Collected Works of Martin Luther

by Martin Luther

  Marriage of the Clergy

  14. We also see how the priesthood has fallen, and how many a poor priest is overburdened with wife and child, and his conscience troubled, yet no one does anything to help him though he might easily be helped. Though pope and bishops may let things go as they go, and let them go to ruin if they will, I will save my conscience and open my mouth freely, whether it vex pope, bishops or any one else. Wherefore I say that according to the institution of Christ and the Apostles every city should have a priest or bishop, as St. Paul clearly says in Titus i [Tit. 1:6]; and this priest should not be compelled to live without a wedded wife, but should be permitted to have one, as St. Paul says in I Timothy iii, and Titus i, “A bishop should be a man who is blameless, and the husband of but one wedded wife, whose children are obedient and virtuous,” etc. (1 Tim. 3:2, Tit. 1:6) For with St. Paul a bishop and a priest are one and the same thing, as witness also St. Jerome161. But of bishops as they now are, the Scriptures know nothing; they have been appointed by the ordinance of the Christian Church, that one of them may rule over many priests.

  So then we clearly learn from the Apostle that it should be the custom for every town to choose out of the congregation162 a learned and pious citizen, entrust to him the office of the ministry, and support him at the expense of the community, leaving him free choice to marry or not. He should have with him several priests or deacons, who might also be married or not, as they chose, to help him rule the people of the community163 by means of preaching and the sacraments, as is still the practice in the Greek Church. At a later time164, when there were so many persecutions and controversies with heretics, there were many holy fathers who of their own accord abstained from matrimony, to the end that they might the better devote themselves to study and be prepared at any time for death or for controversy. Then the Roman See interfered, out of sheer wantonness, and made a universal commandment forbidding priests to marry165. This was done at the bidding of the devil, as St. Paul declares in I Timothy iv, “There shall come teachers who bring doctrines of devils, and forbid to marry.” From this has arisen so much untold misery, occasion was given for the withdrawal of the Greek Church166, and division, sin, shame and scandal were increased without end, — which is the result of everything the devil does.

  What, then, shall we do about it? My advice is that matrimony be again made free167, and that every one be let free choice to marry or not to marry. In that case, however, there must be a very different government and administration of Church property, the whole canon law must go to pieces and not many benefices find their way to Rome168. I fear that greed has been a cause of this wretched unchaste chastity, and as a result of greed every man has wished to become a priest and everyone wants his son to study for the priesthood, not with the idea of living in chastity, for that could be done outside the priesthood, but of being supported in temporal things without care or labor, contrary to the command of God in Genesis iii, “In the sweat of thy face shat thou eat thy bread.” [Gen. 3:19] They have construed this to mean that their labor was to pray and say mass.

  I am not referring here to popes, bishops, canons and monks. God has not instituted these offices. They have taken burdens on themselves; let them bear them. I would speak only of the ministry which God has instituted169 and which is to rule a congregation by means of preaching and sacraments, whose incumbents are to live and be at home among the people. Such ministers should be granted liberty by a Christian council to marry, for the avoidance of temptation and sin. For since God has not bound them, no one else ought to bind them or can bind them, even though he were an angel from heaven [Gal. 1:8], still less if he be only a pope; and everything that the canon law decrees to the contrary is mere fable and idle talk.

  Furthermore, I advise that henceforth neither at his consecration to the priesthood nor at any other time shall any one under any circumstances promise the bishop to live in celibacy, but shall declare to the bishop that he has no authority to demand such a vow, and that to demand it is the devil’s own tyranny.

  But if anyone is compelled to say or wishes to say, as do some, “so far as human frailty permits,”170 let everyone frankly interpret these words negatively, to mean “I do not promise chastity.”171 For human frailty does not permit a chaste life172, but only angelic power and celestial might(2 Pet. 2:11)173 Thus he should keep his conscience free from all vows.

  On the question whether those who are not yet married should marry or remain unmarried, I do not care to give advice either way. I leave that to common Christian order and to everyone’s better judgment. But as regards the wretched multitude who now sit in shame and heaviness of conscience because their wives are called “priests’ harlots” and their children “priests’ children” I will not withhold my faithful counsel nor deprive them of the comfort which is their due. I say this boldly by my jester’s right174. You will find many a pious priest against whom no one has anything to say except that he is weak and has come to shame with a woman, though both parties may be minded with all their heart to live always together in wedded love and troth, if only they could do it with a clear conscience, even though they might have to bear public shame. Two such persons are certainly married before God. And I say that where they are thus minded, and so come to live together, they should boldly save their consciences; let him take and keep her as his wedded wife, and live honestly with her as her husband, caring nothing whether the pope will have it so or not, whether it be against canon law or human law. The salvation of your soul is of more importance than tyrannical, arbitrary, wicked laws, which are not necessary for salvation and are not commanded by God. You should do like the children of Israel, who stole from the Egyptians the hire they had earned [Ex. 12:35 f.], or like a servant who steals from his wicked master the wages he has earned. In like manner steal thou from the pope thy wife and child! Let the man who has faith enough to venture this, boldly follow me; I shall not lead him astray. Though I have not the authority of a pope, I have the authority of a Christian to advise and help my neighbor against sins and temptations; and that not without cause and reason.

  First, Not every priest can do without a woman, not only on account of the weakness of the flesh, but much more because of the necessities of the household. If he, then, may have a woman, and the pope grants him that, and yet may not have her in marriage, — what is that but leaving a man and a woman alone and forbidding them to fall? It is as though one were to put fire and straw together and command that it shall neither smoke nor burn.

  Second, The pope has as little power to command this, as he has to forbid eating, drinking, the natural movement of the bowels or growing fat. No one, therefore, is bound to keep it, but the pope is responsible for all the sins which are committed against this ordinance, for all the souls which are lost thereby, for all the consciences which are thereby confused and tortured; and therefore he has long deserved that some one should drive him out of the world, so many wretched souls has he strangled with this devil’s snare; though I hope that there are many to whom God has been more gracious at their last hour than the pope has been in their life. Nothing good has ever come out of the papacy and its laws, nor ever will.

  Third, Although the law of the pope is against it, nevertheless, when the estate of matrimony has been entered against the pope’s law, then his law is at an end, and is no longer valid; for the commandment of God, which decrees that no one shall put man and wife asunder [Matt. 19:6], takes precedence of the law of the pope; and the commandments of God must not be broken and neglected for the sake of the pope’s commandment, though many mad jurists, in the papal interest, have devised “impediments”175 and have prevented, destroyed and confused the estate of matrimony, until by their means God’s commandment has been altogether destroyed. To make a long story short, there are not in the whole “spiritual” law of the pope two lines which could be instructive to a pious Christian, and there are, alas! so many mistaken and dangerous laws that the best thing would be to make a bonfire of it176
.

  But if you say that this177 would give offence, and the pope must first grant dispensation, I reply that whatever offence is in it, is the fault of the Roman See, which has established such laws without right and against God; before God and the Scriptures it is no offence. Moreover, if the pope can grant dispensations from his avaricious and tyrannical laws for money’s sake, then every Christian can grant dispensations from them — for the sake of God and the salvation of souls. For Christ has set us free from all human laws, especially when they are opposed to God and the salvation of souls, as St. Paul teaches in Galatians v [Gal. 5:1] and I Corinthians xi (1 Cor. 9:4 ff.; 10:23).

  Abolition of Reserved Cases in the Monasteries

  15. Nor must I forget the poor convents! The evil spirit, who by human laws now confuses all estates in life, and has made them unbearable, has taken possession of in certain abbots, abbesses and prelates also, and causes them so to govern their brethren and sisters as to send them the more speedily to hell, and make them lead a wretched life even here; for such is the lot of all the devil’s martyrs. That is to say, they have reserved to themselves in confession, all, or at least some, of the mortal sins which are secret, so that no brother, on his obedience and on pain of the ban, can absolve another from these sins178. Now we do not always find angels everywhere, but we find also flesh and blood, which suffers all bannings and threatenings rather than confess secret sins to the prelates and the appointed confessors. Thus they go to the sacrament with such consciences that they become “irregular”179 and all sorts of other terrible things. O blind shepherds! O mad prelates! O ravening wolves!

  To this I say: If a sin is public or notorious, then it is proper that the prelate alone should punish it, and of these sins only and no others he may make exceptions, and reserve them to himself; over secret sins he has no authority, even though they were the worst sins that are or ever can be found, and if the prelate makes exceptions of these sins, he is a tyrant, for he has no such right and is interfering in the judgment of God.

  And so I advise these children, brethren and sisters: If your superiors are unwilling to grant you permission to confess your secret sins to whomever you wish, then take them to whatever brother or sister you will and confess them, receive absolution, and then go and do whatever you wish and ought to do; only believe firmly that you are absolved, and nothing more is needed. And do not allow yourself to be troubled by ban, “irregularity,” or any of the other things they threaten; these things are valid only in the case of public or notorious sins which one is unwilling to confess; they do not affect you at all. Why do you try by your threatenings, O blind prelate, to prevent secret sins? Let go what you cannot publicly prove, so that God’s judgment and grace may also have its work in your subjects! He did not give them so entirely into your hands as to let them go entirely out of His own! Nay, what you have under your rule is but the smaller part. Let your statutes be statutes, but do not exalt them to heaven, to the judgment-seat of God.

  Abolition of Mortuary Masses

  16. It were also necessary to abolish all anniversary, mortuary and “soul” masses180, or at least to diminish their number, since we plainly see that they have become nothing but a mockery, by which God is deeply angered, and that their only purpose is money-getting, gorging and drunkenness. What kind of pleasure should God have in such a miserable gabbling of wretched vigils and masses, which is neither reading nor praying, and even when prayed181, they are performed not for God’s sake and out of willing love, but for money’s sake and because they are a bounden duty. Now it is not possible that any work not done out of willing love can please God or obtain anything from Him. And so it is altogether Christian to abolish, or at least diminish, everything which we see growing into an abuse, and which angers rather than reconciles God. It would please me more — nay, it would be more acceptable to God and far better — that a foundation, church or monastery should put all its anniversary masses and vigils together, and on one day, with hearty sincerity, devotion and faith, hold a true vigil and mass for all its benefactors, rather than hold them by the thousand every year, for each benefactor a special mass, without this devotion and faith. O dear Christians! God cares not for much praying, but for true praying! Nay, He condemns the many and long prayers, and says in Matthew vi, they will only earn more punishment thereby [Matt. 67:7; 23:14]. But avarice, which cannot trust God, brings such things to pass, earing that otherwise it must die of hunger!

  Abolition of the Interdict

  17. Certain of the penalties or punishments of the canon law should also be abolished, especially the interdict182, which is, beyond all doubt, an invention of the evil Spirit. Is it not a devil’s work to try to atone for one sin with many greater sins? And yet, to put God’s Word and worship to silence, or to do away with them, is a greater sin than strangling twenty popes at once, and far greater than killing a priest or keeping back some Church property. This is another of the tender virtues taught in the “spiritual law.” For one of the reasons why this law is called “spiritual” is because it comes from the Spirit; not, however, from the Holy Spirit, but from the evil spirit.

  The ban183 is to be used in no case except where the Scriptures prescribe its use, i. e., against those who do not hold the true faith, or who live in open sin; it is not to be used for the sake of temporal possessions. But now it is the other way around. Everyone believes and lives as he pleases, most of all those who use the ban to plunder and defame other people, and all the bans are now laid only on account of temporal possessions, or which we have no one to thank but the holy “spiritual lawlessness.”184 Of this I have previously said more in the Discourse185.

  The other punishments and penalties, — suspension, irregularity, aggravation, reaggravation, deposition, lightnings, thunderings, cursings, damnings and the rest of these devices, — should be buried ten fathoms deep in the earth, so that there should be neither name nor memory of them left on earth. The evil spirit, who has been let loose by the “spiritual law” has brought this terrible plague and misery into the heavenly kingdom of the holy Church, and has accomplished by it nothing else than the destruction and hindrance of souls, so that the word of Christ may well be applied to them186: “Woe unto you scribes! Ye have taken upon you the authority to teach, and ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men. Ye go not in yourselves, and ye suffer not them that are entering.” [Matt. 23:13]

  Abolition of Saints’-Days

  18. All festivals187 should be abolished, and Sunday alone retained. If it were desired, however, to retain the festivals of Our Lady and of the greater saints, they should be transferred to Sunday, or observed only by a morning mass, after which all the rest of the day should be a working-day. The reason is this: The feast-days are now abused by drinking, gaming, idleness and all manner of sins, so that on the holy days we anger God more than on other days, and have altogether turned things around; the holy days are not holy and the working days are holy, and not only is no service done to God and His saints by the many holy days, but rather great dishonor. There are, indeed, some mad prelates who think they are doing a good work if they make a festival in honor of St. Ottilia or St. Barbara or some other saint, according to the promptings of their blind devotion; but they would be doing a far better work if they honored the saint by turning a saint’s-day into a working day.

  Over and above the spiritual injury, the common man receives two material injuries from this practice, i. e., he neglects his work and he spends more than at other times; nay, he also weakens his body and unfits it for work. We see this every day, yet no one thinks to make it better. We ought not to consider whether or not the pope has instituted the feasts, and whether we must have dispensation and permission to omit them. If a thing is opposed to God, and harmful to man in body and soul, any community188, council189 or government has not only the right to abolish it and put a stop to it, without the will or knowledge of pope or bishop, but they are bound on their souls’ salvation to prevent it, even against the will o
f pope and bishop, though these ought to be themselves the first to forbid it.

  Above all, we ought utterly to abolish the consecration days190, since they have become nothing else than taverns, airs and gaming places191, and serve only to the increase of God’s dishonor and to the damnation of souls. All the pretence about the custom having had a good beginning and being a good work is of no avail. Did not God Himself set aside His own law, which He had given from heaven, when it was perverted and abused? And does He not still daily overturn what He has appointed and destroy what He has made, because of such perversion and abuse? As it is written of Him in Psalm xviii, “With the perverted Thou wilt show Thyself perverse.” [Ps. 18:27]

  Extension of Right of Dispensation

  19. The grades or degrees within which marriage is forbidden should be changed, as, for instance, the sponsorships and the third and fourth degrees; and if the pope can grant dispensation in these matters or money and for the sake of his shameful traffic192, then every parish priest may give the same dispensations gratis and or the salvation of souls. Yea, would to God that all the things which we must buy at Rome to free ourselves from that money-snare, the canon law, — such things as indulgences, letters of indulgence, “butter-letters,”193 “mass-letters,”194 and all the rest of the confessionalia195 and knaveries for sale at Rome, with which the poor folk are deceived and robbed of their money; would to God, I say, that any priest could, without payment, do and omit all these things! For if the pope has the authority to sell his snares for money and his spiritual nets (I should say laws)196, surely any priest has much more authority to rend his nets and for God’s sake to tread them under foot. But if he has not this right, neither has the pope the right to sell them at his shameful fair197.