NOTICE: The following
article is written by the author itself and not by me, I am not trying to violate
their copyright. I will give some information on them.
One of my favorite
theologians, Martin Luther died on this date, 18 February 1546. He would have
been 530 years old if he was alive today! In loving memory of him, I will post
one of his articles.
ARTICLE TITLE: Thou Shalt not kill
DATE: April 1529
AUTHOR: Martin Luther
AUTHOR
INFORMATION: Martin Luther (10 November 1483 –
18 February 1546) was a German monk, priest, professor of theology and iconic
figure of the Protestant Reformation. He strongly disputed the claim that freedom
from God's punishment for sin could be purchased with money. He confronted
indulgence salesman Johann Tetzel with his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517.
His refusal to retract all of his writings at the demand of Pope Leo X in 1520
and the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V at the Diet of Worms in 1521 resulted in
his excommunication by the pope and condemnation as an outlaw by the Emperor.
Luther taught that salvation is not earned by good deeds but received only as a
free gift of God's grace through faith in Jesus Christ as redeemer from sin.
His theology challenged the authority of the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church
by teaching that the Bible is the only source of divinely revealed knowledge
and opposed sacerdotalism by considering all baptized Christians to be a holy
priesthood. Those who identify with Luther's teachings are called Lutherans.
His translation of the Bible into the vernacular (instead of Latin) made it
more accessible, causing a tremendous impact on the church and on German
culture. It fostered the development of a standard version of the German
language, added several principles to the art of translation, and influenced
the translation into English of the King James Bible. His hymns influenced the
development of singing in churches. His marriage to Katharina von Bora set a
model for the practice of clerical marriage, allowing Protestant priests to
marry.
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| Martin Luther |
PROJECT WITTENBERG
__________
The Large Catechism
by Martin Luther
Translated by F. Bente and
W.H.T. Dau
Published in:
Triglot Concordia: The Symbolical Books
of the Ev. Lutheran Church
(St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921)
pp. 565-773
Thou shalt not kill.
We
have now completed both the spiritual and the temporal government, that is, the
divine and the paternal authority and obedience. But here now we go forth from
our house among our neighbors to learn how we should live with one another,
every one himself toward his neighbor. Therefore God and government are not
included in this commandment nor is the power to kill, which they have taken
away. For God has delegated His authority to punish evil-doers to the
government instead of parents, who aforetime (as we read in Moses) were
required to bring their own children to judgment and sentence them to death.
Therefore, what is here forbidden is forbidden to the individual in his
relation to anyone else, and not to the government.
Now
this commandment is easy enough and has been often treated, because we hear it
annually in the Gospel of St. Matthew, 5, 21 ff., where Christ Himself explains
and sums it up, namely, that we must not kill neither with hand, heart, mouth,
signs, gestures, help, nor counsel. Therefore it is here forbidden to every one
to be angry, except those (as we said) who are in the place of God, that is,
parents and the government. For it is proper for God and for every one who is
in a divine estate to be angry, to reprove and punish, namely, on account of
those very persons who transgress this and the other commandments.
But
the cause and need of this commandment is that God well knows that the world is
evil, and that this life has much unhappiness; therefore He has placed this and
the other commandments between the good and the evil. Now, as there are many
assaults upon all commandments, so it happens also in this commandment that we
must live among many people who do us harm, so that we have cause to be hostile
to them.
As
when your neighbor sees that you have a better house and home [a larger family
and more fertile fields], greater possessions and fortune from God than he, he
is sulky, envies you, and speaks no good of you.
Thus
by the devil's incitement you will get many enemies who cannot bear to see you
have any good, either bodily or spiritual. When we see such people, our hearts,
in turn, would rage and bleed and take vengeance. Then there arise cursing and
blows, from which follow finally misery and murder. Here, now, God like a kind
father steps in ahead of Us, interposes and wishes to have the quarrel settled,
that no misfortune come of it, nor one destroy another. And briefly He would
hereby protect, set free, and keep in peace every one against the crime and
violence of every one else; and would have this commandment placed as a wall,
fortress, and refuge about our neighbor, that we do him no hurt nor harm in his
body.
Thus
this commandment aims at this, that no one offend his neighbor on account of
any evil deed, even though he have fully deserved it. For where murder is
forbidden, all cause also is forbidden whence murder may originate. For many a
one, although he does not kill, yet curses and utters a wish, which would stop
a person from running far if it were to strike him in the neck [makes
imprecations, which if fulfilled with respect to any one, he would not live
long]. Now since this inheres in every one by nature and it is a common
practice that no one is willing to suffer at the hands of another, God wishes to
remove the root and source by which the heart is embittered against our
neighbor, and to accustom us ever to keep in view this commandment, always to
contemplate ourselves in it as in a mirror, to regard the will of God, and with
hearty confidence and invocation of His name to commit to Him the wrong which
we suffer. Thus we shall suffer our enemies to rage and be angry, doing what
they can, and we learn to calm our wrath, and to have a patient, gentle heart,
especially toward those who give us cause to be angry, that is, our enemies.
Therefore
the entire sum of what it means not to kill is to be impressed most explicitly
upon the simple-minded. In the first place that we harm no one, first, with our
hand or by deed. Then, that we do not employ our tongue to instigate or counsel
thereto. Further, that we neither use nor assent to any kind of means or
methods whereby any one may be injured. And finally, that the heart be not ill
disposed toward any one, nor from anger and hatred wish him ill, so that body
and soul may be innocent in regard to every one, but especially those who wish
you evil or inflict such upon you. For to do evil to one who wishes and does
you good is not human, but diabolical.
Secondly,
under this commandment not only he is guilty who does evil to his neighbor, but
he also who can do him good, prevent, resist evil, defend and save him, so that
no bodily harm or hurt happen to him and yet does not do it. If, therefore, you
send away one that is naked when you could clothe him, you have caused him to
freeze to death; you see one suffer hunger and do not give him food, you have
caused him to starve. So also, if you see any one innocently sentenced to death
or in like distress, and do not save him, although you know ways and means to
do so, you have killed him. And it will not avail you to make the pretext that
you did not afford any help, counsel, or aid thereto for you have withheld your
love from him and deprived him of the benefit whereby his life would have been
saved.
Therefore
God also rightly calls all those murderers who do not afford counsel and help
in distress and danger of body and life, and will pass a most terrible sentence
upon them in the last day, as Christ Himself has announced when He shall say,
Matt.25, 42f.: I was an hungered, and ye gave Me no meat; I was thirsty, and ye
gave Me no drink; I was a stranger, and ye took Me not in; naked, and ye
clothed Me not; sick and in prison and ye visited Me not. That is: You would
have suffered Me and Mine to die of hunger thirst, and cold, would have
suffered the wild beasts to tear us to pieces, or left us to rot in prison or
perish in distress. What else is that but to reproach them as murderers and
bloodhounds? For although you have not actually done all this, you have
nevertheless, so far as you were concerned, suffered him to pine and perish in
misfortune.
It
is just as if I saw some one navigating and laboring in deep water [and
struggling against adverse winds] or one fallen into fire, and could extend to
him the hand to pull him out and save him, and yet refused to do it. What else
would I appear, even in the eyes of the world, than as a murderer and a
criminal?
Therefore
it is God's ultimate purpose that we suffer harm to befall no man, but show him
all good and love; and, as we have said it is specially directed toward those
who are our enemies. For to do good to our friends is but an ordinary heathen
virtue as Christ says Matt. 5, 46.
Here
we have again the Word of God whereby He would encourage and urge us to true
noble and sublime works, as gentleness patience, and, in short, love and
kindness to our enemies, and would ever remind us to reflect upon the First
Commandment, that He is our God, that is, that He will help, assist, and
protect us, in order that He may thus quench the desire of revenge in us.
This
we ought to practice and inculcate and we would have our hands full doing good
works. But this would not be preaching for monks; it would greatly detract from
the religious estate, and infringe upon the sanctity of Carthusians, and would
even be regarded as forbidding good works and clearing the convents. For in
this wise the ordinary state of Christians would be considered just as worthy,
and even worthier, and everybody would see how they mock and delude the world
with a false, hypocritical show of holiness, because they have given this and
other commandments to the winds, and have esteemed them unnecessary, as though
they were not commandments but mere counsels, and have at the same time
shamelessly proclaimed and boasted their hypocritical estate and works as the
most perfect life, in order that they might lead a pleasant, easy life, without
the cross and without patience, for which reason, too, they have resorted to
the cloisters, so that they might not be obliged to suffer any wrong from any
one or to do him any good. But know now that these are the true, holy, and
godly works, in which, with all the angels He rejoices, in comparison with
which all human holiness is but stench and filth, and besides, deserves nothing
but wrath and damnation.
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