Beyond Indulgences: Luther’s Reform of Late Medieval Piety, 1518–1520 9780271091334

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Between Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses in 1517 and his excommunication from the church in 1520, he issued twenty-five sermons and treatises on Christian piety, most of them in German. These pastoral writings extended his criticisms of the church beyond indulgences to the practices of confession, prayer, clerical celibacy, the sacraments, suffering, and death. These were the issues that mattered most to Luther because they affected the faith of believers and the health of society. Luther’s conflict with Rome forced him to address the issue of papal authority, but on his own time, he focused on encouraging lay Christians to embrace a simpler, self-sacrificing faith. In these pastoral writings, he criticized theologians and church officials for leading people astray with a reliance on religious works, and he began to lay the foundation for a reformed Christian piety.

The Ninety-Five Theses reflect a deep pastoral concern for ordinary Christians. Despite this, Luther the pastor has too often been neglected in favor of Luther the theologian or Luther the polemicist. But being a pastor was an important part of his own self-understanding. He took the role seriously. In this volume, Johnson, too, takes Luther the pastor and Luther’s pastoral concerns seriously. In doing so, she helps us understand Luther in a richer and deeper way. —David M. Whitford, author of A Reformation Life and The Curse of Ham in the Early Modern Era

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Habent sua fata libelli

Early Modern Studies Series General Editor Michael Wolfe

Queens College, CUNY

Editorial Board of Early Modern Studies Elaine Beilin

Framingham State University

Christopher Celenza Johns Hopkins University

Barbara B. Diefendorf Boston University, Emeritus

Paula Findlen

Stanford University

Scott H. Hendrix

Princeton Theological Seminary

Jane Campbell Hutchison

University of Wisconsin–­Madison

Mary B. McKinley University of Virginia

Raymond A. Mentzer University of Iowa

Robert V. Schnucker

Truman State University, Emeritus

Nicholas Terpstra University of Toronto

Margo Todd

University of Pennsylvania

James Tracy

University of Minnesota

Merry Wiesner-­Hanks

University of Wisconsin–­Milwaukee

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Early Modern Studies 21 Truman State University Press Kirksville, Missouri

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Copyright © 2017 Anna Marie Johnson / Truman State University Press, Kirksville, Missouri 63501 All rights reserved tsup.truman.edu Cover art: Cranach, Lucas the Younger (1515–1586). The Holy Communion of the Protestants and Ride to Hell of the Catholics, by Pancratius Kempff. Colored woodcut, ca. 1550. bpk Bildagentur/Staatliche Museum, Berlin/photo by Georg P. Anders/Art Resource, NY. Cover design: Lisa Ahrens Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Johnson, Anna Marie, 1973– author. Title: Beyond indulgences : Luther’s reform of late medieval piety, 1518–1520 / Anna Johnson. Description: Kirksville, MO : Truman State University Press, 2017. | Series: Early modern studies ; 21 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017017001 (print) | LCCN 2017039326 (ebook) | ISBN 9781612482132 | ISBN 9781612482125 (alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Luther, Martin, 1483-1546. | Piety. | Spiritual Life—Christianity. | Christian life. Classification: LCC BR333.3 (ebook) | LCC BR333.3 .J64 2017 (print) | DDC 284.1092—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017017001 No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any format by any means without written permission from the publisher. The paper in this publication meets or exceeds the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48–1992.

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For my parents

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Contents Abbreviations • vii Acknowledgments • ix Introduction: The Pastoral Writings of 1518 to 1520 • 1 Chapter One: The Practical Early Luther • 10

Piety and Vernacular Literature • 10 The Search for the Reformation Discovery • 13 Confessional Polemics and Luther’s Religiosity • 15 Luther as Pastor • 20 Practical Theology in Early Modern Europe: Mysticism, Monasticism, and Scholasticism • 23

Chapter Two: Scholasticism, Indulgences, and Christian Life: 1516–1517 • 30

Luther’s Work in Wittenberg • 30 Luther’s Early Lectures • 32 The First Pastoral Writings • 35 Anti-Scholastic Initiatives in Wittenberg • 39 The Practice of Indulgences • 43 Luther’s Earliest Comments on Indulgences • 47 The Treatise on Indulgences • 51 The Ninety-Five Theses and the Letter to Archbishop Albrecht • 54 Conclusion: Interpreting the Indulgence Controversy • 57

Chapter Three: Reshaping Confession, Reorienting Piety: Lent 1518 • 60

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From the Ninety-Five Theses to the Heidelberg Disputation • 60 Preparing for Confession: The Centrality of the Ten Commandments • 66

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The Goal of Confession: Faith in the Words of Absolution • 71 Satisfaction, Suffering, and Good Works • 79 Meditating on the Passion, Embracing Suffering • 83 Redefining Relics, Prayer, and the Saints • 86 Conclusion: Reorienting Piety • 89

Chapter Four: Piety in the Shadow of Conflict: Summer 1518 • 94 From the Heidelberg Disputation to the Meeting with Cajetan • 94 Penance and Polemics • 99 Sin, Sincerity, and Suffering • 101 Conclusion: Piety and the Reformation Discovery • 109

Chapter Five: Reforming Prayer and Good Works: Early 1519 • 113 From the Meeting with Cajetan to the Leipzig Debate • 113 Revisiting Penance and the Passion • 116 “Lifting Up the Heart”: Instruction on Prayer • 120 Religious Works and Good Works • 128 Piety and the Papacy • 133 Conclusion: Escalating Conflict, Expanding Criticisms • 138

Chapter Six: Reinterpreting Sacraments and Saints: Fall 1519 to Summer 1520 • 141 From the Leipzig Debate to Excommunication • 141 Confession in a New Key • 146 Baptism and Christian Life • 154 The Communion of the Saints • 156 Suffering with the Saints • 161 Dying in the Faith • 166 The Practice of Usury and the Works of Faith • 170 Conclusion: The Piety of a New Church • 178

Conclusion: Piety and Luther’s Protest • 183 Appendix • 193 Works Cited • 195 Index • 217 About the Author • 227

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Abbreviations ADB = Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie. 2nd ed. 56 vols. Historische Commission bei der Königlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Berlin: Duncker and Humblot, 1967–­71. ARG = Archive for Reformation History/Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte.

AWA = Archiv zur Weimarer Ausgabe der Werke Martin Luthers. Edited by Ulrich Köpf and Bernd Moeller. 10 vols. Wien, Köln, and Weimar: Böhlau, 1991–­2011. Cl = Clemen, Otto, ed. Luthers Werke in Auswahl. 8 vols. Berlin: De Gruyter, 1959–­67.

DDStA = Martin Luther, Deutsch-­Deutsch Studienausgabe. 2 vols. Edited by Johannes Schilling. Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2012. HAB = Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel. LuJ = Lutherjahrbuch.

LW = Luther, Martin. Luther’s Works. American ed. 77 vols. Edited by Christopher Boyd Brown, Jaroslav Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1955.

NDB = Neue Deutsche Biographie. 24 vols. Historische Kommission bei der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Berlin: Duncker and Humblot, 1953. NRSV = The Bible: New Revised Standard Version. SCJ = The Sixteenth Century Journal.

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StA = Martin Luther: Studienausgabe. 6 vols. Edited by Hans-­Ulrich Delius. Berlin and Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1987–­99.

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VD16 = Verzeichnis der im deutschen Sprachbereich erschienenen Drucke des 16. Jahrhunderts. Munich: Bayerische Staatsbibliothek; Wolfenbüttel: Herzog August Bibliothek; Stuttgart: Hiersemann, 1983–­2000. WA = D. Martin Luthers Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe. 73 vols. Edited by J. F. K. Knaake et al. Weimar: Herman Böhlau, 1883–­.

WA Bi = D. Martin Luthers Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Bibel. 12 vols. Weimar: Böhlau, 1906–­61. WA Br = D. Martin Luthers Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Briefwechsel. 18 vols. Weimar: Böhlau, 1930–­48. WA DB = D. Martin Luthers Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Deutsche Bibel. 12 vols. Weimar: Böhlau, 1906–­61.

WA Tr = D. Martin Luthers Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Tischreden. 6 vols. Weimar: Böhlau, 1912–­21. ZKG = Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte.

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Acknowledgments

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any people have helped to bring this book into being, and I am delighted to thank them here. Several organizations and institutions provided the financial support that made my research and writing possible. A travel grant from the American Friends of the Herzog August Bibliothek made it possible to utilize the treasure trove of that library, and a generous fellowship from the Mellon Foundation and the American Council of Learned Societies afforded a year of uninterrupted research and writing. I am grateful for the generosity of these organizations. I am also grateful to Garrett-­Evangelical for a sabbatical leave to complete this project, and to my colleagues there for their encouragement and camaraderie. A number of librarians and archivists made the task of research both possible and enjoyable. Princeton Seminary Reference Librarian Kate Skrebutenas is a researcher’s superhero, combining broad knowledge with unflagging determination. Jill Beplar and the adept staff at the Herzog August Bibliothek were enormously helpful during my work there. The librarians at the Newberry Library provided invaluable assistance during repeated visits to that library. I would also like to thank the staffs of the Rare Books and Special Collections at Princeton University, the Archives and Special Collections at Valparaiso University, and the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at the University of Illinois Urbana-­Champaign. A special thanks goes to Mara Wade of the University of Illinois Urbana-­ Champaign for alerting me to some of the holdings of that library. This book had its beginnings in my doctoral work under the guidance of Scott Hendrix. Scott was a patient and insightful mentor, and he struck a remarkable balance between directing my work and allowing it to be my own. I remain indebted to him for his integrity, direction, and support. I

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would also like to thank Paul Rorem, Anthony Grafton, Kenneth Appold, and Elsie McKee for their painstaking and constructive reading of early versions of several chapters here. As the book evolved, several colleagues read part or all of the manuscript and gave valuable feedback. Mickey Mattox reviewed the project as a whole and offered helpful suggestions. Timothy Wengert gave critical feedback on an early chapter. Mark Teasdale read through several chapters and helped clarify my presentation. Series editor Michael Wolfe has provided prudent guidance and a keen eye throughout his work with me. I am also grateful to the anonymous readers for Truman State University Press, who offered many valuable suggestions. Any errors that remain do so despite this assistance and are my own. My deepest thanks go to those closest to me, who have sacrificed the most for this project. My husband, Jörg Albrecht, has supported me at every turn and encouraged me through the ups and downs of writing with his unique brand of heartening humor. Our three boys were as understanding as young kids could be when this book took me away from them, and they contributed more than they realize by keeping me from taking myself too seriously. I owe a large debt of gratitude to the people who made sure that our kids were well cared for while my husband and I worked. Sheree Tucker, Madge and Terry Laitala, and Alejandra Lopez helped to care for our boys at various points, and their dedication to our children enabled me to focus fully on my work when I was away from them. My in-­laws, Jürgen and Rosemarie Albrecht, often helped with child care while I traveled for research, and I consider myself fortunate to have married into their generosity. While I cannot thank my parents, Paul and Neva Johnson, for all they have done, I want to thank them especially for the ways they fostered my curiosity about the world. Their commitment to their children’s education included annual cross-­country road trips with four kids and few electronics, a feat that remains unfathomable to me. My father died in the middle of this project, and I understood how much he had supported me only after he was gone. I have dedicated this book to my parents in gratitude for their example and encouragement.

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Introduction

The Pastoral Writings of 1518 to 1520

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etween Lent of 1518 and the summer of 1520, Martin Luther published twenty-­five pastoral writings that advised readers on various aspects of Christian faith and practice. This was a busy time for Luther, to say the least. During these two years, the controversy with Rome that became known as “the Luther affair” began and gained momentum. In Lent 1518, Luther was still unsure how his Ninety-­Five Theses on indulgences would be received by church officials. By 1520, his excommunication was imminent, and he had all but given up on making peace with Rome. Over these two years, Luther had numerous meetings with church officials, local officials, and his superiors in his Augustinian order concerning the controversy he had unleashed. He also received and maintained correspondence with interested parties, a correspondence that grew as his fame increased. Meanwhile, he continued teaching at the university in Wittenberg and preaching at the Augustinian monastery and Wittenberg’s town church. Despite the many demands on his time and energies, Luther took the time to produce a considerable body of pastoral instruction, whereas before 1518, he had produced only two such works. These pastoral writings included devotional works, treatises on a particular aspect of Christian life, catechetical instruction, and occasionally a work of consolation written for a specific audience but published for others to read. The subjects and

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genres Luther chose were sometimes borrowed from popular catechisms, guides for confession, and prayer books. Others of these works were in the more flexible genre of a printed “sermon” that, most often, was not preached orally. The overwhelming majority of these writings were produced at his own initiative or at the request of someone who desired his guidance. Occasionally an unauthorized copy of a sermon Luther had delivered would appear from the presses, causing Luther to issue his own edition of a writing he otherwise might not have published. But such situations were rare. Almost all of the works examined here were written because Luther thought that Christians needed the direction and consolation they contained. The sheer number of Luther’s pastoral writings at this very early stage in his public career indicates the priority he placed on issues of faith and practice. As the conflict with Rome grew, Luther increased his production of these instructional works. His use of German instead of Latin also increased over these two years, thereby broadening the audience he might reach. Furthermore, the content of these writings proposed a considerable reform of Christian practice.1 Read together with his academic and polemical works, the pastoral writings also highlight the importance of practical issues in his early protests against Scholastic theology and the church of his day, and they offer a unique window on his theology. The story that emerges in these pastoral writings from 1518 to 1520 is that of a pastoral reformer who was consistently concerned with Christian practice and especially its effects on believers’ consciences and lives. Yet these writings rarely receive more than a brief aside in accounts of Luther’s early years as a public figure. Treatments of Luther’s early theology normally focus on his academic lectures, disputations, and the writings related to the indulgence controversy. Meanwhile, treatments of Luther’s mature theology usually group his ideas in the loci format, which by its nature rarely gives religious practice a prominent role. In biographical treatments of Luther’s early years, the events typically used to tell the story 1. The terms “Christian practice,” “faith,” and “piety” best capture the broad range of questions Luther addressed, from religious activities that Christians did to the ways that Christians understood their lives. I have avoided the term “popular piety” because it draws artificial distinctions between clergy and lay or between learned and popular. In addition, “popular piety” may connote individual or unauthorized practices, while the terms I have chosen are meant to reflect the full range of sixteenth-­century Christianity that Luther addressed, from contemplative practices to sacraments and mandated practices to unauthorized practices.

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are the very public instances of direct confrontation with church authorities.2 While these sources may well illustrate Luther’s growing dissatisfaction with the religious system of his day, it is important to remember that they were fairly rare. Biographies and other accounts of Luther’s early years jump over months at a time to get to the “real action”: the Ninety-­Five Theses in late October 1517, the Heidelberg Disputation in April 1518, the meeting with Cajetan in October 1518, the Leipzig Debate in June and July 1519, his excommunication in the latter half of 1520, and the Diet of Worms in April 1521. The narrative that emerges for this period in his life, then, is primarily one of conflict and reaction. The conflicts by themselves, however, give an incomplete account of his concerns and motivations. As “the Luther affair” unfolded, it came to focus on the power of the papacy because the Ninety-­Five Theses questioned the pope’s power to grant indulgences, and thereby seemed to threaten papal primacy. Luther was pressed to clarify his position on the pope’s authority—­first as it related to indulgences and later more broadly—­but he did not choose that direction of debate. At the same time that the growing controversy forced Luther to speak and write about his understanding of the papacy, he was declaring his chief concerns in pastoral writings that addressed the effects of theology and practice on believers’ faith. The pastoral writings were also the writings that made Luther a well-­ known reformer. Mark Edwards has shown that Luther’s German writings were reprinted many more times than the texts that are considered Reformation standards.3 In Printing, Propaganda, and Martin Luther, Edwards uses data on reprinted texts to reconstruct what a German-­speaking contemporary might have known about Luther in the early stages of his movement. The data indicate that the Luther of the pastoral writings was the Luther that was known most broadly in German-­speaking lands. Edwards examines Luther’s public reception rather than his theological and pastoral development, but these writings can also be used to tell the story of Luther’s core concerns and the reasons for his public protest, namely, an abiding mission to foster authentic faith. His academic writings were directed at a small group of colleagues and students, and his Ninety-­Five 2. This pattern includes most of the classic biographies of Luther. For example, Bainton, Here I Stand; Beutel, Martin Luther; Brecht, Martin Luther; Kittelson, Luther the Reformer; Lohse, Martin Luther’s Theology; Schilling, Martin Luther: Rebell in einer Zeit des Umbruchs; Schwiebert, Luther and His Times; and Leppin, Martin Luther. 3. Edwards, Printing, Propaganda, and Martin Luther, esp. 14–­40.

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Theses at an even smaller group of church officials. The pastoral works, however, addressed the populace. While his polemical treatises and academic lectures from his early career have been thoroughly dissected by Luther scholars, the pastoral writings have been largely ignored. Luther’s concerns about piety were not restricted to these practical writings. From the beginnings of the first public controversy over the Ninety-­Five Theses, Luther claimed that he was raising the issue of indulgences because of his concern for the laity. His letter to Archbishop Albrecht of Mainz on 31 October 1517, stated that he was writing to him because souls within the archbishop’s care were in jeopardy.4 At the meeting with Cardinal Cajetan in October 1518, two issues became points of insurmountable dispute: the papal decree Unigenitus from 1343, popularly known as the Extravagante, and the role of faith in the reception of grace. After the meeting, Luther published his account of the debate and emphasized that the second issue—­an issue of praxis—­was the more important. “In the latter answer [on faith and the sacrament], however, lies the whole summary of salvation,” he wrote. “You are not a bad Christian because you do or do not know about the Extravagante. You are a heretic, however, if you deny faith in Christ’s word.”5 When his opponent at the Leipzig Debate, Johann Eck, chose some of the Ninety-­Five Theses and the question of papal authority for debate instead of the issues of sin and grace, as had been planned, Luther expressed his disappointment.6 Additionally, a key argument that Luther made after the Leipzig Debate is that the papacy did not rightly understand its authority because it did not heed Christ’s words to Peter about feeding his sheep. Luther interpreted this verse to mean that the church should feed its people with scripture. Since, in his opinion, the church did not do that, he regarded its claim to authority as suspect.7 The misconception that Luther was primarily concerned about theology and not Christian life originates in part from Luther’s own words, especially a frequently cited quote from the Table Talks. In 1533, he said,

4. WA Br 1:111.24–­25. 5. “In posteriore vero responsione certe summa pendet salutis. Non es malus Christianus, sive scias sive ignores Extravagantem: non es autem nisi haereticus, si neges fidem verbi Christi.” WA 2:18.14–­17. Cf. LW 31:278. 6. WA Br 1:316.14–­19. 7. WA 2:195.16–­28.

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Doctrine and life must be distinguished. Life is bad among us, as it is among the papists, but we do not fight about life and condemn the papists on that account. . . . I fight over the word and whether our adversaries teach it in its purity. That doctrine should be attacked.8 Luther seemed to contrast doctrine and Christian life here, with a clear priority for doctrine. As Scott Hendrix explains, however, he was actually contrasting doctrine and moral discipline within the church, especially among its clergy.9 Luther indicated in this quote that his criticisms went beyond the immorality of some clergy and church members—­a problem the church often acknowledged and had tried to reform—­and that he took issue with substantive teachings of the church. His reasons for taking issue with church doctrine, however, were keenly focused on the effects of theology on people and their religious formation. This should come as no surprise since a good deal of Luther’s time was spent fulfilling his pastoral responsibilities. When he joined the order of Augustinian Hermits in 1505, he began to practice a communal spirituality consisting of worship, scripture reading, frequent confession, physical labor, and occasional fasting and vigils.10 Upon his ordination in 1507, he began presiding over the mass, mostly at private masses, a practice that Luther would later disavow. At some point during his time in the Augustinian monastery at Wittenberg, he began hearing the confessions of at least some of his fellow friars.11 In 1512, Luther was named subprior of his Augustinian monastery, a position that entailed supervising the studies of other friars, joining the theology faculty at the University of Wittenberg, and preaching in his monastery. By 1514, he was also preaching in the city church, St. Mary’s, where he became the main preacher until 1522 and a frequent substitute thereafter. Fred Meuser estimates that he preached approximately 4,000 sermons during his lifetime, of which about 2,300 are preserved in some form.12 It was not unusual for Luther to preach two to 8. WA Tr 1:294.19–­23. 9. Hendrix, Recultivating the Vineyard, 64–­65. 10. Brecht, Martin Luther, 1:58. 11. We know Luther heard some fellow friars’ confessions based on their statements claiming that Luther convinced them of his anti-­Scholastic stance in his role as their confessor, but I have not been able to uncover evidence of when he began to exercise this responsibility; Brecht, Martin Luther, 1:71, 162. 12. Meuser, “Luther as Preacher,” 136.

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three times per week, even in these early years. Biographer Heinrich Boehmer notes that Luther’s academic responsibilities were fairly light compared to his pastoral responsibilities and his other duties in his order. From all available evidence, it seems that Luther lectured only once per week for no more than two hours. His other main responsibility as a professor was to attend weekly disputations.13 Luther’s pastoral work in the Wittenberg church and within his monastery consumed much more of his time than his academic work, yet as Timothy Wengert points out, Luther scholars have treated his pastoral work as no more than a “sidelight.”14 Luther’s own religious experiences and his pastoral involvement were seminal to his theology. Sixteenth-­century academics did not attempt to achieve objectivity in their academic work. His scholarly commentaries, which are edited versions of his classroom lectures, read very much like homiletical biblical theology, shifting freely from the biblical context to his own context.15 Luther read the biblical text in conversation with his context and as a direct address from God to him and his contemporaries.16 It is often acknowledged that Luther was not a systematic theologian. Unlike John Calvin or his Wittenberg colleague, Philipp Melanchthon, he wrote no comprehensive theology organized by loci, and his theological statements were almost always in response to a specific situation. In modern terminology, Luther could be considered a practical theologian. Of course, in the sixteenth century, the distinction between “practical theology” and “systematic theology” did not yet exist, but it is clear that Luther’s contextual approach to theology does not fit easily into the systematic model that is prevalent in modern theology. In systematic depictions of Luther’s theology, the pastoral nature of his theology can easily fall through the cracks of the loci. To use theological terms, it is possible to describe the letter of his theology without capturing the spirit. Ultimately, the narratives of ecclesial conflict and practical concerns are complementary. One could even conceive of them as a duet of sorts, with the academic-­polemical writings and pastoral writings each play-

13. Boehmer, Road to the Reformation, 118–­19. 14. Wengert, Pastoral Luther, 2. 15. Hendrix, Martin Luther: Visionary Reformer, 48. 16. Hagen, Luther’s Approach to Scripture. I appreciate Hagen’s observation that Luther’s method is much different than that of biblical scholars from the nineteenth century forward. Hagen’s argument that Luther reads the Bible without any preconception or hermeneutical center is more problematic. See also Kolb, Luther and the Stories of God.

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ing in their own range but never alone. This metaphor also highlights the problem with the traditional narrative, namely, that it has allowed only the academic-­polemical part to be heard. When the polemical themes are heard together with the pastoral themes, Luther’s theological concerns sound less like conceptual arguments and more like pastoral principles. Not only do they sound fuller when heard together, but one also notices themes in the academic writings that are complemented and emphasized by the pastoral writings, and vice versa.

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In chapter 1, I chart the major contours of research on the early Luther and show how and why his practical concerns have been neglected. Historically, Luther interpreters have been drawn to his conflicts with church officials, to the question of his orthodoxy (or lack thereof ), and to his academic lectures. The larger picture of his concerns and motivations was often obscured in these inquiries. Recent research on religious practice and the practical concerns of many late medieval theologians has helped highlight Luther’s thoroughly pastoral orientation to theology and Christian practice. Practical concerns were also at the heart of Luther’s early objections to Scholastic theology, as I argue in chapter 2. This chapter examines the years just before the indulgence controversy, 1516 to 17, and shows how Luther’s early lectures, his fight against Scholasticism, his protest against indulgences, and his first two pastoral writings all revolve around concerns regarding lived faith. His varied endeavors in 1516 and 1517 have a common theme in the need to recognize sin and foster repentance, likely because Luther could choose his focus on all of these writings. Even his various statements on indulgences are primarily concerned about the effects of indulgences on Christian life. The remaining chapters examine groups of writings that were published in the apparent lulls between the traditionally recognized milestones of Luther’s career. This organization formed organically from the way the writings cluster in the periods between public debates, a phenomenon that is explained by the amount of time and travel that these debates required of Luther. Evaluating these clusters as discrete groups of material helps form a story in the shadows of the traditional milestones and sheds light on a broader range of Luther’s thought in a critical period of its development.

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The practices Luther treated and the recommendations he made changed over the two years considered here, even while he emphasized humanity’s dependence on grace in nearly every writing. Chapter 3 covers Lent 1518, which fell between the Ninety-­Five Theses in late October 1517 and the Heidelberg Disputation in April 1518. While initial reactions to the Ninety-­Five Theses began trickling in, Luther turned his attention to other issues of Christian practice. During Lent 1518, he wrote six pastoral writings in as many weeks. Many of these were focused on the practice of penance, and Luther reinterpreted the practices of preparing for confession, making confession, and making satisfaction. In this period, Luther also treated the practice of meditation on Christ’s passion and repeatedly emphasized the role of suffering in Christian life. Luther thought sixteenth-­century Christians were using Christian practices to avoid suffering and seek temporal goods, and he urged his readers instead to engage those practices in order to strengthen faith. Chapter 4 treats the summer of 1518, from the Heidelberg Disputation in April to the meeting with Cardinal Cajetan in October 1518. This period was dominated by polemics as reactions to Luther’s Ninety-­Five Theses proliferated and battle lines hardened. Nonetheless, Luther wrote three thoroughly pastoral works and addressed the practice of penance in two other works. These writings show that Luther’s convictions had changed only slightly from Lent of 1518, a finding that questions theories of a Reformation discovery that point to the summer of 1518 as a decisive period in Luther’s theological development. In chapter 5, I chart Luther’s growing criticisms of late medieval piety in the time between the meeting with Cajetan and the Leipzig Debate in July 1519. His criticisms of piety in this period echoed his growing enmity with the church. During the first half of 1519, Luther expanded the range of practices he treated in his writings, and his counsel contained more revisions than before. On confession, for example, Luther began recommending that Christians confess directly to God before confessing to a priest. Several of the pastoral writings from this period addressed late medieval prayer and the church’s limited definition of good works. On all of these topics, Luther adopted a pragmatic principle to judge practices: whatever fostered trust in God and service to one’s neighbor was proper Christian practice, and whatever detracted from these goals or was self-­seeking was rejected. Chapter 6 covers the period from the Leipzig Debate until Luther’s excommunication in 1520, when he continued to merge his qualms about

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sixteenth-­century piety and his conflict with Rome. Open polemic with the church became common in the pastoral writings from this period, and the changes Luther recommended were substantial, especially his recommendations on several sacraments. With his excommunication imminent, Luther seemed to be setting the course for the piety of a new church, yet his reinterpretations of the sacraments, saints, and good works were based on the same principles that motivated his earlier reforms. The consistency and force of these concerns might explain why Luther accepted excommunication instead of recanting. In each chapter, I describe the historical contexts of the period, analyze how he attempted to reform Christian practice according to his theological and pastoral perspective, and show how his thinking about these issues changed over the early years of the public conflict. This project is a historical analysis of Luther’s development, gained from a critical reading of the pastoral sources in light of his academic and polemical works. It is not my intent to show whether Luther was right or wrong, either in his theology or in his assessment of the state of religious practice in his day. Likewise, I shall not attempt to gauge the success or failure of his initiatives. The task of this book is to tell the story of his early development in a way that takes account of the full range of his reforming activities. The version presented here will fill in the holes that the polemical and academic versions leave out and will also help reframe the polemical and academic aspects of Luther’s career. Taken together, these writings show that Luther’s pastoral inclinations are evident from the beginnings of his public protest. Luther’s reform of Christian piety did not begin with the publication of The Freedom of a Christian in 1520, or the Prayer Book in 1522, or his catechisms beginning in 1528. He attempted to reform the practice of Christianity long before he needed to rebuild a church from the ground up. This order of events signals his priorities and the roots of his protest. Luther was a pastoral theologian whose primary opposition to the pope originated in his concern about the church’s care of souls.

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Chapter One

The Practical Early Luther Piety and Vernacular Literature

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iven that most of these writings are printed in the standard German/ Latin critical edition of Luther’s works, the Weimar edition, it is curious that these texts have garnered so little academic attention. No work to date offers a comprehensive treatment of these early pastoral writings, and few of the pastoral works appear in treatments of Luther’s early theology. Over the last half century, several fields closely related to Reformation studies have either arisen or evolved, and the growth of these fields has helped clear a path for scholarly investigation of such works. The new perspectives these fields offer can help evaluate Luther’s vernacular as well as his Latin writings, interpret his reform in a way that takes account of his interest in laypeople, and approach him critically without resorting to confessional polemics. Two related fields that have focused historians’ attention on piety and vernacular literature are social and cultural history. Throughout the nineteenth century and much of the twentieth, historians of the Reformation often considered piety and practice to be of lesser importance than matters of doctrine, politics, or ecclesiology. There were several reasons for this preference. One aspect of this judgment was an elitism that simply assumed that prominent people were more important to history than “ordinary people.” A more historical argument for this focus supposed that, because prominent people were in positions of power, they were more likely to effect significant change.

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The rise of social and cultural history has challenged the assumption that the general populace of the past has little to add to the historical record. Beginning with the Annales school of history in the early twentieth century, historians began to see ordinary people as important sources of historical information on mentalities, relationships, and practices—­all vital components of culture.1 Furthermore, historians have come to believe that even the least prominent members of society have some agency and are therefore active participants in history in some form. Within religious history, this shift has meant that the beliefs and practices of laypeople are now considered an important aspect of understanding the past.2 Yet for decades, the beliefs and practices of laypeople and nonelites were often considered separately from those of the educated elite. Historians of religion often assumed that elites and nonelites had wholly different interests and therefore different ways of responding to events and movements. Within Reformation history, the debate over how reforms were instituted is often framed in terms of elites’ attempts to consolidate power through “discipline” and nonelites’ attempts to conserve or gain power. The role of language in the distinction between elites and nonelites is an important element of this debate. Because educated elites could normally read and write in Latin, they participated in theological, ecclesial, and political debates in a way that others could not. Historians have often taken this to mean that elites had little interest in vernacular literature, popular debates, or common practices.3 Recently, however, researchers have cautioned against the supposition that learned and unlearned people had wholly different reasons to respond to the Reformation as they did, even while scholars recognize that circumstances such as class and education may have influenced an individual’s response to the Reformation. In particular, scholars recognize that many practices classified as “popular” were just as popular among the learned as the uneducated, and as much among clergy as laypeople.4 Natalie Zemon 1. Burke, French Historical Revolution; Burguiére, Annales School. 2. See, for example, Larissa Taylor’s summary of research on piety and the new understandings this research has generated in “Society and Piety.” 3. Peter Burke challenged the alleged divide between elites and nonelites in his landmark work, Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe. Burke’s work has been foundational for efforts to understand cultural influences as a two-­way street between elites and nonelites. 4. See R. N. Swanson’s consideration of this matter in Religion and Devotion in Europe, 184–­90.

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Davis has argued that the learned frequently read popular literature and sometimes even wrote it.5 Indeed, in Luther’s case, he published as much for popular consumption as for his academic peers. Other Reformation scholars have argued that there were very few class differences in religious practice, especially within the history of the English Reformation, where changes in religious practice have received more scholarly attention. Eamon Duffy’s landmark study of religious practice in Reformation England6 examined late medieval forms of religious devotion and their social role. Duffy eschews the term “popular” and instead refers to the varied devotional practices of the late Middle Ages as “traditional religion.” To be sure, Duffy judges these practices to be extremely popular, but he argues that they were popular among upper and lower classes alike. Nobility and the literate may have had Books of Hours and primers that others did not have, but these books encouraged devotional practices that were shared by other believers.7 These devotional observances and individual prayers encouraged all their adherents to participate in communal observances, most notably in the mass. Furthermore, Christian practices are not far removed from the theological aspects of their origins and performance. In a study of late medieval devotion to the blood of Christ in northern Germany, Carolyn Walker Bynum shows considerable overlap between the practice of piety and theological discourse.8 According to Bynum, learned and unlearned alike were concerned about the theological basis and spiritual edification of common practices, and Scholastic theologians were among the most engaged in this conversation. In Bynum’s presentation, many different groups of people are interested in matters of piety for several reasons, including a shared concern for legitimate piety. In the case of Luther, his piety and his engagement with Christian practices are seen throughout the varied genres of his writings, yet modern editions of texts sometimes artificially treat piety as a nontheological matter, either implicitly or explicitly. The Tübingen Flugschriften

5. Davis, “Printing and the People,” 191. 6. Duffy, Stripping of the Altars. In Duffy’s judgment, traditional religion was so widely practiced and cherished that only the imposition of reform by an effective government could have successfully brought about the Reformation, which then forcibly stripped the people of their communal religious resources. 7. Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, 209–­65. 8. Bynum, Wonderful Blood.

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Projekt, which catalogued thousands of Reformation pamphlets, specifically excluded devotional materials, liturgical texts, and sermons directed to a specific audience from its criteria for a Reformation pamphlet.9 The American edition of Luther’s works separated his writings into groups of volumes by genre, which made Devotional Writings and The Career of the Reformer, for example, into two separate sets of volumes. Such a separation of sources can make Luther’s pastoral writings seem like an aside to his “real career” of polemics and academic theology. Perhaps this is why modern treatments of his practical instruction tend to be oriented to a popular audience instead of an academic one.10 But Luther the pastor is not a gentler or less serious version of Luther the theologian. His vernacular treatments of Christian practices show a vital overlap between practice and theological reflection. In the case of Luther’s Reformation, piety and polemics cannot be separated, and his reforms to the practice of the faith should be taken seriously by academics. Although Luther’s early writings on Christian practice generally avoid the direct and contentious tone of much of sixteenth-­century pamphlet polemics, their critiques form a subtler (although no less volatile) form of polemic. These critiques were a polemic not only against individual adherents of the practices but against the church and its theology, especially when the practice under fire was endorsed by the church. Luther’s writings on Christian practice, then, must be seen as part and parcel of his reforming activities in their theological, polemical, and practical aspects.

The Search for the Reformation Discovery For much of the later twentieth century, Luther scholarship focused on the question of when Luther became “reformatory” in his theology. It would be difficult to overestimate the role this “Reformation discovery” or “Reformation breakthrough” has played in interpretations of the early Luther. The search for such a breakthrough was prompted by Luther’s recounting

9. Köhler, “Die Flugschriften,” 50–­51. 10. Examples include Meuser, Luther the Preacher; Lehmann, Luther and Prayer; Russell, Praying for Reform; Wengert, Martin Luther’s Catechisms; Pless, Martin Luther. These are all very good treatments of their respective topics and helpful explications of Luther’s practice for the lay reader. My concern is that these practical concerns do not play a large enough role in academic understandings of Luther.

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of such a moment, most clearly in the 1545 preface to the first volume of his Latin works. According to this later recollection, the breakthrough was a definitive moment in which his understanding of Romans 1:1711 changed drastically. Exactly how and when that change happened has been the subject of much debate, and Reformation historians have scoured his early academic lectures and scholarly disputations for evidence of such a shift. Proposals for this decisive moment have ranged from 1511 to 1520 and even later.12 The search for one distinct moment of fundamental change has only recently waned. Bernhard Lohse was among the first to caution against an understanding of the breakthrough that assumes Luther suddenly arrived at a fully developed Reformation theology. Instead, Lohse maintained that Luther’s theology underwent significant development well into the 1520s.13 Several recent studies have followed Lohse’s lead and traced the contours of Luther’s early thought in terms of gradual development in multiple aspects rather than trying to identify a key, singular moment of revelation. The most comprehensive of these proposals is from Berndt Hamm, who traces Luther’s development from 1505 to 1520 with what he calls “stages in a Reformation reorientation.”14 As with other explorations of Luther’s early development, scholarship on the Reformation breakthrough has given disproportionate attention to the academic works and all but neglected the pastoral works (which began in 1516, toward the end of most proposals for his Reformation discovery but within the time that many claim for his breakthrough). Furthermore, researchers investigating a Reformation breakthrough read Luther’s lectures with very different purposes than Luther’s purpose for writing them. Luther produced these lectures in order to teach students of theology to understand biblical texts in terms that were both theological and devotional.15 His purpose was to articulate a theology that would foster his students’ faith and enable those students to foster faith in their future parishioners. The modern search for Luther’s changing theology or emerging protest 11. “For in [the gospel] the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, ‘The one who is righteous will live by faith.’” 12. Chapter 3 will discuss theories of the Reformation discovery in more detail, and with a comparison between the prevailing models and Luther’s early pastoral writings. 13. Lohse, Martin Luther’s Theology, 86. 14. Hamm, Der frühe Luther. See also Leppin, Martin Luther, 107–­17; and Oberman, Luther, 151–­74. 15. Oberman noted this in his biography of Luther, Luther, 161–­64.

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must take Luther’s own aims in those works into account; only then can we form an accurate understanding of his early theology. In any case, my purpose in this study is not to identify a singular breakthrough but instead to trace the development of Luther’s early views on Christian piety and practice. In this realm of inquiry, a multistep model of his development fits much better than the concept of a major moment of breakthrough. Luther gradually changed his language and proposals as he met new practical and theological challenges. His pastoral writings from 1518 to 1520 evidence a theology that had important pieces in place before 1518 but continued to develop in significant ways for a number of years. His theological “progress” in these writings did not proceed in a forward march toward truth, as often portrayed, but instead in fits and starts. Sometimes the language for his theology lagged behind his newfound convictions, and sometimes he stated an idea boldly in one place and more cautiously in another. Luther wrote many works and generally wrote them quickly, so no one work should be overinterpreted, especially for his theological development. Judgments about his theological evolution and his core ideas must be discerned from a larger body of his writings, read in the context of his encounters with both theologians and laypeople.

Confessional Polemics and Luther’s Religiosity Another field that has furthered the study of Luther within his own context is ecumenical theology. Until the mid-­twentieth century, much of Reformation scholarship was written with lenses strongly tinted by confessional animus. Even in the late twentieth century, historians sometimes let the question of Luther’s heresy or orthodoxy guide their investigations, and predictably, Luther became either a hero or a villain in these readings. The handful of works from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that gave attention to Luther’s pastoral writings strongly reflect this inclination. A few examples will illustrate the way these interpretations precluded a helpful understanding of the importance of these writings to Luther’s overall mission. For Protestant authors of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Luther’s ability to write in the vernacular to a lay audience was alone evidence of his greatness. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, just as these writings were being critically edited in the first volumes

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of the Weimar edition, a Protestant pastor named Hermann Beck utilized some of them to commend Luther. For Beck, Luther’s writings were indisputably effective because he had an unpretentious charisma and drew on his own heartfelt experience. Luther was able “to look people in the heart” and to speak to them in a warm and gentle fashion, relating his own struggles to their lives.16 (No evidence was given to support that Luther’s contemporaries saw him that way, but such evidence was not needed in confessional historiography.) Beck did not attempt to treat all of Luther’s early pastoral writings, but his interpretation of a few of these writings was anything but evenhanded. Heinz Dannenbauer also approached Luther’s early pastoral writings from the angle of an admirer. In his 1930 work Luther als Religiöser Volksschriftsteller, Dannenbauer attempted to determine what made Luther’s early vernacular writings so popular.17 After comparing some of Luther’s devotional writings with those of the late Middle Ages, Dannenbauer concluded that Luther’s were popular because they were well written and because justification by faith offered a new piety that satisfied the spiritual desires of the people.18 Luther’s writing style was “always practical without getting lost in casuistic detail, folksy, often blunt, then tender and heartfelt, but never playful or sentimental.”19 By contrast, Dannenbauer maintained that medieval devotional writings contained boring lists of sins and then divided them into arbitrary categories. He supposed that contemporary readers felt it impossible to avoid sin anyway, so they probably gave up.20 In addition, medieval sermons contained allegory that missed the point of the text and often descended into what Dannenbauer called “Vulgärkatholizismus,” by which he meant veneration of the saints, relics, and images.21 Dannenbauer’s uncharitable judgments of medieval literature and devotion obviously call into question the lens through which he viewed Luther. Whether one prefers Luther’s style or the styles of late medieval 16.“Ins Herz zu sehen”; Beck, Die Erbauungsliteratur der evangelischen Kirche Deutschlands, 45. 17. Dannenbauer, Luther als Religiöser Volksschriftsteller. 18. Dannenbauer, Luther als Religiöser Volksschriftsteller, 19, 33. 19. “Immer praktisch, ohne sich jedoch in kasuistische Einzelheiten zu verlieren; volkstümlich, oft derb, dann wieder zart und innig, aber nie spielerisch oder gefühlsselig.” Dannenbauer, Luther als Religiöser Volksschriftsteller, 20. 20. Dannenbauer, Luther als Religiöser Volksschriftsteller, 10–­11. 21. Dannenbauer, Luther als Religiöser Volksschriftsteller, 13–­15.

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authors is, of course, a matter of considerable subjectivity. More importantly, Dannenbauer failed to acknowledge that Luther wrote lists of sins in as much detail as the authors who preceded him.22 Nonetheless, Dannenbauer’s goal in this short book was to show that vernacular readers not only followed the conflict with the pope but also paid attention to indulgences, sin, grace, faith, and justification in Luther’s writings for them.23 While Dannenbauer did not explore the texts in detail or connect them to Luther’s other activities, he must be credited with drawing attention to him as a popular religious author between 1517 and 1520. After Dannenbauer, the theme of Luther as a devotional writer became less common among Protestants, likely because Luther’s pastoral works played a central role in many subsequent Catholic criticisms of him. In the mid-­twentieth century, some Catholic theologians found Luther’s intense interest in religious experience excessively subjective and individualistic, and therefore heretical. For these interpreters, this interest also made him “less theological” and therefore less capable of avoiding error. One of the most prominent Catholic interpreters of Luther, Joseph Lortz, portrayed Luther’s theology as fundamentally spiritual—­and because of this, fundamentally in error. In The Reformation in Germany from 1949 and in subsequent works, Lortz interpreted Luther as a man of sincere faith whose theology flowed from his own experience.24 This, however, was precisely the problem. For Lortz, Luther’s intense spirituality meant he was lost in his own subjectivity, which then caused him to disregard the objective means of grace and the moderating theology that the church offered. Luther’s subsequent theology, then, universalized his own scrupulosity and fear and thereby became a distorted version of Christianity. Lortz partially exonerated Luther for his error by saying that he was unduly influenced by the Occamism of his theological training,25 yet he also thought that Luther’s difficult personality caused him to resist due correction from the church and the Bible. Though Lortz’s view of Luther was more sympathetic than earlier 22. Eine kürze Erklärung der Zehn Gebote (February 1518), Decem praecepta ( July 1518), and Eine kürze Unterweisung, wie man beichten soll ( January 1519) contain such lists. 23. Dannenbauer, Luther als Religiöser Volksschriftsteller, 5. 24. Lortz, Die Reformation in Deutschland, 1:380–­408; Die Reformation als Religiöses Anliegen Heute; “The Catholic Attitude Towards the Reformation”; and “The Basic Elements of Luther’s Intellectual Style.” 25. Note Oberman’s argument against this in “The Catholicity of Nominalism,” in Trinkaus and Oberman, Pursuit of Holiness in Late Medieval and Renaissance Religion, 26–­58.

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Catholic interpretations, his evaluation of Luther’s spirituality and theology was decidedly unfavorable. It is interesting to note that Protestants have rarely used the term “spirituality” to describe Luther’s theology.26 Lortz’s negative connotation with the word may account for this. His portrayal of Luther’s theological emphases as the fruit of his excessive fears may also account for other attempts to downplay the practical and experiential thrust of his theology. After Lortz and other Catholic historians depicted Luther’s emphasis on spirituality as evidence of theological weakness, Protestant scholars hastened to minimize Luther’s early spiritual trials and to emphasize his theological sophistication. The most comprehensive treatment of Luther’s early teachings on Christian life was written very much with a Lortzian approach.27 Jared Wicks’s Man Yearning for Grace: Luther’s Early Spiritual Teaching, examines his theology from 1509 to 1517, presenting the early Luther as a theologian of the Christian life rather than a systematic theologian.28 For Wicks, Luther was a practical theologian for whom justification was an ongoing process of purification in which the believer moved from secure self-­approval to understanding God’s judgment of sin. Having grasped this condemnation, sinners could then lay hold of God’s grace, through which their affections and intentions would be refined. This background of Luther’s early spirituality, Wicks argued, helps explain Luther’s famous stance against indulgences. Wicks’s description of the early Luther generally corresponds to my findings in his pastoral writings from the next phase of his life, 1518 to 1520. Unfortunately, Wicks did not make use of the pastoral writings

26. Two exceptions to this trend are Hendrix, “Martin Luther’s Reformation of Spirituality,” 249–­70; and Krey and Krey, Luther’s Spirituality. It is noteworthy that both of these uses of the term are fairly recent. 27. Most treatments of Luther and practice focus on the later Luther and his formal church reforms. Erika Kohler’s Luther und der Festbrauch examined the liturgical calendar and life cycle rituals, while Otto Clemen’s Luther und die Volksfrömmigkeit seiner Zeit focused on Luther’s later understanding of the natural world and devotion to Mary and the saints. For more on Luther’s later preaching, see also bei der Wieden, Luthers Predigten des Jahres 1522; and Werdermann, Luthers Wittenberger Gemeinde widerhergestellt aus seinen Predigten. For Luther’s reforms to liturgy and music, see Leaver, Luther’s Liturgical Music; and Herl, Worship Wars in Early Lutheranism, chap. 1. 28. Wicks, Man Yearning for Grace. A later biography by Wicks entitled Luther and His Spiritual Legacy incorporated the main themes of Man Yearning for Grace without significant revision to this earlier portrait of the young Luther.

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after 1517, and instead followed Luther’s development from 1518 forward only via the conflict with Rome. This omission, along with the influence of Lortz’s interpretation, caused Wicks to misinterpret Luther’s theology after the Ninety-­Five Theses. He concluded that Luther’s teaching was in line with traditional Catholic thought up to the indulgence controversy because it had a rich spirituality of Christian life that aided the ongoing process of justification. In the course of the ensuing debates, however, Wicks argued that Luther’s new insistence on the necessity of faith and the certainty of grace in the sacraments led him to a harmful focus on this one issue. For Wicks, Luther’s focus on faith veered into dangerous subjectivism, individualism, and interiority. In place of his rich, pre-­1518 theology of Christian life that availed itself of exterior and communal Christian practices, Luther substituted passivity in Christian life.29 To Wicks’s credit, he later retracted the charge of subjectivism in a careful study of Luther’s understanding of faith and the sacraments in 1518.30 But Wicks did not retract all of his earlier claims about Luther’s alleged shifts in 1518. First, he upheld his charge that Luther’s theology narrowed after 1518 from a theology of Christian life to a theology overly focused on certainty. According to Wicks, Luther emphasized sacramental certainty beginning in 1518 to the neglect of other Christian practices such as prayer. The sudden increase in pastoral writings beginning in 1518, however, shows that Luther’s theology of Christian life continued—­ indeed, proliferated—­at exactly the time when Wicks claims it narrowed. Furthermore, sacramental certainty was only one theme of Luther’s spirituality from 1518 to 1520. The pastoral writings from this time evidence Luther’s interest in a wide range of Christian practices as well as the concern that these practices properly support vital faith. When the topic of sacramental certainty did appear in these writings, it was not the sole focus, and it had repercussions far beyond the sacraments per se. From 1518 to 1520, at least, Luther’s pastoral writings sought to explicate the many different shapes that faith should take in daily life. While these studies of Luther’s practical theology have drawn attention to the pastoral writings, the scholars’ confessional polemics often encouraged them to look for evidence of Luther’s alleged heroism or heresy rather than the historical importance of the writings for understanding Luther or 29. Wicks, Man Yearning for Grace, esp. 265–­76. 30. Wicks, “Fides sacramenti—­fides specialis.”

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other aspects of the early Reformation. As the ecumenical movement has advanced and changed the enterprise of religious history, a more evenhanded approach to the events of the Reformation allows us to see and interpret aspects that were overlooked earlier. One of those aspects is Luther’s pastoral predilections.

Luther as Pastor Throughout the long history of Luther interpretation, scholars have periodically emphasized the experiential or practical character of Luther’s theology, although such themes were sporadic until very recently. Karl Holl’s influential essay from 1917, “What Did Luther Mean by Religion?,” portrayed Luther’s theology as an intensely personal experience of God in which Luther felt the conflict between his own desires and God’s will.31 This “religion of conscience” was where Luther encountered God’s revelation and the pull of a personal relationship with God. Out of that relationship, a sense of personal moral obligation grew. It was a very different piety from the rational religion of nineteenth-­century German liberal theology of his time, and for Holl, Luther’s theology offered a way to form morality on religious grounds in the interwar discontent with liberalism. In the mid-­twentieth century, as existential philosophy gained influence, several theologians depicted Luther’s thought in existential terms. Gerhard Ebeling was arguably the most prominent of these Luther scholars. Ebeling’s early work on Luther emphasized the existential encounter between God’s word and the hearer’s being.32 For Ebeling, Luther’s hermeneutic was marked by this dynamic, relational understanding of the word. Another description of Luther’s theology used the term “existential,” but in a quite different way. Otto Pesch claimed that Luther’s theology is “existential theology” because it begins with Luther’s existence in faith and makes faith the major theme of his theology.33 Pesch distinguished his approach from the “theological existentialism” of Ebeling and others,

31. Holl, “Was verstand Luther unter Religion?” 32. Ebeling, “Die Anfänge von Luthers Hermeneutik.” Other notable existentialist interpreters of Luther include Paul Tillich, Rudolf Bultmann, Friedrich Gogarten, and Lennart Pinomaa. 33. Pesch, “Existential and Sapiential Theology,” 77. Pesch’s larger project is finding harmony between the theologies of Luther and Thomas Aquinas.

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which Pesch says could be applied to any type of theology since it inherently seeks the understanding of existence.34 Existential theology, by contrast, describes Luther’s theology because he “thinks in the category of relationship”35 and “speaks in the mode of confession.”36 Luther rejected speculation and instead began his theology with the experience of faith before God. After the mid-­twentieth century Zeitgeist of existentialism had passed, Luther’s emphasis on lived faith fell out of fashion. But several recent overviews of Luther’s theology have emphasized his practical orientation, and “Luther as pastor” has become a vigorous area of Luther research. A 2003 overview of Luther’s theology by Oswald Bayer presents Luther’s thought as thoroughly practical, with the goal of sharpening and comforting consciences at its heart.37 Another recent introduction to Luther’s theology by Robert Kolb also sets his thought firmly on the foundation of the reality of God’s grace in Christian life.38 Scott Hendrix’s interpretation of the Reformation as a shared movement of Christianization portrayed Luther as a reformer of Christian life before all else. In Hendrix’s view, his attempts to change the church were motivated by his belief that reformed structures and practices might better foster true Christianity.39 The number of studies that interpret Luther specifically as a pastor or pastoral theologian was very limited until recently. Before 1990, the theme of Luther as pastor appeared in only a few scattered articles40 and in an influential collected volume of his letters. The pastoral care (Seelsorge) that Luther provided via correspondence has received the most attention. English-­language readers became familiar with his advice and comfort to correspondents via Theodore Tappert’s 1955 classic compilation, Luther: Letters of Spiritual Counsel.41 German readers were first introduced to Luther’s epistolary encouragement in 1989 through Ute Mennecke-­ Haustein’s Luthers Trostbriefe, which detailed Luther’s responses to those

34. Pesch, “Existential and Sapiential Theology,” 77. 35. Pesch, “Existential and Sapiential Theology,” 64. 36. Pesch, “Existential and Sapiential Theology,” 76. 37. Bayer, Martin Luthers Theologie. 38. Kolb, Martin Luther: Confessor of the Faith. 39. Hendrix, Recultivating the Vineyard, 37–­68. 40. Brooks, “Martin Luther and the Pastoral Dilemma,” 95–­117; Ishida, “Luther the Pastor,” 27–­37; Spitz, “Der Mensch Luther,” esp. 38–­45. 41. Tappert, Letters of Spiritual Counsel.

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in the midst of suffering.42 In 1997, Gerhard Ebeling published a secondary treatment of Luther’s correspondence that highlighted his response to specific life circumstances. In his letters, Ebeling found that Luther’s theology and pastoral care were fundamentally intertwined.43 Ebeling’s exploration of Luther’s Seelsorge had begun with an invitation to speak at an academic conference in Ratzeburg, Germany in 1990. That conference also produced a volume of seven papers that explored Luther’s Seelsorge in his preaching, his biblical interpretation, his ethics, and in his formation under Staupitz.44 In the twenty-­first century, Luther’s pastoral activities and proclivities have begun to receive more attention, including a critical edition of his “spiritual” writings, a collection of essays, and three summaries of the pastoral foundations of Luther’s theology. In 2007, a volume of The Classics of Western Spirituality was dedicated to Luther’s works, with a focus on his letters, biblical interpretation, and works on prayer.45 In that same year, a monograph of Luther’s writings on death returned to the theme of Luther as comforter.46 The most comprehensive treatment of Luther’s practical theology to date is a collection of essays published as The Pastoral Luther: Essays on Martin Luther’s Practical Theology in 2009.47 This volume includes seventeen diverse aspects of Luther’s theology, ministry, and piety, in addition to an introduction that argues for understanding Luther primarily as a pastor. Recent years have also seen the emergence of several monographs that focus on Luther’s pastoral theology. Dennis Ngien’s close reading of several devotional works from 1519 to 1542 is one of the few that utilizes pastoral writings. Ngien highlights Luther’s role as a “spiritual adviser” to many and sees this pastoral role as a departure from his polemics.48 John Pless, on the other hand, understands Luther’s pastoral care in the context of his sometimes-­polemical reforming work. Pless returned to Luther’s letters as a source of his pastoral theology and found the keys to his the-

42. Mennecke-Haustein, Luthers Trostbriefe. 43. Ebeling, Luthers Seelsorge. 44. Heubach, Luther als Seelsorger. 45. Krey and Krey, Luther’s Spirituality. 46. Leroux, Martin Luther as Comforter. 47. Wengert, Pastoral Luther contains essays on various practical aspects of Luther’s thought and is the most thorough of such treatments to date. 48. Ngien, Luther as Spiritual Adviser.

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ology in his responses to those in distress.49 Most recently, Carl Trueman wrote a volume on Luther for the Crossways series that surveys theologians on the Christian life. By outlining Luther’s understanding of theology, preaching, catechesis, the Bible, the sacraments, sanctification, and life in the public sphere, Trueman explicated the broad shape of Christian life in Luther’s ideal. This recent emphasis on Luther as pastor has helped highlight the pastoral heart of Luther’s theology. Together, these treatments have done much to reanimate the impetus of his theology from the catchwords and phrases that are often used to summarize his thought. Yet most of these studies have made minimal use of pastoral works, focusing instead on retrieving the pastoral heart of Luther’s academic works and correspondence.50 The pastoral works from 1518 to 1520 can fill out the picture of Luther as pastor with much more detail than his other genres. As a unique window into the momentous events of his early protest, they reveal his step-­wise response to late medieval religious and theological movements at a key time in his development. The distinct phases of this response also provide a colorful narrative that sometimes intersects with his public conflict and sometimes diverges from it. That Luther was primarily a pastoral theologian is now widely acknowledged. The early pastoral works show us exactly how he was pastoral, and what pastoral principles he employed at various levels of his public protest.

Practical Theology in Early Modern Europe: Mysticism, Monasticism, and Scholasticism The urgency and passion Luther felt about the life of faith should come as no surprise given the religious atmosphere in which he came of age. As Bernd Moeller has argued, the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries were a time of fervent religiosity and thriving practices. Laypeople were perhaps more engaged in church-­related devotions than they had ever been, and pious practices both old and new flourished during this time.51 49. Pless, Martin Luther. 50. Of the works mentioned here, only Ngien examines several of Luther’s pastoral works. Even so, he treats only three of the works I treat here, likely because his chronological range is wider and he limits himself to writings in the “Devotional Writings” volumes of LW. 51. Moeller, “Piety in Germany around 1500,” 50–­75.

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Luther frequently spoke of the earnestness with which he engaged the veneration of the saints, the recitation of standard late medieval prayers, the mass, and meditation on the cross. The mystical currents that were powerful in German-­ speaking lands during this time were also instrumental in Luther’s theological development.52 Very early in his studies, before 1509, he read mystical theologians; Bernard and Bonaventure were the two most influential in this early phase, and they both emboldened him to criticize Scholastic theology for its tendency toward speculation.53 His reading of Bernard in particular also intensified his focus on Christ’s passion and his expectation that Christians would follow Christ on this path of suffering. Around 1515, Luther read the fourteenth-­century German mystic Johannes Tauler as well as an anonymous mystical work known as the German Theology. He became enthusiastic about both authors’ emphasis on contrition and on the need to die to sin, themes that would influence his critique of late medieval penance and the practice of indulgences.54 A third strain of late medieval mysticism was briefly influential on Luther, but he later rejected it. The Pseudo-­Dionysian mystical tradition, named for the early sixth-­century writer Dionysius the Aeropagite, was a negative theology with an emphasis on the soul’s ascent to God in mystical union. By 1515 or 1516, Luther began to see this type of mysticism as an attempt to access God directly instead of through Christ and suffering, and he rejected it in favor of the more passion-­oriented mysticism also popular at that time.55 The influence of mysticism on Luther, then, was not a simple reception, but rather a critical reception and a conscious choice of some types of mysticism over others. It is clear, however, that these mystical authors and inclinations propelled him toward an intense, internal piety.56

52. Hamm and Leppin, Gottes Nähe unmittelbar erfahren; Hering, Die Mystik Luthers; Hoffman, Luther and the Mystics; Oberman, “Simul gemitus et raptus”; Ozment, Homo Spiritualis; von Walter, Mystik und Rechtfertigung beim jungen Luther; zur Mühlen, Nos Extra Nos. 53. For example, AWA 9:129.5–­7. See also Bell, Divus Bernhardus; and Posset, Pater Bernhardus. 54. Leppin, “‘Omnem vitam fidelium penitentiam esse voluit.’” 55. Rorem, Dionysian Mystical Theology, esp. 101–­20, 137–­41. 56. See especially the essays in Hamm and Leppin, Gottes Nähe unmittelbar erfahren, for the varied ways that mysticism influenced Luther.

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Monastic spirituality and theology were also formative influences on Luther. As a member of the Observant Augustinian order, his engagement with devotional practice was personal and intense. His days as a friar consisted of worship, scripture reading, prayer, and study. While Luther’s theological formation took place in both monasteries and universities, the purpose of his academic training in both places was practical: to advance in faith, to minister to others, and to defend the faith.57 The religious practices and the theology that formed Luther were both employed to cultivate a rich, internal spiritual life as well as the ability to help others do the same. As Eric Saak has argued, Augustinian friars produced far more biblical commentaries, treatises on spiritual life, and catechetical works than they did commentaries on Aristotle or Lombard, even though the commentaries on earlier theologians have received most of the scholarly attention. They were theologians, but by no means did they live in an “ivory tower.” The purpose of their theology was to foster love of God throughout all of Christendom.58 In fact, many Scholastics were also monks or canons regular who exercised their pastoral vocations alongside their academic endeavors. The mendicant orders, such as Luther’s Augustinian Hermits, had a particularly vigorous pastoral ministry with the public. As Dennis Martin has argued, even the Carthusians, who were the most contemplative of late medieval monastics, debated their pastoral role in their community.59 As an Augustinian friar with an explicit mission to do pastoral work in towns, Luther’s pastoral orientation was instilled in him even before he began his doctoral studies. Luther took this responsibility very seriously, so much so that he was moved to protest indulgences when laypeople under his care told him what the indulgence preachers were promising. Some of the ordered Scholastics were critical of Scholasticism’s tendency to define and distinguish its terms rather than discuss their relevance, but this criticism should be seen as an intra-­Scholastic debate, and one that Luther entered. Even Scholasticism as it existed in the universities included devotional dimensions. William Courtenay notes that students were expected to attend mass, and they studied the Bible and moral theology in addition

57. Leinsle, Introduction to Scholastic Theology, 113. 58. Saak, High Way to Heaven, esp. 345–­69. 59. Martin, “Popular and Monastic Pastoral Issues in the Later Middle Ages.”

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to Peter Lombard’s Sentences.60 Furthermore, the university masters were expected to preach regularly in order to develop and disseminate their theology.61 While some complained that devotional aspects of theology were not prominent enough at universities, many others insisted on the application of theology to devotional and moral issues.62 These arguments suggest that the place of spirituality within Scholasticism was a matter of ongoing debate. Meanwhile, Scholastics’ production of biblical commentaries waxed and waned in phases, but overall the Bible remained a vital source for late medieval Scholasticism.63 Even when Scholastic theological debates became speculative, they often dealt with issues of practical relevance, especially the issue of salvation. The role of grace in salvation was of particular interest to Scholastics, and these theologians consciously attempted to avoid Pelagianism by insisting on the necessity of grace for salvation. In this sense, medievalist Karlfried Fröhlich argues that sixteenth-­century reformers and late medieval theologians shared a concern for the primacy of grace in salvation.64 Late medieval theologians differed with each other on the role of human action in salvation, and this is one argument that later reformers, especially Luther, adopted and radicalized. As Heiko Oberman long argued, Luther both criticized Scholasticism and borrowed from it, and many of his criticisms reflected intra-­Scholastic debates. In fact, Oberman’s pioneering work on fifteenth-­century theologian Gabriel Biel shows how much attention Biel gave to matters of faith and piety.65 The correct use of the sacraments was a particular area of concern for Biel and other Scholastics because the sacraments conveyed the grace necessary for salvation. Luther frequently disagreed with Biel’s conclusions, but he shared his interest in issues of practical importance. Luther’s pastoral concerns were thoroughly in step with the late medieval church hierarchy as well. The Fourth Lateran Council in 1215 had attempted to buttress the church’s care of souls (cura animarum) in several different ways: by giving guidance on the selection and training of priests, by emphasizing preaching, by requiring annual confession and commu60. Courtenay, “Spirituality and Late Scholasticism.” 61. Leinsle, Introduction to Scholastic Theology, 68–­73. 62. Courtenay, “Spirituality and Late Scholasticism,” 116. 63. Courtenay, “Spirituality and Late Scholasticism,” 110–­14. 64. Fröhlich, “Justification Language and Grace.” 65. Oberman, Harvest of Medieval Theology.

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nion for each layperson, and by emphasizing the confessor’s role as a “doctor of souls.”66 Although this initiative of the Fourth Lateran Council was not as successful as its framers had hoped, it did produce an impressive number of writings aimed at helping priests reach this ideal, which Leonard Boyle has termed “pastoralia.”67 Most of these treatments focused on the task of confession and encouraged both the confessor and the penitent to approach the sacrament of penance with sincerity and thoughtfulness. Penitents were expected to search their souls to provide an earnest and thorough confession. Confessors were charged with considering the circumstances and intentions of their penitents’ sins in order to discern the proper penance in each case.68 Three hundred years later, Luther concluded that these recommendations had led to the detrimental extremes of either despair or callousness. Nonetheless, the intentions in the reforms of the Fourth Lateran Council and in Luther’s reforms are remarkably similar. The Fourth Lateran Council also aimed to improve the quality of preaching, principally by charging bishops with appointing preachers who would focus almost exclusively on that task. The new mendicant orders helped fulfill the mandate for more preaching from the thirteenth century forward. By the late Middle Ages, printed model sermon collections by popular preachers flourished.69 Meanwhile, the lives of the saints were increasingly collected into “legendaries,” or compilations of the various legends of the saints. The most popular of these was Jacobus de Voragine’s Golden Legend, produced in the 1260s in Latin and often translated into the vernacular by the late Middle Ages.70 A related genre of pious collections was the “miracle books,” which recorded the miracles ascribed to a particular saint.71 These texts both cultivated and nurtured devotion to the saints, an extremely popular devotion in late medieval Europe. Theological treatises written for a wide audience also became more popular in the late Middle Ages. Berndt Hamm has identified an eclectic body of fourteenth-­and fifteenth-­century theological material that he termed Frömmigkeitstheologie, and he ascribes Luther’s practical orientation 66. Tanner, “Pastoral Care”; Rittgers, Reformation of Suffering, 13–­15. 67. Boyle, “Fourth Lateran Council and Manuals of Popular Theology.” See also Boyle, Pastoral Care, Clerical Education and Canon Law, 1200–­1400. 68. Boyle, “Fourth Lateran Council and Manuals of Popular Theology,” 36–­37. 69. Thayer, Penitence, Preaching and the Coming of the Reformation; Frymire, Primacy of the Postils, 10–­24; Taylor, Soldiers of Christ. 70. Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?, 538, 546–­58. 71. Bartlett, Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things?, 558–­70.

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to the method and concerns of these writings.72 In the fourteenth century Frömmigkeitstheologie was rooted in mystical opposition to Scholasticism, but in the fifteenth century, as it became more prevalent, it tried to mediate between the speculation of the Scholastics and the visions of the mystics. According to Hamm, Frömmigkeitstheologie became a tributary of the Reformation because Luther and others were influenced by its practical bent, its simplifying tendencies, and its emphasis on Christ and grace. Hamm judges Luther’s functional critique of Scholasticism to be closely related to the reaction against Scholastic speculation seen in Frömmigkeitstheologie. Individual theologians who were prolific authors of pastoral works also flourished in the late Middle Ages and influenced Luther directly. Jean Gerson was undoubtedly the most popular of these authors. A fifteenth-­ century theologian who combined Scholasticism with the renewed spirituality of the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, he was a best-­selling author of works for laypeople.73 Daniel Hobbins has characterized Gerson as a “public intellectual” who focused his efforts on a new genre of theological tract that applied theology to practical concerns.74 Hobbins traces the development of this genre to changes within the university, which favored tracts over earlier genres, as well as the university’s increasingly public role in society. Luther often expressed admiration for Gerson, and he shared both Gerson’s concern for forming faith and his prolific production of tracts. In the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, one of the most prominent “public intellectuals” in Germany was Johann von Staupitz, Luther’s mentor, confessor, and predecessor at the University of Wittenberg. Staupitz was a professor of the Bible, a vicar in the Augustinian order, and the author of numerous popular tracts on spiritual themes. He was also Luther’s confessor, and Luther credited Staupitz with showing him God’s mercy when he was terrified of God. Luther followed in Staupitz’s footsteps not only in taking over his professorial chair or emphasizing God’s mercy, but also by writing theological works for a broad audience.75 72. Hamm, Frömmigkeitstheologie am Anfang des 16. Jahrhunderts; and Hamm, “Was ist Frömmigkeitstheologie?” 73. Courtenay, “Spirituality and Late Scholasticism,” 116–­17. 74. Hobbins, “The Schoolman as Public Intellectual.” Hobbins expanded this argument in Authorship and Publicity Before Print. See also McGuire, Jean Gerson and the Last Medieval Reformation, esp. 33–­62. 75. Steinmetz, Luther and Staupitz; Wetzel, “Staupitz Augustinianus”; zu Dohna, “Staupitz and Luther.”

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This background sets Luther’s theological controversies in the late medieval university tradition of engaging the public in matters of practice, and it helps to explain why issues about religious practice engaged Luther as much as theological arguments. Luther’s protests against Scholasticism originated in an intra-­Scholastic debate about the role of the Bible and pastoral issues in the study of theology, in addition to the other intra-­ Scholastic debates about grace, will, and the role of reason in theology. The interaction and interdependence of theology and practice in many aspects of late medieval theology characterize the Luther that we will encounter in the following chapters. Only in the light of the full constellation of Luther’s writings can we understand both the indulgence controversy and the writings that he produced in its wake. The theses against indulgences were a product of the academic tradition of disputations, Luther’s fight against Scholasticism, and his practical concerns about the faith of ordinary Christians. They sparked a controversy that pulled Luther into a discussion of the powers of the pope, but all the while he continued to write about various aspects of Christian practice. Luther’s concerns about piety were theological, to be sure, but they were not theoretical or speculative; his critiques of Scholasticism, the papacy, and piety were all held together by a concern for their effects on the life and faith of the believer. As his thought developed, so too did his recommendations on matters of piety. The exact content of the stages of his criticisms—­what changes when—­helps us map the development of his thought, but his consistent concern with the nurturing of Christian faith points to the nature of his theology: Luther was first and foremost a practical theologian, and his practical concerns caused him to persist in his protest.

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Chapter Two

Scholasticism, Indulgences, and Christian Life: 1516–­1517 Luther’s Work in Wittenberg

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he two years immediately preceding the indulgence controversy were notable for more than their proximity to Luther’s most famous protest. The year 1516 saw two new undertakings for Luther: his first anti-­Scholastic disputation and his first devotional publication. These new activities continued in 1517, which included two more theses for disputation and one more devotional work. The flood of devotional and pastoral writings did not begin until Lent 1518, but the presence of two devotional writings amid his academic work in 1516 and 1517 indicates that his pastoral concerns predate the conflict with Rome and are broader than the practice of indulgences. The indulgence controversy, formally begun with the Ninety-­Five Theses in late October 1517, has overshadowed the years before and after it in Luther scholarship. Luther’s opposition to indulgences has been properly attributed to a range of influences: his objections to late medieval Scholasticism and its optimistic view of the human will, his concerns about radical claims for the power of indulgences, and a mystical understanding of proper repentance. All of these specific objec-

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tions to indulgences emerge from his misgivings about their practical effects. Reading these earliest pastoral works alongside the early lectures, the Ninety-­Five Theses, and Luther’s other comments on indulgences helps to set the conflict over indulgences within his larger attempt to strengthen faith among laypeople. In this context, his protest against indulgences is one of many such criticisms of late medieval practice, and while some opinions change between 1516 and 1520, his dominant focus on Christian life is constant. After the indulgence controversy began, the topics in Luther’s writings often diverged according to audience. But in 1516 and 1517, his academic, polemical, and pastoral works contained similar themes across genres, likely because he was motivated to write by his own interests, not the questions of others. During these years, Luther continued to perform the manifold duties in Wittenberg that were part of his dual calling as Augustinian friar and university professor. He continued his lectures at the university in Wittenberg, treating the Pauline lectures of Romans (1515–­16), Galatians (1516–­17), and Hebrews (1517–­18) during this time. A considerable amount of his time was spent on his preaching duties, at both his cloister and the Wittenberg town church. He also took on leadership responsibilities within his order. In 1512, upon receiving his doctorate, he had been named the director of theological studies for his cloister. By 1515, he assumed the much more prominent role of provincial vicar of Reformed Augustinians, which positioned him among the top three leaders of his order in the German territories. His duties involved oversight of eleven cloisters and a heavy schedule of traveling.1 Luther often complained about his demanding workload even before his time became consumed with controversy. In a letter to his friend Johann Lang from October 1516, Luther claimed, “I could almost occupy two scribes or secretaries  .  .  . I have little uninterrupted time for the daily hours or for celebrating mass.”2 Yet during this time he took the initiative to challenge Scholasticism publicly and to begin issuing vernacular devotional writings despite his many other responsibilities.

1. Hendrix, Martin Luther, 45–­46. 2. WA Br 1:72; LW 48:27–­28.

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Luther’s Early Lectures The sources from Luther’s early years that scholars have studied most thoroughly are the lectures at the University of Wittenberg, especially in the years before the indulgence controversy. Because of their availability and reliability, they have assumed the foreground in early Luther research. In many ways, however, they are the background to Luther’s more public career of fighting Scholasticism, indulgences, and other Christian practices. These early lectures were part of his obligation as a professor as well as his own theological negotiation with late medieval theology and his own religious experiences. The insights gained in the intensive and meditative study of these biblical texts increased his discontent with several aspects of church life: the predominance of Aristotle in the study of theology, the optimistic view of the will that came from late medieval Scholasticism, the church’s neglect of its pastoral duties, and the ways in which Christians were encouraged by devotional practices to rely on their own merit instead of relying on God’s grace. Luther reads the biblical texts as God’s direct speech to him and his contemporaries, and his interest in those texts is to hear that word and apply it to his life and vocation. By all accounts, Luther’s desire to help lead his Wittenberg colleagues and students away from Scholasticism came from his interpretation of the Bible and of Augustine. By 1509, Luther had encountered some of Augustine’s writings, and his marginal notes from that year signal the extent to which he saw Augustine as a guide for faith and theology. He especially admired Augustine’s refusal to speculate on matters of faith that were not treated in the Bible. To Luther, this stood as a stark contrast to the questions and methods of late medieval Scholasticism, and from 1509 forward, he considered Augustine a partner in his efforts to limit speculation within theology.3 Luther’s first lecture series after finishing his doctoral studies was on the Psalms from 1513 to 1515. In these Psalms lectures, Luther sidestepped many of the questions debated by Scholastics and instead focused on the appropriate humility and self-­accusation that sinners should inculcate to acknowledge God’s righteousness and the reality of human sinfulness. His interpretation of human sinfulness focused not on specific acts that were sinful, but instead on the deeply rooted inclination to sin, especially the sin 3. Oberman, Luther, 158–­61.

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of selfishness. Only by acknowledging this yawning gap between God’s nature and human nature could Christians hope to understand and appreciate the grace that God offers. In the 1513–­15 Psalms lectures, Luther’s emphasis fell on humility and self-­accusation more than on grace, yet the need to yield to God’s judgment instead of trying to justify oneself before God would remain a central principle of his theology. His first Psalms lectures are also notable for the way he highlighted the benefits and effects given in the sacraments yet remained silent on many of the aspects of sacramental theology debated within Scholasticism. Here, too, Luther preferred to dwell on the practice of faith rather than scholarly arguments.4 The early Psalms lectures do, however, contain harsh criticisms of the church. Luther’s emphasis was not the abuses that were much discussed in the early sixteenth century, but instead the church’s theological orientation and alleged spiritual malaise. In Luther’s mind, many groups within the church were striving for righteousness apart from Christ, and the church as a whole was lukewarm in its faith.5 Luther’s position at the university entitled him to choose the biblical books for his lectures, and from November 1515 until September 1516, he chose to focus on questions of sin, grace, and righteousness by studying Paul’s letter to the Romans. In many ways, the lectures on Romans reiterated the main themes of the Psalms lectures, but with sharper themes and development in several aspects. Luther opened the Romans lectures by saying that the book of Romans sets out to “destroy all wisdom and righteousness of the flesh” and to show readers how Christ and his righteousness are needed.6 The righteousness of which Luther spoke in these lectures originated not in the Christian’s soul, as in most late medieval theology, but instead came from outside as “alien righteousness.” Luther now understood justification as God’s “imputation” or “reckoning” (imputare; reputare) of righteousness to the sinner. He emphasized that Christians cannot make themselves worthy of God’s grace in any way; the phrase “only grace justifies” (sola gratia iustificat) appeared here for the first time, likely around the beginning of 1516.7 The terms “promise” (promissio) and “faith” (fides) began to appear in the Romans lectures as well, though not as often as they 4. Boehmer, Luthers erste Vorlesungen; Schwarz, Vorgeschichte der reformatorischen Busstheologie; Preus, From Shadow to Promise. 5. Hendrix, Ecclesia in Via. 6. WA 56:3.1–­13. 7. WA 56:255.19.

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would in Luther’s later theology. Nonetheless, we see here a significant step toward a later understanding. Luther scholars have debated whether the Romans lectures share the same understanding of humility as the Psalms lectures, a concept so central to the Psalms lectures that it is sometimes called his “theology of humility.”8 It is clear that the need to recognize sin, accept God’s judgment, and rely on God’s mercy remains in the lectures on Romans, but it is not clear whether it is needed as a precondition to receive grace or as a step toward enabling faith by understanding God’s grace.9 The most apparent and significant change in the 1515–­16 lectures on Romans was Luther’s open criticism of Scholastic ideas. These lectures repeated his earlier emphasis on original sin as selfishness, and they elaborated that this sin involved an inclination to evil instead of the Occamist understanding of a neutral will that can freely choose between good and evil. Against this optimistic view, Luther argued that humans are not able to keep the commandments of their own powers. Instead of using Scholastic distinctions about types of sin, Luther laid stress on original sin as a “mortal illness,” which caused actual sins but was a much bigger problem than those acts themselves. He saw the fruit of original sin especially in attempts to establish one’s own righteousness before God and to seek God only for temporal advantages. On grace, Luther used Scholastic terms but with new definitions. Justification involved an influx of grace and a divine acceptance of the sinner’s works. These are both Scholastic concepts, but in Luther’s view they did not give rise to a habitus, or internal disposition, that formed the soul in righteous faith and allowed the Christian to build upon this “first grace.”10 Instead, this fundamental grace was the same grace that was received throughout life, and it was the sole foundation for Christian righteousness because it was passively and frequently received. Luther also weighed in on the intra-­Scholastic debate about whether God predestined people with foreknowledge of the meritorious works they would perform or without this knowledge. Luther took his stand squarely against the Occamists 8. Most notably in Bizer, Fides ex auditu. 9. Althaus, Paulus und Luther über den Menschen; Holl, “Die Rechtfertigungslehre in Luthers Vorlesung über den Römerbrief mit besonderer Rückblick auf die Frage der Heilsgewissenheit,” 111–­54; Hübner, Rechtfertigung und Heilung in Luthers Römerbriefvorlesung; Rupp, Righteousness of God; Schmidt-­Lauber, Luthers Vorlesung über den Römerbrief 1515/16; and Kaiser, Luther und die Auslegung des Römerbriefes. Lohse offers a helpful summary of research on Luther’s Romans lectures in Martin Luther’s Theology, 68–­84. 10. Lohse, Martin Luther’s Theology, 70–­72.

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by saying that God predestines without knowledge of any future merits. This stance was important to him because he worried that any contingency on human action would lead to works-­righteousness and, ultimately, to despair because Christians would inevitably fall into sin.11 Luther’s next lectures were on Galatians in 1516–­17, and on Hebrews in 1517–­18. The manuscript is not extant for either lecture series, so we are dependent on students’ notes to reconstruct what he said in them. (Luther reworked his Galatians lectures into a commentary beginning in 1519, but by then his context had changed considerably and his emphases as well.12) The students’ notes show that Luther’s thought continued to sharpen on the themes of unmerited grace and the need for righteousness from Christ. In his work with Hebrews, the phrase “Christ alone” (solus Christus) appeared repeatedly. Luther’s exposition of both Galatians and Hebrews focused on the language of testament, in particular of the Lord’s Supper as a testament to God’s promises in Christ. Since a testament becomes valid only through death, the Lord’s Supper is a sign of the promises granted in Christ’s death.13 For Luther, then, the sacrament was primarily an aid to faith since it reminded Christians of God’s forgiveness through Christ. Some recurring themes stand out from Luther’s early biblical lectures, regardless of which book was the object of study. The oldest and most frequent theme is the need for Christians to recognize their sinfulness and acknowledge their need for grace. This is unambiguously a question of lived Christian faith, and the other practical concerns Luther raised in these lectures are derivative of this central issue. The recommendations Luther made in 1516–­17 in his early pastoral writings, his anti-­Scholastic work, and his criticisms of indulgences also contain the central concern about Christians trying to earn righteousness, and they raise further practical issues in each of these realms of his work.

The First Pastoral Writings By 1516, Luther wanted to speak beyond his lectern and pulpit to a wider public on these issues. He began that endeavor with two German language 11. Rupp, Righteousness of God, 183–­86. 12. Hagen, Luther’s Approach to Scripture. 13. Hagen, Theology of Testament in the Young Luther; Bayer, Promissio, 203–­25; Bizer, Fides ex auditu, 75–­93; and Rupp, Righteousness of God, 192–­216.

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devotional works, both of which evidence the influence of mystical piety in his early career. The very first writing that Luther had printed, in December 1516, was a reprinting of a German mystical treatise from the mid-­ fourteenth century that later became known as the German Theology. To that work, Luther appended his own preface. The origins of the mystical treatise are not clear. The earliest known manuscript stems from the middle of the fifteenth century, but its similarities to the writings of Meister Eckhart (ca. 1260–­1327/8) and Johannes Tauler (ca. 1300–­61), as well as a direct reference to Tauler, suggest that it belongs to the second half of the fourteenth century.14 The author is unknown except for what he revealed of himself in the prologue and text, namely, that he was a member of the Teutonic Order and a priest and warden of their house in Frankfurt. The German Theology consists of fifty-­three questions and answers pertaining to the mystical life in brief, simple language. It was not an original work but instead a brief outline of contemporary mystical emphases, borrowing much from Eckhart, Tauler, and Seuse. It was also a polemic against a late medieval sect called the Brethren of the Free Spirit, who claimed a union with God that freed them from the authority of the church. By contrast, the German Theology was an attempt to situate mysticism squarely within the church.15 The themes of the German Theology play on opposition between the perfect and the imperfect, the whole and the part, obedience and disobedience. Sin is defined as turning toward the imperfect rather than the perfect, the part rather than the whole, and disobedience rather than obedience. This happens especially when one turns toward one’s own will instead of toward God’s will. Adam is the prime example of this disobedience, and Christ’s obedience is seen especially in his submission and obedience to the divine will. Christ, then, is the perfect example of properly giving up one’s own will to reach union with the divine will. In 1516, Luther had seen only a portion of the manuscript; by 1518, he had a complete version, which he then reissued with a new preface. The 1516 preface appealed to the learned reader not to judge the simple language of the mystical treatise too quickly. Luther stressed that the language “does not float up, like foam on the water, but rather is taken from 14. Franckforter, Book of the Perfect Life, 23. 15. Franckforter, Book of the Perfect Life, 25.

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the bottom of the Jordan.”16 He cited 1 Corinthians 1:23 to remind readers that they must become fools in order to understand the wisdom of God. The chapters of the German Theology that Luther reprinted in 1516, chapters 7–­26, emphasize the need for Christians to resign themselves to God and to let God work in them. The lengthy title he gave to this edition advertises what Luther valued in this work: “A noble spiritual booklet about the right way to distinguish and to understand what the old and new man is, who is a child of Adam and a child of God, and how Adam must die in us and Christ arise.” Luther had found a like-­minded theologian in this mystical text, someone who understood the brokenness of the human will and its radical need for God’s intervention. His appeal to the wisdom of simple language is likely a swipe at Scholastics, whom Luther often charged with preferring elaborate logic to the simple words of scripture. His choice of this mystical treatise with a German language preface shows both the importance of mysticism in his understanding of the God-­human relationship and his pastoral desire to teach this understanding to laypeople. Luther’s practical concerns were also prevalent in his second pastoral publication, a commentary on the seven penitential psalms, printed in the spring of 1517.17 In fact, the origins of this work reveal as much about his pastoral orientation as the work itself. In September 1516, a year after Luther had finished his first university lectures on the Psalms, the Saxon court chaplain, Georg Spalatin, asked him to publish those lectures. Luther did not consider them worthy of publication, so instead he revised his lectures on the seven penitential psalms with laypeople in mind and published them in German.18 Since the sixth century, these seven psalms had been grouped together and recommended to penitents.19 In the twelfth 16. “Ja es schwebt nit oben, wie schawm auff dem wasser, Sunder es ist auβ dem grund des Jordans . . . erleβen.” WA 1:153. 17. Two sermon series that Luther preached in 1516 and 1517 were later published. A series on the Ten Commandments was preached from June 1516 to February 1517. These Luther revised and printed as The Ten Commandments Preached to the People of Wittenberg in the summer of 1518. During Lent 1517, Luther preached a series of sermons on the Lord’s Prayer. These were published by Luther in April 1519 after several other versions of the sermon texts had circulated and Luther found them wanting. Because the early records of these sermon series are not reliable, I use only Luther’s later printed versions of them, and I treat them in the context of the periods in which he had them published. 18. Brecht, Martin Luther, 1:143. 19. In the modern numbering of the Psalms, the seven penitential psalms are 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, and 143.

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century, Pope Innocent III ordered that the penitential psalms should be prayed during Lent, and indeed, Luther began writing this work during Lent. He was not the first to write a commentary on these seven psalms, though it is not known whether he consulted other versions. In a letter to Nuremburg humanist Christoph Scheurl, Luther said that he had written the treatise “for the coarse Saxons, for whom Christian doctrine cannot be too verbosely spoon-­fed.”20 True to this conviction that the ordinary Christian could not hear too many words of instruction, The Seven Penitential Psalms was ninety-­eight pages long in small-­octavo, and Luther later conceded that the ordinary Christian might not have understood it all.21 Nonetheless, it sold so well that it was immediately reprinted.22 Just as his Psalms lectures had focused on the need for contrition, Luther’s exposition of the penitential Psalms maintained a clear and consistent focus throughout: Christians must recognize their sin, recognize God’s grace, surrender their strivings toward righteousness, and let the old Adam die so that Christ might rise in them. In fact, Luther concluded his exposition by answering the rhetorical objection that he had focused too narrowly on God’s grace and not enough on human righteousness, wisdom, and strength. He defended his focus on Christ because Christ is the focus of scripture and is “God’s grace, mercy, righteousness, truth, wisdom, strength, comfort and salvation.”23 These first pastoral writings recommend several practices and ideas from mysticism. His instruction to resign oneself to God and to cease striving for righteousness echoes the Upper Rhine mystical emphasis on Gelassenheit, or passivity before God that accepts God’s judgment and recognizes one’s own inability to achieve righteousness before God. Luther’s emphasis on repentance also has a mystical element to it. Although repentance was enshrined in late medieval Christianity through the sacrament of penance and the related practices it generated, German mysticism put it at the center of Christian life. Luther’s radical language on the need for Christians to die to sin and to wait for God to resurrect them comes from Romans 6, but it was a particularly prominent aspect of mystical theology. 20. “Rudibus . . . Saxonibus, quibus nulla verbositate satis mandi et praemandi potest.” WA Br 1:93.7–­8. 21. WA Br 1:96.16–­18. 22. WA 1:155. 23. “Gottis gnaden, barmhertzickeit, gerechtickeit, warheit, weiβheit, stercke, trost und selickeyt.” WA 1:219.30–­32.

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The rebuke of erudition in Luther’s preface to the German Theology also demonstrates his respect for mysticism’s approach to theology and Christian life. While Luther was not an uncritical recipient of mysticism, he preferred its simple piety to Scholasticism, which in his view attempted to escape the hard truths of scripture with cunning argumentation. The theology created by Scholasticism was thus misguided and threatened to lead both theologians and laypeople astray. Luther wanted to change this and was in the position to fight Scholasticism where it was strongest: in the universities.

Anti-­Scholastic Initiatives in Wittenberg Of Luther’s three well-­known disputations in 1516 and 1517, two focused on Scholasticism. Yet even these are products of Luther’s concerns about Christian life. Luther’s participation in the fight against Scholasticism had begun years earlier, with his involvement in humanist efforts to change the course offerings and faculty positions at the University of Wittenberg.24 The main target of these efforts was Aristotle, whose complete corpus had been reintroduced to Latin Christendom in the mid-­twelfth century, just as universities evolved from small collections of masters and students into larger institutions. The result was that Aristotle assumed a central place in most university curricula from the thirteenth through the fifteenth centuries. To be sure, Luther’s objection was not primarily to Aristotle himself.25 The Aristotle of the Middle Ages was mediated by subsequent schools of thought, including the Jewish and Arabic interpretations of Aristotle as well as Christian Neoplatonism. By Luther’s time, additional layers of interpretation had been added to the Aristotelian heritage. Thomas Aquinas’s great synthesis of Aristotle’s philosophy with Christian theology in the thirteenth century engendered immediate protest and led to the development of competing schools of thought. By the early sixteenth

24. On these efforts see Rosin, “Reformation, Humanism and Education,” 301–­18. For more on Luther’s relationship to humanism, see especially Junghans, Der junge Luther und die Humanisten; Dost, Renaissance Humanism in Support of the Gospel in Luther’s Early Correspondence; Grossmann, Humanism in Wittenberg, 1485–­1517; and Spitz, Luther and German Humanism. 25. See esp. Dieter, Der junge Luther und Aristoteles.

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century, Occamism was the dominant form of Scholasticism in universities throughout Western Europe, although Thomism was also strong in Germany. Luther criticized Aristotle primarily for his influence among Scholastic theologians, especially Thomas, and Thomas in turn was blamed for his influence on subsequent Scholastic theologians.26 Less frequently, Luther blamed both Aristotle and Thomas for Scholastics’ misguided attempts to understand God and for their emphasis on humans’ ability to achieve righteousness through works. In almost all cases, Luther paints Scholasticism with a broad brush, often criticizing all Scholastics for views held only by some schools within Scholasticism. The various schools did, however, agree on Aristotle’s centrality to the theology curriculum, and it was the first aspect of Scholasticism that Luther and several of his colleagues addressed. In his eyes, the many courses on Aristotle crowded out more salutary offerings, especially the Bible and the thought of Augustine and other church fathers. He had plenty of company in his opposition to Aristotle, especially at the University of Wittenberg. When Elector Frederick founded the university in 1502, he was dedicated to making it a leading university, and the scholarly winds of change were shifting at that time. Although humanism and Scholasticism had coexisted fairly peacefully at most universities, humanism was on the upswing in Germany in the early sixteenth century.27 Frederick’s chancellor and liaison to the university, Georg Spalatin, was a dedicated humanist.28 In 1507, the Nuremberg jurist Christoph Scheurl became rector, and among his reforms was an increased presence of humanist professors and lecturers.29 Over the next fifteen years, reforms proceeded by continually adding humanist offerings and deemphasizing Aristotle. After Luther arrived on the Wittenberg faculty, the humanist inclination grew, and by May 1517 Luther could write to Johann Lang in Erfurt and say, “Our theology and St. Augustine are progressing well, and with God’s help rule at our university. Aristotle is gradually falling from his throne, and his final doom is only a matter of time.”30 An official reform of the university curriculum began in 1516 with a review headed by Spalatin, and new measures were implemented in 1518. 26. Janz, Luther and Late Medieval Thomism, and idem, Luther on Thomas Aquinas: The Angelic Doctor. 27. Overfield, Humanism and Scholasticism in Late Medieval Germany. 28. Rosin, “Reformation, Humanism and Education,” 308–­9. 29. Hendrix, Martin Luther, 43; Rosin, “Reformation, Humanism and Education,” 307. 30. WA Br 1:99; LW 48:42.

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In this reform, newly translated textbooks were to be used for courses in Aristotle’s thought so as to mitigate the Scholastic influence in transmitting Aristotle. A course on Quintilian, a humanist rhetorician, was also added, and Pliny’s natural history was offered as an alternate to Aristotle’s. In addition, chairs were established in Greek and Hebrew, and thus courses in these biblical languages. Additional reforms were enacted in 1519 and 1521 that further increased study in humanist subjects. Luther’s two disputations against Scholasticism must be seen in light of this movement in Wittenberg. Yet the disputation in September 1516, “On Humanity’s Powers and Will Apart from Grace,” also show that the anti-­Scholastic movement had opposition in Wittenberg. The theses were written by Luther’s student, Bartholomäus Bernhardi, in order to become a sententiarius. Bernhardi proposed the topic, saying that he wanted to clarify Luther’s views in order to silence the discussion among students and faculty that was based on hearsay.31 As such, Bernhardi replicated the main points made in Luther’s Romans lectures, and Luther presided over the disputation. The theses treated one of Luther’s main sources of contention with Scholastics, especially Occamists: human abilities apart from grace. Citing Augustine’s anti-­Pelagian writings, these theses argued forcefully that Christians cannot keep God’s commandments without grace, nor can they prepare for grace or turn toward grace. Bernhardi and Luther directly confronted the Occamist conviction that God rewards those who “do what is within them” (facere quod in se est): “When a man does what is within him, he sins, for by himself he can neither will nor consider [doing the good].”32 The powerlessness of the human will has other practical consequences as well. The last corollary contends that those who believe in Christ’s power will not need the help of the saints,33 and the conclusion emphasizes the primacy of the grace given in baptism, which enables truly good works.34 The reaction among Luther’s colleagues was mixed. His former teachers in Erfurt were indignant that he had criticized what they taught him, and Luther was never able to win them over. His subsequent entreaties to Erfurt faculty explained that he thought Aristotle was the root of all problems in 31. Brecht, Martin Luther, 1:166. 32. “Homo, quando facit quod in se est, peccat, cum nec velle aut cogitare ex seipso posit.” WA 1:148.14–­15. 33. WA 1:150.4–­5. 34. WA 1:151.1–­15.

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sixteenth-­century theology and that his thought should be abandoned. The disputation’s reception among Scholastics on the Wittenberg faculty was initially negative, but with further conversation, Luther was able to win over at least some of them. Nicholas von Amsdorf and Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt both became convinced of Luther’s criticisms of Aristotle and esteem for Augustine within a year of the Bernhardi disputation. In April of 1517, Karlstadt prepared 151 theses against Scholasticism, especially the idea that humans can merit grace.35 In September 1517, Luther was again involved in a disputation, this time authoring theses prepared for a Wittenberg student receiving the degree of bachelor of Bible. These ninety-­seven theses took direct aim at Scholasticism, beginning with their title: “Disputation Against Scholastic Theology.” Luther mentioned Duns Scotus, Gabriel Biel, “the philosophers,” Pierre d’Ailly, Aristotle, and William of Ockham by name as his opponents. Like Bernhardi’s theses from 1516, Luther focused on his disagreement with Scholastics’ understandings of the will and grace. He emphatically denounced the freedom of the will, declaring instead, “Without the grace of God, the will produces an act that is perverse and evil.”36 Luther was no less blunt regarding the view, held by some Scholastics, that grace can be preceded by good works: “On the part of man, nothing precedes grace except indisposition and even rebellion against grace.”37 Again and again, Luther rejected any suggestion that the human will apart from grace can choose to do good, love God, prepare for grace, or merit God’s favor or election. Luther then condemned the reign of Aristotle in theology. He contradicted the dictum that one could not become a theologian without Aristotle and instead maintained that one could not become a theologian with Aristotle.38 Luther insisted that Aristotelian ethics oppose grace, and he criticized the Aristotelian method because he found its syllogisms and logic incompatible with theology. He did not expound fully on why this was so, but simply condemned the attempt to define and demarcate the divine as an overreaching of logic.39 After this wholesale denunciation of Aristotle, Luther turned his attention to the function of the law. Theses 57 to 97 all focus on the rela35. Brecht, Martin Luther, 1:167–­71. 36. WA 1:224.19; LW 31:9. 37. WA 1:225.29–­30; LW 31:11. 38. WA 1:226.14–­16; LW 31:12. 39. WA 1:226.19–­21; LW 31:12.

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tionship between the law and grace, where Luther repeatedly asserted that no work is good apart from grace. In fact, the law only makes sin grow because it irritates the will, which wants to be free of the law and follows it only out of fear or self-­interest. Luther contradicted Biel by arguing that grace is not given to encourage good works but rather to make any work good and to turn the will to true love of God.40 This is the spiritual fulfillment of the law, which is possible only by grace. Luther’s direct attack on the Scholastic theologians who were most influential in his time was an attempt to change the starting point for theology, at least at Wittenberg and Erfurt, where Luther had some influence. Both major issues confronted in the “Disputation Against Scholastic Theology,” the powers of the will apart from grace and the role of Aristotle in theology, were practical issues. Luther’s concrete recommendations were, first, to replace Aristotle with Augustine, other church fathers, and the Bible in theological studies and debates; and secondly, to teach an Augustinian view of the will’s impotence to students and laypeople. These are not arguments about Scholastic method only, but also and especially about the effects of its method and conclusions on the life of faith. Even the one section of the 1517 disputation that does focus on Scholastic method criticizes it as incompatible with theology because of its overdependence on logic, another practical concern. Luther was arguing about the effects of theology in Christian life, especially that humans understand their utter dependence on God’s grace. Sin, the will, the law, and grace concerned Luther precisely because they lay at the heart of Christian faith and life.

The Practice of Indulgences Luther’s most famous theses were, of course, the theses against indulgences, commonly known as the Ninety-­Five Theses. This set of theses was the tinder that ignited the flames of controversy, but that outcome is ironic in many respects. First of all, as we have seen in his devotional and academic works, the practice of indulgences was just one of several ways in which Luther was pushing for change at this time. Luther discussed indulgences in many other sources from around this time as well, and it is not clear that

40. WA 1:227.6–­228.23; LW 31:13–­15.

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Luther was convinced of everything he wrote in the theses.41 Secondly, several later comments by Luther indicate that he did not intend for this to be a public issue. Nonetheless, it was the issue that made Luther into a controversial public figure and set him on the path to further protests. In order to understand Luther’s misgivings about indulgences and how those misgivings relate to his other concerns at this time, we must first survey the history and theology of this practice. Indulgences began as part of a wide array of spiritual benefits granted by the pope or other clerics. By the Reformation, the term “indulgence” most often referred to the church’s reduction of punishments for sin that had been assigned by a confessor.42 This form of indulgence was embedded in the late medieval sacrament of penance, which required four things: the penitent’s contrition for sins, a valid confession of those sins, sacramental absolution by the confessor, and works of satisfaction done by the penitent. In Scholastic theology of penance, the various schools and theologians agreed that the priest’s absolution relieved the guilt (culpa) incurred with sin, and the works of satisfaction relieved the temporal penalty (poena) owed for sin. Over time, the idea emerged that any penalty not satisfied during one’s lifetime would be transferred to a particular time of suffering in purgatory. Penitential books, first seen in the early Middle Ages, specified the penitential act (normally fasting, prayer, or giving alms) and the length of penance to match the severity of each sin.43 Indulgences were used as a pastoral tool to alleviate lengthy punishments that might otherwise lead penitents to despair. In the mid-­eleventh century, indulgences were understood as a way of recognizing dangerous or arduous works of piety such as going on a pilgrimage or participating in a crusade.44 When Christians took on such a worthy and difficult endeavor, indulgences were sometimes

41. The extent to which Luther believed what he wrote in the Ninety-­Five Theses is debated. Jared Wicks thinks that Luther’s true beliefs are better represented by the more moderate Treatise on Indulgences from about the same time (Wicks, Luther’s Reform, 92–­94). David Bagchi argues that the measured tone of the Treatise on Indulgences should not occlude Luther’s negative evaluation of indulgences in that treatise. Bagchi sees more parallels between the Ninety-­Five Theses and the Treatise on Indulgences than does Wicks. Bagchi, “Luther’s Ninety-­Five Theses and the Contemporary Criticism of Indulgences,” 340–­41. 42. Swanson, Indulgences in Late Medieval England, 8–­10. 43. McNeill and Gamer, Medieval Handbooks of Penance. 44. Shaffern, “Medieval Theology of Indulgences,” 12–­14; Housley, “Indulgences for Crusading, 1417–­1517,” 276–­307; and Webb, “Pardons and Pilgrims,” 241–­75.

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granted to release them from the works of satisfaction assigned by the priest after confession. In these cases, indulgences did not relax penalties as much as substitute one Christian work for another. As the practice grew, indulgences were offered for a wider variety of works, most of them less grueling than a pilgrimage or crusade. These included attending sermons or masses, attending the consecration of a church, participating in processions, and offering prayers, especially prayers said in a certain place or while contemplating a particular image. When such works were rewarded with an indulgence, the work performed was generally less arduous than the penalty assigned after a confession, and thus offered genuine indulgence, or leniency, to the penitent. By the thirteenth century, the good works that would merit indulgences expanded to include donations of money to specific causes that would benefit Christendom. The most common projects for these donations were building new churches or funding a crusade, but indulgences were also offered to fund roads and bridges on the argument that this, too, was a benefit to Christendom, particularly travelers and pilgrims.45 Over the course of the fourteenth century, the number of indulgences and the promised benefits of those indulgences increased exponentially, making them difficult to monitor during a time when the papacy was not inclined toward strict oversight. Throughout the Middle Ages, the practice of indulgences developed in response to popular demand, and the theological debates that clarified their workings trailed behind their development in practice.46 Over the twelfth through fourteenth centuries, Scholastic theologians came to agree that the church’s ability to offer indulgences was based on its possession of a “treasury of merits.”47 This teaching said that Christ and the saints had more good works than they needed to merit their own salvation, so their excess merits were available for all Christians to use. Both Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventure upheld this argument by appealing to the long-­ held image of the church as a mystical body of members, living and dead, who bear one another’s burdens.48 The Scholastics agreed that the church had the authority to mediate these merits because of the authority Jesus 45. Swanson, Indulgences in Late Medieval England, 46–­75; Shaffern, “Medieval Theology of Indulgences,” 16–­19. 46. Shaffern, “Medieval Theology of Indulgences,” 11–­36. 47. Peter, “The Church’s Treasures (Thesauri ecclesiae) Then and Now,” 251–­72. 48. Shaffern, “Medieval Theology of Indulgences,” 19–­21.

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granted to Peter in Mark 16:18–­19 to bind and loose sins, though the precise nature of that authority remained a matter of debate. By a host of converging factors, indulgences induced debate among clergy, academics, and laypeople. Medievalist R. N. Swanson concludes that most of the debate was among academics and that this debate was possible because indulgences were not a core item of faith; thus, it could be debated without fear of committing heresy. Swanson also notes that the significant historical changes in the practice of indulgences made their theological foundations appear weaker, as did their close relationship with purgatory, another debated notion. Furthermore, the dependence of indulgences on the treasury of merits extended their vulnerability into the realms of both church authority and questions about God’s justice and mercy. While Swanson maintains that there was less debate over indulgences than one might expect, he also notes that indulgences were susceptible to questioning.49 However carefully the church had considered the validity of indulgences, it remained a practice fraught with ambiguity and ripe for abuse. Theologians had taken pains to explain that contrition and confession were necessary for an indulgence to be valid, but the expanding use of plenary indulgences, which forgave all sin instead of specific sins, seemed to negate that requirement. In a similar vein, the use of indulgences to reward monetary contributions was easily misunderstood to mean that forgiveness could be bought, and that contrition and confession were not necessary. Naturally, the potential of receiving extra funds via indulgences could lead to abuse on the part of church officials. The extension of indulgences to souls in purgatory, begun in the fourteenth century, likewise contained the potential for misunderstanding and abuse. Theologians debated the exact jurisdiction of the church in purgatory, while others suspected that this was merely a means to expand the market for indulgences.50 Meanwhile, some indulgence distributors crossed the line into clear abuse: they exaggerated the benefits of their indulgence, sold unauthorized indulgences, overcharged for indulgences, or employed questionable tactics to induce laypeople to obtain indulgences. This type of abuse may well have been the exception rather than the rule, and in at

49. Swanson, Indulgences in Late Medieval England, 278–­348. 50. Shaffern, “Medieval Theology of Indulgences,” 33–­36.

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least some instances the church attempted to discipline those involved.51 But flagrant abuse of this sort likely left its stain on the reputation of indulgences as a whole.

Luther’s Earliest Comments on Indulgences While debate on indulgences was not widespread, Luther was hardly the first theologian to raise substantial issues. Both Jan Hus and John Wycliffe had opposed the use of indulgences; Wycliffe made particularly strong claims against the pope’s authority over indulgences, to the point of denying the pope’s authority over purgatory.52 Even Cardinal Cajetan, who in 1518 would interview Luther on behalf of the papacy, issued a treatise that criticized indulgences, and many of his criticisms were similar to Luther’s.53 Luther’s doubts about the use of indulgences arose initially as he witnessed their use in Wittenberg for the dedication anniversaries of churches there. Most of these indulgences offered one hundred to two hundred days off from time owed in purgatory. Additional indulgences were available in Wittenberg twice a year, when Elector Frederick displayed his impressive collection of relics, a collection that ostensibly offered 1,900,000 years off of time in purgatory.54 Luther also likely heard about indulgences offered in other territories early in his career through his contact with other Observant Augustinian orders, especially as provincial vicar. Before the Ninety-­Five Theses, Luther mentioned indulgences occasionally in his sermons and academic lectures, always in a negative light. All of his statements on indulgences before the Ninety-­Five Theses focused on the effects of indulgences on Christians’ faith and the church’s ministry. The first extant criticism of indulgences by Luther is found in 1514 in his first lecture on the Psalms. There he registered the concern that indulgences imparted grace too easily, namely, without true contrition, and thereby gave the impression that Christian life was easy. Luther was also

51. Swanson, Indulgences in Late Medieval England, 179–­223. 52. Swanson, Indulgences in Late Medieval England, 295–­301; and Hudson, “Dangerous Fictions,” 197–­214. 53. Bagchi, “Luther’s Ninety-­Five Theses and the Contemporary Criticism of Indulgences,” 346–­51. Cajetan issued this treatise in December 1517, but there is no evidence that he had seen Luther’s theses or other writings on indulgences at this time. In fact, by his meeting with Luther in 1518, he had changed his mind on several of these points. 54. Brecht, Martin Luther, 1:117.

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concerned that too many indulgences were being granted, and that therefore the treasury of merits was being depleted. While he conceded that the treasury is technically inexhaustible, he maintained that Christians must contribute to the treasury and share in the sufferings of the church as well as its merits.55 The next surviving comment on indulgences did not come until the summer of 1516, but it contained significant criticisms, and after this time comments on indulgences became more frequent in his works. There is a clear historical reason for this. In 1515, the St. Peter’s Indulgence was first offered in German lands, and the newly commissioned archbishop of Mainz and Magdeburg, Albrecht, was to promote it in his archbishopric. Luther heard about these efforts to promote the indulgence only by word of mouth because his prince, Elector Frederick, did not allow the St. Peter’s Indulgence to be sold in Wittenberg for fear of competition with his own indulgences. Luther’s comments in his lectures on Romans beginning in 1516 show his increasing apprehension about indulgences in many and varied critical references to them. His conviction on the depth of original sin led him to emphasize that humans are always in need of forgiveness, even after baptism or an indulgence. In the context of commenting on Romans 10:10, he worried that indulgences give the impression that righteousness comes through works or wisdom, which Romans had convinced him was not the case. He also lamented the false security he felt indulgences gave believers, saying that a more honest account of sinners’ debts would better instruct those sinners in the gospel and true worship.56 One reference to the indulgence trade includes the charge that the pope and pontiffs are corrupt; Luther complained bitterly that the pope and the pontiffs used the proceeds from indulgences toward building new churches and holding more masses. Meanwhile church officials ignored the less glamorous work of charity toward others and failed to instruct the people in what they must know, thereby “misleading Christ’s people from the true worship of God.”57 July 1516 marked Luther’s first extant comment on indulgences in a 55. WA 3:424.17–­425.6; LW 10:361–­66. Cf. Brecht, Martin Luther, 1:185; and Bagchi, “Luther’s Ninety-­Five Theses and the Contemporary Criticism of Indulgences,” 332–­33. 56. WA 56:418.22–­27; LW 25:410. 57. WA 56:417.31–­32; LW 25:409. Cf. Bagchi, “Luther’s Ninety-­Five Theses and the Contemporary Criticism of Indulgences,” 333–­34.

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sermon, though this censure of the practice was fairly mild. Here, he condemned only the proliferation of indulgences for church dedication festivals and the practice of collecting indulgence contributions for building churches or caring for the poor, then using it to another purpose.58 In early 1517, the indulgence preacher Johann Tetzel began selling indulgences near Wittenberg, and the urgency this created for Luther is seen in his increasing references to them. A January 1517 sermon denounced preaching on legends and indulgences instead of preaching on the gospel.59 In another sermon just six weeks later, Luther lamented that many Christians buy indulgences merely to avoid punishment, with no intention to avoid sin. By contrast, Christians should hate sin, welcome due punishment, and freely take up the cross of suffering. Indulgences offer false security; by instead recognizing sin and accepting punishment, believers will find true comfort in the truth of their sin and in their humility before God.60 In this February sermon, he appealed directly to believers, saying that indulgences keep them from realizing sin and their need for Christ. Luther did mention briefly in this sermon that he would allow indulgences for the “weak in faith,” so that they are not offended, but he would encourage even the weak to move away from the use of indulgences.61 Luther’s longest sermon on indulgences is often dated to early March 1517, just days after the previous sermon, although it cannot be dated definitively.62 Luther claimed he had been asked to say more about indulgences since they were being sold near Wittenberg now. Instead of focusing on indulgences, however, he focused on proper repentance and defined it in such a way that indulgences simply could not facilitate true repentance.63 In this sermon, he again stressed the misguided motivation to

58. WA 1:42.1–­10, 30–­34. Cf. Brecht, Martin Luther, 1:185; and Bagchi, “Luther’s Ninety-­ Five Theses and the Contemporary Criticism of Indulgences,” 334. 59. WA 1:509.35–­510.8. Cf. Brecht, Martin Luther, 1:185; and Bagchi, “Luther’s Ninety-­ Five Theses and the Contemporary Criticism of Indulgences,” 334. 60. This concern about false security echoes a theme Luther highlighted in the Lectures on Romans in 1516 when he claimed that an honest account of sin instructs believers in the gospel better than indulgences do. 61. WA 1:141.7–­37. Cf. Brecht, Martin Luther, 1:186; and Bagchi, “Luther’s Ninety-­Five Theses and the Contemporary Criticism of Indulgences,” 334–­35. 62. For more on the debate about dating this sermon, see the WA introduction (WA 1:94n1); Brecht, Martin Luther, 1:186; and Paulus, “Die Entstehungsjahr von Luthers Sermo de indulgentiis pridie dedicationis,” 630–­33. 63. Bagchi, “Luther’s Ninety-­Five Theses and the Contemporary Criticism of Indulgences,” 336.

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avoid punishment via indulgences and the entitlement with which some people approached indulgences.64 Luther was careful to say that the pope’s intentions in supporting indulgences were good, and that the words of the indulgence preachers may be true, yet their words are either misstated or misunderstood.65 This concession did not keep him from opposing indulgences, although he did so in a roundabout fashion. The biblical text of the sermon was the story of Zacchaeus, and Luther emphasized that this biblical figure did not expect Christ to come to him because he recognized his sin. Zacchaeus’s true, inner repentance was the model for Christians and the heart of the sacrament of penance. In fact, in this sermon Luther set aside the standard late medieval division of penance into three parts (contrition, confession, and satisfaction), and instead endorsed an Augustinian understanding of sacraments as two parts: sign and substance. In this Augustinian formulation, genuine inner contrition was the substance of the sacrament and exterior penitence was the sign. Luther even voiced a doubt here about the biblical basis for private confession, although he claimed he was content to leave that question to the jurists. His focus was squarely on penitence, which he said, “lasts a Christian’s entire life.”66 Here Luther showed the influence of Erasmus’s Greek New Testament and corrections of the Latin Vulgate, which were published in 1516. Erasmus had reinterpreted Matthew 4:17, which in the Vulgate could be translated as “Do penance.” This verse was normally interpreted to mean performing the sacrament of penance. Erasmus claimed that the Greek word metanoia is better translated as regret, and that the verse from Matthew should be read to endorse an internalized and continuous feeling of repentance. The role for indulgences in this schema, then, was extremely limited. Luther went far beyond the high medieval teaching that indulgences require true contrition. By contrast, he asserted that truly contrite Christians would not seek an indulgence at all, but instead penance and punishment because they understood the magnitude of their sin. In this 1517 sermon, he claimed that by confessing to God and hating their sin, sinners put themselves to death, punish themselves inwardly, and “in this way

64. WA 1:99.20–­24. 65. WA 1:98.19–­22. 66. WA 1:98.34.

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[make] satisfaction to God.”67 He concluded the sermon by saying that the indulgence preachers preyed on Christians’ laziness and fear to engender false repentance, which ultimately made Christians hate God’s righteousness and love sin. Thus, indulgences are dangerous and work against genuine repentance.68

The Treatise on Indulgences Luther offered one more treatment of indulgences and repentance before the Ninety-­Five Theses, a treatise written sometime between March and October 1517. It was entitled simply Treatise on Indulgences, and it lays out his concerns about indulgences systematically and carefully. For centuries this work was thought to be a sermon preached in mid-­1516.69 In 1907, however, it was found among the original papers sent by Luther to Archbishop Albrecht. Scholars soon concluded that Luther had sent it, along with the Ninety-­Five Theses and a cover letter, to Albrecht on 31 October 1517.70 There is no indication of the occasion or motivation of this writing. Jared Wicks hypothesizes that Luther wrote this in preparation for the disputation on indulgences that he proposed, but this is not verifiable.71 The Treatise on Indulgences was cautiously argued and moderate in tone, yet it contains several arguments about indulgences that appeared for the first time in Luther’s writings, particularly arguments about papal authority over the practice. Before examining that novelty, however, it is important to emphasize that Luther’s oldest and most enduring argument against indulgences appeared here, too, and in full force. A main

67. WA 1:99.5. 68. WA 1:99.20–­24. 69. The WA also lists it as a sermon from this time; WA 1:65–­69. 70. Herrmann, “Luthers Tractatus de indulgentis,” 370–­73. Herrmann found a sermon previously dated to July 1516 in a Mainz archive with the correspondence between Albrecht and Mainz University faculty from December 1517, which also included the Ninety-­Five Theses. It was entitled, Tractatus de indulgentiis per Doctorem Martinum ordinis s. Augustini Wittenbergae editus. A revised version of the treatise based on this text is in WA Br 12:5–­9. Herrmann’s discovery confirmed doubts raised earlier by Theodor Brieger (Brieger, “Kritische Erörterungen,” 116). In 1890, Theodor Brieger argued that Albrecht was imprecise about what was enclosed with his letter; Albrecht used different terminology for the accompanying writings at different points in the letter. This led Brieger to conclude that Albrecht could be referring to any of Luther’s works that were in print by December 1517, not the Sermon von Ablaß und Gnade, as had been assumed. 71. Wicks, Luther’s Reform, 95–­96.

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theme of the treatise is the contention that indulgences do not foster true repentance. As in earlier writings, he feared that indulgences create only insincere repentance, aroused merely to avoid punishment. Because repentance was key to both the sacrament of penance and a proper relationship with God, indulgences were unhelpful (since they did not produce true repentance) and possibly even dangerous (because they might engender false repentance).72 In earlier sermons and lectures, Luther had often continued this line of thought by encouraging Christians to embrace punishment and hate sin. In the Treatise on Indulgences, however, Luther took the question of repentance in another direction, arguing that genuine repentance is needed to lessen the powers of concupiscence and promote love of God. These changes in will and affection are required before one can be saved, which led Luther to conclude that indulgences cannot affect salvation, much less grant the instant salvation that some indulgence seekers hoped to receive. In fact, indulgences could even imperil salvation by making people think that their salvation is certain, which might encourage them to sin because they think their sin does not matter. And when Christians give in to sin, their sin stokes the tinder of concupiscence, leaving them much further from salvation than before they received the indulgence.73 Luther clarified that indulgences remove the need for works of satisfaction, but the grace they offer is only the grace of remission. They do not confer the grace that makes people righteous, infused grace, and that makes them able to enter the kingdom of God. Only through this infused grace can believers work against the forces of concupiscence.74 Attempting to use indulgences to counteract concupiscence is “like people cutting off rivulets flowing from a stream or the leaves from a tree, but who leave intact the stream and root.”75 At this point in his life, Luther saw the process of salvation in austerely mystical terms: “This process [of rooting out concupiscence] is complete when a person is so filled with disgust for this life that he sighs longingly for God and finally breaks free from the body out of desire for God.”76 72. WA Br 12:6.44–­7.63; Wicks, Luther’s Reform, 103–­4. 73. WA Br 12:5.12–­17; Wicks, Luther’s Reform, 97. 74. WA Br 12:5.19–­6.42; Wicks, Luther’s Reform, 100. Wicks notes that this emphasis on healing concupiscence parallels Luther’s emphasis in the Romans lectures. 75. WA Br 12:7.79–­80; Wicks, Luther’s Reform, 105–­6. 76. WA Br 12:6.38–­39; Wicks, Luther’s Reform, 100.

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The need for moral growth through infused grace led Luther to a discussion of the pope’s capabilities and limitations regarding indulgences. He affirmed the late medieval consensus that the pope is charged with dispensing the treasury of merit, but he added a significant limitation: the pope is able to do this for the living through the church’s power of the keys, but he cannot do this for the dead because purgatory is out of the pope’s jurisdiction. This did not mean that Luther thought the pope had no role in aiding souls in purgatory, but he limited that role to per modum suffragii, that is, by intercession.77 The prayers of the pope and the church might not only convince God to lift the penalty of sin, but also to give true contrition and greater love of God to those in purgatory so that they could progress on to salvation.78 This belief that souls in purgatory might be purified of sin and also grow in grace was new to Luther in this work. It also led to a curious conclusion: indulgences can benefit the dead more than the living because the dead are unable to grow in grace through any other means. For the living, however, Luther still saw little use for indulgences.79 To be sure, the Treatise on Indulgences begins with high praise for indulgences, which are “the very merits of Christ and of his saints and so should be treated with all reverence.”80 But what followed that praise is a vehement condemnation of how they have been used; they were not only dangerous to souls but had also become “a shocking exercise in greed.”81 Luther’s earlier works had criticized church officials for misappropriating funds and applying indulgence income only to church buildings and masses instead of charity toward others. These were relatively minor critiques. But in the Treatise, Luther suggested that the indulgence trade had become merely an opportunity for the church to line its pockets under the thin veneer of aiding Christians in their salvation. In the pointed opening paragraph, Luther asked, “Who in fact seeks the salvation of souls through indulgences, and not instead money for his coffers?”82 He complained that no one instructed Christians on what indulgences did and 77. Luther’s interpretation of per modum suffragii contradicted the understanding of most late medieval theologians, who understood it to be a vicarious satisfaction from the church to souls in purgatory. Only Bonaventure understood this term to mean intercession, as Luther does. Cf. Paulus, Geschichte des Ablasses im Mittelalter, 2:172–­75. 78. WA Br 12:7.82–­85; Wicks, Luther’s Reform, 106. 79. WA Br 12:8.127–­28; Wicks, Luther’s Reform, 111–­12. 80. WA Br 12:5.3–­4; Wicks, Luther’s Reform, 97. 81. WA Br 12:5.4–­5; Wicks, Luther’s Reform, 97. 82. WA Br 12:5.5–­6; Wicks, Luther’s Reform, 97.

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how they fit into Christian life, but instead, “all you hear is how much one must contribute.”83 The Treatise on Indulgences had a more moderate tone than the Ninety-­ Five Theses, particularly in Luther’s admission in the Treatise that some matters are unclear. He introduced several aspects of the pope’s powers of intercession for those in purgatory to grow in grace with the phrase, “Could it be that . . .” He also asserted that no one could know whether souls in purgatory are actually freed.84 After cautiously stating that the pope’s intercession will be heard because Christ told his disciples that their prayers would be answered, Luther concluded, “Since this is the case, the granting of and gaining of indulgences is a most useful practice, in spite of the commerce and avarice which we fear is involved with them.”85 This tentative endorsement of indulgences and the measured tone of the Treatise have led some scholars to conclude that Luther’s actual opinion on indulgences was not as harsh as it seems in the Ninety-­Five Theses.86 But as David Bagchi observes, the Treatise still presented no integral role for indulgences in Christian life, and Luther was critical of several significant aspects of the practice. Further, the limits Luther placed on the pope’s power over indulgences are considerable.87

The Ninety-­Five Theses and the Letter to Archbishop Albrecht As we have seen thus far, the practice of indulgences was a recurring concern for Luther long before the Ninety-­Five Theses. Furthermore, the Ninety-­Five Theses reiterated many of the practical themes from Luther’s comments on indulgences between 1514 and October 1517. From the first thesis (“When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent,’ he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance”), it is clear that his main concern was the one that he raised several times since 1514: the need for true repentance or contrition.88 Throughout the theses, Luther stressed the 83. WA Br 12:5.10; Wicks, Luther’s Reform, 97. 84. WA Br 12:7.74–­95; Wicks, Luther’s Reform, 105–­6. 85. WA Br 12:8.141–­42; Wicks, Luther’s Reform, 113. 86. Especially Wicks, Luther’s Reform, 93–­95, 114–­15. 87. Bagchi, “Luther’s Ninety-­Five Theses and the Contemporary Criticism of Indulgences,” 340–­41. 88. WA 1:233.10–­11; LW 31:25. See also Leppin, “­‘Omnem vitam fidelium penitentiam

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difficulty of such repentance and the inherent uncertainty as to whether it is genuine.89 As in earlier sermons and lectures, he juxtaposed indulgences and repentance, saying that repentance sought just punishment where indulgences attempted to escape such punishment. Luther ended the Ninety-­Five Theses as he began, warning against the “false security” of indulgences and instead urging Christians to be “confident of entering heaven through many tribulations.”90 Other practical concerns from earlier lectures and sermons appeared in the Ninety-­Five Theses, but with greater emphasis than they previously had. When in January of 1517 Luther had complained that preachers spoke more of indulgences than of the gospel, in the Ninety-­Five Theses he contrasted indulgences and the gospel repeatedly, making clear that indulgences were opposed to the gospel. In the Romans lectures of 1516, he had reproached church officials who channeled money from indulgences to new churches and masses but neglected acts of charity toward the needy. In the Ninety-­Five Theses, his censure grew to include all Christians who spent money on indulgences but gave no money toward charity. By the Ninety-­Five Theses, Luther objected to the way that indulgences not only eliminated punishment but also reduced Christians’ works of mercy, which he now judged to be better than indulgences. The Ninety-­Five Theses contrasted with earlier statements by Luther in some important ways as well, and it was those new, pointed statements that led to the ecclesial conflict. Most significantly, Luther dedicated a significant number of theses to the question of the pope’s power and its limits. He proposed that the pope had jurisdiction only over the penalties imposed by the church, not over the guilt of sin, which could be forgiven only by God. Furthermore, Luther asserted that the absolution the pope bestows for such guilt is God’s forgiveness, which the pope declares but cannot regulate. Although he added that God forgives only via the sacrament of penance, these were significant criticisms. If the dethroning of the pope as the gatekeeper of God’s mercy was not clear before, it was now; the Ninety-­Five Theses are clear that the grace claimed in indulgences was offered free to anyone who was truly repentant.

esse voluit.’­” 89. WA 1:234.35–­36; LW 31:28. 90. WA 1:238.20–­21; LW 31:33.

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The Ninety-­Five Theses also tackled the topic of the treasury of merits upon which indulgences rested. Thesis 58 rejects the traditional idea, made dogma in Pope Clement VI’s Unigenitus, that the treasury consisted of the extra merits of Christ and the saints that could now be used toward Christians’ moral debts. After considering other definitions of the treasury that had been suggested, Luther offered a clear alternative: “The true treasure of the church is the most holy gospel of the glory and grace of God.”91 Luther also added eight “shrewd questions of the laity” to illustrate the inconsistencies inherent in the theology and preaching of indulgences.92 He emphasized the confusion those issues might cause for laypeople as well as the damage to their reverence for the pope.93 One other work gives insight into Luther’s intentions in sending his Treatise on Indulgences and the Ninety-­Five Theses to Archbishop Albrecht: the cover letter Luther sent with these documents. This letter is the clearest statement of the most prevailing concerns that moved him to submit a formal protest of indulgences. It begins and ends with the obligatory deference demanded by cultural conventions, but Luther’s warning to Albrecht is unadorned: “The souls committed to your care, excellent Father, are thus directed to death. For all these souls you have the heaviest and a constantly increasing responsibility.”94 The errors for which Luther held Albrecht responsible included the belief that those who purchased letters of indulgence would be assured of their salvation, that souls in purgatory immediately ascend to heaven when a loved one contributes money in their name, and that the grace of these indulgences is so powerful that any sin could be forgiven, even the sin of raping the Mother of God.95 Such certainty of salvation was considered spiritual pride in late medieval theology, and though Luther would later reject this idea, at this point in 1517 he was very concerned that this certainty would imperil the souls of Christians. He reminded Albrecht that salvation is a difficult, narrow road, and he added that indulgences remove only the external penalty of sin, a view at odds with fourteenth-­century papal decrees.96 91. WA 1:236.22–­23; LW 31:31. 92. WA 1:237.20–­238.8; LW 31:32–­33. 93. WA 1:237.19–­21; LW 31:32. 94. WA Br 1:111.24–­26; LW 48:46. 95. WA Br 1:111.21–­24; LW 48:46. 96. WA Br 1:111.27–­36; LW 48:46.

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Luther had other concerns about believers’ souls as well. He worried that the preaching of piety and love were overshadowed by the preaching of indulgences, even though such works “are infinitely better than indulgences.”97 Again Luther’s appeal was blunt, and again, he appealed to Albrecht’s duty as bishop: “The first and only duty of the bishops, however, is to see that the people learn the gospel and the love of Christ. For on no occasion has Christ ordered that indulgences should be preached, but he forcefully commanded the gospel to be preached.”98 Luther also had a specific request for Albrecht regarding the book that Albrecht’s court theologians had written to guide indulgence preachers, called the Summary Instruction. The Summary claimed that the St. Peter’s Indulgence granted remission of all sins without the need for contrition, and it encouraged indulgence preachers to convey that message to the people. Luther appealed to Albrecht to withdraw the Summary Instruction and to require the indulgence preachers to preach “in another way.”99

Conclusion: Interpreting the Indulgence Controversy This chronological overview of Luther’s comments on indulgences highlights his central concern for proper repentance, a concern that reached all the way back to the Psalms lectures from 1513 to 1515, increased in subsequent lectures, and merged with his disagreements with late medieval Scholasticism regarding the powers of the will. This same emphasis on the need for repentance was the key theme in both of his devotional writings from this period, which were thematically consistent despite the year that separated them. Only in the Treatise on Indulgences, the Ninety-­Five Theses, and the letter to Albrecht—­that is, all the documents Luther sent to Albrecht in October 1517—­do we see concerns about the pope’s power over purgatory, the process of salvation, and the treasury of merits. Until that point, and continuing through it, Luther was most concerned about the formation of proper faith through the recognition of sin and of the need for grace. This is not to say that Luther was not sincerely concerned about the questions of purgatory, salvation, and the church’s treasury, only that those concerns appear to be secondary to his belief that the church must nurture proper piety. 97. WA Br 1:111.37–­39; LW 48:47. 98. WA Br 1:111.39–­42; LW 48:47. 99. WA Br 1:111.47–­112.56; LW 48:47–­48.

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The relatively late development of these concerns in the larger scope of Luther’s comments on indulgences does, however, raise the question about how we should interpret Luther’s protest against indulgences. The historical events surrounding the Theses do as well. It is questionable whether they were posted on the door of the castle church in Wittenberg, as is often claimed.100 We know that Luther sent them to his archbishop, a few like-­minded friends, and probably his bishop. Based on the letter to Archbishop Albrecht, his goal was to encourage the archbishop to rein in indulgence preachers who were making extravagant claims and to challenge the theological bases of those claims. There is no evidence that a traditional academic debate on this issue happened, and there is some question about whether Luther intended to hold one in Wittenberg. In contrast to many popular images of this protest, Luther’s theses were not a call for a popular revolt against the church. If he had wanted that, he would have registered his grievances in German and publicly. Furthermore, after the theses had spread beyond his original audience, Luther was worried that they were not appropriate for lay audiences because they discussed what was debated, not what was known and edifying.101 But the theses also were not a standard call to academic debate. They were sent to those who were in the position to change this practice, and with evident conviction that the practice must be thoroughly reformed. The new questions about papal power that Luther raised in the Theses and the Treatise may have been genuine concerns for him, but it is also possible that they were aspects that he thought should be included in a general, academic debate on indulgences. Also possible, and perhaps even more likely, is that the questions he raised in the Theses were points at which he knew indulgences were theologically vulnerable, and he added them to further weaken the arguments for a practice that he thought hampered genuine faith. In other words, Luther used the theological weak points of indulgences strategically in order to weaken a practice he disliked, primarily for other reasons. Luther’s practical reasons for opposing indulgences are also present in the Ninety-­Five Theses, but their central role in Luther’s thought is seen most clearly when the Theses are

100. For a concise summary of the various arguments on whether Luther posted the theses, see Leppin and Wengert, “Sources For and Against the Posting of the Ninety-­Five Theses,” 373–­98. 101. WA Br 1:151.4–­152.24.

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set in the context of his lectures, devotional writings, and earlier comments on indulgences. In this case and in the subsequent cases examined in this book, Luther’s pastoral writings provide a new lens with which to view his academic lectures, ecclesial protest, and pastoral duties. When viewed in light of the pastoral writings, Luther’s seemingly disparate conflict with Scholasticism and his protest against indulgences are woven together by his concern about the effects of Scholastic doctrine and Christian practice on the faith of believers. In the pastoral writings, Luther focused on the need to recognize sinfulness and the need for grace. In his criticisms of Scholasticism, he focused on the way it allowed Christians to avoid the truth of their sinfulness through an optimistic understanding of the human will and a tendency toward speculative theology. In his numerous criticisms of indulgences, he most often emphasized the way they helped Christians avoid true contrition for sin by offering false security. The issue of the pope’s power is secondary to these issues, and it arises only because he was concerned about the pope’s exercise of ministry and its practical effects. Meanwhile, as Luther’s Ninety-­Five Theses spread through academic and ecclesial circles, he turned his attention during Lent 1518 to the ways that the church’s practice of penance also allowed Christians to avoid repentance and recognize their need for grace.

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Chapter Three

Reshaping Confession, Reorienting Piety: Lent 1518 From the Ninety-­Five Theses to the Heidelberg Disputation

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rior to 1518, Martin Luther had published only two pastoral writings. Beginning in 1518, his production of these works rose exponentially. In 1518, he wrote ten such works, and in 1519 he wrote thirteen more. Lent of 1518 ushered in this period of pastoral productivity, with six writings in press from late February to early April. The practice of confession dominated these writings, although several other religious practices were treated as well. Three of the works focused on preparing for confession, and another explained the indulgence controversy for the first time in German. Of the remaining two writings, one contrasted reliance on God’s grace with reliance on the saints and popular prayers, and another attempted to reorient the practice of meditating on Christ’s passion. In a traditional narrative of Luther’s early career, this period in 1518 is portrayed as a time when Luther was primarily concerned with the indulgence controversy’s ecclesial ramifications. The pastoral works that Luther wrote during this time are often passed over in accounts of the early Reformation in favor of the various responses Luther’s Ninety-­Five Theses engendered. Treatments of Luther’s early career that do take account of

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his proposals for reforming practices usually date the onset of such reforms to 1519.1 But while some individuals began responding harshly to his theses, and while church officials debated how they should respond, Luther spent much of early 1518 writing and editing pastoral treatises that covered various aspects of Christian life. Luther’s concerns in these writings often touched on the objections he raised in the Ninety-­Five Theses, but they were by no means limited to them. He expounded on several popular religious practices and produced numerous recommendations. While there is no way of knowing for certain what caused the sudden wave of pastoral writings, it is likely the church’s slow response and the urgency with which Luther regarded the situation drove him to address the public directly. For this very early period of Luther’s public career, the exact historical circumstances of each work are often difficult to ascertain because he was not yet renowned enough that his contemporaries regularly noted his activities. Yet it is generally agreed that these six works were all published between late February and early April of 1518. The first three writings (A Brief Explanation of the Ten Commandments, A Sermon on Indulgences and Grace, and Two German Lenten Sermons) were printed over the course of late February and March, while the last three (Sermon on the Worthy Preparation of the Heart, Two Sermons on the Passion of Christ, and Sermon on Penance) are thought to be a series of Holy Week sermons that were printed soon after their delivery in the first days of April 1518.2 Penitential themes were prominent for several reasons. The first, of course, was that these writings were published during the penitential season of Lent, the time of year when observant sixteenth-­century Christians were preparing for their annual Easter confession. Secondly, indulgences were part of the system of penance, so his protest against indulgences impinged on other aspects of penance. Luther’s statements on indulgences up to Lent 1518 included the way in which they unofficially sanctioned insincere contrition and took the place of works of satisfaction. During 1. Brecht (Martin Luther, 1:351–­55), for example, calls Luther’s practical proposals in 1519 his “initial new formulations of piety.” Thayer (Penitence, Preaching and the Coming of the Reformation, 152–­56) regards his Sermon on the Sacrament of Penance from October 1519 as his first major proposal on penance aside from the Ninety-­Five Theses. Rittgers (Reformation of Suffering, 113–­15) looks to Luther’s Sermon on the Contemplation of the Holy Passion of Christ from April 1519 to elucidate his early theology of the passion. 2. I am counting the Two German Lenten Sermons and Two Sermons on the Passion of Christ each as one text. Each was based on a separate sermon that Luther delivered but the two were then printed together.

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Lent of 1518, he turned his attention to the oral confession itself and to the “works of satisfaction” that penitents were assigned after making their confessions. The importance of penance in the process of salvation made it an urgent topic for lay and clergy alike. In the late medieval economy of salvation, penance played a decisive role in determining whether sins would be forgiven, and ultimately, whether they would be punished in this life, in purgatory, or in hell. The sacrament of penance was also closely related to other devotional practices of the sixteenth century, including the other six sacraments, as well as the veneration of relics, undertaking pilgrimages, prayer, devotion to saints, preparing for death, endowing masses, and building churches.3 Indeed, in the course of Luther’s pastoral writings from 1518 to 1520, he commented on all of these practices. In this broad constellation of topics, common concerns and distinct themes appear, themes that intersect and undergird his academic and ecclesial protest. In the late Middle Ages, theologians had competing theories about how exactly penance effected the forgiveness and grace it promised, and no particular opinion held the majority.4 Theologians of different schools and geographic regions presented varying accounts of the ways in which the penitent’s contrition, his or her oral confession, and the priest’s absolution brought about the sacramental grace penitents sought. Three main schools of thought existed on these issues. The first, known as the contritionists or rigorists, held that the effectiveness of the sacrament depended on the contrition and satisfaction of the penitent. If the penitent had sufficient contrition and completed the satisfaction imposed by the confessor, grace was conveyed. In this theory, the forgiveness of sin came directly from God and was merely declared by the confessor. The second school, the moderates or attritionists, taught that contrition was necessary, but it did not need to be perfect contrition, that is, contrition motivated by love of God. Instead, their emphasis was on the words of absolution, which brought about the forgiveness of the sacrament. In some cases, they believed that the penitent could have imperfect contrition, that is, contrition that was motivated by fear of punishment (called “attrition”). This attrition might then be transformed into perfect contrition by the priest’s words of absolution. The third group, the abso3. Thayer, Penitence, Preaching and the Coming of the Reformation, esp. 4–­5 and 46–­48. 4. Tentler, Sin and Confession on the Eve of the Reformation, 30–­31, 51.

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lutionists, also saw the words of absolution as the key to the sacrament, but they emphasized contrition much less than the other two groups. The absolutionists reasoned that most penitents’ contrition was imperfect, but that absolution made it acceptable to God.5 A related question was the degree of certainty penitents could have that they were forgiven. Most medieval theologians agreed that it would be presumptuous to claim complete certainty on this question, but there were degrees of differences in their approach to the issue. Contritionists especially argued that there was no way to gauge for certain since no one could be sure that his or her contrition was sufficient. Others, most notably Jean Gerson, agreed that no one could be absolutely certain, but he added that penitents could have some certainty of forgiveness if their confession was complete and if they intended to improve. This question of certainty would become one of the most important issues regarding penance and other sacraments for Luther. The issue that became most prominent in the conflict with Rome, namely, the power of the papacy, diverged from the practical emphases of Luther’s earlier works, the bulk of his Ninety-­Five Theses, and his pastoral writings. In the multistage process of the conflict, representatives of Rome and other opponents occasionally mentioned arguments about practical issues, but on the whole, these issues were a sidelight to the central issue of papal power. When theologians and church officials read the Ninety-­Five Theses, they were most alarmed by the limitations he proposed on papal power. His focus on genuine repentance and other proposals evoked much less reaction. Thus, the controversy came to focus on that issue, even while Luther continued to emphasize repentance and appropriate practices in all of his pastoral writings and in most of the polemical writings. The responses to the Ninety-­Five Theses came slowly and from several directions. When Lent began in February of 1518, Luther was still waiting for a response from Albrecht of Mainz to the cover letter, the Treatise on Indulgences, and Ninety-­Five Theses that he had sent in October 1517, in which he officially raised the question of indulgences. Albrecht, meanwhile, had forwarded the letter to the theology faculty at the University of Mainz to obtain guidance on how to respond. In mid-­December 1517, the

5. Tentler, Sin and Confession on the Eve of the Reformation,18–­27, 233–­73; Thayer, Penitence, Preaching and the Coming of the Reformation, 92–­141; and Rittgers, Reformation of the Keys, 39–­40.

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Mainz faculty sent the recommendation that Albrecht forward Luther’s theses to the pope since debating the powers of the pope was forbidden. Meanwhile, the theses had spread beyond Luther’s original audience and controversy was growing around Luther, although he was not aware of it until February 1518.6 On 20 January 1518, indulgence preacher Johann Tetzel and University of Frankfurt rector Konrad Wimpina debated 106 theses that Wimpina wrote. In these theses, the practice of indulgences was defended, the pope’s powers over indulgences were reaffirmed, repentance was delineated solely as the sacrament of penance, and Luther was judged to be thoroughly in error. The Tetzel-­W impina theses reached Wittenberg in mid-­March.7 Luther responded with a work that was both polemical and pastoral, A Sermon on Indulgences and Grace, which will be treated in more detail below. For now, it is important to note only that this sermon did not address the issue of papal power, but instead emphasized that the satisfaction for sin that indulgences replaced is not commanded in scripture, but true contrition, bearing one’s cross, and good works are commanded. Meanwhile, Ingolstadt theologian Johann Eck composed his Obelisks, in which he harshly critiqued Luther’s theses and his learning, charging him with heresy, presumptuousness, rebelliousness, and despising the pope. Luther had considered Eck a friend and was taken aback by his condemnation. His one thoroughly polemical work from Lent 1518 was a response to Eck, written on 24 March, Asterisci adversus Obeliscos Eckii. For reasons that remain unclear, he did not send this until 19 May. We do know, however, why Luther waited to publish another work from this period, the Explanations of the Ninety-­Five Theses. On 15 February, he announced his plans to publish explanations of his theses in a letter to Georg Spalatin.8 A letter from 5 March to Christoph Scheurl suggests that a version of the Explanations was finished by then, but that its publication was delayed because Luther submitted it to his bishop, Jerome

6. Brecht, Martin Luther, 1:204. 7. Brecht, Martin Luther, 1:207. This date is usually set by accounts of the burning of copies of this work by students when someone tried to sell them in Wittenberg, between 17 and 19 March. Smith speculates that Luther might have seen the theses before this event; Luther’s Correspondence and Other Contemporary Letters, 1:73. 8. “Sed plura deo volente videbis, ubi nostrarum positionum probationes edidero.” WA Br 1:146.68–­69. This sentence is often cited as proof that the explanations were already written by 15 February, but the text is not clear on this question.

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Scultetus of Brandenberg, for his approval.9 Scultetus asked Luther to refrain from publishing it,10 though he relieved Luther of this request by the end of March.11 Luther apparently submitted the work to a publisher in Wittenberg in early April, but he complained that it was full of errors.12 He submitted a corrected and expanded version of this text to a Leipzig publisher in August 1518. The major milestone of late spring 1518 was the Heidelberg Disputation, held as part of the regular meeting of the Saxon chapter of the Observant Augustinians in late April. Little is known about the proceedings there except the theses Luther wrote for disputation, which opposed Scholastic theology as a “theology of glory” that contradicted the gospel’s “theology of the cross.” Luther’s challenge to indulgences did not receive significant attention in the official proceedings, and there is no evidence to suggest that he was chosen to compose the theses because of his newfound fame.13 Yet the theses presented in the Heidelberg Disputation are consistent with his earlier criticisms that late medieval piety attempted to achieve righteousness via works. Instead of producing righteousness, Luther maintained that the law reveals sin, causes Christians to despair of their own works and abilities, and drives them to faith in God’s promises of grace. Much of this movement toward faith would come passively via suffering, which Luther encouraged Christians to embrace. Luther’s guidance on Christian practice during Lent 1518 resembled the principles presented in the Heidelberg Disputation much more than the early debates about papal authority, likely because Luther was able to choose his own theme in this disputation as well as in the pastoral works. The theses for the Heidelberg Disputation explicitly named his arguments against Scholasticism because it was an academic debate, but as with his earlier criticisms of Scholasticism, his concerns were entirely practical. The

9. WA Br 1:152.20–­23. 10. WA Br 1:162.10–­23. 11. WA Br 1:164.3–­4. The exact dating of these events is debated, but it is agreed that the bishop’s prohibition was lifted before Easter (4 April). For a discussion of these questions, see Cl 1:15–­16; Kalkhoff, “Forshungen zu Luthers römischen,” 411; and Smith, Luther’s Correspondence and Other Contemporary Letters, 1:72–­73, 87–­88. See also Brieger’s correction of the problematic WA introduction to the Resolutions; “Kritische Erörterungen,” 17, 165–­210. 12. WA Br 1:190.31–­33; WA Br 1:196.16. 13. Brecht, Martin Luther, 1:213–­18. Brecht argues that there is little evidence for earlier assumptions that the Heidelberg Disputation addressed the controversy about Luther.

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theses alluded to the ways in which Christians operating with a theology of glory could use works of piety to strive for righteousness instead of acknowledging their sin, but they did not discuss specific practices and how they should be properly done. In the Heidelberg Disputation, Luther concerned himself with how a Christian can see God and what this means for approaching Christian life. A fuller explication of what a theology of the cross means for the contours of Christian life was the subject of his six writings in the months just before the meeting in Heidelberg.

Preparing for Confession: The Centrality of the Ten Commandments Luther’s first and last published writings from Lent 1518 both focused on the issue of how to prepare to make a proper confession, and both placed the Ten Commandments at the center of this practice. His first work, A Brief Explanation of the Ten Commandments, began as a preached sermon that enumerated the prohibitions and the fulfillment of each commandment.14 Luther’s friend Kaspar Güttel, a pastor in Eisleben, reprinted the text as part of a book of his own in 1518, saying that Luther had preached the sermon in Lent of that year.15 Güttel originally called 14. WA 1:248. The Weimar edition treats both the Latin and German texts idiosyncratically. The editors attempted to reproduce a presumed original German edition by conflating Güttel’s 1518 version with a German version from 1520. More perplexing is the German title given to this work in the Weimar edition, Eine kurze Erklärung der Zehn Gebote, which comes from certain 1520 versions that were combined with instructions on the creed and the Our Father. Since Güttel called it Ein beicht tzettel and all later sixteenth-­century editions were entitled God’s Ten Commandments with a Brief Exposition of Their Fulfillment and Violation (Die zehn gebot gottes mit einer kurzen Auslegung ihrer Erfüllung und Übertretung) it is not clear why neither of those titles was used. It is also unclear why the Weimar edition chose the Latin title of Instructio pro confessione peccatorum, which was first used in 1545. The earliest extant Latin edition, from 1520, is entitled Compendiosa decem praeceptorum explanatio (WA 1:257). The complete edition of Luther’s Latin works from 1545 does state that this work was published in Latin in 1518, so it may be that the earliest Latin version was entitled Instructio pro confessione peccatorum but has been lost. 15. “Diese heiligste fasten gepredigt unn gegeben.” WA 1:247. When the text was reprinted in the 1545 edition of Luther’s works, its Latin version was also dated 1518; however, no Latin edition is known before 1520. The editors of the Weimar edition posited that Luther issued this text in German and Latin in quick succession during Lent 1518 (WA 1:257). Buchwald estimated a publication date of 21 February, four days after the start of Lent that year, but he did not indicate whether this was the German or Latin edition (Buchwald, Luther-­Kalendarium, 5). Brieger (“Kritische Erörterungen,” 11, 126–­27) proposes that Luther had written this work already in 1517 and never preached it, though he admits that his

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Luther’s sermon A Confession Broadside (Ein beicht tzettel), most likely referring to the tradition of single-­page instructional propaganda that could be hung in public spaces and easily read. A summary of Andreas de Escobar’s popular manual for confession was made into a broadside, among other genres, and was called a Beichtzettel in German lands. The heart of this sermon is the much-­debated question of what makes a confession valid. Late medieval theologians attempted to outline the many aspects of a proper confession so that penitents could receive the grace that was offered in the sacrament of penance. Although theologians often disagreed over many aspects of penance, they were uncommonly united on the importance of making a complete confession. Thomas Tentler, whose book on late medieval confession pioneered scholarship on late medieval confession, concluded that a complete confession “is the first, necessary condition [for a good confession], and it is a truly ubiquitous criterion by which the work of the penitent is judged. . . . To exaggerate the importance of completeness seems hardly possible.”16 In order to help both confessor and penitent ensure that no sin went unconfessed, late medieval sermons and manuals for confession often utilized categorized lists of sins and good works to help penitents search their souls. These lists were often long. One German manual from the beginning of the sixteenth century dedicated over two hundred pages to cataloguing potential sins.17 Most other such manuals were shorter, but nearly all contained multiple lists of sins as well as good works that the confessant may have failed to perform. In A Brief Explanation of the Ten Commandments, his first pastoral work after the Ninety-­Five Theses, Luther focused on the Ten Commandments to the exclusion of other categories of sin and virtue. This sole focus on the Ten Commandments is an implicit critique of the other, nonbiblical categories that had become popular in the late Middle Ages, such as the seven deadly sins, the seven virtues, the eight beatitudes, the seven works of mercy, and the fruits of the Holy Spirit. The Ten Commandments were usually included among the lists of sins and virtues used to prepare

proposal is also speculative; Buchwald, Luther-­Kalendarium, 140–­45. 16. Tentler, Sin and Confession on the Eve of the Reformation, 109. Tentler remains the authoritative secondary source on late medieval penance, though a recent volume edited by Firey offers helpful amendments and additions to Tentler’s work: New History of Penance. See also Thayer, Penitence, Preaching and the Coming of the Reformation, and Rittgers, Reformation of the Keys, esp. 23–­46. 17. Cited in Rittgers, Reformation of the Keys, 34.

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for confession, but they were normally one category among many. The undated Mirror for Confession (Beichtspiegel) by Johann Geiler von Kaisersberg contained twenty-­three categories of sins and virtues, with the Ten Commandments as number sixteen.18 Dietrich Coelde’s popular catechism from 1470 contained nine categories of sin aside from the Ten Commandments and three lists of virtues.19 Only a handful of late medieval authors structured their expositions on confession around the Ten Commandments.20 In 1907, Franz Falk brought to light three fifteenth-­and sixteenth-­century manuals for confession that were based on the Ten Commandments. The three manuals Falk cited were all based on the same text, but its duplication indicates a positive reception of this approach. Jean Gerson’s Opus Tripartitum from the early fifteenth century dedicated one of its three sections to the Ten Commandments, although Gerson’s second section specifically treating confession focused on the seven deadly sins.21 Johannes Wolff ’s Confession Booklet (Beichtbüchlein) from 1478 was structured around the Ten Commandments but contained frequent excurses to show how other categories of sin related to the Ten Commandments.22 An anonymous devotional work organized around the Ten Commandments, the Seelentrost, enhanced each commandment with between six and thirty-­five stories of biblical characters, saints, or classical figures.23 In Luther’s instruction for confession, this focus on the Ten Commandments is taken to a new level. His extensive lists of the violation and fulfillment of each commandment may have rivaled the exhaustiveness of earlier confessional manuals, but he gave little acknowledgment to other categories of vice and virtue. His sole mention of them was in brief references to “sins of anger” and “silent sins.” Since these references only correlated the traditional categories to specific commandments, it seems he simply wanted to use familiar terms to reinforce his own emphases.24 Luther’s clear goal in this sermon is to give priority to 18. Dacheux, Die Æltesten Schriften Geilers, 135–­58. 19. Janz, Three Reformation Catechisms, 46–­108. 20. Falk, Drei Beichtbüchlein. 21. Bast, Honor Your Fathers. 22. Falk, Drei Beichtbüchlein, 11–­12, 17–­75. 23. Seelentrost (Augsburg, 1483), Newberry Library, vault folio inc. 1687.5. 24. In fact, the Weimar edition of this work contained a brief section pointing out more of these parallels, but that section is absent from the earliest known edition of the work; Herzog August Bibliothek, 267.4 Quod (5). It is also absent in the Weimar edition’s version B;

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the Ten Commandments ahead of the other ways of cataloguing vice and virtue. In fact, Luther read the Ten Commandments as broad directives that extended far beyond their literal meaning. In A Brief Explanation of the Ten Commandments, Luther explicated both the prohibitions and the prescriptions of each commandment. This inclusion of advice on how to fulfill each commandment was not a common element of explications of the Ten Commandments, and it shows a clear attempt by Luther to promote the commandments as the measure of Christian behavior for both prohibitions and exhortations. Just as he subsumed well-­known categories of vice under the commandments, Luther also subsumed popular categories of good works or virtues under the fulfillment of the Ten Commandments. The first commandment against having other gods went far beyond shunning magic, black arts, astrology, and special blessings and curses. Instead, he insisted that one must refuse to blame evil solely on the devil and instead accept suffering as part of the Christian life, and do so with “thanks and willing resignation.”25 In addition, one should not be arrogant in one’s piety, or honor God and the saints for temporal needs while neglecting the needs of the soul.26 On the third commandment (to remember the Sabbath and keep it holy) Luther singled out gluttony, drinking, playing, dancing, idleness, unchastity, laziness, oversleeping, neglecting the church, blathering idly, and committing sinful deeds as particular violations. In addition, those who did not pray, who did not consider the sufferings of Christ, who did not regret their sins, and who only concerned themselves with temporal needs violated the commandment.27 It is noteworthy here that Luther thoroughly defined holy and unholy living but never mentioned the Sabbath itself, and mentioned worship only obliquely. Even in this early period, his emphasis was very much on life outside the church doors and honoring God in daily life. In his treatment of the remaining commandments, Luther continued to interpret them liberally. He interpreted the commandment not to kill to forbid any form of anger, revenge, disgrace, gossiping, judging, unwillingness to forgive and to pray for one’s neighbors, and refusal to offer

Herzog August Bibliothek, Li 5530 (70, 1423). 25. “Mit dancksagen und williger gelasenheit.” WA 1:252.11–­12. 26. WA 1:252.13–­15. 27. WA 1:252.25–­30.

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charity.28 Likewise, the commandment against stealing included any form of miserliness, desire for riches, and hoarding of others’ goods, including usury.29 The eighth commandment, which forbids lying against the neighbor, was expanded to include flattery, having a double tongue, creating division and conflict, and casting doubt on the good works and words of the neighbor. Additionally, Luther condemned anyone who did not oppose these “evil tongues.”30 One of his most novel treatments of the commands came in his comments on the ninth and tenth commandments, both of which forbid coveting the neighbor’s belongings. Luther excluded them from the preparation for confession, saying simply that these were goals to work toward through daily repentance and with the help and grace of God. He did not, however, expect Christians to make significant progress in these commandments, for he added, “The evil tendencies do not die before the flesh becomes dust and is made new.”31 For Luther, the last two commandments were primarily reminders of human sinfulness because they were too demanding for fallen creatures to fulfill. Other elements of Luther’s interpretation in this first pastoral work of Lent 1518 were more traditional. His censure of magic, witchcraft, and astrology in this work was very much in line with the traditional confessional manuals, which often instructed the confessor to question the penitent about the use of magic.32 Among the prohibitions Luther named were signs, herbs, spices, blessings, divining rods, crystals, stealing milk,33 arranging one’s affairs according to signs of the zodiac, and using blessings

28. WA 1:253.6–­11. 29. WA 1:253.22–­27. 30. WA 1:253.29–­33. 31.“Dan die bosze neygung stirbt nit ehr gruntlich, das fleisch werde dan tzu pulver und new geschaffen.” WA 1:254.1–­2. 32. See, for example, St. Antoninus, Confessional (Venice, 1499), fol. 47v (Newberry Library, inc. 5488); Confessionale ou Beichtspiegel nach den zehn Geboten (La Haye: Nijhoff, 1861), 4 (Newberry Library, fac. inc. 14.1); Dachaux, Die Æltesten Schriften Geilers, 146; Ozment, Reformation in the Cities, 23–­24. For more on the practice of magic, see Kieckhefer, Magic in the Middle Ages, esp. 56–­94. 33. This seems to be a reference to the belief that sorceresses often magically “stole” milk from their neighbors’ cows. The Malleus maleficarum, a fifteenth-­century treatise on identifying and interrogating witches, describes the supposed method. The sorceress allegedly inserted a knife in the wall of her home, held a bucket under the knife, invoked the devil, and pretended to milk an animal. When the sorceress told the devil which animal she was “milking,” the devil would cause milk to flow from that animal into her bucket as if it were coming from the knife in the wall. Mackay, Malleus maleficarum, 327–­28 and 142A–­142C.

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and curses to protect one’s house, family, and self.34 As in contemporary guides to confession, he considered the use of magic an offense against the first commandment because it compromised one’s trust in God. In Luther’s first instruction for confession, then, we see an amalgam of traditional and original elements. A Brief Explanation of the Ten Commandments contains no explicit criticism of late medieval practice outside of magic and witchcraft, and it shares some emphases of medieval guides to confession. Nonetheless, Luther’s orientation to the Ten Commandments as the basis for defining sin and virtue, along with his exclusion of traditional categories of sin and virtue, show his attempt to base the practice of confession on scripture. His lengthy lists of the commandments’ prohibitions and prescriptions also evince his desire that Christians would go beyond the literal interpretation of the commandments and would attempt to fulfill them in every aspect of their lives. Although an explicit critique of late medieval practice is absent in this work, it is clear that Luther thought the popular categories of sin and virtue risked a legalistic understanding of sin while the Ten Commandments demanded sincere faith.

The Goal of Confession: Faith in the Words of Absolution Luther’s strict focus on the Ten Commandments was novel, but it was hardly a thorough reform of the sacrament of penance. His first pastoral work in Lent 1518 spoke to his broader understanding of Christian life, but it proposed a reform of just one aspect of the practice of penance: the preparation for confession by recalling one’s sins. Yet just six weeks later, Luther was advocating a much more fundamental reorientation of penance that discouraged penitents from trying to confess all their sins, denied the need for both perfect contrition and satisfaction, and promoted the importance of faith in the words of absolution. During Holy Week 1518, Luther preached a series of sermons on Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday. In two of these sermons, from Maundy Thursday and Holy Saturday, Luther presented a thoroughgoing critique of the practice and theology of penance. The Maunday Thursday sermon, A Sermon on the Worthy Preparation of the 34. WA 1:252.3–­9.

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Heart for Receiving the Sacrament of the Eucharist (hereafter On the Worthy Preparation of the Heart), focused on preparing for the Eucharist based on Paul’s discussion in 1 Corinthians 11:23–­34 and the need to examine oneself before receiving the sacrament.35 Luther began his instruction in the most traditional of ways: by speaking to the confession that was to take place beforehand. His specific recommendations for performing confession, however, differed markedly from medieval tradition. Luther did not think it necessary to confess all sins, but instead only public, deadly sins.36 But Luther’s list of deadly sins did not correspond to the seven that had become customary in late medieval Europe (pride, envy, anger, avarice, sadness, gluttony, and lust). Instead, Luther named only envy, dissatisfaction, and anything that gave rise to bitterness against one’s neighbor as the worst sins because they sowed discord, which was particularly against the spirit of community at the heart of this sacrament.37 Luther then took his criticism of traditional confession one step further by stating that even confessing all deadly sins was not adequate preparation. Since everyone dislikes something about another person, he reasoned, no one can be free of deadly sin. Thus, Christians must despair of their own ability to lay aside this bitterness toward others. Instead, they must pray that God, through grace, will give what they are not able to achieve on their own, namely, “a tender and brotherly heart.”38 While Luther avoided inflammatory rhetoric when presenting this revision to traditional confession, his insistence that even a complete confession could not eradicate deadly sin was a thorough criticism of late medieval confession and its insistence that all sins be confessed. The preparation for the sacrament that Luther proposed in On the Worthy Preparation of the Heart focused on continually recognizing concupiscence rather than confessing specific sins.39 In fact, he considered the traditional requirement to confess each and every sin nothing short of dangerous. 35. Sermo de digna praeparatione cordis pro suscipiendo sacramento eucharistiae, WA 1:325–­34. Since no German version from Wittenberg has been found, it seems that this sermon was printed first in Latin, then translated to German as Ein gute trostliche predig von der wirdigen bereytung zu dem hochwirdigen Sacrament. The text is very similar in both languages, supporting the claim that they come from a single source. 36. WA 1:329.5–­8. 37. WA 1:329.9–­18. 38. “Cor dulce et commune.” WA 1:330.8; cf. WA 1:330.1–­8. 39. WA 1:330.9–­13.

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It is also a great and damaging error that a person goes to the sacrament in the belief that he has confessed and knows of no more deadly sin in him, and that he has prayed in advance and needs no other preparation. All these [people] eat and drink to their condemnation, for they do not become worthy or pure from all of this, but rather through their faith in purity they become more impure. However, they become pure through faith and by no other means.40 Furthermore, the false confidence with which Luther saw his contemporaries approaching the mass led them to judge others and thus engendered discord and divisiveness, ultimately making them unworthy of the body of Christ as Paul had warned.41 Instead of feeling secure after a complete confession, Luther cautioned that believers should be frightened if they felt their confession has made them worthy of the sacrament. Only when the need for grace was recognized was a Christian properly prepared to receive it. Faith, then, should not be defined by its strength or its virtue, but instead as the desire to obtain grace.42 It is this faith, which Luther termed “the highest and the most necessary preparation,” that makes Christians worthy to receive the sacrament.43 Luther was aware that some people may have felt uneasy with this less concrete form of preparation for the mass, and he directed much of his instruction in On the Worthy Preparation of the Heart toward those with weak consciences. To those who worried that their faith was too shaky, Luther declared, “Faith does not rely on and receive support from our works or abilities, but rather from the most pure, most kind, and most firm word of Christ.”44 Others who heeded Luther’s advice might have worried that their souls were not empty enough to approach the sacrament; for those, he recommended that they not fear but instead

40. “Magnus et perniciosus error est, si quis accedat ad sacramentum ea nixus fiducia, quod confessus sit, quod non sit sibi conscius mortalis peccati, quod orationes et preparatoria sua premiserit. Omnes hii iudicium sibi manducant et bibunt, quia hiis omnibus non fiunt digni neque puri, Immo per eam fiduciam puritatis peius polluuntur. fiunt autem puri per fidem, ut sequitur.” WA 1:330.36–­331.4. 41. WA 1:331.36–­332.15. 42. WA 1:331.5–­17. 43. “Hec itaque fides sola et summa ac proxima dispositio.” WA 1:331.11–­12. 44. “[Fides] non nititur in operibus aut viribus nostris, sed in purissimo, piisimo firmissimoque verbo Christi.” WA 1:331.12–­13.

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pray for better faith and go to the sacrament.45 For the very weak of faith, those who might avoid the sacrament out of the concern that their trust is not enough, Luther suggested that they go to the sacrament out of obedience, trusting that the faith of the whole Christian church will aid their own.46 Of all the aspects of penance that Luther mentioned in On the Worthy Preparation of the Heart, only one traditional element remained in place: Luther offered no objection to the practice of confessing before receiving the sacrament as long as the confession was adequate, though he reinterpreted adequate preparation to mean that it recognized the constant inclination to sin. In the other issues it raised, this sermon is a thorough reorientation of traditional preparation for the sacrament. Although Luther used the term “deadly sin” without direct critique, he quickly redefined it to include only sins that damaged human community. Furthermore, in the next breath, he shifted the emphasis away from naming specific sins toward recognizing the need for grace. In a sermon that was likely preached just two days later, on Holy Saturday, Luther reiterated many of the opinions he had declared on Maundy Thursday regarding what sins to confess.47 A Sermon on Penance, as his Holy Saturday sermon came to be known, claimed that perfect contrition was not only unnecessary but also impossible. Luther expounded on humans’ inability to achieve proper contrition and what this meant for the practice of penance. In the course of this discussion, Luther questioned still more elements of the penitential system of his time, including the distinction between different types of sin, the scriptural basis for satisfaction, and the priest’s inquiry into the penitent’s contrition. Luther’s purpose for writing A Sermon on Penance was clearly stated: he was bidding for support in his case against indulgences and wanted his listeners to be able to converse with those who condemned him.48 His arguments were cast in traditional terms, and he tried to present his views in the language of late medieval debates about penance. He even structured his presentation according to the three traditional parts of penance: contrition, confession, and satisfaction. 45. WA 1:331.26–­29, 34–­35. 46. WA 1:333.13–­26. 47. WA 1:317–­24. No German version of this sermon has been found, an unusual occurrence for the sermons of this time and type. 48. WA 1:319.4–­5.

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Regarding contrition, Luther argued that the practice of contemplating sins according to their gravity, penalty, foulness, number, and the damnation they deserve makes one a hypocrite because it engenders regret only through fear and the threat of penalty.49 In late medieval theology, this “imperfect contrition,” that is, regret engendered by fear of punishment instead of love of God, was called attrition. In concert with medieval consensus, Luther maintained that ideal penitence must work through the love of justice, which makes one worthy of absolution.50 He argued, however, that this ideal was impossible because no one was capable of loving justice and virtue; concupiscence made everyone wish they could sin without punishment. In fact, Luther was convinced that everyone confessed simply out of fear of hell and punishment.51 Because of this intractable problem, he suggested that penitents also confess their impenitence. In accordance with the advice of Christ, pray in secret to your father in heaven, saying without pretense, “Behold, O greatest God, you instruct penitence for me, but I am so wretched that I perceive that I am unwilling and unable.” . . . And thus with St. Augustine you should pray, “O Lord, grant that which you order, and order that which you will,” and with the church, “and bestow a penitent heart.”52 In a complicated twist to his argument, Luther maintained that confessing impenitence actually evinces sincere penitence that would be recognized by God. Then Christians could approach God confidently and believe that the recognition of sin was given so that grace might also be recognized.53 49. WA 1:319.12–­17. Tentler points out that late medieval Christians might well have experienced this practice differently from Luther’s view. The confessional practices that Luther thought would produce only fear may have actually encouraged their hope for salvation because it helped them produce the full confession the church taught was necessary (351–­52). 50. WA 1:319.30–­31. Cf. WA 1:320.26–­35. 51. WA 1:321.18–­26. Cf. WA 1:319.18–­22. 52. “Iuxta consilium Christi in abscondito ores patrem tuum in caelis, Dicens sine fictione ‘Ecce optime deus, poenitendum mihi praecipis, sed talis sum ego miser, quod sentio me nolle neque posse.’ . . . Et sic cum B. Augustino ores ‘Domine, da quod iubes, et iube quod vis,’ Et cum ecclesia ‘et cor poenitens tribue.’” WA 1:321.31–­33; 321.34–­36. Cf. WA 1:322.9–­10. 53. WA 1:321.36–­322.4.

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The question of Christians’ ability to produce acceptable contrition was among the debated issues in late medieval theology of penitence. By taking a pessimistic view of human nature, Luther tended toward the view of attritionists and absolutionists, who had argued that true contrition was difficult, but attrition could be sufficient to receive the grace of the sacrament.54 Luther’s discussion of contrition, however, also contained some unique emphases. For example, he recommended that Christians maintain an attitude of contrition constantly, not only in preparation for confession.55 He also stated that priests should not ask whether a penitent is contrite; if they do ask this, Christians should answer that they do not know but believe that they are through God’s grace.56 Still, his emphasis on the need for proper contrition for sin was within the late medieval tradition of debates on this issue. Luther’s views of confession in Holy Saturday’s Sermon on Penance stood further outside the mainstream. Because “no one is obligated to do the impossible,”57 Luther contended that Christians need not confess all mortal sins, but rather only those that were clearly mortal sins. Furthermore, Luther regarded the painstaking ways in which people tried to recount their sins—­such as using the five senses, the seven gifts, the seven sacraments, and the eight beatitudes—­as practices that “tire the priest in vain and waste time, and are a hindrance to others.”58 Luther continued this criticism of traditional practice by adding that it is often difficult to discern the difference between mortal and venial sins.59 Instead, he recommended that believers confess their pervasive sinfulness to God in addition to confessing all obvious mortal sins to the priest.60 These measures, Luther said, will keep confessants from having confidence in their confession instead of in God’s mercy.61 They would also protect believers from the devil’s accusations in the hour of death, when he will use hidden mortal sins, venial sins, and even good works to terrify the dying. In order that people not lose hope, as the devil desires, Luther recommended 54. For more on this debate, see Oberman, Harvest of Medieval Theology, 146–­59. 55. WA 1:322.12–­15. 56. WA 1:322.16–­19. 57. “Ad impossibile autem nemo obligatur.” WA 1:322.23–­24. 58. “Fatigant frustra sacerdotem perduntque tempus, ac aliis sunt impedimento.” WA 1:322.31–­32. 59. WA 1:322.34–­36. 60. WA 1:322.33–­36. 61. WA 1:323.4–­9.

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that they accustom themselves to the idea that their whole life is damnable but that they are to trust in God’s mercy and not their lives.62 Luther’s recommendation to confess impenitence directly to God and not to the priest had not been expressed before Sermon on Penance, and it may indicate skepticism about the ability of priests to understand his reinterpretation of confession or deeper concerns about the practice of penance in the church of his day. Here, however, Luther avoided a polemical discussion of church hierarchy and instead made practical suggestions for the penitent within the structures of the sixteenth-­century practice of penance. On absolution, however, Luther had much to say. The overarching concern of Sermon on Penance was to shift the focus from achieving proper contrition to having proper faith. While some medieval theologians had insisted that absolution was the essence of the sacrament, Luther felt that late medieval practice gave more attention to contrition, confession, and satisfaction than to absolution. He spent over half his discussion of penance on absolution, and he made it clear that faith in the words of Christ, delivered by the priest, was the key to the sacrament. He contrasted faith in absolution with faith in contrition in stark terms. Contrition is never truly enough by itself. Even if it should be true, still it is not certain, and if it is certain, still it is not enough. But faith and the word of Christ are most true, most certain, most sufficient.63 The words of absolution should be believed not because of one’s contrition, but rather because they are from Christ himself through the promise to Peter that whatever he forgave on earth would be forgiven in heaven.64 Faith in the words of absolution enacted the grace of the sacrament. Luther ascribed such efficacy to faith in these words that, “if [the penitent] should believe that he himself is absolved, he is most truly absolved. Such a powerful thing is faith and so powerful is the word of Christ.”65 Likewise, whoever does not believe the words of absolution will not be absolved and 62. WA 1:323.10–­18. 63. “Contritio nunquam est vera satis, quod si esset vera, non est tamen certa, et si esset certa, non tamen esset satis. Fides autem et verbum Christi sunt verissima, certissima, sufficientissima.” WA 1:324.5–­7. 64. WA 1:323.23–­26. 65. “Si tamen credat sese absolutum verissime est absolutus. Tanta res est fides et tam potens verbum Christi.” WA 1:323.33–­35.

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will be damned.66 Taking up the nominalist teaching that the sacrament is effective as long as one does not place an obstacle in front of the grace offered in it (non ponere obicem), Luther contended that Christians should not fear placing an obstacle in front of grace if they believe that faith alone justifies and that faith alone is necessary.67 By arguing that true contrition was impossible and that faith was the key to making the sacrament effective, Luther took up aspects the Scholastic debates about contrition and the role of the priest and wove them into a new system.68 His emphasis on absolution seems to align him with Duns Scotus and other absolutionists, who also doubted whether penitents could produce true contrition and thus saw absolution as the heart of the sacrament. Yet for the absolutionists, the priest’s absolution made the penitent’s imperfect contrition acceptable to God. By contrast, Luther thought that perfect contrition was not required by God, which left the priest without his power to make imperfect contrition acceptable to God. In fact, on the role of the priest in enacting forgiveness, Luther picked up an argument of the contritionists, who argued that forgiveness could come directly from God, and that the priest simply declared that forgiveness. This direct, unmediated grace was possible for the contritionists only if the penitent had produced true contrition, whereas Luther rejected the need for contrition as a condition for the efficacy of the sacrament. In this sense, Luther reinterpreted the role of absolution in penance beyond the bounds of the Scholastic debate. His emphasis on absolution was not the absolutionist concern about compensating for imperfect contrition. Instead, the words of absolution were powerful because they could evoke the penitent’s faith in God’s promise. Whether or not the penitent had faith in these words made the sacrament effective or ineffective in two senses: first, it determined if they would be absolved of their sin, and second, it gave them confidence in God’s grace. By rejecting the need for a complete confession and perfect contrition, Luther’s suggestions shifted the emphasis in penance from preparing for confession to trusting in God’s grace as conveyed in the words of absolution. As in his statements against indulgences, Luther saw penance as a resource for the life of faith that cultivated an awareness of sin and the

66. WA 1:323.35. 67. WA 1:324.8–­15. 68. Thayer, Penitance, Preaching and the Coming of the Reformation, 150–­56.

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need for grace, while also providing an assurance of that grace. He reoriented the question of the efficacy of the sacrament from concerns about meeting the requirements for contrition and confession—­conditions in the performance of the sacrament—­to the effect of the sacrament on the subsequent faith of the penitent.

Satisfaction, Suffering, and Good Works In Sermon on Penance, Luther explained his views on contrition and confession—­ the first two of three parts of penance in the medieval delineation—­but barely mentioned the third part, satisfaction. A brief reference to satisfaction appeared in the final paragraph, where Luther stated simply that many believe it can be performed by works or avoided by purchasing indulgences, but that there was no scriptural warrant for either. Luther then referred the reader to his Sermon on Indulgences and Grace, which had recently been printed.69 As the title indicates, this sermon speaks directly to the indulgence controversy, and for many centuries, historians thought that a version of this printed sermon was preached in the chapel of the Augustinian cloister on 31 October 1517, the same day Luther circulated the Ninety-­Five Theses. This dating was based mainly on Archbishop Albrecht’s correspondence with Mainz University faculty in December 1517, in which he referred to both a “Traktat und Conclusion” from Luther; the “Conclusion” was understood to be the Ninety-­Five Theses, and “Traktat” this German sermon.70 In 1907, Luther’s Treatise on Indulgences was discovered among Albrecht’s correspondence with Mainz, making it more likely that this treatise was the “Traktat” that he referenced.71 Given this evidence and the lack of an extant 1517 version of this sermon, it seems that the Sermon on Indulgences and Grace did not yet exist when the Ninety-­Five Theses were posted. References to a German sermon on indulgences in letters by Luther and others suggest that it was printed sometime in March 1518.72 69. WA 1:324.25–­29. 70. WA 1:239. 71. See chapter 1, note 70. 72. The approximate date for the publication of the sermon was established from a reference to it by Johann Tetzel. In his second round of theses to counter Luther’s, in April or May of 1518, he referred to this sermon explicitly and said that Luther published it the previous Lent, which went from 17 February to 4 April that year. WA 1:239. Brieger argued that it

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The significance of this sermon, however, is clear. Mark Edwards showed that the Sermon on Indulgences and Grace, not the Ninety-­Five Theses, introduced the broader public to Luther’s ideas.73 Indeed, this sermon has been found in over twenty editions, where the Ninety-­Five Theses are known in only three.74 The sermon is also noteworthy for the way Luther overtly connected his academic theology, public protest, and pastoral concerns in it. In this quite brief text, he targeted a number of theological and devotional issues surrounding the practice of indulgences. The major argument here is that satisfaction cannot be made for sin, yet the suffering and good works often prescribed as satisfaction were commanded in scripture. This leads him to a twofold recommendation: Christians should suffer and do good works instead of buying indulgences, but they should also do these works out of faith and obedience, not to make satisfaction for sin. Since indulgences were understood to take the place of satisfaction in the sacrament of penance, Luther first questioned the claim that God demands satisfaction for sin. Theologians generally agreed that indulgences removed the need for works of satisfaction, but it was debated whether they also removed the need to suffer for satisfaction. Luther dismissed both of these possibilities by saying that the need for satisfaction cannot be proven from scripture. “It is a great error if someone says that he wants to make satisfaction for his sin, for God has done this very thing for all time freely out of inestimable grace, and demands nothing for it other than to live well thereafter.”75 To meet this requirement to live well, God’s righteousness demanded “sincere and genuine contrition or repentance, with the intention henceforth to carry the cross of Christ and to practice the aforementioned works [prayer, fasting, and alms], also not prescribed by anyone.”76 In other words, Christians should still perform the works was printed in the last days of March based on Luther’s statement in a letter of 5 March that he hoped to write a vernacular work explaining his views on indulgences; Brieger, “Kritische Erörterungen,” 11, 118. Whether this comment referred to the Sermon von Ablaß und Gnade or another work has also been debated. Knaake argued that this reference was probably to a longer work that Luther was planning; WA 1:239. Brieger countered that, had Luther wanted to write something larger than the Sermon von Ablaß und Gnade (which, according to Knaake, was already in print), he certainly would have referenced this work; “Kritische Erörterungen,” 120. 73. Edwards, Printing, Propaganda, and Martin Luther, 163, 169. 74. WA 1:240–­42. 75. “So doch got die selben altzeit umbsunst auß unschetzlicher gnad vortzeyhet, nichts darfur begerend, dann hynfurder woll leben.” WA 1:245.22–­23. 76. “Alleyn seyne hertzliche und ware rew adder bekerung, mit vorsatz, hynfurder dass

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typically prescribed by confessors for satisfaction, but they should do them out of gratitude for God’s grace rather than to fulfill a punishment. Much of Luther’s discussion in the Sermon on Indulgences and Grace centered on the question of punishment for sin. In the late Middle Ages, suffering was considered meritorious and often counted toward the satisfaction that was assigned after confession. Some theologians even taught that suffering was a blessing because it allowed sinners to atone for their sins.77 Luther, on the other hand, said that God punishes some according to their sin and sometimes elicits contrition through suffering, although he cautioned that this punishment cannot be remitted by the church but instead only by God.78 Since suffering and punishment are imposed and remitted only by God, believers cannot presume to satisfy God with it. Suffering, then, was not a suitable satisfaction, just as good works were not a suitable satisfaction, because humans could not redeem themselves from sin. That was not to say, however, that suffering and good works were not necessary for the Christian life. In fact, Luther’s other objection to indulgences was that they allowed believers to avoid these two salutary experiences by excusing them from satisfaction. In Luther’s view, suffering and good works were hallmarks of the life of faith. The pairing “good works and suffering” was repeated five times in this short work, and he advised the believer to embrace both. Indulgences are nothing else—­cannot be anything else—­than a release from good works and wholesome suffering which people should welcome instead of avoid. . . . For all suffering—­yes, everything God imposes—­is beneficial and useful to Christians.79 So, although Luther had dismissed the idea that one could make satisfaction for sins, still he endorsed the works of satisfaction typically assigned after confession. His contention with doing such works as satisfaction was

Creutz Christi tzu tragenn und die obgenanten werck (auch von neimant auffgesetzt) tzu uben.” WA 1:244.18–­20. 77. Rittgers, “Embracing the ‘True Relic,’” 379–­85; Rittgers, Reformation of Suffering, 30–­ 32. 78. WA 1:244.25–­30. 79. “Dann der ablas nit anderst ist nach mag werden, dann nachlaßung gutter werck und heylsamer peyn, die man billicher solt erwelen dann vorlaßen . . . dann alle peynn, ja alls was gott aufflegt ist besserlich und tzutreglich den Christen.” WA 1:244.38–­40, 245.3–­4.

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that these were works done only for the reward. His idea was that Christians would do them freely since they flow from proper respect and love for God. Indulgences, then, could have no place in true Christian life because they were obtained both to receive the reward and to avoid good works. Even so, Luther did not forbid buying indulgences in the Sermon on Indulgences and Grace. Instead, he concluded that they were permitted but quickly added that no one should be encouraged to buy them. They ought to be allowed “for the sake of the imperfect and lazy Christians who do not want to do good works or to suffer.”80 Luther’s advice for his readers was to let others buy them but to foster good works and suffering in themselves and in others.81 The exchange of money in indulgences also led Luther to advise on the proper use of money. He initially recommended that one should give directly to the building of St. Peter’s or other projects instead of giving in order to get an indulgence “for it is dangerous that one gives for the sake of the indulgence but not for the sake of God.”82 Soon after stating this, however, Luther reiterated his recommendation from the Ninety-­Five Theses that put the poor before building churches. You should before all else (excepting neither St. Peter’s building nor indulgences) give to your poor neighbor if you want to give something. If it comes to the point that there is no one else in your city who needs help (if this should ever happen according to God’s will) then you should give, if you want, to the churches that are in your city for the altars, the jewelry, and the chalice. And if this also is no longer in need, only then, if you want, you may give to the building of St. Peter or somewhere else. But you should nevertheless do this not for the sake of the indulgence, for St. Paul

80. “Ablaß wirt tzugelassen umb der unvolkomen und faulen Christen willen, die sich nit wollen kecklich uben yn guten wercken ader unleydlich seynn.” WA 1:246.15–­20; WA 1:245.26–­28. Aland translates “unleydlich seynn” as “are unbearable” (Ninety-­Five Theses with the Pertinent Documents, 61). While unleidlich in modern German means intolerable or unbearable, in older usage it can also mean “free from suffering [Leid]” or “without suffering.” The fifteenth-­century preacher Johann Geiler von Kaisersberg used it this way, albeit in reference to Christ (Grimm and Grimm, Deutsches Wörterbuch, Band 24, Spalten 1131). Given the repeated use of “good works and suffering” as a pair in this work, as well as the emphasis on the need for suffering, the older usage is more convincing here. 81. WA 1:245.26–­30; 246.13–­14. 82. “Dann es ferlich ist, das er sulch gabe umb des ablas willen und nit umb gottis willen gibt.” WA 1:245.33–­34.

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says, “Whoever does not provide for his household is no Christian and worse than a heathen.”83 One aspect of this argument was Luther’s concern for the poor, but the other, equally important, was that no one expect to get something from God simply by giving money. The ideal penance Luther described in the Sermon on Indulgence and Grace was much more demanding than a penitential indulgence; it demanded that believers subject themselves to God’s judgment, embrace suffering, and do good works that do not get public recognition. This demand for sincerity and subjugation to God was at the heart of Luther’s objection to indulgences, and as we shall see, it played an important role in his recommendations for other forms of piety as well.

Meditating on the Passion, Embracing Suffering The theme of suffering naturally dominated Luther’s Two Sermons on the Passion of Christ, which were likely delivered on Good Friday, 2 April 1518.84 The first of these sermons carried a simple message, repeated throughout the sermon: the believer was to identify with the suffering of Christ, seeing the evil that is inflicted on Christ’s body as the same evil inflicted on the believer’s soul through the devil and sin. When considering the passion of Christ, then, Christians should be moved to compassion and should imagine that everything being done to Christ is being done

83. “Du salt vor allen dingen (wider sanct Peteres gebewd, noch ablas angesehen) deynem nechsten armen geben, wiltu etwas geben. Wan es aber dahyn kumpt, das niemand ynn deyner stadt mehr ist, der hulff bedarff (das ob got will nymer gescheen sall) dan saltu geben, ßo du wilt, zu den kirchen, altern, schmuck, kilch, die yn deiner stad seyn. Und wen das auch nu nit mher not ist, dann aller erst, ßo du wilt magstu geben zu dem gebewde S. Peters adder anderwo. Auch saltu dennoch nit dass umb ablas willen thun. Dann sanct Paul spricht: Wer seyn haußgenoßen nit wol thut, ist keyn Christen und erger dann eyn heyde.” WA 1:245.39–­246.8. 84. These texts were first edited and reprinted by Löscher after he discovered the Latin manuscripts. They were then reprinted in the Erlangen edition of Luther’s works, which followed Löscher’s version closely. The first of these sermons is closely related to another work that was printed more often in the sixteenth century, usually as an addendum to the popular Sermo de digna praeparatione discussed above. Entitled Quomodo Christi passio sit consideranda in Latin versions and Wie das Leiden Christi betrachtet soll werden in German, this work seems to be another, briefer set of notes from a different hearer of the first of the two sermons. The Weimar edition printed this shorter work in parentheses throughout its text of this sermon, though there are no significant differences in content between the two; WA 1:335.

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to themselves, except that, in the case of Christ, it is being done unjustly. Christ’s suffering was to show humanity its true condition “so that we, in this realization, do not stop lamenting, enduring suffering, weeping and doing penance, until we are eternally freed.”85 Luther also reminded Christians that, just as Christ was accused by the Jews, they would be accused by the devil, and rightly so. Nonetheless, Luther encouraged readers to look to Christ and answer with confidence, “I admit, it is true, I have unfortunately offended the Son of God, etc., but these accusations have been dismissed by Christ.”86 The second sermon had an even more focused emphasis, that of seeing the love of God in the sufferings of Christ. Running throughout this sermon is a tension borrowed from classical and humanist rhetoric between emotions (affectus) and reason (intellectus); where reason sees Christ’s suffering as something disfiguring, ugly, and disdainful, the emotions are moved to see it as the locus of all beauty, wisdom, truth, and especially, love. Only with the emotions could one understand Christ’s suffering as a beautiful expression of love.87 Luther recommended that each act of the passion be considered in turn as an expression of the highest love for humanity, from Christ’s sweating blood to being scourged.88 Thus, consideration of the passion was a way to remind oneself of the love of God so that love for God and for virtue would not grow cold.89 To be sure, consideration of the passion taught not only about the love of God but also about humanity’s sin, as Luther said when he briefly reiterated much of the first sermon’s emphasis on seeing one’s own internal misery in the external suffering of Christ. In the second sermon, however, he used the injustice of Christ’s suffering to emphasize all the more the wondrousness of God’s love. Just as one is moved when hearing about an unjust murder, and even more so when the victim is honest, and even more if he is learned, and still more if he were noble, Luther argued, the unjust suffering of the Son of God for humanity moves the emotions to appreciate the magnanimity of this act, something that reason cannot ably do.90 85. “Ut his agnitis non cessemus plangere, dolere, flere et poenitere, donec liberemur in aeternum.” WA 1:337.36–­37. 86. “Fateor, vera sunt, Filium Dei eheu me fici &c., Sed haec obiecta per Christum evicta sunt.” WA 1:339.10–­11. 87. See Stolt, Martin Luthers Rhetorik; idem, “Joy, Love and Trust,” 28–­44. 88. WA 1:341.20–­26. 89. WA 1:341.28–­34. 90. WA 1:343.34–­344.11.

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At first glance, Luther’s treatment of devotion to the passion seems strikingly in line with late medieval piety. Both sermons heartily endorse the practice of contemplating Christ’s suffering, and while they emphasize two different benefits of this practice, Luther did not cast these as critiques of how it typically is done. In the second sermon, contemplation of Christ’s passion was even endorsed as a practice “more useful than prayers and pious works.”91 This comment is, of course, a critique of those works, but it evinces a high regard for the passion. In addition, a brief mention of a devotional book that resembled the Hortulus Animae, the Rosengärtlein, in the second sermon endorsed it as a helpful guide to the fruits of remembering and the dangers of forgetting the passion.92 These sermons were, however, a forceful critique of Christians who would try to avoid suffering. Luther repeatedly criticized those whose meditation on the passion centered around “pity on Christ in that they seek comfort in him as if in a medicine or an aid, without thinking of themselves and weeping over themselves.”93 He suspected that the primary motivation for this sort of observance was a desire to be released from suffering, and he recommended that believers instead consider the injustice of Christ’s suffering and the suffering they deserved. His critique, then, was meant to reorient the practice from self-­seeking to self-­condemning. This emphasis is very much in concert with other critiques Luther leveled against devotional practices during this period. His treatment of the passion sought to convict Christians of their sin and encouraged them to embrace suffering as a manifestation of faith. Luther linked the desire to avoid suffering to a desire to make oneself righteous apart from grace. Christians who tried to gain favor with God in order to avoid suffering demonstrated that they did not grasp their need for grace, just as those who tried to confess every sin did not appreciate the depth of their sinfulness. Another emphasis that appeared in these sermons and in other writings from this period was the desire that devotional practice be sincere and not self-­seeking. In observing the passion, only the emotions could understand Christ’s wretched suffering as a beautiful expression of love. 91. “Utiliores sunt quam orationes et operationes.” WA 1:342.9–­10. 92. WA 1:341.34–­36. The earliest extant texts of Rosengärtlein come from 1602 and 1607; Rosengärtlein der gnadreichen Ertzbrüderschafft Maria, and Rosengärtlein der Andächtigen Brüderschafft des allerheyligisten Fronleichnams Jesu Christ in Augspurg. 93. “Christo compatiuntur et eum velut remedio et auxilio cupientes solari se ipsis neglectis et super se ipsos non flentes.” WA 1:338.23–­24.

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When Christ’s passion was properly regarded, those who observed it did so not seek any favors for their observance, but only the truth about their sin and Christ’s unjust suffering. For Luther’s ideal Christian, that knowledge of sin and grace shaped his or her approach to confession, rejection of indulgences, and understanding of the passion.

Redefining Relics, Prayer, and the Saints Two sermons that Luther delivered on 17 and 19 March during Lent 1518 shed more light on his views of common sixteenth-­century devotional practices.94 Both of the Two German Lenten Sermons are focused on the theological theme of God’s grace and love, but they also show that this grace had broad implications for Luther, especially in the realm of piety. In the course of these two sermons, Luther’s understanding of God’s grace led him to criticize the practices of venerating relics, repeating set prayers, and the veneration of the saints, although at this point he trod carefully in his criticism. Relics and the saints were particularly vital aspects of late medieval piety. As heavenly intermediaries, saints held an important place in the church universal. They had lived exemplary lives and now had the audience of God—­and, presumably, a special affinity for those still living. Thus Christians often appealed to the saints for help amid trials, and some saints became “patron saints” for specific professions or illnesses.95 The veneration of saints’ relics—­either parts of their body or items that they touched during their lifetimes—­gave new impetus to the practice of pilgrimages in the late Middle Ages. Christians visited shrines containing relics to 94. A reference to the Wittenberg students’ burning of the Tetzel-­Wimpina theses, which took place on 17 March, in the second of these two sermons makes these sermons relatively easy to date. The history of the text that came to be known as Two German Lenten Sermons is less clear than the other writings from Lent 1518. They are not available as a direct transcript, nor was the printed version edited by Luther. Instead, they were written out in Latin by his students and translated then back into German in the Halle edition of his works in 1702, their first published appearance and the only extant copy. This Halle version of these sermons claims to be based on a handwritten and autographed copy owned by J. G. Ziegler, who filled in some holes in his copy. The Weimar edition’s version notes these accretions but does not reproduce them in its version of the texts; WA 1:266. Despite this late date of publication and the many hands through which the manuscripts traveled, the sermons bear enough similarity to Luther’s other known works from this period that it is reasonable to regard them as representative of his views at this time. 95. Bartlett, Why Can the Dead?; Geary, Living with the Dead.

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petition a saint for a particular favor, to seek healing, or simply to be in the presence of the saint’s holiness.96 Although Luther most likely delivered these sermons during a penitential season and shortly after writing the Ninety-­Five Theses, he made mention of indulgences only twice, and then very obliquely. Instead, both sermons focused on the theme of relying on God’s grace instead of one’s own works or religious observances. Luther saw that theme in two quite different gospel texts, both of which were the lectionary texts for the days Luther preached. The text for the first sermon was the healing of the blind man from John 9. Luther’s focus was on the last portion of the text, verses 35–­41, in which Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment so that those who do not see may see, and those who do see may become blind,” then reprimanded the Pharisees for being blind while still claiming to see. Luther interpreted this statement to mean, first of all, that the story was intended to make the reader see the blindness of his or her own heart,97 and secondly, that God wanted to make believers see the world differently so that everything that is praised on earth is seen as abominable in the sight of God.98 Because God lifted up the lowly, Christians should not look down on their neighbors or make distinctions between young, old, beautiful, and ugly.99 Even more important to Luther, however, was the centrality of Christ’s suffering. Because Christ’s life was despised by the world and his death regarded as shameful, Christians ought to shun the world’s values and instead embrace suffering and death.100 Luther defined a willingness to suffer as “the true relic” (das rechte Heilthumb), calling it an “inward relic” (innerlich Heilthumb) in “a proper, living, internal monstrance” (vernuenfftige, lebendige, ewige Monstranz).101 By contrast, Luther said, the bishops and leaders of his day fled from suffering and focused on material relics.102 Although he conceded that traditional relics ought to be allowed for the sake of the weak, it is clear that Luther considered this an inferior form of 96. Webb, Medieval European Pilgrimage. 97. WA 1:267.25–­29; 268.28–­29; LW 51:36–­37. 98. WA 1:267.29–­268.18; LW 51:36–­37. 99. WA 1:269.28–­270.12; LW 51:39. 100. WA 1:270.25–­35; LW 51:40. 101. WA 1:270.36–­271.8; LW 51:40–­41. This language of suffering as an “internal relic” appears also in the Resolutions. See Rittgers, “Embracing the ‘True Relic.’” 102. WA 1:271.31–­40; LW 51:41–­42.

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devotion.103 Instead, he stressed that God wanted believers’ humility and works of mercy instead of their goods. Most of all, God wanted them to despair of their own abilities, rely instead on grace, and accept God’s will.104 In his interpretation of the second sermon, on the raising of Lazarus from John 11:1–­45, Luther again took the central character to be symbolic of the reader’s sin. The depths of Lazarus’s sin are seen in the fact that Jesus had to yell at him before he came out of the tomb, and when he came out, he was still bound.105 Luther moved quickly from this focus on sin to the promise of redemption: because Christ loved the sinner, “it awakens in us a bold approach to and firm hope in Christ.”106 This trust and hope in Christ had three practical implications for Luther. First, he instructed believers to let go of works and instead to focus on the heart’s love for God. On this point, Luther was emphatic. Let the works go, no matter how great they may be: prayers, chants, yammering, and yapping; for it is certain that nobody will ever get to God through all these things. Besides, it is impossible. The heart must have love for Christ, and through him, for the Father. It is all lost if the heart is not cleansed. It must all be left behind, and we must freely, boldly, and with sure confidence take the leap into God. That is what he wants from us.107 Again, Luther emphasized the internal disposition and contrasted it with external acts such as prayers and chants, which he portrayed quite unfavorably. The second result of trust in Christ was to avoid sinning, which Luther described as springing from Christ’s love for sinners. Luther thought that, when believers learned how gently Christ deals with sinners in the gospel,

103. WA 1:271.8–­13; LW 51:41. 104. WA 1:272.2–­3, 25–­34; LW 51:42–­43. 105. WA 1:274.6–­18; LW 51:45. 106.“Erwechst ein kecklich zu tretten und festes verhoffen zu Christo.” WA 1:274.40–­41; LW 51:46. 107. “Lasset faren werck, wie gros sie sind, Gebet, Gesenge, geplerre, gekleppere. Denn es wird sicherlich keiner durch diese alle zu Gott komen. Es ist auch unmueglich. Das hertz mus ein Wolgefallen haben in Christo und durch Christum zum Vater. Es ist gantz und gar verloren, wo nicht das Hertz gereiniget wird. Es mus alles gelassen sein, und frey kecklich mit sicherer zuversicht in Gott gesprungen, das wil er von uns haben.” WA 1:275.38–­276.3; LW 51:47. Cf. WA 1:276.23–­24; LW 51:48.

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they would love him and avoid sin.108 Finally, Christ’s love for the sinner led Luther to a mild critique of the veneration of the saints. Luther does not advise Christians to shun saints, but instead argued that sermons about them should also discuss their sin. For there can be no doubt that they too tripped and stumbled over great mounds of dirt. They were of one flesh with us, one faith, one baptism, one blood. But we have now set them so high above us that we must despair of imitating them.109 In Luther’s view, the popular view of saints as perfect Christians took away their humanity and therefore made them an impossible example. His concern was that this would lead to despair instead of hope. In the first sermon, Luther’s emphasis on the paradoxical judgment of God that esteems fools, suffering, and the lowly led directly to a new definition of relics and a clear ordering of preferred piety; the inward relic of suffering was preferable to the outward relics of bones and reliquaries. More radical was the second sermon’s dismissal of much late medieval devotion, which Luther grouped together as “prayers, chants, yammering, and yapping.” Of these Luther said quite bluntly that they earn no merit before God. Because he thought that many forms of piety offered a detour to sincere faith in God, he encouraged Christians to avoid such outward activities. In place of these works, he recommended simple love for Christ, maintaining that this love would move Christians to embrace suffering and avoid sinning.

Conclusion: Reorienting Piety Throughout the sermons and treatises discussed in this chapter, Luther’s abiding concern with the ways that Christian practices formed faith is evident. We also see how interconnected various practices were in his thinking; the writings above ostensibly focus on penance, indulgences, and the observation of the passion, yet Luther quite often included his 108. WA 1:276.5–­8; LW 51:48. 109.“Denn es wird nicht gefeilet haben, sie werden grosse knollen gestraucht und geschrapt haben. Sie sind eins fleisches mit uns, eines Glaubens, einer Tauffe, eines bluts. So haben wir sie so hoch gleich abgesondert von uns, das wir auch versagen muessen inen nachzufolgen.” WA 1:276.32–­35; LW 51:48–­49.

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recommendations on other Christian practices as well. The expansive lists of forbidden and recommended activities in the Brief Explanation of the Ten Commandments illustrate the extent to which Luther wanted trust in God integrated in the daily lives of his audience. Anything that compromised absolute trust in God and love of neighbor was forbidden, and anything that encouraged these things was endorsed. In A Sermon on Indulgences and Grace, what begins as a contention with the church’s claim that God demands satisfaction for sin quickly becomes an endorsement of good works and suffering. Furthermore, Luther’s attempt to discourage people from buying indulgences segues into a recommendation to give to the poor, a recommendation grounded in his understanding that humans cannot bargain with God, whether with money or with works. Even the recommendations regarding penance—­ostensibly a very specific practice—­focus on the intentions and understandings of the penitent as much as the particulars of making confession or satisfaction. His advice is also marked by moderation. In Lent 1518, Luther’s recommendations included a mixture of endorsements, accommodations for the weak, specific criticisms, and shifts in emphasis. He did not forbid specific forms of late medieval devotion except for witchcraft and black magic, a prohibition that was standard among late medieval theologians. Some practices were clearly not Luther’s preferred forms of devotion, yet at this point he was unwilling to forbid them for the sake of the weak in faith. His allowance of relics and his very mild criticism of the veneration of saints are two examples of this gradual approach to reforming practice. A striking feature of these works is the way that Luther often retained traditional practices yet shifted their focus. For example, he upheld the practice of preparing for confession by reflecting on one’s sins, but he recommended changes to that practice in two notable ways. First, he recommended that the Ten Commandments be used to prepare for confession instead of the numerous traditional lists of vice and virtue. Second, by the end of this period, he advised penitents to include in their preparation a contemplation of their sinfulness and need for grace. Similarly, his recommended preparation for the mass retained confession, but the focus of confession shifted to faith in the words of absolution instead of adequate contrition or the complete enumeration of sins. In the mass, he encouraged believers to focus on having faith in the words of Christ instead of their own worthiness through adequate preparation. In the Sermon on Indulgences and Grace, Luther retained the conviction that works of satisfaction

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are a salutary part of penance even while he argued that satisfaction for sin is made only by God’s grace, not by human works. In that sermon, he also retained the practice of giving money as a part of penance, but he instructed that it be given to the poor in place of indulgences. Finally, Luther encouraged believers to approach these devotional practices without seeking something for themselves, as he thought most Christians did, but instead with a willingness to suffer. In the course of this instruction, three interrelated themes emerged. Most prevalent is the importance of faith in God’s grace instead of one’s own works, contrition, or worthiness. All the writings from this period in some way emphasized that believers cannot bring anything of worth before God and that they must acknowledge this fact to have a proper basis for faith. The Sermon on Indulgences and Grace sounded this theme the least, but even there Luther rejected the notion of a satisfaction for sin on the grounds that God has already atoned for sin out of grace. This argument is a contention with Scholasticism that also appeared in Luther’s early lectures, and in these pastoral writings we see the force of this idea in his ideal for Christian faith. In both academic lectures and pastoral writings, Luther often avoided many of the distinctions Scholastic theologians made about how grace functioned in Christian life. Instead, he emphasized Christians’ absolute dependence on grace and inability to contribute to their salvation. The other main themes in these works bear a closer resemblance to Luther’s protest against indulgences. One of Luther’s major critiques of indulgences was that they allowed Christians to avoid sincere contrition, and that need for sincerity also plays a key role in these pastoral writings. Luther’s reading of the Ten Commandments stressed questions of intent and disposition, and his instruction demanded that confessants recognize their impenitence. In addition, Luther’s rejection of meritorious works was made not only on the grounds that concupiscence made such works impossible, but also with the concern that assigning merit to good deeds allowed believers to calculate what was needed for forgiveness instead of genuinely desiring it. Many of these writings warned against performing acts of devotion only outwardly and instead emphasized the internal effects of devotion. The third theme that Luther emphasized was that suffering is an essential part of the Christian life. Suffering appears as a main theme in four out of six of the pastoral works from this period, and as Ronald Rittgers has shown, it was a cornerstone of Luther’s theology and the larger

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Lutheran reform of the church.110 Late medieval pastoral instruction often urged Christians to bear their cross with patience and not to avoid suffering. In particular, they warned against the use of magic to ward off or decrease one’s suffering.111 Luther repeated these denunciations of magic, but he also felt that sixteenth-­century Christians were performing church-­ sanctioned religious acts to gain God’s favor and to avoid suffering, not out of love or piety. This concern about religious works as an attempt to barter with God instead of trusting God is a theme that recurs in later critiques of piety. Thus, part of his discussion of the first commandment encouraged Christians to accept suffering because this acceptance will strengthen their trust in God. In a brief discussion of relics, Luther declared that the willingness to suffer is the “true relic” of Christian life, as opposed to the physical relics of saints, which are much more appealing in the eyes of the world. In his sermons on the passion, accepting suffering meant recognizing the injustice of Christ’s suffering and the just suffering of the sinner, while also giving the emotions a vivid picture of God’s profound love. Luther also argued that accepting suffering conveyed trust in God’s will, even when the benevolence of God’s will was not apparent to reason. Of all the practices discussed in these six writings, Luther criticized the consideration of the passion least because he thought it encouraged believers to see beauty in suffering and showed them both their sin and God’s love. All three of these themes played an important role in the theses Luther presented at the Heidelberg Disputation in April 1518. He was asked to present theses concerning sin, free will, and grace, topics that could have gone in many different directions. In fact, many thought he would take the meeting at Heidelberg as an opportunity to speak more on indulgences. Instead, he directed these topics toward the failure of reason to comprehend the beauty of Christ on the cross and the failure of Christians to embrace suffering. This was a condemnation of the Scholastic approach to theology—­a very pointed one, indeed—­but it was also a condemnation of the effect this theology had on the church and in Christian life. These themes from the Heidelberg Disputation are present most prominently in Luther’s writings on the passion because of its specific focus on the cross, but they were not limited to them; several other pastoral writings from the period preceding the Heidelberg Disputation addressed the paradoxical beauty of 110. Rittgers, Reformation of Suffering. 111. Rittgers, Reformation of Suffering, 17–­20.

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the cross, and nearly all of them stressed the need for Christians to accept suffering. Several Luther scholars have interpreted Luther’s theology of the cross as a succinct summary of his early theology and piety.112 The thematic connections between the Heidelberg Disputation and his practical writings from the same period highlight the importance of practical matters in his early protest and the manifold consequences of his theology for Christian life. Luther’s comments on questions of practice were not merely a passing interest or something he produced only by request; instead, concerns about practice appeared repeatedly, corresponded to themes he reiterated in other settings, and were woven into the fabric of his protest. With few exceptions, Luther kept direct references to polemics out of these pastoral treatises even while presenting a vital source of that polemic: a concern for the effect of religious practice on the faith and consciences of parishioners. Although confession was only one issue addressed by Luther in Lent 1518, its close connection with other practices illustrates the important role it played in late medieval piety and in Luther’s early pastoral theology. The prominence of confession also offers one explanation for how a protest against indulgences led to a protest against the majority of late medieval devotional practices; Luther was not simply condemning one practice, but instead questioning the foundation of late medieval devotion. The animosity that arose after unsuccessful attempts to reform the church from the inside in 1518 added fuel to the fire of Luther’s early convictions.

112. See, for example, Lowenich, Luthers Theologia Crucis; McGrath, Luther’s Theology of the Cross; Forde, On Being a Theologian of the Cross.

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Piety in the Shadow of Conflict: Summer 1518 From the Heidelberg Disputation to the Meeting with Cajetan

A

fter the flurry of pastoral writings in Lent, the summer of 1518 saw only three strictly pastoral works from Luther’s pen, although one academic and two polemical works also gave significant attention to Christian practice. During this period, the controversy surrounding Luther and his ideas heated up markedly, and much of his time was consumed with explaining and defending himself to opponents. The majority of Luther’s extant writings in this period were not works issued at his initiative but rather responses to others’ criticisms.1 In contrast to Lent 1518, when reactions to his writings on indulgences trickled in slowly, the escalating conflict played a large role in his activities during the summer of 1518. In a brief interlude between disputes with opponents mid­summer, however, Luther published three pastoral writings, two in German and one in Latin. The most significant change from earlier pastoral writings

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1. I have excluded one possible work from this period, the lectures on Hebrews, because of questions about its dating and the abundance of other sources. Matthias Kroeger argued that Luther delivered lectures on Hebrews in the summer semester 1517 and the winter semester 1517/18; Kroeger, Rechtfertigung und Gesetz. Oswald Bayer argues that the lectures were in the winter semester 1517/18 through the summer semester 1518 (see Bayer, Promissio).

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was that the pastoral works from the summer of 1518 did not discuss the sacrament of penance. In Lent 1518, penance had been the focus on several pastoral writings, but as the controversy over indulgences heated up in the summer of 1518, he limited his discussion of penance to the academic and polemical writings. But even though the topics of the pastoral writings changed, the emphases and attitudes he recommended to readers were very similar to those of Lent 1518. In the summer of 1518, he continued to emphasize Christians’ utter dependence on grace, the need for sincerity in faith, and the willingness to suffer. His application of these themes varied, but the summer of 1518 did not bring about any major changes to his thought on piety. The few changes that do appear are mostly changes of degree. For example, Luther was harsher about the need for Christians to help the poor instead of buying indulgences. In addition, his warnings about venerating the saints and going on pilgrimages were a bit stronger than before. Despite the many challenges of his opponents, his instruction on Christian practice remained remarkably constant. The contribution of these writings to the narrative of Luther’s development is precisely in this uniformity. In one of the most widely accepted accounts of Luther’s “Reformation discovery,” the summer of 1518 is a key time for Luther’s development. Oswald Bayer identified a set of theses on penance from this period, The Investigation of Truth and Comfort for Anxious Consciences, as the text in which Luther’s Reformation discovery is evident. In those theses, according to Bayer, Luther began de-­emphasizing the need for Christians to condemn themselves of their sinfulness before God. Instead, he started emphasizing faith in God’s word of promise. Many historians have followed Bayer’s dating of this Reformation discovery to this text.2 In the pastoral writings from the summer of 1518, the emphasis on receiving grace in faith did form a major theme, but it was not a new development. That theme was already present in pastoral writings from Lent 1518. Two of Luther’s three works on penance from Lent 1518 had urged readers to respond to God’s promise of grace in faith. In fact, the Sermon on Penance explicitly instructed readers to stop focusing on achieving proper contrition and instead to concentrate on having faith in the words of absolution. It should also be noted that the three principles of 2. Bayer, Promissio, 164–202. Among the scholars who have followed a dating of the Reformation discovery to the spring or summer of 1518 is Brecht, Martin Luther, 1:215–­30.

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Christian life emphasized by Lent 1518—­sincerity in devotion, embracing suffering, and dependence on God’s grace—­are consistent with later emphases in his devotional, polemical, and academic writings. This consistency indicates that important elements of Luther’s theology were already in place by the spring of 1518, even as his specific recommendations for Christian practice evolved.3 The most notable changes in Luther’s thought in the summer of 1518 came because of the controversy that surrounded him. During his exchanges with those who defended the papacy, he became more convinced of his objections and more resistant to conciliatory views of the papacy.4 When Lent ended in April 1518, the controversy was just beginning. Some church officials had expressed their discontent with Luther’s protest against indulgences. Archbishop Albrecht had informed the pope of Luther’s theses, but no action had been taken to address Luther’s challenge. Meanwhile, public interest in Luther’s ideas had been piqued by the publication of Latin and German copies of the Ninety-­Five Theses in December 1517 and his Sermon on Indulgences and Grace in the spring of 1518. It was late May before the controversy would gain momentum. Luther was not in Wittenberg for most of April and the first half of May because he traveled to a meeting of the Saxon reform congregation in Heidelberg, where his theses were debated. When Luther returned to Wittenberg on 15 May 1518, he began to address his growing chorus of critics. The day after he returned from Heidelberg, Luther gave a controversial sermon on excommunication, or the ban. In that sermon, he distinguished between external and internal communion with the church, arguing that excommunication could separate a believer only from the outward life of the church. The internal communion of the saints was God’s jurisdiction alone, and even an excommunicated church member could receive the love, intercession, and good works of the church. Luther cautioned that the church should not presume to represent God’s judgment, but instead should use the ban as an instrument of discipline. He was especially critical of the church for using excommunication for debtors and for using 3. Cf. Holl, “Die Rechtfertigungslehre in Luthers Vorlesung über den Römerbrief mit besonderer Rücksicht auf die Frage der Heilsgewißheit,” 1:111–­54; and Hamm, “Naher Zorn und nahe Gnade,” 111–­51. 4. Scott Hendrix characterizes Luther’s development in this period as increasing resistance to papal claims; Hendrix, Luther and the Papacy, 44–­70.

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physical force. Luther had hoped to have a public debate over the use of the ban, but both his bishop and his friends advised against this.5 Nonetheless, when inaccurate versions of Luther’s statements on excommunication came back to him, he decided to publish an edited version of the sermon in Latin.6 Next Luther addressed Johann Eck. Eck had written a rebuttal of Luther’s Ninety-­Five Theses that inadvertently found its way to Luther in March 1518.7 The two men had enjoyed friendly relations in the past, but Eck’s assessment of the theses was harsh; he charged Luther with heresy, rebellion, presumption, impudence, laziness, simplemindedness, and ignorance. He also claimed that Luther despised the pope.8 Within four days of returning to Wittenberg in May, Luther had finished a sarcastic response to him that, on the one hand, extended an offer of friendship if Eck would retract his statements, and on the other hand, charged him with not understanding Luther’s theses.9 Despite an attempt at reconciliation by their mutual friend Christoph Scheurl, Eck and Luther would remain adversaries for many years, and Eck would push for Luther’s condemnation by the papacy.10 Shortly after returning from Heidelberg, Luther also submitted the Explanations of the Ninety-­Five Theses to his bishop in Brandenburg and his superior in his order, Staupitz, who was to send them on to the pope. The Explanations were meant to clear up questions raised by the Ninety-­ Five Theses and to prepare his defense against those who accused him of heresy. A dedicatory letter to the pope expressed Luther’s willingness to submit to the pope’s judgment but also his confidence that he was led by Christ in these opinions. Neither his prefatory letter nor the text itself made any attempt to play down the limits he had proposed on papal power. Luther claimed that he could not recant, and he even charged the pope with creating new articles of faith instead of judging established matters. Luther’s disagreement with indulgence preacher Johann Tetzel also intensified in this period. Tetzel had defended a set of theses justifying 5. Brecht, Martin Luther, 1:240–­41. 6. WA 1:638–­43. In early 1520, Luther printed a German version of this sermon with only minor changes; WA 6:63–­75; LW 39:3–­22. See chapter 6 for a brief discussion of the 1520 version in the context of Luther’s other writings from that time. 7. Brecht, Martin Luther, 1:211–­13. 8. Brecht, Martin Luther, 1:211. 9. WA Br 1:178.4–­39. 10. Brecht, Martin Luther, 1:211–­13; Hendrix, Luther and the Papacy, 107–­12.

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indulgences in January 1518. In April and May 1518, Tetzel issued two new writings against Luther. The first was a refutation of Luther’s Sermon on Indulgences and Grace, which charged him with heresy akin to Wycliffe and Hus. The second was a set of fifty theses promoting an extreme theory of papal authority that claimed the pope could not err and therefore should not be questioned. Tetzel equated any questioning of indulgences or papal authority with heresy. In mid-­June, Luther responded with The Freedom of the Sermon on Papal Indulgences and Grace, in which he defended his sermon on indulgences by contrasting the authority of scripture with earthly authority.11 Luther’s response also contained a good measure of open ridicule directed toward Tetzel, another sign of escalating conflict.12 By this time, it was clear that there would be a confrontation with official papal representatives. In May, proceedings against Luther had begun in Rome. By June, a member of the commission charged with carrying out these proceedings, Sylvester Prierias, composed his opinion for the commission. Prierias outlined an understanding of papal infallibility that put the pope above a council and scripture, and it also charged Luther with heresy for contradicting the practice of the church. Luther received this work, along with a summons to appear in Rome, on 7 August.13 Most of August and September were occupied with his upcoming hearing before Cajetan in Augsburg. Luther’s preparations were more logistical than theological: first there was the matter of having the hearing moved from Rome to Germany, then the question of whether he would receive safe conduct.14 He had not received safe conduct before leaving for Augsburg on 22 September, but he insisted on obtaining it before meeting with Cajetan for the first time on 12 October. In Augsburg, Cajetan questioned Luther on two issues: the pope’s authority over the treasury of merits that enabled indulgences, and the role of faith in making sacraments valid.15 As the controversy developed after the meeting with Cajetan, the question of the pope’s authority would overwhelm Luther’s concerns about the sacrament of penance. In the summer of 1518, however, the practice

11. WA 1:383–­93. 12. Brecht, Martin Luther, 1:209–­10. 13. Lohse, Martin Luther’s Theology, 107–­8. 14. Hendrix, Luther and the Papacy, 52–­65. 15. On the question of the treasury, see Peter, “The Church’s Treasures (Thesauri ecclesiae) Then and Now,” 251–­72, esp. 254–­68. On the role of faith in the sacraments, see Wicks, “Fides sacramenti—­fides specialis,” 117–­48.

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of penance still played a role in the growing polemics with Rome and its representatives.

Penance and Polemics In the summer of 1518, all of Luther’s comments on penance were in polemical or academic works, and his pastoral works from this period focused on less controversial themes. Although Luther’s statements on penance and indulgences appeared in a different genre, his recommendations in these newer works were very much in concert with those of his pastoral writings from Lent 1518. In the Explanations of the Ninety-­Five Theses, he addressed not only the spurious claims of the papacy, but also the remission of guilt through the words of absolution. Luther presented this remission as a process: God’s judgment reveals sins and creates true repentance and even despair, the priest speaks the words of absolution, then faith believes those words and makes the absolution valid.16 This absolution, says Luther, is much more important than the remission of punishment claimed for indulgences. The Freedom of the Sermon on Papal Indulgences and Grace was Luther’s response to Johann Tetzel’s second round of criticisms, and at this point the interactions with Tetzel became utterly polemical. Luther dispersed invective toward Tetzel liberally, but he also addressed the main points of the earlier sermon that Tetzel was criticizing. He again defended his belief that the church did not have the authority to relax the repentance commanded by Christ through indulgences. He also returned to the theme of caring for the poor instead of buying indulgences, only this time he was more adamant than he was in the Sermon on Indulgences and Grace. Against many glosses that claimed charity was only necessary in extreme situations, Luther argued that Christian love should focus on charity toward others. He even claimed that love and alms loose sin according to scripture.17 Such glosses, along with Latin terminology and Aristotelian distinctions, Luther regarded as attempts to avoid the hard truth of scripture, which forbids self-­seeking works, such as indulgences. For no apparent reason, he added that masses for the dead are not commanded in scripture, so no one

16. See esp. Thesis 7 (WA 1:539.35–­545.8; LW 31:98–­107). 17. WA 1:387.19–­388.31.

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can claim to be obedient by performing or funding them. While he did not condemn masses for the dead here, he did suggest that it is better to do works that are definitely good, that is, works commanded in scripture. Sometime during the summer of 1518, Luther prepared a set of theses for disputation entitled The Investigation of Truth and Comfort for Anxious Consciences. Although they were in Latin and presented for an academic audience, their content was entirely practical. Of the two kinds of remission offered in the sacrament of penance—­guilt and punishment—­Luther prized the remission of guilt much more. The remission of guilt comforts consciences, whereas the remission of punishment can easily exacerbate a tender conscience and might even lead to presumptuousness.18 Furthermore, remission of guilt reconciles one to God and makes salvation possible, whereas the remission of punishment only reconciles one to the church and does not affect salvation.19 Luther also repeated the emphasis seen in the Sermon on Penance from Lent 1518 that the remission of guilt via absolution is dependent not on the penitent’s perfect contrition, or on a complete confession, but rather on faith in the word of Christ promising forgiveness. When the words of absolution are believed, the absolution is valid because Christ’s promise is certain.20 This efficacy of faith contrasts with the role of the priest who speaks the words of absolution. The priest is merely a servant of the word for the cultivation of faith.21 God’s forgiveness does not originate in the priest’s actions or virtue, but instead in the work of the Spirit alone. Because the sacrament does not depend on contrition or a complete confession, the priest should not probe penitents about their contrition, lest they mistakenly believe that contrition is the cause of their forgiveness. Instead, priests should inquire about the penitent’s faith in the words of absolution and should emphasize Christ’s promise.22 The major themes of these proposals about penance had been presented in some form in Lent 1518, especially in the Sermon on Penance. Luther’s only addition to those arguments in the summer of 1518 was a

18. Theses 2 (WA 1:630.7–­8) and 3 (WA 1:630.9–­10). 19. Theses 4 (WA 1:630.11–­12) and 6 (WA 1:630.15–­16). 20. Theses 9 (WA 1:631.5–­6), 10 (WA 1:631.7–­8), 14 (WA 1:631.15–­16), and 15 (WA 1:631.17–­18). 21. Theses 23 (WA 1:631.33–­34), 30 (WA 1:632.9–­10), 31 (WA 1:632.11–­12), and 32 (WA 1:632.13–­14). 22. Theses 25–­28 (WA 1:631.37–­632.6).

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few new details. For example, he was more insistent that Christians care for the poor here than in Lent 1518. He also addressed the practice of masses for the dead to the category of works that are not commanded in scripture. The most notable change in Luther’s treatment of penance in the summer of 1518 is simply that his recommendations appeared only in polemical or academic works, not in pastoral works as before. The close relationship between indulgences and penance might account for this shift. As indulgences became more contentious, Luther apparently decided to take his arguments about penance to a smaller, more learned audience. In the three intently pastoral writings from this period, his guidance focused on the self-­sacrificing nature of true Christian faith.

Sin, Sincerity, and Suffering The three pastoral works that Luther wrote in the summer of 1518 did not address indulgences or even confession. Instead, they continued the emphasis on humanity’s utter dependence on God’s grace and the need to resign oneself to God’s will instead of seeking one’s own interests. Luther also repeatedly reminded readers that suffering is central to Christian life. Some of these themes that are central in the pastoral works also appeared in his academic and polemical writings from this period. As mentioned above, the Freedom of the Sermon on Papal Indulgence and Grace condemned indulgences in part because they were self-­seeking and did not fulfill Christ’s command to care for the poor. In the Explanations of the Ninety-­ Five Theses, he repeated that condemnation of indulgences and maintained that everyone must suffer because God conforms everyone to the cross of Christ.23 In the theses The Investigation of Truth and Comfort for Anxious Consciences, Luther argued that Christians should not seek the remission of punishment because such remission may irritate a bad conscience, although he added that it does not seem like punishment once the conscience is comforted by the forgiveness of guilt.24 Luther’s first pastoral work during this period, a preface to the complete edition of the German Theology, was printed in early June, just before

23. Thesis 23 (WA 1:571.11–­572.3; LW 31:152–­53). 24. Theses 3–­5 (WA 1:630.9–­14).

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he received Tetzel’s retort and quickly answered it. Luther had published a version of this late medieval mystical treatise with his own preface in 1516, but it was based on a manuscript that only included chapters 7–­28. Sometime between 1516 and the summer of 1518, he received a complete version and issued a new printing with a new preface. This was one of the few times that Luther had someone else’s work published, and he did not alter or notate the text of the mystical treatise in either 1516 or 1518 except to add the preface.25 The title that Luther gave this work in 1516 indicates clearly why he thought it was useful. He called it, “A noble little spiritual book about the correct distinguishing and understanding of what the old and the new person are, what Adam’s and God’s children are, and how the Adam in us must die and Christ must arise.”26 It is a testament to the increasing polemics with Rome that he called the 1518 version simply A German Theology. Indeed, polemics were never far from Luther’s comments, which were brief and broad. He praised the simple language of the text, saying that it possessed divine wisdom though it was unadorned with prose and human wisdom. Secondly, Luther said this text showed that his ideas and those of his Wittenberg colleagues were not new, as arrogantly assumed, but rather old. Finally, in responding to the accusation that Luther and the Wittenbergers were “German theologians,” he said, “We shall let that stand. I thank God that I hear and find my God in the German tongue, whereas I, and they with me, previously did not find him either in the Latin, the Greek, or the Hebrew tongue.”27 Luther’s preface was only three paragraphs long, but the content of the German Theology helps to illumine his purposes in printing it. While the

25. Eight medieval versions of the treatise are extant and indicate that it was popular and influential in its own time. Luther’s edition ensured that the text would live well into the present. By 1961, there were 190 known editions in ten different languages. Forty-five of these editions appeared in the sixteenth century, forty-five more in the seventeenth, thirty-two in the eighteenth, thirty in the nineteenth, and thirty-eight in the twentieth. The treatise received its now-­standard German name, Theologia Deutsch, from the 1518 printing of the work by the Augsburg printer Silvan Otmar. The 1518 preface is the same in all extant versions. 26. “Eyn geystlich edles Buchleynn. Von rechter underscheyd und vorstand. Was der alt und new mensche sey. Was Adams und was gottis kind sey und wie Adam ynn uns sterben und Christus ersteen sall.” WA 1:152–­53. 27. “Das laßen wyr ßo seyn. Ich danck Gott, das ich yn deutscher zungen meynen gott alßo höre und finde, als ich und sie mit myr alher nit funden haben, Widder in lateynischer, krichscher noch hebreischer zungen.” WA 1:379.8–­10; LW 31:76.

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German Theology did not discuss particular devotional practices, it thoroughly outlined a devotional approach that shared Luther’s earlier emphasis on submitting one’s will to God’s, even and especially in the willingness to suffer. There are other significant similarities between the German Theology and Luther’s earlier critiques of late medieval piety. The most striking is the warning in the German Theology about claiming to do something good. To do this is to claim that one is good or is capable of good, and therefore to claim what is God’s alone.28 In question 38, a chapter that was not included in the 1516 version Luther printed, the German Theology emphasized that believers must live a Christ-­like life simply out of love for Christ and not for any reward.29 Finally, the German Theology claimed that one cannot come to true faith by questioning, reading, or reason, but rather by giving over all things to God.30 Luther used the similarities between his own ideas and this medieval text to defend himself from charges of innovation. While his use of this text is helpful in discerning the influence and import of mysticism on his thought, it does not display significant development in Luther’s thought. Luther’s 1518 preface and his printing of the German Theology, then, constitute a restatement of his earlier concerns via a respected medieval figure in an attempt to lend authority to his views. Luther’s second pastoral writing in the summer of 1518 was based on a series of sermons on the Ten Commandments he had preached in Wittenberg from June 1516 to the beginning of Lent in 1517. For reasons that remain unclear, Luther decided to edit and publish these sermons more than a year later. They were published in Latin on 20 July 1518 with the title The Ten Commandments Preached to the People of Wittenberg.31 In contrast to Luther’s thorough treatment of the Ten Commandments from Lent 1518, A Brief Explanation of the Ten Commandments, this writing does not connect the Ten Commandments with preparation for confession. On most other points, however, Luther’s advice is consistent 28. Blamires, Book of the Perfect Life, 34. 29. Blamires, Book of the Perfect Life, 48–­50. 30. Blamires, Book of the Perfect Life, 48. 31. Decem Praecepta Wittenbergensi praedicata populo. The first edition was printed by Grünenberg in Wittenberg. It was once thought that Luther gave consent to print this work but left the editing to someone else, but the editors of the Weimar edition argue that Luther prepared it for publication himself (WA 1:395–­97). In September 1517, Luther sent a German version of the work to Johann Lang, but no copy of this is known (WA Br 1:103.15–­104.18).

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with his earlier writing. Again he emphasized that love was the heart of each commandment, and that only love could fulfill them. Thus, all the commandments flow from the first, the commandment to love God before all else.32 He also continued to draw a sharp contrast between internal and external obedience to the commandment, or between the spirit and the letter. Luther came down squarely on the side of the spirit, arguing that God requires not only outward obedience, but also inward sincerity.33 In the explications of nearly every commandment, he also claimed that the Old Testament emphasized the outward performance of the law, and consequently that the Jews had misunderstood Christ’s message. This did not mean, however, that Luther thought Christians were able to fulfill the spirit of the commandments. He readily admitted that no Christian could follow God’s will enough to satisfy the spiritual demands of the commandments, and he repeatedly emphasized that the commandments force believers to admit their sinfulness and turn to grace for help.34 At one point Luther suggested that God uses humanity’s sin to keep Christians from pride, which is a sin more dangerous than immorality.35 Nonetheless, Luther expected Christians to attempt to follow the commandments in letter and spirit, and to regularly confess their shortcomings.36 In terms of recommendations for Christian life, this work differs from his earlier explication of the Ten Commandments in Lent 1518 only in his more frequent comments on religious practices in the summer sermon. Most of these comments occurred in his discussion of the first commandment, where Luther again treated the use of magic and superstition as well as widely accepted practices such as venerating the saints and making pilgrimages. The warnings about magic repeated many of his counsels from the Lent sermon. This time, however, Luther took pains to mention as many practices as possible in manifold variations. Following late medieval cautionary writings on magic, Luther reproached fortune-­tellers, augurs, magicians, and witches, as well as those who believed it was good luck to do a particular activity on certain days of the week, used incantations for protection from harm, or stole holy water and candle wax from churches 32. WA 1:430.6–­7. See also Basse, “Luthers frühe Dekalogpredigten in ihrer historischen und theologischen Bedeutung,” 6–­17; and Rieske-­Braun, “Glaube und Aberglaube,” 21–­46. 33. WA 1:461.25–­462.12. 34. WA 1:461.29–­34; 463.38–­40. 35. WA 1:487.1–­7. 36. WA 1:400.25–­32.

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to keep as good luck charms at home. While Luther conceded that these transgressions were more foolishness than evil, he considered them dangerous because they created a habit of trusting in objects or rituals rather than God.37 At the same time, however, he chided those who underestimated the power of evil to manifest itself in such forms.38 Luther’s warning about devotion to saints, as in his Lenten sermon, focused on the tendency of those devotions to seek material good ahead of spiritual good.39 So, for example, Luther thought that many people honored the saints only when they wanted a favor from God or sought to flee suffering.40 One new emphasis was that he cautioned Christians not to believe in saints as miracle workers, but rather in God’s power as shown in the saints.41 In its starkest form, Luther’s critique equated love of the saints with love of the self, since he felt that devotion to the saints was usually practiced only for self-­advantage.42 In milder passages, Luther encouraged believers to seek temporal goods from the saints only after seeking spiritual goods, to emulate the suffering of the saints, to recognize God’s works and grace in the gifts he gave the saints, and to progress from devotion to the saints to the love of God.43 He also suggested that officials should stop or reduce the celebration of saints’ feast days because of the excesses to which they often led.44 Regarding pilgrimages, Luther had little positive to say. He condemned the pride engendered by the religious achievement of making a pilgrimage;45 suggested that pilgrimages gave rise to gluttony, drunkenness, and even murder;46 and judged that the souvenir sellers were driven by greed instead of devotion.47 Noting that pilgrimages were not commanded, Luther stated clearly that Christians could serve God much better by staying home and serving the poor.48 The basis for this unfavorable evaluation 37. WA 1:402.5–­10. 38. WA 1:408.1–­410.25. 39. In this focus, Luther’s thought coincides with that of Catholic humanists, particularly Erasmus in his colloquy from 1526, “A Pilgrimage for Religion’s Sake.” 40. WA 1:411.36–­38. 41. WA 1:413.14–­16. 42. WA 1:413.31–­35. 43. WA 1:417.8–­418.39. 44. WA 1:420.33–­421.34. 45. WA 1:421.36–­422. 46. WA 1:423.35–­424.10. 47. WA 1:424.30–­39. 48. WA 1:424.14–­25.

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was highlighted again in a summary attached to the end of the section on the first commandment. Here Luther stated that all the negative examples he had cited were a sin against the commandment because, in performing them, believers did not seek God on God’s terms but rather sought only what they wanted to find. By contrast, Luther stressed that justification could occur only by grace, that Christians must despair of themselves, that only God was righteous, and that good works could only come from faith.49 As in his explications of the commandments from Lent 1518, Luther interpreted the prohibitions of each commandment broadly in The Ten Commandments Preached to the People of Wittenberg. So, for example, the fourth commandment moved Luther to write six paragraphs on how children ought to honor their parents and over thirty paragraphs on how parents should make themselves worthy of this honor. He considered this important so that children would not honor an idol of parenthood instead of their actual parents.50 On this same commandment, Luther also offered guidance on the relationship between husband and wife and on the responsibilities of authorities to their subjects.51 Under the commandment against adultery, Luther implicated not only those who committed such acts, but also those who allowed or supported them, such as hoteliers, messengers, those who used risqué words, those who wore too much jewelry, those who acted provocatively, and even those who did not pray for adulterers’ souls.52 Similarly, Luther included gambling and usury under the commandment against stealing because he thought it was motivated by the same greed that motivated theft.53 He added that monks and priests who did not fulfill their duty to pray or who had more than one benefice were also guilty of theft because they were taking something that was not theirs.54 Luther even accused Scholastic theologians of violating the commandment against bearing false witness. Among the alleged lies were misinterpreting the scriptures, teaching falsely or at least superficially, approaching the scriptures without fear, and emphasizing justification by works instead of faith in Christ.55

49. WA 1:427.15–­428.29. 50. WA 1:449.4–­5. 51. WA 1:451.7–­460.20. 52. WA 1:484.8–­31. 53. WA 1:504.15–­505.3; 505.15–­31. 54. WA 1:505.4–­14. 55. WA 1:506.15–­507.33.

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There was, however, one commandment that Luther read in a traditional, prescriptive way in this work, and that was the commandment to honor the Sabbath. In addition to endorsing rest,56 Luther also endorsed the five requirements from medieval decretals: hearing mass, hearing the word of God, praying, bringing an offering, and having contrition for one’s sins. He endorsed hearing mass on the grounds that believers could be led astray with their own notions of proper worship and so should follow the church because it could not err.57 Hearing the word, however, was more important than hearing the mass, and Luther recommended that priests should never perform a mass without reading the gospel.58 Most important, however, was the duty to examine the conscience and have contrition for sins. Luther thought that this practice helped Christians to recognize their sins and to love God for the sake of the forgiveness offered in Christ.59 In many ways, The Ten Commandments Preached to the People of Wittenberg from summer 1518 is a restatement of themes first seen in A Brief Explanation of the Ten Commandments from Lent 1518. The admonitions against “superstition,” the emphasis on the internal fulfillment of the commandments, and the insistence that Christians stand in need of grace were all developed in Lent of 1518 and restated here without change. The only significant difference between these two works is that the writing from Lent, A Brief Explanation of the Ten Commandments, has more emphasis on absolution than the latter work. Absolution does reappear prominently in Luther’s later writings on penance, however, so this difference should be read as a differing emphasis instead of a sign of change. The overwhelming parallels between these two works indicate that his thought on confession and the Ten Commandments had undergone little alteration in the stormy months between February and July 1518. Luther’s final pastoral work from the summer of 1518 was an explication of the Vulgate’s Psalm 109 (Psalm 110 in Hebrew and modern editions) dedicated to Jerome Ebner, a prominent humanist in Nuremberg. Since September 1517, Christoph Scheurl, another key humanist in Nuremberg, had urged Luther to dedicate a work to Ebner.60 Scheurl claimed that Ebner had read several of Luther’s works and was impressed 56. WA 1:436.16–­17. 57. WA 1:444.14–­28. 58. WA 1:444.29–­445.6. 59. WA 1:446.11–­24. 60. WA Br 1:116.19–­26; WA Br 1:107.12–­19.

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with him. Ebner was a member of the humanist circle in Nuremberg that included many early supporters of Luther’s movement.61 Seven years later, in 1525, Ebner played an important role in the introduction of the Reformation in Nuremberg, when he held the highest office in Nuremberg’s city government. By 1518, when Luther dedicated this work to him, Ebner already held the second-­highest position in Nuremberg, and he had risen quickly through the ranks to that position.62 Luther’s reasons for choosing Psalm 109 likely stem from his recognition of Ebner’s power. Psalm 109 promises protection from enemies and ultimate victory to David, and in Luther’s Christological interpretation, to righteous Christian rulers. August 1518 was also just before Luther began his second series of Psalms lectures, the Operationes, so he may have been in the process of reexamining the Psalms at this time. In its structure, the Explication of the 109th Psalm resembles the verse-­by-­verse exposition Luther used in the Operationes, which was a departure from the scholae and glossae that he used in his earlier lectures on the Psalms, the Dictata.63 Once again, a main theme of this work is the need for Christians to suffer. The Psalm promises ultimate victory over enemies and announces that God will bring down powerful tyrants and unjust leaders.64 Luther employed this text to encourage Ebner to assume suffering willingly and to reassure him that his suffering would lead to victory.65 Nonetheless, his endorsement of suffering was not oriented specifically to the powerful but instead resembled his other statements on the need of all Christians to suffer. All Christians suffer under the attacks of sin, the devil, evil, and enemies; and in the midst of this suffering, Luther recommended that they recognize God’s power and relinquish their wills to God’s will. Christians, he emphasized, were not to aspire to power of their own but instead to recognize God’s power.66 Luther recognized that the acceptance of suffering would not come easily. He regarded both the acceptance of suffering and following of God’s

61. WA Br 1:107.12–­19. Bebb, “Humanism and Reformation”; Strauss, Nuremberg in the Sixteenth Century, 160–­62. 62. ADB 5:592–­93; Will, Nürnbergisches Gelehrten-­Lexicon; Zimmermann, “Das Nürnberger Religionsgespräch von 1525,” 135–­37. 63. Luther sent this exposition to Spalatin, who was at the imperial diet in Augsburg, and asked him to write a dedicatory preface. The work, with Spalatin’s preface, went to press in Augsburg on August 22, 1518, and was reprinted seven times (WA 1:687–­88). 64. WA 9:182.23–­184.5. 65. WA 9:187.25–­189.32. 66. WA 9:189.8–­12.

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law to be possible only by the spirit, not merely by nature.67 Hence, he interpreted the language in Psalm 109 of “the beginning” and “the morning star” as the preexistence of God’s grace; just as the morning star comes before all else, God precedes all human works with grace. Thus, Christians are guided by God so that their obedience cannot be construed as human goodness.68 This qualification prevented either the suffering or the obedience that he recommended from becoming a meritorious work. Luther also took the opportunity in the Explication of the 109th Psalm to criticize indulgence preachers for teaching people to seek their own honor and for being more concerned with their own popularity than with bringing forth the fruit of faith.69 By contrast, Luther emphasized that a preacher must be enlightened by the spirit of scripture. One could recognize this enlightenment when a preacher’s words cut through anything superfluous and awakened listeners’ hearts.70 The mark of a good sermon was not knowledge or elegance, but rather evidence of grace that it produced in Christians’ lives.71 Like several of Luther’s works from Lent 1518, this exposition focused on the need for Christians to suffer willingly and to approach God in sincere faith, void of self-­interest. In addition, he continued to emphasize humanity’s sinfulness and absolute dependence on grace. Where there were new emphases in the Explication of the 109th Psalm, they arose from the specifics of the biblical text and the political prominence of the addressee. Like the other works in the summer of 1518, then, this exposition stresses themes that are consistent with the earlier publications of Lent 1518 and show little change in Luther’s view of Christian devotion.

Conclusion: Piety and the Reformation Discovery The markedly lower number of pastoral writings from this period can be explained by the amount of time that the polemical debates required of Luther. In this period in which Luther was challenged from so many sides, however, his recommendations for matters of practice remained virtually

67. WA 9:189.32–­190.1. 68. WA 9:201.22–­202.2. 69. WA 9:186.13–­17. 70. WA 9:186.19–­29. 71. WA 9:185.30–­186.2; 186.30–­187.3.

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unchanged from those of Lent 1518. Fewer writings meant that fewer practices were addressed, but his approach to questions of piety again emphasized that humans could not make themselves worthy of God’s grace, that practices should be approached in sincere faith, and that Christians should embrace suffering. Seen from the perspective of Luther’s pastoral writings, then, his views remained constant and questions of practice remained a priority. This account of the summer of 1518 as a stable time in Luther’s development contrasts sharply with a prevalent narrative drawn from his conflicts. That narrative not only notes the marked increase in controversy in the summer of 1518, but also traces important developments in Luther’s theology to this time.72 Ernst Bizer dated Luther’s Reformation discovery between the Heidelberg Disputation and the summer of 1518,73 and Oswald Bayer narrowed it down to early summer.74 Using academic lectures and disputation theses, both scholars classified Luther’s theology before the discovery as a theology of humility (humilitas) and his “Reformation theology” as an emphasis on faith in God’s promise of grace. The decisive element for Bayer is the emphasis on the words of absolution in the summer 1518 theses The Investigation of Truth and Comfort for Anxious Consciences, which moves away from a theology of humility and toward faith in God’s promise. The pastoral writings, however, reflect no such seismic shift in Luther’s thought during this time. As mentioned in the introduction to this chapter, Luther emphasized faith in the words of absolution already in Lent 1518 in two separate works. One of those works from Lent 1518 was an explication of the Ten Commandments, a topic to which Luther returned in summer 1518. If we compare those two writings on the commandments (A Brief Explanation of the Ten Commandments from Lent 1518 and The Ten Commandments Preached to the People of Wittenberg from summer 1518), we see that the earlier work actually contains more emphasis on the words of absolution than the writing from summer 1518. Furthermore, absolution is not emphasized in a third explication from January 1519, A Brief Instruction on How One Should Confess. In the pastoral works, then, Luther’s views of absolution did not change in the

72. See the essays in Lohse, Der Durchbruch der reformatorishen Erkenntnis bei Luther. 73. Bizer, Fides ex auditu, esp. 97–­105, 154–­60. 74. Bayer, Promissio, 182–­202.

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summer of 1518, and varying emphases can be seen in the writings from Lent 1518 to early 1519.75 The pastoral works from 1518 also contradict the idea that Luther stopped emphasizing humility or self-­accusation from 1518 forward. In the pastoral writings of Lent and summer 1518, Luther endorsed both humility on account of sin and faith in God’s grace. In both periods, he repeatedly reminded readers that they could do nothing to prepare for grace. Throughout Lent and summer of 1518, Luther consistently counseled readers to recognize their sinfulness and their inability to earn grace. His emphasis on God’s promise of grace did not negate the need for Christians to recognize their sin. In fact, acknowledging their need for grace helped them understand the magnanimity of God’s grace. In both Lent and the summer of 1518, the need to admit sin was not a preparation for grace or a meritorious work, but instead a preparation for faith in that grace. Without this admission of guilt, Christians would not understand that grace, and their faith in that grace would be weaker. This, too, is a concern about Christian faith. Furthermore, in summer 1518 Luther continued to urge Christians to accept God’s judgment and God’s will, even when that will led to suffering. He discouraged believers from performing acts of piety in an attempt to persuade God to alleviate their suffering or to bless them with temporal goods. Instead, they were to accept God’s will even when the goodness of that will was not apparent. In the pastoral works in and after 1518, Luther continued to emphasize God’s judgment of sin and humanity’s need to recognize the gulf between God’s righteousness and human sinfulness. The texts that show most clearly how Christians should recognize this reality are his two sermons on meditation on Christ’s passion, one from Lent 1518 and a second from April 1519.76 In both of those writings, Luther chided those who contemplated Christ’s passion for the purpose of seeking benefits, fleeing suffering, or having the emotional experience of pitying Christ. Instead, the passion should cause Christians to see their own sins, understand that Christ suffered for them, and despair of their abilities to achieve righteousness. Only then could they understand the

75. Lohse notes that Luther’s development was often irregular, and that even later in life he frequently made use of expressions or ideas that sound “pre-­Reformation” in a Reformation discovery paradigm; Lohse, Martin Luther’s Theology, 92–­95. 76. See the treatments of these texts in chapters 3 and 5, respectively.

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magnitude of God’s love and truly know God. In both texts, Luther also emphasized that meditating on Christ’s passion should encourage Christians to embrace suffering since Christ suffered for them. This advice on observing the passion resonates with humility even as it reveals God’s love and promise of grace. In short, Luther’s pastoral writings offer no evidence that the summer of 1518 was a decisive time for his theological development. This finding resonates with recent research that has doubted the narrative of a sudden discovery and instead mapped out his early development in terms of several stages.77 In fact, Luther’s polemical writings from this period show only slight changes in his thought. In his Explanations of the Ninety-­Five Theses, his views were stated more boldly than in earlier works, but they were not fundamentally different. The most obvious differences between the Ninety-­Five Theses and Explanations of the Ninety-­Five Theses was that the latter work included some thoughts on the office of pope, an inclusion that was spurred by questions others had raised. On the practice of indulgences, he simply restated his case. Likewise, in Freedom of the Sermon on Papal Indulgences and Grace, a defense of his earlier Sermon on Indulgences and Grace, the new element was not his explication of indulgences but rather his harsh language about those who defended indulgences. For Luther, then, summer 1518 was marked by rising tensions with church officials and increased confidence in his views, but neither his theology nor his recommendations for changing Christian practice evince any significant alterations.

77. See especially Hamm, Der frühe Luther, and Leppin, Martin Luther, both of which argue that Luther had multiple shifts in his theology, especially in his early years. The shifts I outline from the pastoral works differ some from the shifts that Hamm and Leppin outline. This divergence can be explained by the different sources used.

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Chapter Five

Reforming Prayer and Good Works: Early 1519 From the Meeting with Cajetan to the Leipzig Debate

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n early 1519, the nature of Luther’s case with Rome turned from uncertainty to enmity, and his pastoral writings began to address a wider range of Christian practices. In October 1518, Luther appeared before papal legate Cardinal Cajetan in Augsburg in a hearing that Rome hoped would elicit a revocation of his published opinions. Instead, Luther insisted on discussing his proposals and being instructed on where he had gone astray. These mismatched expectations led to frustration on both sides and a widening chasm between Luther and the church. Cardinal Cajetan had prepared for the meeting by studying Luther’s Ninety-­Five Theses, the Explanations of the Ninety-­Five Theses, and a pastoral work from Lent 1518, Sermon on Penance. Naturally, the question of papal power was one of Cajetan’s main concerns. Their brief discussion on that issue centered on a papal bull from 1343 called Unigenitus that was used to undergird the pope’s authority over indulgences. The second issue they discussed was Luther’s contention that faith was necessary when receiving the sacraments. In Cajetan’s view, this was a new doctrine, and he deferred a decision on this matter to Rome. After the meeting with Cajetan, the necessity of faith in the sacraments did not play a significant role in the polemics with Rome, and the question of papal power resumed its role as the main issue of contention.

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Two major, related polemical issues loomed large in Luther’s activities in the first part of 1519. Since December 1518, Luther had been preparing for the Leipzig Debate. Although it did not take place until June and July 1519, theses and countertheses were exchanged in advance of the disputation by Eck, Luther, and Luther’s colleague at Wittenberg University, Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt. To prepare for the disputation, Luther began to study papal decrees in depth. These studies convinced him that the decrees that established papal authority contradicted themselves and were not based on scripture. Luther also entered the debate with a marked increase of combativeness and confidence, saying in his countertheses, “In this matter I fear neither the pope nor the name of the pope, much less those little popes and puppets,”1 and “I not only want to bite vehemently, to the discomfiture of Eck, but I want to prove myself invincible in devouring.”2 The second major conflict of this period came to a head in the early months of 1519, when Luther’s challenge to the practice of indulgences was decisively answered by the papal bull, Cum postquam. (Although it was published on 13 December 1518, Luther did not become aware of it until January or February 1519.) Cum postquam upheld the practice of indulgences, but not to Luther’s satisfaction; he said that it merely repeated assertions from earlier decretals and did not resolve the conflicts he had identified.3 Prior to this bull Luther had been able to claim that the matter of indulgences should be debated because there was no definitive papal ruling on the matter, but Pope Leo’s unswerving restatement of the legitimacy of indulgences forced Luther to decide between dropping his protest and continuing to demand better justification for the practice.4 Luther’s public statement on the matter said enigmatically that he would not reject it but also would not bow down before it.5 In fact, Luther challenged the bull by continuing to question indulgences, claiming that the practice was based neither on scripture nor on the teachings of the church. That challenge in turn set the stage for increased conflict with the papacy and its supporters.6 1. “Nec in hac re timebo seu Papam seu nomen Papae, multo minus pappos et puppas istas.” WA 2:160.9–­10; LW 31:316. 2. “Hic enim vellem non modo esse potentissimus mordendo (quod Eccio dolet) sed invictus quoque devorando.” WA 2:160.14–­16; LW 31:316. 3. WA Br 1:307.37–­47. 4. Hendrix, Luther and the Papacy, 76–­77. 5. WA Br 1:307.48–308.65. 6. WA Br 1:307.37–­47. Hendrix sees this as an important turning point in Luther’s deal-

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The first half of 1519 was a period of considerable uncertainty for Luther’s future, particularly regarding the potential support of his magistrate, Frederick, elector of Saxony. Although he ultimately supported Luther at every critical point, at each of these points it was not clear that he would do so.7 His support looked less likely when Charles of Spain was elected emperor in June 1519. After this event, the papacy had no reason to excuse Frederick’s protection of Luther because it no longer needed to court his favor as one of eleven electors of the emperor; likewise, Frederick had less power to utilize in his resistance. For reasons that we can only surmise, Frederick continued to support Luther throughout 1519 and even more decisively beyond that year. At the midpoint of 1519, however, it was far from certain that Luther would have a magisterial protector. Despite these ongoing conflicts in multiple directions, this was not all that occupied Luther in early 1519. In a letter to Spalatin dated 13 March 1519, Luther wrote that he was preparing his lectures on Galatians for publication, teaching “children and simple people” the Ten Commandments and the Our Father, and preaching and lecturing on special occasions.8 This statement references two pastoral works from the first half of 1519, one on the Ten Commandments and another on praying the Our Father. But Luther wrote five additional sermons and treatises addressing a broad range of ecclesiastically endorsed devotional practices. These writings included discussions on confession, contemplating Christ’s passion, enduring suffering, praying to saints, purgatory, indulgences, good works, the laws of the church, the use of standard prayers, marriage and child rearing, and the procession of Rogationtide. Several things stand out about these works. First, as the above list suggests, is the breadth of practices covered. Most of the writings in 1518 focused on confession, indulgences, and the passion, with brief comments on the saints, prayer, and relics. By 1519, the scope of Luther’s opinions

ings with the papacy not because he challenged the pope to justify the practice in the same way that he challenged academic opponents in debate, as Wilhelm Borth argued in Die Luthersache. Instead Hendrix argues that, after Cum postquam, Luther was challenging an explicit statement by the pope, which set him on the trajectory to open opposition. Hendrix also points out that Luther judged the bull to be inadequate by the same criteria he had proposed in the Acta Augustana, so it was the new circumstances of the conflict rather than new opinions by Luther that engendered greater conflict. 7. Cf. Hendrix, Luther and the Papacy, 73 (letter from Frederick on 1 December 1518 and Frederick’s letter to Cajetan on 8 December 1518). 8. WA Br 1:359.23–­26.

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had widened significantly, and comments on indulgences appeared only when he was asked to comment on them or as a tangent to another topic. Yet just as he did in earlier writings, Luther still frequently reminded readers to approach devotional practices with a sincere disposition, to trust in God’s mercy instead of their own works, and to accept suffering willingly. The broadened topics Luther treated suggest that his hopes for a reform of church practice were waning. Moreover, Luther’s thorough reinterpretation of these practices put him on the path to open conflict with church authorities over more than indulgences and the authority of the pope.

Revisiting Penance and the Passion As Luther mentioned in the letter to Spalatin cited above, one of the activities that occupied him in the early part of 1519 was writing a new instruction on the Ten Commandments. When Luther and Spalatin saw each other at Luther’s meeting with Miltitz in Altenburg in the first week of January 1519, Spalatin requested a form for confession.9 Luther had already written on this topic extensively in three writings from Lent 1518 and one more from the summer of 1518. Nonetheless, in a 14 January letter to Spalatin, Luther said that he was working on a treatise on confession, and on 24 January he sent the finished product, A Brief Instruction on How One Should Confess, to Spalatin.10 This work bears a strong similarity to A Brief Explanation of the Ten Commandments from Lent 1518, so much so that Theodor Brieger proposed that Luther simply revised the earlier work to create this one.11 Both works were structured around the Ten Commandments as a guide for confession, and both explored the commandments in a way that addressed the intentions of the penitent along with the prohibitions and prescriptions of the commandments. The 9. WA 2:57. 10. WA Br 1:303.83; WA Br 1:311. Luther did not initially intend for it to be published; nonetheless, he did not seem upset that Spalatin took the liberty of having it published and translated from Latin into German. When he heard in January of 1520 from his friend Bernard Adelmann that it had been printed, Luther discreetly asked Spalatin to return the manuscript, saying, “I fear that it might be printed as it stands, as our Adelmann writes. He wants me to send him a revised and altered copy” (quod metuo id, quidquid est, excudi, sicut Scribit Adelmannus noster, qui optavit, ut emendatum aut mutatum ad se mitterem). WA Br 1:613.9–­10. The revised version appeared in Latin under the title Confitendi Ratio in March of 1520. 11. Brieger, “Kritische Erörterungen,” 150.

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Brief Instruction on How One Should Confess of 1519 also repeated many of the denunciations of folk belief, dishonesty, and immorality that were included in Luther’s earlier works and in most medieval guides to confession.12 In addition, Luther again emphasized that the entirety of one’s sin could not be confessed, so instead of trying to recount every sin, one should use the Ten Commandments to examine oneself and confess only those sins that became evident.13 As he did in Lent 1518, Luther again judged the last two commandments to be too demanding to be fulfilled in this life.14 Lastly, Luther emphasized in both of these treatises that one should trust in God’s mercy rather than in the correctness or acceptability of one’s confession. On three points, however, Luther’s advice to penitents had evolved since Lent 1518. In A Brief Explanation of the Ten Commandments from Lent 1518, Luther did not directly critique medieval categories of sin, and he even regarded two such categories as complementary to the Ten Commandments. In another work on confession from Lent 1518, he gently suggested that the categories of venial and mortal sin were often difficult to distinguish. By contrast, A Brief Instruction on How One Should Confess from January 1519 contained a decisive dismissal of these and other categories of sin. The latter work also censured classifying a sin’s severity according to the circumstances surrounding it. In place of these categories and considerations, Luther recommended self-­examination using the Ten Commandments and a brief confession. “A person who wants to confess should abandon the wide-­ranging and manifold distinctions of sin and its circumstances and should consider only the commandments of God, take these upon himself, look them over, orient his confession to them, and make it brief.”15 Luther also recommended in this work that Christians confess to God before confessing to the priest, and he added that this confession should be “clear and straightforward . . . as if he is talking to one of his very best friends.”16 12. WA 2:60.37; 60.40–­41; 61.6–­7. 13. WA 2:60.6–­33. 14. WA 2:64.13–­26. 15. “Soll ein mensch, das beichten wil, die weytleuffige und manchfeltig unterscheyd der sunde und yrer umbstende lassen faren, unnd sich allein der gebot gottes befleissen unnd die selben fur sich nemen und ubersehen, und sein beicht darauff ordnen und kurtz machen.” WA 2:60.21–­24. 16. “Clar und unvorborgen  .  .  . dann alsz redeth er mit seiner allerheymlichsten freund einem.” WA 2:59.20–­22.

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Spalatin also encouraged Luther to revisit the topic of contemplation of the passion in the first months of 1519. Luther mentioned a planned sermon on the passion in a 13 March 1519 letter to Spalatin, who apparently had requested some instruction from Luther on this topic. Luther replied that he would try to write something but was not sure that he would find the time.17 Little more than three weeks later, on 5 April, Luther sent a printed copy of A Sermon on the Contemplation of the Holy Passion of Christ (hereafter The Contemplation of the Passion) to Spalatin.18 In many ways, this sermon repeated the emphases of the Two Sermons on the Passion of Christ from Lent 1518. In both works, Luther criticized those who used the consideration of the passion to seek benefits and flee suffering, and instead he recommended that Christians contemplate the passion by focusing on their own sins. According to Luther, believers should contemplate the passion with terror and despair because of God’s wrath toward sinners. Christians must understand that the sufferings of Christ were because of their own sins and that Christ’s fate is the deserved fate of sinners. In both works on the passion, then, it is a mirror that shows sin and its effects.19 This 1519 sermon does, however, reference God’s love more than his sermon from Lent 1518. In The Contemplation of the Passion, Luther counseled that sin should not remain in the conscience, where it might lead to despair and attempts to atone for it through good works, penance, indulgences, or pilgrimages.20 Instead, Luther encouraged Christians to remember that their sins were paid for by Christ’s death and overcome in the resurrection. In God’s kindness and love, Christians knew God rightly (got recht erkennet).21 Luther recommended contemplating God’s love especially for the weak in faith so that they would be motivated by love to hate sin instead of by the fear of pain. Once the love of God was seen in the 17. WA Br 1:359.26–­28. 18. WA Br 1:367.9–­10. The work was first printed by Johann Grünenberg in Wittenberg, and by the end of 1519 it had been reprinted in Leipzig, Munich, and Basel. This was one of Luther’s most popular works; it appeared in twenty-­four separate editions and was reprinted in several collections. Only one Latin translation is extant, and the translator of that edition is not known (WA 2:131–­35). 19. WA 2:138.15–­23; LW 42:10. Luther’s use of the term “mirror” echoes a medieval catechetical tradition of using the commandments and other lists of sins as a mirror for examining one’s soul. The most popular example of this is Dietrich Coelde’s catechism that was first published in 1470. 20. WA 2:139.32–­140.5; LW 42:12. 21. WA 2:141.4; LW 42:13.

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passion, believers could see their own suffering as paltry in comparison to that of Christ and thereby accept it more readily.22 Luther’s treatment of the passion in April 1519 also contained more discussion on aspects of popular practice than did his Lent 1518 treatment. In The Contemplation of the Passion, Luther noted a common belief that meditating on Christ’s suffering would bring specific benefits, citing especially thirteenth-­century theologian Albert the Great and his teaching that pondering the passion for only a day produced as much benefit as fasting for a year or praying a psalm each day. To Luther’s mind, Albert’s teaching had led many to go on pilgrimages, to carry crosses, to carry pictures of Christ on the cross, and to buy booklets on the passion, all in an effort to protect themselves from perils. This sort of practice, Luther said, prevented people from reaping the “fruit of the passion” because it kept them from sharing in Christ’s suffering.23 Believers who used the passion in those ways did not look to God for help in their meditation but rather to their own action and ability.24 In Luther’s understanding, contemplating the passion should cause Christians to realize their sin, despair of their own abilities, and put their confidence in God. Thus Luther challenged Albert the Great’s endorsement of contemplating the passion by saying that even fifteen minutes of contemplation (versus Albert’s one hour) was better than fasting for a year or praying a psalm daily. Meditating on the passion, Luther added, was also better than hearing one hundred masses, because this meditation changed the person by killing the old Adam and banishing confidence in creatures.25 Finally, Luther criticized those who, in their contemplation of Christ’s suffering, felt only pity for him. These people focused on the details of the journey to the passion and on Mary’s grief, but “never progress beyond that.”26 Luther connected this practice with the idea that simply hearing the mass would bring its benefits, and he criticized theologians who had taught that the mass was effective merely by the performance of the rite. Against this, Luther argued that the purpose of the mass was to make its recipients worthy and to remind them of the passion of Christ.27 Without this, the 22. WA 2:141.14–­142.8; LW 42:13–­14. 23. WA 2:141.14–­142.8; LW 42:13–­14. 24. WA 2:139.4–­10; LW 42:11. 25. WA 2:139.11–­18; LW 42:11. 26.“Und kummen auch nit weyter.” WA 2:136.26–­27; LW 42:8. 27. WA 2:136.28–­137.4; LW 42:8.

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mass was made into “a bodily, unfruitful work” (eyn leyplich, unfruchtbar werk), which, while still of some good, was not the purpose God intended. Luther stated his case succinctly: “Of what help is it to you that God is God, if he is not God to you?”28 This second sermon on the passion endorsed the contemplation of Christ’s suffering just as Luther’s earlier sermon on the topic did, and for much the same reasons. When done properly, the practice offered a way to examine sin, see God’s love, be moved to faith in God’s grace, and imitate Christ by accepting suffering. In addition, both of these sermons not only redirected the practice by critiquing it but also expanded it by suggesting additional uses and benefits. In this second sermon, however, most of these benefits were imparted not by meditating on the passion—­although this was a necessary first step—­but instead by contemplating God’s love. While he spent eleven of his fifteen points in this later sermon on sin, the thorough discussion of sin was directed toward understanding the magnitude of God’s love in forgiving such great iniquity.

“Lifting Up the Heart”: Instruction on Prayer In addition to revisiting practices he had previously treated, Luther’s writings during the first half of 1519 contain two works that began to address the practice of prayer. Aside from a few brief comments, he had not written any instruction on prayer before this point. The first of these works, German Explication of the Our Father from April 1519, was the result of an instance in which Luther felt forced to publish his own version of a sermon in order to counteract an earlier version that he found inadequate. Johann Agricola prepared the first printed version in 1518 from a series of sermons that Luther gave in Lent 1517.29 Luther reacted strongly against this version and reworked his original sermon notes on the Ten Commandments and the Our Father into a series of evening devotions in the winter of 1518–­19.30 28. “Dan was hilfft dichs, das gott got ist, wan er dier nit eyn got ist?” WA 2:137.4–­6; LW 42:8. 29. Agricola called his version Auslegung und Deutung des heiligen Vaterunsers durch den ehrwürdigen und hochgelarten Martin Luther. 30. WA 2:74. Nikolaus von Amsdorf also began to work on a new version because of Luther’s displeasure with Agricola’s version, although it is not clear if Luther personally encouraged him to do so. Luther’s version was published one month before Amsdorf ’s, so

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Although the subtitle declared that it was “For the simple layperson . . . Not for the learned,”31 this was by far one of Luther’s longest vernacular works, at thirty-­six pages in quarto. Its style, however, was simple and practical; and despite the fact that it was relatively expensive due to its length, it sold well.32 It was also reprinted in an abridged version that later became part of Luther’s earliest comprehensive catechetical works.33 Before expounding on the Our Father petition by petition, Luther spent several pages explicating how one should pray. Taking his cue from Jesus’s preface to the Our Father in Matthew 6, in particular his admonition not to “heap up empty phrases” (Matthew 6:7), Luther contrasted the “external” prayer of repeating traditional prayers to his ideal of “internal,” “spiritual,” or “sincere” prayer, which in his view showed more personal investment in the act of prayer. The differences between these two types of prayer were outlined in unadorned and unequivocal terms. The sham, bodily prayer is the outward mumbling and babbling with the mouth without any thought. It is seen and heard by people and it is performed with the bodily mouth, but not in truth. On the other hand, spiritual and sincere prayer reflects the inner desires, sighing and yearning from the bottom of the heart. The first makes hypocrites and gives falsely secure spirits; the second makes saints and respectful children of God.34 Luther either wanted to do it himself or found Amsdorf ’s progress on the project to be too slow. WA 9:220–­25. 31. “Fuer dye einfeltgien leyen . . . Nicht fur die gelerten.” WA 2:77–­78. 32. Agricola’s version went through five editions in 1518 and 1519 alone, and Luther’s version appeared in thirteen editions between 1519 and 1522. Spalatin apparently suggested that Luther translate it into Latin even before it came out in German, for on 13 March 1519, Luther wrote that he was too busy to undertake the project (WA Br 1:359.21–­ 22). Nonetheless, a Latin version appeared from an unknown translator in 1520 and went through three editions. The treatise was also quickly translated into Italian and Czech; WA 2:75. 33. This writing also survived in an abridgment of it, Eine kurze Form, das Paternoster zu verstehen und zu beten, which appeared later in 1519 and is extant in ten editions; WA 6:11–­ 19. It is not clear that Luther composed this abridged version since no edition of this work from Wittenberg is known. However, it was included in his 1520 catechetical work, Eine kurze Form der zehn Gebote, eine kurze Form des Glaubens, eine kurze Form des Vaterunsers, and some versions of Luther’s 1522 Betbüchlein. 34. “Dan das gebet ym scheyne und leyplich ist das eusserliche mummelen und plepperen mit dem munde an alle acht. Dan das scheynet vor den leuthen und geschicht mit dem leyplichen munde und nit warhafftig. Aber das geystlich und warhafftig gebet ist das innerliche begirde, seufftzen unnd vorlangen aus hertzen grund. Das erste macht heuchler und falsch sichere geister. Das ander macht heyligen unnd forchtsame kinder gottis.” WA

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For Luther, true prayer was defined by its sincerity. “The essence and nature of prayer is nothing other than the lifting up of the mind and the heart to God,” he advised. “Everything that does not promote the lifting of the heart is not prayer.”35 Accordingly, he was critical of one who “turns the pages of his prayer books, counts his prayer beads, almost rattling them, while his mind wanders far from what he confesses with his mouth.”36 Needless to say, this is a harsh judgment of the standard late medieval way of prayer, and clearly not all medieval Christians said their prayers with this degree of disengagement.37 To Luther’s mind, however, the practice of saying fixed prayers reinforced an insincerity that he felt was endemic in his time. Nevertheless, Luther did not uniformly dismiss all traditional prayers, nor did he uniformly condemn all those who used these prayers. Priests and monks, for example, might pray out of sheer obedience. As long as this prayer was done from a sense of duty and not from a desire for rewards, Luther judged this to be acceptable and fruitful with the grace of God.38 Another type of prayer that was less than ideal yet still somewhat acceptable was a prescribed prayer spoken with devoutness, even though the prescribed nature of the prayer added an external element to sincere devotion. In these cases, Luther pronounced that the “inner truth breaks forth and glows with an external semblance.”39 Only one use of prescribed prayers was completely denounced, namely, prayers spoken grudgingly and only in order to receive a reward, honor, or praise. In this case, he advised that it would be better not to pray at all.40 Luther also made distinctions among traditional prayers. The Our Father was the standard by which he thought all other prayers should be measured because Jesus was its author; in addition, Luther claimed that it 2:81.22–­27; LW 42:20. 35. “Das wesen und natur des gebets sey nichts anders dan ein auffhebung des gemuts ader hertzen tzu got . . . was nit des hertzens erhebung ist, nit gebet ist.” WA 2:85.9–­10; LW 42:25. 36. “Wend die bletter umb, tzelet die pater noster korner und klappert fast da mit, und denckt mit dem hertzen weyth von dem, das er mit dem mundt bekennet.” WA 2:84.10–­ 12; LW 42:23. 37. Eamon Duffy has made a compelling argument that the late medieval practice of laypeople praying set prayers during mass while the priest said the liturgy was quite likely a more engaging form of participating in the mass than the less active listening that Protestant reformers prescribed; Stripping of the Altars, 109–­30. 38. WA 2:81.31–­36; LW 42:20. 39. “Die inwendige warheyt bricht heraus und leucht mit dem eusserlichen scheyn.” WA 2:82.6–­7; LW 42:20. 40. WA 2:82.1–­5; LW 42:20.

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contained “every indulgence, all needs, all blessings, and all one’s requirements for body and soul, for life here and beyond.”41 Those prayers that did not reflect the main points of the Our Father were judged as “untrustworthy” (vordechtig). The Psalms, while not as good as the Our Father, were endorsed because they reflected all the main points of this prayer. Luther was more critical of other prayers; he mentioned by name the St. Bridget prayers, rosaries, and the crown prayers. All of these were singled out for critique because “such prayers are concerned more with our honor than with God’s.”42 Nevertheless, Luther was careful to say that they are not useless. “Not that I reject these prayers, but rather too much reliance is placed on these spoken prayers, and consequently the truly spiritual, inner and true Our Father is despised.”43 On the other hand, Luther also cautioned those who would try to pray without any words, saying that the devil would use that opportunity to make the petitioner’s thoughts stray. Instead, he advocated using the words of standard prayers as a vehicle to “soar upward until our feathers grow so that we can fly without the help of words.”44 In any case, Luther was convinced that prayers should not be verbose, and he did not mince words in explicating this belief. “The fewer the words, the better the prayer; the more words the worse the prayer,” he warned. “Few words and richness of meaning is Christian; many words and lack of meaning is pagan.”45 A critique of works done to gain God’s favor ran throughout the German Explication of the Our Father, but some works were recommended. When discussing the petition, “Thy kingdom come,” Luther said one should not go on pilgrimages, donate for chapels, and the like in order to enter the kingdom but instead should become God’s kingdom in oneself by refraining from malice, anger, hatred, pride, impatience, unchastity, and so forth.46 When explicating the third petition, “Thy will be done,” Luther 41. “Aller ablas, aller nutz, alle gebenedeiunge und alles was der mensche bedarff an leib und seel, hie und dort.” WA 2:83.3–­5; LW 42:22. 42. WA 2:82.27–­83.1; LW 42:21. 43. “Nit das ich sie vorwyrff, Sundern das die tzuvorsicht auff die selb mundlichen gebet tzu vil ist und da durch das recht geistlich, innerlich, warhafftig Vatter unser vorachtet wirt.” WA 2:83.1–­3; LW 42:22. 44. “Auffsteygen, so lang das die feder wachssen, das man flyhen magk an worth.” WA 2:85.28–­29; LW 42:25. 45. “Jhe weniger worth, jhe besser gepet, Jhe meer wort, jhe erger gepet: wenig wort und vil meynung ist Christlich, vill wort und wenig meynung ist heydenisch.” WA 2:81.14–­16; LW 42:19. 46. WA 2:98.5–­11; LW 42:20.

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argued that some works could break the old Adam and the sinful will, for example, mortification that suppresses base desires, fasting, watching, prayer, labor, alms, and other acts of kindness.47 Finally, when discussing the petition on forgiveness, Luther chastised those who looked down on others for their immoral behavior and who gossiped about others under the pretense of Christian concern for them. The true Christian, according to Luther, would regard them with mercy and compassion, covering up their wrongdoing and making excuses for them.48 However, much of the spiritual growth Luther endorsed in this treatise came passively through suffering. In his explication of the third petition, “Thy will be done,” Luther added that God often breaks the Christian’s will through worldly and spiritual trials. Opposition should be seen as a sign of God’s work, since it is spiritually dangerous always to get what one wants. This petition, then, instructed Christians to pray against themselves in the recognition that they were their own worst enemy.49 Again in his exposition of the petition, “Give us this day our daily bread,” Luther emphasized, “God’s will is done only if yours is not done. That is to say, the more adversity you experience, the better is God’s will done.”50 Thus the request for daily bread was, in Luther’s hands, a request to be sustained with the strength to endure God’s will.51 Several other practices came up for critique in the process of discussing prayer. Although they did not form main themes of the German Explication of the Our Father, these offhand comments offer further insight into Luther’s views of piety. For example, the petition “Give us this day our daily bread” spurred Luther to emphasize the importance of preaching alongside the sacrament of the altar. Modern scholarship has emphasized the vitality of late medieval preaching, but Luther was much more critical.52 In his view, preaching was neglected because so much emphasis was placed on the mass. He also claimed that if there was preaching, German

47. WA 2:101.5–­8; LW 42:44. 48. WA 2:120.9–­14; LW 42:67. 49. WA 2:105.1–­16; LW 42:48–­49. 50. “Gotis wille geschicht, wan dein wille nit geschicht, das ist, ye meher du wyderwertickeit hast, ye meher gottis wille geschicht.” WA 2:106.26–­27; LW 42:50. 51. WA 2:107.24–­30; LW 42:51. 52. Cf. Thayer, Penitence, Preaching and the Coming of the Reformation; Spencer, English Preaching in the Late Middle Ages; Muessig, Medieval Monastic Preaching; Muessig, Preacher, Sermon and Audience in the Middle Ages; Frymire, Primacy of the Postils; Taylor, Soldiers of Christ; Taylor, Preachers and People.

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legends were often the subject of the sermon instead of Christ.53 While Christ’s presence in the mass was indeed important, Luther contended, “This would not happen if Christ were not, at the same time, prepared and distributed through the word. For the word brings Christ to the people and acquaints their hearts with him.”54 Indulgences made a substantial appearance in Luther’s exposition of the fifth petition, “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” The critique in this case was leveled at those who did not want to repent sincerely but instead simply wanted to go through the three parts of penance or buy an indulgence in order to have the matter settled.55 By contrast, Luther called the Our Father “the mightiest letter of indulgence that ever came to earth” and emphasized that one could obtain this letter free simply by forgiving others.56 Although Luther maintained that he was not condemning indulgences entirely, he made it clear that he preferred other practices. Citing Jesus’s promise of forgiveness to those who forgive their neighbors (Matthew 6), Luther said, “This letter, sealed with Christ’s own wounds and confirmed by his death, was almost effaced and blotted out by the mighty cloudburst of Roman indulgences!”57 Whether satisfaction was attempted through good works or an indulgence, Luther was adamant that nothing could substitute for forgiving others if one wished to obtain God’s forgiveness.58 He was equally adamant that the essence of prayer was internal sincerity, that the Lord’s Prayer was the model for Christian prayer, that Christian life was marked by suffering, and that repentance and love were more beneficial than indulgences. In the course of explicating this one prayer, Luther managed to touch on a large number of recurring themes to his early pastoral works, and his forthright tone in the German Explication of the Our Father evinces his deep conviction about these themes.

53. WA 2:112.21–­22; LW 42:57. 54. “Das were gar umb sunst, wan man nith da neben yn tzu teylet und anrichtet mit dem wort. Dan das worth bringt Christum yns volck und macht yn bekant yn yrem hertzen.” WA 2:112.13–­17; LW 42:57. 55. WA 2:116.5–­21; LW 42:62–­63. 56. “Den aller crefftigisten Ablas brief, der nach nye auff erden kam.” WA 2:117.26–­27; LW 42:64. 57. “Dyser briff, mit Christi wunden selbst vorsiglet und durch seynen todt bestetiget, ist gar nahend vorblichen und vorwesen durch die grossen platz regen des Romischen ablas.” WA 2:118.6–­9; LW 42:65. 58. WA 2:119.5–­12; LW 42:66.

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Another occasion for offering instruction on prayer came with the annual observance of Rogation, a three-­day festival observed between Rogate Sunday and Ascension Day. In 1519, the festival of Rogationtide fell between 30 May and 1 June, just days before Luther published his response to Eck’s theses and weeks before he left for Leipzig.59 As the festival began, Luther turned his attention to its traditional processions in a pamphlet called Sermon on Prayer and Procession During Rogation Week.60 It is thought that Luther preached this sermon during the three-­day festival and had it published soon thereafter. The ecclesial practice of processing during Rogationtide was introduced by the bishop of Vienne in 473, and its observance was made obligatory by the Fifth Council of Orleans in 511. It was an adaptation of the Roman festival of Robigalia, a procession of supplication to the god of the fields and especially to Robigus, a god who protected the fields from blight. It had been Christianized as a penitential procession of gratitude for escaping perils, and by Luther’s time the emphasis had shifted to offering supplications for a good harvest in the coming season.61 Luther’s explicit critique of the practice of Rogationtide processions came only after a thorough discussion of the general nature of prayer, in which he emphasized that one should pray with confidence and never doubt that God will fulfill the prayer. As in earlier writings on matters of piety, Luther stressed that it was not the petitioner’s worthiness that induced God to fulfill the request, but rather God’s own merciful promise. Nonetheless, he added that those who doubt negate their own prayers, because God cannot give to someone with unstable faith and because those who pray in this way rob God of his honor.62 Another emphasis from ear-

59. WA 2:172. 60. Only two editions of this work were printed in 1519, but its popularity rose in 1520, when ten editions were printed. It was also included in whole or in part in several collections of Luther’s works in the 1520s, including XXVII Predig D. Martin Luthers, Das Betbüchlein, and in the Kirchenpostille. Some versions contained an additional phrase in the title to emphasize this work’s focus on prayer and upright living. Excepting variations in orthography, this subtitle is consistent throughout the various editions; in modern German it would read, Sonst von allem Gebet durch das ganze Jahr wie sich der Mensch darin halten soll, allen Christen Menschen nutzlich und selig zu wissen. Three editions, all printed in Augsburg, contained another work purported to be by Luther, Auslegung des Vater unsers, für sich und hindersich, as an addendum; WA 2:172–­74. I regard this work as spurious because there is no independent printing of it. 61. LW 42:85; Bossy, Christianity in the West, 73–­74. 62. WA 2:176.1–­20; LW 42:88.

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lier works reappeared in the Sermon on Prayer and Procession During Rogation Week when Luther said that Christians should entrust their prayers to God’s will instead of vying for a certain outcome.63 In the first five of the eight numbered points Luther outlined in this work, there was only one direct reference to the Rogationtide observance, namely, an admonition that, without God’s promise, no one would receive even a kernel of grain regardless of the prayer.64 When he did turn his direct attention to Rogation celebrations in this sermon, he first addressed the impious behavior that allegedly accompanied the celebration. Luther was unswerving in his critique, citing those who only wanted to be seen in the processions or who only came to see others, those who behaved irreverently, those who caroused in taverns, and those who handled the crosses and banners irreverently. Because of all these problems, Luther urged bishops and civic leaders to consider canceling processions and holy days, and instead suggested that everyone gather in churches for prayer and singing.65 Luther also interpreted the meaning of plague and abundance in spiritual ways. Instead of asking only for an abundant crop, Luther suggested asking for physical and spiritual health. He regarded physical health as a valid petition insofar as one asks to be free of disease and pestilence, but not to the extent that physical comfort would induce spiritual complacency. The practice of praying for a good crop led Luther to observe that Christians fled physical suffering but thereby suffered spiritually from overabundance. He maintained that the “greatest plague on earth, the source of all other plagues,” is the plague of the soul that comes from being full and idle.66 Instead of using food “for the passions of the body and for the soul’s eternal damnation,”67 Luther recommended daily processions with the scourging of the body.68 It is worth noting that this endorsement of flagellation is, by early 1519, a rare wholesale endorsement of a late medieval practice for Luther. It is also worth noting that this practice was suppressed by Rome in the fourteenth century, although it continued in

63. WA 2:177.12–­35; LW 42:89–­90. 64. WA 2:175.9–­11; LW 42:87. 65. WA 2:177.36–­178.18; LW 42:90–­91. 66. “Die groste plag auff erden, da alle ander plage her kummen.” WA 2:179.10; LW 42:92. 67. “Zu des leybs lust und der seelen ewigem vorterben.” WA 2:179.26; LW 42:92. 68. WA 2:179.19–­20; LW 42:92.

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areas, especially in Germany and Italy.69 Since Luther does not recommend flagellation on any other occasion around this time, this endorsement is likely hyperbole. His appeal to a practice that had been condemned by the medieval church speaks to his discontent with the piety of his day; the focus on abundance and material gains to be had from religious acts was, to his mind, more dangerous than a practice that the church had judged as misguided. Luther’s initial, general comments on prayer in this sermon can also be read as a critique of the Rogationtide processions, even though they are not mentioned by name. By emphasizing the petitioner’s unworthiness and the need for faith in God’s promise, Luther tried to revise an understanding of the procession that made participation a worthy act to be rewarded with God’s favor and a good crop. In place of this, Luther hoped to encourage readers to submit to God’s will instead of negotiating for blessings, and to consider their spiritual well-­being ahead of their material well-­being.

Religious Works and Good Works When Luther wrote on penance, devotion to the passion, and prayer in early 1519, he also commented on a wide range of other religious practices that, in late medieval theology and piety, conferred merit or blessing on the one who performed those works. His criticisms of these practices focus on two main points: first, that such works are often done solely to obtain the benefit promised in them, and not out of love of God; and secondly, that these works often take the place of good works that are commanded in scripture but do not promise concrete benefits. In his nuanced endorsement of devotion to the passion, The Contemplation of the Passion, Luther asserted that the benefits of meditating on the passion are considerably more than those of pilgrimages and masses. In German Explication of the Our Father, he criticized the use of traditional prayers such as the St. Bridget prayers, the rosary, and the crown prayers on the argument that they are often said insincerely, merely to obtain the specific benefits that some theologians claimed they would bring. In this same work, Luther also spoke against going on pilgrimages and giving money to build chapels, works he claimed were often done to earn God’s favor. Instead, he recommended any work

69. Kieckhefer, Repression of Heresy in Medieval Germany, 79–­82.

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that helps Christians suppress their base, sinful desires and break their self-­ seeking wills. Works that help Christians refrain from sins toward others are emphasized as truly good works. This echoes Luther’s advice in Sermon on Indulgences and Grace to give to the poor instead of buying indulgences, building chapels, or endowing masses, although this time he emphasized good works toward others in general instead of focusing on poverty relief. These instructions followed Luther’s inclination to discount works that appear to be pious in favor of acts that are commanded in the Bible and that are often private and mundane. Nowhere is this inclination seen more clearly than in his Sermon on the Estate of Marriage, which he published shortly after an anonymous listener published the sermon he delivered on this topic on 16 January 1519.70 This sermon was his first published work on the topic of marriage, though two more works on the topic would follow in the early years of his career. Just over a year after publishing this sermon, Luther published a thorough critique of the practice of marriage in The Babylonian Captivity of the Church. There he rejected its status as a sacrament, questioned many of the restrictions to marriage set out by canon law, offered his opinions on questions of annulment and divorce, and called for abolishing priestly celibacy. Just three years after this sermon, in a 1522 treatise entitled On Marriage, Luther was even more radical on these issues.71 In 1519, however, Luther seemed remarkably traditional in his approach to marriage. He did not question its designation as a sacrament, and he only briefly mentioned that neither Christ nor the apostles made

70. WA Br 1:370.74–­77 (13 April 1519). In the same letter to Johann Lang in which he referred to rogue versions of his Sermo de duplici justicia, he also mentioned the rogue version of this sermon on marriage and asked Lang to defend him should Lang see any copies of it. Luther’s preface to his revised version also asked readers to disregard the first version, and he added a plea that people stop printing his sermons, saying, “There is a great difference between producing something with the living voice and producing something with dead writing” (Es ist ein groß unterscheyt, etwas mit lebendiger stymme adder mit todter schrifft an tag zubringenn); WA 2:166.10–­11; LW 44:7. Judged by the number of reprints, he seems to have succeeded in lessening the influence of the earlier version. Fourteen editions of Luther’s version are extant, whereas only three of the unauthorized version are extant; and while the unauthorized version was printed only in Leipzig, Luther’s version was printed in Wittenberg, Nuremberg, Augsburg, Basel, and Strasbourg and in the major collections of his writings; WA 2:162–­65. 71. For more on Luther’s development on the subject of marriage, see Hendrix, “Luther on Marriage,” 335–­50; and Karant-­Nunn and Wiesner-­Hanks, Luther on Women: A Sourcebook, 88–­136.

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celibacy an obligation.72 Aside from this one comment, no traditional understandings of marriage were challenged directly. In fact, Luther followed tradition to the letter by introducing the topic according to the three “goods” of marriage in medieval thought: marriage as a sacrament and a covenant of fidelity, with the chief purpose of bringing about children.73 He did, however, put his own stamp on traditional views of marriage, and his recommendations highlight his views on the piety of his day. In the Sermon on the Estate of Marriage, Luther agreed that children were the chief purpose of marriage, but he emphasized raising them, not just having them, “for heathen, too, bear offspring.”74 If children are raised well, Luther said, there is nothing better for God, Christendom, the world, the parents, and the children. In fact, Luther spoke of raising children as a good work, better than all other Christian works, especially pilgrimages, building churches, and endowing masses.75 Luther even accorded the work of raising children with the power to atone for sin in the way that had motivated his public protest; he claimed that parenting helped one attain the highest indulgence (den hochsten ablaß erlangen).76 Because of this importance, Luther encouraged parents to spare no expense or trouble in raising their children. He compared the legacy of children to the legacy left by someone who would endow masses or buy items for worship to be used after their death. Such endowments were thought to benefit the donor in purgatory every time the endowment was utilized.77 Luther drew an analogy between these testamentary donations and children, saying that children are “the churches, altar, testament, vigils and masses for the dead that you will leave behind, and they will light the way in death to where you are going.”78

72. WA 2:168.6–­9; LW 44:9. 73. WA 2:168.10–­169.37; LW 44:9–­13. For more on the three goods and their Augustinian origins, see Clark, Augustine on Marriage and Sexuality, 94–­95. For more on marriage in early modern Europe, see Ozment, When Fathers Ruled: Family Life in Reformation Europe; Wiesner, Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe; Harrington, Reordering Marriage and Society in Reformation Germany; Witte, From Sacrament to Contract; Wunder, He Is the Sun, She Is the Moon; Plummer, From Priest’s Whore to Pastor’s Wife. 74. “Dan sulche frucht tregt es auch den heyden.” WA 2:169.32–­33; LW 44:12. 75. WA 2:169.38–­170.7; LW 44:12. 76. WA 2:171.4; LW 44:14. 77. Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, 113–­16, 139–­42. 78. “Dann das seyn die kirchen, altar, Testament, vigilen und seelmeßen, die du hynder dyr leßest, die dyr auch leuchten werden ym sterben, und wo du hyn kumest.” WA 2:171.8–­10; LW 44:14.

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By importing the language of indulgences and religious works to the task of raising children in this sermon, Luther turned the religious ideal of his day on its head. In sixteenth-­century Christendom, monastic celibacy was seen as the ideal spiritual lifestyle, whereas marrying and having children was a worldly endeavor that contained blessings but was not nearly as spiritual as celibacy. Here, however, Luther promoted the mundane work of parenting to the level of a religious work that was uniquely worthy, even if it did not earn salvation. With the same linguistic maneuver, Luther also demoted traditional religious works, specifically pilgrimages, building churches and altars, endowing masses for the dead, and buying indulgences. While his low regard for such works was not new in 1519, dethroning them in favor of domestic undertakings is much more radical than it first appears, and it foreshadows further developments in Luther’s understanding of the holiness of marriage and family. In another work from early 1519, Sermon on Two Kinds of Righteousness, Luther laid out his understanding of good works and their relationship to righteousness.79 This is the only pastoral work of Luther’s from early 1519 that was written in Latin, an exception that might be explained by the fact that the unauthorized version printed before Luther’s was in Latin. Luther left the translation into German to Spalatin, yet this work was clearly oriented toward a lay audience. There was no mention of any theologians or specific academic debates; Luther focused instead on what Christian righteousness meant for Christian life in concrete terms, and his sentences were short and direct.80 The two types of righteousness Luther set out to describe were alien righteousness and proper righteousness. Alien righteousness was the righteousness in baptism and when Christians were truly repentant. To explain how Christ’s righteousness was given to sinners, Luther employed 79. The first printed text of this sermon was again based on notes by an unknown listener and printed without Luther’s knowledge in February or March 1519. That unauthorized sermon was entitled Sermo de triplici justicia and is reprinted in WA 2:41–­47. Luther mentioned his dissatisfaction with its inaccuracies in a letter to Johann Lang dated 13 April 1519, although in that letter he did not mention plans to issue his own edition; WA Br 1:370.74–­77. Little is known about when Luther issued a revised version except that it was printed sometime in 1519. 80. Although it is now one of Luther’s better-­known works, Sermon on Two Kinds of Righteousness was not extremely popular in its own day. The Latin version went through only two editions and the German version only four. It was, however, reprinted in collections with some frequency; the Wittenberg, Eisleben, Altenburg, Leipzig, and Walch editions all contained the sermon; WA 2:144.

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the imagery of a bride and bridegroom who hold everything in common. In a similar way, “through faith in Christ, therefore, Christ’s righteousness becomes our righteousness and all that he has becomes ours; rather, he himself becomes ours.”81 Alien righteousness, then, was “the basis, the cause, the source” (fundamentum, causa, origo)82 of the second type and came by grace alone (per solam gratiam).83 The second type of righteousness, proper righteousness, worked with the first and completed it; Luther called it the “fruit and consequence” [fructus atque sequela] of the first type of righteousness.84 It consisted of a life of good works, which Luther categorized into three types: crucifying the flesh and one’s own desires, showing love to one’s neighbor, and showing meekness and fear toward God.85 The bulk of the discussion of proper righteousness, however, was spent on the second good work listed, loving one’s neighbor. Following Philippians 2, Luther emphasized that Christians are to be servants to one another just as Christ became the servant of humanity.86 Christian servanthood was hindered by pride in one’s strengths and the desire to appear better than others, both of which Luther traced to a desire to be like God. Christians, however, must surrender their strengths to God and take on the weaknesses of others as Christ did, for gifts such as power, wisdom, and righteousness were given to help the weak.87 Although Sermon on Two Kinds of Righteousness contained little discussion of Christian practices as such, it nonetheless revealed several aspects of Luther’s opinions on the piety of his day. First, in naming baptism and repentance as the means by which righteousness is available, Luther highlighted two of the seven sacraments of the late medieval church. He would not openly question the validity of most of the sacraments until the following year and would continue to include the mass as a sacrament for the rest of his life, yet his emphasis on baptism and confession shows their importance in his view of Christian life. It is worth noting that Luther singled out sincere contrition, not the words of absolution, as a moment when alien righteousness is granted. Furthermore, he reiterated here his concern 81. “Igitur per fidem in Christum fit iusticia Christi nostra iusticia et omnia quae sunt ipsius, immo ipsemet noster fit.” WA 2:146.8–­9; LW 31:298. 82. WA 2:146.16–­17; LW 31:298. 83. WA 2:146.29; LW 31:299. 84. WA 2:147.7; LW 31:300. 85. WA 2:146.36–­147.6; LW 31:299. 86. WA 2:147.34–­38; LW 31:301. 87. WA 2:148.32–­149.5; LW 31:302.

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that indulgences allowed Christians to skip sincere contrition, a concern that he voiced repeatedly in his treatments of confession. Although his thought had evolved since the Ninety-­Five Theses, the need for sincere contrition remained. Luther’s endorsement of works that decrease the selfish desires of the flesh and serve others in love and servanthood also repeats his earlier view that evaluated good works according to how much they reduced sin and showed a love for others. His warnings against pride here may be a reference to the late medieval categories of the seven deadly sins, which were often included in confession manuals to assist penitents with their self-­ examination and to urge commendable Christian behavior.88 As the first of the seven deadly sins, pride had a central place in Christian instruction, a place that Luther affirmed when he named it the chief antagonist of proper righteousness. In a similar vein, Luther’s admonitions to defend and encourage the weak in faith echoed the seven works of spiritual comfort (counsel, correction, comfort, forgiveness, endurance, prayer, and instruction), although only faintly. At this point, Luther had moved far enough from late medieval definitions of good works that the vocabulary of late medieval piety is only rarely invoked.

Piety and the Papacy In addition to the new practices that Luther addressed, the first part of 1519 was marked by Luther’s public, vernacular discussions of the controversy with the papacy, a new development in this period. On two occasions, Luther spoke directly to the conflict in public writings, and in those works he emphasized his practical concerns about the spiritual leadership of the papacy. The first statement of this nature came very early in 1519, at the initiative of papal legate Karl von Miltitz. After meeting with Frederick in the last days of 1518 to award him the Golden Rose and to campaign for his opposition to Charles of Spain as emperor-­elect, Miltitz asked to meet with Luther. Frederick agreed and summoned Luther to Altenburg, where Miltitz and Luther met on 5–­6 January. At this discussion, Luther agreed to let the matters of contention drop as long as his opponents would do the same. He pledged to write

88. Swanson, Religion and Devotion, 28–­29.

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Pope Leo to explain that he had opposed indulgence preachers because they brought dishonor to the church. He also pledged to write an open letter to discourage rebellion against the Roman church and to present his writings as an attempt to honor the church instead of an attempt to dishonor it. That letter was entitled Instruction on Some Articles That Have Been Attributed to and Imposed on Him by His Enemies (hereafter Instruction on Some Articles) and is usually dated to the end of February 1519.89 One of the most striking features of this open letter is the way that Luther distinguished between controversies among theologians and what the common person needed to know to practice the faith. The need for this letter arose, according to Luther, because people took his controversial writings to be instructions for the “simple folk” and therefore came to see certain traditional practices in a negative light.90 With this letter, Luther attempted to clarify his position on these issues by speaking for himself instead of letting what he called “uninvited translators” represent him.91 One might expect a conciliatory letter of this sort to emphasize points of agreement while letting the controversial elements remain unspoken. Luther did begin his discussion of each topic with a statement of basic agreement with church teaching, but in five out of six topics, he did not shy away from the criticisms he had already levied. On praying to the saints, for example, he affirmed that one should call upon the saints and that God performed miracles at the sites of their remains.92 The rest of his discussion on prayer to saints consisted of advice on how to do it properly, which included seeking spiritual needs before bodily needs as well as understanding the saints as intercessors without the power to meet requests.93 These were relatively mild criticisms, but his criticisms of purgatory and indulgences were more extensive. He claimed not to know whether indulgences could be used to relieve souls of purgatory and said that Christians could believe as they wanted on this matter, although he was quick to

89. We know for certain that it was finished by 5 March since Luther told Spalatin in a letter of that date that it had already been printed; WA Br 1:356.4–­6. The Weimar edition introduction says that Luther mentioned only plans to write this work in a letter to the pope dated 3 March; WA 2:66. Preserved Smith argues that this letter was actually from the January meeting with Miltitz but, because it did not satisfy Miltitz, it was not sent; Luther’s Correspondence, 166. The pamphlet had wide circulation, with sixteen editions by 1524. 90. WA 2:69.7–­13. 91. WA 2:69.13–­16. 92. WA 2:69.19–­21. 93. WA 2:69.21–­70.9.

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add that he did not believe it. He also claimed that indulgences were “free and voluntary, and no one sins if he does not use it, but he who does use it earns nothing.”94 Yet here, too, Luther was clear that he considered indulgences much less favorable than the good works commanded by God, especially loving one’s neighbor.95 “So one who does not give to the poor or help his neighbor yet wants to redeem an indulgence makes a fool of himself and God for he does not do what is commanded and does what is not commanded.” Anything beyond this “should be left to the learned in the schools.”96 Luther took pains to point out that he had not counseled against good works, but rather encouraged believers to do “truly good works.” He emphasized that the commandments of God should come before the laws of the church; so, for example, swearing should be considered worse than eating meat on Fridays.97 He also underscored his belief that works are good only by God’s grace and only when performed by those who have despaired of their own goodness.98 As in other writings, the driving force behind his devaluation of traditional piety was Luther’s concern that prayer, pilgrimages, and indulgences used the time and resources needed for the truly good works, especially loving one’s neighbor. His discussion of the Roman church, however, followed a quite different logic. This discussion, which comprised the final section of the work, began by asserting the Roman church’s special favor before God and maintained throughout that no one should separate from the church.99 Here Luther’s critiques were much more subtle than his comments on matters of piety; his references to Rome’s shortcomings were limited to the suggestion that it was once more diligent than in Luther’s time, and this critique was followed immediately by the admonition that Christians must try to improve the church instead of separating from it.100

94. “Ablaß ist frey und wilkörrig, sundiget niemant, der es nit loßet, vordienet auch nichts, der es loßet.” WA 2:70.32–­33. 95. WA 2:70.30–­31. 96. “Drumb ßo yemant eynem armen menschen nit gibt, adder seynem nehsten nit hilfft, und doch meynet ablaß zu lossen, thut nit anders, dan das er got und sich selb spottet. Er thut das nit, das got gepoten hat, und thut, das ym niemant geboten hat. Was mehr von ablas zu wyssen ist, sol man den gelerten yn den schulen laßen.” WA 2:70.33–­38. 97. WA 2:71.1–­7. 98. WA 2:71.31–­72.2. 99. WA 2:72.31–­35. 100. WA 2:72.35–­73.5.

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The exact delineation of the pope’s power and primacy, however, Luther declined to discuss, saying instead, “Let the learned fight it out, for the soul’s salvation does not at all depend on it, and Christ has not set and grounded his church on external, apparent power and primacy . . . but rather in heartfelt love, humility and unity.”101 It is noteworthy that Luther approached this topic with more caution than he did the questions of practice, but it is even more noteworthy that he wanted to restrict this discussion to the learned on the grounds that salvation, love, humility, and unity were more important. He wanted his German readers to take his criticisms of piety to heart, while he regarded the issue of the papacy as not as important to them. Because the Instruction on Some Articles was written in the circumstances of a negotiated truce, scholars have questioned the ability of this work to reflect Luther’s views accurately. The arguments against taking the work at face value have focused on disparaging comments Luther made privately about the papacy and noted the considerably more irenic nature of his statements on the papacy in the Instruction on Some Articles.102 While this is true, the question of papal primacy is only one of six matters discussed in this work. On the five other issues Luther presented his criticism in careful language, but it was nonetheless significant criticism. In addition, his critiques of devotional practice in this work were consistent with other writings from this period. Luther’s irenic stance toward the papacy in this work may not indicate his true feelings about the institution, but it seems to genuinely reflect a desire that the unlearned not desert the faith because of his critiques of the papacy. Likewise, there is no evidence that he was insincere when he maintained that the controversy over the papacy was less important than living out Christian faith in humility, love toward the neighbor, and God’s grace. If this were the only writing we had from this period in which Luther expounded on devotional practice, we might conclude that he was using these topics to evade the more contentious issue of papal authority. As it is, the wealth of other materials on matters of practice during 101. “Laß die gelerten [es] außfechten, dan daran der seelen selickeyt gar nichts gelegen, und Christus seyne kirche nit auff die eußerliche, scheynbare gewalt unnd ubirkeit  .  .  . sunder yn die ynwendige lieb, demut unnd eynickeyt gesetzt und gegrundet hatt.” WA 2:73.7–­11. 102. Cf. Paulus, “Luthers Stellung zum Papstthum in den ersten Monates des Jahres 1519,” 1, 476–­80; and Hendrix, Luther and the Papacy, 74–­76.

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this time indicates that devotional issues were of primary importance to him. Thus, Luther’s statements about Christian practice in the Instruction on Some Articles can be taken at face value, both as indications of their importance to his protest and as indications of his particular views on these matters. Luther’s recommendations regarding Christian practice here did not vary from earlier recommendations. However, the treatise does provide a unique perspective for understanding the relative importance of piety at this point in his career. Luther’s insistence that contentious issues be kept out of the public arena was not only an attempt to protect the church from widespread revolt but also a privileging of piety over polemic. He cautioned ordinary Christians to avoid polemic because he worried that it might disturb their consciences and that it would distract them from the more important tasks of relying on grace and loving their neighbors. The Instruction on Some Articles also highlights the path from piety to polemic on the issue of indulgences. Again we see that Luther’s concern about indulgences began with a concern that Christians do the good works commanded by God in scripture, rely on God’s grace, and use piety to further sincere faith that seeks God’s will. Because of this concern, he deemed indulgences not beneficial for Christian faith. Luther’s critiques of practice in his pastoral writings and the critique of the papacy that dominated the polemics of early 1519 merged again during a break in the Leipzig Debate, when Luther was asked to preach for the festival of St. Peter and St. Paul. The sermon he delivered there was so polemical that it had to be tempered for publication,103 yet it drew direct correlations between his conflicts with church officials and his pastoral concerns. Luther preached on grace, free will, and the power of the keys. In a direct rebuttal of the Occamist maxim “to do what lies within you” (facere quod in se est), he was adamant that Christians must despair of their own abilities to do good and instead rely on grace.104 The keys, then, were given to comfort consciences and to encourage Christians to trust in God’s grace.105 Luther claimed that these matters comprised “all the subjects of the whole disputation.”106

103. LW 51:53. 104. WA 2:247.22–­36; LW 51:57–­58. 105. WA 2:248.31–­249.19; LW 51:59. 106. “Alle materien der gantzen disputation.” WA 2:246.23; LW 51:56.

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Here we see what Scott Hendrix repeatedly emphasized in his study of Luther’s burgeoning conflict with the papacy: Luther did not reject claims to papal authority because of a theory of the church, but instead because he felt that church officials abused their authority by neglecting scripture, tyrannizing believers, tormenting consciences, and otherwise keeping pastors and bishops from carrying out their responsibilities to the laity.107 In the sermon given at Leipzig, when Luther could define the disputation in his own terms, he cited these practical grounds for denying claims to papal authority.

Conclusion: Escalating Conflict, Expanding Criticisms After his meeting with Cajetan in October 1518, Luther was engaged in debates on the question of papal authority, but that issue appeared only once in these pastoral writings, and then it was at the specific request of the papal intermediary, Miltitz.108 In fact, in the conflict with Eck, Luther emphasized that he had not wanted to debate the issue of papal authority and had not previously engaged this issue voluntarily.109 Judged by the slight attention he chose to give the issue in early 1519, papal authority does not seem to be foremost on his mind. Luther did, however, have much to say about Christian practice when given the opportunity. The changes recommended in these writings were wide-­ranging. In the Brief Instruction on How One Should Confess, Luther dismissed medieval categories of sin in favor of the Ten Commandments and endorsed confessing to God before confessing to the priest. In the Sermon on the Contemplation of the Holy Passion of Christ, devotion to the passion involved understanding one’s sin, seeing God’s love, and being willing to suffer. In Sermon on Two Kinds of Righteousness, he set baptism and penance at the center of Christian life. In the Sermon on the Estate of Marriage, Luther made raising children a much nobler Christian work than “religious” works. In the Sermon on Prayer and Procession During Rogation Week, he wholly redirected the purpose of

107. Hendrix, Luther and the Papacy, esp. 84–­85. Cf. WA 2:195.16–­28; 227.6–­11. 108. The preliminary theses of Eck, Luther, and Karlstadt before the Leipzig Debate contained a wide range of topics, but the debate quickly came to focus on the primacy of the pope. 109. WA 2:159.32–­160.2.

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the procession from praying for a good crop to accepting suffering more readily. Taken together, these recommendations cover a wide scope of late medieval Christian practices and amount to a significant alteration of those practices.110 The major development in Luther’s thought during this period was the diversity of practices he addressed. The broad range of topics does not imply that Luther’s thought on matters of practice was scattered or diffuse in this period. Despite the diversity of practices discussed, his specific recommendations were undergirded by principles that were present already in 1518. Being sincere in one’s devotion, trusting in God’s grace, and accepting suffering continued to be emphases in early 1519. In fact, Luther’s advice on specific practices most often encouraged Christians to focus on the above principles instead of using the manifold forms of late medieval devotion to try to earn merit or reward before God. Within Luther’s main principles, only one aspect was modified: what Luther had earlier termed works of mercy or alms he now described more broadly as love of neighbor, a shift from the language of late medieval piety to biblical language. This shift is more than merely linguistic, however; Luther also emphasized Christians’ responsibilities to serve others more than he had in earlier periods. While he did not prohibit any practice unequivocally in early 1519, he evaluated traditional practices according to their ability to engender faith in God and love for the neighbor. He often devalued common practices by emphasizing that loving one’s neighbor and restraining sinful desires were the best Christian works. The logical path from questioning indulgences to questioning other religious practices was paved by these concerns. In 1518, he had enjoined Christians to exercise true repentance and works of mercy in place of indulgences; in 1519, he began to stress relying on God’s grace and loving the neighbor in place of traditional religious works. The language he used in 1518 was tied to the language of late medieval piety while the language he used in 1519 was based on scripture, yet the heart of his concerns was present in both formulations. By 1519, he had put these concerns in the language he would use for the rest of his career. 110. The only major late medieval religious practice that received little attention from Luther in 1519 was devotion to Mary. Luther’s first significant attention to that observance was his explication of the Magnificat in 1521. Luther’s views of Mary and Marian devotion remain the subject of much debate. For a very helpful summary of that debate, see Kreitzer, Reforming Mary, esp. 6–­11.

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The escalation of the conflict in early 1519 also offers a potential explanation for the broad array of practices that he critiqued. It seems likely that Luther was losing hope that the papacy would address the issues he had raised, and therefore he saw no reason to limit his criticism. Instead, he broadened his discussion of practices far beyond confession and indulgences and made it clear that he regarded the problems in the church to be deeper than a few isolated practices. It could also be that the increased conflict with Rome spurred his thought on piety, just as the conflict over the papacy spurred his thought on that institution. In any case, Luther’s initial protest against the practice of indulgences had expanded by 1519 into a revision of most sixteenth-­century Western Christian practices. In the process of offering specific instruction on prayer, confession, processions, pilgrimages, meditation on the passion, donating to church buildings, and endowing masses, Luther moved to articulate more clearly a litmus test for Christian practice: Anything that increased trust in God and service to the neighbor is proper Christian practice, while anything that diverted energies away from this goal and made one self-­focused is to be discouraged. These mounting criticisms and the increasing distance between Luther and the papacy set the stage for his revisions of fundamental Christian practices in the fall of 1519.

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Reinterpreting Sacraments and Saints: Fall 1519 to Summer 1520 From the Leipzig Debate to Excommunication

B

y the fall of 1519, Luther’s public career was marked by an increase in tensions. Previous pastoral writings had focused on practical recommendations and only occasionally referenced the conflict with Rome. But in the fall of 1519, Luther began to include frequent polemic against church officials in his writings on Christian practice, and both his topics and tenor took on new significance. The debate between Luther and Eck that became the Leipzig Debate in June and July 1519 began as private correspondence about Luther’s theses on indulgences, but its culmination in a very public and controversial disputation set Luther on an irreversible path of conflict. It was neither Eck nor Luther who turned the discussion acrimonious, however, but instead Luther’s colleague at Wittenberg, Andreas Karlstadt, who responded to Eck’s initial correspondence with an overzealous attempt to defend Luther. Luther initially acted as a mediator in the debate between Karlstadt and Eck, but when Eck responded to Karlstadt’s theses by focusing on the contentious issue of papal authority rather than the issues Karlstadt proposed, namely, sin and free will, Luther reacted with a vehemence that would become the norm for the controversy with Eck.1

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After the Leipzig Debate, Luther and Eck continued to clash in published refutations of each other. Meanwhile, the acrimony spread far beyond Luther and Eck. The theological faculties of Erfurt and Paris were named to judge the debate, but more than six months after the debate ended, they finally announced that they were refusing to deliver a verdict. In the absence of an official decision, supporters of both sides claimed victory and fanned the flames of controversy by issuing pamphlets maligning the other side.2 Never one to back down from a fight, Luther was soon involved in even more conflicts. In the four months following the debate, Luther engaged in polemical exchanges with the Franciscans in Jüterbog, Leipzig theologian Jerome Dungersheim, and Dresden court chaplain Jerome Emser. Most distressing to Luther, however, was the silence of his father confessor in Wittenberg, Johann von Staupitz, in 1519. It was not until May 1520 that Staupitz expressed his support for Luther.3 The points of conflict in the Leipzig Debate became important catalysts for Luther’s further theological development, especially regarding scriptural authority and his definition of the church.4 The question of Roman primacy was, of course, the most prominent topic of the debate. In this matter, the Leipzig Debate strengthened Luther’s conviction that the papacy could not claim divine right to primacy on the basis of scripture, although he was willing to recognize the papacy as a legitimate human institution. The Leipzig Debate also led directly to the papal bull demanding that Luther recant on penalty of excommunication. Despite Luther’s tempered acknowledgment of papal authority, supporters of the institution understood his views as an attack. Eck’s charge that this opinion amounted to a Hussite heresy and Luther’s subsequent admission that he agreed with Hus on many points increased both the church hierarchy’s antipathy to Luther and Luther’s antipathy to the hierarchy.5 After the debate, Eck informed the papacy of Luther’s statements on papal authority and urged the pope and Elector Frederick to take action against him. By the beginning of 1520, the drumbeat was sounding from Rome. In January of that year, Luther’s case was reopened. In February, a com2. Brecht, Martin Luther, 1:337–­41; and Bagchi, “Luther’s Ninety-­Five Theses and the Contemporary Criticism of Indulgences.” 3. Brecht, Martin Luther, 1:336–­37. 4. Lohse, Martin Luther’s Theology, 119–­20, 125–­26. 5. Hendrix, Luther and the Papacy, 92–­93; and Hendrix, “‘We Are All Hussites?,’” 134–­61.

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mission was formed to draft a bull against him. In March, the general of the order of Augustinian Hermits urged Staupitz to take action against Luther. In April, Eck went to Rome to help draft the bull against Luther. After his arrival, the commission agreed to condemn not just Luther’s ideas but also his person, and they drew up forty-­one objectionable propositions attributed to Luther. In May, Eck presented a draft of the bull to the pope and the cardinals, and on 15 June 1520, the bull was executed. Eck was one of two papal representatives responsible for publishing the bull in Germany.6 Meanwhile, Luther was also preparing a public statement against the papacy, On the Papacy in Rome Against the Very Famous Romanist in Leipzig, which also appeared in June 1520. The importance of this conflict for Luther’s career is unarguable. It marks a turning point in his relations with the church hierarchy and in his conception of the church. Yet there is more continuity in Luther’s activities before and after the Leipzig Debate than most biographies present.7 Throughout the contentious months of late 1519 and early 1520, Luther continued to give considerable attention to matters of practice. The period following the Leipzig Debate saw a marked increase in both the number and vehemence of his writings on Christian practice. He also continued his official duties in Wittenberg. In a letter from December 1519, Luther told Spalatin that he could not write some sermons Spalatin had requested because he was busy with his lectures on the Psalms, preaching duties, responsibilities with the Augustinian order, and the correspondence and informal advising that resulted from his public prominence.8 Despite this demanding schedule, Luther continued his campaign to instruct vernacular readers on questions of piety. In fact, both before and after the Leipzig Debate, Luther claimed he wanted to avoid the controversy over the papacy. In theses published before

6. Hendrix, Luther and the Papacy, 107–­10. 7. Most biographies focus on the debate to the exclusion of Luther’s other endeavors during this time. Martin Brecht’s biography of Luther notes his critique of piety, practical questions, the sacraments, and ethics in this period and rightly regards them with importance. However, Brecht does not note the pastoral writings from 1518 and therefore assumes that they did not begin until the spring of 1519. At least partially owing to this chronological oversight, Brecht interprets these appraisals of practice as a practical application of the “reformation discovery” of a gracious God. According to Brecht, only then did Luther become a reformer; Martin Luther, 1:349. 8. WA Br 1:594.8–­19.

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the debate, he described papal authority as a topic he would have gladly ignored.9 After the debate, Luther complained that he had been “grasped by the ear and dragged into the public eye because of a single debate placard,” the Ninety-­Five Theses.10 Even the papal bull against Luther highlighted his concern for matters of practice; most of the condemned propositions in it dealt with Luther’s views of penance and indulgences. The Leipzig Debate was a critical event in Luther’s relationship with Rome, but for his criticisms of Christian practice, the Leipzig Debate was merely a propellant. Here we see a closer relationship between his work to reform practice and the “Luther affair.” Luther became controversial because his criticisms of practice impinged on the papacy’s claims of authority. The Leipzig Debate forced him to define his understanding of the Roman hierarchy, and his negative conclusions about the hierarchy begged further questions about the practices it advocated. It also decisively soured relations between Luther and the papacy. The mutual disaffection between Luther and Rome in the wake of the Leipzig Debate gave him little reason to avoid perilous topics for the sake of diplomacy. Indeed, the practices Luther criticized in this period took on new significance. Instead of treating a wide range of practices, as he had in the first part of 1519, Luther’s writings after the Leipzig Debate focused on the joy and comfort a Christian can have in death and suffering, the Christian’s responsibility to love the neighbor in all ways, and the very heart of the church’s system of piety, the sacraments. Less-­central practices and beliefs that Luther had termed “superstitious” now received only scant mention. Even prayer, a topic Luther had enthusiastically treated twice in early 1519, hardly made an appearance in these works. Instead, Luther asserted that love of neighbor was the one work Christians are commanded to do, and that faith made the sacraments efficacious. In addition to the well-­known sermons on the sacraments, these writings included expositions on preparing for death, the practice of usury, suffering, and good works. Luther’s recommendations for these less familiar practices reveal as much about his theology and intentions as his treatment of the sacraments does. The sermons on the sacraments in the fall of 1519 are often treated in studies of Luther because they were his first comprehensive statements on 9. Lohse, Martin Luther’s Theology, 122. 10. “An Addition to Goat Emser,” in Brecht, Martin Luther, 1:333.

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baptism and the mass and because it was the first time that Luther questioned the prevailing definition of a sacrament. For the same reasons, they have received more attention than Luther’s other early pastoral writings.11 For our purposes, these sermons are also noteworthy because they are both pastoral and polemical and thereby illustrate the correlation between these two aspects in his early development. Luther was not asked or provoked to write on the sacraments. It was a topic he chose because, as he wrote in the dedication to Duchess Margaret, so many consciences were troubled by them and did not know the grace they provided. With two years of experience in controversy, however, he must have known that these sermons would present an affront to ecclesial authorities. His earlier writings questioning the practice of penance had already evoked intense criticism from church officials and defenders; now Luther was extending his critical assessments to the central sacraments of baptism and the mass, and his judgment on the practice of those sacraments was not favorable. Moreover, what he excluded from his treatment of the sacraments is as important as what he included. Luther consciously declined to write on all seven official sacraments because he was convinced that they were not all legitimate sacraments.12 Should church authorities have missed the implicit critique in Luther’s reinterpretation of the sacraments, Luther made his opinions on the church’s leadership quite explicit; several of his vernacular writings from late 1519 and early 1520 contain direct, vehement criticisms of church authorities and their alleged priorities. From the spring and summer of 1518 through the first half of 1519, Luther’s pastoral works usually treated different topics than did his polemical works. The practical concerns that began his public protest in 1517 led to other, overtly polemical issues that were taken up by theologians and church officials. As a result, he usually fought his opponents in Latin and addressed the public in German, often on quite different topics, though with theological foundations that held his varied concerns together. By the fall of 1519, however, polemical and practical topics merged often in his writings. Luther now included harsh critiques of authorities in his 11. Stock, Die Bedeutung der Sakramente in Luthers Sermonen von 1519; and Dähn, Rede als Text. 12. Luther did not state this publicly, but instead in a letter to Spalatin in December 1519. He told Spalatin that he did not consider the four other sacraments legitimate because they lacked a divine promise; WA Br 1:594.19–­595.25.

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vernacular writings on practice and addressed practices of vital interest to both church officials and the average layperson. He was also growing less careful about the spread of polemic and more confident in his convictions; some of his works from this period were printed in both Latin and German with Luther’s consent. The writings from this period tend to be much longer than previous writings, a change that also signals an increase in his opinions and conviction. Another sign of a deliberate campaign is that they were rarely delivered orally, as many of his earlier publications were, but instead were known only in their written form. Luther was now self-­consciously publishing writings for a broad audience. In addition, everything published in this period was printed either at Luther’s initiative or with his consent. All of these factors indicate a very proactive publishing campaign and a loss of the hope of reconciliation with the church. All of these changes in the fall of 1519 and beginning of 1520 demonstrate that this was a decisive period for Luther. His conviction was increasing, he was openly defiant, and he attempted to sway the public not only to change their practices but also to reproach the church hierarchy. Viewed from this perspective, the imminent break with the church is signaled not only by the papal bull but also by the initiative Luther exhibited in his writings during this time. All of these writings share similar themes, but the diverse applications of these themes show that Luther’s challenge was expanding its scope and coalescing into a pointed campaign.

Confession in a New Key Penance was the practice that began the Luther affair, and Luther wrote frequently on various aspects of the practice. In the fall of 1519 and again in 1520, Luther returned to this theme once again. Previously Luther had advocated changes such as structuring confession around the Ten Commandments, confessing only evident sins instead of trying to confess each and every sin, trusting in the promise of God’s mercy instead of the adequacy of one’s own confession, and confessing to God before confessing to a priest. Luther’s first writing on confession during this period was A Sermon on the Sacrament of Penance in late October or early November.13

13. The three sermons dedicated to Duchess Margaret were issued separately from mid-­

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It was the first of three sermons on the sacraments from the fall of 1519 that were dedicated to Margaret, Duchess of Brunswick and a supporter of Luther. Although Luther had never met Duchess Margaret, several people had encouraged him to write something for her, especially Otto Beckman, a Wittenberg humanist and legal councilor in Frederick’s court.14 In his dedicatory letter, Luther told Margaret that he had decided to write on the sacraments because so many people have troubled consciences and do not know the grace of the sacraments or how to use them. In place of grace, he wrote, they seek peace in their own works.15 This sermon went much further than previous writings on penance in its critiques of the practice. Luther launched three direct attacks on central aspects of the practice of confession. The first was an extension of the debate on indulgences. Here Luther repeated his assertion, first made in the Ninety-­Five Theses, that the pope has the power to forgive only the punishment of sin, not the guilt it produces.16 Whereas the Ninety-­Five Theses questioned the certainty of forgiveness promised in indulgences, On the Sacrament of Penance emphasized the certainty of forgiveness promised in the sacrament of penance. Nowhere in this work did Luther openly doubt the effectiveness of indulgences (although he had thoroughly done this elsewhere); instead, he used this work to set up a contrast between indulgences and penance in order to show that penance was the preferable practice. While an indulgence merely reconciled one to the church, the forgiveness of guilt offered in penance does away with the heart’s fear and timidity before God: it makes the conscience glad and joyful within and reconciles one with

October to mid-­December. The earliest possible publication date for Von dem Sakrament der Busse is based on a reference to these three works in a letter from mid-­October 1519, in which Luther wrote that he planned to dedicate them to Margaret. WA Br 1:539.23–­25. This comment suggests that none of the works had been published by this time. Since this sermon on penance appeared first, and the second sermon on the sacraments is known to have been published on 9 November, the publication of Von dem Sakrament der Busse can be placed somewhere in the second half of October or very early November. The sermon on penance was instantly popular, with four editions printed before the end of 1519 and ten more in the next two years. The original edition was printed by Grünenberg in Wittenberg. 14. WA Br 1:539.23–­25. 15. WA 2:713.17–­26. 16. The plenary indulgence was supposed to forgive not only the punishment, but also the guilt of sin. WA 2:716.13–­24; LW 35:12. Cf. theses 5, 6, and 20 in the Ninety-­Five Theses.

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God. And this is what true forgiveness of sins really means, that a person’s sins no longer bite him or make him uneasy, but rather that the joyful confidence overcomes him that God has forgiven his sins forever.17 Luther sometimes declared that a liberated conscience was decisive for the sacrament to be valid, a claim that left him open to charges of subjectivism. What he was trying to do, however, was to convey the intended benefits of penance for the conscience. He contrasted these benefits with attempts to alleviate the conscience through indulgences or good works, which Luther believed would only lead to doubt and despair.18 The second major critique was to alter the traditional parts of penance: contrition, confession, and satisfaction. In place of these, Luther named absolution, grace, and faith.19 In this proposal, he went a decisive step further than even the most avowed medieval absolutionist.20 Luther argued that the effort required to achieve proper contrition and perform a proper confession could easily overshadow the forgiveness conveyed in absolution, lead to pride in one’s penance or despair at its inadequacy, and keep the confessant focused on oneself instead of on God.21 To this end, his sole instruction in On the Sacrament of Penance concerning contrition and confession was not to rely on them, and satisfaction received no mention at all. In their place, he emphasized the grace that is declared in absolution and faith, “which firmly believes that the absolution and words of the priest are true.”22 For Luther, these three parts of the sacrament were not chronological steps, as in traditional penance, but instead three components that together enacted the purpose of penance. Of the three parts, faith was given special emphasis and entrusted with enormous power. “Everything, then, depends

17. “Legt ab die forcht und blodikeit des hertzen gegen gott, und macht leicht und frölich das gewissen ynnerlich, vorsunet den menschen mit gott, und das heyst eygentlich und recht die sund vorgeben, das den menschen seyn sund nit mehr beyssen noch unrugig machen, sundern eyn fröliche zuvorsicht uberkummen hatt, sie sein yhm gott ymer unnd ewiglich vorgeben.” WA 2:714.15–­20; LW 35:9. 18. WA 2:714.29–­715.9; LW 35:10. 19. The other two sermons on the sacraments from this time also identify three essential parts to the sacrament, but in the other sermons those three parts are sign, significance, and faith. 20. Cf. Swanson, Religion and Devotion, 34; and Pelikan, Christian Tradition, 4:95–­96. 21. WA 2:718.22–­31; LW 35:15–­16. 22. “Der do festiglich darfür helt, das die Absolutio und wort des priesters seyn war.” WA 2:715.28–­29; LW 35:11.

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on this faith, which alone makes the sacraments accomplish that which they signify and everything that the priest says come true.”23 Above all else, he thought that faith had the capacity to unburden the conscience and create a joyful heart because it assured the fearful conscience of the good news of God’s forgiveness. The language Luther employed makes this abundantly clear; the word “joyful” (froelich) appeared nine times in this sermon, which was only eight pages long in quarto. Certainly some of this emphasis on joy comes from his own experience of a troubled conscience, but it is also likely a reaction to the medieval teaching that Christians could not be sure of the sufficiency of their contrition and confession and therefore also could not be sure that they were in a state of grace. Luther responded to this teaching directly by reminding confessants that their contrition was definitely not sufficient and that they must therefore cast themselves on God’s grace. Because God’s grace does not depend on human merit, Luther advised that trusting in that grace instead of oneself is especially helpful in the midst of Anfechtungen. Luther’s third attack on the traditional practice of penance was his claim that absolution by a layperson was as valid as that of a priest or bishop. Unlike the other major points in this sermon, this subject did not form a major section of the writings, but instead was mentioned briefly but unambiguously in just a few paragraphs. Because Luther understood the sacrament to be based on Christ’s word of forgiveness and the believer’s faith in that word, the priest, bishop, or pope simply brought the message of forgiveness from Christ to the sinner. As long as the words of absolution were believed, then, a layperson could convey the message just as effectively as a priest. Any Christian can say to you, “God forgives your sins, in the name,” etc., and if you can accept that word with a confident faith, as though God were saying it to you, then in that same faith you are surely absolved. So completely does everything depend on faith in God’s word. No pope, bishop, or priest can do anything to your faith.24 23. “Und an dem glauben ligt es als miteynander, der allein macht, das die sacrament wircken, was sie bedeuten, und alles war wirt, was der priester sagt.” WA 2:715.30–­32; LW 35:11. 24. “Dann wilch Christen mensch zu dyr sagen kan‚ dyr vorgibt gott deyne sund, yn dem namen ec. und du das wort kanst fahen mit eynem festen glauben, alß sprechs Got zu dyr, ßo bistu gewiß yn dem selben glauben absolvirt: ßo gantz und gar ligt alle dingk ym glauben auff gottis wort, dann der Bapst, Bischoff, priester mügen zu deynem glauben nichts thun.” WA 2:716.28–­33; LW 35:12–­13.

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Luther did urge respect for ecclesial authority, and he presented lay absolution primarily as the alternative when a priest was not present.25 Yet he was adamant that absolution by a layperson was as valid as that of a priest, and he also argued that the absolution of a bishop was not needed for “reserved cases,” that is, cases of serious sin.26 He also equated absolution with the act of any Christian comforting another Christian’s conscience, a radical redefinition of the sacrament.27 Luther’s devaluation of clerical authority over penance had its origins in his conviction that the works endorsed by the church were not biblical, and that therefore the church was creating tyranny out of a practice that should have been a tool for comfort.28 Because he thought that the church was not using the sacrament as it was commanded by scripture, he questioned its claim to exclusive authority. This conviction moved him to make some extreme claims for the sixteenth century, especially given the importance of the sacrament of penance in the late medieval church. The keys or the authority of St. Peter is not an authority at all but a service; and the keys have not been given to St. Peter but to you and me. The keys are yours and mine. For St. Peter, insofar as he is a pope or a bishop, does not need them; to him they are neither necessary nor helpful. Their entire virtue lies rather in this, that they help sinners by comforting and strengthening their conscience.29 In this case, stripping priests and bishops of the sole authority to administer absolution was based on Luther’s judgment that the church was not faithfully carrying out its responsibility to care for souls. Luther’s argument did not originate from opposition to the papacy’s claim to be the rightful 25. WA 2:716.27, 716.36. Cf. LW 35:12, 35. Some late medieval theologians allowed confession to a layperson in extremis, but of those who permitted it, most thought a layperson could offer only a blessing, not a full absolution; Swanson, Religion and Devotion, 34. 26. WA 2:716.36–­38; LW 35:13. This is also an argument against the practice of reserved cases, which dictated that certain sins could be absolved only by a pope, bishop, or their designated representative. 27. WA 2:717.26–­27; LW 35:14. 28. WA 2:719.28–­33; LW 35:17. 29. “Die schlüssell und gewaltt Sanct Peters ist nit eyn gewalt, ßundern eynn dinst, und die schlüssell nit S. Peter, ßondern dyr und mir geben, deyn und meyn seyn die schlüssell, dan sanct Peter darff yhr nit, yn dem als er eyn Bapst odder Bischoff, Sie seyn yhm auch nit nott nach nütz, aber alle yhr thugent ist darrynne, das sie den ßündern helffen, yhre gewissen trosten und stercken.” WA 2:719.16–­21; LW 35:16–­17.

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successor of Peter, but instead with the argument that the clergy did not achieve the purpose for which Christ instituted the sacrament. Luther’s three critiques in this sermon of the practice of penance were intensely focused on producing a particular result, namely, a comforted and joyful conscience that believed in God’s promises and trusted God. The forgiveness of guilt, faith in the words of absolution, and hearing the absolution—­whether from a priest or a layperson—­were able to effect lasting confidence and consolation. Penance, then, was primarily a resource for Christians throughout the trials of life, a reminder of God’s grace rather than a vehicle of grace.30 Although Luther had not openly questioned the sacramental status of penance at this point, his movement in that direction cannot be missed in his comments here. Luther’s second work on penance between the fall of 1519 and the summer of 1520 was A Discussion on Confessing. This work was a revision of a short piece that Luther had written in January 1519 for his friend George Spalatin, A Brief Instruction on How One Should Confess.31 When Luther heard a year later that it had been published without his knowledge, he requested a copy of his manuscript from Spalatin and set about revising it.32 That revised version, printed in April 1520, included a dedicatory preface to his friend, Alexius Chrosner, wherein he explained that he preferred to delay writing on the matter because it would upset “the ecclesiastical tyrants” (tyrannis Ecclesiasticis) but felt forced to write something privately for Spalatin because Spalatin urgently desired advice on the matter.33 Structurally, the 1520 revision followed the same general outline as the 1519 version except that it omitted the sections that outlined each commandment. The revision also added some additional commentary and three new topics at the end. The tone of this work in 1520 was, however, vastly different from its earlier version. In 1519, Luther had elaborated on

30. WA 2:715.17–­20; LW 35:11. 31. See chapter 5, pp. 116–­17. 32. WA 6:157.10; LW 39:27. Luther’s Latin version of 1520 was reprinted in six editions. A German translation of the revised version, prepared by Spalatin at Luther’s request, also appeared in 1520 and was reprinted in four editions. 33. WA 6:157.13–­15; LW 39:27. In a rare request, Luther asked that the work be printed under Chrosner’s name because he had revised it too quickly and wanted Chrosner to endorse his views publicly. When Johann Grünenberg, a printer in Wittenberg, printed the first edition, however, it appeared under Luther’s name and did not include the letter to Chrosner. WA 6:157.22–­24; LW 39:27–­28.

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confession by encouraging believers to practice it differently from before. While he thoroughly criticized traditional practice, he did not directly lay blame on the pope or theologians. In 1520, however, Luther found numerous opportunities to critique church leaders for their “human” or “invented” teachings, which, according to Luther, produced burdened consciences by forcing believers to rely on their own works instead of on God’s promise of mercy. To take just one example, whereas the 1519 version opened by saying, “To begin with, an earnest Christian person who wants to confess should lay hold of and possess the utmost and greatest confidence in the most merciful promise of God alone,”34 the 1520 version began this way: “In our time almost every conscience has been seduced by human teachings into a false trust in its own righteousness and works, and learning about faith and trust in God has nearly ceased.”35 Luther’s advice on specific matters of practice was, however, essentially the same in both versions of the text. In both 1519 and 1520, he recommended confessing to God before confessing to the priest, honestly confessing one’s inclination to sin, confessing only obvious sins, ignoring distinctions between mortal and venial sins, and focusing on the commandments instead of the various lists of sins. In 1520, however, Luther added vigorous condemnations of the church hierarchy to each topic. When discussing his recommendation to admit one’s concupiscence instead of insincerely professing an intention to sin no more, Luther suggested that Christians who did not sincerely intend to improve should avoid confession, even if the church excommunicated them, for “it is better not to listen to the church than to come before God at one’s own peril, with a false heart. . . . The church certainly has no right to command anything endangering the soul.”36 On the traditional requirement to confess all sins to the priest, Luther added, “I have often suspected that [the requirement to confess every sin] was all an invention either of avaricious or meddlesome prelates, or certainly of tyrannical ones, who used this method to make the 34. “Tzum ersten soll eyn itzlichs Christlichs mensch, das beichten wil, sein meysts unnd grosts vortrawen in die allerbarmhertzigiste vorheischung und tzusaguung gottes setzen unnd haben.” WA 2:59.4–­7. 35. “Quando nostro saeculo omnium ferme conscientiae sunt in falsam suae iustitiae et operum suorum fiduciam humanis doctrinis abductae fereque eruditio fidei et in deum fiduciae obmutuerit.” WA 6:158.4–­7; LW 39:28. 36. “Melius est Ecclesiam ibi non audire quam in periculum suum ad deum cum ficto corde accedere. . . . Quandoquidem Ecclesia nihil habet mandare, in quo sit periculum animae.” WA 6:159.39–­160.4; LW 39:31.

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people of Christ fear them.”37 In discouraging believers from heeding distinctions between mortal and venial sins, he disparaged theologians who propagated such distinctions, calling them “hyperaudacious theologians who are virtually born to shake the whole world with false terrors after the true fear of God has been extinguished in the hearts of men.”38 When endorsing the Ten Commandments over other lists of sins, Luther opined, “Today the madness is prevalent that views sins committed against papal decretals with the greatest concern and sins committed against God with little or indeed no concern at all.”39 In addition to the topics and suggestions found in both versions, the 1520 version also included sections on the rules governing priests’ performance of the mass and daily offices, the practice of occasionally refraining from confession before receiving the Eucharist, reserved cases for confession, and clerical vows. The advice Luther offered on these topics remained very much in line with the emphases in the rest of this treatise: Rules and prohibitions should not be so complex or exacting that they discourage believers from trying to follow them; trust must be placed in God’s mercy rather than in one’s own works; and God’s commandments should be more highly regarded than the laws of the church. On vows, Luther expressed his opinion that no Christian needed vows beyond baptism, yet he also deemed the dispensations sometimes granted from vows to be dangerous since the vows were made to God and not to the one granting the dispensation.40 In the entirety of A Discussion on Confessing, Luther made no comment on the three main subjects of his On the Sacrament of Confession, written just three months earlier: that penance offered certain forgiveness of guilt as opposed to indulgences; that absolution, grace, and faith were the three main parts of the sacrament; and that absolution could be offered by a layperson. Only a few similarities between the two works on minor points appeared in the final sections that were added to the 1520 version 37. “Sepiusque mihi suspitio fuit, esse id totum inventum vel avarorum vel curiosorum aut certe tyrannorum praelatorum, qui hac via populum Christi in terrorem sui adduxerint.” WA 6:161.10–­13; LW 39:33. 38. “Huc pertinet Theologorum quorundam audacissimorum genus, nati ad hoc ipsum, ut, vero dei timore in cordibus hominum extincto.” WA 6:162.12–­13; LW 39:34. 39. “Hoc dico, quia hodie invaluit insania, ut, quae contra decreta pontificum peccantur, mira cura observentur, quae contra deum vero, vel parva vel nulla.” WA 6:164.31–­33; LW 39:38. 40. WA 6:168.8–­12; LW 39:44.

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of this work. An emphasis on consolation as the aim of the sacrament echoed statements from the Sermon on the Sacrament of Penance, and those who endorsed traditional penance, which Luther thought burdened consciences instead of consoling them, were labeled tyrants in both works.41 The revisions Luther made to this sermon between 1519 and 1520 highlight the strong connection between personal piety and public protest on the crucial issue of penance. Luther’s protest in both versions was not against the primacy of the papacy, but against its endorsement of forms of devotion that might cause people to trust in their own works rather than God’s mercy. His theological conviction that Christians could rely only on grace combined with a pastoral responsibility for believers’ consciences sparked indignation toward anyone who would lead them down the wrong path of piety.

Baptism and Christian Life Luther’s first comprehensive treatment of baptism appeared on 9 November 1519. Like the other sermons on the sacraments in the fall of 1519, his Sermon on the Holy, Revered Sacrament of Baptism (hereafter Sermon on Baptism) was also dedicated to Margaret, Duchess of Brunswick. It was enormously popular, with sixteen known reprints appearing prior to 1523.42 When Luther reissued this pamphlet in 1526 in abbreviated form, he made no major changes to it, and his revised liturgy of 1523 also reflects the opinions on baptism presented here.43 To the extent that the endurance of these views can be an indicator of his mature thought, then, we can take this sermon to be an important source of his mature and stable views of baptism. In Sermon on Baptism, Luther concerned himself with debates among theologians much more than in the other sermons on the sacraments. Nonetheless, he consistently brought his discussion of theology back to its effects on believers. After thoroughly explicating an Augustinian understanding of baptism, he turned his attention to the impact of this theology on Christians’ use of the sacrament. As he did with penance, Luther emphasized three aspects of the sacrament. Regarding baptism, however, he used the Augustinian categories of 41. WA 6:168.36, 168.41, 169.7. Cf. LW 39:45, 46. 42. LW 35:27. 43. LW 35:25.

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sign and significance, and he added faith as the third and decisive component. Luther wanted not only to endorse these criteria, but also to emphasize the lifelong effects of baptism. Although the sign of being submerged in water was a brief experience, he stressed that its significance of dying to sin and rising to new life would shape the Christian’s life until it was perfected in death.44 By contrast, believers who viewed their baptisms as past events had to rely on satisfaction instead of baptism to mitigate the effects of sin. The result, he claimed, was a terrified conscience because the sinner was required to depend on works instead of God’s promise in baptism.45 Luther wanted Christians to avoid this unnecessary suffering by utilizing faith as the “ground of comfort” (grund alles trostis) that would protect against despair.46 Other types of suffering, however, could be beneficial, especially if they helped eradicate sin.47 On these grounds, he granted some value to religious works such as fasting, prayer, pilgrimage, and clerical vows since the suffering they induced could restrain sin.48 He was quick to warn, however, that religious works were good only for restraining sin, not for gaining merit, and that religious vows did not make clergy better than other Christians. Luther maintained that baptism was the highest vow, for “what more can we promise than to drive out sin, to die, to hate this life, and to become holy?”49 Although Luther scholars often explain his view of baptism as an unconditional promise made and fulfilled solely by God,50 in Sermon on Baptism, Luther cited several ways in which Christians were able to realize or nullify their baptisms, at least in terms of gaining its benefits during one’s life; Luther does not discuss any ramifications for salvation. Stressing the importance of suffering, Luther argued that when Christians do not suffer “then the evil nature gains the upper hand so that a person makes his baptism useless, falls into sin, and remains the same old man he was before.”51 Likewise, he suggested that baptism demanded 44. WA 2:727.30–­729.5; LW 35:30–­31. 45. WA 2:732.33–­733.1; LW 35:37. 46. WA 2:732.16; LW 35:36. 47. WA 2:734.14–­20; LW 35:39. 48. WA 2:734.34–­735.28; LW 35:39–­40. 49. “Was kan man weyter geloben, dan alle sund vortreyben, sterben, diß leben hassen und heylig werden.” WA 2:736.4–­5; LW 35:41. 50. Including the author of the American edition’s introduction to this work; LW 35:26. 51. “ßo uberwindt die poße natur den menschen, das er ym die Tauff unnutz macht, unnd

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some form of cooperation, saying, “So long as you keep your pledge to God, he again gives you his grace.”52 When discussing the importance of faith, Luther cited the Scholastic idea that the sacrament is valid as long as no obstacle to its grace is presented. “Only by lack of faith in its operation is baptism canceled out,” he wrote. “Faith, in turn, removes the hindrance to the operation of grace.”53 To be sure, these qualifications were minimal; yet it is important to remember that Luther emphasized baptism’s vitality by urging Christians to make use of it to strengthen faith. When the Anabaptist controversy made this emphasis seem perilous, Luther instead emphasized the objective nature of the grace offered in baptism. In the context of 1519, however, it makes perfect sense that Luther would exhort Christians to be more active in living out their baptismal vows. He was not challenging believers who thought that baptism had to be preceded by an adult faith, but rather those who might see it as a onetime ceremony that had little bearing on their lives as Christians. Against such misconceptions, Luther tried to make baptism a central resource for Christians by urging them to exercise their faith in it.

The Communion of the Saints The third and last of Luther’s written sermons on the sacraments was published in the first days of December 1519 and given the lengthy title, A Sermon on the Revered Sacrament of the Holy and True Body of Christ, and on the Brotherhoods (hereafter Sermon on the Body of Christ).54 It is sometimes asserted that this was Luther’s first work on the mass, but that is not quite true. In Lent 1518, he wrote a treatise on preparation for the mass, Sermon on the Worthy Preparation of the Heart, which in late medieval piety referred principally to making a proper confession. In that treatise, Luther had questioned the need to confess all sins before receiving the sacrament.

fellt ynn sund, bleibt eyn alter mensch wie vorhyn.” WA 2:730.38–­731.2; LW 35:34. 52. “Die weyl nu solch deyn vorpinden mit got steet, thut dyr gott widder die gnad.” WA 2:731.3–­4; LW 35:34. 53. “Allen durch den unglauben yrs wrecks wirt sie zu nichte.” WA 2:733.37–­38; LW 35:38. 54. WA 2:738. This dating is based on a letter to Spalatin from 29 November 1519, in which Luther mentioned this sermon; WA Br 1:563–­64. Like the other sermons on the sacraments, this sermon was very popular. Fourteen editions were printed by 1525, and one Latin translation was printed in 1524 by Thomas Wolf in Basel; WA 2:739–­41.

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Rather than a complete confession, he reoriented the ideal preparation for the sacrament toward recognizing sinfulness and desiring grace. Because of this reorientation, the 1518 sermon discussed the mass as well as penance. For both of these sacraments, Luther emphasized that faith made one worthy to receive them. The Sermon on the Body of Christ from 1519 took up the role of faith in the sacrament, but the overwhelming emphasis was on the fellowship of believers with Christ, the saints, and one another. As in the other sermons on the sacraments, Luther identified three parts of this mass: the sign, its significance, and faith. In Sermon on the Body of Christ, however, that division was presented only briefly before moving on to the main theme of fellowship or communion (Gemeynschafft), which Luther identified as the significance of this sacrament. In this treatise, he presented the sacrament of the altar as the means by which Christ and the saints draw Christians into fellowship with them and with one another. In this communion, all spiritual possessions are held in common. Christ’s life, suffering, and righteousness, as well as those of the saints, are shared with Christians. Meanwhile, Christ and the saints participate in the sin and suffering of Christians, and Christians share in the sin and suffering of other Christians.55 According to Luther, this is the main purpose of the sacrament. God offers this fellowship to strengthen believers in adversity, which he says comes in three forms: sin, the evil spirit that assails, and the world that entices and persecutes.56 The sacrament, then, is a sign that no one need struggle alone.57 Where Christians bear one another’s burdens, “all things become easy, for the evil spirit cannot stand up against this fellowship.”58 Naturally, Luther’s assessment of how the sacrament was practiced in his time did not compare favorably to this ideal. He charged that many masses were held, yet there was no true fellowship because the preachers did not preach the gospel but instead works of satisfaction. Luther contrasted this situation to the stories of the early church, when it is said that Christians cared for one another and even brought food

55. WA 2:743.27–­744.18, 748.27–­749.6. Cf. LW 35:51–­53, 59. 56. WA 2:744.19–­40; LW 35:53. 57. WA 2:745.1–­18; LW 35:53–­54. 58. “Da werden alle ding leychte und mag der böße geyst widder die gemeyn nicht bestehn.” WA 2:745.34–­35; LW 35:54.

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to the church to share with the poor.59 In his time, however, he thought that many Christians wanted to share in the benefit of fellowship but not the cost, and he warned that the benefits of the sacrament could not be obtained without the willingness to suffer for the sake of others.60 The main target of this criticism was the brotherhoods, or confraternities, which were groups of men that cared for each other’s needs, both physical and spiritual. Such groups offered an array of privileges, including a guarantee for ecclesial burial, the right to choose a confessor on the deathbed, a reduction in prescribed works of satisfaction, and a share in the spiritual benefits of others’ pious works. Many of these groups also offered special indulgences to their members and claimed a share of the indulgences of certain religious orders.61 Luther devoted an addendum to this sermon that contrasted the brotherhoods with his ideal community. Instead of caring for all Christians, Luther contended that the brotherhoods were organized to benefit only themselves. They sought their own good, thought themselves better than others, and presumed to be more favorable to God.62 Furthermore, Luther thought they used saints’ days as a pretense for gluttony and drunkenness and that their only activity was to collect money for beer. He recommended that they instead organize themselves to feed the poor, pray, fast, and do good works on feast days. If they did this, they would be serving Christendom instead of themselves.63 Finally, Luther advised them to concern themselves not with how often the mass was celebrated, but instead with how much fellowship and faith it engendered.64 Scholastic theologians were also a target of criticism in this sermon. Against those who debated how exactly the elements were changed, he wrote, “It is enough to know that it is a divine sign in which Christ’s flesh and blood are truly present. The how and the where, we leave to him.”65 Luther also included an extensive discussion of the teaching that the sacrament is efficacious simply by being performed (opus operatum) and apart from the merits of the priest or the recipient. To Luther, this formulation 59. WA 2:747.4–­25; LW 35:56–­57. 60. WA 2:747.26–­748.5; LW 35:57–­58. 61. Swanson, Indulgences in Late Medieval England, 64–­75. 62. WA 2:755.24–­37; LW 35:69–­70. 63. WA 2:755.5–­23; LW 35:68–­69. 64. WA 2:757.22–­38; LW 35:72. 65. “Es ist gnug, das du wisest, es sey eyn gottlich tzeychen, da Christus fleysch und blut warhafftig ynnen ist, wie und wo, laß yhm befollen seyn.” WA 2:750.1–­3; LW 35:60–­61.

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missed the point of the sacrament and thereby misconstrued it; the sacrament is efficacious when it effects faith and love for God. “It was not instituted for its own sake, that it might please God,” he argued, “but for our sake, that we might use it right, exercise our faith by it, and through it become pleasing to God.”66 Although he later called the terms used by theologians “more of a hindrance than a help,”67 Luther did endorse the term opus operantis, which denoted that a sacrament’s efficacy is dependent on the merits of the priest and recipient: “It is not enough that the sacrament be merely completed (that is, opus operatum); it must also be used in faith (that is, opus operantis).”68 He regarded the notion of opus operatum as dangerous because it bred false security and therefore did not move the recipient to use the sacrament to strengthen faith. Luther attributed the Scholastic error of opus operatum to theologians’ focus on the physical body of Christ and lack of attention to the spiritual body, or the fellowship of the saints. These statements, however, were among the few overt condemnations of theologians or church officials in this work. Most of his criticisms were directed toward those who wanted to receive the benefits of the communion of saints without taking on the burdens and sufferings of others, not toward the church hierarchy or theologians. Yet the two targets of his criticism are related. The polemics against the brotherhoods and Scholastic theologians highlight Luther’s central concerns about the use of the sacrament. His criticism of the brotherhoods shows that for Luther the sacrament was not only a means of grace but also a symbol for the very nature of the church. The brotherhoods were the antithesis of Luther’s ideal congregation, in which each member would serve the others and share both burdens and righteousness. Since Luther thought that the brotherhoods sought only their own spiritual and material advantage and not that of the whole church, he regarded their fellowship as illegitimate. Luther’s argument with Scholastic theology is equally illumining. He felt that the Scholastic notion of the mass as an opus operatum did not encourage the use of the sacrament in the life of faith. He objected to this Scholastic emphasis because he was convinced that the purpose of 66. “dan es ist nit umb seynet willen eyngesetzt, das es gott gefalle, ßondern umb unßer willen, das wir seyn recht brauchen, den glauben dran uben, und durch dasselb gott gefellig werden.” WA 2:751.31–­33; LW 35:63. 67. “mehr hynderlich dan furderlich,” WA 2:752.13–­14; LW 35:64. 68. “Alßo ists nit gnug, das das sacrament gemacht werde (das ist opus operatum), Es muß auch praucht warden ym glauben (das ist opus operantis).” WA 2:751.36–­38; LW 35:63.

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the sacrament was to strengthen faith. Luther’s dismissal of speculative questions on the transmittal of grace in favor of an emphasis on the use of grace in faith and love shows that he was thoroughly focused on the practical and pastoral aspects of the sacrament—­until, that is, controversy usurped this emphasis. Despite the overwhelming emphasis on the communion of believers in this work, it is best known for the controversy it produced. A brief and cautious endorsement of offering the cup to the laity in the opening pages rankled Duke George of Saxony, who called it Hussite and began a campaign to have Luther condemned. In January 1520, Luther issued a defense of his stance called Dr. Martin Luther’s Explanation of Some Articles in His Sermon on the Holy Sacrament.69 In that work, Luther repeated his support for offering the cup and stated that, while he did not agree with the Hussites’ separation from the church, the differences on the cup could be tolerated out of Christian love. At Duke George’s urging, the bishop of Meissen issued a prohibition of this sermon, ordering copies in circulation to be confiscated. Luther then wrote a much less cautious response to the bishop’s statement,70 which not only increased the ill will between Luther and those faithful to Rome, but also angered his own ruler, Frederick.71 Ultimately, Luther’s support for offering the cup to the faithful was one of the errors Leo X included in the bull from June 1520. It is important to realize, however, that this position was in no way the main point of this sermon; in fact, it was not even a significant emphasis. Like many other instances in Luther’s career, the thrust of his argument was overshadowed by a controversial, though less central, statement. In his later writings on the mass, Luther focused on the controversial issues of offering both the bread and the cup to laity, denouncing the sacrifice of the mass, and arguing a middle course between transubstantiation and a spiritual presence of Christ. In early 1520, Luther published Sermon on the Ban, a German version of a sermon on excommunication that he had preached in May of 1518 and published in Latin in August 1518. This sermon presented excommunication as a ban on the partaking of the sacrament but not necessarily on participation in the communion of saints. Luther thought the church

69. WA 6:76–­83. 70. WA 6:135–­41. 71. Brecht, Martin Luther, 1:364.

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should use the ban only as a form of edifying discipline, and he maintained that it was often misused for vengeance or material gain. In the German version in 1520, Luther explicitly linked this sermon with the Sermon on the Body of Christ by noting that the Latin word communio means the fellowship of the sacrament, and the Latin word excommunio means the exclusion from that fellowship.72 Luther’s translation and reprinting of this sermon in 1520 further highlight the centrality of fellowship in this period for his understanding of the church. The fellowship of the saints also became a theme in his treatments of the depths of human experience in suffering and death.

Suffering with the Saints In many of the early pastoral writings examined in this book, Luther endorsed suffering as an expected and salutary aspect of Christian life. His earliest recommendations regarding suffering were to suffer willingly, and not to use any pious practice to try to avoid or avert suffering. In the fall of 1519, he elaborated on the place of suffering in communal Christian life by encouraging Christians to share in others’ suffering and to know that Christ and all the saints are sharing in theirs as well. In On the Revered Sacrament, this meant primarily viewing the sacrament as a powerful symbol and enactment of this mutual suffering and support. In Sermon on Preparing to Die, Luther named the saints as key helpers and comforters in the hour of death. In another work from the fall of 1519, Luther returned to the role of the saints in Christian life, this time directly challenging the vital role the saints played in late medieval devotion. In August 1519, he began writing Fourteen Consolations for Those Who Labor and Are Weary for the Elector Frederick after Frederick fell gravely ill. He finished a Latin version on 22 September and asked Spalatin to prepare a German translation for the elector.73 The fourteen consolations Luther offered in this writing were based on the veneration of a group of saints known as the fourteen holy helpers

72. WA 6:63.11–­14; LW 39:7. 73. WA Br 1:508.5–­10. He did not initially intend for this work to be published, but Spalatin convinced him to publish both the Latin and German versions, and they appeared in Wittenberg in February 1520. The dedication to Frederick was inadvertently omitted by the printer from the Latin version; WA 6:99–­100.

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(vierzehn Nothelfer), or the fourteen auxiliary saints. Each of these saints was either a patron saint for a certain profession or a protector against a particular medical ailment. They were especially popular in Franconia, where a shepherd boy had an apparition of them in 1446. After this vision, a chapel was erected in their honor in nearby Bad Staffelstein, which soon became an important pilgrimage destination. The fourteen holy helpers were also popular subjects for altarpieces. In fact, a depiction of them by Lucas Cranach the Elder was displayed at the elector’s Torgau residence, where he stayed during his illness.74 It seems likely that Luther based this meditation on the fourteen holy helpers because Frederick was viewing the painting while convalescing.75 He certainly knew the elector’s affinity for the saints; Frederick owned one of the largest collections of relics in all of Europe and occasionally made it available to pilgrims. By choosing this subject and modeling it on a popular form of devotion, Luther utilized Frederick’s regard for the saints to advocate for a shift in his devotion, saying that he wanted his fourteen consolations “to replace the fourteen saints whom our superstition has invented and called ‘The Defenders Against All Evils.’”76 Luther portrayed his consolations surrounding the Christian—­one at the head, in front, behind, beneath, at the left hand, at the right hand, and above—­and thus tried to recreate the sense of being surrounded by saints on an altarpiece and the immediacy of the saints that relics provided. In Luther’s prose version of an altarpiece, he created a diptych of seven evils and seven blessings in lieu of the fourteen saints. Although the saints were displaced, this treatise still supported devotion to the saints, albeit in revised form. Luther criticized those who used the saints as a means to avoid suffering, but he endorsed utilizing the saints as models and spiritual helpers. Instead of calling on the saints as protectors from harm, Luther wanted Frederick to consider their suffering and thus to embrace his own. Although Frederick was gravely ill and the stated purpose of this work was to comfort him, Luther did not hesitate to censure popular devotion to Frederick’s beloved saints. He stated in no uncertain terms that there was only one admirable purpose for venerating the saints.

74. LW 42:119. 75. LW 42:123. 76. LW 42:123.

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From [the] words and hymns of the church we learn that the feasts of the saints, their memorials, churches, altars, names, and pictures are observed and multiplied to inspire others by their example to bear the same evils which they also bore. Unless they are observed in this light, the cult of the saints cannot be free of superstition.77 Shortly thereafter, Luther was even more direct in addressing Frederick’s devotional inclinations. If you kiss, caress, and embrace as sweetest relics the robe of Christ, the vessels, the water jugs, and anything Christ touched or used or hallowed by his touch, why will you not much more rather love, embrace, and kiss the pain and evils of this world, the disgrace and shame which he not only hallowed by his touch but sprinkled and blessed with his most holy blood, yes, even embraced with a willing heart and with supreme, constraining love? The more so, since for you there are far greater merits, rewards, and blessings in these sufferings than in those relics. Victory over death, hell and all sins is offered to you in them, but in those relics nothing at all is offered.78 In one case, however, Luther’s assessment of the saints sounds more traditional. He named the saints as the sixth of seven blessings and endorsed a version of the treasury of merits, which traditionally allowed the virtues of Christ and the saints to compensate for a Christian’s sins.79 Luther’s reference to the saints here is, however, a reference to living Christians rather than to those Christians who led exemplary lives and now enjoyed the beatific vision. He used the terms “church of the saints”

77. “Ex quibus verbis et Canticis Ecclesiae intelligimus, sanctorum festa, memorias, templa, altaria, nomina, imagines ideo celebrari et multiplicari, ut eorum, exemplo animemur ad perferenda eadem mala quae ipsi tulerunt: qua ratione nisi colantur, omnis alius cultus eorum superstitione non vacet oportet.” WA 6:115.25–­29; LW 42:137. 78. “Proinde si tunicam Christi, vasa, hydrias et quaecunque tandem Christus tetigit et quibus usus est pro dulcissimis reliquiis tanquam suo tactu consecratis exoscularis, diligis, amplecteris, Cur non multo magis poenas, mala mundi, ignominiam et mortem non solum eius tactu consecrata sed etiam sanguine eius purissimo tincta et benedicta, deinde voluntate cordis et summa coartante charitate amplexata diligis, amplecteris, oscularis, praesertim cum in his multo sint tibi maiora merita, praemia, bona, quam in illis reliquiis, Siquidem in his victoria mortis et inferni et omnium peccatorum tibi paratur, in illis nequaquam.” WA 6:118.38–­119.6; LW 42:143. 79. WA 6:130.26–­132.24; LW 42:161–­62.

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and “communion of saints” interchangeably80 and described the comfort the saints provided in terms of bearing one another’s burden and sharing one another’s strength.81 This depiction of the treasury of merits understands merits not as accumulated points but rather as assistance provided in Christian love. Luther appealed to Paul’s ideal in his letter to the Corinthians: “Such care do the members show one another that the more honorable members cover, serve, and honor the less respected members, as is so beautifully set forth in 1 Corinthians 12.”82 Just as Luther reordered devotion to the saints from a practice that sought self-­interest to one that embraced suffering, he also inverted the definitions of evil and blessing. Luther’s purpose in naming seven evils was to show how many of them one actually experiences in life compared with how many one could possibly experience. In the tragedies and diseases that afflict the world, Christians should see how they are spared so many evils.83 In death and hell, Christians could see how they are suffering much less than they deserve.84 By encouraging Frederick to consider all the possible evils in the world, he expected that the evils he actually experienced might seem minor by comparison.85 Luther also tried to show how specific evils were not purely evil, but rather blessings concealed in evil. In the suffering undergone by friends and the saints, believers saw that God was likely chastening them because they were God’s children, and that their sufferings were not borne alone but rather by the whole “communion of saints,” as Luther called them.86 Suffering was, in fact, the greatest blessing; Christ’s suffering made any other suffering “holy, harmless, wholesome, blessed, and full of joy.”87 So often could evils become blessings that many of the experiences Luther listed as evils he later named as blessings. The suffering of the

80. WA 6:130.26, 131.7; LW 42:160, 161. 81. WA 6:131.7–­9, 131.11, 131.16; LW 42:161. 82. “Ita invicem sollicita sunt membra, ut honestiora etiam inhonesta tegant, servent, honorent, sicut i. Cor. Vi pulchre describit.” WA 6:131.19–­20; LW 42:161–­62. 83. WA 6:109.2–­8; LW 42:128. 84. WA 6:112.9–­113.26; LW 42:133–­34. 85. WA 6:112.9–­17; LW 42:133. 86. WA 6:115.32–­116.7, 131.26–­132.24. Cf. LW 42:138, 162–­63. 87. “Sanctificatas, innoxias, salutares, benedictas, beatas tibi redditas.” WA 6:118.14–­15; LW 42:142.

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wicked, for example, showed God’s just punishment of the wicked,88 while the material blessings of the wicked suggested how much more God will reward the righteous.89 Evident blessings could also become evil, but only if there was not enough evil to help believers appreciate their blessings;90 again, evil was able to provide another form of blessing. In fact, Luther emphasized that the greatest blessing for Christians, salvation, was accessible only through the greatest evil, death.91 Thus even death is seen as a blessing. It released Christians from their struggles with sin and put an end to all suffering, replacing that suffering with life, righteousness, and such blessing that it could not be contained by earthly bodies.92 The Christian who desired this eternal blessing must therefore try to love death rather than hate it.93 One other comment by Luther sheds light on his understanding of piety at this time. In his dedication, Luther stated that he was following Christ’s commandment to serve and love one another by writing this work for the elector.94 In referring to this commandment, Luther called them “works of mercy,”95 which was a designation for the seven works of charity. This is one traditional form of medieval devotion that Luther consistently endorsed, and in this reference, he explicitly mentioned the scriptural support for it. Here again it is clear that Luther did not want to eliminate all works prescribed by the church, but instead those that were not commanded by scripture or that did not help foster sincere faith. While he had begun to use “love of neighbor” by 1519, when writing to Frederick, someone who remained traditional in his piety, he elected to use the traditional late medieval expression for this Christian act. As in many other works since at least 1518, Luther presented suffering and death not as horrors to be avoided but instead as experiences for Christians to embrace. Luther’s reframing of suffering as an important part of Christian life was an attempt to discourage Frederick from a piety that sought self-­preservation and a particular outcome via specific acts of devotion, a piety that Luther regarded as a form of works-­righteousness. 88. WA 6:112.9–­113.26, 127.32–­128.29; LW 42:133–­34, 156–­57. 89. WA 6:129.5–­19; LW 42:158. 90. WA 6:120.19–­31; LW 42:145. 91. WA 6:109.25–­38; LW 42:129. 92. WA 6:109.31–­35, 122.9–­124.39, 121.23–­38; LW 42:129, 147, 148–­52. 93. WA 6:124.5–­11; LW 42:150–­51. 94. WA 6:105.12–­23; LW 42:122. 95. WA 6:104.21–­22; LW 42:122.

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Like many of Luther’s early pastoral works, Fourteen Consolations illustrates the central role of suffering in Christian life and emphasizes its vital connection to Luther’s critiques of Christian practice.

Dying in the Faith A request for Luther to write something on preparing for death came via Spalatin from Mark Schart, a counselor in Frederick’s court, in early May 1519. Schart wondered if conventional late medieval religious practices surrounding death were acceptable to Luther. Busy preparing for the debate with Eck, Luther initially recommended that Schart read Staupitz’s treatment of the topic from 1515.96 By 18 May, however, Luther wrote to Spalatin that he would be willing to write on the topic,97 and on 24 May he asked Spalatin to tell Schart to be patient because he was extremely busy.98 On 1 November 1519, Luther sent printed copies of A Sermon on Preparing to Die to Spalatin.99 This treatise quickly became one of Luther’s most popular writings. In the three years following its appearance, it was reprinted at least twenty-­two times.100 Luther’s sermon on death built on a substantial late medieval tradition of instruction on the topic. In addition to sermons and treatises on a Christian death, many manuals were printed in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries that advised Christians on what to do in the last moments of life. These writings and the recommendations they contained were often called the ars moriendi, or the art of dying well.101 Jean Gerson wrote a popular French manual in the first years of the fifteenth century that was often imitated. His manual included four parts: admonitions, questions to ask the dying person, prayers to be said at the deathbed, and advice for those at the bedside. A later manual of dying is likely based on Gerson but added an introduction, a section on the particular temptations of the deathbed, and additional prayers. From that longer manual,

96. WA Br 1:381.17–­20. 97. WA Br 1:394.15. 98. WA Br 1:407.10–­11. 99. WA Br 1:548.3–­5. The first edition is easily identified by a handwritten dedication to Schart in an edition printed by Grünenberg in Wittenberg. 100. WA 2:683. 101. For more on this tradition, see Beaty, Craft of Dying; Koslofsky, Reformation of the Dead; O’Connor, Art of Dying Well; Reinis, Reforming the Art of Dying; Rudolf, Ars moriendi.

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a shortened version was created that included illustrations depicting the deathbed temptations.102 The ars moriendi were premised on the idea that the fate of one’s soul was not decided until the soul left the body at the moment of death. It became especially important, then, to counsel dying Christians and their loved ones on what they should and should not do in the last moments of life. The manuals were meant to give Christians the direction they needed to die with their souls in the correct state. While late medieval theology warned that no one could be certain of salvation, the ars moriendi showed Christians how to improve their chances. They emphasized both humility and hope: humility before God’s judgment and hope in God’s mercy. The tension between those two emotions kept the dying person in the proper balance of faith. Luther’s Sermon on Preparing to Die contains a mixture of reflections on death and recommendations for the deathbed. In this structure, his sermon does not differ significantly from medieval manuals on preparing for death. His recommendations on preparing for death were also very much in line with tradition. The three main elements of late medieval deathbed piety were resisting various temptations, contemplating the passion of Christ, and receiving the sacraments of penance, communion, and extreme unction. All of these practices were heartily recommended in this work. Luther’s revisions to medieval tradition changed the content of these practices, and in this aspect they are significant. The most popular medieval manuals for a good death named five deathbed temptations: loss of faith in God, despair over one’s sins, impatience in suffering, spiritual pride, and avarice (or attachment to earthly things). Luther instead named three and termed them “evils” instead of “temptations.” Luther’s three evils—­death, sin, and hell—­all related to two of the traditional temptations: loss of faith and despair.103 For Luther, the devil used the fear of death, sin, and hell to detract a dying person from the promise of salvation and from the hope and joy the sacraments could bring to the deathbed. In this way, the devil kept dying Christians concerned with themselves instead of trusting God.104 Such machinations by the devil had the potential not only to torture the 102. Wicks, “Applied Theology at the Deathbed,” 347–­53; Reinis, Reforming the Art of Dying, 17–­30. 103. For more on emotions at the deathbed, see Karant-­Nunn, Reformation of Feeling, 189–­ 214. 104. WA 2:688.1–­30; LW 42:102–­3.

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believer but also to derail the faith that justified sinners.105 To combat this, Luther directed believers to contemplate Christ’s promises “of life, of grace, and of salvation,” gifts that were contrasted with the three evils of death, sin, and hell.106 Luther cautioned against probing the mysteries of predestination and instead judged deathbed practices according to their ability to encourage faith and trust in God’s promise of grace. His recommendations for the contemplation of Christ’s passion adopted the late medieval idea that meditating on Christ’s death and righteousness would help assuage excessive fear of God’s judgment. But Luther shunned the medieval practice of trying to imitate Christ’s death. Instead, Luther encouraged the dying to focus on how Christ and the saints overcame death. In such images death will not appear terrible and gruesome. No, it will seem contemptible and dead, slain and overcome in life. For Christ is nothing other than sheer life, as his saints are likewise. The more profoundly you impress that image upon your heart and gaze upon it, the more the image of death will pale and vanish of itself without struggle or battle. Thus your heart will be at peace and you will be able to die calmly in Christ and with Christ.107 Just as Christ’s death leads to the victory of life, grace should be seen in light of Christ’s passion. To overcome the fear of sin, Luther recommended that dying Christians keep a picture of Christ on the cross before them and internalize it so much that they “engrave it” (ynn sich bilden) in themselves.108

105. Austra Reinis (Reforming the Art of Dying, 17–­82) has argued that Luther’s insistence on the certainty of salvation contrasted with the medieval insistence on its uncertainty, which required the Christian to remain between the hope of grace and the fear of judgment. But at several points in this sermon, Luther raises the possibility that disbelief on the deathbed might result in damnation (see esp. LW 42:102; WA 2:684.28–­29). In that sense, he is much closer to the medieval ars moriendi tradition than Reinis presents. 106. “Des lebens, der gnade, der selickeit.” WA 2:697.16; LW 45:114. 107. “Sich, yn dißen bilden wirt dir der todt nit schrecklich noch grewlich, ja vorachtet und getoedtet und ym leben erwurget und ubir wunden. Dan Christus ist nichts dan eytell leben, seyn heyligen auch, yhe tieffer und vehster du dir diß bild eynbildest und ansihest, yhe mehr des todts bild abfelt und von yhm selbs vorschwindt an alles zerren unnd streyten und hatt alßo deyn hertz frid unnd mag mit Christo und ynn Christo geruglich sterben.” WA 2:689.10–­15; LW 42:104. 108. WA 2:689.33; LW 42:105.

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In this way you may view your sins in safety without tormenting your conscience. Here sins are never sins, for here they are overcome and swallowed up in Christ. . . . He also takes your sins upon himself and overcomes them with his righteousness out of sheer mercy, and if you believe that, your sins will never work you harm. In that way Christ, the picture of life and of grace over against the picture of death and sin, is our consolation.109 As in medieval tradition, here the passion provided consolation and renewed faith because it assured the dying of the grace given in Christ. Luther also understood the sacraments on the deathbed as a means of consolation. The sacraments were another weapon against the three evils because “God wants the sacraments to be a sign and testimony that Christ’s life has taken your death, his obedience your sin, his love your hell, upon himself and overcome them.”110 In contrast to the medieval ars moriendi, which did not spend much time instructing about deathbed sacraments other than to encourage their performance, Luther spent several pages explaining the role of the sacraments at the end of life. Their significance in this circumstance lay not with the specifics of each sacrament but instead with the grace they conveyed and the need for the recipient to trust that grace. In fact, Luther addressed the traditionally intricate matter of what makes a person worthy to receive the sacraments with a singular principle. Just see to it that you believe that these are sure signs, true words of God, and then you will indeed be and remain worthy. Belief makes you worthy; unbelief makes you unworthy. The evil spirit brings up the question of worthiness and unworthiness to stir up doubts within you, thus nullifying the sacraments and making God a liar in what he says.111 109. “ßo magstu deyn sund sicher ansehen außer deynem gewißen, sich, da seynd sund nymer sund, da seynd sie uberwunden und yn Christo vorschlunden . . . Alßo nympt er auch deyn sund auff sich und yn seyner gerechtickeit auß lauter gnaden dir ubir windt: ßo du das glaubist, ßo thun sie dyr nymmer schaden. Alßo ist Christus, des lebens und gnaden bild widder des tods und sund bildt, unßer trost.” WA 2:689.37–­690.7; LW 42:105. 110. “[Gott] will die sacrament eyn wartzeichen und urkund seyn, Christus leben soll deynen tod, seyn gehorsam soll deyn sund, seyn liebe deyn helle auff sich genommen und ubirwunden haben.” WA 2:692.30–­32; LW 42:108. 111. “Schaw nur zu, das du glaubst es seyn gewisse zeychen, ware wort gottis, ßo bistu und bleybst wol wirdigk: glaub macht wirdig, zweyffel macht unwirdigt. Darumb will der böse

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Recipients must not only believe that the sacrament is valid, but also that it was intended specifically for them. Faith was vital for Luther because it showed proper trust in God’s promises and because the sacraments could be effective only when they were taken in faith. Luther was adamant about the purpose of the sacraments, saying, “There is no better way on earth to comfort downcast hearts and bad consciences.”112 Although this emphasis on consolation was particularly applicable in the face of death, it is worth noting that Luther returned to it when explicating other sacraments as well. The grace given in the sacraments and their efficacy to battle evils of all sorts would become a cornerstone of Luther’s piety. Luther’s revision to the role of the saints on the deathbed was limited but significant. He did not attempt to remove the saints from the deathbed, but he did proscribe the invocation of the saints for miracles or protection. Instead, he encouraged a very specific role for them, one that focused on comfort rather than favors. In the hour of death, the communion of saints helped the dying Christian overcome the three evils and offered “communion, help, love, comfort, and support” in the hour of death.113 Luther reminded the dying that the saints stood in solidarity with them, sharing both the suffering and the joy of death. The saints, then, played a constructive role in Luther’s ideal Christian death, even while their traditional role as intercessors via prayer was diminished. As in his instruction on the Eucharist and suffering, Luther utilized the consolation the saints provided to encourage and strengthen faith.

The Practice of Usury and the Works of Faith Luther’s attention to the sacraments, death, and the saints during this time did not preclude him from commenting on other, less central late medieval practices. Two other writings between the Leipzig Debate and the summer of 1520 treat understanding of good works, ethics, and the role

geyst dir an der wirdickeit und unwirdickeit furwenden, das er dir eynen zweyffell unnd da durch die sacrament mit yren wercken zu nichte und gott yn seynen worten eynen lügner mache.” WA 2:694.1–­6; LW 42:110. 112. “Szo finden wir, das nit großer dingk auff erden sey, das betrübte hertzen und bös gewissen lieblicher trosten mag.” WA 2:695.5–­6; LW 42:111. 113. “hulff, lieb, trost und beystand. . . .” WA 2:695.28; LW 42:112.

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of faith within those works. The first of these writings was the Sermon on Usury, printed in November 1519. A handwritten dedication to the Augsburg cathedral canon Bernard Adelmann in a first-­edition copy suggests that Adelmann had asked Luther for advice on the matter. This dedication also shows that it was written quickly, and that Luther had plans to revise it; Luther asked Adelmann not to share the book with others because he was publishing it prematurely and he wanted to arrange it differently.114 Indeed, he soon went to work on the revisions. On 18 December, Luther told Spalatin that he was revising it.115 The significantly expanded edition, now called the Large Sermon on Usury, appeared in February 1520.116 After the expanded version appeared, the earlier version came to be known as the Small Sermon on Usury. The practice of charging interest when lending money had long been denounced by the church. It was officially forbidden by canon law, a prohibition that was reaffirmed as late as 1515 at the Fifth Lateran Council. The late Middle Ages saw a growing demand for capital to finance increased trade and consequently, financial arrangements to meet those demands that avoided the ban on usury. One arrangement was for the borrower to give a gift to the lender. This gift was considered licit as long as the lender did not hope for the gift and the borrower did not expect favors in return.117 Another method attempted to circumvent the prohibition by understanding the transaction as a sale rather than a loan, and the interest payments as fees for the loan. In this understanding, known as Zinskauf (purchase of interest), the lender was buying a regular income, and therefore was not committing usury.118 Theologians were sometimes asked to weigh in on these practices, and many Scholastics utilized casuistry to justify usury in certain cases, an inclination that Luther considered insincere and self-­ interested.119 Johann Eck was one such theologian. In a public disputation in Bologna in 1515, he presented theses that justified charging interest of 5 percent. Despite his ongoing controversy with Eck, it does not appear that Luther’s essay on usury was motivated by that conflict. 114. “D Bernhardo Aldemanno. Sed ne edatur, qui elapses est: revocabo eum et aliter ordinabo.” Luther, Eyn Sermon von dem Wucher (Wittenberg, 1519), copy in Princeton University Rare Books, HB521.L8. 115. WA Br 1:197.13–­14; LW 48:136. 116. Brecht, Martin Luther, 1:356. 117. LW 45:292n130. 118. LW 45:235–­37. 119. See Noonan, Scholastic Analysis of Usury.

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Although the European economy of the sixteenth century was growing at an impressive pace, it was not stable on a microeconomic scale. Prices had increased dramatically and were subject to turbulent fluctuations, and the disparity between rich and poor grew markedly.120 Luther’s primary purpose was to address this disparity, which he attributed to a lack of love toward poorer neighbors. The principles of this early capitalistic system were criticized only for their role in this disparity, although a 1524 reprint of the Sermon on Usury added a long section critical of current trade practices.121 The treatises on usury are often regarded as an application of Luther’s “new theology” in the particular realm of economics, and thus as writings that are secondary to Luther’s theology.122 But both sermons have more to say about the Christian’s duty to love one’s neighbor—­and possibly to suffer for another—­than about usury itself. The treatises also indicted many practices besides usury. By using the commandment to love the neighbor as the measure of piety, Luther emphasized the integration of “religious” piety and “secular” economic practices and critiqued the logic by which fifteenth-­and sixteenth-­century theologians had subverted selfless giving into a self-­interested business. In both versions, Luther based his position on the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew 5 and its corollary in Luke 6. It is a testament to the rapidly intensifying polemics of this time that the November version began with a straightforward exposition of Jesus’s words, whereas in the longer version—­printed only three months after the first version—­Luther inserted an apocalyptic paragraph announcing that avarice and usury have taken over the world while the gospel was disregarded.123 In both versions, however, Luther included a lengthy discussion of Matthew 5:38–­48, in which he emphasized that Christians should not cling to temporal goods but instead should give them up willingly and share them with the needy.124 120. LW 45:233–­34; Lindberg, Beyond Charity, 114–­15. 121. LW 45:244–­73. For more on Luther’s attention to economic matters, see Barge, Luther und der Frühkapitalismus; Strom, “Luthers Wirtschafts-­und Sozialethik,” 2:205–­23; and Rieth, “Habsucht” bei Martin Luther. 122. For example, Brecht, Martin Luther, 1:356–­58, esp. 358: “As has been shown, at first it was individual points where Luther, motivated by his new concept or his understanding of the Bible, took a stand on practical questions of life, either in principle or in specific instances. This was not a completely thought-­out ethical or social program, but in the theological and ecclesiastical situation he very quickly was compelled to make a unified and comprehensive statement on these problems.” 123. WA 6:36.5–­15; LW 45:273. 124. WA 6:3.5–­5.22, 36.16–­37.24. Cf. LW 45:273–­75.

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When Luther addressed the practice of interest-­bearing loans, he avoided the casuistry with which Scholastics had treated the topic and instead made it solely a matter of loving one’s neighbor. In Luther’s reading, the heart of Christ’s instruction on giving and lending was not to forbid usury per se but instead to urge Christians to lend to those who were unable or unwilling to repay in any way, and thus to lend to them out of love instead of regard for personal advantage.125 This included lending to one’s enemies and to those too poor to repay. While he was willing to allow Christians to charge some interest, he encouraged them to take only small amounts, saying, “the lower the percentage taken, the more godly and Christian the transaction.”126 This latitude may not have emboldened many readers to charge high interest, for soon thereafter Luther warned that those who charged high interest usually died horrible or unnatural deaths, “for God is a judge for the poor and needy.”127 Luther also disapproved of the logic by which many medieval canonists justified the circumvention of the ban on usury, most notably the Zinskauf that framed the transaction as a sale instead of a loan. He granted that these practices were not technically usury; nonetheless, he would not condone them because he felt the goals and means were equivalent to usury and thus were not motivated by the law of love.128 Luther objected especially to arrangements in which the lender demanded payment regardless of whether the borrower had made a profit, and thus did not share in the financial risk of the venture.129 In both versions of this work, Luther was adamant that loving the neighbor is commanded by Christ and thus the measure by which monetary practices—­and other practices—­must be gauged. He was therefore critical of people who tried to be good Christians by performing religious works while ignoring their neighbors’ needs. Among the religious works Luther named were praying, fasting, alms, giving money to build churches and altars, and endowing masses. As in many other of his writings, Luther here repeatedly stressed that love of the neighbor was commanded and the other works were not. He even set up a terse opposition between religious 125. WA 6:4.26–­5.2, 47.24–­48.23. Cf. LW 45:290–­91. 126. “Yhe weniger auffs hundert, yhe gottlicher und Christenlicher der kauff ist.” WA 6:6.28–­29. 127. “Dan gott ist eyn richter fur die armen und durfftigen.” WA 6:7.2–­6. 128. WA 6:31–­33. 129. WA 6:8.9–­30.

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works and love of the neighbor by playing on the word Gottesdienst, which means both worship and serving God. To serve God [gott gedienet] means to keep his commandments, so that no one steals, takes from, or overburdens another but instead gives and lends to the needy. Such true acts of service to God [gottis dienste] you want to tear down so that you can build churches, provide altars, and have the mass read and sung, none of which God commanded you to do. Thus with your worship [gottis dienst] you obliterate the proper service to god [gottis dienst].130 Luther’s objection to religious works was that he felt they were performed out of self-­interest, whereas genuine love of the neighbor required sacrifice and thus was less popular. Part of that self-­interest would have been the prestige of contributing to the church or being viewed as pious. Perhaps more importantly, such works earned merit in the medieval economy of salvation. It is noteworthy that Luther mentioned giving alms only once in each version of this work131 and did not mention the seven works of mercy at all. These acts, often referred to collectively as alms, were the main avenue of Christian charity in the Middle Ages. Instead, Luther’s sole recommendation regarding charity was that the needs presented by beggars be addressed by authorities so that they could be met more effectively, a recommendation that Luther helped implement in Wittenberg in 1520.132 His admonition to give to the poor without self-­interest was, however, an indirect critique of the long tradition that regarded the poor as necessary objects of the charity of the rich, whose almsgiving offset the spiritual disadvantage of wealth.133 130. “Was gottis dienstu mir? das heyst gott gedienet, seyn gepot gehalten, das man niemant stehle, neme, ubir setze und das gleychen, ßondernn gebe und leyhe den durfftigen. Solch warhafftig gottis dienste wiltu zu reyssen, auff das du kirchen bawist, altar stifftest, und leßen und singen lastt, der dir gott keyns gepotten hatt, Und alßo mit deynem gottis dienst den rechten gottis dienst zu nichte machist.” WA 6:7.15–­20. 131. In the 1519 version, that reference is WA 6:4.5–­12. In the 1520 version, it is WA 6:41.33–­42.13; LW 45:281–­82. 132. The earlier version also contains a recommendation that money be given only to those who live in the city so that each city would provide for its own, and the latter version adds a note of astonishment that the mendicants see begging as an honor. Luther and Karlstadt oversaw the establishment of a common chest for this purpose in Wittenberg and several other cities; Lindberg, Beyond Charity, 119–­27; Lindberg, “There Should Be No Beggars among Christians,” 313–­34. 133. Lindberg, Beyond Charity, 22–­33.

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Luther’s critique of religious works and usury here bears a distinct similarity to his critique of indulgences in 1517. In the indulgence controversy, Luther demanded sincere repentance instead of the self-­interested acquisition of indulgences; in the sermons on usury, he demanded sincere love of the neighbor instead of the self-­interested performance of pious works. Another similarity is the suspicion of the role that money played in church affairs, especially the way that it discouraged Christian love for the poor and weak. In the indulgence controversy, Luther argued that Christians should help their neighbor instead of buying indulgences for themselves.134 In the Sermon on Usury, Luther encouraged Christians to use their money to help the poor instead of trying to make more money by charging interest. It is striking that writings on specific topics like usury and indulgences ended up focusing on works-­righteousness and loving the neighbor. Luther’s parallel approach to these dissimilar issues indicates that avoiding works-­righteousness and loving the neighbor sincerely were keys to Luther’s early thought, and that the orientation of that thought was toward the practical realities of Christian life. In February 1520, Luther was urged to write another treatise on Christian works by Elector Frederick’s chancellor, Georg Spalatin. Spalatin reminded him that he had promised him he would write about good works, but Luther only began writing it when he remembered that he had promised such a treatise to his congregation in Wittenberg. In March, Luther told Spalatin that the work had grown from a sermon to a little book,135 and on 13 May of that year Luther wrote that it was almost complete.136 Like most of his other writings from this period, the Sermon on Good Works reflects the increasing discord surrounding Luther. Luther laid the blame for the common misunderstanding of good works at the feet of the church and its preachers, who did not put forth the effort to teach them correctly.137 He also included long sections on the errors and abuses that

134. For examples of this theme in the Ninety-­Five Theses, see theses 27–­28, 45, 48, 51, 62–­68, 82–­84, 86, and 89. 135. WA Br 2:75.8–­9. 136. WA Br 2:103.10–­11. Melanchthon sent out a printed copy of the work on 8 June 1520, so it was completed at the end of May or during the first days of June; WA 6:197. At Spalatin’s recommendation, the treatise was dedicated to Duke Johann, the brother of the Elector Frederick. It found an enormous reception; the German edition went through fifteen editions, eight of them already in 1520. A Latin translation was printed in 1521 and reprinted two more times; WA 6:197–­99. 137. WA 6:212.11–­16, 247.5–­8, 255.24–­30, 274.20–­31. Cf. LW 44:33, 76, 87, 111–­12.

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had befallen the church,138 and used the Ten Commandments to argue for the necessity of his protest. Although he conceded that the fourth commandment mandated him to obey the church, Luther maintained that the church had abandoned its responsibility to uphold the first three commandments and thus Christians were obligated to disobey the church in order to follow the commandments.139 Similarly, he argued that the commandment against bearing false witness compelled Christians to speak truth even amid persecution.140 At its core, the Sermon on Good Works was an explication of the Ten Commandments, and its specific recommendations were quite similar to his previous treatments of the commandments. As in earlier works on the Ten Commandments, Luther interpreted them far beyond their literal prohibitions, applied them to a broad range of situations, and focused on issues of internal disposition over visible outward acts. He also continued to hold a pessimistic view of human ability to follow the ninth and tenth commandments against coveting a neighbor’s possessions, arguing again that covetous desires were extinguished only in death.141 Luther clearly differentiated his understanding of good works with that of the late medieval church by emphasizing the importance of faith. He called faith in Christ “the first, highest, and most precious of all good works”142 and argued that its presence made a work good and its absence made a work bad.143 Faith was equated with trust and confidence in God and thereby became the true fulfillment of the first commandment. Furthermore, Luther judged that faith was the work from which all others must proceed, especially love and hope. Any work done apart from faith Luther regarded as nothing short of idolatry.144 In fact, Luther framed commandments two through ten as ways to exercise faith.145 The central role of faith allowed Luther to make a sharp contrast between a true work of faith and works that he considered misguided. As in earlier writings, Luther argued that keeping the commandments should be regarded more highly than other works because they were commanded by 138. WA 6:255.18–­259.33, 274.13–­275.37. Cf. LW 44:87–­92, 111–­14. 139. WA 6:256.31–­257.6; LW 44:89. 140. WA 6:274.13–­275.6; LW 44:111–­12. 141. WA 6:276.10–­20; LW 44:114. 142. “Das erste und hochste, aller edlist gut wreck.” WA 6:204.25; LW 44:23. 143. WA 6:206.22–­24; LW 44:26. 144. WA 6:209.33–­210.16; LW 44:30–­31. 145. WA 6:232.13–­16; 233.35–­234.3. Cf. LW 44:58, 60.

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God. His insistence that faith fulfilled all the commandments meant that he regarded other works as even more extraneous than he had in earlier writings. Luther offered cautionary lists of superfluous works no fewer than fourteen times in this writing. They included fasting, establishing endowments, almsgiving, going on pilgrimages, praying St. Bridget’s prayer and other prescribed prayers, making superficial confessions, singing, devotional reading, organ playing, reading the mass, praying the offices, founding churches and monasteries, building altars, collecting religious ornaments, traveling to Rome, visiting shrines, performing ceremonies, buying indulgences, abstaining from particular foods, holding vigils, and observing holy days. Luther’s objections to such activities were many. First, he emphasized repeatedly that they were not commanded by God and detracted from other works that were commanded by God. Secondly, these religious works could coexist very comfortably with sins forbidden by the Ten Commandments and did nothing to decrease these sins, a situation Luther considered hypocritical.146 Finally, because such works were more ostentatious than quotidian vocations such as parenting and loving one’s neighbor, Luther thought they attracted people with insincere faith who sought only glory and merit.147 Despite repeated denunciations, however, his view of such works was not wholly negative. Where religious practices were used to help discipline the flesh, Luther condoned them. His only caution was to ensure that they were done for this reason and not to follow the rules of the church or to receive merit.148 His willingness to regard traditional religious works as potentially helpful highlights the criteria by which he judged practices: When a work was performed out of sincere faith, it was done rightly. It is also significant that, in such an impassioned treatise, Luther was willing to permit the weak in faith to practice these forms of piety, and that he cautioned others not to offend them.149 Even as he was preparing to be cut off from Rome for his convictions, he let his pastoral concern for consciences override his ardently held reservations about traditional forms of piety. Luther’s concern for weak consciences was also evident when he described the confidence believers can have in God in the midst of trials

146. WA 6:266.22–­23; LW 44:101–­2. 147. WA 6:254.7–­26, 246.14–­36. Cf. LW 44:85–­86, 41–­42. 148. WA 6:246.14–­36, 269.8–­14. Cf. LW 44:75–­76, 105. 149. WA 6:214.12–­14, 247.19–­25. Cf. LW 44:35–­36, 76–­77.

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and suffering.150 Far from being an indication of God’s wrath, Luther again presented suffering as an occasion for exercising faith and receiving assurance.151 For that reason, it too was a good work.

Conclusion: The Piety of a New Church The narrative of piety and the narrative of polemic are remarkably similar during the fall of 1519 and the first part of 1520. By this time, Luther’s critiques of practice were directed to church officials as much as ordinary believers, and he made no secret of his accusations against the hierarchy in his vernacular writings to the broader public. The changes he recommended for Christian practice were driven by principles that had been laid out in earlier pastoral writings: the importance of sincerity in devotion, embracing suffering instead of avoiding it, relying on God’s grace instead of one’s own works, loving the neighbor selflessly, and using the Ten Commandments to identify sin as well as truly good works. In addition, Luther encouraged the use of practices, especially the sacraments, to reassure the conscience and strengthen faith. The key developments in the course of these months are twofold. First, as mentioned, Luther began to include intense criticism of the church hierarchy in his pastoral writings. He left nothing to implication or imagination but rather openly condemned the hierarchy for inventing laws that tyrannized consciences, failing to teach believers to do truly good works, and encouraging Christians to flee wholesome suffering. Secondly, Luther began to criticize practices of enormous importance to the hierarchy. To be sure, the sacraments were important to many ordinary Christians as well, but their role as highly regulated practices that were available almost exclusively through vested clergy connected their practice closely to questions of church authority. The sermons on the sacraments are often examined by scholars only for their rejection of historical sacramental theology or as a stepping-­stone to later developments in Luther’s sacramental thought. Like the writings on Christian practice in prior chapters, however, we see that the sermons on the sacraments and the other writings of this period were very much

150. WA 6:208.19–­209.5; LW 44:28–­29. 151. WA 6:223.13–­29; LW 44:46–­47.

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focused on the significance of practice for Christian life. Where Luther rejected a theological interpretation of the sacraments, it was based on the practical effects of that teaching. For example, his rejection of the mass as an opus operatum was not a rejection of the claim that God’s grace was objectively and unconditionally given in the mass. Rather, he rejected the teaching because he thought it undermined the role the sacrament ought to play in Christian life. Luther thought that the intricate questions of the sacrament’s validity simply missed the point of the sacrament, and therefore were wrongheaded. The sacrament was valid—­that is, used for the purpose Christ intended—­when it was received in faith, produced joyful consciences, and created a communion of love and support among believers. Luther’s approach regarding the question of validity was thoroughly pragmatic, and he based his critique of many Scholastic ideas on this pragmatism. The writings from this period also demonstrate that Luther supported a robust role for good works in the life of faith. His main contention against traditional “religious” works was that they were not commanded by God and therefore undercut the works that were commanded by God. The heart of this argument was Luther’s esteem for the works prescribed in the Ten Commandments. In the Sermon on Good Works, he emphasized that faith was the best work, but he did not restrict its effects to the conscience. Throughout the writings from 1519 and 1520, Luther insisted that love would flow from genuine faith. Luther’s vision of Christian life was an active one in which faith changed the way believers lived every day, especially in their relationships with others. Because Luther scholarship has emphasized Luther’s conflicts with the hierarchy to the exclusion of his pastoral advice, his protest against religious works has been frequently misunderstood. A positive evaluation of truly good works received more attention in the pastoral writings, where he made clear that he was fighting the notion of gaining merit by works, not good works themselves. Luther was also challenging the belief that “religious” works were more valuable than consistently and inconspicuously caring for neighbor and family in daily life. To this end, he promoted other Christian practices as a means of engendering love as well as instilling faith. The Sermon on Baptism emphasized that baptism could help fight sin and selfishness throughout the Christian’s life. A Discussion on Confession exhorted Christians to examine themselves with the Ten Commandments, emphasizing love of God and neighbor. The sermons on usury insisted that

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Christians must love the neighbor instead of seeking their own advantage. The most emphatic argument for the importance of love in the Christian life, however, was the sermon on the mass. There Luther claimed that the sacrament is celebrated properly when it creates a true communion of believers in which sins, suffering, burdens, spiritual possessions, and material possessions are shared. He criticized the brotherhoods because they focused on their own spiritual and material well-­being instead of serving the whole Christian community in love. Luther’s emphasis on the Christian duty to love in the Sermon on the Body of Christ has made some scholars regard it as an immature representation of Luther’s thought. These scholars have interpreted his subsequent polemical writings on this sacrament, writings that focus on the sacrifice of the mass and questions of real presence, to mean that his emphasis on fellowship was short-­lived and ultimately superseded by polemical issues. However, Jared Wicks has argued convincingly against this interpretation, noting that the theme of communitarian love did reappear in later sermons and catechetical writings on the sacrament.152 Other scholars have understood this exposition of the sacrament to be more medieval than later expositions. Oswald Bayer has claimed that the heart of the sacrament in this work is a medieval understanding of caritas, whereas Luther’s Sermon on the New Testament and On the Babylonian Captivity, both from later in 1520, presented justifying grace as the heart of the sacrament.153 But Luther’s emphasis on love in the Sermon on the Body of Christ differed markedly from the caritas of Scholastic tradition. Most importantly, Luther disconnected the obligation to love from the question of salvation. For Luther, Christian love was necessary not because it was needed to earn merit toward salvation, but because it was commanded by Christ and embodied in the sacrament. In this view, love does not form faith, as in the formulation fides caritate formata, but instead is motivated by faith, particularly the knowledge faith gives of God’s love. The connection between 152. The selections Wicks cites are WA 12:497ff., 19:509–­11, 26:490ff., 30/1:26ff., and 30/2:617. Wicks, review of Die Bedeutung der Sakramente in Luthers Sermonen von 1519, 717–­19. 153. Bayer, Promissio, 226–­53. Martin Brecht has a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between grace and love in this sacrament, yet concludes with Bayer that Luther had not completely applied his Reformation discovery to the Eucharist; Brecht, Martin Luther, 1:362. Ursula Stock rightly sees a stronger connection between grace and Luther’s 1519 presentation of the sacrament; Stock, Bedeutung der Sakramente, 193–­328, esp. 336–­ 40.

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grace and love in the Sermon on the Body of Christ is clearer, however, when seen in light of Luther’s criticism of religious works, especially the activities of the brotherhoods. Luther regarded the brotherhoods not only as a pious excuse for debauchery but also as a group that sought religious merit for their pious activities. His advice to them was to focus on acts of love and genuine community instead of seeking their own advantage, materially or spiritually. Luther conceived of the mass as an occasion to receive grace instead of trying to earn it, as well as an opportunity to enact the love and communion instituted by God’s grace. Thus, for Luther, justification and ethics were interdependent.154 Works-­righteousness and love of neighbor were opposites, the former informed by selfishness and the latter informed by grace. Those who understood justification knew that they could not contribute to their salvation and that they were commanded to put their neighbor ahead of their own concerns. Therefore, Luther’s active view of faith and endorsement of good works did not indicate an immature theology that lacked a central role for God’s grace, but rather his conviction that faith in that grace should be expressed in daily life. Luther voiced this concern repeatedly throughout the writings from this period, a further indication that the emphasis of the Sermon on the Body of Christ is not simply an immature theology of the sacrament. In the many treatises that appeared during fall 1519 and early 1520, three distinct themes emerged: the joy proper to Christian life and death,155 the command to love the neighbor, and the importance of faith for the conscience and for making works truly good. All three of these themes are related to a proper understanding of grace. Christians could be joyful and confident in death because of God’s love shown on the cross; they were free to love their neighbors because they did not need to be concerned with their own salvation; and the sacraments offered grace so that it could be used in faith. Explicated apart from their practical implications, they may sound mild, but in the context of sixteenth-­ century piety, they were revolutionary. Although the protest against works of merit and the conflict with the church hierarchy had coalesced by fall 1519 and early 1520, it is nonetheless important to remember which issue came first. The initial and abiding 154. As Forell convincingly explicated in Faith Active in Love. 155. See Stolt, “Joy, Love and Trust,” 28–­44; Stolt, Martin Luthers Rhetorik des Herzens.

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concerns about Christian practice help us understand why Luther came into conflict with church officials. By 1520, Luther had grown convinced of the importance of Christian practice. He could still oblige Miltitz with overtures to the papacy, as he did in the dedication of On the Freedom of a Christian, but he could make few concessions on issues that contradicted scripture and fundamentally affected consciences. His own conscience had evidently been strengthened by his teachings as well. Despite threats to his life, livelihood, and salvation, Luther threw the bull demanding his recantation into the fire on 10 December 1520, exactly sixty days after it had been delivered to Wittenberg.

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Piety and Luther’s Protest

L

uther’s earliest pastoral writings show the foundational role that practical issues played in his theology, his protest, and his later reforms. The neglect of these early sources has led to a picture of the early Luther as a theologian with a handful of very specific concerns that mushroomed into a “reformatory program” once he saw opposition.1 But the coherence and consistency in these writings demonstrate that his pastoral theology was highly developed at this stage of his career. Over the course of two eventful years with twenty-­five pastoral writings on a wide range of practices, the core of Luther’s instruction was remarkably consistent. He maintained his focus on sincere faith, trust in God’s grace, and the willingness to suffer even while he treated a wide range of practices and sometimes changed his specific recommendations. Other common themes are apparent as well. Throughout 1518–­20, the Ten Commandments were the definitive statement of sin and good works, confession was recommended to acknowledge sinfulness, God’s promise of mercy was the source of all

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1. This is the term that Brecht uses for Luther’s reforms beginning in fall 1519. According to Brecht, “At first [Luther’s] negations stood in the foreground” (Brecht, Martin Luther, 1:349). Furthermore, Brecht thinks that Luther’s reforms beginning in 1519 were “not a completely thought-­out ethical or social program, but in the theological and ecclesiastical situation, he very quickly was compelled to make a unified and comprehensive statement on the problems” (ibid., 1:358). Oswald Bayer presents Luther’s reforms of 1519 and 1520 as a direct result of the “reformatory turn” (reformatorische Wende) in summer 1518, though he does not discuss the reforms of late 1518 and early 1519; Bayer, Promissio, 226–­338.

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hope, and love of neighbor was the natural outcome of faith. There was development in Luther’s thought on practice, but from 1518 to 1520, that development was in the degree of change he recommended and the specific practices he addressed, not in his basic orientation toward Christian life. For example, his recommendations for consoling a troubled conscience in 1518 were oriented toward those with particularly weak consciences. In these cases, he counseled that such Christians should use whatever practice helped their conscience and should pray for stronger faith. By late 1519, Luther recommended specific practices—­most notably the sacraments—­to every Christian in order to strengthen their consciences for the trials of Christian life. Another such shift occurred in his description of Christians’ responsibilities toward others. By 1518, Luther already questioned much of late medieval soteriology and ethics. He was particularly concerned that people did good works to earn merit toward salvation and not out of genuine love for others. From 1518 to 1520, he repeatedly rebuked Christians’ attempts to seek their own interests in their interactions with others, especially under the guise of doing “good works.” But his terminology for this selfless love shifted over this period. What in 1518 he termed “works of mercy,” he later called “love of neighbor.” In both cases, he used the terms to denote meeting the spiritual and material needs of others, but in 1518 he used the language of late medieval piety, whereas in 1519 and 1520 he used the language of the New Testament. In this case, the shift was not in the substance of the practice but rather in the source of its description. Luther’s recommendations for penance followed a steady progression toward increasingly radical proposals. In 1518, he contended that the words of absolution were reliable because they came from Christ himself. By 1520, he had concluded that, because the words of absolution came from Christ, any Christian could legitimately absolve another. In a similar vein, in 1518 Luther recommended confessing concupiscence to God and mortal sins to the priest. By 1519, he advised confessing all evident sins to both God and the priest. In both of these cases, the later position is a change of degree, not direction. Even the shift in his view of satisfaction between the Ninety-­Five Theses in the fall of 1517 and the writings on confession of Lent 1518 is primarily a shift in emphases. In the Ninety-­Five Theses, one of Luther’s arguments against indulgences was that they took the place of the good works that were required in satisfaction. Luther found this unfortunate in 1517 for

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two reasons: first, he thought that works of love toward others did more good than indulgences, and secondly, he thought doing works of satisfaction helped Christians grow in faith and embrace suffering. By Lent 1518, he worried that prescribing works of satisfaction gave the false impression that Christians could atone for their sin and thereby forgo God’s grace. On that basis, he emphasized that satisfaction was not commanded by scripture and did not atone for sin, and he recommended that Christians do good works only out of gratitude and obedience to God, not to make satisfaction for sin. Many Luther scholars have taken this change to mean that the Ninety-­Five Theses predate Luther’s “Reformation theology” because in them, he still recommended works of satisfaction. Yet his fundamental reason for rejecting satisfaction in 1518 was the same reason he endorsed it in 1517: the need for Christians to recognize their sin and conform to God’s will. Between October 1517 and Lent 1518, Luther decided that satisfaction held more potential for misunderstanding than for strengthening faith. But in both fall 1517 and Lent 1518, Luther thought that Christians should have sincere contrition for sin, rely on God’s grace, embrace suffering, and perform works of love. The consistency of his concerns in both phases shows that his shift on satisfaction was a reevaluation of his guiding principles rather than a fundamental reorientation. The pastoral works of 1518 to 1520 focused on practical concerns through a distinct theological lens. Luther did not use Latin theological terms in most of these works, but his view of justification lay behind many of his recommendations. These writings illustrate the extent to which justification was the center of Christian life. For Luther, justification meant that Christians could trust in God’s grace instead of their own works or worthiness. Because they did not need to make themselves worthy and because they could trust God for all things, Christians could abandon self-­ interest and submit their wills to God, even when this involved suffering or sacrifice. The unmerited love shown in grace would then, by its nature, motivate Christians to try to follow God’s commandments, to confess their failures freely, and to show love and mercy to their neighbors. Faith in God’s justifying grace kept Christian life rooted in its source, allowing believers to experience the joy and confidence of having a merciful God. The centrality of grace in Christian life moved Luther to protest against any practice that encouraged Christians to make themselves worthy of that grace or to escape the demands of God’s commandments. But passive righteousness did not mean that Christians were always passive.

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They could accept or avoid the truth of their indebtedness to God, and they could decide how to respond. They could attempt to earn God’s favor, avoid suffering, and seek their own well-­being; or they could acknowledge their sinfulness, embrace suffering, and dedicate themselves to serving others selflessly.2 Luther provided the pastoral treatises to remind and encourage Christians to do the latter. He believed that, when people were encouraged by the good news of the gospel and instructed in what this means, they were more likely to live like authentic Christians. At times, Luther’s early pastoral writings offer a glimpse of Luther’s endeavors from a new but complementary angle. For example, our understanding of his protest against works-­righteousness is enriched by the diverse examples he cited. Works-­righteousness included not only performing meritorious religious works in order to earn salvation, but also seeking material rewards and desiring the praise of others. All of these acts were sins because they evidenced a lack of trust in the righteousness that came from God. In the case of material rewards, the sinner failed to trust in God’s will and to recognize the importance of spiritual well-­being over material well-­being. When Christians sought praise from others, they tried to avoid the reality of their sin, their dependence on God’s righteousness, and their duty to do the unglamorous works that God had commanded. At other times, these writings disclose aspects of his thought that have received very little attention. Aside from the many practices he attempted to reform in this period, the most significant discovery in these writings is the repeated insistence that Christians embrace suffering instead of flee from it. This theme appeared in many of the pastoral writings and in every period from 1518 to 1520. In contrast to late medieval thought, Luther did not view suffering as salvific, but he did see it as salutary. Sometimes Luther presented suffering as an honor for Christians because they could share in Christ’s suffering. Most often, however, he endorsed suffering because it encouraged Christians to trust God’s will, and when that happened, they would stop seeking their own honor and advantage.3 In effect, suffering was another guard against works-­righteousness. Its ubiquity in these writings indicates that it was a central element of Luther’s pastoral

2. George Forell skillfully explicated the active, social effect of justification for Luther in his book, Faith Active in Love. 3. Rittgers gives rare attention to the centrality of suffering in the theology of Luther and other reformers; Reformation of Suffering, esp. 84–­124.

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theology, not merely a remnant of an austere late medieval piety that was only partially overcome by his emphasis on hope in God’s promise. Luther’s pastoral orientation is also illustrated in these writings by the frequent concessions he offered for the weak in faith. Luther is often portrayed as an intractable autocrat, full of conviction and short on tolerance (and, indeed, he sometimes fits that picture). In these works, however, he displayed a remarkable flexibility despite his own clear preferences. He was particularly lenient with regard to the saints. Luther was very aware that they offered comfort to believers, and therefore he was reluctant to remove them from Christian practice. His frank assessment of them in his meditation for Elector Frederick was different from the tone he struck in writings intended for a larger audience. On the whole, Luther recognized the value of the comfort that saints could offer. The character and principles of Luther’s early pastoral advice reverberated in his well-­known statement on Christian life, On the Freedom of a Christian, written in fall 1520 and often taken to be a summary of his early theology. At the heart of this treatise was a paradox: “A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.”4 Discussing the first half of the paradox, Luther repeatedly emphasized that faith, not works, justifies Christians. Christians should focus on those things that strengthen faith because faith brings three benefits: It clings to God’s promises, it honors God by believing these promises, and it unites the soul with Christ, exchanging one’s own sin, death, and damnation for Christ’s grace, life, and salvation.5 In the second half of the paradox, Luther reminded readers that Christians 4. WA 7:21.1–­4 (German); WA 7:49.22–­25 (Latin); LW 31:344. Luther wrote this treatise in both German and Latin at about the same time. Scholars have debated which edition was written first, but Germanist Birgit Stolt offers convincing evidence that the Latin version preceded the German version in Studien zu Luthers Freiheitstraktat mit besonderer Rucksicht auf der Verhältnis der lateinischen und der detuschen Fassung zueinander und die Stilmittel der Rhetorik. In their content, the German and Latin versions contain only slight variations in expression that originate in the differences between the two languages. The only notable difference between the two versions is that the Latin version contains an additional conclusion that further discusses the process of changing church practices. Any relevant differences between the versions are discussed in the footnotes that follow. The quotations here are from the American edition of Luther’s Works, which uses the Latin version as its base. The German version can be found in both Luther’s German and Early High German in the Martin Luther Deutsch-­Deutsche Studienausgabe, Band I (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2012), 277–­315. An English translation from the German is in Krey and Krey, Luther’s Spirituality, 69–­90. 5. WA 7:23.24–­26.31; WA 7:52.20–­55.36; LW 31:348–­52.

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willingly perform works that discipline the body and thereby prevent sin. Fasting, vigils, and labor are mentioned by name as works that help accomplish this goal.6 This discipline of the body is in aid of a larger goal: to joyfully serve the neighbor as God has served humanity.7 Luther’s pastoral writings before 1520 highlight aspects of The Freedom of a Christian that are often overlooked. While reading the pastoral writings along with this treatise, four specific facets of The Freedom of a Christian have stood out to me. First and most apparent is the frequent counsel, especially in the second half of the treatise, to perform works that reduce sin and serve the neighbor, advice that we have seen frequently in Luther’s pastoral writings. Many modern interpreters of The Freedom of a Christian (and of Luther in general) emphasize his protest against works-­ righteousness without recognizing that he was equally adamant about Christians performing works of discipline and service. To be sure, such works should be done out of love toward God and neighbor rather than in hopes of reward, so Luther reinterpreted the purpose of good works in addition to redefining which works are good. But the role of works in Christian life is no less prominent in his ideal than in the late medieval ideal. For Luther, Christians are duty-­bound to honor God, reduce their sin, forsake their own interests, and perform any and all works that further the well-­being of their neighbors. As he explains in The Freedom of a Christian, “Our faith in Christ does not free us from works but from the false opinions concerning works, that is, from the foolish presumption that justification is acquired by works.”8 Indeed, a Christian “cannot ever in this life be idle and without works toward his neighbors.”9 This picture of Christian life as demanding yet joyful service pervades the early pastoral writings and echoes throughout The Freedom of a Christian. Secondly, the pastoral works highlight the intertwined relationship between the two sides of the paradox in Freedom of a Christian. One argument Luther often made in the pastoral writings against works such as indulgences, pilgrimages, masses, and church endowments is that they took time, energy, and money away from the work of caring for one’s 6. WA 7:30.14–­19; WA 7:60.1–­6; LW 31:358. This trio of works reflects Luther’s monastic background, where these practices formed the pattern of communal life. 7. See esp. WA 7:65.32–­66.16; WA 7:35.25–­36.10; LW 31:366–­67. 8. WA 7:70.14–­16; LW 31:372–­73. This quote is part of a conclusion that exists only in the Latin version of Freedom of a Christian. 9. WA 7:34.26–­27; WA 7:64.20–­21; LW 31:364.

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neighbor. As Luther saw it, the main work demanded of Christians was love of neighbor, and all other works he judged according to their ability to foster this love. In the pastoral writings, Luther frequently voiced the concern that many works encouraged by the church were performed at the expense of this chief Christian work. In The Freedom of a Christian, Luther repeated this concern but phrased it in the positive. Here, the power of justification by faith freed believers from any concern about themselves, thereby freeing them to be of service to others. Because they had all that they needed through faith, Christians could consider “nothing except the need and advantage of the neighbor.”10 This expression of faith Luther called “a truly Christian life . . . faith is truly active in love.”11 Third, Luther’s depiction of Christian life as profoundly joyful finds expression in both the pastoral writings and The Freedom of a Christian. In the pastoral writings, the knowledge of God’s grace freely given enables Christians to be joyful even in the face of death and suffering. Luther also encouraged Christians to be generous toward others, especially with money, out of joy for what God has done for humanity.12 In The Freedom of a Christian, joy is a direct result of faith as well as the wellspring for service toward others. “From faith thus flow forth love and joy in the Lord, and from love a joyful, willing and free mind that serves one’s neighbor.”13 Luther contrasted this model with the late medieval understanding that faith is a virtue formed by good works. In Luther’s view, such an understanding not only overestimates the ability of fallen humans to do genuinely good works, but it also makes Christ into a taskmaster and thereby loses the joy that comes from recognizing God’s gift of grace.14 Fourth and finally, the early pastoral writings also suggest a slightly different interpretation of the first half of Luther’s paradox. Many scholars read the statement that a Christian is “lord over all, subject to none” as a reference primarily to the power of faith to free Christians from the burden of sin.15 Luther did discuss that power of faith in one section of the 10. WA 7:34.30–­32; LW 31:365. 11. WA 7:64.34–­37; LW 31:365. The German version is slightly different here. Instead of quoting Galatians directly, Luther wrote, “This is a true Christian life, in which faith goes to work with zeal and love [mit lust und lieb].” WA 7:34.32–­33. 12. WA 7:35.20–­36.10; WA 7:65.26–­66.28; LW 31:367–­68. 13. WA 7:36.3–­4; WA 7:66.7–­8; LW 31:367. 14. WA 7:36.8–­10; WA 7:66.36–­38; LW 31:368. 15. The introduction to The Freedom of a Christian in LW summarizes the first half of Luther’s paradox this way (LW 31:330). Mark Tranvik’s introduction to his new translation of

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treatise,16 but more often the treatise speaks of freedom from church rules that are not based on scripture, an emphasis that appears frequently in his earlier pastoral writings. Throughout the pastoral writings, particularly those on the Ten Commandments, Luther emphasized that the church had no authority to make rules that were not based in scripture. His treatments of the Ten Commandments maintained that these were the only foundation for church law and that Christians were not bound to anything beyond the commandments. In fact, many of Luther’s doubts about various practices centered on the ways in which they removed attention and energies from following the commandments. The pastoral writings also drew on the Ten Commandments to discern the proper speed for reforms. The core of the commandments was the love of God and love of neighbor, and in the pastoral writings Luther often argued that changes should be made slowly so as not to offend a particular kind of neighbor, the “weak in faith.” In The Freedom of a Christian, Luther did not appeal by name to the Ten Commandments to judge church laws, yet his argument about church rules was similar to the one that appears in his pastoral writings. Christians must know that justification is by faith, not works, and therefore that the nonscriptural rules of the church are optional. At the same time, when deciding what to do, Christians must consider the second half of the paradox, the duty of love. Because works have no bearing on the soul, Christians can follow the church’s laws out of love toward others even if they judge them unnecessary. Anyone knowing this [justification by faith and not works] could easily and without danger find his way through those numberless mandates and precepts of pope, bishops, monasteries, churches, princes and magistrates upon which some ignorant pastors insist as if they were necessary to righteousness and salvation, calling them “precepts of the church,” although they are nothing of the kind. For a Christian, as a free man, will say, “I will fast, pray, do this and that as men command, not because it is necessary to my righteousness or salvation, but that I may show due respect to the the treatise interprets Christian freedom as freedom from “sin, death and the devil,” which is one formulation in the text, but not the entirety of Christian freedom; Tranvik, Freedom of a Christian by Martin Luther, 2–­8. 16. WA 7:25.26–­26.12; WA 7:54.31–­55.23; LW 31:351–­52.

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pope, the bishop, the community, a magistrate, or my neighbor, and give them an example. I will do and suffer all things, just as Christ did and suffered far more for me, although he needed nothing of it all for himself, and was made under the law for my sake, although he was not under the law.17 In a lengthy conclusion found only in the Latin edition of The Freedom of a Christian, Luther discussed the situation of the reforming churches in 1520, where some saw traditional practices as harmful, others insisted on maintaining them, and still others worried that changing those practices would harm their souls. Luther thought this situation was similar to that of the earliest churches, who debated the role of Jewish law in Christian life. Following St. Paul, Luther recommended two different approaches. With those who insisted on the old practices in contrast to Christian freedom, whom Luther termed “ceremonialists,” he advised his readers to exercise freedom. Christians must oppose those who think of ceremonies as a “means of justification” so that such people do not lead others into error.18 But no Christian should exercise freedom if it offends another Christian who has a “weak conscience,” that is, those who are not yet convinced of the new teaching and therefore might become unsettled if they witness a break with tradition. In those cases, Christians must defer to the weakness of others in order to follow “the command of love, which would harm no one but would serve all men.”19 This approach Luther termed “a middle course.”20 The theme of freedom from ecclesial rules in Luther’s pastoral writings, along with the lengthy discussion of church laws and practice toward the end of Freedom of a Christian, suggest that Luther’s freedom was a freedom from the compulsion to follow church laws at least as much as a freedom from sin. The Freedom of a Christian is not only about the justification of the sinner but also the shape of communal Christian life and the process of changing practice. The servitude demanded in the second half of Luther’s paradox consists of helping others in any need as well as bearing with their weakness in questions of Christian practice. Thus Luther recommends that Christians “boldly resist those teachers of traditions and sharply censure 17. WA 7:37.4–­13; WA 7:68.3–­13; LW 31:370. 18. WA 7:70.28–­31; LW 31:373. 19. WA 7:71.7–­8; LW 31:374. 20. WA 7:70.28; LW 31:373.

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the laws of the popes by means of which they plunder the people of God, yet we must spare the timid multitude whom those impious tyrants hold captive by means of these laws until they are set free.”21 This must be done “until they also recognize tyranny and understand their freedom.”22 Here again we see that Luther’s protest against the church of his day grew out of his concern for the souls and consciences of its members. His concerns about indulgences set him on the path to conflict, and his enduring concerns about the effects of practice compelled him to continue on that path. In 1520 and beyond, Luther continued to write treatises of instruction and encouragement for a broad, vernacular audience. In the 1520s, following his excommunication, Luther and his colleagues at Wittenberg began the project of building a new church. He revised the liturgy, wrote congregational hymns, trained students for biblical preaching, reinterpreted ordination and vocation, helped negotiate new relationships between church and state, wrote catechisms, and dealt with all manner of practical issues in Wittenberg and other German towns. He also continued to write and preach on many of the topics treated here: confession, the Ten Commandments, the saints, prayer, eucharistic piety, meditating on the passion, marriage and child rearing, economic practices, and enduring suffering. The narrative of Luther the reformer and the narrative of Luther the pastor are both narratives of reform and narratives of conflict. Luther the pastor was not a kinder, gentler version of Luther the reformer. He was an impassioned reformer who was so committed to the care of souls that he pushed for reform at the risk of excommunication and death. Luther’s attempt to reform Christian practice is not an experiential aside to his theological cause, but rather its heart.

21. WA 7:71.15–­18; LW 31:374. 22. WA 7:71.20–­21; LW 31:374.

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Appendix

Luther’s Pastoral Writings, 1518 to June 1520 Lent 1518 Title

Language

A Sermon on Indulgences and Grace

German March

German

A Brief Explanation of the Ten Commandments Two German Lenten Sermons

Sermon on the Worthy Preparation of the Heart for Receiving the Sacrament of the Eucharist Sermon on Penance

ca. 21 February

German

17 and 19 March

Latin

2? April

Language

Date Published

Latin

20 July

German

22 August

Latin

Two Sermons on the Passion of Christ

Date Published

Latin

1 April

3? April

Summer 1518 Title

Preface to the Complete “German Theology”

The Ten Commandments Preached to the People of Wittenberg

X

Explication of the 109th Psalm

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193

4 June

X

German

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194

Appendix

Early 1519 Title

Language

Date Published

Instruction on Some Articles

German

Late February

German

5 April

A Brief Instruction on How One Should Confess A Sermon on the Contemplation of the Holy Passion of Christ

German Explication of the Our Father

Sermon on Two Kinds of Righteousness A Sermon on the Estate of Marriage A Sermon on Prayer and Procession During Rogation Week

Fall 1519–­Summer 1520

German

German Latin

German German

24 January

Late March or early April After 13 April By 21 May Late May

Title

Language

Date Published

A Sermon on the Sacrament of Penance

German

Late October or early November

German

9 November

A Sermon on Preparing to Die

German October

A Sermon on Usury

German

A Sermon on the Holy, Revered Sacrament of Baptism

By November

A Sermon on the Revered Sacrament of the Holy and True Body of Christ, and on the Brotherhoods

German

Early December

A Sermon on the Ban

Fourteen Consolations for Those Who Labor and Are Weary

German

Latin & German

Early 1520

A Discussion on Confessing

Latin

April 1520

A Sermon on Good Works

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German

February 1520

Late May or early June 1520

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———. “Fides sacramenti—­fides specialis: Luther’s Development in 1518.” In his Luther’s Reform: Studies on Conversion and the Church. Mainz am Rhein: Zabern Verlag, 1992. ———. Luther and His Spiritual Legacy. Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1983.

———. Luther’s Reform: Studies on Conversion and the Church. Mainz: Verlag P. von Zabern, 1992. ———. Man Yearning for Grace: Luther’s Early Spiritual Teaching. Washington, DC: Corpus Books, 1968.

———. Review of Die Bedeutung der Sakramente in Luthers Sermonen von 1519 by Ursula Stock. Theological Studies 44 (December 1983): 717–­ 19. Wiesner, Merry. Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Will, Georg Andreas. Nürnbergisches Gelehrten-­Lexicon. Nuremberg: L. Schüpfel, 1755–­58.

Winston-­Allen, Anne. Stories of the Rose: The Making of the Rosary in the Middle Ages. University Park: Penn State University Press, 1997.

Witte, John, Jr. From Sacrament to Contract: Marriage, Religion and Law in the Western Tradition. Louisville: John Knox Press, 1997.

Wriedt, Markus. “Staupitz und Luther: Zur Bedeutung der seelsorgerlichen Theologie Johanns von Staupitz für den jungen Martin Luther.” In Luther als Seelsorger, edited by Joachim Heubach, 67–­109. Erlangen: Martin-­Luther-­Verlag, 1991. Wunder, Heide. He Is the Sun, She Is the Moon. Translated by Thomas Dunlap. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998.

Zimmermann, Gunter. “Das Nürnberger Religionsgespräch von 1525.” Mitteilungen des Vereins für Geschichte der Stadt Nürnberg 71 (1985): 135–­37.

Zu Dohna, Lother Graf. “Staupitz and Luther: Continuity and Breakthrough at the Beginning of the Reformation.” In Via Augustini: Augustine in the Later Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Reformation: Essays in Honor of Damasus Trapp, O.S.A., edited by Heiko A. Oberman and Frank A. James III, in cooperation with Eric Leland Saak, 116–­29. Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Traditions 48. Leiden: Brill, 1991.

Zur Mühlen Karl-Heinz. Nos extra nos: Luthers Theologie zwischen Mystik und Scholstik. Tübingen: Mohr, 1972.

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A

X

absolution by a bishop, 150 effectiveness of, 44, 62, 75, 79, 99–­ 100, 148–­49 by laypeople, 149–­51, 153 as part of penance, 148, 153 by the pope, 55 by a priest, 44, 149–­51. See also confessor words of, 62–­63, 71, 77–­78, 90, 95, 99–­100, 107, 110–­11, 132, 148, 151, 184 absolutionists, 63, 76, 78, 148 Adelmann, Bernard, 116, 171 Adam, 36–­38, 102, 119, 124 Agricola, Johann, 120–­21 Albert the Great, 119 Albrecht, archbishop of Mainz and Magdeburg, 4, 48, 51, 54, 56–­58, 63–­64, 79, 96 alms, 44, 80, 99, 124, 139, 173–­74, 177. See also charity; care for poor altars, 82, 131, 163, 173–­74, 177 Aquinas, Thomas, 39, 45 Aristotle, 25, 32, 39–­43, 99 astrology, 69, 70 attrition, 62, 75, 76 attritionists, 62, 76 Augsburg meeting with Cajetan in, 98, 113 printing in, 102, 108, 126, 129 Augustine of Hippo, 32, 40–­43, 75, 130

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Augustinian theology, 43, 50, 130, 154–­55 Augustinian Hermits; Observant Augustinian order, 1, 5, 25, 28, 31, 47, 65, 143 authority. See Bible, primacy of; church, authority of; papal authority; scripture, authority of

B

Babylonian Captivity of the Church, 129, 180 ban, 96–­97, 160–­61. See also excommunication baptism, 41, 48, 89, 131–­32, 138, 145, 153–­56, 179 Bayer, Oswald, 21, 94, 95, 110, 180, 183 beauty, 84, 92 Bernard of Clairvaux 24 Bible. See also scripture; gospel Luther’s lectures on, 2, 4, 6, 7, 14, 31–­35, 37–­38, 41, 47–­49, 52, 55, 57–­59, 91, 94, 110, 143 Luther’s understanding of, 17, 23, 32, 40 primacy of, 40, 129 role of in late medieval theology, 25–­26, 29 in Wittenberg curriculum, 40, 43 Biel, Gabriel, 26, 42–­43 bishops, 27, 57, 87, 127, 138, 149–­50, 190–­91

217

X

Index

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X

218

Index

Bizer, Ernst, 34, 110 body of Christ. See church, as body of Christ body, human, 52, 123, 127, 167, 188. See also flesh Bonaventure, 24, 45 Books of Hours, 12. See also prayer Brecht, Martin, 61, 95, 143, 172, 180, 183 Brief Explanation of the Ten Commandments, 61, 66–­71, 90, 103, 107, 110, 116–­17 Brief Instruction on How One Should Confess, 110, 116–­17, 138, 151 brotherhoods; confraternities, 156–­59, 180–­81

C

Cajetan, Cardinal, 3, 4, 8, 47, 94, 98, 113, 138 canon law, 129, 171 care for poor, 49, 82–­83, 90–­91, 95, 99, 101, 105, 129, 135, 158, 173–­75. See also charity; alms care of souls, 4, 9, 21, 26–­27, 56–­57, 150, 191–­92 catechisms, 2, 9, 68, 192 celibacy, 129–­31 ceremonies, 177, 191 certainty and grace, 19, 52, 54, 56, 63, 77, 88, 100, 147, 153, 167–­68 charity, 48, 53, 55, 70, 99, 165, 174. See also alms; care for poor Charles of Spain (Charles V, emperor), 115, 133 child rearing, 115, 130–­31, 138, 192. See also parenting church, as body of Christ, 45, 73, 156–­61 as communion of saints, 96, 156–­ 61, 163–­64, 170 authority of, 4, 36, 45–­46, 99, 114, 135, 150, 152, 176, 178, 190 bearing one another’s burdens, 45–­ 46, 157, 163–­164, 191

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consecration of, 45 discipline of, 5, 11, 47, 96, 161 doctrine of, 45, 86, 96, 138, 142–­43 endowing buildings and furnishings, 45, 48–­49, 62, 82, 123, 129–­31, 140, 173–­75, 177, 188 excommunication from. See excommunication; ban function of, 4, 74, 157–­59 hierarchy of, 26, 77, 144, 146, 178 reform of, 5, 9, 21, 26, 33, 92, 93, 116, 135, 191 tyrannizing consciences, 46–­47, 138, 150, 152–­53, 191–­92 unity of, 136 Christendom, 25, 39, 45, 130–­31, 158 Christianization, 21 clergy, 5. See also priests Coelde, Dietrich, 68, 118 commandments of Christ, 101, 165, 172, 181, 191 of church, 152, 190–­91 of God, 34, 41, 117, 135, 174, 185 Ten Commandments, 61, 66–­71, 90–­91, 103–­7, 110, 115–­20, 138, 146, 153, 176–­79, 183, 190, 192 communion, 96, 157, 167. See also Eucharist; mass communion of saints. See church, as communion of saints concupiscence, 52, 72, 75, 91, 152, 184. See also original sin confession, 60–­63, 66–­79, 81, 86, 90, 93, 100–­101, 103, 107, 115–­ 20, 132–­33, 140, 146–­54, 156, 157, 177, 179, 183, 192. See also penance confessor, 5, 27, 28, 44, 62, 67, 70, 81, 142, 158 conscience Luther’s, 17–­18, 20, 182 consoling or comforting the conscience, 21, 79, 100–­101, 137, 147–­151, 154, 169–­70, 178, 184

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strengthening the conscience, 150, 157, 179, 182, 184 weak or anxious consciences, 73, 95, 100–­101, 110, 118, 137–­38, 145, 147, 152, 154–­55, 177–­78, 184, 191. See also weak Christians contrition, 24, 38, 44, 46–­47, 50, 53–­ 54, 57, 59, 61–­64, 71, 74–­81, 90–­91, 95, 100, 107, 132–­33, 148–­49, 185 coveting, 70, 176. See also envy cross as devotional object, 119, 127, 168 bearing one’s, 49, 64, 80, 92, 101. See also suffering Luther’s theology of, 65–­66, 92–­93 of Christ, 24, 92–­93, 168, 181 crusades, 44–­45 cura animarum. See care of souls

D

de Escobar, Andreas, 67 de Voragine, Jacobus, 27 death; dying, 22, 35, 50, 56, 62, 76, 87, 118, 125, 130, 144, 155, 158, 161, 163–­70, 173, 176, 181, 187, 189, 190, 192 devil, 69–­70, 76, 83–­84, 108, 123, 167, 190 discipline. See flesh, discipline of; church, discipline of Discussion on Confessing, 151–­54 disputations, 2, 6, 14, 29, 30, 39–­43, 51, 100, 110, 114, 171. See also Heidelberg Disputation; Leipzig Debate

E

Ebner, Jerome, 107–­8 ecclesiology. See church, doctrine of Eck, Johann, 4, 64, 97, 114, 138, 141–­ 43, 166, 171 Edwards, Mark, 3, 80 elite and non-­elite cultures, 11–­12

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219

X

Index

emotions, 84–­85, 92, 111, 167. See also heart endowed masses, 62, 129–­31, 140, 173, 177, 188 Erasmus von Rotterdam, 50, 105 Erfurt, 40–­43, 142 Eucharist, 72, 153, 170, 180, 192. See also mass; communion evil, 34, 42, 69, 70, 83, 105, 108, 155, 157, 164–­65, 169 excommunication as church discipline, 96–­97, 160. See also ban Luther’s excommunication, 1, 3, 8–­9, 142, 192 Explanations of the Ninety-­Five Theses (Explanations), 64–­65, 97, 99, 101, 112, 113 Explication of the 109th Psalm, 107–­9 external and internal piety, 56, 84, 88, 96, 104, 121–­22, 136

F

facere quod in se est, 41, 137 fasting, 5, 44, 80, 119, 124, 155, 158, 173, 177, 188, 190 feast days; holy days, 105, 127, 158, 177 flesh. See also human body Christ’s, 158 disciplining the 132–­33, 177 righteousness of the, 33 saints sharing human flesh, 89 sinfulness of the, 70 forgiveness, 35, 46, 48, 55–­56, 62–­63, 69, 77–­78, 91, 100–­101, 107, 124–­25, 133, 147–­53 fortune-­tellers, 104 Fourteen Consolations, 161–­66 Fourth Lateran Council, 26–­27 Frederick, elector of Saxony, 40, 47–­48, 115, 133, 142, 147, 160, 161–­66, 175, 187 Freedom of the Sermon on Papal Indulgences and Grace, 98–­101, 112 Frömmigkeitstheologie, 27–­28

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X

220

Index

G

German Explication of the Our Father, 120–­25, 128 German language, 2, 3, 35–­37, 58, 60, 94, 96, 102, 120, 131, 136, 145, 146, 160–­61, 187 Gerson, Jean, 28, 63, 68, 166 gluttony, 69, 72, 105 God judgment of, 18, 33–­34, 38, 83, 89, 96, 99, 111, 167–­68 promises of, 35, 65, 78, 95, 110–­11, 127–­28, 146, 151–­52, 155, 168, 170, 184, 187 will of, 20, 36, 82, 88, 92, 101, 104, 108, 111, 124, 127–­28, 137, 185–­86 wrath of, 118, 178 Golden Legend, 27 gospel, 48, 49, 55–­57, 65, 107, 157, 172, 186. See also Bible; scripture

H

habitus, 34 Hamm, Bernd, 14, 27–­28 heart, 16, 61, 71–­75, 87, 88, 109, 120–­ 22, 125, 136, 147, 149, 152–­53, 163, 168, 170. See also emotions heaven, 55–­56, 77, 86 Heidelberg Disputation, 3, 8, 65–­66, 92–­93, 110 hell, 62, 75, 163–­64, 167–­69 Hendrix, Scott, 5, 18, 21, 114–­15, 138 heresy, 4, 15, 19, 46, 64, 97–­98, 142 holiness, 69, 87, 131, 155, 163 hope, 33, 75, 76, 88–­89, 167–­68, 176, 184, 187 humanists, 38, 39–­41, 84, 105, 107–­8, 147 humility, 32–­34, 49, 88, 110–­12, 136, 167 Hus, Jan; Hussites, 98, 142, 160

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I

idolatry, 106, 176 indulgences, 1–­4, 7, 17–­19, 24–­25, 29–­32, 43–­59, 60–­61, 63–­65, 74, 78–­83, 86–­87, 89–­99, 101–­9, 112–­16, 118, 123, 125, 129–­ 31, 133–­37, 139–­40, 141, 144, 147–­48, 153, 158, 160, 175, 177, 184–­85, 188, 192 Instruction on Some Articles, 134–­37, 160 Investigation of Truth and Comfort for Anxious Consciences, 95, 100–­101, 110

J

Jews, 84, 104, 191 jewelry, 82, 106 joy, 144, 148–­49, 164, 167, 170, 181, 185, 189 justification, 16–­19, 33–­34, 106, 181, 185, 188–­91

K

Karlstadt, Andreas Bodenstein von, 42, 114, 138, 141 keys, power of, 46, 53, 81, 96, 99, 137, 150 kingdom of God, 52, 123

L

labor; work, 5, 124, 161, 188 laity; laypeople, 4, 10–­11, 15, 23, 25, 28, 31, 37, 39, 43, 46, 56, 122, 138,160 Lang, Johann, 31, 40, 103, 129, 131 Latin language, 2, 11, 14, 27, 50, 66, 72, 83, 86, 94, 96–­97, 99–­100, 102–­3, 116, 118, 121, 131, 145–­ 46, 151, 156, 160–­61, 175, 185, 187–­88, 191 law church rules, 190. See also canon law commandment to love/law of love, 104, 172–­73

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God’s law 108–­9 Jewish law 104, 191 law and sin, 43, 65 lectures on Galatians, 115 lectures on Hebrews, 94 lectures on the Psalms (Dictata), 37, 108 lectures on the Psalms (Operationes), 143 lectures on Romans, 33–­34, 48–­49 Leipzig Debate, 3, 4, 8, 65, 114, 126, 137–­38, 141–­44, 170 Leo X, pope, 133–­34, 160 Lombard, Peter, 25 Lord’s Prayer, 37, 125. See also Our Father love for God, 25, 43, 52–­53, 62, 75, 84, 105, 128, 179, 190 of neighbor, 90, 139, 144, 165, 181, 184–­85, 189–­90. See also law, commandment to love of God for humanity, 84, 92, 112, 118–­20, 138, 180–­81 of Christ for humanity, 57, 88–­89

M

magic, 69–­71, 90, 92, 104 Marian piety, 18, 139 marriage, 115, 129–­31, 138, 192 mass, 5, 12, 24–­25, 31, 45, 48, 53, 55, 62, 73, 90, 99–­101, 107, 119–­ 20, 122, 124–­25, 128–­32, 140, 145, 153, 156–­60, 173–­74, 177, 179–­81, 188. See also Eucharist; communion miracles, 27, 134, 170 monasticism monastic vows, 131 monastic piety, 25, 106, 122, 188 money, 45, 53, 55–­56, 82–­83, 90–­91, 128, 158, 171–­75, 189. See also usury mysticism, 23–­24, 28, 30, 36–­39, 45, 52, 102–­3

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221

X

Index

N

Neoplatonism, 39 Ninety-­Five Theses, 1, 3–­4, 8, 19, 30–­31, 43–­44, 47, 51, 54, 60–­61, 63–­64, 67, 79–­80, 82, 87, 96, 97, 112, 113, 133, 144, 147, 175, 184–­85 Nominalism (see also Occamism), 17, 78 non ponere obicem, 78, 156 Nuremberg, 40, 107–­8

O

obedience, 36, 74, 80, 100, 104, 109, 122, 169, 185 Occamism, 17, 34–­35, 40–­41, 137. See also nominalism On the Freedom of a Christian, 9, 182, 187–­92 On the Papacy in Rome, 143 original sin, 34, 48. See also concupiscence Our Father, 115, 120–­25, 128. See also Lord’s Prayer

P

parenting, 106, 130–­31, 177. See also child rearing Paris, university of, 142 passion, meditation on Christ’s, 8, 24, 60–­61, 83–­86, 89, 92, 111–­12, 115–­16, 118–­20, 128, 138, 140, 167–­69, 192 pastoralia, 27 Paul; Pauline epistles, 31, 33–­35, 72–­ 73, 82–­83, 164, 191 Pelagianism, 26, 41 penance confessor’s role in, 5, 27, 44, 62, 67, 70, 81, 158 sacrament of, 8, 24, 27, 38, 44, 50–­ 52, 55, 59, 61–­64, 67, 71–­80, 83, 84, 89–­93, 95, 98–­101, 107, 113, 116–­17, 118, 125, 128, 138, 144–­ 54, 157, 167, 184–­85

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X

222

Index

penance, continued works of satisfaction, 8, 44–­45, 50, 52–­53, 61–­62, 64–­71, 74–­75, 77, 79–­82, 90–­91, 114, 125, 146, 148, 155, 157–­58, 184–­85 See also absolution; confession; contrition pilgrimage, 44–­45, 62, 86, 95, 104–­5, 118–­19, 123, 128, 130–­31, 135, 140, 155, 162, 177, 188 plagues, 127 pope authority/powers of, 3–­4, 47, 51, 54, 55, 57–­59, 63–­65, 97–­98, 113–­ 14, 116, 136–­38, 141–­44 office of, 112 pronouncements of, 4, 56, 107, 113–­15, 142–­44, 146, 153, 160, 182 prayer, 2, 8, 9, 12, 19, 22, 24–­25, 44–­45, 53–­54, 60, 62, 80, 85, 86, 88–­89, 115, 120–­28, 133–­35, 138–­40, 144, 153, 155, 166, 170, 177, 192. See also Lord’s Prayer; Our Father preaching late medieval, 26–­27, 124 Luther’s own, 1, 5, 18, 22, 31, 115, 143 Luther’s recommendations on, 23, 49, 56, 124–­25, 192 predestination, 168–­69 Preface to the Complete “German Theology” (1518), 101–­3 Preface to the “German Theology” (1516), 24, 36–­37, 39, 101–­3 pride, 56, 72, 104, 105, 123, 132–­33, 148, 167. See also spiritual pride Prierias, Sylvester, 98 priests and celibacy, 129 and confession, 8, 44–­45, 62–­63, 74, 76–­78, 99–­100, 117, 138, 146, 148–­52, 184. See also confessor and the mass, 107, 158–­89

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and prayer, 106, 122, 153 training of, 26–­27 printing, 3, 146 processions, 45, 115, 126–­28, 138–­40 promise of grace, 33, 35, 65, 77, 78, 88, 95, 100, 108, 110–­12, 125, 126–­28, 145–­47, 151–­52, 155, 167–­70, 184, 187 purgatory, 44, 46–­47, 53–­54, 56–­57, 62, 115, 130, 134 Pseudo-­Dionysius, 24

Q

Quintilian, 41

R

reconciliation to church/to God, 100, 147–­48 reason, 29, 84, 92, 103 reform, late medieval, 4–­5, 26–­27 Reformation discovery, 8, 13–­15, 95–­ 96, 109–­112 relics, 16, 47, 62, 86–­90, 92, 115, 162–­63 repentance, 7, 30, 38, 49–­52, 54–­55, 57, 59, 63–­64, 70, 80, 99, 125, 131–­32, 139, 175 rhetoric, 41, 84 righteousness, 14, 32–­35, 38, 40, 48, 51–­52, 65–­66, 80–­81, 85, 106, 108, 111–­12, 131–­33, 138, 152, 157, 159, 165, 168–­69, 175, 181, 186–­91 See also works-righteousness Rogationtide, 115, 126–­28, 138–­39 Rome city of, 98, 177 conflict with Luther, 1–­2, 9, 19, 30, 63, 98–­99, 102, 113, 134–­35, 140–­44, 160, 177 Roman church, 127

S

sacraments, 2, 9, 19, 23, 26, 33, 50, 62, 63, 76, 98, 113, 132, 143–­ 45, 147–­49, 151, 154, 157, 167,

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169–­70, 178–­79, 181, 184. See also baptism; Eucharist; mass; communion; penance; unction St. Bridget’s prayer, 123, 128, 177 saints. See also relics Christians as, 121, 163–­64 communion of. See church, as communion of saints as examples, 89, 162, 168 as helpers, 41, 69, 86–­87, 105, 161–­62 legends of, 27, 49, 68, 125 merits of, 45, 53, 56 veneration of, 9, 16, 18, 24, 60, 62, 86, 89, 90, 95, 104–­5, 115, 134, 158, 161–­64, 170, 187, 192 salvation, 4, 26, 38, 45, 52–­53, 56, 57, 62, 75, 91, 100, 131, 136, 155, 165, 167–­68, 174, 180–­82, 184, 186, 187, 190–­91 satisfaction for sin. See works of satisfaction Saxony, 115, 160 Scheurl, Christoph, 38, 40, 64, 97, 107–­8 Scotus, Duns, 42, 78 Scholasticism, 2, 7, 12, 24, 25–­26, 28–­29, 30–­35, 37, 39–­46, 57, 59, 65–­66, 78, 91–­92, 106, 156, 159–­ 60, 173, 179–­80 scripture. See also Bible; gospel authority of, 39, 80, 98, 142 Christ and, 38 church and, 4, 98, 114, 138, 190 commandments of, 64, 80, 99–­101, 128, 137, 150, 165, 185 reading of, 5, 25, 106 as source for Christian life, 37, 71, 99, 139 spirit of, 109 Scultetus, Jerome of Brandenberg, 58, 64–­65, 97 Seelsorge. See care of souls self-­flagellation, 127–­28

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223

X

Index

self-­seeking vs. selfless works, 8, 43, 85, 99, 101, 109, 129, 164, 171–­72, 174–­75, 178, 184–­86 Sentences of Peter Lombard, 26 Sermon on Good Works, 175–­79 Sermon on Indulgences and Grace, 61, 64, 79–­83, 90–­91, 96, 98 Sermon on Penance, 61, 74–­79, 95, 100–­101, 113 Sermon on Prayer and Procession During Rogation Week, 115, 126–­28, 138–­39 Sermon on Preparing to Die, 161, 166–­ 70, 181 Sermon on the Ban, 96–­97, 160–­61 Sermon on the Contemplation of the Holy Passion of Christ (The Contemplation of the Passion), 61, 118–­20, 128, 138, 140 Sermon on the Estate of Marriage, 129–­ 31, 138 Sermon on the Holy, Revered Sacrament of Baptism (Sermon on Baptism), 154–­56, 179 Sermon on the Mount, 172 Sermon on the New Testament, 180 Sermon on the Revered Sacrament of the Holy and True Body of Christ, and on the Brotherhoods (Sermon on the Body of Christ), 156–­61, 180–­81 Sermon on the Sacrament of Penance, 61, 146–­51, 154 Sermon on Two Kinds of Righteousness, 131–­33, 138 Sermon on Usury, 170–­75 Sermon on the Worthy Preparation of the Heart for Receiving the Sacrament (On the Worthy Preparation of the Heart), 61, 71–­74, 156–­57 service to others; servitude, 8, 140, 150, 174, 187–­89, 191–­92 seven deadly sins, 67–­68, 72, 133 Seven Penitential Psalms, 37–­39

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X

224

Index

seven works of mercy/charity, 55, 67, 88, 139, 165, 174, 184 seven works of spiritual comfort/ mercy, 133 shrines, 86–­87, 177. See also relics sin, categories of, 67–­68, 71, 117, 138. See also seven deadly sins singing, 127, 177 Spalatin, Georg, 37, 40–­41, 64, 108, 115–­16, 118, 121, 131, 143, 151, 161, 166, 171, 175 spirit of community, 72 evil spirit, 157, 169 Holy Spirit, 67, 100, 109 and letter, 104, 109. See also external vs. internal spiritual benefits, 44, 157–­59, 174, 180–­81 fulfillment of the law, 43, 104 growth, 124 leadership, 133 needs, well-­being, 105, 127–­28, 131, 134, 158, 180, 184, 186 prayer, 121–­23 pride, 56, 167 trials, 124 Staupitz, Johann von, 22, 28, 97, 142–­ 43 Swanson, R. N., 46 suffering avoiding, 82, 87, 111, 127, 178, 186 Christ’s, 24, 69, 78, 83–­86, 92, 111–­ 12, 118–­20, 164, 186 and contrition, 81 and death, 167, 170, 189 embracing (see also cross, bearing one’s), 8, 24, 49, 69, 80–­81, 83–­86, 87, 89–­93, 95–­96, 101–­5, 108–­11, 115–­16, 118–­19, 125, 138–­39, 144, 155, 165, 178, 183, 185–­92 faith amid, 65, 108, 124, 144, 155, 165, 177, 186, 191 Luther’s letters on, 21–­22

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in purgatory, 44 of the saints, 105, 161–­62 and satisfaction, 80–­81, 109, 185, 186 sharing suffering as church, 48, 157–­59, 164, 172, 180. See also church, bearing one another’s burdens unnecessary, 155

T

Tauler, Johannes, 24, 36 Ten Commandments. See under commandments Ten Commandments Preached to the People of Wittenberg, 37, 103–­7, 110 Tetzel, Johann, 49, 64, 97–­99, 102 transubstantiation, 160 treasury of merits, 45–­48, 52–­53, 55–­ 57, 163–­64 Treatise on Indulgences, 44, 51–­54, 56–­ 58, 63–­64, 79 truth, 38, 84, 99, 100–­101, 121–­22, 176 Two German Lenten Sermons, 61, 86–­89 Two Sermons on the Passion of Christ, 61, 83–­86

U

unchastity, 69, 106, 123 unction, 167 universities, 25–­26, 39–­40 usury, 70, 106, 144, 170–­75, 179–­80

V

vernacular writings, 10–­13, 15–­17, 27, 31, 80, 121, 133, 143, 145–­ 46, 178, 192. See also German language vigils, 5, 130, 177, 188 virtue. See also works categories of, 67–­71, 90 of a confessor, 100

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faith as, 73, 189 of the keys, 150 love of, 75, 84 vocation, 32, 192 von Amsdorf, Nicholas, 42, 120–­21 von Kaisersberg, Johann Geiler, 68, 82 von Miltitz, Karl, 116, 133–­34, 138, 182 Vulgate, 50

W

weak Christians, 49, 73–­74, 87–­88, 90, 118–­19, 132–­33, 177–­78, 184, 187, 190–­91. See also conscience, weak, or anxious Weimar edition of Luther’s works, 10, 16, 66, 68, 83, 86, 103, 134 Wicks, Jared, 18–­19, 44, 51, 180 will God’s. See God, will of human, 29, 30, 36, 37, 41–­42, 59 Wimpina, Konrad, 64 witchcraft, 70–­71, 90 Wittenberg, 1, 5–­6, 28, 31, 39–­43, 47, 49, 64, 86, 96–­97, 103, 114, 141–­ 43, 147, 174–­75, 182, 192 Wolff, Johannes, 68 word of God, 5, 20, 95, 107, 125, 149. See also Bible and scripture

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225

X

Index

works and faith, 73, 88–­89, 106, 116, 147, 152–­53, 154–­55, 176, 187, 190 good, 8–­9, 41–­43, 56, 64, 67, 69, 70, 76, 80–­83, 90, 96, 100, 106, 109, 115, 118, 123–­24, 128–­33, 135, 137, 138–­39, 144, 158, 170–­71, 173–­86, 188–­90 indulgences offered for, 44–­45 meritorious, 34, 45, 91, 128–­29, 148, 174, 179, 181 religious, 92, 131, 139, 155, 173–­79, 181, 186 unscriptural, 101, 150, 165, 177, 179, 188–­89 See also opus operatum; seven works of mercy; seven works of spiritual comfort; virtue; works of satisfaction; works-­righteousness works-­righteousness, 35, 40, 65–­66, 87, 90, 91, 123, 125, 165, 175, 181, 186–­88 Worms, Diet of, 3 worship, 5, 25, 48, 69, 107, 130, 173–­ 74 Wycliffe, John, 47, 98

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About the Author

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nna Marie Johnson earned her PhD from Princeton Theological Seminary. She is Assistant Professor of Reformation History at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois. She was the recipient of a Mellon Foundation/American Council of Learned Societies fellowship, and co-edited the book The Reformation as Christianization with John A. Maxfield.

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