From the Babylonian captivity of the Church

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De captivitate Babylonica ecclesiae, praeludium.
Wittenberg 1520

From the Babylonian captivity of the church (Latin title: De captivitate Babylonica ecclesiae, praeludium ) is one of the main Reformation writings of 1520 in which Martin Luther publicly questions the seven number of the sacraments for the first time .

occasion

In response to Luther's Sermon on the Venerable Sacrament (1519), Augustine von Alveldt published his Tractatus de communione sub utraque specie quantum ad laicos in Leipzig in June 1520, attacking the Reformation advocacy of the lay chalice. Luther decided not to reply to this at first. Only when he became aware of the text Revocatio Martini Lutherii Augustiniani ad sanctam Sedem by the Italian Dominican Isidoro Isolani, which was also directed against Luther's teaching, did he decide to answer. With a more learned readership in mind, he wrote the script in Latin.

Content and teaching

Number of sacraments

Luther questions the number of the seven Catholic sacraments. In his opinion there are only three sacraments: Baptism , Penance and Lord's Supper , although at the end of the Scriptures he admits that there can be only two sacraments, since penance lacks a sign that is an essential part of a sacrament.

Fair

Luther is just as strict with the doctrine of the sacraments and deals in particular with the mass. In it Luther identified three “imprisonments”: firstly, the removal of the cup , in which Luther asks about the authorization of the church to change the institution of Christ arbitrarily; secondly, the doctrine of transubstantiation , in which Luther identified an attempt to explain the presence of Christ's body and blood, which was made legally binding; thirdly, the abuse of the mass , which is expressed in particular in the understanding of sacrifice. Luther extracted his own understanding of the Lord's Supper from the guiding terms of the testament or of promise and faith. He assigns the promise to the sign, i.e. the word of Christ to the sacrament (wine and bread), so that man could have the word without the sign. This doctrine must not be misunderstood: Luther does not want to question the reception of the Lord's Supper, but merely emphasizes the central importance of promise and faith.

baptism

When it comes to baptism, Luther retains more restraint than the Lord's Supper because he finds it relatively untouched by the Church. Again he puts the divine promise and faith in the foreground and not the bestowal of a new "habitus".

Buses

As in the 95 theses , he sees penance as a return to baptism. Since baptism in its deeper meaning includes death and resurrection, repentance is no later replacement for it. In this context, Luther also refers to the fact that taking a monk's vows restricts the freedom given by baptism.

Conclusion

With this treatise, Martin Luther also broke with the church of his time in the doctrine of the sacraments. As a script from the early Reformation period, it is fundamental to the evangelical doctrine of the sacraments.

literature