October 10, 1520 (Part 1)

Brother Martin Luther receives the papal bull Exsurge Domine, although probably knew about it at least two weeks earlier. The sixty-day period the bull allows for Luther’s recantation had begun when Johann Eck officially posted the bull in Meissen, Merseburg, and Brandenburg near the end of September. Because Eck could not safely enter Electoral Saxony, the bull was carried by Leipzig militiamen to the University of Wittenberg, the representative of the bishop of Naumberg in Zeitz, and probably to the University of Erfurt. On Oct 10, the Rector of the University of Wittenberg, Peter Burkhard, received the bull from a citizen to whom a Leipzig militiaman had given it. This was, to say the least, an unusual mode of delivery [1] of an official document, probably intended to prevent the University from refusing to accept it.

At the same time, Luther’s critique of the sacramental practices of the Roman church, The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, is in circulation. Our quotation is excerpted from the treatise’s discussion of baptism.

Quotation:

[continued from yesterday]  [The First Part of Baptism: The Divine Promise]

Now, the first thing to consider about baptism is the divine promise, which says: “Whoever believes and is baptized shall be saved.”[Mark 16:16] This promise must be set far above all the glitter of works, vows, religious orders, and whatever man has added to it, for all our salvation depends on it. But we must consider it so as to exercise our faith in it and have no doubt that we are saved once we have been baptized. For unless this faith is present or is conferred in baptism, baptism will profit us nothing. Indeed, it becomes a hindrance to us, not only at the moment of its reception, but all the days of our life. For such unbelief accuses God’s promise of being a lie and this is the greatest of all sins. If we set ourselves to this exercise of faith, we shall immediately perceive how difficult it is to believe this promise of God. For our human weakness, conscious of its sins, finds nothing more difficult to believe than that it is saved or will be saved — and yet, unless it does believe this, it cannot be saved, because it does not believe the truth of God that promises salvation.

This message should have been untiringly impressed upon the people and this promise dinned in their ears without ceasing. Their baptism should have been called to their minds again and again and their faith constantly awakened and nourished. For, just as the truth of this divine promise, once pronounced over us, continues until death, so our faith in it ought never to cease, but to be nourished and strengthened until death, by the continual remembrance of this promise made to us in baptism. Therefore, when we rise from sins, or repent, we are only returning to the power and the faith of baptism from whence we fell, and finding our way back to the promise made to us then, which we abandoned when we sinned. For the truth of the promise once made remains steadfast, ever ready to receive us back with open arms when we return. This, if I am not mistaken, is the real meaning of the obscure saying, that baptism is the beginning and foundation of all the sacraments, without which none of the others may be received. [2]

It will, therefore, be no small gain for a penitent to remember before all else his baptism, confidently to call to mind the promise of God (which he has forsaken), and to acknowledge that promise before his Lord, rejoicing that he is baptized and therefore is yet within the fortress of salvation and abhorring his wicked ingratitude in falling away from its faith and truth. Then his soul will find wondrous comfort and will be encouraged to hope for mercy, when he considers that the divine promise which God made to him and which cannot possibly lie, still stands unbroken and unchanged — indeed, cannot be changed by any sins, as Paul says in 2 Timothy 2: “If we are faithless, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny Himself.” [2 Tim. 2:13] Yes, this truth of God will sustain him, so that if all else should sink in ruins, this truth, if he believes it, will not fail him. For in it he has a shield against all assaults of the enemy, an answer to the sins that disturb his conscience, an antidote for the dread of death and judgment, and a comfort in every temptation — namely, this one truth — and he can say, “God is faithful in his promises,” [Heb. 10:23] and I received his sign in my baptism. “If God is for me, who is against me?” [Rom. 8:31]  [to be continued tomorrow]

Notes

[1] Burkhard said the delivery occurred “in a thieving manner and with villainous cunning.”

[2] Luther may have in mind Gabriel Biel’s statement in his Commentary on the Sentences IV (d.2, q.1, a.1, n.1) that “just as faith is the first and foundation of the rest of the virtues, so baptism is the chief of sacraments and their doorway,” or similar statements by Peter Lombard or in the papal bull Exultate Deo of 1439.