Luther-related Tidbits

Despite not really having any time to engage my favorite Reformation-related hobby, I still manage to find a few minutes to sneak away to the depths of cyber-space. Here are a few recent Luther-related tidbits:

Brigitte posted a snippet taken from Brecht's book, Luther on Ecclesiastes and the Song of Solomon. Brecht points out Luther understood Ecclesiastes as an "instruction for political life." For The Song of Solomon, Luther saw the book as "a hymn of praise and thanksgiving over politics, which could be pursued properly and peacefully only in connection with God." Now that's quite a unique approach to interpreting these books!

An acquaintance emailed me about this discussion thread: In one of my Psychology courses today we discussed Martin Luther: "my professor said the he hated Jewish people and said that he believed if you wife isn't pleasing you sexually, you should go outside the marriage for satisfaction. Is this true?"My thoughts on Luther's attitude toward the Jews can be found here. As to the latter charge, Perspectives of Luther: Luther a Polygamist?; Luther's "Teachings" on Bigamy and Catholic Double Standards; Luther: "I confess that I cannot forbid a person to marry several wives, for it does not contradict the Scripture".

A Roman Catholic over on CARM came up with a fact that I doubt will be documented: "[Luther] wanted to remove the book of James and, I believe Revelation, but the princes that aligned with him (in order to make a land grab for Church lands) warned that he would be going to far in that." I love the way this myth has developed. I've never heard it quite like this. I've heard that Melanchthon warned Luther, now it's "princes" (It was none other than Romanist apologist Steve Ray spreading the Melanchthon myth). So much for going "deep into history."

Another CARM Roman Catholic is single-handedly carrying on the tradition of Cochlaeus, blaming Luther for virtually every evil in the world. Here he lays the blame for the peasant's revolt on Luther (and here). I responded: "I say we burn Luther in effigy.... or maybe a giant piñata that could be whacked with a stick, next to the giant bonfire. When it breaks open, copies of the Catechism of the Catholic Church would fall out- as we're reading them smiling and dancing around the fire, we'll drink Kool aid, singing ave maria and then book our next Catholic Answers cruise. Anyway, that's my solution. I think it would be very cathartic." The response: "That’s fascinating imagery, but little else. I revealed some very damaging information about Luther in my last couple of posts and since you didn’t take issue with anything I said, I can only conclude that you agree with my assessment." Why does it have to follow logically that because I didn't "take issue" with what was said, I therefore agree with what was said? I don't see how the conclusion is a necessary conclusion. I then suggested this book. FYI, Luther's Against the Robbing and Murdering Hordes of Peasants was actually published after the peasant's war began. The treatise was delayed, and did not have an immediate role during the war. The German nobility were not spurred by Luther's words. They were spurred by the peasants who strove towards anarchy and civil unrest. Key question: If peasants (or anyone) ever attacked your street and family, what would you do?

Elsewhere on CARM: Luther was a Catholic... so there were things in Catholicism that Luther just accepted as true. Contrarily, this is the way I like to put it: Luther clearly distinguished Romanism from Catholicism, as do I.

There were a few oddities from Catholic Answers over the last few months that I never got around to, like "A Catholic priest from once told me that Martin Luther requested to have a Catholic priest come to give him last rites at his deathbed, but that Melanchthon wouldn't let him." Ironically, I get a lot of Goolge hits from folks searching out Luther's deathbed reconversion to the Roman Catholic Church. Next, Luther's comments on "reason" tend to befuddle many a Romanist, despite having the World Wide Web of information right at their fingertips.

Somewhere on the Catholic Answers forums I read about how Luther regretted the Reformation at the end of his life, but I can't seem to locate the thread. I'd like to blow this one totally out of the water, since many a Roman Catholic presents this argument. One need only read the recent LW 58 to get a good glimpse into Luther's work and attitude during his last years, but that'll wait for anther time.

Introducing myself ... John Bugay

Hi all. I'm honored and delighted that James Swan has invited me to be a contributor here on Beggars All.

Some of you may remember me from the old NTRMin discussion board. That's where I first met James Swan, as one of the adelphoi -- Eric Svendsen created a wonderful community there, and I am very grateful to have made some long-term, lasting friendships there.

I'm a former Catholic -- I was born in 1960 and raised in the Catholic Church by a devout family. But by the time I was in high school, I had also heard the Gospel from some friends -- and I just could not comprehend why this "Gospel" was not what "the one true Church" was teaching, especially not if it was in the Bible. Needless to say, it created a great deal of turmoil in my spirit, and it set off a struggle that would consume me for a long time. In fact, that question -- an overwhelming desire to find "the reason why," motivates me today. My story is here. But the issues I investigated in leaving Roman Catholicism continued to tug at my heart and mind. How could such a big, authoritative and seemingly wonderful thing have gone so wrong?

My final break with Rome came in the late 1990's, thanks largely to the writings of James White, available for the first time on a broad scale via the Internet. It is said that the Reformation owes its tremendous influence to the invention of the printing press, and the ability to disseminate information far and wide in a very short period of time. I believe the Internet has created a similar opportunity for believers today.

During the 16th century, the message of the Reformation spread far and wide, because it was the message that people craved to hear. Rome didn't stop the path of the Reformation by presenting better ideas or a better gospel. They stopped the march of the Reformation with lies and trickery, with the burning of books, threats of imprisonment, such deceit and murder as that found in the St. Bartholemew's Day Massacre.

Here's one example that I've given, of Rome's tactics in the wake of the Reformation:

In 1543 a little book was published in Venice with the title Trattato utilissimo del beneficio di Giesu Christo crocifisso i cristiani (A Most Useful Treatise on the Merits of Jesus Christ Crucified for Christians), written by an elusive Benedictine monk called Benedetto da Mantova with some help from the humanist and poet Marcantonio Flaminio (1498-1550), a popular work of piety that was translated into several languages including Croat. At first sight this may appear to be a piece of native Italian Christocentrism, part of a Pauline and Augustinian renaissance known to have been nourished by a Spanish humanist and biblicist, Juan de Valdes (1500-1541), whose pious circle in Naples had included Flaminio. But the Beneficio can be read in more than one way. It proves to have been made up from a number of transalpine Protestant texts, and especially the 1539 edition of Calvin’s Institutes. Whether or not Benedetto had come across Calvin in his monastery on the slopes of Mount Etna, which seems unlikely, the Institutes was known to Flaminio.

It is hard to distinguish between the theology of the Beneficio and Protestantism. “Man can never do good works unless he first know himself to be justified by faith.” Other scholars insist, however, that the Beneficio is an expression of Evangelism, a movement that was not generated by Protestantism and should be distingueshed from it. What is certain is that the Beneficio was placed on the Index and so successfuly repressed by the Roman Inquisition that of the many thousands of copies of the Italian edition that were once in existence only one is known to survive, discovered in the library of a Cambridge college in the nineteenth century. That sort of successful repression was the Counter-Reformation. (The Reformation, a History, Patrick Collinson, (c)2003, pgs 105-106.)

I'm not a theologian, but as the old Abraham Lincoln commercial said, "I've done a lot of reading and studying, sort of on my own." My interests continue to lie in areas that describe "reasons why": Reasons why the Reformation needed to occur; reasons why "the Church" had gotten so far off the rails in the first place.

Recently, my blog posts have centered on a few areas:

The "development" of the early papacy:

Christian Foundations

A timeline of the early papacy

Historical literature in the earliest papacy

The first, and greatest "schism" in the early church:

Claims of "church unity" [in the first millennium] are a lie

See the section on Nestorius and the Council of Ephesus

The Effects of the Reformation:

The Reformation and "The One True Church"

A.G. Dickens on Luther's Success

Luther's Program and Justification by Faith

The [need for] the Reformation Today

How Roman Catholicism Continues to Proceed Today

Newman's Theory of Development "Shattered"

The Catholic Historical Method

Rome's institutionally sanction method of lying

The Official Roman Catholic Policy of Obstruction of Justice

I'm grateful to James Swan for the opportunity to share what I've learned about the history of the one true church, the "development" of the Roman Catholic Church," and the need for the Reformation, in the 16th century and today. I'm grateful for this opportunity to become a part of the "Beggars All" community, and I'm looking forward to opportunities to share in the ongoing efforts of the Reformation today.

Luther on Ghosts & Purgatory

I probably should have posted this in October. Below is an excerpt from Luther's Easter Tuesday sermon "delivered at home, in the Lutherhalle, 1533." The complete text is located in The Complete Sermons of Martin Luther Volume 6 (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2000), pp.32-40.

Luther preached on Luke 24:36-47. In this text, Jesus appeared suddenly to his disciples, even though the doors were locked.

Luther makes a few comments about ghosts:

First there is this, that the disciples, when the Lord suddenly comes to them through locked doors, are frightened by him, and think it is a spirit. From these words we learn that it is not a new thing that people may see spirits. For the Lord himself does not deny that spirits make themselves visible, but rather confirms it by making a distinction between the spirits and himself. He says to the disciples, Why are you frightened and thinking such things? "Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see me have."

So if we stop there, it appears Luther is granting the validity of ghosts. But he continues by saying ghosts are satanic manifestations:

It is useful and necessary to know that we are not so alone, as if the devil were a hundred miles or more removed from us; he is everywhere around us and sometimes puts on a mask. I have seen him myself appearing as if he were a pig, a burning wisp of straw, or something like that.

Yes, I did chuckle at the notion of a satanic pig. Luther then points out how ghostly manifestations were understood during his time period. It appears that ghosts were understood to be people in purgatory, coming back to have masses said for them:

You have to know this, and it prevents us from making a superstition out of it and considering such spirits to be souls of men, as has happened up to now, and by it the popish mass has been much promoted and exalted. For when the devil lets himself be seen or heard in this way, everybody mistakes it for human souls desiring Mass to be held for them, so that they may be rescued out of purgatory. The books are full of such stories. But what kind of grievous errors and idolatry ensue, alas, we know only too well.

For this is how we got purgatory, for in purgatory one later receives the merit of his own and others' good works, as if these were of benefit to the departed. It is easy to appreciate how through such false doctrine, the death and resurrection of Christ are diminished and works are elevated. In the third place, from this has resulted the horrible abomination of the Mass, by which the sacrifice of Christ has become completely obscured and the Lord's Supper twisted and horribly abused, as if it were instituted for the benefit of the dead and not the living. Such a shameful thing has arisen entirely from such superstition. The devil disguised himself and appeared here and there in various ways, and everyone believed it to be not the devil but a human soul. Otherwise, if they had known it to be the devil, they would have been slow to believe him, for everyone knows that he is a murderer and a liar. It is for that reason that even Christ himself during his earthly ministry did not want the devil's testimony, even when he was telling the truth, as we see in the first chapter of Mark and in other places, where Christ forbade him to speak, not wanting his testimony, even though he told the truth.

Luther's View of Money

"His view of property is thoroughly mediaeval. It is identical with that of the scholastic doctors. Nummus non paret nummum (Money does not produce money), was for him, as for them, a fixed principle. Any effort to make money productive seemed to him to be sinful, contrary to the law of nature, and a violation of the laws of God, contained in the Old and the New Testaments. It had its roots in avarice, and the fruit of avarice is usury. That many of the practices which he rebuked are fundamentally dishonest, is a fact that no one will deny; but it is also a fact that Luther had no more idea of economic laws, as we understand them, than he had of the law of gravitation.

In estimating his views, we have also to take account of his own personal attitude toward wealth. Few men have ever lived who were more utterly indifferent to money. For him it was not a thing to be striven after, but only a means of livelihood and a resource with which to relieve the necessities of others. For this reason he was sure to see avarice where others might see only prudence."- editors comment

Source: Works of Martin Luther, Volume IV (Philadelphia: The Muhlenberg Press, 1931),10.

Various Luther tidbits...

I recently dialoged with Ben (also known as raumzeitmc2) on the Catholic Answers forums. He's been busy posting all sorts of Luther tidbits over on DA's blog, to which DA responds, "More fascinating inquiries . . . you just keep comin' up with 'em! You should put a book together." What was fascinating? It was the assertion that Luther's father was a murderer, via this from Google books. For a response to this outdated research, see: Was Luther's Father a Murderer?

Another commenter, Jerry, has been bedazzled by the old PBS web page, 10 things you did not know about Luther. Jerry let's us know it stated, "Luther thoroughly approved even advocated drinking heavily. When a young man wrote to him complaining of despair at the prospect of going to hell, Luther wrote back advising him to go and get drunk. That, he said, was what he did when he felt despair." For a response see, PBS Presents “Facts” That Luther Advocated Drunkenness and Promiscuity.

It appears some of the "Luther" battle between Catholic apologists Matthew Bellisario and DA as documented by DA has been removed, although some of the comment boxes seem to be extant, minus DA's insights. Yes I know, I should be ashamed at having set this clash of the titans in motion, but unless you watched it live, the rerun has been edited. Well, it was interesting, that's for sure. Over on Matthew's blog, we find the following comment: "As a protestant Matthew I believe your conclusions were right on in regards to Luther. No need to apologize. James is apparently a bully and somewhat jerkish."

I very briefly got involved with this discussion last week: New Luther’s Works and a New Work on Luther? posted by an ex-Lutheran turned Catholic named David Schütz. He makes some interesting comments:

"I am usually a bit coy about Catholic books about Luther. There have been many good scholary works done (as a youngster I bought and still prize this one by Peter Manns), but polemical works by people who have never known Luther “from the inside” (as it were) usually tend to get the poor old fellow wrong one way or another."

A commenter on this post stated, "Peruse, James Swan’s site and see how much he treats things out of context..." By all means, please do so!