peter krey\’s web site

I’m painstakingly recovering old manuscripts that I wrote about Luther and the German Peasants’ War of 1525. They were on old 5 1/4 inch floppies, which I had copied on to 3 and 1/2 inch discs, and then to a flash drive. In those days I used an old Leading Edge Model D word processor. Wordperfect helped recover some data best. Microsoft word brought them in garbled with strange symbols.

The manuscript “Luther and the Niebuhr Brothers” is second part of a larger one, “Luther and the Peasants’ War,” which is also the tile of Part 1. Part 1 has 26 pages single spaced counting the endnotes and Part 2 has 23 pages, from page 27-49, and Part 3, “The Apology for Luther’s Theology and the Two Kingdom Theory” continues from page 50 to page 107, including 224 endnotes. It is a single-spaced document, which was on several floppies, because at the time, such floppies could not hold the whole document.

I am still working on recovering as many of these pre-graduate school works as possible. After these Luther manuscripts, I’ll try to recover my work on Dating the Exodus, a two hundred page manuscript finished on April 14, 1986. Trips with my congregation to Israel and Egypt sparked my interest in trying to nail down the early or late date for the Exodus. I wrote this manuscript before becoming interested in Luther, which was sparked because I attended the Luther Jubilee in Washington, D.C. in 1983 – Luther’s 500th birthday. I wrote my first manuscript thereafter: Reflections on the Luther Jubilee Lectures, (November 6-12, 1983).

After the Luther Jubilee, I must have written and revised one manuscript after another on Luther and the Peasants’ War and then went to graduate school to study the controversy further, only to have to change my course after five years to studying Luther’s pamphlets. The last manuscript I wrote on Luther and the Peasants’ War of 1525 before starting the pamphlet study was a socio-linguistic approach, which now has been posted. I wrote this note about my manuscripts on December 17, 2010 and just revised it on May 25, 2012.

I have not yet been able to recover Part 1. But three parts are finished:

In Four Parts

 1. Luther and the Peasants War 2. Luther and the Niebuhr Brothers

3. Apologists for Luther’s Theology and the Two Kingdom Theory

4. Luther and the Great German Peasants’ War: a Little Known Story

   (a manuscript in four parts recovered from 5 1/4  inch floppy disks)

Williams, George Hunston. The Radical Reformation. Philadelphia:        Westminister Press, 1962.

How can violence be extracted from religious fervor?  A Florida pastor burns Korans and an image of Muhammad, because an Iranian pastor, who had converted to Christianity, was originally charged in Iran with apostasy and evangelization. A Shiite cleric, a member of the Iranian parliament called the Florida pastor “evil and apostate” and said that he must be executed. (New York Times, May 1, 2012, page A8)

To burn books is violent. There is no attempt at persuasion, no attempt to argue with reason, nor any reaching out with mutual friendship and acceptance in order to bring about the transformation of enemies into friends. Jesus bids us to love also our enemies. Like Abraham Lincoln said, “The best way to destroy your enemy is to make him your friend!” That is love that knows the suffering of the cross.

To put the death penalty on apostasy, that is, someone converting to another religion, uses the threat of violence against the adherents of one’s own faith, making them un-free. Consequently, they are held in a faith without being there with their whole hearts. Then some people could participate in their faith heartlessly, ruthlessly. A religion should have the high standard of using persuasion alone, stirring and moving people’s hearts, and all coercion should be beneath it.

Thirdly, to call for the execution of the book-burner is religious fervor that has gone a long way out of bounds. It was back before 1520 that Luther was named a heretic for claiming that burning a heretic at the stake was against the will of the spirit – among other statements.  (See Pope Leo X bull Exsurge Domine, assertion #33.) It took about three centuries before inquisitions ended in Portugal (1821) and Spain (1834). (The last auto-da-fe, that is, burning at the stake, took place in Mexico in 1850.) (Of course, Protestants were still hanging “witches” in Salem in 1692!)

Religious fervor needs to be separated from coercion. It follows from the separation of church and state, faith of the religion and reason and law of the state. Neither should our faith or church instigate the state to impose our faith on others, to impose laws on the behalf of a particular faith, and shed blood in a crusade or war on behalf of a faith. That makes religious violence more subtle, but just as real.

Taking violence out of faith, precedes taking it out of nationalism and patriotism, precedes taking it our of economics, taking it out of the government in the form of abolishing capital punishment, to taking it out of our society, out of our families, to a withering away of violence and coercion for the sake of a genuine faith, steadfast love, and good government.

Luther and Theologia Germanica

and the Philosophical Influence of Boethius

By Peter D.S. Krey

Part One: the German Mystic’s Influence on Luther

Martin Luther discovered a manuscript called Theologia Germanica written by an unnamed German mystic and felt that he had received an overwhelming learning experience about “God, Christ, humanity, and all things” from it. He then published the little book in 1516, adding a preface for its second edition in 1518. After just reading the 1854, quite antiquated translation by Susanna Winkworth,[1] I found that this mystic had a profound influence on Luther in many ways. Luther was no mystic, of course, but just like humanism and nominalism, it affected his theology in important ways.

The only indication we receive about the author of Theologia Germanica comes from his very short preface. He was a former priest and warden, i.e., curator of the House of the Teutonic Order in Frankfurt/Main and seems to have been part of a movement called the “Friends of God” and that quite marvelously long before George Fox (1624-1691) and the Society of Friends or the Quakers. This humble mystic probably wrote his booklet around 1350, because he refers to Johannes Tauler, Meister Eckhart’s student,[2] and in the humility of that movement, does not even attach his own name to the work.

The “Friends of God” may well have been the priests caught in the early fourteenth century conflict between the Avignon Pope John XXII and Emperor Louis IV of Bavaria.[3] The interdict that Pope John placed on him and his subjects in 1324 had already continued for 16 years, when the emperor declared the pope’s interdict invalid and ordered priests to celebrate masses once again. All those who held with the pope and the interdict were considered guilty of high treason (17-18) and some were exiled and others roamed the land. This mystic may well have held with such priests and been among their number. (20)

The Friends of God opposed the Beghards or “Brothers and Sisters of the Free Spirit” of that time. The latter are the “free thinkers” referred to in this book. They wanted reform by withdrawing people completely from the influence of the clergy, (15-16) while the Friends of God felt that an act of humility required accepting the church and clergy for the sake of order and discipline.

Martin Brecht, in his definitive biography of Luther writes that in his early lectures, Luther first emphasized a theology of humility. Reading these pages in Brecht, it seems to me that the early Luther is following the instructions of the mystical author of Theologia Germanica closely:[4] Luther requires deep contrition, magnifies sin, reduces the sinner to nothing, and teaches complete dependence on God.[5] Indeed, other than Luther’s early lectures on the Psalms and Romans, Theologia Germanica was Luther’s first publication, which he immediately followed by his early, extremely popular, non-polemical, pastoral pamphlets of 1518 to 1520.

These early pamphlets enjoyed many editions in his life-time[6] and in them, like the mystic, he speaks to common everyday people in German and not in an exclusionary academic German, let alone Latin. He writes “A Sermon on Indulgence and Grace,” (25 editions) “Contemplating the Holy Passion of Christ,” (32 editions) “On Preparing to Die,” (31 editions) “On the Estate of Marriage,” (19 editions) as well as pamphlets on the blessed sacraments: communion, (19 editions) penance, (18 editions) and baptism (18 editions). In 1520 his “Treatise on Good Works,” (23 editions) “On the Ban (excommunication),” (14 editions) and “Freedom of a Christian” (38 editions) are non-polemical and addressed to the laity, while his pamphlet on the “New Testament, that is the Mass,” (15 editions) already brings the light of his heart-felt faith on some of the practices of the church that needed to be reformed.

Not only did Luther address the laity in common everyday language like the mystic, but many features of his theology stem from having thoroughly digested this work. Many examples will follow.

Luther’s position on the free will could well derive from Theologia Germanica. For the mystic any self-will has to be surrendered to the will of God and freedom of the will can only be found in a complete surrender of one’s own will to the will of God, who is Pure Goodness and Perfection. In the words of the mystic,

“Humility springs up in the [human being], because in the true Light [s/he] sees (as it really is) that Substance, Life, Perceiving, Knowledge, Power, and all that pertains to them, all belong to the True Good, and not to the creature; but that the creature of itself is nothing and has nothing, and when it turns itself aside from the True Good in will or in works, nothing is left to it but pure evil.”[7] (89-90)

Luther’s basic argument in the Bondage of the Will against the freedom of the will as represented by Erasmus follows Theologia Germanica in that he argues a radical surrender of any good in human free will, finding that freedom can only be experienced in the will of God. The following sentence from the mystic could come right out of Luther: “A [human being], of [him/herself] and of [his/her] own power, is nothing, has nothing, can do and is capable of nothing but only infirmity and evil.” (73) The mystic follows Christ in utter self-denial:

“A [human being] should so stand free, being quit of [her or] himself, that is, of his or her I, and Me, and Self, and Mine, and the like, that in all things, [s/he] should no more seek or regard him or herself, than if s/he did not exist, and should take as little account of him or herself as if s/he were not and another had done all his or her works. “(56)

Only God counted to the mystic. For this mystic it is only insofar that the human will becomes one with God’s will that it can be free. In Luther’s words, “‘Free-will’ is obviously a term applicable only to the Divine Majesty; because only God can do and does (as the Psalmist sings) ‘whatever God wills in heaven and earth.’”(Psalm 135:6)[8]

In Susanna Winkworth’s introduction, she summarizes the mystic’s approach to the freedom of the will along with several other points very well:

“Their distinguishing doctrines [those of the Friends of God] were self-renunciation – the complete giving up of self-will to the will of God; – the continuous activity of the Spirit of God in all believers, the intimate union possible between God and [the human being] – the worthlessness of religion based upon fear or the hope of reward – and the essential equality of the laity and clergy, though for the sake of order and discipline, the organization of the church was necessary.” (20-21)

Working backwards through her citation, the essential equality of the laity and clergy, Luther may well have developed into the priesthood of all believers in his pamphlets, “The Treatise on the New Testament, that is, the Holy Mass” and “To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation.” (15 editions) In this Address, Luther states that “Whoever comes out of baptism can count themselves a sanctified priest, bishop, or pope, although not everyone may be fit to exercise such an office.”[9] The difference between laity and clergy for Luther is merely one of function and not status.[10] He demoted ordination to a mere ceremony from its previous status as a sacrament, in which the priest became ontologically superior to the lay person. Luther taught that there was not a spiritual estate made up of priests that excluded the peasants, burghers, and princes, but all Christians made up the spiritual estate as the priesthood of all believers.

In terms of what Winkworth calls “the worthlessness of religion based on fear or the hope of reward,” the mystic writes that a person “would rather die than do an injustice, and all this for nothing, but the love of justice. And to [such a person], justice is her own reward and rewards [the person] with herself.” (104) Another citation follows:

“But true Love is taught and guided by the True Light and Reason, and this true eternal and divine Light teaches Love to love nothing but the One True and Perfect Good, and that simply for its own sake, and not for the sake of a reward, or of the hope of obtaining anything, but simply for the love of Goodness, because it is good and has a right to be loved.” (108)

Luther’s theology is not quite that philosophical, because he aligns it more intentionally with biblical language, but in the “Freedom of a Christian” Luther underscores doing good works for nothing again and again, (umb sunst in his Early New High German) except sometimes he admonishes Christians not to do them out of self-interest, but only for the sake of the neighbor. “Look how love and pleasure for God” he writes, “flow out of faith, and how out of love flows a free, willing, and cheerful life [lived] freely, serving the neighbor for nothing.”[11] About a good work, Luther writes,

“Do not do it in the belief that you are doing something good for yourself, but give it way freely, so others can use it and enjoy it. If you do it for their good, then you will be a true Christian.“[12]

And again,

“All works should be directed for the good of our neighbor, for each and every person has enough by having faith, and all such a one’s works and whole life are left over to be able to serve the neighbor freely in love.”[13]

Luther does not write philosophically in terms of saying virtue for virtue’s sake like the mystic, but he may well have gotten that idea from him, an idea that goes through Luther all the way to Immanuel Kant’s concept of heteronomy, that is, giving or acting for an ulterior motive, rather than loving virtue for virtue’s sake.

The mystic writes that if what is done is not done out of such pure love, then one becomes a hireling:

“Those are enlightened with the True Light, who do not practice these things for a reward, for they neither look nor desire anything thereby, but all that they do is for love alone.” (96) [Otherwise one is a hireling[14] and] “A lover of God is better and dearer to [God] than a hundred thousand hirelings.” (97)

Luther also speaks about union with God in many ways, e.g., the marriage of the soul to Christ the bridegroom, but it is the real ascent in faith that runs through the whole “Freedom of a Christian.” As Luther writes in the famous last paragraph, “Through faith one ascends above oneself into God. From God one descends through love again below oneself and yet always remains in God and God’s love.”[15] The mystic writes about three stages by which one is led upward to attain true Perfection: “first, the purification, secondly, the enlightening, thirdly, the union.” (55) A threefold way is also in each of these stages. “Union is brought to pass by pureness and singleness of heart, by love, and by the contemplation of God, the creator of all things.” (55-56)

To just list some other very relevant influences on Luther: the mystic uses the terms “inward person” and “outward person” (78-79) the same way Luther does in the “Freedom of a Christian.” Indeed, Luther organizes his whole pamphlet by means of this distinction.[16]

In the false light of nature and reason that turns away from God seeking its own ends, people begin to feel that “the more like God one is, the better one is, and therefore I will be like God and will be God.” (99) After reading the mystic’s description of the devious ways people substitute themselves for God, one can easily see Luther formulating his slogan: “Let God be God!”[17]

The mystic writes of the “light of nature and reason” as well as the light of grace much like Luther does in the Bondage of the Will, although Luther adds, the light of glory. Luther argues that what cannot be understood in the light of nature can be resolved in the light of grace and what cannot be understood in the light of grace can be resolved in the light of glory.[18] “In this threefold light, each higher step explains what was insoluble at a lower one.”[19]

The mystic has an emphasis on experience (118) much like Luther, who, however, receives it from nominalism. The mystic speaks of creatures bent on themselves and away from God, (74 and 101) much like Luther’s definition of sin: curvatus in se, i.e., curved in upon the self.

There is a section in which the mystic seems to describe the Anfechtungen that Luther went through intermittently during his life.  This section is called, “How a righteous [Person] in this present Time is brought into Hell, and there cannot be comforted, and how the [Person] is taken out of Hell and carried into Heaven, and there cannot be troubled.” (50-52) The mystic has quite an explanation for why one goes down into the depths: “Now God has not forsaken such a [one] in Hell, but is laying God’s hand upon him [or her].” (51) Real suffering ensues from the laying of God’s hand upon a person.

The mystic is more philosophical than Luther, who seems to avoid that kind of reasoning. At one point he speaks of the Delphic oracle, who heard the voice from Heaven, “[Human], know thyself!” (47) He also refers to Boethius, who may well be a philosopher, who influenced him.[20] His understanding of evil, as non-being or the destruction of God’s created being, comes from St. Augustine. “Therefore it is evil or not good, and is merely nought.” (to use Winkworth’s old word once) (117) Luther does not refer to God as Pure Goodness and Perfection or see him as the Perfect One of whom we are all only imperfect parts, as creatures caught up in “this and that, here or there, now or then” who need to reorient ourselves to the Eternal One. The whole of mystic’s work seems to be a meditation on the Pauline verse, “For when the Perfect comes, then the parts will come to an end.”[21] For him the parts represent all creatures, who have come out of the wholeness and Oneness of God and need to return to God for their true being in God. Luther, of course, continues on his way like a fountain overflowing with theological insights. But he does not reason like this:

Now s/he who shall or will love God, loves all things in One as All, One and All, and One in All as All in One; and s/he who loves something, this or that, other than the One, and for the sake of the One, does not love God, for s/he loves something which is not God. Therefore s/he loves it more than God. (116)

What the mystic never tires of repeating is the self-denial required by Christ: “Behold one or two words can utter all that has been said by these many words: ‘Be simply and wholly bereft of the Self.’” (67) But that gives the person a very intimate oneness with God, who is pure Love, Goodness, and Perfection.

Part Two: The Influence of Boethius (A.D. 480-524) and the Consolation of Philosophy on Theologia Germanica  

The German mystic does more than just cite Boethius,[22] his philosophy is very much influenced by him. These are some of the statements of Boethius that come up in and get developed in Theologia Germanica:

“You have daily reminded me of Pythagoras’ saying, ‘Follow God.”[23] That intimate way with God rather than Christ, is also in Theologia Germanica. Boethius is very theocentric and filled with Roman and Greek mythology; he never mentions Christ. Perhaps the German mystic is also slightly more theocentric than Christocentric, but he does include Christ and St. Paul, because his book as a whole is a philosophical meditation on St. Paul’s love poem, where he singles out one of its verses: 1 Corinthians 13:10.

Boethius:

“If the things which you complain about losing were really yours, you would never have lost them.” (24) Everything in our earthly existence really belongs to God and can only be had in returning to God.

“Now the good is defined as that which, once it is attained, relieves [humans] of all further desires. This is the supreme good and contains within itself all the lesser goods. If it lacked anything at all, it could not be the highest good.” (43) The mystic uses the term “lack” for parts of the whole and speaks of the good and perfect this same way.

“The human soul seeks to return to its true good.” (45) Boethius makes clear that highest good is God just like the mystic.

“Nature inclines [humans] toward the true good, but error deceives them with partial goods.” (46) The German mystic would not speak of nature that way, for he sees it as a deceptive light. But in using 1 Corinthians 13:10, “When the complete/ perfect/ whole comes, then the part will come to an end,” the German mystic must have read the following words of Boethius:

“Human depravity, then, has broken into fragments that which is by nature one and simple; [humans] try to grasp part of a thing which has no parts and so get neither the part, which does not exist, nor the whole, which they do not seek.” (58) The German mystic could well develop this thought describing creatures as parts, who need to return to God for their true and whole being.

“You order the perfect parts in a perfect whole.” (60) The German mystic would not speak of perfect parts, but his ideas come from Boethius. Like the triple threefold way the he uses to describe a soul’s development until it attains union with God. Along this line Boethius writes:

“You release the world-soul throughout the harmonious parts of the universe as your surrogate, threefold in its operations, to give motion to all things.” (60) The translator of Boethius comments that the early medieval commentators read Boethius to present nature itself as threefold and the soul to be of a threefold nature. (60) The German mystic presents a triplet of threefold ways for the stages by which a human being is led upward to attain perfection. (TG 55-56)

“Now no one can deny that something exists which is a kind of fountain of all goodness; for everything which is found to be imperfect shows its imperfection by the lack of some perfection.” (61) For the German mystic the parts lack being and receive more and more being insofar as they return and unite with God, for “All things have their Being in God, and more truly in God than in themselves.” (TG 91 and 117)

“Nature did not have its origins in the defective and incomplete but in the integral and absolute; it fell from such beginnings to its present meanness and weakness.” (61)

“For, since nothing can be thought of better than God, who can doubt that [God] is the good, other than whom nothing is better.” (62) and “Whatever is the source of all things must be its substance, the highest good.” (63) and “Clearly when two things differ, one cannot be the other; therefore neither can be perfect since it lacks the other.” (63) and “It follows that [humans] become happy by acquiring divinity.” (63) The German mystic would not speak of becoming happy, but of eternal bliss. The German mystic, however, reasons very much like Boethius and uses these ideas.

“Thus everyone who is happy is a god and, although it is true that God is one by nature, still there may be many gods by participation.” (63) The intimate union with God that the German mystic challenges Christians to attain seems to relate to this kind of union with God expressed by Boethius.

“But, if you also grant that every good is good by participating in the perfect good, then you should concede by a similar line of reasoning that the good and the one are the same.” (66) and “Do you also understand that everything that is remains and subsists in being as long as it is one; but when it ceases to be one it dies and corrupts?” (66) Every time I read that thought in the Theologia Germanica, I wrote “Kierkegaard” in the margin, because it reminded me of Kierkegaard’s Purity of Heart is the Will One Thing! After reading Boethius, I understand the rationale behind this insight. In the words of Boethius, “Therefore partial goods cannot be truly good if they are different, but are good if they become one, then clearly they become good by acquiring unity.” (66) To go back to Boethius’ heading of this section: “God is One and [God] is the goal toward which all things tend.” (66)

Boethius also has Augustine’s teaching about evil as does the German mystic: “Then evil is nothing, since God, who can do all things, cannot do evil.” (72) Augustine’s conception of evil has been compared to the cavity in a tooth. The tooth in its being is good, where it has lost its being – that hole in its being and its decay into nothingness is the issue. It is not God’s good creation but its destruction and reduction to nothing that is evil. “So you will find that the evil which is thought to abound in the world is really non-existent.” (96)

“Virtue is the reward of a virtuous [human], so wickedness itself is the punishment of the wicked.” (82) That first idea certainly comes up again and again in Theologia Germanica. The mystic does not, however, mention the wicked.

“Human souls, however, are more free while they are engaged in contemplation of the divine mind, and less free when they are joined to bodies, and still less free when they are bound by earthly fetters.” (104)

“[Without prayer] what will be left to unite us to the sovereign Lord of all things? And so [human]kind must, as you said earlier, be cut off from its source and dwindle into nothing.” (107)

If Luther developed his conception of the light of glory from the German mystic’s light of nature or reason and light of grace, then the German mystic could well have gotten such concepts from Boethius. But Luther may also have gotten them from Plato.[24] “Light” in this sense speaks of an activity of the mind, a seeing of the mind, like “the light of the eyes” in biblical language. Now Boethius similarly underscores the activity of the mind, and in that way much anticipates Immanuel Kant’s rejection of the “blank slate” (tabula rasa) theory of the mind, where it is passively receiving only external impressions from the external world.

“Everything which is known is known not according to its own power but rather according to the capacity of the knower.” (110)

Boethius argues further: “Various and different substances have different ways of knowing.” (113) He discusses the sentient nature of lower animals and then writes, “Reason is characteristic of the human race alone, just as pure intelligence belongs to God alone.” (113) When he speaks of “the power of the mind,” (113) using the word “light” to express that idea is very imaginable. Boethius delineates the different ways that sentient minds can know: through the senses, e.g., shellfish that cling to rocks; imagination, e.g., beasts seeking and avoiding many things, like trees while running through a forest. Then he makes the statement from which the light of reason and the light of glory may have been developed from the German mystic to Luther: “But reason is characteristic of the human race alone, just as pure intelligence belongs to God alone.” (113) With the groundwork of Boethius, it would now be possible to speak of the light of reason, the light of grace, and the light of glory in terms of human reason and intelligence as opposed to the pure intelligence of God.

It is in this way – and now we are leaving the German mystic and relating to Luther, that Boethius resolves the freedom of the will by describing God’s pure intelligence as surpassing the reasoning of human beings.

“But if we, who are endowed with reason, could possess the intelligence of the divine mind, we would judge that just as the senses and imagination should accede to reason, so human reason ought justly to submit itself to the divine mind.” (114) Thus Luther can take the next step and speak of the light of glory above the light of reason, the light of grace, meaning with it what Boethius called the pure intelligence of the mind of God.

Luther distinguishes between two kinds of necessity in his debate about the free will with Erasmus, that of compulsion and that of immutability,[25] by which he seems to mean an unchanging necessity. Boethius also separates necessity into a simple and contingent one. But this gets into Luther and Erasmus’ debate about the free will and goes beyond Theologia Germanica, which does not explicitly delve into this issue, which becomes Boethius’ climax of The Consolation of Philosophy.

At the end of his work, Boethius has a very clear and cogent argument by which he affirms human free will and God’s foreknowledge of all things, because of God’s vantage-point from eternity, where the past, present, and future of time are grasped in one glance of God’s eternal mind, which also sees and comprehends the contingencies in which human free will transpires.

Perhaps it is too quickly that in the debate about the freedom of the will I said we left the German mystic behind. Although he does not mention this debate explicitly, he writes, “Now in the whole realm of freedom, nothing is so free as the will, and [s/he] who makes it his [or her] own, and does not suffer it to remain in its excellent freedom, and free nobility, and in its free exercise, does a grievous wrong.” (TG 123) When the will is at one with the Will of God, in an intimate union, which the mystic holds as all too possible, the will is free. Where it tries to call this freedom its own, it becomes enslaved. Thus the mystic affirms the freedom of the will for a follower of Christ, but paradoxically, he notes that the world will give such a person no end of suffering, pain, and grief. “So likewise was Christ’s human nature the most free and single of all creatures and yet felt he the deepest grief, pain, and indignation at sin that any creature ever felt.” (TG 124) Freedom of the will comes about by following Christ, which means that one must forsake all things. (TG 125) That brings to mind Janis Joplin and her song, “Bobby McGee”: “Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.” But in God, all things are gained, giving one the spiritual possession of the heavens and the earth and one’s true self as a brand new creature on the face of the earth and celebrating the glorious freedom of the children of God, to boot.

Bibliography

Susanna Winkworth, Translator. The Theologia Germanica of Martin Luther. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 2004.

Richard H. Green, translator. The Consolation of Philosophy: Boethius. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1962.

Martin Brecht. Martin Luther: His Road to the Reformation 1483-1521. Philadelphia: Fortress press, 1981. This is the first of three volumes.

Peter D. S. Krey. Sword of the Spirit, Sword of Iron: Word of God, Scripture, Gospel, and Law in Luther’s Most Often Published Pamphlets (1520-1525), Ph.D. diss., Graduate Theological Union, 2001.

J. I. Packer and O. R. Johnston, translators. Martin Luther:  The Bondage of the Will. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Fleming H. Revell, 1957.

The latest American edition of Luther’s Works: LW

Pelikan, Jaroslav, and Helmut Lehmann, eds. Luther’s Works. 55 vols. St.Louis and Philadelphia: Concordia and Fortress, 1955-86.

The Weimar Edition of Luther’s Works: WA

Luther, Martin. D. Martin Luthers Werke, Kritische Gesamtausgabe.  61 Volumes. Weimar, 1983-1993.

Clemen, Otto, ed., unter Mitwerkung von Leitzmann, Albert. Luthers Werke in Auswahl. Vol. 1- 8. Berlin: Verlag von Walter de Gruyter & Co., 1929.

Philip D.W. Krey and Peter D.S. Krey, editors. Luther’s Spirituality. Mahwah, New Jersey: Paulist Press, 2007.

Ulrich Asendorf. Luther and Hegel: Untersuchung zur Grundlegung einer Neuen Systematischen Theologie, (An Investigation for the Foundation of a New Systematic Theology). Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, GMBH, 1982.

Eric Warmington and Philip Rouse, editors. The Great Dialogues of Plato. Translated by W.H.D. Rouse. New York: a Mentor Book, the New English Library. Ltd., 1956.

ENDNOTES

See my book review in Scholardarity. Luther: a Guide for the Perplexed.

This essay on movement and change is in Scholardarity. See Luther and Heraclitus. I have a whole series of articles there that would have gone into this website. Scholardarity will make it possible to e-publish scholarly journals.

I use the backs of my many dissertation drafts for scratch paper. Running off my new German book of 140 pages on them I came across this note that was not  included in my dissertation:

“Here the source is opened through which new creation in terms of human nature pours into our existence from the open windows of heaven. Luther touches this source of all being and new creation twice.”

I thought I should try to find out what I was referring to, because I have dreamt of animals and all creation ascending out of an abyss at corners of a square in a mystical kind of way.

I found it via a footnote, number 333 on page 274 of my dissertation, Sword of the Spirit, Sword of Iron, and it comes from Luther’s reformation of the mass:

Szo hastu nit alleyn die kleynen tropff fruchtlin der mesz/ szondern auch den heubt brünnen des glaubēs/ ausz wilchem quillet und fleusset allis gut/ _{(Otto Clemen 1: 309:12) (Flugschrift Biv) WA 6:363.30-32}

So now you don’t have only a little droplet of the fruit of the mass, but the fountainhead of faith, out of which everything good springs forth and flows. (My translation, cf. LW 35, page 92.)

Page 274 in my dissertation reads as follows:

“The mediating role of priests negated God’s gift in the Mass, by redefining the Mass as their sacrifice. In this way only droplets of grace became available, where a fountainhead of blessings should flow. Not only did the priestly sacrifice interfere with the divine gracious gift, but also with the offerings of the people. Confusing the divine gift with the priestly sacrifice short-circuited the offering of the people from becoming a circulation of grace in the form of spiritual gifts and material benefits for all. The sacrifice of the priest justified channeling the people’s offerings to the spiritual estate, while they should have circulated through the whole community. Where they were given for the needs of the poor, they were received by the churches, monasteries, foundations, and “hospitals,” and now the wrath of God made a war imminent.”

_{(CL 1:312:2-17) (pamphlet signature Ci}^v _{– Cii)  WA 6:366.33-367.12}

Luther saw the words of institution, “This is my body, this is my blood, given and shed for you” as the circulation of God’s gifts for the whole community, which one class had detoured so that the lion-share came to them. That is the significance of the mass not being a sacrifice of the priests, but of Jesus Christ for all people. While Holy Communion has been very much compartmentalized and marginalized from the symbolic heart of what should characterize our whole society today, it was still very central to the society of Luther’s day.

Thus my dissertation continues:

In “The New Testament or the Holy Mass,” a very popular pamphlet, Luther is able to express justification-by-faith implications for the Mass, in very simple words, that in the particular historical context of that day became comprehensible to the common people. What could be more understandable than to write that God serves the people, not the people, God; that the Mass is God’s work, and not the good works or sacrifice of the priests; and that the Mass should include a collection for the poor, as well as a distribution of food and goods, so that “There should be no beggars among Christians.”  Thus Luther claims that a spiritual offering is in order, and not the bodily offerings [to the priests] which have gone and become changed into churches, monasteries, “hospitals,” and the wealth of the spiritual estate. This kind of critique was certainly as radical as it was popular, if the numbers of editions of these pamphlets is such an indication, as well as the inability of Luther’s opponents, even to get their pamphlets published.

Just another note I found on the scratch paper:

“Gerald Strauss might have considered that the Reformation did take a very central institution, that is, the church and at least intend a universal democratization of the laity. The Reformation represents an inroad toward democracy, not at all able to fulfill modern expectations. But Strauss gives the impression that Luther’s opponents were more democratic than he and that is very much not so.”

Strauss criticizes Steven Ozment for his intellectual approach to the Reformation implying that the people of the day could not understand what it was about. Luther, however, a priest, committed class-treason, and spoke directly to the people and they understood perfectly well, to put it into today’s language: 1% were commandeering what needed to circulate through the whole community, the 99%. Then the “windows of heaven open” (Malachi 3:10) and not only for the tithe of the church but the taxation of the society for God’s grace to flow into the common-wealth.

Luther exclaimed, “There should be no beggars amongst us!” We have not said, “There should be no homeless amongst us!” and now even millions of middle class people are losing their homes.

May God’s gift, the life of Christ sacrificed for us, fill us with love and sharing so God once again opens the windows of heaven.

Praise God from whom all blessing flow! All creatures here below!

Trapped in our Bodies, Nowhere to Go

Dr. Peter Krey, January 31, 2011

Reading Nicholas Berdyaev again after thirty-five years has been eye-opening to me. There are so many themes in his book on Dostoevsky that I also have in my dissertation and in my thought about Luther’s spirituality. I wonder whether my earlier reading of him actually came out in my writing unconsciously.

Writing from the perspective of the Orthodox Church, Berdyaev denounces the attempt of Roman Catholicism to want a temporal sword, an earthly kingdom among other earthly kingdoms. Because God wants humanity to come to freely love the Christ sent by heaven, no compulsion is allowed on the part of the church. That is precisely what I meant by denying the church the sword of iron, that is, its coercion, and allowing it only the sword of the spirit, thus my dissertation title, Sword of the Spirit, Sword of Iron.

As Berdyaev writes, quoting Dostoevsky, “Thou didst desire [a hu]man’s free love, that [s/]he should follow Thee freely, a willing captive.”[1] And further that Roman Catholicism’s conception was one “of the compulsory organization of an earthly kingdom” (page 145) and its system made “a denial of freedom of conscience and, [because of its] having misunderstood the mediaeval doctrine of ‘the two swords,’ [Dostoevsky] claimed that the Roman Church aimed at temporal dominion and had grasped the sword of Caesar”[2] (page 145).

I also forgot that I had read about “centripetal and centrifugal movement of human beings” in Berdyaev (page 44). Having forgotten about it, I discovered the concept again in a British historian[3] and it has become prominent in my analysis of Luther’s spirituality. His centripetal spirituality moves toward the center of community with involvement, participation, and commitment; not out of it and away from it, centrifugally, with detachment as in monasticism. Thus Luther’s theology is always centripetal, toward marriage, toward the source and center of community.

Another scholar also said something enlightening to this effect, helping me to understand Luther’s theology, i.e., that there were two kinds of abstractions, one that leads away and the other that leads toward the body and concrete realities.[4] Again the movement of the latter is centripetal and the former is centrifugal.

Berdyaev also champions a dynamic dialectical mind (Note how good a description that is of Luther’s mind!) and he criticizes static monolithic kinds of minds. (Luther is often criticized from a static absolute point of view that fails to take account of his nuanced, dialectical approach.) As Berdyaev describes Dostoevsky, to me he seems a kindred spirit with Luther. Both were dynamic dialectical thinkers. Luther also puts opposites together in tension with one another and finds that his opponents claim that his arguments are nothing more than a pack of contradictions, e.g., their response to being sinners and saints at one and the same time, being sovereign over all and enslaved to all at the same time, having freedom in faith and being enslaved in love.

Look at the similar way Berdyaev describes the thought of Dostoevsky: “There was a dash of the spirit of Heraclitus about him: everything is heat and motion, opposition, and struggle” (page 12) and “His conception of the world was to the highest degree dynamic and we must look at it this way; the internal contradictions of his work will then vanish, and it will verify the principle of coincidentia oppositorum,” that means, the coincidence of opposites (page 13) and “The battle between the divine and hellish elements is carried on deep down in the spirit of man” (page 58) and “[Beauty] is a terrible thing because it can’t be fathomed, for God makes nothing but riddles and in this one extremes meet and contraries lie down together…” (page 59) and “There is an antinomy in the nature even of God” (page 58).

Could the antinomy derive from deus absconditus, that is, the hidden God versus how God wished to be revealed in Jesus Christ? Or could it derive from the Creator and Redeemer’s diverse ways of ruling the world, – in the terms of Luther’s theology, through judgment and grace, the law and the gospel, command and promise?

Luther’s sense of freedom also often seems contradictory. Listen to Berdyaev write of Dostoevsky’s view. “Behind the renouncement of [freedom] there is also an excessive affirmation of freedom, of a [human’s] own arbitrary will. Here again is an ineluctable dialectic” (page 84).

Think of Luther’s manifesto against the “Babylonian Captivity of the Church,” i.e., “The Freedom of a Christian Person.” (Both were written in 1520.) Then he writes the “Bondage of the Will” in 1525. Berdyaev says that Dostoevsky finds all contradictions of freedom resolved in Christ: “In Christ freedom is given grace, wedded to infinite love, and no longer need it become its own opposite” (page 144). Finally, according to Berdyaev, Dostoevsky’s “system of ideas is highly dynamic and contradictory: it is no use stopping one in motion and asking for a plain “yes” or “no” about it” (page 154). Like Dostoevsky, Luther went deep into the spirit and found good and evil there, God and the devil struggling there.

Like Luther, Dostoevsky according to Berdyaev strides beyond Humanism. Before Humanism spiritual realities like heaven and hell were felt to be very real. Spiritual realities, however, were shut out by Humanism by its anthropo-centrism [man as the measure of all things], leaving the human being with psychological realities alone. Berdyaev puts it this way: “The ecclesiastical authorities’ hostility to all Gnosticism led to increased agnosticism” and “their attempts to make spiritual profundity external to [humanity] resulted in the denial of all spiritual experience and the shutting-up of all humankind in a material and psychological reality” (page 36).

I believe that Humanism often goes even further today into a materialism and biological naturalism, which becomes a reductionism of spirituality to psychology and that often, like the young Sigmund Freud, to a physiology that slowly evolved to a psychology. In biological naturalism, we can be trapped in our bodies, nowhere to go. This movement is very distant from a spirituality of personhood that is grounded in the eternal soul, based on the promises of the eternal God, who came down to receive a body (Hebrews) and celebrate our humanity in Jesus Christ our Lord.

To continue with Berdyaev and Humanism, “The human had been left with only his body envelope and the lesser faculties of the soul, s/he could no longer see the dimension of depth” (page 36). “The human [her or] himself became a flat creature in two dimensions – s/he had lost that of depth; his soul was left to him, but his spirit had gone” (page 48). “The Humanist conception of the world, a conception directed towards its psyche and not its spiritual aspect, turned away from the human’s ultimate spiritual self” (page 48).

Dostoevsky, however, opened up our human inward spiritual depths again. He “unveiled a new spiritual world; he restored to the human the spiritual depth of which s/he had been bereft when it was removed to the inaccessible heights of a transcendent plane” (page 36). Dostoevsky opened up the spiritual life imminent in humans; not at all, however, denying transcendence as well (page 50). “In the human himself an abyss opened [for Dostoevsky] and therein God and Heaven, the Devil and Hell were revealed anew” (page 49).

Luther was also influenced by Humanism and for a while he gave himself the name, Elutherius, meaning the Liberator, much like the Humanist names, Melanchthon, Schwarzerd in German; Agricola, Bauer, etc. but Luther’s intense religious convictions made him transcend Humanism and experience and confront spiritual realities. Berdyaev claims that Dostoevsky also opened up these spiritual realities again after they had been shut off for a long while for a great many.

Berdyaev points out that there are demonic forces at play in the Dionysian spirit of a Friedrich Nietzsche wanting to become God, a man-god, a superman. Luther had the slogan, “Let God be God,” meaning that our calling is to be human beings. Wanting to be God is a source of evil, perhaps the main source among others. In his Christian Existentialism, Berdyaev champions the God-Man, Jesus Christ, who taught us love of neighbor, as well as love of the other, even love of our enemy, our opposite.

Berdyaev now, not Dostoevsky, however, whose human being was ultimately male, believed that the final expression of human nature was androgynous (page 115). Berdyaev is thinking in spiritual terms, in terms of the spiritual body, not the psychological terms of Carl Gustav Jung. The latter had a theory of Syzygy, i.e., of opposites being yoked together, where in the union of a man and woman, there were two triads: the masculine subject opposite the feminine subject with a transcendent anima, i.e., a female soul in the male; while the reverse holds true for the woman: her feminine subject is opposite the masculine subject with her transcendent animus or a male soul in the female. Jung also speaks of a chthonic mother or Earth mother in the woman and wise old man in the man.[5]

Granted, when introducing the transcendent dimension here, Jung does not remain strictly psychological. But Berdyaev underscores the spiritual realm so much more when he speaks of an eternal person, because belief in God predicates a person being eternal and belief in God is the affirmation of human beings, while the rejection of God in atheism or the shutting out of God and the spiritual realm in agnostic Humanism, also becomes a rejection of the human being. Berdyaev interprets Nietzsche’s superman as a rejection of human beings as inadequate. As Berdyaev puts it, “Nietzsche…was dominated by the idea of the superman and it killed the idea of the real [human being] in him. Only Christianity has cherished and protected the idea of [humankind] and fixed the human image forever and ever. The human essence presupposes the divine essence; kill God and at the same time you kill the human [being] and on the grave of these two supreme ideas of God and the human [being] there is set up a monstrous image – the image of the human [being] who wants to be God, of the superman in action, of Anti-Christ” (page 64). Berdyaev writes, “Self-deification was the inevitable goal of Humanism” (page 64). Again Luther’s dictum rings the warning, “Let God be God!”

Thus in philosophical terms as opposed to psychological ones, Berdyaev speaks of the masculine and feminine principles, whose final human expression is androgynous. Androgyny then is taken in a spiritual sense for a spiritual union, a spiritual body that has become complemented by the opposite sex.

The way the final expression of humanity is male in Dostoevsky, some theologians maintain that men and women become sons of God and there is no such thing as a daughter of God. Rather than ultimate masculinity there may well be better arguments for ultimate femininity. Our traditional values (vir-tue, manliness versus being effeminate or a “sissy,” that is, “like a sister”) are reversed by divine light. A medieval artist depicting souls in hell, purgatory, and heaven unconsciously moved from the most masculine image of the soul in Hell to the most feminine looking soul in Heaven. Some theologians argue that angels are sexless. In sexual intercourse, Berdyaev’s androgyny can be maintained, because a man unites with his femininity in the woman and she unites with her masculinity in the man. Berdyaev’s saying the “final expression of human nature is androgynous” precludes it being male or female and argues for the children of God being complete men-women.

As far as I know, Luther does not say anything about androgyny. But returning to how deeply Berdyaev influenced my later thought, I can refer to the main thesis of my projected work on Luther and the Great German Peasants’ War of 1525, viz., that Luther was not conservative, but was involved in a more subtle and profound revolution than the peasants. I was going to write my dissertation about this subject after studying it for many years, but then had to change my subject at the very end of my graduate work.

Luther took a very harsh stand against this revolt. Listen to Berdyaev on this topic. He shares Luther’s stand against revolt and revolution and depicts Dostoevsky as being “revolutionary-minded in a deeper way” (page 135). Berdyaev maintains that “no one has denounced more strongly [than Dostoevsky] the falsehood and unrighteousness that make revolutions” (pages 134-135). Berdyaev, it seems, never read Luther on the subject. I sincerely wonder if Dostoevsky’s stand against revolution could match the harshness and vehemence of Luther against the revolting peasants! Interestingly enough, Dostoevsky saw in the revolutionary falsehood, “the mighty spirit of the Anti-Christ, the ambition to make a god of man” (page 135).

Of course, Dostoevsky is reacting to an earthly unbounded messianism, which depicts Thomas Müntzer’s position, but not those of many of the other very moderate peasant leaders in other arenas of the Peasants’ War. He also does not know the approximations of justice, a private personal ethic versus public collective ethic, and working out the fine art of the possible of a Reinhold Niebuhr or Max Weber. Nor does he know Bonhoeffer’s this-worldliness of Christianity that the apocalyptic spirit does not dissolve.

Be that as it may, I often argued that Luther was a more subtle revolutionary. Berdyaev’s words capture this thought: “Dostoevsky was revolutionary-minded in a deeper way” (page 135). Continuing with Berdyaev, the one who “marches with Christ with his face towards the last great battle at the end of time is a human [being] of the future and not the past, every bit as much as the [one] who marches with the Anti-Christ and fights in his ranks on the last day. Generally speaking, the conflict between revolutionaries and counter-revolutionaries is a superficial affair, an opposition of interests: [Luther also said this in so many words!] on the one side the ‘has beens’ who have been supplanted, on the other, the supplanters, who now have the first place at the feasts” (page 135).

Here Paulo Freire comes to mind with the Pedagogy of the Oppressed. The oppressed cannot just turn the tables and themselves become oppressors, but have to complete their mission of also liberating the oppressors. In Paulo Freire’s words: “As the oppressed, fighting to be human, take away the oppressors’ power to dominate and suppress, they restore to the oppressor the humanity they lost in the exercise of oppression.  It’s only the oppressed who, by freeing themselves can free their oppressors. That latter oppressive class, can free neither others nor themselves. It is therefore essential that the oppressed wage the struggle to resolve the contradiction in which they are caught; and the contradiction will be resolved in the appearance of the new human [being]: neither oppressor or oppressed, but human beings in the process of liberation.”[6] and  “This is the great humanistic and historical task of the oppressed: to liberate themselves and their oppressors as well.[7] and “The authentic solution of the oppressor-oppressed contradiction does not lie in a mere reversal of position, in moving from one pole to the other. Nor does it lie in the replacement of the former oppressors with new ones who continue to subjugate the oppressed- all in the name of liberation.”[8])

In these citations from Freire, it is obvious that he is thinking in terms of social groupings, while Berdyaev is an existentialist. Luther also first made the mistake of thinking that the peasants were going to protect and carry out the Reformation. But they had not been conscientized enough, to use Freire’s terminology, i.e., they did not have “a deepened [enough] attitude of awareness of their emergence”[9] I would add, of the spirituality of grace. To use  Freire again: “the great humanistic and historical task of the oppressed [is] to liberate themselves and their oppressors as well….Only power that stems from the weakness of the oppressed will be sufficiently strong to free both, the oppressor and the oppressed.”[10] As God answers the prayer of St. Paul: “My power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). In Freire’s conscientization, however,  I think he does not yet understand the apocalyptic notes that Berdyaev, Dostoevsky, and Luther are striking.

Thus Berdyaev continues, “A revolution of the spirit opposes a spirit of revolution. Dostoevsky was very much the apocalyptic man and the usual standards of revolutionary and counter-revolutionary cannot be applied to him. For him revolution was as near as may be to reaction” (page 136).

Luther’s apocalyptic stand again made him a kindred spirit in this regard. For example, in the pope’s naming himself the vicar of Christ on earth and very much wielding a temporal sword and fervently involved in aggrandizing his territorial monarchy in Italy, he was presenting himself as a man-god and hence, very much an anti-Christ, who destroyed human consciences. He could be seen in the ranks of those fighting against Christ in the last battles. He fits Dostoevsky’s description of the Grand Inquisitor very much more than the powerless Christ, who had “only” the Holy Spirit with him.

God becomes a human being in Jesus Christ. The kingdom cannot be taken; it can only be received when given by the hand of God. In Luther’s apocalyptic view, he saw the Peasants’ War as being fought on the wrong side of the future. It certainly locked the peasants into the past for several hundred years and perhaps it is the reason Mennonites and other representatives of the “radical reformation” have stepped out of history altogether.  And although Luther would say that people can be transformed while institutions can only be reformed; the incredible changes in the relationship of the church and state, the elimination of two ecclesiastical court systems along with the canon law, the secularization of price-bishoprics, and the end of monasteries to arise in new secular corporate transformations – are just some of the revolutionary changes brought about because of Luther’s concern with ultimate questions and the ultimate spiritual battle.

So the spirit of the revolution is the story of human beings trying to be God, lusting after the absolute power that corrupts them absolutely. In a penultimate sense, a limited this worldly sense, very much mindful of our accountability to the one at God’s right hand in Heaven, standards of living can be increased and greater approximations of justice can be achieved. But the revolution of the spirit is a revolution of hearts and minds, where in a centripetal sense, God became a human being in Jesus Christ, receiving a body, as Epistle to the Hebrews says, “a body you have prepared for me” (10:5). And in this spirituality we continue by becoming Christs to one another in the movement of the incarnation, realizing that “we are strangers and foreigners on earth” (11:13) who “desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one” (11:16). “For here we have no lasting city, for we are looking for that city which is to come” (13:14). Thus in the spirit of receiving the New Jerusalem, all manner of good this-worldly changes do come about, while our direct grasping and man-handling such realities tend to shut out the spiritual realities for the sake of earthly ones. I dare say that Berdyaev, Dostoevsky, and Luther stand in the ranks of Christ fighting the last battle at the end of time.

Make Friends with Unrighteous Mammon: Resolved

Luther’s Sermon of August 17, 1522

Luke 16: 1-13

This version comes from copies of notes taken from Luther’s sermon that made it to publication. Thus it is rather repetitive and unpolished. Luther, disturbed because of it, published his own version later.

Sermon on the Next Sunday after the Ascension of Mary

This is a veritable priest and monk’s Gospel that will make them some money, if we don’t guard against it. Now, before we get into it, we have to learn some language usage, especially concerning the word “mammon.” The Jews used this word in the Hebrew language and we have to learn how they used it, just like the word “Alleluia.” Amen. Kyrie eleison. So “mammon” is a Hebrew word that means “riches” or “wealth” and not simply “wealth,” but left-over wealth, that is, one of an overflowing measure. What is called “mammon” can be understood as two things. Knowing it before our Lord God and according to the truth, then many of you would have mammon. If we want to measure it before the world and people, however, then you would be few, because our masters have taught us that everyone should look to his or her place and what they need for it and measure their goods accordingly. If someone is a man and has a wife and child, then he has to have proportionally more, because where there are many, there has to be much. And when you measure it all that way, then no one has anything left over, but everyone would rather still have more. Even one who has two thousand gulden, says, “I have to have them for my household so that I can support myself, my wife and my child.”

And so, one is not held responsible for helping, even in the most desperate need, and this Gospel was thereby completely annulled, so that no one needed be helpful to another. In the meanwhile they built churches and even there they did not attend the greatest need until the vaults cracked and the church stood there roofless. They gave here simply beyond measure and smeared their gold on the walls.

Now “mammon” means that some one has left over provisions, with which one should help the other, and not spoil him or herself. [In the latter case,] the Lord calls it “unrighteous mammon.” One should then call the goods that one has left over, the mammon of iniquity (mammon iniquitatis), because after all, the unrighteous are using it daily, even if they say, “Goods bring courage.” The Heathen also called it a “provocation to evil” (irritamentum malorum). Likewise, St. Paul says, “Greed is the root out of which all evil grows,” for example, take war and bloodshed. That is why here it is also called “unrighteous mammon,” as it has such an evil use and is such a great cause of evil among people. Now [wealth] is also God’s creation, like wine and corn, and God’s creation is good; so why is it here called evil? This is the reason: because it provokes much evil, just like St. Paul says to the Ephesians, “Make the most of the time, for the days are evil” (5:16). Not that the days in and of themselves are evil, but that much evil takes place in them. Likewise, they are called “days of wrath and lamentation,” even though a day is good. But because wrath and lamentation go on in them, so days have to let themselves take that name. In the same way, the Gospel calls mammon that is used in evil ways, “unrighteous mammon.” That is, wealth and riches that one has left-over, and with which one does not help the neighbor, one possesses unjustly and it is stolen in the eyes of God; because before God one has the responsibility to give, to lend, and let take. Therefore the wealthiest big shots are the greatest thieves, according to the common saying, because they have the most left over and they give the least.

Now that that has been said about the usage of the [Hebrew] language, let us return to the Gospel. We can take the parable at face value; we do not have to look for subtleties as St. Jerome did, because it is not necessary to search for such sharp distinctions. One can stay with the milk [rather than going for the meat and potatoes]. The parable stands for itself: the householder, the steward, the manager has cost his Lord his possessions and has been found wanting in management and has been found deceptive and false, because it has never been right, for one who has earlier betrayed his Lord, to then negotiate deceptively with his goods, so that he has provisions for his future life. So we can leave it there, because the Lord also draws that conclusion. [Although] the action of this rascal is smart; it is not praised as if it were good. On the contrary, [the text] criticizes him that he had earlier [wasted and] destroyed the Lord’s goods and afterwards had deceptively dealt with them. What the Lord praises is [not] that he did not forget himself; he praises only his shrewdness, as when one sees a whore, who attracts the whole world to herself; then I could say, “That is a smart whore; she knows her art.” And we should also be like the manager, who is so shrewd in his action, in our winning eternal life. So [to help] you understand this, take the verse from St. Paul in Romans: “Adam is an early figure of Christ” (5:11). How can the Apostle compare Adam with Christ, when [Adam] made us inherit sin and death, while Christ makes us heirs of righteousness and life? He compares the Lord with Adam [from the viewpoint of] source and family, not of fruit and work. For Adam is a source and head of all sinners, as Christ is the source and head of all saints; for from Adam we did not inherit more than sin and condemnation and eternal curses; from Christ, however, [we inherit] righteousness and salvation. Now you cannot confuse the two, because sin is punishable; righteousness in praiseworthy. But he compares them in their source: just like how sin and death broke and entered all people through Adam, so through Christ came the in-breaking of righteousness and life. In the same way here, he compares the roguery to the righteous; that the one is smart with doing wrong and mischief; and in the same way, we should be smart in dealing uprightly with justice (mit recht im frümkait). The parable needs to be understood in that way. So he says, “The children of darkness are more shrewd than the children of light” and that the children of the light should learn shrewdness from the children of the darkness. The same way that they are shrewd in what they do, so the children of the light should be shrewd in what they do.

Now there are truly three big questions that our adversaries spring up against us and the Gospel, namely: “Make friends with unrighteous mammon, so they take you into eternal shelters.” There they argue that we have to work first in order to become upright, because here it says, “Make friends with mammon” and that, of course, is work. At the same time, God is here praising works and not only praising them, but also rewarding them, because here it is all about work and reward and nothing is said about believing, [about faith]. Thirdly, as if it wanted to establish the comfort and help of the saints, as it says “Make friends, etc. so that they receive you in the eternal shelters.” In this way the Gospel stands opposing us completely, because it says, “Make yourself friends,” which is as much as saying, “Do good works so that they take you into the eternal homes.” That seems to say, “Earn it beforehand, so that they take you into the eternal homes.” These three parts have driven the pope and priests [to the point where] his indulgence can be called the Mammon of iniquity.

We have to answer when they attack us in this way. So above all things, notice without doubt that faith and love are right, as we always learned, that inwardly we become upright through faith and outwardly we prove it through works. Now, I have often said that the Scriptures speak of people in a twofold way. One way is from an internal perspective. The other way is external, because the Scriptures have to speak by making distinctions. For example, the way I speak of my foot, I cannot, of course, speak about my nose. Therefore the Scriptures speak to us of the spirit and how it must stand before God through faith. There God lets the Word go forth, the Word that we hold onto, and according to it God lets his spirit follow. So the tree has to be good beforehand, as you now heard. No one can become upright unless one already has grace in his or her heart. If I am to make a friend of mammon, then I have to be upright beforehand, and then both [perspectives] are held together.

No evil tree can bear good fruit and again, no good tree can bear evil fruit. Now judge for yourself. Should I do good and give away mammon, [my riches] as gifts, then I have to already be upright in my heart beforehand, because God looks at the heart, and judges the work according to it. I only say that so that you do not let works tear into your heart, because the heart has to be upright beforehand through faith, so that [good works] flow out of it. Otherwise you will not do anybody any good and you will also give it when it is not in your heart. Thus reason concludes that I have to be upright beforehand, before I do good works. It does not build itself in from the outside.

One cannot start building [a house] with the roof, but you start with the floor. Thus faith must already be there. After that, [the Scriptures] speak of us according to our outward persons, as in our flesh and blood, we live our lives among people. Now, whether or not I am upright, you do not know, nor do I know. There I have to make my faith certain for myself and [for other] people and I have to do good [things] for my neighbors, so that my faith gives proof of itself. Therefore outward works are only signs of internal faith. The works do not make me upright, but they are a sign that I am upright and witness that it is a right faith.

This is the way you also have to understand the Scripture, “Give mammon, [give away riches,] so that you make friends,” that is, “Do good, so that your faith becomes certain. So be sure to notice what pertains to the spirit and what pertains to the fruit of the spirit. So here St. Luke has given a description of the fruit of the spirit: “Give to the poor and make yourself friends;” as if he were to say, “I do not now speak of faith, but how you give evidence for your faith:” [and that is,] by being giving and wherever you can give, you give from the heart: then you will be sure that you have faith.

So once [the Scripture] speaks of fruit and another time it speaks of faith. Likewise, in another place, it also speaks of fruits: “I was hungry and did not give” (Esurivi et non dedistis)(Mat 25:42).  That is, you have not believed and I will prove it to you by your own works. The Scriptures speak in places partly about outward behavior and partly about the internal [side]. Now would you take what is said about the external, take it into the heart and mingle it with things there? Then you don’t take it right; so you have to keep it differentiated. The verse, “I was hungry, etc.,” however, is directed toward external behavior and means the following: “You did not lead an external kind of life that gave evidence for your faith, and I will take poor people as witnesses of it.

Therefore faith alone has to be present first, which makes us upright, and that is the tree. Afterward come the works that provide the evidence for our faith, and those are the fruit, which is now one of the works.

Now the other [question] is much more difficult: “Make yourself friends of mammon, so they take you into eternal life.” You say that you should not do good works to attain eternal life; and look, there it is written otherwise! Now what will we ever do? There are verses that go this way and that. “Insofar as we have earned it;” with that they want to overthrow [our reliance] on the mercy and compassion of God and that will lead to doing good works that are sufficient [to attain] God’s righteousness. Guard against that with your life! But just stay and leave pure grace and mercy alone and say, “I am a poor sinner; O God, forgive me my sin; I would be glad not to speak about what I earn. Only do not to speak about your judgment.” As David says, “Do not enter into judgment with your servant” (Psalm 143:2). That is why Christ was given to us as a mediator. If we now wish enter God’s court of judgment with our good works, then we bump Christ out of the middle, and then we cannot stand. So let him be your mediator and hold you under his wings. “Under his wings you will find refuge” (Psalm 91:4). So say, “O God, with my works I do not wish to earn anything before you, but I direct them alone to serve my neighbor and rely completely on your mercy.”

Therefore take notice that eternal life consists two kinds of things, faith and following: when you go and believe and you do good to your neighbor, there eternal life must follow, even if you never think about it again. It is just like when you have a good drink; the taste has to follow as soon as you drink it, even if you do not look for it. And it is just the same with hell, one does not look for it, but it follows unlooked for and unwanted, and one must enter, whether one wants to or not. The Apostle says the same thing: “They have been filling up the measure of their sins. [Sins] alone follow us, until our sin is completed” (1 Thess 2:16) and they press on always more and more with sins, until their hearts have become completely hardened. Thus here the Scriptures also say, we want to do good so that we are saved; but that is not to say, that we are to earn it beforehand with good works, but believe, so it will follow of itself. So notice this well, so you do not take what follows [the result] for what is sought [the effect] and guard yourself from works.

Do you think God will give us heaven for a work? No, no. God has already given it to us for nothing, out of mercy and compassion. Therefore, because it follows, give. So notice that the verses have to be understood twice. Once, that one look for it with works: that is false. Second, for what follows and that is right. So you should not look [for heaven] with any or even one work, but do your works directed freely and then it will follow that eternal life will come of itself without your looking. Then if I should see the heavens standing open and I could earn it by lifting a straw, I still would not do it, so that I could not say, “See, I have earned it.” No, no, not with my deserving. For God has the honor, (who has given to me his Son), and [who] let my sin and hell be eradicated.

Thirdly, “that they take us into the eternal tabernacles”: Look, there it is written that they lead us into heaven. So how can you say that we should not make the saints our mediators before God, because they could not help us in heaven? So let it be understood that we have but one mediator before God and that is Christ. For as St. Paul also says, “There is one God and there is also one mediator between God and humankind, and that is Christ Jesus” (1 Tim 2: 5). Likewise, “I am the way” (John 14: 6). “No one comes to the Father except through me.” That is why we should not place our faith in any saint, but alone in Christ, through whose merit alone we and all the saints are saved. Therefore I would not give a cent for the merit of Saint Peter and that he should help me; he cannot help himself. For what he has, he has from God through faith in Christ. Now if he cannot help himself, what can he do for me? Therefore I have to have [only] one and that is Christ.

Now why does it say here, “Make yourself friends that they take you into the eternal tabernacles?” Now when Christ [one day] will say, “I was hungry and you did not give me anything to eat, etc.” (Mat 25:35f.) they will [answer], “When did we see you?” Then he will say, “Truly, truly, what you have done for the least of these who belong to me, you have done unto me.” With that Christ shows you who the friends are: they are the poor. As if he were to say, “If you made them your friends then you made me your friend, because these are my members.” Now how will they take us into the eternal tabernacles as our text says? Will they take us by the hand and lead us? No, but when we come and stand before God’s court of judgment, then a poor person, for whom I had done some good, will be standing there in heaven and say, “He washed my feet, etc.” and he will be the friend; he will be a witness to my faith. Therefore a beggar will be more useful to me than St. Peter, who will do nothing. But when a beggar comes and says, “O God, he did that for me as your member.” That will help me. For God will say, “What you did for him, you did for me.” So they will not be helpers, but witnesses, so that God will take us in, those who help witness faith.

With that I do not want to knock your honoring St. Peter, because he is a member of God. But one does more when one gives one’s neighbor a penny than when one builds St. Peter a golden church. Because the one is commanded; the other for St. Peter is not commanded. So now go and run to the Compostelle of St. James and look for the saints, and let the poor people, who are the really holy ones, sit here and lie in the alleys. End.

Translated on the 21^st of September, 2010 (from the Weimar Edition of Luther’s Works, vol. 10.3: 273-282), by peterkrey