§ 125. Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott.
§ 125. Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott.
I conclude this volume with Luther’s immortal hymn, which is the best expression of his character, and reveals the secret of his strength as well as the moving power of the Reformation.1007
A tower of strength1008 our God is still,
A good defense1009 and weapon;
He helps us free from all the ill
That us hath overtaken.
Our old, mortal foe1010
Now aims his fell blow,
Great might and deep guile
His horrid coat-of-mail;1011
On earth is no one like him.1012
Ein’ feste Burg ist unser Gott,
Ein’ gute Wehr und Waffen.
Er hilft uns frei aus aller Noth,
Die uns jetzt hat betroffen.
Der alt’ böse Feind,
Mit Ernst er’s jetzt meint;
Gross’ Macht und viel List,
Sein grausam Rüstung ist,
Auf Erd’ ist nicht sein’s Gleichen.
By might of ours can naught be done:1013
Our fate were soon decided.
But for us fights the champion,1014
By God himself provided.
Who Is this, ask ye?
Jesus Christ! ÕTis he!
Lord of Sabaoth,
True God and Saviour both,
Omnipotent in battle.1015
Mit unsrer Macht ist nichts gethan,
Wir sind gar bald verloren:
Es streit’t für uns der rechte Mann,
Den Gott hat selbst erkoren.
Fragst du, wer Der ist?
Er heisst Jesus Christ,
Der Herr Zebaoth,
Und ist kein andrer Gott;
Das Feld muss Er behalten.
Did devils fill the earth and air,1016
All eager to devour us,
Our steadfast hearts need feel no care,
Lest they should overpower us.
The grim Prince of hell,
With rage though he swell,
Hurts us not a whit,
Because his doom is writ:
A little word can rout1017 him.
Und wenn die Welt voll Teufel wär’
Und wollt uns gar verschlingen,
So fürchten wir uns nicht zu sehr,
Es soll uns doch gelingen.
Der Fürst dieser Welt,
Wie sau’r er sich stellt,
Thut er uns doch nichts;
Das macht, er ist gericht’t;
Ein Wörtlein kann ihn fällen.
The word of God will never yield
To any creature living;
He stands with us upon the field,
His grace and Spirit giving.
Take they child and wife,
Goods, name, fame, and life,
Though all this be done,
Yet have they nothing won:
The kingdom still remaineth.
Das Wort sie sollen lassen stan1018
Und keinÕn Dank dazu haben.
Er ist bei uns wohl auf dem Plan1019
Mit seinem Geist und Gaben.
Nehmen sie den Leib,
Gut, Ehr, Kind und Weib;
Lass fahren dahin,
Sie haben’s kein’n Gewinn;
Das Reich muss uns doch bleiben
Luther wrote to Hausmann, July 6, 1530: "Mirum est quam omnes ardeant amore et favore Caesaris." In De Wette-Seidemann, VI. 116. Melanchthon praised the virtues of the Emperor extravagantly, even after the Diet. "Corp. Ref." II. 430 sq., 361; Virck, l.c., 338sq.
"Lieber Fürst, nicht Kopf abhauen, nicht Kopf ab." Andreas Osiander understood him to say, "mehr Kopf abhauen," and so reported to Luther, June 21, 1530; adding, "neque enim recte Germanice autLatine novit." Krafft, Briefe und Documente, 67; Janssen, III. 166. Charles usually spoke in French; but he declared that he would sacrifice any other language, even Spanish or French, yea, one of his states, for a better knowledge of German.
Brentius: "cum confessio legeretur, obdormivit." The Emperor was equally sleepy on the 3d of August during the reading of the papal confutation.
In De Wette, IV. 165.
He spent his time "in lacrymis ac luctu," was exhausted and emaciated. See his letters, and those of Jonas and Osiander, in "Corp. Ref.," II. 125 sq., 157, l63.
He wrote two letters to Campeggi, July 6, and two to his secretary, July 7 and Aug. 5. See "Corp. Reform.," II. 168-174, and 240. In the first letter, after a quotation from Plato and some words of flattery, he makes this astounding concession (fol. 170): "Dogma nullum habemus diversum ab ecclesia Romana. ... Parati sumus obedire ecclesiae Romana, modo ut illa pro sua clementia, qua semper erga omnes gentes usa est, pauca quaedamvel dissimulet, vel relaxet quae jam mutare nequidem si velimus queamus. ... Ad haec Romani pontificis auctoritatem et universam politiam ecclesiasticam reverenter colimus, modo nos non abjiciat Rom. pontifex. ... Nullam ob rem aliam plus odii sustinemus in Germania, quam quia ecclesiae Romanae dogmata summa constantia defendimus. Hanc fidem Christo et Romanae ecclesiae ad extremum spiritum, Deo volente, praestabimus. Levis quaedam dissimilitudo rituum est quae videtur obstare concordiae."Of similar import are the propositions he sent to Campeggi, Aug. 4 (fol. 246).
See letter of Sept. 11, 1530, in De Wette, IV. 163.
Summa, mihi in totum displicet tractatus de doctrinae concordia, ut quae plane sit impossibilis, nisi papa velit papatum suum aboleri."Letter to Melanchthon, Aug. 26, in De Wette, IV. 147.
See his Exposition of John 6–8 (1530-32), Erl. ed. XLVIII. 342 sq.
"Glossen auf das vermeintliche kaiserliche Edict," in Walch, XVI. 2017 sqq.; Erl. ed. XXV. 51-88.
Warnung an seine lieben Deutschen, Erl. ed. XXV. 1-51. The Romanists regarded this as an incendiary call to open rebellion. He defended himself against this charge, in Wider den Meuchler in Dresden, 1531 (Erl. ed. 89-109).
Albrecht accepted from Melanchthon the dedication of his commentary on the Romans and sent him a cup with thirty gold guilders (1532). He also sent to Luther’s wife a present of twenty guilders, which Luther declined. Köstlin, II. 427; Janssen, III. 203. Hermann of Cologne afterwards professed Protestantism, and made an abortive attempt to reform his diocese with the aid of Bucer and Melanchthon.
Luther chastised the Pope with all his power of irony and sarcasm for his conduct in regard to a council, in his book Von den Conciliis und Kirchen, 1539 (Erl. ed. XXV. 219-388).
See the proof in Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, I. 624 sqq.
The Articuli Torgavienses were formerly confounded with the Articuli Suobacences till Förstemann discovered the former in the archives at Weimar (1833).
"Denn ich so sanft und leise nicht treten kann." Letter to Elector John, May 15, 1530. In De Wette, IV. 17. He calls the Augustana die Leisetreterin, the softly stepping Confession. Letter to Jonas, July 2l, 1530.
In a letter to Brenz, May, 1531 (Corp. Ref., II. 502), Melanchthon remarks that he did not speak more plainly on this point, "propter adversariorum calumnias." In the Apology of the Confession (Art. IV.), he is more explicit, and declares this doctrine incidentally to be "the chief point of Christian doctrine (praecipuus locus doctrinae Christianae) in this controversy." Müller, Symb. Bücher, p. 87. Döllinger charges Melanchthon, in his varying statements of this doctrine, with sophistry, Die Reformation, III. 279 sqq. The revisers of the Luther Bible retained the insertion allein in Rom. 3:28.
That the Zwinglians are meant by the secus docentes (in the German ed., Gegenlehr), must be inferred from the preceding Conference at Marburg, and the whole conduct of the Lutherans during the Diet. The omission of Zwingli’s name was due, probably, to respect for his friend the Landgrave of Hesse, one of the signers of the Confession.
"They condemn the Anabaptists, who disallow the baptism of children, and affirm that children are saved without baptism." The edition of 1540 adds after "sine baptismo" the words "et extra ecclesiam Christi." The Romish Confutation fully approves of the condemnation of the Anabaptists, and calls them "hominum genus seditiosissimum, procul a finibus Romani imperii eliminandum." Corp. Reform., XXVII. 105.
Schaff, Creeds, i. 687, iii. 482.
It was Melanchthon’s wish (which Köllner chose as motto for his Symb. d. luth. Kirche): "Utinam utinam possim non quidem dominationem confirmare, sed administrationem restituere episcoporum. Video enim, qualem habituri simus ecclesiam, dissoluta politeiva ecclesiastica." Occasionally lonely voices are heard for the restoration of episcopacy in the Lutheran Church, but without effect. See F. Haupt, Der Episcopat der deutschen Reformation, oder Artikel 28 der Augsburg Conf., Frankf., 1866; Luther und der Episcopat, 1866.
See on these questions Schaff, Creeds, I. 237 sqq., and especially Köllner, Symbolik der luth. Kirche, p. 236 sqq. and 267 sqq.
The full title is Catholica et quasi-extemporanea Responsio Pontificia seu Confutatio Augustanae Confessionis. The first draught was verbose and bitter ("verbosior et acrior"); the second, third, fourth, and fifth were briefer and milder.
The first draught, however, had a lengthy attack upon Luther’s sola fide.
"Decimus articulus in verbis nihil offendit si modo credant [principes, the Lutheran signers] sub qualibet specie integrum Christum adesse."
Because it is defined as a congregatio sanctorum, without including mali et peccatores.
Because it rejects the invocation of saints."Hic articulus confessionis toties damnatus penitus rejiciendus est et cum tota universali ecclesia reprobandus."
"Quod autem de abusibus adstruxerunt, haud dubie norunt Principes omnes et status imperii, neque a Caes. Maiestate, neque ullis a Principibus et christiano aliquo homine vel minimum abusum probari, sed optare tum Principes, tum status imperii, ut communi consilio ac consensu adnitantur, ut, sublatis abusibus et emendatis, utriusque status excessus aut penitus aboleantur, aut in melius reformentur, ac tandem ecclesiasticus status multis modis labefactatus, ac christiana religio, quae in nonnullis refriguit et remissa est, ad pristinum decus et ornamentumrestituatur et redintegretur. Qua in re Caes. Maiestas, ut omnibus constat, hactenus plurimum et laboris et curae insumsit, et in reliquum ad hoc negotii omnem suam operam ac studium serio collocaturam benigne pollicetur." Corp. Ref., XXVII. 182 sq.
He worked so hard at it at Altenburg, even on Sunday, that Luther reminded him to observe the Fourth Commandment.
Corp. Ref., XXVII. 267 sqq. Melanchthon himself did not hear it.
Ibid., 379 sqq.; XXVIII. 1 sqq.
See on the different editions the "Corp. Ref.," XXVI. 697 sqq. and XXVII. 379 sqq.; the Latin text of 1531, p. 419 sqq.; the German translation with the variations of ed. II. (1533), ed. III. and IV. (1540), ed. V. 1550), ed. VI. (1556), in vol. XXVIII. 37-326.
Coburg is the residence, alternately with Gotha, of the Duke, and capital of the duchy, of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, 185 m. S. S. W. of Berlin, nearly midway between Wittenberg and Augsburg, and has now (1888) about sixteen thousand inhabitants. The castle is situated on an eminence overhanging the town, and has been in part converted into a prison and house of correction; but some chambers remain in their original condition, chiefly those occupied by Luther, with his bedstead and pulpit.
See above, p. 464.
The MS. of his translation and adaptation of these fables has recently been re-discovered in the Vatican Library by Dr. Reitzenstein, and published, with an interesting facsimile, by E. Thiele: "Luthers Fabeln nach seiner wiedergefundenen Handschrift, " etc. Halle (M. Niemeyer), 1888 (19 pages).
See above, 468, 502 sq., 741 sq.
See the Lit. on p. 104. The martyr-Emperor, Frederick III., as crown prince, representing his venerable father, Emperor William I. of Germany, was the leading figure in the celebration at Wittenberg, Sept. 12-14, 1883, and gave it a national significance. The Luther-celebration produced several Luther-dramas, by Henzen (1883), Devrient (7th ed. 1888), Herrig (9th ed. 1888), and Trümpelmann (2nd ed. 1888). Comp. G. A. Erdmann, Die Lutherfestspiele, Wittenberg, 1889.
The meeting of the Evangelical Alliance of the U. S., then under the management of Drs. Prime and Schaff (Presbyterians), was the most representative and impressive Luther celebration in America; it was addressed by Hon. John Jay (Episcopalian), Dr. Phillips Brooks (Episcopalian), Dr. Wm. M. Taylor (Congregationalist), Bishop Simpson (Methodist), Dr. Krotel (Lutheran), Dr. Crosby (Presbyterian). The music was furnished by the New York Oratorio Society. The Evangelical Alliance issued also an invitation to the Protestant churches in the United States to celebrate Luther’s birthday by sermons on the Reformation.
The Probebibel, so-called, of 1883, though prepared by a company of able scholars appointed by various German States, is a timidly conservative revision, does not touch the Erasmian text, and allows innumerable inaccuracies to stand from respect to Luther’s memory; and yet even this revision revises too much for the Lutherans of strict orthodoxy. His popularity is a hinderance to progress.
See H. v. Treitschke’s eloquent address, Luther und die deutsche Nation, Berlin, 1883 (29 pages).
Professor Ad. Harnack (Martin Luther, Giessen, 1883, p. 4) well says: Fast jede Partei unter uns hat ihren Luther und meint den wahren zu haben. Die Verehrung für Luther vereinigt mehr als die Hälfte unserer Nation und die Auffassung Luther’s trennt sie. Von Luther’s Namen lässt so leicht kein Deutscher. Ein unvergleichlicher Mann ist er Allen, ob man ihm nun aufpasst, um ihn anzugreifen, oder ob man ihn rühmt und hoch preist." The Germans, if we may say so, worship Luther, Frederick the Great, Goethe, and Bismarck. Of these, Luther is most worthy, and was least desirous, of praise.
Hallam also, ignoring Luther’s German writings, calls his polemical books "bellowing in bad Latin," " scandalous," and " disgusting." (Literature of Europe in the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries, II. 306, N. Y. ed.)
Comp. the admirable description of Luther by Hase in his Kirchengesch. (11th ed., p. 400), and at the close of his Prot. Polemik. The Roman Catholic Möhler (Kirchengesch., III. 148) thinks that out of Luther’s writings might be drawn "the most glorious apology of the Catholic Church." Harnack (l.c., p. 5) calls him "a sage without prudence; a statesman without politics; an artist without art; a man free from the world, in the midst of the world; of vigorous sensuality, yet pure; obstinately unjust (rechthaberisch ungerecht), yet concerned for the cause; defying authority, yet bound by authority; at once blaspheming and emancipating, reason."
An interesting parallel in this and other respects may be drawn by some future historian, between Luther and Bismarck, whose political influence upon Germany in the nineteenth century is as powerful as Luther’s ecclesiastical influence was in the sixteenth. Bismarck was originally an intense aristocrat, but became the boldest liberal, and ended as a conservative statesman, though without surrendering the creations of his genius. He defeated Catholic Austria and France, and protested that he would never go to Canossa; yet he met Pope Leo XIII. half way, and repealed the unjust May-laws in the interest of patriotism, without surrendering any religious principle. With all his faults, he is the greatest statesman and diplomatist of the century, and the chief founder of the Protestant German Empire.
He calls him Hanswurst, Jack Sausage.
So says Döllinger (Die Reform., III. 265, note), who counted the number. He adds, that in Luther’s book on the Councils, the devils are mentioned fifteen times in four lines.
See the passages above, p. 657 sq., note 3.
Comp. the comparison between Luther and Melanchthon, p. 193 sq.
He announced the death of Luther to his students with the words: "Ah! obiit auriga et currus Israel, qui rexit ecclesiam in hac ultima senecta mundi. ... Amemus igitur hujus viri memoriam."
This is a mistake; see p. 466 sq.
Luther, eine Skizze, Freiburg-i.-B., 1851. I have a copy with notes, which the old Catholic Bishop Reinkens, a pupil of Döllinger, kindly gave me in Bonn, 1886. It appeared in the first edition of Wetzer and Welte’s Kirchen-Lexikon, vol. VI. 651 spp.
1007 The translation was made by my esteemed friend, Professor Thomas Conrad Porter, D. D., of Easton, Penn., several years ago, but finished in February, 1888, and is almost equal to that of Thomas Carlyle in its reproduction of the rugged force of the original, and surpasses it in rhythmic accuracy. Comp. 468, 502, sq.
1008 Carlyle: "A safe stronghold."
1009 "A trusty shield."—C.
1010 "The ancient prince of hell."—C.
1011 Strong mail of craft and power He weareth in this hour."—C.
"In grim armor dight,
Much guile and great might."—Longfellow.
1012 "On earth is not his fellow."—C.
1013 "By force of arms we nothing can."—C.
1014 "The proper man."—C.
1015 "Shall conquer in the battle."—C.
1016 "And were this world all devils over."—C.
1017 "slay."—C.
1018 stehen.
1019 ·Kampfplatz.