Walther joined the Saxon Germans who immigrated to the United States in 1839 (the date of arrival), and at the age of 27 found himself leader of the group that settled in Perry County, Missouri. In 1847, Walther played a key role in the founding of the LCMS, which now ranks as one of the largest Christian denominations in the United States with more than 2.3 million baptized members in some 6,200 congregations and more than 9,000 pastors.

Find out more about Walther, “The Father of the Missouri Synod,” and his lasting leadership. Join the celebration.

http://www.lcms.org/walther200

See also:

1. Walther on Communion Fellowship
2. LCMS Bicentennial Lectures
3. Submit a Research Paper on CFW Walther
4. LCMS Convention News from July 13

Possibly his most important work was his translation of the New Testament into Hebrew, an endeavor he undertook with deep evangelical conviction that only the Word of God could bring the Messiah to God’s chosen people.

It was said of Delitzsch that, “The ideal aim of his spirit was to awaken a dead people, to strengthen the dying in Israel.” And that, “His Hebrew New Testament was the most effective missionary among the Jews … he was the soul of missions among Israel in all of Christendom.”

As an accomplished Hebraist and student of rabbinic literature, Delitzsch was able to re-contextualize the Gospels back into their Hebraic matrix. He understood and revealed the Hebrew / Jewish underpinnings of the Gospels. He devoted his entire life to restoring Yeshua back to his people. Delitzsch wrote, “We have cause to say, that our new translation has contributed somewhat to bring the New Testament nearer to the Jews as a prominent work of their literature…the New Testament [is] the highest work that the Jewish genius has produced.”

You can find Delitzsch’s translation online here.

The text continues to be used today, particularly among Messianic Jews–although some groups claim the work is impure due to its reliance on Greek manuscripts as opposed to Aramaic ones like that used to create the Aramaic English New Testament. Educational ministry First Fruits of Zion, for instance, is working on a project to create an English translation of Delitzsch’s Hebrew translation, which includes his critical notes and is accompanied by a 24 minute introduction to his life and work. You can find additional information on the project at FFOZ.

Here is the video introduction, divided into three parts.

Nota bene: This is a Messianic Jewish scholar speaking, so the language and theological interpretation should be taken with appropriate caution. Just the way he says “Lutheran” makes him seem suspect :)

Mobile Link

Mobile Link

Mobile Link

Citation via FFOZ / Image via Wikipedia

See also:

1. Iniquity – What’s In A Word?
2. To The Fools Who Deny the Virgin Birth of Jesus
3. Forgive – What’s In A Word?
4. Say – What’s In A Word?

Ineffabilis Deus

Apostolic Constitution issued by Pope Pius IX on December 8, 1854.

God Ineffable — whose ways are mercy and truth, whose will is omnipotence itself, and whose wisdom “reaches from end to end mightily, and orders all things sweetly” — having foreseen from all eternity the lamentable wretchedness of the entire human race which would result from the sin of Adam, decreed, by a plan hidden from the centuries, to complete the first work of his goodness by a mystery yet more wondrously sublime through the Incarnation of the Word. This he decreed in order that man who, contrary to the plan of Divine Mercy had been led into sin by the cunning malice of Satan, should not perish; and in order that what had been lost in the first Adam would be gloriously restored in the Second Adam. From the very beginning, and before time began, the eternal Father chose and prepared for his only-begotten Son a Mother in whom the Son of God would become incarnate and from whom, in the blessed fullness of time, he would be born into this world. Above all creatures did God so loved her that truly in her was the Father well pleased with singular delight. Therefore, far above all the angels and all the saints so wondrously did God endow her with the abundance of all heavenly gifts poured from the treasury of his divinity that this mother, ever absolutely free of all stain of sin, all fair and perfect, would possess that fullness of holy innocence and sanctity than which, under God, one cannot even imagine anything greater, and which, outside of God, no mind can succeed in comprehending fully.

Supreme Reason for the Privilege: The Divine Maternity

And indeed it was wholly fitting that so wonderful a mother should be ever resplendent with the glory of most sublime holiness and so completely free from all taint of original sin that she would triumph utterly over the ancient serpent. To her did the Father will to give his only-begotten Son — the Son whom, equal to the Father and begotten by him, the Father loves from his heart — and to give this Son in such a way that he would be the one and the same common Son of God the Father and of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It was she whom the Son himself chose to make his Mother and it was from her that the Holy Spirit willed and brought it about that he should be conceived and born from whom he himself proceeds.[1]

Liturgical Argument

The Catholic Church, directed by the Holy Spirit of God, is the pillar and base of truth and has ever held as divinely revealed and as contained in the deposit of heavenly revelation this doctrine concerning the original innocence of the august Virgin — a doctrine which is so perfectly in harmony with her wonderful sanctity and preeminent dignity as Mother of God — and thus has never ceased to explain, to teach and to foster this doctrine age after age in many ways and by solemn acts. From this very doctrine, flourishing and wondrously propagated in the Catholic world through the efforts and zeal of the bishops, was made very clear by the Church when she did not hesitate to present for the public devotion and veneration of the faithful the Feast of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin.[2] By this most significant fact, the Church made it clear indeed that the conception of Mary is to be venerated as something extraordinary, wonderful, eminently holy, and different from the conception of all other human beings — for the Church celebrates only the feast days of the saints.

And hence the very words with which the Sacred Scriptures speak of Uncreated Wisdom and set forth his eternal origin, the Church, both in its ecclesiastical offices and in its liturgy, has been wont to apply likewise to the origin of the Blessed Virgin, inasmuch as God, by one and the same decree, had established the origin of Mary and the Incarnation of Divine Wisdom.

Ordinary Teaching of the Roman Church

These truths, so generally accepted and put into practice by the faithful, indicate how zealously the Roman Church, mother and teacher of all Churches, has continued to teach this doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin. Yet the more important actions of the Church deserve to be mentioned in detail. For such dignity and authority belong to the Church that she alone is the center of truth and of Catholic unity. It is the Church in which alone religion has been inviolably preserved and from which all other Churches must receive the tradition of the Faith.[3]

The same Roman Church, therefore, desired nothing more than by the most persuasive means to state, to protect, to promote and to defend the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. This fact is most clearly shown to the whole world by numerous and significant acts of the Roman Pontiffs, our predecessors. To them, in the person of the Prince of the Apostles, were divinely entrusted by Christ our Lord, the charge and supreme care and the power of feeding the lambs and sheep; in particular, of confirming their brethren, and of ruling and governing the universal Church.

Veneration of the Immaculate

Our predecessors, indeed, by virtue of their apostolic authority, gloried in instituting the Feast of the Conception in the Roman Church. They did so to enhance its importance and dignity by a suitable Office and Mass, whereby the prerogative of the Virgin, her exception from the hereditary taint, was most distinctly affirmed. As to the homage already instituted, they spared no effort to promote and to extend it either by the granting of indulgences, or by allowing cities, provinces and kingdoms to choose as their patroness God’s own Mother, under the title of “The Immaculate Conception.” Again, our predecessors approved confraternities, congregations and religious communities founded in honor of the Immaculate Conception, monasteries, hospitals, altars, or churches; they praised persons who vowed to uphold with all their ability the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God. Besides, it afforded the greatest joy to our predecessors to ordain that the Feast of the Conception should be celebrated in every church with the very same honor as the Feast of the Nativity; that it should be celebrated with an octave by the whole Church; that it should be reverently and generally observed as a holy day of obligation; and that a pontifical Capella should be held in our Liberian pontifical basilica on the day dedicated to the conception of the Virgin. Finally, in their desire to impress this doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God upon the hearts of the faithful, and to intensify the people’s piety and enthusiasm for the homage and the veneration of the Virgin conceived without the stain of original sin, they delighted to grant, with the greatest pleasure, permission to proclaim the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin in the Litany of Loreto, and in the Preface of the Mass, so that the rule of prayer might thus serve to illustrate the rule of belief. Therefore, we ourselves, following the procedure of our predecessors, have not only approved and accepted what had already been established, but bearing in mind, moreover, the decree of Sixtus IV, [4] have confirmed by our authority a proper Office in honor of the Immaculate Conception, and have with exceeding joy extended its use to the universal Church.[5]

The Roman Doctrine

Now inasmuch as whatever pertains to sacred worship is intimately connected with its object and cannot have either consistency or durability if this object is vague or uncertain, our predecessors, the Roman Pontiffs, therefore, while directing all their efforts toward an increase of the devotion to the conception, made it their aim not only to emphasize the object with the utmost zeal, but also to enunciate the exact doctrine.[6] Definitely and clearly they taught that the feast was held in honor of the conception of the Virgin. They denounced as false and absolutely foreign to the mind of the Church the opinion of those who held and affirmed that it was not the conception of the Virgin but her sanctification that was honored by the Church. They never thought that greater leniency should be extended toward those who, attempting to disprove the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin, devised a distinction between the first and second instance of conception and inferred that the conception which the Church celebrates was not that of the first instance of conception but the second. In fact, they held it was their duty not only to uphold and defend with all their power the Feast of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin but also to assert that the true object of this veneration was her conception considered in its first instant. Hence the words of one of our predecessors, Alexander VII, who authoritatively and decisively declared the mind of the Church: “Concerning the most Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, ancient indeed is that devotion of the faithful based on the belief that her soul, in the first instant of its creation and in the first instant of the soul’s infusion into the body, was, by a special grace and privilege of God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, her Son and the Redeemer of the human race, preserved free from all stain of original sin. And in this sense have the faithful ever solemnized and celebrated the Feast of the Conception.”[7]

Moreover, our predecessors considered it their special solemn duty with all diligence, zeal, and effort to preserve intact the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God. For, not only have they in no way ever allowed this doctrine to be censured or changed, but they have gone much further and by clear statements repeatedly asserted that the doctrine by which we profess the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin is on its own merits entirely in harmony with the ecclesiastical veneration; that it is ancient and widespread, and of the same nature as that which the Roman Church has undertaken to promote and to protect, and that it is entirely worthy to be used in the Sacred Liturgy and solemn prayers. Not content with this they most strictly prohibited any opinion contrary to this doctrine to be defended in public or private in order that the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin might remain inviolate. By repeated blows they wished to put an end to such an opinion. And lest these oft-repeated and clearest statements seem useless, they added a sanction to them.

Papal Sanctions

All these things our illustrious predecessor, Alexander VII, summed up in these words: “We have in mind the fact that the Holy Roman Church solemnly celebrated the Feast of the Conception of the undefiled and ever-Virgin Mary, and has long ago appointed for this a special and proper Office according to the pious, devout, and laudable instruction which was given by our predecessor, Sixtus IV. Likewise, we were desirous, after the example of our predecessors, to favor this praiseworthy piety, devotion, feast and veneration — a veneration which is in keeping with the piety unchanged in the Roman Church from the day it was instituted. We also desired to protect this piety and devotion of venerating and extolling the most Blessed Virgin preserved from original sin by the grace of the Holy Spirit. Moreover, we were anxious to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace in the flock of Christ by putting down arguments and controversies and by removing scandals. So at the instance and request of the bishops mentioned above, with the chapters of the churches, and of King Philip and his kingdoms, we renew the Constitutions and Decrees issued by the Roman Pontiffs, our predecessors, especially Sixtus IV,[8] Paul V,[9] and Gregory XV,[10] in favor of the doctrine asserting that the soul of the Blessed Virgin, in its creation and infusion into the body, was endowed with the grace of the Holy Spirit and preserved from original sin; and also in favor of the feast and veneration of the conception of the Virgin Mother of God, which, as is manifest, was instituted in keeping with that pious belief. So we command this feast to be observed under the censures and penalties contained in the same Constitutions.

“And therefore, against all and everyone of those who shall continue to construe the said Constitutions and Decrees in a manner apt to frustrate the favor which is thereby given to the said doctrine, and to the feast and relative veneration, or who shall dare to call into question the said sentence, feast and worship, or in any way whatever, directly or indirectly, shall declare themselves opposed to it under any pretext whatsoever, were it but only to the extent of examining the possibilities of effecting the definition, or who shall comment upon and interpret the Sacred Scripture, or the Fathers or Doctors in connection therewith, or finally, for any reason, or on any occasion, shall dare, either in writing or verbally, to speak, preach, treat, dispute or determine upon, or assert whatsoever against the foregoing matters, or who shall adduce any arguments against them, while leaving them unresolved, or who shall disagree therewith in any other conceivable manner, we hereby declare that in addition to the penalties and censures contained in the Constitutions issued by Sixtus IV to which we want them to be subjected and to which we subject them by the present Constitution, we hereby decree that they be deprived of the authority of preaching, reading in public, that is to say teaching and interpreting; and that they be also deprived ipso facto of the power of voting, either actively or passively, in all elections, without the need for any further declaration; and that also, ipso facto, without any further declaration, they shall incur the penalty of perpetual disability from preaching, reading in public, teaching and interpreting, and that it shall not be possible to absolve them from such penalty, or remove it, save through ourselves, or the Roman Pontiffs who shall succeed us.

“We also require that the same shall remain subject to any other penalties which by us, of our own free will — or by the Roman Pontiffs, our successors (according as they may decree) — shall be deemed advisable to establish, and by the present Constitution we declare them subject thereto, and hereby renew the above Decrees and Constitutions of Paul V and Gregory XV.

“Moreover, as regards those books in which the said sentence, feast and relative veneration are called into question or are contradicted in any way whatsoever, according to what has already been stated, either in writing or verbally, in discourses, sermons, lectures, treatises and debates — that may have been printed after the above-praised Decree of Paul V, or may be printed hereafter we hereby prohibit them, subject to the penalties and censures established by the Index of prohibited books, and ipso facto, without any further declaration, we desire and command that they be held as expressly prohibited.”[11]

Testimonies of the Catholic World

All are aware with how much diligence this doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God has been handed down, proposed and defended by the most outstanding religious orders, by the more celebrated theological academies, and by very eminent doctors in the sciences of theology. All know, likewise, how eager the bishops have been to profess openly and publicly, even in ecclesiastical assemblies, that Mary, the most holy Mother of God, by virtue of the foreseen merits of Christ, our Lord and Redeemer, was never subject to original sin, but was completely preserved from the original taint, and hence she was redeemed in a manner more sublime.

The Council of Trent

Besides, we must note a fact of the greatest importance indeed. Even the Council of Trent itself, when it promulgated the dogmatic decree concerning original sin, following the testimonies of the Sacred Scriptures, of the Holy Fathers and of the renowned Council, decreed and defined that all men are born infected by original sin; nevertheless, it solemnly declared that it had no intention of including the blessed and immaculate Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, in this decree and in the general extension of its definition. Indeed, considering the times and circumstances, the Fathers of Trent sufficiently intimated by this declaration that the Blessed Virgin Mary was free from the original stain; and thus they clearly signified that nothing could be reasonably cited from the Sacred Scriptures, from Tradition, or from the authority of the Fathers, which would in any way be opposed to so great a prerogative of the Blessed Virgin.[12]

Testimonies of Tradition

And indeed, illustrious documents of venerable antiquity, of both the Eastern and the Western Church, very forcibly testify that this doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the most Blessed Virgin, which was daily more and more splendidly explained, stated and confirmed by the highest authority, teaching, zeal, knowledge, and wisdom of the Church, and which was disseminated among all peoples and nations of the Catholic world in a marvelous manner — this doctrine always existed in the Church as a doctrine that has been received from our ancestors, and that has been stamped with the character of revealed doctrine. For the Church of Christ, watchful guardian that she is, and defender of the dogmas deposited with her, never changes anything, never diminishes anything, never adds anything to them; but with all diligence she treats the ancient documents faithfully and wisely; if they really are of ancient origin and if the faith of the Fathers has transmitted them, she strives to investigate and explain them in such a way that the ancient dogmas of heavenly doctrine will be made evident and clear, but will retain their full, integral, and proper nature, and will grown only within their own genus — that is, within the same dogma, in the same sense and the same meaning.

Interpreters of the Sacred Scripture

The Fathers and writers of the Church, well versed in the heavenly Scriptures, had nothing more at heart than to vie with one another in preaching and teaching in many wonderful ways the Virgin’s supreme sanctity, dignity, and immunity from all stain of sin, and her renowned victory over the most foul enemy of the human race. This they did in the books they wrote to explain the Scriptures, to vindicate the dogmas, and to instruct the faithful. These ecclesiastical writers in quoting the words by which at the beginning of the world God announced his merciful remedies prepared for the regeneration of mankind — words by which he crushed the audacity of the deceitful serpent and wondrously raised up the hope of our race, saying, “I will put enmities between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed”[13] — taught that by this divine prophecy the merciful Redeemer of mankind, Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, was clearly foretold: That his most Blessed Mother, the Virgin Mary, was prophetically indicated; and, at the same time, the very enmity of both against the evil one was significantly expressed. Hence, just as Christ, the Mediator between God and man, assumed human nature, blotted the handwriting of the decree that stood against us, and fastened it triumphantly to the cross, so the most holy Virgin, united with him by a most intimate and indissoluble bond, was, with him and through him, eternally at enmity with the evil serpent, and most completely triumphed over him, and thus crushed his head with her immaculate foot.[14]

This sublime and singular privilege of the Blessed Virgin, together with her most excellent innocence, purity, holiness and freedom from every stain of sin, as well as the unspeakable abundance and greatness of all heavenly graces, virtues and privileges — these the Fathers beheld in that ark of Noah, which was built by divine command and escaped entirely safe and sound from the common shipwreck of the whole world;[15] in the ladder which Jacob saw reaching from the earth to heaven, by whose rungs the angels of God ascended and descended, and on whose top the Lord himself leaned’[16] in that bush which Moses saw in the holy place burning on all sides, which was not consumed or injured in any way but grew green and blossomed beautifully;[17] in that impregnable tower before the enemy, from which hung a thousand bucklers and all the armor of the strong;[18] in that garden enclosed on all sides, which cannot be violated or corrupted by any deceitful plots;[19] as in that resplendent city of God, which has its foundations on the holy mountains;[20] in that most august temple of God, which, radiant with divine splendors, is full of the glory of God;[21] and in very many other biblical types of this kind. In such allusions the Fathers taught that the exalted dignity of the Mother of God, her spotless innocence and her sanctity unstained by any fault, had been prophesied in a wonderful manner.

In like manner did they use the words of the prophets to describe this wondrous abundance of divine gifts and the original innocence of the Virgin of whom Jesus was born. They celebrated the august Virgin as the spotless dove, as the holy Jerusalem, as the exalted throne of God, as the ark and house of holiness which Eternal Wisdom built, and as that Queen who, abounding in delights and leaning on her Beloved, came forth from the mouth of the Most High, entirely perfect, beautiful, most dear to God and never stained with the least blemish.

The Annunciation

When the Fathers and writers of the Church meditated on the fact that the most Blessed Virgin was, in the name and by order of God himself, proclaimed full of grace[22] by the Angel Gabriel when he announced her most sublime dignity of Mother of God, they thought that this singular and solemn salutation, never heard before, showed that the Mother of God is the seat of all divine graces and is adorned with all gifts of the Holy Spirit. To them Mary is an almost infinite treasury, an inexhaustible abyss of these gifts, to such an extent that she was never subject to the curse and was, together with her Son, the only partaker of perpetual benediction. Hence she was worthy to hear Elizabeth, inspired by the Holy Spirit, exclaim: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.”[23]

Mary Compared with Eve

Hence, it is the clear and unanimous opinion of the Fathers that the most glorious Virgin, for whom “he who is mighty has done great things,” was resplendent with such an abundance of heavenly gifts, with such a fullness of grace and with such innocence, that she is an unspeakable miracle of God — indeed, the crown of all miracles and truly the Mother of God; that she approaches as near to God himself as is possible for a created being; and that she is above all men and angels in glory. Hence, to demonstrate the original innocence and sanctity of the Mother of God, not only did they frequently compare her to Eve while yet a virgin, while yet innocence, while yet incorrupt, while not yet deceived by the deadly snares of the most treacherous serpent; but they have also exalted her above Eve with a wonderful variety of expressions. Eve listened to the serpent with lamentable consequences; she fell from original innocence and became his slave. The most Blessed Virgin, on the contrary, ever increased her original gift, and not only never lent an ear to the serpent, but by divinely given power she utterly destroyed the force and dominion of the evil one.

Biblical Figures

Accordingly, the Fathers have never ceased to call the Mother of God the lily among thorns, the land entirely intact, the Virgin undefiled, immaculate, ever blessed, and free from all contagion of sin, she from whom was formed the new Adam, the flawless, brightest, and most beautiful paradise of innocence, immortality and delights planted by God himself and protected against all the snares of the poisonous serpent, the incorruptible wood that the worm of sin had never corrupted, the fountain ever clear and sealed with the power of the Holy Spirit, the most holy temple, the treasure of immortality, the one and only daughter of life — not of death — the plant not of anger but of grace, through the singular providence of God growing ever green contrary to the common law, coming as it does from a corrupted and tainted root.

Explicit Affirmation . . .

As if these splendid eulogies and tributes were not sufficient, the Fathers proclaimed with particular and definite statements that when one treats of sin, the holy Virgin Mary is not even to be mentioned; for to her more grace was given than was necessary to conquer sin completely.[24] They also declared that the most glorious Virgin was Reparatrix of the first parents, the giver of life to posterity; that she was chosen before the ages, prepared for himself by the Most High, foretold by God when he said to the serpent, “I will put enmities between you and the woman.”[25]-unmistakable evidence that she was crushed the poisonous head of the serpent. And hence they affirmed that the Blessed Virgin was, through grace, entirely free from every stain of sin, and from all corruption of body, soul and mind; that she was always united with God and joined to him by an eternal covenant; that she was never in darkness but always in light; and that, therefore, she was entirely a fit habitation for Christ, not because of the state of her body, but because of her original grace.

. . . Of a Super Eminent Sanctity

To these praises they have added very noble words. Speaking of the conception of the Virgin, they testified that nature yielded to grace and, unable to go on, stood trembling. The Virgin Mother of God would not be conceived by Anna before grace would bear its fruits; it was proper that she be conceived as the first-born, by whom “the first-born of every creature” would be conceived. They testified, too, that the flesh of the Virgin, although derived from Adam, did not contract the stains of Adam, and that on this account the most Blessed Virgin was the tabernacle created by God himself and formed by the Holy Spirit, truly a work in royal purple, adorned and woven with gold, which that new Beseleel[26] made. They affirmed that the same Virgin is, and is deservedly, the first and especial work of God, escaping the fiery arrows the the evil one; that she is beautiful by nature and entirely free from all stain; that at her Immaculate Conception she came into the world all radiant like the dawn. For it was certainly not fitting that this vessel of election should be wounded by the common injuries, since she, differing so much from the others, had only nature in common with them, not sin. In fact, it was quite fitting that, as the Only-Begotten has a Father in heaven, whom the Seraphim extol as thrice holy, so he should have a Mother on earth who would never be without the splendor of holiness.

This doctrine so filled the minds and souls of our ancestors in the faith that a singular and truly marvelous style of speech came into vogue among them. They have frequently addressed the Mother of God as immaculate, as immaculate in every respect; innocent, and verily most innocent; spotless, and entirely spotless; holy and removed from every stain of sin; all pure, all stainless, the very model of purity and innocence; more beautiful than beauty, more lovely than loveliness; more holy than holiness, singularly holy and most pure in soul and body; the one who surpassed all integrity and virginity; the only one who has become the dwelling place of all the graces of the most Holy Spirit. God alone excepted, Mary is more excellent than all, and by nature fair and beautiful, and more holy than the Cherubim and Seraphim. To praise her all the tongues of heaven and earth do not suffice.

Everyone is cognizant that this style of speech has passed almost spontaneously into the books of the most holy liturgy and the Offices of the Church, in which they occur so often and abundantly. In them, the Mother of God is invoked and praised as the one spotless and most beautiful dove, as a rose ever blooming, as perfectly pure, ever immaculate, and ever blessed. She is celebrated as innocence never sullied and as the second Eve who brought forth the Emmanuel.

Preparation for the Definition

No wonder, then, that the Pastors of the Church and the faithful gloried daily more and more in professing with so much piety, religion, and love this doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mother of God, which, as the Fathers discerned, was recorded in the Divine Scriptures; which was handed down in so many of their most important writings; which was expressed and celebrated in so many illustrious monuments of venerable antiquity; which was proposed and confirmed by the official and authoritative teaching of the Church. Hence, nothing was dearer, nothing more pleasing to these pastors than to venerate, invoke, and proclaim with most ardent affection the Virgin Mother of God conceived without original stain. Accordingly, from ancient times the bishops of the Church, ecclesiastics, religious orders, and even emperors and kings, have earnestly petitioned this Apostolic See to define a dogma of the Catholic Faith the Immaculate Conception of the most holy Mother of God. These petitions were renewed in these our own times; they were especially brought to the attention of Gregory XVI, our predecessor of happy memory, and to ourselves, not only by bishops, but by the secular clergy and religious orders, by sovereign rulers and by the faithful.

Mindful, indeed, of all these things and considering them most attentively with particular joy in our heart, as soon as we, by the inscrutable design of Providence, had been raised to the sublime Chair of St. Peter — in spite of our unworthiness — and had begun to govern the universal Church, nothing have we had more at heart — a heart which from our tenderest years has overflowed with devoted veneration and love for the most Blessed Virgin — than to show forth her prerogatives in resplendent light.

That we might proceed with great prudence, we established a special congregation of our venerable brethren, the cardinals of the holy Roman Church, illustrious for their piety, wisdom, and knowledge of the sacred scriptures. We also selected priests, both secular and regular, well trained in the theological sciences, that they should most carefully consider all matters pertaining to the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin and make known to us their opinion.

The Mind of the Bishops

Although we knew the mind of the bishops from the petitions which we had received from them, namely, that the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin be finally defined, nevertheless, on February 2, 1849,[27] we sent an Encyclical Letter from Gaeta to all our venerable brethren, the bishops of the Catholic world, that they should offer prayers to God and then tell us in writing what the piety an devotion of their faithful was in regard to the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God. We likewise inquired what the bishops themselves thought about defining this doctrine and what their wishes were in regard to making known with all possible solemnity our supreme judgment.

We were certainly filled with the greatest consolation when the replies of our venerable brethren came to us. For, replying to us with a most enthusiastic joy, exultation and zeal, they not only again confirmed their own singular piety toward the Immaculate Conception of the most Blessed Virgin, and that of the secular and religious clergy and of the faithful, but with one voice they even entreated us to define our supreme judgment and authority the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin. In the meantime we were indeed filled with no less joy when, after a diligent examination, our venerable brethren, the cardinals of the special congregation and the theologians chosen by us as counselors (whom we mentioned above), asked with the same enthusiasm and fervor for the definition of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God.

Consequently, following the examples of our predecessors, and desiring to proceed in the traditional manner, we announced and held a consistory, in which we addressed our brethren, the cardinals of the Holy Roman Church. It was the greatest spiritual joy for us when we heard them ask us to promulgate the dogmatic definition of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mother of God.[28]

Therefore, having full trust in the Lord that the opportune time had come for defining the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, which Holy Scripture, venerable Tradition, the constant mind of the Church, the desire of Catholic bishops and the faithful, and the memorable Acts and Constitutions of our predecessors, wonderfully illustrate and proclaim, and having most diligently considered all things, as we poured forth to God ceaseless and fervent prayers, we concluded that we should no longer delay in decreeing and defining by our supreme authority the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin. And thus, we can satisfy the most holy desire of the Catholic world as well as our own devotion toward the most holy Virgin, and at the same time honor more and more the only begotten Son, Jesus Christ our Lord through his holy Mother — since whatever honor and praise are bestowed on the Mother redound to the Son.

The Definition

Wherefore, in humility and fasting, we unceasingly offered our private prayers as well as the public prayers of the Church to God the Father through his Son, that he would deign to direct and strengthen our mind by the power of the Holy Spirit. In like manner did we implore the help of the entire heavenly host as we ardently invoked the Paraclete. Accordingly, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, for the honor of the Holy and undivided Trinity, for the glory and adornment of the Virgin Mother of God, for the exaltation of the Catholic Faith, and for the furtherance of the Catholic religion, by the authority of Jesus Christ our Lord, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own: “We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful.”[29]

Hence, if anyone shall dare — which God forbid! — to think otherwise than as has been defined by us, let him know and understand that he is condemned by his own judgment; that he has suffered shipwreck in the faith; that he has separated from the unity of the Church; and that, furthermore, by his own action he incurs the penalties established by law if he should are to express in words or writing or by any other outward means the errors he think in his heart.

Hoped-For Results

Our soul overflows with joy and our tongue with exultation. We give, and we shall continue to give, the humblest and deepest thanks to Jesus Christ, our Lord, because through his singular grace he has granted to us, unworthy though we be, to decree and offer this honor and glory and praise to his most holy Mother. All our hope do we repose in the most Blessed Virgin — in the all fair and immaculate one who has crushed the poisonous head of the most cruel serpent and brought salvation to the world: in her who is the glory of the prophets and apostles, the honor of the martyrs, the crown and joy of all the saints; in her who is the safest refuge and the most trustworthy helper of all who are in danger; in her who, with her only-begotten Son, is the most powerful Mediatrix and Conciliatrix in the whole world; in her who is the most excellent glory, ornament, and impregnable stronghold of the holy Church; in her who has destroyed all heresies and snatched the faithful people and nations from all kinds of direst calamities; in her do we hope who has delivered us from so many threatening dangers. We have, therefore, a very certain hope and complete confidence that the most Blessed Virgin will ensure by her most powerful patronage that all difficulties be removed and all errors dissipated, so that our Holy Mother the Catholic Church may flourish daily more and more throughout all the nations and countries, and may reign “from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth,” and may enjoy genuine peace, tranquility and liberty. We are firm in our confidence that she will obtain pardon for the sinner, health for the sick, strength of heart for the weak, consolation for the afflicted, help for those in danger; that she will remove spiritual blindness from all who are in error, so that they may return to the path of truth and justice, and that here may be one flock and one shepherd.

Let all the children of the Catholic Church, who are so very dear to us, hear these words of ours. With a still more ardent zeal for piety, religion and love, let them continue to venerate, invoke and pray to the most Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, conceived without original sin. Let them fly with utter confidence to this most sweet Mother of mercy and grace in all dangers, difficulties, needs, doubts and fears. Under her guidance, under her patronage, under her kindness and protection, nothing is to be feared; nothing is hopeless. Because, while bearing toward us a truly motherly affection and having in her care the work of our salvation, she is solicitous about the whole human race. And since she has been appointed by God to be the Queen of heaven and earth, and is exalted above all the choirs of angels and saints, and even stands at the right hand of her only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, she presents our petitions in a most efficacious manner. What she asks, she obtains. Her pleas can never be unheard.

Given at St. Peter’s in Rome, the eighth day of December, 1854, in the eighth year of our pontificate.

Pius IX

Footnotes

1. Et quidem decebat omnino, ut perfectissimae sanctitatis splendoribus semper ornata fulgeret, ac vel ab ipsa originalis culpae labe plane immunis amplissimum de antiquo sepente triumphum referret tam venerabilis mater, cui Deus Pater unicum Filius suum, quem de corde suo aequalem sibi genitum tamquam seipsum diligit, ita dare disposuit, ut naturaliter esset unus idemque communis Dei Patris et Virginis Filius, et quam ipse Filius, Filius substantialiter facere sibi matrem elegit, et de qua Siritus Sanctus voluit et operatus est, ut conciperetur et nasceretur ille, de quo ipse procedit.
2. Cf. Ibid., n. 16.
3. Cf. St. Irenaeus, Adv. Haereses, book III, c. III, n. 2.
4. C.A. Cum Praeexcelsa, February 28, 1476; Denz., n. 734.
5. Decree of the Sared Cong. of Rites; September 30, 1847.
6. This has been the constant care of the Popes, as is shown by the condemnation of one of the propositions of Anthony de Rosmini-Serbati (cf. Denzinger, nn. 1891-1930). This is how the 34th proposition runs (Denzinger, n. 1924): “Ad praeservandam B. V. Mariam a labe originis, satis erat, ut incorruptum maneret minimum sesmen in homine, neglectum forte ab ipso demone, e quo incorrupto semine de generatione in generationem transfuso, suo tempore oriretur Virgo Maria.” Decree of the Holy Office, December 14, 1887 (AAS 20, 393). Denz. n. 1924.
7. Apost. Const. Sollicitudo Omnium Ecclesiarum, December 8, 1661.
8. Apost. Const. Cum Praeexcelsa, February 28, 1476; Grave Nemis, September 4, 1483; Denz., nn. 734, 735.
9. Apost. Const. Sanctissimus, September 12, 1617.
10. Apost. Const. Sanctissimus, June 4, 1622.
11. Alexander VIII, Apost. Const. Sollicitudo Omnium Ecclesiarum, December 8, 1661.
12. Sess. V, Can. 6; Denz. n. 792. Declarat tamen haec ipsa sancta Synodus, non esse suae intentionis, comprehendere in hoc decreto, ubi de peccato originali agitur, beatam et immaculatam Virginem Mariam Dei genitricem, sed observandas esse constitutiones felicis recordationis Sixti Papae IV, sub poenis in eis constitutionibus contentis, quas innovat.
13. Gn 3:15.
14. Quo circa sicut Christus Dei hominumque mediator, humana assumpta natura, delens quod adversus nos erat chirographum decretia, illud cruci triumphator affixit; sic Sanctissima Virgo, Arctissimo et indissolubili vinculo cum eo conjuncta, una cum illo et per illum, sempiternas contra venenosum serpentem inimicitias exercens, ac de ipso plenissime triumphans, illus caput immaculato pede contrivit.
15. Cf. Gn. 6:9.
16. Cf. Gn 28:12.
17. Cf. Ex 3:2.
18. Cf. Sg 4:4.
19. Cf. Sg 4:12.
20. Cf. Ps 87:1.
21. Cf. Is 6:1-4.
22. Cf. Lk 1:28.
23. Ibid., 42.
24. Cf. St. Augustine: De Natura et Gratia, c. 36.
25. Gn 3:15.
26. Cf. Ex 31:2.
27. Cf. Ibid., n. 19ff.
28. Cf. Ibid., n. 27ff.
29. Declaramus, pronuntiamus et definimus doctrinam quae tenet beatissimam Virginem Mariam in primo instanti suae conceptionis fuisse singulari Omnipotentis Dei gratia et privilegio, intuitu meritorum Christi Jesu Salvatoris humani generis, ab omni originalis culpae labe praeservatam immunem, esse a Deo revelatam, atque idcirco ab omnibus fidelibus firmiter constanterque credendam. Cf. Denz., n. 1641.

See also:

1. The Dogma of Infallibility

“The central miracle asserted by Christians is the Incarnation. They say that God became Man. Every other miracle prepares for this or exhibits this, or results from this. Just as every natural event is the manifestation at a particular place and moment of Nature’s total character, so every particular Christian miracle manifests at a particular place and moment the character and significance of the Incarnation. There is no question in Christianity of arbitrary interferences just scattered about. It relates not a series of disconnected raids on Nature but the various steps of a strategically coherent invasion–an invasion which intends complete conquest and ‘occupation’. The fitness, and therefore credibility, of the particular miracles depends on their relation to the Grand Miracle; all discussion of them in isolation from it is futile.”

Via Miracles, Chapter XIV.

“I am not referring simply to the first few hours, or the first few weeks of the Resurrection. I am talking of this whole huge pattern of descent, down, down, and then up again. What we ordinarily call the Resurrection being just, so to speak, the point at which it turns. Think what that descent is. The coming down, not only into humanity, but into those nine months which precede human birth, in which they tell us we all recapitulate strange pre-human, sub-human forms of life, and going lower still into being a corpse, a thing which, if this acending movement had not begun, would presently have passed out of the organic altgether, and have gone back into the inorganic, as all corpses do. One has a picture of someone going right down and dredging the sea bottom. One has a picture of a strong man trying to lift a very big, complicated burden. He stoops down and gets himself right under it so that he himself disappears; and then he straightens his back and moves off with the whole thing swaying on his shoulders. Or else one has the picture of a diver, stripping off garment after garment, making himself naked, then flashing for a moment in the air, and then down through the green, and warm, and sunlit water into the pitch black, cold, freezing water, down into the mud and slime, then up again, his lungs almost bursting, back again to the green and warm and sunlit water, and then at last out into the sunshine, holding in his hand the dripping thing he went down to get. This thing is human nature; but, associated with it, all nature, the new universe.”

Via “The Grand Miracle”, in God in the Dock (1st preached by Lewis in St. Jude on the Hill Church, London, and later published in The Guardian on April 27, 1945.

See also:

1. CS Lewis on Being Adult

Here is a part of one of Luther’s replies to Emser’s writings, subtitled “Emser’s Long Spear.”

Your long spear is the spear of Goliath, and your short dagger, the dagger of Joab. (1 Samuel 17:7) If custom were sufficient, the heathen would have the very best excuse, for their custom of worshipping idols is more than four thousand years old. (2 Samuel 20:8,10) You ought first to prove that the custom is right and of God, but you think it is enough if it is a custom. (Custom) And that I may give you, a novice in philosophy, a little taste of real philosophy, let me tell you that you ought not to prove prius per posterius, et principium petere. I oppose the priestly estate, which has caused and originated the custom, and not the reverse. And you reply by adducing the custom! This is exactly as if I said, The coat should make the tailor and the shoe should make the cobbler. See, your philosophy is so precious and clever, quite as if it had come from Sir Thomas Rhadinus, the only brother of Emser’s sister; he is that sort of philosopher too.

No one doubts that from the beginning until now the churchy priesthood has had garments, works, and ways that differ from those of ordinary Christians, and by means of which it has built up an external custom that has come clown to our times and will continue; but shall this unvarying custom be sufficient to establish two kinds of priesthood in Christendom?

Why do not the widely different customs and usages of cathedrals and monasteries make many kinds of priests, since none of these agrees with the rest and yet each has an unvarying custom of its own? Learn this, therefore, dear Goat, no custom can change anything that is fixed in the Scriptures and articles of faith. Custom is limited to the external and variable works and postures which characterize neither the Christian nor the priestly estate, but merely offices, ministers, and similar works.

Ordination does not make a priest, but a servant of priests. Tonsure, chasuble, mass, sermon do not mark a man as a priest, but rather as a servant and an officer of the common priesthood.

We and all the people are priests without ordination by a bishop, but by ordination we become the other priests’ workmen, servants, and officers, who can be deposed and transferred, just as in a cathedral one priest is the others’ superior, dean, cantor, sacristan, or other officer. That the canon law is responsible for this perversion of the words of Holy Scripture and the undue importance given to such matters, by concerning itself almost entirely with making such ministers to be priests and spirituales, to which it also owes its name as the “spiritual law,” and that no one today is called a priest or spiritual, except those servants of priests, is no argument against me — it is the very reason why that law ought to be given to the flames and utterly destroyed. The traditiones hominum, the human ordinances, have at all times darkened and hurt the Divine laws, as Christ teaches in Matthew 15:3, and Paul in many places. My Goat, it would have been better to save your leaden dagger until you had occasion to cut butter or soft cheese.

It is true, the holy fathers called the churchy priesthood a priesthood. What else were they to do? The custom had already crept in to separate the laity and the clergy in this way and they had to have a name for each. If I should preach in our day concerning the rulers of the church, who would understand me if I did not use the usual names — priests, clergy, spiritual?

The name sacerdotes began to be applied to our rulers quite early, and was taken from Hebrews 5:1, where we read: “Omnis sacerdos ex hominibus assumtus, etc.” This is spoken of the Old Testament office, and is applied by way of analogy to the New Testament office. If the good fathers had been compelled to write on the subject they would probably have found some other name in accord with the Scriptures rather than wickedly defend the name they used.

In order that you may try your own spear and dagger, whether it will strike you or me the harder, answer this point. All of you say that the priest says mass and blesses the bread not in his own person, but as the representative of the whole church. You are forced to this by the truth, by your own conscience, by necessity and the uniform confession and faith of the whole world, so that even if a priest should not be pious or believing or worthy (and indeed no saint is worthy enough), nevertheless Christendom would still stand and be worthy. Who is, therefore, the real priest? He who performs the work as a servant, or he whom the servant represents? Who is priest? He who is responsible for the work and sends it forth, or the servant who carries and brings it? The priest is a messenger and servant in his work, and therefore another must be the real priest. I think this proves very clearly that we are all priests, and your priests are not a different kind of priests, but servants and officers of the common priesthood, as I said above, and that your dream of two kinds of priesthood in Christendom is not true. Behold the way of drunken swordsmen, they grasp the sword by the blade, the spear by its point, and let out ridiculous grunts!

As I have repeatedly said, the damnable laws and rule of the pope have brought it about that the precious names which were common to all, “church,” “priest,” “spiritual,” and the like, have been taken away from the community and applied to the very small number whom we now call “spiritual” and “priests,” and whose work we call the work of the Church, whereas we are all the Church and spiritual and priests, as many of us as believe in Christ, and they are but workmen, servants, ministers, guardians, shepherds, keepers, and watchmen. It seems to me that Goat Emser’s dream of a twofold priesthood has fallen into the sand and mire.

I am surprised that a wise man and triumphant knight, such as you are, is not ashamed to fight me with “custom” in matters that concern Christian faith and God’s Word. You juggle with your long spears and daggers, although even in temporal affairs custom is the weakest of arguments and universally ridiculed. Every one expects you to attack me with the Scriptures, but you let the Scriptures go, and fall back on custom. But I perceive quite well that the new wine of the holy canon law, which I burned and of which you are an unworthy licentiate, containing as it does a goodly portion of custom, has not been able to stop its fermenting and has blown the bottom out of the cask, lest like Elihu, who ridiculed St. Job, you should choke with your great wisdom. (Job 32:19) Why need you teach us that this priesthood has come down to us through custom? Any peasant or child sees and knows as much. Take a spoon and taste your own words. If the priesthood arose and has since remained through custom, it can, like any other custom, be abolished or supplanted by some other custom, through human power and choice; the consequence is inevitable, that it is not instituted of God. For divine institutions rest not on uncertain custom, nor can they be altered by men. And indeed, I have said it before and I say it again — this external priesthood has no foundation in the Scriptures, but owes its name and retention to long-continued custom.

See how deftly you pierce me with your spear; you want to argue against me, but you argue against yourself and in my favor. A result of your superfine art of war! You point your spear toward yourself, rush against me with the shaft and the spear runs through you.

But tell me, Emser, for yourself, do you regard this a Christian custom, that you have a name different from that which Scripture gives you? Are you ashamed of your name? Or is the Holy Spirit not competent to give you a name which satisfies you? You despise the names He gives and invent new ones, so that no reader of the Scriptures can recognize you, but must say: From whence is this strange people? St. Paul calls the pastor of every city a bishop, that is a watchman, presbyter, elder, minister, dispensator; not one does he call sacerdos. But you call those “bishops” who are now nothing else but temporal princes, and those sacerdotes who read masses and pray the hours; you change and twist God’s Word as you will. And just as you neglect the real work of the ministry, so you are ashamed also of the name, and to conceal both your neglect and your shame you apply to yourselves glorious and worthy titles, sacerdotes, ecclesiastici, and the like.

Not satisfied that God and we are content to leave you this evil and perverted custom, and that we wink at it, you insist that we should give our consent and approval to it as right and the true work of the Holy Spirit, while it is pure wantonness and a despising of the Holy Spirit on your part.

You want to make a long spear and a short dagger out of it; it is to be right for no other reason except that you invented it; the Holy Spirit must be wrong and give way to you: He must needs serve as your court-jester. You shout your lies against me, saying that I revile and make blasphemous attacks upon the head of the Church, the pope, and on the priesthood, which I never did. For I have taught men to bear with and to honor all, even unjust authority, not excepting the Turks whom you would so gladly devour. But you and your pope blaspheme Christ, God, and His Holy Spirit, twist all Their words and works and play with them as the jugglers play with their artificial heaven, and for this I am supposed to kneel, call you gracious lords and give you humble thanks. I must be actuated by hatred when I refuse to proclaim your new and self-invented ways as founded in the Scriptures; you are not satisfied that I leave them alone and grant them their dignity apart from the Scriptures. But you are actuated by love when you take God’s Scripture to your own property and make a mixture of Scripture for us to suit yourselves. God must follow you and let you make a shameful bugaboo of Him, and all the while I supposed you ought to obey God and let Him make you His children. Nor are we expected only to suffer such dishonor to our Lord at your hands, but we are to join you and the Jews in saying to Him Ave Rabbi Judaeorum, and to consider this horrible mockery as giving God the highest honor. (Matthew 27:29) Woe to thee, O Antichrist, and unto all thine apostles and priests!

You are yourself obliged to agree that this priesthood is not derived from the Scriptures. The fact that anything is based on custom is an admission that there is no appointment by God or Scripture back of it; likewise the fact that anything is established by reference to the fathers and the teachings of men, is an admission that it has no Scripture warrant, for custom and the teaching of men differ widely from the Scriptures. This is my reply to the long spear of custom, for if it were a Christian custom it ought to have at least some foundation in Scripture and some trace of the sword of the Spirit. But since it is nothing but pure custom, what is it if not carnival buffoonery? However, I will not yet mock you, although you strongly tempt one to do so. Perhaps you could not find the sword in time for the carnival, therefore I will give you grace until we come to the third head. Meanwhile I will extend the time as long as you wish, and not for you alone but the whole papal sect, who call yourselves the Church of God. My dear friends, pray be diligent in your search, and may St. Aristotle and the holy, cremated canon law help you by all means to find the sword; then lift it up for a lusty blow at the heretic Luther, and be sure to strike him with the blade. Beware, however, lest you cut your own cheek. And since I fear you will not find the sword until this carnival has passed, practice with straw-pads in the meanwhile. I pray all men for God’s sake to forgive me for jesting. Who can always be sober and serious with such childish, foolish, blind people, who venture at anything and accomplish nothing? Christ speaks of such when he says in Matthew 11:17 “We have piped unto you and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you and ye have not lamented,” whatever you do, nothing avails, neither seriousness nor jest. This dense goat-head pretends to fight with the sword, but he no sooner mentions it than he declares: Now we will lay down the sword and take up the spear. He did not take up the sword before and he never takes it up thereafter. Who can be patient with such crude fool’s play in these serious matters, for thus they seek to lead the people by the nose and to tickle their palates. I trust I am justified in mocking those who mock my God and His Word and work. Elijah, too, mocked the prophets of Baal. (1 Kings 18:27) To end the matter, let me say that no one doubts that the sword of the Spirit, the Divine Word, is a safe weapon in every controversy. But Emser should first have proved that custom, even when good, and the teaching of men, are likewise valid. The sword, however, which he could use, he lets lie and quotes custom and the teaching of men, which are useless. Where is now the great, noble philosopher, Sir Thomas Rhadinus, who found Aristotle in the ass-stable? Did not Aristotle teach that it is wrong probanda per probanda probare, and petere principia? These are the wiseacres who would win our young men for philosophy, and themselves know as little about it as they do about theology. They take their money from them only to send them away knowing less than when they came. It would be a great gain if you lumbering asses really knew your own philosophy which you praise so highly. What a ridiculous craft, where no man rightly understands his own trade. The dagger, too, cuts your own fingers.

They had, in fact, only introduced one or two commandments: circumcision and the observance of special days. But Paul says that the gospel was being undermined, in order to show that even a slight corruption can eliminate the whole thing. It is similar to when someone changes the image on a king’s coin, making it no longer valid. In the same way anyone who swerves ever a little from the pure faith soon goes from this to more serious errors, and becomes entirely corrupted.

So what about those who accuse us of being contentious for separating ourselves from heretics, and say that there is no real difference between us except what is caused by our own desires? Let them listen to Paul’s assertion, that those who have made even small changes, have undermined the gospel. It is no small matter to say that the Son of God is a created Being. Don’t you know that even under the old covenant, a man who gathered sticks on the Sabbath, and so violated just a single small commandment, was punished with death (Num 15:32, 36)? And that Uzzah, who grabbed the Ark when it started to fall was immediately struck dead, because he had intruded upon an office which did not pertain to him (2 Sam 6:6-7)? If violating the Sabbath and touching the falling Ark so obviously drew God’s wrath and denied the offenders even a momentary relief, will he be excused and pardoned who corrupts teachings so majestic that they cannot be spoken? Absolutely not.

Being careless in small matters is the cause of all our misfortunes. Because small errors are often not properly corrected, larger ones creep in. Just as in the body, not taking care of injuries results in fever, disease and death, so in the soul, small evils that are ignored open the door to more serious ones. It is viewed as a small error that one man should not fast. Nor is it anything important or weighty that another man who is well-established in the pure faith should conceal this under certain circumstances and not give his bold confession of faith. Or a third man who becomes angry and threatens to leave the true faith is excused for this when he pleads that this was the result of passion and resentment. In this way a thousand similar errors are introduced every day into the church, and we have become a laughing-stock to Jews and Greeks, seeing that the church is divided into a thousand sects. But if those who started these small errors and wandered from the divine revelation had been given a proper rebuke at the very beginning, such a plague would not have begun, nor such a storm have shaken the churches. So now you understand why Paul calls circumcision an undermining of the  gospel.

[7.]  There are many among us now, who fast on the same day as the Jews, and keep the Sabbaths in the same way as they do. And we put up with it nobly, or rather poorly and dishonorably. And I do not only speak about the Jews, for many Gentile customs are being observed by some among us: omens, auguries, prophecies, distinctions of days, an unnatural attention to the circumstances of their children’s birth, and as soon as they are born, tablets with unholy writing are placed around their unhappy heads. In this way they teach them from the very first to lay aside virtuous actions, and they draw some of them to believe falsely that they can be masters their own of fate. But if Christ does not help in any way those that are circumcised, how will faith afterwards assist the salvation of those who have introduced such corruptions?²

Although circumcision was given by God, Paul used every effort to abolish it, because its observance at this time was hurting the preaching of the gospel. If Paul was so serious about the excessive use of Jewish customs, what excuse can we have for not getting rid of Gentile ones? This is why our affairs are now in such confusion and trouble, and why our learners are filled with pride and have turned everything upside down, throwing everything into confusion. We their teachers have neglected to discipline them, so that they now disregard even our most gentle admonitions. It is not right for a disciple to disobey his superior, even if they are worthless and full of countless evils. Jesus even said of the Jewish scholars that since they sat in the place of Moses, their disciples had to obey them, even though their works were so evil that the Lord prohibited his disciples from imitating them (Matt 23:2-3). So what excuse is there for those who insult and trample on men, these rulers of the church who should, by the grace of God, be living holy lives? If it is unlawful for us to judge each other, it is much more wrong for us to judge our teachers.

- excerpt from John Chrysostom, ‘Commentary on Galatians’

See also:

1. Questions & Considerations Regarding Assaults on the Gospel

Now, there is no doubt that these men wish to convert people by using such false terms. They believe that they can convert men by concealing things from them or by presenting matters in a manner that is pleasing to men as they are by nature. They are like sorry physicians who do not like to prescribe a bitter medicine to delicate patients, or if they do prescribe it, they add so much sugar to it that the patient does not taste the bitter medicine, with the result that the effect is spoiled. Accordingly, preachers who do not clearly and plainly proclaim the Gospel, which is offensive to the world, are not faithful in the discharge of their ministry and inflict great injury on men’s souls. Instead of advancing Christians in the knowledge of the pure doctrine, they allow them to grope in the dark, nurse false imaginations in them, and speed them on in their false and dangerous path.

The history of the Church shows how dangerous it is when theologians, otherwise reputed as orthodox, use wrong terms, which can easily be misunderstood. As a result, the most abominable heretics, to cover up their errors with a halo of sanctity, have appealed to phrases which men admittedly orthodox have used. These heretics have deprecated being denounced for the use of terms which were accepted without question from men regarded as orthodox. True, the faulty expressions which orthodox teachers used in a right sense are used by these heretics to hide their error. Nevertheless, those who first used these expressions and believed that they were using them in the right sense are not altogether without blame. In the manner aforestated Arius, Nestorius, all the scholastics, etc., appealed to men whose orthodoxy was acknowledged and thus created the impression that they were continuing to teach the doctrine of the old Church and that their opponents must be false teachers.

Bear this in mind, my dear friends, and consider that as ministers of the Gospel it is your duty not only to believe as the Church believes, but also to speak in harmony with the Christian Church. Accordingly, before you commit your sermons to memory and deliver them to your congregations, you must subject your manuscript to a severe critique, to ascertain not only whether your sermons are according to the analogy of faith, but also whether you have throughout chosen proper terms, lest against your own intention you destroy where you want to build up. This is of the utmost importance. That is the reason why our Church from the very beginning declared that it requires its preachers “not to depart an inch” from its confessions, not to turn aside from the doctrines laid down in them, non tantum in rebus, sed etiam in phrasibus, that is, both as regards the matter offered in their sermons and the manner of their teaching.

- excerpt from C.F.W. Walther, ‘Law and Gospel,’ Twenty-seventh Evening Lecture (May 1, 1885)

Hermas: “I have heard, sir, said I, from some teacher, that there is no other repentance except that which took place when we went down into the water and obtained the remission of our former sins. He said to me, You have heard rightly, for so it is.” The Shepherd 4:3:12.

Justin Martyr: “”Whoever are convinced and believe that what they are taught and told by us is the truth, and professes to be able to live accordingly, are instructed to pray and to beseech God in fasting for the remission of their former sins, while we pray and fast with them. Then they are led by us to a place where there is water, and they are reborn in the same kind of rebirth in which we ourselves were reborn: In the name of God, the Lord and Father of all, and of our Savior Jesus Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, they receive the washing of water. For Christ said, Unless you be reborn, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.” First Apology 61:1417.

Dialogue with Trypho: “No longer by the blood of goats and of sheep, or by the ashes of a heifer…are sins purged, but by faith, through the blood of Christ and his death, who died on this very account.”

Letter to Diognetus: “God gave his own Son the ransom for us…for what, save his righteousness, could cover our sins. In whom was it possible that we, transgressors and ungodly as we were, could be justified, save in the Son of God alone? …O unexpected benefit, that the transgression of many should be hidden in one righteous Person and that the righteousness of One should justify many transgressors.”

Irenaeus of Lyons: “Through the obedience of one man who first was born from the Virgin, many should be justified and receive salvation.” Adversus Haereses.

Irenaeus of Lyons: “For He came to save all through means of Himself all, I say, who through Him are born again to God infants, and children, and boys, and youths, and old men. He therefore passed through every age, becoming an infant for infants, thus sanctifying infants; a child for children, thus sanctifying those who are of this age, being at the same time made to them an example of piety, righteousness, and submission; a youth for youths, becoming an example to youths, and thus sanctifying them for the Lord. So likewise He was an old man for old men, that He might be a perfect Master for all, not merely as respects the setting forth of the truth, but also as regards age, sanctifying at the same time the aged also, and becoming an example to them likewise. Then, at last, He came on to death itself, that He might be the first-born from the dead, that in all things He might have the pre-eminence, the Prince of life, existing before all, and going before all.” Against Heresies 2:22:4.

See also:

1. Preaching and Teaching in the Early Church
2. Sermon for Early Christmas Day

SIGNIFICANCE—PRINCIPLES AND IMPORTANCE OF PRIVATE SEELSORGE.

WE now begin a new department of Pastoral Theology. We have studied the pastor in relation to his office and call, in his personal, intellectual, and devotional life, his position in society and his relation to Synod. We have looked upon him as the builder, leader, and guardian of his church as a whole, and have seen him as he ministers in the sanctuary, attends to his public functions, and performs ministerial acts. All this has to do more especially with his general position and work in and for the church. It all has to do also with seelsorge. His office, call, private and public life all look to seelsorge. His gathering, building, moulding, and guarding his church is seelsorge. His work and acts in the house of God are seelsorge. But it all looks to and is more or less seelsorge; seelsorge in regard to his parish as a whole. Even those acts that have to do more directly with the individual still pertain to the general work.

When he baptizes a babe, by the act and by his words he instructs and admonishes all who are present; so when he confirms a catechumen and administers the Lord’s Supper. Even when he unites a couple in marriage it ought to be seelsorge, not only for those who stand at the altar, and for whose souls he will afterward care, but the ceremony itself is an object lesson and a sermon for all. And so with all his ministerial acts. They are blessings to those on and for whom they are administered, and solemn lessons for all who are present.

Seelsorge ! What a beautiful and expressive term. We have nothing to correspond with it in English.

It means the cure and care of souls. Souls are sick, sin-sick. They need to be cured and cared for. This is what a pastor is for. He is a seelsorger. What an honor ! What a privilege ! What a responsibility !

But there is not only a general, but a special and private seelsorge, e.g., a care for the individual.

It is seesorge in its narrower sense, this individual soul-cure, that we shall now consider. The pastor is not only the shepherd of the flock as a whole, but also of every individual sheep and lamb.

This individual soul-cure has its foundation and warrant in the Scripture. Not only that, but it is in Scripture there laid down as the minister’s special and solemn duty. As we have elsewhere written: ” The pastor as a fisher must go out to catch men (Matt. iv. 19 ; Mark i. 17 ; Luke v. 10). As a servant he must go wherever he can reach outsiders and compel them to come in (Luke xiv. 23). As a shepherd he must know his sheep, feed them, and seek the lost (John x. 3, 4, 14, 16, and xxi. 15-17; Lukexv. 4; Acts xx. 28; i Pet. v. 2). As a watchman he must warn all who are in danger (Ez. iii. 17-21: xxxiii. 7-16; Heb. xiii. 17). All this requires personal effort in interviewing all who need his ministrations, have no other pastor, and are in his reach. In this he must follow the footsteps of Christ (Isa. xl. n; John iv. 6ff: x. 3, 4, 14, 16; Luke x. 38-42 and xxii. 31 ; Matt. xxvi. 6). Thus also did Paul (Acts xx. 20, 26, 31: i Thes. ii. n).

A theologian of glory does not recognize, along with the Apostle, the crucified and hidden God alone [I Cor. 2:2]. He sees and speaks of God’s glorious manifestation among the heathen, how his invisible nature can be known from the things which are visible [Cf. Rom. 1:20] and how he is present and powerful in all things everywhere. This theologian of glory, however, learns from Aristotle that the object of the will is the good and the good is worthy to be loved, while the evil, on the other hand, is worthy of hate. He learns that God is the highest good and exceedingly lovable. Disagreeing with the theologian of the cross, he defines the treasury of Christ as the removing and remitting of punishments, things which are most evil and worthy of hate. In opposition to this the theologian of the cross defines the treasury of Christ as impositions and obligations of punishments, things which are best and worthy of love. Yet the theologian of glory still receives money for his treasury, while the theologian of the cross, on the other hand, offers the merits of Christ freely. Yet people do not consider the theologian of the cross worthy of consideration, but finally even persecute him. [LW 31.227]

- excerpts from Martin Luther, ‘Disputation Concerning the Value of Indulgences’ (1518)

See also:

1. God’s Attack
2. Two Ways of Being a Theologian
3. Sasse on the Theology of the Cross
4. The Cross Alone is Our Theology

Now, it is clear and manifest that every person likes to think that he will be saved and attain to eternal salvation. This is what I propose to discuss now.

You also know that all philosophers, doctors and writers have studiously endeavored to teach and write what attitude man should take to piety. They have gone to great trouble, but, as is evident, to little avail. Now genuine and true piety consists of two kinds of works: those done for others, which are the right kind, and those done for ourselves, which are unimportant.

In order to find a foundation, one man builds churches; another goes on a pilgrimage to St. James or St. Peter’s; a third fasts or prays, wears a cowl, goes barefoot, or does something else of the kind. Such works are nothing whatever and must be completely destroyed. Mark these words: none of our works have any power whatsoever.

For God has chosen a man, the Lord Christ Jesus, to crush death, destroy sin, and shatter hell, since there was no one before he came who did not inevitably belong to the devil. The devil therefore thought he would get a hold upon the Lord when he hung between the two thieves and was suffering the most contemptible and disgraceful of deaths, which was cursed both by God and by men [cf. Deut. 21:23; Gal. 3:13]. But the Godhead was so strong that death, sin, and even hell were destroyed.

Therefore you should note well the words which Paul writes to the Romans [Rom. 5:12-21]. Our sins have their source in Adam, and because Adam ate the apple, we have inherited sin from him. But Christ has shattered death for our sake, in order that we might be saved by his works, which are alien to us, and not by our works.

But the papal dominion treats us altogether differently. It makes rules about fasting, praying, and butter-eating, so that whoever keeps the commandments of the pope will be saved and whoever does not keep them belongs to the devil. It thus seduces the people with the delusion that goodness and salvation lies in their own works.

But I say that none of the saints, no matter how holy they were, attained salvation by their works. Even the holy mother of God did not become good, was not saved, by her virginity or her motherhood, but rather by the will of faith and the works of God, and not by her purity, or her own works.

Therefore, mark me well: this is the reason why salvation does not lie in our own works, no matter what they are; it cannot and will not be affected without faith.

Now, someone may say: Look, my friend, you are saying a lot about faith, and claiming that our salvation depends solely upon it; now, I ask you, how does one come to faith? I will tell you. Our Lord Christ said, “Peace be with you. Behold my hands, etc.” [John 20:26-27]. [In other words, he is saying:] Look, man, I am the only one who has taken away your sins and redeemed you, etc.; now be at peace. Just as you inherited sin from Adam—not that you committed it, for I did not eat the apple, any more than you did, and yet this is how we came to be in sin—so we have not suffered [as Christ did], and therefore we were made free from death and sin by God’s work, not by our works. Therefore God says: Behold, man, I am your redemption [cf. Isa. 43:3], just as Paul said to the Corinthians: Christ is our justification and redemption, etc. [1 Cor 1:30]. Christ is our justification and redemption, as Paul says in this passage. And here our [Roman] masters say: Yes, Redemptor, Redeemer; this is true, but it is not enough.

Therefore, I say again: Alien works, these make us good! Our Lord Christ says: I am your justification. I have destroyed the sins you have upon you. Therefore only believe in me; believe that I am he who has done this; then you will be justified. For it is written, Justicia est fides, righteousness is identical with faith and comes through faith. Therefore, if we want to have faith, we should believe the gospel, Paul, etc., and not the papal breves, or the decretals, but rather guard ourselves against them as against fire. For everything that comes from the pope cries out: Give, give; and if you refuse, you are of the devil. It would be a small matter if they were only exploiting the people. But, unfortunately, it is the greatest evil in the world to lead the people to believe that outward works can save or make a man good.

At this time the world is so full of wickedness that it is overflowing, and is therefore now under a terrible judgment and punishment, which God has inflicted, so that the people are perverting and deceiving themselves in their own minds. For to build churches, and to fast and pray and so on has the appearance of good works, but in our heads we are deluding ourselves. We should not give way to greed, desire for temporal honor, and other vices and rather be helpful to our poor neighbor. Then God will arise in us and we in Him, and this means a new birth.

What does it matter if we commit a fresh sin? If we do not immediately despair, but rather say within ourselves, “O God, thou livest still! Christ my Lord is the destroyer of sin,” then at once the sin is gone. And also the wise man says: Septies in die cadit iustus et resurgit.” “A righteous man falls seven times, and rises again” [Prov. 24:16].

In former times the devil made great attacks upon the people and from these attacks they took refuge in faith and clung to the Head, which is Christ; and so he was unable to accomplish anything. So now he has invented another device; he whispers into the ears of our Junkers that they should make exactions from people and give them laws. This way it looks well on the outside; but inside it is full of poison. So the young children grow up in a delusion; they go to church thinking that salvation consists praying, fasting, and attending mass. Thus it is the preacher’s fault. But still there would be no need, if only we had right preachers.

The Lord said three times to St. Peter: “Petre, amas me? etc.; pasce oves meas” [John 21:15-17]. “Peter, feed, feed, feed my sheep.” What is the meaning of pasvere? It means to feed. How should one feed the sheep? Only by preaching the Word of God. Only by preaching faith. Then our Junkers come along and say: Pascere means leges dare, to enact laws, but with deception. Yes, they are well fed! They feed the sheep as the butchers do on Easter eve. Whereas one should speak the Word of God plainly to guide the poor and weak in faith, they mix in their beloved Aristotle, who is contrary to God, despite the fact that Paul says in Col. [2:8]: Beware of laws and philosophy. What does “philosophy” mean? If we knew Greek, Latin, and German, we would see clearly what the Apostle is saying.
Is not this the truth? I know very well that you don’t like to hear this and that I am annoying many of you; nevertheless, I shall say it. I will also advise you, no matter who you are: If you have preaching in mind or are able to help it along, then do not become a priest or monk, for there is a passage in the thirty-third and thirty-fourth chapters of the prophet Ezekiel, unfortunately a terrifying passage, which reads: If you forsake your neighbor, see him going astray, and do not help him, do not preach to him, I will call you to account for his soul [Ezek. 33:8, 34;10]. This is a passage which is not often read. But I say, you become a priest or a monk in order to pray your seven canonical hours and say mass, and you think you want to be godly. Alas, you’re a fine fellow! It [i.e., being a priest or monk] will fail you.

You say the Psalter, you pray the rosary, you pray all kinds of other prayers, and say a lot of words; you say mass, you kneel before the altar, you read confession, you go on mumbling and maundering; and all the while you think you are free from sin. And yet in your heart you have such great envy that, if you could choke your neighbor and get away with it creditably, you would do it; and that’s the way you say mass. It would be no wonder if a thunderbolt struck you to the ground. But if you have eaten three grains of sugar or some other seasoning, no one could drag you to the altar with red-hot tongs. You have scruples! And that means to go to heaven with the devil.

I know very well that you don’t like to hear this. Nevertheless, I will tell the truth, I must tell the truth, even though it cost me my neck twenty times over, that the verdict may not be pronounced against me [i.e., at the last judgment].

Yes, you say, there were learned people a hundred or fifty years ago too. That is true; but I am not concerned with the length of time or the number of persons. For even though they knew something of it then, the devil has always been a mixer, who preferred the pagan writers to the holy gospel. I will tell the truth and must tell the truth; that’s why I’m standing here, and not taking any money for it either. Therefore, we should not build upon human law or works, but rather have true faith in the One who is the destroyer of sin; then we shall find ourselves growing in Him. Then everything that was bitter before is sweets. Then our hearts will recognize God. And when that happens we shall be despised, and we shall pay no regard to human law, and then the pope will come and excommunicate us. But then we shall be so united with God that we shall pay no heed whatsoever to any hardship, ban, or law.

Then someone may go on and ask: Should we not keep the man-made laws at all? Or, can we not continue to pray, fast, and so on, as long as the right way is present? My answer is that if there is present a right Christian love and faith, then everything a man does is meritorious; and each may do what he wills [cf. Rom. 14:22], so long as he has no regards for works, since they cannot save him.

In conclusion, then, every single person should reflect and remember that we cannot help ourselves, but only God, and also that our works are utterly worthless. So shall we have the peace of God. And every person should so perform his work that it benefits not only himself alone, but also another, his neighbor. If he is rich, his wealth should benefit the poor. If he is poor, his service should benefit the rich. When persons are servants or maidservants, their work should benefit their master. Thus no one’s work should benefit him alone; for when you note that you are serving only your own advantage, then your service is false. I am not troubled; I know very well what man-made laws are. Let the pope issue as many laws as he likes, I will keep them all so far as I please.

This sermon was preached by Martin Luther in the Spring of 1521. He gave it in the Erfurt Augustinian Cloister Church just one day before his possible execution at Worms. Many historians believe this sermon—preached to an overflowing crowd—was what began the blaze of reformation throughout Western Europe.

See also:

1. The Preached God
2. Martin Luther’s Commentary on Galatians 6:1-2

In the end, the Council held to Augustine’s view and repudiated Pelagius but, it also denied the interpretation of Augustine as affirming strict predestination.

CANON 1. If anyone denies that it is the whole man, that is, both body and soul, that was “changed for the worse” through the offense of Adam’s sin, but believes that the freedom of the soul remains unimpaired and that only the body is subject to corruption, he is deceived by the error of Pelagius and contradicts the scripture which says, “The soul that sins shall die” (Ezek. 18:20); and, “Do you not know that if you yield yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are the slaves of the one whom you obey?” (Rom. 6:16); and, “For whatever overcomes a man, to that he is enslaved” (2 Pet. 2:19).

CANON 2. If anyone asserts that Adam’s sin affected him alone and not his descendants also, or at least if he declares that it is only the death of the body which is the punishment for sin, and not also that sin, which is the death of the soul, passed through one man to the whole human race, he does injustice to God and contradicts the Apostle, who says, “Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned” (Rom. 5:12).

CANON 3. If anyone says that the grace of God can be conferred as a result of human prayer, but that it is not grace itself which makes us pray to God, he contradicts the prophet Isaiah, or the Apostle who says the same thing, “I have been found by those who did not seek me; I have shown myself to those who did not ask for me” (Rom 10:20, quoting Isa. 65:1).

CANON 4. If anyone maintains that God awaits our will to be cleansed from sin, but does not confess that even our will to be cleansed comes to us through the infusion and working of the Holy Spirit, he resists the Holy Spirit himself who says through Solomon, “The will is prepared by the Lord” (Prov. 8:35, LXX), and the salutary word of the Apostle, “For God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13).

CANON 5. If anyone says that not only the increase of faith but also its beginning and the very desire for faith, by which we believe in Him who justifies the ungodly and comes to the regeneration of holy baptism — if anyone says that this belongs to us by nature and not by a gift of grace, that is, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit amending our will and turning it from unbelief to faith and from godlessness to godliness, it is proof that he is opposed to the teaching of the Apostles, for blessed Paul says, “And I am sure that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6). And again, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God” (Eph. 2:8). For those who state that the faith by which we believe in God is natural make all who are separated from the Church of Christ by definition in some measure believers.

CANON 6. If anyone says that God has mercy upon us when, apart from his grace, we believe, will, desire, strive, labor, pray, watch, study, seek, ask, or knock, but does not confess that it is by the infusion and inspiration of the Holy Spirit within us that we have the faith, the will, or the strength to do all these things as we ought; or if anyone makes the assistance of grace depend on the humility or obedience of man and does not agree that it is a gift of grace itself that we are obedient and humble, he contradicts the Apostle who says, “What have you that you did not receive?” (1 Cor. 4:7), and, “But by the grace of God I am what I am” (1 Cor. 15:10).

CANON 7. If anyone affirms that we can form any right opinion or make any right choice which relates to the salvation of eternal life, as is expedient for us, or that we can be saved, that is, assent to the preaching of the gospel through our natural powers without the illumination and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, who makes all men gladly assent to and believe in the truth, he is led astray by a heretical spirit, and does not understand the voice of God who says in the Gospel, “For apart from me you can do nothing” (John 15:5), and the word of the Apostle, “Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God” (2 Cor. 3:5).

CANON 8. If anyone maintains that some are able to come to the grace of baptism by mercy but others through free will, which has manifestly been corrupted in all those who have been born after the transgression of the first man, it is proof that he has no place in the true faith. For he denies that the free will of all men has been weakened through the sin of the first man, or at least holds that it has been affected in such a way that they have still the ability to seek the mystery of eternal salvation by themselves without the revelation of God. The Lord himself shows how contradictory this is by declaring that no one is able to come to him “unless the Father who sent me draws him” (John 6:44), as he also says to Peter, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven” (Matt. 16:17), and as the Apostle says, “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 12:3).

CANON 9. Concerning the succor of God. It is a mark of divine favor when we are of a right purpose and keep our feet from hypocrisy and unrighteousness; for as often as we do good, God is at work in us and with us, in order that we may do so.

CANON 10. Concerning the succor of God. The succor of God is to be ever sought by the regenerate and converted also, so that they may be able to come to a successful end or persevere in good works.

CANON 11. Concerning the duty to pray. None would make any true prayer to the Lord had he not received from him the object of his prayer, as it is written, “Of thy own have we given thee” (1 Chron. 29:14).

CANON 12. Of what sort we are whom God loves. God loves us for what we shall be by his gift, and not by our own deserving.

CANON 13. Concerning the restoration of free will. The freedom of will that was destroyed in the first man can be restored only by the grace of baptism, for what is lost can be returned only by the one who was able to give it. Hence the Truth itself declares: “So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36).

CANON 14. No mean wretch is freed from his sorrowful state, however great it may be, save the one who is anticipated by the mercy of God, as the Psalmist says, “Let thy compassion come speedily to meet us” (Ps. 79:8), and again, “My God in his steadfast love will meet me” (Ps. 59:10).

CANON 15. Adam was changed, but for the worse, through his own iniquity from what God made him. Through the grace of God the believer is changed, but for the better, from what his iniquity has done for him. The one, therefore, was the change brought about by the first sinner; the other, according to the Psalmist, is the change of the right hand of the Most High (Ps. 77:10).

CANON 16. No man shall be honored by his seeming attainment, as though it were not a gift, or suppose that he has received it because a missive from without stated it in writing or in speech. For the Apostle speaks thus, “For if justification were through the law, then Christ died to no purpose” (Gal. 2:21); and “When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men” (Eph. 4:8, quoting Ps. 68:18). It is from this source that any man has what he does; but whoever denies that he has it from this source either does not truly have it, or else “even what he has will be taken away” (Matt. 25:29).

CANON 17. Concerning Christian courage. The courage of the Gentiles is produced by simple greed, but the courage of Christians by the love of God which “has been poured into our hearts” not by freedom of will from our own side but “through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us” (Rom. 5:5).

CANON 18. That grace is not preceded by merit. Recompense is due to good works if they are performed; but grace, to which we have no claim, precedes them, to enable them to be done.

CANON 19. That a man can be saved only when God shows mercy. Human nature, even though it remained in that sound state in which it was created, could be no means save itself, without the assistance of the Creator; hence since man cannot safe- guard his salvation without the grace of God, which is a gift, how will he be able to restore what he has lost without the grace of God?

CANON 20. That a man can do no good without God. God does much that is good in a man that the man does not do; but a man does nothing good for which God is not responsible, so as to let him do it.

CANON 21. Concerning nature and grace. As the Apostle most truly says to those who would be justified by the law and have fallen from grace, “If justification were through the law, then Christ died to no purpose” (Gal. 2:21), so it is most truly declared to those who imagine that grace, which faith in Christ advocates and lays hold of, is nature: “If justification were through nature, then Christ died to no purpose.” Now there was indeed the law, but it did not justify, and there was indeed nature, but it did not justify. Not in vain did Christ therefore die, so that the law might be fulfilled by him who said, “I have come not to abolish them, but to fulfil them” (Matt. 5:17), and that the nature which had been destroyed by Adam might be restored by him who said that he had come “to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10).

CANON 22. Concerning those things that belong to man. No man has anything of his own but untruth and sin. But if a man has any truth or righteousness, it from that fountain for which we must thirst in this desert, so that we may be refreshed from it as by drops of water and not faint on the way.

CANON 23. Concerning the will of God and of man. Men do their own will and not the will of God when they do what displeases him; but when they follow their own will and comply with the will of God, however willingly they do so, yet it is his will by which what they will is both prepared and instructed.

CANON 24. Concerning the branches of the vine. The branches on the vine do not give life to the vine, but receive life from it; thus the vine is related to its branches in such a way that it supplies them with what they need to live, and does not take this from them. Thus it is to the advantage of the disciples, not Christ, both to have Christ abiding in them and to abide in Christ. For if the vine is cut down another can shoot up from the live root; but one who is cut off from the vine cannot live without the root (John 15:5ff).

CANON 25. Concerning the love with which we love God. It is wholly a gift of God to love God. He who loves, even though he is not loved, allowed himself to be loved. We are loved, even when we displease him, so that we might have means to please him. For the Spirit, whom we love with the Father and the Son, has poured into our hearts the love of the Father and the Son (Rom. 5:5).

CONCLUSION. And thus according to the passages of holy scripture quoted above or the interpretations of the ancient Fathers we must, under the blessing of God, preach and believe as follows. The sin of the first man has so impaired and weakened free will that no one thereafter can either love God as he ought or believe in God or do good for God’s sake, unless the grace of divine mercy has preceded him. We therefore believe that the glorious faith which was given to Abel the righteous, and Noah, and Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and to all the saints of old, and which the Apostle Paul commends in extolling them (Heb. 11), was not given through natural goodness as it was before to Adam, but was bestowed by the grace of God. And we know and also believe that even after the coming of our Lord this grace is not to be found in the free will of all who desire to be baptized, but is bestowed by the kindness of Christ, as has already been frequently stated and as the Apostle Paul declares, “For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake” (Phil. 1:29). And again, “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6). And again, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and it is not your own doing, it is the gift of God” (Eph. 2:8). And as the Apostle says of himself, “I have obtained mercy to be faithful” (1 Cor. 7:25, cf. 1 Tim. 1:13). He did not say, “because I was faithful,” but “to be faithful.” And again, “What have you that you did not receive?” (1 Cor. 4:7). And again, “Every good endowment and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights” (Jas. 1:17). And again, “No one can receive anything except what is given him from heaven” (John 3:27). There are innumerable passages of holy scripture which can be quoted to prove the case for grace, but they have been omitted for the sake of brevity, because further examples will not really be of use where few are deemed sufficient.

According to the catholic faith we also believe that after grace has been received through baptism, all baptized persons have the ability and responsibility, if they desire to labor faithfully, to perform with the aid and cooperation of Christ what is of essential importance in regard to the salvation of their soul. We not only do not believe that any are foreordained to evil by the power of God, but even state with utter abhorrence that if there are those who want to believe so evil a thing, they are anathema. We also believe and confess to our benefit that in every good work it is not we who take the initiative and are then assisted through the mercy of God, but God himself first inspires in us both faith in him and love for him without any previous good works of our own that deserve reward, so that we may both faithfully seek the sacrament of baptism, and after baptism be able by his help to do what is pleasing to him. We must therefore most evidently believe that the praiseworthy faith of the thief whom the Lord called to his home in paradise, and of Cornelius the centurion, to whom the angel of the Lord was sent, and of Zacchaeus, who was worthy to receive the Lord himself, was not a natural endowment but a gift of God’s kindness.

See also:

1. Canons on Justification from the Council of Trent
2. The Council of Ephesus
3. The Council of Clermont
4. A Statement from the International Lutheran Council

Augustine (354-430): “Not so our father Abraham. This passage of scripture is meant to draw our attention to the difference. We confess that the holy patriarch was pleasing to God; this is what our faith affirms about him. So true is it that we can declare and be certain that he did have grounds for pride before God, and this is what the apostle tells us. It is quite certain, he says, and we know it for sure, that Abraham has grounds for pride before God. But if he had been justified by works, he would have had grounds for pride, but not before God. However, since we know he does have grounds for pride before God, it follows that he was not justified on the basis of works. So if Abraham was not justified by works, how was he justified?” The apostle goes on to tell us how: What does scripture say? (that is, about how Abraham was justified). Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness (Rom. 4:3; Gen. 15:6). Abraham, then, was justified by faith. Paul and James do not contradict each other: good works follow justification
3. Now when you hear this statement, that justification comes not from works, but by faith, remember the abyss of which I spoke earlier. You see that Abraham was justified not by what he did, but by his faith: all right then, so I can do whatever I like, because even though I have no good works to show, but simply believe in God, that is reckoned to me as righteousness? Anyone who has said this and has decided on it as a policy has already fallen in and sunk; anyone who is still considering it and hesitating is in mortal danger. But God’s scripture, truly understood, not only safeguards an endangered person, but even hauls up a drowned one from the deep. My advice is, on the face of it, a contradiction of what the apostle says; what I have to say about Abraham is what we find in the letter of another apostle, who set out to correct people who had misunderstood Paul. James in his letter opposed those who would not act rightly but relied on faith alone; and so he reminded them of the good works of this same Abraham whose faith was commended by Paul. The two apostles are not contradicting each other. James dwells on an action performed by Abraham that we all know about: he offered his son to God as a sacrifice. That is a great work, but it proceeded from faith. I have nothing but praise for the superstructure of action, but I see the foundation of faith; I admire the good work as a fruit, but I recognize that it springs from the root of faith. If Abraham had done it without right faith it would have profited him nothing, however noble the work was. On the other hand, if Abraham had been so complacent in his faith that, on hearing God’s command to offer his son as a sacrificial victim, he had said to himself, “No, I won’t. But I believe that God will set me free, even if I ignore his orders,” his faith would have been a dead faith because it did not issue in right action, and it would have remained a barren, dried-up root that never produced fruit.” John E. Rotelle, O.S.A., ed., WSA, Part 3, Vol. 15, trans. Maria Boulding, O.S.B., Expositions of the Psalms 1-32, Exposition 2 of Psalm 31, 2-4 (Hyde Park: New City Press, 2000), pp. 364-365.

Augustine (354-430): “But what about the person who does no work (Rom 4:5)? Think here of some godless sinner, who has no good works to show. What of him or her? What if such a person comes to believe in God who justifies the impious? People like that are impious because they accomplish nothing good; they may seem to do good things, but their actions cannot truly be called good, because performed without faith. But when someone believes in him who justifies the impious, that faith is reckoned as justice to the believer, as David too declares that person blessed whom God has accepted and endowed with righteousness, independently of any righteous actions (Rom 4:5-6). What righteousness is this? The righteousness of faith, preceded by no good works, but with good works as its consequence.” John E. Rotelle, O.S.A., ed., WSA, Part 1, Vol. 11, trans. Maria Boulding, O.S.B., Expositions of the Psalms 1-32, Exposition 2 of Psalm 31, ¡±7 (Hyde Park: New City Press, 2000), p. 370.

See also:

1. Ambrosiaster on Justification
2. Augustine on I John & Romans
3. Canons on Justification from the Council of Trent
4. Augustine Bibliography

If we carefully weigh the words of the Apostle we perceive that he does not speak of doctrinal faults and errors, but of much lesser faults by which a person is overtaken through the weakness of his flesh. This explains why the Apostle chooses the softer term “fault.” To minimize the offense still more, as if he meant to excuse it altogether and to take the whole blame away from the person who has committed the fault, he speaks of him as having been “overtaken,” seduced by the devil and of the flesh. As if he meant to say, “What is more human than for a human being to fall, to be deceived and to err?” This comforting sentence at one time saved my life. Because Satan always assails both the purity of doctrine which he endeavors to take away by schisms and the purity of life which he spoils with his continual temptations to sin, Paul explains how the fallen should be treated. Those who are strong are to raise up the fallen in the spirit of meekness.

This ought to be borne in mind particularly by the ministers of the Word in order that they may not forget the parental attitude which Paul here requires of those who have the keeping of souls. Pastors and ministers must, of course, rebuke the fallen, but when they see that the fallen are sorry they are to comfort them by excusing the fault as well as they can. As unyielding as the Holy Spirit is in the matter of maintaining and defending the doctrine of faith, so mild and merciful is He toward men for their sins as long as sinners repent.

The Pope’s synagogue teaches the exact opposite of what the Apostle commands. The clerics are tyrants and butchers of men’s conscience. Every small offense is closely scrutinized. To justify the cruel inquisitiveness they quote the statement of Pope Gregory: “It is the property of good lives to be afraid of a fault where there is no fault.” “Our censors must be feared, even if they are unjust and wrong.” On these pronouncements the papists base their doctrine of excommunication. Rather than terrify and condemn men’s consciences, they ought to raise them up and comfort them with the truth.

Let the ministers of the Gospel learn from Paul how to deal with those who have sinned. “Brethren,” he says, “if any man be overtaken with a fault, do not aggravate his grief, do not scold him, do not condemn him, but lift him up and gently restore his faith. If you see a brother despondent over a sin he has committed, run up to him, reach out your hand to him, comfort him with the Gospel and embrace him like a mother. When you meet a willful sinner who does not care, go after him and rebuke him sharply.” But this is not the treatment for one who has been overtaken by a sin and is sorry. He must be dealt with in the spirit of meekness and not in the spirit of severity. A repentant sinner is not to be given gall and vinegar to drink.

VERSE 1. Considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.

This consideration is very much needed to put a stop to the severity of some pastors who show the fallen no mercy. St. Augustine says: “There is no sin which one person has committed, that another person may not commit it also.” We stand in slippery places. If we become overbearing and neglect our duty, it is easy enough to fall into sin. In the book entitled “The Lives of Our Fathers,” one of the Fathers is reported to have said when informed that a brother had fallen into adultery: “He fell yesterday; I may fall today.” Paul therefore warns the pastors not to be too rigorous and unmerciful towards offenders, but to show them every affection, always remembering: “This man fell into sin; I may fall into worse sin. If those who are always so eager to condemn others would investigate themselves they would find that the sins of others are motes in comparison to their own.”

“Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.” (I Cor. 10:12.) If David who was a hero of faith and did so many great things for the Lord, could fall so badly that in spite of his advanced age he was overcome by youthful lust after he had withstood so many different temptations with which the Lord had tested his faith, who are we to think that we are more stable? These object lessons of God should convince us that of all things God hates pride.

VERSE 2. Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

The Law of Christ is the Law of love. Christ gave us no other law than this law of mutual love: “A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another.” To love means to bear another’s burdens. Christians must have strong shoulders to bear the burdens of their fellow Christians. Faithful pastors recognize many errors and offenses in the church, which they oversee. In civil affairs an official has to overlook much if he is fit to rule. If we can overlook our own shortcomings and wrong-doings, we ought to overlook the shortcomings of others in accordance with the words, “Bear ye one another’s burdens.”

Those who fail to do so expose their lack of understanding of the law of Christ. Love, according to Paul, “believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.” This commandment is not meant for those who deny Christ; neither is it meant for those who continue to live in sin. Only those who are willing to hear the Word of God and then inadvertently fall into sin to their own great sorrow and regret, carry the burdens which the Apostle encourages us to bear. Let us not be hard on them. If Christ did not punish them, what right have we to do it?

excerpt from Martin Luther, ‘Commentary on Galatians’ (1535)

See also:

1. Luther’s Genesis Commentary
2. Galatians 2:14-21
3. Luther on Galatians 5:1
4. Luther on Galatians 6:1-18

For having some great conceit of themselves, and not enduring to go the way which God had commanded them, they were plunged into the reasonings of senselessness (1 manuscript διανοίας). And then to show and give in outline, what a rueful surge it was, and how destitute of excuse, he goes on to say,

Ver. 23. And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.

The first charge is, that they did not find God; the second was, that it was while they had great and clear (Sav. marg. wise) means to do it; the third, that withal they said they were wise; the fourth, that they not only did not find that Reverend Being, but even lowered Him to devils and to stones and stocks. Now he takes down their haughtiness also in the Epistle to the Corinthians, but not in the same way there as here. For there it is from the Cross he gives them the blow, saying, The foolishness of God is wiser than men. 1 Corinthians 1:25 But here, without any comparison, he holds their wisdom by itself up to ridicule, showing it to be folly and a mere display of vain boasting. Then, that you may learn that when they had the knowledge of God they gave it up thus treacherously, they changed, he says. Now he that changes, has something to change. For they wished to find out more, and not bear with the limits given them, and so they were banished from these also. For they were lusters after new devices, for such is all that is Grecian. And this is why they stood against one another and Aristotle rose up against Plato, and the Stoics blustered (ἐ φρυάξαντο 6 manuscripts fenced themselves, ἐ φράξαντο: which Field inclines to prefer) against him, and one has become hostile to one, another to another. So that one should not so much marvel at them for their wisdom, as turn away from them indignant and hate them, because through this very thing they have become fools. For had they not trusted what they have to reasonings, and syllogisms, and sophistries, they would not have suffered what they did suffer. Then, to strengthen the accusation against them he holds the whole of their idolatry up to ridicule.

For in the first place the changing even were a very fit subject of scorn. But to change to such things too, is beyond all excuse. For what then did they change it, and what was it which they invested with His Glory? Some conceptions they ought to have had about Him, as, for instance, that He is God, that He is Lord of all, that He made them, which were not, that He exercises a Providence, that He cares for them. For these things are the Glory of God. To whom then did they ascribe it? Not even to men, but to an image made like to corruptible man. Neither did they stop here, but even dropped down to the brutes, or rather to the images of these. But consider, I pray, the wisdom of Paul, how he has taken the two extremes, God the Highest, and creeping things the lowest: or rather, not the creeping things, but the images of these; that he might clearly show their evident madness. For what knowledge they ought to have had concerning Him Who is incomparably more excellent than all, with that they invested what was incomparably more worthless than all.

But what has this to do with the philosophers? A man may say. To these belongs most of all what I have said to do with them. For they have the Egyptians who were the inventors of these things to their masters. And Plato, who is thought more reverend than the rest of them, glories in these masters. (Plat. Tim. 21. B. etc.) And his master is in a stupid awe of these idols, for he it is that bids them sacrifice the cock to Æsculapius (his last words, Phædo), where (i.e. in his temple. So Field from manuscripts.) are the images of these beasts, and creeping things. And one may see Apollo and Bacchus worshipped along with these creeping things. And some of the philosophers even lifted up to Heaven bulls, and scorpions, and dragons, and all the rest of that vanity. For in all parts did the devil zealously strive to bring men down before the images of creeping things, and to range beneath the most senseless of all things, him whom God has willed to lift up above the heavens. And it is not from this only, but also from other grounds, that you will see their chief man to come under the remarks now made. For having made a collection of the poets, and having said that we should believe them upon matters relating to God, as having accurate knowledge, he has nothing else to bring forward but the linked sweetness of these absurdities, and then says, that this utterly ludicrous trifling is to be held for true.

See also:

1. John Chrysostom Homily on Romans 4:1-2
2. John Chrysostom Homily 4 on Romans 1:26-27
3. Augustine on I John & Romans
4. An Easter Sermon from John Chrysostom

Ambrose (c. 339-97): “I have nothing, therefore, whereby I may glory in my works; I have nothing to boast of, and, therefore, I will glory in Christ. I will not glory because I am righteous, but because I am redeemed. I will not glory because I am free from sin, but because my sins are pardoned. I will not glory because I have done good to any one, or any one has done good to me, but because Christ is my advocate with the Father, and because Christ’s blood was shed for me.” George Finch, A Sketch of the Romish Controversy (London: G. Norman, 1831), p. 220.

Ambrose (c. 339-97): “Therefore let no one boast of his works, because no one can be justified by his works; but he who is just receives it as a gift, because he is justified by the washing of regeneration. It is faith, therefore, which delivers us by the blood of Christ, because blessed is he whose sins are forgiven, and to whom pardon is granted.” George Finch, A Sketch of the Romish Controversy (London: G. Norman, 1831), p. 220.

See also:

1. Canons on Justification from the Council of Trent
2. Cyril of Alexandria on Justification
3. Chrysostom on Justification
4. Ambrose of Milan

All these affections then were vile, but chiefly the mad lust after males; for the soul is more the sufferer in sins, and more dishonored, than the body in diseases. But behold how here too, as in the case of the doctrines, he deprives them of excuse, by saying of the women, that they changed the natural use. For no one, he means, can say that it was by being hindered of legitimate intercourse that they came to this pass, or that it was from having no means to fulfil their desire that they were driven into this monstrous insaneness. For the changing implies possession. Which also when discoursing upon the doctrines he said, They changed the truth of God for a lie. And with regard to the men again, he shows the same thing by saying, Leaving the natural use of the woman. And in a like way with those, these he also puts out of all means of defending themselves by charging them not only that they had the means of gratification, and left that which they had, and went after another, but that having dishonored that which was natural, they ran after that which was contrary to nature. But that which is contrary to nature has in it an irksomeness and displeasingness, so that they could not fairly allege even pleasure. For genuine pleasure is that which is according to nature. But when God has left one, then all things are turned upside down. And thus not only was their doctrine Satanical, but their life too was diabolical. Now when he was discoursing of their doctrines, he put before them the world and man’s understanding, telling them that, by the judgment afforded them by God, they might through the things which are seen, have been led as by the hand to the Creator, and then, by not willing to do so, they remained inexcusable. Here in the place of the world he sets the pleasure according to nature, which they would have enjoyed with more sense of security and greater glad-heartedness, and so have been far removed from shameful deeds. But they would not; whence they are quite out of the pale of pardon, and have done an insult to nature itself. And a yet more disgraceful thing than these is it, when even the women seek after these intercourses, who ought to have more sense of shame than men. And here too the judgment of Paul is worthy of admiration, how having fallen upon two opposite matters he accomplishes them both with all exactness. For he wished both to speak chastely and to sting the hearer. Now both these things were not in his power to do, but one hindered the other. For if you speak chastely you shall not be able to bear hard upon the hearer. But if you are minded to touch him to the quick, you are forced to lay the naked facts before him in plain terms. But his discreet and holy soul was able to do both with exactness, and by naming nature has at once given additional force to his accusation, and also used this as a sort of veil, to keep the chasteness of his description. And next, having reproached the women first, he goes on to the men also, and says, And likewise also the men leaving the natural use of the woman. Which is an evident proof of the last degree of corruptness, when both sexes are abandoned, and both he that was ordained to be the instructor of the woman, and she who was bid to become an helpmate to the man, work the deeds of enemies against one another. And reflect too how significantly he uses his words. For he does not say that they were enamoured of, and lusted after one another, but, they burned in their lust one toward another. You see that the whole of desire comes of an exorbitancy which endures not to abide within its proper limits. For everything which transgresses the laws by God appointed, lusts after monstrous things and not those which be customary. For as many oftentimes having left the desire of food get to feed upon earth and small stones, and others being possessed by excessive thirst often long even for mire, thus these also ran into this ebullition of lawless love. But if you say, and whence came this intensity of lust? It was from the desertion of God: and whence is the desertion of God? From the lawlessness of them that left Him; men with men working that which is unseemly. Do not, he means, because you have heard that they burned, suppose that the evil was only in desire. For the greater part of it came of their luxuriousness, which also kindled into flame their lust. And this is why he did not say being swept along or being overtaken, an expression he uses elsewhere; but what? Working. They made a business of the sin, and not only a business, but even one zealously followed up. And he called it not lust, but that which is unseemly, and that properly. For they both dishonored nature, and trampled on the laws. And see the great confusion which fell out on both sides. For not only was the head turned downwards but the feet too were upwards, and they became enemies to themselves and to one another, bringing in a pernicious kind of strife, and one even more lawless than any civil war, and one rife in divisions, and of varied form. For they divided this into four new, and lawless kinds. Since (3 manuscripts whence) this war was not twofold or threefold, but even fourfold. Consider then. It was meet, that the two should be one, I mean the woman and the man. For the two, it says, shall be one flesh. Genesis 2:24 But this the desire of intercourse effected, and united the sexes to one another. This desire the devil having taken away, and having turned the course thereof into another fashion, he thus sundered the sexes from one another, and made the one to become two parts in opposition to the law of God. For it says, the two shall be one flesh; but he divided the one flesh into two: here then is one war. Again, these same two parts he provoked to war both against themselves and against one another. For even women again abused women, and not men only. And the men stood against one another, and against the female sex, as happens in a battle by night. You see a second and third war, and a fourth and fifth; there is also another, for beside what have been mentioned they also behaved lawlessly against nature itself. For when the Devil saw that this desire it is, principally, which draws the sexes together, he was bent on cutting through the tie, so as to destroy the race, not only by their not copulating lawfully, but also by their being stirred up to war, and in sedition against one another.

And receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet. See how he goes again to the fountain head of the evil, namely, the impiety that comes of their doctrines, and this he says is a reward of that lawlessness. For since in speaking of hell and punishment, it seemed he would not at present be credible to the ungodly and deliberate choosers of such a life, but even scorned, he shows that the punishment was in this pleasure itself. (So Plato Theæt. p. 176, 7.) But if they perceive it not, but are still pleased, be not amazed. For even they that are mad, and are afflicted with phrenzy (cf. Soph. Aj. 265-277) while doing themselves much injury and making themselves such objects of compassion, that others weep over them themselves smile and revel over what has happened. Yet we do not only for this not say that they are quit of punishment, but for this very reason are under a more grievous vengeance, in that they are unconscious of the plight they are in. For it is not the disordered but those who are sound whose votes one has to gain. Yet of old the matter seemed even to be a law, and a certain law-giver among them bade the domestic slaves neither to use ointments when dry (i.e. except in bathing) nor to keep youths, giving the free this place of honor, or rather of shamefulness. Yet they, however, did not think the thing shameful, but as being a grand privilege, and one too great for slaves, the Athenian people, the wisest of people, and Solon who is so great among them, permitted it to the free alone. And sundry other books of the philosophers may one see full of this disease. But we do not therefore say that the thing was made lawful, but that they who received this law were pitiable, and objects for many tears. For these are treated in the same way as women that play the whore. Or rather their plight is more miserable. For in the case of the one the intercourse, even if lawless, is yet according to nature: but this is contrary both to law and nature. For even if there were no hell, and no punishment had been threatened, this were worse than any punishment. Yet if you say they found pleasure in it, you tell me what adds to the vengeance. For suppose I were to see a person running naked, with his body all besmeared with mire, and yet not covering himself, but exulting in it, I should not rejoice with him, but should rather bewail that he did not even perceive that he was doing shamefully. But that I may show the atrocity in a yet clearer light, bear with me in one more example. Now if any one condemned a virgin to live in close dens (θαλομευομένην), and to have intercourse with unreasoning brutes, and then she was pleased with such intercourse, would she not for this be especially a worthy object of tears, as being unable to be freed from this misery owing to her not even perceiving the misery? It is plain surely to every one. But if that were a grievous thing, neither is this less so than that. For to be insulted by one’s own kinsmen is more piteous than to be so by strangers: these I say (5 manuscripts I consider) are even worse than murderers: since to die even is better than to live under such insolency. For the murderer dissevers the soul from the body, but this man ruins the soul with the body. And name what sin you will, none will you mention equal to this lawlessness. And if they that suffer such things perceived them, they would accept ten thousand deaths so they might not suffer this evil. For there is not, there surely is not, a more grievous evil than this insolent dealing. For if when discoursing about fornication Paul said, that Every sin which a man does is without the body, but he that commits fornication sins against his own body 1 Corinthians 6:18; what shall we say of this madness, which is so much worse than fornication as cannot even be expressed? For I should not only say that you have become a woman, but that you have lost your manhood, and hast neither changed into that nature nor kept that which you had, but you have been a traitor to both of them at once, and deserving both of men and women to be driven out and stoned, as having wronged either sex. And that you may learn what the real force of this is, if any one were to come and assure you that he would make you a dog instead of being a man, would you not flee from him as a plague? But, lo! You have not made yourself a dog out of a man, but an animal more disgraceful than this. For this is useful unto service, but he that has thus given himself up is serviceable for nothing. Or again, if any one threatened to make men travail and be brought to bed, should we not be filled with indignation? But lo! now they that have run into this fury have done more grievously by themselves. For it is not the same thing to change into the nature of women, as to continue a man and yet to have become a woman; or rather neither this nor that. But if you would know the enormity of the evil from other grounds, ask on what account the lawgivers punish them that make men eunuchs, and you will see that it is absolutely for no other reason than because they mutilate nature. And yet the injustice they do is nothing to this. For there have been those that were mutilated and were in many cases useful after their mutilation. But nothing can there be more worthless than a man who has pandered himself. For not the soul only, but the body also of one who has been so treated, is disgraced, and deserves to be driven out everywhere. How many hells shall be enough for such? But if you scoff at hearing of hell and believest not that fire, remember Sodom. For we have seen, surely we have seen, even in this present life, a semblance of hell. For since many would utterly disbelieve the things to come after the resurrection, hearing now of an unquenchable fire, God brings them to a right mind by things present. For such is the burning of Sodom, and that conflagration! And they know it well that have been at the place, and have seen with their eyes that scourge divinely sent, and the effect of the lightnings from above. Jude 7 Consider how great is that sin, to have forced hell to appear even before its time! For whereas many thought scorn of His words, by His deeds did God show them the image thereof in a certain novel way. For that rain was unwonted, for that the intercourse was contrary to nature, and it deluged the land, since lust had done so with their souls. Wherefore also the rain was the opposite of the customary rain. Now not only did it fail to stir up the womb of the earth to the production of fruits, but made it even useless for the reception of seed. For such was also the intercourse of the men, making a body of this sort more worthless than the very land of Sodom. And what is there more detestable than a man who has pandered himself, or what more execrable? Oh, what madness! Oh, what distraction! Whence came this lust lewdly revelling and making man’s nature all that enemies could? Or even worse than that, by as much as the soul is better than the body. Oh, you that were more senseless than irrational creatures, and more shameless than dogs! For in no case does such intercourse take place with them, but nature acknowledges her own limits. But you have even made our race dishonored below things irrational, by such indignities inflicted upon and by each other. Whence then were these evils born? Of luxury; of not knowing God. For so soon as any have cast out the fear of Him, all that is good straightway goes to ruin.

Now, that this may not happen, let us keep clear before our eyes the fear of God. For nothing, surely nothing, so ruins a man as to slip from this anchor, as nothing saves so much as continually looking thereto. For if by having a man before our eyes we feel more backward at doing sins, and often even through feeling abashed at servants of a better stamp we keep from doing anything amiss, consider what safety we shall enjoy by having God before our eyes! For in no case will the Devil attack us when so conditioned, in that he would be laboring without profit. But should he see us wandering abroad, and going about without a bridle, by getting a beginning in ourselves he will be able to drive us off afterwards any whither. And as it happens with thoughtless servants at market, who leave the needful services which their masters have entrusted to them, and rivet themselves at a mere haphazard to those who fall in their way, and waste out their leisure there; this also we undergo when we depart from the commandments of God. For we presently get standing on, admiring riches, and beauty of person, and the other things which we have no business with, just as those servants attend to the beggars that do jugglers’ feats, and then, arriving too late, have to be grievously beaten at home. And many pass the road set before them through following others, who are behaving in the same unseemly way. But let not us so do. For we have been sent to dispatch many affairs that are urgent. And if we leave those, and stand gaping at these useless things, all our time will be wasted in vain and to no profit, and we shall suffer the extreme of punishment. For if you wish yourself to be busy, you have whereat you ought to wonder, and to gape all your days, things which are no subject for laughter, but for wondering and manifold praises. As he that admires things ridiculous, will himself often be such, and even worse than he that occasions the laughter. And that you may not fall into this, spring away from it immediately. For why is it, pray, that you stand gaping and fluttering at sight of riches? What do you see so wonderful, and able to fix your eyes upon them? These gold-harnessed horses, these lackeys, partly savages, and partly eunuchs, and costly raiment, and the soul that is getting utterly soft in all this, and the haughty brow, and the bustlings, and the noise? And wherein do these things deserve wonder? What are they better than the beggars that dance and pipe in the market-place? For these too being taken with a sore famine of virtue, dance a dance more ridiculous than theirs, led and carried round at one time to costly tables, at another to the lodging of prostitute women, and at another to a swarm of flatterers and a host of hangers-on. But if they do wear gold, this is why they are the most pitiable, because the things which are nothing to them, are most the subject of their eager desire. Do not now, I pray, look at their raiment, but open their soul, and consider if it is not full of countless wounds, and clad with rags, and destitute, and defenceless! What then is the use of this madness of shows? For it were much better to be poor and living in virtue, than to be a king with wickedness; since the poor man in himself enjoys all the delights of the soul, and does not even perceive his outward poverty for his inward riches. But the king, luxurious in those things which do not at all belong to him, is punished in those things which are his most real concern, even the soul, the thoughts, and the conscience, which are to go away with him to the other world. Since then we know these things, let us lay aside the gilded raiment, let us take up virtue and the pleasure which comes thereof. For so, both here and hereafter, shall we come to enjoy great delights, through the grace and love towards man of our Lord Jesus Christ, through Whom, and with Whom, be glory to the Father, with the Holy Spirit, for ever and ever. Amen.

See also:

1. Augustine on I John & Romans
2. An Easter Sermon from John Chrysostom
3. A Homily on the Passover
4. Chrysostom on Justification

Cyril of Alexandria (patriarch 412-444): “For truly the compassion from beside the Father is Christ, as he takes away the sins, dismisses the charges and justifies by faith, and recovers the lost and makes [them] stronger than death. For what is good and he does not give? Therefore the knowledge of God is better than sacrifice and holocausts, as it is brought to perfection in Christ. For by him and in him we have known the Father, and we have become rich in the justification by faith.” Commentary on Hosea. Alberto Ferreiro, ed., Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, New Testament XIV: The Twelve Prophets (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2003), p. 29.

See also:

1. Nestorius’ Second Epistle to Cyril of Alexandria
2. Cyril of Jerusalem on the Canon
3. Ambrosiaster on Justification
4. The Function of Faith in Justification

Ambrosiaster (fl. c. 366-384), on Rom. 2:12: “For if the law is given not for the righteous but for the unrighteous, whoever does not sin is a friend of the law. For him faith alone is the way by which he is made perfect. For others mere avoidance of evil will not gain them any advantage with God unless they also believe in God, so that they may be righteous on both counts. For the one righteousness is temporal; the other is eternal.” Gerald Bray, ed., Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, New Testament VI: Romans (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1998), p. 65.

Ambrosiaster (fl. c. 366-384), on Rom. 3:24: “They are justified freely because they have not done anything nor given anything in return, but by faith alone they have been made holy by the gift of God.” Gerald Bray, ed., Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, New Testament VI: Romans (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1998), p. 101.

Ambrosiaster (fl. c. 366-384), on Rom. 3:27: “Paul tells those who live under the law that they have no reason to boast basing themselves on the law and claiming to be of the race of Abraham, seeing that no one is justified before God except by faith.” Gerald Bray, ed., Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, New Testament VI: Romans (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1998), p. 103.

Ambrosiaster (fl. c. 366-384), on Rom. 4:5: “How then can the Jews think that they have been justified by the works of the law in the same way as Abraham, when they see that Abraham was not justified by the works of the law but by faith alone? Therefore there is no need of the law when the ungodly is justified before God by faith alone.” Gerald Bray, ed., Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, New Testament VI: Romans (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1998), p. 112.

Ambrosiaster (fl. c. 366-384), on Rom. 4:6, “‘righteousness apart from works’: Paul backs this up by the example of the prophet David, who says that those are blessed of whom God has decreed that, without work or any keeping of the law, they are justified before God by faith alone.” Gerald Bray, ed., Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, New Testament VI: Romans (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1998), p. 113.

“Ambrosiaster” is the name given by Erasmus to an anonymous fourth-century commentator on the Epistles of Saint Paul whose work often circulated under the name of “Ambrose,” though also under the names of “Augustine” and “Hilarius” (see CPPM IIA.1745). Souter’s attribution (1905) of a set of Quaestiones on the Old and New Testaments to the same author has been universally accepted (for other minor works doubtfully attributed to Ambrosiaster, see Mara, Pat 4.184-6). Despite much speculation, Ambrosiaster remains unidentified (for a list of some of the proposed candidates, see Mara, Pat 4.180). His principal works can be dated by internal evidence to the pontificate of Damasus (366-384). He probably lived in Rome, but some evidence points to periods of residence in northern Italy and in Spain. He uses frequent illustrations from the law and was interested in legal principles and institutions (see Souter 1927 pp 68-70). He was also familiar with Jewish apocrypha and traditions ( Souter 1927 pp 72-75), and may have been a convert from Judaism or paganism.

See also:

1. The Function of Faith in Justification
2. Canons on Justification from the Council of Trent
3. The Method & Fruits of Justification

For you believe the faith; why then do you add other things, as if faith were not sufficient to justify? You make yourselves captive, and you subject yourself to the law. (Epistle to Titus, Homily 3, PG 62.651)

Suppose someone should be caught in the act of adultery and the foulest crimes and then be thrown into prison. Suppose, next, that judgment was going to be passed against him and that he would be condemned. Suppose that just at that moment a letter should come from the Emperor setting free from any accounting or examination all those detained in prison. If the prisoner should refuse to take advantage of the pardon, remain obstinate and choose to be brought to trial, to give an account, and to undergo punishment, he will not be able thereafter to avail himself of the Emperor’s favor. For when he made himself accountable to the court, examination, and sentence, he chose of his own accord to deprive himself of the imperial gift. This is what happened in the case of the Jews. Look how it is. All human nature was taken in the foulest evils. “All have sinned,” says Paul. They were locked, as it were, in a prison by the curse of their transgression of the Law. The sentence of the judge was going to be passed against them. A letter from the King came down from heaven. Rather, the King himself came. Without examination, without exacting an account, he set all men free from the chains of their sins. All, then, who run to Christ are saved by his grace and profit from his gift. But those who wish to find justification from the Law will also fall from grace. They will not be able to enjoy the King’s loving-kindness because they are striving to gain salvation by their own efforts; they will draw down on themselves the curse of the Law because by the works of the Law no flesh will find justification. (Discourses Against Judaizing Christians, Discourse I:6-II:1)

What does this mean? That he has justified our race not by right actions, not by toils, not by barter and exchange, but by grace alone. Paul, too, made this clear when he said: “But now the justice of God has been made manifest apart from the Law.” But the justice of God comes through faith in Jesus Christ and not through any labor and suffering. (Discourses Against Judaising Christians, Discourse VII:2)

“To declare His righteousness.” What is declaring of righteousness? Like the declaring of His riches, not only for Him to be rich Himself, but also to make others rich, or of life, not only that He is Himself living, but also that He makes the dead to live; and of His power, not only that He is Himself powerful, but also that He makes the feeble powerful. So also is the declaring of His righteousness not only that He is Himself righteous, but that He doth also make them that are filled with the putrefying sores (katasapentai) of sin suddenly righteous. And it is to explain this, viz. what is “declaring,” that he has added, “That He might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.” Doubt not then: for it is not of works, but of faith: and shun not the righteousness of God, for it is a blessing in two ways; because it is easy, and also open to all men. And be not abashed and shamefaced. For if He Himself openly declareth (endeiknutai) Himself to do so, and He, so to say, findeth a delight and a pride therein, how comest thou to be dejected and to hide thy face at what thy Master glorieth in? But what is the “law of faith?” It is, being saved by grace. Here he shows God’s power, in that He has not only saved, but has even justified, and led them to boasting, and this too without needing works, but looking for faith only. (Homily on Romans 3:19ff.)

After speaking of the wages of sin, in the case of blessings, he has not kept to the same order: for he does not say, the wages of your good deeds, but the gift of God: to show, that it was not of themselves that they were freed, nor was it a due they received, neither yet a return, nor a recompense of labors, but by grace all these things came about. And so there was superiority for this cause also, in that He did not free them only, or change their condition for the better, but that He did it without any labor or trouble upon their part: and that He not only freed them, but also gave them more than before, and that through His Son. (Epistle to the Romans, Homily 12, Rom 6:23)

And if any were to cast in prison a person who owed ten mites, and not the man himself only, but wife and children and servants for his sake; and another were to come and not to pay down the ten mites only, but to give also ten thousand talents of gold, and to lead the prisoner into the king’s courts, and to the throne of the highest power, and were to make him partaker of the highest honour and every kind of magnificence, the creditor would not be able to remember the ten mites; so hath our case been. For Christ hath paid down far more than we owe, yea as much more as the illimitable ocean is than a little drop. (Epistle to the Romans, Homily X, Rom 5:17)

For all have sinned, and are under the curse. However he does not say this yet, lest he should seem to lay it down of himself, but here again establishes his point by a text which concisely states both points; that no man has fulfilled the Law, (wherefore they are under the curse,) and, that Faith justifies. What then is the text? It is in the book of the prophet Habakkuk, “The just shall live by faith,” (Hab. ii: 4) which not only establishes the righteousness that is of Faith, but also that there is no salvation through the Law. As no one, he says, kept the Law, but all were under the curse, on account of transgression, an easy way was provided, that from Faith, which is in itself a strong proof that no man can be justified by the Law. For the prophet says not, “The just shall live by the Law,” but, “by faith:” (Homily on Galatians 3)

God does not wait for time to elapse after repentance. You state your sin, you are justified. You repented, you have been shown mercy. (Homily 7 On Repentance and Compunction, p. 95 in FOTC, vol. 96)

Is it possible, Scripture says, for one to repent and be saved? It is absolutely and most certainly the case. What, though, if I have wasted my life in sins and then repent: will I be saved? Yes, indeed! What source indicates this? The philanthropy of your Master. Can I take courage from your repentance? Could it be that your repentance has the power to wipe clean so many evils? If it were only up to repentance, then assuredly be afraid. However, since repentance is mixed together with the philanthropy of God, take courage. For God’s philanthropy is immeasurable, nor can any word provide the measure of his goodness. Your wickedness is measurable, but the medicine is immeasurable. Your wickedness, whatever it may be, is human wickedness; but God’s philanthropy is ineffable. Have courage because it surpasses your wickedness. Just think of one spark that fell into the sea; could it stand or be seen? What one spark is in comparison to the sea, so wickedness is before the philanthropy of God; not even this much, but much more so. For the sea, even though it is vast, has limits; but God’s philanthropy is unlimited. (Homily 8 On Repentance and the Church, FOTC: vol 96, p. 112,113)

“First tell your transgressions so you may be justified.” O the philanthropy of the Master! He did not say, “so you may not be punished,” rather, “so you may be justified.” It was not enough for him that You do not punish him, for You even made him righteous? Certainly. But pay great attention to the discourse. I make him just. In what circumstance did He do this? To the Thief, so that he might only say to his companion: “Do you not fear God? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward for our deeds.” The Savior tells him: Today you shall be with me in paradise. He did not say: “I deliver you from damnation and from punishment”; rather He puts him into paradise as a righteous man. Did you see that he became righteous through confession? God is a great lover of man. He did not hesitate to surrender His Son as prey in order to spare His servant. He surrended His only-begotten to purchase hard-hearted servants. He paid the blood of His Son as the price. O the philanthropy of the Master! And do not tell me again, “I sinned a lot; how can I be saved?” You cannot save yourself, but your Master can, and to such a great degree as to obliterate your sins. Pay attention very carefully to the discourse. He wipes out the sins so completely that not a single trace of them remains. (Homily Eight on Repentance, FOTC: vol 96, pp. 116,117)

And he well said, “a righteousness of mine own,” not that which I gained by labor and toil, but that which I found from grace. If then he who was so excellent is saved by grace, much more are you. For since it was likely they would say that the righteousness which comes from toil is the greater, he shows that it is dung in comparison with the other. For otherwise I, who was so excellent in it, would not have cast it away, and run to the other. But what is that other? That which is from the faith of God, i.e. it too is given by God. This is the righteousness of God; this is altogether a gift. And the gifts of God far exceed those worthless good deeds, which are due to our own diligence. (Homily on Philippians 3)

“He that believes in the Son, is not judged.” He that “believes,” not he that is over-curious: he that “believes,” not the busybody. But what if his life be unclean, and his deeds evil? It is of such as these especially that Paul declares, that they are not true believers at all: “They profess that they know God, but in works they deny Him.” ( Tit. i. 16.) (comments on John 3:18)

Listen to the Scripture, which says, “Say not, His mercy is great, He will be pacified for the multitude of my sins.” (Ecclus. v. 6.) He does not forbid us to say, “His mercy is great.” This is not what He enjoins; rather he would have us constantly say it, and with this object Paul raises all sorts of arguments, but his object is what follows. Do not, he means, admire the loving-kindness of God with this view, with a view to sinning, and saying,”His mercy will be pacified for the multitude of my sins.” For it is with this object that I too discourse so much concerning His goodness, not that we may presume upon it, and do any thing we choose, because in that way this goodness will be to the prejudice of our salvation; but that we may not despair in our sins, but may repent. For “the goodness of God leads you to repentance,” (Rom. ii. 4.) not to greater wickedness. (comments on Eph. 2:10)

Citations Compiled by William Weedon

See also:

1. An Easter Sermon from John Chrysostom

Every mystery which is enacted by our Lord Jesus Christ asks only for faith. The mystery was enacted at that time for our sake and aimed at our resurrection and liberation, should we have faith in the mystery of Christ and in Christ. For the patriarchs prefigured and foretold that man would be justified from faith. Therefore, just as it was reckoned as righteousness to Abraham that he had faith, so we too, if we have faith in Christ and every mystery of his, will be sons of Abraham. Our whole life will be accounted as righteous.

Read more about Marius and his writings here.

Via Marius’ Epistle to the Galatians, 1.3.7. Mark J. Edwards, ed., Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, New Testament VI: Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1998), p. 39.

See also:

1. Sinner in Reality, Righteous in Hope
2. The Righteous One

Erasmus is best known in the Lutheran world for his argument with Luther over the power, or lack thereof, of the human will. It’s clear enough from The Bondage of the Will what theological value Luther found in Erasmus’ work, but for a fuller picture of Luther’s concern with Erasmian theology, consider the following letters, one written to “a certain friend,” and another to his friend Amsdorf.

MARTIN LUTHER’S JUDGMENT OF ERASMUS OF ROTTERDAM.
TO A CERTAIN FRIEND.

Grace and peace in Christ,

I RECEIVED your last letter gladly, my excellent friend, because I believe you wish well to, and are concerned for, the state of the Christian cause. And I wish and pray, that the Lord would perfect that which he hath begun in you.

I am grieved at hearing, that among you also this cruel persecution is carried on against Christ. But it will come to this:—either that cruel tyrant will change his fury of his own accord, or you will change it for him, and that shortly.

Concerning Predestination, I knew long ago, that Mosellanus agrees with Erasmus: for he is an Erasmian altogether. My fixed opinion is, however, that Erasmus knows less about Predestination, (or rather pretends to know) than even the schools of the Sophists have known. Nor have I any need to fear a fall, while I maintain my sentiments unchanged. Erasmus is not to be dreaded on this point, nor indeed on any essential point of Christianity. Truth is more powerful than eloquence; the Spirit is far above human talent; faith is beyond all erudition; and, as Paul saith, “the foolishness of God is wiser than men!” (1 Cor. i. 25). The eloquence of Cicero, was often overthrown by inferior eloquence, in the discussion of public causes. Julian, was more eloquent than Augustine. In a word, the victory is in the hands of lying eloquence!—As it is written, “Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength, that thou mightest still the enemy and avenger” (Ps. viii. 2; Matt. xxi. 16).

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

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

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

Wirtemberg, 1522.

MARTIN LUTHER TO NICOLAS ARMSDORF
CONCERNING ERASMUS OF ROTTERDAM.

Grace and peace in Christ.

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

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

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

And as to your advice, that that grammarian or vocabularian whom you call the Erasmian plagiary should be held in contempt, and that Erasmus himself should rather be answered: know, that I have held him in sufficient contempt already: for I have not read one page of his writings. Jonas answered him once, although I was much against his doing it; and advised him, according to your opinion, to hold him in contempt. For I know the man well, from his skin to his heart, that he is not worthy of being spoken to, or dealt with, by any good man; such a hypocrite is he, and so full of reprobate envy and malevolence. Moreover, you know my usual way of over throwing writers of this stamp—by holding them in silent contempt. For how many books of Eccius, Faber, Emser, Cochles, and many others, who seemed to be as mountains in labour, and about to bring forth I know not what wonders, have I myself, by my silence only, so utterly brought to nothing that no memory of them is left. Cato calls such pettifoggers, and allows all their pratings to pass by unnoticed: whereas, if he had at all considered them worthy of being noticed and answered, they might have procured to themselves a lasting fame. And there is a trite, but true proverb,—

Full well I know, that if with dung embroiled,
Conqu’or or conquer’d, still I am besoiled.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Who, moreover, ever spoke in so much disdain and contempt (not to say enmity) of the apostle and evangelist John, who, among Christians is held to be of the highest authority after Christ?—’He merely scolds little children except it be when he considers a man to be a dolt or a logger-head.’—Christians ever speak of the Apostles with reverence and fear: whereas, this fellow would teach us to speak of them with profane pride and contempt. And this is the first step towards speaking profanely of God Himself, whose the Apostles are. Nay, it is the same as saying in contempt of the Holy Spirit, (whose the words of the Apostles are,) that He merely scolds little children! Numberless things of this kind are to be found in Erasmus; or rather, this is his whole character in theology. And this many others have observed before me, and still do observe daily more and more: nor does he cease to go on and to publish daily his annotations more and more grossly, for his “judgment now for a long time lingereth not,” and his “damnation slumbereth not.”

This is also a notable instance of the piety of Erasmus!—In his letter upon ‘Christian philosophy,’ which is published with his New Testament, and used in common throughout all the churches, when he had propounded the question,—’Why Christ, so great a teacher, descended from heaven, when there are many things taught even among the heathens which are precisely the same, if not more perfect;’—he answers, ‘Christ came (which I doubt not but he believed most Erasmianly) from heaven, that He might exemplify those things more perfectly and more fully than any of the saints before Him!’ Thus, this miserable renewer of all things, Christ , (for so He reproaches the Lord of glory) has lost the glory of a Redeemer, and becomes only one more holy than others.— This sentiment could not be expressed in ignorance, but must have been designed and willful; because, even those who do not truly believe, know, and every where confess, that Christ descended from heaven to redeem us men from sin and death.

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

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

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

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

Moreover, if this license should prevail, I might ‘conveniently’ interpret all that the whole herd of heretics ever said, nay all that the devil himself ever did or said, or could say or do, to all eternity. Where then would be the power of refuting the heretics and the devil? Where would be that wisdom of the Lord Christ, which all the adversaries shall not be able to resist? What would become of logic, the instructor of teaching rightly? What would become of rhetoric, the faculty of persuading? Nothing would be taught, nothing would be learned, no persuasion could be carried home, no consolation would be given, no fear would be wrought: because, nothing would be spoken or heard that was certain. When, therefore, Erasmus lightly and ridiculously says of John the Evangelist, ‘that he merely scolds babes,’ he is to be adjudged immediately a disciple of Epicurus or Democritus, and to be addressed thus—Learn to speak of Majesty with more reverence. Some noted jesters have, indeed, sometimes spoken of princes thus irreverently, and foollike, but not always with impunity. But if any one else of a sound mind and judgment had done the same, he might, perhaps, have lost his head, for the crime of insulted majesty.

Thus, when Erasmus says, ‘Peter addresses Christ as Man, and says nothing of His Divinity,’ he is to be condemned of Arianism and heresy: because, he could have omitted this insidious observation altogether, in a matter where the divine Majesty is eminently concerned, or have spoken more reverently: for the words plainly imply, that the Arians do not like that Christ should be called God, but consider it better that He should be called man only. And how conveniently soever they may be interpreted in favour of the Divinity of Christ; yet, as they stand and are read according to their plain meaning, especially since their author is suspicious, they offend Christian minds: because, they have not one plain meaning, and may be more easily understood to favour the Arians, than the orthodox.

Hence Jerome, writing of the Arians of his time who taught in the same artful way, says, ‘Their priests say one thing, and their people understand another.’ In like manner, there was no necessity for observing to Christians on that passage, that Peter did not call Christ, God; though in truth he did not omit to call Christ, God. Nor is it enough to pretend, ‘that he called Him man only, on account of the common multitude:’ for though he did call Him Man, yet, he did not therefore omit to call Him God, except that he did not pronounce these three letters, GOD: but this Erasmus rigidly deems was necessary: by so doing, however, he does nothing here, as well as in every other place, but lay snares, without any cause whatever, to entrap the inexperienced, and to render our religion suspicious.

That Carpisian, whoever he was, justly condemns him as a favourer of the Arians in his preface to Hilary, where he has said, ‘We dare to call the Holy Spirit, God, which the ancients did not dare to do.’ And when, having been faithfully admonished, he ought to have acknowledged his high-flown figures of speech, and his Arianisms, and to have corrected them, he not only did not do that, but even inveighed against the admonition, as a calumny proceeding from Satan, and laughed at the Divinity twofold more than ever—such a confidence has he in his pliability of speech, and his circumlocutive evasions. Nevertheless, he very seriously confesses the Trinity, and would not by any means whatever be thought to deny the Trinity of the God-head, but only wishes to say, that the curiosity (which he afterwards requests will be ‘conveniently interpreted’ diligence) of the moderns, has received and dared many things from the Scriptures which the ancients dared not.—As though the Christian religion rested on the authority of men: (for this is what he would persuade us to.) And what is this, but considering all religion together to be a mere fable!

Here, although the Carpisian be in many things of no weight whatever, and ever an enemy to Luther, yet Erasmus, from an unheard-of pride, thinks all men together to be mere stocks and stones; who neither understand any subject, nor see through the meaning of any words. Read that observation of his, and say, if you do not discover the incarnate devil! This observation fixes in me a determination (let others do as they please) not to believe Erasmus, even if he should openly confess in plain words,—that Christ is God. But I would address to him that sophistical saying of Chrysippus, ‘If you lie, you lie even when you speak the truth.’ For what need was there, if he in verity believed that the Holy Spirit is God, to say, ‘We dare to call the Holy Spirit, God, which the ancients did not dare to do?’ What need was there to use this vertible word ‘dare,’ that it might apply both to the praise and dispraise of these same moderns, when we received this doctrine from the ancients, and did not ‘dare’ to receive it first?

But however, it is a stark lie, to say, that the ancients did not first ‘dare’ to call the Holy Spirit, God:—unless by ancients, according to one of his very beautiful figures of speech, he means Democritus and Epicurus: or unless, he means God, materially, that is, these three letters, GOD! But to what purpose is all this hateful maneuvering, but to make of a gnat an elephant, as a stumbling-block to the inexperienced, and to intimate, that the Christian religion is a nothing it all! and that, for no other reason, than because these three Letters, GOD, are not written in every place, where he considers they ought to have been written!

In the same manner his fathers, the Arians, made numberless quibbles, because these letters HOMOUSIOS, and INNASCIBILIS, were not found in the Sacred Writings: considering it nothing to the purpose, that the same thing could be solidly proved in substance. And where the name God was written, they were ready with their gloss to elude the truth, by contending, that it did not mean God in reality, but God by appellation. So that, you can do nothing with these vipers, whether you speak to them by the Scriptures, or without the Scriptures.

This is the way of the malice of Satan. When he cannot deny the fact, he turns to demanding certain particular terms, which he himself prescribes. And thus the devil himself may say, even to Christ—Although Thou speakest the truth, yet since Thou dost not speak it in the terms which I think requisite, Thou sayest nothing at all: and I wish the truth to be spoken in no words whatever.—This is like Marcolfus, who wished to be hung upon a tree chosen by himself, and yet wished to choose no tree at all. But of this elsewhere, if the Lord shall give me leisure, and length of life. For it is my determination to leave behind me my true and faithful testimony concerning Erasmus: and thus, to expose Luther to be bitten and stung by these vipers, but not to be utterly torn in pieces and destroyed!—I now return to my observation upon my liberty which I have asserted; giving it as my sentiments, that the tyranny of Erasmus which he would exercise by means of circumlocutive evasions, is not to be borne, but that he is to be judged openly, out of his own mouth. Where he speaks as an Arian, let him be judged an Arian; where he speaks as a Lucian, let him be judged a Lucian; where he speaks as a Gentile, let him be judged a Gentile; unless he repent and cease to defend such ways of expressing himself.

For instance. In one of his epistles on the Incarnation of the Son of God, he uses a most abominable term, calling it ‘the intercourse of God with the Virgin’—here he is to be judged, a horrible blasphemer of God and the Virgin! Nor does it make him at all better, his afterwards expounding ‘intercourse’ as applying to the form of the Christian doctrine. Why did he not speak of the form of Christian doctrine? For he well knew, that by this word, ‘intercourse,’ Christians could not but be greatly offended—and let him be judged ungodly who would not be offended at a term so abominably obscene in a matter so sacred: knowing that, an ambiguous expression of such a nature, is always taken in its worst sense, even though we be not ignorant, that the term may have another meaning. If it take place from inadvertency, it may be pardoned: if from design and willfulness, it is to be condemned, as I said, without mercy. For to hold a doctrine of faith is arduous, and a divine work, even when delivered in proper, evident, and certain words. How then shall it be held, if it be delivered in ambiguous, doubtful, and oblique words!

St. Augustine says, ‘philosophers ought to speak freely on difficult points, fearing no offense: but we (says he) must speak to a certain rule.’ And therefore, he blames the use of the term fortune, or fate, both in himself and others. For even though the person may by fortune mean the divine mind, the agent of all things, from which nature is known to be distinctly different, and thus may not think impiously, yet, says he, ‘Let him hold his sentiment, but correct his expression.

And even to suppose that Augustine did not say this, and never had any certain rule according to which he expressed himself, yet nature will tell us, that every profession, sacred as well as profane, uses certain terms of its own, and avoids all ambiguities. For even common tradesmen, either reprove or condemn, or hold up to ridicule, the man who speaks of his own trade in the technical terms (as they are called) peculiar to the trade of another. With how much greater force will this apply to things sacred, where certain salvation, or eternal perdition is the consequence, and where all must be taught in certain and proper terms! Let us, if we must do it, trifle with ambiguities in other things that are of no moment, as nuts, apples, pence, and other things which are the toys of children and of fools: but in religion, and weighty matters of state, let us shun, with all possible care, an ambiguity, as we would shun death or the devil!

Our king of ambiguity, however, sits upon his ambiguous throne in security, and destroys us stupid Christians with a double destruction. First, it is his will, and it is a great pleasure to him, to offend us by his ambiguous words: and indeed he would not like it, if we stupid blocks were not offended. And next, when he sees that we are offended, and have run against his insidious figures of speech, and begin to exclaim against him, he then begins to triumph and rejoice that the desired prey has been caught in his snares. For now, having found an opportunity of displaying his rhetoric, he rushes upon us with all his powers and all his noise, tearing us, flogging us, crucifying us, and sending us farther than hell itself; saying, that we have understood his words calumniously, virulently, satanically; (using the worst terms he can find;) whereas, he never meant them to be so understood.

In the exercise of this wonderful tyranny, (and who would think that this Madam ambiguity could make so much ado, or who could suppose that any one would be so great a madman as to have so much confidence in a vain figure of speech?) he not only compels us to put up with his all-free prerogative of using ambiguities, but binds us down to the necessity of keeping silence. He plainly designs all the while, and wishes us to be offended, that he, and his herd of Epicureans with him, may have a laugh at us as fools: but on the other hand, he does not like to hear that we are offended, lest it should appear that we are true Christians. Thus must we suffer wounds without number, and yet, not utter a groan or a sigh!

We Christians, however, who are to judge, not meats and drinks only, but angels and the whole world, and who actually judge, even now, not only do not bear with this tyranny of ambiguities, but on the contrary, oppose to it our liberty of pronouncing a two-fold condemnation. The first is, as I have already observed, we condemn all the ambiguous expressions of Erasmus, and interpret them against himself: as Christ saith, “Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant.” Again, “By thine own words shalt thou be condemned: for wherefore hast thou spoken against thine own soul?” “Thy blood be upon thine own head.” The second condemnation is, we condemn and curse again and again his glosses and ‘convenient interpretations,’ by which, he not only does not correct his ungodly expressions, but even defends them: that is, he laughs at us twice as much in his after interpretations, as he does in his first expressions.

For example: He says, that by ‘the intercourse of God with the Virgin’ he does not mean a common intercourse, but another kind of marriage between God and the Virgin, where the angel Gabriel is the bridegroom, and the Holy Spirit performs the act of consummation. Only observe what this fellow, by his interpretation, would have us to hear and understand Christ to be. And he says these things, that he might defend the filthiness and obscenity of his expression in the face of offended Christians, and laugh at them all the while; and thus, he forces upon us this offensive term, when he knows very well, that this mystery of the most holy Incarnation, cannot be explained to the mind of man by all the obscene and ambiguous words of the whole world: but how it is understood by the Epicureans, I dare not, for horror, imagine. Why do we not call the conversation of God with Moses and the other prophets, ‘intercourse’ also, and make the angels bridegrooms, and the Holy Spirit the consummator of the act, or make of it something still more obscene? Moreover, here is the impious idea of sex introduced, to perfect this monstrous derision of saying, that God had ‘intercourse with the Virgin;’—in order that, the whole might be made a fable, like that wherein Mars is said to have had intercourse with Rhea, and Jupiter with Semele; and that Christianity might be reduced to a level with one of the fabulous stories of old, and men represented as fools and pitiable madmen for believing such a story to be serious and true, not considering what turpitudes and obscenities were the objects of their faith and worship! And therefore, Christians, that stupid set of creatures, were to be admonished by means of figures like these, to begin to doubt, and then, from doubting to depart from the faith; that thus, religion might be utterly destroyed before any one could be aware of it.

This is the verification of that parable, Matt. xiii. where the enemy is represented as sowing tares in the night, and going his way. Thus, we Christians are sleeping in security: and even if we were not sleeping, those bewitching Syrens, by their honey of speech, would soon lull us to sleep, and bring a cloud of night over our eyes. In the meantime, are sown those tares of figurative and insidious words: and yet when Sacramentarians, Donatists, Arians, Anabaptists, Epicureans, &c. are sprung up, we ask—How is it that our Lord’s field hath tares? They, however, who have sown them, are gone away; that is, they so paint and set themselves off by their ‘convenient interpretations,’ and withdraw
themselves from sight, that they seem as if they had sown nothing but wheat. Thus the enemy slides away, and is off in safety, and crowned with honour and applause, and appears to be a friend, when he is in truth the greatest of enemies. This is the way with the strange woman, Prov. xxx. who, “when she has eaten, wipeth her mouth, and saith, I have done no wickedness!”

Thus have I replied to your letter, my friend Armsdorff, though perhaps I have been too long and tedious. But I wished to shew you, why I judged it best not to answer Erasmus any farther. I am moreover abundantly engaged in teaching, confirming, correcting, and governing my flock. And my work of translating the Bible, alone requires the devotion of my whole time: from which work, Satan with all his might endeavours to withdraw me, as he has done upon former occasions; that be might get me to leave the best things, to follow after those which are nothing but vain and empty vapours. For my Bondage of the Will proves to you how difficult a task it is to cope with that proteus Erasmus, on account of his vertibility and slipperiness of speech; in which alone is all his confidence. He never remains in one position, but, with the deepest craft, evades every blow, and is like an irritated hornet.

Whereas, miserable I, am compelled to stand my ground in one position, and that upon unequal ground, as “a sign to be spoken against.” For whatever Luther writes, is condemned before ten years are at an end. Luther is the only one who writes from envy, from pride, from bitterness, and in a word, at the instigation of Satan himself; but all who write against him, write under the influence of the Holy Spirit!

Before my time, it required a great to-do, and an enormous expense, to canonize a dead monk. But now, there is no easier way for canonizing even living Neroes and Caligulas, than the declaration of hatred against Luther. Only let a man hate and bravely curse Luther, and that, immediately, makes him a saint, equal almost to our holy Lord, the servant of the servants of God. But who could ever believe that hatred against Luther would be attended with so much power and advantage? It fills the coffers of very beggars; nay, it introduces obscure moles and bats to the favour of princes and of kings; it procures prebendaries and dignities; it procures bishoprics; it procures the reputation of wisdom and of learning to the most consummate asses; it procures to petty teachers of grammar, the authority of writing books; nay, it procures the crown of victory and of glory, eternal in the heavens! Nay, happy are all who hate Luther, for they obtain, by that one vile and easy service, those great and mighty things, which none of the most excellent of men could ever obtain with all their wisdom and their virtues; no, not even Christ himself, with all His own miracles, and the miracles of His apostles and all His saints!

Thus are the Scriptures fulfilled.—Blessed are ye who persecute Luther, for yours is the kingdom of heaven! Blessed are ye who curse and say all manner of evil against Luther; rejoice and be exceeding glad in that day, for great is your reward in heaven; for so persecuted they the apostles, the holy bishops, John Huss, and others who were before Luther!—Wherefore, I feel more and more persuaded, that I shall act rightly by answering Erasmus no farther: but I will leave my testimony concerning him, even for his own sake, that he might hereafter be unburdened from that concern which, as he complains, is completely death to him: viz., that he is commonly called a Lutheran. But, as Christ liveth, they do him a great injury who call him a Lutheran, and I will defend him against his enemies for I can bear a true and faithful testimony, that he is no Lutheran, but Erasmus himself!

And if I could have my will, Erasmus should be exploded from our schools altogether: for if he be not pernicious, he is certainly useless: because he, in truth, discusses and teaches nothing. Nor is it at all advisable to accustom Christian youth to the diction of Erasmus: for they will learn to speak and think of nothing with gravity and seriousness, but only to laugh at all men as babblers and vain-talkers. In a word, they will learn nothing, but to play the fool! And from this levity and vanity they will, by, degrees, grow tired of religion, till at last they will abhor and profane it! Let him be left to the Papists only, who are worthy of such an apostle, and whose lips relish his dainties!

May our Lord Jesus Christ, whom, according to my faith, Peter did not omit to call GOD; by whose power I know, and am persuaded, that I have often been delivered from death, and by faith in whom I have undertaken and hitherto accomplished all these things which excite the wonder even of my enemies; may this same Jesus guard and deliver us unto the end—for He is the Lord our God!—To whom alone, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, be glory for ever and ever! Amen!

“Mathetes to Diognetus,” Ante-Nicene Fathers: Volume I, Chapter 9.

“Whosoever will candidly consider each particular, will recognize the greatness of the gifts which were given by him. For from him have sprung the priests and all the Levites who minister at the altar of God. From him also [was descended] our Lord Jesus Christ according to the flesh. From him [arose] kings, princes, and rulers of the race of Judah. Nor are his other tribes in small glory, inasmuch as God had promised, “Thy seed shall be as the stars of heaven.” All these, therefore, were highly honored, and made great, not for their own sake, or for their own works, or for the righteousness which they wrought, but through the operation of His will. And we, too, being called by His will in Christ Jesus, are not justified by ourselves, nor by our own wisdom, or understanding, or godliness, or works which we have wrought in holiness of heart; but by that faith through which, from the beginning, Almighty God has justified all men; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

Flung to the heedless winds,
Or on the waters cast,
The martyrs’ ashes, watched,
Shall gathered be at last.

And from that scattered dust,
Around us and abroad,
Shall spring a plenteous seed,
Of witnesses for God.

The Father hath received,
Their latest living breath,
And vain is Satan’s boast,
Of victory in their death.

Still, still, though dead, they speak,
And, trumpet tongued, proclaim,
To many a wakening land,
The one availing Name.

German Text

Luther sings on of the two young martyrs:

By help of God I fain would tell
A new and wondrous story,
And sing a marvel that befell
To his great praise and glory.
At Brussels in the Netherlands
He hath his banner lifted,
To show his wonders by the hands
Of two youths, highly gifted
With rich and heavenly graces.

2. One of these youths was called John,
And Henry was the other;
Rich in the grace of God was one,
A Christian true his brother.
For God’s dear Word they shed their blood,
And from the world departed
Like bold and pious sons of God;
Faithful and lion-hearted,
They won the crown of martyrs.

3. The old Arch-fiend did them immure,
To terrify them seeking;
They bade them God’s dear Word abjure,
And fain would stop their speaking.
From Louvain many Sophists came,
Deep versed in human learning,
God’s Spirit foiled them at their game
Their pride to folly turning.
They could not but be losers.

4. They spake them fair, they spake them foul,
Their sharp devices trying.
Like rocks stood firm each brave young soul
The Sophists’ art defying.
The enemy waxed fierce in hate,
And for their life-blood thirsted;
He fumed and chafed that one so great
Should by two babes be worsted,
And straightway sought to burn them.

5. Their monkish garb from them they take,
And gown of ordination;
The youths a cheerful Amen spake,
And showed no hesitation.
They thanked their God that by his aid
They now had been denuded
Of Satan’s mock and masquerade,
Whereby he had deluded
The world with false pretences.

6. Thus by the power of grace they were
True priests of God’s own making,
Who offered up themselves e’en there,
Christ’s holy orders taking;
Dead to the world, they cast aside
Hypocrisy’s sour leaven,
That penitent and justified
They might go clean to heaven,
And leave all monkish follies.

7. They then were told that they must read
A note which was dictated;
They straightway wrote their fate and creed,
And not one jot abated.
Now mark their heresy! “We must
In God be firm believers;
In mortal men not put our trust,
For they are all deceivers;”
For this they must be burned!

8. Two fires were lit; the youths were brought,
But all were seized with wonder
To see them set the flames at naught,
And stood as struck with thunder.
With joy they came in sight of all,
And sang aloud God’s praises;
The Sophists’ courage waxed small
Before such wondrous traces
Of God’s almighty finger.

9. The scandal they repent, and would
Right gladly gloss it over;
They dare not boast their deed of blood,
But seek the stain to cover.
They feel the shame within their breast,
And charge therewith each other;
But now the Spirit cannot rest,
For Abel ‘gainst his brother
Doth cry aloud for vengeance.

10. Their ashes will not rest; would-wide
They fly through every nation.
No cave nor grave, no turn nor tide,
Can hide th’abomination.
The voices which with cruel hands
They put to silence living,
Are heard, though dead, throughout all lands
Their testimony giving,
And loud hosannas singing.

11. From lies to lies they still proceed,
And feign forthwith a story
To color o’er the murderous deed;
Their conscience pricks them sorely.
These saints of God e’en after death
They slandered, and asserted
The youths had with their latest breath
Confessed and been converted,
Their heresy renouncing.

12. Then let them still go on and lie,
They cannot win a blessing;
And let us thank God heartily,
His Word again possessing.
Summer is even at our door,
The winter now has vanished,
The tender flowerets spring once more,
And he, who winter banished,
Will send a happy summer.

See also:

1. Flung to the Heedless Winds

From the “Commemorations Biographies” of the Lutheran Service Book (LCMS Commission on Worship):

The Augsburg Confession, the principal doctrinal statement of the theology of Martin Luther and the Lutheran reformers, was written largely by Phillip Melanchthon. At its heart it confesses the justification of sinners by grace alone, through faith alone, for the sake of Christ alone. Signed by leaders of many German cities and regions, the confession was formally presented to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at Augsburg, Germany, on June 25, 1530. A few weeks later Roman Catholic authorities rejected the Confession, which Melanchthon defended in the Apology of the Augsburg Confession (1531). In 1580 the Unaltered Augsburg Confession was included in the Book of Concord.

Preface to Emperor Charles V

Most Invincible Emperor, Caesar Augustus, Most Clement Lord: Inasmuch as Your Imperial Majesty has summoned a Diet of the Empire here at Augsburg to deliberate concerning measures against the Turk, that most atrocious, hereditary, and ancient enemy of the Christian name and religion, in what way, namely, effectually to withstand his furor and assaults by strong and lasting military provision; and then also concerning dissensions in the matter of our holy religion and Christian Faith, that in this matter of religion the opinions and judgments of the parties might be heard in each other’s presence; and considered and weighed among ourselves in mutual charity, leniency, and kindness, in order that, after the removal and correction of such things as have been treated and understood in a different manner in the writings on either side, these matters may be settled and brought back to one simple truth and Christian concord, that for the future one pure and true religion may be embraced and maintained by us, that as we all are under one Christ and do battle under Him, so we may be able also to live in unity and concord in the one Christian Church.

And inasmuch as we, the undersigned Elector and Princes, with others joined with us, have been called to the aforesaid Diet the same as the other Electors, Princes, and Estates, in obedient compliance with the Imperial mandate, we have promptly come to Augsburg, and — what we do not mean to say as boasting — we were among the first to be here.

Accordingly, since even here at Augsburg at the very beginning of the Diet, Your Imperial Majesty caused to be proposed to the Electors, Princes, and other Estates of the Empire, amongst other things, that the several Estates of the Empire, on the strength of the Imperial edict, should set forth and submit their opinions and judgments in the German and the Latin language, and since on the ensuing Wednesday, answer was given to Your Imperial Majesty, after due deliberation, that we would submit the Articles of our Confession for our side on next Wednesday, therefore, in obedience to Your Imperial Majesty’s wishes, we offer, in this matter of religion, the Confession of our preachers and of ourselves, showing what manner of doctrine from the Holy Scriptures and the pure Word of God has been up to this time set forth in our lands, dukedoms, dominions, and cities, and taught in our churches.

And if the other Electors, Princes, and Estates. of the Empire will, according to the said Imperial proposition, present similar writings, to wit, in Latin and German, giving their opinions in this matter of religion, we, with the Princes and friends aforesaid, here before Your Imperial Majesty, our most clement Lord are prepared to confer amicably concerning all possible ways and means, in order that we may come together, as far as this may be honorably done, and, the matter between us on both sides being peacefully discussed without offensive strife, the dissension, by God’s help, may be done away and brought back to one true accordant religion; for as we all are under one Christ and do battle under Him, we ought to confess the one Christ, after the tenor of Your Imperial Majesty’s edict, and everything ought to be conducted according to the truth of God; and this it is what, with most fervent prayers, we entreat of God.

However, as regards the rest of the Electors, Princes, and Estates, who constitute the other part, if no progress should be made, nor some result be attained by this treatment of the cause of religion after the manner in which Your Imperial Majesty has wisely held that it should be dealt with and treated namely, by such mutual presentation of writings and calm conferring together among ourselves, we at least leave with you a clear testimony, that we here in no wise are holding back from anything that could bring about Christian concord, — such as could be effected with God and a good conscience, — as also Your Imperial Majesty and, next, the other Electors and Estates of the Empire, and all who are moved by sincere love and zeal for religion, and who will give an impartial hearing to this matter, will graciously deign to take notice and to understand this from this Confession of ours and of our associates.

Your Imperial Majesty also, not only once but often, graciously signified to the Electors Princes, and Estates of the Empire, and at the Diet of Spires held A. D. 1526, according to the form of Your Imperial instruction and commission given and prescribed, caused it to be stated and publicly proclaimed that Your Majesty, in dealing with this matter of religion, for certain reasons which were alleged in Your Majesty’s name, was not willing to decide and could not determine anything, but that Your Majesty would diligently use Your Majesty’s office with the Roman Pontiff for the convening of a General Council. The same matter was thus publicly set forth at greater length a year ago at the last Diet which met at Spires. There Your Imperial Majesty, through His Highness Ferdinand, King of Bohemia and Hungary, our friend and clement Lord, as well as through the Orator and Imperial Commissioners caused this, among other things, to be submitted: that Your Imperial Majesty had taken notice of; and pondered, the resolution of Your Majesty’s Representative in the Empire, and of the President and Imperial Counselors, and the Legates from other Estates convened at Ratisbon, concerning the calling of a Council, and that your Imperial Majesty also judged it to be expedient to convene a Council; and that Your Imperial Majesty did not doubt the Roman Pontiff could be induced to hold a General Council, because the matters to be adjusted between Your Imperial Majesty and the Roman Pontiff were nearing agreement and Christian reconciliation; therefore Your Imperial Majesty himself signified that he would endeavor to secure the said Chief Pontiff’s consent for convening, together with your Imperial Majesty such General Council, to be published as soon as possible by letters that were to be sent out.

If the outcome, therefore, should be such that the differences between us and the other parties in the matter of religion should not be amicably and in charity settled, then here, before Your Imperial Majesty we make the offer in all obedience, in addition to what we have already done, that we will all appear and defend our cause in such a general, free Christian Council, for the convening of which there has always been accordant action and agreement of votes in all the Imperial Diets held during Your Majesty’s reign, on the part of the Electors, Princes, and other Estates of the Empire. To the assembly of this General Council, and at the same time to Your Imperial Majesty, we have, even before this, in due manner and form of law, addressed ourselves and made appeal in this matter, by far the greatest and gravest. To this appeal, both to Your Imperial Majesty and to a Council, we still adhere; neither do we intend nor would it be possible for us, to relinquish it by this or any other document, unless the matter between us and the other side, according to the tenor of the latest Imperial citation should be amicably and charitably settled, allayed, and brought to Christian concord; and regarding this we even here solemnly and publicly testify.

Article 1: Of God

Our Churches, with common consent, do teach that the decree of the Council of Nicaea concerning the Unity of the Divine Essence and concerning the Three Persons, is true and to be believed without any doubting; that is to say, there is one Divine Essence which is called and which is God: eternal, without body, without parts, of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness, the Maker and Preserver of all things, visible and invisible; and yet there are three Persons, of the same essence and power, who also are coeternal, the Father the Son, and the Holy Ghost. And the term “person” they use as the Fathers have used it, to signify, not a part or quality in another, but that which subsists of itself.

They condemn all heresies which have sprung up against this article, as the Manichaeans, who assumed two principles, one Good and the other Evil- also the Valentinians, Arians, Eunomians, Mohammedans, and all such. They condemn also the Samosatenes, old and new, who, contending that there is but one Person, sophistically and impiously argue that the Word and the Holy Ghost are not distinct Persons, but that “Word” signifies a spoken word, and “Spirit” signifies motion created in things.

Article 2: Of Original Sin

Also they teach that since the fall of Adam all men begotten in the natural way are born with sin, that is, without the fear of God, without trust in God, and with concupiscence; and that this disease, or vice of origin, is truly sin, even now condemning and bringing eternal death upon those not born again through Baptism and the Holy Ghost.

They Condemn the Pelagians and others who deny that original depravity is sin, and who, to obscure the glory of Christ’s merit and benefits, argue that man can be justified before God by his own strength and reason.

Article 3: The Son of God

Also they teach that the Word, that is, the Son of God, did assume the human nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin Mary, so that there are two natures, the divine and the human, inseparably enjoined in one Person, one Christ, true God and true man, who was born of the Virgin Mary, truly suffered, was crucified, dead, and buried, that He might reconcile the Father unto us, and be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but also for all actual sins of men

He also descended into hell, and truly rose again the third day; afterward He ascended into heaven that He might sit on the right hand of the Father, and forever reign and have dominion over all creatures, and sanctify them that believe in Him, by sending the Holy Ghost into their hearts, to rule, comfort, and quicken them, and to defend them against the devil and the power of sin.

The same Christ shall openly come again to judge the quick and the dead, etc., according to the Apostles’ Creed.

Article 4: Of Justification

Also they teach that men cannot be justified before God by their own strength, merits, or works, but are freely justified for Christ’s sake, through faith, when they believe that they are received into favor, and that their sins are forgiven for Christ’s sake, who, by His death, has made satisfaction for our sins. This faith God imputes for righteousness in His sight. Rom. 3 and 4.

Article 5: The Ministry of the Church

That we may obtain this faith, the Ministry of Teaching the Gospel and administering the Sacraments was instituted. For through the Word and Sacraments, as through instruments, the Holy Ghost is given, who works faith; where and when it pleases God, in them that hear the Gospel, to wit, that God, not for our own merits, but for Christ’s sake, justifies those who believe that they are received into grace for Christ’s sake.

They condemn the Anabaptists and others who think that the Holy Ghost comes to men without the external Word, through their own preparations and works.

Article 6: The New Obedience

Also they teach that this faith is bound to bring forth good fruits, and that it is necessary to do good works commanded by God, because of God’s will, but that we should not rely on those works to merit justification before God. For remission of sins and justification is apprehended by faith, as also the voice of Christ attests: When ye shall have done all these things, say: We are unprofitable servants. Luke 17, 10. The same is also taught by the Fathers. For Ambrose says: It is ordained of God that he who believes in Christ is saved, freely receiving remission of sins, without works, by faith alone.

Article 7: The Church

Also they teach that one holy Church is to continue forever. The Church is the congregation of saints, in which the Gospel is rightly taught and the Sacraments are rightly administered.

And to the true unity of the Church it is enough to agree concerning the doctrine of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments. Nor is it necessary that human traditions, that is, rites or ceremonies, instituted by men, should be everywhere alike. As Paul says: One faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of all, etc. Eph. 4, 5. 6.

Article 8: What the Church Is

Although the Church properly is the congregation of saints and true believers, nevertheless, since in this life many hypocrites and evil persons are mingled therewith, it is lawful to use Sacraments administered by evil men, according to the saying of Christ: The Scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat, etc. Matt. 23, 2. Both the Sacraments and Word are effectual by reason of the institution and commandment of Christ, notwithstanding they be administered by evil men.

They condemn the Donatists, and such like, who denied it to be lawful to use the ministry of evil men in the Church, and who thought the ministry of evil men to be unprofitable and of none effect.

Article 9: Of Baptism

Of Baptism they teach that it is necessary to salvation, and that through Baptism is offered the grace of God, and that children are to be baptized who, being offered to God through Baptism are received into God’s grace.

They condemn the Anabaptists, who reject the baptism of children, and say that children are saved without Baptism.

Article 10: The Lord’s Supper

Of the Supper of the Lord they teach that the Body and Blood of Christ are truly present, and are distributed to those who eat the Supper of the Lord; and they reject those that teach otherwise.

Article 11: Of Confession

Of Confession they teach that Private Absolution ought to be retained in the churches, although in confession an enumeration of all sins is not necessary. For it is impossible according to the Psalm: Who can understand his errors? Ps. 19, 12.

Article 12: Of Repentance

Of Repentance they teach that for those who have fallen after Baptism there is remission of sins whenever they are converted and that the Church ought to impart absolution to those thus returning to repentance. Now, repentance consists properly of these two parts: One is contrition, that is, terrors smiting the conscience through the knowledge of sin; the other is faith, which is born of the Gospel, or of absolution, and believes that for Christ’s sake, sins are forgiven, comforts the conscience, and delivers it from terrors. Then good works are bound to follow, which are the fruits of repentance.

They condemn the Anabaptists, who deny that those once justified can lose the Holy Ghost. Also those who contend that some may attain to such perfection in this life that they cannot sin.

The Novatians also are condemned, who would not absolve such as had fallen after Baptism, though they returned to repentance.

They also are rejected who do not teach that remission of sins comes through faith but command us to merit grace through satisfactions of our own.

Article 13: Of the Use of the Sacraments

Of the Use of the Sacraments they teach that the Sacraments were ordained, not only to be marks of profession among men, but rather to be signs and testimonies of the will of God toward us, instituted to awaken and confirm faith in those who use them. Wherefore we must so use the Sacraments that faith be added to believe the promises which are offered and set forth through the Sacraments.

They therefore condemn those who teach that the Sacraments justify by the outward act, and who do not teach that, in the use of the Sacraments, faith which believes that sins are forgiven, is required.

Article 14: Of Ecclesiastical Order

Of Ecclesiastical Order they teach that no one should publicly teach in the Church or administer the Sacraments unless he be regularly called.

Article 15: Of Ecclesiastical Usages

Of Usages in the Church they teach that those ought to be observed which may be observed without sin, and which are profitable unto tranquillity and good order in the Church, as particular holy-days, festivals, and the like.

Nevertheless, concerning such things men are admonished that consciences are not to be burdened, as though such observance was necessary to salvation.

They are admonished also that human traditions instituted to propitiate God, to merit grace, and to make satisfaction for sins, are opposed to the Gospel and the doctrine of faith. Wherefore vows and traditions concerning meats and days, etc., instituted to merit grace and to make satisfaction for sins, are useless and contrary to the Gospel.

Article 16: Of Civil Affairs

Of Civil Affairs they teach that lawful civil ordinances are good works of God, and that it is right for Christians to bear civil office, to sit as judges, to judge matters by the Imperial and other existing laws, to award just punishments, to engage in just wars, to serve as soldiers, to make legal contracts, to hold property, to make oath when required by the magistrates, to marry a wife, to be given in marriage.

They condemn the Anabaptists who forbid these civil offices to Christians.

They condemn also those who do not place evangelical perfection in the fear of God and in faith, but in forsaking civil offices, for the Gospel teaches an eternal righteousness of the heart. Meanwhile, it does not destroy the State or the family, but very much requires that they be preserved as ordinances of God, and that charity be practiced in such ordinances. Therefore, Christians are necessarily bound to obey their own magistrates and laws save only when commanded to sin; for then they ought to obey God rather than men. Acts 5, 29.

Article 17: Of Christ’s Return to Judgment

Also they teach that at the Consummation of the World Christ will appear for judgment and will raise up all the dead; He will give to the godly and elect eternal life and everlasting joys, but ungodly men and the devils He will condemn to be tormented without end.

They condemn the Anabaptists, who think that there will be an end to the punishments of condemned men and devils.

They condemn also others who are now spreading certain Jewish opinions, that before the resurrection of the dead the godly shall take possession of the kingdom of the world, the ungodly being everywhere suppressed.

Article 18: Of Free Will

Of Free Will they teach that man’s will has some liberty to choose civil righteousness, and to work things subject to reason. But it has no power, without the Holy Ghost, to work the righteousness of God, that is, spiritual righteousness; since the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, 1 Cor. 2,14; but this righteousness is wrought in the heart when the Holy Ghost is received through the Word. These things are said in as many words by Augustine in his Hypognosticon, Book III: We grant that all men have a free will, free, inasmuch as it has the judgment of reason; not that it is thereby capable, without God, either to begin, or, at least, to complete aught in things pertaining to God, but only in works of this life, whether good or evil. “Good” I call those works which spring from the good in nature, such as, willing to labor in the field, to eat and drink, to have a friend, to clothe oneself, to build a house, to marry a wife, to raise cattle, to learn divers useful arts, or whatsoever good pertains to this life. For all of these things are not without dependence on the providence of God; yea, of Him and through Him they are and have their being. “Evil” I call such works as willing to worship an idol, to commit murder, etc.

They condemn the Pelagians and others, who teach that without the Holy Ghost, by the power of nature alone, we are able to love God above all things; also to do the commandments of God as touching “the substance of the act.” For, although nature is able in a manner to do the outward work, (for it is able to keep the hands from theft and murder,) yet it cannot produce the inward motions, such as the fear of God, trust in God, chastity, patience, etc.

Article 19: Of the Cause of Sin

Of the Cause of Sin they teach that, although God does create and preserve nature, yet the cause of sin is the will of the wicked, that is, of the devil and ungodly men; which will, unaided of God, turns itself from God, as Christ says John 8, 44: When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own.

Article 20: Of Good Works

Our teachers are falsely accused of forbidding good Works. For their published writings on the Ten Commandments, and others of like import, bear witness that they have taught to good purpose concerning all estates and duties of life, as to what estates of life and what works in every calling be pleasing to God. Concerning these things preachers heretofore taught but little, and urged only childish and needless works, as particular holy-days, particular fasts, brotherhoods, pilgrimages, services in honor of saints, the use of rosaries, monasticism, and such like. Since our adversaries have been admonished of these things, they are now unlearning them, and do not preach these unprofitable works as heretofore. Besides, they begin to mention faith, of which there was heretofore marvelous silence. They teach that we are justified not by works only, but they conjoin faith and works, and say that we are justified by faith and works. This doctrine is more tolerable than the former one, and can afford more consolation than their old doctrine.

Forasmuch, therefore, as the doctrine concerning faith, which ought to be the chief one in the Church, has lain so long unknown, as all must needs grant that there was the deepest silence in their sermons concerning the righteousness of faith, while only the doctrine of works was treated in the churches, our teachers have instructed the churches concerning faith as follows: –

First, that our works cannot reconcile God or merit forgiveness of sins, grace, and justification, but that we obtain this only by faith when we believe that we are received into favor for Christs sake, who alone has been set forth the Mediator and Propitiation, 1 Tim. 2, 6, in order that the Father may be reconciled through Him. Whoever, therefore, trusts that by works he merits grace, despises the merit and grace of Christ, and seeks a way to God without Christ, by human strength, although Christ has said of Himself: I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. John 14, 6.

This doctrine concerning faith is everywhere treated by Paul, Eph. 2, 8: By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, etc.

And lest any one should craftily say that a new interpretation of Paul has been devised by us, this entire matter is supported by the testimonies of the Fathers. For Augustine, in many volumes, defends grace and the righteousness of faith, over against the merits of works. And Ambrose, in his De Vocatione Gentium, and elsewhere, teaches to like effect. For in his De Vocatione Gentium he says as follows: Redemption by the blood of Christ would become of little value, neither would the preeminence of man’s works be superseded by the mercy of God, if justification, which is wrought through grace, were due to the merits going before, so as to be, not the free gift of a donor, but the reward due to the laborer.

But, although this doctrine is despised by the inexperienced, nevertheless God-fearing and anxious consciences find by experience that it brings the greatest consolation, because consciences cannot be set at rest through any works, but only by faith, when they take the sure ground that for Christ’s sake they have a reconciled God. As Paul teaches Rom. 5, 1: Being justified by faith, we have peace with God. This whole doctrine is to be referred to that conflict of the terrified conscience, neither can it be understood apart from that conflict. Therefore inexperienced and profane men judge ill concerning this matter, who dream that Christian righteousness is nothing but civil and philosophical righteousness.

Heretofore consciences were plagued with the doctrine of works, they did not hear the consolation from the Gospel. Some persons were driven by conscience into the desert, into monasteries hoping there to merit grace by a monastic life. Some also devised other works whereby to merit grace and make satisfaction for sins. Hence there was very great need to treat of, and renew, this doctrine of faith in Christ, to the end that anxious consciences should not be without consolation but that they might know that grace and forgiveness of sins and justification are apprehended by faith in Christ.

Men are also admonished that here the term “faith” does not signify merely the knowledge of the history, such as is in the ungodly and in the devil, but signifies a faith which believes, not merely the history, but also the effect of the history — namely, this Article: the forgiveness of sins, to wit, that we have grace, righteousness, and forgiveness of sins through Christ.

Now he that knows that he has a Father gracious to him through Christ, truly knows God; he knows also that God cares for him, and calls upon God; in a word, he is not without God, as the heathen. For devils and the ungodly are not able to believe this Article: the forgiveness of sins. Hence, they hate God as an enemy, call not upon Him, and expect no good from Him. Augustine also admonishes his readers concerning the word “faith,” and teaches that the term “faith” is accepted in the Scriptures not for knowledge such as is in the ungodly but for confidence which consoles and encourages the terrified mind.

Furthermore, it is taught on our part that it is necessary to do good works, not that we should trust to merit grace by them, but because it is the will of God. It is only by faith that forgiveness of sins is apprehended, and that, for nothing. And because through faith the Holy Ghost is received, hearts are renewed and endowed with new affections, so as to be able to bring forth good works. For Ambrose says: Faith is the mother of a good will and right doing. For man’s powers without the Holy Ghost are full of ungodly affections, and are too weak to do works which are good in God’s sight. Besides, they are in the power of the devil who impels men to divers sins, to ungodly opinions, to open crimes. This we may see in the philosophers, who, although they endeavored to live an honest life could not succeed, but were defiled with many open crimes. Such is the feebleness of man when he is without faith and without the Holy Ghost, and governs himself only by human strength.

Hence it may be readily seen that this doctrine is not to be charged with prohibiting good works, but rather the more to be commended, because it shows how we are enabled to do good works. For without faith human nature can in no wise do the works of the First or of the Second Commandment. Without faith it does not call upon God, nor expect anything from God, nor bear the cross, but seeks, and trusts in, man’s help. And thus, when there is no faith and trust in God all manner of lusts and human devices rule in the heart. Wherefore Christ said, John 16,6: Without Me ye can do nothing; and the Church sings:

Lacking Thy divine favor,
There is nothing found in man,
Naught in him is harmless.

Article 21: Of the Worship of the Saints

Of the Worship of Saints they teach that the memory of saints may be set before us, that we may follow their faith and good works, according to our calling, as the Emperor may follow the example of David in making war to drive away the Turk from his country; For both are kings. But the Scripture teaches not the invocation of saints or to ask help of saints, since it sets before us the one Christ as the Mediator, Propitiation, High Priest, and Intercessor. He is to be prayed to, and has promised that He will hear our prayer; and this worship He approves above all, to wit, that in all afflictions He be called upon, 1 John 2, 1: If any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, etc.

This is about the Sum of our Doctrine, in which, as can be seen, there is nothing that varies from the Scriptures, or from the Church Catholic, or from the Church of Rome as known from its writers. This being the case, they judge harshly who insist that our teachers be regarded as heretics. There is, however, disagreement on certain Abuses, which have crept into the Church without rightful authority. And even in these, if there were some difference, there should be proper lenity on the part of bishops to bear with us by reason of the Confession which we have now reviewed; because even the Canons are not so severe as to demand the same rites everywhere, neither, at any time, have the rites of all churches been the same; although, among us, in large part, the ancient rites are diligently observed. For it is a false and malicious charge that all the ceremonies, all the things instituted of old, are abolished in our churches. But it has been a common complaint that some abuses were connected with the ordinary rites. These, inasmuch as they could not be approved with a good conscience, have been to some extent corrected.

ARTICLES IN WHICH ARE REVIEWED THE ABUSES WHICH HAVE BEEN CORRECTED.

Inasmuch, then, as our churches dissent in no article of the faith from the Church Catholic, but only omit some abuses which are new, and which have been erroneously accepted by the corruption of the times, contrary to the intent of the Canons, we pray that Your Imperial Majesty would graciously hear both what has been changed, and what were the reasons why the people were not compelled to observe those abuses against their conscience. Nor should Your Imperial Majesty believe those who, in order to excite the hatred of men against our part, disseminate strange slanders among the people. Having thus excited the minds of good men, they have first given occasion to this controversy, and now endeavor, by the same arts, to increase the discord. For Your Imperial Majesty will undoubtedly find that the form of doctrine and of ceremonies with us is not so intolerable as these ungodly and malicious men represent. Besides, the truth cannot be gathered from common rumors or the revilings of enemies. But it can readily be judged that nothing would serve better to maintain the dignity of ceremonies, and to nourish reverence and pious devotion among the people than if the ceremonies were observed rightly in the churches.

Article 22: Of Both Kinds in the Sacrament

To the laity are given Both Kinds in the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, because this usage has the commandment of the Lord in Matt. 26, 27: Drink ye all of it, where Christ has manifestly commanded concerning the cup that all should drink.

And lest any man should craftily say that this refers only to priests, Paul in 1 Cor. 11,27 recites an example from which it appears that the whole congregation did use both kinds. And this usage has long remained in the Church, nor is it known when, or by whose authority, it was changed; although Cardinal Cusanus mentions the time when it was approved. Cyprian in some places testifies that the blood was given to the people. The same is testified by Jerome, who says: The priests administer the Eucharist, and distribute the blood of Christ to the people. Indeed, Pope Gelasius commands that the Sacrament be not divided (dist. II., De Consecratione, cap. Comperimus). Only custom, not so ancient, has it otherwise. But it is evident that any custom introduced against the commandments of God is not to be allowed, as the Canons witness (dist. III., cap. Veritate, and the following chapters). But this custom has been received, not only against the Scripture, but also against the old Canons and the example of the Church. Therefore, if any preferred to use both kinds of the Sacrament, they ought not to have been compelled with offense to their consciences to do otherwise. And because the division of the Sacrament does not agree with the ordinance of Christ, we are accustomed to omit the procession, which hitherto has been in use.

Article 23: Of the Marriage of Priests

There has been common complaint concerning the examples of priests who were not chaste. For that reason also Pope Pius is reported to have said that there were certain causes why marriage was taken away from priests, but that there were far weightier ones why it ought to be given back; for so Platina writes. Since, therefore, our priests were desirous to avoid these open scandals, they married wives, and taught that it was lawful for them to contract matrimony. First, because Paul says, 1 Cor. 7, 2. 9: To avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife. Also: It is better to marry than to burn. Secondly Christ says, Matt. 19,11: All men cannot receive this saying, where He teaches that not all men are fit to lead a single life; for God created man for procreation, Gen. 1, 28. Nor is it in man’s power, without a singular gift and work of God, to alter this creation. [For it is manifest, and many have confessed that no good, honest, chaste life, no Christian, sincere, upright conduct has resulted (from the attempt), but a horrible, fearful unrest and torment of conscience has been felt by many until the end.] Therefore, those who are not fit to lead a single life ought to contract matrimony. For no man’s law, no vow, can annul the commandment and ordinance of God. For these reasons the priests teach that it is lawful for them to marry wives.

It is also evident that in the ancient Church priests were married men. For Paul says, 1 Tim. 3, 2, that a bishop should be chosen who is the husband of one wife. And in Germany, four hundred years ago for the first time, the priests were violently compelled to lead a single life, who indeed offered such resistance that the Archbishop of Mayence, when about to publish the Pope’s decree concerning this matter, was almost killed in the tumult raised by the enraged priests. And so harsh was the dealing in the matter that not only were marriages forbidden for the future, but also existing marriages were torn asunder, contrary to all laws, divine and human, contrary even to the Canons themselves, made not only by the Popes, but by most celebrated Synods. [Moreover, many God-fearing and intelligent people in high station are known frequently to have expressed misgivings that such enforced celibacy and depriving men of marriage (which God Himself has instituted and left free to men) has never produced any good results, but has brought on many great and evil vices and much iniquity.]

Seeing also that, as the world is aging, man’s nature is gradually growing weaker, it is well to guard that no more vices steal into Germany.

Furthermore, God ordained marriage to be a help against human infirmity. The Canons themselves say that the old rigor ought now and then, in the latter times, to be relaxed because of the weakness of men; which it is to be wished were done also in this matter. And it is to be expected that the churches shall at some time lack pastors if marriage is any longer forbidden.

But while the commandment of God is in force, while the custom of the Church is well known, while impure celibacy causes many scandals, adulteries, and other crimes deserving the punishments of just magistrates, yet it is a marvelous thing that in nothing is more cruelty exercised than against the marriage of priests. God has given commandment to honor marriage. By the laws of all well-ordered commonwealths, even among the heathen, marriage is most highly honored. But now men, and that, priests, are cruelly put to death, contrary to the intent of the Canons, for no other cause than marriage. Paul, in 1 Tim. 4,3, calls that a doctrine of devils which forbids marriage. This may now be readily understood when the law against marriage is maintained by such penalties.

But as no law of man can annul the commandment of God, so neither can it be done by any vow. Accordingly, Cyprian also advises that women who do not keep the chastity they have promised should marry. His words are these (Book I, Epistle XI): But if they be unwilling or unable to persevere, it is better for them to marry than to fall into the fire by their lusts; they should certainly give no offense to their brethren and sisters.

And even the Canons show some leniency toward those who have taken vows before the proper age, as heretofore has generally been the ease.

Article 24: Of the Mass

Falsely are our churches accused of abolishing the Mass; for the Mass is retained among us, and celebrated with the highest reverence. Nearly all the usual ceremonies are also preserved, save that the parts sung in Latin are interspersed here and there with German hymns, which have been added to teach the people. For ceremonies are needed to this end alone that the unlearned be taught [what they need to know of Christ]. And not only has Paul commanded to use in the church a language understood by the people 1 Cor. 14,2. 9, but it has also been so ordained by man’s law. The people are accustomed to partake of the Sacrament together, if any be fit for it, and this also increases the reverence and devotion of public worship. For none are admitted except they be first examined. The people are also advised concerning the dignity and use of the Sacrament, how great consolation it brings anxious consciences, that they may learn to believe God, and to expect and ask of Him all that is good. [In this connection they are also instructed regarding other and false teachings on the Sacrament.] This worship pleases God; such use of the Sacrament nourishes true devotion toward God. It does not, therefore, appear that the Mass is more devoutly celebrated among our adversaries than among us.

But it is evident that for a long time this also has been the public and most grievous complaint of all good men that Masses have been basely profaned and applied to purposes of lucre. For it is not unknown how far this abuse obtains in all the churches by what manner of men Masses are said only for fees or stipends, and how many celebrate them contrary to the Canons. But Paul severely threatens those who deal unworthily with the Eucharist when he says, 1 Cor.11,27: Whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. When, therefore our priests were admonished concerning this sin, Private Masses were discontinued among us, as scarcely any Private Masses were celebrated except for lucre’s sake.

Neither were the bishops ignorant of these abuses, and if they had corrected them in time, there would now be less dissension. Heretofore, by their own connivance, they suffered many corruptions to creep into the Church. Now, when it is too late, they begin to complain of the troubles of the Church, while this disturbance has been occasioned simply by those abuses which were so manifest that they could be borne no longer. There have been great dissensions concerning the Mass, concerning the Sacrament. Perhaps the world is being punished for such long-continued profanations of the Mass as have been tolerated in the churches for so many centuries by the very men who were both able and in duty bound to correct them. For in the Ten Commandments it is written, Ex. 20, 7: The Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh His name in vain. But since the world began, nothing that God ever ordained seems to have been so abused for filthy lucre as the Mass.

There was also added the opinion which infinitely increased Private Masses, namely that Christ, by His passion, had made satisfaction for original sin, and instituted the Mass wherein an offering should be made for daily sins, venial and mortal. From this has arisen the common opinion that the Mass takes away the sins of the living and the dead by the outward act. Then they began to dispute whether one Mass said for many were worth as much as special Masses for individuals, and this brought forth that infinite multitude of Masses. [With this work men wished to obtain from God all that they needed, and in the mean time faith in Christ and the true worship were forgotten.]

Concerning these opinions our teachers have given warning that they depart from the Holy Scriptures and diminish the glory of the passion of Christ. For Christ’s passion was an oblation and satisfaction, not for original guilt only, but also for all other sins, as it is written to the Hebrews, 10, 10: We are sanctified through the offering of Jesus Christ once for all. Also, 10, 14: By one offering He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. [It is an unheard-of innovation in the Church to teach that Christ by His death made satisfaction only for original sin and not likewise for all other sin. Accordingly it is hoped that everybody will understand that this error has not been reproved without due reason.]

Scripture also teaches that we are justified before God through faith in Christ, when we believe that our sins are forgiven for Christ’s sake. Now if the Mass take away the sins of the living and the dead by the outward act justification comes of the work of Masses, and not of faith, which Scripture does not allow.

But Christ commands us, Luke 22, 19: This do in remembrance of Me; therefore the Mass was instituted that the faith of those who use the Sacrament should remember what benefits it receives through Christ, and cheer and comfort the anxious conscience. For to remember Christ is to remember His benefits, and to realize that they are truly offered unto us. Nor is it enough only to remember the history; for this also the Jews and the ungodly can remember. Wherefore the Mass is to be used to this end, that there the Sacrament [Communion] may be administered to them that have need of consolation; as Ambrose says: Because I always sin, I am always bound to take the medicine. [Therefore this Sacrament requires faith, and is used in vain without faith.]

Now, forasmuch as the Mass is such a giving of the Sacrament, we hold one communion every holy-day, and, if any desire the Sacrament, also on other days, when it is given to such as ask for it. And this custom is not new in the Church; for the Fathers before Gregory make no mention of any private Mass, but of the common Mass [the Communion] they speak very much. Chrysostom says that the priest stands daily at the altar, inviting some to the Communion and keeping back others. And it appears from the ancient Canons that some one celebrated the Mass from whom all the other presbyters and deacons received the body of the Lord; for thus the words of the Nicene Canon say: Let the deacons, according to their order, receive the Holy Communion after the presbyters, from the bishop or from a presbyter. And Paul, 1 Cor. 11, 33, commands concerning the Communion: Tarry one for another, so that there may be a common participation.

Forasmuch, therefore, as the Mass with us has the example of the Church, taken from the Scripture and the Fathers, we are confident that it cannot be disapproved, especially since public ceremonies, for the most part like those hitherto in use, are retained; only the number of Masses differs, which, because of very great and manifest abuses doubtless might be profitably reduced. For in olden times, even in churches most frequented, the Mass was not celebrated every day, as the Tripartite History (Book 9, chap. 33) testifies: Again in Alexandria, every Wednesday and Friday the Scriptures are read, and the doctors expound them, and all things are done, except the solemn rite of Communion.

Article 25: Of Confession

Confession in the churches is not abolished among us; for it is not usual to give the body of the Lord, except to them that have been previously examined and absolved. And the people are most carefully taught concerning faith in the absolution, about which formerly there was profound silence. Our people are taught that they should highly prize the absolution, as being the voice of God, and pronounced by God’s command. The power of the Keys is set forth in its beauty and they are reminded what great consolation it brings to anxious consciences, also, that God requires faith to believe such absolution as a voice sounding from heaven, and that such faith in Christ truly obtains and receives the forgiveness of sins. Aforetime satisfactions were immoderately extolled; of faith and the merit of Christ and the righteousness of faith no mention was made; wherefore, on this point, our churches are by no means to be blamed. For this even our adversaries must needs concede to us that the doctrine concerning repentance has been most diligently treated and laid open by our teachers.

But of Confession they teach that an enumeration of sins is not necessary, and that consciences be not burdened with anxiety to enumerate all sins, for it is impossible to recount all sins, as the Psalm testifies, 19,13: Who can understand his errors? Also Jeremiah, 17,9: The heart is deceitful; who can know it; But if no sins were forgiven, except those that are recounted, consciences could never find peace; for very many sins they neither see nor can remember. The ancient writers also testify that an enumeration is not necessary. For in the Decrees, Chrysostom is quoted, who says thus: I say not to you that you should disclose yourself in public, nor that you accuse yourself before others, but I would have you obey the prophet who says: “Disclose thy self before God.” Therefore confess your sins before God, the true Judge, with prayer. Tell your errors, not with the tongue, but with the memory of your conscience, etc. And the Gloss (Of Repentance, Distinct. V, Cap. Consideret) admits that Confession is of human right only [not commanded by Scripture, but ordained by the Church]. Nevertheless, on account of the great benefit of absolution, and because it is otherwise useful to the conscience, Confession is retained among us.

Article 26: Of the Distinction of Meats

It has been the general persuasion, not of the people alone, but also of those teaching in the churches, that making Distinctions of Meats, and like traditions of men, are works profitable to merit grace, and able to make satisfactions for sins. And that the world so thought, appears from this, that new ceremonies, new orders, new holy-days, and new fastings were daily instituted, and the teachers in the churches did exact these works as a service necessary to merit grace, and did greatly terrify men’s consciences, if they should omit any of these things. From this persuasion concerning traditions much detriment has resulted in the Church.

First, the doctrine of grace and of the righteousness of faith has been obscured by it, which is the chief part of the Gospel, and ought to stand out as the most prominent in the Church, in order that the merit of Christ may be well known, and faith, which believes that sins are forgiven for Christ’s sake be exalted far above works. Wherefore Paul also lays the greatest stress on this article, putting aside the Law and human traditions, in order to show that Christian righteousness is something else than such works, to wit, the faith which believes that sins are freely forgiven for Christ’s sake. But this doctrine of Paul has been almost wholly smothered by traditions, which have produced an opinion that, by making distinctions in meats and like services, we must merit grace and righteousness. In treating of repentance, there was no mention made of faith; only those works of satisfaction were set forth; in these the entire repentance seemed to consist.

Secondly, these traditions have obscured the commandments of God, because traditions were placed far above the commandments of God. Christianity was thought to consist wholly in the observance of certain holy-days, rites, fasts, and vestures. These observances had won for themselves the exalted title of being the spiritual life and the perfect life. Meanwhile the commandments of God, according to each one’s calling, were without honor namely, that the father brought up his offspring, that the mother bore children, that the prince governed the commonwealth, — these were accounted works that were worldly and imperfect, and far below those glittering observances. And this error greatly tormented devout consciences, which grieved that they were held in an imperfect state of life, as in marriage, in the office of magistrate; or in other civil ministrations; on the other hand, they admired the monks and such like, and falsely imagined that the observances of such men were more acceptable to God.

Thirdly, traditions brought great danger to consciences; for it was impossible to keep all traditions, and yet men judged these observances to be necessary acts of worship. Gerson writes that many fell into despair, and that some even took their own lives, because they felt that they were not able to satisfy the traditions, and they had all the while not heard any consolation of the righteousness of faith and grace. We see that the summists and theologians gather the traditions, and seek mitigations whereby to ease consciences, and yet they do not sufficiently unfetter, but sometimes entangle, consciences even more. And with the gathering of these traditions, the schools and sermons have been so much occupied that they have had no leisure to touch upon Scripture, and to seek the more profitable doctrine of faith, of the cross, of hope, of the dignity of civil affairs of consolation of sorely tried consciences. Hence Gerson and some other theologians have grievously complained that by these strivings concerning traditions they were prevented from giving attention to a better kind of doctrine. Augustine also forbids that men’s consciences should be burdened with such observances, and prudently advises Januarius that he must know that they are to be observed as things indifferent; for such are his words.

Wherefore our teachers must not be looked upon as having taken up this matter rashly or from hatred of the bishops, as some falsely suspect. There was great need to warn the churches of these errors, which had arisen from misunderstanding the traditions. For the Gospel compels us to insist in the churches upon the doctrine of grace, and of the righteousness of faith; which, however, cannot be understood, if men think that they merit grace by observances of their own choice.

Thus, therefore, they have taught that by the observance of human traditions we cannot merit grace or be justified, and hence we must not think such observances necessary acts of worship. They add hereunto testimonies of Scripture. Christ, Matt. 15, 3, defends the Apostles who had not observed the usual tradition, which, however, evidently pertains to a matter not unlawful, but indifferent, and to have a certain affinity with the purifications of the Law, and says, 9: In vain do they worship Me with the commandments of men. He, therefore, does not exact an unprofitable service. Shortly after He adds: Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man. So also Paul, Rom. 14, 17: The kingdom of God is not meat and drink. Col. 2, 16: Let no man, therefore, judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy-day, or of the Sabbath-day; also: If ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances: Touch not, taste not, handle not! And Peter says, Acts 15, 10: Why tempt ye God to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they. Here Peter forbids to burden the consciences with many rites, either of Moses or of others. And in 1 Tim. 4,1.3 Paul calls the prohibition of meats a doctrine of devils; for it is against the Gospel to institute or to do such works that by them we may merit grace, or as though Christianity could not exist without such service of God.

Here our adversaries object that our teachers are opposed to discipline and mortification of the flesh, as Jovinian. But the contrary may be learned from the writings of our teachers. For they have always taught concerning the cross that it behooves Christians to bear afflictions. This is the true, earnest, and unfeigned mortification, to wit, to be exercised with divers afflictions, and to be crucified with Christ.

Moreover, they teach that every Christian ought to train and subdue himself with bodily restraints, or bodily exercises and labors that neither satiety nor slothfulness tempt him to sin, but not that we may merit grace or make satisfaction for sins by such exercises. And such external discipline ought to be urged at all times, not only on a few and set days. So Christ commands, Luke 21, 34: Take heed lest your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting; also Matt. 17, 21: This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting. Paul also says, 1 Cor. 9, 27: I keep under my body and bring it into subjection. Here he clearly shows that he was keeping under his body, not to merit forgiveness of sins by that discipline, but to have his body in subjection and fitted for spiritual things, and for the discharge of duty according to his calling. Therefore, we do not condemn fasting in itself, but the traditions which prescribe certain days and certain meats, with peril of conscience, as though such works were a necessary service.

Nevertheless, very many traditions are kept on our part, which conduce to good order in the Church, as the Order of Lessons in the Mass and the chief holy-days. But, at the same time, men are warned that such observances do not justify before God, and that in such things it should not be made sin if they be omitted without offense. Such liberty in human rites was not unknown to the Fathers. For in the East they kept Easter at another time than at Rome, and when, on account of this diversity, the Romans accused the Eastern Church of schism, they were admonished by others that such usages need not be alike everywhere. And Irenaeus says: Diversity concerning fasting does not destroy the harmony of faith; as also Pope Gregory intimates in Dist. XII, that such diversity does not violate the unity of the Church. And in the Tripartite History, Book 9, many examples of dissimilar rites are gathered, and the following statement is made: It was not the mind of the Apostles to enact rules concerning holy-days, but to preach godliness and a holy life [, to teach faith and love].

Article 27: Of Monastic Vows

What is taught on our part concerning Monastic Vows, will be better understood if it be remembered what has been the state of the monasteries, and how many things were daily done in those very monasteries, contrary to the Canons. In Augustine’s time they were free associations. Afterward, when discipline was corrupted, vows were everywhere added for the purpose of restoring discipline, as in a carefully planned prison.

Gradually, many other observances were added besides vows. And these fetters were laid upon many before the lawful age, contrary to the Canons.

Many also entered into this kind of life through ignorance, being unable to judge their own strength, though they were of sufficient age. Being thus ensnared, they were compelled to remain, even though some could have been freed by the kind provision of the Canons. And this was more the case in convents of women than of monks, although more consideration should have been shown the weaker sex. This rigor displeased many good men before this time, who saw that young men and maidens were thrown into convents for a living. They saw what unfortunate results came of this procedure, and what scandals were created, what snares were cast upon consciences! They were grieved that the authority of the Canons in so momentous a matter was utterly set aside and despised. To these evils was added such a persuasion concerning vows as, it is well known, in former times displeased even those monks who were more considerate. They taught that vows were equal to Baptism; they taught that by this kind of life they merited forgiveness of sins and justification before God. Yea, they added that the monastic life not only merited righteousness before God but even greater things, because it kept not only the precepts, but also the so-called “evangelical counsels.”

Thus they made men believe that the profession of monasticism was far better than Baptism, and that the monastic life was more meritorious than that of magistrates, than the life of pastors, and such like, who serve their calling in accordance with God’s commands, without any man-made services. None of these things can be denied; for they appear in their own books. [Moreover, a person who has been thus ensnared and has entered a monastery learns little of Christ.]

What, then, came to pass in the monasteries? Aforetime they were schools of theology and other branches, profitable to the Church; and thence pastors and bishops were obtained. Now it is another thing. It is needless to rehearse what is known to all. Aforetime they came together to learn; now they feign that it is a kind of life instituted to merit grace and righteousness; yea, they preach that it is a state of perfection, and they put it far above all other kinds of life ordained of God. These things we have rehearsed without odious exaggeration, to the end that the doctrine of our teachers on this point might be better understood.

First, concerning such as contract matrimony, they teach on our part that it is lawful for all men who are not fitted for single life to contract matrimony, because vows cannot annul the ordinance and commandment of God. But the commandment of God is 1 Cor. 7, 2: To avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife. Nor is it the commandment only, but also the creation and ordinance of God, which forces those to marry who are not excepted by a singular work of God, according to the text Gen. 2, 18: It is not good that the man should be alone. Therefore they do not sin who obey this commandment and ordinance of God.

What objection can be raised to this? Let men extol the obligation of a vow as much as they list, yet shall they not bring to pass that the vow annuls the commandment of God. The Canons teach that the right of the superior is excepted in every vow; [that vows are not binding against the decision of the Pope;] much less, therefore, are these vows of force which are against the commandments of God.

Now, if the obligation of vows could not be changed for any cause whatever, the Roman Pontiffs could never have given dispensation for it is not lawful for man to annul an obligation which is simply divine. But the Roman Pontiffs have prudently judged that leniency is to be observed in this obligation, and therefore we read that many times they have dispensed from vows. The case of the King of Aragon who was called back from the monastery is well known, and there are also examples in our own times. [Now, if dispensations have been granted for the sake of securing temporal interests, it is much more proper that they be granted on account of the distress of souls.]

In the second place, why do our adversaries exaggerate the obligation or effect of a vow when, at the same time, they have not a word to say of the nature of the vow itself, that it ought to be in a thing possible, that it ought to be free, and chosen spontaneously and deliberately? But it is not unknown to what extent perpetual chastity is in the power of man. And how few are there who have taken the vow spontaneously and deliberately! Young maidens and men, before they are able to judge, are persuaded, and sometimes even compelled, to take the vow. Wherefore it is not fair to insist so rigorously on the obligation, since it is granted by all that it is against the nature of a vow to take it without spontaneous and deliberate action.

Most canonical laws rescind vows made before the age of fifteen; for before that age there does not seem sufficient judgment in a person to decide concerning a perpetual life. Another Canon, granting more to the weakness of man, adds a few years; for it forbids a vow to be made before the age of eighteen. But which of these two Canons shall we follow? The most part have an excuse for leaving the monasteries, because most of them have taken the vows before they reached these ages.

Finally, even though the violation of a vow might be censured, yet it seems not forthwith to follow that the marriages of such persons must be dissolved. For Augustine denies that they ought to be dissolved (XXVII. Quaest. I, Cap. Nuptiarum), and his authority is not lightly to be esteemed, although other men afterwards thought otherwise.

But although it appears that God’s command concerning marriage delivers very many from their vows, yet our teachers introduce also another argument concerning vows to show that they are void. For every service of God, ordained and chosen of men without the commandment of God to merit justification and grace, is wicked, as Christ says Matt. 16, 9: In vain do they worship Me with the commandments of men. And Paul teaches everywhere that righteousness is not to be sought from our own observances and acts of worship, devised by men, but that it comes by faith to those who believe that they are received by God into grace for Christ’s sake.

But it is evident that monks have taught that services of man’s making satisfy for sins and merit grace and justification. What else is this than to detract from the glory of Christ and to obscure and deny the righteousness of faith? It follows, therefore, that the vows thus commonly taken have been wicked services, and, consequently, are void. For a wicked vow, taken against the commandment of God, is not valid; for (as the Canon says) no vow ought to bind men to wickedness.

Paul says, Gal. 5, 4: Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the Law, ye are fallen from grace. To those, therefore, who want to be justified by their vows Christ is made of no effect, and they fall from grace. For also these who ascribe justification to vows ascribe to their own works that which properly belongs to the glory of Christ.

Nor can it be denied, indeed, that the monks have taught that, by their vows and observances, they were justified, and merited forgiveness of sins, yea, they invented still greater absurdities, saying that they could give others a share in their works. If any one should be inclined to enlarge on these things with evil intent, how many things could he bring together whereof even the monks are now ashamed! Over and above this, they persuaded men that services of man’s making were a state of Christian perfection. And is not this assigning justification to works? It is no light offense in the Church to set forth to the people a service devised by men, without the commandment of God, and to teach that such service justifies men. For the righteousness of faith, which chiefly ought to be taught in the Church, is obscured when these wonderful angelic forms of worship, with their show of poverty, humility, and celibacy, are east before the eyes of men.

Furthermore, the precepts of God and the true service of God are obscured when men hear that only monks are in a state of perfection. For Christian perfection is to fear God from the heart, and yet to conceive great faith, and to trust that for Christ’s sake we have a God who has been reconciled, to ask of God, and assuredly to expect His aid in all things that, according to our calling, are to be done; and meanwhile, to be diligent in outward good works, and to serve our calling. In these things consist the true perfection and the true service of God. It does not consist in celibacy, or in begging, or in vile apparel. But the people conceive many pernicious opinions from the false commendations of monastic life. They hear celibacy praised above measure; therefore they lead their married life with offense to their consciences. They hear that only beggars are perfect; therefore they keep their possessions and do business with offense to their consciences. They hear that it is an evangelical counsel not to seek revenge; therefore some in private life are not afraid to take revenge, for they hear that it is but a counsel, and not a commandment. Others judge that the Christian cannot properly hold a civil office or be a magistrate.

There are on record examples of men who, forsaking marriage and the administration of the Commonwealth, have hid themselves in monasteries. This they called fleeing from the world, and seeking a kind of life which would be more pleasing to God. Neither did they see that God ought to be served in those commandments which He Himself has given and not in commandments devised by men. A good and perfect kind of life is that which has for it the commandment of God. It is necessary to admonish men of these things.

And before these times, Gerson rebukes this error of the monks concerning perfection, and testifies that in his day it was a new saying that the monastic life is a state of perfection.

So many wicked opinions are inherent in the vows, namely, that they justify, that they constitute Christian perfection, that they keep the counsels and commandments, that they have works of supererogation. All these things, since they are false and empty, make vows null and void.

Article 28: Of Ecclesiastical Power

There has been great controversy concerning the Power of Bishops, in which some have awkwardly confounded the power of the Church and the power of the sword. And from this confusion very great wars and tumults have resulted, while the Pontiffs, emboldened by the power of the Keys, not only have instituted new services and burdened consciences with reservation of cases and ruthless excommunications, but have also undertaken to transfer the kingdoms of this world, and to take the Empire from the Emperor. These wrongs have long since been rebuked in the Church by learned and godly men. Therefore our teachers, for the comforting of men’s consciences, were constrained to show the difference between the power of the Church and the power of the sword, and taught that both of them, because of God’s commandment, are to be held in reverence and honor, as the chief blessings of God on earth.

But this is their opinion, that the power of the Keys, or the power of the bishops, according to the Gospel, is a power or commandment of God, to preach the Gospel, to remit and retain sins, and to administer Sacraments. For with this commandment Christ sends forth His Apostles, John 20, 21 sqq.: As My Father hath sent Me, even so send I you. Receive ye the Holy Ghost. Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained. Mark 16, 15: Go preach the Gospel to every creature.

This power is exercised only by teaching or preaching the Gospel and administering the Sacraments, according to their calling either to many or to individuals. For thereby are granted, not bodily, but eternal things, as eternal righteousness, the Holy Ghost, eternal life. These things cannot come but by the ministry of the Word and the Sacraments, as Paul says, Rom. 1, 16: The Gospel is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth. Therefore, since the power of the Church grants eternal things, and is exercised only by the ministry of the Word, it does not interfere with civil government; no more than the art of singing interferes with civil government. For civil government deals with other things than does the Gospel. The civil rulers defend not minds, but bodies and bodily things against manifest injuries, and restrain men with the sword and bodily punishments in order to preserve civil justice and peace.

Therefore the power of the Church and the civil power must not be confounded. The power of the Church has its own commission to teach the Gospel and to administer the Sacraments. Let it not break into the office of another; Let it not transfer the kingdoms of this world; let it not abrogate the laws of civil rulers; let it not abolish lawful obedience; let it not interfere with judgments concerning civil ordinances or contracts; let it not prescribe laws to civil rulers concerning the form of the Commonwealth. As Christ says, John 18, 33: My kingdom is not of this world; also Luke 12, 14: Who made Me a judge or a divider over you? Paul also says, Phil. 3, 20: Our citizenship is in heaven; 2 Cor. 10, 4: The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the casting down of imaginations.

After this manner our teachers discriminate between the duties of both these powers, and command that both be honored and acknowledged as gifts and blessings of God.

If bishops have any power of the sword, that power they have, not as bishops, by the commission of the Gospel, but by human law having received it of kings and emperors for the civil administration of what is theirs. This, however, is another office than the ministry of the Gospel.

When, therefore, the question is concerning the jurisdiction of bishops, civil authority must be distinguished from ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Again, according to the Gospel or, as they say, by divine right, there belongs to the bishops as bishops, that is, to those to whom has been committed the ministry of the Word and the Sacraments, no jurisdiction except to forgive sins, to judge doctrine, to reject doctrines contrary to the Gospel, and to exclude from the communion of the Church wicked men, whose wickedness is known, and this without human force, simply by the Word. Herein the congregations of necessity and by divine right must obey them, according to Luke 10, 16: He that heareth you heareth Me. But when they teach or ordain anything against the Gospel, then the congregations have a commandment of God prohibiting obedience, Matt. 7, 15: Beware of false prophets; Gal. 1, 8: Though an angel from heaven preach any other gospel, let him be accursed; 2 Cor. 13, 8: We can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth. Also: The power which the Lord hath given me to edification, and not to destruction. So, also, the Canonical Laws command (II. Q. VII. Cap., Sacerdotes, and Cap. Oves). And Augustine (Contra Petiliani Epistolam): Neither must we submit to Catholic bishops if they chance to err, or hold anything contrary to the Canonical Scriptures of God.

If they have any other power or jurisdiction, in hearing and judging certain cases, as of matrimony or of tithes, etc., they have it by human right, in which matters princes are bound, even against their will, when the ordinaries fail, to dispense justice to their subjects for the maintenance of peace.

Moreover, it is disputed whether bishops or pastors have the right to introduce ceremonies in the Church, and to make laws concerning meats, holy-days and grades, that is, orders of ministers, etc. They that give this right to the bishops refer to this testimony John 16, 12. 13: I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He will guide you into all truth. They also refer to the example of the Apostles, who commanded to abstain from blood and from things strangled, Acts 15, 29. They refer to the Sabbath-day as having been changed into the Lord’s Day, contrary to the Decalog, as it seems. Neither is there any example whereof they make more than concerning the changing of the Sabbath-day. Great, say they, is the power of the Church, since it has dispensed with one of the Ten Commandments!

But concerning this question it is taught on our part (as has been shown above) that bishops have no power to decree anything against the Gospel. The Canonical Laws teach the same thing (Dist. IX) . Now, it is against Scripture to establish or require the observance of any traditions, to the end that by such observance we may make satisfaction for sins, or merit grace and righteousness. For the glory of Christ’s merit suffers injury when, by such observances, we undertake to merit justification. But it is manifest that, by such belief, traditions have almost infinitely multiplied in the Church, the doctrine concerning faith and the righteousness of faith being meanwhile suppressed. For gradually more holy-days were made, fasts appointed, new ceremonies and services in honor of saints instituted, because the authors of such things thought that by these works they were meriting grace. Thus in times past the Penitential Canons increased, whereof we still see some traces in the satisfactions.

Again, the authors of traditions do contrary to the command of God when they find matters of sin in foods, in days, and like things, and burden the Church with bondage of the law, as if there ought to be among Christians, in order to merit justification a service like the Levitical, the arrangement of which God had committed to the Apostles and bishops. For thus some of them write; and the Pontiffs in some measure seem to be misled by the example of the law of Moses. Hence are such burdens, as that they make it mortal sin, even without offense to others, to do manual labor on holy-days, a mortal sin to omit the Canonical Hours, that certain foods defile the conscience that fastings are works which appease God that sin in a reserved case cannot be forgiven but by the authority of him who reserved it; whereas the Canons themselves speak only of the reserving of the ecclesiastical penalty, and not of the reserving of the guilt.

Whence have the bishops the right to lay these traditions upon the Church for the ensnaring of consciences, when Peter, Acts 15, 10, forbids to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, and Paul says, 2 Cor. 13, 10, that the power given him was to edification not to destruction? Why, therefore, do they increase sins by these traditions?

But there are clear testimonies which prohibit the making of such traditions, as though they merited grace or were necessary to salvation. Paul says, Col. 2, 16-23: Let no man judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holy-day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath-days. If ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances (touch not; taste not; handle not, which all are to perish with the using) after the commandments and doctrines of men! which things have indeed a show of wisdom. Also in Titus 1, 14 he openly forbids traditions: Not giving heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men that turn from the truth.

And Christ, Matt. 15, 14. 13, says of those who require traditions: Let them alone; they be blind leaders of the blind; and He rejects such services: Every plant which My heavenly Father hath not planted shall be plucked up.

If bishops have the right to burden churches with infinite traditions, and to ensnare consciences, why does Scripture so often prohibit to make, and to listen to, traditions? Why does it call them “doctrines of devils”? 1 Tim. 4, 1. Did the Holy Ghost in vain forewarn of these things?

Since, therefore, ordinances instituted as things necessary, or with an opinion of meriting grace, are contrary to the Gospel, it follows that it is not lawful for any bishop to institute or exact such services. For it is necessary that the doctrine of Christian liberty be preserved in the churches, namely, that the bondage of the Law is not necessary to justification, as it is written in the Epistle to the Galatians, 5, 1: Be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. It is necessary that the chief article of the Gospel be preserved, to wit, that we obtain grace freely by faith in Christ, and not for certain observances or acts of worship devised by men.

What, then, are we to think of the Sunday and like rites in the house of God? To this we answer that it is lawful for bishops or pastors to make ordinances that things be done orderly in the Church, not that thereby we should merit grace or make satisfaction for sins, or that consciences be bound to judge them necessary services, and to think that it is a sin to break them without offense to others. So Paul ordains, 1 Cor. 11, 5, that women should cover their heads in the congregation, 1 Cor. 14, 30, that interpreters be heard in order in the church, etc.

It is proper that the churches should keep such ordinances for the sake of love and tranquillity, so far that one do not offend another, that all things be done in the churches in order, and without confusion, 1 Cor. 14, 40; comp. Phil. 2, 14; but so that consciences be not burdened to think that they are necessary to salvation, or to judge that they sin when they break them without offense to others; as no one will say that a woman sins who goes out in public with her head uncovered provided only that no offense be given.

Of this kind is the observance of the Lord’s Day, Easter, Pentecost, and like holy-days and rites. For those who judge that by the authority of the Church the observance of the Lord’s Day instead of the Sabbath-day was ordained as a thing necessary, do greatly err. Scripture has abrogated the Sabbath-day; for it teaches that, since the Gospel has been revealed, all the ceremonies of Moses can be omitted. And yet, because it was necessary to appoint a certain day, that the people might know when they ought to come together, it appears that the Church designated the Lord’s Day for this purpose; and this day seems to have been chosen all the more for this additional reason, that men might have an example of Christian liberty, and might know that the keeping neither of the Sabbath nor of any other day is necessary.

There are monstrous disputations concerning the changing of the law, the ceremonies of the new law, the changing of the Sabbath-day, which all have sprung from the false belief that there must needs be in the Church a service like to the Levitical, and that Christ had given commission to the Apostles and bishops to devise new ceremonies as necessary to salvation. These errors crept into the Church when the righteousness of faith was not taught clearly enough. Some dispute that the keeping of the Lord’s Day is not indeed of divine right, but in a manner so. They prescribe concerning holy-days, how far it is lawful to work. What else are such disputations than snares of consciences? For although they endeavor to modify the traditions, yet the mitigation can never be perceived as long as the opinion remains that they are necessary, which must needs remain where the righteousness of faith and Christian liberty are not known.

The Apostles commanded Acts 15, 20 to abstain from blood. Who does now observe it? And yet they that do it not sin not; for not even the Apostles themselves wanted to burden consciences with such bondage; but they forbade it for a time, to avoid offense. For in this decree we must perpetually consider what the aim of the Gospel is.

Scarcely any Canons are kept with exactness, and from day to day many go out of use even among those who are the most zealous advocates of traditions. Neither can due regard be paid to consciences unless this mitigation be observed, that we know that the Canons are kept without holding them to be necessary, and that no harm is done consciences, even though traditions go out of use.

But the bishops might easily retain the lawful obedience of the people if they would not insist upon the observance of such traditions as cannot be kept with a good conscience. Now they command celibacy; they admit none unless they swear that they will not teach the pure doctrine of the Gospel. The churches do not ask that the bishops should restore concord at the expense of their honor; which, nevertheless, it would be proper for good pastors to do. They ask only that they would release unjust burdens which are new and have been received contrary to the custom of the Church Catholic. It may be that in the beginning there were plausible reasons for some of these ordinances; and yet they are not adapted to later times. It is also evident that some were adopted through erroneous conceptions. Therefore it would be befitting the clemency of the Pontiffs to mitigate them now, because such a modification does not shake the unity of the Church. For many human traditions have been changed in process of time, as the Canons themselves show. But if it be impossible to obtain a mitigation of such observances as cannot be kept without sin, we are bound to follow the apostolic rule, Acts 5, 29, which commands us to obey God rather than men.

Peter, 1 Pet. 5, 3, forbids bishops to be lords, and to rule over the churches. It is not our design now to wrest the government from the bishops, but this one thing is asked, namely, that they allow the Gospel to be purely taught, and that they relax some few observances which cannot be kept without sin. But if they make no concession, it is for them to see how they shall give account to God for furnishing, by their obstinacy, a cause for schism.

Conclusion

These are the chief articles which seem to be in controversy. For although we might have spoken of more abuses, yet, to avoid undue length, we have set forth the chief points, from which the rest may be readily judged. There have been great complaints concerning indulgences, pilgrimages, and the abuse of excommunications. The parishes have been vexed in many ways by the dealers in indulgences. There were endless contentions between the pastors and the monks concerning the parochial right, confessions, burials, sermons on extraordinary occasions, and innumerable other things. Issues of this sort we have passed over so that the chief points in this matter, having been briefly set forth, might be the more readily understood. Nor has anything been here said or adduced to the reproach of any one. Only those things have been recounted whereof we thought that it was necessary to speak, in order that it might be understood that in doctrine and ceremonies nothing has been received on our part against Scripture or the Church Catholic. For it is manifest that we have taken most diligent care that no new and ungodly doctrine should creep into our churches.

The above articles we desire to present in accordance with the edict of Your Imperial Majesty, in order to exhibit our Confession and let men see a summary of the doctrine of our teachers. If there is anything that any one might desire in this Confession, we are ready, God willing, to present ampler information according to the Scriptures.

Your Imperial Majesty’s faithful subjects:

John, Duke of Saxony, Elector.
George, Margrave of Brandenburg.
Ernest, Duke of Lueneberg.
Philip, Landgrave of Hesse.
John Frederick, Duke of Saxony.
Francis, Duke of Lueneburg.
Wolfgang, Prince of Anhalt.
Senate and Magistracy of Nuremburg.
Senate of Reutlingen.

See also:

1. German Church Rejects the Augsburg Confession
2. The Diet of Augsburg

In the account of Tacitus, Nero returned home from Antium after hearing news of the fire to organize and fund a relief effort. Once the fire abated, he is said to have contributed to a new plan for re-development of the city with preventative measures–houses were spaced out, built with brick, and faced by porticos on wide roads–and a new palace complex, the Domus Aurea. Of course it also included a 30 meter statue of himself, the Colossus of Nero.

The persecution, once again according to the account of Tacitus, came on the heals of public reaction to the fire. There were rumors spreading which aimed at holding Nero responsible. To escape blame, Nero pointed his finger at the local Christians. More than this, he gave orders that they should be thrown to dogs, crucified, and burned. Here is how Tacitus describes the event:

Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians [or Chrestians] by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired.

So Tertullian identified Nero as the first persecutor of Christians, as he writes, “Examine your records. There you will find that Nero was the first that persecuted this doctrine.” And in the famous remark from his Apologeticus, “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.”

Jesus said, In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world. (John 16:33)

Take a moment today to pray for the Christian martyrs of our age.

Here is Grieg’s arrangement for “Behold a Host, Arrayed in White.”

Behold a Host, Arrayed in White

words by Hans A. Brorson

These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. (Revelation 7:14)

Behold a host, arrayed in white,
Like thousand snow clad mountains bright,
With palms they stand. Who is this band
Before the throne of light?
Lo, these are they of glorious fame
Who from the great affliction came
And in the flood of Jesus’ blood
Are cleansed from guilt and blame.
Now gathered in the holy place
Their voices they in worship raise,
Their anthems swell where God doth dwell,
Mid angels’ song of praise.

Despised and scorned, they sojourned here;
But now, how glorious they appear!
Those martyrs stand a priestly band,
God’s throne forever near.
So oft, in troubled days gone by,
In anguish they would weep and sigh.
At home above the God of Love
For aye their tears shall dry.
They now enjoy their Sabbath rest,
The paschal banquet of the blest;
The Lamb, their Lord, at festal board
Himself is Host and Guest.

Then hail, ye mighty legions, yea,
All hail! Now safe and blest for aye,
And praise the Lord, who with His Word
Sustained you on the way.
Ye did the joys of earth disdain,
Ye toiled and sowed in tears and pain.
Farewell, now bring your sheaves and sing
Salvation’s glad refrain.
Swing high your palms, lift up your song,
Yea, make it myriad voices strong.
Eternally shall praise to Thee,
God, and the Lamb belong.

Citation via Harresthol’s Biography of Edvard Grieg

See also:

1. Behold a Host, Arayed in White

In mercy, Lord, remember me,
Through all the hours of night,
And grant to me most graciously
The safeguard of Thy might.

With cheerful heart I close mine eyes,
Since Thou wilt not remove;
O in the morning let me rise
Rejoicing in Thy love.

Or if this night should prove my last,
And end my transient days,
Lord, take me to Thy promised rest,
Where I may sing Thy praise.

See also:

1. Lord Our Father Thanks to Thee
2. New ‘Hands of Mercy’ Newsletter
3. Lord Our Father, Thanks to Thee
4. Lord God, We Give Thee Praise

Of the Divine Scriptures

33. Now these the divinely-inspired Scriptures of both the Old and the New Testament teach us. For the God of the two Testaments is One, Who in the Old Testament foretold the Christ Who appeared in the New; Who by the Law and the Prophets led us to Christ’s school. For before faith came, we were kept in ward under the law, and, the law hath been our tutor to bring us unto Christ. 1 And if ever thou hear any of the heretics speaking evil of the Law or the Prophets, answer in the sound of the Saviour’s voice, saying, Jesus came not to destroy the Law, but to fulfil it. 2 Learn also diligently, and from the Church, what are the books of the Old Testament, and what those of the New. And, pray, read none of the apocryphal writings: 3 for why dost thou, who knowest not those which are acknowledged among all, trouble thyself in vain about those which are disputed? Read the Divine Scriptures, the twenty-two books of the Old Testament, these that have been translated by the Seventy-two Interpreters. 4

34. For after the death of Alexander, the king of the Macedonians, and the division of his kingdom into four principalities, into Babylonia, and Macedonia, and Asia, and Egypt, one of those who reigned over Egypt, Ptolemy Philadelphus, being a king very fond of learning, while collecting the books that were in every place, heard from Demetrius Phalereus, the curator of his library, of the Divine Scriptures of the Law and the Prophets, and judged it much nobler, not to get the books from the possessors by force against their will, but rather to propitiate them by gifts and friendship; and knowing that what is extorted is often adulterated, being given unwillingly, while that which is willingly supplied is freely given with all sincerity, he sent to Eleazar, who was then High Priest, a great many gifts for the Temple here at Jerusalem, and caused him to send him six interpreters from each of the twelve tribes of Israel for the translation. 5 Then, further, to make experiment whether the books were Divine or not, he took precaution that those who had been sent should not combine among themselves, by assigning to each of the interpreters who had come his separate chamber in the island called Pharos, which lies over against Alexandria, and committed to each the whole Scriptures to translate. And when they had fulfilled the task in seventy-two days, he brought together all their translations, which they had made in different chambers without sending them one to another, and found that they agreed not only in the sense but even in words. For the process was no word-craft, nor contrivance of human devices: but the translation of the Divine Scriptures, spoken by the Holy Ghost, was of the Holy Ghost accomplished.

35. Of these read the two and twenty books, but have nothing to do with the apocryphal writings. Study earnestly these only which we read openly in the Church. Far wiser and more pious than thyself were the Apostles, and the bishops of old time, the presidents of the Church who handed down these books. Being therefore a child of the Church, trench 6 thou not upon its statutes. And of the Old Testament, as we have said, study the two and twenty books, which, if thou art desirous of learning, strive to remember by name, as I recite them. For of the Law the books of Moses are the first five, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. And next, Joshua the son of Nave, 7 and the book of Judges, including Ruth, counted as seventh. And of the other historical books, the first and second books of the Kings 8 are among the Hebrews one book; also the third and fourth 8b one book. And in like manner, the first and second of Chronicles are with them one book; and the first and second of Esdras 8c are counted one. Esther is the twelfth book; and these are the Historical writings. But those which are written in verses are five, Job, and the book of Psalms, and Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Songs, which is the seventeenth book. And after these come the five Prophetic books: of the Twelve Prophets one book, of Isaiah one, of Jeremiah one, including Baruch and Lamentations and the Epistle; 9 then Ezekiel, and the Book of Daniel, the twenty-second of the Old Testament.

36. Then of the New Testament there are the four Gospels only, for the rest have false titles 10 and are mischievous. The Manichaeans also wrote a Gospel according to Thomas, which being tinctured with the fragrance of the evangelic title corrupts the souls of the simple sort. Receive also the Acts of the Twelve Apostles; and in addition to these the seven Catholic Epistles of James, Peter, John, and Jude; and as a seal upon them all, and the last work of the disciples, the fourteen Epistles of Paul . 11 But let all the rest be put aside in a secondary rank. And whatever books are not read in Churches, these read not even by thyself, as thou hast heard me say. Thus much of these subjects.

37. But shun thou every diabolical operation, and believe not the apostate Serpent, whose transformation from a good nature was of his own free choice: who can over-persuade the willing, but can compel no one. Also give heed neither to observations of the stars nor auguries, nor omens, nor to the fabulous divinations of the Greeks. 12 Witchcraft, and enchantment, and the wicked practices of necromancy, admit not even to a hearing. From every kind of intemperance stand aloof, giving thyself neither to gluttony nor licentiousness, rising superior to all covetousness and usury. Neither venture thyself at heathen assemblies for public spectacles, nor ever use amulets in sicknesses; shun also all the vulgarity of tavern-haunting. Fall not away either into the sect of the Samaritans, or into Judaism: for Jesus Christ henceforth hath ransomed thee. Stand aloof from all observance of Sabbaths, 13 and from calling any indifferent meats common or unclean. But especially abhor all the assemblies of wicked heretics; and in every way make thine own soul safe, by fastings, prayers, almsgivings, and reading the oracles of God; that having lived the rest of thy life in the flesh in soberness and godly doctrine, thou mayest enjoy the one salvation which flows from Baptism; and thus enrolled in the armies of heaven by God and the Father, mayest also be deemed worthy of the heavenly crowns, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to Whom be the glory for ever and ever. Amen.

NOTES

1. Gal. iii. 24. The Παιδαγωγος is described by Clement of Alexandria (Paedag. i. 7) as one who both conducts a boy to school, and helps to teach him,—an usher: “under-master” (Wicliff).
2. Matt. v. 17.
3. των αποκρυφων. The sense in which Cyril uses this term may be learned from Rufinus (Expositio Symboli, § 38), who distinguishes three classes of books: (1) The Canonical Books of the Old and New Testaments, which alone are to be used in proof of doctrine; (2) Ecclesiastical, which may be read in Churches, including Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Tobit, Judith, and the Books of the Maccabees, in the Old Testament, and The Shepherd of Hermas, and The Two Ways in the New Testament; (3) The other writings they called “Apocryphal,” which they would not have read in Churches. The distinction is useful, though the second class is not complete.
4. The original source of this account of the Septuagint version is a letter purporting to have been written by Aristeas, or Aristæus, a confidential minister of Ptolemy Philadelphus, to his brother Philocrates. Though the letter is not regarded as genuine its statements are in part admitted to be true, being confirmed by a fragment, preserved by Eusebius (Præparatio Evangelica, ix. 6.), of a work of Aristobulus, a Jewish philosopher who wrote in the reign of Ptolemy Philometor, 181-146, B.C. Upon these testimonies it is generally admitted that “the whole Law,” i.e. the Pentateuch was translated into Greek at Alexandria in the reign either of Ptolemy Soter (323-285, B.C.), or of his son Ptolemy Philadelphus (285-247, B.C.), under the direction of Demetrius Phalereus, curator of the King’s library.
5. Up to this point Cyril’s account is based upon the statements of the Pseudo-Aristeas. The fabulous incidents which follow, concerning the separate cells, the completion of the whole version by each translator, the miraculous agreement in the very words, proving a Divine inspiration, are found in Philo Judæus, Life of Moses, II. 7. Josephus, Antiquities, XII. c. ii. 3-14, following the letter of Aristeas, gives long descriptions of the magnificent presents sent by Philadelphus to Jerusalem, and of his splendid hospitality to the translators, but makes no allusion to the separate cells or miraculous agreement. On the contrary he represents the 72 interpreters as meeting together for consultation, agreeing on the text to be adopted, and completing their joint labours in 72 days. The slightest comparison of the Version with the original Hebrew must convince any reasonable person that the idea of divine inspiration or supernatural assistance, borrowed by Justin Martyr, Irenæus, and other Fathers, apparently from Philo, is a mere invention of the imagination, disproved by the facts. Compare the article “Septuagint” in Murray’s Dictionary of the Bible.
6. The rendering “trench not” (R.W.C.) agrees well with the etymology of the verb (παραχαρασσω). Its more usual signification seems to be “counterfeit,” “forge.” The sense required here, apart from any metaphor, is “transgress” (Heurtley).
7. The name “Nun” is represented by “Nave” in the Septuagint, which Cyril used.
8. The two books of Samuel.
8b. i.e. First and Second Kings.
8c. Ezra and Nehemiah.
9. The Epistle of Jeremy, which now appears in the Apocrypha as the last chapter of Baruch. On the number and arrangement of the Books of the Old and New Testaments the student should consult an interesting Essay by Professor Sanday (Studia Biblica, vol. iii.), who traces the introduction of a fixed order to the time when papyrus rolls were superseded by codices, in which the sheets of skin were folded and bound together, as in printed books. This change had commenced before the Diocletian persecution, A.D. 303, when among the sacred books taken from the Christians codices were much more numerous than rolls. On the contents of the Jewish Canon, see Dictionary of the Bible, “Canon.” B.F.W. “Josephus enumerates 20 books ‘which are justly believed to be divine.’” One of the earliest attempts by a Christian to ascertain correctly the number and order of the Books of the O.T. was made by Melito, Bishop of Sardis, who travelled for this purpose to Palestine, in the latter part of the 2nd Century. His list is as follows:—“Of Moses five (books); Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Jesus son of Nave, Judges, Ruth, four Books of Kings, two of Chronicles, Psalms of David, Solomon’s Proverbs, which is also called Wisdom, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Job, Prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, the Twelve in one Book, Daniel, Ezekiel, Esdras.” (Eusebius, H.E. III. cap. 10, note I, in this series.) Cyril’s List agrees with that of Athanasius (Festal Epistle, 373 A.D.), except that Job is placed by Ath. after Canticles instead of before Psalms.
10. Gr. ψευδεπιγραφα. For an account of the many Apocryphal Gospels, see the article by Lipsius in the “Dictionary of Christian Biography,” Smith and Wace, and the English translations in Clark’s Ante-Nicene Library.
11. Cyril includes in this list all the books which we receive, except the Apocalypse. See Bishop Westcott’s Article “Canon,” in the Dictionary of the Bible, and Origen’s Catalogue in Euseb. Hist. vi. 25 (Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. i.).
12. Compare xix. 8. where all such acts of divination are said to be service of the devil.
13. Compare Gal. iv. 10, “Ye observe days.”

Edict of Toleration by Galerius – 311 A. D.

(Ch. 34.) Among other arrangements which we are always accustomed to make for the prosperity and welfare of the republic, we had desired formerly to bring all things into harmony with the ancient laws and public order of the Romans, and to provide that even the Christians who had left the religion of their fathers should come back to reason ; since, indeed, the Christians themselves, for some reason, had followed such a caprice and had fallen into such a folly that they would not obey the institutes of antiquity, which perchance their own ancestors had first established; but at their own will and pleasure, they would thus make laws unto themselves which they should observe and would collect various peoples in diverse places in congregations. Finally when our law had been promulgated to the effect that they should conform to the institutes of antiquity, many were subdued by the fear of danger, many even suffered death. And yet since most of them persevered in their determination, and we saw that they neither paid the reverence and awe due to the gods nor worshipped the God of the Christians, in view of our most mild clemency and the constant habit by which we are accustomed to grant indulgence to all, we thought that we ought to grant our most prompt indulgence also to these, so that they may again be Christians and may hold their conventicles, provided they do nothing contrary to good order. But we shall tell the magistrates in another letter what they ought to do.

Wherefore, for this our indulgence, they ought to pray to their God for our safety, for that of the republic, and for their own, that the republic may continue uninjured on every side, and that they may be able to live securely in their homes.

(c.35) This edict is published at Nicomedia on the day before the Kalends of May, in our eighth consulship and the second of Maximinus.

Via Lactantius, De Mort. Pers. ch. 34, 35. Opera, ed. O. F. Fritzsche, II, P. 273. (Bibl. Patt. Ecc. Lat. XI, Leipzig, 1844.)

The “Edict of Milan ” (313 A. D.)

When I, Constantine Augustus, as well as I Licinius Augustus d fortunately met near Mediolanurn (Milan), and were considering everything that pertained to the public welfare and security, we thought , among other things which we saw would be for the good of many, those regulations pertaining to the reverence of the Divinity ought certainly to be made first, so that we might grant to the Christians and others full authority to observe that religion which each preferred; whence any Divinity whatsoever in the seat of the heavens may be propitious and kindly disposed to us and all who are placed under our rule. And thus by this wholesome counsel and most upright provision we thought to arrange that no one whatsoever should be denied the opportunity to give his heart to the observance of the Christian religion, of that religion which he should think best for himself, so that the Supreme Deity, to whose worship we freely yield our hearts) may show in all things His usual favor and benevolence. Therefore, your Worship should know that it has pleased us to remove all conditions whatsoever, which were in the rescripts formerly given to you officially, concerning the Christians and now any one of these who wishes to observe Christian religion may do so freely and openly, without molestation. We thought it fit to commend these things most fully to your care that you may know that we have given to those Christians free and unrestricted opportunity of religious worship. When you see that this has been granted to them by us, your Worship will know that we have also conceded to other religions the right of open and free observance of their worship for the sake of the peace of our times, that each one may have the free opportunity to worship as he pleases ; this regulation is made we that we may not seem to detract from any dignity or any religion.

Moreover, in the case of the Christians especially we esteemed it best to order that if it happems anyone heretofore has bought from our treasury from anyone whatsoever, those places where they were previously accustomed to assemble, concerning which a certain decree had been made and a letter sent to you officially, the same shall be restored to the Christians without payment or any claim of recompense and without any kind of fraud or deception, Those, moreover, who have obtained the same by gift, are likewise to return them at once to the Christians. Besides, both those who have purchased and those who have secured them by gift, are to appeal to the vicar if they seek any recompense from our bounty, that they may be cared for through our clemency,. All this property ought to be delivered at once to the community of the Christians through your intercession, and without delay. And since these Christians are known to have possessed not only those places in which they were accustomed to assemble, but also other property, namely the churches, belonging to them as a corporation and not as individuals, all these things which we have included under the above law, you will order to be restored, without any hesitation or controversy at all, to these Christians, that is to say to the corporations and their conventicles: providing, of course, that the above arrangements be followed so that those who return the same without payment, as we have said, may hope for an indemnity from our bounty. In all these circumstances you ought to tender your most efficacious intervention to the community of the Christians, that our command may be carried into effect as quickly as possible, whereby, moreover, through our clemency, public order may be secured. Let this be done so that, as we have said above, Divine favor towards us, which, under the most important circumstances we have already experienced, may, for all time, preserve and prosper our successes together with the good of the state. Moreover, in order that the statement of this decree of our good will may come to the notice of all, this rescript, published by your decree, shall be announced everywhere and brought to the knowledge of all, so that the decree of this, our benevolence, cannot be concealed.

Via Lactantius, De Mort. Pers., ch. 48. opera, ed. 0. F. Fritzsche, II, p 288 sq. (Bibl Patr. Ecc. Lat. XI).

Both texts translated in University of Pennsylvania. Dept. of History: Translations and Reprints from the Original Sources of European history, (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press [1897?-1907?]), Vol 4:, 1, pp. 28-30 (via the Medieval Sourcebook)

Among the religions of the world there are, I suppose, few which have no ethical content at all. Religions which we regard as primitive sometimes surprise us by the comparative elevation of the moral ideas which they contain. At the same time, there are religions, and some of them among the “higher” religions, which so emphasize the mystical, or it may be the ritual: aspect of religion (to use the imprecise but serviceable terms) that social ethics seem hardly to count, On the other hand, there are systems of ethics, and some of them very fine and idealistic systems, which either repudiate religion, or, like Confucianism, treat it with a distant and somewhat ironical respect.

Raphael, "Paul in Athens" (1515)

The Christian religion, like Judaism (to take another example), is an ethical religion in the specific sense that it recognizes no ultimate separation between the service of God and social behavior. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy. God”; “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” The two basic commandments stand together.

But to say this is not to have resolved the tension which appears always to be latent between religion and ethics. In various contemporary ways of presenting Christianity there are marked divergences upon this point, as indeed there have been at most periods of its history. In some-quarters the strongest emphasis is laid upon the specifically religious. elements, by which I mean such things as faith, worship, sacraments, communion with God, the way of salvation, and the hope of eternal life. In other quarters it is the specifically ethical aspect which commands almost exclusive attention — conduct, moral judgments, philanthropy, the Christian social order, and the like, The advocates of the respective views are often severe with one another. Words harmless enough in themselves, such as “mysticism” and “moralism,” are hurled about as if they were terms of opprobrium.

It is easy enough to say that both aspects are essential to Christianity and that both are important; even, perhaps, that both are of equal importance and that all that is required is a sound balance. That is true: but it does not go to the root of the matter. It is impossible to understand either the ethical content of Christianity or its religious content unless we can in some measure hold the two together and understand them in their true, organic relations within a whole, This calls for deeper soundings.

In the course of its development through the centuries and its extension to various peoples and cultures, Christianity has acquired an immensely comp1icated history and a bewildering variety of forms; but it possesses a body of classical documents, the New Testament, which, fortunately, are acknowledged as such by the consent of all branches of the Christian Church; and these documents put us in a position to see what Christianity was like In its beginnings and what were the thoughts and principles by which it was shaped.

We must therefore undertake some examination of the data provided by the New Testament upon the problem before us. We shall approach these in a spirit of historical investigation, seeking in the first place to recover a picture of the thought and activity of the Christian community in its earliest days, and then proceeding to interpret that picture.

We may begin our survey of early Christian literature with the Pauline Epistles, which, taken as a whole, are the earliest group of documents. Some of these have the character of occasional letters, spontaneous and without any plan or design; but some of them show a definite pattern. They are divided into two main parts. The first part deals with specifically religious themes – deals with them, in the main, in the reflective manner which constitutes theology and the second part consists mainly of ethical precepts and admonitions. Thus, the twofold character of Christianity as ethical religion is reflected in the very structure of these documents.

The second or ethical part is linked organically with the first part, and this link we shall have to examine more closely later on; but the division between the two parts, though it is not absolute, is pretty well marked.

The pattern is clear in the Epistles to the Romans, Galatians, Colossians, and Ephesians, and when it has been recognized in these clear examples, it can be traced by analogy in other epistles, where it is not so obvious at first sight; not only in epistles written by Paul but in those written by other authors as well.

This is hardly accidental. We recognize here a set pattern of composition followed by early Christian writers, corresponding to the structure of their thought. They are presenting Christianity as an ethical religion in which ethics are directly related to a certain set of convictions about God, man, and the world, a set of convictions religious in their subject matter and theological in their expression.

Turn now from the epistles to the gospels. The Gospel according to Matthew, the first in canonical order, contains a large amount of ethical teaching with a certain general similarity to that which we have observed in the epistles, though with some marked differences, to which we shall have to give attention later. This teaching occurs for the most part in fairly large, continuous blocks. The most important and typical of these is the so-called Sermon on the Mount, which occupies three long chapters in succession (chaps. 5-7). It is not, of course, a sermon at all. It is a highly articulated and systematic presentation of the main features of the Christian ethical system. These solid blocks of ethical teaching correspond in some sort to the ethical sections of the epistles. They are inserted into a framework which takes the form of a narrative of events.

When this structure has been recognized in the first gospel, it can be traced also in the second and third. Here, indeed, it is less formal, and story and teaching alternate more freely; yet even so each of these works provides examples of sequences of ethical precepts, more or less complete in themselves, and comparable with those which we found in-the epistles; and these are related to passages of narrative which serve to introduce them.

There is therefore in the gospels a duality of structure corresponding to that which we recognized in the epistles. The ethical materials in gospels and epistles alike have a general similarity of form and content, but in the epistles they are related to theological doctrine, while in the gospels they are related to a narrative of events. The difference, however, is not by any means so great as it seems at first sight. The narrative and the theology belong together.

Careful inspection shows that the theological dissertations of the epistles often have imbedded in them fragments of narrative. When, for example, Paul sets out to discuss such abstruse doctrines of theology as those of predestination, election, and justification by faith, in the middle chapters of the Epistle to the Romans (chaps. 9-11). he relates his discussion throughout to a kind of skeleton outline of the history of Israel. When he embarks upon the difficult problem of life after death in the fifteenth chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, he expressly groups what he has to say upon certain historical facts about Jesus Christ which he says “were communicated to him by persons who were in a position to know.”

Let us take a different author. In the Epistle to the Hebrews, where the author is attempting to define or characterize the profoundly religious ideas of priesthood and sacrifice and to show in what sense the work of Christ can be understood in terms of those ideas, he introduces a strangely vivid and moving reference to the narrative of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, which is familiar to us from the gospels (Hebrews 5:7-10).

Perhaps these examples will suffice to justify the conclusion that the theological sections of the epistles are not without a certain basis in the narrative of events. On the other hand, the narrative of the gospels, as all recent criticism agrees, is coloured throughout by a religious, if not a theological, valuation o£ the events which it records and of the central Figure in them. The gospels record actual occurrences, but they record them in a way which betrays their authors’ sense of a pervading significance going beyond the mere occurrence. They relate it all through to ideas which are specifically religious and necessarily call for a theological interpretation; such ideas as the kingdom of God and the salvation of mankind.

It turns out. then, that the theology of the epistles and the narrative of the gospels have a motive in common. The writers of the gospels believed that the facts of the career of Jesus Christ were worth recording because they had decisive religious significance which challenged theological interpretation; and the writers of the epistles. presupposing a knowledge of the facts, undertook to explain their significance, and so created Christian theology. It is this inseparable interconnection of religion and theology with historical fact that justifies the description of Christianity as a historical religion; and this is a part of its distinctive genius.

To sum up, the ethical teaching of the New Testament is embedded in a context which consists of a report of historical facts and an explanation of their religious significance, and this fact gives to Christian Ethics a peculiar character, which I shall presently attempt to describe. But before going on to a consideration of the ethical teaching itself. it is necessary to say something about this context in which it is embedded and which has both a historical and a religious aspect in indivisible unity.

According to the evidence of the New Testament, the earliest exponents of the Christian religion worked out a distinctive way of presenting the fundamental convictions of their faith, in a formula which they called “the proclamation. The Greek word here is kerygma. Our translators of the Bible commonly render it “preaching” but in its current implications at the present day the word is misleading. Kerygma properly means a public announcement or declaration, whether by a town crier, or by an auctioneer commending his goods to the public, or by the herald of a sovereign state dispatched on a solemn mission, to present an ultimatum, it may be, or to announce terms of peace.

The Christian “preacher” thought of himself as an announcer of very important news. He called it quite simply “the good news,” or in our traditional translation, “the gospel. ” It was this “good news” that was embedded in the “proclamation”, the kerygma. It was essentially a public announcement of events of public importance.

The form and content of the proclamation, the kerygma, can be recovered from the New Testament with reasonable accuracy. It recounted in brief the life, and work of Jesus Christ, His conflicts. sufferings. and death. and His resurrection from the dead; and it went on to declare that in these events the divinely guided history of Israel through long centuries had reached its climax. God Himself , had acted decisively in this way to inaugurate His kingdom upon earth. This was the core of all early Christian preaching, however it might be elaborated, illustrated, and explained.

The preacher’s aim was to convince his hearers that they were, indeed confronted by the eternal God in His kingdom, power, and glory; that they, like all men, stood under His judgment upon what they had done and upon what they were, and that this judgment was now immediate and inescapable; further. that those who would put themselves under God’s judgment would, through His mercy, find an opportunity open to them to enter upon a new life; that actually, as a result of these facts which they proclaimed, a new era in the relations between God and man had begun.

Those who responded to this appeal and placed themselves under the judgment and mercy of God as declared in Jesus Christ, became members of the community, the Church, within which the new life could be lived. These members were then instructed in the ethical principles and obligations of the Christian life. This course of instruction in morals, as distinct from the proclamation of the gospel, is covered by the term “‘teaching,” which in Greek is didaché.

This order of approach, first the proclamation, then the beginning of instruction in morals, first kerygma, then didaché, seems to have been thoroughly characteristic of the Christian mission; it is precisely this order, first kerygma. then didaché, which we have seen to be general in the New Testament writings.

This way of approach to ethics was sharply distinguished from that of contemporary Greek moralists, who from the time of Aristotle had set out to provide a self-contained and self-justifying system of ethics. For Christianity, ethics are not self-contained or self-justifying; they arise out of a response to the Gospel.

On the other hand, while the Christian way of approach contrasts with that of Greek moralists, it has a real analogy with the Jewish tradition out of which Christianity arose. The classical formulation of the moral law in the Old Testament begins, “I am the Lord thy God. which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have none other gods before me.” Then it goes on to lay down such concrete moral precepts as “Thou shalt not kill”; “Thou shalt not commit adultery”; “Thou shalt not steal.” That is to say, it begins with a declaration of historical facts religiously understood. The facts were that Israel had escaped out of bondage in the land of Egypt and become a free nation. These facts were understood religiously as meaning that God Himself had intervened to liberate His people. The “commandments” are a corollary to the facts.

Again, if instead of the Decalogue, which is the shortest possible summary of the moral law in the Old Testament, we examine the grand structure of the Torah or Law of Moses (contained in the Pentateuch, or Five Books of Moses), we discern the same character. The extremely. concrete and detailed system of regulations is embedded in a narrative of events, which are presented in the guise of “mighty acts of the Lord”; that is to say, they are historical events understood as religious1y significant. It is this background, the mighty acts of God, that gives cogency to the commandments of the Torah, for these acts of God established what is described as the “covenant,” by which is meant a special relation between this particular people and the God who had delivered them.

Later Judaism distinguished between haggada, the declaration or exposition of religious truth, often in the form of a story, and halakha, regulations for conduct. This distinction is analogous to the primitive Christian distinction between kerygma and didaché, the proclamation of the fundamental facts of the Gospel in their religious significance, and moral instruction grounded upon them. In Christianity, as in Judaism, the kerygma announces the mighty acts in which God established His new covenant with His people, and the moral obligations set forth in the didaché arise within that covenant.

It appears, then, that the problem that we have set ourselves, the problem of the way in which ethics and religion are related in the ethical religion which is Christianity, may be attacked by way of examining the literary records of kerygma and didaché, the proclamation and the ethical instruction” respectively, and trying to trace the relation between them.

We shall start at the ethical end, by investigating the form and content of ethical instruction in the early church, on the basis of the ethical portions of the epistles. In doing so we shall bear in mind that such instruction, both in the literature and in the established practice of the primitive church, was made to depend upon the affirmations of the kerygma.

It appears that the earliest extant Christian writing is Paul’s First Epistle to the Thessalonians. As it happens, it provides a useful starting point for our present study. This letter was written by the apostle in the year 50 A.D. to a congregation of newly converted Christians in the city now called Salonica, in Macedonia. While preaching there he had fallen into trouble with the police and was banished from the city and forbidden to return. He felt some natural anxiety that these new Christians, many of whom had been brought out of paganism only a few weeks before and had had little teaching, should appreciate the moral demands of their new faith. Accordingly, he writes to them as follows (I abridge slightly what he says, but only slightly):

We beg you, we appeal to you, in the Lord Jesus, to be even more diligent than you are in following the tradition we passed on to you, about the Way to please God by your conduct. You know what orders we gave you, by the help of Jesus Christ: it is the will of God that you should be holy, that you should abstain from sexual immorality and learn, each of you, to keep his body in holiness and honor. . . not to overreach his fellow-Christian or to invade his rights. . . About family affection (within the Christian “family”, the Church, he means) it is not necessary for me to write to you. You have God’s own teaching, to love one another” (He is referring to the Old Testament commandment, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, ” as reaffirmed by Jesus Christ) and you are in fact practicing .this rule of love .towards all your fellow Christians in Macedonia” We appeal to you to make even greater efforts. We want you to strive hard to keep calm, to mind your own business, and to work with your hands, as we ordered, so that you may both make a good impression on outsiders and also find your own (economic) needs supplied. (I Thessalonians 4:1-12)

There are several points here that should be observed before we pass on. First, there is the downright peremptory tone which Paul adopts. He neither argues nor offers tactful advice. He gives “orders”; the term which he employs is the term used for army orders. This may come as something of a shock to those who have been accustomed to think of Paul as the apostle of liberty, and even of what is nowadays called “Christian anarchism.”

Secondly, the orders are severely practical and common-sense. The Christians of Thessalonika are to observe decent self-control in sexual relations, to respect the rights of others, to do their best to love their neighbors, and to be honest and industrious so as to maintain a reasonable standard of living without having to keep appealing for charity (like some Christian communities which Paul knew too well). Paul’s teaching, then, has its feet well on the ground.

Thirdly, we can hardly be wrong in identifying these “orders” to which the apostle refers, as belonging to the regular course of ethical instruction for converts. The technical term used for it was catechesis; hence our word “catechism.” That it must have covered a great deal more than is mentioned here, goes without saying. Paul is recalling certain points in this catechesis which, he feels, in view of news received from Salonica, need emphasizing. But so far as it goes, this passage gives us trustworthy information of the contents of the Pauline catechesis.

As it happens, we can supplement the information we have in this passage from a second letter which the apostle wrote to the same community. We have noticed that one item in the body of instructions was the rule that members of the church should be ready to work with their hands. This salutary rule seems to have been unpopular at Salonica. In the second letter the apostle writes: “When we were with you, we gave orders that if a man was unwilling to work he should not be given food, ” and he then proceeds to elaborate the point, in view of flagrant refusal :to work on the part of some members (II Thessalonians 3 :10-12).

Fourthly, in both letters to the Thessalonians Paul speaks of the body of instructions he had given as “traditions.” He uses the same term in writing upon matters of conduct to the Corinthians, where he prefaces a fresh piece of teaching with a tactful acknowledgment that the Corinthians have faithfully followed the orders which they had previously been given. “I commend you, ” he writes, “because you remembered what I said and preserved the traditions which I passed on to you” (I Corinthians 11:2).

Of course, every tradition must be started by someone, and it is arguable that Paul was, in fact, the originator of the “tradition” of ethical teaching to which he refers. In that case, the passages we have noted would tell us about nothing more than Paul’s own established practice. But it would be entirely unnatural to understand his words in that sense, especially as in the same letter to the Corinthians he also speaks of a “tradition” regarding the facts about Jesus and expressly says that he had received it from others and handed it on to his correspondents (I Corinthians 15:1-3). We may take it, therefore, that there was already a traditional body of ethical teaching given to converts from paganism to Christianity. Paul could safely assume that such teaching was given in churches outside his own sphere of influence, as appears from a place in his letter to the Christians of Rome a city which he had not yet visited. He expresses thankfulness that the Roman Christians wholeheartedly obey what he calls “the pattern of teaching” which they had received, proving thereby, he says, that they had been liberated from sin and made into servants of what is right (Romans 6:17-18).

There seems to be evidence here both for the existence of a definite form of ethical instruction or catechesis in the earliest days of the Christian mission to the Roman Empire and for some part, at least, of its contents. Our knowledge of any further contents must be derived from the study of passages in the epistles which seem to recall, sometimes directly and sometimes allusively, the well-established pattern of catechetical training through which their readers had been put when they first became Christians. It is a delicate matter to decide in any given case whether we are in fact being referred to such an established pattern, or whether the writer is developing fresh teaching for the occasion.

Thus, in Galatians 5:13 Paul is clearly making a transition from the rather controversial theology of the earlier chapters to ethical instruction. He begins by reminding his correspondents that the whole law can be summed up in the commandment “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” This is certainly traditional. In the verses that follow, down to the end of chapter v, the case is not so clear. There is a list of vices to be avoided, which recalls similar lists of vices to be found in pagan moralists and their Jewish imitators, and may well have found its way into Christian tradition; with a balancing list of virtues which may already have been traditional in Christian circles, but is, perhaps, more likely to have been compiled by Paul himself. The way in which the whole passage is tied up with. the distinctively Pauline doctrine of the Spirit expounded in the earlier chapters suggests that we have here an ad hoc development of traditional material, rather than anything like an extract from it. With 6:1 we perhaps return to something more directly taken from tradition: “If a man is detected in any misbehavior, you who are spiritual must put him right, very gently, and with great care lest you should be tempted yourselves. Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfil the law of Christ.” The language of the passage is thoroughly Pauline, and we should, perhaps, not have suspected that the matter of it was traditional, but that it clearly alludes to regulations for the treatment of offenders in the church which are to be found in Matthew 18:15-17. It is significant that Paul expressly refers these injunctions to “the law of Christ.”

But the soundest method of determining, with the highest degree of probability, which the nature of the case admits, the contents of the early Christian “pattern of teaching,” as Paul calls it, is to examine the ethical portions of a number of epistles, and see whether the material common to them all betrays any signs of originating at a stage antedating the particular writing. The enterprise is limited by the fact that most of the relevant documents are either by Paul or else were written directly under his influence, so that it is arguable that whatever is common to them attests only Paul’s masterful mind. But, in the first place, it is now almost certain that the Epistle to the Hebrews and the First Epistle of Peter contain much more that is independent and original than earlier criticism admitted; and in the second place, even in the Pauline epistles themselves there are some recurrent features of language and style in the ethical sections which seem to set them apart, as if the apostle were not writing entirely freely, in his own natural manner, but following a partly stereotyped pattern.

Anyone who will read the epistles with attention, and pay regard to style and form as well as to content, cannot fail to recognize, even in translation, a common style in certain passages, different from the normal style of the writers concerned. Take as examples the following three short passages, as they stand in the Revised Standard Version.

(I) We exhort you, brethren, admonish the idle, encourage the faint- hearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. See that none of you repays evil for evil, but seek to do good to one another and to all. Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

(II) Let brotherly love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are ill-treated, since you also are in the body.

(Ill) Have unity of spirit, sympathy, love of the brethren, a tender heart and a humble mind. Do not return evil for evil, or reviling for reviling; but on the contrary bless, for to this you have been called, that you may obtain a blessing.

It would, I think, puzzle even a person well read in the New Testament to .say, on grounds of style alone, to what authors these extracts are to be assigned. They are so much alike. They are all marked by a concise, staccato style. They use the fewest words possible. They have a kind of sing-song rhythm, which helps the memory. As a matter of fact, the first is by Paul (I Thessalonians 5:14-18), the second from the Epistle to the Hebrews (13: 1-3), and the third from the First Epistle of Peter (3:8-9): The author to the Hebrews has a strongly individual style, deeply influenced by Greek rhetoric and entirely different from Paul’s, which again is unmistakably individual. The style of the First Epistle of Peter is less individual, yet it is sufficiently distinctive to bring out the difference between such passages as that which I have quoted and the bulk of the epistle.

I do not think it plausible to suggest that all this is accidental; nor would it be any more plausible to suggest that the authors of Hebrews and I Peter said to themselves, “Since Paul changes his style when he comes to ethical teaching, we will do the same. ” It is surely more likely that each of these writers was unconsciously influenced by the ring and run of familiar forms of ethical instruction in the church. I do not suppose that in such passages we have anything like a direct reproduction of an existing document, or even verbal quotation of an established form transmitted by word of mouth. But it does seem probable on general grounds that we are here indirectly in touch with a common tradition. Different writers develop and elaborate the common pattern at different points and in characteristically different ways, but tend to return to it where they are not concerned to emphasize any particular point.

It appears, then, that the ethical portions of the epistles are based upon an accepted pattern of teaching which goes back to a very early period indeed, and whose general form and content can be determined with considerable probability.

It seems to have run somewhat as follows: The convert is first enjoined to lay aside certain discreditable kinds of conduct, especially some which were common and easily condoned in pagan society. Sometimes lists of such vices are inserted, lists which can be shown to have been drawn from popular ethical teaching of the period, quite outside Christianity. The convert is enjoined to abandon these vices and to be prepared for a total reorientation of moral standards in a Christian sense. This is sometimes expressed in the terms “to put off the old man and to put on the new.”

Next, some of the typical virtues of the new way of life are set forth, with especial emphasis upon such virtues as purity and sobriety, gentleness and humility, generosity and a hospitable temper, patience under injuries, and readiness to forgive.

Then various social relationships are reviewed, in particular those which constitute the family as the primary form of community; the relations of husband and wife, parents and children, master and servants – for, in the social structure of the time, a servant, even if he were a slave, was a member of the familia. The proper Christian attitude in all such relations is briefly indicated: husbands are to love their wives, children to obey their parents, masters to treat their servants with consideration, and so forth.

Then the wider “family” of the Christian community itself comes into view. The new member is enjoined to respect the leaders or elders of the society and is taught that each member has his own special function in the body, for which he is responsible.

Looking farther afield, he is given some counsel about behavior to his pagan neighbors in the delicate situation in which the members of an unpopular sect were likely to find themselves. He must be prudent, nonprovocative, seeking peace, never flouting the social or moral standards of those among whom he lives, while using any opportunity of doing a kindness to them even if they had not been friendly to him.

Like other subjects of the Empire, he is told, he owes obedience to the constituted authorities and should make it a matter of conscience to keep the law and pay his taxes. But there are limits beyond which a higher allegiance claims him: he must be loyal at all cost to his faith, and prepared to endure persecution with inflexible determination and fortitude.

Finally he is reminded of the extremely critical time in which he lives, which calls for constant watchfulness and lays upon him the most solemn responsibilities.

Such is the general scheme which, with large variations of detail, reappears so often in these writings that we cannot but conclude that it was part of the common and primitive tradition of the church.

It is filled in and elaborated variously in different writings. We shall later have to take account of this elaboration, because it is there that we may detect some of the ways in which the fundamental convictions of the Gospel make their impact upon ethics; but for the present we recognize in the ethical teaching which is represented by the epistles, a practical scheme for the guidance of organized groups in the Roman Empire faced with the common problems of social behavior, in a situation which in same ways made such problems more difficult for them than for other people.

In the Greco-Roman world of the first century, the Christian church was not the only agency which aimed at elevating the moral standards of society. Judaism had long been a missionary religion. Hellenistic Judaism in particular had worked out a technique for approach to pagans, mainly on ethical lines. It won many proselytes, and its influence spread far beyond the limits of membership of the synagogue. Hellenistic Jewish missionaries had learned much as regards method from the preachers of popular philosophy, who went from city to city and often found ready audiences. These wandering philosophers mostly put forward some version of the fine, austere moral code of the Stoics, adapted for popular appeal.

We have a fair amount of evidence of the way in which these precursors of the Christian mission, both Jewish and a pagan, went about their task. It seems clear that the early Christians were influenced by their example. For instance, known Jewish forms for receiving proselytes show parallels to elements in the Christian catechesis, such as the insistence upon a radical reorientation of moral standards, and upon membership in a society carrying solemn obligations; such, again, as the recital of typical commandments which the convert will be expected to observe, and the warning of the danger of persecution” with demands for constancy.

Again, there is the method of setting forth moral obligations under the head of typical social relations: duties of husbands and wives, parents and children, masters and servants, duties to the commonwealth and the government. The passages of the epistles which deal with this theme are similar in style and manner to the popular teaching both of Hellenistic Judaism and of Stoicism. Not infrequently parallels to the actual precepts can be found, and have been set out at 1ength by scholars.

In broad outline, therefore, it appears that the ethical teaching given by the early church was pretty closely related to the general movement in Greco-Roman society towards the improvement of public morals as it was undertaken in the first century by various agencies. Christian teachers took for granted the existing structure of society, with its known moral problems and dangers. Up to a point, they were able to adopt a good deal of the basic criticism and counsel which serious moralists of other schools were urging on their contemporaries,

They were certainly wise in thus linking up the teaching they gave with the accepted standards of the society in which their converts moved. There is always a certain danger about a movement which aims at making its members superior to the commonly recognized standards. With unstable characters there is always the risk that, once emancipated from the accepted conventions, they will fall, below them instead of rising above them, and lapse into eccentricity or worse. It shows therefore, much wisdom in these early Christian teachers that they kept their converts’ feet firmly on the ground, by reminding them continually of the accepted fundamental obligations of society. It was extremely healthy (for example) for the Thessalonians to be told, “It is the will of God that you should be honest and industrious”; and for the Romans to be told, “It is the will of God that you should obey the law and pay your taxes”; whatever other and higher demands Christianity might make upon them.

When we have recognized the fact that in general structure the catechesis of early Christianity followed the lines of other ethical teaching of the time, we shall be better prepared to recognize the points at which specifically Christian motives and sanctions are introduced. We shall discover within the framework of a workaday code of behavior the impact of ideas which go far to transform the whole moral situation; and this will lead us to appreciate the deeper connections between Christian ethics and the religious springs from which they took their rise.

Dodd, recognized as one of the great New Testament scholars of the twentieth century, was for many years Professor of New Testament at Cambridge University. This essay was prepared for Religion Online by Rev. Herbert F Lowe.

See also:

1. Sermon for Early Christmas Day

In the early morning hours of the 18th of February, 1546, on a cold winter’s night in Eisleben, Martin Luther closed his eyes for ever. “I won’t live to see Easter” he had said on his sixty-third birthday. Concerned for his life, his friends and relatives saw him undertake, toward the end of January, the last journey of his life. Accompanied by his sons and Justus Jonas, he traveled to the city of his birth where he was to mediate a quarrel between the brothers who were the Counts of Mansfeld. The letters which he wrote to his “gracious dear lady of the house” during this journey, are the most stirringly human testimony to his mature, and yet childlike faith. “I fear that were you to cease your concern, the earth might finally swallow us up and destroy everything. Are you also studying the Catechism and the Creed? Pray and let God worry. For you and I are not commanded to worry for me or you. It says: ‘Cast your anxiety upon Him, for He cares for you’, Ps. 55 and many other texts.” He wrote this on the 10th of February. Four days later he preached his last sermon. On the 16th and 17th the agreement between the counts was signed and his task of peace-making was finished. Luther no longer took part in the negotiations on the last day and remained in his room. Toward evening he complained of chest pains, which then passed and returned and worsened. Toward 10:00 in the evening, after he had rested, he went to his bedroom. He took leave of his company with the words, “Pray for our Lord God and His Gospel, that things go well with Him. For the Council at Trent and the miserable Pope have a terrible grudge against Him.” Toward 1:00 am he awoke short of breath and raised his voice: “Oh, Lord God, I’m in so much pain! Oh, dear Doctor Jonas, it appears as though I shall remain here.” He still had been able to proceed to his room, and there began his last brief hour. In the presence of his son, his friends and a doctor who had been hastily summoned, at a moment of pause in his struggle with death, he spoke his last prayers, recited to himself Bible passages such as John 3:16, and Psalm 68:21, and answered the question put by Justus Jonas: “Reverend father, will you remain steadfast in Christ and the doctrine which you have preached?” He responded with an audible “Yes!” Then his soul passed into the peace of God. But in Eisleben, in the villages and cities through which his remains were carried, and especially in Wittenberg, at this burial in the Castle Church, and the funeral celebration of the University, there was a mourning which was more than the mourning of a people over the loss of one of its great men. Indeed, the man who died while the pope convened in Trent the council for the “eradication of heresy”, that is, for the elimination of the Lutheran Reformation, and while the Emperor mobilized the forces of a world power for war against the Evangelical estates, was more than a great German. He was more than a faithful guardian of the souls of his people, a man of whom one gets the impression that through his powerful prayers had averted the catastrophe which for many years had been sweeping toward Germany. As the rediscoverer of the Gospel of the grace of God, he was the Reformer of the Church, and not only the church of one land, rather the entire, the one church of God on earth.

Only he has understood Luther, who understands him as the Reformer of the Church. The legacy which Luther left behind can be properly grasped only by one who realizes that this legacy applies to all of Christendom on earth. For if Luther – as he himself thought and the Evangelical church believes – with his discovery of the saving truth of the justification of the sinner through faith alone, did nothing other than bring the holy gospel to light again, then his discovery has a significance as universal as the Gospel itself. He had expressed this his message one last time in the last lines which we have by his hand, written on a piece of paper on the 16th of February, and found after his death. This last note, written in Latin, speaks of the unfathomable depth of the Bible: “No one can understand Vergil in his Bucolics or Georgics unless he has been a shepherd or farmer for five years. No one can understand Cicero in his letters unless he has served in a significant position in government for 20 years. No one can apprehend the Holy Scriptures unless he has governed a congregation for a 100 years with the Prophets.” The note concludes with the sentence: “We are beggars: This is true.” The words “We are beggars” are written in German for emphasis.

It is as though Luther wanted to say what he had to say one last time; for all, for his contemporaries, those who came after him, for Christianity of all times. “We are beggars! This is true!” This is the fundamental melody which rang out throughout his entire life, doctrine and work. They ring powerfully already in the first words of his lectures on Romans of 1513, where he notes that it is the intent of this letter “to destroy, root-out, and bring to naught all wisdom and righteousness of the flesh, and this to fortify and make sin great.” It rings through the hymns of the Reformation: “Even in the best of lives, our deeds are naught”, “With our might nothing is done.” It resounds in all the work of the Reformer, to the last great controversial writings in which he defends the gospel against its falsification by pope and council. There is only one of the great teachers of the church who possessed the knowledge of human misery, the impotence of man in all spiritual matters, who can be compared to Luther. That is Augustin, the greatest of the church fathers of the old Latin church. He so emphasized the sola gratia, “by grace alone” in a time of the migration of nations to the Christianity of the west, that it could never completely forget it. Still today his mighty praise of the redeeming divine grace rings in the Roman Catholic liturgy when in one of the prayers, which is read by the priest in every mass, God is called upon as the “One who does not regard merit, but sends forgiveness.” Or when in the burial office is sung in the dies irae, “King of fearful majesty, you who deliver freely [umsonst] those who shall be delivered” and implores the Lord Christ:

“You who once absolved Mary
and pardoned the thief,
have granted hope also to me.”

This sola gratia, as it rings yet even in the Roman Church – if only as one note among others – must not be undervalued. As Evangelical [Lutheran] Christians we can only rejoice. This is for us today what it once was for the Reformer, Martin Luther: A promising sign that the church of God is also still present in Roman Christianity. Otherwise how could the Reformation have commenced from a cell in a monastery?

But Luther’s understanding goes deeper. He knew that the sola gratia must be enlarged by the sola fide, that to the “by grace alone” must be added “through faith alone.” For the depth of divine grace is understood only when one knows “Even in the best of lives, our deeds are naught.” Also in a life led in the peace of the forgiveness of God and in the power of His Holy Spirit, we are never righteous by what we are and do, rather always only through that which Christ is and what He as done for us. When the Apostle, with the deep experience of the effect of the Holy Spirit, describes a life of sanctification in Galatians 2:20, with the words: “I live, and yet not I, rather Christ lives in me,” he then continues with, “The life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” Our righteousness before God is never a righteousness which we possess, rather it is, in the proper sense of the word, the righteousness of Christ. What the old Reformation hymn says, which the young Zinzendorf revitalized in his own way, is literally true:

Jesus Thy blood and righteousness
My beauty are, my glorious dress
With it before God shall I stand,
When I heaven shall enter in.

Here the sola fide is so clearly and simply expressed that a child can understand it. If a Francis of Assisi, a Friedrich von Bodelschwingh, or whoever else one might name as an example of a sanctified life, were saved, then it was not because of their life or work, rather only for this reason: Because the Lord Christ also died for these poor sinners. “By faith alone”, that is “I am nothing, I have nothing, I am capable of nothing; but I have a Savior who is all, has all, and can do all.” God has made Him for us “Wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption” (I Cor. 1:31). And what Luther wrote in 1516 to his brother in the order, Goerg Spenlein, cries out through his words, “We are beggars: This is true”, his last written note, to all of Christianity, as his legacy to every Christian: “Father, my dear brother, learn of Christ, even Christ the Crucified! Learn to sing His praise and despairing of yourself, say to Him: You Lord Jesus, are my righteousness, but I am your sin. You have taken what was in me, and have given to me what I was not.” And then comes this bold assertion: “Be careful never to endeavor to obtain such purity, that you no longer find yourself a sinner, much less desire to be one. Christ dwells only among sinners. This is why he descended from heaven, when He dwelt among the righteous, so also to make His dwelling among sinners. Take note of this His love time and again and you will experience the sweetest consolation… And so only in Him, through having despaired of yourself and your works, will you find peace. Here you will learn from Christ Himself, that He, as He has received you unto Himself, has made your sins His own, and His righteousness your righteousness.”

Here we see Luther’s understanding of man in its profound correspondence with his understanding of Christ. Luther completely understood the pitiful condition of man, the sin which is “such a profound evil corruption of human nature,” “that reason cannot understand it, but it must be believed on the basis of holy Scripture.” That we are sinners “Even in the best of lives”, and that the “best” Christ is perceived in the daily and rich forgiveness of sins, this human reason cannot grasp, and it will not accept it for true when it hears it spoken. Original sin can be compared to one of those mental illnesses, a sign of which is that the sick person can no longer recognize his illness, and believes he is entirely healthy. Luther understood the profundity of sin because he allowed himself to be instructed on the nature of man, not from the philosophical books, as the medieval man learned from the works of Aristotle, but from the Word of God alone. And for this reason he was also able to understand the office and work of Jesus Christ as no teacher of the church before him. “Christ can not enter into living communion with a sinner.” Thus the German edition of St. Thomas Aquinas (vol. 30, p. 528) interprets the statement of Thomas Aquinas, that the man in the condition of mortal sin can not be united with Christ and thus must not receive the Sacrament of the Altar (Summa Theol. III, 79.3). Luther asserted the very opposite: “Christ dwells only with sinners.” For the sinner and for the sinner alone is His table set. There we receive His true body and His true blood “for the forgiveness of sins” and this holds true even if forgiveness has already been received in Absolution. That here Scripture is completely on the side of Luther needs no further demonstration. Every page of the New Testament is indeed testimony of the Christ whose proper office it is “to save sinners”, “to seek and to save the lost”. And the entire saving work of Jesus, from the days when He was in Galilee and, to the amazement and alarm of the Pharisees, ate with tax collectors and sinners; to the moment when he, in contradiction with the principles of every rational morality, promised paradise to the thief on the cross, yes, His entire life on earth, from the cradle to the cross, is one, unique grand demonstration of a wonder beyond all reason: The miracle of divine forgiveness, of the justification of the sinner. “Christ dwells only in sinners.”

“We are beggars: This is true.” In these words, the last which Martin Luther’s tireless pen wrote for us, lies his legacy to Christianity. The most profound understanding of man as sinner and the profound understanding of Christ as the Savior of sinners is bound up in this statement. “That man is nothing and that he learn to forsake himself and to hope in Christ” to this the Reformer yet today calls Christendom, and indeed, all Christendom. For the saving message of the justification of the sinner alone by grace belongs – precisely because it is nothing other than the proper understanding of the gospel – to all of God’s church. Yes, the one church of God, which on earth exists in, with and under the various confessional churches of Christendom, lives from the gospel so understood. For the pure maintenance of the message of the Reformation is not a work of confessional narrowness, rather a service for the unity of the church, as Luther once expressed it, when he said of the article of justification by faith, “Where this article remains pure, Christendom also remains pure and united, without separation. But where it does not remain, there it is not possible to avoid any error or sectarian spirit.” It is for this service that the Evangelical Lutheran Church today is called to fulfill in the world in a special way. It is still nothing other than that portion of Christendom to which the cry of the Reformation belonged and to which the Lord of the church had given the task to raise this cry again. Can we do this? Is the gospel of the justification of the sinner by grace alone still the bread from which we live? Is it still the heart and soul of our preaching? Do we still know – or once again realize! – what sin is, how serious the judgment of God is, and what a fearful thing it is to fall into the hands of the living God? Do we still know the full consolation of faith in the Savior of sinners, in the way Luther’s explanation of the second article shows Him to us? Do we know what it means that this Christ is actually present in the Word of His Gospel and in His Sacrament, as near to as he was when He walked the earth, yes nearer than when He ate with tax collectors and sinners? If we still know all of this, if we still believe it, is it a living possession or has it become a mere tradition? Have they become words without content? These are the questions which the Reformer poses for us who confess the faith of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, both in Germany and in the entire world. “We are beggars: This is true!” So must we answer with shame and remorse. But immeasurably rich in grace is He who is the Savior of all sinners and whom the New Testament once called “The Savior of His body” (Ephesians 5:23), the Redeemer of His church. And inexhaustible are the riches of His means of grace, the Gospel in Sermon and Absolution, Holy Baptism and the Holy Supper… inexhaustible for all beggars.

See also:

1. What is Christianity?
2. Conference on Christianity and Culture
3. Christ-less Christianity