"this Easter" the Elector of the Palatinate has publicly affirmed the gospel; the Pope continues to play games with the council, of which the opening date has been postponed.
On Duke Albrecht of Prussia, see LW 49, 60.
Text in German: WA, Br 11, 88–84.1
Grace and peace in the Lord!
Illustrious, Noble, Gracious Sir! The bearer of this letter, Christopher Albert von Kunheim,2 has asked me for it and urged me [to write it], though I have no special reason for writing. Yet his desire to be recommended to Your Sovereign Grace by me and to bring my [letter of] testimony [to Your Sovereign
Grace], and in addition my knowledge that Your Sovereign Grace would endure my writing with gracious patience—these were sufficient reasons for me [to write this letter].
We have no news. One says the Turk is coming, the other says he is staying away.3 It is certain, however, that neither Emperor,4 nor King,5 nor sovereigns are preparing for war.6 The Emperor is beginning to persecute the gospel severely in the Netherlands.7 May God prevent it. Amen.
By God's grace, the [Arch]bishop of Cologne still stands firm.8 Further, Count-Palatine Frederick, the elector, and his wife have accepted the gospel.9 This Easter they publicly took the sacrament in both kinds and [thus] affirmed [the gospel]. God be praised and honored; may he strengthen them.10 Amen. The Roman abomination11 continues to mock the Emperor and the Empire with his council;12 he has postponed it from Laetare Sunday to [St.] Michael's Day.13 In Ferrara it is said that it is a long time till then.14 For once this is at least a word of truth coming from this lying mouth,15 since for all eternity the papists are unable to endure a council.16
With this I commend [Your Sovereign Grace] to the dear God. Amen. I also commend this Kunheim17 to Your Sovereign Grace, for he is a good chap who behaved very well here.
Your Sovereign Grace's willing servant, MARTIN LUTHER, DOCTOR To Elector John Frederick [Wittenberg,] May 7, 1545 Luther sends some material pertaining to articles issued by the Theological Faculty of Louvain and deplores the fact that the Emperor has affirmed these articles. Luther also comments on news and rumors about the Council of Trent; he considers such news to be gossip spread by the papists, who he thinks will do everything possible to forestall the opening of the council for they fear that a council would endanger them. Should there be a council anyhow,says Luther, it would accomplish nothing but nonsense.
On Elector John Frederick, see LW 48, 181 f.
Text in German: WA, Br 11, 88.1
To the Most Illustrious, Noble Sovereign and Lord, Sir John Frederick, duke in Saxony, archmarshal and electorof the Holy Roman Empire, landgrave in Thuringia, margrave in Meissen, and count of the castle in Magdeburg, my Most Gracious Lord
Grace and peace in the Lord, and my poor Pater noster!2 Most Illustrious, Noble Sovereign, Most Gracious Lord! I am sending to Your Electoral Grace my answer to the articles issued at Louvain, for about eight days ago we also received them in print.3 It is very good that these miserable people betray and destroy themselves in this way. In the Emperor's letter they are called his, that is, the emperor's daughter.4
O unfortunate emperor who must be the father of such a great, disgraceful, abominable whore! All right, the pope5 is mad and foolish from the top of his head to his heels, so that his followers do not know what they are doing or saying. There is no doubt that, should a council be opened, the papists would produce similar wisdom, and even worse, in this council. But I think they certainly are clever enough—especially their holy spirit, [the man from] Mainz6—to let the council remain out in the field like unripe barley,7 even though they cannot stop prating about it.
The other item—the news8 about the council at Trent and those who supposedly are present there—I consider to be gossip and nonsense spread by the men at Rome and Mainz,9 [and] they certainly will have
- 78 to regret it, should it come true.10 God does not want them and they do not want him either. So let it be; all will turn out well.
With this I commend Your Electoral Grace to the dear God who, for the sake of putting his gracious and perfect will into operation, is to rule and protect Your Electoral Grace. Amen.
Your Electoral Grace's dedicated MARTIN LUTHER, DOCTOR In the opening sentence of letter No. 307 Luther referred to thirty-two theses issued in December of 1544 by the Theological Faculty of the University of Louvain, in which the teachings of the evangelicals were summarized, briefly explained, and refuted (text of theses: WA 54, 417 ff.; LW 34, 346 ff.). At the end of April/beginning of May, Luther and Melanchthon had these theses in hand; they had received a printed copy of the theses from a "certain friend." See the statement above, p. 256, and p. 251, n. 10; WA,
Br 11, 85 (May 2); C. R. 5, 753 (May 1); Kawerau, Jonas Briefwechsel 2, 161. Shortly thereafter the Elector also sent a copy of these theses to Luther, which the Elector had received from Landgrave Philip of Hesse (see LW 49, 124 n. 8). On June 6 (not May 10 as is stated in WA 54, 414) the Elector returned this copy to the Landgrave, saying that Luther had returned the copy to him and enclosing a copy of Luther's "writing"; see C. G. Neudecker (ed.), Merkwürdige Aktenstücke aus dem Zeitalter der
Reformation 1 (Nürnberg, 1838), 450 f. It is commonly assumed (Neudecker, loc. cit.; Clemen, see p. 256, n. 3) that the enclosed copy of Luther's "writing" was a copy of letter No. 307, and that letter No. 307 was the covering letter with which Luther returned the Elector's—i.e., the Landgrave's—copy; Luther had no use for this copy since about eight days earlier he had already received a copy of the articles (see p. 256), and since he was requested to return this copy (see Neudecker, loc. cit.). Consequently one would have to translate Luther's statement as: "I am returning … the articles, issued at Louvain," as Clemen argues (see p. 256, n. 3). That Luther did indeed return the articles to the Elector is obvious from the fact that the Elector returned the articles to the Landgrave; and it is almost certain that Letter No. 307 was the covering letter.
In light of the notation on the autograph of letter No. 307 (see p. 255, n. 1), however, the situation is more complex than it seems to be at first glance, and the translation "I am returning" is problematic, a fact overlooked by Clemen. The notation clearly states that, along with this letter, Luther is sending something which he has written against the theologians of Louvain. This suggests that as early as May 7 Luther's refutation of the Louvain articles was completed, at least the manuscript of it, and that on May 7 Luther not only returned the Landgrave's copy to the Elector, but also sent a copy of his own refutation to the Elector. He was able to work on this refutation because he had received a copy of the Louvain articles almost eight days ago. If this were indeed so then one wonders why it took so long (from the beginning of May to the end of August/beginning of September,) to have this refutation (in the form of theses; WA, 54,
425 ff.; LW 34, 354 ff.) of six pages in quarto published. One may want to get around this difficulty by arguing that the notation was made after the refutation had been published and found its way to the Electoral court, i.e., some time in September, or that the notation was made even later than that date at a time when the clerk or whoever made the notation no longer knew the precise circumstances. These arguments are weak, for if the "writing" of Luther, of which the Elector sent a copy to the Landgrave on June 6, was indeed letter No. 307 then this letter must have been in the chancellery by June 6 for the purpose of being copied; it is extremely awkward to assume that the notation was not made at that time, i.e., at the time of receipt of the original, but later on.
A closer examination of the text further makes clear that Clemen's interpretation and the alternate translation, presented on p. 256, n. 3, are not as definite as they appear to be. Luther wrote: Ich Schicke
Ekfg [to your Electoral Grace] wider die Artickel zu Loüen gestellet. The problem is caused by the word wider. Clemen assumes that wider (in the sense of the present-day German wieder, i.e., "again, anew, afresh") is to be connected with schicke to mean "I am sending again," or "I am returning." This meaning is supported by the circumstances surrounding this copy (Luther had received it from the Elector, did not need it, returned it to the Elector who, in turn, returned it to the Landgrave). But this adverbial usage of wider is not the only meaning which Luther used, in fact it is not even the predominant one. (For details, see J. Erben, Grundzüge einer Syntax der Sprache Luthers [Berlin, 1954], s.v. wider.) Wider in the sense
- 79 of the present-day German wider or "against" can be connected with gestellet so that one would have to translate: "I am sending [what I have put together] against the articles issued at Louvain." In this case wider would be understood as a preposition which has its object in "the articles issued at Louvain." And the whole prepositional phrase would be the object of ich schicke. Since the text and context do not help us to establish which meaning Luther had in mind one has to rely on the surrounding circumstances, i.e., the notation on the autograph. Certainly the clerk or whoever made this notation understood Luther to say that he, Luther, was sending his refutation of the Louvain articles. Or should one have to suggest that the clerk totally misunderstood Luther, or that the notation was made at a time so far removed from the event that no one knew any longer what actually happened? This is of course possible, but is it probable?
If one adopts the prepositional meaning of wider then one would have to suppose that on May 7 Luther sent to the Elector a manuscript of his refutation of the Louvain articles; he also returned the copy of the Louvain articles which he had received from the Elector, though he did not specially mention it because he considered them a part of his refutation. Since Luther had been in possession of the articles for approximately eight days, he had had time to work on his reply; since the reply was in the form of theses, rather than a pamphlet or book, Luther could easily have "dashed it off" in this short time, esp. since at the conclusion of the theses Luther "promised" to say more on the subject soon (WA 54, 430; LW 34, 360).
Thus Luther's Against the Thirty-two Articles the Louvain Theologists would have been written in the first week of May, 1545, and not some time during the summer of 1545 (as one has to assume on the basis of (That Luther's refutation was completed by May 7 can be also seen from the following observations:
On April 14 Luther informed von Amsdorf that he had not yet decided whether he would respond to the latest attack of the Zwinglians; if he would respond at all then it would be only briefly. See WA, Br 11, 71.
On May 8, i.e., one day after Luther [supposedly] sent a copy of his refutation of the Louvain articles to the Elector, Luther informed von Amsdorf that he has decided not to reply to the Zwinglians, except for a brief indirect remark, and that he has more to do than read the writings of the Zwinglians who never come to terms with the issues anyhow; WA, Br 11, 95. Luther arrived at this decision because he could consider his brief remarks made in the refutation of the Louvain articles [see Luther's theses, Latin text, Nos. XV,
XXVII] sufficient, at least for the time being. By June 15 Luther had changed his mind, for on that day he informed von Amsdorf that he was in the process of planning a short book against the sacramentarians, but that a sudden stone attack "last night" interrupted his work; WA, Br 11, 120 f.)
If Luther's refutation of the 1544 articles of the Louvain theologians had indeed been completed by May 7 why did Luther send a manuscript copy of this refutation to the Elector, and why did it take so long
(i.e., from the beginning of May to the end of August/beginning of September) to have the refutation published? The answer to the first question can be derived from the nature of the Louvain articles.
Because of the Emperor's approval of the articles (see p. 256, n. 4), they were not only a theological "slander" of the evangelicals, but also a political and legal document which could have major consequences; therefore Luther felt it necessary to inform his territorial lord of his own position on the articles at the earliest possible moment. The second question cannot be exactly answered but the following observations may help to understand the situation. At the time that Luther became acquainted with the Louvain articles he was occupied with the question whether to write something against the Zwinglians
(see above; April 14, May 8, June 15). He was also occupied with planning and was actually working on another book against the papacy; WA, Br 11, 72 (April 14), 91 (May 7), 120 (June 15), 177 (September
23). Further, Luther's health was poor (see p. 267, n. 14); in July and August Luther was away from Wittenberg (see pp. 273 ff.), and Melanchthon had ideas about a response to the articles (C. R. 5, 758;
May 22). And finally, the printers might have been busy. In view of these circumstances it is not quite as strange as it appears at first glance for Luther to have put his refutation aside for a while—perhaps even until after he returned to Wittenberg in the middle of August—esp. if one considers the fact that Luther could have felt at ease about the matter since his position on the articles had been made known to the Elector. In any case, Luther considered his refutation, once it was printed, insufficient—was this because he had "dashed it off" in the first week of May?—and at once prepared a book against the theologians of Louvain (WA, Br 11, 177 [September 28]; C. R. 5, 848 [September 9]) and started to work on it (see p.