I remember, dear Father, that once, among those pleasant and wholesome talks of thine, with which the Lord Jesus ofttimes gives me wondrous consolation, the word poenitentia[1] was mentioned. We were moved with pity for many consciences, and for those tormentors who teach, with rules innumerable and unbearable, what they call a modus confitendi.[2] Then we heard thee say as with a voice from heaven, that there is no true penitence which does not begin with love of righteousness and of God, and that this love, which others think to be the end and the completion of penitence, is rather its beginning.

This word of thine stuck in me like a sharp arrow of the mighty, [Ps. 120:4] and from that time forth I began to compare it with the texts of Scripture which teach penitence. Lo, there began a joyous game! The words frollicked with me everywhere! They laughed and gamboled around this saying. Before that there was scarcely a word in all the Scriptures more bitter to me than "penitence," though I was busy making pretences to God and trying to produce a forced, feigned love; but now there is no word which has for me a sweeter or more pleasing sound than "penitence." For God's commands are sweet, when we find that they are to be read not in books alone, but in the wounds of our sweet Saviour.

After this it came about that, by the grace of the learned men who dutifully teach us Greek and Hebrew, I learned that this word is in Greek metanoia and is derived from meta and noun, i. e., post and mentem,[3] so that poenitentia or metanoia is a "coming to one's senses," and is a knowledge of one's own evil, gained after punishment has been accepted and error acknowledged; and this cannot possibly happen without a change in our heart and our love. All this answers so aptly to the theology of Paul, that nothing, at least in my judgment, can so aptly illustrate St. Paul.

Then I went on and saw that metanoia can be derived, though not without violence, not only from post and mentem, but also from trans and mentem, [4] so that metanoia signifies a changing[5] of the mind and heart, because it seemed to indicate not only a change of the heart, but also a manner of changing it, i. e., the grace of God. For that "passing over of the mind," [6] which is true repentance, is of very frequent mention in the Scriptures. Christ has displayed the true significance of that old word "Passover"; and long before the Passover, [Ex. 19:11] Abraham was a type of it, when he was called a "pilgrim," [1 Cor. 5:7] i. e., a "Hebrew," [7] that is to say, one who "passed over" into Mesopotamia, as the Doctor of Bourgos[8] learnedly explains. With this accords, too, the title of the Psalm [Ps. 39] in which Jeduthun, i. e., "the pilgrim," [9] is introduced as the singer.

Depending on these things, I ventured to think those men false teachers who ascribed so much to works of penitence that they left us scarcely anything of penitence itself except trivial satisfactions[10] and laborious confession, because, forsooth, they had derived their idea from the Latin words poenitentiam agere,[11] which indicate an action, rather than a change of heart, and are in no way an equivalent for the Greek metanoia.

While this thought was boiling in my mind, suddenly new trumpets of indulgences and bugles of remissions began to peal and to bray all about us; but they were not intended to arouse us to keen eagerness for battle. In a word, the doctrine of true penitence was passed by, and they presumed to praise not even that poorest part of penitence which is called "satisfaction," [12] but the remission of that poorest part of penitence; and they praised it so highly that such praise was never heard before. Then, too, they taught impious and false and heretical doctrines with such authority (I wished to say "with such assurance") that he who even muttered anything to the contrary under his breath, would straightway be consigned to the flames as a heretic, and condemned to eternal malediction.

Unable to meet their rage half-way, I determined to enter a modest dissent, and to call their teaching into question, relying on the opinion of all the doctors and of the whole Church, that to render satisfaction is better than to secure the remission of satisfaction, i. e., to buy indulgences. Nor is there anybody who ever taught otherwise. Therefore, I published my Disputation;[13] in other words, I brought upon my head all the curses, high, middle and low, which these lovers of money (I should say "of souls") are able to send or to have sent upon me. For these most courteous men, armed, as they are, with very dense acumen, since they cannot deny what I have said, now pretend that in my Disputation I have spoken against the power of the Supreme Pontiff.[14]

That is the reason. Reverend Father, why I now regretfully come out in public. For I have ever been a lover of my corner, and prefer to look upon the beauteous passing show of the great minds of our age, rather than to be looked upon and laughed at. But I see that the bean must appear among the cabbages,[15] and the black must be put with the white, for the sake of seemliness and loveliness.

I ask, therefore, that thou wilt take this foolish work of mine and forward it, if possible, to the most Excellent Pontiff, Leo X, where it may plead my cause against the designs of those who hate me. Not that I wish thee to share my danger! Nay, I wish this to be done at my peril only. Christ will see whether what I have said is His or my own; and without His permission there is not a word in the Supreme Pontiff's tongue, nor is the heart of the king in his own hand. [Ps. 138:4 (Vulgate), Prov. 21:1] He is the Judge whose verdict I await from the Roman See.

As for those threatening friends of mine, I have no answer for them but that word of Reuchlin's—"He who is poor fears nothing; he has nothing to lose." Fortune I neither have nor desire; if I have had reputation and honor, he who destroys them is always at work; there remains only one poor body, weak and wearied with constant hardships, and if by force or wile they do away with that (as a service to God), they will but make me poorer by perhaps an hour or two of life. [John 16:2] Enough for me is the most sweet Saviour and Redeemer, my Lord Jesus Christ, to Whom I shall always sing my song; [Ps. 104:33] if any one is unwilling to sing with me, what is that to me? Let him howl, if he likes, by himself.

The Lord Jesus keep thee eternally, my gracious Father!

Wittenberg, Day of the Holy Trinity, MDXVIII

FOOTNOTES

[1] "Penitence," "repentance," "penance," are all translations of this word. See above, p.29, note 1.

[2] The modus confitendi, or "way of confession" is the teaching of what sins are to be confessed to the priest and how they are to be confessed. The subject is discussed fully by Luther in his Discussion of Confession, below, pp. 81-102.

[3] Gr. µet?, Lat., post. Eng., "after"; Gr. ????, Lat., mens, Eng., "mind."

[4] The Greek µet? can also be translated by the Latin trans, which, in compounds, denotes movement from one place, or thing, or condition, to another.

[5] Lat. transmutatio, "the act or process of changing," not simply "a change" (mutatio).

[6] Transitus mentis.

[7] The derivative of the term "Hebrew" is still disputed (v. PRE3 VII, p.507). Luther conceives it to mean transitor, "one who passes through tor across the land," "a pilgrim." Cf. Genesis 12:6.

[8] Burgenesis, i. e. Paul of Bourgos (1353-1435).

[9] Another bit of Mediæval philology.

[10] See Introduction, p. 19.

[11] Cf. Thesis 1, and foot-note.

[12] Here again, as above, we have the double sense of poentitentia. Satisfaction is a part of sacramental penance. Luther's charge is that in preaching the remission of this part of the Sacrament the doctrine of true penitence (cf. Thesis 1) is passed by.

[13] The Ninety-five Theses.

[14] Tetzel's reply to the Theses (Disputatio II, Jo. Tetzelli), 1517. Loescher, I, pp. 517 ff.

[15] A Latin adage, chorcorus inter olern.

IV

LETTER TO POPE LEO X, ACCOMPANYING THE "RESOLUTIONS" TO THE XCV THESES 1518

To the

Most Blessed Father,

LEO X.

Martin Luther,

Augustinian Friar,

wisheth everlasting welfare.

I have heard evil reports about myself, most blessed Father, by which I know that certain friends have put my name in very bad odor with you and yours, saying that I have attempted to belittle the power of the keys and of the Supreme Pontiff. Therefore I am accused of heresy, apostasy, and perfidy, and am called by six hundred other names of ignominy. My ears shudder and my eyes are astounded. But the one thing in which I put my confidence remains unshaken—my clear and quiet conscience. Moreover, what I hear is nothing new. With such like decorations I have been adorned in my own country by those same honorable and truthful men, i. e., by the men whose own conscience convicts them of wrong-doing, and who are trying to put their own monstrous doings off on me, and to glorify their own shame by bringing shame to me. But you will deign, blessed Father, to hear the true case from me, though I am but an uncouth child. [Jer. 2:6]

It is not long ago that the preaching of the Jubilee indulgences[1] was begun in our country, and matters went so far that the preachers of indulgences, thinking that the protection of your name made anything permissible, ventured openly to teach the most impious and heretical doctrines, which threatened to make the power of the Church a scandal and a laughing-stock as if the decretals De abusionibus quaestorum[2] did not apply to them.

Not content with spreading this poison of theirs by word of mouth, they published tracts and scattered them among the people. In these books—to say nothing of the insatiable and unheard of avarice of which almost every letter in them vilely smells—they laid down those same impious and heretical doctrines, and laid them down in such wise that confessors were bound by their oath to be faithful and insistent in urging them upon the people. I speak the truth, and none of them can hide himself from the heat thereof [Ps. 19:6]. The tracts are extant and they cannot disown them. These teachings were so successfully carried on, and the people, with their false hopes, were sucked so dry that, as the Prophet says, "they plucked their flesh from off their bones"; [Mic. 3:2] but they themselves meanwhile were fed most pleasantly on the fat of the land.