"An Open Letter to The Christian Nobility"
By Martin Luther, 1520
Translation by C. M. Jacobs



COVER LETTERS:


To the Esteemed and Reverend Master
NICHOLAS VON AMSDORF
Licentiate Of holy Scripture and Canon at Wittenberg,
my special and kind friend;
Doctor Martin Luther.

The grace and peace of God be with thee, esteemed and reverend dear sir and
friend.

The time to keep silence has passed and the time to (Eccl 3:7) speak is come,
as saith Ecclesiastes. I have followed out intention[1] and brought together
some matters touching the reform of the Christian Estate, to be laid before
the Christian Nobility of the German Nation, in the hope that may deign to
help His Church through the efforts of the laity, since the clergy, to whom
this task more properly belongs, have grown quite indifferent. I am sending
the whole thing to your Reverence, that you may pass judgment on it and, if
necessary, improve it.

I know full well that I shall not escape the charge of presumption in that I,
a despised monk, venture to address such high and great Estates on matters of
such moment, and to give advice to people of such high intelligence. I shall
offer no apologies, no matter who may chide me. Perchance I owe my God and
the world another pie of folly, and I have now made up my mind honestly to pay
that debt, if I can do so, and for once to become court jester; if I fail, I
still have one advantage,--no one need buy me a cap or cut me my comb.[2] It
is a question which one will put the bells on the other.[3] I must fulfill the
proverb, "Whatever the world does, a monk must be it, even if he has to be
painted in."[4] More than once a fool has spoken wisely, and wise men often
have been arrant (1 Cor 3:18) fools, as Paul says, "If any one will be wise,
let him become a fool." Moreover since I am not only a fool, but also a sworn
doctor of Holy Scripture, I am glad for the chant to fulfill my doctor's oath
in this fool's way.

I pray you, make my excuses to the moderately intelligent, for I know not 
how to earn the grace and favor of the immoderately intelligent, though I have
often sought to do with great pains. Henceforth I neither desire nor regard
their favor. God help us to seek not our own glory, but His alone! Amen.

Wittenberg, in the house of the Augustinians, 
on the Eve of St. John the Baptist (June 23d), 
in the year fifteen hundred and twenty.

_____________________________________________


To His Most Illustrious and Mighty Imperial Majesty,
and to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation,
Doctor Martin Luther.

Grace and power from God, Most Illustrious Majesty, and most gracious and
dear Lords.

It is not out of sheer forwardness or rashness that I, a single, poor man,
have undertaken to address your worships. The distress and oppression which
weigh down all the Estates of Christendom, especially of Germany, and which
move not me alone, but everyone to cry out time and again, and to pray for
help,[5] have forced me even now to cry aloud that God may inspire some one
with His Spirit to lend this suffering nation a helping hand. Oft times the
councils[6] made some presence at reformation, but their attempts have been
cleverly hindered by the guile of certain men and things have gone from bad to
worse. I now intend, by the help of God, to throw some light upon the wiles
and wickedness of these men, to the end that when they are known, they may not
henceforth be so hurtful and so great a hindrance. God has given us a noble
youth to be our head and thereby has awakened great hopes of good in many 
hearts;[7] wherefore it is meet that we should do our part and profitably use
this time of grace.

In this whole matter the first and most important thing is that we take
earnest heed not to enter on it trusting great might or in human reason, even
though all power in the world were ours; for God cannot and will not suffer a
good work to be begun with trust in our own power or reason. Such works He
crushes ruthlessly to earth, as it (Ps. 33:16) is written in the xxiii Psalm,
"There is no king saved by the multitude of an host: a mighty man is
not delivered by much strength." On this account, I fear, it came to pass of
old that the good Emperors Frederick I[8] and II[9] and many other German
emperors were shamefully oppressed and trodden under foot by the popes,
although all the world feared them. It may be that they relied on own might
more than on God, and therefore they had to fall. In our own times, too, what
was it that raised the bloodthirsty Julius II[10] to such heights? Nothing
else, I fear, except that France, the Germans and Venice relied (Judges 20:21)
upon themselves. The children of Benjamin slew 42,000 Israelites[11] because
the latter relied on their own strength.

That it may not so fare with us and our noble young Emperor Charles, we must
be sure that in this matter are dealing not with men, but with the princes of
hell, who can fill the world with war and bloodshed, but whom war and
bloodshed do not overcome. We must go at this work despairing of physical
force and humbly trusting God; we must seek God's help with earnest prayer,
and fix our minds on nothing else than the misery and distress of suffering 
Christendom, without regard to the deserts of evil men. Otherwise we may
start the game with great prospect of success, but when we get well into it
the evil spirits will stir up such confusion that the whole world will swim in
blood, and yet nothing will come of it. Let us act wisely, therefore, and in
the fear of God. The more force we use, the greater our disaster if we do not
act humbly and in God's fear. The popes and the Romans have hitherto been
able, by the devil's help, to set kings at odds with one another, and they may
well be able to do it again, if we proceed by our own might and cunning,
without God's help.



I. THE THREE WALLS OF THE ROMANISTS

The Romanists[1], with great adroitness, have built three walls about them,
behind which they have hitherto defended themselves in such wise that no one
has been able to reform them; and this has been the cause of terrible
corruption throughout all Christendom.

First, when pressed by The temporal power, they have made decrees and said
that the temporal power has no jurisdiction over them, but, on the other
hand, that the spiritual is above the temporal power. Second, when the
attempt is made to reprove them out of the Scriptures, they raise the
objection that the interpretation of the Scriptures belongs to no one except
the pope. Third, if threatened with a council, they answer with the fable
that no one can call a council but the pope.

In this wise they have slyly stolen from us our three rods[2], that they may
go unpunished, and have ensconced themselves within the safe stronghold of
these three walls, that they may practice all the knavery and wickedness which
we now see. Even when they have been compelled to hold a council they have
weakened its power in advance by previously binding the princes with an oath
to let them remain as they are. Moreover, they have given the pope full
authority over all the decisions of the council, so that it is all one whether
there are many councils or no councils,--except that they deceive us with
puppet-shows and sham-battles. So terribly do they fear for their skin in a
really free council! And they have intimidated kings and princes by making
them believe it would be an offense against God not to obey them in all these
knavish, crafty deceptions.[3]

Josh. 6:20 Now God help us, and give us one of the trumpets with which the
walls of Jericho were overthrown, that we may blow down these walls of straw
and paper, and may set free the Christian rods for the punishment of sin,
bringing to light the craft and deceit of the devil, to the end that through
punishment we may reform ourselves, and once more attain God's favor.

Against the first wall we will direct our first attack.

It is pure invention that pope, bishops, priests and monks are to be called
the "spiritual estate"; princes, lords, artisans, and farmers the "temporal
estate." That is indeed a fine bit of lying and hypocrisy. Yet no one should
be frightened by it; and for this reason--viz., that all Christians are truly
of the "spiritual estate," and there is among them no difference at all but
that of office, as Paul says in I Corinthians 12:12, We are all one body, yet
every member has its own work, where by it serves every other, all because we
have one baptism, one Gospel, one faith, and are all alike Christians; for
baptism, Gospel and faith alone make us "spiritual" and a Christian people.

But that a pope or a bishop anoints, confers tonsures; ordains, consecrates,
or prescribes dress unlike that of the laity, this may make hypocrites and
graven images,[4] but it never makes a Christian or "spiritual" man. Through
baptism all of us are consecrated to the priesthood, as St. Peter says in
I Peter 2:9, "Ye are a royal priesthood, a priestly kingdom," and the book of
Revelation says, Rev. 5:10 "Thou hast made us by Thy blood to be priests and
kings." For if we had no higher consecration than pope or bishop gives, the
consecration by pope or bishop would never make a priest, nor might anyone
either say mass or preach a sermon or give absolution. Therefore when the
bishop consecrates it is the same thing as if he, in the place and stead of
the whole congregation, all of whom have like power, were to take one out of
their number and charge him to use this power for the others; just as though
ten brothers, all king's sons and equal heirs, were to choose one of
themselves to rule the inheritance for them all,--they would all be kings and
equal in power, though one of them would be charged with the duty of ruling. 

To make it still clearer. If a little group of pious Christian laymen were
taken captive and set down in a wilderness , and had among them no priest
consecrated by a bishop, and if there in the wilderness they were to agree in
choosing one of themselves, married or unmarried, and were to charge him with
the office of baptizing, saying mass, absolving and preaching, such a man
would be as truly a priest as though all bishops and popes had consecrated
him. That is why in cases of necessity any one can baptize and give
absolution,[5] which would be impossible unless we were all priests. This
great grace and power of baptism and of the Christian Estate they have
well-nigh destroyed and caused us to forget through The canon law.[6] It was
in the manner aforesaid that Christians in olden days chose from their number
bishops and priests, who were afterwards confirmed by other bishops, without
all the show which now obtains. It was Thus that Sts. Augustine,[7] Ambrose[8]
and Cyprian[9] became bishops.

Since, then, the temporal authorities are baptized with the same baptism and
have the same faith and Gospel as we, we must grant that they are priests and
bishops, and count their office one which has a proper and a useful place in
the Christian community. For whoever comes out the water of baptism[10] can
boast that he is already consecrated priest, bishop and pope, though it is not
seemly that every one should exercise the office. Nay, just because we are all
in like manner priests, no one must put himself forward and undertake, without
our consent and election, to do what is in the power of all of us. For what is
common to all, no one dare take upon himself without the will and the command
of the community; and should it happen that one chosen for such an office were
deposed for malfeasance, he would then be just what he was before he held
office. Therefore a priest in Christendom is nothing else than an office-
holder. While he is in office, he has precedence; when deposed, he is a 
peasant or a townsman like the rest. Beyond all doubt, then, a priest is no 
longer a priest when he is deposed. But now they have invented characters 
indelebilis,[11] and prate that a deposed priest is nevertheless something 
different from a mere layman. They even dream that a priest can never become 
a layman, or be anything else than a priest. All this is mere talk and 
man-made law. 

From all this it follows that there is really no difference between laymen and
priests, princes and bishops, "spirituals" and "temporals," as they call them,
except that of office and work, but not of "estate"; for they are all of the
same estate,[12]--true priests, bishops and popes,--though they are not all
engaged in the same work, just as all priests and monks have not the same
work. This is the teaching of St. Paul in Romans 12:4 and I Corinthians 12:12,
and of St. Peter in I Peter 2:9, as I have said above, viz., that we are all
one body of Christ, the Head, all members one of another. Christ has not two
different bodies, one "temporal ," the other "spiritual." He is one Head, and
He has One body.

Therefore, just as Those who are now called "spiritual"--priests, bishops or
popes--are neither different from other Christians nor superior to them,
except that they are charged with the administration of the Word of God and
the sacraments, which is their work and office, so it is with the temporal
authorities,--they bear sword and rod with which to punish the evil and to
protect die good. A cobbler, a smith, a farmer, each has the work and office
of his trade, and yet they are all alike consecrated priests and bishops, and
every one by means of his own work or office must benefit and serve every
other, that in this way many kinds of work may be done for the bodily and
spiritual welfare of the community, even as all the members of the body serve
one another.

See, now, how Christian is the decree which says that the temporal power is
not above the "spiritual estate" and may not punish it.[13] That is as much
as to say that the hand shall lend no aid when the eye is suffering. Is it not
unnatural, not to say unchristian, that one member should not help another
and prevent its destruction? Verily, the more honorable the member, the more
should the others help. I say then, since the temporal power is ordained of 
God to punish evil-doers and to protect them that do well, it should therefore
be left free to perform it office without hindrance through the whole body of 
Christendom without respect of persons, whether it affect pope, bishops,
priests, monks, nuns or anybody else. For if the mere fact that the temporal
power has a smaller place among The Christian offices than has the office of 
preachers or confessors, or of the clergy, then the tailors, cobblers, masons,
carpenters, pot-boys, tapsters, farmers, and all the secular tradesmen, should
also be prevented from providing pope, bishops, priests and monks with shoes,
clothing, houses, meat and drink, and from paying them tribute. But if these
laymen are allowed to do their work unhindered, what do the Roman scribes
mean by their laws, with which they withdraw themselves from the
jurisdiction of the temporal Christian power, only so that the may be free
to do evil and to fulfill what St. Peter has said: 2. Peter 2:1 "There shall be
false teachers among you, and through covetousness shall they with feigned
words make merchandise of you." 

On this account the Christian temporal power should exercise its office
without let or hindrance, regardless whether it be pope, bishop or priest whom
it affects; whoever is guilty, let him suffer. All that the canon law has said
to the contrary is sheer invention of Roman presumption. For Thus saith St.
Paul to all Christians: Roman 13:1, 4 "Let every soul (I take that to mean
the pope's soul also) be subject unto the higher powers; for they bear not the
sword in vain, but are the ministers of God for the punishment of evildoers,
and for the praise of them that do well." St. Peter also says: 1 Peter
2:13, 15 "Submit yourselves unto every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake,
for so is the will of God" He has also prophesied that such men shall come as
will despise the temporal authorities; and this has come to pass through the
canon law.

So then, I think this first paper-wall is overthrown, since the temporal power
has become a member of the body of Christendom, and is of the "spiritual
estate," though its work is of a temporal nature. Therefore its work should
extend freely and without hindrance to all the members of the whole body; it
should punish and use force whenever guilt deserves or necessity demands,
without regard to pope, bishops and priests,-let them hail threats and bans as
much as they will. 

Again, it is intolerable that in the canon law so much importance is attached
to the freedom, life and property of the clergy, as though the laity were not
also as spiritual as good Christians as they, or did not belong to the Church.
Why are your life and limb, your property and honor so free, and mine not? We
are all alike Christians, and have baptism, faith, Spirit and all things
alike. If a priest is killed, the land is laid under interdict,[15]--why
not when a peasant is killed? Whence comes this great distinction between
those who are equally Christians? Only from human laws and inventions! 

Moreover, it can be no good spirit who has invented such exceptions and
granted to sin such license and impunity. For if we are bound to strive
against the works and words of the evil spirit, and to drive him out in
whatever way we can, as Christ commands and His Apostles, ought we, then
to suffer it in silence when the pope or his satellites are bent on devilish
words and works? Ought we for the sake of men to allow the suppression of
divine commandments and truths which we have sworn in baptism to support
with life and limb? Of a truth we should then have to answer all the souls that
would thereby be abandoned and it astray. 

It must therefore have been the very prince of devils who said what is
written in the canon law: "If the pope were so scandalously bad as to lead
souls in crowds to the devil, yet he could not be deposed."[16] On this
accursed and devilish foundation they build at Rome, and think that we should
let all the world go to the devil, rather than resist their knavery. If the
fact that one man is set over others were sufficient reason why he should
escape punishment, then no Christian could punish another, since Christ 
commands that every man shall esteem himself the lowliest and the least. 

Where sin is, there is no escape from punishment; as St. Gregory[17] also
writes that we are indeed all equal, but guilt puts us in subjection one to
another. Now we see how they whom God and the Apostles have made subject to
the temporal sword deal with Christendom, depriving it of its liberty by their
own wickedness, without warrant of Scripture. It is to be feared that this is
a game of Antichrist[18] or a sign that he is close at hand. 

The second wall[19] is still more flimsy and worthless. They wish to be the
only Masters of The Holy Scriptures,[20] even though in all their lives they
learn nothing from them. They assume for themselves sole authority, and with
insolent juggling of words they would persuade us that the pope, whether he be
a bad man or a good man, cannot err in matters of faith,[21] and yet they
cannot prove a single letter of it. Hence it comes that so many heretical and
unchristian, nay, even unnatural ordinances have a place in the canon law, of
which, however, there is no present need to speak. For since they think that
the Holy Spirit never leaves them, be they never so unlearned and wicked, they
make bold to decree whatever they will. And if it were true, where would be
the need or use of Holy Scriptures? Let us burn them, and be satisfied with
the unlearned lords at Rome, who are possessed of the Holy Spirit,--although
He can possess only pious hearts! Unless I had read it myself,[22] I could
not have believed that the devil would make such clumsy pretensions at Rome,
and find a following. 

But not to fight them with mere words, we will quote the Scriptures. St. Paul
says in I Corinthians 14:30: "If to anyone something better is revealed,
though he be sitting and listening to another in God's Word, then the first,
who is speaking, shall hold his peace and give place." What would be the use
of this commandment, if we were only to believe him who does the talking or
who has the highest seat? Christ also says in John 6:45, that all Christians 
shall be taught of God. Thus it may well happen that the pope and his
followers are wicked men, and no true Christians, not taught of God, not
having true understanding. On the other hand, an ordinary man may have true
understanding; why then should we not follow him? Has not the pope erred many
times? Who would help Christendom when the pope errs, if we were not to
believe another, who had the Scriptures on his side, more than the pope? 

Therefore it is a wickedly invented fable, and they cannot produce a letter in
defense of it, that the interpretation of Scripture or the confirmation of its
interpretation belongs to the pope alone. They have themselves usurped this
power; and although they allege that this power was given to Peter when the
keys were given to him, it is plain enough that the keys were not given to
Peter alone, but to the whole community.[23] Moreover, the keys were not
ordained for doctrine or government, but only for the binding and loosing of
they arrogate to themselves is mere invention But Christ's word to Peter, Luke
22:32 "I have prayed for thee that thy faith fall not," cannot be applied to
the pope, since the majority of the popes have been without faith, as they
must themselves confess. Besides, it is not only for Peter that Christ
prayed, but also for all Apostles and Christians, as he says in John 17:9, 20: 
"Father, I pray for those whom Thou hast given Me, and not for these only, but
for all who believe on Me through their word." Is not this clear enough? 

Only think of it yourself! They must confess that there are pious Christians
among us, who have the true faith, Spirit, understanding, word and mind of
Christ. Why, then, should we reject their word and understanding and follow
the pope, who has neither faith nor Spirit? That would be to deny the whole
faith and the Christian Church. Moreover, it is not the pope alone who is
always in the right, if the article of The Creed is correct: "I believe one
holy Christian Church"; otherwise the prayer must run: "I believe in the pope
at Rome," and so reduce the Christian Church to one man,--which would be
nothing else than a devilish and hellish error. 

Besides, if we are all priests, as was said above, [24] and all have one
faith, one Gospel, one sacrament, why should we not also have the power to
test and judge what is correct or incorrect in matters of faith? What becomes
of the words of Paul in I Corinthians 2:15: "He that is spiritual judgeth all
things, yet he himself is judged of no man," II Corinthians 4:13: "We have
all the same Spirit of faith"? Why, then, should not we perceive what squares
with faith and what does not, as well as does an unbelieving pope? 

All these and many other texts should make us bold and free, and we should
not allow the Spirit of liberty, as Paul calls Him, to be frightened off
by the fabrications of the popes, but we ought to go boldly forward to test
all that they do or leave undone, according to our interpretation of the
Scriptures, which rests on faith, and compel them to follow not their own 
interpretation, but the one that is better. In the olden days Abraham had to
listen to Sarah, although she was in more complete subjection to him than we
are to anyone on earth. Balaam's ass, also, was wiser than the prophet
himself. If God then spoke an ass against a prophet, why should He not be able
even now to speak by a righteous man against the pope? In like manner St. Paul
rebukes St. Peter as a man in error. Therefore it behooves every Christian to
espouse the cause of the faith, to understand and defend it, and to rebuke
errors.

The third wall falls of itself when the first two are down. For when the
pope acts contrary to the Scriptures, it is our duty to stand by the
Scriptures, to reprove him, and to constrain him, according to the word of
Christ in Matthew 18:15: "If thy brother sin against thee, go and tell it him
between thee and him alone; if he hear thee not, then take with thee one or
two more; if he hear them not, tell it to the Church; if he hear not the
Church, consider him a heathen." Here every member is commanded to care for
every other. How much rather should we do this when the member that does evil
is a ruling member, and by his evil-doing is the cause of much harm and
offense to the rest! But if I am to accuse him before the Church, I must
bring the Church together.

They have no basis in Scripture for their contention that it belongs to the
pope alone to call a council or confirm its actions;[25] for this is based
merely upon their own laws, which are valid only in so far as they are not
injurious to Christendom or contrary to the laws of God. When the pope
deserves punishment, such laws go out of force, since it is injurious to
Christendom not to punish him by means of a council. 

Thus we read in Acts 15:6 that it was not St. Peter who called the Apostolic
Council, but the Apostles and elders. If, then, that right had belonged to
St. Peter alone, the council would not have been a Christian council, but an
heretical conciliabulum.[26] Even the Council of Nicaea--the most famous
of all-was neither called nor confirmed by the Bishop of Rome, but by the
Emperor Constantine,[27] and many other emperors after him did the like, 
yet these councils were the most Christian of all.[28] But if the pope alone
had the right to call councils, then all then all councils must have been
heretical. Moreover, if I consider the councils which the pope has created, I
find that they have done nothing of special importance. 

Therefore, when necessity demands, and the pope is an offense to Christendom,
the first man who is able should, a faithful member of the whole body, do what
he can to bring about a truly free council.[29] No one can do this so well as
the temporal authorities, especially since now they also are fellow-Christians,
fellow-priests, "fellow-spirituals,"[30] fellow-lords over all things, and
whenever it is needful or profitable, they should give free course to office
and work in which God has put them above every man. Would it not be an 
unnatural thing, if a fire broke out in a city, and everybody were to stand by 
and it burn on and on and consume everything that could burn, for the sole 
reason that nobody had the authority of the burgomaster, or because, perhaps, 
the fire broke in the burgomaster's house? In such case is it not the duty of 
every citizen to arouse and call the rest? How much more should this be done in
the spiritual city of Christ, if a fire of offense breaks out, whether in the
papal government, or anywhere else? In the same way, if the enemy attacks
a city, he who first rouses the others deserves honor and thanks; why then
should he not deserve honor who makes known the presence of the enemy
from hell, awakens the Christians, and calls them together? 

But all their boasts of an authority which dare not opposed amount to nothing
after all. No one in Christendom has authority to do injury, or to forbid the
resisting of injury. There is no authority in the Church save edification.
Therefore, if the pope were to use his authority to prevent the calling of a
free council, and thus became a hindrance to the edification of the Church, we
should have regard neither for him nor for his authority; and if he were to
hurl his bans and thunderbolts, we should despise his conduct as that of a
madman, and relying on God, hurl back the ban on him, and coerce him as best
we could. For this presumptuous authority of his is nothing; he has no such
authority, and he is quickly overthrown by a text of Scripture; for Paul says
to the Corinthians, II Corinthians 10:8 "God has given us authority not for
the destruction, but for the edification of Christendom." Who is ready to
overleap this text? It is only the power of the devil and of Antichrist which
resists the things that serve for the edification of Christendom; it is,
therefore, in no wise to be obeyed, but is to be opposed with life and goods
and all our strength.

Even though a miracle were to be done in the pope's behalf against the
temporal powers, or though someone were to be stricken with a plague--which
they boast has sometimes happened--it should be considered only the work of the
devil, because of the weakness of our faith in God. Christ Himself prophesied
in Matthew 24:24: "There shall come in My Name false Christs and false
prophets, and do signs and wonders, so as to deceive even the elect," and Paul
says in II Thessalonians 2:9, that Antichrist shall, through the power of
Satan, be mighty in lying wonders. 

Let us, therefore, hold fast to this: No Christian authority can do anything
against Christ; as St. Paul says, II Corinthians 13:8: "We can do nothing
against Christ, but for Christ." Whatever does aught against Christ is the
power of Antichrist and of the devil, even though it were to rain and hail
wonders and plagues. Wonders and plagues prove nothing, especially in these
last evil times, for which all the Scriptures prophesy false wonders. Therefore
we must cling with firm faith to the words of God, and then the devil will 
cease from wonders. 

Thus I hope that the false, lying terror with which the Romans have this long
time made our conscience timid and stupid, has been allayed. They, like all of
us, are subject to the temporal sword; they have no power to interpret the
Scriptures by mere authority, without learning; they have no authority to
prevent a council or, in sheer wantonness, to pledge it, bind it, or take
away its liberty; but if they do this, they are in truth the communion of
Antichrist and of the devil, and have nothing at all of Christ except the
name. 

II. ABUSES TO BE DISCUSSED IN COUNCILS

We shall now look at the matters which should be discussed in the councils,
and with which popes, cardinals, bishops and all the scholars ought properly
to be occupied day and night if they loved Christ and His Church. But if they
neglect this duty, then let the laity[1] and the temporal authorities see to
it, regardless of bans and thunders; for an unjust ban is better than ten just
releases, and an unjust release worse than ten just bans. Let us, therefore,
awake, dear Germans, and fear God rather than men, that we may not share the
fate of all the poor souls who are so lamentably lost through the shameful and
devilish rule of the Romans, in which the devil daily takes a larger and
larger place,--if, indeed, it were possible that such a hellish rule could
grow worse, a thing I can neither conceive nor believe. 

1. It is a horrible and frightful thing that the ruler of Christendom, who
boasts himself vicar of Christ and successor of St. Peter, lives in such
worldly splendor that in this regard no king nor emperor can equal or approach
him, and that he who claims the title of "most holy" and "most spiritual" is
more worldly than the world itself. H wears a triple crown, when the greatest
kings wear but a single crown;[2] if that is like the poverty of Christ and
of St. Peter, then it is a new kind of likeness. When a word is said against
it, they cry out "Heresy!" but that is because they do not wish to hear how
unchristian and ungodly such a practice is. I think, however, that if the pope
were with tears to pray to God, he would have to lay aside these crowns, for
our God can suffer no pride; and his office is nothing else than this,--daily 
to weep and pray for Christendom, and to set an example of all humility. 

However that may be, this splendor of his is an offense, and the pope is
bound on his soul's salvation to lay it aside, because St. Paul says,
I Thess. 5:21: "Abstain from all outward shows, which give offense," and in
Romans 12:17, "We should provide good, not only in the sight of God, but
also in the sight of all men." An ordinary bishop's crown would be enough
for the pope; he should be greater than others in wisdom and holiness, and
leave the crown of pride to Antichrist, as did his predecessors several
centuries ago. They say he is a lord of the world; that is a lie; for Christ,
Whose vicar and officer he boasts himself to be, said before Pilate, John
17:36, My kingdom is not of this world," and no vicar's rule can go beyond
his lord's. Moreover he is not the vicar of the glorified, but of the
crucified Christ, as Paul says, I Cor 2:2, "I was willing to know nothing
among you save Christ, and Him only as the Crucified"; and in Philippians
2:5, "So think of yourselves as ye see in Christ, Who emptied Himself and
took upon Him the appearance of a servant"; and again in I Corinthians 1:23,
"We preach Christ, the Crucified." Now they make the pope a vicar of the
glorified Christ in heaven, and some of them have allowed the devil to rule
them so completely that they have maintained that the pope is above the angels
in heaven and has authority over them.[3] These are indeed the very works of
the very Antichrist.

What is the use in Christendom of those people who are called the cardinals? I
shall tell you. Italy and Germany have many rich monasteries, foundations,
benefices, and livings. No better way has been discovered to bring all these
to Rome than by creating cardinals and giving them the bishoprics,
monasteries and prelacies, and so overthrowing the worship of God. For this
reason we now see Italy a very wilderness--monasteries in ruins, bishoprics
devoured, the prelacies and the revenues of all the churches drawn to Rome,
cities decayed, land and people laid waste, because there is no more worship
or preaching. Why? The cardinals must have the income.[4] No Turk could
have so devastated Italy and suppressed the worship of God. 

Now that Italy is sucked dry, they come into Germany,[5] and begin oh, so
gently. But let us beware, or Germany will soon become like Italy. Already we
have some cardinals; what the Romans seek by that the "drunken Germans" are
not to understand until we have not a bishopric, a monastery, a living, a
benefice, a heller or a pfennign left. Antichrist must take the treasures of
the earth, as it was prophesied. So it goes on. They skim the cream off
the bishoprics, monasteries and benefices, and because they do not yet venture
to turn them all to shameful use, as they have done in Italy, they only
practice for the present the sacred trickery of coupling together ten or
twenty prelacies and taking a yearly portion from each of them, so as to make
a tidy sum after all. The priory of Wurzburg yields a thousand gulden; that
of Bamberg something; Mainz, Trier and the others, something more; and so from
one to ten thousand gulden might be got together, in order that a cardinal
might live at Rome like a rich king.

"After they are used to this, we will create thirty or forty cardinals in a
day,[6] and give to one Mount St. Michael at Bamberg[7] and the bishopric of
Wurzburg to boot, hang on to these a few rich livings, until churches and
cities are waste, and after that we will say, 'We are Christ's vicars and
shepherds of Christ's sheep; the mad, drunken Germans must put up with it.'" 

I advise, however, that the number of the cardinals be reduced, or that the
pope be made to keep them at his own expense. Twelve of them would be more
than enough, and each of them might have an income of a thousand gulden a
year.[8] How comes it that we Germans must put up with such robbery and such
extortion of our property, at the hands of the pope? If the Kingdom of France
has prevented it,[9] why do we Germans let them make such fools and apes of
us? It would all be more bearable if in this way they only stole our property;
but they lay waste the churches and rob Christ's sheep of their pious
shepherds, and destroy the worship and the Word of God. Even if there
were not a single cardinal, the Church would not go under. As it is they do
nothing for the good of Christendom; they only wrangle about the incomes of
bishoprics and prelacies, and that any robber could do. 

If ninety-nine parts of the papal court[10] were done away and only the
hundredth part allowed to remain, it would still be large enough to give
decisions in matters of faith. Now, however, there is such a swarm of vermin 
yonder in Rome, all boasting that they are "papal," that there was nothing
like it in Babylon. There are more than three thousand papal secretaries
alone; who will count the other offices, when they are so many that they
scarcely can be counted? And they all lie in wait for the prebends and
benefices of Germany as wolves lie in wait for the sheep. I believe that
Germany now gives much more to the sheep. I believe that Germany now gives
much more to the pope at Rome than it gave in former times to the emperors.
Indeed, some estimate that every year more than three hundred thousand gulden
find their way from Germany to Rome, quite uselessly and fruitlessly; we get
nothing for it but scorn and contempt. And yet we wonder that princes, nobles,
cities, endowments, land and people are impoverished! We should rather wonder
that we still have anything to eat! 

Since we here come to the heart of the matter, we will pause a little, and
let it be seen that the Germans are not quite such gross fools as not to note
or understand the sharp practices of the Romans. I do not now complain that at 
Rome God's command and Christian law are despised; for such is the state of
Christendom, and particularly of Rome, that we may not now complain of such
high matters. Nor do I complain that natural or temporal law and reason
count for nothing. The case is worse even than that. I complain that they do
not keep their own self-devised canon law, though it is, to be sure, mere
tyranny, avarice and temporal splendor, rather than law. Let us see! 

In former times German emperors and princes permitted the pope to receive the
annates from all the benefices of the German nation, i.e., the half of the
first year's revenues from each benefice.[11] This permission was given,
however, in order that by means of these large sums of money, the pope might
accumulate a treasure for fighting against the Turks and infidels in defense
of Christendom, so that the burden of the war might not rest too heavily upon
the nobility, but that the clergy also should contribute something toward it.
This single-hearted devotion of the German nation the popes have so used,
that they have received this money for more than a hundred years, have now
made of it a binding tax and tribute, and have not only accumulated no
treasure, but have used the money to endow many orders and offices at Rome,
and to provide these offices with salaries, as though the annates were a fixed
rent. When they pretend that they are about to fight against the Turks, they
send out emissaries to gather money. Oft-times they issue an indulgence on
this same pretext of fighting the Turks,[12] for they think the mad Germans
are forever to remain utter and arrant fools, give them money without end, and
satisfy their unspeakable greed; though we clearly see that not a heller of
the annates or of the indulgence-money or of all the rest, is used against the
Turks, but all of it goes into the bottomless bag. They lie and deceive, make
laws and make agreements with us, and they do not intend to keep any of them. 
All this must be counted the work of Christ and St. Peter! Now, in this
matter the German nation, bishops and princes, should consider that they too
are Christians, and should protect the people, whom they are set to rule and
guard in things temporal and spiritual, against these ravening wolves who, in
sheep's clothing, pretend to be shepherds and rulers; and, since the annates
are so shamefully abused and the stipulated conditions are not fulfilled, they
should not permit their land and people to be so sadly robbed and ruined,
against all justice; but by a law of the emperor or of the whole nation,
they should either keep the annates at home or else abolish them again.[13] 
For since the Romans do not keep the terms of the agreement, they have no
right to the annates. Therefore the bishops and princes are bound to punish or
prevent; such thievery and robbery, as the law requires. 

In this they should aid the pope and support him, for he is perchance too weak
to prevent such an abuse all by himself; or if he were to undertake to defend
and maintain this practice, they ought resist him and fight against him as
against a wolf and a tyrant, for he has no authority to do or to defend evil.
Moreover, if it were ever desired to accumulate such a treasure against the
Turks, we ought in the future to have sense enough to see that the German
nation would be a better custodian for it than the pope; for the German nation
has people enough for the fighting, if only the money is forthcoming. It is
with the annates as it has been with many another Roman pretence. Again, the
year has been so divided between the pope and the ruling bishops and 
canons,[14] that the pope has six months in the year--every other month--in 
which to bestow the benefices which fall vacant in his months.[15] In this way
almost all the benefices are absorbed by Rome, especially the very best
livings and dignities,[16] and when once they fall into the hands of Rome,
they never come out of them again, though a vacancy may never again occur in
the pope's month. Thus the canons are cheated. This is a genuine robbery,
which intends to let nothing escape. Therefore it is high time that the
"papal months" be altogether abolished, and that everything which they have
brought to Rome be taken back again. For the princes and nobles should take
measures that the stolen goods be returned, the thieves punished, and those
who have abused privilege be deprived of privilege. If it is binding and valid 
when the pope on the day after his election makes, in his chancery, rules and
laws whereby our foundations and livings are robbed,--a thing which he has no
right to do; then it should be still more valid if the Emperor Charles on the
day after his coronation[17] were to make rules and laws that not another
benefice or living in all Germany shall be allowed to come into the hands of
Rome by means of the "papal months," and that the livings which have already
fallen into its hands shall be released, and redeemed from the Roman robbers;
for he has this right by virtue of his office and his sword. 

But now the Roman See of Avarice and Robbery has not been able to await the
time when all the benefices, one after another, would, by the "papal 
months," come into its power, but hastens, with insatiable appetite, to get
possession of them all as speedily as possible; and so besides the annates and
the "months" it has hit upon a device by which benefices and livings fall to
Rome in three ways: 

First, If any one who holds a free [18] living dies at Rome or on the
way to Rome, his living must forever belong to the Roman-I should
rather say the robbing-See;[19] and yet they will not be called
robbers; though they are guilty of such robbery as no one has ever
heard or read about. 

Second, In case any one who belongs to the household of the pope or
of the cardinals[20] holds or takes over a benefice, or in case one
who already holds a benefice afterwards enters the "household" of
the pope or of a cardinal; but who can count the "household" of the
pope and of the cardinals, when the pope, if he only goes on a
pleasure-ride, takes with him three or four thousand mule-riders,
eclipsing all emperors and kings? Christ and St. Peter went on foot
in order that their vicars might have the more pomp and splendor.
Now avarice has cleverly thought out another scheme, and brings it
to pass that even here many; have the name of "papal servant," just
as though they were in Rome; all in order that in every place the
mere rascally little word "papal servant" may bring all benefices to
Rome and tie them fast there forever. Are not these vexatious and
devilish inventions? Let us beware! Soon Mainz; Madgeburg and
Halberstadt will gently pass into the hands of Rome, and the
cardinalate will be paid for dearly enough.[21] "Afterwards we will
make all the German bishops cardinal so that there will be nothing
left outside." 

Third, When a contest has started at Rome over a benefice.[22] This I
hold to be almost the commonest and widest road for bringing
livings to Rome. For when there is no contest at home, unnumbered
knaves will be found at Rome to dig up contests out of the earth and
assail livings at their will. Thus many a good priest has to lose his
living, or settle the contest for a time by the payment of a sum of
money.[23] Such a living rightly or wrongly contested must also
belong forever to the Roman See. It would be no wonder if God were
to rain from heaven fire and brimstone and to sink Rome in the
abyss, as He did Sodom and Gomorrah of old. Why should there be a
pope in Christendom, if his power is used for nothing else than such
archknavery, and if he protects and practices it? O noble princes and
lords, how long will ye leave your lands and people naked to these
ravening wolves!

Since even these practices were not enough, and Avarice grew impatient at
the long time it took to get hold of all the bishoprics, therefore my Lord
Avarice devised the fiction that the bishoprics should be nominally abroad,
but that their land and soil should be at Rome, and no bishop can be confirmed
unless with a great sum of money he buy the pallium,[24] and bind himself
with terrible oaths to the pope's servant.[25] This is the reason that no
bishop ventures to act against the pope. That, too, is what the Romans were
seeking when they imposed the oath, and thus the very richest bishoprics have
fallen into debt and ruin. Mainz pays, as I hear, 20,000 gulden. These be your
Romans! To be sure they decreed of old in the canon law that the pallium
should be bestowed gratis, the number of papal servants diminished, the
contest lessened, the chapters[26] and bishops allowed their liberty. But this
did not bring in money, and so they turned over a new leaf, and all authority
was taken from the bishops and chapters; they are made ciphers, and have no
office nor authority nor work, but everything is ruled by the archknaves at
Rome; soon they will have in hand even the office of sexton and bell-ringer in
all the churches. All contests are brought to Rome, and by authority of the
pope everyone does as he likes. 

What happened this very year? The Bishop of Strassburg[27] wished to govern 
his chapter properly and to institute reforms in worship, and with this end
in view made certain godly and Christian regulations. But my dear Lord Pope
and the Holy Roman See, at the instigation of the priests, overthrew and
altogether condemned this holy and spiritual ordinance. This is called
"feeding the sheep of Christ!" Thus priests are to be encouraged against
their own bishop, and their disobedience to divine law is to be protected! 
Antichrist himself, I hope, will not dare to put God to such open shame! There
you have your pope after your own heart! Why did he do this? Ah! if one
church were reformed, it would be a dangerous departure; Rome's turn too might
come! Therefore it were better that no priest should be left at peace with
another, that kings and princes should be set at odds, as has been the custom
heretofore, and the world filled with the blood of Christians, only so the
concord of Christians should not trouble the Holy Roman See with a
reformation. So far we have been getting an idea of how they deal with
livings which become vacant. But for tender-hearted Avarice the vacancies are
too few, and so he brings his foresight to bear upon the benefices which are
still occupied by their incumbents, so that they must be unfilled., even they
are not unfilled.[28] And this he does in many ways, as follows: First, 
He lies in wait for fat prebends or bishoprics which are held by an old or a
sick man, or by one with an alleged disability. To such an incumbent, without
his desire or consent, the Holy See gives a coadjutor's i.e., an "assistant,"
for the coadjutor's benefit, because he is "papal servant," or has paid for
the position, or has earned it by some other ignoble service to Rome. In this
case the rights of the chapter or the rights of him who has the bestowal of
the living[29] must be surrendered, and the whole thing fall into the hands
of Rome. Second, There is a little word commend,[30] by which the pope
entrusts the keeping of a rich, fat monastery or church to a cardinal or to
another oh his people, just as though I were to give you a hundred gulden to
keep. This is not called the giving or bestowing of the monastery nor even its
destruction, or the abolition of the worship of God, but only "giving it into
keeping"; not that he to whom it is entrusted is to care for it, or build it
up, but he is to drive out the incumbent, to receive the goods and revenues,
and to install some apostate, renegade monk,[31] who accepts five or six
gulden a year and sits in the church all day selling pictures and images to
the pilgrims, so that henceforth neither prayers nor masses are said there. 
If this were to be called destroying monasteries and abolishing the worship of
God, then the pope would have to be called a destroyer of Christendom and an
abolisher of God's worship, because this is his constant practice. That would
be a hard saying at Rome, and so we must call it a commend or a "command to
take charge" of the monastery. The pope can every year make commends out of
four or more of these monasteries, a single one of which may have an income of
more than six thousand gulden. This is the way the Romans increase the worship
of God and preserve the monasteries. The Germans also are beginning to find 
it out. Third, There are some benefices which they call _incompatibilia_,[32]
and which, according to the ordinances of the canon law, cannot be held by one
man at the same time, as for instance, two parishes, two bishoprics and the
like. In these cases the Holy Roman See of Avarice evades the canon law by
making "glosses,"[33] called unio and incorporatio, i.e., by "incorporating"
many _incompatibilia_, so that each becomes a part of every other and all of
them together are looked upon as though they were one living. They are then no
longer "incompatible," and the holy canon law is satisfied, in that it is no
longer binding, except upon those who do not buy these "glosses"[34] from
the pope or his datarius.[35] The _unio_, i.e., "uniting," is of the same
nature. The pope binds many such benefices together like a bundle of sticks,
and by virtue of this bond they are all regarded as one benefice. So there is
at Rome one courtesan[36] who holds, for himself alone, 22 parishes, 7
priories and 44 canonries besides,--all by the help of that masterly "gloss,"
which holds that this is not illegal. What cardinals and other prelates have,
everyone may imagine for himself. In this way the Germans are to have their
purses eased and their itch cured. Another of the "glosses" is the
_administratio_, i.e., a man may have beside his bishopric, an abbacy or a
dignity,[37] and possess all the property which goes with it, only he has no
other title than that of "administrator."[38] For at Rome it is sufficient
that words are changed and not the things they stand for; as though I were to
teach that a bawdy-house keeper should have the name of "burgomaster's
wife," and yet continue to ply her trade. This kind of Roman rule St. Peter
foretold when he said, in II Peter 2:3: "There shall come false teachers, who
in covetousness, with feigned words, shall make merchandise of you, to get
their gains." Again, dear Roman Avarice has invented the custom of selling
and bestowing livings to such advantage that the seller or disposer retains
reversionary rights,[39] upon them; to wit, if the incumbent dies, the
benefice freely reverts to him who previously sold, bestowed or surrendered
it. In this way they have made livings hereditary property, so that henceforth
no one can come into possession of them, except the man to whom the seller is
willing to dispose of them, or to whom he bequeaths his rights at death.
Besides, there are many who transfer to others the mere title to a benefice
from which those who get the title derive not a heller of income. It is now
an old custom, too, to give another man a benefice and to reserve a certain
part out of the annual revenue.[40] In olden times this was simony.[41] Of
these things there are so many more that they cannot all be counted. They
treat livings more shamefully than the heathen beneath the cross treated the
garments of Christ. Yet all that has hitherto been said is ancient history
and an every-day occurrence at Rome. Avarice has devised one thing more, which
may, I hope, be his last morsel, and choke him. The pope has a noble little
device called _pectoralis reservatio_, i.e., his "mental reservation," and 
_proprius motus_, i.e., the "arbitrary will of his authority."[42] It goes
like this. When one man has gotten a benefice at Rome, and the appointment 
has been regularly signed and sealed, according to custom, and there comes
another, who brings money, or has laid the pope under obligation in some other
way, of which we will not speak, and desires of the pope the same benefice,
then the pope takes it from the first man and gives it to the second.[43] If
it is said that this is unjust, then the Most Holy Father must make some
excuse, that he may not be reproved for doing such open violence to the law,
and says that in his mind and heart he had reserved that benefice to himself
and his own plenary disposal, although he had never before in his whole life
either thought or heard of it. Thus he has now found a little "gloss" by which
he can, in his own person, lie and deceive, and make a fool and an ape of
anybody--all this he does brazenly and openly, and yet he wishes to be the head
of Christendom, though with his open lies he lets the Evil Spirit rule him. 
This arbitrary will and lying "reservation" of the pope creates in Rome a
state of affairs which is unspeakable. There is buying, selling, bartering,
trading, trafficking, lying, deceiving, robbing, stealing, luxury, harlotry,
knavery, and every sort of contempt of God, and even the rule of Antichrist
could not be more scandalous. Venice, Antwerp, Cairo[44] are nothing compared
to this fair which is held at Rome and the business which is done there,
except that in those other places they still observe and reason. At Rome
everything goes as the devil wills, and out of this ocean like virtue flows
into all the world. Is it a wonder that such people fear a reformation and a
free council, and prefer to set all kings and princes at enmity rather than
have them unite and bring about a council? Who could bear to have such knavery
exposed if it were his own? Finally, for all this noble commerce the pope
has built a warehouse, namely, the house of the datarius,[45] in Rome.
Thither all must come who deal after this fashion in benefices and livings.
From him they must buy their "glosses"[46] and get the power to practice such
archknavery. In former times Rome was generous, and then justice had either 
to be bought or else suppressed with money, but now she has become exorbitant,
and no one dare be a knave unless with a great sum he has first bought the
right. If that is not a brothel above all the brothels one can imagine, then
I do not know what brothel means. If you have money in this house, then you
can come by all the things I have said; and not only these, but all sort of
usury[47] are here made honest, for a consideration, and the possession of
all property acquired by theft or robbery is legalized. Here vows are
dissolved; here monks at granted liberty to leave their orders; here marriage
is on sale to the clergy; here bastards can become legitimate; here all
dishonor and shame can come to honor; all ill repute and stigma of evil are
here knighted and ennobled here is permitted the marriage which is within the
forbidden degrees or has some other defect.[48] Oh! what a taxing and a
robbing rules there! It looks as though all the laws of the Church were made
for one purpose only--to be nothing but so many money-snares, from which a
man must extricate himself,[49] if he would be a Christian. Yea, here the
devil becomes a saint, and a god to boot. What heaven and earth cannot, that
this house can do! They call them compositions[50]! "Compositions" indeed!
rather "confusions"! Oh, what a modest tax is the Rhine-toll,[51] compared
with the tribute taken by this holy house! Let no one accuse me of
exaggeration! It is all so open that even at Rome they must confess the evil
to be greater and more terrible than any one can say. I have not yet stirred
up the hell-broth of personal vices, nor do I intend to do so. I speak of
things which are common talk, and yet I have not words to tell them all. The
bishops, the priests and, above all, the doctors in the universities, who draw
their salaries for this purpose, should have done their duty and with common
consent have written and cried out against these things; but they have done
the very opposite.[52] There remains one last word, and I must say that
too. Since boundless Avarice has not been satisfied with all these 
treasures, which three great kings might well think sufficient, he now begins
to transfer this trade and sell it to Fugger of Augsburg,[53] so that the
lending and trading and buying of bishoprics and benefices, and the driving
of bargains in spiritual goods has now come to the right place, and
spiritual and temporal goods have become one business. And now I would fain
hear of a mind so lofty that it could imagine what this Roman Avarice might
yet be able to do and has not already done; unless Fugger were to transfer or
sell this combination of two lines of business to somebody else. I believe we
have reached the limit. As for what they have stolen in all lands and still
steal and extort, by means of indulgences, bulls, letters of confession,[54]
"butter-letters" [55] and other _confessionalia_,[56]--all this I consider
mere patch-work, and like casting a single devil more into hell.[57] Not
that they bring in little, for a mighty king could well support himself on
their returns, but they are not to be compared with the streams of treasure
above mentioned. I shall also say nothing at present of how this indulgence
money has been applied. Another time I shall inquire about that, for
Campoflore,[58] and Belvidere[59] and certain other places probably know
something about it. Since, then, such devilish rule is not only open robbery 
and deceit, and the tyranny of the gates of hell, but also ruins Christendom
in body and soul, it is our duty to use all diligence in protecting
Christendom against such misery and destruction. If we would fight the Turks,
let us make a beginning here, where they are at their worst. If we justly hang
thieves and behead robbers, why should we let Roman Avarice go free? For he is
the greatest thief and robber that has come or can come into the world, and
all in the holy Name of Christ and of St. Peter! Who can longer endure it or
keep silence? Almost everything he owns has been gotten by theft and robbery;
that is the truth, and all history shows it. The pope never got by purchase
such great properties that from his office[60] alone he can raise about a
million ducats, not to mention the mines of treasure named above and the
income of his lands. Nor did it come to him by inheritance from Christ or
from St. Peter; no one ever loaned it or gave it to him; it has not become his
by virtue of immemorial use and enjoyment. Tell me, then, whence he can
have it? Learn from this what they have in mind when they send out legates to
collect money for use against the Turks.

PROPOSALS FOR REFORM, PART I

Now, although I am too small a man to make propositions which might effect a
reform in this dreadful state of things, nevertheless I may as well sing my
fool's song to the end, and say, so far as I am able, what could and should be
done by the temporal authorities or by a general council. 

1. Every prince, nobleman and city should boldly forbid their subjects to pay
the annates to Rome and should abolish them entirely;[1] for the pope has
broken the compact and made the annates a robbery, to the injury and shame
of the whole German nation. He gives them to his friends, sells them for
large amounts of money, and uses them to endow offices. He has thus lost his
right to them, and deserves punishment. It is therefore the duty of the
temporal authorities to protect the innocent and prevent injustice, as Paul
teaches in Romans 13:4, and St. Peter in I Peter 2:14, and even the canon law
in Case 16, Question 7 _de filiis_.[2] Thus it has come about that men are
saying to the pope and his followers, T u or a, "Thou shalt pray"; to the 
emperor and his followers, Tu protege, "Thou shalt guard"; to the common man,
_Tu labora_, "Thou shalt work." Not, however, as though everyone were not to
pray, guard and work; for the man who is diligent in his calling is praying,
guarding and working in all that he does, but everyone should have his own
especial task.

2. Since the pope with his Roman practices--his commends,[3] _adjutories_;[4]
reservations,[5] _gratiae expectativae_,[6] papal months,[7] incorporations,[8]
unions,[9] pallia,[10] rules in chancery,[11] and such like knavery--
usurps all the German foundations without authority and right, and gives and
sells them to foreigners at Rome, who do nothing in German lands to earn them;
and since he thereby robs the ordinaries[12] of their rights, makes the
bishops mere ciphers and figure-heads, and acts against his own canon law,
against nature and against reason, until it has finally gone so far that out
of sheer avarice the livings and benefices are sold to gross, ignorant asses
and knaves at Rome, while pious and learned folk have no profit of their
wisdom and merit, so that the poor people of the German nation have to go
without good and learned prelates and thus go to ruin.

Therefore, the Christian nobility should set itself against the pope as
against a common enemy and destroyer of Christendom, and should do this for
the salvation of the poor souls who must go to ruin through his tyranny. They
should. ordain, order, and decree, that henceforth no benefice shall be drawn
into the hands of Rome, and that hereafter no appointment shall be obtained
there in any manner whatsoever, but that the benefices shall be brought out
and kept out from under this tyrannical authority; and they should restore to
the ordinaries the right and office of ordering these benefices in the German
nation as best they may. And if a "courtesan" were to come from Rome, he
should receive a strict command either to keep his distance, or else to jump
into the Rhine or the nearest river, and take the Roman ban, with its seals
and letters, to a cold bath. They would then take note at Rome that the
Germans are not always mad and drunken, but that they have really become
Christians, and intend to permit no longer the mockery and scorn of the holy
name of Christ, under which all this knavery and destruction of souls goes on,
but have more regard to God and His glory than to the authority of men.

3. An imperial law should be issued, that no bishop's cloak[13] and no
confirmation of any dignity[14] whatsoever shall henceforth be secured from
Rome, but that the ordinance of the most holy and most famous Council of
Nicaea[15] shall be restored, in which it is decreed that a bishop shall be
confirmed by the two nearest bishops or by the archbishop. If the pope will
break the statutes of this and of all other councils, what is the use of
hiding councils; or who has given him the authority thus to despise and break
the rules of councils? 

If he has this power then we should depose all bishops, archbishops and
primates[16] and make them mere parish-priests, so that the pope alone may
be over them, as he now is. He leaves to bishops, archbishops and primates no
regular authority or office, usurps everything for himself, and lets them keep
only the name and empty title. It has gone so far that by his "exemptions"[17]
the monasteries, the abbots and the prelates are withdrawn from the
regular authority of the bishops, so that there is no longer any order in
Christendom. From this must follow what has followed--relaxation of
discipline and license to do evil everywhere--so that I verily fear the pope
can be called the "man of sin." There is in Christendom no discipline, no
rule, no order; and who is to blame except the pope? This usurped authority of
his he applies strictly to all the prelates, and takes away their rods; and he
is generous to all subjects, giving them or selling them their liberty. 

Nevertheless, for fear he may complain that he is robbed of his authority, it
should be decreed that when the primates or archbishops are unable to settle a
case, or when a controversy arises among themselves, such a case must be laid
before the pope, but not every little matter.[19] Thus it was done in olden
times, and thus the famous Council of Nicaea decreed.[20] If a case can be
settled without the pope, then his Holiness should not be troubled with such
minor matters, but give himself to that prayer, meditation and care for all
Christendom, of which he boasts. This is what the Apostles did. They said,
Acts 6:2, "It is not meet that we should leave the Word of God and serve
tables, but we will keep to preaching and prayer and set others over the
work." But now Rome stands for nothing else than the despising of the Gospel
and of prayer, and for the serving of "tables," i.e., of temporal affairs, and
the rule of the Apostles and of the pope agree as Christ agrees with Lucifer,
heaven with hell, night with day; yet he is called "Vicar of Christ and
Successor of the Apostles." 

4. It should be decreed that no temporal matter shall be taken to Rome,[21]
but that all such cases shall be left to the temporal authorities, as the
Romans themselves decree in that canon law of theirs, which they do not keep.
For it from the should be the duty of the pope, as the man most learned in the
Scriptures and most Holy, not in name only, but in truth, to administer
affairs which concern the faith and holy life of Christians, to hold the
primates and arch-bishops to these things, and to help them in dealing with
and caring for these matters. So St. Paul teaches in Corinthians 6:7, and
takes the Corinthians severely to task for their concern with worldly things.
For it works intolerable injury to all lands that such cases are tried at
Rome. It increases the costs, and moreover the judges do not know the manners,
laws and customs of the various countries, so that they often do violence to
the facts and base their decisions on their own laws and opinions, and thus
injustice is inevitably done the contestants. 

Moreover, the outrageous extortion practiced by the officiales[22] must be
forbidden in all the dioceses, so that they may attend to nothing else than
matters of faith and good morals, and leave to the temporal judges the things
that concern money, property, life and honor. The temporal authorities,
therefore, should not permit sentences of ban or exile when faith or right
life is not concerned. Spiritual authorities should have rule over spiritual
goods, as reason teaches; but spiritual goods are not money, nor anything
pertaining to the body, but they are faith and good works. 

Nevertheless it might be granted that cases which concern benefices or livings
should be tried before bishops, archbishops and primates. Therefore, in order
to decide contests and contentions, it might be possible for the Primate of
Germany to maintain a general consistory, with auditors and chancellors, which
should have control over the _signaturae gratiae_ and _signaturae 
justitiae_,[23] that are now controlled at Rome, and which should be the final
court of appeal for German cases. The officers of this consistory must not, 
however, be paid, as at Rome, by chance presents and gifts, and thereby 
acquire the habit of selling justice and injustice, which they now have to do 
at Rome because the pope gives them no remuneration, but allows them to 
fatten themselves on presents. For at Rome no one cares what is right or not 
right, but only what is money or not money. This court might, however, be 
paid out of the annates, or some other way might easily be devised, by those 
who are more intelligent and who have more experience in these matters than I.
All I wish to do is to arouse and set to thinking those who have the ability 
and the inclination to help the German nation become once more free and 
Christian, after the wretched, heathenish and unchristian rule of the pope.

5. No more reservations should be valid, and no more benefices should be
seized by Rome, even if the incumbent dies, or there is a contest, or the
incumbent is a "servant" of a cardinal or of the pope;[24] and it should be
strictly forbidden and prevented that any "courtesan"[25] should institute a
contest over any benefice, so as to cite pious priests to Rome, harass them
and drive them into lawsuits. If, in consequence of this prohibition, there
should come from Rome a ban or an ecclesiastical censure, it should be
disregarded, just as though a thief were to lay a man under the ban because he
would not let him steal. Indeed they should be severely punished because they
so blasphemously misuse the ban and the name of God to support their robbery,
and with falsely devised threats would drive us to endure and to praise such
blasphemy of God's name arid such abuse of Christian authority, and thus to
become, in the sight of God, partakers in their rascality; it is our duty
before God to resist it, for St. Paul, in Romans 1:32, reproves as guilty of
death not only "those who do such things," but also those who consent to such
things and allow them to be done. Most unbearable of all is the lying
_reservatio pectoralis_,[26] whereby Christendom is so scandalously and openly
put to shame and scorn, because its head deals in open lies, and out of love
for the accursed money, shamelessly deceives and fools everybody. 

6. The _casus reservati_,[27] the "reserved cases," should also be abolished,
for not only are they the means of extorting much money from the people, but
by means of them the ravening tyrants ensnare and confuse many poor
consciences to the intolerable injury of their faith in God. This is
especially true of the ridiculous and childish cases about which they make so
much ado in the _Bull Coena Domini_,[28] and which are not worth calling daily
sins, still less cases so grave that the pope may not remit them by any
indulgence; as for example, hindering a pilgrim on his way to Rome, furnishing
weapons to the Turks, or tampering with papal letters. With such gross, crazy,
clumsy things do they make fools of us! Sodom and Gomorrah, and all the sins
which are committed and can be committed against the commandments of God are
not reserved cases; but sins against what God has never commanded and what
they have themselves devised, these must be reserved cases, solely that no one
be hindered in bringing money to Rome, in order that, safe from the Turks,
they may live in luxury and keep the world under their tyranny with their
wanton, useless bulls and braves.[29]

All priests ought rightly to know, or else there should be a public ordinance
to that effect, that no secret sin, of which a man has not been publicly
accused, is a reserved case, and that every priest has the power to remit all
sorts of sins, however they may be called, so long as they are secret;
moreover that no abbot, bishop or pope has the power to reserve any such case
to himself.[30] If they attempt it, their reservation does not hold and is
not valid, and they should be reproved, as men who without authority interfere
in God's judgment, and without cause ensnare and burden poor, ignorant
consciences. But if great public sins are committed, especially sins against
God's commandments, then there is indeed a reason for reserved cases, but even
then there should not be too many of them, and they should not be reserved
arbitrarily and without cause; 1 Peter 5:3, for Christ has set in His Church
not tyrants, but shepherds, as saith St. Peter. 

7. The Roman See should also do away with the _officia_, and diminish the swarm
of vermin at Rome, so that the pope's household can be supported by the pope's
own purse. The pope should not allow his court to surpass in pomp and
extravagance the courts of all kings, seeing that such a condition not only
has never been serviceable to the cause of Christian faith, but the courtiers
have been kept thereby from study and prayer, until they are scarce able to
speak about the faith at all. This they proved quite plainly at the last
Roman Council,[32] in which, amongst many other childish and frivolous
things, they decreed that the soul of man is immortal and that every priest
must say his prayers once a month on pain of losing his benefice. How shall
matters which concern faith and the Church be decided by people so hardened
and blinded by great avarice, wealth and worldly splendor, that they have only
now decreed that the soul is immortal? It is no small shame to all Christians
that at Rome they deal so disgracefully with the faith. If they had less
wealth and pomp, they could pray and study better, and so become worthy and
able to deal with matters of faith, as was the case in olden times when they
were bishops, and did not presume to be kings over all kings. 

8. The hard and terrible oaths should be abolished, which the bishops are
wrongfully compelled to render to the pope,[33] and by which they are bound
like servants, as that worthless and unlearned chapter, _Significasti_,[34]
arbitrarily and most stupidly decrees. It is not enough that they burden us in
body, soul and property with their many mad laws, by which faith is weakened
and Christendom ruined; but they seize upon the person and office and work of
the bishops, and now upon the _investiture_[35] also, which was in olden times
the right of the German emperors, and in France and other kingdoms still
belongs to the kings. 

On this point they had great wars and disputes with the emperors,[36] until
at last, with impudent authority, they took the right and have kept it until
now; just as though the Germans, above all the Christians on earth, had to be
the puppets of the pope and the Roman See and do and suffer what no one else
will do and suffer. Since, then, this is sheer violence and robbery, hindering
the regular authority of the bishops and injuring poor souls, therefore the
emperor and 

9. The pope should have no authority over the emperor, except that he anoints
and crowns him at the altar, just as a bishop anoints and crowns a king;[37]
and we should not henceforth yield to that devilish pride which compels the
emperor to kiss the pope's feet or sit at his feet, or, as they claim, hold
his stirrup or the bridle of his mule when he mounts for a ride; still less
should he do homage and swear faithful allegiance to the pope, as the popes
have shamelessly ventured to demand as if they possessed that right. The
chapter "Solite,"[38] in which the papal authority is raised above the
imperial authority, is not worth a heller, nor are any of those who rest upon
it or fear it; for it does nothing else than force the holy words of God out
of their true meaning, and wrest them to human dreams, as I have showed in a
Latin treatise.[39]

Such extravagant, over-presumptuous, and more than wicked doings of the pope
have been devised by the devil, in order that under their cover he may in time
bring in Antichrist, and raise the pope above God, as many are ready doing and
have done. It is not proper for the pope to exalt himself above the temporal
authorities, save only in spiritual offices such as preaching and absolving.
In other things he is to be subject, as Paul and Peter teach, in Romans 13:1,
and 1 Peter 2:13, and as I have said above. His nobles are in duty bound to
prevent and punish such tyranny. He is not vicar of Christ in heaven, but of
Christ as He walked on earth.[41] For Christ in heaven, in the form of a
ruler, needs no vicar, but He sits and sees, does, and knows all things, and
has all power. But He needs a vicar in the form of a servant, in which He
walked on earth, toiling, preaching, suffering and dying. Now they turn it
around, take from Christ the heavenly form of ruler and give it to the pope,
leaving the form of a servant to perish utterly. He might almost be the
"Counter-Christ" whom the Scriptures call Antichrist, for all his nature, work
and doings are against Christ, for the destruction of Christ's nature and
work. 

It is also ridiculous and childish that the pope, with such perverted and
deluded reasoning, boasts in his decretal _Pastoralis_,[42] that he is rightful
heir to the Empire, in case of a vacancy. Who has given him this right? Did
Christ, when He said, Luke 22:25, "The princes of the Gentiles are lords, but
ye shall not be so"? Did St. Peter will it to him? It vexes me that we must
read and learn such shameless, gross, crazy lies in the canon law, and must
even hold them for Christian doctrine, when they are devilish lies.

Of the same sort is also that unheard-of lie about the "Donation of
Constantine."[43] It must have been some special plague of God that so many
people of understanding have let themselves be talked into accepting such
likes as these, which are so manifest and clumsy that I should think any
drunken peasant could lie more adroitly and skillfully. How can a man rule an
empire and at the same time continue to preach, pray, study and care for the
poor? Yet these are the duties which properly and peculiarly belong to the
pope, and they were imposed by Christ (Matthew 10:10) in such earnest that He
even forbade His disciples to take with them cloak or money, since these
duties can scarcely be performed by one who has to rule even a single
household. Yet the pope would rule an empire and continue to be pope! This is
a device of the knaves who would like, under the pope's name, to be lords of
the world, and by means of the pope and the name of Christ, to restore the
Roman Empire to its former state.

10. The pope should restrain himself, take his fingers out of the pie, and
claim no title to the Kingdom of Naples and Sicily.[44] He has exactly as
much right to that kingdom as I have, and yet he wishes to be its overlord. It
is plunder got by violence, like almost all his other possessions. The
emperor, therefore, should not grant him this fief, and if it has been
granted, he should no longer give his consent to it, and should point him
instead to the Bible and the prayer-books, so that he may preach and pray, and
leave to temporal lords the ruling of lands and peoples, especially when no
one has given them to him.

The same opinion should hold as regards Bologna, Imola, Vicenza, Ravenna and
all the territories in the Mark of Ancona, in Romagna, and in other Italian
lands, which the pope has taken by force and possesses without right.[45]
Moreover, he has meddled in these things against all the commands of Christ
and of St. Paul. For thus saith St. Paul, 2 Timothy 2:3, "No one entangleth
himself with worldly affairs, whose business it is to wait upon the divine
knighthood".[46] Now the pope should be the head and front of this knighthood,
yet he meddles in worldly affairs more than any emperor or king. Why then he
must be helped out of them and allowed to attend to his knighthood. Christ
also, Whose vicar he boasts himself to be, was never willing to have aught to
do with temporal rule; indeed, to one who asked of him a decision respecting
his brother, He said, Luke 12:14, "Who made Me a judge over you?" But the pope
rushes in unbidden, and boldly takes hold of everything as though he were a
god, until he no longer knows what Christ is, Whose vicar he pretends to be.

11. The kissing of the pope's feet[47] should take place no more. It is an
unchristian, nay, an anti-Christian thing for a poor sinful man to let his
feet be kissed by one who is a hundred times better than himself. If it is
done in honor of his authority, why does not the pope do the same to others in
honor of their holiness? Compare the two--Christ and the pope! John 13:1 ff.,
Christ washed His disciples' feet and dried them, and the disciples never
washed His feet; the pope, as though he were higher than Christ, turns things
around and, as a great favor, allows people to kiss his feet, though he ought
properly to use all his power to prevent it, if anyone wished to do it; like
Paul and Barnabas, who would not let the people of Lystra pay them divine
honor, but said, Acts 14:11-16, "We are men like you." But our sycophants have
gone so far as to make for us an idol, and now no one fears God so much as he
fears the pope, no one pays Him such ceremonious honor. That they can endure!
What they cannot endure is that a hair's-breadth should be taken away from the
proud estate of the pope. Now if they were Christians, and held God's honor
above their own, the pope would never be happy while he knew that God's honor
was despised and his own exalted, and he would let no man pay him honor until
he saw that God's honor was again exalted and was greater than his own.

[48] It is another piece of the same scandalous pride, that the pope is not
satisfied to ride or to be driven in a vehicle, but although he is strong and
in good health, he has himself borne by men, with unheard-of splendor, like an
idol. How, pray, does such satanic pride agree with the example of Christ, Who
went on foot, as did all His disciples? Where has there ever been a worldly
monarch who went about in such worldly glory as he who wishes to be the head
of all those who are to despise and flee worldly glory, i.e., of Christians?
Not that this in itself should give us very much concern, but we should
rightly fear the wrath of God, if we flatter this kind of pride and do not
show our indignation. It is enough that the pope should rant and play the fool
in this wise; but that we should approve it and tolerate it,--this too much. 

For what Christian heart can or ought to take pleasure in seeing that when the
pope wishes to receive the communion, he sits quiet, like a gracious lord, and
has the sacrament passed to him on a golden rod by a bowing cardinal on bended
knee? As though the holy sacrament were no worthy that a pope, a poor stinking
sinner, should rise to show God honor, when all other Christians, who are much
more holy than the Most Holy Father, the pope, receive it with all reverence!
Would it be a wonder if God were to send a plague upon us all because we
suffer such dishonor to be done Him by our prelates, and approve it, and by
our silence or our flattery make ourselves partakers of such damnable pride? 

It is the same way when he carries the sacrament in procession. He must be
carried, but the sacrament is set before him, like a can of wine on the table.
In short, at Rome Christ counts for nothing, the pope counts for everything;
and yet they would compel us with threats to approve, and praise and honor
such antichristian sins, though this is against God and against all Christian
doctrine. Now God help a free Council to teach the pope that he too is a man,
and is not more than God, as he presumes to be.

12. Pilgrimages to Rome[49] should either be abolished, or else no one should
be allowed to make such a pilgrimage out of curiosity or because of a pious
impulse, unless it is first recognized by his parish-priest, his town
authorities or his overlord, that he has good and sufficient reason for it. I
say this not because pilgrimages are bad, but because they are at this time
ill-advised. For men see at Rome no good example, but only that which offends;
and they have themselves made the proverb, "The nearer Rome, the worse
Christians."[50] Men bring back with them contempt for God and His
commandments. It is said: "The first time one goes to Rome he seeks a rascal,
the second time he finds him, the third time he brings him home with him."[51]
Now, however, they have become so clever that they make the three
journeys at once, and they have verily brought back from Rome such pretty
things that it were better never to have seen or known Rome. 

Even if this reason did not exist, there is still another and a better: to
wit, that by these pilgrimages men are led away into a false conceit and a
misunderstanding of the divine commandments; for they think that this going on
pilgrimage is a precious, good work, and this is not true. It is a very small
good work, oftentimes an evil, delusive work, for God has not commanded it.
But He has commanded that a man shall care for his wife and children, and look
after such other duties as belong to the married state, and besides this, to
serve and help his neighbor. Now it comes to pass that a man makes a
pilgrimage to Rome when no one has commanded him to do so, spends fifty or a
hundred gulden, more or less, and leaves his wife and child, or at least his
neighbor, at home to suffer want. Yet the foolish fellow thinks to gloss over
such disobedience and contempt of the divine commandments with his self-willed
pilgriming, when it is really only curiosity or devilish delusion which leads
him to it. The popes have helped this along with their false, feigned,
foolish, "golden years,"[52] by which the people are excited, stirred up,
torn away from God's commandments, and drawn toward their own deluded
undertakings. Thus they have accomplished the very thing they should have
forbidden; but it has brought in money and strengthened false authority,
therefore it has had to continue, though it is against God and the salvation
of souls.

In order to destroy in simple Christians this false, seductive faith, and to
restore a true understanding of good works, all pilgrimages should be given
up; for there is in them nothing good--no commandment, no obedience--but, on
the contrary, numberless occasions for sin and for the despising of God's
commandments. Hence come the many beggars, who by this pilgriming carry on
endless knaveries and learn the habit of begging when they are not in want.
Hence, too, come vagabondage, and many other ills which I shall not now
recount.

If any one, now, wishes to go on pilgrimage or take a pilgrim's vow, he should
first show his reasons to his parish-priest or to his lord. If it turns out
that he wishes to do it for the sake of the good work, the priest or lord
should boldly tread the vow and good work under foot, as though it were a lure
of the devil, and show him how to apply the money and labor necessary for the
pilgrimage to the keeping of God's commandments and to works a thousandfold
better, viz., by spending it on his own family or on his poor neighbors. But
if he wishes to make the pilgrimage out of curiosity, to see new lands and
cities, he may be allowed to do as he likes. If, however, he has made the vow
while ill, then such vows ought to be forbidden and canceled, and the
commandments of God exalted, and he ought to be shown that he should
henceforth be satisfied with the vow he made in baptism,[53] to keep the
commandments of God. And yet, in order to quiet his conscience, he may be
allowed this once to perform his foolish vow. No one wants to walk in the
straight and common path of God's commandments; everyone makes himself new
roads and new vows, as though he had fulfilled all the commandments of God.

13. Next we come to that great crowd who vow much and keep little. Be not
angry, dear lords! Truly, I mean it well. It is the truth, and bitter-sweet,
and it is this,--the building of mendicant-houses[54] should no more be
permitted. God help us, there are already far too many of them! Would to God
they were all done away, or at least given over to two or three orders!
Wandering about the land has never brought any good, and never l bring any
good. It is my advice, therefore, to put together ten of these houses, or as
many as may be necessary, and out of them all to make one house, which will be
well provided and need no more begging. It is much more important to consider
what the common people need for their salvation, than what St. Francis,
Dominic, St. Augustine[55] or any other man has decreed; especially since
things have not turned out as they expected.

The mendicants should also be relieved of preaching and hearing confession,
except when they are called to this work by the express desire of bishops,
parishes, congregations or the temporal authorities. Out of their preaching
and shriving there has come nothing but hatred and envy between priests and
monks, and great offense and hindrance to the common people. For this reason
it should properly and deservedly cease, because it can well be dispensed
with.[56] It looks suspiciously as though it were not for nothing that the
Holy Roman See has increased this army, so that the priests and bishops, tired
of its tyranny, might not some time become too strong for it and begin a
reformation which would not be to the liking of his Holiness. 

At the same time the manifold divisions and differences within one and the
same order should be abolished. These divisions have at times arisen for small
reason and maintained themselves for still smaller, combating one another with
unspeakable hatred and envy.[57] Nevertheless the Christian faith, which can
well exist without any of these distinctions, is lost by both sides, and a
good Christian life is valued and sought after only in outward laws, works and
forms; and this results only in the devising of hypocrisy and the destruction
of souls, as everyone may see with his own eyes.

The pope must also be forbidden to found and confirm any more of these orders;
nay, he must be commanded to abolish some of them and reduce their number,
since the faith of Christ, which is alone the highest good and which exists
without any orders, is in no small danger, because these many different works
and forms easily mislead men into living for them instead of giving heed to
the faith. Unless there are in the monasteries wise prelates, who preach and
who concern themselves with faith more than with the rules of the orders, the
order cannot but harm and delude simple souls who think only of works. 

In our days, however, the prelates who have had faith and who founded the
orders have almost all passed away. Just as in olden days among the children
of Israel, when the fathers, who knew God's works and wonders, had passed
away, the children, from ignorance of God's works and of faith, immediately
became idolatrous and set up their own human works; so now, alas! these orders
have lost the understanding of God's works and of faith, and only torture
themselves pitifully, with labor and sorrow, in their own rules, laws and
customs, and withal never come to a right understanding of a good spiritual
life, as the Apostle declared when he said in 2 Timothy 3:5, 7: "They have the
appearance of a spiritual life, yet there is nothing back of it; they are ever
and ever learning, but they never come to a knowledge of what a true spiritual
life is." There should be no monastery unless there were a spiritual prelate,
learned in the Christian faith, to rule it, for no other kind of prelate can
rule without injury and ruin, and the holier and better he appears to be in
his outward works and life, the more injury and ruin he causes.

To my way of thinking it would be a necessary measure, especially in these
perilous times of ours, that all foundations and monasteries should be
re-established as they were at the first, in the days of the Apostles and for
a long time afterwards, when they were all open to every man, and every man
might remain in them as long as he pleased. For what were the foundations and
monasteries except Christian schools in which the Scriptures and Christian
living were taught, and people were trained to rule and to preach? So we read
that St. Agnes[58] went to school, and we still see the same practice in some
of the nunneries, like that at Quedlinburg[59] and others elsewhere. And in
truth all monasteries and convents ought to be so free that God is served in
them with free will and not with forced avarice. Afterward, however, they
hedged them about with vows and turned them into a lifelong prison, so that
these vows are thought to be of more account than the vows of baptism. What
sort of fruit this has borne, we see, hear, read and learn more and more every
day. 

I suppose this advice of mine will be regarded as the height of foolishness;
but I am not concerned about that just now. I advise what I think best; let him
reject it who will! I see how the vows are kept, especially the vow of
chastity, which has become so universal through these monasteries and yet is
not commanded by Christ; on the contrary, it is given to very few to keep it,
as He himself says, and St. Paul. (Matt. 19:11 ff., 1 Cor. 7:7, Col. 2:20) I
would have all men to be helped, and not have Christian souls caught in human,
self-devised customs and laws. 

14. We also see how the priesthood has fallen, and how many a poor priest is
overburdened with wife and child, and his conscience troubled, yet no one does
anything to help him though he might easily be helped. Though pope and bishops
may let things go as they go, and let them go to ruin if they will, I will
save my conscience and open my month freely, whether it vex pope, bishops or
any one else. 

Wherefore I say that according to the institution of Christ and the Apostles
every city should have a priest or bishop, as St. Paul clearly says in Titus
1:6; and this priest should not be compelled to live without a wedded wife,
but should be permitted to have one, as St. Paul says in I Timothy 3:2, and
Titus 1:6, "A bishop should be a man who is blameless, and the husband of but
one wedded wife, whose children are obedient and virtuous," etc. For with St.
Paul a bishop and a priest are one and the same thing, as witness also St.
Jerome.[60] But of bishops as they now are; the Scriptures know nothing; they
have been appointed by the ordinance of the Christian Church, that one of them
may rule over many priests.

So then we clearly learn from the Apostle that it should be the custom for
every town to choose out of the congregation[61] a learned and pious citizen,
entrust to him the office of the ministry, and support him at the expense of
the community, leaving him free choice to marry or not. He should have with
him several priests or deacons, who might also be married or not, as they
chose, to help him rule the people of the community[62] by means of preaching
and the sacraments, as is still the practice in the Greek Church. At a later
time,[63] when there were so many persecutions and controversies with
heretics, there were many holy fathers who of their own accord abstained from
matrimony, to the end that they might the better devote themselves to study
and be prepared at any time for death or for controversy. Then the Roman See
interfered, out of sheer wantonness, and made a universal commandment
forbidding priests to marry.[64] This was done at the bidding of the devil,
as St. Paul declares in I Timothy 4, "There shall come teachers who bring
doctrines of devils, and forbid to marry." From this has arisen so much untold
misery, occasion was given for the withdrawal of the Greek Church,[65] and
division, sin, shame and scandal were increased without end, - which is the
result of everything the devil does.

What, then, shall we do about it? My advice is that matrimony be again made
free,[66] and that every one be left free choice to marry or not to marry. In
that case, however, there must be a very different government and
administration of Church property, the whole canon law must go to pieces and
not many benefices find their way to Rome.[67] I fear that greed has been a
cause of this wretched unchaste chastity, and as a result of greed every man
has wished to become a priest and everyone wants his son to study for the
priesthood, not with the idea of living in chastity, for that could be done
outside the priesthood, but of being supported in temporal things without care
or labor, contrary to the command of God in Genesis 3:19, "In the sweat of thy
face shalt thou eat thy bread." They have construed this to mean that their
labor was to pray and say mass.

I am not referring here to popes, bishops, canons and monks. God has not
instituted these offices. They have taken burdens on themselves; let them bear
them. I would speak only of the ministry which God has instituted[68] and
which is to rule a congregation by means of preaching and sacraments, whose
incumbents are to live and be at home among the people. Such ministers should
be granted liberty by a Christian council to marry, for the avoidance of
temptation and sin. Gal. 1:8, For since God has not bound them, no one else
ought to bind them or can bind them, even though he were an angel from heaven,
still less if he be only a pope; and everything that the canon law decrees to
the contrary is mere fable and idle talk. 

Furthermore, I advise that henceforth neither at his consecration to the
priesthood nor at any other time shall any one under any circumstances promise
the bishop to live in celibacy, but shall declare to the bishop that he has no
authority to demand such a vow, and that to demand it is the devil's own
tyranny. 

But if anyone is compelled to say or wishes to say, as do some, "so far as
human frailty permits,"[69] let everyone frankly interpret these words
negatively, to mean "I do not promise chastity."[70] For human frailty does
not permit a chaste life,[71] but only angelic power and celestial might.
2 Pet. 2:11.[72] Thus he should keep his conscience free from all vows.

On the question whether those who are not yet married should marry or remain
unmarried, I do not care to give advice either way. I leave that to common
Christian order and to everyone's better judgment. But as regards the wretched
multitude who now sit in shame and heaviness of conscience because their wives
are called "priests' harlots" and their children "priests' children" I will
not withhold my faithful counsel nor deprive them of the comfort which is
their due, I say this boldly by my jester's right.[73] 

You will find many a pious priest against whom no one has anything to say
except that he is weak and has come to shame with a woman, though both parties
may be minded with all their heart to live always together in wedded love and
troth, if only they could do it with a clear conscience, even though they
might have to bear public shame. Two such persons are certainly married before
God. And I say that where they are thus minded, and so come to live together,
they should boldly save their consciences; let him take and keep her as his
wedded wife, and live honestly with her as her husband, caring nothing whether
the pope will have it so or not, whether it be against canon law or human law.
The salvation of your soul is of more importance than tyrannical, arbitrary,
wicked laws, which are not necessary for salvation and are not commanded by
God. Ex. 12:35 f. You should do like the children of Israel, who stole from
the Egyptians the hire they had earned, or like a servant who steals from his
wicked master the wages he has earned. In like manner steal thou from the pope
thy wife and child! Let the man who has faith enough to venture this, boldly
follow me; I shall not lead him astray. Though I have not the authority of a
pope, I have the authority of a Christian to advise and help my neighbor
against sins and temptations; and that, not without cause and reason. 

First, not every priest can do without a woman, not only on account of the
weakness of the flesh, but much more because of the necessities of the
household. If he, then, may have a woman, and the pope grants him that,
and yet may not have her in marriage,--what is that but leaving a man and
a woman alone and forbidding them to fall? It is as though one were to put
fire and straw together and command that it shall neither smoke nor burn.

Second, The pope has as little power to command this, as he has to forbid
eating, drinking, the natural movement of the bowels or growing fat. No
one, therefore, is bound to keep it, but the pope is responsible for all the
sins which are committed against this ordinance, for all the souls which
are lost thereby, for all the consciences which are thereby confused and
tortured; and therefore he has long deserved that some one should drive
him out of the world, so many wretched souls has he strangled with this
devil's snare; though I hope that there are many to whom God has been
more gracious at their last hour than the pope has been in their life.
Nothing good has ever come out of the papacy and its laws, nor ever will. 

Third, Although the law of the pope is against it, nevertheless, when the
estate of matrimony has been entered against the pope's law, then his law
is at an end, and is no longer valid; for the commandment of God, which
decrees that no one shall put man and wife asunder, takes precedence of
the law of the pope; and the commandments of God must not be broken and
neglected for the sake of the pope's commandment, though many mad
jurists, in the papal interest, have devised "impediments"[74] and have
prevented, destroyed and confused the estate of matrimony, until by their
means God's commandment has been altogether destroyed. To make a long
story short, there are not in the whole "spiritual" law of the pope two
lines which could be instructive to a pious Christian, and there are, alas!
So many mistaken and dangerous laws that the best thing would be to
make a bonfire of it.[75]

But if you say that this[76] would give offense, and the pope must first
grant dispensation, I reply that whatever offense is in it, is the fault of
the Roman See, which has established such laws without right and against God;
before God and the Scriptures it is no offense. Moreover, if the pope can
grant dispensations from his avaricious and tyrannical laws for money's sake,
then every Christian can grant dispensations from them--for the sake of God
and the salvation of souls. For Christ has set us free from all human laws,
especially when they are opposed to God and the salvation of souls, as St.
Paul teaches in Galatians 5:1 and 1 Corinthians 9:4 ff.; 10:23.

PROPOSALS FOR REFORM, PART II

15. Nor must I forget the poor convents! The evil spirit, who by human laws
now confuses all estates in life, and has made them unbearable, has taken
possession of certain abbots, abbesses and prelates also, and causes them so
to govern their brethren and sisters as to send them the more speedily to
hell, and make them lead a wretched life even here; for such is the log of all
the devil's martyrs. That is to say, they have reserved to themselves in
confession, all, or at least some, of the mortal sins which are secret, so
that no brother, on his obedience and on pain of the ban, can absolve another
from these sins.[1] Now we do not always find angels everywhere, but we find
also flesh and blood, which suffers all bannings and threatenings rather than
confess secret sins to the prelates and the appointed confessors. Thus they
go to the sacrament with such consciences that they become "irregular"[2]
and all sorts of other terrible things. O blind shepherds! O mad prelates! O
ravening wolves!

To this I say: If a sin is public or notorious, then it is proper that the
prelate alone should punish it, and of these sins only and no others he may
make exceptions, and reserve them to himself over secret sins he has no
authority, even though they were the worst sins that are or ever can be found,
and if the prelate makes exceptions of these sins, he is a tyrant, for he has
no such right and is interfering in the judgment of God. 

And so I advise these children, brethren and sisters: If your superiors are
unwilling to grant you permission to confess your secret sins to whomever you
wish, then take them to whatever brother or sister you will and confess them,
receive absolution, and then go and do whatever you wish and ought to do;
only believe firmly that you are absolved, and nothing more is needed. And do
not allow yourself to be troubled by ban, "irregularity," or any of the other
things they threaten; these things are valid only in the case of public or
notorious sins which one is unwilling to confess; they do not affect you at
all. Why do you try by your threatenings, O blind prelate, to prevent secret
sins? Let go what you cannot publicly prove, so that God's judgment and grace
may also have its work in your subjects! He did not give them so entirely
into your hands as to let them go entirely out of His own! Nay, what you have
under your rule is but the smaller part. Let your statues be statutes, but do
not exalt them to heaven, to the judgment-seat of God.

16. It were also necessary to abolish all anniversary mortuary and "soul"
masses,[3] or at least to diminish their number, since we plainly see that
they have become nothing but a mockery, by which God is deeply angered, and
that their only purpose is money-getting, gorging and drunkenness. What kind
of pleasure should God have in such a miserable gabbing or wretched vigils and
masses, which is neither reading nor praying, and even when prayed,[4] they
are performed not for God's sake and out of willing love, but for money's sake
and because they are a bounden duty. Now it is not possible that any work not
done out of willing love can please God or obtain anything from Him. And so
it is altogether Christian to abolish, or at least diminish, everything which
we see growing into an abuse, and which angers rather than reconciles God. It
would please me more--nay, it would be more acceptable to God and far better--
that a foundation, church or monastery should put all its anniversary masses
and vigils together, and on one day, with hearty sincerity, devotion and 
faith, hold a true vigil and mass for all its benefactors, rather than hold
them by the thousand every year, for each benefactor a special mass, without
this devotion and faith. O dear Christians! God cares not for much praying,
but for true praying! Nay, He condemns the many and long prayers, and says in
Matthew 6:7; 23:14, they will only earn more punishment thereby. But
avarice, which cannot trust God, brings such things to pass, fearing that
otherwise it must die of hunger!

17. Certain of the penalties or punishments of the canon law should also be
abolished, especially the interdict, which is, beyond all doubt, an invention
of the evil Spirit. It is not a devil's work to try to atone for one sin with
many greater sins? And yet, to put God's Word and worship to silence, or to
do away with them, is a greater sin than strangling twenty popes at once, and
far greater than killing a priest or keeping back some Church property. This
is another of the tender virtues taught in the "spiritual law." For one of
the reasons why this law is called "spiritual" is because it comes from the
Spirit; not, however, from the Holy Spirit, but from the evil spirit. 

The ban[6] is to be used in no case except where the Scriptures prescribe its
use, i.e., against those who do not hold the true faith, or who live in open
sin; it is not to be used for the sake of temporal possessions. But now it is
the other way around. Everyone believes and lives as he pleases, most of all
those who use the ban to plunder and defame other people, and all the bans are
now laid only on account of temporal possessions, for which we have no one to
thank but the holy "spiritual lawlessness."[7] Of this I have previously said
more in the Discourse.[8] 

The other punishments and penalties,--suspension, irregularity, aggravation,
reaggravation, deposition, lightnings, thunderings, cursings, damnings and the
rest of these devices,--should be buried ten fathoms deep in the earth, so
that there should be neither name nor memory of them left on earth. The evil
spirit, who has been let loose by the "spiritual law" has brought this
terrible plague and misery into the heavenly kingdom of the holy Church, and
has accomplished by it nothing else than the destruction and hindrance of
souls, so that the word of Christ may well be applied to them[9]; Matthew
23:13: "Woe unto you scribes! Ye have taken upon your the authority to teach,
and ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men. Ye go not in yourselves,
and ye suffer not them that are entering."

18. All festivals[10] should be abolished, and Sunday alone retained. If it
were desired, however, to retain the festivals of Our Lady and of the greater
saints, they should be transferred to Sunday, or observed only by a morning
mass, after which all the rest of the day should be a working-day. The reason
is this: The feast-days are now abused by drinking, gaming, idleness and all
manner of sins, so that on the holy days we anger God more than on other days,
and have altogether turned things around; the hold days are not holy and the
working days are holy, and not only is no service done to God and His saints
by the many holy days, but rather great dishonor. There are, indeed, some mad
prelates who think they are doing a good work if they make a festival in honor
of St. Ottilia or St. Barbara or some other saint, according to the promptings
of their blind devotion; but they would be doing a far better work if they
honored the saint by turning a saint's-day into a working day.

Over and above the spiritual injury, the common man receives two material
injuries from this practice, i.e., he neglects his work and he spends more
than at other times; nay, he also weakens his body and unfits it for work. We
see this every day, yet no one thinks to make it better. We ought not to
consider whether or not the pope has instituted the feasts, and whether we
must have dispensation and permission to omit them. If a thing is opposed to
God, and harmful to man in body and soul, any community,[11] council[12] or
government has not only the right to abolish it and put a stop to it, without
the will or knowledge or pope or bishop, but they are bound on their souls'
salvation to prevent it, even against the will of pope and bishop, thought
these ought to be themselves the first to forbid it. 

Above all, we ought utterly to abolish the consecration days,[13] since they
have become nothing else than taverns, fairs and gaming places,[14] and serve
only to the increase of God's dishonor and to the damnation of souls. All the
pretence about the custom having had the custom having had a good beginning
and being a good work is of no avail. Did not God Himself set aside His own
law, which He had given from heaven, when it was perverted and abused? And
does He not still daily overturn what He has appointed and destroy what He has
made, because of such perversion and abuse? As it is written of Him in Psalm
18:27, "With the perverted Thou wilt show Thyself perverse."

19. The grades or degrees within which marriage is forbidden should be
changed, as, for instance, the sponsorships and the third and fourth degrees
and if the pope can grant dispensation in these matters for money and for the
sake of the shameful traffic,[15] then every parish priest may give the same
dispensations gratis and for the salvation of souls. Yea, would to God that
all the things which we must buy at Rome to free ourselves from that
money-snare, the canon law,--such things as indulgences, letters or
indulgence, "butter-letters,"[16] "mass-letters,"[17] and all the rest of the
_confessionalia_[18] and knaveries for the sale at Rome, with which the poor
folk are deceived and robbed of their money; would to God, I say, that any
priest could, without payment, do and omit all these things! For if the pope
has the authority to sell his snares for money and his spiritual nets (I
should say laws),[19] surely any priest has much more authority to rend his
nets and for God's sake to tread them under foot. But if he has not this
right, neither has the pope the right to sell them at his shameful fair.[20]

This is the place to say too that the fasts should be matters of liberty, and
all sorts of food made free, as the Gospel makes them. (Matthew 15:11) For
at Rome they themselves laugh at the fasts, making us foreigners eat the oil
with which they would not grease their shoes, and afterwards selling us
liberty to eat butter and all sorts of other things; yet the holy Apostle says
that in all these things we already have liberty through the Gospel. (1 Cor.
10:25 ff.) But they have caught us with their canon law and stolen our rights
from us, so that we may have to buy them back with money. Thus they have made
our consciences so timid and shy that it is no longer easy to preach about
this liberty because the common people take such great offense, thinking it is
a greater sin to eat butter than to lie, to swear, or even to live unchastely. 
Nevertheless, what men have decreed, that is the work of man; put it where you
will,[21] nothing good ever comes out of it. 

20. The forest chapels and rustic churches[22] must be utterly destroyed,--
those, namely, to which the recent pilgrimages have been directed,--
Wilsnack,[23] Sternberg,[24] Trier,[25] the Grimmenthal,[26] and now
Regensburg[27] and a goodly number of others. Oh, what a terrible and heavy
account will the bishops have to render, who permit this devilish deceit and
receive its profits.[28] They should be the first to forbid it, and yet they 
think it a divine and holy thing, and do not see that it is the devil's doing,
to strengthen avarice, to create a false, feigned faith, to weaken the parish
churches, to multiply taverns and harlotry, to waste money and labor, and to
lead the poor folk by the nose. If they had only read the Scriptures to as
good purpose as they have read their damnable canon law, they would know well
how to deal with this matter.

That miracles are done at these places does not help things, for the evil
spirit can do miracles, as Christ has told us in Matthew 24:24. If they took
the matter seriously and forbade this sort of thing, the miracles would
quickly come to an end; (Acts 5:39) on the other hand, if the thing were of
God their prohibition would not hinder it. And if there were no other
evidence that it is not of God, this would be enough,--that people run to
these places in excited crowds, as though they had lost their reason, like
herds of cattle; for this cannot possible be the God. Moreover, God has
commanded nothing of all this; there is neither obedience nor merit in it; 
the bishops, therefore, should boldly step in and keep the folk away. For
what is not commanded--and is concerned for self rather than for the commands
of God--that is surely the devil himself. Then, too, the parish churches 
receive injury, because they are held in smaller honor. In short, these things
are signs of great unbelief among the people; if they truly believed, they 
would have all that they need in their own churches, for to them they are 
commanded to go. 

But what shall I say? Every one[29] plans only how he may establish and
maintain such a place of pilgrimage in his diocese and is not at all concerned
to have the people believe and live aright; the rulers are like the people;
one blind man leads another. (Matthew 13:14) Nay, where pilgrimages are not
successful, they begin to canonize saints,[30] not in honor of the saints--
for they are sufficiently honored without canonization--but in order to draw
crowds and bring in money. Pope and bishop help along; it rains indulgences;
there is always money enough for that. But for what God has commanded no one
provides; no one runs after these things; there is no money for them. Alas,
that we should be so blind! We not only give the devil his own way in his
tricks, but we even strengthen him in his wantonness and increase his pranks. 
I would that the dear saints were left in peace, and the poor folk not lead
astray! What spirit has given the pope the authority to canonize the saints? 
Who tells him whether they are saints or not? Are there not already sins
enough on earth, that we too must tempt God, interfere in His judgment and set
up the dear saints as lures for money?

Therefore I advise that the saints be left to canonize themselves. Yea, it is
God alone who should canonize them. And let every man stay in his own parish,
where he finds more than in all the shrines of pilgrimage, even though all the
shrines were one. Here we find baptism, the sacrament, preaching and our
neighbor, and these are greater things, than all the saints in heaven, for it
is by God's Word and sacrament that they have all been made saints. So long
as we despise such great things God is just in the wrathful judgment by which
He appoints the devil to lead us hither and thither, to establish pilgrimages,
to found churches and chapels, to secure the canonization of saints, and to do
other such fool's-works, by which we depart from true faith into new, false
misbelief. This is what he did in olden times to the people of Israel, when
he led them away from the temple at Jerusalem to countless other places,
though he did it in the name of God and under the plausible guise of holiness,
though all the prophets preached against it and were persecuted for so doing. 
But now no one preaches against it, perhaps for fear that pope, priests and
monks would persecute him also. In this way St. Antoninus of Florence[31] 
and certain others must now be made saints and canonized, that their holiness,
which would otherwise have served only for the glory of God and as a good
example, may serve to bring in fame and money.

Although the canonizing of saints may have been good in olden times, it is not
good now; just as many other things were good in olden times and are now
scandalous and injurious, such as feast-days, church-treasures and
church-adornment. For it is evident that through the canonizing of saints
neither God's glory nor the improvement of Christians is sought, but only
money and glory, in that one church wants to be something more and have
something more than others, and would be sorry if another had the same thing
and its advantage were common property. So entirely, in these last, evil
days, have spiritual goods been misused and applied to the gaining of temporal
goods, that everything, even God Himself, has been forced into the service of
avarice. And even these special advantages lead only to dissensions,
divisions and pride, in that the churches, differing from one another, hold
each other in contempt, and exalt themselves one above another, though all the
gifts which God bestows are the common and equal property of all churches and
should only serve the cause of unity. The pope, too, is glad for the present
state of affairs; he would be sorry if all Christians were equal and were at
one. 

This is the place to speak of the church licenses, bulls and other things
which the pope sells at his flaying-place in Rome. We should either abolish
them or disregard them, or at least make them the common property of all
churches. For if he sells or gives away licenses and privileges, indulgences,
graces, advantages, faculties[32] to Wittenberg, to Halle, to Venice and,
above, all to his own Rome, why does he not give these things to all churches
alike? Is he not bound to do for all Christians, gratis and for God's sake,
everything that he can, and even to shed his blood for them? Tell me, then,
why he gives or sells to one church and not to another? Or must the accursed
money make, in the eyes of His Holiness, so great a difference among
Christians, who all have the same baptism, Word, faith, Christ, God and all
things? (Eph. 4:4 f.) Are we to be blind while we have eyes to see, fools 
while we have our reason, that they expect us to worship such greed, knavery
and humbug? He is a shepherd,--yes, so long as you have money, and no
longer! And yet they are not ashamed of their knavery, leading us hither and
yon with their bulls! Their one concern is the accursed money, and nothing
else!

My advice is this: If such