Martin Luther loved the Blessed Virgin Mary

Found these excerpt from: http://www.catholicbridge.com/catholic/martin_luther_on_mary.php  which is a good site to confound Protestants who don’t know Luther loved Mary.

 

“There can be no doubt that the Virgin Mary is in heaven. How it happened we do not know. (In the same way Ezekial and Elijah were assumed - by God’s power!!) And since the Holy Spirit has told us nothing about it, (Luther is wrong) we can make of it no article of faith . . . It is enough to know that she lives in Christ. (Sermon of August 15, 1522, the last time Martin Luther preached on the Feast of the Assumption)”

“The veneration of Mary is inscribed in the very depths of the human heart. (Sermon, September 1, 1522)”

“She is the highest woman and the noblest gem in Christianity after Christ . . . She is nobility, wisdom, and holiness personified. We can never honor her enough. (So much for the endless criticisms I hear that she was a sinner.) Still honour and praise must be given to her in such a way as to injure neither Christ nor the Scriptures. (Sermon, Christmas, 1531)  [Precisely, say I. And the Catholics do neither!  How could loving Jesus’ mother injure Jesus?]

 No woman is like you. You are more than Eve or Sarah, blessed above all nobility, wisdom, and sanctity.

(Sermon, Feast of the Visitation, 1537)

 One should honor Mary as she herself wished and as she expressed it in the Magnificat. She praised God for his deeds. How then can we praise her? The true honor of Mary is the honor of God, the praise of God's grace . . . Mary is nothing for the sake of herself, but for the sake of Christ . . . Mary does not wish that we come to her, but through her to God. (Explanation of the Magnificat, 1521)  The Magnificat is the central prayer of the Legion of Mary, a RC lay evangelising movement.

 

It is a sweet and pious belief that the infusion of Mary's soul was effected without original sin; so that in the very infusion of her soul she was also purified from original sin and adorned with God's gifts, receiving a pure soul infused by God; thus from the first moment she began to live she was free from all sin" (Sermon: "On the Day of the Conception of the Mother of God," 1527)

She is full of grace, proclaimed to be entirely without sin- something exceedingly great. For God's grace fills her with everything good and makes her devoid of all evil. (Personal {"Little"} Prayer Book, 1522)

 

Luther gives the Blessed Virgin the exalted position of "Spiritual Mother" for Christians:

It is the consolation and the superabundant goodness of God, that man is able to exult in such a treasure. Mary is his true Mother . (Sermon, Christmas, 1522)

Mary is the Mother of Jesus and the Mother of all of us even though it was Christ alone who reposed on her knees . . . If he is ours, we ought to be in his situation; there where he is, we ought also to be and all that he has ought to be ours, and his mother is also our mother. (Sermon, Christmas, 1529)

Martin Luther on Mary's Perpetual Virginity

 Christ, our Savior, was the real and natural fruit of Mary's virginal womb . . . This was without the cooperation of a man, and she remained a virgin after that.

{Luther's Works, eds. Jaroslav Pelikan (vols. 1-30) & Helmut T. Lehmann (vols. 31-55), St. Louis: Concordia Pub. House (vols. 1-30); Philadelphia: Fortress Press (vols. 31-55), 1955, v.22:23 / Sermons on John, chaps. 1-4 (1539)}

 Christ . . . was the only Son of Mary, and the Virgin Mary bore no children besides Him . . . I am inclined to agree with those who declare that 'brothers' really mean 'cousins' here, for Holy Writ and the Jews always call cousins brothers.

 {Pelikan, ibid., v.22:214-15 / Sermons on John, chaps. 1-4 (1539)}

 A new lie about me is being circulated. I am supposed to have preached and written that Mary, the mother of God, was not a virgin either before or after the birth of Christ . . .

 

 

 

Facebook discussions about Catholicism v Protestantism

Lord Jesus, let Your prayer of unity for Christians
become a reality, in Your way.
We have absolute confidence
that you can bring your people together,
we give you absolute permission to move.
Amen

I have been at the pc all day.  Don't know why I sometimes do this to myself because it is very tiring.  I forgot I had pledged to fast from my pc every Thursay!

Below is the result of my labours!  Who will read it?  Will anyone read it?  Will anyone who does read it leave a comment?

Over the years, I have been given an understanding that it is part of my vocation - which is primarily that of being a wife and mother - to defend the Church, founded by Christ, against the misunderstandings and downright lies, of non-Catholics of every other belief and none.  By doing this, I am talking about Christ because I am telling the doubters they will find the full truth about Him within the Catholic Church which faithfully preserved the copies of the Old Testament that Jesus and the Apostles used; faithfully preserved the new writings coming out in the first century by the Apostles,; eventually put all the books of the Bible together in the format we have it today; and was super-vigilant to protect new editions of it once the printing press made it easier to disseminate.  This wonderful institution founded by Our Lord Himself which preaches Christ at every Mass and in every other possible way has been under demonic attack for two thousand years, and will always be under attack, but Christ promised it His eternal protection.

By defending the Church, I invite others to look into it, to read correct versions of our Bible, (there are error-filled versions around so one has to know the difference); to learn about all the Sacraments Jesus gave us, the full knowledge of which was handed down by the apostles via the Church Fathers; to learn about all the Sacraments Jesus gave us, the full knowledge of which was handed down by the apostles via the Church Fathers; to study what are really our doctrines - not what non-Roman Catholics say are our doctrines; to encourage them to read interesting books and articles about the Faith; to read about converts to the Faith, especially the world famous ones; to understand why we venerate Saints, and so on and so forth. 

As a point in question:  non-Roman Catholic Christians insist we are idolaters who worship Mary and other Saints - because they are parroting what they have been taught through the literature of their own institutions that broke away from the Mother Church of Christianity in the 16^th Century.  Catholic devotion to the Saints is NOT and NEVER, NEVER has been preached as essential for salvation.  NO ROMAN CATHOLIC IS OBLIGED TO VENERATE MARY OR ANY OTHER SAINT.  The majority of us do so because we want to.   These devotions are inspirational and they keep us close to God.  But there are Catholics who are not interested in these devotions.

Protestants today make Marian devotion an issue by using it as one of many excuses to not actually look at what the Church teaches is necessary for salvation.  Now, on that we can debate.  Interestingly, Luther never refuted Our Lady’s standing though he refuted the Church’s authority to make it an article of faith that she was assumed.  Luther’s assumption was that he knew better than the Church, who under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit had preserved this truth which it received about Mary’s assumption via the Church Fathers. 

Nowhere has the Church taught that venerating Saints, saying the Rosary, and loving Mary as our spiritual mother is essential to salvation.   I am sorry there are people who cannot accept this.  I always invite them to please read the Catechism with a trust-worthy Bible in the other hand.  (That means a Bible with the same books in it that all Christians used up till the time of the so-called Reformation.)

I personally do have a devotion to the Saints, especially to Mary.  In the Jewish tradition, by the way, the King’s mother had an equal social standing to the King and ruled in his stead when he was away.  My devotions consolidate my belief in and my love for Jesus whom I have loved since I was about five years old.  They increase my desire for the Sacraments of Confession and the Eucharist.  I only began to pray the Rosary when I was 46 years old and it was when I began to do this that my desire to read and understand better the Scriptures developed.  I pretty quickly learned that reading the Scriptures on my own was a waste of time.  I needed an authoritative teacher, and that had to be the one that preserved and put the Bible together. 

A key Protestant misconception about Catholicism came into the world via a Muslim vizier called Ibn Khazem in Cordoba in the 11^th Century: this is the conviction that the Catholic Church changed the true teaching of Jesus and the Apostles at the Council of Nicea.  Today, Muslims say that Jesus was an Islamist prophet and His disciples were proto-Muslims.  Before Ibn Khazem, Muslims accepted the historic validity of the Bible as a holy book of a specific group of people, Christians.  They did not accept Christian interpretation of Christ’s divinity and human nature, but they did not deny the validity of their books.   Centuries afterwards, Protestants said we added on teachings that were not there before. 

What the Council actually did after a fair debate was to affirm the CORRECT teachings of Christ’s divinity and His human nature, against the new heresy of a Catholic bishop, Arius, which was gaining ground in the 4^th Century.  People like Arius were losing the Faith!  He was dragging the weak and ignorant after him!  Of course the Church had to do something about that!  In fact, Arianism submerged and destroyed the Church in many areas for years but Christ was in charge, He had made His promise about protecting the Church and He kept it.  That particular “deluge” served to strengthen the Church and to clarify the meaning of particular Scriptural references so that Arius and all future Ariuses were confounded.  All such “spiritual deluges” that occur over the centuries, caused by the weak human beings who are part of the Body of Christ, eventually strengthen the Church.

Posted later on the same day: I have been thinking about authority. The big problem within the non-Catholic Christian community towards Catholicism is a dislike of authority so profound that it will not even accept that God Himself could have chosen to set up an authoritative institution here on earth! Despite Matthew 16:18-19 and other verses.

I am in favour of dialogue, i.e: ecumenism, because it is important that the Truth is made available to all who are talking to each other. That does not mean the Catholic Church must deny her God-given Sacraments, for example, but should be allowed explain to others why she knows them to be such. Nor does she need to apologise for promoting veneration of Mary and the Saints since her historical documents show that the very first Christians had these devotions.

In the first eleven centuries, there were only Christians. Europe was called Christendom and Christians believed all the doctrines of the Catholic Church. All accepted all the Sacraments. All had devotions of one tradition or another to Mary and the Saints. The Arian heresy of the 4th Century was the first serious shredder of Christ's Body. In the 11th Century the Schism between eastern Christians and western Christians added to Its Wounds. Incidentally, the problems of those eastern Christians were not connected to veneration of Mary and other Saints, or to infant baptism, or to changes in Scripture, but to the disagreement about the place of the Holy Spirit within the unity of the Godhead as expressed in the Creed - in other words a disagreement about the UNDERSTANDING of specific texts about the Holy Spirit - which became a handy excuse to break away when the geo-political conflicts became overwhelming.

Here is a partial list of some of the movements that broke away either from Catholic Chritianity or from one another, and if you read about them from informed sources you will see how their reasons conflict one with the other: Arians, Monophisites, Nestorians, Cathars, Greek and Russian Orthodox, Lutherans, Calvinists, Anglo-Catholics, Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, Free Church, Pentecostals, Unitarians, Christian Scientists, Christadelphians and so on and so on. Someone did a computer count of the Christian churches outside the Catholic Church which have split off from one another and there are apparently more than thirty thousand and counting. How can every individual pastor be correct in his interpretation of the Scriptures?

I had a message from X today, 26^th Sept 2013, saying I talk only about the Church and not about Jesus.

This was my response:

Yes, X, I do talk about the Church a lot.  It is necessary because I am always being confronted with hostility towards “The Church”.  But when my personal contact is listening to me on the street, I start by talking to him about Jesus, and Jesus’ love for him.  I give him prayer cards to encourage the start of a prayer life so that he will be drawn to Jesus.  I encourage him to buy or borrow a Bible and to read it, and I give him links to websites to help him understand and think about what he is reading.

P.S: I know Protestants who are very sincere Christians within the narrow confines of their beliefs, but the movement whose followers came to be called Protestants was an evil heresy which scourged the Body of Christ and divided it, much as the earlier heresy of Arius had done in the 4th Century. Within a couple of years of the start of Luther breaking away from the Church, there were several different groups who disagreed with him as well as with the Church, and today, there are thousands of "churches" that have differences of opinion one with the other. The Body of Christ of which Jesus is the Head is the Catholic Church because Christ's Body cannot be divided. To think otherwise is to deny Christ's power to protect it and to deny his prayer, "Father, may they be one." 

The response of X to me:

Do you not realize that you are hostile towards those you call protestants? Do you not realize that you are always attacking non-Catholics? Many of the things you say about "protestants" is complete nonsense and comes from pure ignorance. The more you go on the more I realize how wrong it all is. You have made me see that. But you know, I am fully confident that the Lord will one day vindicate those you are always attacking, and that you are in for a big shock. So I will leave it there, I should have done that long ago as another wiser person did. May your eyes be opened to see the truth and may you love and not hate those whom God loves and who belong to Him and who are His children. The Bible tells us to love the brethren, you do not.

My reply to X:

Dear X, if you want to tell me that I am writing "nonsense" you have to specify which sentence or paragraph is nonsense so that I am given the chance to respond otherwise you are wasting your time as well as my own. I may be saying things about your belief system which annoy you but I am not attacking you as an individual. You may be annoyed with the arguments I raise against your arguments, but in debates that is permitted. As far as loving one’s brethren goes, your own language does not suggest love of me or of Catholics generally. Quite the opposite! Please do “walk away”,  and be at peace.

In fairness, though, please remember that on my own FB, and on the FB pages of my real-life RC friends, I am free to post websites and messages that support our beliefs and to defend the Catholic Church against the postings of anyone writes against it. I do not go into your FB to deliberately offend you; I cannot even remember the last time I went onto your Timeline. And you are not obliged to read anything that comes onto your pages with my name on it. If you are tempted, hit the button on the top right of the posting which will delete it. Out of sight, out of mind :-) J. But I will always stand up to anything you write against the True Faith if it comes into my FB via a friend’s FB. God bless you.

This was not posted though I was sorely tempted.  It is painful to hear the words, "idolators", "child abusers", "down-treaders of the poor", and similar insults said to one in encounter after encounter with the Evangelicals and Pentecostals I meet.  The abuse starts from these particular Christians the moment I tell them, "Hello.  I am a Catholic and I would like to share my Faith with you."  I never return the rudeness but I try to show them their understanding of us is wrong.  However, they rarely listen even for a few moments and have a way of talking fast that does not permit one to interrupt in response to a statement.  Time after time, I have to smile and say God bless you and walk away.  I have had gargoyle faces pulled when I mention my Faith, I have heard the expression "Ugh!  Don't talk to her/them!"  That is hostility.

Posted later on 26^th Sept 2013: Thinking about my personal relationship with Christ and why this joyful fact is denied by some Christians who mistakenly think that Roman Catholics cannot have such a relationship with him unless they leave the Church.  Even the CCC states that Catholics must have a vital and personal relationship with the living and true God.  We simply do not view it as the only way to express Christian faith.  What is more personal than to receive Christ's Body and Blood? Only Catholics believe in the Real Presence yet the Bible is explicit that it is gravely sinful to eat and drink the Body and Blood if one is not in a state of grace. ( 1 Cor: 11:27) Why would this matter if they were only bread and wine? 

 

27 Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord.

28  That person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup.

29 For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself.

30 That is why many among you are ill and infirm, and a considerable number are dying.

31 If we discerned ourselves, we would not be under judgment;

32 but since we are judged by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.

 

From Wikipedia: As Justin indicated, the word Eucharist is from the Greek word εὐχαριστία (eucharistia), which means thanksgiving. Catholics typically restrict the term 'communion' to the reception of the Body and Blood of Christ by the communicants during the celebration of the Mass and to the communion of saints.

Earlier still, in about 106, Saint Ignatius of Antioch criticized those who "abstain from the Eucharist and the public prayer, because they will not admit that the Eucharist is the self-same Body of our Savior Jesus Christ, which [flesh] suffered for our sins, and which the Father in His goodness raised up again" (Epistle to the Smyrnaeans 6, 7).

 Similarly, St. Ambrose of Milan countered objections to the doctrine, writing "You may perhaps say: 'My bread is ordinary.' But that bread is bread before the words of the Sacraments; where the consecration has entered in, the bread becomes the Flesh of Christ" (The Sacraments, 333/339-397 A.D. v.2,1339,1340).

 

Why did the apostles organise the distribution of Communion to the sick?  Bread and wine have no miraculous healing powers.

 

Some Bible history from "Born Fundamentalist, Born Again Christian."

20th September 2013
I have been browsing again through David B. Currie's book, "Born Fundamentalist, Born Again Catholic" and this time really took on board his section on the history of the Bible. It answers many questions. He mentions the Bible burning which today's Evangelicals and others are so wrathful about - but points out there were other Bibles provided as replacements, Bibles with the correct translation!! We cannot judge the Church of the 16th C by our 21st C horror of burning books. To the churchmen of that time, it was common-sense to burn an error-ridden book such as the Tyndale or the Wycliffe Bible. Serious biblical scholars admit they are not worth tuppence. Today, I thought I would quote from and para-phrase some of the pages in this section of Currie's book.

In view of my experiences doing street contact this year, I wonder how many Pentecostals or Evangelicals and other Sola Scrittura fans know that a Catholic priest, Bede, translated part of the Bible into English in the 8th C. Gutenberg was a Catholic and he printed the first Bible. In 1478, a Bible in Low German was printed! By the end of the 15th C Catholics were printing Bibles in many European languages. I was really delighted to come across these facts the first time I read Currie's book some years ago, because although I was aware the Catholic Church had always spread the Bible wherever it could and as much as it could, until then I did not have solid quotes I could use.

Currie says that he, " like most evangelicals, was totally misinformed about the historical background of what we called the Apocrypha. (Catholics refer to these books as deuterocanonical.) As I explored the issue, I was surprised by what I discovered. Finally, I began again at ground zero by separating out the facts that were not in dispute. These books or portions of the Bible are included in Catholic OT but not in the Protestant."

He adds on p. 104, "...the NT has a separate canonical issue involving the Gnostic (heretical) books. Evangelicals, unlike a small group of liberal Protestants, are in total agreement with Catholics on the NT canon."

He continues, ... "there is no doubt at all that Jesus and his companions used the Septuagint. This was the accepted Bible (written in Greek) of the Palestinian Jews and others around the Mediterranean for over a hundred years before Jesus' time and it continued to be used by Christians after the Ascension. Its canon cannot be doubted and it included the seven books of the Apocrypha on an equal standing with the rest of the inspired OT. Currie says the NT referrs to these apocryphal books over twenty times. Some of the parallels between the referred texts and the originals are even clearer in the Greek than in English translations - eg: James 1:19 "Be quick to listen, slow to speak." In Sirach 5:11, we read, "Be swift in listening, but slow in answering." Apparently, Ronald Knox suggested that Wisdom may have been written by Paul because of the striking similarities between his epistles and Wisdom.

Biblical and apocryphal books are referred to with equal respect by the NT writers. For example, Ezekiel 14:14 & 20 refer to Noah, Job and Daniel. Evangelicals assume that Ezekial was referring to the Noah of Genesis: 5-9, the Job of Job: 1-42, and the Daniel of Daniel 1-12. But this is not true of the Daniel they assume to be the character mentioned because he was only a child in Ezekiel's time! Ezekiel was referring to another character who was so well known to his audience that did not need to give an explanation to his audience. So, where is the second Daniel? He is found in the Apocrypha, Daniel:13-14, and is sometimes spelled Danel. He lived long before Ezekiel and like Noah and Job he was a gentile. [CCC 58.] Ezekiel, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, accessed the Apocrypha in the same way as he accessed the rest of the Scriptures.

Currie says on p. 105: "The early Church Fathers followed the apostles' lead in this matter, peppering their writings with references from the apocryphal books, generally using the Septuagint translation. The Septuagint, with its inclusion of the apocryphal books, was undeniably the Bible of the early Church.

There are lists of the canon of Scripture, including the Apocrypha, from very early times. The first fragment (.....)  appears to date from just after the end of the first century. The major early disputes, however, involved the canon of the New Testament. The first fragment of any canonical list appears to date from just after the end of the first century. (.....) The canon of the Old Testament was not in dispute within the early Church.

Beginning with Peter’s sermon at Pentecost, the Christians and the unbelieving Jews locked in battle over whether Jesus was the Jewish Messiah.  The Christians made extensive use of OT messianic prophecies.  Many of these prophesies were in the seven books that Evangelicals now refer to as apocryphal.

The Jewish leader revised their canon about A.D. 90 to exclude those books not written in Hebrew (2 Maccabees, Wisdom, and Daniel 13 -14) and those books for which the Hebrew original was not extant (Judity, Baruch, Sirach and 1Maccabees, in order to solve much of their apologetical problems with Christians.  By excluding  those books, they eliminated many of those messianic prophesies.  This revision came to be called the Palestine Canon but it was a Jewish canon, developed after many of the apostles were dead and most of the New Testament had already been written.  The Christians did not confirm this decision, taken independently by the Jews.

In fact, Christians continued to use these seven books as before. (.........) These are the facts that all the sides can agree on.  What do they mean?  When I first started to think this issue through, I found myself becoming angry with my Evangelical teachers for the first time!  The conclusions followed so easily.  It seemed to me that only someone who wilfully ignored the obvious could come to Evangelical conclusions about the Apocrypha. Then I remembered that I too had ignored these facts for most of my life. I cooled down rather quickly.

It is a fact that Jesus, his apostles, the New Testament writers, and the early Church all used a Bible that included the Apocrypha.  The Palestine Canon, which excluded these books, had not been ‘invented’ yet. I recognised with a mental thud that the Catholic Church had not added these seven books after the Reformation in order to bolster their theology.  (........) The Reformers took these books out of the canon accepted by the early church.” 

Why would anyone do this?  Currie replies that the reformers did not like the teachings found in these books any more than the Jews did, and for similar reasons - the books clashed with their own ideas.  The Jews objected to the messianic prophesies.  The reformers objected to the doctrines regarding salvation, prayers for the dead, and purgatory.  The reformers approved of the Palestine Canon, which was Jewish, in order to delete those seven books.  Some of the reformers, (Currie does not say who they were so will have to try and find out elsewhere) considered printing their Bible with four books from the New Testament relegated to the Index!  These were Hebrews, James, Jude and Revelation. However, they realised there was no precedent to permit them to do this.  But they never returned the seven apocryphal books to the Old Testament section of their Bible.  Fortunately, not all non-Catholic publishers of the Bible concurred.  The King James was originally published with the Apocrypha in it, and the Orthodox Church also accepts them.  Even John Wesley quoted from them frequently, according to Currie.

Currie continues on p. 107: “Evangelicals have no good, objective explanation for accepting the canon they do accept. Catholics did not change the canon of the early Church or the deposit of faith to make them fit preconceived ideas.  The fact that the Reformers did is one of the saddest chapters in all Christendom."

And he ends, on p. 108: “When I realised this, for the first time in my life I was not sure how much I trusted Evangelical scholarship.  From the timing of the different canons, it is obvious that Jesus used the Septuagint, with its inclusions of those seven books.  The early Church followed suit.  Because, during the Reformation, the canon was being challenged, the Church re-affirmed the historic canon of the early Church at the Council of Trent. * (.....) I can’t help smiling when friends ask me if I still read the Bible, now that I am a Catholic.  The Bible is what drew me into the Catholic Church.  Yes, I do still read it - all of it.  So do many of my Catholic friends, every day.” * (My emphasis)

 

Franz Xaver Kiefl on Luther: extract

At a later date, when and if I have time, I will post Part Two of James Swan's paper on Luther.  I found this extract/quote interesting, from a Catholic scholar who had a kinder view of Luther than earlier writers on the subject had.

Franz Xaver Kiefl (1917)

 A. Overview of F.X. Kiefl’s Attitude toward Luther

F. X. Kiefl is credited as the first Catholic scholar to put forth a new kinder approach to Luther. Kiefl was a German theologian at the University of Wurzburg. His groundbreaking article on Luther was Martin Luther’s Religious Psyche as the Root of a New Philosophical World View.[4] While Kiefl’s theological predecessors denied that Luther had any bonafide religious motives, Kiefl speaks of Luther’s “profound piety, his indomitable will, and his extraordinary literary genius.”[5] Kiefl broke with his scholarly predecessors: theological motives explain Luther.[6] Leonard Swidler explains, that Kiefl “…treated the psyche of Luther. However, as the title indicates, he treated it not as the object of depth psychology, but rather as a religious soul. He maintained that Luther’s starting point and his main interest were religious. It was from Luther’s religious psyche, as the “most profound and vital source,” that “as out of a seed everything later grew.”[7]

Kiefl was quite bold. He rejected the earlier Catholic approach of attacking Luther for his doctrine of Justification. Catholic scholar Heinrich Denifle had made popular the notion that Luther simply invented his doctrine to excuse sinful behavior, thus Denifle spent considerable time painting Luther as a gross sinner. Kiefl rejects this. He sees past Denifle’s rhetoric and distorted facts and sees that Luther never denied good works or holy living. Rather good works are the way in which faith expresses itself.[8]

Kiefl also evaluated the debate between Luther and Erasmus and found that Luther understood Christianity on a much deeper level than did Erasmus. Erasmus was a man of Renaissance learning, and Kiefl concludes by noting the negative impact of the Renaissance on Christianity and Luther’s positive impact of being God’s “powerful instrument of Providence” in the work of Church “purification”:

“Through Luther’s bringing into existence a spiritual movement which convulsed centuries, Providence has purified the Church in its inward holiness from the seductions of the culture of the Renaissance and has through this bitter physic kindled a new, fresh life in the whole organism of the Church. Luther was the powerful instrument of Providence in this work of purification, not by discovering a new source under the rubble of abuses but, with these real abuses affording him an occasion, by pushing a religious principle (to him quite justified) too far precipitating the Church into a war that shook its very foundations.”[9]

James Atkinson sums up Kiefl: “Kiefl showed a deep knowledge of Luther’s works. He appreciated Luther’s profound piety, his indomitable will, and his literary genius. True, he suggests that Luther’s spirituality was morbid, but he picks up the powerful phrase from Trent when Luther was reported as a powerful instrument chosen by Providence to reform the Church and purify it.”[10]

 

B. Criticism of Luther by Kiefl

Kiefl criticizes Luther for taking God’s “almightiness” too far. Luther’s doctrine of total depravity (leading to a denial of free will) was his error: “[Kiefl] saw Luther as mastered by God. It was his concept of a God who acted unilaterally that led Luther to deny free will, to affirm man’s total depravity, to hold a doctrine of imputed righteousness, and finally to reject a Church that claimed to mediate salvation…[11] Kiefl thinks Luther went too far and convulsed the Church in internal strife, but he does bring Luther back into the religious sphere where he belongs and where he ought always to have been.”[12]

Kiefl displays sympathy for Luther, and one will not find the deep hostile polemic that so characterized earlier Catholic German scholars. Kiefl though at one point gives a passing glance at Luther’s “abnormal” and “sick” spiritual condition. Another scholar though has pointed out, “Kiefl has merely recorded an abnormal condition without explaining it. This is sufficient to give Luther’s theology as a whole the character, not of a doctrine worked out by a normal Christian man, but of a remedy invented to relieve a sick soul.”[13]

Luther's letter contradicting the 10 Commandments

This morning, I came across an extraordinary letter, (so it seems to me) by Luther, in which he appears to be telling his friend it is all right to ignore the Ten Commandments in the sense of avoiding the occasions of sin.  How peculiar.  How can you advise a friend who is being tempted to drink more than he should to drink even more, in order to waggle one's thumb at Satan?  I have read various commentaries over the years that mention how, when he was a monk, Luther suffered with scruples and pride so he never believed he had been forgiven and was always running back to Confession to confess the same sin/s.  This letter, written after he left religious life and married, certainly fits in with such a temperament.  Also note how Luther mentions another man telling him he will become a great man.  A humble man would keep such a remark to himself!  That said, Luther's emphasis on trying to remain cheerful while under demonic oppression is certainly correct.

"Grace and peace in Christ.

My dearest Jerome, you must firmly believe that your affliction is of the devil, and that you are plagued in this manner because you believe in Christ. For you see that the most wrathful enemies of the Gospel, as, for instance, Eck, Zwingli, and others, are suffered to be at ease and happy. All of us who are Christians must have the devil for our adversary and enemy, as Peter says: 'Your adversary, the devil, goeth about,' etc., 1 Pet. 5, 8. Dearest Jerome, you must rejoice over these onslaughts of the devil, because they are a sure sign that you have a gracious and merciful God. You will say: This affliction is more grievous than I can bear; you fear that you will be overcome and vanquished, so that you are driven to blasphemy and despair. I know these tricks of Satan: if he cannot overcome the person whom he afflicts at the first onset, he seeks to exhaust and weaken him by incessantly attacking him, in order that the person may succumb and acknowledge himself beaten. Accordingly, whenever this affliction befalls you, beware lest you enter into an argument with the devil, or muse upon these death-dealing thoughts. For this means nothing else than to yield to the devil and succumb to him. You must rather take pains to treat these thoughts which the devil instills in you with the severest contempt. In afflictions and conflicts of this kind contempt is the best and easiest way for overcoming the devil. Make up your mind to laugh at your adversary, and find some one whom you can engage in a conversation. You must by all means avoid being alone, for then the devil will make his strongest effort to catch you; he lies in wait for you when you are alone. In a case like this the devil is overcome by scorning and despising him, not by opposing him and arguing with him. My dear Jerome, you must engage in merry talk and games with my wife and the rest, so as to defeat these devilish thoughts, and you must be intent on being cheerful. This affliction is more necessary to you than food and drink. I shall relate to you what happened to me when I was about your age. When I entered the cloister, it happened that at first I always walked about sad and melancholy, and could not shake off my sadness. Accordingly, I sought counsel and confessed to Dr. Staupitz, --I am glad to mention this man's name. I opened my heart to him, telling him with what horrid and terrible thoughts I was being visited. He said in reply: Martin, you do not know how useful and necessary this affliction is to you; for God does not exercise you thus without a purpose. You will see that He will employ you as His servant to accomplish great things by you. This came true. For I became a great doctor--I may justly say this of myself--; but at the time when I was suffering these afflictions I would never have believed that this could come to pass. No doubt, that is what is going to happen to you: you will become a great man. In the mean time be careful to keep a brave and stout heart, and impress on your mind this thought that such remarks which fall from the lips chiefly of learned and great men contain a prediction and prophecy. I remember well how a certain party whom I was comforting for the loss of his son said to me: Martin, you will see, you will become a great man. I often remembered this remark, for, as I said, such remarks contain a prediction and a prophecy. Therefore, be cheerful and brave, and cast these exceedingly terrifying thoughts entirely from you. Whenever the devil worries you with these thoughts, seek the company of men at once, or drink somewhat more liberally, jest and play some jolly prank, or do anything exhilarating. Occasionally a person must drink somewhat more liberally, engage in plays, and jests, or even commit some little sin from hatred and contempt of the devil, so as to leave him no room for raising scruples in our conscience about the most trifling matters. For when we are overanxious and careful for fear that we may be doing wrong in any matter, we shall be conquered. Accordingly, if the devil should say to you: By all means, do not drink! you must tell him: Just because you forbid it, I shall drink, and that, liberally. In this manner you must always do the contrary of what Satan forbids. When I drink my wine unmixed, prattle with the greatest unconcern, eat more frequently, do you think that I have any other reason for doing these things than to scorn and spite the devil who has attempted to spite and scorn me? Would God I could commit some real brave sin to ridicule the devil, that he might see that I acknowledge no sin and am not conscious of having committed any.  We must put the whole law (Luther means the 10 Commandments) entirely out of our eyes and hearts, we, I say, whom the devil thus assails and torments. Whenever the devil charges us with our sins and pronounces us guilty of death and hell, we ought to say to him: I admit that I deserve death and hell; what, then, will happen to me? Why, you will be eternally damned! By no means; for I know One who has suffered and made satisfaction for me. His name is Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Where He abides, there will I also abide."

I have done a lot of reading among very contradictory opinions all morning, and to be frank, sifting through it all has been exhausting.  My overall impression is that Luther was a proud man, very sensual, and definitely neurotic.  However, that makes him human, not a demon.  At the end of all this reading, only a small part of which I have printed here, below, I have come to the conclusion that Luther probably was not a well-balanced man but was not stupid or ignorant as some of the quoted Catholic writers view him because a stupid man would surely not have gathered so many people around him.  Or were his followers stupid too, and looking for a way out that would not endanger their souls if they lived immoral lives?  It sounds crazy but basically that is what Luther seems to have taught and it is definitely what many Protestants seem to believe because they get very worked up if one says to them one cannot get to Heaven unless one fully repents, makes reparation if one can in this world, and also does good, and show them the relevant teachings in the NT.  Also, they do not believe in Original Sin, which was taught by the first Christians who were taught by the Apostles.  (Not everything Jesus said was written down). Protestants believe in the Trinity but that is not spelled out in the NT.  It was the Catholic Church which developed a correct understanding of it based on what is revealed in the Scriptures and what was taught by the first Christians (Holy Tradition).  The very sad, and very negative, fruit of Luther's hatred of the Church is the huge division in Christendom, with some 30,000 and counting sub-divisions among the Protestants.  Today, there are sects who say they love Jesus and follow his teachings but do not believe He is God.  There is even one Anglican bishop, David Shepherd, of whom I read he too did not believe in Christ's divinity.  So??

On the other hand, Luther's actions did wake up the Church to do something effective against many abuses going on and for that Catholics should be grateful.  Luther's pride made him take the route of abandoning the Church - unlike the humility of St. Francis who was also very aware of the scandals of his time but he set about re-building the ethos of the people who professed to be Catholic.  He did not set about trying to destroy the Church itself.  Today, Lutherans are a minority and many are returning to the Catholic Church, thank God.  Marcus Grodi, on EWTN, is an ex-Lutheran who runs a programme called, The Journey Home.  

                                                                                                                                                  I found a very detailed site by James Swan, see below.  He quotes a lot of different people.  There are some who hated Luther and did not have a good word about him and whose thinking has greatly influenced many Catholics, understandably, because Luther did cause a might breaking away from the Church.  And there are others who view him more kindly although not overlooking his weaknesses. 

The Roman Catholic Perspective of Martin Luther (Part One)

By James Swan July 2003

I. Introduction

I have heard it said that more books have been written about Martin Luther in the last 500 years than any other historical figure, with the exception being Jesus Christ. With such a wealth of material from a number of differing points of view, studying Luther is not a simple task. Luther left behind a vast amount of writings born in a complex historical time period. A researcher approaching Luther has an overwhelming task. He must be familiar with such things like 16^th century culture, medieval theology, Roman Catholic doctrine, the history of Germany, and a host of other religious, sociological, philosophical, and political factors. For the 21^st Century reader of a Luther biography, a certain amount of faith must be placed in the author. One must hope that the author has researched Luther as thoroughly as possible. One hopes that the author has given some effort to see past their inherent biases (all authors have bias!). One must hope they have taken great strides to present Luther in his context, both theological and historical.

 As quickly as Luther’s ideas poured off the press, books and pamphlets either in favor or against Luther came forth as well. Roman Catholic apologists quickly attempted to counter the Reformation. Similarly utilizing the new invention of the printing press, they put forth their side of the story, warning the masses of the danger of Luther. In the past five hundred years, how have Catholic scholars understood Luther? What has been their side of the story? A simple answer to this question would leave many loose ends. An in-depth answer would entail writing an entire theological treatise. But perhaps by focusing on their presuppositional understanding of Luther, one can gain insight into their side of the story. What follows is the first part of an historical overview of key Roman Catholic authors and their approach to Luther. In this first installment, Catholic authors with a severe negative bias toward Luther will be discussed. This negative bias was the underlying theme to almost the entirety of Catholic Luther studies up until the early 20^th century:

 “It took Roman Catholicism a long time to come round to giving Luther a cold and careful look. For over four and a half centuries, since the night that Luther nailed up his Ninety-five Theses against Indulgences on 31 October 1517, Roman Catholicism took an unrelenting line of vicious invective and vile abuse against Luther's person, while virtually disregarding his vital and vivid religious experience, his commanding and irrefutable biblical theology, and his consuming concern to reform the Church according to the teaching and purpose of its founder, Jesus Christ. It is one thing to offer criticism; it is quite another to hurl scurrilous abuse: the former creates and maintains some relationships; the latter will deaden and destroy any relationship that exists.” [1] (I, Morag, agree.  Catholics for their part have also had to endure scurrilous abuse, and endless fabrications about Catholic beliefs and practices, and about what happened, when, and why during the period of the Spanish Inquisition - which is strongly tainted by the Black Legend propaganda of Elizabeth I onwards.

 My interest in this subject grew out of reading Roman Catholic web pages on Martin Luther. I began to repeatedly see the name of the Jesuit scholar Hartmann Grisar put forth as the definitive source for all Luther information. Upon probing Grisar’s works, I came across the tradition of destructive criticism he belonged to.[2] Simultaneous to this, I had discussions with Roman Catholics who produced a wealth of Luther quotes, but were unable to provide contexts. They informed me the quotes were taken from the book, The Facts About Luther by Msgr. Patrick O’Hare. Both Grisar and O’Hare are Catholic authors from long ago, and their flawed negative approach to Luther had similarly been responded to long ago. I doubt these counter-responses were sought out by modern-day Roman Catholics. Had they been, perhaps O’Hare and Grisar would never have been pulled from the historical discard bin and thrust onto the World Wide Web, as if these fatal responses to their work had never been given. These authors are once again able to perpetuate their flawed historical studies.

 In part two, Catholic authors that have taken wiser steps in trying to understand Luther without ad hominem attacks will be addressed. There are a wealth of Roman Catholic authors whose opinions and research are worthy of a close look. As Richard Stauffer has noted, “If one wanted to sum up briefly the path Roman Luther-scholars have trodden since 1904, one could say that they passed from destructive criticism to a respectful encounter.”[3] This in no way is an exhaustive list or in depth doctrinal investigation.[4] In my studies, I utilize both Catholic and Protestant works on Luther. Those names that have appeared continually in both theological traditions are the emphasis. This paper is intended to be more of a bibliographic resource, it can be read out of sequence. Since my desire is for this paper to serve as a reference guide, I have included lengthy citations from relevant scholars. It is my desire to allow them to speak, rather than put forth my own opinions.

 

Here are a few citations from James Swan on his site: 

Leonard Swidler, “Catholic Reformation Scholarship in Germany”, 190. Says Swidler elsewhere, “Grisar and Denifle, of course were supported in their attitudes by the highest church authorities. Pope Leo XIII in the encyclical Militantis ecclesiae, written for the Canisius-jubilaeum August 1, 1897, described the Reformation as the “rebellio lutherana,” which brought about the ultimate ruin of morals. St. Pius X in his encyclical on St. Charles Borromaeo, Editae suepe, May 26, 1910, said: There arose haughty and rebellious men, ‘enemies of the cross of Christ . . . men with worldly . . . minds whose god is the belly.’ They strove not for the betterment of morals but rather for the denial of the foundations of faith. They cast everything into confusion and cleared for themselves and others a broad path of undisciplined wilfulness, or sought, indeed openly at the bidding of the most depraved princes and peoples and under the disapproval of the ecclesiastical authority and leadership, forcibly to obliterate the Church’s teaching, constitution and discipline” [Leonard J. Swidler, The Ecumenical Vanguard: The History of the Una Sancta Movement ].

Catholic writer Dave Armstrong presents an example of the difficulty utilizing O’Hare’s book. In Armstrong’s webpage, The Orthodox vs The Heterodox Luther, Armstrong presents a section on the bigamy of Philip of Hesse. O’Hare’s book spends much time “proving” that Luther was enemy of the institution of marriage. Armstrong picks up on this and says, “Some of Luther's most shocking opinions are regarding celibacy, chastity, and marriage. One might expect from Luther a certain disdain of Tradition, but not such a wanton disrespect of the moral teachings of the Bible. The most famous sexual scandal of the Protestant Revolt was the bigamy of the Prince ("Landgrave") Philip of Hesse.” To document this, Armstrong presents citations from Luther strikingly similar to those put forth by O’Hare, and provides no references to O’Hare, but rather uses O’Hare’s references in most cases. I would be quite surprised if Armstong is using a source other than O’Hare for his documentation.
 
1.Armstrong
We declare under an oath that it ought to be done secretly . . . It is nothing unusual for princes to have concubines . . . and this modest way of living would please more than adultery.(Document dated December 10, 1539 / Luther's Letters, De Wette -- Seidemann, Berlin, 1828, vol. 6, 255-265)

This quote appears in The Facts About Luther on page 331 in a longer form, though missing a footnote reference., but mentioning DeWette.

2.Armstrong
”The secret soon became public, whereupon Melanchthon "sickened almost to death with remorse." (-no reference-)

From The Facts About Luther page 332: “When Melanchthon discovered that the news of the double marriage was spread broadcast, ‘he sickened almost to death with remorse” on account of the sanction he had given to it.” -no reference-

3. Armstrong

Luther, unabashed, acted as if he was totally unaware of the illegal and immoral transaction, and confided to friends:
A secret yes must remain a public no and vice versa. (De Wette, vol. 6, 263)
 

The Facts About Luther page 333:“…it took a short time for Luther to decide that the rumor of the permission given to Philpp to take a second woman and the farcical marriage should be met with a flat contradiction; ‘for,’ as he said, ‘a secret yes must remain a public no and vice versa.” (DeWette- Seidemann, VI., 263).”

4. Armstrong
 

What would it matter if, for the sake of greater good and of the Christian Church, one were to tell a good, downright lie? (Lenz, Luther's Letters, Leipzig, 1891, vol. 1, 382)

The Facts About Luther page 333: “Then Luther went so far to declare: ‘What would it matter if, for the sake of greater good and of the Christian Church, one were to tell a good, downright lie?’ (Lenz. Briefwechsel, I. 382).

5. Armstrong

Luther believed that polygamy was sanctioned in Scripture: I cannot forbid a person to marry several wives, for it does not contradict the Scripture. (De Wette, vol. 2, 459)

The Facts About Luther page 329-330 “Luther was an out-and-out believer in polygamy. To say that he did not "counsel" polygamy, or that he advised that it should be kept secret as a sort of matter of "conscience," is utterly beside the facts. When Bruck, the Chancellor of the Duke of Saxe-Weimer, heard that Carlstadt in 1524 advocated polygamy, he consulted Luther on the new and pernicious teaching. The Reformer, not in the least abashed, openly and distinctly stated: "I confess that I cannot forbid a person to marry several wives, for it does not contradict the Scripture. If a man wishes to marry more in his conscience that he may do so in accordance with the word of God. In such a case the civil authority has nothing to do in the matter." (De Wette II, 459). Many other clear statements wherein Luther sanctions polygamy might be reproduced here, but the one given above will suffice for the present.”

As a response to O’Hare and Armstrong, it is true Luther allowed for polygamy, but only in a very narrow sense. (Morag's note: If the quote just above this is correct, why does the writer make this assertion? )

Luther scholar Heinrich Boehmer points out that it was only to be in cases of “severe necessity, for instance, if the wife develops leprosy or becomes otherwise unfit to live with her husband… But this permission is always to be restricted to such cases as severe necessity. The idea of legalizing general polygamy was far from the reformers mind. Monogamy was always to him the regular form of matrimony…” (Luther And The Reformation in Light of Modern Research, 213-214). Luther understood monogamy was the Biblical norm. Such things like bigamy were only made possible due to severe necessity. For instance, Luther once said that he so hated divorce he would rather see a man in a bigamous relationship rather than a person go through divorce. This wasn’t like Mormonism which in some factions would grant a God-glorifying polygamy. No, bigamy, polygamy, divorce, etc were failing Band-Aids put over sinful, broken relationships. They are human efforts to fix Biblical norms.

Luther fell into some complicated situations, like the bigamy of Phillip of Hesse. Luther still retained a lot of his sentiment as a priest. It was not totally uncommon for Catholic priests to grant secret bigamous marriages. Cardinal Cajetan, perhaps the greatest living Catholic scholar of the day would be a good example of this. Even the Pope during this time sent the question of bigamy to cardinals for review. Thus, it was an arguable point within the Roman Catholic Church during the 16th Century. Thus when Phillip tricked Luther into granting him a second wife, Luther acted very much in the role of medieval catholic priest. Luther was not infallible, and in many instances he retained his medieval training. For this I gently fault him. The Roman Catholic Church had trained him as an Augustinian monk and to act a particular way in particular circumstances. Luther’s actions were more the result on the medieval Catholic climate than biblical misunderstanding.

Roland Bainton explains in detail the situation:

 “There are several incidents over which one would rather draw the veil, but precisely because they are so often exploited to his discredit they are not to be left unrecorded. The most notorious was his attitude toward the bigamy of the landgrave, Philip of Hesse. This prince had been given in marriage with no regard to his own affections—that is, for purely political reasons—at the age of nineteen to the daughter of Duke George. Philip, unable to combine romance with marriage, found his satisfaction promiscuously on the outside. After his conversion his conscience so troubled him that he dared not present himself at the Lord s Table. He believed that if he could have one partner to whom he was genuinely attached he would be able to keep himself within the bounds of matrimony. There were several ways in which his difficulty could have been solved. If he had remained a Catholic, he might have been able to secure an annulment on the grounds of some defect in the marriage; but since he had become a Lutheran, he could expect no consideration from the pope. Nor would Luther permit recourse to the Catholic device. A second solution would have been divorce and re-marriage. A great many Protestant bodies in the present day would countenance this method, particularly since Philip had been subjected in his youth to a loveless match. But Luther at this point interpreted the Gospels rigidly and held to the word of Christ as reported by Matthew that divorce is permissible only for adultery. But Luther did feel that there should be some remedy, and he discovered it by a reversion to the mores of the Old Testament patriarchs, who had practiced bigamy and even polygamy without any manifestation of divine displeasure. Philip was given the assurance that he might in good conscience take a second wife. Since, however, to do so would be against the law of the land, he should keep the union a secret. This the new bride's mother declined to do; and then Luther counseled a lie on the ground that his advice had been given as in the confessional, and to guard the secrete of the confessional a lie is justified. But the secret was out, and the disavowal was ineffective. Luther's final comment was that if anyone thereafter should practice bigamy, let the Devil give him a bath in the abyss of hell. [Here I Stand, 292-293].

Note Luther’s final comment, “that if anyone thereafter should practice bigamy, let the Devil give him a bath in the abyss of hell.” A profound aspect of the Bible is its commitment to telling us about the sins of the human condition; even in those characters considered the greatest of God’s people. David was described as “a man after God’s own heart,” yet within his life one finds adultery and murder. Jesus called Peter “blessed,” yet not long after, Peter denied that he even knew him. Examples could be multiplied, and could go beyond the pages of Scripture into the halls of church history. God’s people struggle with sin, and sometimes take great falls. Such is the case of Martin Luther and his involvement with Hesses' bigamy. Luther's life shows many high peaks and some deep valleys: profound success for God’s kingdom, along with human failure. With Luther’s attitude on Bigamy, and his involvement with Phillip of Hesse, we see one of the warts of Luther. Luther had to learn the hard way.
 
In his conclusion, James Swan has other citations, out of which I have picked a couple that I found interesting:

Ignaz Dollinger (mid-nineteenth century)

Dollinger was a famous church historian who was excommunicated from the Catholic Church after the declaration of papal infallibility. He wrote a three-volume work entitled Die Reformation. “Dollinger admitted that Luther was the most popular character that Germany had ever possessed, but declared that the Protestant Reformation, judged according to its fruits, was a "soul-murdering heresy" which stifled every arousal of conscience by the illusion of a false assurance of salvation.”[114]  (Emphasis is mine)

 

Jaques Maritain (1950)

“Even the philosopher Jacques Maritain falls into this category of those who see Luther as the demon. To him Luther adds up to be the man of total self-will, who brooks no restraint and no authority. By his emphasis on paradox and his mistrust of human reason "Luther brought a deliverance and an immense relief to humanity. ... He delivered man from the intelligence, from that wearisome and besetting compulsion to think always and think logically." To him Luther is the egocentric par excellence, obsessed with indecency, who convulsively forces trust in Christ to save himself. For such a man Maritain has only a feeling of deep disgust.”[119]

“Maritain couples Luther with Descartes and Rousseau as the three false prophets who have promised freedom to modem man. Luther promised the false liberty of private religious judgment, and so left modern man religiously irresponsible. Maritain would think of Luther not as a gloomy inebriate, nor as a paranoic, but a right merry monster, who ate his food on fast days, kissed his nun-wife, berated the Pope .. . but utterly rejected philosophy. For Luther's rejection of this in principle he has no understanding whatever. And into the arena of serious theology, where Luther labored and fought, Maritain does not want to descend for discussion. Luther has to him no profundity of mind whatever, but at best that sort of natural slyness which enabled him to befool people at a time when thousands of poor Christians wished some excuse to escape the yoke of the Church. Thus Denifle took from Luther his morals, Grisar his mental balance, and Maritain his intelligence.”[120

 

(I, Morag, do think that a monk who makes his vows of poverty and chastity but in order to leave them chooses instead to blame scandals in the Church for his weaknesses, is not a saint.  As for his psychology, there is such a strong tradition that Luther was over-scrupulous that it cannot be ignored.  This makes him human, but again it also makes him no saint and only pride could have spurred him to take on the insititution founded by Christ.  As for his intelligence, I haven't the time or the inclination or the intelligence myself to read all I would need to read to judge that aspect of Luther!  But even a very intelligent man can make costly mistakes, or succumb to diabolical suggestions.)