Part 18 (1/2)

[275] This ”little song” is the _Prelude on the Babylonian Captivity of the Church_ See below, pp 170 ff

A PRELUDE ON THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY OF THE CHURCH

1520

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 accorave; 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 Ro it for the, beloved Ro to hear his little song was brought ho in the summer of 1520, the other published in the previous autu until soustin Alveld, that ”celebrated Roainst who further disclosures if Alveld ”caain, 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 as the anonymous tract of a ”certain Italian friar of Cremona,” who has only recently been identified as Isidore Isolani, a Doy 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 sancta to Enders, which is aand 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 treatisesof the _Babylonian Captivity_, which is, however, in no sense a direct reply to either of theust 5 to Spalatin, ”but he will be the occasion ofby 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 baptisht by what text I can prove that they are sacraard none of the others as a sacrament, for there is no sacra our faith We can have no intercourse with God except by the word of Hi the promise _At another time you shall hear more about their fables of the seven sacraments_” (Enders, II, no 254; Srows under his hand and assumes the form of an elaborate examination of the whole sacramental system of the Church

He es of delicious irony, of which Eras the author, he turns his back on them and addresses hier theme, lenient toward all non-essentials, but inexorable with respect to everything truly essential, that is, scriptural The _Captivity_ thus represents the culical side, as the _nobility_ does on the national, and the _Liberty_ on the religious side It sus on the sacraathered up and s 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 tohich they had been consciously or unconsciously tending The reader is referred to a fine colish 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 theand comes back with the stanza of a hymn upon his lips

The _Captivity_ marks Luther's final and irreparable break with the Church of Ronificance that in the same letter to Spalatin, of October 3d, in which heof 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 Gere of the people, the _Captivity_, as becoical treatise, is co the religious life of the individual, whether layian, is sent out in both German and Latin

A translation into Ger year--the work of the Franciscan, Thomas Murner (on whom see Theod v Liebenau, _Der Franziskaner Tho, 1913) Luther calls the Franciscan his ”veno the translation in order to bring hie Luther makes in his answer to Henry VIII's _assertio septem sacraian'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 _Weien Edition_ (_opera var arg, V_), has been compared The German _St

Louis Edition_ (Vol XIX) has been consulted, and especially the ad of Kawerau in the Berlin Edition (Vol II) as well as the careful literal translation of Lerossen Reormationsschriten Luthers vom Jahre 1520_, 2 ed (Gotha, 1884)

Like the last lish 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 Museulish translation

Kostlin-Kawerau's (1903) and Berger's (1895) lives should be consulted; the for and full analysis, the latter for a fine appreciation of this as of the other two reforical development, beside Kostlin's workder 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 raph on page 260, whose proper location is not found even in the _Weimar Edition_ nor in Cle the example of Kawerau

ALBERT T W STEINHAEUSER

Allentown PA

THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY OF THE CHURCH

1520

JESUS