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37. Temporal Authority: To What Extent It Should Be Obeyed (1523)
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428 37 Temporal Authority:To What Extent It Should Be Obeyed (1523) In this piece, originally a 1522 sermon, Luther argues against attempts to subordinate the power of the government to that of the church (especially the papacy). He valued the civil realm and saw the political order as one of God’s gifts—a way to maintain healthy human community in a violent, sinful world. Yet Luther knew that the state could also be tyrannical and it could persecute the faith and frustrate the preaching of the gospel. Therefore, although he affirmed the legitimate role of independent political power (independent of the church but still under the judgment of God), he simultaneously acknowledged that limits to secular political power are necessary. To the illustrious, highborn prince and lord, Lord John,1 Duke of Saxony, Landgrave of Thuringia, Margrave of Meissen, my gracious lord: Grace and peace in Christ. Again,2 illustrious, highborn prince, gracious lord, necessity is laid upon me, and the entreaties of 1. John the Steadfast (1468–1532) was the brother of Frederick the Wise, whom he succeeded in the Electorate in 1525. Politically less experienced than his older brother, John was a man of courage and deep evangelical conviction. He refused to publish the bull directed against Luther, in his brother’s absence. He advised his brother to adopt the Reformer’s cause more openly. Luther sent single sheets of the Wartburg New Testament to him as they became available, so that John might be able daily to read the Scriptures. 2. Luther had treated this same matter before in A Sincere Admonition (1522), LW 45:51–74, and in To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation concerning the Reform of the Christian Estate (1520), LW 44:115–217. many, and above all your Princely Grace’s wishes,3 impel me to write about temporal authority and the sword it bears, how to use it in a Christian manner, and to what extent men are obligated to obey it.You are perturbed over Christ’s injunction in Matthew 5[:39, 25, 40],“Do not resist evil, but make friends with your accuser; and if anyone would take your coat, let him have your cloak as well”; and Romans 12[:19], “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.”These very texts were used long ago against St.Augustine by the princeVolusian,4 who charged that Christian teaching permits the wicked to do evil, and is incompatible with the temporal sword. The sophists in the universities have also been perplexed by these texts, because they could not reconcile the two things. In order not to make heathen of the princes, they taught that Christ did not command these things but merely offered them as advice or counsel to those who would be perfect.5 So Christ had to become a liar and be in 3. Duke John himself was among those who requested that Luther write this treatise. See the Introduction, LW 45:79. 4.Volusian corresponded with St.Augustine of Hippo in 412, over the question of the compatibility of the Sermon on the Mount, and Christ’s seeming call to nonresistance, with the laws and customs of the state. Their letters influenced both the settlement of the Donatist controversy (411) and Augustine ’s great work, The City of God. 5. Cf. Luther’s detailed treatment of the second table of the law, in which his dispute with the Paris theologians on this issue of command vs. counsel looms large, in his Misuse of the Mass (1521), LW 36:204–10. The distinction between commands (praecepta) and counsels (consilia) is part of a long Temporal Authority:To What Extent It Should Be Obeyed 429 error in order that the princes might come off with honor, for they could not exalt the princes without degrading Christ—wretched, blind sophists that they are.And their poisonous error has spread thus through the whole world until everyone regards these teachings of Christ not as precepts binding on all Christians alike but as mere counsels for the perfect. It has gone so far that they have granted the imperfect estate of the sword and of temporal authority not only to the perfect estate of the bishops , but even to the pope, that most perfect estate of all; in fact, they have ascribed it to no one on earth so completely as to him! So thoroughly has the devil taken possession of the sophists and the universities that they...