Collected Works of Martin Luther

by Martin Luther

  A professor of theology ought to have considered in advance the clumsiness of such an argument, and proved the divine laws and works by the Scriptures, and not by temporal analogies and worldly reason. For it is written that the divine commandments are justified in and by themselves, and not by any external help.20 [Ps. 19:9]

  Again, the wise man says of the wisdom of God: “Wisdom hath overcome the proud with her power.” [Prov. 11:3] It is most deplorable that we should attempt with our reason to defend God’s Word, whereas the Word of God is rather our defence against all our enemies, as St. Paul teaches us. [Eph. 6:17] Would he not be a great fool who in the thick of battle sought to protect his helmet and sword with bare hand and unshielded head? It is no different when we essay, with our reason, to defend God’s law, which should rather be our weapon.

  From this, I hope, it is clear that the flimsy argument of this prattler fails utterly, and, together with everything he constructs upon it, is found to be without any basis whatever. But that he may the better understand his own mummery, even in case I should grant that a process of reasoning might be entirely valid without the Scriptures, I will show that neither of his arguments is valid, neither the first, A, nor the second, B.

  The Argument Answered

  The first, A, is that every community on earth must have one visible head under Christ. This is simply not true. How many principalities, castles, cities, and houses we find where two brothers or lords reign — and with equal authority. The Roman empire governed itself for a long time, and very well, without the one head, and many other countries in the world did the same. How does the Swiss confederacy govern itself at present? Thus in the government of the world there is not one single overlord, yet we are all one human race, descended from the one father, Adam. The kingdom of France has its own king, Hungary its own, Poland, Denmark, and every other kingdom its own, and yet they are one people, the temporal estate in Christendom, without one common head; and still this does not cause these kingdoms to perish. And if there were no government constituted in just this manner, who could or would prevent a community from choosing not one, but many overlords, all clothed with equal power? Therefore it is a very poor procedure to measure the things which are of God’s appointing by such vacillating analogies of worldly things, when they do not hold even in the appointments of men. But suppose I should grant this dreamer that his dream is true, and that no community can exist without one visible head; how does it follow that it must likewise be so in the Church?21 I know very well that the poor dreamer has a certain conception, according to which a Christian community is the same as any other temporal community.22 He thus reveals plainly that he has never learned to know what Christendom, or the Christian community, really is. I had not believed it possible to meet such dense, massive, stubborn error and ignorance in any man, much less in a saint of Leipzig.

  For the benefit, therefore, of this numskull, and of those led astray by him, I must first of all explain what is meant by these things — the Church,23 and the One Head of the Church. I must talk bluntly, however, and use the same words which they have so barbarously perverted.

  What is the Church?

  The Communion of Saints

  The Unity of the Church Not External

  The Scriptures speak of the Church quite simply, and use the term in only one sense; these men have added and brought into general use two more. The first use, according to the Scriptures, is this, that the Church is called the assembly of all the believers in Christ upon earth, just as we pray in the Creed: “I believe in the Holy Ghost, a communion of saints.” This community or assembly consists of all those who live in true faith, hope and love; so that the essence, life and nature of the Church is not a bodily assembly, but an assembly of hearts in one faith, as St. Paul says, Ephesians iv, “One baptism, one faith, one Lord.” [Eph. 4:5] Thus, though they be a thousand miles apart in body, yet they are called an assembly in spirit because each one preaches, believes, hopes, loves, and lives like the other. So we sing of the Holy Ghost: “Thou, who through divers tongues gatherest together the nations in the unity of the faith.”24 That means in reality a spiritual unity, because of which men are called a communion of saints. And this unity is of itself sufficient to make a Church, and without it no unity, be it of place, of time, of person, of work, or of whatever else, makes a Church. On this point we must hear the word of Christ, Who, when Pilate asked Him concerning His kingdom, answered: “My kingdom is not of this world.” [John 18:36] This is indeed a dear passage, in which the Church is made separate from all temporal communities, as not being anything external. And this blind Romanist makes of it an external community, like any other. Christ says even more clearly, Luke xvii, “The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: neither shall they say, Lo, here, or lo, there! for behold, the kingdom of God is within you.” [Luke 17:20, 21]

  I am astounded, that such strong, clear words of Christ are treated as a farce by these Romanists. For by these words it is clear to every one that the kingdom of God (for so He calls His Church25) is not at Rome, nor is it bound to Rome or any other place, but it is where there is faith in the heart, be a man at Rome, or here, or elsewhere. It is a nauseating lie,26 and Christ is made a liar when it is said that the Church, is in Rome, or is bound to Rome — or even that the head and the authority are there by divine right.

  Moreover, in Matthew xxiv. He foretold the gross deception which now rules under the name of the Roman Church, when He says: “Many false prophets and false Christs shall come in My name, saying: I am Christ; and shall deceive many, and show great signs, that if possible they shall deceive the very elect. Wherefore, if they shall say unto you: Behold, in the secret chambers is Christ, believe it not; behold, He is in the desert, go not forth. Behold, I have told you before.” [Matt. 24:24-26] Is this not a cruel error, when the unity of the Christian Church, separated by Christ Himself from all material and temporal cities and places, and transferred to spiritual realms, is included by these preachers of dreams in material communities,27 which must of necessity be bound to localities and places. How is it possible, or whose reason can grasp it, that spiritual unity and material unity should be one and the same? There are those among Christians who are in the external assembly and unity, who yet by their sins exclude themselves from the inner, spiritual unity.

  Therefore, whosoever maintains that an external assembly or an outward unity makes a Church, sets forth arbitrarily what is merely his own opinion, and whoever endeavors to prove it by the Scriptures, brings divine truth to the support of his lies, and makes God a false witness, just as does this miserable Romanist, who explains everything that is written concerning the Church28 as meaning the outward show of Roman power; and yet he cannot deny that the large majority of these people, particularly in Rome itself, because of unbelief and evil lives, is not in the spiritual unity, i. e., the true Church. For if to be in the external Roman unity made men true Christians, there would be no sinners among them, neither would they need faith nor the grace of God to make them Christians; this external unity would be enough.

  What Makes a Christian

  From this we conclude, and the conclusion is inevitable, that just as being in the Roman unity does not make one a Christian, so being outside of that unity does not make one a heretic or unchristian. I should like to hear who would dispute this. For that which is essential must make a true Christian; but if it does not make a true Christian, it cannot be essential; just as it does not make me a true Christian to be at Wittenberg or to be at Leipzig. Now it is clear that external fellowship with the Roman communion29 does not make men Christians, and so the lack of that fellowship certainly does not make a man a heretic or an apostate. Therefore it must also be false, that it is a divine command to be in connection with the Roman Church. For whosoever keepeth one divine command, keepeth them all, and none can be kept without keeping the others30. Therefore it is an open and blasphemous lie against the Holy Ghost to say that the external unity under Roman authority is th
e fulfilment of a divine commandment, since there are so many in that unity who neither regard nor fulfil any of the Divine commandments. Hence, to be in this place or that, does not make a heretic: but to be without true faith makes a man a heretic.

  Again, it is clear that to be a member of the Roman communion31 does not mean to be in true faith, and to be outside of it does not mean to be in unbelief; otherwise those within it would all be believers and truly saved, for no one article of faith is believed without all the other articles.

  Therefore all those who make the Christian communion32 a material and outward thing, like other communities, are in reality Jews (for the Jews likewise wait for their Messiah to establish an external kingdom at a certain definite place, namely, Jerusalem), and thus sacrifice the faith, which alone makes the kingdom of Christ a thing spiritual and of the heart.

  The Head of the Church

  Again, if every temporal community is called after its head, and we say of this city, it is Electoral, and of that, it is Ducal, and of another, it is Frankish; then by right all Christendom should be called Roman, or Petrine, or Papal. But why, then, is it called Christendom? Why are we called Christians, if not from our head, although we are still upon earth? Hereby it is shown that for Christendom there is no other head, even upon earth, than Christ, for it has no other name than the name of Christ For this reason St. Luke tells us that the disciples were at first called Antiochians, but soon this was changed and they were called Christians. [Acts 11:26]33

  Furthermore, though a man consists of two natures, namely, body and soul, yet he is not reckoned a member of the Church according to his body, but according to his soul, nay, according to his faith. Otherwise it might be said that a man is a nobler Christian than a woman, because his physical structure is superior to that of a woman, or that a man is a greater Christian than a child, a healthy person a stronger Christian than an invalid; lords and ladies, the rich and powerful, better Christians than servants, maids, and the poor and lowly; whereas Paul writes, Galatians v, “In Christ is neither male nor female, neither lord nor servant, neither Jew nor Greek,” [Gal. 3:28; 5:6] but as far as the body is concerned they are all equal. But he is the better Christian who is greater in faith, hope and love; so that it is plain that the Church34 is a spiritual community, which can be classed with a temporal community as little as spirits with bodies, or faith with temporal possessions.

  This, indeed, is true, that just as the body is a figure or image of the soul, so also the bodily community is a figure of this Christian, spiritual community, and as the bodily community has a bodily head, so the spiritual community has a spiritual head. But who would be so bereft of sense as to maintain that the soul must have a bodily head? That would be like saying that every live animal must have on its body a painted head. If this literalist (I should say, literary person) had really understood what the Church is, without doubt he would have been ashamed even to contemplate such a book as his. What wonder, therefore, that from a darkened and wandering brain issues no light, but thick, black darkness St. Paul says, Colossians iii, “Our life is not on earth, but hid with Christ in God.” [Col. 3:3] For if the Church were a bodily assembly, you could tell by looking at the body whether any one were Christian, Turk or Jew; just as you can tell by the body whether a person is a man, woman or child, or whether he is white or black. Again, I can tell whether one is gathered in temporal assembly with others in Leipzig, Wittenberg, or elsewhere; but I cannot tell at all whether he is a believer or not.

  The Church a Spiritual Thing

  Whosoever would not go astray should, therefore, hold fast to this, that the Church is a spiritual assembly of souls in one faith, and that no one is reckoned a Christian for his body’s sake; in order that he may know that the true, real, right, essential Church is a spiritual thing, and not anything external or outward, by whatever name it may be called. For one who is not a Christian may have all those other things, and they will never make him a Christian without true faith, which alone makes Christians. For this reason we are called Christian believers, and on Pentecost we sing:

  We beseech Thee, Holy Spirit35,

  Let true faith our portion be.

  It is in this wise, and never in any other, that the Holy

  Scriptures speak of the Holy Church and of Christendom.

  [Sidneote: The External Church]

  Beyond that, another way of speaking of Christendom has come into use. According to this, the name Church36 is given to an assembly in a house or a parish, a bishopric, an archbishopric, or the papacy, in which assembly external rites are in use, such as chanting, reading, vestments. And primarily the name of “spiritual estate” is given to the bishops, priests and members of the holy orders; not on account of their faith, which they perhaps do not have, but because they have been consecrated with an external anointing, wear crowns, use a distinctive garb, make special prayers and do special works, say mass, have their places in the choir, and attend to all such external matters of worship. But violence is done to the word “spiritual,” or “Church,” when it is used for such external affairs, whereas it concerns faith alone, which, working in the soul, makes right and true spirituales and Christians; yet this maimer of using it has spread everywhere, to the great injury and perversion of many souls, who think that such outward show is the spiritual and only true estate in Christendom or the Church.

  There is not one letter in the Holy Scriptures to show that such a purely external Church has been established by God; and I hereby challenge all those who have made this blasphemous, damnable, heretical book, or would defend it, together with all their followers, even if all the universities hold with them. If they can show me that even one letter of the Scriptures speaks of it, I am willing to recant. But I know that they cannot do it. The Canon Law and human statutes, indeed, give the name of Church or Christendom to such a thing, but that is not now before us. Therefore, for the sake of brevity and a better understanding, we shall call the two churches by different names. The first, which is the natural, essential, real and true one, let us call a spiritual, inner Christendom. The other, which is man-made and external, let us call a bodily, external Christendom: not as if we would part them asunder, but just as when I speak of a man, and call him, according to the soul, a spiritual, according to the body, a physical, man; or as the Apostle is wont to speak of the inner and of the outward man. [Rom. 7:22] Thus also the Christian assembly, according to the soul, is a communion37 of one accord in one faith, although according to the body it cannot be assembled at one place, and yet every group is assembled in its own place. This Christendom is ruled by Canon Law and the prelates of the Church.38 To this belong all the popes, cardinals, bishops, prelates, monks, nuns and all those who in these external things are taken to be Christians, whether they are truly Christians at heart or not. For though membership in this communion does not make true Christians, because all the orders mentioned may exist without faith; nevertheless this communion is never without some who at the same time are true Christians, just as the body does not give the soul its life, and yet the soul lives in the body and, indeed, can live without the body. Those who are without faith and are outside of the first community, but are included in this second community, are dead in the sight of God, hypocrites, and but like wooden images of true Christians. And so the people of Israel were a type of the spiritual people, assembled in faith.

  The Church as a Building

  The third use of the term applies the word Church, not to Christendom, but to the edifices erected for purposes of worship. And the word “spiritual” is so stretched as to cover temporal possessions, not the possessions which are truly spiritual because of faith, but those which are in the second or external Church,39 and such possessions are called “spiritual” or Church possessions.40 Again, the possessions of the laity are called “worldly,” although the laymen who are in the first or spiritual Church are much better than the worldly clergy and are truly spiritual. After this fashion it now goes with almost all t
he works and the government of the Church; and the name “spiritual possessions” has been so exclusively applied to worldly possessions that now no one understands it to mean anything else, and this has gone so far that men regard neither the spiritual nor the external Church any more, and they squabble and quarrel about temporal possessions like the heathen, and say, they do it for the sake of the Church and of spiritual possessions. Such perversion and misuse of words and things has come from the Canon Law and human statutes, to the unspeakable corruption of Christendom.