Martin Luther: Letter to George Spalatin,
Wittenberg, January or February, 1514.
Luther discusses the case of Johannes Reuchlin, which had involved
papal condemnation of Reuchlin, perhaps the best Christian Hebraist of his period.
PEACE BE WITH You, Reverend Spalatin! Brother John Lang has just asked me
what I think of the innocent and learned John Reuchlin and his prosecutors at Cologne, and
whether he is in danger of heresy. You know that I greatly esteem and like the man, and
perchance my judgment will be suspected, because, as I say, I am not free and neutral;
nevertheless as you wish it I will give my opinion, namely that in all his writings there
appears to be absolutely nothing dangerous.
I much wonder at the men of Cologne ferreting out such an obscure
perplexity, worse tangled than the Gordian knot as they say, in a case as plain as day.
Reuchlin himself has often protested his innocence, and solemnly asserts he is only
proposing questions for debate, not laying down articles of faith, which alone, in my
opinion, absolves him, so that had he the dregs of all known heresies in his memorial, I
should believe him sound and pure of faith. For if such protests and expressions of
opinion are not free from danger, we must needs fear that these inquisitors, who strain at
gnats though they swallow camels, should at their own pleasure pronounce the orthodox
heretics, no matter how much the accused protested their innocence.
What shall I say? that they are trying to cast out Beelzebub but not by
the finger of God. I often regret and deplore that we Christians have begun to be wise
abroad and fools at home. A hundred times worse blasphemies than this exist in the very
streets of Jerusalem, and the high places are filled with spiritual idols. We ought to
show our excessive zeal in removing these offences which are our real, intestine enemies.
Instead of which we abandon all that is really urgent and turn to foreign and external
affairs, under the inspiration of the devil who intends that we should neglect our own
business without helping that of others.
Pray can anything be imagined more foolish and imprudent than such zeal?
Has unhappy Cologne no waste places nor turbulence in her own church, to which she could
devote her knowledge, zeal and charity, that she must needs search out such cases as this
in remote parts?
But what am I doing? My heart is fuller of these thoughts than my tongue
can tell. I have come to the conclusion that the Jews will always curse and blaspheme God
and his King Christ, as all the prophets have predicted. He who neither reads nor
understands this, as yet knows no theology, in my opinion. And so I presume the men of
Cologne cannot understand the Scripture, because it is necessary that such things take
place to fulfill prophecy. If they are trying to stop the Jews blaspheming, they are
working to prove the Bible and God liars.
But trust God to be true, even if a million men of Cologne sweat to make
him false. Conversion of the Jews will be the work of God alone operating from within, and
not of man working-or rather playing-from without. If these offences be taken away, worse
will follow. For they are thus given over by the wrath of God to reprobation, that they
may become incorrigible, as Ecclesiastes says, for every one who is incorrigible is
rendered worse rather than better by correction.
Farewell in the Lord; pardon my words, and pray the Lord for my sinning
soul.
Your brother,
MARTIN LUTHER
Source: "Martin Luther's to George Spalatin," from Luthers
Correspondence and Other Contemporan, Letters, trans. by P. Smith (1913), Vol. 1, pp.
28-29.
***
Martin Luther: Letter to George Spalatin,
Wittenberg, April 8, 1516.
Spalatin was another member of Luther's Augustinian order.
GRACE AND PEACE to YOU from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Dear Brother George:
Now I would like to know whether your soul, tired of her own
righteousness, would learn to breathe and confide in the righteousness of Christ. For in
our age the temptation to presumption besets many, especially those who try to be just and
good before all men, not knowing the righteousness of God, which is most bountifully and
freely given Lis in Christ. Thus they long seek to do right by themselves, that they may
have courage to stand before God as though fortified with their own virtues and merits,
which is impossible. You yourself were of this opinion, or rather error, and so was 1, who
still fight against the error and have not yet conquered it.
Therefore, my sweet brother, learn Christ and him crucified; learn to pray
to him despairing Of Yourself, saying: Thou, Lord Jesus, art my righteousness, but I am
thy sin; thou has taken on thyself what thou wast not, and hast given to me what I was
not. Beware of aspiring to such purity that you will not wish to seem to Yourself, or to
be, a sinner. For Christ only dwells in sinners. For that reason he descended from heaven,
where he dwelt among the righteous, that he might dwell among sinners. Consider that
kindness of his, and you will see his sweetest consolation. . . .
...if you firmly believe this (and he is accursed who does not believe it)
then take up your untaught and erring brothers, patiently uphold them, make their sins
yours, and, if you have any goodness, let it be theirs. Thus the apostle teaches: Receive
one another even as Christ received you, for the glory of God, and again: Have this mind
in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, when he was in the form of God, humbled
himself, &c. Thus do you, if YOU seem pretty good to yourself, not count it as booty,
as though it were yours alone, but hUMble yourself, forget what you are, and he as one of
them that you may carry them. . . . Do this, my brother, and the Lord be with you.
Farewell in the Lord.
Your brother,
MARTIN LUTHER, AUGUSTINIAN
Source: "Martin Luther's to George Spalatin," from Luthers
Correspondence and Other Contemporan, Letters, trans. by P. Smith (1913), Vol. 1, pp.
33-35, 98
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