Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Babylonian Captivity of the Church
    The Babylonian Captivity of the Church
    The Babylonian Captivity of the Church
    Ebook152 pages2 hours

    The Babylonian Captivity of the Church

    By Martin Luther

    ()

    Switch to audiobook
    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Prelude on the Babylonian Captivity of the Church (October 1520) was the second of the three major treatises published by Martin Luther in 1520, coming after the Address to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation (August 1520) and before On the Freedom of a Christian (November 1520). It was a theological treatise, and as such was published in Latin as well as German, the language in which the treatises were written.


    In this work Luther examines the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church in the light of his interpretation of the Bible. With regard to the Eucharist, he advocates restoring the cup to the laity, dismisses the Catholic doctrine of Transubstantiation but affirms the real presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist, and rejects the teaching that the Mass is a sacrifice offered to God.


    With regard to baptism, he writes that it brings justification only if conjoined with saving faith in the recipient; however, it remains the foundation of salvation even for those who might later fall and be reclaimed.


    As for penance, its essence consists in the words of promise (absolution) received by faith. Only these three can be regarded as sacraments because of their divine institution and the divine promises of salvation connected with them; but strictly speaking, only Baptism and the Eucharist are sacraments, since only they have “divinely instituted visible sign[s]”: water in Baptism and bread and wine in the Eucharist. Luther claimed that Confirmation, Matrimony, Holy Orders, and Extreme Unction are not sacraments.


    The titular “captivity” is firstly the withholding the cup in the Lord’s Supper from the laity, the second the doctrine of transubstantiation, and the third, the Roman Catholic Church’s teaching that the Mass was a sacrifice and a good work. 


    The work is angry in tone, attacking the papacy. Although Luther had made a link tentatively in the address To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation, this was the first time he forthrightly accused the pope of being the Antichrist. It certainly heralded a radicalization of Luther’s views—only a year before he had defended the validity of the sacraments, yet was now attacking them fiercely.


    Although published in Latin, a translation of this work was quickly published in German by Luther’s opponent, the Strasbourg Franciscan Thomas Murner. He hoped that by making people aware of the radical nature of Luther’s beliefs, they would realise their foolishness in supporting him. In fact, the opposite proved true, and Murner’s translation helped to spread Luther’s views across Germany. The virulence of Luther’s language however, was off-putting to some. After the publication of this work, with its harsh condemnation of the papacy, the renowned humanist Erasmus, who had previously been cautiously supportive of Luther’s activities, became convinced that he should not support Luther’s calls for reform.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCrossReach Publications
    Release dateAug 22, 2021
    Author

    Martin Luther

    Martin Luther (1483–1546) was a German theologian and one of the most influential figures in the Protestant Reformation. Some of Luther’s best-known works are the Ninety-Five Theses, “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” and his translation of the Bible into German. 

    Read more from Martin Luther

    Related to The Babylonian Captivity of the Church

    Related ebooks

    Christianity For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Why Study Church History?

      Jun 15, 2020

      Why Study Church History?
      3 min read

    • Article

      Book of Uncommon Prayer

      May 3, 2023

      Book of Uncommon Prayer
      3 min read

    • Article

      Top 10 Books About Online: An Excerpt from ‘Attention: Dispatches from a Land of Distraction’

      Aug 13, 2018

      1. The Catalog of Nibru (Various, circa 21st to 20th Centuries B.C.) I, the king, was a hero already in the womb I am a king treated with respect Not only did the lord make the world appear in its correct form Lady of all the divine powers These line

      8 min read

    • Article

      Drizzly November in My Soul

      Nov 5, 2021

      For those with a brain chemistry that doesn't incline towards darkness, depression might seem an issue of will power, something to be fixed with a multivitamin and treadmill. Reading Burton reminds us that depression isn't a personal failing. The pos

      14 min read

    • Article

      Trans: The Middle Ages Had Another Word For It

      Oct 29, 2020

      HISTORY ECHOES. Sometimes, it’s a place that echoes across time. Sometimes, it’s a turn of phrase. Consider these two statements. The first is by John Wycliffe, the fourteenth-century philosopher and heresiarch: So about this white and round priest-c

      4 min read

    • Article

      Henry Vaughan’s Eternal Alchemy

      Apr 16, 2021

      What faith teaches is that we're all exiles from that Zion that is eternity, to which we shall one day return. What Vaughan understands is that if we seek eternity, it is now. The post Henry Vaughan’s Eternal Alchemy appeared first on The Millions.

      9 min read

    • Article

      Classical Corner

      Feb 23, 2023

      Classical Corner
      5 min read

    • Article

      Private Devotion

      Sep 1, 2018

      Greetings from Angelus by Gershom Scholem (translated by Richard Sieburth). Archipelago Books, 2018, $14.00 paper. IN 1648—the year, according to the Zohar, destined to usher in the messianic era—a Smyrnan Jew by the name of Shabbatai Tzvi received

      5 min read

    • Article

      Sectarian Scrolls?

      Apr 7, 2023

      Sectarian Scrolls?
      7 min read

    • Article

      Leibniz And The Flying Monk

      Feb 25, 2021

      I have always enjoyed the alternative time-line genre of ‘What if?’. Factual and fictional speculation on such crucial issues as ‘what if’ Kennedy had lived beyond 1963? What if Socrates died at the Battle of Potidaea in 432 BC? What if Charlemagne h

      11 min read

    • Article

      The Roman Roots Of The English Church

      Apr 1, 2022

      Going to Church in Medieval England Nicholas Orme (Yale University Press, £20) The Dissolution of the Monasteries: A New History James G. Clark (Yale University Press, £25) THE FALLOUT OVER THE CHURCH of England’s response to Covid-19 is still with u

      7 min read

    • Article

      Journey Of The Magi

      Dec 15, 2021

      Journey Of The Magi
      2 min read

    • Article

      Preaching The Gospel Of Progressivism

      Jul 28, 2022

      THE LONGEVITY OF ELIZABETH II has (mostly) allowed us to avert our attention from the question of the relationship between church and state for a very long time. Given that her 70 years on the throne have seen the relentless rise of the forces of phi

      4 min read

    • Article

      From Worms To Woke

      May 26, 2022

      HAVE WE BEEN HERE BEFORE? Now, in 2022, with war abroad and woke at home, we contemplate the bitter dissolution of the hopes of the late twentieth century. Five hundred years ago, in 1521, Martin Luther’s appearance at the Diet of Worms signalled the

      5 min read

    • Article

      Poetry Is Prayer

      Feb 28, 2020

      Prayer and poetry are defined by being words that gesture beyond words themselves. The post Poetry Is Prayer appeared first on The Millions.

      13 min read

    • Article

      Woman letters

      Mar 21, 2024

      Woman letters
      6 min read

    • Article

      A Classic Work Of Unbridled Joy

      Aug 26, 2021

      ROBERT BURTON CLAIMED TO KNOW not only the date but the precise hour — 9pm — at which he had been conceived. How he might have arrived at this information is very much an open question. Perhaps English parents in the late sixteenth century were freer

      3 min read

    • Article

      A Window Onto England’s Soul

      Feb 15, 2024

      A Window Onto England’s Soul
      3 min read

    • Article

      A Smoking Quill? Notes In Bible Margin Could Be Handwriting Of The Venerable Bede

      Sep 16, 2023

      His life of service through scholarship earned him the title “venerable”. He is considered one of the most influential thinkers of the post-Roman world, and acknowledged as a saint in the Orthodox, Catholic and Anglican traditions. Now a leading acad

      2 min read

    • Article

      Ten Ways to Save the World

      Oct 16, 2020

      If imagining yourself as the messiah could get you decapitated by the 10th century Abbasids, then in 20th-century Michigan it only got you institutionalized. The post Ten Ways to Save the World appeared first on The Millions.

      30 min read

    • Article

      ‘A History Of The Bible’ Offers Scholarly Insights Into Its Construction

      Aug 27, 2019

      Theologian and Anglican priest John Barton takes a well-researched look into the context and composition of the Bible.

      2 min read

    • Article

      The Medieval Shock Of Thenew

      May 25, 2023

      IN 1700 A MATHEMATICIAN submitted a paper to the Royal Society in which he attempted to calculate, among other things, the rate at which oral testimony — that is, memory — decayed over long periods of time. It’s a quixotic idea, to be sure, but that

      4 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Babylonian Captivity of the Church

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      The Babylonian Captivity of the Church - Martin Luther

      General Introduction

      Prelude on the Babylonian Captivity of the Church (October 1520) was the second of the three major treatises published by Martin Luther in 1520, coming after the Address to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation (August 1520) and before On the Freedom of a Christian (November 1520). It was a theological treatise, and as such was published in Latin as well as German, the language in which the treatises were written.

      In this work Luther examines the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church in the light of his interpretation of the Bible. With regard to the Eucharist, he advocates restoring the cup to the laity, dismisses the Catholic doctrine of Transubstantiation but affirms the real presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist, and rejects the teaching that the Mass is a sacrifice offered to God.

      With regard to baptism, he writes that it brings justification only if conjoined with saving faith in the recipient; however, it remains the foundation of salvation even for those who might later fall¹ and be reclaimed.

      As for penance, its essence consists in the words of promise (absolution) received by faith. Only these three can be regarded as sacraments because of their divine institution and the divine promises of salvation connected with them; but strictly speaking, only Baptism and the Eucharist are sacraments, since only they have divinely instituted visible sign[s]: water in Baptism and bread and wine in the Eucharist.² Luther claimed that Confirmation, Matrimony, Holy Orders, and Extreme Unction are not sacraments.

      The titular captivity is firstly the withholding the cup in the Lord’s Supper from the laity, the second the doctrine of transubstantiation, and the third, the Roman Catholic Church’s teaching that the Mass was a sacrifice and a good work.

      ³

      The work is angry in tone, attacking the papacy. Although Luther had made a link tentatively in the address To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation, this was the first time he forthrightly accused the pope of being the Antichrist. It certainly heralded a radicalization of Luther’s views—only a year before he had defended the validity of the sacraments, yet was now attacking them fiercely.

      Although published in Latin, a translation of this work was quickly published in German by Luther’s opponent, the Strasbourg Franciscan Thomas Murner. He hoped that by making people aware of the radical nature of Luther’s beliefs, they would realize their foolishness in supporting him. In fact, the opposite proved true, and Murner’s translation helped to spread Luther’s views across Germany. The virulence of Luther’s language however, was off-putting to some. After the publication of this work, with its harsh condemnation of the papacy, the renowned humanist Erasmus, who had previously been cautiously supportive of Luther’s activities, became convinced that he should not support Luther’s calls for reform.

      ⁴

      Author’s Introduction

      In the Open Letter to the Christian Nobility Luther overthrew the three walls behind which Rome sat entrenched in her spiritual-temporal power; in the Babylonian Captivity of the Church he enters and takes her central stronghold and sanctuary—the sacramental system by which she accompanied and controlled her members from the cradle to the grave; only then could he set forth, in language of almost lyrical rapture, the Liberty of a Christian Man.

      The first of these three great reformatory treatises of the year 1520, as they have been called, closed with the words: I know another little song about Rome, and if their ears itch to hear it I will sing it for them, and pitch it in a high key. Dost thou take my meaning, beloved Rome? (See above, p. 164.) That some ears were itching to hear his little song was brought home to Luther especially by two writings, the one appearing in the summer of 1520, the other published in the previous autumn, but not reaching Wittenberg until some months later.

      The former came from the pen of Augustin Alveld, that celebrated Romanist of Leipzig, against whom Luther had culminated in The Papacy at Rome, promising further disclosures if Alveld came again. (See Vol. I, p. 393.) He came again, this time with a Tractatus de communione sub utraque specie,—date of dedication, June 23, 1520. The Leipzig ass has set up a fresh braying against me, full of blasphemies; thus Luther describes it in a letter to Spalatin, July 22, 1520. (Enders, Luther’s Briewechsel, II, no. 328.)

      The other work was the anonymous tract of a certain Italian friar of Cremona, who has only recently been identified as Isidore Isolani, a Dominican hailing from Milan, who taught theology in various Italian cities, wrote a number of controversial works and died in 1528. (See Fr. Lauchert, Die italienischen literarischen Gegner Luthers, Freiburg, 1912.) The title of his tract is, Revocatio Martini Lutheri Augustiniani ad sanctam Sedem; its date, Cremona, November 20, 1520, according to Enders, which is a mistake for November 22,1519. Its beginning and close, which have epistolary character, are printed in Enders, II, no. 366, and one paragraph from each is translated in Smith, Luther’s Correspondence, I, no. 199.

      These two treatises may be regarded as the immediate occasion for the writing of the Babylonian Captivity, which is, however, in no sense a direct reply to either of them. I will not reply to Alveld, Luther writes on August 5 to Spalatin, but he will be the occasion of my publishing something by which the vipers will be more irritated than ever. (Enders, II, no. 335; Smith, I, no. 283.) Indeed, he had promised some such work more than half a year before, in a letter to Spalatin of December 18, 1519: There is no reason why you or any one else should expect from me a treatise on the other sacraments [besides baptism, the Lord’s supper, and penance] until I am taught by what text I can prove that they are sacraments. I regard none of the others as a sacrament, for there is no sacrament save where there is a direct divine promise, exercising our faith. We can have no intercourse with God except by the word of Him promising, and by the faith of man receiving the promise. At another time you shall hear more about their fables of the seven sacraments. (Enders, II, no. 254; Smith, I, no. 206.)

      Thus the Prelude grows under his hand and assumes the form of an elaborate examination of the whole sacramental system of the Church. He makes short work of his two opponents, and after a few pages of delicious irony, of which Erasmus was suspected in some quarters of being the author, he turns his back on them and addresses himself to a positive and constructive treatment of his larger theme, lenient toward all non-essentials, but inexorable with respect to everything truly essential, that is, scriptural. The Captivity thus represents the culmination of Luther’s reformatory thinking on the theological side, as the Nobility does on the national, and the Liberty on the religious side. It sums up and carries forward all of his previous writings on the sacraments, just as, nine years later, the Catechisms gathered up and molded into classic form his writings on catechetical subjects. Passage after passage, often whole pages, from the Resolutiones disp., the Treatise on Baptism, the Conitendi Ratio, the Treatise on the New Testament, the Treatise on the Blessed Sacrament, are transferred bodily to this new and definitive work, and find in it the goal toward which they had been consciously or unconsciously tending. The reader is referred to a fine comparative study in Köstlin’s Theology of Luther (English trans.), I, 388-409. The title is a reminiscence from the Resolutiones super prop, xiii., of 1519,—absit ista plus quam babylonica captivitas! The sense in which the work is called a prelude is explained on page 176; the theologian in Luther could not deny the musician, he goes into battle singing and comes back with the stanza of a hymn upon his lips.

      The Captivity marks Luther’s final and irreparable break with the Church of Rome, and it is not without a peculiar significance that in the same letter to Spalatin, of October 3d, in which he mentions the arrival in Leipzig of Eck armed with the papal bull, he announces the publication of his book on the Babylonian Captivity of the Church for the following Saturday—October 6th. (Enders, II, no. 350; Smith, I, no. 303.)

      While the Nobility, addressed to the German nation as such, was written in the language of the people, the Captivity, as becomes a theological treatise, is composed in Latin, just as later the Liberty, affecting the religious life of the individual, whether layman or theologian, is sent out in both German and Latin.

      A translation into German appeared in the following year—the work of the Franciscan, Thomas Murner (on whom see Theod. v. Liebenau, Der Franziskaner Thomas Murner, Freiburg, 1913). Luther calls the Franciscan his venomous foe and accuses him of making the translation in order to bring him into disrepute. This charge Luther makes in his answer to Henry VIII’s Assertio septem sacramentorum adversus Mart. Lutherum (1521), the royal theologian’s reply to the Babylonian Captivity, for which he won from the pope the proud title of Defender of the Faith.

      The translation which follows is based on the Latin text as given in Clemen’s student-edition—Luthers Werke in Auswahl (Bonn, 1912-3), I, 426-512, which reproduces, though by no means slavishly, the text of the Weimar Edition (Vol. VI), which, together with the Erlangen Edition (opera var. arg., V), has been compared. The German St. Louis Edition (Vol. XIX) has been consulted, and especially the admirable German rendering of Kawerau in the Berlin Edition (Vol. II) as well as the careful literal translation of Lemme, Die drei grossen Reormationsschriten Luthers vom Jahre 1520, 2. ed. (Gotha, 1884). Like the last mentioned, Wace and Buchheim’s English translation (London, 1896) is incomplete, and besides is not always accurate; the Captivity is not contained in Cole’s Select Works. The catalogue of the British Museum notes no early English translation. Köstlin-Kawerau’s (1903) and Berger’s (1895) lives should be consulted; the former for the historical setting and full analysis, the latter for a fine appreciation of this as of the other two reformatory treatises of this year. For the theological development, beside Köstlin’s work mentioned above, and Tschackert, Entstehung der luth. und re. Kirchenlehre (1910), compare the exhaustive article Sakramente, by Kattenbusch, in Prot. Realencyklopadie, 3. ed., XVII, 349-81. The treatise is here Englished in its entirety, including those portions of the section on marriage which are frequently omitted. The homeless paragraph on page 260, whose proper location is not found even in the Weimar Edition nor in Clemen, we have placed in a foot-note, following the example of Kawerau.

      ALBERT T. W. STEINHAEUSER.

      Allentown. PA.

      Greeting

      Martin Luther, Augustinian, to his friend, Herman Tulich,

      Greeting

      1.1 Like it or not, I am compelled to learn more every day, with so many and such able masters vying with one another to improve my mind. Some two years ago I wrote a little book on indulgences, which I now deeply regret having published. For at the time I still clung to the Roman tyranny with great superstition and held that indulgences should not be altogether rejected, seeing they were approved by the common consent of men. Nor was this to be wondered at, for I was then engaged single-handed in my Sisyphean task. Since then, however, through the kindness of Sylvester and the friars, who so strenuously defended indulgences, I have come to see that they are nothing but an fraud of the Roman flatterers by which they rob people of their faith and fortunes. I wish I could convince the booksellers and all my readers to burn up the whole of my writings on indulgences and to substitute for them this proposition:

      Indulgences

      1.2 Indulgences are a Swindler’s Trick of the Roman flatterers.

      1.3 Next, Eck and Emser, with their fellows, undertook to instruct me concerning the primacy of the pope. Here too, not to be ungrateful to such learned folk, I acknowledge how greatly I have profited by their labors. For, while denying the divine authority of the papacy, I still admitted its human authority. But after hearing and reading the subtle subtleties of these pretentious and conceited men, with which they skillfully prop their idol—for in these matters my mind is not altogether unreachable—I now know of a certainty that the papacy is the kingdom of Babylon and the power of Nimrod the mighty hunter. Once more, therefore, that all may fall out to my friends’ advantage, I beg both booksellers and readers to burn what I have published on that subject and to hold to this proposition:

      1.4 The Papacy is the mighty prey of the Roman Bishop.

      This follows from the arguments of Eck, Emser and the Leipzig lecturer on the Holy Scriptures.

      1.5 Now they send me back to school again to teach me about communion in both kinds and other weighty subjects. And I must begin to study with all my strength, so as not to hear my teachers without profit. A certain Italian friar of Cremona has written a Revocation of Martin Luther to the Holy See—that is, a revocation in which I do not revoke anything (as the words declare) but he revokes me. That is the kind of Latin the Italians are now beginning to write. Another friar, a German of Leipzig, that same lecturer, you know, on the whole canon of the Scriptures, has written a book against me concerning the sacrament in both kinds, and is planning, I understand, still greater and more marvelous things. The Italian was canny enough not to set down his name, fearing perhaps the fate of Cajetan and Sylvester. But the Leipzig man, as becomes a fierce and valiant German, boasts on his ample title page of his name, his career, his saintliness, his scholarship, his office,

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1