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| Martin Luther |
Martin Luther
(1483–1546). Address to the Christian Nobility of the German
Nation Respecting the Reformation of the Christian Estate.
Vol. 36, pp. 263-275 of
The Harvard Classics
Luther declared that
the unreformed church had drawn its doctrines like three walls
so closely about the people that they served not as protection but
were the cause of untold misery and distress. This he hoped to
relieve by the Reformation.
Introduction
To his most Serene and Mighty Imperial Majesty
and to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation.Dr. Martinus
Luther.
THE GRACE and
might of God be with you, Most Serene Majesty, most gracious,
well-beloved gentlemen!
It is not out of
mere arrogance and perversity that I, an individual poor man, have
taken upon me to address your lordships. The distress and misery that
oppress all the Christian estates, more especially in Germany, have
led not only myself, but every one else, to cry aloud and to ask for
help, and have now forced me too to cry out and to ask if God would
give His Spirit to any one to reach a hand to His wretched people.
Councils have often put forward some remedy, but it has adroitly been
frustrated, and the evils have become worse, through the cunning of
certain men. Their malice and wickedness I will now, by the help of
God, expose, so that, being known, they may henceforth cease to be so
obstructive and injurious. God has given us a young and noble
sovereign, 1 and by this has roused great hopes
in many hearts; now it is right that we too should do what we can,
and make good use of time and grace.
The first thing that we must do is to
consider the matter with great earnestness, and, whatever we attempt,
not to trust in our own strength and wisdom alone, even if the power
of all the world were ours; for God will not endure that a good work
should be begun trusting to our own strength and wisdom. He destroys
it; it is all useless, as we read in Psalm xxxiii., “There is no
king saved by the multitude of a host; a mighty man is not delivered
by much strength.” And I fear it is for that reason that those
beloved princes the Emperors Frederick, the First and the Second, and
many other German emperors were, in former times, so piteously
spurned and oppressed by the popes, though they were feared by all
the world. Perchance they trusted rather in their own strength than
in God; therefore they could not but fall; and how would the
sanguinary tyrant Julius II. have risen so high in our own days but
that, I fear, France, Germany, and Venice trusted to themselves? The
children of Benjamin slew forty-two thousand Israelites, for this
reason: that these trusted to their own strength (Judges xx., etc.).
That such a thing may not happen to us
and to our noble Emperor Charles, we must remember that in this
matter we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers
of the darkness of this world (Eph. vi. 12), who may fill the world
with war and bloodshed, but cannot themselves be overcome thereby. We
must renounce all confidence in our natural strength, and take the
matter in hand with humble trust in God; we must seek God’s help
with earnest prayer, and have nothing before our eyes but the misery
and wretchedness of Christendom, irrespective of what punishment the
wicked may deserve. If we do not act thus, we may begin the game with
great pomp; but when we are well in it, the spirits of evil will make
such confusion that the whole world will be immersed in blood, and
yet nothing be done. Therefore let us act in the fear of God and
prudently. The greater the might of the foe, the greater is the
misfortune, if we do not act in the fear of God and with humility. If
popes and Romanists have hitherto, with the devil’s help, thrown
kings into confusion, they may still do so, if we attempt things with
our own strength and skill, without God’s help.
The
Three Walls of the Romanists
THE ROMANISTS have,
with great adroitness, drawn three walls round themselves, with which
they have hitherto protected themselves, so that no one could reform
them, whereby all Christendom has fallen terribly.
Firstly, if pressed by the temporal
power, they have affirmed and maintained that the temporal power has
no jurisdiction over them, but, on the contrary, that the spiritual
power is above the temporal.
Secondly, if it were proposed to
admonish them with the Scriptures, they objected that no one may
interpret the Scriptures but the Pope.
Thirdly, if they are threatened with a
council, they pretend that no one may call a council but the Pope.
Thus they have secretly stolen our
three rods, so that they may be unpunished, and intrenched themselves
behind these three walls, to act with all the wickedness and malice,
which we now witness. And whenever they have been compelled to call a
council, they have made it of no avail by binding the princes
beforehand with an oath to leave them as they were, and to give
moreover to the Pope full power over the procedure of the council, so
that it is all one whether we have many councils or no councils, in
addition to which they deceive us with false pretences and tricks. So
grievously do they tremble for their skin before a true, free
council; and thus they have overawed kings and princes, that these
believe they would be offending God, if they were not to obey them in
all such knavish, deceitful artifices.
Now may God help us, and give us one
of those trumpets that overthrew the walls of Jericho, so that we may
blow down these walls of straw and paper, and that we may set free
our Christian rods for the chastisement of sin, and expose the craft
and deceit of the devil, so that we may amend ourselves by punishment
and again obtain God’s favour.
The
Three Walls of the Romanists
(a) The
First Wall
That
the Temporal Power has no Jurisdiction over the Spirituality
LET US,
in the first place, attack the first wall.
It has been devised that the Pope,
bishops, priests, and monks are called the spiritual
estate, princes, lords, artificers, and peasants are
the temporal estate. This is an artful lie and
hypocritical device, but let no one be made afraid by it, and that
for this reason: that all Christians are truly of the spiritual
estate, and there is no difference among them, save of office alone.
As St. Paul says (1 Cor. xii.), we are all one body, though each
member does its own work, to serve the others. This is because we
have one baptism, one Gospel, one faith, and are all Christians
alike; for baptism, Gospel, and faith, these alone make spiritual and
Christian people.
As for the unction by a pope or a
bishop, tonsure, ordination, consecration, and clothes differing from
those of laymen—all this may make a hypocrite or an anointed
puppet, but never a Christian or a spiritual man. Thus we are all
consecrated as priests by baptism, as St. Peter says: “Ye are a
royal priesthood, a holy nation” (1 Peter ii. 9); and in the book
of Revelations: “and hast made us unto our God (by Thy blood) kings
and priests” (Rev. v. 10). For, if we had not a higher consecration
in us than pope or bishop can give, no priest could ever be made by
the consecration of pope or bishop, nor could he say the mass, or
preach, or absolve. Therefore the bishop’s consecration is just as
if in the name of the whole congregation he took one person out of
the community, each member of which has equal power, and commanded
him to exercise this power for the rest; in the same way as if ten
brothers, co-heirs as king’s sons, were to choose one from among
them to rule over their inheritance, they would all of them still
remain kings and have equal power, although one is ordered to govern.
And to put the matter even more
plainly, if a little company of pious Christian laymen were taken
prisoners and carried away to a desert, and had not among them a
priest consecrated by a bishop, and were there to agree to elect one
of them, born in wedlock or not, and were to order him to baptise, to
celebrate the mass, to absolve, and to preach, this man would as
truly be a priest, as if all the bishops and all the Popes had
consecrated him. That is why in cases of necessity every man can
baptise and absolve, which would not be possible if we were not all
priests. This great grace and virtue of baptism and of the Christian
estate they have quite destroyed and made us forget by their
ecclesiastical law. In this way the Christians used to choose their
bishops and priests out of the community; these being afterwards
confirmed by other bishops, without the pomp that now prevails. So
was it that St. Augustine, Ambrose, Cyprian, were bishops.
Since, then, the
temporal power is baptised as we are, and has the same faith and
Gospel, we must allow it to be priest and bishop, and account its
office an office that is proper and useful to the Christian
community. For whatever issues from baptism may boast that it has
been consecrated priest, bishop, and pope, although it does not
beseem every one to exercise these offices. For, since we are all
priests alike, no man may put himself forward or take upon himself,
without our consent and election, to do that which we have all alike
power to do. For, if a thing is common to all, no man may take it to
himself without the wish and command of the community. And if it
should happen that a man were appointed to one of these offices and
deposed for abuses, he would be just what he was before. Therefore a
priest should be nothing in Christendom but a functionary; as long as
he holds his office, he has precedence of others; if he is deprived
of it, he is a peasant or a citizen like the rest. Therefore a priest
is verily no longer a priest after deposition. But now they have
invented characteres indelebiles, 1 and
pretend that a priest after deprivation still differs from a simple
layman. They even imagine that a priest can never be anything but a
priest-that is, that he can never become a layman. All this is
nothing but mere talk and ordinance of human invention.
It follows, then, that between laymen
and priests, princes and bishops, or, as they call it, between
spiritual and temporal persons, the only real difference is one of
office and function, and not of estate; for they are all of the same
spiritual estate, true priests, bishops, and popes, though their
functions are not the same-just as among priests and monks every man
has not the same functions. And this, as I said above, St. Paul says
(Rom. xii.; 1 Cor. xii.), and St. Peter (1 Peter ii.): “We, being
many, are one body in Christ, and severally members one of another.”
Christ’s body is not double or twofold, one temporal, the other
spiritual. He is one Head, and He has one body.
We see, then, that just as those that
we call spiritual, or priests, bishops, or popes, do not differ from
other Christians in any other or higher degree but in that they are
to be concerned with the word of God and the sacraments—that being
their work and office—in the same way the temporal authorities hold
the sword and the rod in their hands to punish the wicked and to
protect the good. A cobbler, a smith, a peasant, every man, has the
office and function of his calling, and yet all alike are consecrated
priests and bishops, and every man should by his office or function
be useful and beneficial to the rest, so that various kinds of work
may all be united for the furtherance of body and soul, just as the
members of the body all serve one another.
Now see what a Christian doctrine is
this: that the temporal authority is not above the clergy, and may
not punish it. This is as if one were to say the hand may not help,
though the eye is in grievous suffering. Is it not unnatural, not to
say unchristian, that one member may not help another, or guard it
against harm? Nay, the nobler the member, the more the rest are bound
to help it. Therefore I say, Forasmuch as the temporal power has been
ordained by God for the punishment of the bad and the protection of
the good, therefore we must let it do its duty throughout the whole
Christian body, without respect of persons, whether it strikes popes,
bishops, priests, monks, nuns, or whoever it may be. If it were
sufficient reason for fettering the temporal power that it is
inferior among the offices of Christianity to the offices of priest
or confessor, or to the spiritual estate—if this were so, then we
ought to restrain tailors, cobblers, masons, carpenters, cooks,
cellarmen, peasants, and all secular workmen, from providing the Pope
or bishops, priests and monks, with shoes, clothes, houses or
victuals, or from paying them tithes. But if these laymen are allowed
to do their work without restraint, what do the Romanist scribes mean
by their laws? They mean that they withdraw themselves from the
operation of temporal Christian power, simply in order that they may
be free to do evil, and thus fulfil what St. Peter said: “There
shall be false teachers among you,… and in covetousness shall they
with feigned words make merchandise of you” (2 Peter ii. 1, etc.).
Therefore the temporal Christian power
must exercise its office without let or hindrance, without
considering whom it may strike, whether pope, or bishop, or priest:
whoever is guilty, let him suffer for it.
Whatever the ecclesiastical law has
said in opposition to this is merely the invention of Romanist
arrogance. For this is what St. Paul says to all Christians: “Let
every soul” (I presume including the popes) “be subject unto the
higher powers; for they bear not the sword in vain: they serve the
Lord therewith, for vengeance on evildoers and for praise to them
that do well” (Rom. xiii. 1-4). Also St. Peter: “Submit
yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake,… for so
is the will of God” (1 Peter ii. 13, 15). He has also foretold that
men would come who should despise government (2 Peter ii.), as has
come to pass through ecclesiastical law.
Now, I imagine, the first paper wall
is overthrown, inasmuch as the temporal power has become a member of
the Christian body; although its work relates to the body, yet does
it belong to the spiritual estate. Therefore, it must do its duty
without let or hindrance upon all members of the whole body, to
punish or urge, as guilt may deserve, or need may require, without
respect of pope, bishops, or priests, let them threaten or
excommunicate as they will. That is why a guilty priest is deprived
of his priesthood before being given over to the secular arm; whereas
this would not be right, if the secular sword had not authority over
him already by Divine ordinance.
It is, indeed, past
bearing that the spiritual law should esteem so highly the liberty,
life, and property of the clergy, as if laymen were not as good
spiritual Christians, or not equally members of the Church. Why
should your body, life, goods, and honour be free, and not mine,
seeing that we are equal as Christians, and have received alike
baptism, faith, spirit, and all things? If a priest is killed, the
country is laid under an interdict 2: why not also if
a peasant is killed? Whence comes this great difference among equal
Christians? Simply from human laws and inventions.
It can have been no good spirit,
either, that devised these evasions and made sin to go unpunished.
For if, as Christ and the Apostles bid us, it is our duty to oppose
the evil one and all his works and words, and to drive him away as
well as may be, how then should we remain quiet and be silent when
the Pope and his followers are guilty of devilish works and words?
Are we for the sake of men to allow the commandments and the truth of
God to be defeated, which at our baptism we vowed to support with
body and soul? Truly we should have to answer for all souls that
would thus be abandoned and led astray.
Therefore it must have been the
arch-devil himself who said, as we read in the ecclesiastical law, If
the Pope were so perniciously wicked, as to be dragging souls in
crowds to the devil, yet he could not be deposed. This is the
accursed and devilish foundation on which they build at Rome, and
think that the whole world is to be allowed to go to the devil rather
than they should be opposed in their knavery. If a man were to escape
punishment simply because he is above the rest, then no Christian
might punish another, since Christ has commanded each of us to esteem
himself the lowest and the humblest (Matt. xviii. 4; Luke ix. 48).
Where there is sin, there remains no
avoiding the punishment, as St. Gregory says, We are all equal, but
guilt makes one subject to another. Now let us see how they deal with
Christendom. They arrogate to themselves immunities without any
warrant from the Scriptures, out of their own wickedness, whereas God
and the Apostles made them subject to the secular sword; so that we
must fear that it is the work of antichrist, or a sign of his near
approach.
Note 1. In
accordance with a doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church, the act of
ordination impresses upon the priest an indelible character; so that
he immutably retains the sacred dignity of priesthood.
Note 2. :By
the Interdict, or
general excommunication, whole countries, districts, or towns, or
their respective rulers, were deprived of all the spiritual benefits
of the Church, such as Divine service, the administering of the
sacraments, etc.
(b) The
Second Wall
That no
one may interpret the Scriptures but the Pope
THE SECOND wall
is even more tottering and weak: that they alone pretend to be
considered masters of the Scriptures; although they learn nothing of
them all their life. They assume authority, and juggle before us with
impudent words, saying that the Pope cannot err in matters of faith,
whether he be evil or good, albeit they cannot prove it by a single
letter. That is why the canon law contains so many heretical and
unchristian, nay unnatural, laws; but of these we need not speak now.
For whereas they imagine the Holy Ghost never leaves them, however
unlearned and wicked they may be, they grow bold enough to decree
whatever they like. But were this true, where were the need and use
of the Holy Scriptures? Let us burn them, and content ourselves with
the unlearned gentlemen at Rome, in whom the Holy Ghost dwells, who,
however, can dwell in pious souls only. If I had not read it, I could
never have believed that the devil should have put forth such follies
at Rome and find a following.
But not to fight them with our own
words, we will quote the Scriptures. St. Paul says, “If anything be
revealed to another that sitteth by, let the first hold his peace”
(1 Cor. xiv. 30). What would be the use of this commandment, if we
were to believe him alone that teaches or has the highest seat?
Christ Himself says, “And they shall be all taught of God.” (St.
John vi. 45). Thus it may come to pass that the Pope and his
followers are wicked and not true Christians, and not being taught by
God, have no true understanding, whereas a common man may have true
understanding. Why should we then not follow him? Has not the Pope
often erred? Who could help Christianity, in case the Pope errs, if
we do not rather believe another who has the Scriptures for him?
Therefore it is a wickedly devised
fable—and they cannot quote a single letter to confirm it—that it
is for the Pope alone to interpret the Scriptures or to confirm the
interpretation of them. They have assumed the authority of their own
selves. And though they say that this authority was given to St.
Peter when the keys were given to him, it is plain enough that the
keys were not given to St. Peter alone, but to the whole community.
Besides, the keys were not ordained for doctrine or authority, but
for sin, to bind or loose, and what they claim besides this from the
keys is mere invention. But what Christ said to St. Peter: “I have
prayed for thee that thy faith fail not” (St. Luke xxii. 32),
cannot relate to the Pope, inasmuch as the greater part of the Popes
have been without faith, as they are themselves forced to
acknowledge; nor did Christ pray for Peter alone, but for all the
Apostles and all Christians, as He says, “Neither pray I for these
alone, but for them also which shall believe on Me through their
word” (St. John xvii.). Is not this plain enough?
Only consider the matter. They must
needs acknowledge that there are pious Christians among us that have
the true faith, spirit, understanding, word, and mind of Christ: why
then should we reject their word and understanding, and follow a pope
who has neither understanding nor spirit? Surely this were to deny
our whole faith and the Christian Church. Moreover, if the article of
our faith is right, “I believe in the holy Christian Church,” the
Pope cannot alone be right; else we must say, “I believe in the
Pope of Rome,” and reduce the Christian Church to one man, which is
a devilish and damnable heresy. Besides that, we are all priests, as
I have said, and have all one faith, one Gospel, one Sacrament; how
then should we not have the power of discerning and judging what is
right or wrong in matters of faith? What becomes of St. Paul’s
words, “But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself
is judged of no man” (1 Cor. ii. 15), and also, “we having the
same spirit of faith”? (2 Cor. iv. 13). Why then should we not
perceive as well as an unbelieving pope what agrees or disagrees with
our faith?
By these and many other texts we
should gain courage and freedom, and should not let the spirit of
liberty (as St. Paul has it) be frightened away by the inventions of
the popes; we should boldly judge what they do and what they leave
undone by our own believing understanding of the Scriptures, and
force them to follow the better understanding, and not their own. Did
not Abraham in old days have to obey his Sarah, who was in stricter
bondage to him than we are to any one on earth? Thus, too, Balaam’s
ass was wiser than the prophet. If God spoke by an ass against a
prophet, why should He not speak by a pious man against the Pope?
Besides, St. Paul withstood St. Peter as being in error (Gal. ii.).
Therefore it behoves every Christian to aid the faith by
understanding and defending it and by condemning all errors.
(c) The
Third Wall
That no
one may call a council but the Pope
THE THIRD wall
falls of itself, as soon as the first two have fallen; for if the
Pope acts contrary to the Scriptures, we are bound to stand by the
Scriptures, to punish and to constrain him, according to Christ’s
commandment, “Moreover, if thy brother shall trespass against thee,
go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone; if he shall
hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he will not hear
thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two
or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he shall
neglect to hear them, tell it unto the Church; but if he neglect to
hear the Church, let him be unto thee as a heathen man and a
publican” (St. Matt. xviii. 15-17). Here each member is commanded
to take care for the other; much more then should we do this, if it
is a ruling member of the community that does evil, which by its
evil-doing causes great harm and offence to the others. If then I am
to accuse him before the Church, I must collect the Church together.
Moreover, they can show nothing in the Scriptures giving the Pope
sole power to call and confirm councils; they have nothing but their
own laws; but these hold good only so long as they are not injurious
to Christianity and the laws of God. Therefore, if the Pope deserves
punishment, these laws cease to bind us, since Christendom would
suffer, if he were not punished by a council. Thus we read (Acts xv.)
that the council of the Apostles was not called by St. Peter, but by
all the Apostles and the elders. But if the right to call it had lain
with St. Peter alone, it would not have been a Christian council, but
a heretical conciliabulum. Moreover, the most
celebrated council of all—that of Nicæa—was neither called nor
confirmed by the Bishop of Rome, but by the Emperor Constantine; and
after him many other emperors have done the same, and yet the
councils called by them were accounted most Christian. But if the
Pope alone had the power, they must all have been heretical.
Moreover, if I consider the councils that the Pope has called, I do
not find that they produced any notable results.
Therefore when need requires, and the
Pope is a cause of offence to Christendom, in these cases whoever can
best do so, as a faithful member of the whole body, must do what he
can to procure a true free council. This no one can do so well as the
temporal authorities, especially since they are fellow-Christians,
fellow-priests, sharing one spirit and one power in all things, and
since they should exercise the office that they have received from
God without hindrance, whenever it is necessary and useful that it
should be exercised. Would it not be most unnatural, if a fire were
to break out in a city, and every one were to keep still and let it
burn on and on, whatever might be burnt, simply because they had not
the mayor’s authority, or because the fire perchance broke out at
the mayor’s house? Is not every citizen bound in this case to rouse
and call in the rest? How much more should this be done in the
spiritual city of Christ, if a fire of offence breaks out, either at
the Pope’s government or wherever it may! The like happens if an
enemy attacks a town. The first to rouse up the rest earns glory and
thanks. Why then should not he earn glory that descries the coming of
our enemies from hell and rouses and summons all Christians?
But as for their boasts of their
authority, that no one must oppose it, this is idle talk. No one in
Christendom has any authority to do harm, or to forbid others to
prevent harm being done. There is no authority in the Church but for
reformation. Therefore if the Pope wished to use his power to prevent
the calling of a free council, so as to prevent the reformation of
the Church, we must not respect him or his power; and if he should
begin to excommunicate and fulminate, we must despise this as the
doings of a madman, and, trusting in God, excommunicate and repel him
as best we may. For this his usurped power is nothing; he does not
possess it, and he is at once overthrown by a text from the
Scriptures. For St. Paul says to the Corinthians “that God has
given us authority for edification, and not for destruction (2 Cor.
x. 8). Who will set this text at nought? It is the power of the devil
and of antichrist that prevents what would serve for the reformation
of Christendom. Therefore we must not follow it, but oppose it with
our body, our goods, and all that we have. And even if a miracle were
to happen in favour of the Pope against the temporal power, or if
some were to be stricken by a plague, as they sometimes boast has
happened, all this is to be held as having been done by the devil in
order to injure our faith in God, as was foretold by Christ: “There
shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall show great
sings and wonders, insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall
deceive the very elect” (Matt. xxiv. 23); and St. Paul tells the
Thessalonians that the coming of antichrist shall be “after the
working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders” (2
Thess. ii. 9).
Therefore let us hold fast to this:
that Christian power can do nothing against Christ, as St. Paul says,
“For we can do nothing against Christ, but for Christ” (2 Cor.
xiii. 8). But, if it does anything against Christ, it is the power of
antichrist and the devil, even if it rained and hailed wonders and
plagues. Wonders and plagues prove nothing, especially in these
latter evil days, of which false wonders are foretold in all the
Scriptures. Therefore we must hold fast to the words of God with an
assured faith; then the devil will soon cease his wonders.
And now I hope the false, lying
spectre will be laid with which the Romanists have long terrified and
stupefied our consciences. And it will be seen that, like all the
rest of us, they are subject to the temporal sword; that they have no
authority to interpret the Scriptures by force without skill; and
that they have no power to prevent a council, or to pledge it in
accordance with their pleasure, or to bind it beforehand, and deprive
it of its freedom; and that if they do this, they are verily of the
fellowship of antichrist and the devil, and having nothing of Christ
but the name.
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