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Luther and the Sacramentality of Penance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

David Bagchi
David Bagchi*
Affiliation:
University of Hull
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Extract

At the beginning of his De captivitate Babylonica ecclesiae praeludium of early October 1520, Luther announced that there, were not seven sacraments of the Church, but only three – baptism, penance, and the Lord’s Supper. By the end of the treatise, the three had been reduced to two. His reasoning was starkly logical. A sacrament, to be a sacrament, must contain the promise of forgiveness of sins, and have attached to it a visible sign instituted by Jesus Christ. Because no such visible sign is associated with the rite, penance cannot be a sacrament. A reasonable inference to draw is that Luther must have come to reject the sacramentality of penance by the time he composed De captivitate Babylonica, in perhaps August 1520.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 40: Retribution, Repentance, and Reconciliation , 2004 , pp. 119 - 127
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2004

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References

1 See Werke, D. Martin Luthers. Kritische Gesamtausgabe, ed. Knaake, J. C. F. et al, 67 vols (Weimar, 1883-), 6: 501, 11. 33–38 Google Scholar; English transl, in Luther’s Works, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan and H. T. Lehmann, 55 vols (St Louis, MO, and Philadelphia, PA, 1955–86), 36:18 [hereafter WA (Weimarer Ausgabe) and LW respectively].

2 WA 6: 572.12–17, LW 36: 124.

3 See his Grund und Ursach aller Artikel so durch römisene Bulle unrechtlich verdammt sind, 1521 (WA 7: 308–57), transl, as Defence and Explanation of All the Articles Condemned by the Pope (LW 32: 7–99) passim, but esp. on Article 16.

4 E.g. WA 43: 526.2–4, LW 5: 142; WA 43: 528.19–20, LW 5: 145.

5 For a recent collection of essays which considers penitential theory and practice across all the major confessions of the Reformation era, see Lualdi, K. J. and Thayer, A. T., eds, Penitence in the Age of Reformations (Aldershot, 2000)Google Scholar. The select bibliography provides a useful guide to scholarship in this field.

6 See especially Jetter, W., Die Taufe beim jungen Luther. Eine Untersuchung über das Werden der reformatorischen Sakraments- und Taufanschauung (Tubingen, 1954), 115—35, 175–6 Google Scholar; Lohse, B., Martin Luther’s Theology: its Historical and Systematic Development (Edinburgh, 1999), 57 Google Scholar; and Trigg, Jonathan D., Baptism in the Theology of Martin Luther, Studies in the History of Christian Thought 56 (Leiden, 1994), 133 Google Scholar.

7 See esp. Rupp, E. G., The Righteousness of God: Luther Studies (London, 1953), 153, 195 Google Scholar.

8 WA 56: 442.17, LW 25: 434.

9 WA 1. 233.10–13, LW 31: 25.

10 These writings were: Pro ventate inquirenda et timoratis conscientiis consolandis conclusiones, summer 1518 (WA i: 629–33); Einekurze Unterweisung wie man beichten soll, early 1519 (WA 2: 59–65); Ein Sermon vom Sakrament der Buβe, mid-Oct. 1520 (WA 2: 714–23, LW 35: 9–22); Confitendi ratio, Apr. 1520 (WA 6: 157–69, LW 39: 27–47); the discussion of penance in De captivitate Babylonica, Oct. 1520 (WA 6: 543–9, LW 36: 81–91); Ein Unterricht der Beichtkinder iiber die verbotenen Bücher, Feb. 1521 [WA 7: 290–98; Eng. transl, by Bertram Lee Woolf, Reformation Writings of Martin Luther, 2 vols (1956), 2: 89–98]; Von der Beicht, summer 1521 (WA 8: 138–85). Also important is the ratter later work Von den Schlüsseln, 1530 (WA 30.II: 465–507, LW40: 325–77).

11 Constitution 21 (‘Omnis utriusque sexus’) in Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, ed. and trans. Norman Tanner, 2 vols (London and Washington, D.C. 1990), I, 245,*245.

12 Von der Beicht, WA 8: 15 7.24–7.

13 Sakrament der Buβe, WA 2: 721–2, LW 35: 20–21; Confitendi ratio, WA 6: 161–4, LW 39: 33–8; Kurze Unterweisung, WA 2:60.11–20; Von der Beicht, WA 8: 158–62.

14 Sakrament der Buβe, WA 2: 716.25–35, LW 35: 12; WA 2: 719.16–19, LW 35: 16; Von der Beicht, WA 8: 15 5–6 and 182.23–8.

15 Sakrament der Buβe, WA 2: 719.38–720.3, LW 35: 21.

16 Formula missae et communionis, 1523, esp. WA 12:215.21–3, LW 53:32–3.

17 Bezzel, Ernst, Frei zum Eingestätulnis: Geschichte und Praxis der evangelischen Einzelbeicht, Calwer Theologische Monographien, Reihe C: Praktische Théologie und Missions-wissenschaft 10 (Stuttgart, 1982), 14 Google Scholar.

18 Ibid., 15.

19 WA 26:217.20–31, LW 40:295.

20 Bezzel, Eingeständnis, 28–30.

21 E.g. the influential Nuremberg Kirchenordnung of 1533, and, as late as 1553, that of Hohenlohe. See Die evangelischen Kirchenordnungen des XVI. Jahrhunderts, ed. Emil Sehling, 15 vols (Leipzig & Tubingen, 1902-), 11: 186,14: 57, 60.

22 Bezzel, Eingeständnis, 53.

23 WA 26: 507.20–7, LW 37: 368. The reference is to his Betbiichlein of 1522.

24 W/4 2: 715.21–30, LW 35:11.

25 Ozment, Steven E., The Reformation in the Cities: the Appeal of Protestantism to Sixteenth-Century Germany and Switzerland (New Haven/London, 1975, repr. 1980), 22–32 Google Scholar.

26 Jacob Strauss, amongst others, made this accusation and graver ones about the Catholic clergy. See Ozment, , Reformation in the Cities, 51–4 Google Scholar.

27 See the letter to Staupitz of 30 May 1518 1: 525.21–3, LW 40:66).

28 Genesisvorlesung, on Gen. 49:11–12 (Sept?, 1545), WA 44: 775.1–2, 8–11, LW 8: 267.

29 ‘In these pages [sc. the baptismal section of De captivitate Babylonica], rather, we see nothing less than a rediscovery of baptism by Luther’: Trigg, Baptism, 145, emphasis original.

30 Penance is nothing more – or less – than ‘the way back to baptism’ (‘via et reditus ad baptismum’: De captivitate Babylonica, WA 6: 572.17, LW 36: 124).

31 WA 1: 330.25–31.

32 LW 39: 40, WA 6:166.1–7. Luther mitigates the scandalous potential of this advice by assuming that the sinner has committed only the light (monastic?) sins of drinking, talking, or sleeping too much, or missing the canonical hours.

33 De captivitate Babylonica, L W 3 6: 212.

34 WA 26: 508.25–9, LW 37: 370.

35 WA 30.II: 503.34–504.11, LW 40: 373.

36 On Gen. 27:28–29 (WA 43: 528.18–20, LW 5:145). My emphasis.

37 Behind the influence on Luther of Staupitz’s radical view of repentance lay that of Johann Tauler. On this, see most recently Volker Leppin, ‘“Omnem vitam fidelium penitentiam esse voluit” – Zur Aufnahme mystischer Traditionen in Luthers erster Ablaβthese’, Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 93 (2002), 7–25.

38 Letter to Spalatin, 17 Sept. 1521: D. Martin Luthers Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe: Brief wechsel, ed. Otto Clemens (Weimar, 1930-), 2: 391–2, LW 48: 312–14.

39 E.g. Sermon vont Sakrament der Buβe, LW 35:21; Von der Schlüsseln, LW 40: 366.