The Fall Publications

The first person to reply to Luther in the Strasbourg vernacular press was the Franciscan jurist, theologian, and satirist Thomas Murner. In quick succession he issued five anonymous treatises, the titles of which illustrate the progression of Murner's concerns. His first treatise suggested in its title both qualified deference to the "highly learned doctor" and a concern that at least in regards to the Mass, Luther had parted company with common Christianity: A Christian and Fraternal Admonition to the Highly Learned Doctor Martin Luther of the Augustinian Order at Wittenberg, That He Distance Himself From Several Statements He Made Concerning the New Testament of the Holy Mass and That He Join Himself Once Again With Common Christianity . It left the press of the Strasbourg printer Johannes Grüninger on 11 November 1520.^[2]

This treatise was in fact largely a reply to Luther's A Sermon on the New Testament, That Is, On the Holy Mass , his To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation , and his On the Papacy in Rome, Against the Highly Famous Romanist at Leipzig . Murner's first effort generated sufficient interest to warrant a second, slightly revised edition, that appeared on 21 January 1521. His next treatise, Concerning Doctor Martin Luther's Teaching and Preaching, That They Are Suspicious and Not To Be Considered Completely Trustworthy , was published on 24 November 1520.^[3] Its title alerted readers to approach Luther and his teachings with caution. The treatise itself was largely a response to an anonymous defender of Luther whom we know was the Nuremberg city secretary Lazarus Spengler and whose treatise we examined in the last chapter.^[4]

The third treatise, Concerning the Papacy, That Is, the Highest Authority of Christian Faith, Against Doctor Martin Luther , issued from Grüninger's press on 13 December 1520.^[5] A reply to the Latin Luther's Resolutions on the Power of the Pope of 1519, and to the German To the Christian Nobility and On the Papacy at Rome , its title indicated that Luther opposed the papacy. The fourth treatise of this anonymous series appeared in 1520 around Christmas and was entitled To the Most Mighty and Enlightened Nobility of the German Nation, That They Protect the Christian Faith Against the Destroyer of the Faith of Christ, Martin Luther, a Seducer of Simple Christians .^[6] Its title summed up the underlying message Murner was attempting to convey to the reading public in all his treatises, namely, that Luther

threatened the destruction of Christian authority through a seductive but heretical appeal to "simple Christians." The concluding and somewhat anticlimactic treatise of Murner's series, How Doctor M. Luther, Moved by the Wrong Reasons, Has Burned the Canon Law , appeared on 17 February 1521, and attacked Luther's justification for this act of defiance.^[7]

The treatises to which Murner replied were for the most part published in Strasbourg, and it is quite possible that Murner was using Strasbourg editions in preparing his rebuttals. Luther's A Sermon on the New Testament, That Is, On the Holy Mass was reprinted in Strasbourg sometime after July 1520.^[8] In it he challenged the traditional understanding of the Mass and offered an alternative vision that undercut many traditional practices and seriously enhanced the religious status of the laity at the expense of the clergy.^[9] In On the Papacy at Rome, Against the Highly Famous Romanist in Leipzig , printed sometime after the Wittenberg first edition of 26 June 1520,^[10] Luther disputed the assertion that the papacy was of divine institution and that those who did not adhere to Rome were necessarily heretics and schismatics. It was followed by To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation, On the Improvement of the Christian Estate , which appeared first in Wittenberg on 18 August 1520. In this impassioned treatise Luther attacked the "Romanists" for claiming that the "temporal power" had no jurisdiction over them, that only the pope might interpret the Scriptures, and that no one but the pope could call a council. It aroused such interest among the reading public that it was immediately reprinted in Strasbourg at least once and perhaps as many as three times in the space of just a few months.^[11] Sometime after 6 October 1520 this treatise was joined by two or three printings of a German translation of On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church .^[12] As the title suggests, it argued that the church was being held prisoner in exile like the people of Israel. Luther proceeded to free it from its captivity by assailing the institutional church's claim to act as a sacramental mediator between God and humanity.^[13] Surprisingly, given Murner's published views about exposing Luther's subversive ideas to the general public, it was Murner himself who apparently translated this treatise into German! Two of these treatises—To the Christian Nobility and On the Papacy at Rome —may also have appeared sometime in the late fall in a collection that included Luther's A Sermon on the New Testament, that is, the Holy Mass .^[14]

It is striking that Murner chose not to reply to, or for that matter even to mention, the highly influential On the Freedom of a Christian , which appeared in Luther's own German translation in one or two printings in the last month or so of 1520 (and several subsequent printings in 1521, 1522, and 1524).^[15] I have no explanation for this remarkable omission.