Luther: Mary is the noblest gem in Christianity after Christ..."

 

This picture / quote is circulating cyberspace. It's a quote I've gone over before in tedious detail here.  In summary of this earlier blog post:

1) This is not one quote. It's two quotes from two different pages (separated by an entire page). The English version of this quote appears to have been taken from William Cole’s article “Was Luther a Devotee of Mary?” (Marian Studies Volume XXI, 1970, p.131). Whoever put this quote / picture together probably never consulted the source, but rather did the typical cut-and-paste.

2) The sermon appears to be from 1532, not 1531.  The date is confusing because the sermon is found in a volume dedicated to Luther's 1531 sermons. 

3) In my tedious detail post back in 2015, I did not see the phrase "wisdom and holiness personified" in the text. It could be in the original and I missed it. The primary source is a mixture of Latin and German, not written by Luther, but by someone who took notes on what he preached. See my original post for more details.

 4) In context, Luther chastised the papacy for its treatment of Mary:

We should not praise and extol the mother in such a way as to allow this child who has been born unto us to be removed from before our eyes and hearts and to think less highly of him than of the mother. If one praises the mother, the praise ought to be like the wide ocean. If either one is to be forgotten, it is better to forget the mother rather than the child. Under the papacy, however, the child has all but been forgotten, and attention riveted only on the mother. But the mother has not been born for our sakes; she does not save us from sin and death. She has, indeed, begotten the Savior! for this reason we are to wean ourselves away from the mother and bind ourselves firmly to this child alone!

5) There's no denying Luther said nice things about Mary. Luther though abandoned the distinction between latria and dulia. If you search out all the times Luther used the word “veneration,” you will find almost an entirely negative meaning applied to the term by the Reformer. The question that needs to be asked is what exactly is Marian devotion and veneration? What does it mean for a Roman Catholic to be devoted to or venerate Mary, and what does it mean for Luther to be devoted to or venerate Mary?  Rome's defenders should not be allowed to equivocate. Luther saying nice things about Mary does not equal Rome's version of devotion. I do not deny that Luther spoke favorably about Mary, but when Roman Catholics say "honor" or “devotion,” they mean something different than Luther.