Works of Martin Luther Part 4

[2] See above, p. 10.

[3] See above, p. 18.

[4] I. e., the necessaries of life.

[5] E. g., the crusades against heretics, and the inquisition of the thirteenth century. Luther's statement that to burn heretics is contrary to the will of the Holy Spirit was condemned in the Bull _Exsurge Domine_, of July 15, 1520.

[6] Cf. p. 53.

[7] Cf. p. 10.

[8] See Vol. I, pp. 53, 163 ff.

[9] The officials were officers of the bishops' courts; see also below, p. 103.

[10] In Vito, lib. V, t.i.t. xi, c. I,_c.u.m medicinalis_.

[11] According to Luther's interpretation of 1 Cor. 5:5. Cf. also Acts 5:5.

[12] The pa.s.sage quoted from the canon law.

[13] For instances see the _Gravamina of the German Nation_ (1521), Wrede, _Deutsche Reichstagsakten_, II, 685.

[14] Thiele, _Luthers Sprichwortersammlung_, No. 276.

[15] I. e., a cleric.

[16] This statement also was condemned in the papal bull.

[17] The "officials" were the administrators of this discipline, see above, p. 41.

[18] A very important limitation for Luther's position.

[19] See Open Letter to the n.o.bility, below, p. 98.

[20] Again an important limitation.

[21] See above, p. 41.

[22] The ashes of Hus were cast into the Rhine (1415), and the body of Wycliff was exhumed and cremated and the ashes cast into the water (1427).

[23] See above, p. 42.

[24] In 1518 both George and Frederick of Saxony took the position that spiritual jurisdiction should be limited to spiritual matters.

Gess, _Akten und Briefe zur Kirchen politik Georgs_ 1, 44.

[25] Luther puts a peculiar construction upon this pa.s.sage.

[26] The ancient service was divided into the service of the Word (_missa catechumenorum_) and the celebration of the sacrament (_missa fidelium_); before the second, those under the ban as well as the catechumens were required to withdraw.

[27] The "great ban" excluded from all services.

[28] According to Roman Catholic usage there is a distinction between hearing ma.s.s and receiving the sacrament.

[29] Compare Treatise Concerning the Blessed Sacrament, above, p. 25.

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE CHRISTIAN n.o.bILITY OF THE GERMAN NATION CONCERNING THE REFORM OF THE CHRISTIAN ESTATE

1520

INTRODUCTION

The _Open Letter to the Christian n.o.bility of the German Nation_ is closely related to the tract on _The Papacy at Rome: A Reply to the Celebrated Romanist at Leipzig_[1]. In a letter to Spalatin[2] dated before June 8, 1520, Luther says: "I shall a.s.sail that a.s.s of an Alveld in such wise as not to forget the Roman pontiff, and neither of them will be pleased." In the same letter he writes, "I am minded to issue a broadside to Charles and the n.o.bility of Germany against the tyranny and baseness of the Roman curia." The attack upon Alveld is the tract on _The Papacy at Rome_; the _scheda publica_ grew into the _Open Letter_. At the time when the letter to Spalatin was written, the work on _The Papacy at Rome_ must have been already in press, for it appeared in print on the 26th of the month[3], and the composition of the Open Letter had evidently not yet begun. On the 23d Luther sent the ma.n.u.script of the _Open Letter_ to Amsdorf[4], with the request that he read it and suggest changes. The two weeks immediately preceding the publication of the work _On the Papacy_ must, therefore, have been the time when the Open Letter was composed.

In the conclusion to the earlier work Luther had said: "Moreover, I should be truly glad if kings, princes, and all the n.o.bles would take hold, and turn the knaves from Rome out of the country, and keep the appointments to bishoprics and benefices out of their hands. How has Roman avarice come to usurp all the foundations, bishoprics and benefices of our fathers? Who has ever read or heard of such monstrous robbery? Do we not also have the people who need them, while out of our poverty we must enrich the a.s.s-drivers and stable-boys, nay, the harlots and knaves at Rome, who look upon us as nothing else but arrant fools, and make us the objects of their vile mockery? Oh, the pity, that kings and princes have so little reverence for Christ, and His honor concerns them so little that they allow such heinous abominations to gain the upper hand, and look on, while at Rome they think of nothing but to continue in their madness and to increase the abounding misery, until no hope is let on earth except in the temporal authorities. Of this I will say more anon, if this Romanist comes again; let this suffice for a beginning. May G.o.d help us at length to open our eyes. Amen."

This pa.s.sage may fairly be regarded as the germ of the _Open Letter_.

The ideas of the latter work are suggested with sufficient clearness to show that its materials are already at hand, and its plan already in the author's mind. The threat to write it is scarcely veiled. That Luther did not wait for that particular Romanist to "come again" may have been due to the intervention of another Romanist, none other than his old opponent, Sylvester Prierias. Before the 7th of June[5] Luther had received a copy of Prierias' _Epitome of a Reply to Martin Luther_[6], which is the boldest and baldest possible a.s.sertion of the very theory of papal power which Luther had sought to demolish in his tract on the Papacy. In the preface to his reprint of the Epitome, Luther bids farewell to Rome: "Farewell, unhappy, hopeless, blasphemous Rome! The wrath of G.o.d hath come upon thee, as thou hast deserved! We have cared for Babylon, and she is not healed; let us, then, leave her, that she may be the habitation of dragons, spectres and witches, and true to her name of Babel, an everlasting confusion, a new pantheon of wickedness."[7]

These words were written while the _Open Letter_ was in course of composition. The _Open Letter_ is, therefore, Luther's first publication after the time when he recognized that the breach between him and the papal church was complete, and likely to be permanent.

Meanwhile, the opposing party had come to the same conclusion. The verdict of the pope upon Luther had been long delayed, but on the 15th of June, midway between the letter to Spalatin, above mentioned, and the completion of the _Open Letter_, Leo X signed the bull of excommunication, though it was not published in Germany until later.

Thus the _Open Letter_ shows us the mind of Luther in the weeks when the permanent separation between him and Rome took place.

It was also the time when he had the highest hopes from the promised support of the German knights[8], who formed the patriotic party in Germany and are included in the "n.o.bility" to whom the Open Letter is addressed[9].

The first edition of 4000 copies came off the press of Melchior Lotther in Wittenberg before the 18th of August[10]. It is surmised[11] that the earlier portion[12] of the work was not contained in the original ma.n.u.script, but was added while it was in the printer's hands; perhaps it was added at the suggestion of Amsdorf. Less than a week later a second edition was in course of preparation[13]. This "enlarged and revised edition"[14] contained three pa.s.sages not included in the first[15]. They are indicated in the notes to the present edition.

He who would know the true Luther must read more than one of his writings; he must not by any chance omit to read the _Open Letter to the Christian n.o.bility of the German Nation_. In his other works we learn to know him as the man of G.o.d, or the prophet, or the theologian; in this treatise we meet Luther the German. His heart is full of grief for the affliction of his people, and grief turns to wrath as he observes that this affliction is put upon them by the tyranny and greed of the pope and the cardinals and the "Roman vermin." The situation is desperate; appeals and protests have been all in vain; and so, as a last resort, he turns to the temporal authorities,--to Charles V, newly elected, but as yet uncrowned; to the territorial lords, great and small, who have a voice in the imperial diet and powers of jurisdiction in their own domains,--reciting the abuses of "Roman tyranny," and pleading with them to intervene in behalf of the souls that are going to destruction "through the devilish rule of Rome." It is a cry out of the heart of Germany, a nation whose bent is all religious, but which, from that very circ.u.mstance, is all the more open to the insults and wrongs and deceptions of the Roman curia.

Yet it is no formless and incoherent cry, but an orderly recital of the ills of Germany. There are times when we feel in reading it that the writer is laying violent hands on his own wrath in the effort to be calm. For all its scathing quality, it is a sane arraignment of those who "under the holy name of Christ and St. Peter" are responsible for the nation's woes, and the remedies that are proposed are, many of them, practicable as well as reasonable.

The materials of the work are drawn from many sources,--from hearsay, from personal observation, from such histories as Luther had at his command, from the proceedings of councils and of diets; there are pa.s.sages which would seem to bear more than an accidental resemblance to similar pa.s.sages in Hutten's _Vadiscus_. All was grist that came to Luther's mill. But the spirit of the work is Luther's own.

For the general historian, who is concerned more with the practical than with the theoretical or theological aspects of the Reformation, the _Open Letter_ is undoubtedly Luther's greatest work. Its rank outspokenness about the true condition of Germany, the number and variety of the subjects that it treats, the multiplicity of the sources from which the subject-matter is drawn, and the point of view from which the whole is discussed make it a work of absorbing interest and priceless historical value. It shows, as does no other single work of the Reformation time, the things that were in men's minds and the variety of motives which led them to espouse the cause of the Protestant party. Doctrine, ethics, history, politics, economics, all have their place in the treatise. It is not only "a blast on the war-trumpet,"[16] but a connecting link between the thought of the Middle Ages and that of modern times, prophetic of the new age, but showing how closely the new is bound up with the old.

The text of the _Open Letter_ is found in _Weimar Ed_., VI, 404-469; _Erl. Ed._, XXI, 277-360; _Walch Ed._, X, 296-399; _St. Louis Ed._, X, 266-351; _Berlin Ed._, I, 203-290; _Clemen_ I, 363-425. The text of the Berlin Ed._ is modernized and annotated by E. Schneider. The editions of _K. Benrath_ (Halle, 1883) and E. Lemme (_Die 3 grossen Reformationsschriften L's vom J. 1520_; Gotha, 1884) contain a modernized text and extensive notes. A previous English translation in _Wace_ and _Buchheim_, _Luther's Primary Works_ (London and Philadelphia, 1896). The present translation is based on the text of Clemen.

For full discussion of the contents of the work, especially its sources, see _Weimar Ed._, VI, 381-391; _Schafer, Luther als Kirchenhistoriker_, Gutersloh, 1897; Kohler, _L's Schrift an den Adel . . . im Spiegel der Kulturgeschichte_, Halle, 1895, and _Luther und die Kirchengeschichte_, Erlangen, 1900. Extensive comment in all the biographies, especially Kostlin-Kawerau I, 315 ff.

CHARLES M. JACOBS.

Lutheran Theological Seminary,

Mount Airy, Philadelphia.