Luther lived with Katie for 1 1/2 years before marrying her?

Here's a comment from one of Rome's defenders from a discussion board. The charge against Luther this time is in regard to his relationship with his wife, Katherina von Bora:

If Martin Luther did not suffer from severe bipolar manic-depressant illness with frank psychosis during his periods of mania, he would never have invented a purely formal definition of 'righteousness' that was evacuated of all moral content and inspired millions of others to settle for a sub-Christian notion of discipleship… Luther lived with his paramour for 1 1/2 years before marrying her. He was complicit in the bigamy of Philip of Hess. He encouraged gangs of thugs to invade convents and rape the nuns therein. [CARM boards 3/26/16]

Origin of the Myth
There are multiple charges in this comment, most of them typical of Rome's defenders. The comment though that was atypical was,  "Luther lived with his paramour for 1 1/2 years before marrying her." A "paramour" is "a lover, especially the illicit partner of a married person." This is old school Roman polemic, hearkening back to the sixteenth century when Rome's defenders where scandalized by a monk marrying a nun. I'm not sure if the person making this charge was using the term in the sense that Luther was married to the church (so his relationship was Katherine was illicit), or if the person was simply using a fancy term to sound intelligent. I'm going to assume the later. I searched the phrase and came up with some exact hits to various Internet forums (2010, 2011, 2012, 2016, 2016). It appears the person posting this comment either previously posted the same content elsewhere or is currently plagiarizing. I suspect the former, and not the later.

Where was this notion taken from? For this current defender of Rome, I'm not sure, nor did I come across any elaboration. The myth itself may have originally come from a contemporary of Luther's: Cochlaeus. Katherina von Bora was said to be promiscuous, and that Luther eventually married her after she lived with him for two years. (see here for details). The myth did survive all the way up to the twentieth century, though tempered. Father Patrick O'Hare refers to Luther and Katie as, "the Adam and Eve of the 'new gospel' of concubinage." In his book, The Facts About Luther, O'Hare stated:

It is well known that he was pretty generally and often openly accused by his enemies, both Catholic and Protestant, of extremely grave moral delinquencies. No doubt there was considerable exaggeration in the accusations brought against him, but it nevertheless remains true that many of his faults and failings against morality cannot be denied or gainsaid. As a matter of fact he was openly blamed for his well known and imprudent intimacy with Katherine Von Bora before his marriage and Melanchthon severely censured him for his lack of personal dignity, his loose behavior and coarse jests in the company of his intimates and even in the presence of the nuns he helped in violation of Germanic law to escape from their convents (p.317).

[I]n violating the laws of God and disregarding his vow of chastity by taking a partner unto himself, he committed an act of perfidy and his union, even from a legal standpoint, was no marriage. Katherine Von Bora was only his companion in sin and the children brought into the world through the unholy alliance were illegitimate children (p. 344).

O'Hare then goes on to elaborate by delving into letters written at the time, insinuating that Luther married von Bora to stop the gossip about their relationship (p.345-347). O'Hare states,

His remarks in the letter as to certain rumors no doubt concern suspicions which were cast upon Luther's relations with Bora before their marriage. His conduct with Bora previous to wedding her called forth from both friends and enemies severe and apparently well-grounded criticism. Luther himself admits that his marriage was hastened precisely because of the talk that went the rounds concerning him and Bora. Burgenhagen said that "evil tales were the cause of Dr. Martin's becoming a married man so unexpectedly." And Luther himself wrote to his friend, Spalatin, that "I have shut the mouth of those who slandered me and Katherine Bora." It is not proven that he was openly immoral with her before marriage, but it is certain that there was so much talk going on about his intimacy with the ex-nun, that he thought it advisable to marry her sooner than he had expected (p.347).

The Facts: Luther did Not Live with Katherine von Bora Before Marrying

In response: of the biographical information available, the bare facts are as follows:

1. April 1523, Katherina Von Bora escaped from a convent with a group of nuns.
2. The group of nuns temporarily stayed in the Wittenberg castle untill homes were found for them.
3. Katherina stayed at the home of Philipp Reichenbach and Lucas Cranach
4. Luther married Katherina on June 13, 1525.

Or, to go beyond the bare facts, here's testimony from Roman Catholic historian Hartmann Grisar:

Of the twelve who escaped from Nimbschen, nine, who were without resources, found a refuge in various houses at Wittenberg, while only three went to their relatives in the Saxon Electorate. To begin with, from necessity and only for a short time, the nine found quarters in the Augustinian monastery which had remained in Luther's hands, in which he still dwelt and where there was plenty of room; later they found lodgings in the town. Luther had to provide in part for their maintenance. Catherine von Bora was lodged by him in the house of the Town-clerk, Reichenbach. [source]

For a helpful biographical article, see Katharina von Bora, the Woman at Luther's Sideby Martin Treu (Lutheran Quarterly XIII, 1999).


Erasmus and Rumors on Luther's Marriage
There were a number of rumors surrounding Luther's marriage believed by some of Rome's defenders- especially that Luther had sexual relations with her before their marriage, and got her pregnant. The offspring was popularly believed to be the Antichrist. Rome's defenders even produced abusive satires about their marriage. In regard to Luther and Katherina, Erasmus passed along this witty comment , "If there is truth in the popular legend, that Antichrist will be born from a monk and a nun (which is the story these people keep putting about), how many thousands of Antichrists the world must have already!"  According to Richard Marius, Erasmus initially believed the popular rumor that Kathrine von Bora had given birth a few days after her wedding. On page 438 of Martin Luther The Christian Between God and Death (Cambridge, Belknap Press, 1999), Marius states:

His forecast that his enemies would reproach him was on the mark. Then and for centuries afterward Catholic antagonists had proof that all Luther had ever wanted was sex, and since he married a former nun, it seemed he had now lived out yet another of the bawdy stories told of nuns and monks lusting for one another. His most bitter foes crowed over the marriage in monotonous fury in print. Erasmus knew of it by October and wrote to friends ironically about it. He passed on the canard that Katherine had given birth to a child a few days after the wedding (10). By March 13 he had learned that the rumor was false, although he understood (correctly) that Katherine was now pregnant. He ruminated on the 'popular legend' that the Antichrist would be born to a monk and a nun- a tale probably circulating about Luther's coming child. If that prophecy were true, he said with bitter wit, 'How many thousands of Antichrists had the world already known!'(11) He expressed the wistful hope that marriage might make Luther more gentle, but by this time he had seen Luther's vehement On the Bondage of the Will, and he had given up all hope that Luther might moderate his language.

(10) October 10, 1525; EE no. 1633; 6:197-199.
(11) March 13, 1525; EE no. 1677; 6:283-284.

Here are specific comments from Erasmus:

The comments from Erasmus ultimately served as a defense for Luther. Bayle's Dictionary was a popular eighteenth century apologetic dispelling numerous myths on various theological figures. Bayle did an entry entitled, "Bora." (see this overview as well). Bayle use the testimony of Erasmus under point #F.

Luther's "Fit in the Choir"

"People like James Swan, who “feel the need” to paint virtually every aspect and historical detail of Luther’s life in the most “positive” (sanitized) light imaginable, also have every reason to want people to completely dismiss the “fit” as being some sort of anti-Luther “myth” which was manufactured by the Catholic Church to discredit the man." [source]

That's what one of my critics recently said in regard to my opinion on Luther's alleged "fit in the choir." In actuality, as I searched through my blog, it appears I've rarely mentioned this myth on this blog, and only in passing (for instance: 5/02/06; 6/04/06; 6/06/06; 7/17/07). The irony of this Roman Catholic critic is his shying away from the original Roman Catholic interpretations of Luther's "fit in the choir" as demon possession favoring instead modern secular psychological interpretations.

Here's how the story goes, as stated by Luther's Roman Catholic biographer Hartmann Grisar:

One day that Luther was present at High Mass in the monks' choir, he had a fit during the Gospel, which, as it happened, told the story of the man possessed. He fell to the ground and in his paroxysms behaved like one mad. At the same time he cried out, as his brother monks affirmed: "It is not I, it is not I," meaning that he was not the man possessed.1 It might seem to have been an epileptic fit, but there is no other instance of Luther having such attacks, though he did suffer from ordinary fits of fainting. Strange to say, some of his companions in the monastery had an idea that he had dealings with the devil, while others, mainly on account of the above-mentioned attack, actually declared him an epileptic. We learn both these facts from his opponent and contemporary, Johann Cochlaeus, who was on good terms with Luther's former associates. He asserts positively that a "certain singularity of manner" had been remarked upon by his fellows in the monastery.2 Later on his brother monk, Johann Nathin, went so far as to assert that "an apostate spirit had mastered him," i.e. that he stood under the influence of the devil.3
1. Dungersheim, " Erzeigung der Falschheit des unchristlichen lutherischen Comments usw.," in " AHqua opuscula," p. 15, cited above on p. 4. 2. Joh. Cochlaeus, "Commentaria de actis et scriptis M. Lutheri," Mogunt., 1549, p. 1. 3. Dungersheim, ut supra. [source]

Documentation
The spurious origins of this tale alone should be enough to caution one from giving it more value than its actual worth. Historians have traced this story not back to anything Luther wrote, or even a Table Talk utterance recorded by one of his acquaintances. Rather, this story originates from one of Luther's earliest Roman Catholic biographers, Cochlaeus. It comes from the very first paragraphs of his lengthy biography of Luther: 

“…[W]hen [Luther] was in the country, either because he was terrified and prostrated by a bolt of lightning, as is commonly said, or because he was overwhelmed with grief at the death of a companion, through contempt of this world he suddenly - to the astonishment of many - entered the Monastery of the brothers of St Augustine, who are commonly called the Hermits. After a year's probation, his profession of that order was made legitimate, and there in his studies and spiritual exercises he fought strenuously for God for four years. However, he appeared to the brothers to have a certain amount of peculiarity, either from some secret commerce with a Demon, or (according to certain other indications) from the disease of epilepsy. They thought this especially, because several times in the Choir, when during the Mass the passage from the Evangelist about the ejection of the deaf and mute Demon was read, he suddenly fell down, crying 'It is not I, it is not I.' And thus it is the opinion of many, that he enjoyed an occult familiarity with some demon, since he himself sometimes wrote such things about himself as were able to engender a suspicion in the reader of this kind of commerce and nefarious association. For he says in a certain sermon addressed to the people, that he knows the Devil well, and is in turn well known by him, and that he has eaten more than one grain of salt with him. And furthermore he published his own book in German, About the 'Corner' Mass (as he calls it), where he remembers a disputation against the Mass that the Devil held with him at night. There are other pieces of evidence about this matter as well, and not trivial ones, since he was even seen by certain people to keep company bodily with the Devil.” [source]

Roland Bainton notes:

“The story is poorly authenticated. It received distribution through Cochlaeus, whose virulent misrepresentations of Luther have poisoned the Catholic attitude toward him until recently refuted by the Catholic scholar Adolf Herte. Cochlaeus wrote later than, and presumably was dependent on, Dungersheim, who took the tale from Nathin, who appears to have derived it from the Bishop of Mansfield. Thus we get it fourth hand.” (Roger Johnson, ed, Psychohistory and Religion (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1977), p.42)

But it's actually worse than simply a fourth-hand apocryphal story. Gordon Rupp explains,

The story that Luther had a fit during Mass, while the story of the epileptic boy was being read, is more than dubious. It comes to us from four catholic writers: Nathin, Dungersheim, Cochlaeus,Oldecop, all of whom were his enemies, all of whom believed that he was possessed by a demon. An examination of these sources shows that they are not four separate accounts but each is repeating the other, as W. S. Gilbert would say, adding a few corroborative details intended to give an air of artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative. Such is Cochlaeus’s addition of the cry ’ I am not’. [Gordon Rupp, John Osborne and the Historical Luther, The Expository Times 1962; 73; 148).

Interpretations
When this story was first told by Luther's detractors the goal was to prove Luther was possessed by a demon. Cochlaeus believed Luther was a child of the devil, the fruit of a union between Satan and Luther's mother (who later regretted not having murdered him in the cradle). Luther's life was characterized as a man who lusts after wine and women, is without conscience, and approves any means to gain his end. Luther was a liar and a hypocrite, cowardly and quarrelsome. Demonic monstrosities boiled out of Luther’s powerful perverted mind. At Luther's death, Satan came to drag him off to hell [source].

Fast forward a few hundred years and Luther's secular interpreters gravitate towards this tale in their probings into Luther's psyche. The most famous of all the psychohistorical approaches to Luther was Erik Erikson's Young Man Luther (1958). This is the favored interpreter of my Roman Catholic critic (see here, here, and here).

Erikson used a modified Freudian approach to Luther. Erikson analyzed Luther’s writings with Ego Development psychology, which evaluates important crisis’s in Luther’s life. For Erikson, Luther's fit in the choir was an identity crisis. He calls it a persistent identity crisis "the epileptoid paroxysm of egoloss." Erikson argued that Luther so identifies with the story of a boy possessed with a demon that he has to scream out to try to establish his non-identity with the boy. What's truly fascinating to me is not Erkison's interpretation but rather his admission that its historical verity doesn't really matter: 

If some of it is legend, so be it; the making of legend is as much part of the scholarly rewriting of history as it is part of the original facts used in the work of scholars. We are thus obliged to accept half-legend as half-history,provided only that a reported episode does not contradict other well-established facts; persists in having a ring of truth; and yields a meaning consistent with psychological theory" (Young Man Luther, p. 37).

What's also fascinating is that my Roman Catholic critic also grants the story is not an "undisputed fact." For this person though, "the fit in the choir is more than likely" because it is consistent with Luther's behavior in the monastery "like six hour confessions, extreme self mortification, obsession with the devil, and being found unconscious from fasting" and "some of Luther’s brother monks thought him to be either insane or demon possessed and that fact is entirely consistent with the 'fit'." This is the level to which some Roman Catholics will go: if it sounds like it could be true, then it probably is. That's certainly a far cry from "to be deep in history is to cease being Protestant."

Rupp points out "This story is in fact the only kind of evidence that Luther ever had such attacks. There is no trace of epilepsy before or after. Psychosomatic attacks show themselves in his forties, 1527-1528, but they are connected with his heart, dizziness,palpitations, and fainting fits" (Rupp, 148). Roman Catholic scholar Franz Posset states that in the monastery "Luther was not a loner or a constantly depressed introvert" (The Real Luther, p. 94).

Indeed, Luther did claim "I was a good monk, and I kept the rule of my order so strictly that I may say that if ever a monk got to heaven by his monkery it was I. All my brothers in the monastery who knew me will bear me out. If I had kept on any longer, I should have killed myself with vigils, prayers, reading, and other work." My Roman Catholic critic thinks Luther's behavior in the monastery was abnormal for a 16th century monk. I would rather argue Luther was being a consistent Romanist.  Let's play in a Roman Catholic reality for a moment: If Luther was abnormal according to my Romanist critic, so was Pope John Paul II with his penitential practices and self-mortification (for example, the use of hair shirts).

Interestingly my critic quotes Erikson's overview of other psychological interpreters of the choir fit, but neglects to point out that each of these interpreters (Denifle, Reiter, Smith) arrived at a different conclusion about this alleged story. Erikson actually catches Reiter changing the story from Luther saying "That's me!" to "That's not me!" (Erikson, pp. 27-28). Men like Denifle, Smith, Reiter, or Erikson did use, in a sense, a similar approach in trying to understand Luther, but none of them arrive at the same conclusions, or even minimize or maximize similar conclusions. To simply lump them all together is the way of propaganda.

Conclusion
My critic can claim that my presentations of Luther are sanitized and present a distorted image of a historical personage. But above you'll notice my method for arriving at the conclusions I do about the choir fit story. The above would be the same sort of scrutiny I would use on any historical person.

Cochlaeus on the Impact of Luther's Bible

I wrote a post a few days ago addressing the assertion that Luther invented the myth that few previous to his work had a Bible. The argument I looked at was based on a few recent Dutch news reports. The story goes that few people in the early 16th Century had an actual Bible. Luther then came along and put the Bible in the hands of the people. In this myth, the Bible was kept locked away by the church, so much so that the first Bible Luther came across was chained up. I cited Luther scholar Willem Jan Kooiman: "It is almost beyond understanding that Luther should not have seen a complete Bible before he entered the University. An estimated twenty to twenty-seven thousand copies of the Vulgate, the official Latin Bible, were printed in Germany before 1520" [Luther and the Bible (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg Press, 1961), p. 5]. There were plenty of Bibles published before Luther's. 

Somehow, a few Romanists read this same entry and concluded my argument was an attempt to get Luther off the hook for allegedly spreading the myth that the Roman church desired to keep the Bible out of the hands of the people. In their version, Luther argues if the laity got a hold of the Bible, Rome's doctrines would be exposed as the frauds they are. Anyone simply reading my earlier blog entry fairly should easily see the difference between these two arguments.Obviously, though related, these are two different things.

These folks also jumped all over my comments about Luther's Bible being written in something different than the previous High German that preceded his translation. Roman Catholic scholar Franz Posset pointed out in his recent book The Real Luther that Luther communicated in Early New High German (p.38). See also the information from TurretinFan: Luther and the Bible in the Common Tongue. I've never done any extensive studies into the "type" of German Luther used, or the details of the German language during the Reformation. I've only done cursory readings about his sometimes humorous methods of translation in order to make Paul speak German. I do recall reading in passing that Luther's translation had a significant impact on the German language.

One very interesting article put forth as proof against my blog entry was by Andrew C. Gow, "The Contested History of a Book: The German bible in the Later Middle Ages and Reformation in Legend, Ideology, and Scholarship" ( The Journal of Hebrew Scriptures, Vol. 9, Article 13 [2009] ). My detractors refer to it as "a wonderfully informative article" which indeed it was. Of course, Gow and I agree fundamentally that it is incorrect to assert  "there were no vernacular Bible translations before Luther’s 1522 'September Testament'." There were indeed Bibles available, which is what my blog entry was about.

What I did find fascinating though was that this writer (Gow) actually indirectly states the Roman church desired to keep the Bible out of the hands of the people. This of course, is the very thing that my detractors say is a myth. While I haven't gone through the entirety of Gow's article, I found this information, wonderfully informative:

Luther’s 1522 ‘September Testament’ was immediately and wildly successful, selling out rapidly and experiencing multiple reprintings in the same year. As Johannes Cochlaeus, one of Luther’s fiercest opponents, later wrote with some venom,

Luther’s translation was read (as the source of all wisdom, no less) by tailors and shoemakers, even women and simpletons, many of whom carried it around and learned it by heart, and eventually became bold enough to dispute with priests, monks, even masters and doctors of Holy Scripture about faith and the gospels. [Johannes Cochlaeus, Historia Martini Lutheri (Ingolstadt, 1582), 120.]

Medieval prelates’ fears had come true, Cochlaeus is informing us. He tells the story in this form not necessarily because these were the only people reading the Luther Bible, but because they were precisely the unqualified readers of Scripture the medieval church had sought to discourage or exclude.

Well thank you Andrew C. Gow. I happen to have the Cochlaeus book he cited.  Cochlaeus, while indeed venomous, can be insightful because he was a contemporary of Luther's. The entirety of this quote from Cochlaeus is worth noting:

Among these [Roman Catholic] critics [of Luther's Bible], Jerome Emser certainly deserved the greatest praise since he not only noted the errors Luther made in translation and published them for the people, but even published his own translation, which agreed the Latin text that was approved and accepted by the Church.  He published this as an antidote to Luther's poison, and it was not a negligible comfort to the Catholic people. For from this labor the Catholics learned where Luther had been mistaken, and they were able to refute with confidence the Lutherans who were priding themselves in their Gospel. But before Emser's work appeared, Luther's New Testament had been reproduced by the printers to an amazing degree, so that even shoemakers and women and every kind of unlearned person, whoever of them were Lutherans and had somehow learned German letters, read it most eagerly as the font of all truth. And by reading and rereading it they committed it to memory and so carried the book around with them in their bosoms. Because of this, in a few months they attributed so much learning to themselves that they did not blush to dispute about the faith and the Gospel, not only with laypeople of the Catholic party, bu with priests and monks, and furthermore, even with Masters and Doctors Sacred Theology. Nay, more — even mere women were found who of their own accord dared to challenge the proposed themes and published books of the Germans — and that indeed they did by most boldly insulting men, reproaching them with ignorance, and holding them in contempt. And not only laymen and private citizens; but even certain Doctors, and licensed members of the faculty of Theology, and even whole universities. This information was obtained from Argula, a certain noble woman. [Luther's Lives, p. 106].

And also from Cochlaeus:

Therefore, since the mob is everywhere more intent on and avid for spreading revolutionary ideas abroad than for preserving accustomed things in their normal state, it happened that the crowd of Lutherans devoted themselves much more to the work of teaching the translated sacred Scriptures than did the Catholic people, among whom the laity by and large entrusted that responsibility to the priests and monks. Thence it happened not infrequently that in discussions more passages of Scripture were quoted extemporaneously by the Lutheran laypeople than were quoted by the Catholic priests and monks. And for a long time already Luther had persuaded his throngs that no trust should be put in any words save those that are taken from the Holy Scriptures. For this reason, the Catholics were reputed among the Lutherans to be ignorant of the Scriptures, even if they were the most erudite of theologians. Indeed, some laypeople would sometimes even contradict the theologians openly before the crowd, as if the theologians spoke mere lies and human fictions in their arguments. [Luther's Lives, p. 107].

It certainly sounds to me like Cochlaeus wasn't at all pleased the Bible was in the hands of the people. Ah well, I guess if I ever do a blog entry on this, I'll have to start with these selections from Cochlaeus. Thank you Mr. Gow.

Bonus for Reformation Geeks: In order to avoid scanning or typing out these snippets from Cochlaeus, I did a quick Google search and found the entire book in pdf. I didn't snoop around enough to figure out who put it up, but it was a great find.


Addendum from TurretinFan: On Luther and the German Languahe

Luther began his translation of the New Testament during his enforced exile at the Wartburg, and his work of translating and revising came to occupy him until the end of his life. Amazing as it seems, he apparently completed the first draft of his translation of the New Testament in some eleven weeks, using as his working tools the Greek and Latin editions of Erasmus. Not only did Luther prepare a superb translation, a version that seemed fresh and alive because, as one scholar has phrased it, "he read Holy Writ 'as though it had been written yesterday.'"[FN54] but also, in the process of translation, he helped to sculpt the German language. The development of Neuhochdeutsch, early modern high German, was underway before the appearance of Luther's Bible, due partly to the influence of Saxon Kanzeleideutsch or chancellory German. [FN55] Luther's Bible brought new high German into the parish schools and pulpits and made it the common language for the German people, even though the common folk long clung to their individual dialects. In brief, the language of Luther's Bible "became the language of the people, the langugage used in the studies of the scholars, and the language spoken in the huts of the unlearned."[FN56] Marilyn J. Harran, Luther and learning: the Wittenberg University Luther Symposium, p. 40.

For several hundred years after the height of Middle High German literature, there was no longer any standard literary language. By far the most important influence on the development of the Modern High German standard language was Martin Luther's translation of the Bible, the first edition of which appeared in 1522 (Old Testament) and 1534 (New Testament). Luther's translation was the first to be written in a direct and uncomplicated - at times even colloquial - style that strove not only to include expressions that were modern and up-and-coming, but also to incorporate linguistic features from as many regions as possible. Its impact on literary German was immense; its core was Luther's native dialect of Thuringian. Benjamin W. Fortson, Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction, 15.78 (p. 367)

Once Upon a Time, A Catholic Apologist Misquoted Luther

Originally published 10/7/2010


 
It only takes a spark to get a fire going...
It's funny how a tiny question can lead to someone I've never met driving a 400 mile round trip to look at a rare book, another person writing enough posts to fill a book, a popular Roman Catholic tour guide / apologist e-mailing me repeatedly, and a friendship with a mysterious nameless person that writes amazing blog posts. I might not remember all this exactly, but I'll tell this tale to the best of my ability.


Chapter 1: The Tale of the Anonymous Comment

Once upon a time, way back in November 2007, now M.I.A. co-blogger Carrie got an anonymous comment on her blog post, Catholic Quotes on the Bible. The comment stated,

Luther himself, once he realized the disaster that sola scriptura was said: "Fly to the Church councils for in them you will find safety." Why don't you write a post about what he meant by that one? Was the 'Church' he referred to in that quote in possession of the gospel?

I don't know who the person was, nor does it matter . Carrie asked Anonymous for a reference. She was given the following:

"If the world lasts for a long time, it will again be necessary, on account of the many interpretations which are now given to the Scriptures, to receive the decrees of councils, and take refuge in them, in order to preserve the unity of faith."Epis. ad. Zwingli (ap. Balmes, p. 423)

I recall it was early in the morning, she wrote me, asking me about this quote. I sent her a link to this blog entry of mine. There I provided a very brief response to it, and also chimed in on Carrie's blog. Our friend Anonymous was none to happy: "Yes I am sure there is no bias in finding his source for this quote and it can be trusted implicitly."

Quotes like this always interest me. I then did a quick search on the quote. I got hits from Roman Catholic apologist Steve Ray's writings. It appeared to me, Anonymous may have taken the quote from Steve Ray. I didn't mind so much that an anonymous comment on a blog could so misquote Luther, but a guy selling books trying to get people to convert to Romanism misquoting Luther did bother me. I decided to write a post on it: When Footnotes Attack (a spoof on the then popular reality show, When Animals Attack).

Chapter 2: Whipped by Jerusalem Jones
Steve Ray wasn't pleased at all, and responded with an 11 page PDF: "Swan struck me as a real lightweight, and the above seems to verify my suspicion. He is a 'wanna-be' and it seems like he tries to puff out his chest to look bigger than he actually is." "It seems he is a James White wanna-be, though he’s no where near as clever." Ouch. Well, I then responded to Mr. Ray.

It was around that time that a few other Romanists decided to help Mr. Ray out. I mean, he's busy traveling the world.

The first thing these guys did was question whether or not I actually had the right source. This seemed to go on forever, in fact it went on for weeks. Here it was, late December, and these guys had to scrutinize every work by Luther about Zwingli. Of course, I did my part to help them out. I posted a large portion of the context. I noted other Romanists who used the quote. I located all of the relevant material written by Luther about Zwingli, and posted much of it. I also started locating different translations of the quote in question to prove to these guys it was the same quote from the same source.


During this time also Steve Ray had a sudden change of heart: "After the dust settles, I intend to revise my response to James Swan about the Luther quote he is researching... I am actually grateful for his research... In my revised response I intend to thank him for his research since we all want to be accurate and thorough." He had actually e-mailed me a number of times as well.

I guess they figured if they could prove I had the wrong context and source, Steve Ray was vindicated. Of course, that would leave another big problem: where and what is the source? If it was a different source, it would still mean Steve Ray never bothered to check it. The wild goose chase was on.

Mr. Ray stated this quote was from Luther's letter to Zwingli. Other Roman Catholic apologists thought so as well:

Even Martin Luther saw the inescapable principle of fragmentation and disunity that lies at the heart of sola scriptura. In a letter to Urlich Zwingli, he complained bitterly about the doctrinal anarchy that was even then rampant among Protestants: "If the world lasts, it will be necessary, on account of the differing interpretations of Scripture which now exist, that to preserve the unity of faith, we should receive the [Catholic] councils and decrees and fly to them for refuge."Source: Patrick Madrid, “Sola scriptura: A Blueprint for Anarchy”

Notice Madrid added the word "Catholic"! As far as I was able to determine at the time, there weren't any letters from Luther to Zwingli. Then there was Luther's preface to the Syngramma. Well, I tracked that down and posted it as well. There were accounts of Luther and Zwingli at the Marburg Colloquy. I posted that also. No letters, no other treatises, everything pointed to the very source I offered.

Chapter 3: Who Shot JR
Then one of Ray's defenders announced they had "information that is quite damning." They had a bunch of Latin citations of the quote, and were trying to determine which source they came from:


"These are primary texts, because they come from one of the early Latin set of volumes of Luther's works. The difficulty is in finding exactly where they came from, because the secondary sources are (unfortunately and frustratingly) a bit unclear and inadequate on that score. This isn't good enough for Swan: now he wants a large amount of context as well. He doesn't trust all of these sources to accurately convey the information (particularly because the three found so far are all from Catholics)."

"What we do see for sure is a slowly changing perspective in [Swan's] posts. First he made a big deal out of Steve's use and source of the quotation. Then he stated that he was more interested in the context and various translations of the quote. Now I think he is (very subtly in public) preparing himself for the possibility of being decisively refuted and embarrassed by our findings, which will be published within a few days, if all goes well in obtaining what we are looking for. We've already found some information that is quite damning to what Swan has been chirping about for five weeks now, and that is only part of it. Stay tuned."

Here it is now, December 31, 2007. I've already provided these guys with the context, but the wheel needed to be reinvented. Based on their secret studies, I was all set to take a trip into an alternate universe in which another primary source for this quote actually existed. Then on January 4, 2008, the big announcement came:

"Swan is also correct that the citation in question is indeed from Luther's 1527 treatise: That These Word of Christ, "This Is My Body," etc., Still Stand Firm Against the Fanatics (found in LW, vol. 37)"

"In a source helpfully provided by our esteemed friend James Swan, it is noted that the Latin version was entitled contra Fanaticos Sacramentariorum spiritus. This would account for the widely differing source names, according to whether one was citing a Latin or German version. Of course, the main "fanatical Sacramentarians" Luther is responding to were Zwingli and Oecolampadius; thus in common usage we can see how it could become known as simply Contra Zwingli and Oecolampadius or variation thereof. Bellarmine above combines both things in his title."


Chapter 4: The Show Must Go On
Well, as far as I was concerned, the show was over. But it wasn't. They were (or had been) taking road trips hundreds of miles away to locate books with the quote in it. They were becoming experts in Leibniz. For what purpose? At this point, I began to stop caring. We had the source. It wasn't a difficult document to read. Steve Ray never read it, he knows it, time to move on.

Here's where I started to lose interest in all this. It went on, and on. Sometime in mid-January, I had had about enough. Then, a mysterious person who called himself "TurretinFan" had been reading my entries, and began commenting on the findings as they came in:

A Quick Footnote to the Luther Citation Dialogue

Speculative Luther Citation Tree

Luther Citation Discussion - Status Report

My Romanist friends began doing Latin translations of various people who used the quote through the centuries. The collective understanding was that the quote had originally been pulled from Luther's writings by Cochlaeus, and a Latin version from Cochlaeus made it to the table. By reinterpreting the Latin, Luther was made to say what he needed to say in order to get Steve Ray off the hook. If I recall, these guys weren't at all united. One guy said I had the right source, the others still though the gunman was hiding a Luther book on the grassy knoll. I think Steve Ray was undecided. I don't know if they ever agreed on this.



Chapter 5: TurretinFan Shuts Down the Fairy Tale, Once and For All
Recently, TurretinFan has revisited this tale. TFan's recent entries focus on the early Roman Catholic apologist who set the stage for men like Steve Ray to dance on. Johannes Cochlaeus (1479 - 1552) was one of Luther's earliest opponents. Cochlaeus spent a great deal of his life writing against Luther, and went so far as maintaining printing presses at his own cost to make sure his work was published. Tfan's recent entries can be found here:

Final Piece in Cochlaeus' Misquotation of Luther Puzzle

Cochlaeus Misparaphrase Debacle Summary

My guess is if you're unfamiliar with this discussion, these posts won't make a lot of sense to you. You can always scroll through Tfan's older posts on this subject.

Tfan summarizes these posts as follows:

...Cochlaeus provided a paraphrase that did not accurately represent what Luther said, and this was then picked up and used as an alleged quote from Luther. The scope of this error is significant. In general, it appears that the quotation was generated by Cochlaeus, and then picked up by influential Romanist scholars Melchior Cano (died 1560)(who acknowledged that he got it from Cochlaeus) and Robert Bellarmine (died 1621)(who did not identify his secondary source, although he was familiar with works by Cochlaeus). From there, numerous other - mostly Roman Catholic - folks picked up the quotation, some citing back to Cochlaeus (suggesting they got it from Cano) and others simply alleging it is from Luther (suggesting they got it from Bellarmine).

Catholic scholar Adolf Herte argued Catholic Luther interpretation for the previous 400 years had more or less repeated what Johannes Cochlaeus had put forth about Luther [Johann Heinz, “Martin Luther and His Theology in German Catholic Interpretation Before and After Vatican II” (Andrews University Seminary Studies, 26, Autumn 1988), 253 ]. In his books, Cochlaeus does what later Catholic critiques of Luther promise: to present the real “facts” about Luther, undistorted from Luther’s own writings. When not vilifying Luther’s character using hearsay and slander, he will at times over-analyze Luther sentence by sentence, to the effect of missing the central points of Luther’s reformation teaching. Sound familiar? For more on Cochlaeus, see this article.


Chapter 6: Defending Steve Ray, Continued...
Paul Hoffer (one of those defending Steve Ray) offered the following commented on Tfan's recent entries:

We do not know for sure what version of the text Cochlaeus was looking at when he got the quote. Maybe, as polemicists often did in that day (Luther too), he did cherry pick (shame on him) or perhaps he was relying on an adulterated translation himself since Luther's fans and Protestant detractors liked to reprint Luther's works (usually without his permission) and rework to fit their own flavor of Reform, or perhaps Cochlaeus actually got it right. He names the text that he got the quote from which would have been easy to check to see if he got it wrong. Have you attempted to track down every version of the text that was extant at the time Cochlaeus wrote his treatise to Bullinger? Since Luther was alive then, why didn't he correct Cochlaeus?

Actually, Cochlaeus leaves clues as to which version of Luther's 1527 text he had. He calls Luther's treatise "a very eloquent German book" and that "Luther himself published it" (see Luther's Lives, p. 214). LW 37 also confirms Luther role in its publication:

Luther concentrated on the writing of his treatise from early January, 1527, to mid-March. The virtually complete manuscript, still extant, shows the care with which Luther wrote, retouched, and more than once revised the work. He succeeded in having it published in time for the Frankfurt spring fair, at which two of Zwingli’s treatises also appeared. [LW 37:5].

Cochlaeus definitely obtained many of Luther's writings. Those that he had were probably the most popular and most available. I have found from my studies of Romanist citations of Luther, the oldest sources typically take quotes from the most popular treatises of Luther.

In 1527, Cochlaeus was well under way in writing against Luther, and actively sought Luther's writings. Often his method was to cite Luther with a myriad of quotes to prove Luther contradicted himself. Of Cochlaeus's writings from this period, the introduction to Luther's Lives points out he was fairly accurate in citing Luther (p.43), but also on footnote 21 on page 374 they point out he sometimes (rarely) conflated statements from Luther. They also note that in his compilations of Luther quotes Cochlaeus was "unconcerned about context, development of thought, or later revisions of earlier statements made by any Protestant thinker" (p. 43). These writings from 1527 served as a basis for many of his later writings ( see Luther's Lives, p. 43), like those he published in the 1540's.

Catholic scholar Adolf Herte also argues Cochlaeus had in fact actually read very little of Luther’s books from cover to cover because most of his citations used were from the prefaces and conclusions of Luther’s treatises [see: Gotthelf Wiedermann, “Cochlaeus as Polemicist,” p. 200 found in, Peter Newman Brooks (ed.), Seven-Headed Luther (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983]. In fact, if one takes a look at the very quote in dispute, it comes from very early in the treatise That These Words Of Christ, “This Is My Body,” etc., Still Stand Firm Against The Fanatics (1527), proving Herte's point.


Chapter 7: Why didn't Luther Correct Cochlaeus?
The Catholic Encyclopedia notes, “Luther, to the vexation of Cochlaeus wrote in answer only a single work, "Adversus Armatum Virum Cocleum".” This is indeed true, yet Cochlaeus’s name appears various times throughout Luther’s Works. Late in his career, Luther was to say:

“Thus the papists, too, studiously distort our statements in order to enhance their own cause. When we declare that a man is not justified by works, they assert that we are forbidding and condemning good works. Such vipers are Cochlaeus, Witzel, and others.  These are satanic lies of venomous and very evil men who do not listen to our statements and do not want to listen. Yet they force them into having a different meaning—a meaning which they themselves want them to have.”[LW 3:193]

“For thus the enemies of the truth are accustomed to obscure, traduce, and corrupt the fruits and gains of the Gospel and of salvation among simple and godly hearers. Eck, Cochlaeus, Pighius, and many others are the best contrivers of such calumnies.  They adorn themselves with false and counterfeit praises; but they defame us, in order to make us more obnoxious to those who are strangers to our doctrine. Accordingly, they secretly take away what is most beautiful and best for winning over the hearts of simple men, namely, the favor and goodwill of men, by which we could gain and educate many through the Word. We have to be befouled in order that they may be beautiful.” [LW 7:92]

Had Luther the foreknowledge of Cochlaeus’s lasting impact on Catholic scholars studying his life and writings, perhaps Luther would have spent more time refuting his material. Luther did not take him all that seriously. Rather than engage him, Luther lampoons, insults or simply dismisses his writings as nonsense. Luther refers to Cochlaeus as a “windbag,” a “viper,” “impudent young rascal,” and he sarcastically calls him the “profound thinker that he is.” Luther would say this in regard to Cochlaeus:

“I fear no fanatic, for I know none who can oppose me with arguments that would put me to confusion. All their arguments I’ve already heard from the devil-in fact, more weighty ones—but I have overcome them through the Word of God. I don’t think Cochlaeus could stand my devil even as long as it takes me to say a single word. He and those like him know nothing about this.” [LW 54:93]

Chapter 8: The End?

This is the end, well for me it is. Simply read LW 37.

If one simply reads the Luther quote as it stands, it appears to be saying that Luther believed Church councils and creeds are necessary in order to "preserve the unity of faith" because sola scriptura is some sort of blueprint for anarchy. Well, creeds are indeed useful. Even during Luther's lifetime, statements of faith were produced from Luther and his immediate circle. So what is going on here? How can Luther hold to sola scriptura, but yet say the Church needs to have the Christian faith "decreed by a council"? Didn't Luther say "Unless I am convinced by Scripture and plain reason- I do not accept the authority of popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other- my conscience is captive to the Word of God"?

What's going on here is what typically happens when Catholic apologists cite Luther without actually reading Luther. After speaking about the controversies and divisions surrounding the Lord's Supper, Luther says,

"If the world lasts much longer, men will, as the ancients did, once more turn to human schemes on account of this dissension, and again issue laws and regulations to keep the people in the unity of the faith. Their success will be the same as it was in the past " [LW 37:16].

Granted, this citation does not at first appear identical to the one popularly used by Catholics. However, "on account of this dissension" in the preceding paragraph is explained to be differing interpretations given to the Scriptures. "Human schemes " issuing "laws and regulations" keeping people "in the unity of the faith" does sound a lot like receiving "the decrees of councils, and take refuge in them, in order to preserve the unity of faith" as stated above.

Note the last sentence: "Their success will be the same as it was in the past." Their success will be, according to Luther, failure, because "human schemes " "laws and regulations " are not the work of the Holy Spirit, but of men. The text goes on to say, "In short, the devil is too clever and too mighty for us" because "If we wish to stand upon the councils and counsels of men, we lose the Scriptures altogether and remain in the devil’s possession body and soul." So rather than proving Luther wanted to "take refuge in the Church councils in order to preserve the unity of faith " as Steve Ray claims, Luther said the exact opposite in this text.

A Brief Biography On My Interest in Martin Luther (Part Two)

To the left: One of Luther’s first Roman Catholic biographers was also a great adversary with lasting impact: Johannes Cochlaeus. Cochlaeus best expressed his campaign against Luther by portraying him as a seven-headed dragon. Cochlaeus divided up the life of Luther into seven distinct periods, each represented by one of the heads on the monster. Each head held a contradictory opinion to the other. He explains what each head represents:

“Thus all brothers emerge from the womb of one and the same cowl by a birth so monstrous, that none is like the other in either behavior, shape, face or character. The elder brothers, Doctor and Martinus, come closest to the opinion of the Church, and they are to be believed above all the others, if anything anywhere in Luther's books can be believed with any certainty at all. Lutherus, however, according to his surname, plays a wicked game just like Ismael. Ecclesiastes tells the people who are always keen on novelties, pleasant things. Svermerns rages furiously and errs in the manner of Phaeton throughout the skies. Barrabas is looking for violence and sedition everywhere. And at the last, Visitator, adorned with a new mitre and ambitious for a new papacy, prescribes new laws of ceremonies, and many old ones which he had previously abolished—revokes, removes, reduces.”[Johannes Cochlaeus, S[epticeps] L[utherus] (Dresden, 1529), fol. lib. Cited in: Peter Newman Brooks (ed.), Seven-Headed Luther, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983) 196.]

With any study of Luther and the Reformation comes a crash course in Roman Catholicism. Many Roman Catholics on-line are livid against the Reformation, particularly Luther. I’ve read all sorts of unbelievable facts about Luther from the keyboards of Rome's defenders: that he was adulterer, a drunkard, a polygamist, took books out of the Bible, uttered massive amounts of profanity, hated Jews, had people killed, and basically was in league with Satan.

Was Luther really all these things? If these things are true, how in the world could people like R.C. Sproul speak of him with such grandeur? Why would the great bastion of Reformed theology, Westminster Seminary, actually teach classes on Luther? How could an entire group of churches call themselves “Luther-an”? Well, it didn’t make sense to me. Someone wasn’t telling the truth, or either the truth was being told in such a way that the facts were being manipulated as tools of propaganda.

Five years ago, I was participating daily on the CARM discussion boards. Roman Catholics would frequently bring up Martin Luther,  mentioning the unflattering attributes described above. Often I was directed to the entry about Luther in the Catholic Encyclopedia. Sometimes, they would link to articles to prove their historical “facts” about Luther. For instance:

1) Martin Luther: Beyond Mythology to Historical Fact ; 2) The Orthodox vs. the Heterodox Luther
3) Luther vs. the Canon of the Bible ; 4)Martin Luther, Indulgences, and the Origins of the Protestant Revolt ; 5) Martin Luther's Devotion to Mary

The information from these old links was frequently brought into conversations. The good news is, some of these links are no longer available, and some of them have been positively updated. I share them in this form only to show what I originally came across, way back when.

The links above quote from historical authors that were at one time unfamiliar to me: Hartmann Grisar, Patrick O’Hare, Johannes Janssen, and some that were familiar to me, like Will Durant and, Roland Bainton. Also, I was amazed to find the writer of these links seemed so familiar with Luther’s writings in German and Latin (and some of those dating back to the 16th Century!): Works (Werke), Weimar ed., 1883, Werke, Erlangen ed., 1868, De Servo Arbitrio, in Op. Lat, (Latin Works: Erlangen ed., 1829), Werke, (German) Wittenberg ed., 1559, Tischreden (Table-Talk), L.C.12.s., Werke, Halle ed., Luther's Letters, De Wette - Seidemann, Berlin, 1828.

Now, these editions of Luther’s writings are not readily available. They are quite difficult to track down. Obviously, the amazing citations from the above German and Latin editions were taken from secondary sources (the author's I mentioned above). So I tracked down some of these secondary sources. There is an entire corpus of Roman Catholic writings that were not only against Luther and the Reformation, but were passionately and viciously against Luther and the Reformation. The result of my research can be found here: The Roman Catholic Understanding of Luther (Part 1)

When I started researching Roman Catholic approaches to Luther, I was quite perplexed to find out that many of the Roman Catholic “anti-Luther” writers had been answered, in some cases, over fifty years ago, usually by very capable Lutheran writers. But unfortunately, these writings were not readily available. There were a good handful of articles from theological journals, but these are not so easy to locate (I spent many hours in the basement of Westminster’s library scouring the periodicals and journals).

Any good biography on Luther will deal with some of the issues brought up by Roman Catholics. But often, these treatments are sparse. To my knowledge (as of the writing of this entry), only two full-length books (in English) exist that directly respond to the hostile Roman Catholic treatments of Luther:

W.H.T. Dau, Luther Examined and Reexamined: A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Reevaluation (St Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1917)

Richard Stauffer, Luther As Seen By Catholics (Virginia: John Knox Press, 1967)

I have both of these books. You may be able to locate Stauffer’s book via a used bookstore, but Dau’s book is extremely hard to find (edited to add, it is now available online). Both are worthy investments. It’s unfortunate, but more web pages vilifying Luther may actually exist than those dedicated to presenting his work fairly.

So, one of my hobbies has been trying to fill a need, so to speak, in cyber-space. I’ve tried to pick out those aspects of Luther brought up by the defenders of Rome, and present the other side of the story: the side that great Lutheran writers had presented decades ago.

I say it's a hobby because I don't think its as important as other things worthy of discussion, like sola fide or sola scriptura. Unfortunately, when one engages Roman Catholics on these subjects, a digression is sometimes put in play that seeks to link Luther's life with these subjects. It is sometimes argued: "Sola Fide and Sola Scriptura cannot be what the Bible teaches, because Luther's personal life was so sinful." If by some chance, any of my research can put a discussion of these important subjects back on track, I will feel as if I've done some good in cyberspace.