards the prophets are to be read, and their words are to be directed to the doctrines of the Christian faith, faith, love, the cross etc. In the stories of the Law, a distinction must be made between the Law and the Gospel, between faith and works, the faith of David etc. The teachers, he said, are to be read with (good) judgment, that they may be tested wherein they are sound and wherein they are wanting.
In the whole doctrine of the Church, careful attention must be paid to which part actually belongs to the spiritual life, and which to the civil and political. These two parts must be kept far apart from the Gospel, which is the power of God for salvation; but those are only good things created by God [creaturae].
369. That one can direct in every way the words from the sources of the Bible itself is better than many thousand florins. I have come to the last "O" ("*), but it will again become an "A" (a).
370. If Pa's conscience is certain that Christ instituted the Lord's Supper in both forms, it is not at the discretion of men to take it in one or both forms. And if it is not permitted under both forms, it is safer and better to abstain from it altogether, for this is done without sin, because it is not in our power, but we are deprived of a form, and in the meantime the spiritual enjoyment must suffice, of which Augustine says: Believe and you have enjoyed it. Further, it is not lawful to take it secretly, because Christ has ordained that it should be taken publicly. For this sacrament is a public confession of Christ, since he says: "Do this in remembrance of me. But if thou wilt take it in any other parish than thine, and shalt be accused of it, see that thou
Table speeches
Do not deny Christ before the judge, whom you have confessed and proclaimed in the sacrament, as Paul indicates [1 Cor. 11:26].
H[erzog G(eorg) is a very miserable man, who lives miserably and will die even more miserably. He cannot use (i.e. enjoy) his beautiful country for one hour. He is in such a great misery that I did not want to curse him, although he is my great enemy. He will be completely exterminated with his sons and his brother H(einrich) will become Duke of Saxony; 1) for Saxony falls to him according to the written laws 2) He has promised the great princes much which he cannot carry out against us. This offends him [in the original: yhm]. (This prophecy has been fulfilled [verificata] in 1537, since his son died, the hope of the empire). 3)
Worthy and unworthy eat from the altar, but only those who enjoy it worthily live.
I will write and preach in vain in the wilderness of this world, that the world may see that one can do good without hope; but only a Christian can do this.
When a priest complained, our Philip answered: "You vowed poverty, obedience and chastity in the monastery, but now you keep them. But now I am forced to obey my wife, and even some of the worst boys.
380 It is of little use to counsel and comfort those who are challenged by this with writings. But I will tell you the art by which I have worked my way out of this evil, and still keep myself against it today. First, I hold in my mind with the utmost certainty that these thoughts are fiery darts of Satan, with which he wants to suppress me as an explorer of majesty and as one who aspires to high things. This must be remembered without ceasing. This is the commandment of God, as He says there (in Scripture) in the 12th Cap. [v. 13.[ of Ecclesiastes, and about this David complains in the 131st Psalm [v. 1.], that he was ill at ease, as often as he searched after high things. And this causes the devil, so that we should finally hate God and despair. Secondly, I search diligently in which commandment of God these thoughts of mine are contained, and if I find none, then I say: "Lift yourself up, you wretched devil, you want to teach me to take care of myself," 4) since God commands in the first commandment and elsewhere: "Cast your care upon the Lord" (1 Pet. 5, 7.). Third, if the devil does not soon cease, I must not cease to constantly turn my heart elsewhere and speak to Satan: Do you not hear that I regard thoughts as your thoughts, and that God has forbidden them? But if you want to argue about these things, go up to heaven, and God will answer you abundantly enough. Fourthly, when I speak of those fiery
1) Instead of: kratsr sst äux sst Laxoniae is to be read: krater ejus äux erit Laxonia".
2) In the original: serixturam. This word was called in later legal Latin: the existing law. (Wrampelmeyer.)
3) This means his son Johann, died on January 11, 1837. The then remaining son Friedrich was stupid, but also died before his father. The bracketed words are addition of the Cordatus. (Wrampelmeyer.)
4) In the original: you.
Table speeches
snakes, I do not look at the snakes, nor at the fire.
I look at the serpent of brass, which is Christ. He alone, taken in faith, heals this temptation. If it returns, throw it from you again, just as the returning saliva is thrown out of your mouth. This is how I am helped.
I did not like to become a monk, but now the world looks at me in such a way that I would like to become a monk again, that is, to run into the desert and get out of the eyes of the shameful world.
385 I learned from my teacher in Erfurt that one must speak little and good with women, if one must speak with them; otherwise you or they easily make a mistake.
386. they say of a new sect called new Jerusalem, but
all who belonged to it were killed, because each was asked whether he agreed with the other. Just like the Nepotians 2)
So skillful are those who go against the word of God in speech and writing, that they will not let themselves be taken until they open their mouths.
In the way of righteousness, that is, in the kingdom of heaven, the Christian sees nothing but faith and grace. In the world, however, he is thoroughly concerned about good works, so that he may take care to live honestly and uprightly, and so it happens that faith belongs to heaven and good works to earth. Faith up, good works down.
The holy land was not fertile by nature, as it is written, but by the blessing of God. Otherwise, it is stony, sandy and salty in most places.
When Cordatus left for Torgau 2) to the prince's councilors, who were to pass judgment on the Zwickau affair, Philip said: "Dear Cordatus, I wish you an unusual patience.
When the Zwickauers received their verdict in Torgau, they were forbidden to accept a pastor other than with the permission of the prince, and since they had elected thirteen, almost in a whole year, and none had declared himself willing to accept this office, they finally got the Magister Leonhard [Beier], who had formerly been a monk, and the frogs overcame a stork [Phaedrus I, 2). Furthermore, those who had fought against the pastor [Hausmann) and the Cordatus all became disgraced in three years 3) and died miserably. Mühlpfort, the head of this matter with his whole family, and Roth, the originator of this whole conflagration, is still there to this day and pretends repentance, which he has not yet proven.
I wish I could be a little angel for only three days, then I would steal all the peasants' treasures and throw them into the Elbe 4). Oh, all the ropes would become too few, so they would hang themselves, one there, one here.
1) Bishop Nepos of Arsinoe, around 250 at the head of the Egyptian Chiliastes. However, nothing is known of a bloody persecution of the Nepotians. (Wrampelmeyer.)
2) In July 1531. (Wrampelmeyer.)
3) Because the investigation against dre Zwickauer took place in 1531, and here is reported what happened within three years thereafter, this number cannot have been written before 1534.
4) Instead of "Elbe" and immediately after "Oh" the original has: "Welt" and "Ob". The correction is made according to Kummer in Lauterbach p. 56.
Table Talks Cap. 8 37, 126.
The reading of Quintilian is so pleasant and captivates the reader that he is constantly compelled to continue reading, for he penetrates one's heart.
397. Philip.surpasses all Greeks and Latins in teaching dialectics.
398. Fabian [von Feilitzsch], 1) the councilor of the Elector, has by nature the principles of law, without art; so also Petrus Lupinus.
The fact that the apostles had temptations, as we do, is evident from their letters, and that is why they so often exhort us and urge us to pray, to be vigilant, to progress and grow in faith, so that we may make our profession firm.
Whoever seeks to be a faithful servant in religion, or housekeeping, or world government, has the devil for his greatest enemy, and from the devil are most certainly all evil thoughts.
403 To his little child, which he received from his mother's womb, he said: "If you are the enemy of the pope, you are indeed the enemy of a great and mighty lord. But we pray. God is our helper forever.
404.................... The beginning:
The following:
If Erasmus believes that God is, then I will forgive myself of my Christ, whom I did not want to give for ten hundred thousand guilders.
Maximilian to the King of England: I, who have often been defeated, am called the most invincible, the godless King of France the most Christian, you the most rich. This is true because you have a good land and good gold.
I do not like to write letters, but whoever I write a letter to may consider me a good friend. This is what Queen Maria of Hungary said when a certain young man brought her my letter: I see that D. M. Luther loves me.
The world abuses all human and divine gifts alike.
If the papists have to take their cause out by force, they should look up, for they have hair on their heads just as much as we do.
After that he said to Schlaginhaufen: Do you have thoughts to sell? The latter answered: "Now I am well; I have ventured on good days.
ll Cf. Tischr. Cap. 45, z 36. - Walch, old edition, vol. V, 1196, § 30. - About Lupinus cf. Tischr. Cap. 37, § 7.
Table speeches
giving on earth. The doctor replied: "You are right to do so. So our life should and must depend on God; if a good hour comes, we accept it, if bad, we accept it too.
424 The Cardinal [Cajetan] said to Augsburg about me: This brother has profoundly looking profundos] eyes, therefore he also has wonderful imaginations [phantasias] in his head.
The whole world struggles for its own righteousness and does not want to be blessed by a foreign one. This is the devil, because God has ordered it differently. Our Adam is only tickled by his own righteousness.
This must serve us as a consolation that our opponents speak, write and shout against the recognized truth. Thus I have often been comforted by D. Eck, to whom I really should honor a great gift for his sake.
The papists do not want to get back on their feet and are not ashamed, therefore God disgraces them even by force.
From now on I will preach to our Lord God alone, since I see that the whole world wants nothing but to perish.
430 The advice of the bishops was: If we were only rid of the monk, we would probably conquer the priests. They would have to dance to our tune.
The captains, dukes and others who are in his [God's] offices have this right because they are not private persons, otherwise one would often know how to behave against them.
A plague for Germany was the one who brewed the first beer. Because horses eat oats and farmers eat barley, rye must be expensive.
Since I am still alive, my brothers and relatives act unfairly toward me in the division of my inheritance. What will they do to my children when I am dead? I wish they had kept the 300 guilders in the name of all the devils. God gives me annually as much as I consume. God will feed me, His servant, as He has proven in me so far. My children I command another father [than them], GOtte, that shall be their great treasure. My son shall be rich, while my kinsmen shall beg. I nourish the sons of these ingrates to honor the deceased parents in them. He who wants to be pious will lose his good deeds, and God will punish all ingratitude and injustice, according to the words [Ps. 91, 8.]: "You will see how it is repaid to the wicked."
1) In the original "unsern", which would not make sense. Luther wants to say: The world is not worth preaching for its sake, therefore I will do it for God's sake.
2) It is not necessary to change 61U8 into svruna. Rom. 13, 6: "For they are God's servants."
3) It seems to us more appropriate to the sense if instead of: "the farmers" would read: "the beer."
445. If you have money ready, you will easily despise God, who is ready to give you money.
Table speeches
Cap. K
help). 1)
447 When I heard today that in a certain convent the nuns had taken off their habit, had stopped listening, and were now freely using their belongings and privileges, I said to the one who told me: "Oh that all nuns were like that, and their convents became schools, and they themselves free, for it is hard for nobles and princes to marry their daughters to men who are not their equals, that is why they have pushed them into the convents.
The order of Moses was very good, who allowed only the firstborn to exercise the power of rulership, while the others were subordinates, which is still held today in the Orient and is a very good order.
451 "That thou mayest be right when thou judgest" [Ps. 51:6]. I would gladly be right with our Lord God, if it seems to me that I am more righteous than he is, when I consider my righteousness and my suffering. And if [original: if] he would let it remain with this register, then I would be right; but if he brings forth his register of his suffering and my sins, then I succumb.
457. If a challenged person believes that the smallest devil is stronger than the whole world, let him also consider that the least of the angels who guard us is stronger than all the devils.
The devil is very hostile to us and the pope. But if we worshiped the devil or the pope, we would be his most beloved sons and become cardinals. This must be our consolation that we are not alone in being challenged. Peter and Paul were also challenged. The whole church suffers in various ways according to the diversity of its members, for the weak suffer little, the strong suffer much. Only we do not fear the evil one; I have been accustomed to his beauty.
Praise God in heaven, blaspheme the devil on earth. But God is not praised if he is not loved; he is not loved if he does not do good; he does not do good if he is not merciful. He is not and cannot be merciful unless he forgives sins; he does not forgive them except for the sake of Christ.
It is a great thing to believe in God. But this is a consolation, that he said [Luc. 12, 32.]: "Fear not, little host; for" etc. Is it not the devil that we fear him, since he himself says we should not fear?
The Diet of Augsburg went well for us, let us pray to God, and similar things that will follow will happen in the same way. .
1) In the original: Praesens pecunia praesentem Deum facit contemnere.
Table speeches
Monks and nuns merge and dry up, like the snow before the sun.
If you are surprised that God Almighty does not cause all men to be good, the answer is that you should go up and ask Him. But even on earth, we see by all that God does that God is wise, almighty and good.
476 My father was required by Mansfeld through a neighbor who was in the death throes to come to him. He went and asked him what he wanted. He turned around in bed, showed him his buttocks and said: "Behold, dear Luther, how they have beaten me. My father was so upset by this and was so tormented by thoughts about it that he almost died himself.
477 Remember, when you are challenged, a fornicator who answered the devil: I have not done it, and if I have done it, yet Christ has borne my sins. And the challenged one felt better.
The Waldensians are methodologists. Therefore, they say that grace is given to us by God the Father according to power, by the Son in a mediatorial way, by the Holy Spirit in a functional way, by the church servants in a ministerial way, by the sacraments in a sacramental way, and by the works in a meritorious way.
That the greatest lies find the greatest belief, we have experienced in the papacy, in which the devil 1) so bewitched us that we believed tangible lies.
Younger people do not receive the gospel as old people who have been afflicted in the ministry.
Dulcia (enim) non meminit, qui non gustavit amara.
[(For) he respects not the sweet who has not tasted the bitter].
489 It is not the same work to recite laws and the holy scripture. The theologians fight against the whole essence of the pabst, the jurists only against the abuse. Christ is the mathematical point of the holy scriptures, the emperor is the physical point of the laws. We do not argue with writers, but we want to change the pabstry.
*
1) It will read äiakolus instead of äsus.
490: "Before the arrows that fly by day" [Ps. 91:6]. The sum of this verse is, be it night or day, be it black or white, there shall be no trouble with thee. Therefore, let it be well or ill with a Christian, let it all be one to him, for nothing will harm him, let the sun shine brightly or darkly. This is a general comfort in this one verse: thou shalt not be afraid of those who counsel in secret, nor of those who break out against thee. It makes us safe against the deceits of men and against the violence of tyrants.
The Psalms and passages of Scripture do not have to be drawn to private life, as Bernhard has forced "the arrows that fly" [Ps. 91] to the vain glory by a moral and monkish interpretation; for it [the Psalm] concerns the Church and the forgiveness of sins. There lies God's power.
Table speeches
499. Oecolampadius is now fEnde 1531) also died. He fGOtt) ran them away finely. 1) I am frightened by these examples, which should be a comfort to me, but I suffer because of the blasphemy of the papists. Well, I will hold out for the sake of Christ, when he wills.
Aristotle teaches that nothing can be concluded from purely particular things. But Christ concludes so [Matth. 22, 32.] from a particular: God is a God of the living, and he is the God of Abraham, who died, therefore Abraham lives. But GOtt here is not a particular nor indefinite, but a general, for only GOtt is alive, and it is the same as if he said, Omnis Phenix, omnis Deus. [A whole phoenix, a whole GOtt.) 2)
504 Aristotle and all natural scientists teach the things only by a certain general knowledge, as if Mag. Veit [Dietrich] would be seen by me [from here] in Brate 3), they say, I would see a being [ens], but if he would also move, they say, I would see a living being, but if he would come to the [Elb-] bridge, I would see a man, but if he would have come to the gate, I would see that the man is a man, not a woman, but if he would come to me, I would see that it is Magister Veit. Thus the naturalists describe all things with many garunted circumlocutions.
1) In the original: "Er leset sie fein hin Wege." This refers to Zwingli, who was killed shortly before Oecolampadius' death in the battle of Cappel, Oct. 11, 1531.
2) The phoenix, a fabulous bird that burns itself after a life of more than five hundred years, and from whose ashes then grows a young bird phoenix, is a symbol of resurrection and eternal life. The meaning of the last difficult words will probably be: Because God is life in Himself, those who are in God must also live.
3) In the original: "prataw", i.e. Pratau. Tischreden Cap. 76, § 26. "Brate" is as far from Wittmberg as the Po is wide. Mathesius, St. Louis edition, p. 310: the next hamlet I,from Wittenberg] above the Elbe "Prata".
Table speeches
I hate people who talk a lot, because most of the time, when they make themselves believe that they are saying great things, they are telling lies, but the truth, as it belongs to few, makes them few words.
The present ingratitude will be followed by hunger for God's word. After that they will walk again from morning to evening, from Rome to Compostella, seeking the word and not finding it.
515 Thoughts are duty-free, they are not punished, nor are desires, namely, in a civil way, but God is their judge.
524 The short epitome of the right is, many things must not happen, which they nevertheless hold, if it has happened.
God pays me well for destroying monasticism; for do not the monks in general also run to me to feed them?
The magistracy is a difficult and dangerous one, because they are forced to kill people, since they cannot give life. That is why they need the word of God and 1) laws. It is also good for them that they have a lot of proofs; the one to whom the most is given and the one who is closest to the goal has the proofs. And the principles are favorable to the authorities that every thief must be hanged. I will ask for none more. (1) Wisdom is the major proposition, and evidence is the locus communis. 2. insight (is) the subordinate clause [minor], 2) the subordination, the proof, this one is a thief, because he has stolen often and much and not by chance, nor out of necessity, but out of malice. 3) Science (is) the conclusion, the application of the proposition, namely, that he must be punished. 4) Prudence selects the deserved punishment according to equity [xxxxxxxx] and moderation. 5. finally follows the art, the execution itself and the kind of punishment. This is what Master Hans can do.
I used to be so eloquent that I wanted to have washed the whole world to death, which I absolutely cannot do now. (I could at times wash more from a flower) than now from a whole meadow. I do not love wealth of words [verbositatem].
There are some wicked people who say, "I must sin. For if I did not sin, God would become a liar, that you might be justified. Fie on the shameful freedom which thus dishonors God.
1) In the original: opus kukent vsrko Oei 6x leZikuZ. Shouldn't et be read instead of ex?
3) In the original "wol". We have made this correction and the following addition from Kummer x. 300 (Lauterbach, xug. 141).
Table speeches
Cap. K
The Italians, Spaniards and French did nothing at the Imperial Diet in Augsburg, except that they rode around on their donkeys, so that they could greet the emperor on occasion, and they hunted along frighteningly. But the Landgrave was held in very great honor, and the people who followed him proved that there was something captivating [fatale] in this prince.
The world does not believe and recognize the hidden treasure of God; it cannot be persuaded that an obedient maidservant, a faithfully working servant and a woman who gives birth is much more glorious than a praying monk, who is only concerned with his appearance, but those [see 1) the command and order of God.
544 I wanted the devil to lead the one upstairs out of the house, who is the only master and host in the house, if he has a wife, and one looks for such a one in the circle of many married ones; after that, however, I do not yet stand one, who strikes this cross from himself. 1)
When I wake up and can no longer sleep because of the ringing of my ears, it often seems to me as if I heard the bells of Halle, Leipzig, Erfurt and Wittenberg, and I think, you must suffer a pabstanfall [papaxismum] 2), and God often changes that by a short sleep that follows.
On St. Vincent's Day [Feb. 22] at 9 o'clock I saw a fiery ball flying from the sky. God grant a good outcome!
The opinion of many is that the world will stand for six thousand years and there would be 400 years left from the year 1532. But God is beginning to rumble, and it is to be hoped that He will shorten the time, as the Law of Moses was given before the passage of time. For this decade seems to be a new time, as it were, because tremendous changes are taking place. The Pabst falls from year to year, and everything changes. It cannot last long if there is not a new pontiff. Therefore, we must watch spiritually in faith and physically through good behavior, so that we will be found ready. Afterwards, watchfulness will not be necessary.
551 Philipp M[elanchthon's] calculation of the last day is this: There were eighty jubilee years until the coming of Christ, that makes 4000 years. From his birth it is now 1532 years. Thus the world had lasted 5532 years, and still 400 and some years remain.
552. the papists not only do not hold their things seriously, but also with mockery and contempt, as a certain priest spoke the alphabet early on and
1) The meaning of this paragraph will be well: Every man who is married is more or less under the rule of his wife; in vain one looks for a complete master in the house among married men; after all, they carry their cross without reluctance.
2) Probably jokingly pÄxaxismulli instead of xarox^sruuni.
Table speeches
said: Lord God, from these individual parts all words are formed, therefore choose from them the prayer that pleases you.
I must go to sleep and observe the way of life prescribed by the holy fathers, the physicians, who also accuse me of disobeying them.
When they wrapped his child in swaddling clothes, he said, "Cry out quickly and defend yourself; the pope had also bound me, but I have been released from his bonds.
562. Christ argues from the opposite, since he says: "He who is of God hears the word; you are not of God" etc. [John 8:47.]
In the year 17, on the day of All Saints' Day, I first began to write against the pope and the indulgences. In the year 18 I was banned, in the year 19 I disputed against Eck in Leipzig.
The 110th Psalm is the summit and the head of the whole Scripture; it describes the kingdom and the priesthood of Christ in the most glorious way, saying that it is Christ who governs everything and intercedes for all, and that he has it all in his hand. It is an excellent spiritual interpretation. This psalm is worthwhile; if I were healthy in my body, I would take to it.
Be of good cheer when you are challenged. If God has troubled you until now, He will comfort you in the future. For God has helped me, since my body and all my strength were exhausted, so that I have completely different blood and flesh. He has also added joy to this, and has given me a wife and children, which I should not have submitted to at that time.
If I wanted to build a house, I certainly wouldn't want to build it in this pigsty, because the wall is worth nothing, except that it costs a lot of money. When the lawn is gone, the sand flows there, so the pigs and dogs lurk over. Indeed, to pour out ramparts is borrowed from the ancients, but from those who had the earth suitable for ramparts. Our very good prince is deceived by his nobles, who persuaded him to tear down the stone wall of this city and to put another one in its place, which is of sand.
Duke Frederick was very wise, he alone had the administration of his kingdom; he did not order it all to the Scharrhansen, and often said: Because I live, I want to be prince in the country myself. And with the greatest care he appointed only good and understanding captains, and our [present] prince [John Frederick] is now also beginning to become wiser after the damage, following this example.
Table speeches
A man is not a man unless he is like Frederick, who was truly a divinely enlightened man. For the sake of the cause of the word, he had his scouts in all the courts of the princes, in order to learn all their suggestions, which he then threw over the heap by his cleverness; but our new prince nourishes his own preachers 1) at his court.
590. Although all men are without God [athei], they have in themselves the consciousness of evil and the reward of good; therefore they take care.
The papists impudently claim everything without Scripture. Peter is the highest of the apostles, so the pope has the right to give laws and issue statutes. See, here are two swords, so the emperor must receive the fief from the pope. Thus they are nonsensical, mainly to the ruin of the secular authorities, who are saved by laws. For if the laws had not existed before the canons, the emperor would have long since perished. So the pagans defend the emperor by their law against the pope of the Christians, Scävola, Ulpian etc., which were before the Code [Justinian]. If the pope had no power, he could not give laws, as now the priests can not give laws, because they have no power.
The peasants of today are all pigs, and the nobles, who used to be goats, imitate them.
599 Manna [Manhn], what is this? As if one said: How does the bread come here? where one expects nothing less than bread. Some say it is man, that is, what one eats. (Ex. 16:15.)
In Magdeburg there was a certain burgher who did not give alms to the poor, so the choirboys agreed and sent one of them to his house to steal a side of bacon. The master heard him and ordered the maid to light the lamp. When it was lighted, the latter blew it out. The maid finally called out to the master: "As often as I light the light, the devil extinguishes it again with his blowing. The master seized the choirboy, who was masked, and held him. The seized one held the side of bacon and said: The devil sends you the side of bacon with me, 2) so that you give alms to the poor more willingly. The Lord replied: "Go to the devil with your bacon, for I do not want his bacon. Now it is asked whether this is a theft or a gift, and Peter Weller (who went to the Holy Land and died there) answered that from every contract cunning and fraud must be far away.
1) This probably refers to the nobles to whom Elector John Frederick lent his ear too much. Cf. no. 583.
2) I.e. through me.
Table speeches
Cap. K
The trials in life that the great saints suffer, like Paul, are far greater than the struggle felt by the dying.
613. doltish people are not good for public dealings and plays, which was shown at a passion play of Christ. When a certain cobbler had begun to say his rhymes: I am, 'I am ..., and could not continue in speech, and now the game master said to him: Who are you then? he answered: I am a cobbler. The latter replied: What are you doing here? Go home and make shoes.
614 Not suitable for communication.
Zwingli scolds me as an unrhymed allegorist because I say that the manger and the swaddling clothes are the Scriptures and the heavens in the Psalms are the apostles. But this allegory is not mine, and I learned it sooner than he arrived at its spirit.
618 Good makes courage. This has been proven by Erfurt, which, being rich and despising the Bishop of Mainz and the Duke of Saxony, is as humiliated as one can see before one's eyes. It lacked wisdom, not money, and it is said that proud courage, secret envy and childish counsel destroyed Rome and Troy. For this reason they have hanged the good and wise man Heinrich Keiner and therefore they lack all blessings, and they, who are said to have had 80,000 guilders annually in the past, are now indebted by 600,000 guilders annually. But it is a very solid and very populous city, which has 18000 fireplaces. It cannot be won unless the Turk besieges it.
When Mühlpfort, an example of Zwickau high-mindedness, said to me: "Doctor, you will never get us under the pope, we have been taught far too much," I answered: Isn't it a nuisance that I have made other people so learned, and I myself know nothing? That is to teach others and not to teach oneself.
624 Witzel is a rogue who has lied his way out of the country from our princes like a villain; he would be a right priest in Zwickau.
625 I will die as an enemy of the Zwickauers. When I am dead, they shall get a Schnapp, which is called a Schnapp [case]. Someone would like to say: If they now become reasonable again? I answer: If that happens, I will give one the hand, that he must run away, they will not come again to the reason, if they do not get another authority and another people. We have helped them with Storch and Münzer and sent them pious people, but they do not want it.
Someone said to the pope, why does he not punish that monk with money? He answered: That beast does not want to accept money. A letter carrier [in the original: a post] was thrown down, with whom a letter to Fugger was found, in which it was contained that he should give Luther 300 florins so that he would keep quiet.
Table speeches
630 When a son was born to Emperor Frederick, the Venetians gave him a golden cradle, but the cautious emperor put a dog in it, which immediately crept. 1)
In the year 19, someone came to me and I immediately shook hands with him, and when I led him to my home, he said: "My dear doctor, I am surprised that you shake hands with everyone so soon. How? if someone shot you with a gun? I am now alone with you. The doctor answered, "You would have to die, too. He replied, "If that were to happen, the pope would make me a saint and you a heretic. When I heard this, I summoned my Wolfgang and he soon left the city.
Letters also came to me from Breslau that someone would come who wanted to kill me with poison, to whom the Poles had promised four thousand guilders, and they described him to me in such a way that I could recognize him very well. But it was a Polish doctor, knowing several languages, a very good astronomer, whom Philip admired, from whom God also protected me. He would have liked to play chess with me, but I did not want to. Finally, realizing that he was considered suspicious, he secretly left and came to the younger margrave, had himself announced to him, but he answered: "Let him always go away! he is the one who should have forgiven D. Martin. And he went away ashamed. This is also what happened in Leipzig. Furthermore: I believe that my preaching chair is often poisoned; God has still preserved me.
My wife complained that there were only three barrels of beer left; I answered her: There is no harm in that, since God is the Father of the house, who can easily make four out of three.
To those who now complain of bad success, I answer that it is always necessary that the world perish, for beyond that nothing can exist; therefore, it is nothing to do with by what fate it perishes.
I sit here at the table, without food in the bakery. It becomes my food much more sour, because often one his fasting.
Carlstadt said that Luther's opponents must be defeated because he had read the Bible for ten years before all of them; but Luther had read it for twenty years, when they had only read it for ten years. When he had said this, nevertheless he became wiser in half a year than I did.
The way things are done in the world is no good. I am like the old man and his son with the donkey. The way I do it is no good. For one of the physicians advised me to wash my feet before I go to bed; the other, before I go to bed; the third, early in the morning; the fourth, at noon. As I do it, so it does not work with the other. So it happens to me in other things. I may speak or be mute, I am called rebellious; or I crawl to the cross. Master Klügling always comes, who bridles the horse by the ars.
1) In the original: orsxuit. We have changed the expression after Kummer p. 2966 (Lauterbach p. 121), since the sense will probably be: The cradle was poisoned, and it was intent on the death of the child. This was shown by the fate of the dog.
Table speeches
Cap. 8
Roma diu titubans longis erroribus acta Corruet et mundi desinet esse caput.
Dad.
Niteris in vanum Petri subvolvere navem,
[The emperor: Rome, which has wavered for a long time, has been ruined by long errors. It will fall and cease to be the head of the world. - The pope: You are trying in vain to turn over the little ship of Peter. It sways, but it will not cease to be the head].
647 Duke George is happy in that he desires to be Elector of Saxony, for he sweetly feasts on this windy plan for himself; but he is all too unhappy in that he has no heir for the same.
648. "The whole world is nothing but merchants; noblemen, counts, princes etc. Whoever has fifty guilders puts it into trade. How can the world stand for long?
650 Theology does not like to go in, because it is hanged and watered etc. And we ourselves do not like to go up with reason, which together with the flesh always hinders us.
651] H[archduke] G[eorg] always comes early to the Imperial Diet, since he believes he can disturb everything. Oh, how sorry he would be if those things were peacefully quieted, as they are peacefully settled! If I wished him ill, I would be satisfied with the weakness of his mind alone. For he is tormented beyond measure, and that torments the man, that he cannot avenge himself. Yes, he burns with air, to damage, which he has now grasped, and cannot lead it out. He must die before he can do no harm.
A certain old man 1) told me when I was studying in Erfurt: "Dear Baccalaureus, a change is coming, and it is great. So it cannot exist. - I mean, it is coming.
652 a. You can do it and now know it all as well as I do; I have spent it all and have kept nothing from you. In length and breadth you have it all, but in depth you have it not; for I myself have not it all.
I would give this ring for it, and also a finger, so that I would only know as much in theology as the Zwickauers imagine to know. But, if once a misfortune would come over them, as it is then, they will shit in their pants and make such a stench that no one will be able to stay around them.
656 The little word "gladly" cannot be rendered in Latin, Greek, or Hebrew; putting it together changes its meaning.
The world is ruled only by tyrants and need not be ruled by others, and those who are such are called great in the world. It is also right that a rascal, beaten to the distemper [i.e., whipped in the stocks], should call the executioner his father.
1) From Memminger Veit Dietrich, Ooileeta ex colloyu. 110. (Wrampelmeyer.)
Table speeches
Cap.
663 A cowardly monk came to a shepherd and demanded that he should disembowel his fat (for that is what they call it when they steal the fat [feyst] from the sheep). When a nobleman heard this, he threw the monk into prison and fed him with water and bread, and drained him of his fat.
In him who hears no one as a teacher, there must be wisdom of his own, and in such people there is no hope, as in M. K. (?). Our God directs His work through co-workers and through His means, that is, sermons and lectures. They do not have to be neglected.
There are so many treacheries and deceitfulness, disobedience and secret hatred among the nobles and great men, that no one can settle them but the holy father, the Turk, and we must make peace. For the papists have never accepted any peace condition so far, therefore we let them sow discord; we only want to take refuge in prayer, our only protection.
Prince Frederick said: "In big houses there are big worries, in small ones small worries. Therefore, those who wished to live in large houses would not know that this would bring them great misfortune.
/
The papists preached the suffering of Christ in three ways. First, the preachers martyred themselves, second, the listeners, third, Christ, because even though they talked endlessly, they never touched the benefit of Christ's suffering, and to cause emotion was their work and the suffering of the listeners.
677 No one fasts now but the poor Lutheran clergy, because the bridegroom is taken from them, and we must 1) fast, not with monastic fasting, which is an intoxication of three days.
678. Augustine in the book "De civitate Dei" gives, as it were, an ex
ly over Horace, Tibull, and Properce; for he enumerates so many vices of the Romans and of the heathen, also so many idols.
679. Augustine interprets the passage: "because you deserved to bear the Savior" in this way: Mary deserved it, that is, she was skillful and fit, as a tree is fit to bear fruit. He has been the best interpreter of the Scriptures above all others. And I cannot wonder enough 2) about other teachers that they have run over the most beautiful texts in such a way that they should have pushed themselves with their feet and fallen over them. Also Theophylact has been a good interpreter, especially about Paul. Furthermore, Cyril, Chrysostom and Origen have great clamor for the judgment of men, but Lyra surpasses them in every way in his one book. Furthermore, since Chrysostom is loquacious, he pleases Erasmus;
1) In the original: jkiunÄnäum esset. Instead of esset should probably be read est.
2) We have added the word satis from Rebenftock II, 236 and Bindseil III, 136, without which the sentence would not give a suitable sense.
1) Original: bettriß - paralyticus (Wrampelmeyer.)
Table speeches
Cap. K
Origen neglects the faith and treats only moral teachings, as in the letter to the Hebrews, where he speaks of the priesthood. He praises the elders and brings up a lot about their dignity. He left me in the mud when I started to interpret this letter trusting in him, just as Jerome deceived me. The Hypognosticon and the Controversy with the Pelagians are the best books in Augustine. The former [Jerome] has written twelve books on Genesis, since he has not explained half a chapter of this book. Furthermore, Augustine is condemned to Paris because he spoke excessively spitefully against the heretics, that is, he expressed a dissenting opinion without intending to do so, for example, when he said that free will in itself has no capacity other than to sin. The same opinion is also Magister Sententiarum [Petrus Lombardus], who was a very good man and by his way of teaching wanted to prevent the too great amount of books and writings, but created an even greater one.
681 Occam, Magister meus, was a very great dialecucus, oberer did not have the gift of speech. He was so condemned in Paris that in a hundred years no one dared even to call him, but now he reigns there completely.
There are two kinds of theologians, namely men who deal with conscience, William of Paris and Gerson, and speculative (theologians), Thomas, Scotus, Occam, Alexander etc. These practiced themselves by disputing and biting, as dialectics is a speculative art according to Scotus, but a practical one according to Occam.
When I was asked if I would preach tomorrow, I answered: I am uncertain, I am a bedridden man. 1) I eat, drink and sleep, but I cannot read, write or write anything. I eat, drink, sleep, but I cannot read, write or preach. I live only to the world's annoyance.
687 In human terms, to defeat the Turk is to be defeated. Pyrrhus, a very noble commander, said after having won a victory: I have won, but I have been defeated, as if he wanted to say: If I should win them (the Romans) again, I would keep no servants, and the victors would lose many people.
688. easter, Urständ (resurrection), Pentecost, from 50 2), from the Greek, Wigenachten (Christmas, holy nights), Gevatter, Mitvater, because by the superior "Ge" one always designates a collection, thunderstorm.
Foolish speech brings foolish works. This happened to the barber of the Duke of Hesse, who said: Now a gracious (prince) is in my hand, and for this he did not get a good reward.
-U
695. I wanted God to keep gold and silver in his guard until another came to keep it for him reliably [bona fide].
697 Very good chants are: Rex Christe factor omnium and Inventor rutili.
1) Original: bettriß - paralyticus (Wrampelmeyer.)
2) So in the original. Meant is: n-er-T-y/codT-- (ksutseosts).
Table speeches
Cap. ß
698 Philip Melanchthon said to Hausmann, who wondered if this was a great pain that children felt when their first teeth broke through, so that very many had to die, that a gray-headed man 1) had to be punished who was without children, and for that reason did not know such things, which were the most well-known.
699 The Cruciger was baptized a child and given the name Theodore. But I say that common names are the best. All people expected an unusual name when John, my firstborn son, was born to me, and said that I would give him a new name because I had brought many new teachings into the world.
701 Our noblemen, the Meissen etc., are not soldiers, have not seen camps nor flags, are hedge riders, which we have well experienced in earlier years in the [peasant] uprising. 2)
My wife said: There were so many in the church that it immediately stank. I answered, "There was also a good deal of dirt in there, even though it was hidden, and the best thing is that they have carried it out again.
705 If the papists want to maintain their papacy with non-meat-eating, they will obtain it with a weak thing.
706 When Count Ernst von Mansfeld first heard the chant: "Ein feste Burg" (A strong castle), he said: The castle I will help shoot to pieces, or I will not live, and after three days he died. 3)
707. The year 32 is for me a gradual year, according to the number seven. In this year he [Luther] entered the fiftieth year.
708. The devil is as great as the world, as far as the world reaches, from heaven to hell.
714 If I should now be ill, I will be ill for the love of our Lord God and in spite of the devil.
718 He said of the crowd of fever patients: I believe that it is the birth of a new world. The world leaves a shit, it wants from it.
I am richer than all the papist theologians in the whole world, for I am content; above that I have three legitimate children, which no papist theologian has. Likewise, I am richer than all the nobles on earth, although I deprive my most gracious Lord that I may serve others.
3) He died in 1532. (Wrampelmeyer.)
Table speeches
Cap. K
724 The priests would have undoubtedly persisted in the gospel, if not for the shameful monks, because they had the sacraments of the church, the burial, good songs, one of which is "Come, Holy Spirit [HErre GOtt"], which is beautiful and delicious 1), and many other things. But the monks threw away everything that did not carry money, such as baptism and the sacrament of the altar, confession and the burial of the rich. Finally, they bought everything at a high price from the pope.
He who thinks well is like my Magdalene, who answered when she was asked if she wanted to go to heaven: Yes, because there I will have enough apples, pears, sugar, plums.
When he looked at the violets, he said: What do you give our Lord God for the little flowers? Bells, blasphemy, desecration. And the first summer flower is sky blue. The Turk nor the emperor would not like to pay all [i.e. the whole] in the whole world.
728 Why do the men put on wreaths and not the women? I think, he said, the woman should know that the men are not harmed by how they do it.
729 The Zwickauers can't stop denigrating, so long that they even cheat. And he spoke to Mag. Leonhard Beier], who is now their pastor: If my most gracious lord 2) would have me be their preacher, I would say: I am not your preacher, but the Elector's preacher. The wretched people attach the title of prince to me and think that I have been taken and do not know where to go and cannot get any further. But it must first come to speech.
730 Türck is actually the Hebrew name of a snake. I believe that the Jews invented this word.
731 Muhme Lena [von Bora], do you want to go back to the monastery and become a nun? She answered: No, no. It said the Selmenitzen, 3) why she did not want to return? Thereupon the Doctor said: And I ask why the women do not wish to become virgins again? And all were silent, and all remained silent and laughed.
732 Ferdinand is King of Hungary by robbery, Roman King by fancy, and King of Bohemia in part. I have four children who are more precious to me and under a better title than Ferdinand has his kingdoms.
736 He said of the Sacramentans that they will not stop persecuting me until they destroy me. So do those of Zwickau, saying that they are reconciled, and it is not true. Of course, I will keep silent, but they will see what God will do about it. They will become aware of it. M. Roth wrote to M. Leonhard [Beier]: See to it that the doctor is reconciled with us, and he answered him: See to it that they humble themselves.
1) In the original: puleüra prosa. We did not know what to do with this. We assume that xrosa may be an abbreviation for prstiosa, and have translated it accordingly.
2) G. H." or "g. H." when referring to the Prince Churfürst must always be resolved with "gnädigster Herr".
3) In the original: Helwitzen. According to Förstemann, Vol. Ill, 169, note 4, Mrs. Felicitas von Selmenitz, daughter of the knight Hans Mönch and widow of Wolf von Selmenitz, who was murdered in Halle in 1519. Tischr. Cap. 26, § 87: The Selbitz. Bindseil II, 165: Selmitzin. Rebenstock II, 1236: Selmitz. De Wette III, 297: Selmenitz. - Muhme Lene is the aunt of Catharina von Bora, was in 1502-1508 Siechennieisterin in the monastery Niemtsch, left the same soon after the resignation of her niece and spent the rest of her days in Luther's house. She died in 1537 (Wrampelmeher.).
740. Sanherib has been a tramp, a hedge rider.
Table Talks Cap. § 37, 75.
I2ß.
745. our duke Hans Friedrich was born in the year 30, the landgrave after that in the year 4. - Michael stands twice [zwir] in the scripture, in Daniel and the revelation.
747: What a man will not allow to be punished, God will not allow to go unpunished. This happened to a nobleman of Grefendorf. Since he had violated a respectable woman under the promise of marriage, and then extorted a thousand guilders from her, he went with many of his companions to hold the betrothal feast with a noble maiden; And since a large number of guests had gathered in the house, he called one of his servants, rode out into the field, and since he often told the servant that he saw many horsemen coming against him, and after he had sent the servant away from him, he ran into a bog (gemoß), and since he had once begun to feel the worm of conscience, his evil in the meantime increased until he stabbed himself. After that, when the servant, who had returned to the others, had brought news of this, they searched for him and received from the half-dead man the ring, which he had taken off and sent back to the violated woman. Thus this great despiser of our preaching perished.
748 Since I was invited to Pommer, I heard various stories from Philip, especially about the Brandenburg margraves, that they had always been princes of very high talent and eloquence. They had more cities in their two states than our two princes. Pomerania will fall to him [the Elector of Brandenburg, Joachim I] in a short time etc. Namely, when the Bishop of Halle (Albrecht, Margrave of Brandenburg) becomes a Christian.
749 The fact that there is an enormous number of whores in Lübeck was deduced from the fact that more wine is sold in one evening during Fastnacht ([fastlnacht]) than for 600 marks, but after the gospel is accepted, only for four guilders.
When our prince and head will pass away, 2) he will undoubtedly take many councils with him. For there will be a great change in this government and this country, and those who are now the greatest will be the lowest, and vice versa. And there will be greater envy at court and greater disloyalty, although now all nobles seek their own in the courts, not what is of the princes.
I have always had mercy at the court, who am a beggar, I have nothing of it, but the bread, therefore no one could be envious of me, and so it proves in me what Seneca says: "He is most miserable, whom no one envies. Such a man cannot be our H(ans] M(etzsch), who is supposed to have 800 guilders a year and sits on it without any calculation, because he is the Wittenberg
1) In the original: 2". Joh. Friedrich was born on June 30, 1503. (Wrampelmeyer.)
2) Spoken during the last illness of Prince John, before Aug. 16, 1532.
Table speeches
Cap. §
The duke is like all the nobles at court, but the prince is the servant. They have the use, feast and command, the prince has the work. Since Frederick did not want this, he had castles instead of great captains [capitaneis], otherwise, he said, others would have the benefit, I the name. A captain costs me two thousand, I can endure a castle with two hundred (guilders).
Ritesel 1) is very faithful and very familiar with the elder prince. Now, after he died, he experiences all hatred and what it means to trust in princes, and what, to trust in God alone.
Nothing keeps me better from dizziness than a small gift [offula] of 6 spoons early in the morning. A butter is a healthy thing, and I consider that the Saxons are strong people of butter, which they eat very much. Lavender water is a very good thing, and black caraway, soaked for two nights in good wine, is a good remedy for dizziness.
760 The Christians borrowed the celebration of death from the pagans, but they far surpassed the pagans in the quantity and splendor of the ceremonies at their deaths. 2)
The noblest in the world are not favorable to the gospel, as can be seen in Flanders and the regions of Lower Germany, where there are very solid cities, where the merchants serve only idols, and avarice and Venus rule.
770 The generosity of the elder prince John was wonderful, which can be seen from this example: Since he had given me 200 florins a year, he said that he would give them freely, not on account or out of consideration for any work. After that, what I do with reading, writing, preaching, I do for free, because I am bound to no one but the prince. But the printers [chalcographi] bring me under their command in every way, they are very ungrateful people. I have had so much trouble with the translating that no one with favor nor money should be able to make me sell a book, if I had not done it for the glory of Christ, my Lord. But those ungrateful beasts would not have given even one copy to those who helped me. Fie on you, shall it not grieve us? Therefore, I do not want D. Creutziger do anything without pay.
Hesse is a very good country because it cannot be conquered due to lack and hunger "because the enemy would die of hunger in it.
772 H(archduke) G(eorg) is not of Saxon blood, but a bastard, and does not have the majesty of the Saxon princes. He is a very ambitious man, who is said to have said: What is a prince of Saxony better than a bastard, if he is not Churfürst? etc.
I) Cf. Luther's letter to Riedtesel, Walch, old edition, vol. XXI, 357. 6 Dec. 1532.
2) Cf. Tischr. CaP. 48, § 12.
Table talk"
774. "The law only causes wrath" [Rom. 4:15]. This is understood opportunistically, that is, it shows that we live against God, followed by the wrath of God.
775 As the translation of the Bibles has made me a great deal of work, so this work will be of great benefit to those who want to derive benefit from it. For the old translation was darkness. But the world, all and all, is also ungrateful. But my head is unaccustomed to thanksgiving, and if there is one who gives thanks, it is a great, wonderful thing.
The old dialecticians ascribed it [dialectic] to the intellect, but rhetoric to the will, and had summarized dialectic with the best rules, but they did not have the matter and the substance. I used to think that dialectics was only in books and disputations and did not extend to all kinds of things and dealings. And even today I would have a sermon ready twenty times as quickly and easily as I could bring it into the dialectical rules, although our Philip testifies that I explain and divide according to dialectics. But this is my natural dialectic, which presents itself without art, but through art nature is helped a great deal.
If I had to argue with a sacramentarian, I would have to stop the dialectic. First, I would have to explain to him what a sacrament is. Then I divide; for example, if he says that baptism is water, I say that it is water connected with the word. Then the disputation about the division begins. After that [the disputation begins] about the cause, that God is the cause of the sacrament, who has so instituted it. The actual thing is washing, not the body, but the soul. The effect, I say, is the forgiveness of sins, the accidental thing is to believe or not to believe.
788 However great and proud the pope was a short time ago, he is now so low that he crawls on the ground, so that he asks even the least for help and protection. For he already calls upon the King of Scotland [Jacob, and has sent him a crown, which would have been too low for him before times; has often sent him letters, because he sees that the Emperor and the Englishman are not at all reliable patrons for him. And this is a just consequence for his arrogance, out of which the Cardinal [Cajetan] once said at Augsburg: "What do you mean that the Pope is asking for Germany? Now he has to suffer me, a poor monk, in marriage with a nun, whom I act and live almost under no one's protection. For what is our Elector against the whole realm? He has to hear and see me, it is a lot.
1) These words seem to have been spoken in 1534, because in that year the first German complete edition of the Bible was published by Hans Lust in Wittenberg. (Wrampelmeyer.)
Table speeches
Cap. K
796 A practical question posed at Heidelberg: I ask whether a donkey with its long ears, clothed in a buckskin, sitting on a king's throne, and gnawing on hypothetical foliage, can be absolved by a simple priest? 1)
A scolding [joke] can turn into seriousness. This happened to Pommer, who stood with some women who accused Mag. F[rösche] of an immodest sermon against them and the virgins. When I excused him in jest, Pommer, together with the women, began to become very angry. It happened similarly when, in the presence of D. Jonas and Spalatin, D. Brück jokingly said that he had something he wanted to say to them, but that they had to promise beforehand that they did not want to be angered. When they had promised this, he said that the prince demanded of them that they wanted to suffer, that their wives be their concubines before the world, otherwise the Elector could not defend this cause. Spalatin then immediately asked: "Fie, fie, death, death, shall I thus provide for my dear wife, the poor little child? Immediately Jonas said the same. And Philip added to the joke that they could let it go, because otherwise they would be freed from many burdens of the pope. What harm is there in that, dear sirs, if you also indulge my most gracious lord? Jonas said that something similar has often happened, namely that the jokers are finally provoked to anger.
In 799 the pope is said to have sent his envoys to the emperor, admonishing him not to hurry with the conciliation, or if it had to be held, to deal only with articles of faith, but not with the primacy of the pope.
801 The Torgau fool [Claus Narr] does not want to go to heaven, because it is cold up there, snowing and raining down; he wants to go to hell, where it is warm, roasts apples and pears well in the tiles.
Once his table companions began to lie as much as anyone could. D. Luther said: The craft is on. I will warn you, as the servant warned his squire: "Squire, you must not twist too crookedly, so that I can also lie together. But since they laughed a lot while lying, he said, "Lies must be told seriously, or they will not be believed.
1) This number probably follows the previous one and would then refer to King Henry VIII of England. The stretching in the buckskin is an allusion to the king's love of women, the gnawing on the hypothetical foliage an allusion to the king's scholastic erudition and writing. Under the priest Luther would perhaps be understood, since the latter desired the expert opinion of the Wittenberg University in his marriage deal.
Table Talks Cap. § 15, 23.
829 Rudolph von Bünau, a man of knighthood, was chosen in Torgau to be the representative and promoter of the word and the sermon to the Elector. Oho, a devout heart, which could not even hear the word. A good companion may have drunk it to him, so that he was forced to speak against himself, when the wolf asked for the sheep.
830. Alas, it is a poor word that needs [the] intercession and protection of men, and yet is saved from our enemies. God laughs at it through his mockery, that is, through mockery.
838. In such great weakness I began to write that if Gabriel, the angel, had told me that such a great change would follow my writings, I would not have believed it, and in the body I was so weak that I did not expect to live another quarter of a year.
839 Huss has only gone through the abuses and evil customs of the papacy, I have fought his doctrine and whole being. I offered myself enough against him when I promised silence. But they only flashed against it and wanted me to recant, so the game began.
840. Duke Frederick sent me with a secure escort to Cardinal Cajetan, who was then at Augsburg. And this city and the university wrote for me. Furthermore, this was my thought on the journey: "Now you must die, and I imagined a funeral pyre ready for me, and often I said: Oh, what a disgrace I will be to my parents! So the flesh frightened me.
841 Duke Frederick sent me on foot to Augsburg in the company of a brother [Leonhard Beier] and had given me 20 gold florins. The way was unknown to me, and I traveled without a safe escort [from the emperor], so foolish was I, and although many advised me against it on the way, I heard no one. Frederick had advised me that I should not go to the Cardinal unless under the Emperor's safe escort, but I was only able to obtain this after three days. In the meantime, the Cardinal often sent to me that I should come.
842 When I came to Cajetan, he laughed at me proudly and insisted on the recantation, but the six letters revoca [recant] would not come to me. Although I often asked him to be more obedient, he constantly shouted: "Revoke". But I said: I do not want. And then he said: Where will you stay as an opponent of the pope? I answered: "Under heaven. He: Do you think that because of you the Duke of Saxony will start a war against the Pope? I: He should not. He: What does the pope ask about Germany? Finally, since all the gates were manned with guards, the citizens let me out by a secret way. Furthermore, this Thomas O Cajetanus has become Lutheran at last.
1) In the original: "Sylvester". It is possible, however, what D. Wrampelmeyer remarks, that Luther had wanted to say with this word This "forest-like", that is, "coarse" Cajetanus, as he called with allusion to the name "Sylvester the Dialogus of Sylvester Prierias in a letter of August 8, 1518 a quite forest-like, un-
Table speeches
Cap. K
844. "0 mouth,
quam es perverse! "
[O pure world, how art thou wicked!]
This is a fine solöcism, 1) and unlearned has not been whoever devised it.
Those who are righteous by pretense are righteous until they have obtained what they want, and in the meantime they refrain from all harshness. This is seen in the case of one to whom the parents had given their daughter in marriage because of his great (supposed) righteousness. When he had her, he treated her badly. Now when he was asked by the parents how he had changed so much, he answered: "Go to the basement, there you will find a pillar bitten by each other. For whenever I get angry, I bite a chip out of it, which I do not like to do now. Hypocrites betray themselves at last.
846 Peasants remain peasants. Do to him what you will, they are Moses' people. When men were created, they had ears where eyes are etc., as they are made, they were not right. The peasants are like that and pay. 2)
852 Among the Vandals at Wittenberg, God wanted to establish a school, since all the other schools had fallen into disrepair, and thought to make a priest or two.
I think that the devil does not like the peasants. He despises them, like the Scotch pennies, which he can well get, and the peelers are too [much] for him. But he would like the pious good guilders and nobles.
Our Lord God cannot let any evil go unpunished, because he is a God who visits. Ferdinand must be punished, Denmark is punished and destroyed from the bottom up, so that no inheritance is left; France, Venice is punished, because the law only causes wrath.
856. where one nourishes himself in the sweat, there one needs the food better. Sodom was full of glory [volpretig]. Therefore are also bad people, where 3) a happy paradise is.
cultivirte Schrift. - Cajetan († 1534), like Sadoletus and Vergerius, was prompted by the struggle with Luther to make significant modifications to the papal system. Thus he demands thorough study of the Scriptures, corrected Bible text, yes, he speaks out more freely about food commandments, marriage, use of the vernacular and many other things, so that he incurred fierce attacks from the Sorbonne and the Dominican Ambrosius Catharinus and others. It is mentioned that the editors of his writings had to soften objectionable passages. (Wrampelmeyer.)
2) Luther wants to say: The peasants may have their ears where they want, but they do not hear. (Wrampelmeyer.)
3) Instead of vol, which gives no sense, Wohl would like to be read udi. The sense is rendered correctly by us without any doubt: Good land, rough people.
The papacy always grew until the Council of Constance, and then always fell.
A contract is among the living, a will among the dead.
Table speeches Cap. K
866 Zwingli died like a murderer because he wanted to force others to his errors, went to war over it and was slain.
867 Satan is very much after conjugal peace, because he knows that it is a great gift.
Regula est de piscibus.
[In life water, in death wine, So it shall be with the fish.] (Wrampelmeyer.)
873 A farmer who is a Christian is a wooden poker.
874 Our Lord God guards his disciples well, leads them out of Egypt into the desert, lets the old ones die when he has well afflicted them, and raises up young ones for him, whom he leads into the land.
From the creation of the world, no king could rule the world by his efforts, and there will be no such king. Also David says Ps. [44, 7.): "My sword cannot help me."
879 When soldiers were spoken of, he said, "If the left teat despairs, the right teat does no good. A fearful heart is good for nothing.
Whoever carefully considers that the most glorious cities, Jerusalem, Carthage, Athens, Rome, are so devastated that no one can restore them to their former glory, sees the works and the wrath of God. What would he do when he who dwells in heaven begins to laugh? 1)
If it is true that God chastises whom He loves, who would not like to suffer the chastisements of God? and whom He chastises the most, He surely loves the most. In such a sense he wrote a letter to the captive king of Denmark [Christian II]. However, to the 2) king, who now reigns [Frederick I], he wrote to consider him as a cousin [patruus - uncle, in the letter: cousin) and not as an enemy. All the angels in heaven would rejoice over such an attitude towards him, and one day, when he would die, he would receive unspeakable joy from it.
1) Cf. No. 831 of this appendix.
2 ) Instead of Ms, illi must be read. This refers to the letter to King Frederick I of Denmark, Sept. 28, 1532, De Wette IV, 403 ff. Erl. Walch, old edition, XXI, 353.
Table speeches
Cap. §
An evil conscience betrays itself. Example: A certain monk used to sprinkle a lewd woman, whom he kept secretly in his cell, with fragrant water often at night. She wanted to do the same when the monk was at early mass, but took the ink [encaustum] instead of the fragrant water, which was used up. When he came, he thought it was the devil, cried out loudly in fear, and summoned the whole monastery.
I do not want to remember Duke George, God does not remember him either, because he belongs to the abyss of hell, since he sins against the Holy Spirit, even lives in presumption, hardening and despair. The dear pious emperor has only made him more bitter with peace, therefore he torments his own people.
In the eighth year [1508] I came to Wittenberg, in the year 9 I traveled to Rome because of the dispute that Staupitz had, in the year 12 I received my doctorate.
893. I have never been moved by anger when I wrote against the pope, but often I have been very pleased, but the printers (er-)anger me every day.
894. Erfurt is a whorehouse and beer house, these two lessons have had the students at this school.
896 The Duke John Frederick had a condition with me, he did not want to hear me in all supplications. I answered him: I have shirt, skirt and coat. He will probably notice which one is the shirt, or the skirt.
897. At one time I asked him (Duke John Frederick) to establish by public order that no one should bring my petitions to the court, but the prince did not want that.
75, k.
The ministers of the word are persecuted either by tyrants or by friends out of ingratitude, and where there is not a pious prince, they suffer more from their listeners than from their opponents. At Nuremberg, I could not have brought it about that they fed their church servants from their own resources, and the whole of Wittenberg gives 4 pennies a year for the gospel, because that is how much one man gives.
900 If I had not known, I would not have thought that the devil was so powerful in the world.
901. sham religion and superstition belongs to the rabble, not at all [nothing] the gospel that the saints worship. Also the fornicators, drunkards and such people want to be plagued with sham work.
902 Ingratitude to the preaching of the gospel will be punished by hell on the last day, for bodily misfortunes do not punish it properly. If I were younger, I would start a business and let others preach. But the young people [juniores] who hear such things from me should hold firm and not be frightened.
The fact that the Turk fled six miles from Vienna with such a large army without being put to flight is a sign that Christ wants to remain a king greater than he.
905 One may drive out violence with violence. Emergency defense is not permitted to ward off all injustice, but as often as one must save one's life, and this must be understood by one's peers. For just as a peasant may not defend himself
Table speeches
against his nobleman, because he is a vassal of the nobleman, the nobleman is not allowed to rebel against his prince, because he is also a vassal of the prince, so the princes of the emperor [vassals]. 1)
The world is the devil, and the devil is the world. Therefore Christ must quarrel with them forever, and neither can keep peace with the other, he not with Christ, nor Christ with him.
907 What an inconsistent breed of people the papists were, is proven by a certain collegiate 2) in Erfurt, who had never left the city. Once, when he had hired a carter for the journey to Wittenberg, and had driven a short distance, he asked how much further the road was that was left. The wagoner answered: A hundred times as far. Then he immediately ordered the wagoner to turn around and returned home, of course miserably martyred by the length of the way.
908 He who does not advertise corrupts. For stupidity in poverty is a ruin, especially in the courts, for the courts are impregnable; indeed, whoever wants to gain something in them must be bold and undaunted, even if something is often denied him.
912. who wants to move with equanimity in the world, he must be a guest of the money and the money a guest with him. About that money is round (in the original: "scheblich" i.e. shiftable] and we have large four holes in each hand, that we cannot keep it. But the ungodly money-makers do not live in the world, but in their houses, and have closed and [by the money] bought [unfree] hands, which draw everything to themselves and keep it back for themselves and with themselves.
913. Two years ago I sometimes thought it advisable that Christ should not be allowed to seek the peasants as often as he wants to preach to them, but that they should be compelled to seek the preaching Christ some miles away; but now I see that this need not be desired, because we see their ingratitude evident. (This (ingratitude] deserves more than can be said to occur soon). 3)
921 Many become more learned more by the bad nature of study and work than by the good nature of their talent.
922 The judgment of the ears is very fine and it decides much more reliably than the palate about the taste, because the hearing is the sharpest sense after the sight. The eye can seize and grasp everything very quickly. The duller the senses are, the closer they are to the objects [which are perceived by them]. And they follow each other like this: [1.] feeling, 2. taste, 3. smell, 4. hearing, 5. face.
924. mahomet, that is, the desirable one 4) [desiderabilis].
1) The same opinion is expressed in Luther's letter to Churfürst Johannes of March 6, 1530, Walch, St. Louis Edition, vol. X, 545 ff, but in the later concerns of 1539 this opinion is changed. Vol. X, 558ff.
2) Cf. cap. 27, § 112.
3) The last sentence is an addition of the cordatus.
4) Luther derives the name from begehren, D. Wrampelmeyer says it rather means "luuäudiUs".
Table speeches Cap. K
930. In the twenty-first year of my age, I received my Master's degree, in the 29th 1) my Doctorate.
936 I want to deliver a good sinner to our Lord God, because, although I am not an adulterer in deed, I have not often lacked the good will to do so; so I am often angry; although I am not a thief, I have stolen everything I ate and drank before the Gospel. Where are my beautiful virtues, since I have said mass for 15 years, and now I would rather die ten times than say mass for the dead?
937. H[archduke] G[eorg] is caught by the very good writings of the Pabst, the Cardinal, the King of France, England etc., and by ambition he becomes so puffed up that he thinks himself as it were their god. Is our doctrine called novelty, just as if all novelty were to be rejected, and it is not a novelty. That his Ernst von Schöneberg has become a grocer is news. He is a completely rustic man; indeed, without ceasing, he pursues honor and property, and he is disgraced for it, as if from Friesland. 2)
The Duke George is a spark, and the whole world is the tinder. Yes, a conflagration can easily arise if we do not pray. In the year 32, on Michaelmas, he expelled 14 citizens from Leipzig and 11 from Oschatz for the sake of the Gospel. All of them went away with the greatest joy.
940. Cast your care upon God [1 Petr. 5. 7]. I have made a will with GOtte, and he acknowledges me for his preacher, feeds me also and my children; for I shall not be able to preside over my house after the death of my wife, nor shall she be able to preside over it after my death etc. But he that liveth for ever, the rich and almighty, he shall execute all things for me.
If we could not perceive otherwise that God is a wonderful artist, we would certainly see it from the so many-colored formation of the birds.
The disobedience of the peasants is unspeakable, therefore they should be forced most severely by orders and laws, and it would not be good that the rejoicing had ceased. The devil could enjoy that of the peasants, if they do not have to do it.
All prophets make general things out of the particular, or common things out of particular cases. And all histories of faith are general and yet taken from particular cases. Abraham, David, Paul have the same faith, but different profession. Therefore, Paul does not care about logic and makes a general rule out of the individual case of Abraham's justification.
1) In the original erroneously "27", see No. 892.
2) Cf. Tischr. Cap. 28, § 1.
3) Instead of verhatiairw original wrtv should probably be read universaNa.
Table speeches Cap. S
954 I have seen the end of the dear beer, it has all become covent (thin beer). And I ask God for all the cause of it, (that he may indicate it,) the essential, formative, effecting, final, or if still to be brewed, that yet the tithe beer geriethe. They have never been able to find the art in ten years.
6S,
Translating the Bible is a great work. And although we have taken a lot of trouble with this work, there will still be people who want to do it better; they will pick at me one little word that I could discard in a hundred if they translated it. I will give fifty guilders to anyone who can translate the 72nd and 73rd Psalms properly, but who does not use our translation.
969 The Emperor, as a true father of Germany, has again departed for Naples and has issued a letter strictly commanding everyone to keep the peace. Because he has finally become aware of the obedience of the Germans and the lies of the pope, one must pray diligently for him.
975 Poor man, feed yourself,
Last good, resist.
976 It is not possible for one to speak his native tongue with another tongue, and the way of translating is not to seek the word too near, nor too far, but to take it quite properly according to each language.
977 Jesus Sirach is now translated in such a way that I do not know it, compared to the old translation. For in the Greek and Latin the book has been very corrupted. If we take the Hebrew, we leave the Greek and Latin.
So you have to talk like you talk in the market. That is why the textbooks, the philosophical and thoughtful (sententiosi) books are difficult to translate, the historical ones are easy to translate. If I had to translate Moses now, I would probably make him German, because I wanted to take away his Hebrew way of speaking, and that in such a way that nobody should say that Moses is Hebrew.
979 To translate rightly is to adapt what is said in another language to one's own language. But since we do this with all effort in Moses, the Jews say: The opinion he has troffen, but the words 1) not. For when they say: They have banished the city by the mouth of the sword, we translate: They have devastated the city by the edge of the sword, and the likeness of those words fits the preachers, who devastate everything with their mouth; but in German it is as if one said: They strike everything to death that only lives.
1) In the original: "the true". Because Rebenftock II, 198 and Bindseil II, 212 agree on the more appropriate reading "the words", we have adopted the same.
Table speeches
Cap. K
988 Antonius de Leva is a clever and very happy warrior; he only commands and everything goes happily for him. And George of Frundsberg is an honest warrior. But we see in them the difference between fighting with force and fighting with prudence. For that one (Leva) followed with two hundred and put two thousand to flight.
995 Interpretation is certainly an art. For often we cannot translate the understood meaning appropriately; for it is true what Amsdorf once said: It is a shame that he often understands something and yet cannot speak of it. Yes, we often have to pour it into four barrels before we can get it right. For who can express this sentence in Jesus Sirach (32:14) as it should be? Sicut fulgur praecedit tonitrui, ita verecundiam praecedit gratia (As lightning precedes thunder, so favor precedes shame). In my judgment, it is better to say: verecundia praecedit gratiam (shame precedes favor). Who can translate the word verecundia?^
996 Verecundia (shyness out of respect, shamefacedness, bashfulness, stupidity, modesty, modesty) is a very great virtue among young people. Verecundus, honorable, who reveres all; on the other hand, honorable, who is worthy of all honors. I often have to reject a good word when translating it, that I would rather lose a red guilder than this word, because no matter how well chosen a word may be, it sometimes does not fit the meaning.
i
The address of the citation, by which the emperor summoned me to Worms, had these words: To the venerable our dear devout D. Martin Luther, Augustinian Order. Duke George did not dignify me with such a title. And although I was in the ban, nevertheless he calls me honorable.
The Duke of Hesse came to me in Worms to argue with me and held against me what I had written about impotents. At last he went away and said: If you are righteous, God will help you.
1001. A presbyter made his sin very great to a soldier who had confessed that he had killed four people unjustly, and now thinking that he had made him all contrite, the latter said, Ah, dear Lord, I have also made four other people this year.
Against his adversaries David was righteous, but against God he was a very great sinner; indeed, somewhere [Ps. 7:9] he calls upon God to judge his righteousness. Against God we act with the dear Lord's Prayer, there he wants to forgive gladly, but against the devil and the opponents of faith he speaks mockingly. They have no right to him, per se, but it is different when God allows them!
1) This verse is translated in our Bible: Thunder brings great lightning, shame makes great favor.
Table speeches
Cap. §
1006. ....................... Annex § 1.
1012. God's word remains forever. - Makes 15 years since I started writing and preaching.
Our nobles only dream when they speak of the gospel, and say that they are free, and take nothing seriously; only the freedom to do anything they ascribe to themselves from the gospel.
In a true servant of Christ there must be no question of money and pleasures, which are a cause of covetousness, but a concern how he may faithfully conduct his ministry. And money is not worth arguing about, because it makes one hopeful and that only for a very short time, and it does not go with us when we die.
1019 Erfurt has again broken her allegiance to our dukes, who have left her [the city] more than one and a half hundred thousand florins, and has surrendered to the bishop of Mainz, under whom, as we know, she has always declined. In her seal she has, "Erfurt, the faithful daughter of Mainz."
1023. A lesser man must not boast against a superior, but against the inferior, as my wife can boast against the servants, but not against me, as David boasts because of the righteousness he had against men, but not against God.
In the old days, there was a splendid modesty, which I can show by this: A man from the people came to meet my father with a beret on his head. My father said to him: "Read me this letter. He replied that he did not understand. My father said to him: "So hit yourself on the head with misfortune, why are you wearing a beret? So, when he heard that another very lowly man called himself Bartholdus [not Barthel], he [Luther's father] said to his servant: Nickel, no longer Nickel, but Nicolaus you shall be called.
1025. All times of the gospel have been corrupted by vices: in Sodom, in the time of Noah, Abraham, Christ, the apostles. So it must come to pass. Now, avarice is corrupting the gospel.
1031 Love is the greatest among them [1 Cor. 13:13] because it will remain in the life to come.
1033 All victories are images of Christ, the victor.
Table speeches
Cap. S
Those are very miserable who are not satisfied with their fate. Of these really wretched people there are many at the courts who seek more money or honor at court, since they have plenty at home.
In the first book of Moses, one must consider what and when God speaks, and what effect follows this word, or what the godly or the godless do when the word is spoken. Otherwise, everything will seem ridiculous to you.
The histories in the Bible are examples of faith. For example, the Exodus from Egypt is a history and an example of great faith. One must judge the others in the same way.
1052 In straw, but even better in chaff, apples are protected from the cold. Augustine says: What is warmer than chaff? And ice covered with straw does not melt.
The study of law is dirty and profit-seeking, for its ultimate purpose is money; for one does not study in law for pleasure and for the sake of knowledge.
for the sake of things.
My housekeeping is wonderful, because I consume more than I take in. I have to have fifty guilders in the kitchen every year, I keep quiet about other things. I can't direct myself in the housekeeping.
1058. When I am angry, let me only be at peace and take a breather, because many things happen to me that irritate me, which I believe also happens to others. Therefore, one should leave room for an angry person.
1066.' I am half angry with the jurists, because they want to trample the theologians underfoot, but it shall not prosper them too nicely further. Against Daniel many learned lawyers rose up at Babel, Isaiah also surpassed many learned lawyers. So also our [jurists] will have no luck.
If one is angry with God, he suffers two damages, the first that he does not respect [God's] wrath, the second that he has to reconcile with Him and beg for it. He said this to Mag. Joh. Förster, to whom his son had died.
1069 I do not wish that the thief who stole the forester's linen in his grief should be hanged, but I would still give him a rope.
Table speeches
Cap. §
buy, not for revenge, but for the sake of justice, which must be preserved. Moses very puffingly provided for the sake of it that a thief by night could be killed, and the one who killed him could not be accused for the blood.
If a thief finds me in my four posts by night, I must defend myself so that he does not kill me; but a thief by day must be made known by shouting and caught.
1071 There are different types of lies, which are well distinguished
must: Ridiculous lies, lies of duty, pernicious, ungodly lies. 1) Joke lies, ridiculous antics, are those by which one amuses the sad. The lie of duty is a work of love, as it happened when Abraham saved his wife by pretending she was his sister, and when Michal saved David [1 Sam. 19, 14-17]. So also 2 Kings 6, [19.] etc. Thus a certain pastor said to the executioners who were searching in his house for a thief who had fled there, "I will not lie, nor will I betray the thief," and they were forced to desist from the investigation. An ungodly lie is one by which we blaspheme God and men. If a man ever wants to tell a white lie, he should say badly, No, he should not add an oath; he should not say, Truly, truly. Also Christ Joh. 7, (8. 10? did not lie about his going to Jerusalem, otherwise he spoke mockingly, as when he said (Joh. 8, 7?: Let him who is without sin cast the first stone at the adulteress. Likewise (Matth. 22, 20?: What is the superscription? Likewise [Matth. 21, 25.]: Is the baptism of John from heaven? There he mockingly attacked her.
1078. In the church there are always divisions; there must be something to create in it, because there are always some Ishmael and Isaac, Esau and Jacob in it. So [it] must also go now.
God has made his best gifts most common; this can also be seen in the dogs, which are useful, and animals of high value. What value is in the eyes! and all animals have eyes, and the smallest birds have very clear eyes, to look at like precious stones and crystal-bright drops of water. They see a fly for a room, and we buffoons do not recognize such things in this life.
1083 "The gospel is preached to the poor," that is, the forgiveness of sins is announced. Moses could not do this, and it is a sign that Christ is present.
I have been given two books in which I have read innumerable statutes of the Carthusians, to which no one would have submitted if the promise or merit of eternal life had not been attached to them. And in these statutes, one's own righteousness is constantly thought of, but Christ's is never thought of, and yet everything is thought out in such a way that one could think that their (the Carthusians') life is a completely angelic one. life is a completely angelic one. Therefore, Paul's reminder in the 2nd chapter of the [first] letter to the Corinthians is very necessary for us.
1) In the original, a period must be placed after impia. By joeosa the preceding riäieula is taken up again. By psrnioiosa, irnpia only one kind of lies is denoted, which is represented afterwards by impia alone. Therefore, in the Latin table speeches it is quite correct to speak only of drererler lies. Rebenstock I, 226 d. Bindseil I, 420 - The white lie is then mentioned in passing.
Table talk"
1085 They [the papists] change almost all human statutes except the celibate state and the mass; there it locks itself, because by these two columns the Pabstthum is carried.
Ingratitude against the Word has always been the greatest abomination, and it is not surprising that this ingratitude also causes the greatest annoyance to godly people, and that God has the same thoughts as the godly.
When the papacy began to grow under Carl the Great, for six hundred years, it already became very powerful in two hundred years. 1)
1089. One should diligently keep all the rules of the monks for the eternal disgrace [of the papacy] and for the honor of the gospel. I have five [rules] with their orders. And Augustine was just as much a monk as Jerome was a cardinal. They have to serve the pope's lug/.
1098 For the freedom which the gospel has brought us, not long ago every king would have given a hundred thousand florins, a prince a thousand, a nobleman a hundred, a citizen sixty, a peasant twenty. Now, however, no one gives thanks for it, nor does anyone give even a penny for it.
1114 A dead person is remembered more persistently than a living person. But they are nothing if the living do not join them. This is what he said when he wrote something in his memory book.
1115 Ferdinand deserves to be hated by everyone. No prince loves him. The Mainzer is said to have said: We have killed a king, we must kill him ourselves.
1116. Erasmus has badly translated "speech" for "word" in John, because there is a big difference between talking and speaking and John looks back to Moses 2) etc.
1) We have removed the comma before sub, which makes it unnecessary to add a tuit. - What is communicated in this number is consistent with No. 861, where it is stated that until the Council of Constance, the papacy had steadily increased in power. From Carl the Great to this council are just 600 years. It reached its peak a little over 200 years after Carl the Great in Gregory VII.
2) Namely, that God created all things through "the Word". Cf. Walch, St. Louis Edition, Vol. I, 19 f. § 35-37. - Cf. also No. 1176 of this appendix.
Table speeches
1117 I live in a big house, but I would like to be free of him.
1120 Wittenberg is not a well-fortified city and is exposed to many dangers. But I am surprised that they build a wall and walls against imaginary enemies, but they do not fear the flooding of the Elbe, which threatens present danger, and therefore do not prevent it, although they have no closer enemy. Ten peasants could do damage in one night with rough logs that would kill half of Wittenberg.
1121 Although the lecturers are always admonished to be careful about which authors they read, this reminder seems especially necessary now, because there are so many book writers. Someone has published an interpretation of the letter to the Hebrews, who uses dainty words, but does not know what Christ is, what faith is, can only wash. But in this letter, as the subject of which it deals, the knowledge of Christ should be treated, which is faith. Philosophers are not theologians, therefore Paul reminds us not in vain [Col. 2, 8] that we should beware of philosophy, that is, of all philosophy, because such a one has nothing but words of human wisdom, which certainly cannot agree with the Gospel and therefore cannot agree with it.
1122 A thing is learned more easily by imitating speech than by studying and from books; this can be seen in my little daughter [Magdalena]. Although she is not yet four years old, she can speak very well and quite understandably about household matters. In ten years a boy cannot learn a language from grammar or by reading, which a small child learns in two years. Such is the power of speech and imitation.
1124. ........ Already in another Redaction No. 521, communicated by us
1126 With good will, one can earn ingratitude. This happened to the Margrave [George of Brandenburg-Ansbach] at Augsburg when he picked up Ferdinand, who had fallen from his horse at the tournament, and it was very shameful for him. Our Elector Johann often said with a laugh: "I think our grandfather deserved well in Augsburg.
In those days [during the Diet of Augsburg in 1530] an eagle was found near Nuremberg, two-headed, as the emperor has it in his coat of arms, to protect the two empires, East and West, Eastern Empire and World Empire.
1128. My father was a poor hewer [miner] in his youth. Mother carried all her wood in on her back; so they brought us up.
Elephants are very friendly and docile animals, and it is said that they serve humans for a certain time in their home country. Then, however, they go away into the forest and return to their service at the right time.
Table speeches
1141: The main content of today's gospel is first of all that Christ is revealed to the Gentiles; then the passage of the prophet is also to be treated diligently. 1)
4142 Every priest [pontifex] must have his private sacrifices, so Pommer sacrifices his audience with his long sermons. For we are his sacrifice, and today he has gloriously sacrificed us.
This is what I like about the papists, that they have treated the article of the Trinity with the utmost diligence, and although they have been plagued by many superstitions in their treatment of it, they have given no occasion to the devil in this article.
Those who are forced into a profession have the best profession, but those who have accepted it voluntarily accept it gladly in the beginning, but later they are plagued by the devil; it is said: Blessed are the pure in heart.
1161 Although the subsequent marriage, according to the law, legitimizes the [illegitimately begotten] children, the nobles nevertheless do not want to allow that such need shield and helmet. 2)
It is very certain that Jews lived in these areas, for the names of the places and the buildings testify to this habitation. I believe that this is also why God wanted to re-establish His word. It is certain that the sow with her piglets outside the church was beaten to shame. Jewish streets, new streets are all Jewish. 3)
If John had written Hebrew, he would not have used this word, which means speech and utterance at the same time, but the word which means utterance and bringing forth, and he looks back to Moses, who says: Let there be. There is a bringing forth, not a thing, as it is also said in Proverbs [2, 6.], "I came forth from the mouth of the Most High." 4)
1177 The name Adonai [HErr], which is the name of the essence [essentiae], comes to Christ, because the essence is related to Christ. 5)
1178. creator denotes the ownership of God, having to do with the people. In all languages, a great treasure is hidden in the word proprietorship.
2) Cf. Tischr. Cap. 43, § 63.
3 Cf. Tischr. Cap. 74, § 10. Walch, old edition, vol. XIX, 1436, § 257.
4) Cf. no. 1116 of this appendix.
5) Smn: Adonai and oval" mean the same thing, which refers to Christ, so Christ is the Lord.
Table speeches
It is said that the emperor and the pope, now in agreement, pray that God deliver the innocent Carl from the bloodthirsty pope, whose counsels all flow with blood. If the emperor were to fall away from him, he would be immediately humiliated. It is also said that the King of France will fall away from him, the Englishman has now fallen away. Ferdinand would certainly not defend him, because he equally fights the gospel and deprives the papacy. But he is a good protector of the pope, because he, like the pope, has an evil conscience. I hope, however, that within five years the Pope will call on the Lutherans to help him against his patrons.
The Lutherans are very good and benevolent heretics because we have defended the papacy until now. If we had not prevented it, the papists themselves would have already devoured the papacy, and I have not attacked the papacy, but the papacy has attacked the gospel, which, by fighting the gospel, fights itself down. [The] pope could not keep peace. When an apple ripens, it must fall, even if it has enough room on the tree. Thus the papacy has fallen according to its own counsel.
It would have been an astonishing and intolerable tyranny in the papacy, if the consciences of the people, deceived by the false merits, had not kept it voluntarily. For a monk or a nun who picked only one leaf in the garden was condemned without leniency, even if they had otherwise kept the whole rule. But the freedom of the gospel is despised or abused. Therefore, the world is worthy of such laws of the pope.
1184. Although David was an adulterer, he boasts that he did all of God's will, namely in public affairs. For he waged all wars according to the command and will of God. Likewise, it [David's boasting] is also understood of private matters, not of the precepts of the holy ten commandments. For example, this is also understood [in this way], since He [God] says [1 Sam. 16, 12. 13. Acts 13, 22.], "I will choose me a king according to my heart," since God rejected Saul because he had not slain King Amalek. Nevertheless, David was an adulterer and a murderer.
1186. 1187. 1188. 1189. 1190. 1191. 1192. These 7 numbers contain a short report of the Cordatus about the severe attack of illness, which Luther suffered on July 6, 1527 and which is described in detail in the editions of D. Bugenhagen and D. Jonas, under the title: Kurze Historia, by both gentlemen, D. Johan: Bugenhagen Pomeranum and D. Justum Jonam, how the blessed man of God, D. M. L., in high temptations, spiritually and bodily, surrendered to God's will to live and die. etc. Wittenberg. Ed. IX, 239 ff. Jen. Ed. Ill, 458 u to 461. (After 460, three folios are not paginirt in the first edition, which we have subsequently designated 460^. 460 L. and 4606.) Walch, old edition, vol. XXI, 158* to 175*. Rebenstvckll, 211" simply refers to the German Wittenberg and Jena volumes, while Bindseil, Colloquia III, 460 to 463, offers a Latin translation of the report of D. Just. Jonas, Walch, XXI, 168* to 174*, ? 1 to 14. - Jen. Ed. Ill, 460 L to 461 a. According to the content, the relation of Cordatus agrees with the editions, therefore we do not consider it necessary to include it here.
I have seen a lame man begetting lame children. They want to marry and make the country full of beggars. They are to be cured of marrying, plague the land, and have no other purpose than to satisfy their lust.
The most faithful of all animals is the dog, which comes closest to man in acumen and erudition. He understands the words of men,
likes to associate with man and faithfully guards him. If he were given the right to speak, what would the dog miss? The pig, however, is a completely stupid animal, unteachable, which learns nothing but dirt. It does not stay in a spotless and clean place, it loves the muck.
Table speeches
Cap. §
The false theologians and lawyers are the tools of the devil through which he acts. For through them he lies, but through them he kills the innocent.
The jurists kill more than the theologians, who kill only a few with lies, but the jurists rule the whole world, which they kill with godless laws. Epicurus, their lord, who in truth rules the whole world, does not care about good or bad preachers, but the lawyers drive them out of the countries.
1200 God grant His grace that this present visitation [1532-1535] may progress better than the first [1527-1530], in which almost nothing was done for the Word and the church servants, but only the ecclesiastical goods were gathered [i.e. ordered], so that the nobles, burghers and peasants would not snatch everything for themselves. The Wittenbergers had thrown everything together in such a way that [as they said] they had only 16 guilders in total annually, but we finally found 6000 [guilders as the] main sum. So also the Zwickau etc.
1201 When Christ speaks, promises and threatens something, it is valid for heaven and earth, ten worlds in addition, so great is the prestige of the word of God. Neither the enthusiasts nor the papists consider this. Yes, they laugh and say: Faith, faith I can preach no more than the ten commandments, and they are hindered with folly. 1) Therefore they sometimes say: Wilt thou not once hear what we say?
1202. He [God] wants all people to be saved, that is, in whatever state they are. Therefore, let everyone see how he gets into the "all".
God is the guardian and procurator of the poor. I certainly know this, since I consume much more than I have in salary, and I have not yet written or read or preached anything that I have not done in vain. For the 200 florins that I have from the prince, I have and accept from his grace. He has enough who has Christ, therefore I have not wanted to do anything for money, although I might have become rich; I wanted to have made money etc.
1204 If a man has goods of this world, he may say in the world, This is mine; but before God it is necessary that he say, God, this is thine.
1221. thomas of aquino has been a great washer, who for the sake of the diversity of the words has invented a diversity of things, a finished
1) The meaning of this passage will be: "Enthusiasts and papists despise the preaching of the gospel and consider the preaching of the law to be much more necessary; they also accuse the preaching of the faith of making wanton sinners who, out of presumption, no longer want to keep the holy Ten Commandments. Cf. Luther's Sermon on the Difference between the Law and the Gospel, Walch, old edition, Vol. IX, 421 f., §§ 16. 17.
2) Cf. No. 1057, where the same is expressed. This is not in contradiction with No. 444. God blesses the insufficient content in such a way that it is nevertheless sufficient.
[formatam] faith, an unfinished [informem] and an infused one. The infused faith he calls a gift and a quality that can be in a fornicator and exist in a mortal sin, from which we would be saved by the acquired [acquisita] faith.
Table speeches
Cap. z
The fact that many people take offense at the wisdom of God, that is, at the Gospel, and that reason is not enlightened in all, is because we should recognize and honor the gifts of God, and it is necessary that our powers be put to shame. It is also not to be wondered at that one sees abuse and godlessness in many people, because this also takes place in other creatures. For iron is a good creature of God. But people misuse it more for warfare and killing than for the promotion of peace and work. Thus, the wisest are usually the most wicked and the fewest good.
I like to read the stories of the fox and the wolf, how the wolf was deceived by the fox. It is fine when one rogue deceives the other and throws him over the rope. It is also nice when a horse met the wolf and was asked by him who and where he was from, that he answered that he did not know either, but his father had written both on his hind hoof when the wolf wanted to read it, and immediately he felt the hoof on his forehead. But wrestling with death, he said: "It serves me right, because I should be a hunter, not a scribe.
We are taught the forgiveness of sins, not the freedom to sin. Therefore, the world is rightly condemned, which misuses this holy gospel of God only for sin, greed for profit, and good living. etc.
1235. Gracious Lord, I want to throw another stone in [the] garden to Your Grace. Today a son was born to me, a new pope. You want to help the poor journeyman, to which he belongs. But it was at one o'clock in the night on January 28, Anno 33. Paul was his name. 1)
1236 I named him Paulum, because St. Paul gave me many a good saying and argument, so that I also wanted to name a son in his honor. God grant him grace. - I will send my children. Whoever wants to be a warrior, I will send to H[ans] Loser; whoever wants to study, I will send to D. Jonas and Philip; whoever wants to work, I will make him a farmer.
1238. When a law is given, circumvention of the law arises. Thus a servant who was forced by his master to fill his cheeks with water, which he then had to spit out again when he returned from the wine cellar, as a sign that he had not drunk wine. He had a cup of water in the cellar, drank wine and filled his cheeks with water again, and testified that he had come to this deception, driven by his master.
1) According to Rebenstock II, 19 d and Bindseil III, 163, these words were written to one of the godparents on his arrival, namely to Johann Löser, hereditary marshal of Saxony. The letter of invitation to him of January 29, 1533 is found in Walch, old edition, vol. XXI, 362. The other godparents were: Duke Johann Ernst, D. Jonas, Melanchthon and the Fräst of Caspar Lindemann.
Covent is the strongest drink in my cellar, because even though many drink it, one ton of Covent still exceeds three barrels of beer.
1240. Since I (Cordatus) once said that all Italians were surprised that the Germans could be so long-lived with such great drunkenness, (Luther answered,) to him this seems to be the reason that when one urged the other to drink the same, he always said: God blesses you for that. But it is God alone who is not mocked, even though there are so many who mock Him.
1241: That parents do not want to address their son with "You" [singulariter] once he has become a priest, is proven by the papists from the saying of David [Ps. 110, 1]: "The Lord spoke to my Lord. A similar story is told of a certain mother who had her son carried to school on Gregory's Day and said: "Here (in school) I will have such a hard time that I will have to call my son "Her". This wisdom was not less than that which that proof has in itself.
1242 In Scripture, melancholy is nothing other than inveterate sadness and the sting of the devil, by which we are plagued here and there. That is why they are diligently resisted in the Scriptures. Therefore he (God) says: Believe in me, cast your care on the Lord, do not be sad, let me take care of you, use me and my creature and you will be happy etc.
Table speeches
Cap. K
The science is the knowledge itself, but the art applies the same, means [Luc. 10, 28.]: Do this, and you will live.
1247 Martinus means a soldier, Philip a horseman, Elizabeth the rest, Magdalena a tower, Peter is a whimsical name.
If I had to die at this hour, I would not recommend anything else to my friends but that they should be most diligent in the word of God after my death. For since we must seek first God's kingdom, when we die we must not worry about our wives and children. That will come to pass which follows (Matth. 6, 33.): "All these things will fall to you." For, if He acknowledges us as His servants, God will not forsake us. If He will not abandon us, how will He forget ours? But we are his servants, because we (administer) his baptism, gospel, Lord's Supper, preach obedience to parents and authorities, and commend all that comes from his word and institution alone. Even if we are sinners and do not fulfill our service, we know how to cover the forgiveness of sins.
1250. When I had answered (Michael) Stiefel to his invented calculation, which he called a prophecy, and had refuted his reasons, or rather his opinion of the seventh angel, which he wanted to be, and had signed me in my letter: "Martinus Luther, D.", he made me out of the one letter "D.". Dele, Delere enim me vis (eradicate, because you want to destroy me), so graciously I have Satan. 1)
1) These last words are perhaps also still to be seen as Stiefel's words, because in the Tischreden Cap. 37, 8144, we are told that Luther says: "Throughout my life, no adversary has given me such evil words as he has, although the preceding Latin words without the conclusion would also be coarse and evil enough, since in them he wishes Luther's downfall. Luther wishes for the downfall.
Table speeches
Cap. §
You have to love him who can make melancholy people cheerful with his subtle jokes. Christoph Groß is excellent in this art, a very funny person.
1259. faith never ceases; for when it ends in Peter, it begins to reign in the robber [Luc. 23, 40.] I have never seen the author of a heresy [heresiarcha] converted. The food of faith
bens are histories that concern the faith. Apart from Christ, there is nothing but the neck being tied up with cords, that is, law upon law, which weighs down the consciences.
He who speaks against God's word and his conscience (like H[erzog] G[eorg]) disgraces himself. There is no need to curse such people, they are already too cursed anyway.
The prophets have powerful words, by which they surpass all impressive speeches [pathos] of Demosthenes and Cicero. For with how great vehemence they speak against Tyre [Isa. 23, 1. ff. Ezek. 26. and 27.], the most invincible city!
This is actually said to the theologians [Joh. 14, 19.]: "I live and you should also live", because it is their office to always deal with the sick, from whom everyone flees. Therefore, we should also live when we have died.
Already in other relation No. 552 of this appendix.
1269 Christ seems to be called Nazarene from the Hebrew, which means chosen, set apart, sanctified, consecrated with a new crown.
1271 He who has made a promise of marriage to one, but marries another, uses her, but does not have her.
1273] Crying children 1) raise to stone Moses because they do not want to be subjected to the law.
1275. nuns are called so from a German expression, because cut pigs are called so, as monks have this name from the horses. But they are not quite cured, have to wear pants [bruche] as well as other people.
Until now, the nobles only sent their lame and deaf children to the monasteries, and yet they believed that they were doing God a pleasant service through these sacrifices.
1) This piece is to be understood by real children who already rebel against any coercion.
1280. I am so tired of governing as with bowls, plates and troughs
Tischl Cap.
even 8
I suffer so much in my head that I am immediately struck by dizziness when I think something hard. Dear God, if I should become fresh, let it be so; if not, my weakness will increase until the grave. 2)
I certainly do not love disunity, but I fear the dangers of the opponents who are coming, because they fear neither God nor man.
Those who begin sins, such as adultery, shy away at first, like a dog when it first learns to eat; but when they gradually become accustomed to it, they go up freely.
The Italians rightly say that we cannot cure our wines of dropsy, because the carters spoil our wines, however good they may be. Therefore, he who drove a dead Jew from Prague to Regensburg for burial, whose body was put into a wine barrel filled with must, so that the Jews would not have to pay customs [for the corpse], received his just reward. The wagoner made a sweet drink.
According to the way of the Scriptures, Moses makes the words of Adam to Cain [Gen. 4] words of God, as it is the custom in the prophets everywhere, when they say: "This is the word of the Lord. Thus Paul, "Not I, but the Lord," 1 Cor. 7, [10.). Thus Shem speaks (perhaps) to Rebekah [Gen. 25, 23.]; likewise in the same passage [Gen. 4, 14.), "Thou castest me out of the land, and from thy presence," that is, from the government and from the church. The woman shall not separate from the man, says Paul [1 Cor. 7:10], because they are one flesh.
1295: From the word "suffer" of [XXX of XXX] comes in Hebrew what is said of Moses, that he was the most merciful [4 Mos. 12, 3], that is, the most afflicted. In Egypt he suffered innumerable things from the inhabitants, and then also from the Jews, and see that we too are so afflicted, first by our enemies, and then also by our own people and friends.
In 1296 the White Russians sent an envoy to the pope and asked to be accepted into the church. Since he demanded a very large sum of money from them.
1) The meaning of this piece will probably be this: Just as the body is not well cared for by excessive eating, neither is everything well cared for by much governing. With regard to the body, remember what the Gospel teaches on Invocavit Sunday (Matt. 4:4): "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that passes through the mouth of God." Fasting, in God's name, also nourishes. Letting go, in God's name, also often reigns well.
2) Cf. Tischr. Cap. 47, 9.
they finally dropped the matter. The same request was also made by the (so-called) Lapps [Pilapenses], but they were also thrown out on their ear and fell away to the Turk.
The papists certainly cannot boast of the religion of the Christians, since they deny its supreme principle and secret, namely faith. Thus Cochlaeus and his like go against the content of the whole Scripture, and he says thus: God, Christ and his Spirit justifies, therefore faith does not justify alone. But even if he listed several more, they would not justify without faith.
Table speeches Cap. K
*
The complaint of idleness is so great that it makes one's life even longer, and youth does not grow old for a long time. But after thirty years the years go by one after the other and become long because of worries and cares, and since we are so plagued, the years go by one after the other, so that one does not become aware of it. When I write, a day hardly becomes an hour to me, and when I was young, ten nights hardly became one night to me. But now every single hour becomes a night to me, because I cannot have rest.
1303 Tobias is an example of a good householder and shows that the household gets into trouble and danger. In Job, however, something of the kind may be set forth as in Aeneas. The author, however, has expounded it widely, as Virgil has also done. It is, as it were, a poem.
1308. That we may trust God, that He will gladly give us the food that He gives abundantly to all the wicked, to whom He gives, as He gives to the peasants, all creatures and everything, but He does not give them Himself.
1309. On the wicked their misfortune comes suddenly and unawares, because blinded they do not foresee anything and do not believe those who look afar, but they remain safe and do not care about anything concerning religion, but are only fattened with the external things, until they are carried away by some evil from which they cannot escape. Example of the pope.
1312 I used to have the whole Bible so memorized that I knew the contents of all the chapters; but the study of the Hebrew language has confused my memory in this respect.
1313 The peasants and the nobles must not be allowed to yield to the visitation, and if they are lepers, their pastors must be called away.
1314. I do not believe that the madmen [lunaticos, actually: moon addicts) have been completely possessed by the devil at the time of Christ, have nevertheless had a blow from him. The kind, I think, was Claus Narr, he had a little ghost. When the Mainzer prayed three times: Benedicite Maria and made the middle syllable (of Maria) long, he answered three times: Water [maria], Pfaff!
Since the Word of God must be the foundation of our faith, no one can expect a council to confirm our doctrine, and how can the pope suffer a council if he is not granted and promised power over the council?
1319
Table Talks Cap. § 67, 10.
It is much more trouble to unlearn the pope than to learn Christ, and those who excel in one art are well advised to demand double the price from a pupil taught by Abel. Young theologians know nothing of such things.
Those who despise the word of God fall into a hardened mind, as can be seen in Muenzer's followers and the Anabaptists, who, although they boast so much of the spirit, do not even know the ordinances concerning the children. 1)
1325 The pope has been either an ass or a devil: an ass because he does not recognize his most stupid errors, a devil because he has cherished and confirmed them.
1329 Faith itself is also commanded, for example: "He who does not believe this prophet" in the 5th book of Moses [18, 19] and in the first commandment, but only in order that [this commandment] may make us able to attain faith in the promises of God in the Gospel. This is the use of the whole law, namely, that we should come to faith.
We have to let it happen that we are now working with the most ungrateful people, and others will come into the harvest; but although there are many who are running straight to hell, there are also those who believe in Christ and will be saved, who will not leave us.
1334. The most apparent reasons are often null and void, and those that are well considered are ultimately found to be not valid.
The pope and his followers have confessed, as has the emperor, that we are not heretics, and that what we confess and teach is the word of God. Therefore, whatever they do, they do against themselves and their conscience, so it will not end well with them.
1336. As the night is not day and the day is not night, so the wicked are not fit to obey the gospel of God. For either they despair because of their sins, or they are presumptuous because of the light, and fear no more darkness [i.e., they sin willfully].
1339 If one sowed just pious people here, nevertheless bells [fools] went up. Even if four Luther, twenty Philip and thirty Pomeranus were here, they would do nothing. God must raise up a David or a King Cyrus, who must do [it]. In Thuringia the seed becomes wheat, but here the wheat becomes the seed and sometimes something worse.
1) I.e. infant baptism.
Table speeches
Cap, K
1340 I was in a land where I was, There grows neither leaves nor grass, There is neither life nor limb, If you can guess it, I will give it to you. 1)
1341. the supreme dominion is given to men, since God said (Gen.
1, 28.): "Rule over the fish" etc. But he also wants to remain lord, we don't want to begrudge him that.
I have asked God not to give dreams, deception and doubt, and not to reveal angels or signs; for I cannot wait for them, nor do I need them, because I have the Word, and the devil troubles people greatly with dreams.
If I were to attend a Pontifical Mass, especially the High Mass [summae], I would also bend my knees, raise my hands and pray out of reverence for the Sacrament. For they have the essence (Christ's Body and Blood), and the Church, which is present, agrees with it, and there is the public confession. Thus the Syrian Naaman was allowed by Elijah to enter the temple of the idol.
1356. Already reported in another relation, Cordatus No. 340: . ......
Christ is the Lord of his father David, because he is both God and priest. And if I were asked whose son I was, 2) I would answer Moses, "The one by whom David was appointed king.
1359 Christ did not forbid to take care of one's own or to protect one's livelihood, otherwise no one would be allowed to defend a lamb against a wolf. But he wants people to show love to their neighbor and does not want Christians to have hearts that seek revenge, just as he does not want Christian brothers to mix with pagan judges, as we see in the First Epistle to the Corinthians (Cap. 6). But greed or avarice is something else, the lust for revenge something else, than the urgent need of helping justice.
The hypocritical life [larva] of the monks is not a service to God, but that (is the right service) which godly hearts take from the faithfully preached word of God that we believe in God and love Him and our neighbor.
1) The resolution of this riddle, according to D. Wrampelmeyer, shall be heaven. But this does not seem suitable to us. Perhaps the image of his hometown Eisleben.
2) The reading of the original sssem is to be kept. By the change in esset the sense of this beautiful passage would be disturbed, the inclusion of "Moses" quite incomprehensible. Meaning: If Moses (the law) lays claim to me, then I answer: I am (through the rebirth) a child of God, who also raised David from lowliness to kingship, because he wanted to be his savior.
Table speeches
Cap. §
1365. Already reported in another redaction, Cordatus No. 620: .......
1371 When the hour comes, let us put on our vestments and hear the absolution of faith and depart.
1376. "The heavens are the Lord's everywhere, but the earth He has given to the children of men" [Ps. 115, 16]. But men do not want to be satisfied with their own kingdom, but always reach into the kingdom of God, which they cannot violate, not even the king.
1370. The woman has the praise of the sociability and the grace. "Her husband's heart may rely on her" [Prov. 31, 11.]. This is a great praise of woman. They deprive themselves of this good by the mischief which they also cause.
I have worked out and am lost with me, God give me a merciful hour and let me go the right way.
Are we not poor people, that after we have received grace and the Holy Spirit, we fear God? But that is why God also puts a good shillelagh on us, so that we do not exalt ourselves and become vain.
[Smugly, the stork hears his beak clacking. (Wrampelmeyer.)]
12, 83<
1393. Contained in Cordatus No. 716 and 717: ............
1394. Through the bond of One Baptism, Christ has bound us most firmly.
1395: Where there is disputation of faith, there is uncertainty. But if I have to dispute with the devil, I will be defeated; for he has a better dialectic than Philip, and a greater eloquence than Cicero.
1396 Muenzer went trembling to his death, took the Bible and said that he believed everything contained in this book. But that is not enough, one must baptize the child. 1)
Table Talks Cap. § 37, 50.
The world does not hear the voice of Noah or Lot, but the voice of the flood and the fire from heaven.
1402 No one understands the Scriptures unless they come to one's house, that is, unless he learns them.
1405. God makes the whole world rich, not for the sake of its works, but so that people will want to obey Him.
1410 This is a lawful theft that a canon or one of his peers commits when he goes away and consumes his income in a useful study. If he is forced to appoint a deputy, he does it at his own expense, and the Chapter has it greater sin for neglecting such [useful studiesl.
1412. Contained in Cordatus No. 357 and 358: ............
1413. Two things are peculiar to Satan: first, that he make us safe and bring it about with us that we do not fear God in the time of prosperity; the second, that he teach us to despair and flee from God in the time of tribulation.
No one has to be forced into a profession, just as Paul [Apost. 18, 24. ff.] did not want to force Apollo. Only Philip complains that some do not want to obey.
Human reason teaches only the hands and the feet, but God teaches the heart.
Some promises are unconditional and simple, like the [promises] of Christ: "I will put enmity" [Gen. 3, 15]: "In your seed" [Gen. 22, 18], and such a promise always stands firm and remains, because here God does not look at our works, but at His truth. Others are conditional, to which an addition 1) is added, as this [Luc. 10, 28.]: "Do this, and you shall live."
A life devoted to research, which is led without the Word, is filled with Satan's dreams; but faith, which believes the outward word of God without any apparent cause, is true theology and the right life of research alone.
1) It is not necessary to replace the handwritten eomuQotio by oonältio, since the former with reference to the preceding "simply" (sirnpliess) fits far better.
Table speeches
Cap. §
1430 General prophecy, which speaks of things to come without specifying persons, places and times, is prescribed by Scripture. Thus every Christian prophesies destruction to the wicked, salvation to the righteous, the change of kingdoms, nations and things. The godless do not have this prophecy, but they prophesy the opposite to themselves and to all the godly. Therefore they build their house on the sand. (Matth. 7, 26.? etc. But the prophets had the special prophecy about a certain place etc., as of Christ, Cyrus, Israel.
To fight in judgment [Matth. 5, 40] is what Christ says against 1) the carnal faith of the apostles and the Jews, who expected a worldly kingdom of Christ. Thus he says that one should not wield the sword. You are not to be princes, not judges, not warriors, not authorities, which the Jews believe belongs to them alone; you are not to attack anyone, but to endure suffering that is inflicted on you. I want to have pious people, but I do not want to start a new world regiment; I do not want you to abolish the authorities, that is, to subject them to you.
1436 In one and the same person the Christian and the citizen [politicus] are to be carefully distinguished. The Christian has no relation to the world regime as a neighbor has to another, a citizen to another. If a neighbor does me harm, I will suffer it as much as I am concerned, but because I have sworn to the authorities, I will pursue the violated obedience with justice, not out of revenge, but out of love for peace, as servants report to the master the evil done by another servant, so that they do him no harm, but, grieved at the wickedness, seek to prevent the harm; so Joseph also reported everything to his father. So also, since he [Christ] forbids the gathering of treasures, he does not forbid this to the authorities, nor to the parents, but only they should not believe that this is their duty, that they have treasures. Otherwise, all the patriarchs would have perished (if they had not gathered treasure?. 2).
1437. 1 Cor. 6, [7.]: "It is already a fault among you that you judge with one another", Paul does not attack the judgment, but the fault of the heart, that one brother dragged the other before the worldly judgment, namely before the enemies of the faith. For to call upon the law and to seek a livelihood he does not forbid, otherwise it would not be lawful even for a lord to snatch a lamb from a wolf. They sought to avenge themselves, they sought to put the brother to shame. But it is the opinion of this text that we are not driven by revenge or lust, but by justice and need, to call upon the judge for help. 3)
1) oontra we have added from Rebenstock I, 183 a and Bindseil I 369.
2) Possibly the reading in Rebenstock 1, 1381" and Bindseil I, 370, impii sssent, "otherwise all patriarchs would have been godless" (if Christ had not slackened the gathering of provisions), is more correct than that of the manuscript: psriiWsnt, which we have left.
3) This section has already been included in No. 1359; but because the version in this number seems to us to be the more appealing, we have nevertheless included it. This may serve as an example to show that Cordatus has also included the collections of others in his records; because obviously we have here only another relation of No. 1359.
1438 A Christian may suffer everything and do nothing against the one who offends him, but a citizen may do everything and suffer nothing, only [beware] that you as a Christian are not judged as an attacker of the authorities, nor do you as a citizen fall into punishment because you leave the authorities in the lurch. 1)
Table speeches
Cap. 8
1439. already in another relation Cordatus No. 104.
1451 In Bologna, a young man was dragged before the judge because he had done violence to a woman, and was finally sentenced to a large fine. The judge said to the young man: "For my sake, you may take the money from the woman by force. Since he could not wrest it from her in any way in view of the council, the judge gave another "verdict in his favor, and ordered that the money be given back to him, saying: "You were able to keep the money, why did you not keep your chastity? For the young man had denied the crime, and the judge did not believe that violence could be done to a woman against her will.
Where you are not master, let each one go, do, and make as he pleases. Deal with him the less, or you will gain nothing but disfavor, wasted effort and worry.
1456 At the Diet of Augsburg, the citizens of Schweinfurt are offered an honorable opportunity, but they do not want to make use of it. That is why this very hard saying applies to them: Fronte capillata posthaec occasio calva [One must seize the opportunity by the scoop, because behind it is bare) and Virgil: Nescia mens hominum fati sortisque [futurae Aen. X, 501. The human mind does not know the fate and what will occur in the future]. So we must also dare on both sides, if they also speak: You are of the devil. 2)
1457 Let the papists start, who boast that they have the church. The Jews also boasted that they were the people of God. But Christ, on the other hand, says: I am the Son of God. With the "God" they ran together, Christ had to be crucified over it. But what they gained from it, they became aware of.
1460 While he was playing with his little child [Paul], he said, "What cause have you given me to love you so much? And what have you done to deserve to be heir to my goods? Yes, by shitting, by oozing. Do you deserve to be taken care of, to be a maid, to have your teat hung up? And you want to have all that right, or you fill the whole house with shouting.
1) Cf. Tischr. Cap. 14, § 30, also No. 1436.
2) The opportunity that the people of Schweinfurt missed was that they did not join the Protestant imperial estates on the basis of the Augsburg Confession, but submitted to the Reichstag Agreement without further ado. (Wrampelmeyer.)
Table speeches
1461. In conjugal life there cannot be unchastity because of its appointment [by God], its task [[to raise children] and its dignity [which God gave it in the fourth commandment], for it is its. But intemperance [can take place in] that one needs his own too much.
s.
I, M. Luther, was born under the most unfortunate stars, perhaps under Saturn. What is to be done and made for me can never be completed. Tailors, cobblers, bookbinders, my wife, forgave me for the longest time.
Carl has luck and success, which God gives him, but Ferdinand, although he is much wiser and more cunning, has no luck. If I were a prince, I would not like to have the emperor as an enemy; he is a heavy guest. He shall, if God wills, play the short [game] with the pope when the Treaty of Schweinfurt [1532] has its progress. For the younger prince told me that the pope does not want to consent to Ferdinand's election to become Roman king; the pope will make our prince pious. 1)
§11.
The devil, our bitterest enemy, is always plotting evil against us. All tyrants' counsels are his. He has hanged the Sacramentarians and the Anabaptists; through the pope he will still accomplish something, as that beast [the papal legate Aleander] said at Worms: "If you shake off the papal yoke, Germany will flow with blood. He is now up to something with the French and Venetians. We weak people have no weapons but prayer. Let us take hold of it, and all wickedness will fall on his own head. God will defend his honor. Since He was able to uproot the Roman Empire when it was in bloom, He will probably be able to either preserve or destroy its tail in our time.
When someone promised him a remedy for his illnesses, he answered: "If you would let me make a remedy against the devil, who now beats me with his fists on the outside, because he is already satisfied with my insides. We are satisfied with each other, he does what he desires, so I also do what I desire. When the same person said to him, "Oh, I missed your sermon," he answered: I give you the Lord's Prayer, that you may ask for faith, or else the ten commandments will be too much for you. This was the wife of Doctor Stephan [Wild] from Zwickau.
1484. when the earth was so dry that the seeds dried up and became needy, he asked that God would give rain according to His mercy, and yet
1) The meaning of the last sentence is: Because the pope also opposed the election of Ferdinand as Roman king, our Elector John, who protested against it through his son John Frederick, will also have to be considered a good man. Cf. Walch, old edition, Vol. XVI, 2119, No. 1161, § 29.
Table speeches
not give what was left to the worms, for he saw locusts flying through the garden and remembered the passage in Joel [1:4], "The caterpillars will eat the rest."
1487. The Duke G[eorg] and the Margrave threaten the peace the most, because they are by nature people of restless spirit. Duke G. is a man who has a great fortune, but cannot enjoy it, as Ecclesiastes tells Solomon, "He is an individual," Cap. 4, f8.), the heartache he must well feel.
1489. The most spiritual and highest psalms are: Conserva [Ps. 16], Deus, Deus meus [Ps. 22], Dixit Dominus [Ps. 110], Eructavit cor meum [Ps. 45]. Is a wedding psalm.
When he had been at the wedding of an old and grumpy widow, he said: "If I were burning with desire and thought only of that monster, I would not need extinguishing.
God has various means to preserve and to destroy. Therefore, God could also defeat the Turk with the largest army by locusts, as one reads in the church history that a very large army of the king of the Persians, which besieged Nineveh, was chased away by mosquitoes. 1)
God wants us to consider Him as our God above all and in all things; the world does not want to do this because it is very proud. If I did not know this otherwise, I would have learned it now from the trade of the Gospel [i.e., in the work of the Reformation]; for the more we humble ourselves, the more arrogant are the opponents. We seek peace and they do not want to accept it. Therefore they will perish without mercy, and God will know how to defend us and to humble their pride, as Joshua offered peace to all the cities, and since only Gideon accepted it [Josh. 9], the others all perished. It will be the same for our squires.
1502 For the sake of faith, not so much has been done in the papacy, because the papacy has stood as long as it does now at Augsburg, even in no council.
1503. I can't bring brevity and clarity together the way Philip and Amsdorf do.
1) As an exception, we have left four different redactions of this number, so that the reader can get an insight into the arbitrary treatment of Luther's speeches, namely 1) this original award of the Cordatus, 2) the somewhat changed redaction added by us out of sorrow, Tischreden Cap. 2, § 121. 3) Aurifaber's significantly changed redaction Cap. 2, § 121 and 4) Aurifaber's hardly recognizable narration Cap. 15, § 41.
Table speeches
Cap. §
1506 I believe that forty thousand devils sit in the clouds and prevent the rain, blowing and chasing away the rain. Well, if they want nothing else, let them do what they do, so they alone will spoil the sand here, which is otherwise not very fertile, and God will supply us elsewhere.
1508 "Obey your teachers" [Heb 13:17]. This is said by true and Christian preachers, not by false ones as the papists understand it, and this text has kept me from writing against the pope for many years.
1509 If someone had told me at the Diet of Worms (1521) that after seven years I would be a husband with a wife and children, I would have laughed at him, for I did not intend to go that far, for I only wanted to fight against indulgences. 1)
When someone said: Marriage does not stop all desire, therefore one must abstain from it and resist it, as also the desire for robbery and theft, and if one must resist the desires, therefore also the rutting, he answered: Marriage is a created means, as work is a means against theft. But the inclination to woman is a creation of God, if one remains within the bounds of nature; for the Italians and the Turks act against nature.
1515 It is safer to be an Epicurean than a false 2) Christian, therefore the pope is worse than the Turk.
1517. I think of dying every day, and yet I cannot: "I wretched man, who" etc. (Rom. 7, 24.). If someone had told me twenty years ago that the new work of Halle should lie on the ground during my life, without war and in peace, I would not have believed him who said that.
1523 When someone complained that he was so frightened while listening to the sermon that he had to leave, he comforted him like this: God has two kinds of sacrifices, one of praise, the other of a broken heart.
1526. As a young man was confessing, he was admonished by the priest that he should serve God. He replied that he could not do so this year, because he had promised the judge that he would serve him this year, so that he would not throw him into the stocks. But next year he wants to serve God.
I) Spoken before August 3, 1528, since on that day Luther's daughter Elisabeth, born in 1527, died again. (Wrampelmeyer.)
2) Obviously the handwritten "üäeleoa" is wrong. It must be read either kalsuoa or Lnüdelsoa. -. Instead of xsjoreni read xejor 68t.
Table speeches
1527 There was a fool who had learned the Lord's Prayer by being beaten. He confessed, and as penance he was told to say three Our Fathers every day. When he returned home, he wept and said: "Three Our Fathers have been given to me, so there are two more [Our Fathers] left for me, which I must learn under similar beatings under which I learned the first one.
1528. albus cholericus est ira aeterna. 1)
1531 When women want to rule, it turns out badly; they should make cheese, milk cows and cook, that is their job.
1532 The monks called contempt of the world contempt of creatures, but not [contempt] of vanity.
1534. No one shall interpret the Psalm "God, be gracious to me according to Your goodness" [Ps. 51] but Paul alone. He who understands Paul also understands this Psalm, and mainly this verse [6.], "Against you alone have I sinned," no one will interpret except Paul. And it is impossible to interpret all the main passages of Scripture without the knowledge of Christ. "God,,be merciful to me" wants to have the whole Christ. Sadoletus got only as far as worldly grace in this psalm. They are gross fools who are not only unlearned, but also want to be learned.
1535. There is another saying in Paul that vexes me, "The fullness of the Gentiles." But I will give this honor to the Holy Spirit, as I know that he is more learned than I am.
1539 I believe that Peter was at Rome, although this cannot be proven from Scripture. Paul preached throughout Asia Minor and elsewhere, which can be clearly proven from Scripture.
In many hundreds of years no pope, bishop or priest has taken care of the poor, of schools, of baptism, of preaching etc. Because the hatred against God's word had come over them.
1544 Erasmus is murderously hostile to fish, which is evident from all his conversations [Dialogis]. It is also an unhealthy food for fish [i.e. he considers them unhealthy].
1545. Large breasts without milk are the fig tree that Christ cursed.
The human sacraments are false, but the divine sacraments are true. The hood on the head of the woman is a human sacrament.
timid, despondent.
Table speeches
The devil and I are almost one in spiritual things, but in bodily things he plagues me where he can and strikes me with various diseases. 1)
In 1548, he advised the wife of Doctor Stephan Wild on her departure that she should tell her husband that he would gladly share his Lord's Prayer with him, but that he would have to seek faith from God and himself. He would never be able to accomplish the Decalogue. I cannot obtain it either.
1549 To Master Lucas [Cranach], the painter, a very witty man, he said: It often happens that we eat the peasants out of the ars. For they give fruit seeds of themselves, from which fruit trees grow, and when we eat of the fruit, we eat the peasants out of the ars etc.
1550 A foolish dog rages for only nine days, and Duke G[eorg] now for nine years. If he is not helped soon, he will become quite insane; for he has again chased nine citizens out of Leipzig for the sake of the sacrament.
If God gave nothing for free, He would be rich and we would value His gifts more highly. The life, the head, the hands, the feet etc. he could sell very dear, and there is no reason for anyone to say: What if now the people had no money? For all would have money enough to buy that. But now avarice owns all money. And God does not take people's money, for he says to himself: "If I take it from them, I will give it to them again for free, for they must have enough of me.
1554 The diarrhea of children, their smallpox, many fevers, are preludes to pestilences, also famine, which is also followed by wars.
1555 I fear that the Bishop of Mainz has invited H[Archduke] G[eorg] and the Margrave of Brandenburg to conclude an alliance with them, so that they may prevent peace at the Imperial Diet at Regensburg. When they have accomplished this, I will ask God that the Landgrave invade their lands, although I know that H[Duke] G[eorg] is an unfortunate warrior, as is the Margrave.
In Munich, a thief was led out to be hanged. While passing by, he got a baker to give him a roll because he said he was hungry. After he had received it, he asked the baker to cut it for him, because he had heard that a stone would come over him from the crust. And the executioner said to him: "I will soon drive the stone out of you.
Ferdinand is nothing / good, true, 2) / essential, but after Carl's death he will be nothing.
Essentials,)
1560. 8inv8 cannot be rendered actually and grammatically. "In the bosom of Abraham" [Luc. 16, 22.]. It lay John in sinu, at the breast [Joh. 13, 23.], which denotes great affection against an adult.
1) Cf. no. 1481 of this appendix. "
2) Instead of the handwritten reading "viri" we have put that of Veit Dietrich's manuscript x>. 133 (Köstlin II, 660) we have put "veri".
3) This number is also, in another translation, already printed Walch, St. Louis Edition, Vol. X, 1498 f., and again Walch, old edition, Vol. XXI, 1591, No. 157.
Table speeches
Cap. §
Jonas said to him that he believed that a decree should be issued against the birds, because they eat the grain 1) etc. they are not allowed to do so, because the Gospel says: "God feeds them" [Matth. 6, 26]. To this the Doctor replied: Yes, they have their tables in our fields, and not their own, but in winter He feeds them all without us.
1576 When Förster [1535] was called to preach [in Augsburg], he asked what he should preach, because the lecture on the Psalms was unknown to him. 2) To this he replied: you are a Greek and a Hebrew and a theologian, therefore you can make a sermon on A Hebrew word, only observe the thing [it is about]. For example, in the 31st Psalm, "Lord, in you I trust," talk about true worship, hope and faith, against works doctrines. Where you see a principal word in a psalm: hope, trust, believe, believe, believe, believe.
Trust, believe, call, pray, lament etc., the matter is to be taken from the most distinguished words. For even though the Psalms are different, they are to be judged from these words and preached and prayed from them in the same way.
The peasants are proud of their fortune, and yet crude, which is proven by the one who could not easily drive away a fly that sat on his spoon, and then devoured the fly, because it always returned, at the same time as the food. And a certain other in Mansfeld always fended off a tamed little bird, a red-throat, from the bowl, but at last he swallowed it whole, and as it still made a sound in his throat, he said, "Are you still nipping [i.e., peeping]? And he poured a tankard full of beer into it and choked it.
Luther: I am like Abraham because I am the grandfather of all the many children begotten by all the monks, priests and nuns, the father of a great nation.
The women are to be veiled because of the angels; I must put on pants because of the virgins.
1582 My wife is sick and I will not get fresh, she will fall in two pieces [at her delivery].
1) In the handwriting ffrs, which Wrampelmeher has resolved with gratis. But this does not give a suitable sense. We assume gra and solve for grana.
2) There is probably a mistake in the original. Förster was an excellent teacher in Hebrew and it would fit better if it would be put into his mouth: he was only familiar with the reading about the Psalms. After that it would be to be read approximately: solenn leetionena enim xsalnaornna siki notarn esse.
Table speeches
Cav. 8
If I lived three more years, I would have enough work to do with the correction of the Bible, the translation of the Apocrypha, and the writing of the summer part of the Postille.
1585 The pope is not satisfied that he is evil and we are evil, but he also wants us to remain evil.
1588 Ferdinand has taken his kingdom with prudence and blood; but he will not bring it to pass, but will be put to shame.
1591 Because the papists did not want to agree to the council meeting in Schweinfurt, because they would rather go down with the noise, misgivings, meetings [conventione], discord, undertakings, deliberations of those princes, let it be done as they wish.
The Pope Clement is only the creature 1) of his theologians, because he also does not understand a word of Latin, let alone is a theologian. He is (so they say) a brave soldier, he is mighty in his hand, he can stand his ground. Don't you think here that these titles probably adorn a Magister noster and a Pabst?
1594 All now want to understand the Scriptures, the holy ten commandments etc. But how shall we do it? We have found it so, we must let it remain so, because all want to be smart and yet also our teachers [nostri Magistri].
1595 The birds and (four-footed) animals consume annually more than the people, because a wolf must have a year 100 [pieces] K[leinvieh], as the right grazers say. Lynx, fox, badger, marten, polecat, vulture, hawk devour much, almost everything.
1597 He said about his pregnant wife, who was feeding the child: "It is difficult to feed two guests, one in the house and the other outside the door.
1598 Movement is a cause of health, and health is a cause of movement. After that he said, "I would give a hundred guilders for it, if I had it, so that I could not judge the pulse, because I soon make myself sicker than I am when I take it.
1601 As he sat at the table and ate, he said, "I must finish the roll, and every meal a roll for penance (i.e. on top of it), which makes 31 pennies and 4 pfennies a year, then the drink and other things, - until he comes to
He said: "I don't like to calculate anymore, it makes me disgusted, it wants to rise too high. I would not have thought that so much should go to one person.
I should be truly proud that the devil, my bitterest enemy, pursues me everywhere. I should be truly proud that I thus have a high enemy.
1) Instead of ereator, which does not make sense, ereatura should be read. Furthermore, there should be a comma after Nie in the last sentence.
Table speeches Cav. S
1604 A liar must have a good memory [Mendacem oportet esse memorem], therefore I, when I was a student, federated against this saying, because I said I had no inclination to bathe on Sunday. Likewise the one who said that he had seen bees as big as sheep. When another asked how they could crawl through the so small openings in the beehives, he answered: "I will let them take care of that.
1611 The fruit trees must endure various temptations, and almost, like a good Christian, storms, lightning, hail, by caterpillars, which are threefold. For some arise from the butterflies [Zuifalter] and ants and spiders. The tree still has to pass through and bear fruit.
1620. is only a reference to No. 750, quoting the first words.
1622. Paul and John surpass all in the New, Moses and David in the Old Testament, and the New surpasses the Old, because in the latter are the promises, in the latter the fulfillments.
The Decalogue is a confession of the good that God does to us and a confession of the evil that we do against God.
The highest bondage and the highest freedom are both something very bad.
1626 Faith, hope, and love are different, as are understanding, will, and outward works. Faith actually has to do with truth, error, heresy, false opinion. Hope actually includes affliction, cross, danger and the opposite of it, peace, joy, good. Faith judges the doctrine. Hope is a hindrance if faith is not the guide. It is up to faith to prescribe the right way and to overcome the heretics. Hope is to suffer, expect, dare etc. 1)
Even if I did not believe that simply by God the church is governed and preserved, nevertheless he governs and preserves it in such a way, as is before eyes; one grasps it that it is not the work of men.
1628. the Bishop of Mainz is a robber of the Church because he persecutes the Gospel; still our Lord God preserves His Church and hides it under the only veil: "I believe."
He who does not want to lose a good deed, may never do one. For the world is actually ingratitude itself, which can be seen in the ingratitude of the Jews, who so quickly despised the greatest good deeds of God from Egypt and what followed, and in the ingratitude of the
1) For this piece, compare Walch, old edition, Vol. VIII, 2623 ff. Cap. S, § 63-67.
Table speeches
Cap. K
Christians who prove them against God the Father and the Son who died for us, and if there were not some who despised the reward, we would not keep preachers, pastors, nor churches. But even if we serve the world in vain, we do not serve God in vain, whom alone we serve. This is our great comfort.
God will not take away the sins of the preachers when they die, but Christ will say this with joy: "Because you have confessed my name before the world, I will also confess you before my heavenly Father. Matth. 10. 32.]
The princes, nor their wives, do not prosper anywhere, as they think, but he who is a private man can always be happy, if the devil does not disturb the peace of his conscience, which he has in Christ. If he wants to do so much, he will be given a staff to Rome, which he has had to accept much from me.
In a foolish people rages (the depth?), as if a man would say to his wife: If you will not keep yourself right, I will let you go and take the worst whore for you. Thus the hardening and challenge of Pharaoh is not God's own work, but a foreign one.
The Gospel belongs only to the sorrowful hearts, the rough people and the secure belong only under the law. Let them go along with the old rogues who answered us at the visitation: Hey, my child at home can pray. They consider prayer to be only an outward work, not a worship of God.
We do not need to ask why the devil burns with such great hate against us, but we may only look at H[archduke] G[eorg] and other enemies of the gospel, how they all burn to harm us!
1664 A person who is called to a better position can accept it with a clear conscience, regardless of the annoyance of those who will say that he is looking for a better position.
Table speeches
Cav. 8
His. For we are not bound to them, just as they themselves do not want to be bound to us. Of course, we have to be called, but if we are also called, we have to remain free, we should not be deprived of our freedom.
1665 Many speak many things of spiritual things, and yet no one has ever preached Christ purely. They all go around like a cat around a hot pudding.
The law is a block, but the gospel is flexible. It gives room to the forgiveness of sins. What do those preachers do who want to have everything observed according to their hard head, according to the guideline! Not everything can be done according to our advice; it is enough that we rule and leave the prosperity to God.
All men are by nature more after-thinkers than before-thinkers [Epimethei quam Promethei], because all are wise after something has happened. We all have to pay an apprenticeship and become wise with harm. And our young Elector [John Frederick] must also squander a hundred thousand florins in his beginning.
1670. big breasts are figures of the world, because they promise much and do not give. -
No article of faith is so confirmed by the word of God that it could not be ridiculed by Erasmus, that is, by reason. Words can be twisted, as wax can be formed into a thousand shapes. Erasmus understands this art very well. So it happens also sometimes with the four rivers of the paradise.
1672 It is said that it has been shown by experience that if three toads, pierced in the sun, are placed on an ulcer, they draw out the poison.
The very harmful viper serpent violently pursues man, shoots him in the face; therefore Christ also called the opponents of the gospel vipers not without cause. [Matth. 3, 7.)
The Holy Spirit punishes the world for sin, which it does not acknowledge, and assigns righteousness to Christ alone. Against this the whole world rebels with its power, holiness and judgment; for it does not want its unbelief to be its sin, nor does it suffer with equanimity that its righteousness should be rejected and Christ alone exalted. Therefore the world is punished by the Holy Spirit. Therefore he [Christ] says: That "the prince of this world" is judged, which must be referred to the first two pieces. But the teusel must be taken here according to the category of the relation with his whole kingdom and efficacy, because according to his essence [secundum praedicamentum substantiae] he is judged before, but now through the gospel also his power.
To build up the church is not to introduce new ceremonies, as my clever ones believe, but to make consciences free and certain through faith, so that it may be without fear 1) and doubt.
1) The manuscript offers in mirs. We have taken tirnors; inürwitats, which Wrampelmeyer assumes, does not seem to fit us.
1681 A young man and an old man speak quite differently of the same thing, for the former has a warm heart and wants to pass quickly, but the latter speaks and does everything in a deliberate manner [graviter].
Since the two are one flesh, the man must follow the woman who is expelled from the country, as it happens now to many very good women. Of course, the man would like to wait about half a year for the outcome of the matter and (the women), who in the past sometimes stayed so long in foreign countries, should patiently endure this absence of the man.
Table speeches
Cap. §
In 1684 the people of Frankfurt closed the choir to their canons and indicated to them by throwing stones at them that henceforth no more masses should be said. But the mass does not have to be resisted with stones.
1693. who fears the influence of the celestial bodies, let him know that there is a speech which is stronger than astronomy.
1697 Those who are private persons and speak against the sacraments do violence to the office of preaching in two ways. First, because the person is not called; second, because they preach in inns and other places that are unsuitable for preaching. Such a person may believe and teach in his house as he pleases, and neither the prince nor the preacher can prevent him from doing so. But those who wish to inquire about this may ask their pastors. And the Jews, because they are blasphemers in public and can be avoided, can be tolerated, but not likewise the sacramentirans. I also attacked the pope, but I did not teach in the corner, I stood in front of him and when I was called, I came and answered.
Job is an example for those who sin and get back on track. His wife was not harmed by the devil because she was worse than him. All examples of faith are useful.
1700 As little as children know in the womb about their journey, so little do we know about eternal life.
1701 In theology we have no subordinate clause, but only the supreme clause. Theology is the promise, the promise is the truth. The law is jurisprudence, therefore also error, because it has no proof. But Christ is the proof of the theologians.
/ which preaches the priesthood to us.
Table speeches
Cav. 8
Since God saw that everything created was good, everything must also be good, and it was good to such a degree that we would have played with snakes as well as with puppies. But after the fall many things harm us, for example also the fleas and mosquitoes. Therefore also God says [Gen. 3, 18.], "The earth shall bear thee thorns and thistles." Then they are all deprived of strength, and many [creatures] are either permitted or also commanded to plague us as a reminder of disobedience; for serving, they are commanded territories.
1712 How it all happens so weakly, what our Lord God does, as you can see in this child, and yet as adults we become so proud.
Look at the dog, he has not a single blemish on his body, has fresh eyes, strong legs, beautiful white teeth, a good stomach with a coat, the greatest gifts of the body, but our Lord God gives them to a dog.
As the Psalter is a song over all Scripture, so the Song of Solomon is a praise and song over all things ecclesiastical. For whatever the church teaches, he praises and sings about in it.
In other redaction Cordatus No. 80 in this appendix.
1719 The thief sinned in ignorance and not against the mercy of God, nor out of contempt for the word which he first heard at his crucifixion; therefore his example gives no help to our despisers, nor to those who postpone the enjoyment of the Lord's Supper until the hour of death.
1729. Desire takes place without [good] reason, as fleas and lice love one; but love is when we want to serve others.
At one stroke, fire, thunder and lightning will consume all creatures on the last day, and we will all be there immediately, the dead and those who are still unchanged, and the sound of the shawms will not be so friendly, so that those in the graves will soon hear it. This I say to you, Michael Boots, because you believe that there are not more than eight hours left until the last day. 2)
We are wretched children of Adam; for if death pursues us every moment on the land, we also seek it on the water. For I hear that Ulan is preparing for naval warfare.
1733 The Emperor has sent donkeys loaded with gold to the Swiss to attack the Lutherans, and the French to destroy Milan. Aren't these beautiful things [causae]?
1734 If you want to feed your servants well, you have to lift your ass out of the straw early.
1735 Pommer preached a very sharp sermon today. If he is to make people pious, he is to win. The world remains the world.
1) Hutzel - a dried apple or pear; hutzelig, shriveled, hungry. 2) Cf. Cap. 51, § 2.
1736 I have appealed to God in my toe pain [i.e. podagra] and asked Him to send me French or pestilence for it, which are diseases to death.
The peasants are beasts who believe that the religion we preach was invented by us. But if one examines them, they say: Yes, yes, and believe nothing. Now the time has come when the Antichrist is revealed, in which we see all the world doing what it wants [as the Scripture says]. An example of this can be seen in H[archduke] G[eorg] and the bishop of Mainz, who now dare everything, even against the pope.
Table speeches
Cap. K
The Mainzer fears the pope, that he would deprive him of his cardinal dignity, but he does not fear God, who pushes the mighty from the chair and raises the lowly. Their consciences are too evil. Therefore, they did not remember a word from the Diet of Augsburg about their first article on the primacy of the pope and the governorship of Peter.
Dear Weller, do not lie to death. You can still become a lawyer.
Satan loves me fiercely, but not with the love of care, but of desire.
1754 Jurisprudence and medicine are uncertain sciences because they have no generally valid basis.
The basis in theology is to believe in God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
1756. the title of Christ is called Sheflemini, Sit at my right hand [Ps. 110, 1.), and leads dug in his stirrups [stirrups): I will lay your enemies at the footstool of your feet, and on top of his diadem: you are a priest forever. Is omnipotent in weakness, wise in foolishness alone.
The sinners are punished either by repentance or by anger.
Dear God, what a master I have made all these years, and I always remain a disciple. But it is said [Matth. 11, 19.): "Wisdom 1) must be justified by her children."
1767 It is well known and publicly known in the day how much an understanding person can accomplish in a state: the cities still do not allow anyone to study.
I) In the manuscript: "Sara", probably originally "8ap'a", the compendium for Kapisntia. The above passage is in the VuIZata: 4u8t1Ü6ata 88t saxitzutia Ä Ü1Ü8 suis.
Table speeches
Cav. 8
1768 The peasants call our visitators "chaste gentlemen," and they should answer them: "Our male honor without harm. The people learn nothing more than to drink beer.
1769 We pray: Give peace, O Lord. But I worry that we will not receive it in our days, but in our earth [i.e. not in life, but in the grave].
1770?) Already in Cordatus No, 149; communicated: ...........
1773. already in Cordatus 240.
Already at Cordatus No. 244.
Already at Cordatus No. 191.
Already at Cordatus No. 195-
Already at Cordatus No. 197.
* A certain Gervasius, Rector of the University of Paris, came here, believing that he would not be recognized. But this cunning visit of the French was also reported to us by letter from England. And since he knew that he would be recognized, he left immediately on the second day.
Already at Cordatus
//
// // //
No. 290.
" 292 and 293.
1826 "Do what comes before your hands" [1 Sam. 10:7], that is, execute what belongs to your office.
1) The title that belongs to a virgin. In Bindseil I, 299, this word is put into the mouth of the councilmen of Colditz, but the answer is given to Sebastian von Gotteritz.
2) Most of the pieces that follow from now on in the manuscript find repetitions of such records that are already communicated in a more complete version in the preceding. Perhaps these may be records of Schlaginhaufen, which Cordatus has incorporated into his collection.
1827. chariot Israel and his horsemen [2 Kings 2:12.), that is, you are all [factotum] prejudice and rear [of the ship], if you go away, as if he wanted to say, So it is over with us.
Table speeches
Cap. §
1830 He who baptizes me in my faith baptizes me in my name. But how if you know that he who desires baptism is secretly unbelieving, and yet you are compelled to baptize him? Is that why Christ gave his body? I am commanded to baptize - I command his faith and salvation to God, and we also preach the word of God to the ungodly, so that they may one day believe. God also addresses us, while we are still ungodly, with the word of His grace, before faith and also 1) before all good works, as He converted Paul.
1. the world condemns the word of God. 2. the devil arouses many arouses and heresies. 3. we ourselves are weak, even if we are believers. By these three things the judgment of the world against us is strengthened, that we seem ungodly, they just. But this is the judgment which is judged in the prince of the world. Therefore neither the power of tyrants, nor the wisdom and holiness of heretics, nor our weakness must turn us away from faith in Christ. For it is written [Ps. 51:6], "That thou mayest be justified when thou art judged." It is necessary that this evil be in the world, but even more necessary that the word prevail and the world be condemned.
Those who do not trust in God trust in the creature: the papists in their works, the pagans in their idols, the miserly in their money boxes, others in princes etc. The world wants and must have an idol; for it is the devil's, who wants to be so honored. Therefore, do not be moved by their ingratitude or wickedness; always let go.
If works deserve eternal life, what would the following works deserve, since eternal life is already deserved beforehand? 2) When you say "accidental rewards," they [works] suffer violence because they are as good as the first ones, which deserved a much greater reward.
1835 The great poisoner Clemens finally died by his own art - with yew smoke [i.e. from the poisonous darkness of the flowers of the yew tree], because he wanted to marry and become prince of Florence. Sodomites and poisoners 3) are no longer considered a sin in Rome. A certain Italian bought from a schoolmaster a young man for four hundred florins, whom he, having bought him, threw into a pit full of snakes, scorpions etc. When he had pulled him out and extracted the poison from all his veins, he said: "The four hundred florins shall make me several thousand. Such pious saints are the disciples of Pabst.
2) It is not necessary to change the reading vita aeterna. ^nte is not preposition but adverb, vita aeterna ante sain inerita are to be taken as ablative! aksoluti. A comma must be placed after niererentnr, and opera added: quid seciuentia rnererentur Opera.
3) Also here it is not necessary to change the handwritten text. Todorna ----- Sodom, stands for Sodonnterei, and "intoxieea" is to be dissolved with intoxieatio, i.e. poisoning.
What he [God] says [Deut. 18, 18]: "I will strike you with madness and blindness", we now see in our opponents Cochläus, Emser, Witzel. They are mad and foolish.
Honor and riches are in the house of him who has a good conscience through faith. To a guest he said: Take for good with a pious landlord, because he is obedient to women. (This is certainly true.) 1)
In 1838, a man in Torgau beat his wife in such a way that the neighbors often came over and scolded him. He replied: "Let me use my justice, the misfortune is about a nail, on which she wants to hang her veil, where I hang my hat. For this is the cause of dissension in marriage, that wives have no regard for their husbands.
1839. Carl von Miltiz brought Frederick a golden rose so that he would take me away to Rome. When he saw me [he spoke]: Ho, are you so young? I thought you were an old man and had no one to help you. I did not trust myself to take you to Rome even if I had twenty-five thousand Swiss.
1840 I will open the river of my foot and shall I take a pike to it. An old man is as comfortable with a river on one leg as a young journeyman is with a wreath on his head.
1841 The boys love deadly weapons [arma mortis], they should not be allowed to do so.
The Psalter should not be laid aside and reflected upon without ceasing; for we cannot esteem its glory so great, but read it diligently.
1843. For this ending, praise and thanks be to God; for I have written myself almost half to death and yet have not wanted to slacken. May God restore to me my right side, which has become numb [quod stupore tactum est] because I have written excessively.
Table speeches
Cap. §
1) The bracketed words are Cordatus' remark. (Wrampelmeyer.)