Collected Works of Martin Luther

by Martin Luther

  Moreover, Caspar Schwenckfeld, with the object of moving the feelings of Luther’s opponents, made known to them Luther’s rude and so discreditable letter. The animosity of the Swiss and of their South German sympathisers now assumed serious dimensions. Luther accordingly determined to address the reply which he had been planning for some time to the Sacramentarians as a body, declaring that that “slanderer” Schwenckfeld was not worth a single line.

  He was also very desirous of once more before his death giving vigorous and lasting expression to the positive faith which he still shared and to which he was wont eagerly to fly when hard pressed by the devil. The spectre of scepticism of which, as many of his statements show, he dreaded the advent among his followers as soon as he himself had been taken away, was to be exorcised beforehand.

  The writing against the Swiss is the work just alluded to, which appeared at the end of Sep., 1544, under the title “Kurtz Bekentnis vom heiligen Sacrament.”

  After briefly disposing of their arguments, with which he had already sufficiently dealt, the work culminates in a most outspoken condemnation of the errors and arbitrary opinions of the Swiss, the most striking sentence of all being the following: “Hence, in a word, either believe everything fully or else nothing at all.” This was practically what the Catholic Church had said to him at his own apostasy: The principle of faith permits of no picking and choosing between the truths revealed by God and guaranteed by the Church’s teaching authority; one must choose between either accepting the whole body of the Church’s doctrines, or leaving her.

  For the rest the writing was another bad example of the boundless fury and offensiveness of his mode of controversy. In the first lines he declares: “It is quite the same to me ... when the accursed mob of fanatics, Zwinglians and the like praise or abuse me, as when Jews, Turks, Pope or all the devils in unison scold or laud me. For I, who am now about to go down into the grave, am determined to bring this testimony and this boasting with me to the Judgment-seat of my dear Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, that I have with the utmost earnestness condemned and shunned the fanatics and Sacramentarians, Carlstadt, Zwingli, Œcolampadius, Stinkfield and their disciples, whether at Zürich or wherever else they were, according to His command, Titus iii. 10: ‘A man that is a heretic avoid.’” — He goes on to call the Zwinglian Sacramentarians “devourers and murderers of souls, who have an endevilled, perdevilled, supradevilled and blasphemous heart and a lying jaw.” “Hence no Christian can or ought to pray for the fanatics or to assist them. They are reprobates.... They want to have nothing to do with me, and I want to have nothing to do with them. They boast that they have nothing from me, for which I heartily thank God: I have borrowed even less from them, for which, too, God be praised.”

  In this writing against the Zwinglians Luther also attacks the Papacy with unspeakable coarseness. Was it perhaps that he was seeking to atone in this way for his apparent agreement with the Catholics in their belief in the Presence of Christ in the Sacrament? This agreement with the Papacy was, however, as he boasts, only due to his holding fast to the ancient doctrine, to that doctrine which the “true olden Christian Church has held for fifteen hundred years.” He did not bethink himself of his treatment of many other doctrines of this “true, olden Church.” Moreover, even his doctrine of the Sacrament was but a shadow of the ancient one. He insisted on denying any change of substance in the Bread and on affirming that the Body of Christ is actually and everywhere in heaven and on earth present as a body. He is also known to have praised Calvin for a writing in which the latter belied the “local presence” of Christ in the Bread, and that he declared his readiness to “learn something from so able a mind.” Thus what he retained was but a distorted fragment of the ancient doctrine of the Sacrament, salved from the shattered treasure of his former Catholic convictions.

  Calvin

  Very different from that which he displayed towards Zwingli and his co-religionists was Luther’s attitude towards Calvin, the head of the theocracy of Geneva, whose power in the “Swiss Rome” had developed so amazingly since 1541, when he had returned after six years’ exile at Strasburg in the companionship of Bucer.

  Thanks to Bucer, Calvin’s opinions, which in the main had always been Lutheran, had been directed more towards that form of Lutheranism represented by Bucer and Melanchthon, his earlier humanistic education making this all the easier. On account of his views some have, not so wrongly, dubbed him the “South-German Lutheran,” though his stiffness and harshness were not at all in keeping with the South-German character. Being in close touch with Lutheranism he had frequently visited Germany during his theological wanderings, and as the representative of the Strasburg Protestants. He had taken a part in the negotiations at the Frankfurt Convention and at the religious conferences at Hagenau, Worms and Ratisbon.

  Calvin esteemed Luther far higher than Zwingli. “If we compare them,” he wrote to his friend Guillaume Farel, “Luther towers far above him, as you yourself are well aware.”

  Calvin’s doctrine, as exemplified in his frequently quoted “Institutio religionis christianæ” (1536) and in his later writings, like that of Luther, excludes any participation of the human will in the work of salvation; all freedom is abolished, everything being enacted by the unchangeable “Providentia Dei” in the deterministic sense; with him, as with Luther, Adam’s fall was inevitable, owing to the divine Predestination, and so was the consequent enthralling of the whole of the human race under the bondage of sin.

  On the elect, however, more particularly on those who follow Calvin’s doctrines and admonitions, the assurance of salvation is infallibly bestowed, just as he possesses it himself. Those thus predestined cannot be lost, while such as are predestined to hell must inevitably incur the penalty of eternal suffering; amongst the latter are not only all the heathen, but also those who oppose the new belief; they are a reprobate mass of humanity who have forfeited all right to live by rising up against God and the authorities. In his doctrine of predestination Calvin, who is the more logical of the two, sets aside the distinction insisted on by Luther between the Revealed Will of God that all men should be saved and His Hidden Will which nullifies it. The predestinarian ideas of both are at bottom identical, but with Luther, as Friedrich Loofs expresses it, “reprobation tends to recede more and more into the background and thus to hold only a secondary place; Calvin, on the other hand, is ever and of set purpose dwelling on this background, because (according to him) it is also part of the revealed doctrine of salvation, and also because it is only another aspect of predestination.”

  Calvin taught Justification in the same way as Luther, and, like him, denied entirely any merit to good works.

  It was with unmixed joy that Luther saw “so able a mind” coming forward as a champion of the new theology against the Roman errors.

  This explains how Melanchthon could announce to Bucer at Strasburg, in a note evidently intended for Calvin himself, that, though certain persons had tried to incite Luther against Calvin on account of a statement [on the Supper] which was at variance with Luther’s views, “Calvin stands in high favour [with Luther]” (“magnam gratiam iniit”). Calvin himself with great satisfaction quoted this passage in a letter to Farel. As for Luther, writing to Bucer on Oct. 14, 1539, he sent his “respectful greetings” to Calvin and mentioned that he had perused “with peculiar pleasure” his writing (the “Responsio” against Jacopo Sadoleto in which was the incriminated statement).

  When, in April, 1545, Luther glanced through a newly published Latin translation of Calvin’s principal work on the Supper, “Petit traicté de la sainte cene” (1541), he observed, that the author was a learned and pious man; had Œcolampadius and Zwingli expressed themselves in this way from the beginning, then no such quarrel would have arisen. Thus Luther accepted the Genevese theologian’s essay “in a friendly way and without misgiving” — though “in it, Calvin recognised a bodily presence in Luther’s sense as little as before.” On the contrary, Calvin a
grees in the main with Zwingli’s denial of the Real Presence, though he insists very strongly on the spiritual working of the Body of Christ enthroned in heaven on the recipients of the Supper, so strongly indeed as to speak of the “real substance of His Body and Blood” which Christ communicates. As Loofs puts it: “He had come nearer to Luther’s view, at least so far as terminology went.” Later on, however, so Loofs adds, “the delusive terminological approximation to Luther disappeared”; in support of this Loofs quotes from the 1559 edition of the “Institutio”: “Christ breathes life into our souls from the substance of His Flesh ... though the flesh of Christ does not enter us.”

  It was fortunate for the relations between the leaders at Wittenberg and Geneva that Luther was no longer amongst the living when Calvin expressed such a view of the Supper.

  The amenities and courtesies between the two heads would have ceased and Luther’s wrath would have once again asserted itself. As a matter of fact the ambiguity of which Calvin had learnt the use in Bucer’s school came to an end very shortly after Luther’s death, when Calvin and Farel reached an agreement with Bullinger of Zürich (The “Consensus Tigurinus”); here the Genevese without any reservation put forward the theses: “Any idea of a local presence of Christ [in the Sacrament] must be set aside ... it is a wrong and godless superstition to circumscribe Christ as man under elements of this world.” The words “This is My Body” are, on the contrary, to be understood by metonymy, the name of the thing represented being transferred to the “sign.” — Now it was just the fact that Zwingli and the sacramentarians made of the Eucharist nothing more than a “sign” that had kept alive Luther’s indignation against them even till his last hour.

  “On the Jews and their Lies.” “On Shem Hammephorash,” 1543

  Amongst the prominent events of the day in Central Germany the Jewish movement deserves a place; on the one hand there was an increase in the influence and power of the Jews, and, on the other, repressive measures secured their banishment from several territories. In this movement Luther took a leading part.

  In the Saxon Electorate the expulsion of the Jews had taken place in 1536 by virtue of an edict of Johann Frederick’s. They were even refused the usual safe conduct through the country and threatened with the severest penalties should they be caught within the borders. In the matter of this regulation Luther sided with the sovereign. When the Jew, Josel Rosheim, a zealous advocate of his race, besought Luther repeatedly in the most urgent manner by letter to procure him an audience with the Elector, Luther not only refused to do anything for him, on the grounds that the Jews were hostile to Christianity, but even declared his intention to attack their obstinacy in print as soon as God granted him time and opportunity.

  It was the accounts he received towards the close of 1542 of the intrigues and the spread of the so-called Sabbatarians, a sect of Christians settled in Moravia who had been led astray by the Jews to introduce circumcision, the observance of the Saturday-Sabbath and other Mosaic ceremonies, which prompted him to undertake a slashing work against the Jews.

  He had been acquainted with the sect since 1532. In his lectures on Genesis he lamented that the plague of Sabbatarianism was flourishing greatly in those districts where the madness of the Catholic rulers would not permit of the Evangel taking root; the Sabbatarians were the very apes of the Jews and were busy Judaising Austria and Moravia. In March, 1538, he had sent to the press his “Brieff. ... wider die Sabbather” in which he proves that the Messias had already come and had abrogated the Mosaic law. In the preface which Justus Jonas prefixed to his Latin translation of the letter it was pointed out, that the treasure of Holy Scripture had been unlocked in this age by the preaching of the Evangel; that it was the duty of the Evangelical teachers to strive to bring the Jews into the right path by means of the new light; and that the Jews in every country would be well advised to be guided by Luther’s booklet.

  The idea of defending Christianity in detail by the light of the new knowledge of the Scriptures against the madness of the Jews took firm hold on Luther’s imagination; he cherished the idea that “perchance some among them might be won over.” He was greatly incensed against Ferdinand, the German King, who, as he said, was laying waste the Evangelical Churches, while permitting the Jews — who in their insolence oppress the Christians — to reside in his lands. On May 18, 1542, he received news of the expulsion of the Jews from Bohemia and other territories. But later in the year a writing of the Sabbatarians was sent him, which, in dialogue form, attacked him and proselytised for the sect. This Jewish movement began also to gain ground outside the borders of Moravia.

  This gave the necessary stimulus “to the fanatical campaign against the Jews which the Reformer started in the winter of 1542.”

  At the end of 1542 he published his “Von den Jüden und jren Lügen,” and in March, 1543, his “Vom Schem Hamphoras.”

  In the first he begins by proving against the Jews the Messianic character of Christ, answers their objections and lays bare their falsehoods, after which he considers how the Jews should be dealt with. In the second he discusses the Jewish legend concerning Christ’s miracles, and in particular scourges the superstitions connected with the use of the “Shem Hammephorash”; he then examines the genealogies of Christ in the Gospels in order to refute the objections of the Jews in this connection, and again discusses the proofs that Christ was the Messias, at the same time defending in detail His birth of a Virgin. Both writings he addresses to the Christians in order to strengthen them in the faith in view of the dangers which threatened from Judaism.

  Full of zeal for the defence of the fundamental doctrines of Christianity, the coming and the benefits bestowed by the Messias, he refutes at great length the supposed learned proofs of his Jewish opponents. On the other hand, he thunders furiously against the blasphemies, the unseemly behaviour and the usury of the Jews who stood in high favour at several of the Courts; he even demands with “great earnestness” that their synagogues and private houses, the scene of their blasphemies, be set on fire and levelled to the ground (“Let whoever can, throw brimstone and pitch upon them”), that their books be taken away from them and “not one page left,” that their Rabbis be forbidden on pain of death to teach henceforth, and that all be hindered from “praising God publicly, thanking Him, praying or teaching”; further, that the streets and highways be closed against them, that they be forbidden to practise usury, and be expelled from the land unless indeed willing to earn their bread at the sweat of their brow with axe and spade, spindle and distaff. All these counsels were, of course, addressed primarily to the authorities, but, such was their nature, that they might easily have provoked the people to an unchristian persecution of their Jewish fellow-citizens. These writings, with their unmeasured vituperation and their obscenity, also bear painful witness to the deterioration of his language with advancing years.

  “Fie on you,” he cries, “fie on you wherever you be, you damned Jews, who dare to clasp this earnest, glorious, consoling Word of God to your maggoty, mortal, miserly belly, and are not ashamed to display your greed so openly.”— “Whenever you see or think of a Jew, say to yourself: Look, that mouth that I see before me has every Saturday cursed, execrated and spat upon my dear Lord Jesus Christ Who redeemed me with His precious Blood, and also invoked malediction on my wife and child and all Christians that they might be murdered and perish miserably; he himself would gladly do it if he could, if only in order to get hold of our goods; mayhap he has already to-day many times spat on the ground, as it is their custom to do, when the name of Jesus is mentioned, so that his venomous spittle still hangs about his mouth and beard and leaves scarcely room to spit again. Were I to eat, drink or speak with such a devilish mouth, I might as well eat and drink out of a can or vessel brimful of devils, and thus become partaker with the devils who dwell in the Jews and spit at the Precious Blood of Christ. From which may God preserve me.”

  “I, accursed ‘Goi’ that I am, cannot understand whence
they [the Jews] have this great art, unless it is, that, when Judas Scharioth hanged himself and his bowels gushed forth, and, as happens in such cases, his bladder also burst, the Jews were ready to catch the Judas-water and the other precious things, and that then they gorged and swilled on the merd among themselves, and were thereby endowed with such a keenness of sight that they can perceive glosses in the Scripture such as neither Matthew, nor Isaias himself, nor all the angels, not to speak of us accursed ‘Goiim,’ would be able to detect; or perhaps they looked into the loins of their God ‘Shed’ and found these things written in that smokehole.”

  “Where are they now, those dissolute Christians who have been made or wish to become Jews? Here for a kiss! The devil has eased himself and emptied his belly again. That is a real halidom for Jews and would-be Jews to kiss, batten on, swill and adore; and then the devil in his turn also devours and swills what these good pupils spue and eject from above and from below. Hosts and guests are indeed well met and the dishes are well-cooked and served.” The devil should have been an angel but “became a devil, who with his angelic snout devours what exudes from the oral and anal apertures of the Jews; this is indeed his favourite dish on which he battens like a sow behind the hedge about St. Margaret’s Day; that is just as he would have it! Therefore the Jews have got their deserts.” They renounced their dignity as the chosen mouthpiece of God, therefore the “devil defiles and bespatters them so much that nothing but devil’s ordure bursts forth from him everywhere; this indeed is quite to their taste, and they wallow in it like the swine.”

  In this way Luther unloads himself of his fury against both devil and Jews; two things are characteristic of his hatred of the Jews; first, that the devil is made to bear the greater share, though the latter promptly shifts the burden back on to the shoulders of the Jews; secondly, that the presumption of the Jews in seeking to be first everywhere is castigated with all Luther’s native coarseness.