The Small Catechism

The whole of Luther's faith in a few pages of questions and answers, first printed as posters to hang on a wall.

German, the original language

Original title: Kleiner Katechismus
First published: 1529(aged 46)
Original language: German

Overview

Before it was a book, this was a set of posters. In January 1529 Luther had the first of its parts printed on large single sheets for use at home; a second series, covering all five chief parts, was out by 16 March. The first book edition followed in Wittenberg in May, addressed to ordinary pastors and preachers, and a Latin version appeared the same year. Its method is a child's question, asked again and again: what does this mean? Each of the Ten Commandments gets a single sentence in reply, and nearly every reply begins the same way, with the duty to fear and love God, so that the commandment against killing becomes an obligation to help a neighbour in every need of life. The Creed, the Lord's Prayer, baptism and the Lord's Supper follow in the same form, the last of them with the answer that eating and drinking do not do such great things by themselves; the words that go with them do, the words saying that Christ's body and blood are given and shed for the forgiveness of sins. A section on confession teaches simple people what to confess and gives them a form of words. Then the book leaves the church. The head of a household is shown how to teach his family to bless themselves with the sign of the cross on rising, say a prayer, and go cheerfully to work, perhaps singing a hymn; at night, after the prayer, they are to go straight to sleep. A table of duties sets out Bible verses for each station of life: pastors, rulers, husbands, wives, parents, children, servants. In 1580 the book was placed among the confessional writings of the Book of Concord. One Latin edition printed in Frankfurt in 1566, now in the Bridwell Library in Dallas, is bound with later catechisms by Leo Jud and Heinrich Bullinger, the reformers of Zurich.

Key concepts

What does 'we should fear and love God' mean in the catechism?

It is the root of every answer on the commandments. Fear means taking God seriously enough not to do wrong; love means wanting to do what pleases him. Together they turn each commandment from a rule into a relationship: we should fear and love God, so that we do not harm a neighbour's body but help him in every need of life.

What does believing in God the Creator mean here?

It means believing that God made me and still keeps me, in the most ordinary sense. The catechism lists body and soul, eyes, ears and every limb, reason and senses, then clothes and shoes, food and drink, house, spouse, children, fields and cattle. All of it, the answer says, comes from fatherly goodness without any merit of mine, so I owe thanks and service.

What does baptism give, according to the Small Catechism?

Baptism brings forgiveness of sins, rescues from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to everyone who believes God's promise. The catechism ties this to the promise in Mark's gospel: whoever believes and is baptised will be saved. It is not the water that does this but God's word with the water and the faith that trusts that word.

What are the two parts of confession?

Confession has two parts: owning one's sins, and receiving absolution, the declaration of forgiveness, from the confessor as from God himself. The second is the heart of it. The penitent is told not to doubt but to believe firmly that the sins are thereby forgiven before God in heaven. Confessing is the person's act; forgiving is God's.

Themes of the book

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

What Does This Mean?

Can the whole of Christian teaching be carried by one question a child can ask? The Small Catechism bets that it can, and every answer has to fit in a breath.

After each commandment, article and petition comes the same question, what does this mean, and an answer short enough to learn by heart. The answers on the commandments almost all open with fear and love of God, then turn prohibitions into tasks: not killing becomes helping a neighbour in every need of life. Daily bread grows to include a good spouse, good weather and good government. In baptism and the Lord's Supper the answer is that water, eating and drinking do nothing alone; the words joined to them do.

forgiveness
faith
prayer
sacraments
baptism
grace
confession
absolution
redemption
salvation
divine justice

Enter a dialogue

Faith at Home

Where does faith actually get practised from day to day? This catechism leaves the church and walks into the house, the table, the bedroom and the workplace.

Addressed through the head of the household, the closing sections set out a day. On rising, the family blesses itself with the cross, prays, then goes to work gladly, perhaps singing a hymn; at night, after prayer, it goes straight to sleep. At table, parents, children and servants say grace with folded hands. Confession is taught by station: a person looks at life as father, mother, servant or master and asks where they failed. A table of duties then gives every station, from preacher and ruler to servant, its own Bible verses.

family
work
marriage
authority
political authority
civic duty
gratitude
education
obedience
honesty
conduct

Enter a dialogue

Within this work

passages held: 22
distinct concepts: 60
by passages held, corpus-wide: #769

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: “faith” and “sacraments”.

Concept co-occurrence, strongest first 4 concepts, joined by 5 pairings. 14 pairings reach beyond these concepts and are not drawn.
Concept	Paired concept	Shared passages
faith	sacraments	3
forgiveness	sacraments	3
faith	forgiveness	2
faith	prayer	2
forgiveness	prayer	2

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)
Written in hiding between the Diet of Worms and Luther's return to Wittenberg, in the same winter that he began translating the New Testament into German.
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) you are here 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