(1) You heard the beginning of this chapter the other day, (1) and it is preached annually on the Sunday after Epiphany; therefore it is unnecessary for me to speak of it now and to spend the time in vain, but we will proceed to what follows (2).
V.12. Then he went down to Capernaum, he, his mother, his brothers and his disciples, and did not stay there long.
This is a part of the legend of the Lord Christ, which the evangelist describes to us in this way, that he lived in Nazareth until he entered his office after his baptism, to which he was called. However, Joseph must have died, because the Scriptures do not remember him any further than when he again came from Egypt and went to Nazareth. When he was to take up his ministry and preach, he went to Capernaum, where he sat down, as St. Matthew says. For it was to be his city, where he would have his ministry, preach, and perform miraculous signs. That is why it is called his city in the Gospel, because he lived there with his mother and his brothers and disciples, who were undoubtedly good, poor people, and therefore went with him from Nazareth to this city by the sea, so that they might have their food there all the better.
(3) Now here they wonder how the Lord Christ could have had brothers, when he was the only son of Mary, and the Virgin Mary was the mother of no more children. Some say that Joseph, before he married Mary, also had a wife, from whom he produced children, who were afterwards called brothers of the Lord Christ.
1) "the other day," that is, January 13, 1538, on the 1st Sunday after Epiphany. (Cf. Erl., 2nd ed., vol. 20, p. 12. Buchwald, ungedr. Predigten, vol. Ill, p. 207.)
2) Erlanger: the one so.
Jews were allowed to have two wives at the same time. For so it is read in the book of Ruth, that if there was any poor child, they left him, and were not freed. This displeased God, and he commanded that they should also be provided for; therefore the closest friends and relatives had to marry the mothers who were orphans and poor. So Mary was also a poor orphan, whom Joseph took by reason of necessity; for since she was poor, no one would take her. Because they were born of Joseph and of the other women, they were half brothers of the Lord Christ. So some have pretended, but I hold more with others who say that brothers are called cousins here; for the Jews and holy Scripture call all their cousins brothers. But be it as it may, there is nothing great in it, it gives nothing to faith, so it takes nothing from it, God grant, they are his cousins, or brothers, born of Joseph, so they went with him to Capernaum, took the parish there. And it seems from this text that they were a poor little family, unable to support themselves after Joseph's death in Nazareth, and so they left there and went to Capernaum. But how this happened, that has its ways. He was born in Bethlehem, but brought up in Nazareth. Now he sits in Capernaum as a priest, and the same city is Christ's parish, which he chose for him to be bishop and citizen there; just as our priest lives here and is our bishop.
4 But he did not remain there for ever, but returned to Nazareth, and went forth, and traveled through all Galilee, preaching and performing miraculous signs, and then returned to his seat and dwelling at Capernaum, and did as the other prophets did; for Samuel dwelt at Ramoth, and wandered in
the surrounding countries and preached there [1 Sam. 7, 16. 17.]. So Christ also had his own dwelling place in Capernaum, yet he always traveled out, went through the whole country; as can be seen in the Evangelist Matthew, and after that he came again to Capernaum. As our pastor, D. Pommer, has his dwelling here, and sometimes goes out elsewhere; as he is now in Denmark, and comes again, and has nevertheless his house and seat here. So Christ did not stay long in Capernaum, but went out and preached by the sea and in all Galilee, and then came again to Capernaum; so he spent almost two years in Galilee, but did not come much to Jerusalem. For after he was baptized, he began to preach, and did not celebrate much; he sat in Capernaum, that he might be found there; he departed from there to the surrounding cities by the sea, where Capernaum was also situated; he preached, performed miracles, healed the sick in Galilee, and then returned to his mother in Capernaum.
5 This is the legend of our dear Lord Christ, what he did, how he preached and healed the diseases and sicknesses in Galilee; then he went to Jerusalem three times a year according to the law, at the feast of Easter, Pentecost, and around Michaelmas, at the feast of leaves, especially because he was a firstborn son; but he did not preach there until the third year, when he arose and went straight away to Jerusalem. For two years he ministered the gospel to many people and provoked the wrath of the chief priests and Pharisees against him, so that they were all angry with him. During this journey he preached and performed many miracles. But when the last year came, and the time was present that he should die for us poor sinners, he went again to Jerusalem, and blessed Capernaum, when he would not come thither again; wherefore his mother, and especially many women (as the gospel saith), followed him. Then he preached and performed miraculous signs all the way through Samaria and Galilee to Jerusalem, where the royal capital was, and spent a good while before he came there.
as a king and lord of the same kingdom, as we hear on the first Sunday of Advent. But he earns himself with preaching for the clergy so that they sacrifice him on the cross.
(6) Therefore Christ, before he was crucified, must have dwelt in these places of Galilee, which the prophets had foretold: as the evangelist Matthew saith in the fourth chapter, v. 12 and following, when he says: "When Jesus heard that John had been delivered up, he went into the Galilean country, and left the city of Nazareth, and came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is by the sea, on the borders of Zabulon and Naphtalim, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet Esaias, saying: The land of Zabulon, and the land of Naphtalim by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, and Gentile Galilee, the people that sat in darkness, have seen a great light, and they that sat in the shadow of death, a light hath gone out unto them." And when the Lord journeyed from that country to Jerusalem, preaching and working great miracles, the chief priests also accused and condemned him, saying that he had deceived the people from Galilee to Jerusalem.
(7) This is written for the sole purpose that the evangelists might indicate in brief the legend of Christ, that we might know where Christ dwelt, namely, at Capernaum, where he was a priest, ministering the word of God, visiting those who had need of his help, and ministering to all night and day, dwelling also where they pleased, as by the sea, in the wilderness, or in other places, performing miracles, as the Acts of the Apostles indicate in the 10th chapter.V. 37. 38. is also indicated. And in the history of the Lord Christ there is nothing else to be found, except how he enlightened men with the divine word, comforted the sorrowful, preached to the Jews and the Gentiles, cast out devils, fed the hungry, and healed all kinds of diseases, as was prophesied of him. And in no holy legend are such works or deeds found as Christ performed. Although John describes such things in brief words, they are found more abundantly in the other evangelists.
8 Now he says that when the Lord went to Jerusalem, he rumbled in the temple, overturned the exchange banks, and made it known that he was the Lord of the temple (which I take to have happened in the first year after baptism), he presents himself as their king and Lord.
The seventeenth sermon [on the Gospel of John].
On the Saturday after Dorothea [February 9, 1538]. 1)
V. 13-16 When the Jews' Easter was near, Jesus went up to Jerusalem and found them sitting in the temple, selling oxen and sheep and doves, and the moneychangers. And he made a scourge of cords, and drove them all out of the temple etc.
(9) We have recently heard how St. John described the miracle of Christ turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana in Galilee, so that he could show his first glory. Item, how he then went with his own from Nazareth to Capernaum, and lived and preached there for three whole years. Now follows how he goes up to Jerusalem on the feast of Easter, and makes a noise in the temple, of which we have spoken next 2) in the midweek sermon from the twenty-first chapter of the Evangelist Matthew, where this very act is also found, of which John speaks here, and have heard that Christ, after his riding into Jerusalem, immediately went into the temple, and there made a noise.
(10) But here the question is, first of all, how the two evangelists, Matthew and John, rhyme together. For Matthew writes that it happened on the day of the palm tree, when the Lord rode into Jerusalem; here in John it reads as if it happened soon after the Easter, after the baptism of Christ; just as the miracle of Christ turning water into wine also happened around Easter, and after that he went to Capernaum. For about the three kings' days he
1) In the original margin.
2) "Next", that is, recently, namely in the first sermon on the twenty-first chapter of Matthew, delivered Wednesday, January 23, 1538, which is found in this volume, Col. 1047.
He was baptized and could easily have stayed in Capernaum for a short time until Easter, when he began to preach and did the things John speaks of here.
(11) But there are questions, and they remain questions, which I do not wish to resolve; nor is there much in them, unless there are many people who are so sharp and perspicacious, and raise all kinds of questions, and want to have exact answers to them. But if we have the right understanding of the Scriptures and the right articles of our faith, that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, died and suffered for us, there is no great lack, although we cannot answer everything else that is asked. The evangelists do not keep the same order; what one puts in front, the other sometimes puts behind; as also Marcus writes of this story that it happened on the next day after Palm Day. It is also possible that the Lord did this more than once, and that John describes the first time, Matthew the other. Be it as it may, whether it happened before or after, one or two times, it does not affect our faith.
12. But we must reckon, as all historians do, that Christ was baptized in the thirtieth year of his age, and after baptism began to preach, and preached three years perfectly; The rest of the time, which followed the third year, as the beginning of the fourth year, to begin from the circumcision of Christ, 3) or on the day of Epiphany, until Easter (which is then counted as almost half a year), when he also preached fully, for he preached four and a half years (though not fully). Now it may well be, when Christ was thirty years old and baptized, that the Lord did this about the first Easter of his preaching ministry; but there is not much to it. If there is a controversy in the Scriptures, and it cannot be compared, let it alone. This does not dispute the articles of the Christian faith. For in this all the evangelists agree with one another, that
3) d. i. New Year.
Christ died for our sins; otherwise, of his deeds and miracles. They do not keep order about his deeds and miracles, because they often put something beforehand that only happened afterwards.
But it seems to me that John is skipping the first three years, in which the Lord preached after his baptism, and is only talking about the fourth year and describing how he drove the buyers and sellers out of the temple around Easter, when his passion was to begin. For he otherwise writes much about what Christ did about the Easter feast, although nowhere else does one read that he took on much of the temple and preaching ministry in Jerusalem before he was twelve years old. Otherwise he kept himself quiet as often as he came; as he also did the three high feasts all the time. So John would almost coincide with the other evangelists, and I think it happened only once; but if it happened three times, it is not heresy.
(14) You have heard in Matthew where this kind of thing came from in the temple, that the stingy priests were not satisfied with what God had provided for their entertainment, and which the people otherwise gave them willingly; but they taught that the people had to sacrifice, that they took it where they wanted it, and thus made the temple into a grocery and a store. This was a great abuse, that at the same time they sold God and all His gifts, the Temple, the sacrifices and all worship services, which God had established and ordered out of pure grace and mercy, that they should be distributed to the people for free and not take a penny for it. As Christ says to his disciples in the Gospel: Gratis accepistis, gratis date; they are to do it freely for free, just as they received it for free, and not make a merchant's business 1) or a marketplace out of it.
15. but God commands those who hear the word of God to give food and drink to the priests, just as Moses commanded the children of Israel, saying
1) Erlanger: "a merchant's treasure". Our reading is confirmed by s 16 at the beginning.
they should give the Levites their food and entertainment. And the Lord Christ says in the New Testament [Luc. 10, 7.] "Go and preach, and eat what is set before you"; wants the hearers to feed the preachers, they shall neither eat nor drink of theirs. Now this is not wrong, that a preacher should be fed again, and therefore baptism and the gospel are not sold nor given for money, but everything is given for free; and so both are kept, that I should not sell them, but teach them for free, and the hearers should not buy them, but have them for free. I am to preach to you, and you are to feed me. If then thou givest me not, another giveth me. If you give me something for God's sake, so that the word and the preaching chair may be preserved, and I teach you the divine word, then it is right.
But if it happens, as it is said here, that all sacraments in the church have been sold for oxen and sheep, etc. as they then preached: You must sacrifice, then it is bad. For that is bought and sold, that is nothing but merchandising. So they should have said: Dear man, I do not force you; if you want to give something, it is up to you. The priest should do the same, and not sell indulgences, masses, and other gimmicks for money, but say: "Dear friends, I will preach to you the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have forgiveness of sins by grace, so that you may believe in him, and I will serve you with my preaching for the sake of God and your salvation. Item, I will give you the sacrament of the body and blood of Christ, and freely forgive your sin through absolution, as often as you desire it of me; I will not sell it to you. For if I would learn to buy and gain, I would learn any craft. Again, if I have not food to eat, help me again, and give me monkeys and drink. Yes, yes, everything that is done for me must be paid for in full, or the pope would not see it. A louder drudgery is made of it; there one has written butter letters, brotherhood and society, pilgrimage and
The cathedral lords sit in their cathedrals and whinge their seventh hour 1) only so that they have their prebends from it. If they no longer had them, their service would also be over. So the priests of Jerusalem also sought only their own enjoyment, leaving everything that God had commanded them, and waiting only for that which served their avarice [Mal. 1:14]. That is to say, they made a store out of the house of God. Therefore the Lord took charge of the temple, became angry, made a whip or scourge of cords, and beat them all out of the temple.
V. 15. He made a scourge of cords.
(17) It was a strange thing that he should make a scourge of cords, and therewith smite all things in the temple. And here a great question arises: Where did the Lord Christ get ropes? And some teachers say that Christ girded himself with a rope, like a barefoot monk, from which he made a whip. So the dear Lord must have been a barefoot monk; perhaps his mother was a nun or abbess; and the unholy people still mock the Lord Christ.
018 But no doubt he found ropes, because there were many oxen, cattle, sheep, lambs, and other cattle in the temple; so there must have been ropes enough. Soon he caught one or two and made a scourge of them, beating away the buyers and sellers with oxen, calves, sheep and pigeons, in the temple and outside the temple. For the cattle were kept outside the temple, except for the pigeons, which could have been kept in the temple. So this useless question and lie is also justified, whether the Lord was a barefoot monk or not, and took his belt as a scourge?
19. but this is worth a question: why the Lord here with his fist three times?
1) i.e. the Iioras eanonieas.
when before he had done everything by word alone? And now he wants to take it by force and by deed, strikes with his fists, if he did not want to start such a regiment, and therefore he has really strictly forbidden his apostles that they should not take the sword and worldly regiment, but let princes and lords tame them with it. How is it, then, that he himself takes hold with his fists, and makes himself strange and whimsical enough, as if he wanted to rule by force, and drive the lords of Jerusalem into the ground, like a worldly lord, if he has come to set up another kingdom? Not a world empire, where he would throw his fist, but one that would deal with preaching, teaching, punishing and comforting, so that the people would know how to stand against God, so that they would believe in the Son; if not, that it would be lost with them. And so it was prophesied in the prophet Isaiah [Cap. 11, 4.] that when Messiah came, he would bring with him a club or rod, but that he would carry this rod in his mouth. Just as the Lord Christ was also painted in the Pabst, that out of his mouth went a sword on one side and a lily branch on the other, and that he should turn the point of the sword toward man.
(20) But Christ was not painted in the right way, but in the way he was supposed to be depicted, that a sword, a club, a rod or a whip came out of his mouth; just as in the Revelation of John, Cap. 1, 16, the evangelist sees a man, "out of his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face shone like the bright sun. And so he is also painted in Isaiah, Cap. 11, 4, that he will strike the earth with the rod and sword of his mouth. And in the Revelation of John, Cap. 19, 20. 21., it is said that "those who worshiped the beast were thrown into the lake of fire, and the others were slain with the sword of him who sat on the horse that proceeded out of his mouth" etc. But it is a sword that did not go into his mouth, but that went out; signifies that he should have his regiment or sword in his mouth. For Christ not to lead his regiment, sword and rod in his fist
For this belongs to the parents, who are to use the rod; the authorities and Master Hans, the executioner, are to use the sword; but it is to be called a mouth rod or mouth sword. And so St. Paul also calls God's word "the sword of the Spirit" [Eph. 6, 17], and St. Paul wants to illustrate Christ and all preachers of the divine word, how they should conduct themselves, namely, that they will teach the people by the sword of the mouth, by the sword of the Spirit, or by the divine word. And this is the rod to punish and rebuke, which also shall proceed out of the mouth; as Isaias saith [Cap. 11, he will strike the land with the rod of his mouth and kill the wicked; call the rod of the mouth the word of God.
21 This is what happens when God condemns and punishes the unbelieving world, saying, "He who does not believe is lost; he who breaks marriage, steals, and blasphemes against God, disobeys parents, does not live godly and honorably, is already dead and judged. This is the sword of the divine word, for I condemn all that men do and cast the whole world under sin. With it I do not cut off anyone's head, I do not strike out anyone with rods, but with my mouth I strike, punish, strike out and judge. So Christ has the oral sword, not the fleshly sword; the word of God is his sword and rod, that he may punish the whole world.
(22) Since his kingdom is not a sword of the fist, but a sword of the spirit and of the mouth, how is it that he acts harshly and unkindly against the priests of the temple, and reaches in with his fist and with his rod, and takes upon himself that which otherwise belonged to the temporal authorities? Is he not acting rebelliously here? The teachers have argued about why it is not enough for him to punish them with his mouth, but why he also uses his fist? But let us learn to answer that the Lord was at that time in the middle between the Old and New Testaments, or between that which Moses had established in the people of Israel and that which Christ will establish after his death through his Holy Spirit and the preaching of the Gospel.
1) He sometimes acts like a Moslem and keeps the law in many ways, gets circumcised, sacrifices in the temple, goes to the feast of Jerusalem three times a year, like other people; for God commanded this in the Old Testament. Item, he gives the lepers to show themselves to the priests, according to the law; so he does many things according to the law of Moses.
23 Again, he does much according to the New Testament. When Matth. 12, 1. ff., when the disciples plucked up the ears on the Sabbath day, and he was reproached by the Pharisees, who murmured and said: John's disciples keep the Sabbath, but your disciples do not. Then he goes and defends his disciples, and does not keep the Sabbath, saying, "The Sabbath is nothing to me; I am its master, and he is not my master. Therefore he keeps the Sabbath, and sometimes does not keep it. And John, in the 5th chapter, v. 5 ff., when he made the blind man see on the Sabbath, and they wanted to kill him for it, he says, "I am also a Lord over the Sabbath." And the Lord does not act like Mosi's disciples, but as one who was now under the New Testament, in which Mosi's law was to be abolished, and now a spiritual reign was to be established in the whole world through the preaching of the Gospel, since one was not to presume on the outward reign, but to rule with the word. If he will, he keeps Moses; if he will not, he goes over Moses. And that is why he presents himself here as seriously as Moses himself, or as Moses' disciple. Again, he immediately shows himself to be a lord who has both regimes, the temporal and the spiritual, as he does here. For if Moses, David, Elijah, Elisha, or any other of the pious kings and prophets of the Jewish people had come to the temple at that time, he would have done just as the Lord does here, and would have beaten them with fists; yes, not only with fists, but also with stones; just as Moses had commanded in the Law that the idols should be stoned.
1) "da" is missing in the Erlanger.
2) Erlanger: "die" instead of: zu der.
(24) Now the Lord acts to him as if he were only Moses' disciple, and as if he were under the Muses' rule, since none of the priests had their office, but all were deceivers of the people. And he does this not as Christ, but as Moses, and as one who has given himself under the law, and thus shows that he is a lord who has both regiments in his hand, as teaching and punishing with action, as Moses did; and according to the law of Moses he attacks the matter with his fist and action. As he does now, so it is well done. If he will give himself under Moses, it is right; if he will not, it is not wrong, for he is not guilty, because he is a master of the law and the Sabbath. He may do it according to his will and pleasure, for he is a king and a baron, and has at times used the law of Moses and kept it strictly, as one subject to must. He has not been guilty of going to the temple three times a year, but when he does, he does it willingly and gladly. Again, if he will not keep the law, he does it justly and rightly.
(25) Therefore Christ does not do wrong here, or as a rebel, for he has the law of Moses for himself, which commands that those who commit idolatry should be put to death. Although if he had refrained from doing so, and had not scourged them with scourges, he might have done so. Christ has just been in the middle between the New and Old Testament, and has drunk and tasted both. Here he keeps the law of Moses, as he has often done elsewhere. For what I owe, that I must do; but what I do willingly, that I may well omit. And so Christ gradually overturned the law of Moses when he did not keep it. In chapter 11, v. 16, it is written that the Lord was so angry and unwilling that he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. Why not? Not that it was such a great sin for anyone to carry a basket or a barrel through the temple, for it is very foolish of him to refuse to allow anything to be carried through the temple; but that he wished to cleanse the temple, and to show that
It would not be sinful according to Moses' rule, and because Moses' rule was still in place, it would be well to keep it; but when Christ came, and it had come to an end with Moses, then everything would be forbidden. Therefore, he needs a Mosaic authority here and does not act according to the Gospel.
(26) Therefore this deed of Christ should not be taken as an example, which he did not as a minister of the New Testament, but as a minister of the Old Testament, and a disciple of Moses. The devil has called the Anabaptists, the Coiner and the Pope to take up the sword that Christ completely forbade his apostles and preachers to wield. Nor are we to act in this way, for we are not like Christ. He is a lord over Moses; we are not. There is no one above Moses but Christ alone.
(27) And now, until the end of the world, the two regiments shall not be blended together, as was done in the Old Testament times among the Jewish people, but shall remain separate and distinct from one another, otherwise the right gospel and the right faith shall be preserved. For the kingdom of Christ is far different from the temporal government, which is commanded to princes and lords. And he that is a preacher, let him leave the temporal government alone, lest he make a muddle and disorder. For we are to rule the church with the word or oral sword, and to guide the rod of the mouth. On the other hand, the secular authorities have a sword other than a fist sword and wooden rods to strike the body. But the preacher's rod strikes only the conscience, which feels what is said.
28 Therefore these two rods and swords must be distinguished, so that one does not fall into the office of the other. For they all reach for the sword, the Anabaptists, the minters, the pope and all the bishops have wanted to rule and govern, but not in their profession; that is the wretched devil. On the other hand, the secular authorities, the princes, kings and nobles in the countryside, even the judges in the villages, want to use the oral sword, and teach the pastors what and how to preach and to teach the churches.
shall preside. 1) But you tell them: You fool and hopeless fool, wait for your profession, do not preach, let your priest do it. Again, the red spirits will not stop nor remain with the oral sword, but, as the rebels, will reach for the secular sword and want to rule in the council house. All this is done by the devil, who does not celebrate until he mixes these two swords together. It is not new that the devil mixes everything together. But know thou that the emperor or secular authorities shall wield a sword of iron and a wooden rod, but we preachers have the rod and sword of the wound. The rod of the secular authorities is none of the business of us preachers of the divine word; we are to wield our spiritual sword and mouth rod. If anyone does not believe or ask for it, let him go away forever; if anyone does not believe, he will be condemned. As when a man is condemned for being a murderer, a fornicator, an adulterer, and the like, I have struck him, they are spiritual sword blows. If thou wilt not feel them, and thinkest not, nor wilt thou be beaten any more, what shall I ask of thee? You will understand it one day.
29 And I urge you, who are to be teachers of conscience and of the Christian church, see to it that you keep the difference. For if it is mixed, nothing will come of it. For if the prince says, "Listen, preacher, teach me so and so, do not rebuke and punish in this way," it is mixed. Again, if a preacher also pretends: Hear thou, authorities or judges, thou shalt do justice as I will; it is also unjust. For I am to say, Thou hast thy statutes, thy laws, thy custom, and thy way; therefore thou shalt not do justice according to my head, nor according to my will, nor according to my writing, but according to thy laws.
(30) You will see that the devil will mix again. Just as the pope mixed the spiritual sword into the physical sword before, and wanted to take a mirror or example from this text, but it is a lie. For Christ has not
1) Erlanger: want.
He does not act in the same way as the pope, but he acts here as a disciple and disciple of Moses, who would be under Moses, as otherwise David or another would have done. No apostle has imitated Christ. But the bishops now want to have both swords in their fists, and to rule over kings and princes, and mix it up with each other; which is all wrong and unjust.
Therefore the pope will not harm us, and will hardly take the gospel, for he is too much beaten, but our nobles and princes, even the wicked lawyers, will do it, who go along with violence, and want to teach the preachers what they should preach, want to force the people for the sake of the sacrament, for their liking, because they must always be obedient to the secular authorities; therefore you must do as we wish. And then the secular and ecclesiastical government is one kitchen. This is also what the pope did, he brought the oral sword into the secular regiment, thus the word of God is extinguished.
Now the tables are turned. For the office of fist is made an oral office, and the secular lords want to lead the spiritual regiment, and rule the preaching seat and the church, so that I should preach what the prince likes to hear. Let the devil then come in my place and preach; for they take the sword of the spirit and mouth, and make scourges and whips of it, and drive out of the church, not the buyers or sellers, but the true teachers and preachers. This is going on nowadays, and that is why serious edicts and mandates are being put on all church doors, stating that the laity are to use only one form of the Lord's Supper, and that they are to preach what pleases them. And they are allowed to write and advise so impudently to receive one form of the Lord's Supper, because the kings, princes and lords want to have it now. So that I almost do not know what to do. For the devil is too fierce on both sides and turns everything around. Either the pope wants to rule with both swords, or the princes, nobles, burghers and peasants want to master their parish lords and have both swords as well. But that
The oral sword is to remain with the preachers, and consequently the office of the fist with the secular rulers.
(33) Let this be said of the question why Christ takes hold with his fist and drives the buyers and sellers out of the temple. For he does this after the example of Moses. And he could even have beaten them to death if he had wanted to. But we are not to use this as an example, for we do not have both swords, as Moses had, as the sword of the mouth and the sword of the fist; but after the law has been abrogated, the iron sword has been given to the temporal emperors, kings and princes, but the oral sword has been given to the apostles and us preachers. So let it remain divided, and let those who can help keep it. For if the princes want to mix such things together, as they are doing now, God help us that we do not live long, so that we do not see such misfortune; for then everything in the Christian religion must fall to ruins. As happened under the papacy, when the bishops became secular princes. And if now the worldly lords become popes and bishops, so that one preaches to them and says what they like to hear, then preach at that time the wretched devil; he will also preach. But we may ask God that both parts do not abuse their office in this way.
The eighteenth sermon [on the Gospel of John].
Sabbato post cathedra Petri [February 23, 1538]. 1)
V.17. But his disciples remembered that it is written: Zeal for your house has eaten me up.
34 We heard next, after the disciples of the Lord Christ saw and heard how the Lord reproached the Jews for making the temple a storehouse,
<ii6 Nattüiae), 23 Feb, confirming the date we set.
and drove out the buyers and sellers by force, which is a strange work, that he makes a whip out of ropes, and grasps it with his fist, so that it was seen as if he wanted to rule with his fist, although it was written about him, as reported next 2) that he would rule by the spirit or sword of his mouth; because he wanted to set up a kingdom, where it would not happen with sword blows, but which would be a kingdom of word and spirit. Therefore they were astonished at it, and it was quite strange to them, and they were almost angry at it, because they had not seen anything like it from him before, and they sensed nothing in him but sweetness and kindness, that he first wanted it with his fist. But John the Evangelist adds: "The disciples remembered the saying that was written in Psalm 69:10: 'Zeal for your house has devoured me'"; which Psalm is definitely spoken of Christ.
35 Nevertheless it is seen that among this people the holy scriptures were well known, and that they were diligently practiced in the synagogues and synagogues. In particular, the Psalter was presented to the people and made known to them, and they read, preached and acted upon the Psalms, so that it can be seen that in all the cities and towns there were priests and Levites who had their parishes, churches and schools (which are called synagogues), where the people gathered to hear and learn God's word; and they were thus provided for, so that the Scriptures of the prophets and the Psalms were diligently interpreted. The temple at Jerusalem nevertheless remained in its dignities, and the highest or main parish church, where they came three times a year, as a testimony that they kept to the God who had promised to dwell there, and gave account of their faith and doctrine. So finely were the churches ordered and arranged among this people, and the Scriptures acted daily, that even the simple had quite an understanding of what was written in the Psalms and the Prophets, and could understand it.
2) i.e. recently; the last time.
hold. Just as now, praise and thanks be to God, our churches are so equipped that people nevertheless come together to call on God, to praise and give thanks, and the Word of God is abundantly practiced in them, so that even a simple, coarse man can understand the Scriptures to some extent; as was also the case with the Jews. We know what kind of people the disciples of the Lord Christ were; they were not wise men, high priests, Pharisees and scholars of Christ, but poor beggars and fishermen, lowly people, Peter, Andrew and Bartholomew, yet they knew the Psalter, heard it read, sang and preached, thus learned the Scriptures, had to learn badly from listening, that they kept it and remembered it.
(36) Thus it is seen what discipline and exhortation to the divine word do, when the people are faithfully and diligently taught, and the people also listen diligently. And there must have been especially fine discipline, diligence and obedience among this people, so that they listened diligently when people sang and read in their schools or churches, when they came together on the Sabbath to preach, pray and sing, as we do in our churches.
This example of the disciples should also inspire us to gladly hear God's word, to believe and accept it, to receive absolution, and to use the sacraments. Since this was the case with the Jews, it is no wonder that the dear disciples in Galilee kept the saying from the psalm in their schools. But it is to be wondered at that they can interpret it to this very deed of Christ, as if it were spoken of the incitement of the healers and sellers, and of nothing else.
038 But it is strangely spoken, "Zeal hath devoured me. But they understood it according to the Hebrew tongue, and this speech was not unrecognizable to them, for they read the prophets diligently. Since they cannot condemn this deed of Christ, and yet they think, "Why did he strike with the whip in this way, and rumble against them in this way? they interpret it out of pure goodwill in the best way, that they excuse him. As if they wanted to say: It is yes
It is true that it is a little too much for him to cause such a hullabaloo among the people, but how should one do to him? He who loves God and his house cannot suffer such a creature. He does it out of a great and right zeal; as then the saying goes. So they interpret the saying (which they generally understand of all good preachers and teachers who are to lead the word of God and govern the people of God, and must have a zeal etc.) to the deed of Christ, that he does it as one who loves God and means the church with earnestness; he cannot but be zealous, let whoever be angry with it. Even though godly hearts say that one does too much, it is written that all Christians should have this zeal, but especially the Messiah; therefore the apostles draw this text.
(39) As is often done in Scripture, and it may well be done (if it is not contrary to any article of faith), that sometimes ex genere speciem or individuum is done, that a common sentence is pronounced on a person. Moses says in general of all who are hanged: "Cursed is he who hangs on the wood.
[Deut. 21, 23]. St. Paul applies this saying to the Galatians in chapter 3, v. 13, to Christ alone, although he does not speak of him. For he did not die like a mischievous and accursed man. Yet it is still rightly spoken. For Christ was willing to bear the curse in obedience for our sake. And in Isaiah [Cap. 53, 12. 1] it is also said: "He is counted among the wicked," although he is holy and righteous, and makes others righteous, and for his person was not included in this saying, because he was innocent. The hanging was equal in that he was hanged with the others as a highwayman; item, the wood was also equal with the others, so the curse and the hanging are also equal; but the persons were not equal. Therefore we must interpret this saying in the same way, as it happened in truth, that Christ became a curse before God, and hung on the cross like another thief. For Moses speaks of all who are hanged. Yours: when the law says: "Cursed be he who hangs on the wood";
It may well happen that the pious and godly are wronged. Should they therefore be cursed? Let that be far away. How certainly many have been wronged in the uprising, who have had to suffer with the guilty. The curse, as well as death, passes over the guilty as well as the innocent.
40 The chief priests and the devil did not think otherwise than to make the people believe that they were cursed before God. Therefore they thought: Wait, let us bring him to the wood, and we will have won the game; for there is a clear saying that he who hangs on the wood is cursed by God. Not yet, for one may be wronged; so the wood on which he hangs does not make him guilty and cursed. So one can cut off a man's head, but it does not soon follow that he has been wronged, for it is well known that some are wronged. So I can say of a father who has lost his only, most beloved son: "He has sacrificed his Isaac to our Lord God; and yet the father is not Abraham, nor is the son Isaac. But I give you to understand that this father is just like the dear Abraham with his son. So I speak then in general of all fathers, what the Scripture says only of Abraham. Yes, I can say of Christ that he, as Isaac, was also sacrificed on the cross.
(41) This rule, I say, is kept not only in the holy Scriptures, but also in all others, where the individual is drawn into the genus, and again goes ex genere ad speciem vel individuum; and thus no article of the Christian faith is sinned against. Therefore, the disciples do the same here, and apply the saying of the psalm to Christ: "Zeal for your house has eaten me up," which they generally understand to mean this deed of Christ, only out of a good opinion to excuse him with it.
42. what is this now spoken "the zeal for your house" etc.] The Jews, as those in the Prophets and Psalms were known, understood the saying well, and spoke it in this way in their language. Uus reads it strangely, because it does not rhyme in our language. But I have the word
zelus zeal; another one makes it better, I don't know a better one to find; in the Latin language one also has none, so that one could give the word zelus. It is called aemulationem; whether it is right or wrong, I will leave to the grammarians. In German, however, zelus actually means a friendly and yet sweet envy or anger that occurs between such people who are so loyal to each other that one does not want the other to be harmed or to suffer evil. I could not have called this better in one word than zeal. Although the same is said of man and woman alone, that the man allows the woman, and the woman the man, 1) to deal too kindly with others. There is also said to be such zeal among them that one has a friendly regard for the other, and is a little envious with it; but so that one does not make it too much. For for a woman to love her husband in this way, to give way to him out of love, to go after another, that would be a shameful love. Just as this is not a true love, which is among harlots and boys; for it is a carnal and devilish love, and not from God.
43 Thus our language is fine in common and daily usage, that one can say: This is a good envy, this is an evil envy. Even though not only envy, but also pride is the devil's vice, our language still makes it possible to say, "This is good pride, this is evil pride;" "This is good chastity, this is evil chastity;" "This is good humility, this is evil humility. As an example, I can have a good, godly hope, which God gives, and I want to have it from me and from everyone, that I say: I do not want to give way to the devil, I did not want to look at the devil, that I wanted to follow him. What courage comes from spiritual hope, that the dear martyrs said to the tyrants: I do not look at you that I would deny God, my Lord. This is a good hope. And if I were not hopeful here, but humble.
1) grudge - begrudge.
and said: Dear pope, dear bishops, I will gladly do what you call me; that would be a right devilish and cursed humility, if I want to let myself be driven by the divine word. And such humility would be of no use anywhere, for you would be humble here, since you should otherwise be hopeful. But this is good humility, when I say with thanksgiving to God: Your will be done, do it, dear Lord Christ, as it pleases you, I will gladly suffer it.
(44) Such language teaches us the need and the nature in which we live. For me to say, I will be with no other woman but mine alone, and love her, is an honest and godly unchastity. But if a man were to leave his own and be attached to another, that would be a devilish unchastity. So anger is also of two kinds, good and evil. First, good, because the prince is angry with a bad boy, grabs him by the neck, strangles him, or has him tied to the gallows and pushed onto the wheel, or has his head cut off or otherwise killed; that is good and merciful anger. But if he would not be angry, and let every wicked man go, that would not be the kind of mercy called leniency; it would be a twofold disgrace, tyranny and wrath. For in this way many people are murdered, damaged, and all misfortunes are laid upon them. It is the same when a father hurriedly punishes his child, or a preceptor is not angry with his disciple when he does wrong; no greater disgrace could he prove to the child and disciple. Therefore it is a merciful and good, divine anger, even if death-slayers are punished and thieves are hanged, so that other people may live in peace.
(45) So zeal is an angry love or envious love, since no husband or wife can suffer another to be lewd to his wife, or another to her husband; so they say: I am not envious. But verily thou shalt be envious, I shall not suffer my wife to commit adultery, or both to be fornicators and adulterers, thou shalt be angry: for it is good envy and jealousy. On the other hand, it is a wicked and shameful one.
Envy, when it grieves me in my heart that another is doing well, that he has more favor with people or more luck, or is richer, and I grant him such, since it gives me nothing to create, and I have no cause to hate him, but only out of pure devilish malice. As the envy of spiritual, devilish sins and vices is one on earth, since the devil himself deals with it, who only out of malice does not grant us men that we should live or be saved for a moment, he cannot suffer that it should go well with us.
(46) Just as it is a shameful vice when one has hateful envy, so good zeal is a delicious, noble virtue when one, out of love and loyalty, forgives another when he does wrong and stumbles. As one is therefore wont to say: Ah, I am so heartily and faithfully sorry for the person, I begrudge him, I envy him, and am angry that he has fallen into misfortune, disgrace or vice. If I love someone and see him doing something bad, I am sorry. Now, to give and to forgive are two different things: one is good, the other evil. In this case, it is reversed, and the bestowal becomes an evil, shameful vice, and the bestowal becomes a virtue that is in God alone, and in the hearts that are especially moved by God. For there is a little bit of God in a heart, where there is the same kindness, so that a good friend can be warmly accepted in his sins and disgraces, and can be dealt with severely. As can happen, and often does happen, between husband and wife, among whom one does not even know how he got into a misfortune; then the other, out of great love, goes to him, laments and weeps: "Oh, that it had not happened, how heartily I am sorry! A father, when he has an unborn child, is exceedingly sorry for it, and is sorry that it is not otherwise; he forgives it. This is what one friend does to another. This pardon, or kind envy, or kind anger, is a merciful, kind envy, because we are heartily sorry for it, and one says, Oh, I do not like to see or hear it, that one lives thus, that one is his own shame and disgrace; I will not call that hatred, for it is
is good and is done out of love; but where there is love, there can be no hatred. This is what the Scripture calls zeal, which I have called zeal in a word that you can well understand from the reported words and examples, because that is what it actually means.
(47) Thus the Lord Christ is also minded here, that he is not moved to the anger that he shows here out of any hatred, but out of friendly love towards God, who had founded this temple in his honor, for the action of the divine word, so that the people in the church should learn how to become blessed and serve God. That this was completely reversed, and that Christ should see that God was publicly acted against in it, that the people were also deceived by the sacrifices, for the sake of which he had come to earth and murdered men; this grieves him that he should see such abomination and sorrow in his Father's house, where souls are miserably corrupted. He is unwilling and displeased about it, he has a zeal and a displeasure that his church and foundation should thus be desecrated and abused; for he loved God, and he is concerned about the preservation of the divine word, and the poor people, who have thus been deprived of their salvation; I want to say: I forgive the fine, glorious temple, and the people, that they should thus be miserably abused and led astray into damnation.
But what does "eat" mean? This is somewhat closer to the German language. For we also use to speak of someone who bites and grieves himself, who eats himself, in such a way that one says: something must be wrong with him, he is not well. That means well eaten, but not as one eats bread and meat; but it is the sad courage before which one's heart pines away, disappears, and is, as it were, 1) consumed, as moths consume a garment. This is what happened to the Lord Christ, the prophets and all the apostles. And out of a holy, great zeal our heart should also almost disappear, that we would be heartily sorry, and have an envy and displeasure over the fact that
1) "gleichsam" taken over by us from the old edition instead of: "gleich" in the Erlanger.
the pope with his idolatries has thus miserably deceived and seduced the world. Shouldn't this bite us and move us to fight so that the pure teaching of the divine word is no longer and further falsified?
49 Therefore this is spoken not only of Christ, but also of all preachers of the divine word. So look at a pious father and mother when they have a disobedient child; just watch them, and you will soon see what it means: "Zeal has devoured me. Then they go and bite and grieve, their hearts pining away until they die of great grief and sorrow. Therefore such children are murderers of fathers and mothers, and not bad murderers; for they afflict them for some time, until they die; they strangle their parents. This is also spoken of by Solomon, Prov. 10, 1., and Jesus Sirach (Cap. 3.): "A wise son is a father's joy"; but [Prov. 17, 25.] "a wicked son is a father's sorrow", and a wicked daughter is an abomination to the mother. 2) And St. Paul, 2 Tim. 1, 9. also speaks of father-killers and mother-killers etc. Parents, of course, feel this if they are godly, for it bites them day and night until they have to chew the earth over it. So the children kill the parents; not by sticking a knife into their body, but with their evil ungodly life. There is no greater cross or heartache for parents than the wickedness of children, and so when their children make their parents old, they kill them with sorrow, so that they lament, "Alas, my son, alas, my daughter! And yet the father's heart and love for the child, even if it is evil, do not acquire a devilish hatred for them, even though the advised and unwise life of the children brings the parents to the pit. As we read about David [2 Sam. 18, 5], that he commanded Joab and the warriors not to harm the life of his son Absalon. This was the fatherly heart and love, whether Absalon had chased him out of the kingdom; and since he was stabbed to death
2) "Abomination" should perhaps mean "grievance" according to Prov. 10:1.
he cried out, v. 33: "O Absalon, my son, my son" etc. I say this so that you may understand what it means, "Zeal has eaten me up," when something is so painful that it eats away or tears away one's heart.
50 But Christ suffered much greater famine when he hung on the cross, and heeded the wickedness and hardening of the Jewish people. Item, that he wept with great zeal when he looked upon the city of Jerusalem, and sweated bloody sweat in the garden. He had such great sorrow and grief that he never became happy because he was on earth, that if he had not been crucified, he would have been grieved to death, because all was lost, as he attacked the Jewish people.
(51) So ask a pious prince in the temporal government, and a pious householder, what it is to eat, and if it be evil to bite and gnaw; what matter, thou shalt find an answer! All the apostles and bishops have tried this, and still do; they know quite well when they see that their faithful care, toil and labor are all in vain, and a devil's head comes and makes a noise, and breaks in one day more than one has built or can build in several years; or sees how the devil drives it, that people become wild and rough, and are not corrected to the teaching of the divine word; he will also say: "The zeal for your house has eaten me up. For the more pious a pastor or preacher is, the more he feels zeal; he should feel it.
- (52) So love is not happy; when a good friend is well, and has happiness and salvation, it is in good spirits; but when it sees that things are going badly, love must mourn and pine away. The same happened to the Lord when he saw the abuse of the temple, not only of the outward house built of stones, but of the spiritual temple, as the people of God, which was so miserably corrupted by idolatry, for which reason he is also zealous. It would also be the duty of all of us to be zealous for God's word, and to be serious about the abominable behavior of the pope, the Turk and all the evil spirits.
would accept it. He who did so would understand this verse and would alone know what eating is.
(53) And if, in the household, father and mother die of sorrow and grief because of love, what should not happen in the temporal government, since many kings and princes have seen that they have not been able to take hold of and order the government as they would have liked, and have died of grief over it? This happens much more in the church government, when discord and disagreement arise in the doctrine, when the pious Christians and saints are perverted; then the angry love is grieved, so that one's heart would break.
This zeal is a friendly envy, which is experienced in the household, in the courts of kings and princes, and also in the Christian church. For there people love each other in a divine way. But it is not a whore's envy, but an envy and wrath that consumes heart and life. Therefore one does not read of Christ that he was much merry all his life long; but he had a heart that was always zealous, that he was always devouring himself for the temple and people of God. And there was no envious anger; as is seen in the Gospel, where he says [Matt. 23:37], "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often have I desired to gather thee?" etc. These are not words of a laughing heart; but this office was also laid upon him by his heavenly Father, that he should be diligent for us, and granted his zeal unto the cross. 1) Now follows further:
The nineteenth sermon [on the Gospel of John].
Saturday after Matthieu [March 2, 1538]. 2)
V. 18 Then the Jews answered him and said: What sign do you show us that you can do this?
1) This sermon, as already mentioned in the note to the heading, is also found in Buchwald's "Ungedruckte Predigten", but only in a meager excerpt in Latin, which takes up about one and a half pages. - The following sermon is also there, p. 237, also in Latin and very short (three pages).
2) In the original margin.
(55) This text serves so that we may better understand the false testimonies that they later presented against Christ in the Passion, of which Matthew [Cap. 26:61] and Mark [Cap. 14:58] wrote that he would tear down the temple and rebuild it in three days. This history is described by John alone; but they diligently noted this answer and interpreted it to mean that it was blasphemy, punishable by death, that he had said that he would build the temple in three days, which was a divine work, and therefore he made himself a god, because he presumed to be equal to God; for no one else could do this, since he was God.
(56) But it does not sound, it does not please the nobles of Jerusalem everywhere, that the Lord is so immodest, and reaches into their fair, drives out the sellers and buyers, and overturns everything; they were not used to it, that other private persons had done it before. They come and want to read a chapter to him, and do it with a great pretense before the people, saying that it is still not a good thing, even if he is still so delicious; in such a city, moreover in God's house, he should not make himself so powerful and start a ruckus. If those who had the proper authority to do so, as Annas and Caiphas, who were appointed by God to govern the people and the temple, had begun a change and reformation, it would have failed. For all the people knew well that the temple was commanded to the Levites; therefore that they sold the sacrifices, 1) neither should any man attack or overthrow it, if he had commanded it. Now Christ had no command either. Just as we could not, nor should we, suffer anyone to take away our preaching stand and break it down, or otherwise interfere with our ministry. It was the same with them, since only Aaron and the tribe of Levi were commanded how to handle the sacrifices and sell the livestock, and no one else was allowed to do so.
1) In Walch and in the Erlanger with wrong jnterpunction: "that the temple was commanded to the Levites, therefore, that they sold the sacrifices" etc.
thuu. And if he would say: I have come from God, and do this by divine authority," they answered, "Then do a sign; for God has hitherto preserved this order for the Levites, which was instituted by holy men, even by God Himself. If you now want to reverse this, then do a sign by which we will know that God has now revoked His words and no longer wants to suffer the sacrifices.
57 And if an Anabaptist came today and wanted to sit in the town hall and pretend that he was the mayor, he should not be allowed to do so. Or if he were to say, "I am a lord of this house, a priest in this city," one must do likewise and say, "If you are a mayor or a landlord in this house, let it be seen, prove it by a sign that you are from God, for this is commanded to me and not to you. So shall you do. And so the Jews here, as it can be seen, have done right and not wrong in keeping it. For God had commanded the tribe of Levi to rule. Why then do you take hold of this, since you are not a Levite, but a poor beggar, and the carpenter's, Joseph's, and Mary's son of Nazareth? Put it on him as if he were doing it out of thirst. Therefore let him give a sign of himself, by what power he does it; or let them report him to Anna, Caipha, and Pilato, to whom the regiment is ordered; they will take him by the neck, and judge him as he deserves. Read him a pretty good chapter, that he acts contrary to their command and will in the temple.
V. 19. Jesus answered and said to them: Break down this temple, and on the third day I will raise it up.
058 This is a foolish and unruly answer, that he saith, In three days I will raise him up again. What is this saying? The matter is entirely because you have heard that God sent John the Baptist to the Jewish people, who had the cry among all the people that he was a prophet, baptizing, not seeking his glory, but bringing the people to Christ, who would baptize with the Holy Spirit.
and perform miracles. They all knew this sermon of John's and considered him a prophet. That was sign enough. As the Lord Christ also says in another place: John came, and you asked 1) him, and he pointed you to me; he baptized you to repentance and led you to me. Therefore, because I am now present, you should remember that I am, and look to me, especially since John is my forerunner. You should pay good attention to the sign, because he has warned you with all diligence, you should pay attention to it, the Messiah would follow him quickly on his foot; yes, he has pointed to him with fingers.
59. Matthäi 21, 23. ff. this history is described more abundantly. When the Lord was about to suffer, and made a noise and a fuss when he entered Jerusalem, so that the chief priests and elders came to him and said, "By what authority doest thou these things? and who gave thee this authority? then Jesus answered and said: I also will ask you one word; if ye tell me, I will tell you also by what authority I do these things. Whence was the baptism of John? Was it from heaven, or from men?" When they also desired a sign from him, he asked them again, and drove them into the council chamber, so that they doubted, and knew not what to answer. "For they thought to themselves: If we say that she was from heaven, he will say to us, Why did you not believe him? But if we say she was of men, we shall be afraid of the people, because every man took John for a prophet. Therefore they answered him, "We do not know. Then said he unto them, Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things." Therefore, when you have heard John speak and preach, you will know by what authority or power I do these things.
(60) Thus the Lord had caught them so that they could not turn aside, as he had masterfully met them in every way. But he does not answer sweetly. It is also a proud question. They should have thought: Jo-
1) Walch and the Erlanger: fraget.
John, who is now a prisoner, preached this very thing about a man, that he would come and follow him, baptizing with fire and the Holy Spirit; so the people cling to him; he will be true. Therefore it is an untimely question, since they do not want to know whether he is the Messiah or not, when they should and could have known from John's preaching that he certainly is. As if he were to say, "Was John a liar? So Christ's answer is pointed and harsh. Because you will not accept John and his preaching, you will not accept me. Now John points his fingers at Christ and points him out to the people; they did not want to suffer this. They should not have asked, but should have accepted him for their Lord.
61 Then he will say, "I will paint it for you as you want it. Yes, I will paint it for you. Ye are wilful, and will not believe John, neither believe ye me: therefore will I give you a sign, which shall be called a sign. Because ye will not believe the doctrine of John the Baptist, which was from heaven, whom many of the Jews received, and were baptized of him, even the publicans and whoremongers; and because ye are proud in your wickedness, and are defiant, and want a sign, I will give you one; neither shall ye be worthy of any better. And saith, Break ye the temple etc.
62. but it is an answer just as Matthew says on the 12th, when the Jews, having heard his sermons and seen his miracles, and seeing that he was a great prophet, said, v. 38, "Master, let us see a sign from heaven. Then he answers them, v. 39: "This wicked and adulterous 'kind' wants a sign, and none is given to it but the sign of the prophet Jonah. "etc. So the Lord also wants to say here: Because you want to have a sign, no other sign shall be given to you than: "Break down the temple" etc. If he had given a sign in the air," they would not have believed him, but would have desecrated the sign and blasphemed it, saying, "Behold, the executioner has led the juggler away. How then did they pervert all that he had done?
Miraculous works had to be done by the power of the devil. If he had given them a sign from heaven, they would have called him a sorcerer. For such were the great miracles as casting out devils. Raising the dead and other miracles that no one else can do except God Himself, not helpers, yet they had to assume that he was a different man than other people; what would the signs in the air or from heaven have meant to them that could not be so great? For if he had already let your unusual, new star shine, or had done something else, they would have said: "The devil has his game in the air.
(63) The wicked do not believe; do with them as you will, they are thistleheads who only prick and scratch, that is, blaspheme and defile. That is why Solomon says, "If someone has to deal with a fool, whether he laughs or cries, he does nothing. Just as the pope and his crowd do to us; as we do, so it is wrong for them. If we are humble and speak kindly to them, and make it a little mild, then they say: "Oh, oh, they are afraid, so it is clear that they have lost. If we are sharp, they cry out, we are proud and hopeful. How then shall we do to him? We must let them go on like this until they become completely mad and foolish, and their heads are split in two. Do with you (he will say) as you will, then it is lost.
In Matthew [Cap. 11, v. 16 ff.] he says: "I am reminded of you in no other way than as children sing and shout to the others: We have whistled to you, and yet you have not danced; we have meant, yet you will not howl. John the Baptist came and neither ate nor drank like other people, and you said to him that he had the devil; I came and ate and drank with the people, and you said that I was a winebibber. The way you do it is not the same for you. Go where you belong, and see who wins. Therefore, if a man's thing is laughed at, let him be silent all the more. It is the same whether he gives a sign or refrains from it. If he gives a sign, they say
they say it is the work of the devil. I have often said that I do not desire that God should have given me the grace to perform miracles, but am glad that I can stick straight to the word of God and deal with it. For otherwise one would soon say: The devil does it through you.
The Lord shines a terrible light on them here. And how could he do otherwise to them? Dear Lord God! Because he tries to do good to them in so many ways, and they always make him angry, they don't like it, and it is extremely annoying. Therefore, notice what desperate, spiteful and poisonous boys the Lord is talking to here, and you will not be surprised that he deals with them so harshly. For they know John's preaching, send messages to him, the people clung to him, see also the miraculous works of Christ in the temple; yet they want a sign from him. And if he had answered them, and given them a sign, they would have received it, saying, Behold, what can the devil do? But if he does not, they say, "There is no God, but the devil. Therefore the Lord answers them in the same way as it is written in Matthew [Cap. 12, 39, 40], that no other sign should be given to them, the people who have perished, but that of the prophet Jonah: As he was three days in the whale, so shall the Son of Man also be three days in the earth. In the same way, he also gives them a sign here; only that he changes the words and figures and says: "This shall be your sign: "Break down this temple of mine, and I will raise it up again"; that is, I will be Jonah, whom you will throw into the sea, into the mouth of the whale, whom you will crucify and kill, but on the third day I will rise again. This is a joyful sign to the godly, but to the wicked it is a sign of stumbling, a stumbling block.
(66) So it is with our adversaries, the papists. As it is done with them, so it is wrong; they are angry and offended at us, pretending that the devil has made this people. But they should not see any sign of us. They think badly of us
are heretics and must therefore be led away. The same is what the Lord Christ says here: "Because you do not believe John and all the people, nor my preaching and miracles, I will help you completely to become mad and foolish, as you are very angry. Because I have touched your temple without asking you, and have harmed oxen and sheep, you will touch my temple again, I bet. But you shall have a sign with it, which you shall not deny me. I will raise up my temple again as soon as you have killed me. I will rise again and cause you to be shouted out through the whole world as murderers and evil-doers who have shed innocent blood. Then you shall come to me all the more. I will be a stone and rock that will fall on you broken pieces and crush you. Because you will resist such preaching and be mad and foolish, I will come after you and drag this city, so that not one stone will be left upon another, and you will be scattered to the ends of the earth in all countries, and may never come to a regiment. So I will deal with you. That means traun answered sharply enough.
(67) And what else can we answer our enemies, the papists, with whom there is no pleading, no entreaty, no patience, no kindness, no earnestness? Therefore I also say to them: As you will; if neither entreaty nor supplication shall help, go your way; you shall start aright. If you want to bang your heads, you will find your reward. They know that they do wrong against us, and yet they will not accept our teaching. What then do they do? Well, they say, we will strike you dead, as they have slain many saints. Go on, gentlemen, break the temple; you will see whom you have killed. Our temple will be raised up again, so that the gospel may remain in the Christian church. But when you papists have become mad and foolish about the gospel, and have perished, it will be said, "You wanted it so, it serves you right.
68 Therefore this is the sign of the Jews, that is, the death of Christ, that they should crucify him and strangle him, and that he should rise again the third day. They shall have the sign of Jonah, and it shall be preached unto them. As if he were to say, "When you see that I have risen from the dead, and that you have done wrong to me by crucifying him in whose mouth no deceit has been found, and that I have risen of myself out of death, then this will be the right sign for you. This still hurts them today. They have broken this temple, Christ, and now they have to push themselves against the heap of stones, and still hear only this one, whom they have killed; and they have to accept the broken and raised or resurrected temple; or they are all eternally lost. And the Lord will say, After the calamity ye struggle, and would smite me, and break me; but I will raise me up again, and break you. So God must judge, if one does not want to hear or believe, but one often lets the devil ride.
This answer is bright and clear, since the Jews did not want to believe in him, even though they knew or could have known from the Scriptures that he was Christ or the Messiah. For St. John had proclaimed this before, and his miracles and sermons proved it; also the whole people confessed it, and yet they wanted him dead because of it; that he again despised them and did not consider them worthy of him, to whom he should give a sign. In the same way our papists are doing now: they see that they are wrong, they are also hostile to the pope, they seize the founders and monasteries and spoliate them, they do not give a damn about the pope's condemnation and banishment; nor do they want us dead, and mock our teachings, since they know that we teach right and are convinced in their conscience that they act wrong; nor do they want to believe, hear, or accept our sermon out of pure malice and hatred. But we, who hear, act, believe and accept God's word, let ourselves be banished and do not run against Christ. Let the evil despisers and persecutors run away forever; they will receive their punishment.
well find. So now they have their sign, that Christ says here: I have cleansed your temple, and you want to kill me; but break my temple, and I will break yours again.
V. 20: Then said the Jews, This temple was built in forty and six years, and thou wilt build it in three days?
The foolish, blind Jews do not understand these words, or what Christ means by them; as is the case with all those who follow their own judgment and head, contrary to God's word; they are under the curse that is written in the prophet Isaiah [Cap. 6, 10], that they do not see with seeing eyes, and do not hear with hearing ears; for they are drowned in their carnal judgment, so deep that they can neither grasp nor understand anything that is spiritual. So here they interpret the words of the Lord carnally, to the temple that was built of stones, and interpret these words most fiercely according to their own way and pleasure, and begin to blaspheme and desecrate his words, and even make hell and death out of one word, and do not interpret it where he interprets it. Just as our adversaries do, when they hear a word from us, they make it a living hell.
71 Therefore this is also a bitter word, that they say, "This temple was built in forty-six years, and thou wilt set it up in three days?" Which only God and no man can do. Therefore they accuse him here almost as if he were making himself God, because he wanted to rebuild the temple in three days, which before was hardly built in forty-six years. There they want to say: If you can do this art, then you are either God or the devil. Therefore they think that they have him now certainly in the bag; as they therefore accuse him before Pilate, and say that he has blasphemed God, and made himself God. Or, if he is not God, he must be a juggler, that he would build such a temple in three days, and is such either a devil's ghost, or ascribes to him works of divine majesty. Therefore, they think that they have now caught him in his own words, that he has either blasphemed God, or is with the devil.
He was a sorcerer or a blasphemer. Whichever he was, a sorcerer or a blasphemer, he was guilty of death according to the law of Moses. Wherever he wanted to go out, they would have caught him. For if he turned to God, he was guilty of death as a blasphemer; but if he dealt with the devil, he would not have to live. 1) For Moses did both. For Moses expressed it both ways, that a blasphemer and a devil's comrade, sorcerer or juggler should not suffer among the people of God, but should soon be destroyed and exterminated without any argument.
(72) But they falsely interpret the words of the Lord to mean the temple that was built of stones, and they make it a grievous thing. For if he had spoken of the temple built by men, as they interpret it, it is easy to understand that it is not human to build such a temple as this in three days, over which they say it was built forty-six years. Not that they built it through and through the same time, but from the beginning to the end of the construction forty-six years passed. For they were often prevented by war, and otherwise by the surrounding neighbors, who gave them neither rest nor peace. Otherwise they would have built such a temple in six or seven years, and the ban was not so heavy as the obstacles. That is why they think that the emperor of Persia, Cyrus, allowed them to leave Babylon for Jerusalem and to rebuild the city and the temple there until the temple was finished. Then they were attacked here and there by the neighbors, who did not like to see the construction, until almost forty-six years had passed, and they could not get away, and had to travel up and down in Persia to the kings, who not only issued edicts and commands for the building of this city and temple, but also gave a lot of money and goods for it. There were officials and other servants at the court, and if they could exchange and prevent it, they did so. As the devil of the court does not rest, and in Daniel [Cap. 10, 13] it is also said that he was sent by the angel from Persia, and by the angel from the land of the gods.
1) Again - again.
Angels from Greece were prevented. This is said of the court devils, who have a great deal to do at court and cause all kinds of misfortune in kings' and princes' courts and hinder all that is good. For the devil has very bad boys at court; if any prince decides a matter, such a devil comes in quickly and contradicts it. And there are also such devils in the cities, and in the houses, as house devils. So these same evil angels hindered and prevented the temple from being built and the right worship from being restored.
So now the temple has been built for forty-six years, not because of the work, but because of the obstacles. Now it is as great an effort to overcome the obstacle as it is to build, and the obstacles here are greater than all the expense and labor. Therefore it is right to say that the temple was built in forty-six years, because the building lasted forty-six years, and the building could not continue. But they wanted to indicate with it: Since the temple took us so much trouble, labor and expense, that it could not be built in forty-six years, how would you build it again in three days? Therefore you are a blasphemer, because you pretend that you can do divine works. So let the Lord do what he will, and it shall not be right for them: but they shall begin to stumble before his temple or his body be broken: for they cannot bear him at all.
These things are written for our learning and warning, that we may do what faith and the Holy Spirit teach. If we cannot convert or win over our adversaries, the blasphemers, either with laughter or mourning (for we do what we want, and none of it helps), they may be sent away, thinking that the same thing will happen to the Lord Christ here; but if he does it well, they will blame him and blaspheme him. Therefore let them always go, and break and tarnish the temple.
75 But the Lord Christ confesses here that he is truly God and man, because he does not speak of the
It was not the temple of Solomon, of which the Jews understood his language, but his body and his humanity, in which the Godhead dwelt bodily and personally. For it is a divine work to raise the dead and give life; no one else can do this, except God. The devil can murder, man can do the same, but he cannot resurrect and bring back to life. It is God's work alone who raises the dead and gives life to those who do not have it, and makes something out of that which is nothing. The devil can break what is made, but not build it again. He can also burn down a house by fire, but not raise it up again. Therefore, when he says, "In three days I will raise him up again," he confesses that the death of his body is in his power, and that he leaves his life and takes it again when he wants to; therefore he is not only man, but also God. That he is man is indicated by the fact that he will be broken and die; but that he will rise again, that he will raise himself, indicates that he is also God, and by divine power makes the dead alive; for this is no man's work.
Thus he shows the Jews that he is truly God and man. Just as we believe in him, that in the one person of Christ there are two natures, the Godhead and humanity. This is the sign and vexation of the Jews, who to this day are still angry and resentful when they hear Christ preach that he whom they crucified is the eternal, true God and man. They confess that they crucified a man, namely a thief and a bad boy, for which they considered him, as Isaiah [Cap. 53, 12] testifies, that he was counted among the wicked; but that he should have raised himself again from the dead, as he says here: "I will raise him up again", that is what they object to.
Now these things are the doctrine of the Holy Ghost, which is from heaven, and is not found in our understanding; and the Holy Ghost writeth them in our hearts with his fiery tongue, that we may believe them.
Otherwise, if it had flowed from our reason, the Jews would have believed it too. Now if you hear these things earnestly and believe them with all your heart, the Holy Spirit is your teacher and you are his disciple. And if thou abide with Christ, thou art a child of eternal blessedness. And just as he died and raised himself from the dead, so he will raise from the dead all who believe.
This is prescribed for our comfort, as it is also said to the Romans in chapter 10, v. 9: "If you believe in your heart that God raised Christ from the dead, you will be saved. But those who do not believe these things stumble at them, fall down and are condemned. Therefore this is not the teaching of reason, but is preached from heaven through the oral word of the gospel by the Holy Spirit, who also gives power to it, so that it remains in the heart, and one lives and dies by it. The Turk does not believe this. The pope may speak of it with his mouth, but he asks nothing of it, and thinks more of his Judas bag than of the gospel. Therefore, they do not understand the word of God, and they are not worthy of it.
V. 21, 22: And he spake of the temple of his body. And when he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had spoken these things, and believed the scripture and the words which Jesus had spoken.
79 The evangelist interprets the word of the Lord himself and says that he spoke of his body. For this is the true temple, where God now dwells and wants to be, and all other temples belong here in the temple, that is, in the humanity of Christ, which he took from the Virgin Mary. The same body was God's temple, His castle and palace, His royal hall; which is well to be noted. As then 'to the temple at Jerusalem, which is now to cease, God bound Himself; not for His own sake, but for the sake of the people, that they might have a certain place where they might know to find God. Therefore he would be nowhere else; and whosoever would call upon him, and come before him, must come to Jerusalem to the temple.
Or even turn his face thither, he was in what place of the world he would; for at Jerusalem there was the temple and tabernacle of God.
80) But now, in the New Testament, God has prepared another temple, where God wants to dwell, that is, the dear humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ; there God wants to be found, and nowhere else, calling Christ's body God's temple, where God dwells, so that all our hearts and eyes may be directed to Christ, and we may worship him alone, who sits at the right hand of God in heaven, as we confess in our Christian faith 2c, that we should no longer run to the mountains or green valleys, as the idolatrous Jews and pagans did, and seek and worship God there, for there we would not find God: but he who wants to call upon God, in whatever place he may be in the world, should turn his face toward heaven to Christ, and so come to God through Christ, the right true temple. For Christ is the true seat of grace, in whom all grace, all love, all kindness is found. Otherwise, whoever wants to seek God apart from Christ will find a God, as it says in Genesis [5th book, chap. 4, 24], who is "a consuming fire".
81. Whoever now wants to come before God and deal with Him and call upon Him, let him know that he is no longer bound to a certain place, as in the Old Testament He was to be found in the temple at Jerusalem alone; but where there are only people throughout the whole world who say from the heart: Lord Jesus Christ, who is true God and man, and died for us, and sits at the right hand of God, in Your name I pray that God, the heavenly Father, may be merciful to me; or who say: Our Father, who art in heaven, for thy dear Son's sake I beseech thee, etc., he will surely find God, he must not run to Jerusalem, to Rome, or to St. James: he has God with him at home in the Lord Christ. Therefore, whoever desires to be saved, and to have a gracious God, and to obtain from Him what he desires, let him turn his heart and eyes toward heaven, and look to Christ, who sits at the right hand of God. He who also wants to serve God, to find him and
He will come to this spiritual and right temple, Christ, before whom he will fall down, and there he will pray and believe in him.
Now there is much to be said here about the Pope's, item, the orders and brotherhoods that have lured us to Rome, Compostel and Jerusalem 1) and have devised one pilgrimage after another, where the people should run and pray; as if we could not find God at home in our house, in our bedchamber, or wherever else we would like to be. For God is no more bound to a place than He was when He came to dwell in Jerusalem, before the true Temple, the Lord Christ, came; just as it is also said in the fourth chapter of John, v. 23: "Behold, the time cometh, that neither in Jerusalem, nor in this mountain, shall men worship; but the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth." The temple at Jerusalem has ceased, and now in every place where there is one, let him worship God, and set his heart and eyes on the faith of the person of Christ, who is both God and man, saying, "I believe that He not only ascended into heaven, but also sits at the right hand of His Father and is like God. And if you ask anything in his name, he will give it, because you are meeting the right temple. We in the papacy have not understood these glorious words, nor have we acted upon them. For if Christ sits at the right hand of His Father, why do we seek Him in Rome, in Compostel, and in Ach, or in the Oak? You will not find him there, but the wretched devil; for he will not let himself be found according to our will and pleasure.
This is what I wanted to say here, that Christ calls Himself a temple, that is, that in Christ the Godhead dwells bodily, as St. Paul says [Col. 2:9]. If anyone then will seek God apart from Christ, let him know that he lacks God. For if in the days of old God was lacking to those who sought Him outside Jerusalem, many more will now come to wrong who seek God outside Christ. For in Christ dwells the fullness of the Godhead, and without Christ is
1) i.e. curled.
no God, and all who seek God without Christ, as the Turks and Jews do, will find no God at all and perish, for there is no help outside of Christ. This is why this piece is so comforting, that the Lord calls his body a temple of God, as if God always wants to dwell in it and be in it, and nowhere else.
The twentieth sermon [on the Gospel of John].
[Saturday] March 16, 1538. 2)
V. 23, 24: And when he was at Jerusalem, at the feast of the passover, many believed on his name, because they saw the signs which he did. But Jesus did not trust in them, for he knew them all, and had no need that any man should bear witness of any man, for he knew well what was in man.
84 The text also says about the feast of Easter, when all the Jews had to come to Jerusalem, and many of the Gentiles gathered there to pray before God, who was the God of the Jews. For the temple was to be a house of prayer, not only for the Jews, but also for the Gentiles; for the Gentiles were also saved in the Old Testament. And down in the 12th chapter of John, v. 21, it is written that in the coming of the Lord Christ to Jerusalem, the Gentiles came to the apostle Philip and desired to see Christ, because they also believed in the God who was the God of the Jews, who promised the world a Savior. And they were saved without the law of Moses or circumcision, but only through faith in the Messiah who was to come. When many of them had come to Jerusalem from all parts of the earth under the sun, and had heard the cry of the Lord Christ, that he had wrought many miracles and wondrous works
2) In the original in the margin. This time determination is confirmed by the manuscript of the princely Wallerstein library, which Buchwald published in 1885: "Andreas Poachs handwritten collection of unprinted sermons 1)r. Martin Luthers aus den Jahren 1528 bis 1546" u. s. w., where with this sermon (in another, shorter redaction) the time determination is found: krittis lieminisoere [16. Märzs. (Vol. Ill, first half. )
(For these things were sounded and spread abroad), and therefore more flocks ran to Jerusalem than otherwise would have happened, that they might hear the preaching of Christ, and see his wondrous works. And when they themselves saw his signs, the evangelist says that many believed in him.
But what is this "believing"? Nothing else, but that they considered and accepted him as the Messiah of the world. For the text does not say that they believed in God through him, but that they believed in him, and not a small number of them, but many of them, almost the majority of the Jewish people, who believed in him. But the same faith is still a milk faith and a young faith, of those who easily fall or burst and believe, and when they hear something that they do not like, or that they would not have thought of, they bounce back quickly, and fall back on their old dreams. Therefore this text says that you believed in him a lot because of the miraculous signs. But what these miraculous signs were is not described here. And in the last chapter of his Gospel, v. 25, St. John says that Christ performed many miraculous signs in the presence of the disciples and other people, and also preached and spoke many other things, none of which are described. But the things that were described were done so that people would believe in Christ, that he was the Savior of the world, and that through faith in him they would have eternal life [John 20:30, 31].
But what is this, that the evangelist says they believed in him, and thought him to be the Messiah, and yet the Lord would not trust them; for he knew what was in man? Here it should be known that John the Evangelist adds these words for two reasons. First, that he might show us, for a lesson, that our dear Savior, Jesus Christ, is truly God, knowing the hearts of all men, and knowing every one. Neither I, nor you, nor any other man can do this. This is what the prophets were able to do, that they sometimes knew, from a revelation of God, one man's plans and schemes against another, even the
It is written about Elisha [2 Kings 6:8 ff] that he showed the king of Judah how the king of Syria was coming with a great army to fight against him, so he said to the king: Prepare thyself, and go into the same place: for this and that have his counsellors determined etc. But this he had not from himself, but it was revealed to him by God; item, he could not do of all men, nor know of all the thoughts of one man, neither can he know all men. But this man sees so deeply into all men's hearts that nothing can be done secretly from him, he knows it, he knows everything, and it must not be revealed to him, he also knows all, he is a heart-revealer, as in the stories of the apostles St. Lucas says [Cap. 15, 8.]. But such is a divine work and not human. For not all things are revealed to a man; he, the Lord Christ, alone is a revealer of hearts. What then did he see? That they believed in him, but when a temptation or adversity struck them in the face, they fell away again, as Matthew 13:21 says of the seed that fell on the rock, and when the sun shone hot, it withered, because it had no root. So he has seen here that many of them believe well at first and want to be good Christians, but when a shock comes, they fall back. Just as many people have done in Germany in our time, who started well, but when the trouble broke out, and the uproar came, red spirits and heretics rose up, they fell away again, and the same then became worse than they had ever been before; yes, even worse than the pope himself.
Therefore this is the first cause, that Christ is true God, and a heart-cleaner; but the world is so foolish (as also Junker Pabst and his cardinals do), that it does not think otherwise, that it can hide its counsels from our Lord God. No, he is called in the holy scripture χμρ8ιογνώστης, a heart-annunciator. This is true, as Jeremiah says [Cap. 17, 9.], man's heart is such a desperate, bottomless
and groundless thing, which is inscrutable, yes, with the people. For there one can masterfully hide the mischief, give good words, and have something arideres in the heart, there is mean the simulatio, dissimulatio, perfidia, nequitia unb malitia etc.. But God sees it nevertheless probably up to the ground away, if it would be still so deep.
And what a mischievous thing it is for a man's heart, that we know well. I have experienced it in the case of the pope and the priest of Mainz, who have been able to mend their ways with us with exquisite, good words, and thus pretend to be holy and pious, as if they were angels, yes, God Himself; and yet they have been wretched devils. But they are as devious as they always want to be, yet they should not be too clever for him who knows the hearts of all men. As the Lord Christ in the Gospel of John sees well in the hearts of the people who believed in him at Jerusalem, that they would not hold fast or remain steadfast in the faith they now had. As it happened afterward, when it came to his suffering, everyone fell away from him, just as the leaves fall from the trees in autumn.
Again, if a man is devout and God-fearing, his heart cannot be judged nor searched. For it is written [1 Cor. 2:15]: Spiritualis a nemine judicabitur. Who will search it out? says the Scripture. But God says [Jer. 17, 9. 10.]: I will do it, I can do it, and I alone know it, and should a man hide himself from me, and I should not see him? As if he should say, By no means will it be done.
90] Secondly, this text is given us as an example and warning that we should not trust or rely on any man's faith or holiness, as the Lord does here. He sees their hearts and knows that they believe, yet he does not want to trust them, because "he knew well what was in man, and did not need to have a man's testimony given to him," so that people would say to him, "O Lord, this is a righteous man, for he knew them all before.
1) "dem" put by us instead of "den"; "dem Pfaffen von Mainz", Cardinal Albrecht.
This is a necessary doctrine, that we should always be on our best behavior toward people, especially toward believers, and yet know that they can fall short and err. What a doctrine, if it had been firmly held in Christendom, we would have had neither the pope nor all his filth and stench of antichristian doctrine, with which the Christian church was subsequently deceived. For in the papacy they soon concluded and said: "Oh, he is a holy man, therefore everything he says is right. Take before you the examples of St. Ambrose, St. Gregory, St. Augustine, and St. Jerome, and after that, Bernhardt, St. Benedict, St. Dominic, and St. Francis, until finally everything was gathered up that was said and taught by anyone who was considered a holy man.
(92) From this I am to be warned here, and say: I will gladly believe that the above-mentioned people, as St. Gregory, Ambrose and Augustine, were holy people; but I do not trust them. For even though they are holy, you must not say that they could not err and be wrong, and that one should trust and build on all the sayings of the fathers; item, accept as true and believe everything they taught. But take the touchstone or touchstone before the hand, namely the divine word, and try, judge, and judge according to it all that the fathers have written, preached, and spoken, and also otherwise made of rules, statutes of men, and other things. For if you do not do this, you will be corruptly deceived and deceived. And because the pope was not led to this grinding mill in the past, he did well and flooded the church with error, like a flood of sin, and made people accept and believe all speeches and teachings, even what the monks and priests dreamed of at night, as holy and delicious. Therefore, all the harmful and horrible errors, about which we have fought, fought and fought with the pope, such as monastic life, indulgences, pilgrimages, invocation of the deceased saints, masses, vigils and masses for the souls of the deceased, have grown.
are in purgatory; item, rosaries, and other fool's works more.
But be diligentlyware of this. For no saint is pure and without sin in this life; he still has flesh and blood clinging to him, and the devil next to him, who may well cause him to stumble and fall; as St. Paul laments to the Romans Cap. 7, 23, 19. I see another law in my members, which is contrary to the law in my mind, and takes me captive to the law of sins, so that I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want, that is what I do. For flesh and blood always contends against the Spirit, and at times does not let the saints pray, give thanks and praise to God, or otherwise rejoice, as they should. For we should always rejoice, dance, leap, and sing the Te Deum laudamus. But we are often so distressed, sad and afflicted that we forget to give thanks and pray. So also the carnal devotion, which wants to be spiritual, sometimes goes astray and errs.
Because we see that many believe in the divine word, and yet they soon fall away, I should not easily trust a person (whoever he may be, even if he is already a believer) and cling to him as if he could not be mistaken. As the pope has used this title, that he does not err, and has placed under the appearance of the church the Beggar's Belly, Thomam of Aquinas, Scotum and Bonaventuram 2) as holy people, who could never err. He did the same with the other fathers, whom he raised so high in heaven that he made of them pillars of the Christian Church.
95 Against them one should have said: Yes, dear pope, they believe well and are pious people, but I should not trust them; for I must see here whether they also remain with Christ or fall away from him, as may well happen, for they are human beings. Therefore I must pay attention to them,
1) "under the appearance," namely, that he could not err.
2) aufscllen - to act up, to hang up. In Low German: Kleiderseller - those who trade in worn clothing.
whether their doctrine everywhere agrees with the doctrine of Christ and is conformable to it, or whether it strives against it. For Christ alone is to be presented to us, on whom we are to look, and to have our eyes fixed on him, and not to look at Ambrosium or Gregory, and to cling entirely to their speeches and teachings alone.
96 Therefore say, I will see whether the doctrine rhymes with Christ. Just as St. Paul gives Christians this certain rule, that they should pay careful attention to what rhymes with the teachings of Christ and the faith (I should not forget this), and says [Rom. 12:7]: Ut sit analogon fidei, that is, it should be found to rhyme with Christ and be similar to him. So also St. Peter says [4 Ep. 4, 11], "He that speaketh, speaketh as the word of God." For you must not only go to St. Bernard or Ambrosio, but also go with them to Christ, and see whether they rhyme with his teaching. If they do not do this, but have also invented and taught something out of their own devotion over and above what Christ taught before, then I must let them answer for this and not make an article of faith out of it; nor must I believe them, because they do not agree with Christ in the same way. For I am to abide with Christ alone, who has done neither too much nor too little for him. He has taught me to know God the Father, and has explained Himself to me, and has also given me the Holy Spirit to know Him rightly; He has taught me how I should live and how I should die, or what I should wait for; what more do I want? Now if anyone wants to teach me anything, let him see that he brings nothing new, or let me say to him, "I will not do it, my dear priest, my dear preacher, my dear St. Ambrose, my dear St. Augustine; for what is outside the man who is called Christ is not pure; it is still flesh and blood, from which Christ earnestly warns us not to trust, for he himself did not believe men either.
Because we have not followed such teachings of Christ until now, everything that St. Gregory and Thomas Aquinas and others have said has been right. And therefore all the monks and nuns have come, yes, all the
Pilgrimages, and the invocation of the saints emerged from it.
But no one can believe how great an annoyance this is, and how grievously it offends one (as it has often done to me), that one should teach and believe something against the fathers; item, when one sees that so many excellent, understanding, and learned people, indeed, the best and greatest part of the world, have held and taught in such a way; and also so many holy people, as St. Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine etc. But nevertheless, the one man, my dear Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, must be more important to me than all the holiest people on earth; yes, even more than all the angels in heaven, if they taught something else than the gospel, or if they did or broke off something for the teaching of the divine word. When I read St. Augustine's books and find that he has done this and that himself, truly, it makes me very upset. If the clamor is added to this, that they cry: "Church, church! that offends most of all. For it is indeed a hard thing to be able to overcome one's own heart in these matters, and to differ from people who have a great reputation and bear such a holy name, yes, from the church itself, and no longer trust or believe its teachings. But I mean the church, of which they say: "The church has decided that St. Francis' and St. Dominic's rule, and the monks' and nuns' order is right, Christian and good; this truly knocks one over the head. But I must answer in sum that I do not have to accept everything that a man says, for one can be a pious and God-fearing man and still be mistaken. For this reason I will not trust everyone, as it is said here that the Lord Christ also did not trust men. In the Gospel of Matthew [Cap. 7, 15] Christ warns to beware of false prophets who will come and not only teach that they are Christians, but also perform miraculous signs so that the elect may be led astray [Matth. 24, 24].
99 Therefore, we should not trust any fathers, nor any of their writings, but under
the wings of our glorious hen, the Lord Christ, and look at him alone. For God, the heavenly Father, says of Himself [Matth. 3, 17]: "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, Him you shall hear"; He wants us to hear Christ alone, for He has not spoken too little, nor too much.
Moses has the greatest glory and honor in the Scriptures) who may say: You shall not do anything to me for the law, nor take anything from it, but leave it as I have taught you [Deut. 4:2]. If Moses, as the servant, wants to have such honor and glory, how much more is it due to the Lord Christ, to whom God the Father has given the testimony from heaven that we should hear him and no one else! For He has taught us to know the Father and Himself, and how each one should conduct himself in his position, and how to endure trials and temptations, for which He has given us His Word and Sacrament, so that we may not suffer any addition or detraction.
101) But the pope does it as he pleases, and he is not allowed to add to it, and to break off from it; as he took the one form of the Lord's Supper from the laity, contrary to this text, when God says: "This you shall hear. But who told him to break it off? And, if one should not break off the word of Moses, the servant, why would one want to break off and take something from the word of the Lord, Christ? Therefore, whether you are a priest or not, I will believe that you are pious, but I will not trust you, for you break off from the divine word, and your preaching and teaching is not according to and similar to faith, as St. Paul requires. But the pope also does something in addition, as indulgences, pilgrimages; item, that he sells meat and butter, and whoever eats it on forbidden days, that the same sins on it. Who has allowed him the addition? For my Lord Christ says that I shall not be caught; if I only know the Father and believe in him, I shall eat what God provides and is set before me by men.
But they cry out against it in the Pabstium: Fathers, fathers! Then you answer: I believe it well, and gladly allow it that they sanctify.
But if they teach and speak anything against Christ, I do not believe them. For how does it rhyme that the pope says: Whoever eats meat on Friday is of the devil, maledicted and cursed, when Christ teaches the contrary? And St. Paul wants [1 Tim. 4, 4] that all food should be received and used with thanksgiving to God. Does this rhyme with the teaching of Christ? I let it be that Ambrose and Augustine have said and taught that one should not eat meat on the same day; nevertheless, because it is contrary to the holy Scriptures, I will not do it, nor will I obey you.
103. He also pretended that he who goes to Rome to get indulgences will be saved, and forced the monks to keep their rules, so that they would go barefoot, wear wooden shoes, be bare-headed and bald like fools, and have ropes around their necks like thieves; whoever of the monks and nuns did not do this would be eternally lost: But Christ has given thee liberty in such matters, saying, If thou hast not a gray tunic, put on a black one; and he would not have the rope of man's statutes cast over thy horns, and thy conscience taken captive, but that thou shouldest believe in him alone, and then love thy neighbor, and be patient in suffering, when God sends thee a cross, and hope for eternal blessedness.
But all these things have been taught in the papacy, and many great people have been caught and blinded by them, so that they have held much to them, and have made articles of faith out of them. How then still many are deceived by their pretense that the church does not err. But answer thou this, O yes, she erreth, and may well err and be erring. For the church cannot be gathered together into one place, or into one congregation, but is a common Christian church, which is scattered abroad, and is often found in one place, where thou wouldest have least imagined it. Therefore the Lord Christ alone does not err, but the Christian church can err. And that it can err, we have well learned from the fact that it
She accepted and approved the custom of the One Form of the Lord's Supper, proposed by the pope, and did not oppose it, nor did she oppose it. But Christ has preserved it by praying daily in the Christian faith for forgiveness of sins; as we still ask in the Lord's Prayer: "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
For this reason you think that the church is holy, but I do not trust it because I see an example of the church under the papacy. But if they teach Christ well, I will also believe and trust; for in Christ I know no sin, error or lie, for he alone is the truth, and God the Father's will is in him. For of him he says: "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, him you shall hear" etc. But where I shall hear another, error shall not be left out.
Therefore, let this be a warning to me, and see what I do when someone comes along who is foolish and wants to preach to me in such a way. But I tell you, it is hard to stand here and overcome this puff that the holy people, as St. Augustine and others, could err. I have had a lot to do with this for twenty years, and have argued about it with myself, and have thrown myself over with the proposition that one should not believe everything that the pope says; item, that the church is wrong; and that I should believe only what the fathers say; These have indeed had a great appearance and reputation, for they have been taken for great teachers of the church, and all the emperors, kings, and princes of the world adhere to them and their doctrine, and the whole multitude of the papacy (which possesses the kingdoms and estates of the world) hold with them. But what are we in comparison? A small, poor, small group.
But God the Father has warned us against this; likewise also the Son. For thus prophesies the Lord Christ, saying [Matth. 24, 24]: "False prophets shall arise, preaching such errors, that even the saints and the elect may be deceived and beguiled." Now, I admit that the holy fathers, Ambrose and Bernard, believed that
1830 Erl. is, sZo-LZZ. Interpretations on John the Evangelist. W. vn, nss-iwr. 1831
and elect; but Christ Himself says here that even the saints may err, and the elect may be deceived.
108 Therefore, it is not enough, nor does the consequence follow, that I say: St. Benedict is a holy man, St. Gregory a pious, select man; therefore, what he has done and said, that should also be done and taught, because it is all holy and good. Do not blame them, because they were also human beings. So the text here says that many believed in Christ, but he did not trust them. Why then will you trust them and follow them? Because there is more in man than faith, namely, the old Adam, flesh and blood, which are still hanging around our necks. Item, the devil also desires to sift men, just as one sifts wheat; as the Lord Christ says to St. Peter [Luc. 22, 31]. Therefore a man may well err and fall.
What do you want to do, do you want to condemn them? No, I will not condemn the Benedictum and others, but I will take their books and run with them to Christ and his word, as the touchstone, and hold them against each other, and bring St. Francis' rule to Christ's gospel; if then their doctrine agrees with it, then I will accept it, if not, then I say: You may well be a holy man, but you will not bring me into your rule, because your rule is a man's rule, therefore the devil accept it in my place.
110 So it should have been done. But no one wants to do it, nor can they do it today. For they will not admit it, nor yield to the fact that the church errs. But hold thou to Christ; as John the Baptist also sent his disciples to Christ. In the same way, place the saints under Christ, for what the prophets and holy men have done', there is no need to make a rule out of it. And you are to judge from the words of the Lord Christ alone, for it is written, "This is the one you shall hear. If therefore ye shall hear this, know that all things which ye shall speak and do in the faith of the Son shall please me; if not, then please me.
Again, nothing that you will say and do, and then go (as we have learned) that one has looked at the people alone. If St. Augustine, Jerome or Ambrose said or taught something, we closed our eyes and 1) did not ask further questions, but accepted and believed it without some disputation, and thought that one must hold the church and the saints in honor. But one has not considered that one does not know everything that is in one, namely, to sin and to err. From afar I see that he is flesh and blood, and that these things in man fight against one another, as was shown in chapter 7, v. 18 ff. to the Romans, and in chapter 5, v. 16 ff. to the Galatians.
For this reason, you say, "I admit that St. Jerome, our pastor, is a pious and godly man, but I do not trust him, nor do I believe that everything they do and say is true and Christian, for I know that there is still a piece of Adam in them, as there is in me. For at times I come and speak a vain word, reproach, become angry, slothful and indolent to hear the divine word, or to live by it; item, am cold to faith and prayer, am sure, snore and sleep, and cleave to flesh and blood and my evil lusts too much, and do too much to him. And who is there among us who has not often stumbled and sinned?
(112) It requires great diligence and effort, therefore, not to make all these things an example and a model, but to learn what one may do or refrain from doing with a clear conscience. For if it is said, "This man teaches as Christ taught in his Gospel, and lives as Christ taught," believe it, and follow such a teacher, if you draw his preaching, teaching, and life to Christ; otherwise do not follow. And so also St. Paul says [1 Cor. 11, 1.]: Estote imitatores mei, sicut et ego Christi. Teach how we should follow him and look at his example, but not higher than how he looked at Christ's example.
1) Erlanger: us.
For otherwise it would not be enough, nor would it be everything. For this reason he adds: sicut et ego Christi, as if he should say: If I therefore follow in the footsteps of the Lord Christ, then you also follow me. But if there is a lack of a saint, do not follow him; as if there were anger, unchastity, laziness, that one should be left in faith and love; in such things do not follow.
It is dangerous to speak as the pope did, namely, that St. Benedict was a holy man and did not eat meat on Fridays and Saturdays; therefore, it is good that I follow him in this matter. How, if St. Benedictus had done it out of ambition and carnal devotion? So also, if the pope pretends that St. Francis was a pious man, that he did not touch money, and that he wore a gray cap and wooden shoes, and then you wanted to say: Well, I want to do the same. No, Christ did not command that one must wear a gray cap. But St. Franciscum was very good about it. How, then, if he had done it not out of the Holy Spirit, but out of the old Adam, who always wants to be wise in spiritual matters? He did it out of human devotion and reason. For the Lord Christ is well pleased with it, you clothe yourself with whatever clothes you want; only stay with Christ, and do not let yourself be led away from him, creep under his wings; just as the young chicks creep under the mother hen, and follow her where she lures the chicks, otherwise the vulture tears them apart and eats them.
(114) Let this example of Christ be seen, and let it be learned that we believe men to be holy and pious, and that we hold in honor the dear fathers and saints, and also the church; but do not rely on them, as if they could not err. The Church must pray daily: "Forgive us our trespasses"; item, she also believes in forgiveness of sin. And here in the text it is said: Many believed in Jesus, but he did not trust them, because he knew that they were men.
(115) But if the church and the fathers act in such a way as to give the Lord Christ, their
The bridegroom, the beatific and the shepherds, follow them, and I will gladly follow them. This is what the Lord wanted to admonish us about. For he saw that the devil would play such a game in the church, and that the pope would gain great dominion by teaching that the church and the fathers could not err, for by this teaching he deceived the world miserably. Let this be a warning to us, and let us follow the example of the Lord Christ, that we should think all good of men, but trust none.
The twenty-first sermon [on the Gospel of John].
[Saturday] 23 March [1538]. 1)
We have heard how the Lord taught us by his example that we should not trust in men. For when he preached in Jerusalem, he did not trust those who believed in him. For thus the text reads, "Jesus trusted not in them, for he knew well what was in man." From this we have learned that we should be armed and strengthened against the great clamor, not only of the papists, but also of our consciences, who are always telling us and advancing: "This is what the holy men, Augustine, Ambrose and others, did, this and that they wrote and said; therefore it must be believed and followed. For the Lord does not speak here of those who disbelieve and are wicked, but of those who believed in him, that he did not trust them either, and the text says: he did it because he knew what was in man. As if the evangelist were to say that he did not need anyone to come and say, "O dear Lord, these are truly pious people and good Christians who believe well, you may well trust them, they are serious in what they do and say. But he would have answered: Oh, dear, do not teach me to know men; I know very well that they believe, but I do not trust them. Why? The two can go together, that men-
1) In the original margin.
believers are believers, and that believers are also human beings, and yet they should not be trusted. For men can err and sin, and have not yet stripped themselves of their old hardness. For though we are believers and spiritual, we are not yet purified as we ought to be. The old Adam is still hanging around our necks, and in a person there are still both the flesh and the spirit, and our flesh is not yet pure; we are not even saints, as we want to become on the last day. And even though God begins to purify us through death, so that we become ashes and dust, the last fire must still come and purify everything that is otherwise not yet sufficiently pure in us through rotting in the grave, so that then there is no longer any stain or defect in us, and we become as the bright sun, even as the angels. But this has not yet happened; we hope for it now and die for it; but before this happens, and we live here in such knowledge and faith, and hope for the perfect cleansing of the old Adam, you must not think that you should not err and stumble much in this life. Therefore trust no man. For a thought may come into my heart that deceives me. And what happened to me could have happened to St. Augustine, Ambrosio and the other fathers.
117 Therefore say not, This man believeth, or this man hath the Holy Ghost: therefore all that he doeth is right. Not yet, journeyman; you must be accustomed to trust neither in yourself nor in any man. For thou and all men are flesh, and all saints, being yet in the flesh, may err and fall short, until their bodies be cleansed by fire at the last day, which by rotting is not made clean.
118) Take the example of Gideon, as it is written in the 8th chapter [of the book] of Judges, v. 24 ff: He was chosen by God Himself to govern His people, and is praised in Scripture for being a holy and excellent man, as he was. For by God's command he commanded with three hundred men more than a hundred thousand men.
struck. Everyone can well think, especially since it happened without any sword stroke, that God's power had to be with him. Who would not consider Gideon a great saint, as he is to be considered, because God did the great battle against the Midianites through him? And when he came home again after the battle, he fell into devotion, that he would establish a chapel in honor of our Lord God (who had given him such a glorious victory) in the village where he was at home, and there he would hold a service, and he took all the earrings that the people had received from the enemies and made a golden idol out of them. This was a delicious worship and good opinion. The Holy Scripture says that Gideon greatly angered God, and condemns it, saying that Gideon sank and fell in the excellent devotion, and because of the great sin, all his family and children, of whom he had seventy, lost their lives on a stone. And one of his sons, whom he had begotten with a black sheep, did this. For at that time it was customary for everyone to take his closest friends to himself, even if he had a wife before. So he was rewarded for his beautiful devotion, even though he was pious and holy in his own person, and was undoubtedly blessed; for the epistle to the Hebrews on the 11th, v. 32, praises him and counts him among the saints. But great sorrow, saith the holy scripture, was visited upon his house, because of this service of God, and in case, that all his seed and natural heirs were cut off.
(119) Such examples and the like are many in the Scriptures, where great and excellent men have fallen and stumbled; that we may well understand this text, that no man is to be trusted to be as holy as he always will be. For is it not a great thing that St. Peter is punished by St. Paul, as is shown in Galatians 2, v. 14? St. Paul himself complains about himself in Romans 7:23, 24, that he cannot be powerful enough against sin in his body or overcome it, but must always fight and struggle against it. If then the saints of God, to whom the Holy Spirit has been given
The Lord is the one who can provide and fall, if they do not fight day and night against sin, flesh and blood, and against the devil; ei, we will not be pure either.
. 120 But we do not believe that the great men and true saints are generally fallen by themselves. For Gideon, who slew a hundred and twenty thousand men, is overcome by himself. You also know what an abominable fall the great man David committed when he committed adultery with Bathsheba. Therefore we should be prudent and pay attention, so that nothing is considered that is done out of our own holiness and wisdom, or even good opinion and devotion, no matter how good it may be, unless it is based on God's word and is in accordance with it, and, as St. Paul teaches to the Romans on the 12th, v. 7, that it is similar to faith. Therefore I should first go to Christ and see if it rhymes with his word. So St. Paul does not reject prophecy, but wants it to be similar to faith.
(121) This doctrine is to be diligently remembered. For it is not described in vain in this other chapter of John, that Christ did not trust in man. St. Paul also admonishes all Easterners not to rely on human wisdom; and in Galatians 6, v. 4, it is said: "Let every man examine his own work, and then he will have glory in himself and not in another. I am not to see or ask how St. Jerome, Augustine, Ambrose, or Franciscus and others lived, but whether they also preach Christ and lead us to Him. For then we should keep it with them, and follow them in their faith and doctrine; otherwise I should not imitate all that they have done, for they still have their flesh and blood on their necks. So then I say: I believe that St. Ambrose, Jerome, Bernard were holy, pious people, but I do not trust them because none of them suffered or died for me. And even if someone had died for me, his death does not help me a drop to make me a gracious God.
122. and no one thinks here that these people were holier or better than Gideon, Peter or St. Paul and David. For no one can lead the rhyme, but only the Lord Christ, which rhyme is written in the 1st epistle of Peter in the 2nd chapter, v. 22, that he did no sin, nor was any deceit found in his mouth; and Isaiah Cap. 53, 9, that he did no wrong, nor was any deceit found in his mouth. No one is like the Lord Christ; he alone has this honor, that he is holy and free from sin. Which we ought to endeavor to do after him, but we fall far short.
123 For this reason, if it is said that the Christian church and the fathers have decreed and established this and that, therefore it must be kept; then answer, Yes, yes, dear brother, I will keep them for the holy Christian church and for holy fathers; but so far from Christ being supreme, and that they follow Christ, for they want to be called Christians and also to be Christians. Otherwise, if this were not the case, holy people might well be lacking, be it the pope or the Concilio.
124 If therefore it be said, The church and the bishops have ordained these things; say thou, Well, I will ask thee again, Whereupon have they done it? out of their own devotion, or hath the Holy Ghost inspired them? Nay, the Holy Ghost forsaketh not the church: therefore what she ordaineth, that is right. Not yet, the consequence does not apply for a long time; but come here, let us go to the pestle, and let us measure with the right yardstick, and see whether it rhymes with the Lord's Prayer and the articles of the Christian faith, and whether it also teaches and believes forgiveness of sins. If it then rhymes with what Christ taught, let us accept and follow it. Therefore, one must soon run to the touchstone and see if it agrees with it before accepting it.
125. Christ commanded us to eat his body and drink his blood, saying, "This is my body," and "This is my blood." Then the concilium and the pope come and say: You shall believe that in
One form or part of the Lord's Supper, as, under the bread, is as much as under both forms, namely, the body and the blood; for a body cannot be without blood. Ei, they say, the Holy Spirit does not leave the church, I believe the church and the fathers. Then you answer, "I ask nothing of them; I am to follow Christ alone in these and other matters, and hear only those who have God's word for themselves, and ask nothing of what this or that one says to the contrary. For I know that the fathers, apart from Christ, did many things out of their own devotion and the lust of their flesh; so I am not to follow them anywhere. For they were not only spirit, but also flesh and blood; therefore they had not always spiritual, but also carnal thoughts. Therefore bring against them this text of John the Evangelist, 2, v. 24, 25, where it is written that many believed in Christ, but he did not trust in them. These examples of Christ are to be diligently remembered. For we are concerned to follow our Lord Christ, and not the examples of all the saints in their lives, and to give faith to the dear saints, if they believe in Christ, and lead us to him with their teaching and examples. Otherwise St. Paul says to the Galatians Cap. 1, 8: "If an angel from heaven preaches to you another gospel than the one I preached to you, let him be accursed.
In the rough parts one could understand it well, and make the difference. As that St. Jerome himself wrote of him, he had thus chastised and chastised his flesh with fasting, that his skin was even wrinkled, yes, so black, like a coal, yes, like a Moor's skin. Even when he was lying on the ground in his cap, he dreamed in his sleep as if he had gone to Rome to dance with a young maiden and had joked with her in a friendly way; and otherwise he would often have had such lewd thoughts during the day. This is truly a rude feeling of a holy man. If this were written down in the decree or otherwise, and thus read: St. Jerome danced in his sleep with a virgin; or that
Otherwise, someone would come up and say, "St. Jerome thought like this and like that; therefore, I should also think like this, as I woo with a beautiful matzo; or, "Do the same and follow him. Truly everyone would say that this is not right. He was still a holy man, even though there is filth and evil desire in him; but one should not follow him in such evil thoughts.
St. Augustine also complains vehemently about his shameful dreams and other evil thoughts, of which there is nothing to be said. Who would now say: Well, I want to follow him in this matter? Then all pious hearts would say: No; but follow St. Augustine in that, if he preaches Christ purely, and not in other things.
128 Thus, when St. Ambrose, bishop of the church in Mediola, 1) put the pious emperor Theodosium under ban, and tractirte very badly, for no just cause; that can be well noted - it was not right, and was done to him too much. Nor was the pope allowed to say: "If St. Ambrose has done this, we may also trample the emperor underfoot. And the popes, following his example, have become so pious that they have trampled on emperors and kings. This is wrong. These rough pieces can soon be understood and judged when they happen in the other panel.
But when it comes to the first table, that the saints perform a beautiful service out of devotion to their flesh, one cannot see it that way, and it takes understanding that one does not soon follow. As that St. Anthony runs into the desert and becomes a hermit there. Item, that some prince endows a mass or builds a church, that one holds vigils and masses for the dead in it; this cannot be rebuked soon, because reason is too weak for it. Then the great cry arises that one pretends: The holy Christian Church has decreed this; St. Francis, St. Dominic, and St. Anthony have commanded that one should wear ropes, caps, and plates; they were holy people; this is what the saints have ordered.
1) d. i. Milan.
Fathers, that of the Conciliar Decreta decided, and so the church has held it until now, and the pope has confirmed it: whoever condemns it, let him be cursed. So I answer it: I leave it in its value that such pious, holy people have been; but I do not trust them for that reason. I believe that Anthony, Ambrose and Augustine were quite pious and believed in Christ; but that I should trust them, that everything they did and said was true, that I will not do for a long time. I follow St. Bernard (whom I love very much, as among all scribes he preaches Christ most lovingly) when he preaches Christ; and in the faith in which St. Bernard prayed, I also pray to Christ. But that I should put up with his cap and his hard shirt, and his monkish clothing, I do not. Otherwise, I would condemn all other Christians, as if they were not in as good a condition, honor and dignity as the monk Bernard. For a father, mother, and child, item, maid and servant in one house can be in the same faith in which St. Bernard was; for they have the same baptism and faith; item, the same Christ and God as he had. Therefore, they are as good as St. Bernard. Yes, another Christian can have a stronger faith than he. What difference should a cap or a rope make among people? Truly nothing at all.
130 Therefore I should make a distinction between them, and say that they are not the same holiness; but this devotion is Gideoni's own devotion when he built the church; item, this is St. Jerome's chastity, since he dreamed of dancing in his sleep; but it does not rhyme with Christ at all. I believe that Gideon and Jerome are holy people, but I do not trust them. For if I should believe, as it is certain that I am cleansed from sins by Christ's blood, what should my cap and plate, or the masses and pilgrimages help me from sins?
But if you say, "This is how St. Francis lived, keep his three vows,
and you will be saved. Then you answer, "Does this also rhyme with the teaching of Christ? Then you will find that these beautiful, exquisite services, religion and devotion are all error and stumbling blocks and old infirmities of Adam, because they chose this and that out of their own reason before other people and thought they had the Holy Spirit. But with them there was still vanity of flesh, which is only of the blind and poor reason: which thinketh it good that they should not deal with other men, and that they should lead a peculiar life with meat and drink. But say thou, I allow it, wear a cap; but see that thy faith be not set thereon. But it is said in the papacy that we should put our trust in caps, orders and rules, for through them we would be saved. But this is called the devil. For our trust should be in Christ alone, and in nothing else.
I have preached this many times before, but I still have to do it a lot. For we have played it so far with the papists that they must lie down in all things, and leave us the glory that we have the holy Scriptures for ourselves. But now they offer us the horns and say: They hold it with the holy church; cry: Church, church! But there is no talk. We also hold with the Christian church, but with the church which preaches to us Christ our Bridegroom, that he was born, crucified, and died for us. And if she did not do this, I would not consider her to be the church. For Christ says that the church and the fathers believe in him; the church relies on him alone, and teaches that we should trust in him.
For this reason, if the fathers have already thought of a devotion that may be glorious, I know that they have not died in it; otherwise they would be lost. And even when they are on their deathbed, they can trust in nothing else if they want to be saved other than in Christ, the only Savior. As St. Bernard also did; although he had kept his order strictly, even when he was about to die, he singled out the dear Lord Christ above all other teachers.
and had his pleasure and joy in him, and said: The Lord Christ is my Lord, and has obtained the kingdom of heaven in two ways, and has obtained the same for me; by this I also will be saved. (Yes, that is talking about God.) How then? First, for his own person, as an heir who has inherited heaven; for he is the Son of God. Then, as one who deserved heaven, because he died and was crucified, and gave us heaven; and the same belongs to me. So they all crawled to the cross before they died, and there they fell down and sought forgiveness of sins. So Gideon will not have died on his devotion either.
But we cannot take that away from the papists; they also do not want to believe that I believe that the church is holy. But therefore it does not follow soon, as they make them dream, that I believe and accept everything for right that they do or have done. They stand firm that they believe a holy Christian church. But we say: When the church baptizes and is baptized, administers the sacraments, absolves and is absolved from sins, hears the word of God, receives and administers absolution, then it is right, there are the right churches; for there are the right works of faith. Otherwise, one dresses in this way, the other in a different and special way. For example, the Augustinians had a different dress than the Bernardines; item, the Barefooters had a different dress and rule than the Carthusians. Such then is not the baptism, communion, faith, power of the key; but it is a way and devotion of its own. Then I can also say: I admit, dear church, that you are holy; item, dear Father Francisce, that you are also a holy man; but I do not trust you.
But they do not want to know this. For they do not think otherwise, that everything that is in the church, also everything that is said and done by the fathers, and what is still done in the church today, must be accepted as Christian. But it is Gideon's foolishness; and in the church there is much vexation, that some are saints, and yet have much infirmity in them. Then I say, Where the church
I will stay there, and what the church believes, that I also believe: I believe with her the articles of the Christian faith, as, in God the Father, in God the Son, and in God the Holy Spirit; after that, I also pray with the church the Lord's Prayer, and then I perform my office, profession and command, if I am a man or a woman, it is good; what I do after that, I do because God has commanded it. But if I am to do something that is outside or even contrary to God's word and command, such as wearing caps and plates, I do not follow it, nor do I listen to it. For the cap is not commanded by God, but by St. Francisco, St. Augustine, and others; therefore I shall not do it. Do they then say: Why would you not do this to the holy people? Then answer that a holy man has two things in him, the soul and the body. Now as far as the soul is holy, I follow him, but after his body I do not follow him, as they would have it. For there is still flesh and blood. For there is flesh and blood, as anger, impatience, fornication and heresy, against the first three commandments; which sins and vices of the body must not be followed. And then, my dear man, the body is also heresy and error, as when a man conceives of any religion and worship contrary to God's word.
For this reason, the church and the saints must be viewed in two ways. First, according to the spirit, and then also according to the flesh. Now if the church's devotion, religion, word and work smell like the flesh; item, if the saints have an erroneous opinion and speak of carnal things, then say:. No, no, here I do not hear nor follow, for they speak according to the flesh; it is St. Hieronymi's sleeping dance, and St. Ambrosii's wrath in the church at Milan. Item, if from time to time an erroneous doctrine escapes them, as one finds many erroneous and controversial sayings in their books, which they have written without any particular Christian thought, or even my other intention; then everyone sees that one should not insist on such sayings nor defy them, but I should remain stiff, firm and certain in the teaching of the divine word alone.
137 But the papists do not want such things
They hear, and make a mixture of things, so that they cannot be distinguished; they cry out, "Church, church! They make a mess of it, as if flesh and spirit were one thing; and will not be led to the judge who is called Christ, that he may pass judgment with the gospel in such matters, but say badly, "The church has said it, the fathers have said it; and he who will not believe it must then be their heretic. He must be a heretic. But say thou, Be it ever so, I will not hear you, nor any man ever more, nor follow him in the church. For St. Paul sternly declares, and says [Gal. 1:8], that even if an angel from heaven preaches another gospel, he is not to be believed. So then, neither should we believe an angel who is much holier than all the monks and priests; much less should we believe them who have taught us that we should build on our good works, and that whoever is buried in a monk's cap should ascend from the mouth to heaven; item, that they have sold their good works, merit, brotherhood and pilgrimage to others for this purpose. See here, does it also rhyme with Christ? Dear, did the cap die for you? did it shed blood for you? Well, they say, St. Francis said it, and so they took it for that. But you speak: I do not inquire; it is the stink of his flesh, and not the good smell of his spirit. Item, the monks have often persuaded princes, counts and noblemen to give them a thousand florins in their monastery, they wanted to ask God for them day and night. Then ask whether the lousy works of the monks have died for you? whether they too have shed their blood for you? Then you will see that all this has nothing to do with Christ.
138. therefore let it be well kept that we believe that these holy men may have been saved; but that Christ died for us alone, and that we put our trust in the only Savior Christ alone, and not in others; nor in you, nor in your own thoughts, however good they may be; do not trust in them, but in Christ alone.
But first bring them to Christ, and see if they are in accordance with the faith and the words of the holy gospel. For I also sometimes have beautiful, glorious thoughts, so that I think the Holy Spirit has inspired them in me. But when I hold them against each other with faith, they are all filth and impure, sinful thoughts. Therefore, a Christian heart should know for certain and for certain that Christ's innocent life, his holy blood and his holy death are our salvation, and that we, together with all the saints, must hold on to Christ alone, and that no saint in heaven has ever been allowed to trust in himself or in his own righteousness.
Therefore the evangelist says: The Lord knew well what was in man, that is, flesh and spirit. Therefore, in St. Jerome there is still flesh and blood; and, as St. Paul says [Gal. 5:17], flesh and spirit war against one another in us. Therefore one should make a distinction and see where the spirit goes and where the flesh is. If then their doctrine and life is according to the Spirit, then I shall follow; for it leads me straight to Christ. I will certainly go, for she teaches me Christ and the faith. But when I see that St. Jerome, as a monk, girds himself with a belt and begs, does not want to have anything of his own, wants to be dressed in such and such a way, then I say: Always away with him, he may be holy, but I do not want to follow him, but want to trust in Christ. Therefore the evangelist says rightly: "Jesus did not need anyone to bear witness to a man, for he knew what was in man," namely, that even all the great saints still had flesh and blood in them; and the more holy they are, and the more spiritual they are, the less flesh there is in them. They have little flesh and much spirit; but because they are also flesh, they often err, lack and sin. But because they abide in this foundation, Jesus Christ, as apart from him no other foundation can be laid, as 1 Corinthians 3:11 says St. Paul; though they sometimes slip, slide and stumble, or build hay, straw, stubble and wood on it, they are still preserved. For the straw, hay, stubble, and timber must be
Everything in my heart will be set on fire on that day, burned and consumed [1 Cor. 3:12], as there are: Caps, plates, horae canonicae, and whatsoever else the feet of men are, all of which cannot stand the sting, nor stand before the judgment of God.
So our faith must not stand on human wisdom, but on God and the Lord Christ's wisdom and righteousness, otherwise flesh and blood will not leave its kind and wickedness. And if St. Jerome cannot be rid of the fathers' disease, namely, of lewd thoughts (so that young fellows are still plagued today), what do you think he should not have done in the first tablet? Oh, how many false, evil and ungodly thoughts and speeches will have escaped from him in his books, since he did not pay attention to them, and that the devil should not have come behind him in an excellent devotion! The books of St. Francis, Dominic and all the monks, and especially the pope in his books, are full of beautiful devotion and wonderful, excellent thoughts. St. Gregory also put all his dreams and apparitions in his books, so that the Church of God became full of idolatry. But the holy fathers are forgiven by grace, because they have raised themselves up again through faith in Christ, and have risen from the mud, as St. Bernard. Now others have wanted to imitate such evil works of the saints; this is wrong, because St. Paul in the epistle to the Hebrews [Cap. 13, 7.] says: "Look at their faith, and follow their faith"; and tells there in the 11th chapter a long register of the saints and their faith.
But this was not done in the papacy: the monks did not follow St. Bernhardt's or Francis' faith with their rules, in which they died, but looked at St. Francis' cap and outward life, and how he wore a rope, had nothing of his own, and looked only at such ragwork, which is not worthy to be called good works. For if thou wilt call this holiness, when one wears lowly, poor garments, so shall the husbandmen, the cobblers, the carters be saints.
and craftsmen, who wear wicked clothes; item, the day laborers, masons, who cannot dress deliciously for the sake of their work; item. Servants and maids, who always have to peep, 1) work and feel 2) and wear more torn clothes than St. Francis wore; for they often have to stand in the barn with bare feet, so that the dung hangs around them, since the monks otherwise have white, clean legs and walk on wooden! shoes.
In this way, the lives of the saints and great teachers have not been properly considered. For one should pay attention to their faith and follow it: so we leave the same as the best and want to imitate their works. Yes, they say, the pope has nevertheless made them saints. Yes, the devil thanks him that the pope has taught us, if they have erred, to imitate them. But if the pope had been pious and learned, he would have said, "Let us do as the epistle to the Hebrews teaches us, Cap. 11, where Paul says, vv. 32, 33: "Consider Gideon, Barak, Samson, David, and others, who by faith conquered kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained the promise." I do not have to say that Gideon was holy and built a church, but I will do the same. Not so; he sinned against it, and did wrong and evil, therefore thou wouldst not earn indulgence herewith; but follow his faith, and thou shalt do well. David also was a holy man, but he fell into adultery and murder. If any man therefore shall come and say, David is an adulterer and a murderer; therefore will I do likewise unto him, and will commit fornication and murder. Nay, behold his faith, and do unto him the works which he did rightly in the faith. If the pope, the conciliar authorities and the bishops had done this, there would not have been so many idolatries and idolatrousnesses in the Christian church. But they have stirred up flesh and spirit in the saints, and have brewed and boiled all together, and is
1) peulen", perhaps to do dirty work. The word is probably related to Pfuhl. Compare the following.
2) to feel - to defile.
For they were blind and foolish, and did not think that man had flesh and blood in him, and that it would remain in him until his last hour. For they were blind and foolish, and thought not that man should have flesh and blood in him, and that such should remain in him until his last hour, though he should begin to live by the spirit. For thus the holy scripture divides man into
The flesh and the spirit are always wrestling and fighting with each other, and the flesh, through the instigation of the devil, always causes evil and ungodly thoughts to the soul and the spirit, as experience shows.
End of the other chapter.