Abuses of Penance
I shall add but one thing. There are many who set perilous snares for married folk, especially in case of incest; and when any one (for these things can happen, nay, alas! they do happen) has defiled the sister of his wife, or his mother-in-law, or one related to him in any degree of consanguinity, they at once deprive him of the right to pay the debt of matrimony, and nevertheless they suffer him not, nay, they forbid him, to desert his wife’s bed. What monstrous thing is this? What new remedy for sin? What sort of satisfaction for sin? Does it not show how these tyrants make laws for other men’s infirmity and indulge their own? Show me the law-giver, however penitent and chaste, who would allow such a law to be made for himself. They put dry wood on the fire and say, Do not burn; they put a man in a woman’s arms and forbid him to touch her or know her; and they do this on their own authority and without the command of God. What madness! My advice is that the confessor beware of tyrannical decrees or laws, and confidently sentence a sinner to some other penance, or totally abstain from punishing, leaving free to him the right of matrimony which has been given him not by man, but by God. For no angel in heaven, still less any man on earth, has the power to enjoin this penance, which is the burning occasion of continual sin. Wherefore they are not to be heeded who wish such things to be done, and the penitent is to be freed from this scruple and peril.
But who may recount all the tyrannies with which the troubled consciences of penitent and confessing Christians are daily disturbed, by means of death-bringing “constitutions” and customs, administered by silly manikins, who only know how to bind and place on the shoulders of men burdens grievous and heavy to be borne, which they themselves are not willing to move with a finger? [Matt. 23:4] So this most salutary sacrament of penance has become nothing else than a mere tyranny of the great, then a disease, and a means to the increase of sins. Thus in the end it signifies one thing and works another thing for miserable sinners, because priestlings, impious and unlearned in the law of the Lord, administer the Church of God, which they have filled with their laws and their dreams.
Here follows, in the original, a paraphrase of the apocryphal Prayer of Manasseh.
ENDNOTES.
1 Luther quotes from the Vulgate and frequently from memory, a fact which should always be remembered in comparing his quotations from the text of Scripture.
2 Vulgate, Justus prior est accusator.
3 The apocryphal Prayer of Manasseh was included by Luther as an appendix to this treatise.
4 Augustine Conf., X, 29.
5 i. e., Forced to confess hidden sins.
6 The so-called “science of casuistry,” by which the moral value of an act is determined and the exact degree of guilt attaching to a given sin is estinated.
7 Cf. Small Catechism, “Of Confession,” Ques. “What sins ought we to confess?”
8 The decrees of the Popes collected in the Canon Law. The decretal here referred to is C. Omnis Utriusque, X. de poententiis et remissionibus.
9 Anecdotes illustrating the doctrines of the Church were favorite contents of the sermons in Luther’s day. Various collections of these edifying legends are still extant. Cf. p. 224, and note.
10 i. e., By thinking of the nature of confession.
11 The reader of this minute classification of sins, which could be duplicated out of almost any manual of casuistry, may judge for himself whether Luther was correct in calling it a “riot of distinctions.”
12 Luther steadily maintained that the Ten Commandments were a complete guide to holy living and that every possible sin his prohibited somewhere in the Decalogue. See, beside the various smaller treatises (Kurze Unterweisung wie man beichten soll (1518), Kurze Form des zehn Gobte (1520), etc.), the large Discourse on Good Works, below, pp. 184 ff.
13 The writings mentioned are found in the Weimar Ed., Vol I, pp. 250 ff, 258 ff, 398 ff. See above, p. 75, note 1.
14 The Sentences of Peter the Lombard was the standard text-book of Medieval theology.
15 “On True and False Penitence,” now universally admitted not to have been written by St. Augustine, but passing under his name till after the Reformation.
16 That part of the liturgy of the Mass in which the miraculous transformation of the elements into the Body and Blood of Christ is believed to take place.
17 i. e., Of the sacrament of confession.
18 The fixed hours of daily prayer observed in the monasteries, afterward applied to the liturgy for these services, viz., the Breviary. The daily reading of this breviary at the appointed hours is required of all clergy.
19 An Italian saint, d. 482, noted for the strictness and severity of his ascetic practices.
20 Professor of the University of Paris; one of the most popular and famous of the later Scholastics. He died 1429.
21 Vulgate, “Cor ejus paratus est.”
22 We would say, “the whole thing in a nutshell.”
23 i. e., Sins for which the confessor was not allowed to grant absolution without reference to some higher Church authority, to whose absolution they were “reserved.” See Introduction, p. 79.
24 The power to “bind and loose” (Matt. 16:19), i. e., to forgive and to retain sins (John 20:23).
25 The Roman Church distinguished between the “guilt” and the “penalty” of sin. It was thought possible to forgive the former and retain the latter. Submission to the penalty is “satisfaction.” See Introduction to XCV. Theses, p. 19.
26 Votum satisfactionis. It was and is the teaching of the Roman Church that, where the actual reception of any sacrament is impossible, the earnest desire to receive it suffices for salvation. The desire is known as the votum sacramenti.
27 In Spain. The shrine of St. James at that place was a famous resort for pilgrims. Cf. below, p. 191, and note.
28 See the Treatise on the Sacrament of Baptism, above, pp. 68 ff.
29 Luther doubtless refers to the decrees of the popes by which special rewards were attached to worship at certain shrines.
30 The oath of office and the oath of allegiance.
31 The story is repeated by Melanchthon in the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, Ch. XIII, Art. xxvii, 38 (Book of Concord, Eng. Trans., p. 288). The “Alexander Coriarius” of text is misleading.
The Fourteen of Consolation (1520)
Translated by A. T. W. Steinhaeuser
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
ENDNOTES.
THE FOURTEEN OF CONSOLATION
PREFATORY NOTE1
PART I
DEDICATORY EPISTLE5
PREFACE
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
PART II
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
EPILOGUE
ENDNOTES.
INTRODUCTION
1. WHEN LUTHER’S Elector, Frederick the Wise (1486-1525), returned to his residence at Torgau, after participating in the election of Emperor Charles V, at Frankfort-on-the-Main, in the summer of 1519, he was stricken with a serious illness, from which there seemed little hope of his recovery Concerned for his noble patron, and urged by Dr. George Spalatin, his friend at court, to prepare a “spiritual consolation” for the Elector, Luther wrote “The Fourteen of Consolation,” one of his finest and tenderest devotional writings, and, in conception and execution, one of the most original of all his works.
Its composition falls within the months of August and September of the year 1519. On August 29th, the Day of the Beheading of St. John Baptist, we find him writing in Part I, chapter vi: “Does not the example of St. John Baptist, whom we commemorate on this day as beheaded by Herod, shame and amaze us all?” On September 22d, he sends the completed manuscript (in Latin) to
Spalatin, requesting him to make a free translation of it into German and present it to the Elector. By the end of November Spalatin had completed his task (one marvels at the leisureliness of this, in view of the serious condition of the Elector; or was the manuscript translated and administered piecemeal to the noble patient?), and early in December he returned the original, doubtless together with his own translation, to Luther, who had requested its return, “in order to comfort himself therewith.”
The work was, therefore, in the strictest sense, a private writing, and not in the least intended for publication.1 But the importunities of those who had seen it, particularly of Spalatin, prevailed, and on December 18th Luther writes to the latter that “the Tessaradecas, in both Latin and German, is in the hands of the printer.” On February 8th, 1520, he sends Spalatin a printed copy of the Latin, and six days later, one of the German edition. The latter contained a dedicatory letter to the Elector, which, however, by an oversight of the printer, and owing to Luther’s absence at the time, was omitted in the Latin edition.
In 1535, fifteen years after its first appearance in print, Luther issued his Tessaradecas in a new and final edition, adding a brief prefatory note. He no longer holds many of his former views, and there is much in his little book that he has outgrown and might now correct. But with characteristic unconcern, he lets it all stand, and even restores many passages that had been corrupted or omitted to their original form. It is a revised edition, with the errors, as it were, underscored. It is to be chiefly an historical record, to show the world how far he has progressed since its first writing (1 Tim. 4:15), a mile-post on the road of his inner development.2 And more than this — and here one fancies he can see the sardonic smile on the battle-scarred face — it is to furnish his enemies with weapons against himself; he desires to show a favor to the hunters of contradictions in his works, “that they may have whereon to exercise their malice.”
2. The plan of the work is in the highest degree original and artificial. The title, Tessaradecas consolatoria, which we have rendered “The Fourteen of Consolation,” 3 is explained by Luther in the dedicatory epistle to the Elector, pp. 110 ff. The “Fourteen” were the fourteen patron saints of medieval devotion, called the “Defenders from all evils” (defendores, auxiliatores). Whence the cult arose is not altogether certain. It is said to have become popular in Germany since the vision of a Franconian shepherd, in 1446, to whom there appeared, in the fields, the Christ-child surrounded by the fourteen saints. The Vierzehnheiligenkirche at Staffelstein, a famous shrine for pilgrims, marks the spot. The names of the “Fourteen,” each of whom was a defender against some particular disease or danger, are as follows: Achatius (Acacius), Aegidius, Barbara (cf. St. Barbara’s cress), Blasius (the “defender” of those afflicted with throat diseases), Catharine (cf. St. Catharine’s flower), Christopher (cf. St. Christopher’s herb), Cyriacus, Dionysius, Erasmus (Italian: San Elmo; cf. St. Elmo’s fire), Eustachius, George the Martyr (cf. St. George’s herb), Margaret, Pantaleon, and Vitus (cf. St. Vitus’s dance). Luther’s Sermons on the First Commandment (1516) may be compared lot references to some of these saints and to many others.
As over against these saints, Luther also invents fourteen defenders or comforters, and arranges them in this writing in the form of an altar tablet; but his is not a tablet such as those found in the churches, representing the fourteen defenders, but it is a spiritual tablet or painting, to uplift and strengthen the pious heart of the Elector, and of all others who are weary and heavy laden. The first division, or panel, of this figurative altar-piece contains the images or paintings of seven evils (maia); the second, those of seven blessings (bona). The contemplation of the evils will comfort the weary and heavy laden by showing them how small their evil is in comparison with the evil that they have within themselves, namely, their sin; with the evils they have suffered in the past, and will have to suffer in the future; with the evils which others, their friends and foes, suffer; and, above all, with those which Christ suffered on the cross. Similarly, the contemplation of the blessings will help them to forget their present sufferings; for they are as nothing compared with the blessing within them, namely, their faith; the blessings they enjoyed in the past, and those that await them in the future, as well as those which arc enjoyed by their friends and foes, and, finally, the highest blessing of all, which is Jesus Christ, risen and glorified.
We can only conjecture as to the origin of this unique conception of Luther’s. Of course, the evils and blessings came to him from the passage in Ecclesiasticus 11:26.4 The order and arrangement may follow some contemporary altar-picture of the “Fourteen Saints.” There was a famous altar-painting of the “Fourteen,” by Lucas Cranach, in St Mary’s at Torgau, the residence of the Elector. The fact is suggestive.5
3. The Tessaradecas was favorably received by the Elector, was highly praised by Spalatin, who urged its publication, and must have been dear to Luther’s own heart, since he desired the return of his manuscript for his own comfort. The little work soon became very popular, and passed through numerous editions, both in Latin and in German. During the first two years five Latin editions were printed, and up to 1525 seven German editions. A translation was published in the Netherlands in 1521, and one in England in 1578. Erasmus commended it to Bishop Christopher of Basle, in 1523; “I am sending your Highness Luther’s book of the fourteen pictures, which has won great approbation even from those who oppose his doctrine at every point.” Mathesius, Luther’s pupil and biographer, judged that there had never before been such words of comfort written in the German language. The Franciscan Lemmens speaks of “the beautiful and Catholic thoughts” in it.
4. Our translation is made from the Latin text, as found in the Weimar edition of Luther’s works, volume vi, with continual reference to the German text, as given in the Berlin edition. We regret our inability to obtain a copy of the old English translation (A right comfortable Treatise conteining sundrye pointes of consolation for them that labour and are laden….Englished by W. Gace. T. Vautrollier, London, 1578, sec. ed. 1580), although the form of the title would seem to indicate that it was made from Spalatin’s translation, and not from the original.6
The many Scripture quotations, all naturally from the Latin Vulgate, and most of them freely quoted from memory, and sometimes “targumed” and woven into the texture of the treatise, are rendered by us, unless the sense should thereby be affected, in the words of the Authorised Version. Important or interesting variations are indicated in the foot-notes.
5. The Tesseradecas deserves to be more widely known and used. Its value is more than merely that of an historical document, representing a transition stage in Luther’s reformatory views. It gives us, besides this, a deep insight into the living piety of the man, his great heart so full of the peace of God that passeth all understanding. When we remember that this little work was composed in the midst of a very “tempest” of other writings, chiefly polemical (e.g., the savage onslaughts on Emser), it will appear akin to the little book of Ruth, lying so peacefully between the war-like books of Judges and First Samuel. At the Leipzig Disputation, earlier in the same year, Luther was seen to hold a bouquet of flowers in his hand, and to smell of it when the battle waxed hot. The Tessaradecas is such a bunch of flowers. Its chief glory, however, that of a devotional classic, has been somewhat dimmed by Luther himself, who with the carelessness of genius refused to revise his outworn views in it; and yet, despite its relics of mediævalism, particularly by reason of its firm evangelical foundation, its scriptural warp and woof, its fervent piety, and its fresh and original treatment, it is not less entitled to a high place in the devotional and ascetic literature of the Church than the much better known Imitatio Christi. In this sense it is herewith offered anew to the English reader, with the hope that “the diligent reading and contemplation of these ‘images’ may minister some slight comfort.”
6. Literature. — (1) The literary and historical introductions to the Tessaradecas in the Weim
ar, Erlangen, and Berlin editions. (2) Köstlin-Kawerau, Martin Luther, sein Leben und seine Schriften. 5th ed., 1903, vol. I, pp. 280, 281. (3) H. Beck, Die Erbauungslit. der evang. Kirche Deutschlands, 1883. (4) On the fourteen Defenders see articles in Wetzer und Welte and the Catholic Encyclopaedia, and especially the article Nothelfer, by Zöckler, in PRE3, where also see further literature.
A. T. W. Steinhaeuser
Allentown, PA.
ENDNOTES.
1 Cf. the first sentence of the Prefatory Note, p. 109 of this volume; also the dedicatory epistle of the Treatise on Good Works, p. 184.
2 We have noted a few of the more glaring relics of mediævalism in the footnotes; the attentive reader will discover and dispose of others for himself.
3 The title furnishes peculiar difficulties to the translator.
Cole has simply transliterated it, “The Consolatory Terradecad.”
Spalatin paraphrased it “Ein trostlichs Buchlein,” etc. The
Berlin Edition renders it, “Vierzehn Trostmittel,” etc.
4 See p. 113.
5 Did the comment of Bernard of Clairvaux, on Romans 8:18, perhaps contribute its quota to the general conception? “The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the past guilt, which is forgiven (remittitur); with the present grace of consolation, which is given (immittitur); with the future glory, which is promised (promittitur).”
6 An English translation, with some omissions that Luther himself did not care to make is found in Henry Cole’s Select Works of Martin Luther, vol. II, London, 1824.
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