On the Freedom of a Christian with Related Texts by Martin Luther (review)

The Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century was not predetermined. Neither its initiation nor development was historically necessary. The doctrinal controversies of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, respectively initiated by John Wycliff in England and Jan Huss in Bohemia, lingered in the minds of Europeans, but did little to fracture the unitary structure of European Christendom. Although during the early sixteenth century the Holy Catholic Church was mired in a number of fiscal controversies, and its secular authority was periodically contested within various states, it remained the single most important organization for the whole of Europe. Yet when Martin Luther and others set out to reform the sacramental and hierarchical structure of the Holy Catholic Church, they so radicalized the various religious positions that the balance between secular and religious authority in Europe would not be relatively stabilized until the end of the European wars of religion in 1648.

This volume, edited, translated, and introduced by Tryntje Helfferich, approaches the relation between Luther and the Protestant Reformation by surveying various religious positions opposed to Luther during the sixteenth century. In doing so, it illustrates both how Luther’s ideas were not immediately accepted, and how they contributed to the fragmentation of the European religious and political order that would last for well over a century. The difficulty that the book faces is in the immensity of its topic. The book is designed to be an introduction to the thought of Martin Luther, and simultaneously a glimpse into the intellectual maelstrom surrounding the schism of Western Christendom. Helfferich takes Martin Luther’s 1520 text On the Freedom of a Christian as the clearest summation and introduction of Luther’s position. Although Luther’s other major works from 1520, Address to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation and On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church, display both Luther’s plea for the reformation of the sacramental structure of the church and his political acumen, it is difficult to argue against the centrality of On the Freedom of a Christian, since, according to Luther, “the entire sum of a Christian life is contained within it” (16). Nevertheless, it is difficult to grasp Martin Luther’s work with only a 25 page sample.

Around this text, Helfferich constructs a constellation of contemporaries, all of them responding directly to Luther’s formulation of Christian life. Although not all of the responses collected in this volume directly respond to On the Freedom of a Christian, they all respond to consequences of Luther’s position. Helfferich’s volume is broken up into four sections. The first section provides a basic introduction to Luther’s life and the general historical trajectory of the early Reformation. The second section contains On the Freedom of a Christian itself and the letter that Luther sent to Pope Leo X along with it. In the third section, the reader is given a taste of the Catholic responses to Luther, with a selection by Johannes Eck and another by John Fisher. Eck’s response represents the learned and theoretical response to Luther’s position. Luther found Eck to be his chief dogmatic opponent, so this selection gives the reader a good idea of the immediate Catholic response to Luther’s original, conciliatory, position. One can see in this response both how Luther’s thought drove a wedge in Christendom and how the Catholic establishment did not remain silent to Luther. It did quite the contrary. The other response, by John Fisher, is a sermon that was given in London at the occasion of a state sanctioned book burning. The sermon is eloquent and shows the readers a more public and political response to Luther. While Eck succinctly formulated the dogmatic response to Luther, Fisher’s sermon made clear the social and political stakes. The fourth section of the book gives a glimpse of the radical form that the Reformation took in some quarters. It focuses on Thomas Müntzer...