AGAINST THE SPIRITUAL ESTATE OF THE POPE AND THE BISHOPS FAL

AGAINST THE SPIRITUAL ESTATE OF THE POPE AND THE BISHOPS FALSELY SO CALLED

1522

Translated by
Eric W. and Ruth C. Gritsch




INTRODUCTION

On September 15, 1521, Archbishop Albrecht of Mainz celebrated the annual festival of relics at his newly built cathedral, the Church of St. Moritz and Mary Magdalene in Halle, with the official announcement that indulgences would be granted to all visitors to the exhibition of relics. Anyone who prayed at a shrine and gave alms was promised an indulgence of four thousand years; anyone who confessed his sins to one of the priests hearing confessions in the cathedral during the ten days of the celebration would receive a plenary indulgence. Pope Leo X had issued a bull in 1519 granting the cathedral of Halle the same privileges granted to the Church of St. Peter in Rome: its confessors were authorized to absolve cases usually absolved only by the apostolic see in Rome; in addition, they could convert vows into financial contributions for the completion of the Halle cathedral—privileges not unusual in the established indulgence practice of the Roman curia.
When Luther heard of Albrecht’s announcement—probably by the end of September, 1521—he viewed it as a revival of the indulgence traffic he had so sharply opposed in his Ninety-five Theses of 1517. Other news from the episcopal court in Mainz had already aroused his anger: priests who intended to marry or had married had been arrested while at the same time other priests received special dispensations to keep women in the parsonage. In addition, the archbishop himself was said to live an immoral life at Moritz castle, where he supposedly kept his mistresses.2 “I shall not let myself be restrained,” Luther wrote angrily to George Spalatin on October 7, 1521, “from privately and publicly attacking the idol at Mainz with regard to his brothel in Halle.” By November 11, 1521, Luther had written his angry attack against Albrecht of Mainz entitled Against the Idol at Halle (Wider den Abgott zu Halle). No longer extant, its contents were regarded a threat to public peace. Elector Frederick prohibited its publication when Luther sent it to Spalatin to have it printed. Moreover, Albrecht himself had sent a delegation to Wittenberg and Weimar to explain his position to Luther’s friends and to the Saxon courts. On September 30, 1521, Wolfgang Capito, head priest at the Mainz cathedral and a friend of Luther’s cause, had traveled to Wittenberg in the company of Henry Stromer von Auerbach, Albrecht’s personal physician, to speak with Luther’s friends, Philip Melanchthon and Justus Jonas. On October 1 they had seen Elector Frederick and, between October 8 and 12, they had explained Albrecht’s position to the Weimar court. Sometime later Spalatin informed Luther at the Wartburg about the Elector’s decision to prohibit the publication of Luther’s treatise Against the Idol at Halle. Luther was even more infuriated. “I will not put up with your statement,” he wrote back to Spalatin on November 11, 1521, “that the Sovereign will not allow anything to be written against Mainz [Albrecht of Mainz] or anything that could disturb the public peace. I would rather lose you, the Sovereign himself, and the whole world [than be quiet]. If I have resisted [the] creator, the pope, why should I yield to his creature? Your idea about not disturbing the public peace is beautiful, but will you allow the eternal peace of God to be disturbed by the wicked and sacrilegious actions of that son of perdition? Not so, Spalatin! Not so, Elector!”
He agreed to let Melanchthon make changes—he trusted Melanchthon’s diplomatic skill—but insisted on publication. “Do not dissuade him [Melanchthon] from publishing it,” he told Spalatin in his reply. “This question is settled, and I will not listen to you.”
When Wittenberg remained silent after Luther’s outburst, Luther could wait no longer. On December 1, 1521, he addressed a letter to Albrecht of Mainz which was written in a threatening tone and demanded a reply within two weeks. “Therefore be it finally made known in writing to Your Electoral Grace: if the idol [the sale of indulgences] is not taken down, my duty toward divine doctrine and Christian salvation is a necessary, urgent, and unavoidable reason to attack publicly Your Electoral Grace (as I did the pope) … and to show to all the world the difference between a bishop and a wolf.” He closed with the ultimatum: “I beg and expect Your Electoral Grace’s definite and speedy reply to this letter within fourteen days; if after this appointed fortnight no public answer should appear, my little book Against the Idol at Halle will be released.” On December 3, Luther secretly went to Wittenberg, arriving there after several hours of hard riding. Melanchthon told him that Spalatin held back the manuscript, obeying the Elector’s orders. Two days later, on December 5, Luther was back at the Wartburg. “What I have written,” he wrote to Spalatin after his return, “I want published, if not in Wittenberg then certainly somewhere else.”9 Spalatin’s reply—the letter is no longer extant but can be guessed at from Luther’s later correspondence—seems to have calmed Luther’s fury; Capito had managed to persuade Albrecht to reform the situation in Mainz; arrested priests had been released and Albrecht himself had preached reform. On December 12, 1521, Luther, in a letter to Spalatin, agreed to wait with the publication of his treatise against Albrecht and advised Spalatin to give the manuscript to Melanchthon, who was authorized to edit it if he felt it necessary. Capito wrote to Luther from Mainz that Albrecht had indeed reformed and would write a personal letter to Luther indicating his compliance with Luther’s demands. Luther then received Albrecht’s letter dated December 21, 1521, and seemed satisfied with Albrecht’s good will. “I will act, God willing,” Albrecht told Luther, “as becomes a pious, spiritual, and Christian prince, as far as God gives me grace and strength.… I am more than willing to show you grace and favor for Christ’s sake, and I can well bear fraternal and Christian punishment.”11 Thus Luther was completely victorious: Albrecht, his old foe, had humbled himself before the Reformer.
But Luther was not quite satisfied. He was more concerned with the evil of the indulgences than with the person of the archbishop of Mainz. “I wanted to put an end to ungodliness,” he wrote to Melanchthon on January 13, 1522. Further on he wrote, “I shall restrain myself and not treat the man as he deserves.… But I shall show him that I am alive.” He instructed Melanchthon to keep the manuscript so that it might be published to “serve as a general censure, should others go insane like that.”13 There is no convincing evidence that it was ever published. Instead, Luther turned to a general attack on the “papistic” establishment, which appeared sometime before July 9, 1522, under the title Against the Spiritual Estate of the Pope and the Bishops, Falsely So Called. Luther’s highly polemical and satirical language, more evident in this treatise than in others, was prompted by the recurrence of the indulgence traffic in the territory of Albrecht of Mainz. The so-called “spiritual estate” was used, according to Luther, to cover up the sins of ecclesiastical princes who betrayed the gospel and perverted their calling. In arguing for the right of priests to marry, Luther tried to recover the evangelical morality imperative for any man, including a priest.
Luther’s treatise was attacked by his old opponent from Leipzig, Jerome Emser, who countered with a pamphlet entitled Against the Ecclesiastic, Falsely So Called, and True Arch-heretic Martin Luther (Wyder den falschgenanten Ecclesiasten und warhafftigen Ertzketzer Martinurn Luter), which was published on January 3, 1523. Luther left that one unanswered like the others.16
Against the Spiritual Estate of the Pope and the Bishops, Falsely So Called (Wider den falsch genantten geystlichen stand des Babst und der bischoffen) was printed by Nickel Schirlentz in Wittenberg. The section entitled Dr. Luther’s Bull and Reformation appeared separately in 1523 in two editions, one published in Erfurt, the other in Augsburg, under the title The Bull of the Ecclesiastic in Wittenberg Against the Papal Bishops, Granting God’s Grace and Merit to All who Keep and Obey It (Die Bulle Des Ecclesiastenn zu Wittenbergk Wider die Bepstischen Bischoff, Die da gibt Gottes genade zu lon allen den, die sy haltenz, und in volgen). A fragment of Luther’s original manuscript was discovered by the WA editors in the Bodleian Library at Oxford University. Our translation is based on this manuscript and the Schirlentz edition printed in WA 10II, 105–158. We have translated the significant portions of Luther’s original treatise as they appear in the notes of the WA and MA editions. These portions clearly indicate Luther’s concern for the real issue, namely, the proper understanding of the offices of priest and bishop, over against the attack on the person of Albrecht of Mainz.




AGAINST THE SPIRITUAL ESTATE OF THE POPE AND THE BISHOPS FALSELY SO CALLED


Jesus

Martin Luther, ecclesiastic in Wittenberg by the grace of God: To the papal bishops [I offer] my service and self-understanding in Christ.

Although I might be regarded as a fool by you, dear lords, because of the haughty title I call myself, an ecclesiastic by the grace of God, you should know that I am not at all surprised by this. You curse, slander, condemn, persecute, and possibly even burn me as a heretic for the sake of a high and noble cause. In this you act as you please, according to the pleasure of your idol. As a result of God’s disfavor you have the virtue that you do not want to listen. Neither do you want to give an answer. Instead, like the hardened Jews you blasphemously and stubbornly want to condemn me without a hearing, without investigating the cause, without overcoming me. You are not even ashamed of letting a man defy you so frequently with such good reason. Very well then, since it is a question of lowering the horns and acting with brute force, I too have to lower my horns and risk my head for my Lord. In order to get things started, I call myself an ecclesiastic by the grace of God in defiance of you and the devil, although you call me a heretic with an abundance of slander. And even if I called myself an evangelist by the grace of God, I would still be more confident of proving it than that any one of you could prove his episcopal title or name. I am certain that Christ himself, who is the master of my teaching, gives me this title and regards me as one. Moreover, he will be my witness on the Last Day that it is not my pure gospel but his. Thus your raging and raving is not going to help you at all. Rather, the more you rage and rave, the haughtier we shall be toward you, with God’s help, and [the more we] shall despise your disgrace. Even though you might take my life, since you are murderers, you will annihilate neither my name nor my teaching. For you too will have to die at last and put an end to murder.
Now that I am deprived of my titles through papal and imperial disfavor and my bestial character is washed away with so many bulls that I need never be called either Doctor of Holy Scripture or some kind of papal creature, I am almost as shocked as an ass who has lost its bag. For these masks3 were my greatest shame before God. I too was once in error (which I learned from your crowd at great price and with great effort), a liar, a cheater, a seducer, and a blasphemer against God’s pure teaching, as you are now. But the Father of all mercy did not look at my vice, blasphemy, and my very sinful, evil life; instead, out of the infinite richness of his grace, he permitted me to know his Son, Jesus Christ, and to teach [him] to others, until we were certain of his truth. However, I need not have any title and name to praise highly the word, office, and work which I have from God and which you blind blasphemers defile and persecute beyond measure. I trust my praise will overcome your defiling, just as my justice will overcome your injustice. It does not matter if, with your blasphemy, you are on top for the moment.
Therefore, I now let you know that from now on I shall no longer do you the honor of allowing you—or even an angel from heaven—to judge my teaching or to examine it. For there has been enough foolish humility now for the third time at Worms, and it has not helped. Instead, I shall let myself be heard and, as St. Peter teaches, give an explanation and defense of my teaching to all the world [I Pet. 3:15]. I shall not have it judged by any man, not even by any angel. For since I am certain of it, I shall be your judge and even the angels’ judge through this teaching (as St. Paul says [I Cor. 6:3]) so that whoever does not accept my teaching may not be saved—for it is God’s and not mine. Therefore, my judgment is also not mine but God’s.
Finally, dear lords, let this be the conclusion: If I live you shall have no peace from me, and if you kill me you shall have ten times less peace, for I shall be, as Hosea says, a bear on the road and a lion in the street [Hos. 13:8]. No matter how you handle me, you shall not have your will until your iron head and stiff neck are broken with either grace or disgrace. If you do not improve as I would like to see you do, then it is agreed that you threaten with hostility and I do not care. May God grant that you know yourselves. Amen.


Preface

So that some well-meaning hearts do not get the impression that I go too far when I attack the great lords—or that I might create rebellion and unrest, as the tyrants themselves interpret it—I must first present defense and explanation with scriptural proof that it is not only right but also necessary to reprove the high officials.
The pope, to be sure, in his canon law forbade punishing the prelates. These dear squires and painted bishops count on it. They do not study, they know nothing, they are not engaged in any bishop’s work, and they enjoy peaceful, quiet, and good days. Yet they act as though they were bishops while in reality they are nothing but carnival masks and dummies6 who ruin the whole world in the name of bishop. But let us hear what God says about it.
He says in Ezekiel 4 [3:17–19], “Son of man, I have made you a watchman over the house of Israel, and you shall hear what I tell you and proclaim it to them from me. If I say to the wicked, ‘You shall surely die,’ and you do not proclaim it to him, nor tell him that he should turn away from his evil way and live, that evil man shall die in his sins. But his blood I will require from you. But if you proclaim it to the wicked, and he does not turn from his sins or from his evil way, he shall die in his sins; but you win have saved your soul.”
Tell me, is this not a severe commandment from the High Majesty, that a preacher must reprove the wicked if he would save his soul? For he speaks here of public reproval, since he commands someone to exercise an office, to preach his word. Why does he command it so severely? Undoubtedly because the preacher would commit the greatest sin against love if he were silent and disregarded the greatest good, the salvation of his neighbors soul, to whom he certainly also owes the smallest good, food and clothing. He [God] says: He should hear God’s word and not propagate his own words. We have no other word than Scripture. That is why all the wicked should be reproved with it.
Moreover, it does no good to put up the excuse that this saying does not speak of prelates, but of the wicked in general, etc. For it forces the conclusion that it is also to be understood to mean prelates since it does not exclude anyone but names the wicked in general, be they great or small or whatever. For God’s word does not regard the person; it is above all persons and concerns everyone. Thus Ezekiel, although he was of a poor and low estate, was nevertheless sent to preach to the whole people of Israel, which included princes, priests, and great people.
Micah 6[:1–2] says, “Hear what God says: Arise and plead your case before the mountains, and let the hills hear your voice, so that the mountains and the enduring foundations of the earth hear the judgment of God; for God must judge his people and reprove Israel,” etc. Who are the mountains, the bills, and the enduring foundations of the earth to which one should preach, according to his commandment? Here he commands the proclamation of God’s judgment and punishment to the leaders, not to the people.
Finally, the proclamation of all prophets was generally addressed mostly to the high officials such as kings, princes, priests, scribes, and leaders of the people, as all prophetic writings prove abundantly. Thus God spoke to Jeremiah, “See, I have set you this day over nations and kingdoms” [Jer. 1:10]; and again, “I have made you today a fortified city, an iron pillar, and a bronze wall, over the whole land, against the kings of Judah, against princes, priests, the common people. They will fight against you; but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you, says God, to deliver you” [Jer. 1:18–19]. Now Jeremiah was certainly far below kings, princes, and priests, an unimportant person from the small town of Anathoth, but he had to preach God’s word to, and against, all high estates and had to reprove them.
Third, Christ in the gospel was a completely low and unimportant person; he belonged to no high estate or order. But with whom does he enter into controversy? He reproves none but the high priests, the scribes, the religious outsiders, and whoever was of high degree. Thus he certainly gave an example to all preachers to attack the great leaders without hesitation, since both the destruction and health of a people depend most upon the leaders. Why should we obey the foolish law of the nonsensical pope, which is against the example of Christ and of all prophets, and not punish the big shots and spiritual tyrants? What good would it do to leave the leaders alone and punish only the people? One could never throw out as much with good teaching as the evil leaders throw in with false teaching. It would be as Solomon says in Ecclesiasticus [34:23], “When one builds and another tears down, what do they gain but toil?” If, then, one builds up the people one must first oppose the harmful leaders and destroyers.
Therefore, we should hold fast here to the free teaching of St. Paul, I Timothy 5[:20], when he says, “As for those who sin, rebuke them in the presence of all, so that the rest may stand in fear.” Here St. Paul excludes no one, be he high or low. Although he says that you should not accuse a presbyter (that is, an elder; at that time the elders also ruled in the church) without two or three witnesses, he did not thus annul chastisement; rather, he confirmed it. Such is the opinion of this text when it says, “Those who sin, rebuke them in the presence of all.” Our squires are wrong in their canon unlawfulness when they interpret the little word “presbyter” to mean “priests,” that is, themselves. St. Paul speaks of the old men whom one should not allow to be accused frivolously. He also says in chapter 4 [I Tim. 5:1], “Do not rebuke an older man but exhort him as you would a father.” St. Paul does not speak here of the bishops and priests—who are usually young people now, not without great damage to Christendom—but of old men. These should be honored, and if they did something wrong one should exhort them and not bite them, so that they stop.
Thus we should punish bishops and spiritual dominion harder and more severely than worldly dominion for two reasons: first, because this spiritual dominion does not derive from God, for God does not know these masked people and St. Nicholas bishops, because they neither teach nor perform any episcopal duties. Nor did they derive from men. They have imposed themselves on others and placed themselves into this rule against [the wish of] God and men, as is the custom of tyrants who rule only out of God’s wrath. Worldly dominion derives from God’s gracious order to suppress the evil and protect the godly, Romans 13[:4]. Second, worldly rule, even though it commits violence and injustice, hurts only the body and property. But spiritual dominion, whenever it is unholy and does not support God’s word, is like a wolf and murderer of the soul, and it is just as though the devil himself were ruling there. That is why one should beware as much of the bishop who does not teach God’s word as of the devil himself. For wherever God’s word is missing, there we certainly find only the devil’s teaching and the murder of souls. For without God’s word the soul can neither live nor be delivered from the devil.
But if they say that one should beware of rebelling against spiritual authority, I answer: Should God’s word be dispensed with and the whole world perish? Is it right that all souls should be killed eternally so that the temporal show of these masks is left in peace? It would be better to kill all bishops and to annihilate all religious foundations and monasteries than to let a single soul perish, not to mention losing all souls for the sake of these useless dummies and idols. What good are they, except to live in lust from the sweat and labor of others and to impede the word of God? They are afraid of physical rebellion and do not care about spiritual destruction. Are they not intelligent, honest people! If they accepted God’s word and sought the life of the soul, God would be with them, since he is a God of peace. Then there would be no fear of rebellion. But if they refuse to hear God’s word and rather rage and rave with banning, burning, killing, and all evil, what could be better for them than to encounter a strong rebellion which exterminates them from the world? One could only laugh if it did happen, as the divine wisdom says, Proverbs 1[:25–27], “You have hated my punishment and misused my teaching; therefore I will laugh at your calamity and I will mock you when disaster strikes you.”
Not God’s word but stubborn disobedience [to God’s word] creates rebellion. Whoever rebels against it shall get his due reward. Whoever accepts God’s word does not start unrest, although he is no longer afraid of the masks and does not worship the dummies. He lets them go and awaits whatever comes to him. This is what the dear masks fear most, for until now they have let themselves be feared and worshiped as if they were bishops and spiritual rulers. But whoever starts unrest misuses God’s word arbitrarily. Christ’s word does not rage physically at anyone but proclaims rage physically to the tyrants and quietly frees souls from their bonds. So the tyrants are despised and this is the best kind of rage; for whatever is despised does not need much raging against, and can no longer maintain itself, as Psalm 10[:15] says, “Lord, break the power of the wicked.” With what? Just seek out his malice and he will disappear. These masks need no other disturbance than to be discovered and recognized as masks. Then everyone will immediately be their enemy and they will be deserted.
Take an example: in earlier times the mitre was a holy and definite symbol. The two points signified the two testaments—the old and the new—which a bishop carried on the head of his soul, that is, in his understanding. He was learned in Holy Scripture, as St. Paul commanded, Titus 1[:9]. The two ribbons hanging free in the back signified his preaching office by which he let this same New and Old Testament Scripture freely make its way to the people; and he taught them to obey it, he himself leading the way. But what does it signify when a bishop puts on his mitre now? Some people think the two points signify that he should certainly know the Scripture of both testaments, but the two ribbons mean that he neither knows nor cares to know either of them. For it is almost the highest virtue of our present-day bishops and cardinals that they are particularly unlearned minds. As a matter of fact, it has become shameful for a bishop to study the Bible. Why should a prince study when it racks his brain? There are certainly enough mendicants10 and monks to do so. Well then! What else are they but mere masks and child-bishops, able only to sprinkle and tense stone and wood (God be praised), one piece of wood after the other and one stone after the other, just as though they wanted to dedicate a church or an altar to God? Where else would God live? Or where could he retreat from the devil if the holy bishops did not sprinkle and cense the stones? It is just like during carnival when someone is made a king, yet remains no more than a peasant.
But St. Paul, I Timothy 3[:1–7], describes what a true bishop is like: “This is indeed sure: Whoever desires a bishopric seeks a noble task. Now a bishop must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, sensible, dignified, hospitable, an apt preacher, no drunkard, one who does not curse, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, no lover of money. He must manage his own household well, keeping his children submissive and respectful in every way; for if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how can he care for God’s church, or the common good? He must not be a recent convert, or he may be puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the slanderer. Moreover he must be well thought of by unbelievers, or he may fall into reproach and the snare of the slanderer.” Now see whether it is not a noble task to be a bishop in whose office are so many noble virtues! St. Paul does not want him to be a recent convert who has just come to the faith or one who is young in the faith, so that the slanderer may not have good cause and reason to judge him and to say, “See how they put a fool over the eggs.” Instead, he should be an experienced and brave man so that the slanderer must be ashamed to speak evil of him. Moreover, he should be praised and honored by the unbelievers; otherwise, he would be mocked by them and immediately ensnared, so that he would be unable to say anything when something dishonest is attributed to him which would then appear dishonest to the whole assembly and offensive to the unbelievers, for at that time Christians were mixed with unbelievers. That is why all their affairs had to be dignified, praiseworthy, and blameless in public.
Again, Titus 1[:5–9], “This is why I left you in Crete, that you might amend what was defective when I left, and appoint elders in every town as I directed you. Someone who is blameless, the husband of one wife, whose children are believers and not open to the charge of being profligate or insubordinate. For a bishop, as God’s steward, must be blameless; he must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or one who curses, or violent or greedy for gain, but hospitable, a lover of goodness, master of himself, upright, holy, and self-controlled; he must hold firm to the sure word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to confute those who contradict it.” See, these are the attributes and character of Christian bishops of whom there should be one in every town or congregation. But what is the purpose of such attributes now? The papal bishops certainly have noble attributes which cost less effort. What are they? They are: to be ignorant; to avoid marriage and instead to have little whores, as many as they need; to have a silver cane carried after themselves; to put on a precious hat; to have a big tonsure; to grab many towns and much land within the diocese; to ride fine horses; to hold princely court; to keep “episcopal officials,” that is, suppressers of the common people; to kill souls with bans and with tyranny; and, before I forget, to paint and to attach their coats-of-arms everywhere with rods and crosses; to wear precious rings and gloves; to sprinkle the stone and wood of the churches with holy water; to confirm children and to give a friendly slap on the cheeks to the sponsors (especially if they happen to be pretty, smooth maidens—but without frivolity, of course, so that not everyone is laughing), and many more delicate attributes like these. St. Paul forgot or did not know them. They had to be invented by the Most Holy Father, the pope. Oh, idols of the earth and masks of the world!
On the other hand, St. Paul did not forget the kind of life these fellows would lead with such nice pointed red hats, coats, rods, tonsures, crosses, and other attributes mentioned above, for he said, II Timothy 3[:1–5], “But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of stress. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, blasphemous, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, inhuman, implacable slanderers, profligates, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, blind, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of a divine life but denying the power of it. Avoid such people,” etc. See here, this is a true picture of our bishops and spiritual squires!
St. Peter also, in II Peter 2[:1–3], diligently portrays them and says, “But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in dectructive heresies and situations, even denying the Lord who bought them. They will bring themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their licentiousness, and because of them the way of the truth will be reviled. And in their greed they will exploit you with false words.” These words certainly refer only to the bishops and spiritual rulers among the people. Thus we see how, alongside Christ’s teaching, they also erected human teaching, sects, orders, and various estates and brought them into the world. All of them pretend to be special tasks and ways emerging out of the common way of Christian faith. Thus Christ who bought us is denied; for they teach that we become godly and are saved through works whereas Christ alone bought our salvation through his blood. They even slander and condemn this way of truth. They refuse to admit that their deeds are wrong and that Christ alone is our salvation. We also see how filled with greed they are and how they aim all their preaching and teaching at the receiving of gifts and the building of churches and monasteries so that they can become rich and satisfied. They use these false, invented words to give the appearance of a good life, and yet they deny the foundation of truth. Everybody then considers them people who live and teach a fine and holy life, whereas it is nothing but appearance and faithless glitter, so that St. Peter rightly says, “Many will follow their licentiousness” [II Pet. 2:2].
St. Peter continues, “Their condemnation has not been idle, and their destruction has not been asleep. For if God did not spare the angels when they sinned but chained them with chains of darkness in hell to be kept until the last judgment; if he did not spare the whole world, when it was still new, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven other persons, when he brought a flood upon the ungodly in all the world; if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction and made them an example to all those who were to be ungodly; and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the licentiousness of the wicked (for by what that righteous man saw and heard as he lived among them, he was vexed in his righteous soul day after day with their lawless deeds), then God knows how to rescue the godly from trial and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, and especially those who follow the flesh and live in the lusts of impurity, despise authorities, are lustful and love themselves, and do not fear to disobey the rulers” [II Pet. 2:3–10].
He [Peter] holds three terrible examples, strongly worded, before these tyrants: the angels, the world, Sodom. But it does no good; our squires do not believe what is said about them. They neither read it nor listen to it. But see how nicely he agrees with St. Paul when he describes their unchaste, impure, and licentious life. He says, “They are impertinent and malicious, they love themselves so much that they even despise worldly authorities and everything high and majestic on earth, and indeed curse it.” For the pope has already dared for a long time to crush kings and princes underfoot, to depose them, to ban them, to curse them to the fourth and ninth generations, etc., and to practice all his impertinent wantonness on them, as if they were swine or dogs. Scripture, however, wants everyone to be subject to them [kings and princes], to honor and bless them, and to pray for them for the sake of peace in this life, since they are instituted by God’s order to serve with the sword.
One finds timid kings and princes who are afraid of such execration and let themselves be blessed by the pope so that his impertinent wantonness, of which St. Peter speaks here, is strengthened and the whole world is defrauded. The bishops and all the clerics help to this end. They are the real despisers of authority and blasphemers of majesty; they do not want to be subject to any authority either physically or materially. Instead, they are impertinent, malicious, and most eager to execrate all majesties and to ban them. Tell me, did not St. Peter describe our squires well here? Of whom in all the world might this be said, that they are not subject to authorities, that they execrate kings and princes, that they are impertinent, malicious, and foolhardy enough to fear no one? Does not the whole world see who they are who do this?
St. Peter continues, “The angels, though greater in might and power, are unable to bear the judgment of God upon themselves, and they curse it. But these people are like irrational animals, creatures of instinct born to catch and kill; they curse matters of which they are ignorant. They will be destroyed for the sake of their abominable nature and thus will receive the reward for unrighteousness. They count it a pleasure to revel in having a good time now. But they are only blots and blemishes on the world, reveling in their dissipation and carousing with your goods. They have eyes full of adultery; they will not be rebuked or kept from sinning. Thus they entice unsteady souls. They have hearts trained in greed” [II Pet. 2:11–14].
Do you see how angry and upset holy St. Peter is? My dear, who are they who carouse with the goods of others? Who are they who think it is enough to revel in good times? Who are they who live as if they were irrational animals? Who are they whom no one is allowed to rebuke or oppose? Does this text need glosses too? Is it not known that dioceses, religious foundations, monasteries, and schools of higher learning are nothing but warehouses where the goods of princes and of the whole world are collected and where they have none of their own goods? They think they are really the most precious stones of Christianity, yet St. Peter calls them “blots and blemishes.” They revile and condemn the truth they do not know. As a result they are drowned in their nature, truly animal-like and sensual men who have never tasted the Spirit. Nevertheless they entice unsteady souls. For everyone wants to become a bishop, a priest, or a monk, especially the best young boys. They are encouraged in this, not for God’s sake but rather so that they can live well with the property of others and revel in good days, without having to live on the basis of their own efforts and to eat their bread in the sweat of their own face, as all men ought to do, Genesis 3[:19]. But everyone knows very well that they have hearts trained in greed. For they invent endless ruses to grab the properties of the whole world. To do so they even use God, the sacraments, the mass, and all spiritual things—this is apart from what they bring together through false usury, lying, and cheating. But what might the full eyes of the adulteress be? Undoubtedly a shameless and crude life; just as a daring adulteress stares, turning her eyes in all directions to be ready for every man, so they, like the adulteress, are a daring people ready for unchastity, in which they live freely, without punishment, and securely.
He [Peter] continues, “They are accursed children. Forsaking the right way they have gone astray; they have followed the way of Beor’s son Balaam, who loved gain from wrongdoing but was rebuked for his own transgression. For the dumb subjugated animal spoke with human voice and prohibited the prophet’s foolishness. These are waterless springs, clouds driven by the wind; for them is reserved the gloom of darkness in eternity” [II Pet. 2:14–17].
Just as Balaam was rebuked by the ass, so we can see now how greed rules so unashamedly among them that the common man coins a proverb out of it. There is no one who does not condemn it. But how terribly hard it is when he calls them accursed children! Who would be so brave as to call pope and bishops, with their whole crowd, an accursed people? Peter—indeed, the Holy Spirit through St. Peter—curses them. Who can avoid feeling sorry and anxious that he became a cleric in these accursed times? Oh, whoever can flee, let him flee the spiritual estate in these times! Moreover, he applies the true titles to the bishops. What is a waterless spring and a rainless cloud but a bishop without preaching? He holds the office of preaching but does not exercise it, just like a spring which occupies the place of a spring but yields no water, and clouds driven by the whirling wind which take the place of rain clouds but do not yield even a drop of rain. Likewise, our bishops rise in place of the apostles, but let themselves be driven by the pleasures and honors of this world, in accordance to the will of the devil. They preach nothing and are of no use to anyone. That is why eternal hellish darkness is reserved for them.
But if you say, “How can they be called waterless springs and rainless clouds since they fill all the world with their preaching and pretend to do great things?” St. Peter answers and confesses that they unfortunately preach much too much. He continues, “They boast of great things but without substance, and entice with licentious passions of the flesh men who have barely escaped and must now live in error. They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption” [II Pet. 2:18–19].
Here he gives reasons for comparing them with Balaam and describes the manner of their teaching. That is why we have to take a good look at this. Moses writes, Numbers 24[:13] and 31[:16], that Balaam gave the bad advice to King Balak to make the people of Israel sin and thus bring God’s wrath upon them so that he could destroy them. For he could neither curse them nor overcome them with force. Balak did this and erected the idol Baal-Peor beside the people of Israel [and surrounded it] with beautiful women who attracted the children of Israel. They sacrificed to the idol, ate, drank, and sinned with it. Then God became angry; he had all the princes of the people hanged on the gallows and twenty-four thousand men slain [Num. 25:2–9]. You see, this is what Balaam brought about, the great prophet who had previously preached so many precious things and who took money for it from King Balak. Since St. Peter thus relates all these things to our bishops, we shall seek the same interpretation.
Scripture does not indicate clearly what kind of idol Baal-Peor was, although Ezekiel 23[:19–20] refers to something similar when it rebukes the insatiable unchastity Of the spiritual adulteress who desired the likes of asses and horses. But the teachers say it was Priapus. For the sake of my chaste hearers I would prefer not to speak about him. But St. Peter’s words force me to do so in order that I may honor our clerical squires by portraying their virtues. Therefore, I ask all decent listeners to forgive me if I do speak of it a little, so that God’s terrible wrath and the devil’s malice may be recognized, and so that we may see what misery, despair, and blindness human nature produces when left to itself.
Priapus was the statue of a naked young man, done in the crudest, most shameful, and most indecent manner, with uncovered genitals as though he were a god of unchastity. St. Augustine writes in The City of God that as a part of worshiping him the most reputable matron in town had to put a wreath on the abomination and unchastity of this statue, and, as we today lead brides to the church first, so then all brides had to place themselves upon this shameful unchastity. There you can see the result of God’s wrath and of human blindness—there is nothing that can be thought up which is so shameful that people cannot be persuaded to do it, if only the most blessed name of God is attached to it. Is it not a miserable thing that the blessed name of God should be ascribed to such an inhuman abomination and that so many souls are thus seduced? God keeps silent about this and allows his name to be blasphemed so that those who are ungrateful to his grace and goodness may be led astray as they deserve.
We do the same thing. Everything the miserable pope and the accursed children, our bishops, invent and present, we accept and fall for. We think it suffices when they attach God’s name to it and say it is good, divine, holy, blessed, Christian; we tramp along like stupid cattle without first thinking about whether it is commanded in God’s Scripture. Thus the proverb, “All misery begins in the name of God,” comes true. But He repeatedly forbade us to accept everything coming in his name, saying especially about the pope and our bishops, Matthew 24[:5], “Many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray.” That is why he also commanded us so strictly not to use his name in vain and taught us to pray, “Hallowed be your name.” The divine name must remain holy and be attached only to those things that are truly divine, so that we are not led astray through God’s name but rather are preserved.
Moses shows, first of all, that all this refers to the miserable plague of human teaching which God inflicts on the world today through pope and bishops. When he commanded, Deuteronomy 4[:2], that they should neither add to his commandments nor take anything from them but instead obey them, he continued immediately and said, “For your eyes have seen what the Lord did at Baal-peor, and how he destroyed all those who worshiped it,” etc. [Deut. 4:3]. Why should Moses make such an example of Baal-Peor—that they should neither add nor take anything from God’s commandments—if he did not want to show that this idol is human teaching? Human teaching always takes away from God’s commandments and adds its own commandments—just as the pope has now taken away all of God’s commandments and substituted his own. As one can hear, the papists teach that it is not necessary to love God with all one’s heart, and so the first commandment is taken away. Again, [one hears] that faith is not necessary for justification and that works save, and so the second and third commandments are struck down. Again, they teach children to be disobedient to their parents, just as they themselves are, as was said above, and so the fourth commandment is struck down. Again, they teach that it is not necessary to love one’s enemy, and so they teach one to hold on to one’s wrath, contrary to the fifth commandment. Again, he [the pope] has many ways to break up marriages and to make them, and so the sixth commandment is taken away. Again, they teach one how to attain and keep ill-gotten goods, usury, and interest, contrary to the seventh commandment. Again, all their teaching is false witness, which is contrary to the eighth commandment. Thus under the pope there are no divine commandments any longer; they have all been taken away. On the other hand, he adds some on how one can serve God and do good works through tonsures, cowls, orders, fasting, begging, eating milk, eggs, meat, butter, singing, organs, censing, bell-ringing, celebrating, buying indulgences, and the like, all of which God does not know. That is why his [the pope’s] teaching is the true Baal-Peor.
Moreover, Moses agrees with this when he describes, Numbers 25[:1–2], the worship of Baal-Peor as eating, drinking, and being unchaste. For the heathen were so blinded that they offered their best women and daughters to the unchastity of this idol. It went so far that neighbors were involved with each other’s wives, just like dogs among themselves. Moses writes [Num. 25:6–15] that the daughter of a noble prince named Cozbi sinned with a prince of Israel and was therefore slain, together with her lover, by the priest Phinehas. Consequently, the miserable blind people had thought it a good idea to offer only their best child to the idol to ravish, just as the pope today with his teaching ravishes the world’s best people, such as queens and princesses, and the most devout people, who think it is good for them and a right thing to do.
Now all of Scripture calls the keeping of human teaching “committing unchastity.” Through all the prophets, God punishes the synagogue for having left him and for committing unchastity with human teaching. Therefore, this physical unchastity of Baal-Peor cannot mean anything but the spiritual unchastity through which souls are perverted and defiled and led from faith to works. For the soul is called a spiritual virgin and a bride of God only on the basis of faith, by which it receives the word of God and becomes pregnant with the Holy Spirit. The holy seed of the divine word fertilizes it and makes it a mother of truth. This is the true good work and the real divine life.
Third, even the names fit: Baal means “man” in Hebrew, in the sense in which a woman says, “This is my man, whether he is married to me or not.” And it is said of an evil woman that she has many men. Thus Baal means the man who lives with a woman and includes the concepts of coitus and man’s work. Otherwise, man is called isch or enosch, etc., that is, someone who serves in government, council, war, or any other brave enterprise. Thus the Jews called the idol of Ekron Baalzebub [II Kings 1:2], “man of flies,” to shame him; it meant a man who was very weak, one who was hardly worthy to have a fly as a wife. Moreover, angry women curse this way, saying, “You are the husband of a rascally woman,” etc., or in German, “You do not sleep with a pious woman.” Such a man is called maritus or coniunx in Latin and not vir or mas. This is Baal in Hebrew. Peor or phegor means breath and really pertains to the mouth: “to gape with the mouth.” That is why Baal-Peor is a man whose mouth is gaping, whom we call in German a “gaping fool.” Such people are just like fools or persons who are negligent and clumsy in everything; they have no other manly characteristic than their ability to sleep with women. That is why this unchaste and shameful idol has been rightly named, for his statue produces only this virtue that on all sides unchastity is manifested and nothing more. What else should a statue of a nude and shameful young man signify but a gaping fool and indecent woman-chaser? A portrait in armor signifies a warrior, etc. And even though our clerical squires do all this spiritually, as we shall hear, they are nevertheless bold enough to realize it physically as well. Tell me, what is such a tender crowd good for? Are they not true gaping fools? What are they able to do except ride fine horses and delicate maidens? All gaping fools can do this. They are and will remain Baal-Peor, and yet they pretend to be nothing less than spiritual rulers of Christendom who lead souls into heaven and drive away all error and heresy.
Spiritually, therefore, this idol is nothing but the holy canon law, the teaching of the pope and papists in Christendom. For it is a shameless portrait of spiritual unchastity. From it souls learn to build upon works, and it perverts the virginal chastity of the pure Christian faith. Thus one should really call the pope not “pope” but “Priapus,” and the papists not “papists” but “Priapists.” As shameful and un-Christian as it was for the heathen to erect such a shameless image, to provoke themselves into unchastity with it, and to worship this same god with physical unchastity, so shameless and even more un-Christian is it for the papists to erect their teachings and bulls, provoking souls to do human works such as indulgences and merit, etc. They think that with this spiritual unchastity they now serve God even better than before, just as though God had become a Priapus—whereas true service to him is offered only by faith and by God’s work brought about by his grace, and spiritual chastity is only maintained by his divine word. Thus we see now that in all the world the Priapists lead souls to Priapus and fill the world with spiritual unchastity and idolatry because they erect nothing but human teachings and works in the holy place where God’s word should stand alone.
And just as the shameless image of Priapus shows an indecent, insatiable, and raging young man intent upon dishonoring women, so the idol of the papists, human teaching, is also an insatiable raging [which seeks] to dishonor souls and to pervert faith. For we see how very diligently they propagate their teaching among the poor people, how nonsensical they are, and how they rage when their teaching is rebuked. They regret any soul which remains pure, unperverted, and decent in faith before them. The name Baal, “woman-chaser,” demonstrates that such teaching is only capable of sleeping with souls and dishonoring them and can do nothing else. And Peor, the “gaping fool,” [means] that they do not open their ears to hear God’s word and to learn it—but only their mouth, which is always open. They alone want to teach and to preach. Just listen to them: they make great claims and are nothing but gaping fools and useless gossips. As St. Paul says, I Timothy 1[:7], “They desire to be teachers of the law, but are useless gossips without understanding either what they say or the things about which they make assertions.”
The foregoing helps us to understand St. Peter’s words [II Pet. 2:14–19]—why he compares the pope and bishops to the prophet Balaam. For just as Balaam for the sake of money gave advice to erect the idol Baal-Peor and caused the people of Israel to fall, so he [Peter] says that they [the papists] follow the same path of Balaam and also erect a Baal-Peor for the sake of money. For as we see, all human things yield money, but God’s word bears nothing but the cross, which no one wants. St. Peter could not have found a more fitting example in all of Scripture than this Balaam to indicate the nature of the papists. For basically the whole spiritual government is nothing but money, money, money. Everything is geared to making money. We feel only too well how they have drained the world and still drain it. Yet this would be the least harmful thing, if only they did not erect the idol of their teaching, bring the whole world to ruin, and lead it into idolatry for the sake of accursed greed and money. Here Balaam is doing the greatest harm and is teaching spiritual unchastity in all the world. This angers God and deprives us all of his grace and teaching so that not just twenty-four thousand but innumerable souls are slain and condemned.
He says, “They boast of great things but without substance” [II Pet. 2:18]. What does he mean by this? Undoubtedly he is attacking the dummy and gaping fool: their human teaching. It is as if he wanted to say that their teaching is the true Baal-Peor, the gaping fool who opens his mouth and preaches great things without substance. Is it not the case now that only the spiritual estate is elevated as if it alone were the path to heaven? No one trusts in his salvation now unless he is a cleric or buys salvation from the clerics. And the clerics are really daring; they sell their masses, vigils, prayers, fasting, and good works, and lead the people to heaven through their great spirituality. Are these not great things? But what is behind them? Nothing but cheating and glitter, indeed, perversion and destruction. There is no faith. Instead, they rely on tonsures, vestments, singing, the eating of eggs, fish, and butter; the sound of bells, and incense. They let themselves be called holy orders and spiritual estates which mediate between God and the people, so that there is no further need for Christ. Oh, Balaam, you rogue, with your shameless, harmful Priapus! How you take money and kill souls!
He [Peter] says further that through such great pretending they only entice the desires of the flesh into unchastity so that those who first escaped it must now live in error. I am afraid he uncovers here more than one misery hidden under the nice, glittering life. We see how big and widespread the spiritual estate is; all its members are totally bound to chastity. Yet Scripture and daily experience teach that chastity is a supernatural gift, very special and uncommon, and given only to a few great saints. But they come along and make it as common as daily bread; with their loud noise they entice many young people to join their estate. Afterward, however, they live in life-long impurity and some of them openly maintain common-law wives. Those who have no opportunity to get involved with women or men do worse, and at the very least live with evil lusts and indecent desires if they have no opportunity to express them. Among them there is either plain harlotry in the name of clerical and chaste life, or an impure, involuntary, miserable, lost chastity. So the misery is greater than anyone can believe or tell. St. Peter touches this point here when he says, “Through their great pretenses they entice the desires of the flesh into unchastity” [II Pet. 2:18], as if he wanted to say, “They give high praise to the spiritual estate in their preaching, and they elevate chastity, but in this way they only entice and draw the poor people more than ever into the middle of the unchastity in which they themselves live.”
Moreover, they get these same people to the point—even if they [the people] had truly fled from all sins through baptism and made a beginning in the Christian faith—of now falling for the clerical life and thinking that baptism means nothing and is of no more use. They also let faith go as something bad, insignificant, and common, and begin a harder, higher, and more severe life. This proves to be impossible, and so they are caught in misery. It may very well be that the devil keeps peace (although rarely) for one, two, three, or even ten years, but he leaves no one alone forever unless that person becomes a believer. He has the unbelieving man so securely in the net of unchastity that he can have no doubts about it. That is why he plays with him and leaves him undisturbed at times, for he knows very well that without faith no one can escape him. For even those who live in noble faith are hard pressed enough. In short, take this as a general rule: disregard the great claim of chastity by clerics who are not vigorous in faith, which is the case now with almost all of them. They lead a life that only appears to be chaste for the sake of enticing many young people, but there is nothing behind it. Would to God that a hundred religious foundations and monasteries were but one religious foundation and one monastery! You may be sure that St. Peter does not talk to deaf ears here. That is why I have often said, and still say: Do not get involved with clerics, monkery, and nunning where Holy Scripture and pure faith are not studied and practiced among them day and night. Religious foundations and monasteries are gates of hell if faith is not valiantly and vigorously exercised in them, and they can be neither advised nor helped. I warn you, beware of the clerical life which is carried on without Scripture.
To observe constant chastity one needs strong and fine faith which powerfully elevates the Spirit above the flesh and dries out its streams like a fire, so that a man even hates this life and is almost like an angel, as Isaiah 5 [11:5] says of Christ, “Righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins and faith the girdle of his waist.” Faith must gird and hold up the waist; otherwise it is not held up. But they come along, knowing nothing about faith, and want to help matters with works, eating fish, and woolen vestments. They are just as wise as the man who wanted to stop the Rhine with a straw dam yet left its spring and source unchecked. He will drown the land without, however, damming the Rhine. In the same way they have left nature’s natural source open because they have no faith. And yet, with vestments and eating fish, they want to prevent nature from overflowing or breaking through. Nature does not permit this and acts in its own manner. Thus their chastity does not remain purer than if they had wives and husbands. What St. Peter says here is indeed true: with their great pretenses they entice the poor common people to think that through the spiritual estate and works they become holy and chaste, and that they serve God in the spiritual estate. You see, this is the error lived in by those who were once saved from all error through Christ. Does not St. Peter give glorious praise to the spiritual life here, [saying] that it is loud boasting without substance, an unchaste, impure, and seductive life which leads true Christians away from the right path and keeps them in error? I would be a heretic a thousand times over if I portrayed our bishops, priests, and monks in this manner. They use St. Francis, St. Dominic, St. Augustine, St. Bernard,18 and other saints in the religious orders to defend themselves. But they do not see that these same saints were saved through faith and not through their orders (as they [the papists] claim). They did not regard the orders as paths to salvation.
It is enough for the time being to have these two apostles, Peter and Paul, on our side. They show us the papists with their un-Christian and pernicious spiritual nature and teaching. [They also show us] that with all their pretensions they are accursed children and should be avoided. We shall save what Christ, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and other prophets say about it until the pope, the bishops, and their followers get angry at this booklet and blow the fire into a full flame.
No one should blame me for not treating the bishops as bishops. They do not consider themselves bishops, and I go too far when I call them bishops, which is an ancient, holy, and honorable title. I should only call them wolves and murderers of souls. A bishop should be learned in the Bible; he should study day and night; he himself should preach to his people; he should visit the poor, the sick, and the needy; he should provide for them and help them. But like thieves they rob the godly people of their property by lying and cheating. That is why I shall scream at the wolves here, indicate some of their virtues, and warn everyone against them. I shall not attack their person nor shall I attack them because of their worldly estate and nature; rather, I shall attack them because of their wolfish rule.
I have a good example for all this in St. Paul, Acts 23[:3], who rebuked the high priest Ananias publicly in the council, saying, “God shall strike you, you whitewashed wall! You are sitting to judge me according to the law, and yet contrary to the law you order me to be struck!” He calls the high priest a wall washed with chalk, that is, a mask, someone who pretends to be what he is not. He wishes punishment on him and pays no respect at all to him as a high priest. But when several people criticized him for it, saying, “Would you revile God’s high priest?” he answered, “I did not know, dear brethren, that he was the high priest” [Acts 23:4–5]. His meaning is quite clear. If he had really believed that it was wrong to wish punishment on him he certainly would have asked the high priest for grace and forgiveness and would have recanted it. But he did not do it. Therefore, it should not be assumed that he did not know that it was the high priest. Is it possible that he could be brought to court without anyone telling him, “Dear Paul, you will be brought before the high priest,” or, “Look, the high priest is sitting there”? For one certainly makes sure of introducing the people participating in such public affairs. Even if he had not known that it was the high priest, he could still see him sitting there in the judge’s place, giving the order to strike him. He really must have denied the authority which he himself acknowledged. Therefore, his words must mean, “I did not know, dear brethren, that he was the high priest,” that is, “He should be high priest but is not and I do not consider him such,” as St. Augustine interpreted it. So if St. Paul attacks the priest who was instituted on the basis of Mosaic law, why should I be afraid to attack the painted bishops and masks who come from the pope without any commandment of God or men?


The First Virtue of the Bishops

They have the pope’s bulls and indulgences preached instead of the word of God. What an un-Christian, wolfish, and seductive thing this is, is proven by the fact that it is against God’s first commandment. He commanded there that only his divine word is to be preached and he alone is to be honored, so that he might be our God, Teacher, and Master, as he says through Isaiah, “I am your God, and teach you what is good for you” [Isa. 48:17]; and Christ says in Matthew 23[:8], “You are not to be called teachers on earth … for you have only one master, Christ.” He also says, Matthew 15[:9], “In vain do they worship me with their human teachings and commandments.” Therefore, all human teaching is certainly nothing but mummery and idolatry which is put in place of God and leads the people into damnation. No one can deny that bulls and indulgences are not the word of God or that there is nothing written of them in Scripture. Everyone must admit that these and many more passages clearly condemn everything which is not the word of God. God himself judges all of this as vain, seductive, and idolatrous, to be avoided as much as possible on pain of his divine disfavor and eternal death.
But since our squires have iron heads and brass necks they refuse to hear this. They listen to no one and continue in their ways instead of risking life and limb against human teachings or willingly shedding their blood for the pure word of God and for the salvation of poor souls, over whom they falsely boast that they are bishops. They are concerned only with their wolfish fury, with murdering souls, driving them into God’s disfavor and into hell, and leading them away from God’s word to human lies. Thus we have to open our eyes really to avoid the wolves beneath the bishops’ hats. That is why I ask and admonish all devout Christians to take to heart God’s grace and disfavor. Just as you would deal with a physical Priapus or idol, so you should also deal with the bulls of Balaam and the soul-murderers in Rome. Just think what a great service you render to God when you destroy the idols and sanctify his divine name by cleansing it of idolatry. Therefore, anyone who has the desire and the opportunity may tear up and destroy such bulls, if he is able to do so with a good conscience and understanding. To destroy idols, as Moses commands so often in Deuteronomy, is the best service one can render to God. Gideon smashed Baal, Judges 8 [6:27], and King Asa smashed Priapus, I Kings 5 [15:13]. They were highly praised and honored for it by God. But in these days the sheep have to beware of the shepherd more than of the wolves.


The Second Virtue

Christ says, “You received without pay, give without pay.” My wolves attack this clear saying of Christ as though a fool had said it. They not only preach lies and human teaching, they even ask money for doing so without any shame at all, even though they themselves should be giving all the spiritual goods for nothing on pain of Christ’s disfavor. Even if indulgences were worth anything and were good, they should still be given to everyone for nothing, in accordance with Christ’s words. It is even greater vice to take money in return for lies and wrongs. St. Paul also says, “If we have food and clothing we shall be content with these.” But does this Balaam not have enough goods in Rome alone—not to mention what he takes in from his oppression of all Christendom—to make him a mighty king? Why does he set such great store by money and nothing by the salvation of souls? Both St. Peter and St. Paul teach that among other virtues a bishop should have the virtue of not being shamelessly dissipated; they want him to earn his livelihood honestly and with honorable work, setting a good example for others. Paul himself was a craftsman, a weaver of rugs. He earned his livelihood with his hands and was not ashamed of being an apostle higher than any bishop; and yet he worked at his trade wherever he went. But is it not shameless pleasure-seeking to seek money with bulls and indulgences and to offer lies for the sweat and labor of the poor? Beyond this there are many even more shameful ways by which the bishops obtain money; but [we shall deal] with that another time, when they get angry.
They say, “A prince must have more than food and clothing so that he may exercise his princely estate in a princely manner.” I am willing to grant that. St. Paul speaks not of princes but of bishops and he does not know from where these princely bishops come. They are princes, not bishops, fooling the world with their bishops’ masks and titles. St. Paul will neither change nor rearrange his words to accord with the princes; instead, the princes will have to be guided by him or they will remain masks not bishops eternally. Here I must tell the story of how a great bishop rode across the land in a princely manner, as they do more frequently than worldly princes. A shepherd was standing on the road, open-mouthed, looking at all the elegance. The bishop asked him why he was so astonished and why he had his mouth open. The shepherd spoke, “I wonder whether St. Martin rode along in this manner too.” The bishop replied, “Well, St. Martin was a lowly man, but I am a prince.” The shepherd said, “Am I permitted to ask a question?” “You may ask,” the bishop replied. The shepherd said, “Well, if the devil leads the prince away, where will the bishop be?” Then the princely bishop was ashamed of himself and rode away. Paul, too, was a lowly craftsman; therefore he went around and preached. He was able to be an apostle, but he could never have been a bishop. Oh, the anger of God’s raving!


The Third Virtue

They permit the indulgence bulls, which originate in Rome, to preach that people may keep their ill-gotten goods if they give them a portion of them and also let them have the profits from them.
I do not know what I should say to this. Should I regard the pope and his followers as big, crude asses’ heads or even as mad and senseless when they are allowed to present such shameless knavery publicly and have it preached? God commanded, “You shall not steal,” that is, you shall neither possess nor keep ill-gotten goods. They openly defy this commandment, trample on it, teach and say that one may keep ill-gotten goods if the pope allows it. What else does this mean but, “You certainly may steal; God lied or fooled us when he said, ‘You shall not steal’ ”? You see, our gracious God must therefore be a liar and a fool to these accursed children and damned masks. They stuff his own commandment back down his throat and teach the people to be thieves, robbers, usurers, cheaters, and destroyers.
Tell me, pope, from where do you have the power to claim ill-gotten goods? God himself, the creator of everything, will neither accept nor approve this. And you, God’s greatest slanderer, want to be more than God. You assume a higher power than God himself. You teach the people to destroy God’s commandment and to engage in theft, robbery, usury, and all unnatural works. The people who condemn the gospel, burn books which have not been condemned, break the imperial promise of safe-conduct, and run head-on against God, attacking all his works, should be overthrown by God in such a way that their minds are perverted enough to preach in public the violation of divine commandments. Oh, how abundantly the gospel has been revenged, and how well God has rewarded them with their own senseless, blind, perverted, and hardened hearts! Now would be the time to pulverize not only all papal bulls but also the doors and places on which they hang, because of their great blasphemy. Dear man, do not be confused by these crude, poor heads with their mad and senseless preaching. Keep in mind that God not only commanded that you should not steal, but also that you should not covet your neighbor’s goods. You may be sure that he will not recant his words. How is it possible for someone to help you have and own your neighbor’s goods? He says in Isaiah 61[:8], “I am a God who loves justice, and I hate burnt offerings resulting from robbery.” Yet your wolves teach you not only to offer burnt offerings resulting from robbery but also to keep the [spoils of] robbery. Do you see how, with their blasphemy, they lead you into God’s wrath and into the abyss of hell? And yet they let themselves be called bishops and spiritual rulers of the soul. Beware, beware of them, dear man!
What a poor man I am. When I see this excessive, unspeakable blindness of our bishop masks I often get the notion that I should also keep quiet and let things take their course. For it often appears to me to be a desperate situation which can no longer be helped. These accursed masks have so ruined the situation and have so swamped the whole world that the Last Day and its wrath are forced to come. But on the other hand, the miserable corruption of the poor souls so gruesomely strangled by the masks does not give me rest or let me remain silent, because I might be able to help and advise a few. If you possess ill-gotten goods, just remember that you should not keep them. You will not change God’s commandment. How nice it would be if you could add to it your neighbor’s thanks and agreement! For to be sure, everyone owes it to his neighbor to cancel his debt if he has some of his goods he could not very well return. Of this you can read more elsewhere.24
Now look, is it not necessary for the pope, the bishops, and the priests to be taken to school like young children and to be taught the Ten Commandments, how they should not steal or desire their neighbor’s property, to say nothing of teaching other people how to steal, rob, and be usurers? They are bishops, but not bishops of Christians; rather, they are bishops of thieves, robbers, and usurers, indeed, arch-thieves, arch-robbers, and arch-usurers—as everyone must clearly recognize and confess from what was said above. It is a miraculous sign of God’s wrath that human reason lets itself be persuaded not to regard such thieving, robbing, and destroying of God’s word by the pope as wrong. It would be unbelievable for anyone to suffer and be silent about it if experience did not force us to see it happen daily. Who can sanction the making of ill-gotten goods into honest goods? Pigs, horses, indeed, stone and wood are not as insane as we have become under the pope.
They say, “The pope is the supreme head of Christendom. That is why he should obtain all ill-gotten goods, the owners of which are not known.” My answer is, where is this written? In the flue in Rome! Why should not each man do with ill-gotten goods as he himself pleases, if he cannot find the proper owner? Why does he need anyone else—especially the pope—to do it for him? This is a subtle lie to make the pope the head over thieves, robbers, and usurers and to allow him to steal and to rob more than any other man on earth. Thus he becomes the supreme head of theft, robbery, and oppression. If he were the highest authority in Christendom he should stop dealing even in honest goods, as the apostles did, and cling to prayer and preaching above all else, Acts 5[:42]. But now he even burdens himself with thieving, robbery, and all ill-gotten goods. Is he not a fine follower of the apostles? Why does he not also take the honest goods of all Christians, since he is their supreme head, and obtain these too, so that they can enjoy their leisure and be cared for by the Most Holy Father? Such monkey business should be presented to fools and not to reasonable men—especially not to Christians.


The Fourth Virtue of the Pope

In all the indulgence bulls he promises forgiveness of sins to all those who have repented and confessed. This is the worst poison and most harmful seduction emanating from that supreme seducer, the pope, and from his masks. Christ, Matthew 9[:2], did not say to the paralytic, “If you put money in the box your sins are forgiven.” Rather, he said, “Be of good courage,” or, “Trust firmly and your sins are forgiven.” These wolves and damned masks tear people away from this blessed faith and trust in God’s sheer grace which alone grants forgiveness of sins. Instead, they lead people to put their trust in bulls, paper, and money so that simple minds learn to rely on their own works and not on God’s grace. The accursed pretension of such bulls is abominable beyond imagining, because it condemns and destroys God’s first and foremost commandment, namely, the commandment which teaches trust in God’s grace alone. They teach trust in paper and wax, that is, in their invalid and accursed lies.
Naturally our ungracious lords themselves would no doubt teach such Christian faith and have it taught if they were bishops. But since they are unlearned papal masks, unable to do anything but destroy truth, just like their creator [the pope], they have no choice but to have masks, tomfoolery, and poison preached for the sake of money, whether they want to or not.
Thus I ask once again that for God’s sake no one should think that I overstate the case. I am just as hurt as all devout Christians are when we have to see and to hear such shameless, public, raging blasphemy and destruction of God’s commandments. In this matter alone they deserve to be treated much worse, for what I do is a thousand times too little. St. Paul condemned himself and all angels if they preached anything besides the gospel [Gal. 1:8]. What would he do with these senseless creatures of the pope and with these bishop masks who do not preach something besides the gospel but impudently and maliciously teach things contrary to God’s word? No one should think even for a moment that what is said here is said against bishops or the spiritual estate; nor should anyone think that what happens to them should happen to spiritual authority. For they are not bishops. They are unlearned idols and dummies, masks and gaping fools who do not even know what “bishop” means, to say nothing of the duty of a bishop. They are nothing but wolves, tyrants, soul-murderers, and apostles of the Antichrist who want to destroy the world.
I might as well pour it out and let everyone know that the bishops who now rule over many territories are not Christian bishops according to divine order. They are bishops according to the order of the devil and of human abomination. They certainly are also messengers and governors for the devil. This I shall prove honestly and well so that neither they themselves nor anyone else can refute it. First, St. Paul writes, Titus 1[:5–7], “Appoint an elder in every town, a blameless man, the husband of one wife. For a bishop must be blameless since he is God’s steward.” Here, I think, no one can deny that bishop and elder are one and the same for St. Paul, since he says Titus should appoint an elder in every town, a blameless man because a bishop must be blameless. He calls this same elder “bishop.” Thus it is clear from this text that Paul means this man to be a bishop, a brave, old, and honest man who has a chaste wife and devout children. He should provide the church with preaching and sacraments. That is why he must be learned and completely blameless. My dear, is there anyone so crude or mischievous that he could misunderstand or deny anything in this text?
Furthermore, I ask whether or not St. Paul’s word and order are derived from God’s word and order? I think that the pope himself, with all his devils, even though he suppresses every word of God, cannot deny that St. Paul’s word is God’s word and that his order is the order of the Holy Spirit. For he [the pope] does not deny God’s word; rather, he simply does everything that is contrary to it, under the pretext and cover of God’s word. If, then, everything Paul says and institutes is God’s word and the order of the Holy Spirit, we conclude, first, that everything contrary to his word and order is certainly contrary to God and the Holy Spirit. If it is contrary to God and his Spirit, it is certainly of the devil. I think all this is clear enough. Or does anyone doubt it? How can God be against himself when Christ says that even Satan is not against himself [Luke 11:18]? Second, it follows that all Christians must on pain of God’s disfavor and for the salvation of their souls, keep God’s word and order as taught and instituted by St. Paul. On the other hand, they must tear down and destroy and eradicate all of the devil’s order, which is established contrary to God’s word and order, even if they should lose body, life, property, honor, friends, and everything else. And if they cannot destroy it, they must still avoid it and flee from it as though it were the devil himself. Is that not clear enough too? For with regard to God’s word and commandment, one must either do or leave everything, so that his will may be done in heaven and on earth above all things. But one should either destroy or avoid the devil’s order above all things. Now listen, you bishops—indeed, you masks of the devil—Dr. Luther will read you a bull and a reformation which you will dislike.


Doctor Luther’s Bull and Reformation

All those who work toward this end and who risk body, property, and honor that the bishoprics may be destroyed and the episcopal government rooted out are God’s dear children and true Christians. They keep God’s commandment and fight against the devil’s order. Or, if they cannot do this, at least they condemn and avoid such a government. On the other hand, all those who obey the government of the bishops and subject themselves to it in willing obedience are the devil’s own servants and fight against God’s order and law.
I shall prove this thoroughly and surely as follows: St. Paul said to Titus that he should appoint a married and blameless bishop in every town [Titus 1:5–7]. That is undoubtedly God’s order, will, and opinion. Our papal bishops fight against this; they removed the bishops from every town and made themselves bishops over many towns. But St. Paul stands here—indeed, the Holy Spirit stands here firmly and strongly—saying that every town should have a bishop and that they must all be equals. St. Paul speaks of every town and considers all bishops to be equal. Well, come on, you masks! Be cheerful and brave! Here you stand against St. Paul, against the Holy Spirit; and the Holy Spirit stands against you. What will you say now? Or have you become dumb? Here you have your verdict: all the world must destroy you and your government. Whoever stands on your side falls under God’s disfavor; whoever destroys you stands in God’s favor.
By no means do I want such destruction and extinction to be understood in the sense of using the fist and the sword, for they are not worthy of such punishment—and nothing is achieved in this way. Rather, as Daniel 8[:25] teaches, “by no human hand” shall the Antichrist be destroyed. Everyone should speak, teach, and stand against him with God’s word until he is put to shame and collapses, completely alone and even despising himself. This is true Christian destruction and every effort should be made to this end.
But, you dear masks, I shall give you some good advice. Why do you not, my dear, hire a real liar to write a small book about two kinds of bishops, for example, just as someone did about two kinds of priests? For if St. Peter’s saying, which he spoke to all Christians, “You are a royal priesthood” [I Pet. 2:9], can mean physically shorn and anointed priests, so that all Christians to whom this is addressed are priests—husband, wife, child, young and old, tonsured and anointed—why could not someone also thumb his nose at St. Paul’s saying [Titus 1:5–7] (if someone could lie and blaspheme as well as he [Emser]) and interpret it too in terms of two kinds of bishops? Then all pastors or preachers in towns and cities would be spiritual bishops even though they bought neither coat nor cloak from Rome. On the other hand, you would be the physical bishops, gracious princes and lords riding on pretty horses with pointed hats and nice gloves.
Even though St. Paul might not tolerate such a delicate gloss since he appoints one or more bishops in every town, one should strike him with the blade and not the sheath of the spiritual sword. One should just attack him with it and strike him on the mouth as Ananias did [Acts 23:2] and say, “Well, with the word ‘town’ St. Paul means a territory extending as far as the diocese.” For since the pope has the power to change reason, why should he not have even greater power to interpret the words as he pleases? They interpret the names as they please; therefore, if such a splendid pope would wish it, “town” would have to mean “garden,” and “ass” would have to mean “man.”
If someone said to me at this point, “Previously you have rejected the pope; will you now also reject bishops and the spiritual estate? Is everything to be turned around?” my answer would be: Judge for yourself and decide whether I turn things around by preferring divine word and order, or whether they turn things around by preferring their order and destroying God’s. Tell me, which is right: for them to turn God’s order around, or for me to turn their blasphemous devil’s order around? Do not look at the work itself but at the basis and reason for the work. Nobody should look at that which opposes God’s word, nor should one care what the consequences may or may not be. Instead, one should look at God’s word alone and not worry—even if angels were involved—about who will get hurt, what will happen, or what the result will be.
But, if you reply, “The people whom you are attacking are too great, too important, and too learned,” I answer that Christ, Peter, Paul, and the prophets proclaimed that there would be no greater disaster on earth than the advent of the Antichrist and of the final evil. Do you think such words are said about goose feathers and tree leaves? God’s word always speaks of great things, against great leaders, and against many people. It is great in every way, as he says. Most certainly, therefore, the people who are doing evil now must be even greater. He speaks very harshly and terribly about this when he thinks that no human being would be saved if those days were not shortened [Matt. 24:22]; he expects to find almost no faith when he comes [Luke 18:8]; and even the elect will be seduced. My dear, consider these words. They are not empty words. You will find that it must be the great people who will work this evil. The pope, bishops, and all their followers are now such people. To sum it up: What does it matter how great, how many, and how learned they are as long as it is obvious that they are against God? Is God not greater and higher than all things? The Turks, too, are great and mighty—yet they are against God.
If you continue, “Well, there have been numerous holy bishops in charge of many towns,” I answer that all ordained and holy bishops were usually only bishops in one town, such as Cyprian, Hilary, Ambrose,30 Augustine, Irenaeus, etc. They kept the order of the Apostle. One can certainly find some, like Titus, who appointed other bishops in towns, as St. Boniface did, who was [to other bishops] what Titus was to St. Paul. But this does not mean that they were in charge of many towns. And even if they had been, is their example higher than God’s word? Is not God more than his saints? How often did the saints err and sin? God protected Daniel among the lions and the three men Hananiah, Azariah, Mishael33 in the furnace of Babylon [Dan. 3:26]. Why should he not also protect his elect in the midst of the devil’s order, even if they had been seduced, as Christ says [Luke 18:7]? One must build not upon the deed, example, and words of the saints but rather on God’s word alone. God is the only one who can neither lie nor err.
Second, let us hear more from St. Paul about these divine orders. St. Luke says, Acts 20[:17, 28], “From Miletus Paul sent to Ephesus and called to him the elders of the church. And when they came to him, he said to them: ‘Take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you bishops, to feed the church of God which he obtained with his own blood.’ ” What does this mean? Ephesus was only one town and St. Paul calls all its elders bishops! He must have overlooked the papists’ little book of defense and the decretals as well. How else could he be so brave as to give one town many bishops and to call each of the elders “bishop” when they were not princes but walked on foot? How could anyone be a bishop if he does not ride a high horse and does not let himself be called gracious lord, which is enough by itself to create a bishop? But here one can see that St. Paul calls all those who offer the word and sacrament to the people “bishop,” just as ministers and curates do now. That is why I think that they possess the estate of the bishop every time they go into the villages to preach or are pastors in a village. On the other hand, the high riders and gracious lords have no more of the bishop’s estate than the mere name and the clothes. It is as though a painter painted the picture of a bishop with the caption, “Here is an episcopal god, the crude clod.” They are exactly that kind of bishop—not to mention the fact that they oppressed pastors and curates, forbade them to marry, plundered the gospel, and brought the poor people nowhere but into hell—these children of perdition and hopeless masks!
Thus we can see that nothing Christian ever comes from a bishop’s court. The courts of worldly princes might as well be considered monasteries when compared to the bishops’ courts. What comes forth from them is not the gospel but only bats, citations, letters of interdict, torture-letters, money-letters, bulls, and lies. They abuse and oppress everyone with them. Their teaching is like their being bishops. Even if one dressed an ass with a lion’s hide, he still would remain an ass; his ears and his song betray him.
Third, St. Paul writes to the Philippians, “Paul and Timothy, servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ who are in Philippi with the bishops and deacons: grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ,” etc. [Phil. 1:1–2]. Look here: Philippi was only one town too, and he [Paul] greets all the faithful and their bishops. These are surely the elders, the same as those he used to appoint in all the other towns. This is now St. Paul’s third passage about the divine order, accordingly to which only those who tend the people with preaching and sacraments, such as the pastors with their curates do, should be and should be called bishops—provided they have a chance to do so in the face of bishops’ horses and riders. The name episcopus also proves this. It derives from epi and scopein [in Greek], attendere, superintendere [in Latin], “to tend” and “to be a guardian” of the people, just like a guardian or watchman in a town. Thus episcopus or “bishop” in Greek really means “guardian, watchman, overseer” in German. In Hebrew it means visitator a visitando, a visitor who goes to the people to see what is afflicting them, as Christ says, Luke 19[:44], “You did not want to know the time of your visitation.” Or as we would say, of your episcopacy, episcopes. But the “bishop god” has invented a different way; he sits on a silk pillow, summons people to appear before his officials and his butcher’s stall some ten miles away, and there he tortures them36 just as he pleases. Oh, this lost people and mob of eternal wrath!
Since it is clear, then, from these three passages that the bishops are not only masks and idols but also an accursed people before God—rising up against God’s order to destroy the gospel and ruin souls—every Christian should help with his body and property to put an end to their tyranny. One should cheerfully do everything possible against them, just as though they were the devil himself. One should trample obedience to them just as though it were obedience to the devil; and one should see to it that one or more devout married men become pastors or bishops in every town. Moreover, those who are pastors now should recant such obedience, because with their promises of chastity they were obedient to the devil and not to God. They should do so in the same way someone recants his allegiance to the devil. They should marry in defiance of the devil and for the sake of hurting these “bishop gods,” so that the divine order instituted by St. Paul against these accursed masks might be re-established. Let this be Dr. Luther’s bull which grants God’s grace as a reward to all who heed it and obey it. Amen.

But so that St. Paul’s order does not stand alone (for I have heard it said that the dean and canon in Magdeburg said to the dismissed preacher, “Who is Paul, Paul? The pope has received more power from Christ than St. Paul!”), we want to hear, for the sake of such honest Christian people, what St. Peter himself and Christ have to say about it. In I Peter 5[:1–4], St. Peter addresses all Christians in this fashion, “So I exhort the elders among you as a fellow elder: tend the flock of Christ who is among you, and be its bishops, not by constraint but willingly, not for shameful gain but eagerly, not as domineering over them as if they were your inherited property, but being examples to the flock. And when the chief shepherd is manifested you will obtain the unfading crown of glory.” Here you can see that St. Peter calls elders and bishops one and the same thing, just as St. Paul does. They are the ones who teach the people, and this makes all of them equals. He says they should not strive to be domineering as if they were lords over property. He calls himself a fellow elder and wants all pastors and preachers to be his equals and to be equals among themselves. What do our idols have to say to this, since they are not only lords but also tyrants over our body, soul, and property, elevating themselves and refusing to be the equal of anyone?
In conclusion, hear what Christ himself says, Luke 22[:25–26], “The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them; and those in authority over them are called benefactors. But not so with you; rather let the greatest among you become as the youngest.” Listen to this, you masks! You cannot deny that your external and worldly government is much higher than that of any king or prince. For you rule over body, soul, and property, not through God’s word as does even the lowest preacher—as was said above about Jeremiah—but through external things and works, just like worldly princes. Tell me then: How does your business agree with this saying, “But not so with you”? What does “not so” mean? It means that the episcopal estate as we know it now should not be so, if it is to be Christian. No matter what it is, Christ himself tells you “not so.” Let us see what you say to this “not so”! Perhaps you will say “not so” means “it is so” and teach that the pope has more power than Christ himself.
Therefore, just as you would avoid your enemy, if he appeared in the mask of your dear brother, so avoid these murderers of the soul who appear in the mask of bishop and in the name of shepherd. St. Paul prophesied that just as the devil appears in the mask of an angel of light, so these devil’s apostles appear in the mask and in the name of the apostles and servants of Christ. But we shall recognize them by their works and teachings [II Cor. 11:13–15]. For they preach without any shame or hesitation about investing money, rather than about the gospel.


The Fifth Virtue of the Bulls in Rome

He [the pope] pretends to change vows for the sake of money, except the vows of St. James, Rome, Jerusalem, and the vow of chastity. I have written much about vows previously,42 so there is no need to repeat it now. When I ask that blind head the pope what his explanation is for being able to dissolve some but not all vows, he answers only that some vowed things are great, such as chastity, and some are small, such as eating bread and water on Friday. Thus he may change small vows but not large ones.
What a blind and crude brain these masked people have that they judge and differentiate vows not according to God’s commandments but according to works! Tell me, is it not just as much an oath to swear about three pennies as to swear about a thousand guilders? If the vow is the same, why should it not be as valid in small as in great matters? Would it be invalid if someone paid a thousand guilders too much? This masked people is insane and senseless. Therefore stand fast and do not make a difference in the vows because of a difference in matter or works. One vow is like the other, whether it concerns something great or something small. For God’s commandment does not differentiate; it simply says you shall keep everything you vowed. It does not say that you may break the great vows and keep the small vows, or vice versa. Therefore, do not believe these seducers when they change the vows. They may change none of them; and if they can change any, then you and everyone else can do the same and change all the vows. To change vows is the same as annulling this commandment of God: “Keep what you vow.” If one of its parts is annulled, all of them are annulled. There is one simple commandment governing all vows.
For if it were true that the pope has power to change things with regard to small works in one of God’s commandments, he could do it as well in all the others. Thus it would follow that with regard to the first commandment, he might give permission not to love God with all one’s heart in small works such as eating and drinking, walking or standing still. He might also give permission to worship an idol with external works; or permit committing adultery with a worthless woman. Many more such abominations would follow if one could change or tear up one part of one of God’s commandments. Thus you can see that these masks do nothing but tear up God’s commandments for the sake of money. So beware of Balaam. He can change no vows for you; but if he can change even one, then you can change them all without spending any money.
Much more could be said here, but time does not permit it. We shall say more about it another time. For the time being, let this very brief statement suffice: first, some vows are vowed to men and should be kept as long as the one to whom they are vowed demands it or demands it justly. We do not speak of these vows here. Second, there are vows vowed to God or to his saints; they are of two kinds: those that are against God and his commandment, which should not be kept at all; and those that are not against his commandment, which are to be kept. Now the greatest problem is to know those vows which are vowed against God and his commandments. Here one must look at the Ten Commandments. Let us begin with the last ones. If you vow to desire your neighbor’s property, his wife, to bear false witness against him, to steal his property or damage it, to ravish his wife and to kill his body, and finally if you vow to show neither love nor goodness to him—in all this you can see clearly that such vows are sin and are to be avoided on pain of God’s disfavor. Indeed, everyone has to acknowledge this. Furthermore, if you vow to be disobedient to father and mother and not to do what they want, is not this, too, against God’s commandment? Why are we so blind that we keep such vows of disobedience? Is it not contrary to this commandment for a daughter to get engaged to a young man against the will of her father and mother? Is it not contrary to this commandment for daughters or sons to vow to become priests, monks, or nuns against the will of father and mother? Did not God himself in Numbers 30[:2–8] annul such vows and interpret this commandment in this way? For example, if either a husband or a wife vows to make a pilgrimage to St. James, or to do this or that, but the wife does not want to stay without her husband, tell me, is it not against God’s commandment which has obligated the man to care for his wife and children and not desert them? Yet this mask of a pope makes these vows so strict that he emphasizes them in his bulls, when he should instead tear up all of them and destroy them. But it is proper for the pope to prohibit what God commands and to destroy what God creates. How else could he be pope? My God, if these masquerading masks only erred and did evil to themselves, we certainly would be only too glad to endure them and to bear them with all honor. But since they do nothing but murder souls and destroy God’s word, there can be no excuse either for silence or for enduring them. No one should tell me about patience and honor here. Accursed be silent patience here! Accursed be honor which retreats here and leaves room for these murderous masks to dominate poor souls!
To continue, let us talk about monks and monastic vows. Here, more than ever, the ears of these masks will ring and their teeth will gnash. Tell me, if a priest, a monk, or a nun vowed to obey the spiritual estate or order in unbelief or on the basis of the Jewish faith, how much better would he or she be than a man who vowed to sleep with his neighbor’s wife? Would it not be a denial of the Christian faith and a worse sin than three adulteries? But how many people are there now, do you think, who become priests, monks, and nuns without denying the Christian faith but at the same time being spiritually in the Jewish faith? Does this appear strange to you? Listen a bit: this is the Christian faith that one believes that we are justified and saved not through any works but solely through Christ our mediator and through mercy, bestowed on us quite freely—Galatians 1[:4]. Thus man despairs of himself and of all his deeds and clings to Christ’s merit alone. Jewish faith means receiving God’s grace through works and through one’s own doing, and thus doing penance and being saved, Romans 10[:3]. Christ has to be excluded as unnecessary or at least as not very necessary. Now see whether the majority of priests, monks, and nuns do not begin their spiritual lives in such Jewish faith; for they say they want to do penance and to be saved through the strict life, and they attribute to works and to the spiritual estate what belongs to Christ and to faith alone. What is this other than denying Christ and becoming spiritual in unbelief—that is, that true Christians become Jews and pagans? It is just as St. Peter says, that those who already escaped error and sins are again entangled by them and have to live in error [II Pet. 2:20].
They themselves confess that they are Jews and pagans and they say, “Why should I become a priest, a monk, or a nun and torture myself in the order, if this did not save me and make me godly and pure?” Do you not see that these are the words of a Jewish faith in which Christ has neither room nor work? They expect from their orders and works what they should expect from Christ. That is why it is certain that all religious foundations and monasteries containing spiritual people who think their estate makes them godly and saves them are much worse than common brothels, taverns, and murderous pits. God also gives a sign that all of them are unchaste. For, because they eliminate the chastity of the Christian faith through such Jewish faith, they of necessity also have to eliminate physical chastity. As St. Peter says, they entice others to licentious passions through their great pretensions [II Pet. 2:18]. Thus all the orders and spiritual vows are contrary to God’s first, second, and third commandments and they should be destroyed, stopped, and done away with. All clerics should be conscientiously advised either to denounce Jewish faith and begin their spiritual lives anew in Christian faith, or to give up tonsures and cowls, monasteries and altars in order to be free to do what they wish. This is no different from what they would do if they slept with women outside of marriage; for they would then either have to leave the women or to marry them.
You see, this is the spirituality of Baal. I have written my own booklet about it in which, God willing, I have refuted the spiritual vows with sufficient scriptural evidence and argumentation. I hope this will do for a good conscience and honest mind so that they do not let themselves be so miserably entangled in the spiritual estates and be duped and destroyed by them. I do not care if I gratify these unlearned masks or make them angry by absolving priests, monks, and nuns from their vows and by destroying monasteries and religious foundations. Who can ever gratify these masks, who refuse to listen unless one tells them what is in their foolish hearts (as Solomon says [Prov. 18:2])? On the other hand, if one asks them for scriptural evidence and reasons for what they are doing, they only point to their red carnal [cardinals’] hats and bishops’ masks and say, “Do you not see that I am a carnal [cardinal]? Should I be learned in addition and show you scriptural evidence and other reasons? Why is this necessary? We not only have the Holy Spirit, we have the Most Holy Spirit also, namely, the spirit of the pope. He is not only as holy as Christ but rather the most holy.”
I do not want to say any more about these mad, accursed papal bulls until these sensitive, pure people become more restless. For now it suffices for everyone to know that to save his soul and to prevent divine disfavor he must burn, disgrace, and destroy these Roman bulls of indulgence. In addition, these masks who erect them must not only be despised as unlearned and crude minds but must also be avoided as raving wolves and hellish soul-murderers, in accordance with the teachings of both St. Peter [II Pet. 2:1–3] and St. Paul [Acts 20:29].
Finally, is it not a shame that these bishops of God’s disfavor, my ungracious lords, arrest the poor priests who get married? What will become of this? Burden yourselves more and more, dear masks! You have already lost the common prayer; you lead a knavish and whorish life; you fatten your lust and boast with the blood and sweat of the poor; you rob everyone of his property with lying and cheating; you torture the soul, body, and property of the world with bans and tyranny; you do not preach the gospel; and you not only refuse to exercise the spiritual office of the bishop but also prohibit and prevent others from preaching; you drive them away and persecute them. At the same time you are nothing but hateful, ugly, and hostile masks whom the world neither wishes to endure nor can endure because of your unbearable burdens, tyrannies, vices, outrages, and depravities. Dear masks, help us to get rid of you by increasing your merits and putting more on the scale! By no means ever consider how you might win the favor of the people with love, mildness, virtue, and goodness! Just carry on and on, dear masks. You are on the right track. For this is what your fathers the Jews did. When they had killed Christ, prohibited his word, and driven his apostles away, they could not sleep in peace; so they had to bring the Romans upon themselves, who annihilated and destroyed them. Why should you hesitate to do the same thing since you are the true children of such fathers?
If I were to ask why the poor priests are arrested and tormented because they married, where did God forbid them to do so, or how did they sin by doing so, I think they would step forward with their beautiful hats and long tails and say, “It is written in the most holy decretal.” These are the explanations these most learned and most reverend people will know to give for their action. May the Most Holy Father Pope and his most reverend bulls forgive me—I almost mocked these masks for their brave and spiritual intentions!
Adviser, advise well! Why do these whore-keepers dislike it when young men marry? No doubt because they lose their interest rates. For bishops receive the greater part of all their annual interest rates in almost all religious foundations from nothing but the priests’ whores. Whoever wants to keep a little whore must give one guilder a year to the bishop. There is a proverb among them, “Chaste priests are not liked by the bishop—indeed, they are his enemies.” Who else but a bishop could be a rich tradesman with women in this world? Who would blame the spiritual fathers for permitting whoredom for the sake of money, for selling living bodies of women and for prohibiting marriage which does not yield money? People make their living in many ways. A merchant sells spices and linen, bishops sell the flesh of whores. How else could they make a living? To top it all, if a priest’s maid stumbles over a dishpan and breaks in two, so that one part of her must be carried to baptism, the interest rate increases beyond the annual guilder. The bishop now has a reason to show his mercy by selling a mother to the poor priest. Blessed are the bellies that carry babies! But let the father worry about whether the breasts that are sucked are blessed too. The spiritual bishop has twice received his share from the belly. Are these not noble and dear female bellies, which have to be bought twice a year and which twice become pregnant with money for the spiritual lord!
My dear, do not think this a bad reason to motivate these holy spiritual people to forbid the poor priests to marry. Should they not prefer whores to pious wives? A married woman is a shameful and harmful thing; she does not produce a single penny for the most reverend fathers and lords in God. Forgive me this joke, my dear man; it comes not from a joking heart but rather from one made anxious by these very senseless and blind masks. They are completely deprived of all sense, wit, and reason by God’s wrath so that pigs, oxen, and asses are smarter than they are. Yet they are spiritual rulers, which is really punishing the world with fools and babes, as Isaiah says [Isa. 3:4]! Do you think they can cite reasons and arguments other than those cited, which are only greed and money? Even if they were cruder than crude asses they still could not say that God has prohibited marriage to the priests. Indeed, St. Paul instituted it for the priests when he said, “A bishop should be the husband of one wife, keeping his children submissive and respectful,” I Timothy 3[:2, 4], and Titus 1[:6]. Do you hear this, you masks and gaping fools? I mean you who are wolves and who subject innocent blood to tyranny. Answer me: what would you like to say or what could you say about St. Paul’s statement that a priest should have no more than one wife? How are you going to interpret “one wife”? As a priest’s whore whose belly you sell twice a year? St. Paul means only one wife, not two or more wives as was custom and law in the Old Testament. So if a priest wanted to obey this divine saying, who are you, you bloodthirsty masks, to prevent him? What is your argument? What do you say against it? Why do you elevate yourselves above God and his words? Should one worship you unlearned asses more than God?
The pope prohibited it. What shall I say? My dear asses, if the pope commanded you not to honor your father and mother (which he really does) and destroyed all of God’s commandments, should you not be the ones to oppose him, risking life and limb for the sake of God’s word? Did you not read St. Peter’s saying, Acts 4 [5:29], “One must obey God rather than men”? Then you know that all human commandments, even if they were good and useful, are invalid and are no longer binding when they become unbearable. Your own fleshly law teaches you that. You can see that it is impossible for all priests to obey the accursed human law prohibiting marriage. Yet you great insatiable keepers of women still forcibly drive the poor souls into sin for the sake of your accursed greed. You can see and understand that they cannot obey the law, but [you say] they should obey it without any trouble. Oh, you murderers of souls! How shamefully you stain your hands with innocent blood! What an account you will have to render for such tyranny!
But now it is indeed clear that these human commandments regarding the prohibition of clerical marriage are not human commandments but rather commandments of the devil. Three passages from St. Paul prove it. Two of them are the passages to Titus [Titus 1:6] and to Timothy [I Tim. 3:2] mentioned above, that a priest shall have only one wife. This is God’s word and order, [spoken] through St. Paul. That is why whatever is commanded contrary to this or what is commanded or ordered differently must be the devil’s work. For God does not speak against himself or give the lie to his mouth, as all Scripture and all reason must confess. But all reason must also confess that these papal laws are indeed contrary to Paul’s divine order. Is all this not clear enough, you silent and blind masks? How can you chafe against that? Are your iron heads and crude minds not ashamed publicly to command and force everyone to keep the commandments of the devil contrary to divine order? The third passage is I Timothy 4[:1–3], “Teachers will come with pretensions, teaching devilish doctrines. They will forbid marriage and enjoin abstinence from foods which God created.” See, he himself calls it devilish teaching to prohibit marriage. Nor does he speak here of the Tatians, as the liar of Dresden says.49 The Tatians did not prohibit marriage; rather, they condemned it as something sinful. But St. Peter speaks here of those who prohibit it rather than condemning it or regarding it as sinful, just as they prohibit food without regarding it as sinful. The pope is doing just that: he does not, like the Tatians, say that marriage is an evil or a sin; again, he does not consider meat, eggs, milk evil or sin. Instead, he prohibits them in order to make a pretense of spirituality, as St. Paul says here. Thus they speak through pretensions based on the devil’s teaching.
Since there are three powerful passages which irrefutably prove that the prohibition of marriage is something devilish commanded contrary to God’s order, the priests should have a good conscience. They should cheerfully put their trust in these sayings and take them into consideration. And anyone who otherwise has no desire to take a wife should do so anyway, just to hurt the devil and to spite him and his teaching. You masks should assist in this, unless you wish to be the apostles of the devil and of his teaching.
But if someone is troubled by the fact that he vowed chastity at the time of his ordination, it suffices for him to know, as was said above, that all vows contrary to God’s commandments and order are invalid and are to be dissolved on pain of God’s disfavor. Now these vows are indeed based on the teaching of the devil and opposed to God’s commandments and order, as the foregoing argument clearly demonstrates. Accordingly, priests have dedicated their chastity not to God but to the pope who represents the devil and to human teaching. That is why men must dissolve their vows again, since such dedication does not lead to God. Therefore, it is not at all dangerous for a priest to take a wife. Only these masks regard it as dangerous; on the other hand, they sell whores for money, which is really dangerous, and punish no one for it. Are they not fine, lovely masks? They crucify Christ and let Barabbas go. Woe, woe, woe to them! I can but warn them and all those who support them to be on guard. God will not allow his word to be mocked.
Just look at the malice of the devil: just as he tricked people with his rattling and rumbling, so that they thought the souls of the dead moved around the house to seek help, and thereby made a carnival out of the mass, so did he make up many abominable and false examples about priests’ cooks, until he managed to create the general rumor that a woman who has sinned once with a priest is beyond help and eternally lost. As a result, they fall into despair and lose all hope of becoming better, so that there are no worse women than the servants of the priests. That was his aim. No one paid attention to this devil’s roguery; everyone let it go on, and these souls were permitted to despair and freely to expose themselves to danger. The result was that his commandment of chastity was considered all the more holy, and God’s commandment was all the more despised. O Lord God, how blind, how sure, how ignorant are the pope and the bishops! They really are and will remain masks, but unfortunately to the advantage of the devil and the disadvantage of the poor and miserable souls.
This will do for a beginning, until I see how the masks react. I hope they will try to defend themselves with blasphemy and blow on the embers. May God help them to do this through the merit of their shameful, harmful, and mask-like nature and government. Amen.
I also ask those who wish to attack the masks in writing to do so publicly and honestly, in accordance with the gospel’s rule and St. Paul’s teaching. They should put their names on the title page and stand forth boldly for the right as I do. For we have the advantage that the masks are unlearned, in disrepute in all the world, and now disgraced before everyone as those who avoid the light, who cannot tolerate justice, and who will not come onto the field [to fight]. Thus their glitter is gone, and they are no longer ornamented with pretensions. For there is no better way to torture them than to defy them legitimately and to offer to hear their reasons and arguments. Then they are forced to be so ashamed in their hearts and consciences that they must keep silent and cannot find any support for their side. But if they proceed with their blasphemous power, which is all that is left to them for a brief time, their shame and disgrace are that much greater and they are despised and come to fall even sooner. Therefore, it only advances our cause if they continue as mad masks to blaspheme and rule without hesitation.
In accordance with St. Paul’s teaching, however, we should not only strike and punish consciences, but pour oil as well as wine into the wounds. In case these passages [from Scripture] have had an effect on some kindhearted bishops and have shocked their hearts, we have to anticipate their questions and tell them what they should do to be saved and to take the danger out of their estate.
Here, of course, there is no advice or consolation other than that a bishop should create learned men (if he himself is not gifted) who will preach the gospel clearly and purely in his stead all over his diocese. Moreover, he should watch over them and should stake everything on the gospel that Christ teaches us to stake on it. Thus we read that St. Valerius, bishop of Hippo, had St. Augustine preach for him before he became bishop and protected him. Likewise, the custom in many Greek lands was to have priests preach for their bishops in their presence. In addition, by means of prayer, service, and assistance, such a bishop should do for the poor what he cannot achieve with preaching. A bishop refusing to do these things should by no means consider himself to be in the state of salvation.
If you say, “Well, what would such conduct do to the princely estate which the bishops now occupy?” I answer that we are not speaking of how one should be a prince but of how one should be a bishop and be saved. Who made bishops into princes? Christ forbade them to be princes when he separated them from princes and said, “The worldly princes are lords and exercise dominion over all their subjects, but you should not be like them.” The Prince of Princes will neither recant nor withdraw these words for the sake of your principality. Let diocese and principality go if you cannot be a bishop in them. Why do you want to destroy your soul eternally for the sake of temporal honor? Since it is so difficult to keep someone in a right, good, and holy state, how dare you remain in a state that is damnable? “For what will it profit you (says Christ [Matt. 16:26]) if you gain the whole world and forfeit your soul?”
But how could princes and nobles support their children and friends if there were no dioceses and religious foundations? Here you can see the blindness of us Germans. If a peasant strangled your son, beat him to death, or shamed your daughter or sister, there would be bloodshed and strife; you would rage and rave, and if you could ruin a territory you would do so, because you would think great injustice had been done to you. But my dear, open your eyes and see whether there could be a greater murderer or enemy of your child or of your friends than you yourself are. You help him get the diocese even though you are certain that he must give himself to the devil and carry on in such a way that he cannot be saved. You know this. Tell me then, do you not do him more harm than if you put a thousand swords through his heart?
If he had fallen into such a state by accident, you would pull him out with body and property, if you had any good in you at all, even if you only had a piece of bread to share with him. But what do you do? You push him into the abyss of hell so that your principality and your property will not be divided and diminished. You do not care if your flesh and blood is destroyed unto eternity, just as long as you can remain rich and great. You see, this is the custom now in all of Germany. All the bells should be tolled in the face of such abominable murder and strangulation of souls. The Te Deum should be sung, candles and flags should be paraded with full pomp, that it might be just as it was when the mad Israelite kings burned their children as sacrifices to the idol Molech [II Kings 23:10] with great noise and clangor to avoid hearing the children’s eries and weeping.
This is also being done with daughters and sisters: they are enticed and indeed pushed into nunneries whether or not they want to go, only to avoid the destruction and impoverishment of families and estates. They should rather be in the same estate [in the world]. But it will not help anyway, for God still plagues us, so that principalities and nobles are being impoverished. Perhaps it would not happen if they had not been guilty of such abominable murder against their own flesh and blood. The innocent blood eries out against them and God hears it and avenges it.
Consider one side of this misery. The majority of young women in nunneries are robust and healthy, created by God to be wives and to bear children. But they are not strong enough to remain in this state, because chastity is a grace higher than nature, even if nature were pure. Moreover, God (when he created man and woman) did not want to have his law generally weakened or gradually annulled with miraculous signs. Instead, virginity should be a rare thing before him. So if you have a daughter or a friend who has fallen into such a state, you should help her out of it, if you are honest and devout, even if you had to risk all your property, life, and limb to do so.
But for the sake of your miserable property you push them into the mouth of the devil without consulting them. What are the consequences? Listen: I have never heard confession from a nun. Nevertheless, I will tell you on the basis of Holy Scripture what it is like for them, and I know that I am not lying. Unless she is in a high and unusual state of grace, a young woman can do without a man as little as she can do without eating, drinking, sleeping, or other natural requirements. Nor can a man do without a woman. The reason for this is that to conceive children is as deeply implanted in nature as eating and drinking are. That is why God gave us and implanted into our body genitals, blood vessels, fluids, and everything else necessary to accomplish it. The person who wants to prevent this and keep nature from doing what it wants to do and must do is simply preventing nature from being nature, fire from burning, water from wetting, and man from eating, drinking, or sleeping.
Thus I conclude that these nuns in the convents are forced to be chaste against their will; they dislike not having men. But if they are in convents against their will, they lose this life and the next; they are forced into hell on earth and hell in the other world. You see, you bring them to this point for the sake of your accursed property. This is the harvest of a few mad and senseless princes who so tyrannically watch over the locked monasteries. They want to hinder nature. And it is easy for them to talk, for they lie with women whenever they want to and give their own nature enough air and room. But the poor crowd of common people must die in their own hell because of it.
To continue, nature does not cease to do its work when there is involuntary chastity. The flesh goes on creating seed just as God created it to do. The blood vessels function according to their own nature, and thus the fluids rise—and with them the secret sin which St. Paul calls impurity and softness [Gal. 5:19]. To put it bluntly for the sake of those who suffer miserably: if it does not flow into flesh it will flow into the shirt. But people are ashamed to complain about it and to confess it. The result is that in their heart they malign you and God, curse their own estate, and are hostile to all those who have helped them to become like this. Such people would rather marry a shepherd boy in their need, while they would otherwise hardly take a count. See, this is what the devil intended when he taught you to quench nature and subdue it even if it wants to be free.
But what shall we do in this matter, since goods cannot be distributed equally? Answer: Why do we not do what was done among the people of Israel, where only one man was kept as king? His brothers were given something and made equal to the rest of the people. Must all those who are born princes and nobles remain princes and nobles? Would it matter if a prince took a plain wife and was satisfied with a decent burgher’s property? On the other hand, a young noblewoman could marry a burgher. In the long run it is not feasible for nobles to marry only nobles. Even though we are unequal before the world, before God we are all equally Adam’s children and God’s creatures, and one man is worth as much as another.
Now look, if your child or friend in a convent in her despair and need would like to take what is due to her so that she can enter a blessed estate, why do you not help her to achieve it before she falls into such despair? Why do you not give her what God gives, be it noble or not? O Lord God, how little we care for the poor souls, and how much we are drowned in greed!
I am therefore saying now that it is better to let the diocese and all honors go and to be a poor burgher or peasant than to fail to exercise the episcopal office or to see that it is exercised. For there is neither reason nor excuse for this. God’s word must remain, and not only the episcopal estate but also heaven and earth must pass away. Judge yourself accordingly.
But if the pope and his followers do not like to see the gospel preached (which is the case now), you have even more reason to avoid the diocese or the episcopal estate. One must obey God rather than men [Acts 5:29]. You should not think you honor your episcopal estate and will be excused if you walk around preaching, as a bishop did recently. These miserable people were silent about the gospel and wanted to offer their souls as pledges for the people, and thus lead the consciences. I say to such a bishop: Put your soul into an empty comer; if the devil takes it away, where would I be if I had counted on it? I want a bishop who does not offer me his soul as a foundation, for I do not know to whom it belongs. Rather, I want one to preach the pure gospel to me and to offer me Christ’s soul as a foundation. Then I know for certain where I stand.
I am not speaking now of papal bishops and of what they should do. They would not tolerate it anyway. But I do ask whether somewhere there is someone who wishes to be a Christian bishop and who wants to protect his own soul together with those of his people. He should travel around and preach or have preached not human teachings but God’s word in purity. Enough has been said above about the masks and bishop idols. May God give us his grace, and may he send again true laborers into his harvest; may he punish the murderers and burn their city, because they throw his servants and his Son out of the vineyard and kill without ceasing [Matt. 22:1–7]. Amen.