Luther: “Reason is the devil’s whore. Throw dung at her and make her ugly”

Here's one from the Catholic Answers forums:

There are plenty of Luther’s works which demonstrate vile language and an unbalanced mind.

Example - “Reason is the devil’s whore. Throw dung at her and make her ugly.”

This unflattering description of Luther and subsequent quote were not directed to "anti-Catholic" Protestants, but rather to a retired ecumenically-minded Roman Catholic priest participating on the Catholic Answers Forums. This ecumenist had previously described those who vilify Luther as "Catholics of a certain sort who cling to lore that has been rejected and discarded in the modern era." Such interactions are a revealing display of the disunity existing within Roman Catholicism in regard to Luther, the Reformation, and Protestants in general. This retired priest is in the minority on the Catholic Answers forums, for anti-Luther sentiment runs high. It's no wonder that Catholic Answer recently added the following: "DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in these forums do not necessarily reflect those of Catholic Answers."

While I've addressed Luther's quotes about "reason" previously, let's take a fresh look at the quote presented by one of Rome's defenders. Do Luther's comments about reason "demonstrate vile language and an unbalanced mind"? We'll see that in context, they absolutely do not. They demonstrate that in Luther's theology, reason was not rejected outright, it was to be subject to and ruled by faith.

Documentation

No documentation was provided. The quote itself is splattered all over the Internet, often undocumented and often accompanied by other similar statements. I suspect one of the main  sources that popularized this particular version of the quote was Peter F. Wiener's Martin Luther: Hitler's Spiritual Ancestor:

This mythical, mentally unbalanced, diseased character was the hero of the Reformation. His intemperance, his persecution mania, his varying moods, were the origin of his permanent contradictions. There was nothing reasonable in him. Indeed, he admitted himself that he hated reason, and that he was guided merely by his passions, by his violent temper. More than once he condemned in his violent language, reason and a reasonable approach to matters. “Reason is the Devil's greatest whore; by nature and an manner of being she is a noxious whore; she is a prostitute, the Devil's appointed whore; whore eaten by scab and leprosy who ought to be trodden under foot and destroyed, she and her wisdom. . . . Throw dung in her face to make her ugly. She is and she ought to be drowned in baptism. . . . She would deserve, the wretch, to be banished to the filthiest place in the house, to the closets” (E16, 142-148). There are many more sayings in the same sense, though not always so dirtily phrased. “Usury, drunkenness, adultery—these crimes are self-evident and the world knows that they are sinful; but that bride of the Devil, `Reason', stalks abroad, the fair courtesan, and wishes to be considered wise, and thinks that whatever she says comes from the Holy Ghost. She is the most dangerous harlot the Devil has.” “Reason is contrary to faith”, he writes elsewhere. “Reason is the whore of the Devil. It can only blaspheme and dishonour everything God has said or done” (E29, 241) So it goes on and on (Wiener, p. 26).

It does not necessarily follow that simply because Wiener provides a few references, he actually read Luther and mined these quotes out from E16 and E29. Wiener notoriously used hostile secondary sources. Wiener's documentation is highly dubious (He says the reason for his sloppy documentation was the rush job demanded by his publisher). Notice that even for the first quote, it is purported to span 6 pages (142-148). That's a good indication that it's a cobbled together quote from different pages or even different sources. In other words, if you were to search out "E16" you would not find this quote verbatim. You'd have to search for each line by starting on page 142 and work through the text with a highlighter.

Here is E 16, 142 cited by Wiener as the beginning page for the quote in question. The first part of the quote ("Reason is the devil’s whore") can indeed be found on page 142, ("aber des Teufels Braut, ratio, die schöne Metze, fähret herein"):

The second part of the quote, ("Throw dung at her and make her ugly") can be found on page 145 ("wirf ihr ein Dreck ins Angesicht, auf daß sie häßlich werde"). So there's a fair amount of text between these two sentences (approximately five paragraphs!).

These pages are excerpts from the Last Sermon in Wittenberg Luther preached, January 17, 1546.  The sermon can be found in WA 51:123-134 and CL 7:411-417. WA includes the German as well as the German / Latin mix. This sermon has been translated into English: LW 51:371-380. The sermon is based on Romans 12:3, "For by the grace given to me I bid every one among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith which God has assigned him." One of Luther's main thrusts is to exhort his hearers to live by the pure Word of God, letting it say what it says without trying to use "reason" to make it palatable.

Context

But since we are still confined to this miserable carcass—which in time the worms will devour, though it deserves something worse, to burn in hell eternally—it is necessary constantly to resist and put off the old man and his works and put on the new man, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him [cf. Col. 3:10]. Usury, gluttony, adultery, manslaughter, murder, etc., these can be seen and the world understands that these are sins. But the devil’s bride, reason, the lovely whore comes in and wants to be wise, and what she says, she thinks, is the Holy Spirit. Who can be of any help then? Neither jurist, physician, nor king, nor emperor; for she is the foremost whore the devil has. The other gross sins can be seen, but nobody can control reason. It walks about, cooks up fanaticism [Schwärmerei] with baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and claims that everything that pops into its head and the devil puts into its heart is the Holy Spirit. Therefore Paul says: As I am an apostle and God has given me the Spirit, so I appeal to you [of. Rom. 12:1; 1 Cor. 4:16] (LW 51: 373-374).

Therefore I should stick to the catechism; then I can defend myself against reason when the Anabaptists say, “Baptism is water; how can water do such great things? Pigs and cows drink it. The Spirit must do it.” Don’t you hear, you mangy, leprous whore, you holy reason, what the Scripture says, “Listen to him,” who says, “Go and baptize all nations” [Matt. 28:19], and “He who believes and is baptized [will be saved”]? [Mark 16:16]. It is not merely water, but baptism given in the name of the holy Trinity.

Therefore, see to it that you hold reason in check and do not follow her beautiful cogitations. Throw dirt in her face and make her ugly. Don’t you remember the mystery of the holy Trinity and the blood of Jesus Christ with which you have been washed of your sins? Again, concerning the sacrament, the fanatical antisacramentalists say, “What’s the use of bread and wine? How can God the Almighty give his body in bread?” I wish they had to eat their own dirt. They are so smart that nobody can fool them. If you had one in a mortar and crushed him with seven pestles his foolishness still would not depart from him. Reason is and should be drowned in baptism, and this foolish wisdom will not harm you, if you hear the beloved Son of God saying, “Take, eat; this is my body, which is given for you; this bread which is administered to you, I say, is my body.” If I hear and accept this, then I trample reason and its wisdom under foot and say, “You cursed whore, shut up! Are you trying to seduce me into committing fornication with the devil?” That’s the way reason is purged and made free through the Word of the Son of God (LW 51:376-377)

Conclusion
 Luther didn't reject reason. Rather, it was to be subject to and ruled by faith. For instance, this sentiment is usually left out when the quote in question is cut-and pasted: "Everything should be subject to faith, or rather, the fine gift of conceit should not be wiser than faith. See to it that it is in accord with it" [LW 51:379], "Reason must be subject and obedient to this faith"[LW 51:379]. 

Above I chose only to provide a few of the relevant paragraphs from the sermon. The entire context is worth reading to grasp fully what Luther preached. For the first line of the quote, "the devil’s bride, reason, the lovely whore," reason is that which informs a man that particular theological interpretations are not sin. Luther had in mind the fanatics and their interpretation of the Lord's Supper and baptism. This same thought applies to "Throw dirt in her face and make her ugly." Luther is preaching against the views of the sacramentarians in regard to their "reasonable" interpretations of the Lord's Supper and baptism. LW translates the word "dreck" as "dirt," Wiener (or whomever he took the quote from) translated it as "dung." Both uses are feasible. Luther's intent was probably the later. Luther goes on to say, "I wish they had to eat their own dirt." It appears LW cleaned up the translation!

Because many of Rome's defenders don't bother looking stuff up before they post it, they end up missing the fact that Luther was actually arguing for the literal body and blood of Christ in the Lord's Supper, and arguing against those who rejected this. But then again, Luther says in the same sermon that "reason" left unchecked thinks that Mary, "the holy mother of Christ" should be honored and is also an intercessor, "That’s the kind of thing this comely bride, the wisdom of reason cooks up: Mary is the mother of Christ, surely Christ will listen to her" (LW 51:375).