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God's Gift of Martyrdom: The Early Reformation Understanding of Dying for the Faith

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Robert Kolb
Robert Kolb
Affiliation:
Director of the Institute for Mission Studies and Missions Professor of Systematic Theology at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri
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Extract

“It is a special joy for me to hear that our good and pious table companion and house guest [Robert Barnes] has been so graciously called by God to pour out his blood for the sake of God's dear Son and to become a holy martyr.” Martin Luther's reflection on the death of this friend, the English churchman and diplomat, in 1540typified his attitude toward martyrdom as his followers experienced it at the hands of Roman Catholic opponents. He continued, “Thanks, praise, and honor be to the Father of our dear Lord Jesus Christ, who has let us see the same kind of times which were seen at the beginning [of the church], times in which his Christians, who had eaten and drunk with us (as the apostles said of Christ, Acts 4 ) … are taken away before our very eyes and from our eyes and our side to martyrdom (that is, to heaven) and become saints.”

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 64 , Issue 3 , September 1995 , pp. 399 - 411
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1995

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References

1. “Vorrede zu Robertus Barns' Glaubensbekenntnis. 1540,’ D. Martin Luthers Werke (Weimar, Germany, 1883–), 51:449.7–15 (henceforth WA; WA, Br = Briefe).Google Scholar

2. Clasen, Claus-Peter, Anabaptism: A Social History, 1525–1619: Switzerland, Austria, Moravia, South and Central Germany (Ithaca, N.Y., 1972), pp. 373–374,Google Scholar notes that in the area he analyzes, including Saxony, for his period Roman Catholic officials executed 709 Anabaptists while Protestant governments executed 81 (10 percent of the total), half of them in Zwinglian Bern, one quarter in Lutheran electoral Saxony.

3. WA 1:624.Google ScholarOyer, John S. is correct when he writes, “One cannot escape the conviction that the execution of heretics, for blasphemy or whatever other reasons did not please Luther,’ Lutheran Reforms Against the Anabaptists: Luther, Melanchthon and Menius and the Anabaptists of Central Germany (The Hague, The Netherlands, 1964), pp. 139, 126–129, 135–139.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Oyer concedes that Luther slowly and reluctantly came to the conviction that Anabaptists should be executed on grounds of sedition. On Luther's position on persecution of Anabaptists, see Edwards, Mark U., Luther and the False Brethren (Stanford, Calif., 1975),Google Scholar and Seebaβ, Gottfried, “Luthers Stellung zur Verfolgung der Täufer und ihre Bedeutung für den deutschen Protestantismus,’ Mennonitische Geschichtsblätter 40 (N.F. 35, 1983): 7–24.Google Scholar Luther's colleague Philip Melanchthon was indeed harsher in his views of the use of the sword against Anabaptists; see Oyer, pp. 138–139, 174–175. Their supporter in southern Germany, Johannes Brenz, however, also largely opposed execution of heretics; see Seebaβ, Gottfried, “An sint persequendi haeretici? Die Stellung des Johannes Brenz zur Verfolgung und Bestrafung der Täufer,” Blätter für württembergische Kirchengeschichte 70 (1970): 40–99.Google ScholarSee Holl, Karl's assessment of Luther's attitude toward “toleration,” Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Kirchengeschichte 1: Luther (Tübingen, Germany, 1932), pp. 367–368.Google Scholar

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7. In a letter dated 19 January 1524, WA Br, 3:238.14–16.Google Scholar

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36. WA 35:414.1–9; LW5:216: But yet their lies they will not leave, To trim and dress the murder; The fable false which out they gave, Shows conscience grinds them further. God's holy ones, e'en after death, They still go on belying; They say that with their last breath, The boys, in act of dying, Repented and recanted.Google Scholar

37. Henry, VIII attacked Luther's theology in Assertio Septem Sacramentorum aduersus Marti. Lutherum, aedita ab inuictissimo Angliae & Franciae & do. Hyberniae Henrico eius nominis octauo (Rome, 1521);Google ScholarLuther's reply appeared in both Latin and German, “Contra Henricum Regem Angliae, 1522,’ WA 10/2: (175) 180–222, (223) 27–262.Google Scholar

38. WA 51:448.13–21, 449.23–451.4.Google Scholar Attempts at rapprochement between Henry VIII and reform-minded German princes in the late 1530s had collapsed by this time: see Scarisbrick, J. J., Henry VIII (Berkeley, Calif., 1968), pp. 355–423.Google Scholar

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40. On Rabus's martyrology, the first volume of which appeared in 1552, two years before the appearance of the first martyrological efforts of John Foxe and Jean Crespin, see Kolb, Robert, For All the Saints: Changing Perceptions of Martyrdom and Sainthood in the Lutheran Reformation (Macon, Ga., 1987), pp. 41–102.Google Scholar

41. For a summary of Rabus's theology of martyrdom, see Kolb, Robert, Confessing the Faith, Reformers Define the Church, 1530–1580 (Saint Louis, Mo., 1991), pp. 82–91.Google Scholar

42. Rabus was not alone among contemporary Lutherans in naming him a “martyr’ because of his bold witness to the faith;Google Scholarsee Spangenberg, Cyriakus, Die Zehende Predigt/Von dem thewren Bekenner D. MARTINI LVTHER, Das er ein rechlschaffen heiliger MARTYRER vnd Bestendiger Zeugejhesu Christi gewesen (Eisleben, 1568).Google Scholar

43. Rabus, Ludwig, Historien der Martyrer …, vol. 2 (Strassburg, 1571, 1572), 713r–724v.Google Scholar

44. Ibid., 1: aiijr–aiiijr.

45. Rabus, Ludwig, Der Heyligen ausserwo[e]hlten Gottes Zeugen, Bekennern vnd Martyrern … Historien … (Strassburg, 1554), ijv–iijr.Google Scholar

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