Martin Luther - Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 208.138.62.217 (talk) at 15:25, 5 November 2008. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Revision as of 15:25, 5 November 2008 by 208.138.62.217 (talk)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)

Return to Wittenberg

Marriage and family

Katharina von Bora, Luther's wife, by Lucas Cranach the Elder, 1526

On the evening of June 13, 1525, Luther married Katharina von Bora, one of a group of 12 nuns he had helped escape from the Nimbschen Cistercian convent in April 1523, arranging for them to be smuggled out in herring barrels. "Suddenly, and while I was occupied with far different thoughts," he wrote to his friend Link, "the Lord has plunged me into marriage." Katharina was twenty-six years old, Luther forty-two.

A few priests and former monks had already married, including Andreas Karlstadt and Justus Jonas, but Luther’s marriage set the seal of approval on clerical marriage. He had long condemned vows of celibacy on biblical grounds, but his decision to marry surprised many, not least Melanchthon, who called it reckless. Luther had written to Spalatin on November 30, 1524, "I shall never take a wife, as I feel at present. Not that I am insensible to my flesh or sex (for I am neither wood nor stone); but my mind is averse to wedlock because I daily expect the death of a heretic." Melanchthon reveals in a letter that prior to his marriage, Luther had been living on the plainest food, and that his mildewed bed was not properly made for months at a time.

Luther and Katharina moved into a former monastery "The Black Cloister," a wedding present from the new elector John Frederick, and embarked upon what appears to have been a happy and successful marriage. Between bearing six children, Katharina, whose judgement Luther respected, helped earn the couple a living by farming the land and taking in boarders. Luther confided to Stiefel on August 11, 1526: "Catharina, my dear rib ... is, thanks to God, gentle, obedient, compliant in all things, beyond my hopes. I would not exchange my poverty for the wealth of Croesus."

By the time of Katharina's death, the surviving of the five Luther children were adults. Hans studied law and became a court advisor. Martin studied theology, but never had a regular pastoral call. Paul became a physician. He fathered six children, and the male line of the Luther family continued through him to John Ernest Luther, ending in 1759. Margaretha Luther, born in Wittenberg on December 17, 1534, married into a noble and wealthy Prussian family, to Georg von Kunheim (Wehlau, July 1, 1523 – Mühlhausen, October 18, 1611, the son of Georg von Kunheim (1480 – 1543) and wife Margarethe, Truchsessin von Wetzhausen (1490 – 1527) but died in Mühlhausen in 1570 at the age of thirty-six. However, her descendants have continued to the present, and include President Paul von Hindenburg, the Counts zu Eulenburg, and Princes zu Eulenburg und Hertefeld.

Peasants' War

Main article: Peasants' War

Despite his victory in Wittenberg, Luther was unable to stifle radicalism further afield. Preachers such as Zwickau prophet Nicholas Storch and Thomas Müntzer — whose rallying cry was "let not your sword grow cold from blood" — helped instigate the Peasants' War in 1524, during which many atrocities were committed, often in Luther's name. This war was being pursued by the peasantry in order to establish a classless society with shared goods. In 1525, Müntzer eventually succeeded in establishing a short-lived communist theocracy.

There had been revolts by the peasantry on a smaller scale since the 15th century; many of the peasants now believed that Luther's attack on the Church and the hierarchy meant that the reformers would support an attack on the upper classes in general, because of the close ties between the secular princes and the princes of the Church. Revolts broke out in Swabia, Franconia, and Thuringia in 1524, gaining support from disaffected nobles too, many of whom were in debt. Gaining momentum and a new leader in Thomas Müntzer, the revolts turned into war.

Luther sympathized with the peasants' grievances, as he showed in his response to the Twelve Articles of the Black Forest in May 1525, but he reminded them to obey the temporal authorities and became enraged at the widespread burning of convents, monasteries, bishops’ palaces, and libraries. In Against the Murderous, Thieving Hordes of Peasants (1525), he explained the Gospel teaching on wealth, condemned the violence as the devil's work, and called for the nobility to put down the rebels like mad dogs:

Therefore let everyone who can, smite, slay, and stab, secretly or openly, remembering that nothing can be more poisonous, hurtful, or devilish than a rebel ... For baptism does not make men free in body and property, but in soul; and the gospel does not make goods common, except in the case of those who, of their own free will, do what the apostles and disciples did in Acts 4 . They did not demand, as do our insane peasants in their raging, that the goods of others—of Pilate and Herod—should be common, but only their own goods. Our peasants, however, want to make the goods of other men common, and keep their own for themselves. Fine Christians they are! I think there is not a devil left in hell; they have all gone into the peasants. Their raving has gone beyond all measure.

In Against the Murderous, Thieving Hordes of Peasants Luther opposed the peasant movement for three reasons. First, instead of conducting themselves appropriately by lawfully submitting to the secular government, the peasants chose to resort to violence, therefore failing to heed Christ's counsel to "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's." Second, due to the peasant's violent actions of rebelling, robbing, and plundering, Luther explained that they were "outside the law of God and Empire," therefore meriting "death in body and soul, if only as highwaymen and murderers." Lastly, Luther presented how the peasants "cloak this terrible and horrible sin with the Gospel" and call themselves "Christian brethren," sins which Luther considered utter blasphemy.

Without Luther's backing for the uprising, many rebels laid down their weapons; others felt betrayed. Their defeat by the Swabian League at the Battle of Frankenhausen on May 25, 1525, followed by Müntzer’s execution, brought the revolutionary stage of the Reformation to a close. Thereafter, radicalism found a refuge in the anabaptist movement, while Luther's Reformation flourished under the wing of the secular powers.

Catechisms

Main article: Catechisms

Luther's signature

In 1528, Luther visited parishes and schools in Saxony to determine the quality of pastoral care and Christian education. He wrote in the preface to The Small Catechism: "Mercy! Good God! what manifold misery I beheld! The common people, especially in the villages, have no knowledge whatever of Christian doctrine, and, alas! many pastors are altogether incapable and incompetent to teach."

In response, he prepared the Small Catechism and Large Catechism, instructional and devotional material on the Ten Commandments, the Apostles' Creed, the Lord's Prayer, baptism, confession and absolution, and the Lord's Supper. The Small Catechism was supposed to be read by the people themselves, and the Large Catechism by the pastors; both remain popular instructional materials among Lutherans. Luther, who was modest about the publishing of his collected works, thought his catechisms were one of two works he would not be embarrassed to call his own: "Regarding the plan to collect my writings in volumes, I am quite cool and not at all eager about it because, roused by a Saturnian hunger, I would rather see them all devoured. For I acknowledge none of them to be really a book of mine, except perhaps the one Bondage of the Will and the Catechism."

Luther's translation of the Bible

Main article: Luther Bible

Luther translated the Bible from Greek into German to make it more accessible to ordinary people, a task he began alone in 1521 during his stay in the Wartburg castle. He was not the first translator of it into German, but he was by far the greatest, according to Philip Shaff, who writes that, had Luther done nothing but this, he would remain one of the "greatest benefactors of the German-speaking race."

His translation of The New Testament was published in September 1522 and, in collaboration with Johannes Bugenhagen, Justus Jonas, Caspar Creuziger, Philipp Melanchthon, Matthäus Aurogallus, and George Rörer, the Old and New Testaments together in 1534. He worked on refining the translation for the rest of his life.

The Luther Bible contributed to the emergence of the modern German language and is regarded as a landmark in German literature. The 1534 edition was influential on William Tyndale's translation, a precursor of the King James Bible. Philip Schaff, the 19th century theologian, said of the work:

The richest fruit of Luther's leisure in the Wartburg, and the most important and useful work of his whole life, is the translation of the New Testament, by which he brought the teaching and example of Christ and the Apostles to the mind and heart of the Germans in life-like reproduction. It was a republication of the gospel. He made the Bible the people's book in the church, school and home.

Liturgy and church government

A rare early printing of Luther's hymn, *Ein' feste Burg ist unser Gott* (A Mighty Fortress is Our God).

Luther's German Mass of 1526 provided for weekday services and for catechetical instruction. He strongly objected to making a new law of the forms and urged the retention of other good liturgies. While advocating Christian liberty in liturgical matters, he also spoke out in favor of maintaining and establishing liturgical uniformity among those sharing the same faith in a given area.

He saw in liturgical uniformity a fitting outward expression of unity in the faith, while in liturgical variation, an indication of possible doctrinal variation. He did not consider liturgical change a virtue, especially when it might be made by individual Christians or congregations: he was content to conserve and reform what the Church had inherited from the past. He eliminated and condemned those parts of the Roman Catholic Mass that taught that the Eucharist was a propitiatory sacrifice and the body and blood of Christ by transubstantiation, but retained the use of historic liturgical forms and customs.

Eucharist controversy

File:PICT4309.JPG

Statue of Martin Luther outside the St. Mary's Church, Berlin.

Luther's views on the Eucharist — the sacrament of the Lord's Supper — were put to the test in October 1529 at the Marburg Colloquy, an assembly of Protestant theologians gathered by Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse, to establish doctrinal unity in the emerging Protestant states. Agreement was achieved on most points, the exception being the nature of the Eucharist, an issue crucial to Luther.

The theologians, including Zwingli, Andreas Karlstadt, Leo Jud, and Johannes Oecolampadius, differed on the significance of the words spoken by Jesus at the Last Supper: "This is my body which is for you," "This cup is the new covenant in my blood" (1 Corinthians 11:23–26). Luther insisted on the Real Presence of the body and blood of Christ in the consecrated bread and wine, but the other theologians believed God to be only symbolically present: Zwingli, for example, denied Jesus's ability to be in more than one place at a time. But Luther, who affirmed the doctrine of Hypostatic Union, that Jesus is both man and God, was clear:

For I do not want to deny in any way that God’s power is able to make a body be simultaneously in many places, even in a corporeal and circumscribed manner. For who wants to try to prove that God is unable to do that? Who has seen the limits of his power?

Even more forcefully, Luther expressed his belief in the real presence in a letter to the Christians in Strassburg, Dec. 15, 1524:

This much I confess: if Dr Karlstadt or any one else could have convinced me five years ago that there was nothing but bread and wine in the sacrament, he would have rendered me a great service. I have undergone great temptations, and struggled and striven to get free of this because I saw clearly that with this I could have given the severest blow to popery. But I am bound; I cannot get free of it; the text is too strong, and cannot be wrested from its sense by words.

Despite these disagreements on the Eucharist, the Marburg Colloquy paved the way for the signing in 1530 of the Augsburg Confession, and for the formation of the Schmalkaldic League the following year by leading Protestant nobles such as Philip of Hesse, John Frederick of Saxony, and Georg, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach. According to Luther, agreement in the faith was not necessary prior to entering political alliances. Nevertheless, interpretations of the Eucharist differ among Protestants to this day.

Augsburg Confession

Further information: Augsburg Confession and Apology of the Augsburg Confession

Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, convened an Imperial Diet in Augsburg in 1530 with the goal of uniting the empire against the Ottoman Turks, who had besieged Vienna the previous autumn.

To achieve unity, Charles required a resolution of the religious controversies in his realm. Luther, still under the Imperial Ban, was left behind at the Coburg fortress while his elector and colleagues from Wittenberg attended the diet. The Augsburg Confession, a summary of the Lutheran faith authored by Philipp Melanchthon but influenced by Luther, was read aloud to the emperor. It was the first Lutheran confession included in the Book of Concord of 1580, and is regarded as the principal confession of the Lutheran Church.

Philip of Hesse controversy

In 1539, Luther became involved in controversy surrounding the bigamy of Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse, who wanted to marry one of his wife's ladies-in-waiting. He accordingly wrote Luther for his opinion, alleging as a precedent the polygamy of the patriarchs; but Luther replied that it was not enough for a Christian to consider the acts of the patriarchs, but that he, like the patriarchs, must have special divine sanction. Since, however, such sanction was lacking in the present case, Luther advised against such a marriage, especially for Christians, unless there was extreme necessity, as, for example, if the wife was leprous, or abnormal in other respects. Despite this discouragement, Philip gave up neither his project nor a life of sensuality which kept him for years from receiving communion.

Luther and antisemitism

Main article: Luther and antisemitism

Judensau on the Wittenberg church. The imagery of Jews in contact with pigs or representing the devil was common in German.

Historian Robert Michael writes that Luther was concerned with the Jewish question all his life, despite devoting only a small proportion of his work to it. As a Christian pastor and theologian Luther was concerned that people have faith in Jesus as the messiah for salvation. In rejecting that view of Jesus, the Jews became the "quintessential other," a model of the opposition to the Christian view of God. In an early work, That Jesus Christ was born a Jew, Luther advocated kindness toward the Jews, but only with the aim of converting them to Christianity: what was called Judenmission. When his efforts at conversion failed, he became increasingly bitter toward them. His main works on the Jews were his 60,000-word treatise Von den Juden und Ihren Lügen (On the Jews and Their Lies), and Vom Schem Hamphoras und vom Geschlecht Christi (On the Holy Name and the Lineage of Christ) — reprinted five times within his lifetime — both written in 1543, three years before his death. He argued that the Jews were no longer the chosen people, but were "the devil's people." They were "base, whoring people, that is, no people of God, and their boast of lineage, circumcision, and law must be accounted as filth." The synagogue was a "defiled bride, yes, an incorrigible whore and an evil slut ..." and Jews were full of the "devil's feces ... which they wallow in like swine." He advocated setting synagogues on fire, destroying Jewish prayerbooks, forbidding rabbis from preaching, seizing Jews' property and money, smashing up their homes, and ensuring that these "poisonous envenomed worms" be forced into labor or expelled "for all time." He also seemed to sanction their murder, writing "We are at fault in not slaying them."

Luther successfully campaigned against the Jews in Saxony, Brandenburg, and Silesia. Josel of Rosheim (1480-1554), who tried to help the Jews of Saxony, wrote in his memoir that their situation was "due to that priest whose name was Martin Luther — may his body and soul be bound up in hell!! — who wrote and issued many heretical books in which he said that whoever would help the Jews was doomed to perdition." Michael writes that Josel asked the city of Strasbourg to forbid the sale of Luther's anti-Jewish works; they refused initially, but relented when a Lutheran pastor in Hochfelden argued in a sermon that his parishioners should murder Jews. Luther's influence persisted after his death. Throughout the 1580s, riots saw the expulsion of Jews from several German Lutheran states.

According to Michael, Luther's work acquired the status of Scripture within Germany, and he became the most widely read author of his generation, in part because of the coarse and passionate nature of the writing. The prevailing view among historians is that his anti-Jewish rhetoric contributed significantly to the development of antisemitism in Germany, and in the 1930s and 1940s provided an ideal foundation for the National Socialist's attacks on Jews. Reinhold Lewin writes that "whoever wrote against the Jews for whatever reason believed he had the right to justify himself by triumphantly referring to Luther." According to Michael, just about every anti-Jewish book printed in the Third Reich contained references to and quotations from Luther. Heinrich Himmler wrote admiringly of his writings and sermons on the Jews in 1940. The city of Nuremberg presented a first edition of On the Jews and their Lies to Julius Streicher, editor of the Nazi newspaper Der Stürmer, on his birthday in 1937; the newspaper described it as the most radically anti-Semitic tract ever published. It was publicly exhibited in a glass case at the Nuremberg rallies and quoted in a 54-page explanation of the Aryan Law by Dr. E.H. Schulz and Dr. R. Frercks. On December 17, 1941, seven Lutheran regional church confederations issued a statement agreeing with the policy of forcing Jews to wear the yellow badge, "since after his bitter experience Luther had already suggested preventive measures against the Jews and their expulsion from German territory."

At the heart of the debate about Luther's influence is whether it is anachronistic to view his work as a precursor of the racial antisemitism of the National Socialists. Some scholars see Luther's influence as limited, and the Nazis' use of his work as opportunistic. Martin Brecht argues that there is a world of difference between Luther's belief in salvation, which depended on a faith in Jesus as the messiah — a belief Luther criticized the Jews for rejecting — and the Nazis' ideology of racial antisemitism. Johannes Wallmann argues that Luther's writings against the Jews were largely ignored in the 18th and 19th centuries, and that there is no continuity between Luther's thought and Nazi ideology. Uwe Siemon-Netto agrees, arguing that it was because the Nazis were already anti-Semites that they revived Luther's work. Hans J. Hillerbrand agrees that to focus on Luther is to adopt an essentially ahistorical perspective of Nazi antisemitism that ignores other contributory factors in German history. Other scholars argue that, even if his views were merely anti-Judaic, their violence lent a new element to the standard Christian suspicion of Judaism. Ronald Berger writes that Luther is credited with "Germanizing the Christian critique of Judaism and establishing anti-Semitism as a key element of German culture and national identity." Paul Rose argues that he caused a "hysterical and demonizing mentality" about Jews to enter German thought and discourse, a mentality that might otherwise have been absent.

Since the 1980s, Lutheran Church denominations have repudiated Martin Luther's antisemitic views.

Among Luther's antisemitic writings in On the Jews and Their Lies (1543), Chapter XI is the most vitriolic.

Final years and death

His tombstone in the Castle Church in Wittenberg.

Luther had been suffering from ill health for years, including constipation, hemorrhoids, Ménière's disease (vertigo, fainting, and tinnitus), and a cataract in one eye. From 1531–1546, his health deteriorated further. The years of struggle with Rome, the antagonisms with and among his fellow reformers, and the scandal which ensued from the bigamy of the Philip of Hesse incident, in which Luther had played a leading role, all may have contributed. In 1536, he began to suffer from kidney and bladder stones, and arthritis, and an ear infection ruptured an ear drum. In December 1544, he began to feel the effects of angina.

His physical health made him short-tempered and even harsher in his writings and comments. His wife Katie was overheard saying, "Dear husband, you are too rude," and he responded, "They are teaching me to be rude."

His last sermon was delivered at Eisleben, his place of birth, on February 15, 1546, three days before his death. It was "entirely devoted to the obdurate Jews, whom it was a matter of great urgency to expel from all German territory," according to Léon Poliakov. James Mackinnon writes that it concluded with a "fiery summons to drive the Jews bag and baggage from their midst, unless they desisted from their calumny and their usury and became Christians." Luther said, "we want to practice Christian love toward them and pray that they convert," but also that they are "our public enemies ... and if they could kill us all, they would gladly do so. And so often they do."

Luther's final journey, to Mansfeld, was taken due to his concern for his siblings' families continuing in their father Hans Luther's copper mining trade. Their livelihood was threatened by Count Albrecht of Mansfeld bringing the industry under his own control. The controversy that ensued involved all four Mansfeld counts: Albrecht, Philip, John George, and Gerhard. Luther journeyed to Mansfeld twice in late 1545 to participate in the negotiations for a settlement, and a third visit was needed in early 1546 for their completion.

The negotiations were successfully concluded on February 17, 1546. After 8:00 p.m., he experienced chest pains. When he went to his bed, he prayed, "Into your hand I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God" (Ps. 31:5), the common prayer of the dying. At 1:00 a.m. he awoke with more chest pain and was warmed with hot towels. He thanked God for revealing his son to him in whom he had believed. His companions, Justus Jonas and Michael Coelius, shouted loudly, "Reverend father, are you ready to die trusting in your Lord Jesus Christ and to confess the doctrine which you have taught in his name?" A distinct "Yes" was Luther's reply. (It was believed at the time that sudden cardiac arrest or stroke was a sign that Satan had taken a man's soul; Luther's companions stressed that he had gradually weakened and commended himself into God's hands.)

An apoplectic stroke deprived him of his speech, and he died shortly afterwards at 2:45 a.m., February 18, 1546, aged 62, in Eisleben, the city of his birth. He was buried in the Castle Church in Wittenberg, beneath the pulpit.

A piece of paper was later found on which he had written his last statement. The statement was in Latin, apart from "We are beggars," which was in German.

1. No one can understand Vergil's Bucolics unless he has been a shepherd for five years. No one can understand Vergil's Georgics, unless he has been a farmer for five years.
2. No one can understand Cicero's Letters (or so I teach), unless he has busied himself in the affairs of some prominent state for twenty years.
3. Know that no one can have indulged in the Holy Writers sufficiently, unless he has governed churches for a hundred years with the prophets, such as Elijah and Elisha, John the Baptist, Christ and the apostles.
Do not assail this divine Aeneid; nay, rather prostrate revere the ground that it treads.
We are beggars: this is true.

Recent trends in research

Modern Luther scholarship has presented a more diverse view of Luther. Research lead by Tuomo Mannermaa at the University of Helsinki has led to the development of the The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther that describes Luther's views on salvation in terms much closer to Eastern Orthodox notions of theosis rather than established interpretations of German Luther scholarship. This research has recently been presented in English in an anthology of papers edited by Carl E. Braaten and Robert W. Jenson in a work entitled, Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther. Mannermaa states, "the external impulse for this new wave of Luther studies in Helsinki came surprisingly from outside the boundaries of Luther research. It came from the ecumenical dialogue between the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland and the Russian Orthodox Church that was initiated by Archbishop Martti Simojoki at the beginning of the nineteen-seventies." This research has been called into question because it ignores Luther's roots and theological development in Western Christendom, and it characterizes Luther's teaching on Justification as based on Jesus' righteousness which indwells the believer rather than Jesus' righteousness as imputed to the believer.

Beginning in 1955, a new English translation of Luther's major works was carried out as a joint venture of Concordia Publishing House and Fortress, now Augsburg Fortress Press. Known as the "American Edition of Luther's Works," it has led to the rediscovery of some of Luther's most controversial writings, and a more complete picture has emerged of this prolific writer and his complex personality.

The "American Edition" translation of On the Jews and Their Lies in 1971, possibly the first complete English version, revealed to many readers a side of Luther they had not previously known. Another of Luther's works, Vom Schem Hamphoras, was translated and published independently as part of The Jew In Christian Theology by Gerhard Falk in 1992. Luther's Vom Schem Hamphoras continues his graphic and polemical satire against and his castigation of the Jews, but it does not exceed the violently graphic and religiously zealous anti-Jewish diatribe of On the Jews and Their Lies.

The "American Edition" also brought to English readers Against the Papacy at Rome Founded by the Devil (1545), which has been described as "one of Luther's most coarse and vehement works." It is said to contain scatological satires of the Pope, with illustrations by Cranach, who is known for painting Luther’s portrait. These "were so inexpressibly vile that a common impulse of decency demanded their summary suppression by his friends."

Against Hanswurst (1541) was also translated as part of the "American Edition" and is described as "rivaling his anti-Jewish treatises for vulgarity and violence of expression."

Literary treatments

The Nightingale of Wittenburg by August Strindberg (German title, Luther)

References

^ Cite error: The named reference Schaff IV was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
Schaff, Philip, History of the Christian Church, Vol VII, Ch V.
In a Greek letter to his friend Camerarius. The letter was published in the original Greek by W. Meyer, in the reports of the München Academy of Sciences, Nov. 4, 1876, pp. 601-604.The text is changed in the Corp. Reform ., I. 753. Melanchton calls Luther a very reckless man ( ἀνὴρ ὡς μάλιστα εὐχερής ), but hopes that he will become more solemn ( σεμνότερος).
^ Schaff, Philip. "Luther’s Marriage. 1525.", History of the Christian Church, Volume VII. Modern Christianity. The German Reformation. § 77.
"Martin Luther", Encyclopaedia Britannica 1911.
Jaroslav J. Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, Luther's Works, 55 vols. (St. Louis and Philadelphia: Concordia Pub. House and Fortress Press, 1955-1986), 46: 50-51.
Ibid., 46: 47-55
Luther, Martin. "Preface", Small Catechism.
Luther, Martin. Luther's Works. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971, 50:172-173. The remark indicates that he saw himself as the mythological Saturn, who devoured his children; Luther wanted to get rid of many of his writings except for the two mentioned. The Large and Small Catechisms are spoken of as one work by Luther in this letter.
Shaff, Philip. "Luther's Translation of the Bible", History of the Christian Church, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1910. Schaff quotes Hegel's Philosophie der Geschichte, p. 503: "Luther hat die Autorität der Kirche verworfen und an ihre Stelle die Bibel und das Zeugniss des menschlichen Geistes gesetzt. Dass nun die Bibel selbst die Grundlage der christlichen Kirche geworden ist, ist von der grössten Wichtigkeit; jeder soll sich nun selbst daraus belehren, jeder sein Gewissen daraus bestimmen können. Diess ist die ungeheure Veränderung im Principe: die ganze Tradition und das Gebäude der Kirche wird problematisch und das Princip der Autorität der Kirche umgestossen. Die Uebersetzung, welche Luther von der Bibel gemacht hat, ist von unschätzbarem Werthe für das deutsche Volk gewesen. Dieses hat dadurch ein Volksbuch erhalten, wie keine Nation der katholischen Welt ein solches hat; sie haben wohl eine Unzahl von Gebetbüchlein, aber kein Grundbuch zur Belehrung des Volks. Trotz dem hat man in neueren Zeiten Streit deshalb erhoben, ob es zweckmässig sei, dem Volke die Bibel indie Hand zu geben; die wenigen Nachtheile, die dieses hat, werden doch bei weitem von den ungeheuren Vortheilen überwogen; die äusserlichen Geschichten, die dem Herzen und Verstande anstössig sein können, weiss der religiöse Sinn sehr wohl zu unterscheiden, und sich an das Substantielle haltend überwindet er sie."
Tyndale's New Testament, xv, xxvii.
Tyndale's New Testament, ix–x.
Schaff, Philip. History of the Christian Church, 8 vols., New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1910.
A Christian Exhortation to the Livonians concerning Public Worship and Concord (June 17, 1525) in Luther's Works, 53:47. Translated from Weimar Ausgabe 18:417-421.
Schaff-Herzog, "Luther, Martin", 73.
Schaff-Herzog, "Luther, Martin", 74.
Luther's Works, 37:223–224.
This quotation leaves out this sentence: "There were two who then wrote me, with much more skill than Dr. Karlstadt has, and who did not torture the Word with their own preconceived notions." Cf. Luther's Works 40:68.
Quoted in Heinrich Gelzer, Gustav Ferdinand Leopold König,The Life of Martin Luther, the German Reformer 1855, London, Nathaniel Cook, Milford House, Strand, p. 145. Philip Schaff gives the German: "Das bekenne ich," he wrote, December 15, 1524, to the Christians in Strassburg (De Wette, II. 577), "wo D. Carlstadt oder jemand anders vor fünf Jahren mich hätte mögen berichten, dass im Sacrament nichts denn Brot und Wein wäre, der hätte mir einen grossen Dienst gethan. Ich habe wohl so harte Anfechtungen da erlitten und mich gerungen und gewunden, dass ich gern heraus gewesen wäre, weil ich wohl sah, dass ich damit dem Papstthum hätte den grössten Puff können geben. Ich hab auch zween gehabt, die geschickter davon zu mir geschrieben haben denn D. Carlstadt, und nicht also die Worte gemartert nach eigenem Dünken. Aber ich bin gefangen, kann nicht heraus: der Text ist zu gewaltig da, und will sich mit Worten nicht lassen ans dem Sinn reissen." ; cf. Weimar Ausgabe 15:391-397 and Luther's Works 40:68.
Schaff-Herzog, "Luther, Martin", 74.
Stöhr, Martin. "Die Juden und Martin Luther," in Kremers, Heinz et al (eds.) Die Juden und Martin Luther; Martin Luther und die Juden. Neukirchener publishing house, Neukirchen Vluyn 1985, 1987 (second edition). p. 90. Taken from Michael, Robert. Holy Hatred: Christianity, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, p. 109. See also Oberman, Heiko. Luther: Between Man and Devil. New Haven, 1989.
Hsia, R. Po-chia. "Jews as Magicians in Reformation Germany," in Gilman, Sander L. and Katz, Steven T. Anti-Semitism in Times of Crisis, New York: New York University Press, 1991, pp. 119-120, cited in Michael, Robert. Holy Hatred: Christianity, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, p. 109.
Michael, Robert. Holy Hatred: Christianity, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, p. 109.
^ Noble, Graham. "Martin Luther and German anti-Semitism," History Review (2002) No. 42:1-2.
Michael, Robert. Holy Hatred: Christianity, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, p. 110.
Luther, Martin. On the Jews and their Lies, 154, 167, 229, cited in Michael, Robert. Holy Hatred: Christianity, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, p. 111.
Michael, Robert. Holy Hatred: Christianity, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, p. 112.
Obermann, Heiko. Luthers Werke. Erlangen 1854, 32:282, 298, in Grisar, Hartmann. Luther. St. Louis 1915, 4:286 and 5:406, cited in Michael, Robert. Holy Hatred: Christianity, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, p. 113.
Luther, Martin. "On the Jews and Their Lies," Luthers Werke. 47:268-271.
Michael, Robert. "Luther, Luther Scholars, and the Jews," Encounter, 46 (Autumn 1985) No.4:343.
Luther, Martin. On the Jews and Their Lies, cited in Michael, Robert. "Luther, Luther Scholars, and the Jews," Encounter 46 (Autumn 1985) No. 4:343-344.
Marcus, Jacob Rader. The Jew in the Medieval World, p. 198, cited in Michael, Robert. Holy Hatred: Christianity, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, p. 110.
^ Michael, Robert. Holy Hatred: Christianity, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, p. 117.
Vincent Fettmilch, a Calvinist, reprinted On the Jews and their Lies in 1612 to stir up hatred against the Jews of Frankfurt. Two years later, riots in Frankfurt saw the deaths of 3,000 Jews and the expulsion of the rest. Fettmilch was executed by the Lutheran city authorities, but Robert Michael writes that his execution was for attempting to overthrow the authorities, not for his offenses against the Jews.
"The assertion that Luther's expressions of anti-Jewish sentiment have been of major and persistent influence in the centuries after the Reformation, and that there exists a continuity between Protestant anti-Judaism and modern racially oriented anti-Semitism, is at present wide-spread in the literature; since the Second World War it has understandably become the prevailing opinion." Johannes Wallmann, "The Reception of Luther's Writings on the Jews from the Reformation to the End of the 19th century", Lutheran Quarterly, n.s. 1 (Spring 1987) 1:72-97.
For similar views, see:
- Berger, Ronald. Fathoming the Holocaust: A Social Problems Approach (New York: Aldine De Gruyter, 2002), 28.
- Rose, Paul Lawrence. "Revolutionary Antisemitism in Germany from Kant to Wagner," (Princeton University Press, 1990), quoted in Berger, 28);
- Shirer, William. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1960).
- Johnson, Paul. A History of the Jews (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1987), 242.
- Poliakov, Leon. History of Anti-Semitism: From the Time of Christ to the Court Jews. (N.P.: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003), 216.
- Berenbaum, Michael. The World Must Know. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, 1993, 2000), 8–9.
Grunberger, Richard. The 12-Year Reich: A Social History of Nazi German 1933-1945 (NP:Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971), 465.
Himmler wrote: "what Luther said and wrote about the Jews. No judgment could be sharper."
Ellis, Marc H. Hitler and the Holocaust, Christian Anti-Semitism", (NP: Baylor University Center for American and Jewish Studies, Spring 2004), Slide 14.
Brecht 3:351.
Johannes Wallmann, "The Reception of Luther's Writings on the Jews from the Reformation to the End of the 19th century", Lutheran Quarterly, n.s. 1 (Spring 1987) 1:72-97.
Siemon-Netto, The Fabricated Luther, 17-20.
Siemon-Netto, "Luther and the Jews," Lutheran Witness 123 (2004) No. 4:19, 21.
Hillerbrand, Hans J. "Martin Luther," Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2007. Hillerbrand writes: "His strident pronouncements against the Jews, especially toward the end of his life, have raised the question of whether Luther significantly encouraged the development of German anti-Semitism. Although many scholars have taken this view, this perspective puts far too much emphasis on Luther and not enough on the larger peculiarities of German history."
For similar views, see:
- Bainton, Roland, 297;
- Briese, Russell. "Martin Luther and the Jews," Lutheran Forum (Summer 2000):32;
- Brecht, Martin Luther, 3:351;
- Edwards, Mark U. Jr. Luther's Last Battles: Politics and Polemics 1531-46. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1983, 139;
- Gritsch, Eric. "Was Luther Anti-Semitic?", Christian History, No. 3:39, 12.;
- Kittelson, James M., Luther the Reformer, 274;
- Marius, Richard. Martin Luther, 377;
- Oberman, Heiko. The Roots of Anti-Semitism: In the Age of Renaissance and Reformation. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984, 102;
- Rupp, Gordon. Martin Luther, 75;
- Siemon-Netto, Uwe. Lutheran Witness, 19.
Berger, Ronald. Fathoming the Holocaust: A Social Problems Approach (New York: Aldine De Gruyter, 2002), 28.
Rose, Paul Lawrence. Revolutionary Antisemitism in Germany from Kant to Wagner. Princeton University Press, 1990. Cited in Berger, Ronald. Fathoming the Holocaust: A Social Problems Approach. New York: Aldine De Gruyter, 2002, 28.
Iversen OH (1996). "". Tidsskr. Nor. Laegeforen. (in Norwegian). 116 (30): 3643–6. PMID 9019884.
Edwards, 9.
Spitz, 354.
Luther, Martin. Sermon No. 8, "Predigt über Mat. 11:25, Eisleben gehalten," February 15, 1546, Luthers Werke, Weimar 1914, 51:196-197.
Poliakov, Léon. From the Time of Christ to the Court Jews, Vanguard Press, p. 220.
Mackinnon, James. Luther and the Reformation. Vol. IV, (New York: Russell & Russell, 1962, p. 204.
Luther, Martin. Admonition against the Jews, added to his final sermon, cited in Oberman, Heiko. Luther: Man Between God and the Devil, New York: Image Books, 1989, p. 294.
Oberman, Heiko, Luther: Man Between God and the Devil. New York; Doubleday, 1990, 3-4
Brecht, Martin. Martin Luther. tr. James L. Schaaf, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985–93, 3:369-379.
Kellermann, James A. (translator) "The Last Written Words of Luther: Holy Ponderings of the Reverend Father Doctor Martin Luther". February 16, 1546.
Original German and Latin of Luther's last written words is: "Wir sein pettler. Hoc est verum." Heinrich Bornkamm, Luther's World of Thought, tr. Martin H. Bertram (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1958), 291.
Dorman, Ted. Review of "Union With Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther". First Things, 1999. Retrieved 2007-05-31.
Tuomo Mannermaa, "Why Is Luther So Fascinating? Modern Finnish Luther Research," Union with Christ, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 1.
William Wallace Schumacher, "'Who Do I Say That You Are?' Anthropology and the Theology of Theosis in the Finnish School of Tuomo Mannermaa" (Ph.D. diss., Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri, 2003), 260 et passim. Cf. also the papers that constitute Union with Christ: The New Finnish Interpretation of Luther by various authors; cf. also Robert Kolb and Charles P. Arand, The Genius of Luther's Theology: A Wittenberg Way of Thinking for the Contemporary Church, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2008), 48: "These views ignore the radically different metaphysical base of Luther's understanding and that of the Eastern church, and they ignore Luther's understanding of the dynamic, re-creative nature of God's Word."
Jaroslav Pelikan and Helmut T. Lehmann, general editors, Luther's Works, 55 vols., (CPH: St. Louis, AF: Minneapolis, 1955-1986), 1:v.
Jaroslav Pelikan and Helmut T. Lehmann, general editors, Luther's Works, 55 vols., (CPH: St. Louis, AF: Minneapolis, 1955-1986), 47:136, 137-306.
Falk, Gerhard, The Jew in Christian Theology: Martin Luther's Anti-Jewish Vom Schem Hamphoras, Previously Unpublished in English, and Other Milestones in Church Doctrine Concerning Judaism, McFarland: Jefferson, NC, 1992. ISBN 0899507166.
Jaroslav Pelikan and Helmut T. Lehmann, general editors, Luther's Works, 55 vols., (CPH: St. Louis, AF: Minneapolis, 1955-1986), 41:257-376.
"Martin Luther", Onlineliterature.com, accessed May 2007.
Luther, The Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. 9, 1913.
Jaroslav Pelikan and Helmut T. Lehmann, general editors, Luther's Works, 55 vols., (CPH: St. Louis, AF: Minneapolis, 1955-1986), 41:179-255.
Edwards, Mar U. "Luther's Last Battles", Concordia Theological Quarterly, Vol. 48, Nos. 2 & 3, April-July 1984.