Quote of the Week – Rubbing God’s Ears
August 11, 2017 Leave a comment
Philipp Melanchthon traveled to a colloquy in Hagenau after Philip of Hesse’s bigamy became known and was causing a scandal for the Lutherans. (Luther had actually recommended this bigamy for pastoral reasons—definitely not his finest moment.) The sensitive Melanchthon was so troubled by the scandal that by the time he reached Weimar he had already become so sick that he could not continue the trip. He contracted a bad fever and was bedridden.
Luther personally went to see him and arrived in Weimar on June 23, 1540. He found Melanchthon deathly ill, unrecognizable, and unable to hear or speak. Luther later said in one of his table talks that Melanchthon’s eyes had already dimmed like a dead person’s. After Luther expressed his shock, Matthaeus Ratzeberger, court physician for Duke John Frederick I of Saxony and eyewitness to what happened, says that Luther went to the window in the room and prayed an especially bold and earnest prayer. Luther himself seems to have felt the need to explain the boldness of the prayer afterwards either to everyone in the room or privately to Ratzeberger:
Our Lord God had to stand there and take it from me there, for I threw the sack at his door and rubbed his ears with all the promises to hear and answer prayers that I could recount from Holy Scripture, so that he had to hear and answer me if I was going to trust his promises in other matters too.
Luther then took Philipp by the hand and said, “Cheer up, Philipp, you are not going to die.” He then gave him a short address.
Philipp seemed to regain his breath at this. When Luther ran to get him something to eat, Philipp refused it, so Luther threatened him: “Listen here, Philipp, here’s how it is: You are going to eat for me or I am going to put you under the ban.”
Melanchthon gave in, and from then on he began to recover.
Sources
Christian Gotthold Neudecker, ed., Die handschriftliche Geschichte Ratzeberger’s über Luther und seine Zeit (Jena: Druck und Verlag von Friedrich Mauke, 1850), pp. 103,104
Weimarer Ausgabe, Tischreden 5:129, no. 5407
Quote of the Week – Hus a Goose, Luther a Swan
October 21, 2017 Leave a comment
I had read in more than one place about the reformer Jan Hus’s supposed prophecy that a hundred years after his death, a swan would arise who would (fill in the blank with reformatory activity). This of course was always applied to Martin Luther. Consider Johannes Mathesius’ usage of the story:
Similar to Elector Frederick the Wise’s alleged dream about Luther’s 95 Theses the night before he reportedly posted them, I have always wondered about the veracity of this prophecy.
I think I have found the answer, thanks to an article by Dr. Gottfried Herrmann of the ELFK in the Fall 2017 issue (vol. 114, no. 4) of the Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterly. There Dr. Hermmann refers to Luther’s 1531 Commentary on the Alleged Imperial Edict. Luther composed this work in response to Emperor Charles V’s publication on November 19, 1530, of the final resolution of the Diet of Augsburg. In it the emperor “essentially reviv[ed] the Edict of Worms and [gave] the evangelicals a period of grace until April 15, 1531. In order effectively to root out abuses in the church, the emperor intended to persuade the pope and rulers to hold a council within six months. In the meantime the Protestant princedoms and cities should publish nothing further, should cease to proselytize, and should restore monastic and ecclesiastical properties.”
Toward the end of Luther’s Commentary, he himself cites the alleged prophecy (cited in the aforementioned article by Dr. Hermann):
In the Weimar Edition, this quote is footnoted by the editors as follows:
Sources
Johannes Mathesius, Historien / Von des Ehrwirdigen in Gott Seligen thewren Manns Gottes / Doctoris Martini Luthers / anfang / lehr / leben und sterben [Nuremberg, 1566], fol. 4
Lewis W. Spitz and Helmut T. Lehmann, eds., Luther’s Works, trans. Robert R. Heitner (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1960), 34:63ff, esp. pp. 65,104
Weimarer Ausgabe 30/3:387
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