wants to make liars out of the Holy Spirit and my Lord Christ, whom I preach. I am not concerned about myself, but I shall defend Christ's word with a joyful heart and renewed courage, without regard to anyone. To this end God has given me a joyful and fearless spirit, which I trust they shall not harm in all eternity.
No one should think that when I mentioned Leipzig, I wanted to shame this honorable city and its university. I was forced to do so by the boisterous, arrogant, and imagined title of the Romanist, who boasts of being the public reader of all Holy Scripture in Leipzig72—a title which all of Christendom in the whole world never ascribed to itself—and by his dedication of it to the city and its council.73 If he had not put his apelike book into German to poison poor laymen, he would have been much too insignificant for me to bother with. This crude miller's beast still cannot sing his hee-haw and yet, all on his own, he embarks on a matter which the Roman see itself, as well as all the bishops and scholars, could not clarify in a thousand years. Moreover, I would have thought that Leipzig is too precious in his eyes to smear his drivel and snivel on this honorable and famous city. But he does not think he is such a bad guy.74 I can see clearly that if I were to permit these crude heads their presumptions, in the end even the bath maids would write against me! I only ask that whoever wants to get at me should be armed with Scripture. What good does it do when a poor frog puffs itself up?75 Even though he bursts, he will never be like an ox. I would like to leave this matter, but they force themselves into it. I hope that God may grant both our prayers, namely, to help me get out of it, and to keep them in it. Amen.
Honor and praise be to God alone to eternity. Amen.
TO THE GOAT IN LEIPZIG Eric W. and Ruth C. Gritsch Jerome Emser (1477–1527),1 the "goat of Leipzig"—Luther's designation because Emser's coat of arms, a shield and helmet adorned with a goat, was displayed on the title page of his writings—had pursued a variegated career before engaging Luther in a bitter literary feud. After studying law and theology at the universities of Tübingen and Basel, he became secretary to Cardinal Raymund von Gurk, papal legate in the matter of indulgences until 1505. While traveling with the cardinal in Germany and France, Emser became acquainted with humanists and edited the writings of the Italian philosopher Pico della Mirandola in Strassburg. In 1504 he matriculated at the University of Erfurt for the Master of Arts degree, lecturing on humanism at the same time. He stated later that Luther had been among his students.2 Probably recommended by Cardinal Raymund, he transferred to Leipzig, where he became secretary and court chaplain to Duke George of Saxony and an occasional lecturer at the university until 1510. In a short time he received the baccalaureate degree in theology and a degree of Licentiate of Canon Law. When Duke
George urged him to research the life of Benno of Meissen, a revered Saxon bishop (d. 1106), to aid the process of canonization, Emser collected material from various sources and published a biography of Benno in 1517. He even went to Rome in 1510 to plead for Benno's canonization in the name of Duke
George, who awarded him prebends in Dresden and Meissen for his efforts. Emser's work was not in vain, since Benno was pronounced a saint in 1523.
When Luther was invited to preach at the Castle Church in Dresden on July 25, 1518, Emser invited him to a banquet at his home. Even though Luther engaged in heated debate with one of the guests, the Leipzig Thomist Magister Weissestadt, he had no direct theological encounter with his host at that time.3
Their controversy began a year later when Emser, who had attended the Leipzig Debate, defended Luther's "orthodoxy" in an open letter, dated August 13, 1519, addressed to John Zack, administrator of the archbishopric in Prague and provost of Leitmeritz.4 Emser assured Zack that despite the heretical
Hussite support for Luther—some Hussite leaders had corresponded with Luther and offered their spiritual support5—Luther himself did not identify his cause with theirs. As an eyewitness to the Leipzig Debate and "truthful priest of Christ," he, Emser, was convinced that Luther had in no way whatsoever agreed
- 47 with the errors of the Hussites. Emser closed the letter with his expressed hope that Luther would never sink so low in his controversy with Eck—Emser called Eck "a very brave theologian" (fortissimus theologus)—as to rely on the prayers of heretics rather than on Holy Scripture.
When Luther read Emser's open letter to the Bohemian Catholics, he became convinced that it was a clever device to continue the intrigue Emser had launched at the Dresden banquet. On that occasion Emser had lulled Luther into making statements conservative Roman theologians could later use against him to substantiate their suspicion of heresy.6 Now Emser used his eyewitness account of the Leipzig Debate to create the impression that Luther had never agreed with the heretic Huss, even though he had made some statements in Leipzig to that effect.7 Accordingly, to Luther Emser's falsification of the record of his debate with Eck was but another trap for him. If he accepted Emser's "defense," he would appear to have silently recanted his statements on Huss; if he rejected Emser's interpretation, Emser would be justified in accusing Luther of heresy, since the Leipzig statements could then no longer be regarded as the emotional outbursts of a debater in trouble.
Luther decided to take the "goat" by the horns and published his response to Emser's intrigue under the title An Addition to Goat Emser in the latter half of September, 1519.8 Mocking Emser's attempt at defense as a "Judas kiss," he told Emser that it would have been much better to call him a "Bohemian heretic," as Eck had, than to write such a deceitful letter. In reality, Luther argued, Emser only wanted to condemn him but was too cowardly to do so. "From now on," Luther closed his letter, "I prefer to debate those who love the truth more than their own honor."
As soon as John Eck read Luther's response to Emser, he decided to join the debate once again. On October 28, 1519, he published a reply to Luther's charges against Emser in the form of an open letter to the bishop of Meissen, John von Schleynitz, entitled An Answer for Jerome Emser Against Luther's Mad
Hunt.9 In it he charged that Luther was responsible for all the malice associated with the Leipzig Debate.
But Luther refused to be drawn any further into a debate which appeared to be useless. Although Emser retorted with another pamphlet, Assertion of the Goat Against Luther's Hunt10—his chief argument was that Luther had opposed the papacy in Leipzig because his Augustinian Order did not share in the profits from the sale of indulgences—Luther could not be moved to reply. "Emser pours out his fury," he wrote to his friend Spalatin on November 20, 1519, "but in such a way that he confirms my letter. I regret that such coarse, stupid, gross bullies interfere in this business."11
But the real controversy between Emser and Luther was still to come. In December, 1520, Emser renewed his attack on Luther with a lengthy treatise written against Luther's famous address To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation12 of August 18, 1520, entitled Against the Un-Christian Book of the Augustinian Martin Luther, Addressed to the German Nobility.13 It prompted an immediate reply from Luther. Without awaiting the full content of Emser's printed version, Luther jotted down his answer, To the Goat in Leipzig, responding to the first part of Emser's treatise given to him by friends who seemingly had access to it in Leipzig.14 Luther, together with Philip Melanchthon, was convinced that Emser had already written a similar attack in Latin under the pseudonym of Thomas Rhadinus in October, 1520.
Published in Rome by a Dominican monk under this name and reprinted in Leipzig by Melchior Lotther soon afterward, it had infuriated Luther because he assumed Emser's malice behind the name.
Melanchthon had written a rebuttal of it shortly after its appearance in Wittenburg in November, 1520.15 In reality, Emser was not the author. "You burden me with the lie that I was to have written the booklet of Thomas Rhadinus against you and to have had it printed secretly in Rome," Emser retorted later.16 But neither Luther nor Melanchthon accepted Emser's statement as true, even though their friends Spalatin and Agricola did.17
Luther's To the Goat in Leipzig is the first of a series of four treatises he wrote against Emser. All four provide significant insights into the formation of Luther's doctrine of the church and his new, radical understanding of the ministry. We shall describe the historical origins of each treatise in subsequent introductions to give the reader an opportunity to retrace Luther's theological affirmations in the context of the controversy. The following translation is based on the first German edition of the treatise, entitled
An den Bock zu Leyptzck, printed by Melchior Lotther in Wittenberg and available in WA 7, 262–265.
Jerome Emser's German treatises have been reprinted in Enders, Luther und Emser. There are English translations of Luther's first three German treatises by Augustus Steimle in PE 3, 275–401.
TO THE GOAT IN LEIPZIG - 48 My greeting to the goat in Leipzig.
If I had called you a goat, my Emser, you would certainly have written a book or two about it, swamping me with all kinds of lies, slander, and invective, as is your custom. But since you have described yourself as a goat in such glaring letters that everyone must see it, and since you threaten no more than to butt, saying, "Beware, the goat will butt you," I trust I may as well receive you as a goat with your own favor and grace. It was necessary for you to put it down on paper; your entire nature certainly reveals you to be a goat. Furthermore, your booklets and speeches prove beyond any doubt that you can do no more than butt. Did you think I could not answer your frivolous threats and would say, "Dear ass, do not kick"?1
May God protect from the billy goat those nanny goats whose horns are wrapped in silk; God willing, I do not need such protection.
Have you never heard the fable about the roaring match between the ass and the lion? When some animals fled at the sound of the ass's braying, the lion turned to him, saying, "If I didn't know you are an ass, I myself would have been afraid of you." Every day you can see that I am not afraid of those who have more skill and intelligence in one hair than you have in your whole body and soul together, and yet you dare defy me and try to scare me! Thus you really prove that you confuse stupidity with reason and have changed from a man into a goat.
What do you, stupid goat, want to accomplish with Holy Scripture? [How can you] interpret it, not according to the letter which kills, but according to the Spirit which gives life [II Cor. 3:6], as you boast in this little book of yours? You can hardly express what is on your mind in German, for your words roam about so clumsily, so helterskelter, and in such disorder. Moreover, as far as I can see, you do not know and will not learn in a long time what "letter," "Spirit," "death," and "life" mean in Scripture. Your canon law is not going to teach it to you, and your goat's brain will not discover it either. This is one more indication that you have put off the man and put on the goat: you are a "licentiate of canon law" and a "prohibitor of Holy Scripture,"2 and this you will certainly remain.
But I think I detect your real reason for writing. I shall disregard the fact that you are doing so presuming a skill and intelligence your own conscience undoubtedly denies you. I shall clearly demonstrate this to you when you finish butting and when it is my turn to clip the horns of the goat.3 But ever since you knew my name you have had such a hatred for me within yourself, through no fault of mine, that I have often wondered how a man can bear such hatred and live, although your body does begin to show it. And this hate has made you almost a byword and an example to all other haters.
This same spirit of malice induced you to write the first book to the Bohemians4 against me, in which you dealt with me in your fashion. I answered you5 and, quite unknowingly, struck your scabs and sores.
At that time, God knows, I knew nothing of your goatlike nature. Then you got really furious and wrote the second book, on account of which all scholars became your enemies, as you know. Because you poured out so many evident lies and whole bundles of invective I had pity on you and did not intend to answer.
Ever since then your unspeakable hatred cannot be sated; it cannot stop and cannot cease revenging itself. You wrote many malicious letters as well as a third book against me, under the name of Thomas
Rhadinus.6 You had it printed in Rome under a pseudonym so that no one might know your poisoned heart. I am really afraid that your hatred, and nothing but that, might kill you, particularly when you discover that you accomplish nothing and that I despise you. You miserable man, in view of your inhuman and unresting hatred, how could anyone believe that you can understand pure and good Scripture, since you neither read nor study it? O God in heaven, how deeply deluded you are! Will you not ever think that God is your Lord and judge and change your bitter and hateful heart?
Since I have not answered your lies and slander up to now, you fancy that you have won and that I am unable to answer you. Maybe you are putting your trust in the bull7 and are encouraged [to hear] that I cannot write any more. You think that you alone will remain on the field with your masks8 and that you will be able to defend yourself without danger and win without opposition. Moreover, you boast that as a priest of God you would suffer my barking,9 which I have now endured from you three times in silence.
Yet you do not see that in all your books there is one slanderous word after another, so that everyone says there is no more slanderous writing than yours. You even want to be famous for it because you call such mad and senseless fury "patience" and "suffering." You are able to pervert everything and give it a new name. Is it surprising, then, that you make of Holy Scripture what you please? But beware, from now on I