Luther’s Mary

Introduction.

Doctor Luther grew up in a medieval Roman Catholic house that was filled to the brim with the theology of the day. Doctor Luther himself, as a boy, was steeped in the cult of the saints, especially Mary and those related to her.¹ Throughout his reformational journey, Doctor Luther would pare away at medieval Catholicism, removing with great zeal anything that was opposed to the Scriptures. While Luther loved and maintained a deep respect for tradition, indeed thinking that anything not forbidden by the Scriptures should remain, he would not hesitate throughout his reformation to do away with anything that even came close to resembling idolatry, including the veneration of the saints. Despite the compunction, however, Doctor Luther’s deep and abiding love for Saint Mary would never truly falter, and he would indeed maintain a strong Mariology throughout his life and encourage others with the right faith to do the same.

The aim of this paper is to explore the role of Virgin Mary primarily within Luther’s theology. While many other papers have been written on this subject,² very few of them take the time to understand the role and growth of Mary in church history, as well as the theological underpinnings of Luther’s view. This paper will take the position that one cannot understand Luther’s views on Mary without first understanding who Mary is within Scripture and the church, or without first understanding who Martin Luther himself is as an individual person. Thus, this paper will seek to understand these two concepts first in order to help inform a view of Luther’s Marian Devotion and his high view of Mariology which would, quite frankly, make many protestants uncomfortable in the modern era.

Mary In The Church

The best place for any discussion of Doctor Luther’s view of the Blessed Virgin is the very pages of Holy Scripture. In order to understand Mary in the Reformer’s mind, one must first see her as the Lord saw her, and to find this out one must consult the pages of Scripture. Luke gives the earliest and most detail about Mary and the birth of The Lord Jesus in the first chapter of his Gospel, beginning at the 26^th verse:

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. The angel came to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored. The Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women.” (Luke 1:26-28, MEV)

Mary is described for the reader³ here as a virgin betrothed. Luke makes a point here to stress her virginity, mentioning it directly twice and alluding to it once with his note about her being betrothed.⁴ Beyond her virginity, Luke notes for his reader that she is from Nazareth in Galilee. This location of the town implies that, like Mary herself, the town is lowly and insignificant, and the reader will not know where it is without the province.⁵ Doctor Luther here agrees with this assessment, noting in his commentary on the Magnificat:

When the holy virgin experienced what great things God was working in her despite her insignificance, lowliness, poverty, and inferiority, the Holy Spirit taught her this deep insight and wisdom.⁶

The picture of Mary that is drawn for the reader of Luke is one of a lowly servant, and indeed a handmaid.⁷ But Luke isn’t the only New Testament writer that gives a thorough view of the Blessed Mother of God.

Indeed, Saint John also gives us a wonderful view of Mary as a faithful servant, standing by her Son as He was crucified (John 19:25-27). Beyond this, John leans on Mary in his epistles to combat early Christological heresies concerning the person of Christ.⁸ This biblical Mary was a real young woman who truly conceived, carried, bore, and nursed the very real person of Christ. John constantly leans throughout his Gospel and His epistles on the very tangible realness of Christ Jesus, and often times uses the Blessed Virgin to get that very point across to his readers. Indeed, Christ could not be flesh and dwell among us unless He came from flesh.

Mary was viewed by the Apostles and by the Apostolic Fathers as essential to the Christian faith⁹ on matters concerning the incarnation. Indeed, Justin Martyr would be the first father to cite the link between Mary and Eve,¹⁰ noting that just as humanity required a second Adam, so it would require a second Eve. The truth is, as Hauke notes, “Mary is intimately connected to the mystery of the Incarnation.”¹¹ As the author of Hebrews¹² well knew, Christ had to be fully God and fully man to perform His saving work for humanity (Hebrews 1:3, 2:17).¹³ This apostolic knowledge concerning Mary and her physical relationship to Jesus would be passed down and used to great effect by the Fathers throughout the years as they faced off against one Christological heresy after another.

The devil has sought to undermine Christianity and the Lord God since the very beginning (Genesis 3:1), and so attacks with ferocity the person of Christ.¹⁴ The church has had to defend both the humanity and deity of Jesus at every turn, especially during the first six centuries of the church. The four biggest heresies related to the person of Christ in the church were: Arianism, the belief that Jesus was just a man; Docetism, the belief that Jesus was not a man at all, but pure spirit; Eutychianism, the belief that Christ only had a divine nature; and Nestorianism, the belief that Christ is two persons, one human and one divine, rather than a single person of two natures. And for each one of these heresies, there is a reliance the Blessed Mother to deny and defeat them. Whether the Fathers focused on the fact that Jesus was actually born of the Virgin Mary, or that Jesus was divinely conceived of the Virgin Mary, one finds it hard to defeat Christological heresy without an examination of the Mother of God.¹⁵

As time marched inexorably onward, so too did accretions begin to find their way into the church. Mary was given an incredibly high place in the church by the Apostles and also by the Apostolic Fathers. So, then it only seems natural that, as time moves forward and humanity finds itself in the medieval period, this role of Mary has been exalted to something higher than it was ever intended. Many myths regarding the Holy Family came into being during the Middle Ages¹⁶ that would begin to tell fantastic tales of the Virgin Mother and the birth of Jesus.¹⁷ These tales would often exalt the Virgin Mary to a high place, while simultaneously forgetting the reasons the Fathers had initially exalted her so (to combat heresy). Regarding this exaltation of Mary at the expense of Christ, the Esteemed Reformer notes that Bernard of Clairvaux falls into this very trap, as quoted as saying in a Table Talk:

Bernard occupies a whole sermon upon this feast, in laud of the Virgin Mary, forgetting the great author of comfort, that this day God was made man. True, we cannot but extol and praise Mary, who was so highly favoured of the Lord, but when the Creator himself comes, who delivers us from the devil’s power, &c., him, neither we nor angels can sufficiently honour, praise, worship, and adore.¹⁸

 As the cult of the saints grew in the Middle Ages, so too did the cult of Saint Mary. After all, was she not to be esteemed as the greatest of all the saints? This precious virgin girl, who accepted the will, power, and might of God that was so quickly thrust upon her? How could she not, in the Medieval mind, have such a super abundance of grace and merit attributed to her that, were it dispensed, would be sufficient to propitiate all temporal consequences of sin for all believers? And so, this is how the Medieval theologians of Luther’s day argued and reasoned. What is seen in these medieval theologians regarding Mary is a blending of mysticism, fanaticism, and scholasticism. In this school of thought, Scripture is largely jettisoned in favor of reasonable assumptions about Mary based on mythological sources. It is through these kinds of assumptions and accretions that the church begins to see the development of doctrines like The Immaculate Conception and the Bodily Assumption of Mary into Heaven.¹⁹ This is the theological world that Martin Luther would find himself born into and studying under.

The Underpinnings of Doctor Luther.

There is not much known about Luther’s early life with his family. It is well documented that Luther’s father was a hard man. Hans Luther was a hard-working man who did everything he could to give his family a better shot at life in a society at adhered to a bit of a soft caste system. A shrewd businessman and good manager of his wealth and assets, Hans Luther was able to go from a tradesman to a business owner in a relatively short amount of time and therefore provide opportunities for his family that would have otherwise been inaccessible to them. One of these opportunities was the education of his son, Martin, for whom he would have become a lawyer. Of his mother, Margaret, and their relationship, less is known. Booth maintains that Margaret and Hans reared young Martin in a “strangely lovely way” wherein they threw their earnestness at the child, and he was so overcome by his love for them and their rearing that it scared him.²⁰ However, Booth stands in the minority with such a rosy view of young Martin’s childhood. By all accounts, his parents were very strict and stern people who put into him such a fear of God that he neurotically believed any slight offense carried with it an inescapable punishment.²¹ Luther began attending school at a young age, and after just a few short years his father, Hans, thought he had the aptitude to be a lawyer and would send him away to study for it.²² This gives Margaret Luther only about a decade in which she can raise her own son, and half of that time he would spend at school. There is painfully little in Martin’s own writings about his mother and the impact she had on him, though undoubtedly – with Hans at work – she was the one doing the majority of the child rearing in the home (as was the custom). It can be reasonably assumed, then, that the baggage Luther would carry with him for his life was a result of his own mother’s raising and catechizing. Indeed, it is noted by Preserved Smith in his biography of Luther that it was Margaret who taught young Martin that, “God the Father and Jesus were represented to him as stern, nay, cruel judges, to appease whose just wrath the intercession of the saints must be secured.”²³ Though often blamed on a thunderstorm,²⁴ mysterious vision, or perhaps just his already set and drifting course in life,²⁵ Luther’s joining the cloister is undoubtedly a direct result of this faithful, and fearful, childhood and tradition. It would ultimately drive Luther deep into the arms of Catholic Tradition and practice.

Several events in Luther’s life that would lead him to despite monastic life and the excesses of the church, yet he was able to separate these excesses from the beautiful and helpful traditions of the church, which he viewed in a personal and loving light.²⁶ Luther’s own theological education, informed mostly by the Occamists, would teach him that “by a man’s own acts, asceticism, prayer, and meditation, he could prepare his soul for union with God.”²⁷ The Reformer was able to distinguish these punishing and useless theologies of his day, and would ultimately excise them from the Catholic Faith, but he would not go as far as the radical reformers, desiring to throw out the baby with the bathwater, as it were. Indeed, Luther’s own view of the Mass should be sufficient to show the point. In his second Invocavit Sermon, Luther says, “Here we are entirely agreed: the private Masses must be abolished. As I have said in my writings, I wish they would be abolished everywhere and only the common evangelical Mass be retained.”²⁸ Yet if some of the trappings and traditions of the church remained on Luther, it was only those as he saw fit to keep according his deep and abiding love for the Scriptures.

Luther spent time teaching at Wittenberg, working his way through Genesis, the Psalms, Romans, Hebrews, and the Psalms again.²⁹ Being so steeped in the Word of God to prepare these lectures had a profound effect on young Doctor Luther. Kittelson notes, “Lecture by lecture, Luther’s thinking about God’s righteous judgment was evolving.”³⁰ Luther would spend a large majority of his time soaking in the Word of God, whether he was preparing a lecture, a study, or a sermon. Eventually the common themes across the Scriptures, from the Old Testament to the New Testament would begin to poke their heads out at the man and demand he take notice of them. And once he saw the clarity of the Gospel, Luther could never unsee it. Luther undoubtedly was familiar with Augustine’s ideas regarding the superiority of scripture³¹ and would form his own similar rallying cry of Sola Scriptura. This devotion to the Holy Scriptures that would lead Luther’s reformation charge and cause him to relentlessly pare away at anything in Catholic tradition that was not directly beneficial to the faith, catechesis, and pastoral care of his people.³²

Luther’s Virgin Mary.

 At this point the paper will seek to assess Doctor Luther’s views of the Virgin Mary, her invocation, her place in the church, and ultimately her place in the life of a Christian.³³ This section will seek to deal with the immaculate conception in Luther’s view – that is, Mary’s sinlessness – along with her being the Queen of Heaven, the Mother of the Church and the Mother of believers, and the ultimate reason why Christians must needs respect and revere the Blessed Virgin and Mother of The Lord.

The Great Reformer and Prophet was closer to the first systematic articulation of the Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception than modern protestant Christians are to him!³⁴ As it is not declared in Scripture, Martin Luther did not require that Christians hold to the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception in order to be saved. However Luther himself did hold to a form of the doctrine personally. Steeped deep in the Scriptures, the traditions of the church, and systematic thinking, Luther concluded that Mary could not have been born sinless, for we are all “brought forth in sin, and in sin [our mothers] conceived [us]” (Psalm 51:5). Luther, however, could not escape the gravitational pull of Mary³⁵ and had to give her such honor as was required the new Eve and new Ark of the Covenant. Thus Luther concluded that Mary was indeed born in sin, as are the rest of humanity, but at some point in time, possibly the moment of Christ’s conception³⁶ she was herself purged of all sin, including even the stain of original sin, concupiscence, and the desire of sin. Luther states in his commentary on the Magnificat, “Mary also freely ascribes all to God’s grace, not to her merit. For though she was without sin, yet that grace was far too great for her to deserve it in any way.”³⁷ To Doctor Luther, Mary, though born in sin, was nonetheless sinless by virtue of Christ her Son.

Regarding the holiness of Mary, outside of his view of her sinlessness, Doctor Luther viewed the Blessed Virgin as a woman whose prayers, even now, are incredibly valuable to the life of the believer. To such ends, he even once in writing implored God to ask Mary for her prayers! In the introduction to his commentary on the Magnificat, Luther says,

May the tender Mother of God herself procure for me the spirit of wisdom to profitably and thoroughly to expound this song of hers, so that your Grace as well as we all may draw from it wholesome knowledge and a praiseworthy life, and thus come to chant and sing this Magnificat eternally in heaven. To this may God help us. Amen.³⁸

There are some wonderful theological gems which can be pulled from this simple little prayer. First, it is noted that the prayer is not addressed directly to Mary.³⁹ Rather, based on the conclusion, the prayer is addressed to God. It should be noted also that Luther prays here Mary would procure for Him the spirit of wisdom. Some quick cross referencing the Scriptures assure us that this spirit of wisdom is, in fact, Christ Jesus.⁴⁰ Mary here is only addressed insofar as it is her song, and thus she knows the Wisdom of which she testifies, and Luther only asks that he too know this Wisdom. He asks that this Wisdom⁴¹ be granted to him so that he himself and all others reading his writing spend eternity in Heaven. All of this is asked in God’s name. In this way Luther does not invoke directly a request of Mary, but rather asks the Lord God for the gifts Mary received. There is, here, a distinction: Luther prays to God for the invocation of Mary, but does not pray to Mary that she invoke God to action. Luther makes this distinction clear when he declares that Mary truly is the Queen of Heaven:

One should also be measured and not make too much of calling her “Queen of Heaven,” which is a true name and yet does not make her a goddess who could grant gifts or render aid, as some suppose when they pray and flee to her rather than to God.⁴²

Luther understands that the prayers of the saints rise before God as incense, and are powerful, but does not believe He can manipulate God via such prayers. Rather, He is seeking the favor of God through Christ, and in that favor asks that what was given to Mary be also given to him and his readers.

Luther viewed Mary as his own dear mother. Truly Mary was the Mother of the church, as is the historic teaching of Christianity. And Luther here agreed not only with the church in this regard, but through his own exegesis of Scripture concluded that Mary must be our mother as well. If Mary is the mother of Christ, and Christ is our brother, and all that Christ has is ours – as the scriptures attest to both of these things – then surely Mary must also be our mother as well. Fr. Victor Feltes, a Catholic Parish priest, notes that many people are drawn to Marian devotion for different reasons. Some, because they don’t have a mother of their own, and others because their relationship with their mother is disordered and so they may crave the maternal input they never had growing up.⁴³ No matter the reason, Luther loved Mary dearly as his own mother. Nowhere is this better seen than his deliberation on the greeting in Luke, as he describes it in his work, “On Translation”:

Here, however, the papists are going wild about me, because I have corrupted the Angelic Salutation; though I have still not hit upon the best German rendering for it. Suppose I had taken the best German, and translated the salutation thus: “God’s greeting to you, dear Mary”—for that is what the angel wanted to say, and what he would have said, if he had wanted to greet her in German. Suppose I had done that! I believe that they would have hanged themselves out of tremendous fanaticism for the Virgin Mary, because I had thus destroyed the salutation. […] Listen well to this! I shall say “gracious [holdselige] Mary,” and “dear [liebe] Mary,” and let them say “Mary full of grace [volgnaden].” Whoever knows German knows very well what a fine, cordial [hertzlich] word that word liebe is: the dear Mary, the dear God, the dear emperor, the dear prince, the dear man, the dear child. I do not know whether this word liebe can be said in Latin or other languages with such fullness of sentiment, so that it pierces and rings through the heart, through all the senses, as it does in our language.⁴⁴

Luther notes for his reader that the true point of the angel’s greeting is one of great devotion and love, such that one would give their own mother or their own child. One of fanatical and enduring devotion like that one would give to their emperor. Here Luther shows the reader his own view of how one ought to view and love and be devoted to the Blessed mother.

Ultimately Luther’s conception of Mary as sinless, holy, Mother to the church and all believers is to give her a status that service an ultimate function: To bring the believer to Jesus Christ. Luther, with all Christendom, notes correctly that Mary quite literally bore Jesus and thus brought salvation to all the earth via her blessed womb. However, Luther spends a large amount of time exegeting this idea onto Mary as a whole. As the Mother of all Christians, she serves only to keep them in relationship to their Holy Brother. As the Mother of the Church, she serves only to bring humanity into the Body of Her Son. As Queen of Heaven, her rule and reign extend only so far as they are useful to drive people to the greater King of The Universe: Christ Jesus. For Martin Luther, Mariology was a good and beneficial thing that should be kept up by the church for all time, but it was an item of the faith which must be kept in its proper order. Without use as a tool to drive the Christian to Jesus Himself, all Mariology – as well as the popes, councils, and all other traditions of the church – were absolutely useless at best, and detrimental at worst. Thus the ultimate function of Mariology is, in Luther’s view, Christology.

Conclusion.

While there are many wonderful things that can be gleaned from the Virgin Mary, for Christians – and even for Mary personally – Her ultimate purpose is fulfilled in bringing Christ to the church. For Doctor Luther, Mary was to him a mother that he could love and trust. She was a touchpoint of wisdom through which he could connect with Christ Jesus. Luther viewed Mary as an essential person within Christianity, and he viewed her as someone he could love and trust and through whom he could relate personally to God and Christ Jesus.

A high Mariology allows the church to have a strong Christology and presents the body of Christ with a faith that is identically close to that of the great Reformer’s faith. It is one that she should strive to maintain, as a strong belief in the place and person of Mary can only help strengthen her as it did for Doctor Luther. The writings and beliefs of Doctor Luther around Mary should show and prove today that one cannot be claim to be close to the Lord Jesus while despising and keeping at a distance His Most Blessed and Holy Mother.

Bibliography

Atkinson, James. Martin Luther: Prophet to the Church Catholic. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2004.

Booth, Edwin P. Martin Luther: The Great Reformer. Uhrichsville, OH: Barbour Publishing, 2000.

Cole, William S. M. “Martin Luther: On Marian Devotion – Invocation and Intercession.” University of Dayton Review, 1970.

Feltes, Father Victor, interview by S. Remy Sheppard. An Interview With Fr. Feltes (May 20th, 2024).

Hauke, Manfred. “A Short Historical Overview.” In Introducation to Mariology. Catholic University of America Press, 2011.

Hippo, Augustine. A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, First Series: St. Augustine: The Writings against the Manichaeans and against the Donatists. Edited by Philip Schaff. Translated by J. R. King. Vol. IV. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1887.

Jonston, Jeremy. “Luther and the Blessed Virgin.” The Furrow, March 1984: 158-164.

Kittelson, James M., and Hans H. Wiersma. Luther the Reformer: The story of the Man and His Career. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2016.

Lenski, R. C. H. The Interpretation of St. Luke’s Gospel. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Publishing House, 1961.

Luther, Martin. Luther’s Christmas Sermons: Epistles. Translated by Nicholas John Lenker. Minneapolis, MN: The Luther Press, 1908.

—. Pastoral Writings. Edited by Hans J. Hillerbrand, Kirsi I. Stjerna, Timothy J. Wengert, & Mary Jane Haemig. Vol. 4. The Annotated Luther. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2016.

—. The Essential Luther. Edited by Tryntje Helfferich. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company, 2018.

—. The Intrepretation of Scripture. Edited by Hans J. Hillerbrand, Kirsi I. Stjerna, Timothy J. Wengert, & Euan K. Cameron. Vol. 6. The Annotated Luther. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2017.

Luther, Martin, and Alexander Chalmers. The Table Talk of Martin Luther: New Edition, to Which Is Added, The Life of Martin Luther, with Additions from Michelet and Audin. Edited by William Hazlitt. Translated by William Hazlitt. London: H. G. Bohn, 1857.

Luther, Martin, and Margaret A. Currie. The Letters of Martin Luther. Edited by Margaret A. Currie. Translated by Margaret A. Currie. London: Macmillan and Co., Limited, 1908.

Luther, Martin, and Preserved Smith. The Life and Letters of Martin Luther. Edited by Preserved Smith. Boston: The Riverside Press, 1911.

“Mary in the Imagination of the Church.” Christian History Magazine, no. 83 (2004).

McCain, Paul Timothy, W H T Dau, and F Bente. Concordia: The Lutheran Confessions: A Reader’s Edition of the Book of Concord. St. Louis, MO: Concordia Publishing House, 2006.

Nestingen, James Arne. Martin Luther: His Life and Teachings. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2004.

Passio. The Holy Bible: Modern English Version. Lake Mary, FL: Charisma House Book Group, 2015.

Pelikan, Jaroslav. “The Model of Faith in the Word of God.” In Mary Through the Centuries. Yale University, n.d.

Roland, Weisbrot. “How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria?’ An Examination of Martin Luther’s Views on the Virgin Mary.” Ambrose Research Conference. Calgary, AB, April 4, 2018.

Weidner, Revere Franklin. The Lutheran Commentary: Annotations on the General Epistles of James, Peter, John, and Jude. Edited by Henry E. Jacobs. Vol. XI. New York, NY: The Christian Literature Co., 1897.

Footnotes

1. Booth, Edwin P., Martin Luther: The Great Reformer (Uhrichsville, OH: Barbour Publishing, 2000), 8. ↩︎
2. The author here notes that he does not think he will tread any new ground, but perhaps will help the reader reevaluate the already well-trod dirt upon which this humble paper is founded. ↩︎
3. Θεοφιλος; whether a person, title, or allegory it is not known. Neither should it be speculated about. It is enough for the reader to know that this Theophilus may have been a real person but that the reader himself is also, by merit of the work of Christ, Theophilus – that is, “Loved by God.” ↩︎
4. Betrothal in this day would have been the public vows and declaration of marriage without the act of consummation, thus again Luke is careful to note for his reader – who may not be familiar with Jewish scriptures – that Mary is, indeed, absolutely a virgin, and that this fact is beyond question when she conceives. ↩︎
5. Lenski, R. C. H., The Interpretation of St. Luke’s Gospel (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Publishing House, 1961), 60. ↩︎
6. Luther, Martin, Pastoral Writings (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2016), 316. ↩︎
7. Generally understood, a handmaid was quite literally a female slave. Here in this powerful text in Luke, Mary is identified for the reader in the way the apostles so generally identify themselves in their epistles: Mary, slave of Christ Jesus. ↩︎
8. Weidner, Revere F., The Lutheran Commentary: Annotations on the General Epistles of James, Peter, John, and Jude (New York, NY: The Christian Literature Co., 1897), 272. ↩︎
9. Hauke, Manfred. “A Short Historical Overview.” In Introducation to Mariology (Catholic University of America Press, 2011) 78. ↩︎
10. Ibid., 79; This theological link of Justin likely did not originate with him but was handed down apostolic teaching and it would rightly persist even to the present day. ↩︎
11. Ibid., 78. ↩︎
12. Saint Paul. ↩︎
13. Only two short verses are cited here to illustrate the point. The author would note, however, that the entirety of the book of Hebrews is illustrative of said point. ↩︎
14. And by extension, at times, His most blessed mother. ↩︎
15. The author here wishes to note the Council of Ephesus, and the codification of the term theotokos, affirming that Mary was, indeed, the Mother of God. ↩︎
16. Outside of the scope of this paper, nonetheless the author would commend Hauke’s work to the reader, as he does a wonderful job of explaining exactly the apocryphal sources of various legends of Joseph and Mary and their direct impact on medieval Mariology. ↩︎
17. Such as the idea that, at the time of birth, there was simply a flash of light and the Virgin was holding Christ as a babe, without having to go through a delivery. ↩︎
18. Luther, Martin, The Table Talk of Martin Luther: New Edition, to Which Is Added, The Life of Martin Luther, with Additions from Michelet and Audin (London: H. G. Bohn, 1857), 79. ↩︎
19. Hauke, Introducation, 90. ↩︎
20. Booth, Martin Luther, 9; This author was shocked to read such an account, which is the plainest example of a false narrative that he has ever seen. ↩︎
21. Luther certainly had many issues with authority in his life, and his studies at the university about the current Roman Catholic doctrine did not help him, but to say he was not already pre-disposed by his parents to hate the concept of “be ye perfect” is simply uninformed. Even those who are not psycho analysts can glean that Luther had many issues from his own childhood, inflicted on him by his parents, that would come to the fore later in his reformational journey. However, it is not right to judge Hans and Margaret as ‘bad parents.’ They were doing the best they could – as all parents do – and did so according to their custom and time. Indeed, Margaret’s punishing of the boy can be seen as an act of love, as she truly did desire that he not burn forever in hell. And Hans worked himself to the bone to provide otherwise impossible opportunities to his children. These are the hallmarks of good parents. ↩︎
22. Booth, Martin Luther, 11. ↩︎
23. Smith, Preserved, The Life and Letters of Martin Luther (Boston; New York; Cambridge: Houghton Mifflin Company; The Riverside Press, 1911), 3. ↩︎
24. Which seems to have had some divinely impeccable timing…. ↩︎
25. Smith, Life and Letters, 9. ↩︎
26. Luther wrote to Pope Leo calling the church their “mother.” ↩︎
27. Smith, Life and Letters, 12. ↩︎
28. Martin J. Lohrmann, “The Invocavit Sermons” in Pastoral Writings, ed. Hans J. Hillerbrand, et. al., 20. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press. ↩︎
29. James M. Kittelson, Luther the Reformer: The story of the Man and His Career (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2016), 48. ↩︎
30. Ibid., 50. ↩︎
31. Augustine of Hippo, “On Baptism, against the Donatists” Ed. Philip Schaff (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company, 1887), 424. “But who can fail to be aware that the sacred canon of Scripture, both of the Old and New Testament, is confined within its own limits, and that it stands so absolutely in a superior position to all later letters of the bishops, that about it we can hold no manner of doubt or disputation whether what is confessedly contained in it is right and true; but that all the letters of bishops which have been written, or are being written, since the closing of the canon, are liable to be refuted if there be anything contained in them which strays from the truth, either by the discourse of some one who happens to be wiser in the matter than themselves, or by the weightier authority and more learned experience of other bishops, or by the authority of Councils; […].” ↩︎
32. Lohrmann, Invocavit, 26. ↩︎
33. As noted in the introduction, much digital ink has been spilled to this point on topics that seem to be related to the sum but are not the sum. The author humbly asks your patience in reading, as he feels it is very important to understand the people involved in the question in order to properly understand the question itself. ↩︎
34. Hauke, Introducation, 88. Hauke notes that it would be the students of Anselm generally, and specifically English Benedictine Eadmer, who first formulate the doctrine of the immaculate conception. This would have happened around the time of Bernard. Without access to the sources Hauke refers to, the Author’s most generous guess would put this writing around AD 1100, 417 year before the 95 Theses. The math then puts the modern protestant 507 years after 1517 (this paper having been written in AD 2024). Thus, the immaculate conception was a doctrine that was 90 years newer to Luther than Luther to the modern Christian. ↩︎
35. This is not a bad thing. The modern scholar ought be careful lest he misstep here and think highly of himself and his enlightened education such that he disgrace the very Mother of God. ↩︎
36. It is argued that Luther’s thinking was thus: If I am purified of sin by consuming the very body and blood of Christ, how much more must Mary have been purged of sin by actually carrying Christ in the womb? Modern science has only strengthened the reformer’s view by showing the sharing of blood and other cells between a mother and a child. ↩︎
37. Martin Luther, “The Magnificat.” in Pastoral Writings, ed. Hans J. Hillerbrand, et. al., (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2016), 347. ↩︎
38. Ibid., 317. ↩︎
39. “May the tender Mother…” is not the same as, “O’ tender Mother….” ↩︎
40. Pro. 8:22ff; Pro. 9:10; 1 Cor. 1:24 ↩︎
41. Read: Christ ↩︎
42. Hillerbrand, Pastoral Writings, 348. ↩︎
43. Father Victor Feltes, conversation with Remy Sheppard, (May 20th, 2024). ↩︎
44. Martin Luther, “On Translating: An Open Letter”, in The Intrepretation of Scripture, ed. Hans J. Hillerbrand, et. al., (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2017), 31. ↩︎

Remy Sheppard

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Remy is a graduate of Liberty University and currently attends American Lutheran Theological Seminary, where he is pursuing a Master of Divinity. When he isn't podcasting, Remy spends his time playing video games with his wife Samantha, and tending to his gaggle of cats.

• Thoughts on Catechesis
• Baptized with Fire
• A Lutheran View of the Decalogue