1538.*)
1) I can hardly believe myself that I have made so many words in publicly expounding this epistle of St. Paul, as this booklet shows that I have done, and yet I perceive that all the thoughts which I find distinguished in this writing by the brethren with such great care are my thoughts, so that I must confess that I have said all, or perhaps more, in this my public discourse. 1) For in my heart this article alone prevails, namely, faith in Christ, from which, through which, and to which, by day and by night, all my theological thoughts flow and flow back. Nevertheless, I feel that of the wisdom, which has such a great height, breadth and depth, I have only grasped a few weak, poor firstlings and, as it were, crumbs.
2 Therefore, I am also ashamed that my so meager and cold interpretations [of the Scriptures] of such a great apostle and chosen instrument of God are being published. However, it compels me to lay aside this shame and to be bold without shame, the endless and terrifying desecration and abomination that is always raging in the Church of God.
1) Aurifaber has taken the following up to the end of the paragraph from the translation of Justus Menius and by the words: "sprach D. Mart. Mart." as Luther's speech in the Table Talks, Cap. 7, K 57. In our edition of the Table Talks, this paragraph has been omitted.
and even today does not cease to rage against this unified and solid rock, which we call the doctrine (locum) of justification, that is, how we have been redeemed from sin, death and the devil and given eternal life not by ourselves (no doubt not even by our works, which are inferior to ourselves), but by the help of others, through the only begotten Son of God, Jesus Christ.
This rock was challenged by Satan in Paradise, when he persuaded the first parents to become like God through their own wisdom and strength, if they abandoned faith in God, who had given them life and promised to preserve it.
4 Soon after that liar and murderer, who can never desist from his ways, drove a brother for the sake of this article to kill his brother for no other reason than because his godly brother had made a better sacrifice by faith [Heb. 11:4], and he, as an ungodly man who offered his works without faith, had not pleased God.
5) Then followed an unceasing, unbearable persecution of Satan against the same faith by the children of Cain, until God was forced to purify the whole world at once through the flood and to destroy Noah, the
*) This time determination results from the contents of the preface. Cf. the note to § 18.
Preachers of faith and righteousness (2 Petr. 2, 5.). Nevertheless, Satan kept his seed in Ham, the third son of Noah.
But who can tell everything? The whole race has raged against this faith by setting up idols and worship services of their own choosing, in which each one (as Paul says [Apost. 14, 16.]) walked his own way and hoped with his works to reconcile one god, another one goddess, one many gods, another many goddesses, that is, to redeem himself from all evil and sins by his own work without the help of Christ, as the deeds and writings of all pagans sufficiently testify.
(7) But these are nothing against the people of God Israel or the synagogue, which were gifted before all others, not only with the certain promise made to the fathers, then with the law given to them by God through the angels [Acts 7:53.], but also were continually strengthened in the certainty by the prophets who were with them, with sermons, miracles and examples: and yet the devil, that is, the raging for one's own righteousness, had such a continuance among them that, according to all the prophets, they themselves also killed the Son of God, the Messiah promised to them, namely for the same reason, 'because they taught that we humans please God, not through our righteousness, but through the grace of God. And this is the highest principle (propositio) of the devil and the world from the beginning: We do not want to be regarded as doing evil, but everything we do must please God, and all his prophets must agree with this. If they do not, they must die. Away with Abel, Cain shall live! That is our law. And so it is done.
(8) But in the church of the Gentiles this matter has reached the highest level (res acta est) and is pursued with all seriousness, so that one is justified in thinking that the raging of the synagogue was only a game. For they did not recognize their Messiah (as Paul says [1 Cor. 2:8]), "otherwise they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
But the church of the Gentiles has accepted him and confesses that Christ is the Son of God, who was made for us to be righteous [1 Cor. 1:30], and this they sing and read and teach publicly. And while this confession stands, those who want to be the church still persecute and rage against those who believe, teach and do nothing else than that Christ is exactly what they themselves are forced to confess with false mouths and fabricated works. For nowadays they rule under Christ's name; if they could maintain this rule without Christ's name, they would also show him (Christ) outwardly as such, as they have him in their hearts. But they think far less of him than the Jews, who at least hold that he is a thola, that is, an avenger, who was justly put to death on the cross; but our [papists] hold him to be a fable, as it were a kind of fictitious deity among the heathen, as may be seen at Rome in the court of the pope and almost in all Italy.
(9) Therefore, since Christ is a mockery to his Christians (for that is the name they want), and Cain kills Abel without ceasing, and the abomination of Satan reigns supreme, it is necessary that we practice this article most diligently and resist Satan, whether we speak as children or are eloquent, whether we are learned or unlearned. For even if all men were to be silent, even rocks and stones would have to cry out to this rock [Luc. 19:40].
10. Therefore, I too will gladly do my duty and admit that this extremely eloquent interpretation is published in order to encourage the brothers in Christ against the plots and wickedness of Satan, who in these last and most dangerous (extremis) times has gone into such great frenzy against this salvific knowledge of Christ, that, just as men have hitherto been seen to be possessed by devils and to become insane, now the devils themselves seem to be possessed by worse devils and to be raging with more than diabolical fury. For this
This enemy of truth and life feels that the terrible day of his condemnation is very near, but the longed-for, joyful day of our redemption, which will put an end to his tyranny, is near to us. For it is not without cause that he will be in such great consternation that all his limbs and strength will tremble, like a thief or an adulterer who is caught when the sun rises and betrays him.
(11) For who has ever heard (to say nothing of the abominations of the pope) that such great monstrosities have suddenly broken out, as we see in recent times as an example in the Anabaptists alone? In them the devil, as if he wanted to exhale the last breath of his dominion, is everywhere driving his own with frightening movements, and as if he suddenly wanted not only to turn the whole world with riots, but also to devour the whole Christ with the church through innumerable sects.
(12) So he does not rage and rage against other lives or opinions of men, namely, adulterers, thieves, murderers, perjurers, wicked men, robbers of God, unbelievers. Yes, he leaves them in peace, flatters them sweetly in his palace and lets them have it all. Just as in the beginning of the church he not only tolerated all the idolatries and religions of the whole world untouched and quietly, but also cultivated them most splendidly, but only plagued Christ's church and worship on all sides, then left all heretics in peace, but only troubled the right Christian (catholicam) doctrine: so also today he has nothing to do with but this one thing, which is always his real business, that he should persecute our Lord Christ (who is our righteousness without our works), as it is written of him (Gen. 3:15), "Thou shalt bruise his heel."
(13) But it is not both against these [devil's caves] and for the sake of our [Christians] that our thoughts about this letter of Saint Paul go out. These will either give me thanks in the Lord for my diligence, 'or give me credit for my incapacity and boldness.
hold good. I should be very sorry, however, if this had the applause of the ungodly, but I only wanted them to be provoked [to anger] with their God [the devil] by it, since this (with my hard work) has been presented only to those to whom Paul himself addressed this epistle, namely to the troubled, the afflicted, the afflicted and the challenged in faith (for only these understand it), unhappy Galatians. But those who are not such people may listen to the papists, monks, Anabaptists, and many other teachers of infinite wisdom and their own worship, and confidently despise ours, not even bothering to understand it.
(14) For papists and Anabaptists today agree with one another against the Church of God on this one opinion (although they deny it with words), that God's work depends on the worthiness of the person. For this is what the Anabaptists teach: Baptism is nothing if the person should not be a believer. From this basis (principio == supersentence) (as it is called) it follows with necessity that all the works of God are nothing if the person is not good. Baptism, however, is the work of God, but the evil man makes it not to be the work of God. From this it follows further: Marriage, authority, the status of a servant are works of God, but because men are evil, therefore they are not works of God; the ungodly have the sun, the moon, the earth, the waters, the air, and everything that has been subjected to man, but because they are ungodly, not pious, therefore the sun is not the sun; the moon, the earth, the waters, the air are not what they are. They themselves, the rebaptizers, had bodies and souls before their rebaptism, but because they were not pious, they did not have right bodies and souls. Likewise, their parents have not been true spouses (as they confess) because they have not been rebaptized, so they, the Anabaptists, are all bastards, and all their parents were adulterers and fornicators. Nevertheless, they inherit the goods of their parents, even though they confess that they are bastards and heirless. Now who does not see here in the Anabaptists that they are not possessed men?
They are right devils who are possessed by worse devils.
(15) In the same way, the papists to this day do not cease to insist on works and the worthiness of the person against grace and to strongly support (at least with words) their brothers, the Anabaptists. For these foxes are joined together by their tails [Judges 15:4], but their heads go apart. For they [the papists] present themselves outwardly as if they were great enemies of those [Anabaptists], although inwardly they hold, teach and defend exactly the same against the one Savior Christ, who alone is our righteousness [Jer. 23:6, 33:16].
16 Therefore, whoever can, hold fast to this one article. Let the others who are shipwrecked drift wherever the sea and the winds will, until they return to the ship or swim to shore.
The sum and end of the trouble is: that one hopes for no rest or end of the trouble, as long as Christ and Belial are not one. One generation passes away, another arises. When one heresy falls, another soon rises, because the devil neither sleeps nor slumbers. I [though I am nothing], who have now been twenty years in the service of Christ, can testify with truth that I have been attacked by more than twenty sects, some of which have perished altogether, but others still twitch somewhat like [torn off] limbs of insects.
(18) But Satan, this god of the spirits of the wicked, sets up new sects daily, and most recently this one, of which I would have been least concerned or anxious, namely, the people who teach that the Ten Commandments must be removed from the church, 1) that people should not be frightened by the law, but that they should be kindly admonished by the grace of Christ, so that the word of the prophet Micah may be fulfilled [Hof. 4, 4]: "But no one is to be punished"; "We are not to be punished" [Mich. 2, 6]: as if we do not
1) This refers to the Antinomians. This passage proves that this preface is to be placed in the year 1538. See also "Luthers Schriften wider die Antinomer", Walch, St. Louiser Ausgabe, Vol. XX, 1610 ff. and the introduction to it.
They know or have never taught that the anguished and broken hearts should be raised by Christ, but the hard Pharaohs, to whom the grace of God is preached in vain, are frightened by the law, since they themselves are forced to invent "revelations of wrath" 2) against the wicked and unbelievers, as if the law were or could be something other than a revelation of wrath. So great is the blindness and hopefulness of these people who have condemned themselves [Titus 3:11].
(19) Therefore the ministers of the word must be sure, if they would be found faithful and wise in the day of Christ, that St. Paul's word was not spoken in vain, nor prophesied in vain [1 Cor. 11:19]: "There must be breeds, that they which are righteous may be made manifest." A servant of Christ, I say, must know that as long as he teaches Christ pure and true, there will be no lack of perverse men, even among our own, who take pains to confuse the church.
20. but let him strengthen himself with this comfort, that there can be no peace between Christ and Belial [2 Cor. 6:15], or between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman; yea, let him rejoice that he hath to suffer mobs and such rebellious spirits as continually follow one another. "For our glory is this, that is, the testimony of our conscience" [2 Cor. 1:12], "that we are found standing and fighting on the side of the seed of the woman against the seed of the serpent. This one may bite us in the heel and not cease to bite, but let us not cease to bruise his head through Christ, the first and chief of the serpent's treaders, blessed for ever and ever, amen. 3)
2) Cf. Luther's writing "Wider die Antinomer," Walch, St. Louis Edition, Vol. XX, 1618, § 16.
3) In the Latin editions follow here: "Fifty boasts and virtues of one's own righteousness, collected from the letter of the apostle Paul to the Galatians." In the German Wittenberg edition, however, this section is at the end of the interpretation. That it belongs to the end is proven by the word "Finis" at the end, which is why we place it there, as do Menius and Walch. The old editions of the Table Talks place this passage in Cap. 14, § 48; in our edition of the Table Talks, however, it has been omitted as not belonging there (also as a duplicate).