[17] A gold coin, the value of which is very uncertain. It was an adaptation of the florin, which was first coined in Florence in the year 1252, and was worth about $2.50. Of the value of the gold gulden of Luther's time various estimates are given. Schaff, Church History, 3 vi., p. 470, calls it a guilder and says it was equal to about $4.00 of the present day. Preserved Smith, Life of Luther, p. 367, fixes its intrinsic value at about fifty cents, but believes its purchasing power was almost twenty times as great. To us a gold piece worth fifty cents seems almost impossible; but the New English Dictionary quotes, under the year 1611: "Florin or Franc: an ancient coin of gold in France, worth ij s. sterling." As the gold coins of those times were not made of pure gold, rarely 17 carats fine, the possibility may be granted. But in 1617, the Dictionary quotes "The Gold Rehnish Guldens of Germany are almost of the same standard as the Crowne Gold of England," and the Crown was worth at the time 6s. 3 1/2 d.—somewhat more than $1.50.

The later silver gulden, worth about forty cents was current in Europe until modern times, and a gulden, worth 48 1/2 cents, was, until recently, a standard coin in Austro-Hungary.

[18] Grosse Hansen.

[19] Men who exercised a delegated authority and acted as the representatives of pope and bishop in matters of church law.

[20] See especially the Address to the Christian Nobility and the Babylonian Captivity.

[21] On the number of the sections see the Introduction, p. 178.

[22] Here, as also in his Catechism, Luther departs from the Old Testament form of the Third Commandment. His restatement of it is extremely difficult to put into English, because of the various meanings of the word Feiertag. It may mean "day of rest," or "holiday," or "holy day." By the use of this word Luther avoids the difficulty of first retaining the Jewish Sabbath in the Commandment and then rejecting it in favor of the Christian Sunday in the explanation.

[23] Gottesdienst.

[24] A reference to the Requiem Mass, sung both at the burial of the dead, and on the anniversary of the day of death. The word translated "memorial," Begängniss, is literally, "a burial service."

[25] See also the Treatise on the New Testament, elsewhere in this volume.

[26] The sermons were frequently either scholastic arguments or popular, often comic tirades against current immorality; the materials were taken from the stories of the saints as much as from the Bible.

[27] Lived 1091-1153. Founder of the Cistercian monastery at Clairvaux, of whom Luther says: "If there ever lived on earth a God-fearing and holy monk, it was Saint Bernard, of Clairvaux." Erl. Ed., 36, 8.

[28] Cf. Discussion of Confession, above, p. 81 f.

[29] The prayer-book and the rosary. The Breviary, a collection of prayers, was used by the clergy; the Rosary, the beads of which represent prayers, the smaller and more numerous Ave Marias, the larger of the Lord's Prayer, Paternoster, was the layman's prayer book.

[30] Cf. Introduction to The Fourteen of Consolation, p. 106.

[31] See note, p. 191.

[32] The German, Oelgötzen, means the wooden images of saints, which were painted with oil paints. It was transferred to any dull person, block-head, sometimes also to priests, who were anointed with oil at their consecration.

[33] Sinnlichkeit.

[34] St. Barbara, a legendary saint, whose day falls on December 4, was thought to protect against storm and fire. See above, p. 237. St. Sebastian, a martyr of the third century, whose day falls on January 20, was supposed to ward off the plague.

[35] Cf. The Fourteen of Consolation, above, p. 162.

[36] Page 194 f.

[37] I. e., by fear without love.

[38] The patron saint of music, of whose life and martyrdom little that is definite is known.

[39] Canonisations, giving a dead man the rank of a saint, who may be or shall be worshiped.

[40] I.e., faith.

[41] Cf. the similar statements in the Sermon vom Wucher (Weimar Ed., VI, 59) and in the Address to the Christian Nobility (ibid., 438).

[42] A name for the dependents of the papal court at Rome.

[43] At Constance, 1414-1443; at Rome, the Lateran council, 1512-1517.

[44] Or, "Who is said to rule the councils."

[45] This program of reform is further elaborated in the Address to the Christian Nobility.

[46] Augustus Caesar, first Roman Emperor (B.C. 63-A.D. 14), the Caesar Augustus of Luke 2:1.

[47] "The purchase of a rent-charge (rent, census, Zins) was one of the methods of investing money frequently resorted to during the later middle ages. From the transfer from one person to another of the right to receive a rent already due the step was but a short one to the creation of an altogether new rent-charge, for the express purpose of raising money by the sale of it…The practice seems to have arisen spontaneously, and to have been by no means a mere evasion of the prohibition of usury." Dictionary of Political Economy, ed. by R. H. Inglish Palgrave, vol. ii. Cf. Ashley, Economic History, vol. i, p.t. ii, §§ 66, 74, 75. For a fuller discussion of the subject by Luther, see the Sermon vom Wucher (Weimar Ed., VI, 51-60).

[48] See note above, p. 220.

[49] Sorgfäitigkeit, Luther's translation of the Vulgate solicitndo in Rom. 12:8, where our English Version reads "diligence." The word as Luther uses it includes the two kinds of carefulness and considerateness.

[50] A most strict monastic order; the phrase here is equivalent to "becomes a monk."

[51] Sanftmüthlgkeit.

[52] Luther discusses these tricks in detail in his Sermon von Kaufhandlung und Wucher (1524) Weimar Ed., XV, pp. 279 ff.

[53] Sermon von dem Wucher, Weimar Ed., VI, 36 ff. Cf. also Address to the German Nobility.

[54] Cf. The Fourteen of Consolation above, p. 149.

A TREATISE ON THE NEW TESTAMENT

THAT IS THE HOLY MASS

1520

INTRODUCTION

The Treatise on the New Testament, that is, on the Holy Mass, was published in the year 1520[1] In the beginning of August of that year, Luther's Address to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation had appeared, in which he had touched upon the subject of the mass,[2] but refused to express himself fully at that time, promising to take up this question later, a promise which he had already made in his Treatise on Good Works, of May, 1520.[3] He must have begun the preparation of this Treatise on the New Testament while the Address to the Christian Nobility was still in press, because on Aug. 3 it was already finished and ready for publication.[4] The treatise, therefore, takes its place between Luther's two famous writings, the Address to the Christian Nobility and the Babylonian Captivity of the Church, which appeared in Oct, 1520. Its tone is remarkably quiet, and its aim predominantly constructive. It is one of those devotional tracts which Luther issued from time to time between his larger publications, and which appear like roses among the thorns of his polemical writings.

The doctrine of the Lord's Supper was one of the most corrupt doctrines of the Roman Church, and it was, therefore, but natural that Luther should have written extensively on this subject, even at the beginning of the work of reformation. From this period, when the opposition of the Sacramentarians[5] to the doctrine of the Real Presence had not yet arisen we have four writings of Luther in which he makes this sacrament a subject of special discussion. These are (1) his mild-toned Sermon von dem hochwürdigen Sacrament, etc., of 1519; (2) the present Sermon von dem neuen Testament, etc., of Aug., 1520; (3) the Babylonian Captivity of the Church, of Oct., 1520; (4) the strongly polemical tract On the Abuse of the Mass, 1522.[6] We shall have occasion to refer to some interesting points of comparison among these works.

This treatise is divided into sections, ending with number 40, but section 32 is omitted, so that there are only 39 in all. Section 1 contains the introduction, section 40 the conclusion. Sections 2-15 are the positive, constructive part of the treatise, dealing with the question. What is the Lord's Supper? In sections 16-34 the sacrificial theory of the Roman Church is rejected; sections 35-31 discuss (1) in how far we may speak of making an offering in the sacrament, and (2) what follows for the conception of a true priesthood in the Church, viz., the priesthood of all believers. Sections 33-39 deal, among other things, with the abuses to which an unscriptural conception of the Lord's Supper has led. Of special interest is section 12, in which Luther gives a summary of all that enters into the Sacrament of the Altar.

Knowing, as we do, that Luther developed his doctrine of the Lord's Supper gradually[7] and under stress of much opposition from all sides, it is interesting for us to note the stage of that development which this treatise represents. We may, therefore, inquire how he stood at this time on the question of the Real Presence. This question is answered under the fourth point of section 12. The true presence of the body and blood cannot be more clearly admitted than is done in sections 11 and 12 of this treatise. We can safely say that there never was a time when Luther was uncertain on this point. The point of view from which he discusses the significance of the sacrament in the Sermon von dem hochwürdigen Sacrament (1519) has sometimes been cited to the contrary, but even in this Sermon, with its emphasis upon the spiritual body of Christ, of which even those may be partakers whom the pope might exclude from the external communion, he speaks of the bread and wine as being changed into the Lord's "true, natural flesh" and into His "natural, true blood," [8] which shows that Luther at that time, nine months before the appearance of this Treatise on the New Testament, still held even to the conception of transubstantiation. He cannot, therefore, have had doubts about the Real Presence.