Temporal Authority: To What Extent It Should Be Obeyed

A duke ordered his subjects to hand in Luther's New Testament, and Luther told them to obey him in everything but that.

German, the original language

Original title: Von weltlicher Obrigkeit, wie weit man ihr Gehorsam schuldig sei
First published: 1523(aged 40)
Original language: German

Overview

Duke George of Saxony, who ruled the half of Saxony that stayed loyal to Rome, ordered in November 1522 that nobody in his lands should sell or own Luther's new German New Testament, and that every copy be surrendered. Martin Luther had preached on the question of obedience at Weimar the month before, and he turned those sermons into this treatise, dedicated to Duke John, brother of the elector Frederick the Wise. It opens by recalling his appeal of 1520 to the German nobility, which had told rulers what they ought to do; now, he says, he must tell them what to leave alone. The first part defends the sword against a strong objection, Christ's command in the Sermon on the Mount not to resist evil. Luther divides humankind into two groups. True Christians need no law and no sword, because they do more than any law requires; everyone else needs both, or the world would devour itself. A Christian may therefore serve as a judge, a soldier or a hangman, for the sake of others, while never using force on his own behalf. The second part draws the limit. Worldly power reaches bodies and property and stops there, because nobody can be compelled to believe. Heresy is for bishops to fight with the word, not for princes with fire. A subject ordered to give up his books should refuse, keep obeying in everything else, and accept the penalty. A wise prince, Luther adds, has been rare since the world began, and a good one rarer still. The third part advises the rare good prince on how to rule for his subjects' sake. Its dedication was dated New Year's Day 1523, and it appeared in March, when Duke George complained of it to Frederick.

Key concepts

What are the two kingdoms in Temporal Authority?

Luther divides humanity into two groups. The kingdom of God holds true believers, who live by the gospel and need no law to make them do right. The kingdom of the world holds everyone else, the great majority, who must be kept in check by law. Since the two are always mixed together, God has given each its own government, so that the wicked cannot run riot.

Why may a Christian use the sword for others but not for himself?

Because a Christian lives under two obligations at once. For himself he needs nothing and should suffer wrong rather than resist it, as Christ taught. But his neighbour needs protection, and the sword serves the neighbour. So a Christian may serve as judge, constable or hangman out of love for others, while bearing injuries to himself patiently.

Why can temporal authority not command belief?

Because its power stops at outward things, bodies and property. A ruler can make people obey with their mouths and hands, but not with their hearts, which only God sees. Forcing belief only produces people who lie about what they think. That is why Luther calls heresy a spiritual matter: it cannot be cut with iron or burnt with fire, only met by God's word.

What does Luther mean by ruling by reason above law books?

Written laws come out of reason, as streams from a spring, so a ruler should not judge the spring by its streams. A prince who leans only on lawyers and law books will often do injustice to the letter's credit. Luther wants judgement guided by love and natural law, and he says a ruler needs a free reason that sees where a law should give way.

Themes of the book

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

Two Governments

If Christ forbade resisting evil, can a Christian ever wield the sword? Luther defends it by splitting the world into two governments with two different tasks.

Taking the Sermon on the Mount at its word, Luther agrees that true Christians need no law and no sword, since they do more than any law asks. But they are few, and the rest would devour one another; ruling the world by the gospel alone would unchain wolves and lions among the sheep. So God set up two governments, a spiritual one that makes people righteous and a temporal one that keeps outward peace. A Christian may serve the second as judge, soldier or hangman, for others' sake, never for his own.

political authority
christian ethics
nonviolence
christianity and violence
law
neighbor love
vocation
justice
violence
public welfare
political leadership

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Where the Sword Stops

How far does a ruler's power reach over what a person believes? Luther's limit is drawn at the soul, and the subjects of a Catholic duke were testing it.

Worldly power, Luther argues, governs bodies and goods and nothing more, because faith cannot be forced: thoughts are toll-free, as the proverb says. Heresy is for bishops to resist with the word, not for princes with fire. A subject ordered to surrender his New Testament should refuse, obey in everything else, and bear the penalty. Expect little from rulers, Luther warns, for a wise prince has been a rare bird since the world began. A ruler fighting an unjust war is owed no following at all.

religious freedom
religious coercion
conscience
heresy
church and state
church-state relations
civil disobedience
tyranny
accountability
obedience
faith

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Within this work

passages held: 80
distinct concepts: 143
by passages held, corpus-wide: #556

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 “political authority”.

Concept co-occurrence, strongest first 8 concepts, joined by 21 pairings. 77 pairings reach beyond these concepts and are not drawn.
Concept	Paired concept	Shared passages
christian ethics	political authority	12
political authority	religious freedom	9
biblical interpretation	political authority	7
conscience	religious freedom	7
justice	political authority	6
law	political authority	6
nonviolence	political authority	6
christian ethics	nonviolence	5
conscience	political authority	5
christian ethics	justice	4
biblical interpretation	christian ethics	3
biblical interpretation	justice	3
biblical interpretation	nonviolence	3
justice	nonviolence	3
christian ethics	law	2
biblical interpretation	religious freedom	1
christian ethics	religious freedom	1
conscience	nonviolence	1
justice	law	1
law	religious freedom	1
nonviolence	religious freedom	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)
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) you are here 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