Martin Luther’s Concern for Human Life
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Abstract
Luther lived in an age in which most people were exposed to various forms of violence and personal enmity. His treatment of the fifth commandment consistently condemned sins of every kind that harmed others, whether through physical violence, verbal violence, or any other form of abuse, including contempt on the basis of national origin, age, etc. His heirs in the modern age, such as Hermann Sasse and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, have opposed both positive and negative racism along with other forms of harm to other human beings.
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Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death (New York: The Free Press, 1973).
On the climactic year, see Robert Kolb, “Memoria Melanchthonia 1560. The Public Presentation of Philip Melanchthon at his Death,” in Memoria – theologische Synthese – Autoritätenkonflikt. Die Rezeption Luthers und Melanchthons in der Schülergeneration, ed. Irene Dingel (Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 2016), 89-102.
Schleupner, Barsillai octogenarius: Das ist: Von Barsillaj Achtzigjährigem Hochlöblichem Alter Leichpredigt/ Bey Begräbnüß/ des … Alten Vrban Gaubischen/ weyland Buchdruckers zu Eißleben … (Eisleben, 1616), E2b–E4b.
WA 42: 202, 29-35, LW 1: 274.
WA 23: 404/405,14.-7, LW 43: 146-147.
Martin Brecht, Martin Luther, Vol. 1: His Road to Reformation, 1483-1521, trans. James L. Schaaf (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), 295.
Martin Brecht, Martin Luther, Vol. 3: The Preservation of the Church, 1532-1546, trans. James L. Schaaf (Philadelphia: Fortress Press 1986), 14–15.
WA 14:126,18-128,16. Cf. his sermon with similar comments on the verse in a sermon from 1519, WA 2: 167,16-168,9, refashioned in the Winter Postil of 1528, WA 21: 67,16-68,16.
WA 42: 87,11-88,14, LW 1:115-116.
WA 22: 249, 28-35, The Complete Sermons of Martin Luther, ed. John Nicholas Lenker (1905-1909; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2000), 3:51.
WA 42: 192,14-203,6, LW 1: 259-275.
WA 42: 203,7-209,34, LW 1: 275-281.
WA 16: 507,22-510,19.
WA 30,1: 72,28-75,26, LW 51:152-153.
WA 32: 360,23-362:14, LW 21: 74-76.
WA 32: 362,15-363,18, LW 21: 76-77.
WA 32: 363,19-364,29, LW 21:77-78.
WA 6: 265,27-268,7, LW 44:100-103.
WA 10,2: 383,1.17, LW 43:19.
Die Bekenntnisschriften der Evangelisch-Lutherischen Kirche, ed. Irene Dingel (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014 [henceforth BSELK]), 864, The Book of Concord, ed. Robert Kolb and Timothy J. Wengert (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000 [henceforth BC]), 352.
BSELK 992/993, 25-994/995,12, BC 410-411.
BSELK 994/995,13-996/997,21, BC 411-412.
BSELK 996/997,22-998/999,18, BC 412.
BSELK 998/999,19-1000/1001,6, BC 412-413.
Lattimore, “Hatred as Murder,” in Luther’s Large Catechism with Annotations and Contemporary Applications, ed. John T. Pless and Larry M. Vogel (Saint Louis: Concordia, 2022), 234-235, citing Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Berlin: 1932-1933, trans. Isael Best and David Higgins, ed. Larry Rasmussen, in Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Works (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2009) 12: 365.
WA 38: 368,35-369,28, LW 43: 205.
WA 38: 369,28-35, LW 43: 205-206.
WA Tischreden 3: 501-503, Nr. 4784; Luther: Letters of Spiritual Counsel, Theodore G. Tappert, ed., (Westminster: Philadelphia, 1955), 46-47.
WA Tischreden 4:505-508, Nr. 4787. On Luther and death, see Neil R. Leroux, Martin Luther as Comforter. Writings on Death (Leiden: Brill, 2007), and Robert Kolb, Face to Face. Luther’s View of Reality (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2024), 63-67.
WA Briefe 7: 117-119, Nr. 2147.
WA Briefe 7:147-148, Nr. 2167.
WA Briefe 6: 104-106, Tappert, Letters of Spiritual Counsel, 26-28.
Stephen Pietsch, Of Good Comfort. Martin Luther’s Letters to the Depressed and their Significance for Pastoral Care Today (Adelaide: ATF, 2016), and Ute Mennicke-Haustein, Luthers Trostbriefe (Gütersloh, Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1989).
WA Tischreden 2: 356, Nr. 2194b., Tappert, Letters of Spiritual Counsel, 36-37.
Cf his report on the plague of August 19, 1527, in a letter to Georg Spalatin, WA Briefe 6:232-233, Tappert, Letters of Spiritual Counsel, 228-230, cf. his treatise Whether One May Flee from a Deadly Plague, WA 23: 338-379, LW 43:119-138.
WA Briefe 5: 239-241, Nr. 1529; 6: 103-104, Nr. 1820, LW 49: 267-271, 50: 17-21.
As the amanuensis Veit Dietrich, who accompanied him to the Fortress Coburg in 1530, related, WA Briefe 5: 379, 16–19; Nr. 1595.
WA Briefe 4: 511, Nr. 1303, LW 49: 203.
WA Tischreden 5: 189–192, Nr. 5494; WA, TR 5: 186,19–26, Nr. 5490c.
WA 18: 357-361. LW 46: 455.
Robert Scribner, “The Reformation movements in Germany,” in The New Cambridge Modern History, Volume II, The Reformation 1520-1559, ed. Geoffrey Elton (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 86-87; Tom Scott, Town, Country, and Regions in Reformation Germany (Leiden, Brill, 2005), 3-188.
WA Briefe 3: 547-548, Nr. 905, Tappert, Letters of Spiritual Counsel, 174.-75.
That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew, WA 11: 314-336, LW 45: 199-229, LW 45: 200-201, 229; WA 11: 314-336; cf. similar expressions in a sermon of 1524, WA 15: 447,11-22, and a letter of July 9, 1530, WA Briefe 5: 452-1-28, with instructions for the catechetization of a young Jewish woman. See Mark U. Edwards, Jr., Luther’s Last Battles. Politics and Polemics, 1531-1546 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983), 115-142, and Steven G. Burnett, “What Could Luther Have Known of Judaism,” in Juden, Christen und Muslime im Zeitalter der Reformation, ed. Matthias Pohlig, 133–146. (Heidelberg: Verein für Reformationsgeschichte, 2020), 133-146.
Military Sermon against the Turks, WA 30,2: 185,18-186,18, 192, 22-193,5, 194, 23-195, 6; Appeal for Prayer Against the Turks, WA 51: 621, LW 43:239; see Edwards, Luther’s Last Battles, 97-114, Gregory J. Miller, The Turks and Islam in Reformation Germany (London: Routledge, 2017).
Amy Nelson Burnett, Karlstadt and the Origins of the Eucharistic Controversy: A study in the Circulation of Ideas (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 10–36; Scott H. Hendrix, Martin Luther, Visionary Reformer (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015), 168; Edwards, Luther and the False Brethren, 34–59.
Hendrix, Visionary Reformer, 256–258; Mark U. Edwards, Luther and the False Brethren (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1975), 156–179; Timothy J. Wengert, Law and Gospel: Philip Melanchthon’s Debate with John Agricola of Eisleben over Poenitentia (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1997), 103-175; “Johann Agricola neben Luther: Schülerschaft und theologische Eigenart,” in Lutheriana, ed. Gerhard Hammer and Karl-Heinz zur Mühlen (Cologne: Böhlau, 1984), 131-150.
Oliver K. Olson, Matthias Flacius and the Survival of Luther’s Reform (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2002), 47-49; Luka Ilić, Theologian of Sin and Grace. The Process of Radicalization in the Theology of Matthias Flacius Illyricus (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck/Ruprecht, 2014), 61-65; Irene Dingel, “Flacius als Schüler Luthers und Melanchthons,” in Vestigia Pietatis. Studien zur Geschichte der Frömmigkeit in Thüringen und Sachsen, Ernst Koch gewidmet, ed. Gerhard Graf, Hans-Peter Hasse et al. (Leipzig 2000 [Herbergen der Christenheit, Sonderbd. 5]), 77-93.
Luther’s preface to Barnes’ confession of faith demonstrates their relationship, WA 51: 449-451, LW 60: 228-233.
Simo Heininen, Die finnischen Studenten in Wittenberg, 1531-1552 (Helsinki: Oy, 1980).
James M. Stayer, Martin Luther, German Saviour. German Evangelical Theological Factions and the Interpretation of Luther, 1917-1933 (Montreal/ Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press, 2000), 70-95.
Sasse, “Die ‘Krisis der Religion’ und die Verkündigung der Kirche,” and “Die Kirche und die politischen Mächte der Zeit,” Kirchliches Jahrbuch für die evangelischen Landeskirchen Deutschlands 1932 (Gütersloh: Bertelsmann, 1932), 129, 30-113. Although he sharply criticized Sasse for abandoning the effort to compose the Barmen Declaration of 1934, on which he had initially worked, the faithful follower of Karl Barth, Arthur Cochrane, in his The Church’s Confession under Hitler (2. ed., Pittsburgh: Pickwick, 1976), stated, “It is to the lasting credit of Prof. Hermann Sasse, of the University of Erlangen, that he was the first to declare that because of this one plank in the Party’s program [the embrace of positive and negative racism] the Church could in no way approve of Nazism. It had to be categorically repudiated. The fact that Sasse eventually broke with the Confessing Church in the interest of a narrow Lutheran confessionalism, and thereby greatly weakened the church’s opposition to National Socialism, must not obscure the prophetic role he played at the outset,” p. 36. On Sasse and his colleagues, see Lowell C. Green, The Erlangen School of Theology. Its History, Teaching, and Practice (Fort Wayne: Lutheran Legacy, 2010), 231-309, and Lowell C. Green, Lutherans Against Hitler. The Untold Story (Saint Louis: Concordia 2007), 325-357.
WA 20: 710, 30-711, 26, LW 30: 276.