WorkMartin Luther

A Sincere Admonition by Martin Luther to All Christians to Guard Against Insurrection and Rebellion

A pamphlet from hiding that tells Luther's own followers to keep their hands off the clergy and to stop calling themselves Lutherans.

by Martin Luther34 passages held

German, the original language

Original title: Eine treue Vermahnung zu allen Christen, sich zu hüten vor Aufruhr und Empörung
First published: 1522(aged 39)
Original language: German

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Overview

Since the spring of 1521 Luther had been hidden at the Wartburg, a castle of the elector of Saxony, while the imperial ban issued at Worms hung over him. Early in December he rode secretly to Wittenberg, disguised as a knight, and found the town in ferment: under his colleague Andreas Karlstadt and his fellow Augustinian Gabriel Zwilling, the old mass and clerical celibacy were both under attack. Back at the castle he sent this pamphlet to be printed. It begins with the fear that the common man, robbed in goods, body and soul, will rise and kill priests, monks and bishops. Luther says he is glad the clergy are frightened and wishes they were more so, but that no rebellion will come, and none is needed: a worse judgement from God awaits them. Insurrection has no reason in it, he argues, and generally falls harder on the innocent than on the guilty. Any action belongs to the princes and lords, each in his own land, because their office obliges them to it. Ordinary Christians should confess their own sins, pray, and go on speaking and writing against the papacy, which will be destroyed by the word, as Paul says the enemy of Christ will be slain by the breath of his mouth. The second half turns on his supporters. Some, having read a page or two, sneer at simple people as not evangelical and only want to be seen as good Lutherans. Luther asks them not to use his name. The teaching is not his, he writes, he was crucified for nobody, and Paul refused to let Christians call themselves after Paul or Peter. In March 1522 he left the Wartburg for good and returned to Wittenberg, where he preached a series of sermons asking the reformers to spare weaker consciences.

Key concepts

Why does Luther think no uprising against the clergy will happen?

Because he reads Scripture as promising that God will punish the papacy himself, without any human means. Paul says the enemy of Christ will be slain by the breath of the Lord's mouth, so the papal regime will be destroyed by the word that exposes it. A mob's violence, Luther says, would be too light a punishment for them, and God means to be the punisher.

Who may act against abuses, according to this pamphlet?

The temporal authorities and the nobility, each in their own territory. Luther says they ought to act from the duty of their regular office, because what is done by lawful authority is not insurrection. Private people have no such office. Their part is to recognise their own sins, to pray against the papacy, and to keep speaking and writing the truth.

What does Luther mean by the word's 'uprising'?

He means preaching, teaching and writing that expose the papacy's lies until people stop believing them. Unlike a riot, it harms no innocent bystanders, and it does not rest on any one person. Luther insists the work going on in the world is not his own. His instruction is practical: tell people that human laws bind no one, that they need not become monks or nuns, and that money given for bulls and candles is wasted.

Why does Luther tell people not to call themselves Lutheran?

Because the teaching is not his but Christ's, and naming a party after a teacher divides Christians. Luther points to Paul, who would not let the Corinthians call themselves after Paul or Peter, only after Christ. He calls himself a poor, stinking bag of worms and asks that the name Lutheran be dropped and only Christian kept.

Themes of the book

What this book returns to, gathered into themes and ordered by how much of the text each one occupies.

An Uprising of the Mouth

Should people robbed by their clergy take up arms against them? Luther says no, and the reasons he gives are not the ones the frightened clergy wanted to hear.

Glad that the clergy are afraid, Luther still forbids a rising. It will not come, he predicts, because God himself means to punish them, more severely than any mob could. Insurrection has no reason in it, falls harder on the innocent than the guilty, and is forbidden by God, who keeps vengeance for himself. What remains is to confess one's own sins, pray, and speak: Christ has already begun an uprising with his mouth, and the papacy will be slain by the breath of his word.

political violence
nonviolence
civil disobedience
social unrest
divine judgment
divine justice
political authority
religious reform
eschatology
justice

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Gentle with the Weak

How should those who have grasped the new teaching speak to those who have not? The second half of the pamphlet turns from the clergy to Luther's own supporters.

Some of his followers, Luther complains, read a page or two and then sneer at simple people as not evangelical. He asks them not to call themselves Lutherans: the teaching is not his, and he was crucified for nobody. Hearers come in two kinds. Stubborn liars who will not listen may be opposed hard. The simple and the weak, still bound by rules about fasting and food, are to be taught with fear and gentleness, with reasons given, not shouted down.

christian identity
pastoral care
preaching
hypocrisy
conduct and belief
religious polemic
speech
interpretation
scriptural authority

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Within this work

passages held: 34
distinct concepts: 74
by passages held, corpus-wide: #710

What this book thinks together

The wheel takes this book’s leading concepts and shows how often they come up together. The wider the band between two, the more of its passages speak of both. Among them, most often together: “christian ethics” and “pastoral care”.

Concept co-occurrence, strongest first 7 concepts, joined by 10 pairings. 20 pairings reach beyond these concepts and are not drawn.
Concept	Paired concept	Shared passages
christian ethics	pastoral care	5
nonviolence	religious reform	3
christian ethics	religious reform	2
divine judgment	nonviolence	2
divine judgment	religious authority	2
nonviolence	religious authority	2
pastoral care	religious reform	2
political violence	religious authority	2
divine judgment	political violence	1
nonviolence	political violence	1

Works held

The author's work in order, this book marked in place. Your-language title first, the original beneath it where the two differ; side chips show which full texts are held.

1517 Ninety-five Theses (Disputatio pro declaratione virtutis indulgentiarum)
Where the quarrel began: an academic exercise in Latin, followed within months by the German sermon that carried its argument to lay readers.
LA
1518 Sermon on Indulgences and Grace (Ein Sermon von Ablaß und Gnade)
The German companion to the Latin Ninety-five Theses: the same quarrel over indulgences, taken out of the lecture hall and put to lay readers a few months later.
DE
1520 A Treatise on Good Works (Von den guten Werken)
Published in the spring of 1520 just ahead of the three manifestos of that year, it lays out in plain German the teaching on faith and works that they take for granted.
DE
1520 Address to the Christian Nobility of the German Nation (An den christlichen Adel deutscher Nation von des christlichen Standes Besserung)
The first of the three books of 1520 that made the break with Rome public; The Babylonian Captivity of the Church followed in October and The Freedom of a Christian in November.
DE
1520 The Babylonian Captivity of the Church (De captivitate Babylonica ecclesiae praeludium)
Of Luther's three treatises of 1520, the one written in Latin for the learned: the appeal to the nobility before it was in German, and The Freedom of a Christian, after it, appeared in both languages.
DE
1520 The Freedom of a Christian (Von der Freiheit eines Christenmenschen)
Meant as a peace offering to the pope, the third of Luther's treatises of 1520 turns from the institutions of the church to the life of a single believer.
DE
1522 A Sincere Admonition by Martin Luther to All Christians to Guard Against Insurrection and Rebellion (Eine treue Vermahnung zu allen Christen, sich zu hüten vor Aufruhr und Empörung) you are here DE
1522 Preface to the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans (Vorrede auf die Epistel S. Paul an die Römer)
A companion to The Freedom of a Christian: the same teaching on faith and works, given this time as a way into the book of the Bible it came from.
DE
1523 Temporal Authority: To What Extent It Should Be Obeyed (Von weltlicher Obrigkeit, wie weit man ihr Gehorsam schuldig sei)
A sequel that corrects its predecessor: three years after asking princes to reform the church, Luther marks the line beyond which their power over Christians stops.
DE
1529 The Large Catechism (Der Große Katechismus)
Sermons turned into a book: the catechism sermons Luther preached at Wittenberg in 1528, reworked into the fuller of his two catechisms.
DE
1529 The Small Catechism (Kleiner Katechismus)
Published a month after the Large Catechism, it gives the household the words to learn by heart, where the larger book explains them to the preacher.
DE
1530 An Open Letter on Translating (Ein Sendbrief vom Dolmetschen)
Eight years after the September Testament, and four before the complete German Bible, Luther explains how the translation was made and why he would not undo it.
DE

— or open another of their works