Collected Works of Martin Luther

by Martin Luther

  Concerning Predestination, I knew long ago, that Mosellanus agrees with Erasmus: for he is an Erasmian altogether. My fixed opinion is, however, that Erasmus knows less about Predestination, (or rather pretends to know) than even the schools of the Sophists have known. Nor have I any need to fear a fall, while I maintain my sentiments unchanged. Erasmus is not to be dreaded on this point, nor indeed on any essential point of Christianity. Truth is more powerful than eloquence; the Spirit is far above human talent; faith is beyond all erudition; and, as Paul saith, “the foolishness of God is wiser than men!” (I Cor. i. 25). The eloquence of Cicero, was often overthrown by inferior eloquence, in the discussion of public causes. Julian, was more eloquent than Augustine. In a word, the victory is in the hands of lying eloquence! — As it is written, “Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength, that thou mightest still the enemy and avenger” (Ps. viii. 2; Matt. xxi. 16).

  I will not provoke Erasmus, nor will I even when provoked once or twice, return the blow. And yet I do not think he shews his wisdom in directing the powers of his eloquence against me. For I fear he will not find in Luther a Faber of Picardy, nor be able to exult over me, as he does over him, where he says, ‘All congratulate me upon my victory over the Gaul.’ But however, if he will enter the lists with me, he shall find, that Christ fears neither the powers of the air, nor the gates of hell. And I, a most weak-tongued babe will meet the all-eloquent Erasmus with confidence, caring nothing for his authority, his name, or his reputation. I know well what is in the man; seeing that, I am well acquainted with the thoughts of Satan; though I expect he will daily manifest more and more that disposition towards me which he fosters in his heart.

  I express myself thus plainly, that you might have no fear or concern on my account, nor be frightened at the great and swelling words of others. I wish you to salute Mosellanus in my name: for I am not therefore ill-affected towards him, because he leans to the side of Erasmus rather than to mine.

  Nay tell him to stand by Erasmus firmly: for the time will come, when he will think otherwise. In the meantime, the weakness of an excellent heart is to be borne with. And may you also prosper in the Lord.

  Wirtemberg, 1522.

  APPENDIX: MARTIN LUTHER TO NICOLAS ARMSDOFF CONCERNING ERASMUS OF ROTTERDAM.

  GRACE AND PEACE in Christ.

  THANK you, my excellent friend, that you give me so candidly your opinion on my book. I care not at all that the Papists are offended: I did not write on their account, for they are not worth my writing or speaking in Consideration of them any more. God has given them up to a reprobate mind; so that they even fight against that, which they know to be the truth.

  My cause was heard at Augsburg, before the emperor Charles, and the whole world, and found to be irreprehensible, and to contain sound doctrine. Moreover, my Confession and Apology are made public, and set in the open light throughout the world. By these, I have answered an infinity of my adversaries’ books, and all the lies of the Papists past, present and to come!

  I have confessed Christ before this wicked and adulterous generation, and I doubt not but that He will also confess me before His Father, and the holy angels. My light is set on a candlestick! — Let him that seeth it, see it more clearly still; let him that is blind, be blinder still; let him that is just, be juster still; let him that is filthy, be filthier still; — their blood be upon themselves; — I am clean from their blood! I have declared to the unrighteous his unrighteousness, and he will not be converted; — let him therefore die in his sins; — I have saved my own soul! There is no need, therefore, that I should write, or care to write on their account, any farther.

  And as to your advice, that that grammarian or vocabularian whom you call the Erasmian plagiary should be held in contempt, and that Erasmus himself should rather be answered: know, that I have held him in sufficient contempt already: for I have not read one page of his writings. Jonas answered him once, although I was much against his doing it; and advised him, according to your opinion, to hold him in contempt. For I know the man well, from his skin to his heart, that he is not worthy of being spoken to, or dealt with, by any good man; such a hypocrite is he, and so full of reprobate envy and malevolence.

  Moreover, you know my usual way of over throwing writers of this stamp — by holding them in silent contempt. For how many books of Eccius, Faber, Emser, Cochles, and many others, who seemed to be as mountains in labour, and about to bring forth I know not what wonders, have I myself, by my silence only, so utterly brought to nothing that no memory of them is left. Cato calls such pettifoggers, and allows all their pratings to pass by unnoticed: whereas, if he had at all considered them worthy of being noticed and answered, they might have procured to themselves a lasting fame. And there is a trite, but true proverb, —

  Full well I know, that if with dung embroiled,

  Conqu’or or conquer’d, still I am besoiled.

  But here is my glorying. — Whatever could be brought against me from the Scriptures and from the fathers, has been produced and published: and now, all the glorying they have left, is in slanders, lies, and calumnies. And why should I envy them that, when they have no power or desire whatever to be renowned for any other virtues!

  Your judgment of Erasmus I much admire: wherein you say plainly, that he has no other basis wherein to build his doctrine but the favour of men; and attribute to him, moreover, ignorance and malice. And if you could but convey this judgment of yours with conviction to the minds of men in general, you would in truth, like another stripling David, by this one blow, lay our boasting Goliath prostrate, and at the same time, eradicate the whole of his sect. For what is more vain, more fallacious, in all things, than the applause of men, especially in things spiritual! For, as the Psalms testify, “There is no help in them:” again, “All men are liars.” If therefore Erasmus be nothing but vanity, and rest alone on vanity and a lie, what need is there to reply to him at all? He himself, together with all his vanity, will at length vanish like smoke, if we but treat him as I have treated those former scare-crows and pettifoggers, whom, by my silence only, I have committed to utter oblivion.

  I at one time attributed to him a singular kind of inconsistency and vain-talking, for he seemed to treat on sacred and serious things with the greatest unconcern; and on the contrary, to pursue baubles, vanities, and things laughable and ridiculous with the utmost avidity; though an old man, and a theologian; and that, in an age, the most industrious and laborious. So that I really thought, that what I had heard many men of wisdom and gravity say, was true - that Erasmus was actually mad.

  When I first wrote against his Diatribe, and was compelled to weigh his words, (as John says “try the Spirits,”) being disgusted at his inconsiderateness in a subject of so much importance; in order that I might rouse up the cold and doltish disputer, I goaded him as if in a snoring sleep; calling him a disciple, at one time, of Epicurus, at another, of Lucian, and then again, declaring him to be of the opinion of the sceptics; supposing, that by these means he might, perhaps, be roused up to enter upon the subject with more feeling. But all was in vain. I only irritated the viper, so as to cause him at last to give birth to his VIPER ASPIS, an offspring worthy of, and exactly like, its parent. But however, he proudly omitted to say one single word to the subject point. So that, from that time, I have despaired of his theology altogether.

  Now, however, I am quite of your opinion, that it was not inconsiderateness in him, but as you say, real ignorance and malice. For he was unacquainted with our doctrines, or the doctrines of Christianity; he knew them, but from policy would not know them. And though he may not understand, nor indeed can understand, those doctrines which are peculiar to our fraternity, and which we maintain against the synagogue of the Pope, yet he cannot be ignorant of those which are held in common by us and the church under the Pope; because, he writes on these very largely, or rather, laughs at them. — Such as, the Trinity of the Divine Persons, the Divinity and humanity of Christ, sin,
the redemption of the human race, the resurrection of the dead, eternal life, and the like: he knows, I say, that these things are taught and believed even by many ungodly and false Christians. But the truth is, he hates all the doctrines together. Nay, there can be no doubt in the mind of a true believer, who has the Spirit in his nostrils, that his mind is alienated from, and utterly hates all religion together; and especially, the religion of Christ. Many proofs of this are scattered here and there. And it will come to pass by and by, that alike the mole, he will throw up some dirt, that will shew where and what he is, and prove his own destruction.

  He published lately, among his other works, his CATECHISM, a production evidently of Satanic subtlety. For, with a purpose full of craft, he designs to take children and youths at the outset, and to infect them with his poisons, that they might not afterwards be eradicated from them; just as he himself, in Italy and at Rome, so sucked in his doctrines of sorcerers and of devils that now all remedy is too late. But who would bear with this method of bringing up children, or the weak in faith, which Erasmus proposes to us? The tender and unexperienced mind is to be formed at first by certain, plain, and necessary principles, which it may firmly believe. Because, it is necessary that every one who would learn, should believe: for what will he ever learn, who either doubts himself, or is taught to doubt?

  But this new catechist of ours, aims only at rendering his catechumens, and the doctrines of faith, suspicious. For at the very outset, laying aside all solid foundation, he does nothing but set before them those heresies and offences of opinions, by which the Church has been troubled from the beginning. So that in fact, he would make it appear, that there has been nothing certain in the Christian religion. And if an unexperienced mind be from the very beginning poisoned by principles and questions of this kind, what else can it be expected to think of or do, but, either to withdraw itself secretly from, or, if it dare, to hold the Christian religion in utter detestation, as a pest to mankind?

  He imagines however, all the while, that no one will discover the craft of this design. As though we had not in the Scriptures numberless examples of these bug-bears of the devil. It was thus the serpent dealt with Eve. He first entangled her in doubts, and brought her to suspect the reality of the precept of God concerning the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and when he had brought her to a stand-still of doubt, overthrew and destroyed her. — Unless Erasmus considers this to be a mere fable also!

  It is with the same serpent-like attack that he creeps upon, and deceives, simple souls; saying - ‘How is it, that there have been so many sects and errors in this one true religion, (as it is believed to be?) How is it, that there have been so many creeds? Why, in the Apostles’ Creed, is the Father called God, the Son not God, but Lord, and the Spirit neither God nor Lord, but Holy?’ And so on. — Who I would ask troubles unexperienced souls, whom he undertakes to instruct, with questions like these, but the devil himself? Who would dare to speak thus upon a creed of faith, but the very mouth and instrument of the devil? — Here you have the Plot, the Execution, and the catastrophic End, of a soul-murdering tragedy!

  But behold, I am here almost carried into a refutation of his catechism; whereas, I merely intended to shew you, why I thought it better not to answer this viper at all: — because, he will most effectually refute himself in the minds of all godly and good men.

  The like game also he played on the apostle Paul, in his preface to the Romans; (to say nothing about his paraphrases, or his mad vagaries [paraphroneses,] to use his own term;) where he speaks of the praises of Paul in that way, that no simple reader whatever who is unacquainted with rhetoric, could be more effectually drawn away, and beaten off, from reading and studying Paul: so confused, intricate, self-contradictory, diverse, and disgusting, does he represent him to be: so that, the reader must of necessity believe the epistle to be the production of some mad man: so far is it from possibility, that he should consider it to be profitable.

  And among the rest of his sharp-razor cuts, he could not receive, without venting his spleen, even this:— ‘that Peter should call Christ Man, and say nothing of His Godhead.’ — A notable annotation truly! And most appropriately applicable to the passage!

  And then as to his METHOD, with all its twistings and windings, what is it but a holding up Christ, and every thing done by Him, to derision? Who could gather any thing from this Method but a disgust at, nay a hatred of, attending to a religion so confused and perplexed, and perhaps after all, merely fabulous?

  Who, moreover, ever spoke in so much disdain and contempt (not to say enmity) of the apostle and evangelist John, who, among Christians is held to be of the highest authority after Christ?— ‘He merely scolds little children except it be when he considers a man to be a dolt or a logger-head.’ — Christians ever speak of the Apostles with reverence and fear: whereas, this fellow would teach us to speak of them with profane pride and contempt. And this is the first step towards speaking profanely of God Himself, whose the Apostles are. Nay, it is the same as saying in contempt of the Holy Spirit, (whose the words of the Apostles are,) that He merely scolds little children!

  Numberless things of this kind are to be found in Erasmus; or rather, this is his whole character in theology. And this many others have observed before me, and still do observe daily more and more: nor does he cease to go on and to publish daily his annotations more and more grossly, for his “judgment now for a long time lingereth not,” and his “damnation slumbereth not.”

  This is also a notable instance of the piety of Erasmus! — In his letter upon ‘Christian philosophy,’ which is published with his New Testament, and used in common throughout all the churches, when he had propounded the question,— ‘Why Christ, so great a teacher, descended from heaven, when there are many things taught even among the heathens which are precisely the same, if not more perfect;’ — he answers, ‘Christ came (which I doubt not but he believed most Erasmianly) from heaven, that He might exemplify those things more perfectly and more fully than any of the saints before Him!’

  Thus, this miserable renewer of all things, Christ , (for so He reproaches the Lord of glory) has lost the glory of a Redeemer, and becomes only one more holy than others. — This sentiment could not be expressed in ignorance, but must have been designed and willful; because, even those who do not truly believe, know, and every where confess, that Christ descended from heaven to redeem us men from sin and death.

  This was the sentiment that first alienated my mind from Erasmus. From that moment, I began to suspect him of being a plain Democritus or Epicurus, and a crafty derider of Christ: for he every where intimates to his fellow Epicureans, his hatred against Christ: though he does it in words so figurative and insidious, that he leaves himself a clue for raging most furiously against those Christians, who, from being offended at his suspicious and double meaning words, will not interpret them as standing in favour of their Christ. — As though Erasmus himself had an all-free prerogative throughout the world, of speaking on divine things with obliquity and craft, and had all men so under his thumb, that they must interpret all his obliquities and crafty manoeuvres, as having an upright and honest intent!

  Why does he not rather speak openly and plainly? Why does he always deal in these crafty and ensnaring figures of speech? So great a rhetorician and theologian ought not only to know, but to act according to, that which Fabius says, ‘An ambiguous word should be avoided as a rock.’ Where it happens now and then inadvertently, it may be pardoned: but where it is sought for designedly and purposely, it deserves no pardon whatever, but justly merits the abhorrence of every one. For to what does this hateful double-tongued way of speaking tend? It only furnishes an opportunity of disseminating and fostering in safety the seeds of every heresy, under the cover of words and letters that have a shew of Christian faith. And thus, while religion is believed to be taught and defended, it is, in reality, utterly destroyed, and subverted from its foundation before it is understood.

  Wherefore,
all are perfectly in the right who interpret his suspicions and insidious words against himself. Nor is any notice to be taken of him when he cries out calumny! calumny! because his words are not fairly and candidly interpreted. Why does he himself ever avoid fair words, and designedly express himself in those which are unfair? For it is an unheard-of kind of tyranny to wish to have the whole human race so under his thumb, that they should be compelled to understand fairly what he says insidiously and dangerously, and thus cede to him the prerogative of expressing himself insidiously. No! Let him rather be reduced to order, and commanded to bow to the whole human race; that is, by abstaining from that profane and double-tongued vertibility of speech and vain-talking, and by avoiding, as Paul saith, “profane and vain babblings.”

  For this it was, that even the public laws of the Roman empire condemned this manner of speaking, and punished it thus. — They commanded, ‘that the words of him who should speak obscurely, when he could speak more plainly, should be interpreted against himself.’ And Christ also, condemned that wicked servant who excused himself by an evasion; and interpreting his own words against himself, said, “Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant.” For if in religion, in laws, and in all weighty matters, we should be allowed to express ourselves ambiguously and insidiously, what could follow but that utter confusion of Babel, where no one could understand another! This would be, to learn the language of eloquence, and in so doing, to lose the language of nature!

  Moreover, if this licence should prevail, I might ‘conveniently’ interpret all that the whole herd of heretics ever said, nay all that the devil himself ever did or said, or could say or do, to all eternity: Where then would be the power of refuting the heretics and the devil? Where would be that wisdom of the Lord Christ, which all the adversaries shall not be able to resist? What would become of logic, the instructor of teaching rightly? What would become of rhetoric, the faculty of persuading? Nothing would be taught, nothing would be learned, no persuasion could be carried home, no consolation would be given, no fear would be wrought: because, nothing would be spoken or heard that was certain.