Works of Martin Luther Part 2

[9] See p. 11.

[10] See above, pp. 12, 13, and Vol. I, pp. 59 ff.

[11] The virgin Mary.

[12] Cf. _Enarratio in Ps. XXI_ (Migne, x.x.xvi, 178).

[13] Penitential works.

[14] Cf. Acts 2:46.

[15] See Vol. I, p. 310.

[16] In the Vulgate the Greek word "mystery" is translated by _sacramentum_. See below, p. 258.

[17] Luther still adheres to the doctrine of transubstantiation. But see below, pp. 187 ff.

[18] See p. 11.

[19] Cf. below, p. 192.

[20] See Luther's explanation of the First Commandment in the Catechisms. Also the answer to the last question in Part V, Small Catechism.

[21] _Treatise on Penance_ (_Weimer Ed._, II, 721), where Luther exhorts the troubled conscience to pray with the father of the lunatic boy, "Lord, I believe, help Thou mine unbelief," and with the Apostles, "Lord, increase our faith."

[22] Cf. above, p. 17.

[23] The Church.

[24] A transubstantiation in the communicant.

[25] A work that is done without reference to the doer of it.

[26] A work considered with reference to the doer of it.

[27] An _opus operatum_.

[28] An _opus operantis_.

[29] Cf. 1 Cor. 11:30.

[30] Sodalities; see Introduction, p. 8, and below, pp. 137 f.

[31] On festival days of the order and on saints' days.

[32] The Carmelites are supposed to have been the first to organize sodalities, having organized in the fourteenth century the Sodality of Our Lady of Carmel. St. Anne was the mother of the Holy Virgin. Her sodalities were, as Kolde says, epidemic in 1520. Luther's appeal to St. Anne in the thunderstorm is well known (Comp. Kostlin-Kawerau, I, 55). There was a sodality of St. Anne, besides one of St. Augustine and one of St. Catherine, in the monastery at Erfurt in Luther's day.

St. Sebastian was a martyr of the fourteenth century. His day is January 20. Comp. Arts. _Anna_, _Sebastian_ and _Bruderschaten_ in _Prot. Realencyk_., I, SS2; II, 534 l.

[33] A trades' guild brotherhood.

[34] Douay Version, based on Vulgate, from which Luther quotes.

[35] See above, p. 10.

[36] I. e., in marriage.

A TREATISE CONCERNING THE BAN

1520

INTRODUCTION

The ban, or excommunication, is the correlative of communion. Our conception of excommunication depends then, of course, upon our view of what const.i.tutes communion. Luther gives us his view of communion in the preceding _Treatise concerning the Blessed Sacrament_. From the premise there laid down it follows that excommunication, or the ban, excludes only from external membership in the Church, but cannot really separate a man from the Church if he is in personal fellowship with his Lord[1]. Sin and unbelief cause this separation from Him, and the real ban, therefore, is put into effect not by the Church, but by the man himself when he sins against G.o.d. The ban of the Church cannot even deprive one of the Sacrament, but only of the outward use of it, for it can still be partaken of spiritually. This whole position, of course, is fatal to the Roman Catholic conception of the Church, and we do not wonder that it was vigorously opposed by the hierarchy.

Of like significance is Luther's advocacy of the separation of the temporal and spiritual powers, practically of Church and State,--the position which he develops later in the _Open Letter to the n.o.bility_.

But in this treatise, again, Luther shows himself to be anything but the immoral monster his vilifiers have tried to make of him. He is again the man of conscience--will his critics say, "of oversensitive conscience"? Thank G.o.d that there were some sensitive consciences in an almost conscienceless age! Luther fears sin more than the ban, and sin has for him more than an ecclesiastical meaning. Sin is not primarily an act against the Church, but an offence against G.o.d. This the ban is to teach; it is to be the symbol of G.o.d's wrath against sin and it is to be used by the Church only remedially and in love. When so used it becomes the chastening rod of the dear Mother Church, provided it be accepted and borne in this spirit.

Why, then, did not Luther bear his own ban in this way? The justification for his subsequent conduct is to be found in two brief but important conditional clauses in this treatise. "G.o.d," he says, "cannot and will not permit authority to be wantonly and impudently resisted, _when it does not force us to do what is against G.o.d or His commandments_."[2] Again he says, "When unjustly put under the ban we should be very careful not to do, omit, say or withhold that on account of which we are under the ban, _unless we cannot do so without sin and without injury to our neighbor_."[3] G.o.d and his neighbor were for Luther the actors which made it necessary for him to speak and act, when for selfish reasons he would often rather have remained pa.s.sive.

The inception of our treatise is to be found in a sermon preached in Wittenberg in the spring of 1518. Luther's pastoral concern for his people made it necessary for him to speak on this subject in order to quiet the consciences both embittered and distressed by the wanton and unjust use of the power of excommunication. Added to this must have been his own personal interest in the ban certain to fall on him. In a letter to Link[4], dated July 10, 1518, he speaks of having preached a sermon on the power of the ban which produced general consternation and fear that the ire enkindled by the XCV Theses would start afresh.

He had desired a public disputation on the subject, but the Bishop of Brandenburg persuaded him to defer the matter. Under date of September 1st, Luther writes Staupitz[5] that because his sermon had been misrepresented and spread by unfriendly spies it became necessary for him to publish it. It appeared in August after Luther's summons to Rome, under the t.i.tle _De Virtute Excommunicationis_. Our treatise is an elaboration in popular form of this Latin treatise of 1515.

The Grunberg text given in Clemen, Vol. I, which we have followed in most cases, is dated 1520, and must have appeared in its original edition at the end of 1519 or the beginning of 1520.

The text of the treatise is found in the following editions: Weimar Ed., vol. vi, 63; Erlangen Ed., vol. xxvii, 51; Walch Ed., vol. xix, 1089; St. Louis Ed., vol. .xix, 884; Clemen, vol. i, 213; Berlin Ed., vol. iii, 291.

J. J. SCHINDEL.

Allentown, PA.

FOOTNOTES

[1] See below, p. 37.

[2] See below, p. 50.

[3] See below, p. 51.

[4] See Enders, I, No. 84. Smith. _Luther's Correspondence_, I, No.

69.

[5] See Enders, I, No. 90. Smith, _Luther's Correspondence_, I, No.