Luther Quotes for Lutherans or others

[MaryT777]

Albeit I am Catholic I really appreciate this quote from Luther on the real presence. He appeals to early Church Fathers which I appreciate as a Catholic. Does anyone else have a quote from Luther they like? (Let’s not turn this into a Luther bashing thread for that is not my intent and I will ask it to be closed if I see this…not to be bossy though)

Who, but the devil, has granted such license of wresting the words of the holy Scripture? Who ever read in the Scriptures, that my body is the same as the sign of my body? or, that is is the same as it signifies? What language in the world ever spoke so? It is only then the devil, that imposes upon us by these fanatical men. Not one of the Fathers of the Church, though so numerous, ever spoke as the Sacramentarians: not one of them ever said, It is only bread and wine; or, the body and blood of Christ is not there present.
Surely, it is not credible, nor possible, since they often speak, and repeat their sentiments, that they should never (if they thought so) not so much as once, say, or let slip these words: It is bread only; or the body of Christ is not there, especially it being of great importance, that men should not be deceived. Certainly, in so many Fathers, and in so many writings, the negative might at least be found in one of them, had they thought the body and blood of Christ were not really present: **but they are all of them unanimous.”
**—Luther’s Collected Works, Wittenburg Edition, no. 7 p, 391

(I personally appreciate unanimous votes from our ECF’s)

 

[Lenten_ashes]

This is my favorite because it’s profound and I’ll bet many do not know he said it…albeit before he split:

“If Christ had not entrusted all power to one man, the Church would not have been perfect because there would have been no order and each one would have been able to say he was led by the Holy Spirit. This is what the heretics did, each one setting up his own principle. In this way as many Churches arose as there were heads. Christ therefore wills, in order that all may be assembled in one unity, that His power be exercised by one man to whom He Himself commits it. He has, however, made this power so strong that He looses all the powers of Hell (without injury) against it. He says: “The Gates of Hell shall not prevail against it” as though He said: “They will fight against it but never overcome it,” so it is in this way it is made manifest that this power is in reality from God and not from man. Wherefore, whoever breaks away from this unity and order of the power, let him not boast of great enlightenment and wonderful works, as our Picards and other heretics do, ‘for much better is obedience than to be the victims of fools who know not what evil they do”

Post reformation favorite:

Such as: ``Why does not the pope empty purgatory for the sake of holy love and the dire need of the souls that are there if he redeems an infinite number of souls for the sake of miserable money with which to build a church?’’ The former reason would be most just; the latter is most trivial

Considering what was occurring in that era with indulgences supposedly handed out like candy for those who coughed up some money, it was a good question.

 

[Regina7]

Luther is a heretic, so no, there’s isn’t a quote of his I like.

 

[JonNC]

Luther is a heretic, so no, there’s isn’t a quote of his I like.

So, at Mass, if one of the hymns is , “A Mighty Fortress”, do you get up and walk out ?

Jon

 

[JonNC]

"[She is the] highest woman and the noblest gem in Christianity after Christ . . . She is nobility, wisdom, and holiness personified. We can never honor her enough. Still honor and praise must be given to her in such a way as to injure neither Christ nor the Scriptures. "

Jon

 

[JonNC]

A mighty Fortress is our God,
A Bulwark never failing;
Our Helper He amid the flood
Of mortal ills prevailing:
For still our ancient foe
Doth seek to work us woe;
His craft and power are great,
And, armed with cruel hate,
On earth is not his equal.
2
Did we in our own strength confide,
Our striving would be losing;
Were not the right Man on our side,
The Man of God’s own choosing:
Dost ask who that may be?
Christ Jesus, it is He;
Lord Sabaoth His Name,
From age to age the same,
And He must win the battle.
3
And though this world, with devils filled,
Should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear, for God hath willed
His truth to triumph through us:
The Prince of Darkness grim,
We tremble not for him;
His rage we can endure,
For lo! his doom is sure,
One little word shall fell him.
4
That word above all earthly powers,
No thanks to them, abideth;
The Spirit and the gifts are ours
Through Him who with us sideth:
Let goods and kindred go,
This mortal life also;
The body they may kill:
God’s truth abideth still,
His Kingdom is forever.

 

[Regina7]

So, at Mass, if one of the hymns is , “A Mighty Fortress”, do you get up and walk out ?

Jon

Lucky for me, my church doesn’t play that hymn.

We have so many wonderful and glorious Saints to look to for inspiration. Why look to a man who has caused so much damage? Are we next going to look at some of Hitler’s quotes? Because I’m sure even he had a few good things to say.

 

[ComplineSanFran]

Luther is a heretic, so no, there’s isn’t a quote of his I like.

I thought that, thanks to Don Ruggero, that we were retiring the word ‘heretic.’

 

[JonNC]

Lucky for me, my church doesn’t play that hymn.

We have so many wonderful and glorious Saints to look to for inspiration. Why look to a man who has caused so much damage? Are we next going to look at some of Hitler’s quotes? Because I’m sure even he had a few good things to say.

I’m sorry to hear that. I gain so much from wonderful Catholics such as Pope Benedict, I can’t imagine excluding them because I disagree with universal jurisdiction.

Jon

 

[RCbkr]

We sing this at our church from the GIA hymnal, Worship. There are only three verses and the words are quite different from the Lutheran version, but the theme of God’s being our fortress and rock is carried out well. It has the same tune, so it still sounds sort of like a German military marching son to my ears, but it’s not an objectionable Catholic hymn as written in this version.

 

[Don_Ruggero]

Are we next going to look at some of Hitler’s quotes? Because I’m sure even he had a few good things to say.

What a truly horrible and dreadful thing to say. It is hardly to show submission and filial obedience to the Successor of Saint Peter to speak thus – not only against the Holy Father but in a way that is utterly and profoundly offensive, on the most personal of levels, in regard to those who have sat in the chair of Peter.

And what do you honestly suppose would have been the reaction of Pope Saint John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI had a Catholic lay person said such a thing to their faces? After what they each lived and suffered through in World War II on the one hand and what they each had to say about Martin Luther on the other hand…in so many speeches, so many documents, to say nothing of their visits to places associated with Luther and how they, as the theologians, understood him and his work?

The attitude you express of comparing Martin Luther to Adolf Hitler is nothing at all like the mind of the Holy See – thankfully. And I am disturbed any Catholic could make such a horrific comment. It should be utterly repugnant.

To a European, it is beyond reprehensible and offensive for this to be said.

 

[Don_Ruggero]

Pope Benedict XVI
Text of Meeting in Erfurt
23 September 2011

As I begin to speak, I would like first of all to say how deeply grateful I am that we are able to come together. I am particularly grateful to you, my dear brother, Pastor Schneider, for receiving me and for the words with which you have welcomed me here among you. You have opened your heart and openly expressed a truly shared faith, a longing for unity. And we are also glad, for I believe that this session, our meetings here, are also being celebrated as the feast of our shared faith. Moreover, I would like to express my thanks to all of you for your gift in making it possible for us to speak with one another as Christians here, in this historic place

As the Bishop of Rome, it is deeply moving for me to be meeting you here in the ancient Augustinian convent in Erfurt. As we have just heard, this is where Luther studied theology. This is where he celebrated his first Mass. Against his father’s wishes, he did not continue the study of Law, but instead he studied theology and set off on the path towards priesthood in the Order of Saint Augustine. And on this path, he was not simply concerned with this or that. What constantly exercised him was the question of God, the deep passion and driving force of his whole life’s journey. “How do I receive the grace of God?”: this question struck him in the heart and lay at the foundation of all his theological searching and inner struggle. For Luther theology was no mere academic pursuit, but the struggle for oneself, which in turn was a struggle for and with God

“How do I receive the grace of God?” The fact that this question was the driving force of his whole life never ceases to make a deep impression on me. For who is actually concerned about this today – even among Christians? What does the question of God mean in our lives? In our preaching? Most people today, even Christians, set out from the presupposition that God is not fundamentally interested in our sins and virtues. He knows that we are all mere flesh. And insofar as people believe in an afterlife and a divine judgement at all, nearly everyone presumes for all practical purposes that God is bound to be magnanimous and that ultimately he mercifully overlooks our small failings. The question no longer troubles us. But are they really so small, our failings? Is not the world laid waste through the corruption of the great, but also of the small, who think only of their own advantage? Is it not laid waste through the power of drugs, which thrives on the one hand on greed and avarice, and on the other hand on the craving for pleasure of those who become addicted? Is the world not threatened by the growing readiness to use violence, frequently masking itself with claims to religious motivation? Could hunger and poverty so devastate parts of the world if love for God and godly love of neighbour – of his creatures, of men and women – were more alive in us? I could go on. No, evil is no small matter. Were we truly to place God at the centre of our lives, it could not be so powerful. The question: what is God’s position towards me, where do I stand before God? – Luther’s burning question must once more, doubtless in a new form, become our question too, not an academic question, but a real one. In my view, this is the first summons we should attend to in our encounter with Martin Luther

Another important point: God, the one God, creator of heaven and earth, is no mere philosophical hypothesis regarding the origins of the universe. This God has a face, and he has spoken to us. He became one of us in the man Jesus Christ – who is both true God and true man. Luther’s thinking, his whole spirituality, was thoroughly Christocentric: “What promotes Christ’s cause” was for Luther the decisive hermeneutical criterion for the exegesis of sacred Scripture. This presupposes, however, that Christ is at the heart of our spirituality and that love for him, living in communion with him, is what guides our life

/…/ I would respond by saying that the first and most important thing for ecumenism is that we keep in view just how much we have in common, not losing sight of it amid the pressure towards secularization – everything that makes us Christian in the first place and continues to be our gift and our task. It was the error of the Reformation period that for the most part we could only see what divided us and we failed to grasp existentially what we have in common in terms of the great deposit of sacred Scripture and the early Christian creeds. For me, the great ecumenical step forward of recent decades is that we have become aware of all this common ground, that we acknowledge it as we pray and sing together, as we make our joint commitment to the Christian ethos in our dealings with the world, as we bear common witness to the God of Jesus Christ in this world as our inalienable, shared foundation /…/

Are we to yield to the pressure of secularization, and become modern by watering down the faith? Naturally faith today has to be thought out afresh, and above all lived afresh, so that it is suited to the present day. Yet it is not by watering the faith down, but by living it today in its fullness that we achieve this. This is a key ecumenical task in which we have to help one another: developing a deeper and livelier faith. It is not strategy that saves us and saves Christianity, but faith – thought out and lived afresh; through such faith, Christ enters this world of ours, and with him, the living God. As the martyrs of the Nazi era brought us together and prompted that great initial ecumenical opening, so today, faith that is lived from deep within amid a secularized world is the most powerful ecumenical force that brings us together, guiding us towards unity in the one Lord. And we pray to him, asking that we may learn to live the faith anew, and that in this way we may then become one

 

[Regina7]

What a truly horrible and dreadful thing to say. It is hardly to show submission and filial obedience to the Successor of Saint Peter to speak thus – not only against the Holy Father but in a way that is utterly and profoundly offensive, on the most personal of levels, in regard to those who have sat in the chair of Peter.

And what do you honestly suppose would have been the reaction of Pope Saint John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI had a Catholic lay person said such a thing to their faces? After what they each lived and suffered through in World War II on the one hand and what they each had to say about Martin Luther on the other hand…in so many speeches, so many documents, to say nothing of their visits to places associated with Luther and how they, as the theologians, understood him and his work?

The attitude you express of comparing Martin Luther to Adolf Hitler is nothing at all like the mind of the Holy See – thankfully. And I am disturbed any Catholic could make such a horrific comment. It should be utterly repugnant.

To a European, it is beyond reprehensible and offensive for this to be said.

Yes, you are totally correct. I retract all previous statements.

Here then are just two of my favorite quotes:

“If I had to baptize a Jew, I would take him to the bridge of the Elbe, hang a stone round his neck and push him over with the words I baptize thee in the name of Abraham” (ref. Grisar, “Luther”, Vol. V. pg. 413).

“The Jews deserve to be hanged on gallows seven times higher than ordinary thieves.” (ref. Weimar, Vol. 53, Pg. 502).

 

[JonNC]

Yes, you are totally correct. I retract all previous statements.

Here then are just two of my favorite quotes:

“If I had to baptize a Jew, I would take him to the bridge of the Elbe, hang a stone round his neck and push him over with the words I baptize thee in the name of Abraham” (ref. Grisar, “Luther”, Vol. V. pg. 413).

“The Jews deserve to be hanged on gallows seven times higher than ordinary thieves.” (ref. Weimar, Vol. 53, Pg. 502).

Wow. Those are your favorite quotes.

How sad.
Jon

 

[Don_Ruggero]

Luther is a heretic, so no, there’s isn’t a quote of his I like.

How far is your attitude from that of Pope Saint John Paul II:

*To my venerated brother, Cardinal Johannes Willebrands, president of the Secretariate for Christian Unity.

Nov. 10, 1983 is the 500th anniversary of the birth of Dr. Martin Luther of Eisleben. On this occasion numerous Christians, especially of the Lutheran-Evangelical confession, recall that theologian who, at the threshold of modern times contributed in a substantial way to the radical change of ecclesiastical and secular reality of the West.

Our world still today bears the experience of his great impact on history.

For the Catholic Church through the centuries the name of Martin Luther is tied to the memory of a sad period and, in particular, to the experience of the origin of deep ecclesiastical divisions.

For this reason the 500th anniversary of the birth of Martin Luther must be for us an occasion to meditate, in truth and in Christian charity, on that pregnant event of history that was the epoch of the Reformation.

Because it is time that distances us from historical events and makes them often better understood and evoked.

Therefore, well known personalities and institutions of Lutheran Christianity indicated that the year dedicated to Luther could be marked by a genuine ecumenical spirit and that discussion on Luther may be propitious to Christian unity.

I receive with satisfaction this intention and extend to you a fraternal invitation to arrive together at a deeper and more complete image of the historical events and a critical reflexion on the manifold heritage of Luther.

In fact, scientific research by evangelical and Catholic scholars, the results of which have already reached notable points of convergence, has led to the outlining of a more complete and more differentiated picture of Luther’s personality, of the complex web of historical reality in society, in politics and in the church of the first half of the 16th century.

Consequently Luther’s profound piety that, with burning passion, was driven by questioning on eternal salvation, is clearly delineated.

Similarly it becomes clear that the break in ecclesiastical unity is not reduced to a simple lack of comprehension by authorities of the Catholic Church nor to only the simple comprehension of true catholicism by Luther, even if both had their role.

The decisions taken indeed had very deep roots. In the dispute on the interpretational line and on the reception of Christian faith, which have in themselves a potential of ecclesiastical division, cannot be explained only by historical reasons.

Therefore, a double force is necessary, both in confronting Martin Luther and in the search for reestablishment of unity.

In the first place it is important to continue accurate historical work, It is a question of, through an investigation without taking sides, motivated only by the search for truth, arriving at a just image of the Reformer, of the entire epoch of the Reformation and of the people who were involved in it.

Guilt, where it exists, must be recognized, on whichever side it is found where polemics have clouded the view, the direction of this view must be corrected and independently by one side or the other.

Furthermore, we must not let ourselves be led by the intention of erecting a judgment on history, but the intention must be only that of better understanding the events and of becoming bearers of the truth.

Only offering ourselves, without reservation, to a purification through the truth, can we find a common interpretation of the past and gain at the same time a new point of departure for the dialogue of today.

And it is precisely this second thing that is dominant.

The clarification of history that turns to the past and its lasting significance must go on equal footing with the dialogue of faith that, at present, we undertake to search for unity.

This dialogue finds its solid base, in conformity with the written Evangelical-Lutheran confessional in that which unites us even after the separation and that is to say: in the word of the Scriptures, in the confession of faith, in the councils of the ancient church.

I therefore trust, Cardinal, that on these bases and in this spirit, the Secretariat for Unity, with your guidance, leads forward this dialogue initiated with great seriousness in Germany even before the Second Vatican Council, and does it in fidelity to the free faith, which allows penitence and docility to learn by listening.

In humble contemplation of the mystery of divine providence and in listening devotely to what the spirit of God teaches us today in the memory of events of the Reformation, the church has to extend the confines of its love to go to meet in unity all those who, through baptism, bear the name of Jesus Christ.

I accompany with my special prayers and blessings, the work of your secretariat and all the ecumenical forces for the great cause of unity of all Christians.*
The great document From Conflict to Communion in 2013 directly descends from this moment in 1983.

 

[Don_Ruggero]

Here then are just two of my favorite quotes:

I think your choice of your favourite quotes says quite a lot to me…but who they say a lot about is not Martin Luther.

 

[Regina7]

Wow. Those are your favorite quotes.

How sad.
Jon

Just trying to extol the virtues of St. Martin Luther. Here’s a few more:

"To kill a peasant is not murder; it is helping to extinguish the conflagration. Let there be no half measures! Crush them! Cut their throats! Transfix them. Leave no stone unturned! To kill a peasant is to destroy a mad dog!” – “If they say that I am very hard and merciless, mercy be damned. Let whoever can stab, strangle, and kill them like mad dogs” (ref. Erlangen Vol 24, Pg. 294).

"If we allow them – the Commandments – any influence in our conscience, they become the cloak of all evil, heresies and blasphemies” (ref. Comm. ad Galat, p.310).

"I have greater confidence in my wife and my pupils than I have in Christ” (ref. Table Talk97b).

I look upon God no better than a scoundrel” (ref. Weimar, Vol. 1, Pg. 487. Cf. Table Talk, No. 963).

 

[Regina7]

I think your choice of your favourite quotes says quite a lot to me…but who they say a lot about is not Martin Luther.

That doesn’t make sense. Luther said them.

And I was being sarcastic. Those quotes are utterly reprehensible.

 

[Don_Ruggero]

That doesn’t make sense. Luther said them.

And I was being sarcastic. Those quotes are utterly reprehensible.

Yes…your favourite quotes and your attitude of sarcasm say quite a lot indeed.

Your choice of the word reprehensible is most apt.

 

[Regina7]

Yes…your favourite quotes and your attitude of sarcasm say quite a lot indeed.

Your choice of the word reprehensible is most apt.

Interesting how you haven’t mentioned what the quotes THAT LUTHER HIMSELF SAID say about him.