A German translation of both the Lutheran and Missionary introduction and Bachman’s original letter appear in Lehre und Wehre, Volume 11 (1865), pp. 360-375. Here I publish the original English with the only portions I have translated from German in italics.
Dr. Bachman’s Vindication for an accusation published against him in the “Lutheran and Missionary”
This interesting document, which we believe we must not withhold from our readers, is introduced in the “Lutheran and Missionary” of October 26th with the following words:
“The letter of Dr. Bachman, which we give this week, will be read, doubtless, by many with deep and painful interest. We have given it entire, though there is much in it, which we heartily wish had not been written. But the venerable age and the commanding position of Dr. Bachman, not alone in our Church, but as one whose scientific renown is as wide as Christendom, entitle him to a hearing in just such form, as he may deem best. We think that Dr. Bachman has utterly erred in one inference which he draws and presses,–that is that there is a widespread spirit of personal hostility towards the South in our church in the North. The very opposite is the prevalent feeling. Men reach conclusions on such points too readily upon their judgment on individual cases. We must not, on mere presumptions, throw away any thing which tends to our Church unity, but must labor for the peace of Zion, till God either blesses her with it, or shows that our working is hopeless. At the time the charges against Dr. B. were repeated by our correspondent (they had not only been made before, but, we believe, had been in print,) we expressed our conviction that they were groundless, and pointed out their internal improbability. We are assured by Mr. Hutter, that his reasons for making the statements are such as would justify him before his friends and the world. There is one large part of Dr. B.’s letter in which we are sure all will rejoice. It is that in which he so utterly repudiates the conduct and feelings imputed to him. And even the portions of his letter which speak of excesses and evils connected with our military operations are well worth pondering, as they show how awful are the evils connected with the most necessary war, and intensify our sense of the criminality of those who causelessly forced our nation into it.”
Dr. Bachman’s Vindication.
Rev. E. W. Hutter:–Rev. Sir:–In the “Lutheran and Missionary” of the 27th of july, 1865, I perceive an article headed “Southern Lutheran Church,” under your signature, dated Philadelphia, July 20th, 1865, one paragraph of which demands some notice from me. The bad taste betrayed in the whole article, drawing its illustrations from the “barn-yard,” the “kitchen,” and “finny prize floundering in the net” is not the greatest objection, neither am I disposed to consume theme by criticizing your prejudiced comparison between your northern and our southern Synods. It is the spirit and manner of the whole article.,–the narrow, one-sided views, the censorious, illiberal remarks, and the bitter personalities betrayed, that characterize the temper of the writer.
I would here just remark, that your discussions whether the Northern General Synod will, or will not, receive the Southern Churches into their body, are premature, inasmuch as it appears to me it would be wiser policy first to ascertain whether they have evinced any disposition to be reunited. As far as I am acquainted with the sentiments of the Southern Lutheran clergy and the people, there is not one in a thousand who would for a moment entertain the slightest idea of a reunion with the northern General Synod, more especially as long as it retains such a mouth-piece as the Rev. E. W. Hutter. All, with unexampled unanimity, are in favor of retaining our present organization, and as early as possible, continuing the publication of our Book of Worship, and highly valuable Southern Lutheran.
I am quite sure that I would not have noticed this offensive article if you had stopped here. The following paragraph, however, as it refers to me, personally, calls upon me for something more than a passing notice.
“By one of the most eminent citizens of Charleston, a native and life-long resident of that city, we recently were favored with an item of intelligence concerning Dr. Bachman, the first received by us since the fall of 1860, when he so profanely invoked the divine blessing on the South Carolina ordinance of secession. To show what a melancholy change has been wrought in the doctor’s spirit, only about two months ago, although besought by prayers and tears, he refused to administer the holy supper to a dying Union Lutheran soldier. Rather than not receive it at all, the expiring hero accepted it from a Roman Catholic priest! We have the same authority too, for stating that, than this same Dr. Bachman, so man in Charleston gloated so openly over the barbarities inflicted on our prisoners.”
Here we have a charge penned by yourself and printed by the editors of the LUTHERAN AND MISSIONARY reflecting on my character as a clergyman, which, if true, would destroy my usefulness and render me the scorn and contempt of all Christian men. I am accused, 1st, of withholding the communion from a dying man on political grounds. 2dly, “Of openly gloating over the barbarities inflicted on our prisoners.”
Now, Rev. Sir, I pronounce these charges, made and published by yourself, vindictive, malicious, and unmitigated falsehoods. I never was besought “by prayers and tears to administer the holy communion to a dying Union soldier.” I never heard of “the expiring hero,” or of “the Roman Catholic priest” to whom this pious office was assigned. The paper in which these vindictive charges were made, and which you ought in justice to have sent to me, reached me through the mail, having been sent by a friend. You might have easily satisfied yourself, and saved yourself much trouble, by writing a line to me. You would then have had both statements before you. You say this occurred only two months ago. Your article was dated July 20th; consequently, it must have been some time in May when you state that I refused the communion to this imaginary “dying hero,” and when to render the episode more impressive, according to your pathetic statement, a Catholic priest was sent for, to lighten the load of his sins on his passage to eternity. My church had long been in the “shelling district,” my people were scattered throughout the country, and I followed them on the 13th February, and did not return until the middle of May.
Since then, I have had one public communion in my church. It was largely attended by all denominations. The community had heard of the barbarities inflicted on me by the officers in General Sherman’s army, and had for several weeks yielded to the current report that I had died of my wounds. They now crowded around their blessed Master’s table, with feelings of love to the aged man who had been spared to minister at the altar, and of gratitude to God for His mercies. Among the congregation were several United States officers. From that day to this, I frequently administered the communion in private to the sick, and saw no reason to deny the ordinance to those who desired to partake of it. My rule in my whole ministerial life has been, never to administer the communion to the sick without an examination into their state of preparation to receive it. They must have penitence, faith in the Saviour, and resolve to live Christian lives. Hence, I have always regarded the old German practice of depending on communion on a death-bed as savoring of superstition–looking on it as a salvo for sin.
St. John’s Lutheran Church in Charleston where Dr. Bachman served as minister 1815 -1874
During the war, I administered the communion to several hundred sick soldiers of both armies. I naturally saw more of those who belonged to the confederate than the United States army. In no cases were their political opinions allowed to sway my judgment; but in every case, the requisites to the worthy communicant were carefully examined. Whilst during the long period of four years I either postponed or rejected a few applicants for the communion among the sick in the confederate army, I postponed but one among the United States soldiers.
The day after the battle on Morris Island, in my usual rounds of visits to the hospitals, I was asked by a German to administer the communion to him. On inquiring into his life and conduct, he informed me that he had been engaged in breaking the locks and rifling the drawers of rebel ladies on the islands, had taken a considerable quantity of children’s clothes and silver spoons, and that he had stolen some from his fellow-soldiers, and that his Colonel had sent all to New York, whence they would go to his wife and children in New Hampshire. He thought he had sent enough to last for several years. I asked him whether he was willing to make restitution for his robberies, particularly the articles stolen from his fellow-soldiers. He said, ‘no’; his Colonel had told him that he had a right to take any thing from the rebel ladies, and that he had grabbed from them as much as he could get, and that the soldiers all stole from one another. He said he had, in common with the officers and soldiers, up to the time of the battle, lived in criminal intercourse with the negro women in the camp; and he was, moreover, a terrific swearer, even on what he feared was his dying bed. I perceived, and was so informed by the surgeon, that his wound was not mortal; and I allowed him to consider himself in danger of death and of hell, hoping that his very terrors might lead him to repentance and amendment.
When I arrived on the next day, he had been sent away as a convalescent, and I did not see him again. If this was the dying Union Lutheran soldier, the expiring hero, whom you refer to, you may still have an opportunity of administering to him the “holy supper” in your own way. The army is now disbanded, and you may find him at home in New Hampshire. Please ask him whether he did not say to me, before I left him, that “he felt that he was not fit for the communion then, but would try to be a better man and be better prepared for it.”
The only other case where the communion was referred to, was that of a German who had been shot through the lungs; and believing his wound to be mortal, I in my daily visits to the hospital apprised him of his danger, and the almost certainty of his death. He said that he had not been inside of a church for seven years, and if he was to die, then, “by Gott,” he must have the sacrament; but if he was not to die, he swore he would not take it from any “Pfaff” in the land. He did not ask me to administer it. His comrades informed me that five of the seven years in which he had been in this country had been spent in a Western Penitentiary, where he had been enlisted for the war. His companions-in-arms represented him as the most quarrelsome, profane, and thieving villain they had ever known. I asked him if he wished to be prayed for. He said he did not understand English well enough. “Will you have a German prayer?” He shook his head.
The next morning, I visited the hospital again, when a most revolting spectacle was presented. A wounded Lieutenant, who had been in command of a black company, (his Captain having been killed,) was lying in a cot opposite to that of the German. They had just had a quarrel and a fight, the German insisting that he had been fighting for the Union, whilst his opponent had been fighting for the negro. The Lieutenant was unable to rise; but the German had crawled out of his bed and beaten the officer unmercifully, and the German had been forced back to his bed, growling, and cursing horribly. It was at this moment I entered the ward. I was told that in his rage the German had enlarged the rupture in the wounded blood-vessel. He was in too great a passion to speak with me, and I left him cursing. On the subsequent morning the Lieutenant was dead, and I performed his funeral service. On the same afternoon, the German died and was buried. If this “jail-bird” is the “expiring hero” you refer to, you may canonise him in the overflowing of your patriotism and the bitterness of your fanatical fury; but be assured that he called for neither Protestant nor Catholic priest, and died without a sign.
Up to this day, I have never refused to visit any United States soldiers, etc., and am still engaged in administering the instructions and comforts of religion to all who send for me. ‘Tis true, I cannot discharge these duties as quickly and with as much comfort to myself as I once did. I am compelled to travel miles on foot to visit the hospitals: all my means of conveyance have been taken from me. In my large congregation, all the carriages and horses, including those of the aged, widow, and non-combatant, were seized by the Government: there is but one left, which was saved by being claimed as British property: it has no horses, and therefore is of no service.
President Lincoln, by his Proclamation, tendered free pardon, with restoration of the right of property, except that of slaves, to all who should take the oath to support the United States Government. That oath has been taken by all of us. But what has been the result? We were told to identify our property. My carriage, buggy, and the barouche of a benevolent widow, were by an order from General Hatch, taken from my premises, which were occupied by an English family with the protection of the Consul, and were not, in any sense of the word, what could be construed as abandoned property. When I inquired about the buggy, which I needed most, I was sent from one office to another–from post to pillar–for a few days, until time was afforded to send them to Hilton Head. I wrote to Hilton Head, but was informed that it was shipped to New York. My carriage I found in a depot in the city; but when the men placed as guard ascertained that it was mine, they ordered me away and locked the door. That night they removed the pole, the cushions, and wheels; and by these manoeuvres, I am left without any conveyance.
Pictures, bedding, a clock, etc., were taken from my house by Rev. Mr. French, who had speculated largely and profitably among the poor negroes, in urging them to be married over again, at only a dollar and two candles a pair. Many had no objection to the change, and in the state of utter demoralization of the negro, have been married several times since, enjoying their freedom ad libitum. I was sent from one office to another. Whilst thus amused, my articles, which I had detected in my neighborhood in the house of the United States officers, were removed to the Pavilion Hotel. I followed them there, and was told to write to the Treasury Department, and my goods would be restored. I wrote accordingly, but received no answer until a month had elapsed. I then went for the articles, but was refused even to enter the room where they were stored. The women of the officers had selected what they wanted: the remainder, which was of but little value, was sold at auction. What became of the proceeds, let the heads of the Government inquire.
The Mills House Hotel and nearby ruined buildings in Charleston, with a shell-damaged carriage and the remains of a brick chimney in the foreground (1865)
Certain it is, that of the ten thousands of persons deprived of their property in Charleston, not a thousandth part has been recovered. We are in the situation of a certain man in the Gospel, who fell into strange company. (Luke ii. 30.) When these officials, and the ladies under their protection, return to their homes in the North, (God speed them on their way!) they will be much richer than when they came here, and, alas! the poor will be poorer still. Watches, ladies’ ornaments, silver spoons, and all manner of household furniture, etc., must by this time be at a discount in the North. The Rev. Mr. French, who made a clean sweep from the houses in my neighborhood, must by this time be a man of wealth, and General Hatch and another officer cannot be far behind. The elegant carriage of Miss Annaly could not be retained here, but was sent to the North to accommodate Mrs. Martel. Our carriages have not all disappeared from Charleston, since, although the owners cannot get them, they can see them perambulating the streets, not only with the officers, but carrying negro soldiers, and women of all colors. Many of our horses are still here, as they may be seen any afternoon tearing through the streets on their way to the race-course, their riders making the welkin ring with screams and blasphemies. When these horses are worn down in flesh, they are sent to the auction, and sold to the highest bidder. Who pockets the cash?
We were invited by a proclamation, to pay our enormous taxes by a certain day; the parties knew that they had destroyed the railroads and bridges, and captured all the carriages and horses. They refused to have these taxes paid by agents. Before we could arrive here, they closed the offices, having no one to attend to the business. Thus we have to pay additional taxes –to hire our own houses from the government officers. Thus the last dollar is taken, and the citizens reduced to beggary. We now and then see pictures in Harper’s, etc., representing the North feeding the hungry South. The representation would have been more true to nature if the cause had been stated; viz.: the previous plunder. Our situation, however, is not altogether peculiar. There is a parallel case of the Israelites under Pharoah’s iron rule. Exodus v. 7.
As an evidence of the different feelings towards me, which exist in your mind and those of the other abolitionists in the North, compared with those in this community, your own soldiers included, I would just remark that a number of officers and soldiers of the United States Army have asked the privilege of uniting with me on the solemn occasion of our communion, if they remained here, and that some from Pennsylvania and Ohio have offered themselves for confirmation. I would just add that the slanders which you have so extensively circulated, are sooner believed any where else than in Charleston.
Another view of Charleston during the war
I now proceed to your 2d charge. “We have the same authority too, for stating that than this same Dr. Bachman, no man in Charleston gloated so openly over the barbarities inflicted on our prisoners.” Here I am compelled to pause and gaze at the picture presented by the fanatic. He is narrow-minded, stern, insensible, vindictive and cruel. He appears never to have read the chapter on charity, taught us by St. Paul. He knows nothing of the law of human kindness, and the sweet charities of life. The angel of mercy seems never to have visited his cold, pulseless heart, and he becomes the slanderer of his neighbor, believing that he may thereby promote the cause which prejudice and malignity have induced him to espouse.
I have been the pastor of the same church and people for nearly fifty-one years. During that long period, when five generations have been under my ministry–the harmony that existed among us has been disturbed by no discordant sounds. When the handful of persons with which I began, had increased into three large congregations, I was under the hope that I had not been a useless laborer in advancing the interests of the Church in the South, and strove to unite discordant material which composed the old General Synod in the Northern and Middle States. I certainly did not expect that the voice of slander would reach me in the advanced period of my life, being in the 76th year of my age. Here I have lived and labored, and here I expect my remains to rest with those that loved and cherished, and clung around me from youth to age.
I defy you or your contemptible informer to produce a single case of my inhumanity–and when you publish to the world that “no man in Charleston gloated so openly over the barbarities inflicted on our prisoners, as this same Dr. Bachman,” you certainly do not place yourself in the position of a meek and lowly servant of Christ. You do not regard the command which enjoins us not to bear false witness; you drop the lamb, and assume the attitude, the growl, and the malignity of the tiger. I appeal to every virtuous citizen of Charleston, if I have not devoted my life to mitigate the evils of yellow fever, cholera and civil war. I was in Charleston during all the seasons of yellow fever, but one (when I was in Europe on account of my health.) I will venture to affirm that I have seen more cases of that disease than any man in America–having on one occasion buried forty-one victims in one day. Hundreds of times I could not find time for an hour’s repose during many long and weary nights. My own congregation, as natives, were exempt from this fever, and therefore my services were not required by them. The sufferers were in most cases the people of the North, to whom I sacrificed my days and nights–the very people over whose inflicted barbarities I am accused of gloating. During the war, I will venture to say I have visited, succored, and attended at the bed-sides of more United States prisoners, than you have done to the sick and the wounded, including both armies. Allow me here to give you a few specimens of my “gloating over the barbarities inflicted on your prisoners.” You will be able to judge what were the causes of my resentment, and how I sought revenge when it was in my power.
Charleston, S.C. View of ruined buildings through porch of the Circular Church (150 Meeting Street)
When Sherman’s Army came sweeping through Carolina, leaving a broad track of desolation for hundreds of miles, whose steps were accompanied with fire, and sword, and blood, reminding us of the tender mercies of the Duke of Alva, I happened to be at Cash’s Depot, six miles from Cheraw. The owner was a widow, Mrs. Ellerbe, 71 years of age. Her son, Col. Cash, was absent. I witnessed the barbarities inflicted on the aged, the widow and young and delicate females. Officers, high in command, were engaged tearing from the ladies their watches, their ear and wedding rings, the daguerrotypes of those they loved and cherished. A lady of delicacy and refinement, a personal friend, was compelled to strip before them, that they might find concealed watches and other valuables under her dress.
A system of torture was practised towards the weak, unarmed and defenceless, which, as far as I know and believe, was universal throughout the whole course of that invading army. Before they arrived at a plantation, they inquired the names of the most faithful and trust-worthy family servants; these were immediately seized, pistols were presented at their heads: with the most terrific curses, they were threatened to be shot, if they did not assist them in finding buried treasures. If this did not succeed, they were tied up and cruelly beaten. Several poor creatures died under the infliction. The last resort was that of hanging, and the officers and men of the triumphant army of Gen. Sherman, were engaged in erecting gallows, and hanging up these faithful and devoted servants. They were strung up until life was nearly extinct, when they were let down, suffered to rest awhile, then threatened and hung up again. It is not surprising that some should have been left hanging so long that they were taken down dead. Coolly and deliberately these hardened men proceeded on their way, as if they had perpetrated no crime, and as if the God of Heaven would not pursue them with his vengeance.
But it was not alone the poor blacks (to whom they professed to come as liberators) that were thus subjected to torture and death. Gentlemen of high character, pure and honorable and gray-headed, unconnected with the military, were dragged from their fields, or their beds, and subjected to this process of threats, beating and hanging. Along the whole track of Sherman’s army, traces remain of the cruelty and inhumanity practiced on the aged and the defenceless. Some of those who were hung up, died under the rope, while their cruel murderers, have not only been left unreproached and unhung, but have been hailed as heroes and patriots. The list of those martyrs whom the cupidity of the officers and men of Sherman’s army sacrificed to their thirst for gold and silver, is large and most revolting. If the editors of this paper will give their consent to publish it, I will give it in full, attested by the names of the purest and best men and women of our Southern land.
I, who have been a witness to these acts of barbarity that are revolting to every feeling of humanity and mercy, was doomed to feel in my own person, the effects of the avarice, cruelty, and despotism which characterized the men of that army. I was the only male guardian of the refined and delicate females who had fled there for shelter and protection. I soon ascertained the plan that was adopted in this wholesale system of plunder, insult, blasphemy and bestiality. The first party that came, was headed by officers, from a colonel to a lieutenant, who acted with seeming politeness, and told me that they only came to secure our fire-arms, and when these were delivered up, nothing in the house should be touched. Out of the house, they said they were authorized to press forage for their large army. I told them that along the whole line of the march of Sherman’s army, from Columbia to Cheraw, it had been ascertained that ladies had been robbed and personally insulted. I asked for a guard to protect the females. They said that there was no necessity for this, as the men dared not act contrary to orders. If any did not treat the ladies with proper respect, I might blow their brains out. “But,” said I, “you have taken away our arms, and we are defenceless.” They did not blush much, and made no reply.
Shortly after this, came the second party, before the first had left. They demanded the keys of the ladies’ drawers–took away such articles as they wanted, then locked the drawers and put the keys in their pockets. In the mean time, they gathered up the spoons, knives, forks, towels, table-cloths, etc. As they were carrying them off, I appealed to the officers of the first party–they ordered the men to put back the things; the officer of the second party said he would see them d—-d first, and without further ado, packed them up, and they glanced at each other and smiled. The elegant carriage and all the vehicles on the premises, were seized and filled with bacon and other plunder. The smokehouses were emptied of their contents, and carried off. Every head of poultry was seized and flung over their mules, and they presented the hideous picture in some of the scenes in the forty thieves. Every article of harness they did not wish for their own use, was cut in pieces. By this time, the first and second parties had left, and a third appeared on the field; they demanded the keys of the drawers, and on being informed that they had been carried off, coolly and deliberately proceeded to break open the locks–took what they wanted, and when we uttered a word of complaint were cursed. Every horse, mule, and carriage, even to the carts, were taken away, and for hundreds of miles, the last animal that cultivated the widow’s corn-field, and the vehicles that once bore them to the house of worship, were carried off or broken in pieces and burned.
The first party that came promised to leave ten days’ provisions, the rest they carried off. An hour afterwards, other hordes of marauders from the same army came and demanded the last pound of bacon and the last quart of meal. On Sunday, the negroes were dressed in their best suits, they were kicked, and knocked down and robbed of all their clothing, and they came to us in their shirt-sleeves, having lost their hats, clothes and shoes. Most of our own clothes had been hid in the woods; the negroes who had assisted in removing them, were beaten and threatened with death, and compelled to show them where they were concealed. They cut open the trunks, threw my manuscripts and devotional books into a mud-hole, stole the ladies’ jewelry, hair ornaments, etc.; tore many of the garments into tatters, gave the rest to the negro women to bribe them into criminal intercourse. These women afterwards returned to us those articles, that after the mutilations, were scarcely worth preserving. The plantation, of 160 negroes, was some distance from the house, and to this place successive parties of fifty at a time resorted for three long days and nights, the husbands and fathers being fired at and compelled to fly to the woods.
Columbia, SC as seen from state house after Sherman’s Army’s destruction
Now commenced scenes of licentiousness, brutality, and ravishment, that have scarcely had an equal in the ages of heathen barbarity. I conversed with aged men and women, who were witnesses of these infamous acts of Sherman’s unbridled soldiery, and several of them, from the cruel treatment they had received, were confined to their beds for weeks afterwards. The time will come, when the judgment of Heaven will await these libidinous, beastly barbarians. During this time, the fourth party, who, I was informed by others, we had the most reason to dread, had made their appearance. They came, as they said, in the name of the great General Sherman, who was next to God Almighty. They came to burn and lay in ashes all that was left: they had burned bridges and depots, cotton-gins, mills, barns and stables. They swore they would make the d—-d rebel women pound their corn with rocks, and eat their raw meal without cooking; and they succeeded in thousands of instances. I walked out at night, and the innumerable fires that were burning as far as the eye could reach, in hundreds of places, illuminated the whole heavens, and testified to the vindictive barbarity of the for. I presume they had orders not to burn occupied houses, but they strove all in their power to compel families to fly from their houses, that they might afterwards burn them. The neighborhood was filled with refugees, who had been compelled to fly from their plantations on the sea-board. As soon as they had fled, the torch was applied, and for hundreds of miles those elegant mansions, once the ornament and pride of our Island country, were burnt to the ground.
All manner of expedients were now adopted to make the residents leave their homes for the second time. I heard them saying, “This is too large a house to be left standing, we must contrive to burn it.” Canisters of powder were placed all around the house, and an expedient resorted to that promised almost certain success. The house was to be burned down by firing the out-buildings. These were so near each other that the firing of the one would lead to the destruction of all. I had already succeeded in having a few bales of cotton rolled out of the building, and hoped, if they had to be burned, the rest would also be rolled out, which could have been done in ten minutes, by several hundred men who were looking on, gloating over the prospect of another elegant mansion in South Carolina being laid in ashes. The torch was applied, and soon the large store-house was on fire; this communicated to several other buildings, in the vicinity, which one by one were burned to the ground. At length the fire reached the smoke-house, where they had already carried off the bacon of 250 hogs; this was burnt, and the fire was now rapidly approaching the kitchen, which was so near the dwelling-house, that should the former burn, the destruction of the large and noble edifice would be inevitable.
A captain in the United States service,–a native of England,–whose name I would like to mention here, if I did not fear to bring down upon him the censure of the abolitionists, as a friend to the rebels,–mounted the roof, and the wet blankets we sent up to him, prevented the now smoking roof from bursting into flames. I called for help to assist us in procuring water from a deep well; a young lieutenant stepped up, condemned the infamous conduct of the burners, and called on his company for aid; a portion of them came cheerfully to our assistance; the wind seemed almost by a miracle to subside; the house was saved, and the trembling females thanked God for their deliverance. All this time, about 100 mounted men were looking on, refusing to raise a hand to help us; laughing at the idea that no efforts of ours could save the house from the flames.
Mr. Hutter, allow me to ask you who are the most criminal? the men who were rejoicing that a house was to be burned, and women and children be deprived of a shelter and a home, and driven into the woods, or he who slanders an aged clergyman of his own church, and would bring down upon him the odium of all good men, when he had it fully in his power to ascertain that the whole invention was an infamous slander, concocted by the mean, the worthless, and the malicious, for the purpose of getting offices and money?
My trials, however, were not yet over. I had already suffered much in a pecuniary point of view. I had been collecting a library on Natural History during a long life. The most valuable of these books had been presented by various Societies in England, France, Germany, Russia, etc., who had honored me with membership, and they or the authors presented me with these works, which had never been for sale, and could not be purchased. My herbarium, the labor of myself and the ladies of my house for many years was also among these books. I had left them as a legacy to the library of the Newberry College and concluded to send them at once. They were detained in Columbia and there the torch was applied, and all were burned. The stealing and burning of books appear to be one of the programmes on which the army acted. I had assisted in laying the foundation and dedicating the Lutheran church at Columbia, and there, near its walls, had recently been laid the remains of one who was dearer to me than life itself. To set that brick church on fire from below was impossible. The building stood by itself, on a square but little built up. One of Sherman’s burnerss was sent up to the roof. He was seen applying the torch to the cupola. The church was burned to the ground, and the grave of my loved one desecrated. The story circulated that the citizens had set their own city on fire, is utterly untrue, and only reflects dishonor on those who vilely perpetrated it. Gen. Sherman had his army under control. The burning was by his orders, and ceased when he gave the command.
I was now doomed to experience in person the effects of avarice and barbarous cruelty. These robbers had been informed in the neighborhood that the family which I was protecting had buried $100,000 in gold and silver. They first demanded my watch, which I had effectually secured from their grasp. They then asked me where the money had been hid. I told them I knew nothing about it, and did not believe that there was a thousand dollars’ worth in all–and what there was had been carried off by the owner, Colonel Cash. All this was literally true. They then concluded to try an experiment on me which had proved so successful in hundreds of other instances. Coolly and deliberately they prepared to inflict torture on a defenceless, gray-headed old man.
They carried me behind a stable, and once again demanded where the money was buried, ot “I should be sent to hell in five minutes.” They cocked their pistols and held them to my head. I told them to fire away. One of them, a square-built, broad-faced, large-mouthed clumsy Lieutenant, who had the face of a demon, and who did not utter five words without an awful blasphemy, now kicked me in the stomach, until I fell breathless and prostrate. As soon as I was able, I rose again. He once more asked me where the silver was. I answered, as before, “I do not know.” With his heavy elephant foot he now kicked me on my back until I fell again. Once more I arose, and he put the same question to me. I was nearly breathless, but answered as before. Thus was I either kicked or knocked down seven or eight times. I then told him it was perfectly useless for him to continue his threats or his blows. He might shoot me if he chose. I was ready, and would not budge an inch–but requested him not to bruise and batter an unarmed, defenceless, old man.
“Now,” said he, “I will try a new plan. How would you like to have both arms cut off?” He did not wait for an answer, but, with his heavy sheathed sword, struck me on my left arm, near the shoulder. I heard it crack; it hung powerless by my side, and I supposed it was broken. He then repeated the blow on the other arm. The pain was excruciating, and it was several days before I could carve my food or take my arm out of a sling,–and it was black and blue for weeks. (I refer to Dr. Kollock, of Cheraw.) At that moment, the ladies, headed by my daughter who had only then been made aware of the brutality being practised upon me, rushed from the house, and came flying to my rescue. “You dare not murder my father,” said my child. “He has been a minister in the same church for fifty years, and God has always protected and will protect him.” “Do you believe in a God, Miss?” asked one of the brutal wretches “I don’t be- lieve in a God, a heaven, nor a hell.” “Carry me” said I, “to your General.” I did not intend to go to General Sherman, who was at Cheraw, from whom, I was informed, no redress would be obtained, but to a General in the neighborhood, said to be a religious man. Our horses and carriages had all been taken away, and I was too much bruised to be able to walk. The other young officers came crowding around me, very officiously, telling me that they would represent my case to the General, and that they would have him shot by ten o’clock the next morning. I saw the winks and glances that were interchanged between them. Every one gave a different name to the officers. The brute remained unpunished, and I saw him on the following morning, as insolent and as profane as he had been on the preceding day.
As yet no punishment had fallen on the brutal hyena, and I strove to nurse my bruised body and heal my wounds, and forget the insults and injuries of the past. A few weeks after this I was sent for to perform a parochial duty, at Mars Bluff, some twenty miles distant. Arriving at Florence, in the vicinity, I was met by a crowd of young men connected with the militia. They were excited to the highest pitch of rage, and thirsted for revenge. They believed that among the prisoners that had just arrived on the railroad car on their way to Sumter, were the very men who had committed such horrible outrages in the neighborhood. Many of their houses had been laid in ashes. They had been robbed of every means of support. Their horses had been seized; their cattle and hogs bayoneted; their mothers and sisters had been insulted, and robbed of their watches, ear and wedding rings. Some of their parents had been murdered in cold blood. The aged pastor, to whose voice they had so often listened, had been kicked and knocked down by repeated blows, and his hoary head had been dragged about in the sand.
They entreated me examine the prisoners and see whether I could identify the men that had inflicted such barbarities on me. I told them I would do so, provided they would remain where they were and not follow me. The prisoners saw me at a distance–held down their guilty heads, and trembled like aspen leaves. All cruel men are cowards. One of my arms was still in a sling. With the other I raised some of their hats. They all begged for mercy. I said to them, “The other day you were tigers–you are sheep now.” But a hideous object soon arrested my attention. There sat my brutal enemy–the vulgar, swaggering Lieutenant, who had rode up the steps of the house, insulted the ladies, and beaten me most unmercifully.
I approached him slowly, and, in a whisper, asked him, “Do you know me, sir–the old man whose pockets you first searched, to see whether he might not have a penknife to defend himself, and then kicked and knocked him down with your fist and heavy scabbard?” He presented the picture of an arrant coward, and, in a trembling voice, implored me to have mercy:–Don’t let me be shot; have pity! Old man, beg for me! I won’t do it again! For God’s sake, save me! Oh, God, help me!” “Did you not tell my daughter there was no God? Why cry to him now?” “Oh, I have changed my mind; I believe in a God now.” I turned and saw the impatient, flushed and indignant crowd approaching. “What are they going to do with me?” said he. “Do you hear that sound, click, click?” “Yes,” said he, “they are cocking their pistols.” “True,” said I; “and if I raise a finger, you will have a dozen bullets through your brain.” “Then I will go to hell; don’t let them kill me. Oh, Lord, have mercy!” “Speak low,” said I, “and don’t open your lips.” The men advanced. Already one had pulled me by the coat “Show us the men.” I gave no clew by which the guilty could be identified. I walked slowly through the car, sprang into the waiting carriage and drove off.
Rev. E. W. Hutter, this is the way in which I have “gloated over the barbarities inflicted on the prisoners.” This is the man whom you have wantonly and cruelly traduced. I defy you or any one else to produce a single instance to the contrary in my whole conduct, from the beginning to the close of the war.
I claim, as an act of justice, that you send me the name of your author, whom you call one of the most eminent citizens in Charleston–a native and life-long resident of that city, whom you have given us as authority for the slanders which you have perpetrated against me. I defy you to produce the name of a single “eminent citizen” who will dare, in the face of this community, to make the assertion which you have in such a cowardly and unchristian manner published to the world. When that name shall be ferreted out, I will venture to predict that this “eminent citizen of Charleston–a native and life-long resident,” will be proved to be an unprincipled, time-serving demagogue–a spy, a political turncoat, a defamer of the reputation of others, to obtain notoriety, power and money–not many degrees removed from a drunkard–a man without credit or character, and who never had either.
It is scarcely necessary to add, that I have not sought this controversy, and only defend myself when grossly and unprovokedly traduced. It should be remembered that we are here writing under surveillance, and are at the tender mercies of a Provost Marshal. The time may come when men can speak freely. Under present circumstances, it is but a contemptible, cowardly act to drag men into a discussion where the freedom of the pen is restricted to one party, and given with unbridled license to another.
Yours, &c., John Bachman. Charleston, September 14th, 1865.
For further reading on the Union Army’s treatment of civilians during the war, I recommend War Crimes Against Southern Civilians by Walter Brian Cisco.
The Jews in their “national homeland”. As is well known, the “Allies” promised the Jews Palestine as their national homeland. A part of the Jews, namely the Zionists, attached great hopes to this. They were already talking enthusiastically about an independent Jewish state. However, we learn from a cable message of this content about how the situation on the ground actually is: “The commander of the British troops in Jerusalem has confirmed a number of punishments imposed by the court martial on Bedouins and Jews in connection with the riot on Easter; the punishments range from fifteen years in prison downwards. In protest against this, Jews in the city tried to keep their stores closed on Tuesday morning, but were forced to reopen them by order of the military authorities. The number of those killed, or wounded, in those riots amounts to 189.” The difficulty seems to lie in the fact that by far the greater part of the landed property in Palestine is the property of large Arab landowners who do not want to sell. According to a London report, the Bedouins have demanded the dissolution of the Zionist associations in Palestine. The Jews can hardly say that they have been deceived by the “Allies,” in this case specifically by England. They have not been promised that the land in Palestine would simply be taken from the Arabs. Nor have the English given the Jews much reason to believe that they (the Jews) should form an independent state. England has nothing against the Jews considering Palestine as their “national home”, or migrating there. But England has everything against the fact that in Palestine an independent Jewish state would develop. When about a year ago Jews in a meeting in Jerusalem spoke of independence, the British official present told them that speeches against the British sovereignty were not allowed. So Jerusalem will probably be trampled on by the Gentiles until the end of the world. The Gentiles in the sense of Luke 21:24 do not only include the Turks, but also the English.
— F[ranz].P[ieper].
Luke 21:24 And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.
In Lehre und Wehre vol. 11 p. 375, Walther reported the following:
Freemasonry. In the allocution held in the Consistory of Sept. 25, the present Pope condemned the Freemasons and all similar secret societies as “criminal sects opposed to the state and the church” and forbade all his own to join them under penalty of excommunication; he also reconfirmed the condemnation decrees of earlier assemblies in this regard. W[alther].
On the following page, Walther adds the following comments:
The Pope and the Mighty of the Earth. After Mr. Oertel’s Catholic Church Newspaper of Oct. 26 reported the Pope’s allocution concerning the Freemasons, it concludes: “Where could a Protestant preacher, consistorial council or bishop stand up against the mighty of this earth as the Pope does?” This is a very vainglorious. Luther, for example, stood up against the great ones of the earth, although he was a defenseless private citizen, quite differently from the Pope, who relies on his worldly power.–When the Church Newspaper adds: “Even against the Freemasons no Protestant or gospel preacher with a white tie dares to say anything. They have second thoughts.”–this is admittedly half true, for unfortunately in this point the so-called Protestant preachers, even those Lutheran preachers who want to be faithfully Lutheran, are mostly silent, and this disloyalty and fear of men will one day be very costly for them. We think here especially of those in the General Synod (e.g. in Philadelphia), from whom one should expect something better. W[alther].
1880ca Berlin, Dorotheenstädtische Kirche und Kirchhof von Südosten, F. A. Schwartz
The following appears in Lehre und Wehre V. 26 (1880) p. 383
Rejection of a rationalist chosen as pastor in Prussia. The “Pilger aus Sachsen [Pilgrim from Saxony]” of October 24th wrote: “The preacher Hasenclever from Baden, a denier of the true resurrection of Christ, was elected to the Dorotheenstädtische Kirche in Berlin. The Brandenburg Consistory, however, refused to confirm him “because he had not yet come to a firm and secure conviction of the decisive facts of salvation and truths of Christianity, least of all to such a conviction as would correspond to the state of confession of the Prussian state church and the obligations to be assumed by him.” The fact that the Consistory dared to deny confirmation to a clergyman who had been proposed by the magistrate and whose election had been advocated in particular by the former Minister Falk as a church elder of the Dorotheenstädtische Kirche, is beyond the comprehension of the free-minded press, and it engages sometimes in groundless, incomprehensible speech, at others in threatening speech. By way of comparison, a recent incident should be mentioned. In Hamburg, a general communal churchyard is now being prepared; only the Jews were allowed a separate cemetery. But they had also demanded it with all their might. When it was pointed out to them that a Belgian rabbi had declared that the “eternal grave” was not an unconditional requirement of the Jewish statutes, a liberal Jewish lawyer replied that the rabbi had been immediately dismissed from his position, which would have been quite in order. For he who shakes 3000-year-old customs of his faith may become a writer, but he cannot become or remain a rabbi. No newspaper printed any rebuke when this happened with the Jews. But when the Christian church finally defends itself against those who undermine it, then the “call to arms” of not only the Jews, but also of their liberal Jewish comrades is raised. Your Lessing would call out to you: “Either you have lost your mind, or you never had one.”
The following appeared in Lehre und Wehre V. 24 (1878) p. 308:
The Influence of Judaism. In the General Evangelical-Lutheran Church Paper of May 31st we read: “Repeatedly we have received statements from the “strangers in our home” that the decline of Christianity points to the fulfillment of their hope to raise Judaism to the status of world religion, and if not Judaism with its national statutes and customs, then at least the modern Jewish worldview. Already years ago a chief rabbi said: “They make an effort, these limited and short-sighted Christians, to snatch a soul from us here and there, and rejoice royally when they have done it! But they do not notice that we are also doing missionary work better, more skillfully and more successfully than they, that we are gaining territory after territory on their own soil. Only a short time yet, and everything that is truly sophisticated among the Christians will no longer need Christ, and will be able to cope just as well without Christ as we do. The time is approaching when the great majority of Christians will have returned to our faith in God, our monotheism. The future belongs to us. We are converting en masse and unnoticed.” From a simple Jewish teacher, who was Chasan (Kantor in the synagogue), we heard the same thing expressed. Therefore, now give the Jews only the combined, non-confessional elementary school, or whatever one wants to call the thing, and they will seize this lever for the fulfillment of the hope of modern Israel, and we will no longer be surprised if, as it really happened, the local school council of a Bohemian municipality does not entrust the Catholic or Evangelical pastor, but the rabbi, with the composition of the so-called school prayers, or when a Jew, as a teacher of a combined school, writes “a prayer suitable for all confessions” and forbids to pronounce the name of Christ.
[This translation from the German by Christopher S. Doerr originally appeared in the Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterly, Vol. 109, No. 1 (Winter 2012) Walther’s original appeared in Lehre und Wehre V. 10 pp. 193-195]
XXIV. About the Household Ranks (Children and Servants)
86. The mutual relationship, by dint of which the parents as such look upon the children as children, and these in return look upon them as their parents and are connected to one another by mutual obligations, remains as long as the parents and children live. (Baier)
87. Secular rule cannot stand, where there is no dissimilarity between persons, so that some are free, some captive, some masters, and some subjects. (Luther)[1]
88. Right there when the Lord teaches that you should sell everything and leave it all behind, he has permitted, or rather commanded, that it be legitimate to seek and own things; for you cannot sell or leave anything behind, unless you first legitimately obtained and possessed it. (Luther)
89. The division of goods, the master’s use of force, and having personal property are civic ordinances that are confirmed by God’s word in the commandment, You shall not steal. (Luther)
90. The equality insisted upon (in God’s word) is to be understood not according to arithmetical but geometrical proportions. (Aegidius Hunnius)[2]
91. Servitude did not exist until after the fall. (Baier)
92. The ruling class has God as its efficient cause. (Baier)
93. The impelling cause, on the part of men, for the ruling class, is the poverty of this life. (Baier)
94. The causality of the efficient cause (for the ruling class), on the part of men, consists in this: the slave is either taken captive in a just war or bought or freely entered into a contract. (Baier)
95. The duty of masters consists in fair imposition of labor, providing the necessities of this life, or, according to the different forms of this relationship, remitting the promised wages, and finally in guidance and judicious and moderate punishment. (Baier)
96. The duty of servants consists in the honor, docility, faithfulness, and patience that is to be shown the master. (Baier)
97. “There should be no slaveowners, since Christ has set all people free.” What is that? That is called making Christian freedom into something altogether fleshly. (Luther)
98. Slaveowning is not contrary to the Christian way. Whoever says it is, lies. People don’t see that Christian freedom redeems souls and Christ has instituted that same spiritual freedom. (Luther)
99. Just as the gospel confirms other political matters, so it also sanctions the freedom to be a master and have servants. (Cruciger)
100. The voice that says, “Honor father and mother,” places all people in servitude. But since also this truth stands written in the nature (of a man), you should consider it beyond all doubt that the causes of servitude are also part of nature. (Melanchthon)
101. The gospel does not abolish the commandment, “Honor father and mother.” Neither does it disapprove of either lordship or servitude, but gives testimony confirming these things, and teaches that there must be lordship and servitude for the taming of the godless and fleshly. The saints make use of these things just like the other good things God created. (Melanchthon)
102. Indeed in Christ’s kingdom and in relation to the common possession of spiritual goods, masters and servants are equal. But in this the gospel does not abolish political order, nor does it do away with the distinction between ranks in civic life. (Gerhard)
103. When Paul says, “treat your slaves the same way,” he does not intend that slaves be made equal to their masters; rather he intends that the equality be observed in geometric proportion. (Melanchthon)
104. Our Lord does not desire that I use my goods to make myself into a beggar and the beggar into a lord; rather I should look upon his need and help him as I am able, in such a way that the poor eat with me and I do not eat with the poor. (Luther)
105. The servants and the free are united by God-given and natural bonds. (Melanchthon)
[1] [Original footnote] In the following we have purposely given a somewhat greater number of theological aphorisms concerning this subpoint about the ranks of master and servant. For although the time draws near with quick strides when slavery will be completely abolished (which we certainly mourn least of all, yes, which we would vote for if need be, for political reasons), the biblical doctrine concerning servitude or slavery remains steadfast just as well after as before the abolition of the latter. In the same way, the doctrine concerning kingship remains steadfast and must be held to firmly by all Christians in a free republic the same as in an absolute monarchy. Yes, because the spirit of these last days works for slavery to be abolished, not for purely political reasons, but in an antichristian spirit that repudiates all God-ordained dominion and submission in the world, after the emancipation of the slaves has been accomplished, the Lutheran theologian has a twofold duty to watch lest with that, false principles, which subvert the order God has set up, slip into the church, as they do in the sects, which do not heed God’s word. The church should not be a weathervane turning with the spirit of the times. The Christian theologian should not be a messenger who courts the godless world’s applause and serves as its whore, while in return the world feigns love but in its actions is all humanism, grounded on pure egoism and enmity toward God’s dominion over it. Rather he should stand in the way of the deluge of a false enlightenment and the false mask of an alleged philanthropy, in the name of the Lord, with the weapons of the clear words of scripture, in defiance of all saintly-looking corrupters of scripture and coarse scoffers against scripture, in defiance of the pious world, this decked out bride of the devil, in defiance of the devil himself and all the gates of hell.—D. R. (der Redakteur? = the editor . . . this was published in July, 1864)
[2] The translator notes: “I think this means fairness in distribution of wealth does not mean everyone has exactly the same amount.”
[This translation from the German by Christopher S. Doerr originally appeared in the Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterly, Vol. 109, No. 1 (Winter 2012) Walther’s original appeared in Lehre und Wehre V. 10 pp. 97-100 129-134]
XXIV. About the Household Ranks (Marriage Portion)
1. The household ranks are the nursery for the ecclesiastical and civic ranks. (Gerhard)
2. There are three distinct relationships found in the household ranks: 1) that of the married couple, which is called the matrimonial relationship; 2) that of the parents and children, which is the paternal relationship; and 3) that of the master and servants, which is the seigniorial relationship. (Gerhard)
3. Although marriage is not properly called a sacrament, it is a rank established by God and therefore a matter of conscience that depends on God’s institution and on laws that have been made known by God. (Gerhard)
4. The church’s ministers, as those entrusted with the care of souls and consciences, cannot by any means be refused admittance when it comes to judging marital matters. (Gerhard)
5. No marriage is consummated on earth before it has been considered in heaven. (Gerhard)
6. The effective cause of marriage is lawful consent or the marriage compact. (Chemnitz)
7. That which makes a marriage a marriage is a commitment arising from lawful consent. (Chemnitz)
8. It appears to be not only useful but also necessary that the wedding be preceded by betrothal, so that during the interim they can try to find out if there might be anything that would impede the consummation of the marriage. (Gerhard)
9. Betrothals should not be entered into secretly, but in the presence of honorable witnesses. (Gerhard)
10.Witnesses are not the essence, but the evidence, of a betrothal. (Deyling)
11. For consent to be lawful requires capacity to make judgments and freedom of choice. (Gerhard)
12. Run away if you can, lest it seem like you have given your consent. (Dedekennus)[1]
13. A forced betrothal is no betrothal. (Kromayer)
14. The parents’ consent is required not only as a matter of honor, but also as something necessary. (Gerhard)
15. The consent of guardians, trustees, blood-relatives, and in-laws is not a matter of necessity, but of godliness and honor, unless somewhere the law says otherwise. (Deyling)
16. A public betrothal that has been entered into with the parents’ consent, is valid, even if the parents were not present to witness it. But a clandestine betrothal, when the parents’ consent is lacking, is not valid,[2] even if a thousand other people were present to witness the act of plighting troth and even if the children have bound themselves with an oath to be true to one another. (Deyling)
17. Without consent on the part of the parents, entering into the marriage contract is not lawful, complete, or right. (Gerhard)
18. Marriages concluded without the parents’ knowledge or against their will are not lawful and valid. (Gerhard)
19. An oath to do what is not righteous is not binding.
20. If the parents want to hold their ground and insist strictly upon their rights, then a betrothal that has been entered into without their knowledge or against their will can be dissolved if they require it, even if it was a sworn betrothal. (Gerhard)
21. A clandestine betrothal, even if it has been consummated through concubitus,[3] is on its own merits null and void. (Deyling)
22. If, after a clandestine betrothal, the parents’ consent is obtained, it is not as though what the children did against God’s commandment is now confirmed and made valid retroactively; rather, through the parents’ authority a completely new contract is entered into, by which a lawful union is consummated according to the procedure prescribed by God. (Gerhard)
23. A betrothal that is not entered into unconditionally, but with an honorable and realistic condition attached, puts into effect no marital ties before that condition is met. (Chemnitz)
24. When that which meets the condition is rendered, then the betrothal is valid: if it isn’t, it is then as if the whole thing never happened. (L. Hartmann)
25. A conditional betrothal becomes, through copulation, a marriage. (Gerhard)
26. A clandestine betrothal is superseded by a public one. (Gerhard)
27. With duplicate public betrothals, the latter yield to the former.[4] (Kromayer)
28. It is impermissible to move on to another betrothal before it is settled whether or not the conditions of the first one are met. (Gerhard)
29. Not the concubitus but the consent makes the marriage. (Wittenberg faculty, found in Dedekennus)
30. If the father insists on his rights, as confirmed by the express divine law in Ex. 22:16,[5] he cannot be forced to give his daughter in marriage to him who violated her. (Gerhard)
31. Betrothal is marriage at its start. (Gerhard)
32. When two persons have, in a fitting and orderly way, promised to marry one another and publicly plighted their troth, they cannot and may not ex mutuo dissensu (because of mutual dislike) rescind or relinquish those marriage vows they made with one another, unless there is such cause as suffices even for divorce in a consummated marriage. (Wittenberg faculty, found in Dedekennus)
33. For consent to be lawful requires that it be permitted and not contrary to divine law or honorable human ordinances, enacted for good reasons. (Hartmann)
34. The marriage prohibitions included in Lev. 18 are not Jewish civil laws, but moral laws. (Wandalinus)[6]
35. You should not judge the rule by past examples, but judge past examples by the rule. (Gerhard)
36. The general rule is no one should draw near the flesh of those who are his flesh. (Gerhard)
37. As the children are all one flesh with their parents in the same way, they are themselves one flesh with one another, although not without a middleman: one flesh united in their parents. (Baier)
38. Man and wife are considered one flesh and one person. (Deyling)
39. The prohibitions do not apply only to the persons they expressly name, but to the degrees. (Gerhard)
40. Not only are marriages prohibited between the persons expressly named in Lev. 18, but between all who are the flesh of their flesh. (Hartmann)
41. You cannot enter into marriage with those with whom you are already one flesh. (Deyling)
42. In the prohibitions, under the names of father and mother you should understand the relatives immediately preceding them and under the names of sons and daughters their direct descendants. (Melchior Nicolai)[7]
43. A blood-relative is someone you are related to because one of you is the other’s descendant through physical birth. (Baier)
44. An in-law is someone you are related to because of a marriage. (Baier)
45. Whoever is one flesh with, that is a blood-relative, of one spouse, is consanguineously related to the other spouse too. (Baier)
46. Marriages between two people, where one is the direct ancestor or direct descendant of the other, are prohibited, no matter how many degrees you could count separating them. (Gerhard)
47. In a collateral line, all degrees of in-law relations are prohibited just the same as blood-relations, up to those twice removed (zum zweiten ungleicher Linie). (Hafenreffer)[8]
48. In whatever degree of relationship the blood-relatives are connected to the man, they are connected to his wife as in-laws in the same degree, and vice versa. (Hartmann)
49. Whatever degrees of blood-relationship are prohibited are also to be considered prohibited for in-law relationships. (Hartmann)
50. Whichever blood-relative you are prohibited from being connected to through marriage, you are also prohibited from being connected to that person’s spouse. (Haeberling)[9]
51. An actual in-law relationship is only produced between the man and the blood-relatives of his wife, as also between the wife and the blood-relatives of her husband. (Deyling)
52. A marriage between those raised together is not prohibited. (Deyling)
53. How can people be one in love, who are not one in faith? (Ambrose)
54. The prohibitions are reciprocal. (Chemnitz)
55. The prohibitions cover both types of relationship, whether they are descended from both parents or from one of the two parents. (Chemnitz)
56. The prohibitions are to be understood as being about relationships that may arise either through marriage or fornication. (Chemnitz)
57. There are many impediments at first, to entering marriage, that do not dissolve the marriage once it has been consummated. (Kromayer)
58. There is less required for an action to be valid than for it to be right. (Dannhauer)
59. For an action to be valid, all that is required is that the actors had a right to take that action. (Dannhauer)
60. What is lawfully consummated may not be countermanded, even though later something comes up on account of which it could not have been begun. (Gerhard)
61. No dispensation can be granted in the degrees that are prohibited by divine law. (Gerhard)
62. The prohibitions of Lev. 18 concerning degrees of direct ancestors or descendants, belong to the natural moral law, but those concerning other degrees, belong to the positive moral law.[10] (Wandalinus)
63. Natural law issues its commands absolutely and in an unqualified way: it is completely unalterable. But what is called natural law in view of, or on account of, something (else), is alterable. (Gerhard)
64. It seems that you must distinguish between marriages entered into in prohibited degrees: some must by all means be dissolved, others you can punish at will, but tolerate. (Baier)
65. Marriages that God (Lev. 20) has expressly issued the death penalty for, since they are so shameful and abominable that it would be an atrocity for the married people to stay in them, are to be dissolved. (Baier)
66. Marriages of blood-relatives and in-laws in a direct line, between such as are directly descended one from the other, and of bloodrelatives in the first degree in a collateral line, are to be torn asunder. (Baier)
67. If persons in an illegitimate union are separated, it is not so much the divorce of a marriage, as the announcement that such a union was not a marital union at all. (Baier)
68. The church which tolerates, or does not tear asunder, unlawful marriages, that God has not commanded be torn asunder, does not thereby grow slack concerning the laws that prohibit such marriages, but lets them still have their power and validity. (Baier)
69. Natural death, not civic death, dissolves the marriage bond.[11] (Gerhard)
70. Although, by its nature, marriage is indissoluble, since what God has joined together, man should not separate, in actuality it is dissolved through adultery and malicious desertion. (Melchior Nicolai)
71. When the government grants a divorce and undertakes to separate the innocent and adulterous parties, this is not what dissolves the marriage bond; rather it testifies that the bond was dissolved by the adultery. (Gerhard)
72. You do not say there was a separation where there never was a marriage. (Dannhauer)
73. The deserted one does not cause the divorce, but suffers it: the deserter causes it, but unjustly. (Dannhauer)
74. You should first of all consider him a deserter who in malice moves away from his spouse and will not allow himself to be induced to return. (Gerhard)
75. No one can be robbed of his rights because of someone else’s crime. (Dannhauer)
76. No one can judge his own suit. (Gerhard)
77. In a case of adultery, you can justly get a divorce, but indeed you are not always necessarily obliged to let it come to that. (Wandalinus)
78. When the innocent party grants forgiveness to the guilty, the marriage bond that was torn asunder is joined together again. (Gerhard)
79. The law of Moses sometimes allows something that is not good, in order to avoid a greater evil. (Kromayer)
80. You must sharply distinguish between divorce and refusing to share one’s table and bed, which tends to happen on account of a spouse’s infuriating behavior and deadly enmity for a certain time, but does not break the marriage bond, and then the tempers are appeased again. (Deyling)
81. Being unmarried is not a good work in and of itself. (Gerhard)
82. Being unmarried should be sanctioned only in those who have the gift for it. (Gerhard)
83. The vow of celibacy, having never been commanded by God, is a self-chosen way to worship God, yes, is godless and foolish. (Wandalinus)
84. What you sinned in vowing, you still sin in keeping. (Wandalinus)
85. The wife was not created out of the man’s feet, so that he should consider her only his footstool. She also was not created out of his head, so that it is not permitted her to have lordship over the man. Rather she was taken out of his side, that is, from the vicinity of his heart, so that the man would love her as a part of his body and as someone sharing in his nature. (Gerhard)
[1] The 1954 Lutheran Cyclopedia says Georg Dedekennus lived 1564-1628, was a pastor in Hamburg, and “wrote Thesaurus Consiliorum et Decisionum (4 vols., casuistics) and other theological works.”
[2] The German lacks a main verb for this part of the axiom about the clandestine betrothal: a typo?
[3] Here Walther substitutes the Latin term for sexual relations.
[4] Corrected from the original translation: “the later ones supersede the earlier”
[5] This actually seems to refer to Ex. 22:17, “If her father absolutely refuses to give her to him, he must still pay the bride-price for virgins.”
[6] The translator did not know who this was; “possibly Marcus Fridericus Wendelinus, professor of theology and philosophy at Anhalt, a Reformed theologian with whom the Lutherans interact.”
[7] McClintock and Strong say he was a eminent Lutheran theologian in Tübingen “near the beginning of the 17th century” and was an opponent of the kenoticists.
[8] The 1954 Lutheran Cyclopedia says Matthaeus Hafenreffer lived 1561-1619 and was “court preacher at Stuttgart; later professor at Tuebingen; a man of very extensive learning in the Old Testament, the Church Fathers, and also in natural sciences and mathematics; teacher and friend of the astronomer Kepler; best-known works: Loci Theologici and Templum Ezechielis.”
[9] The translator could not determine who this is.
[10] According to the online Catholic Encyclopedia article on Natural Law, “the Divine positive law . . . contains precepts not arising from the nature of things as God has constituted them by the creative act, but from the arbitrary will of God. This law we learn not through the unaided operation of reason, but through the light of supernatural revelation.”
[11] The translator notes: “I think this means human law cannot make an unscriptural divorce godly.”
[This translation from the German by Christopher S. Doerr originally appeared in the Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterly, Vol. 109, No. 1 (Winter 2012) Walther’s original appeared in Lehre und Wehre V. 9 (1863) pp. 303-305, V. 10 pp. 15-19]
XXIII. About Secular Government
1. Initially the governmental dignity belonged to the family heads, but as a result of the increase of the human race it was transferred to specific predetermined persons. (Kromayer)
2. When a kingdom is first established, its authority and power must be arranged according to natural law and according to the way that law is put into practice in their nation. (Gerhard)
3. The contributing causes which impart governmental dignity to a successor, as many modes as there are of acquiring that dignity, by inherited succession, vote, compact, conquest in just wars, or even by lot, neither change the inherent nature of governmental power nor take anything away from the divine origin of that power. (Scherzer)
4. Power refers to something actual, irrespective of the legal basis for how that power was first acquired. (ibid.)
5. If prescriptive laws should not carry any weight, what kingdom will then be considered lawful? (Dannhauer)
6. The same authority that Constantine gave the Christians, Julian the Apostate also gave. (Augustine)
7. The necessity for subjects to obey is not by virtue of an authority that people are free to set up or not,[1] but is in accordance with God-given, natural law. It is indeed the very same as the authority of a father, the use of which was conferred upon the first parent not by his descendants, who did not yet exist, nor by those who did already exist, who willingly gathered together and subjugated themselves to him as the first one created; but on the contrary, just as they acquired body and soul from their first father through natural dependence, so also they acquired the life-instructions that befit a reasoning creature. (Huelsemann)
8. The government has conferred upon it the power to provide, to make laws, to judge, and to punish. (Hollaz)
9. The government has the power of the sword not only metaphorically, but also synecdochically, not only judicially, but also armed with the sword of war. (Dannhauer)[2]
10. The government has power over every soul situated anywhere within the perimeter of its kingdom. (ibid.)
11. The government is God’s minister, but not in the same way that the citizens of the community are. (ibid.)
12. By “Caesar” (or higher authorities), you should understand also those sent by Caesar, who do what they do in Caesar’s name. (ibid.)
13. Subjects have no authority to resist him who is the rightful king even if in exercising his power he is a tyrant. (ibid.)
14. When the sword that has been given to the government and belongs to it is taken up by the subjects, those who lay hold of that sword are sticking their hands into someone else’s office. (ibid.)
15. It is unjust for a subject to take up the sword, when he is simply a mere subject. (ibid.)
16. You should distinguish between those who are only subjects and those who are not only subjects. (Gerhard)
17. You should distinguish between princes who possess all sovereignty and have unlimited authority and princes whose authority is limited and circumscribed by a compact concluded between them and the nobles of the realm. (Gerhard)
18. If the king has part of the sovereignty and the people, the senate, has the other part, then force can be used to oppose the king when he encroaches upon territory that is not his, insofar as he has no ruling authority there. (Dannhauer)
19. It is a false conclusion to say that every authority comes from God and therefore may not be resisted, so that even a tyrant who unjustly invades another land is not to be opposed. (ibid.)
20. So long as the powers to resist are lacking, the lordship of an invader has binding authority, not because it is so just, but because it is to be accepted that those who have the right to rule would sooner that the laws made in the interim be legitimate than advise that laws and justice cease and everything end up in disorder. (ibid.)
21. Princes exist for the sake of the subjects, not subjects for the sake of the princes. (Gerhard)
22. A prince is, as it were, the guardian and custodian of the state, being called its lord not as regards a proprietary right, but in consideration of what he does to rule and protect. (ibid.)
23. A prince can do much that he cannot do with a good conscience. (Dannhauer)
24. The verse in 1 Sam. 8 does not speak about a just and legitimate authority (of a king), but about an actual authority, as it is carried out, that is binding and not to be opposed. (Dannhauer)
25. To Caesar is to be given what is Caesar’s in such way that what is God’s is still given to God. (Gerhard)
26. Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s, that is, (give) to Caesar the image of Caesar, which is on the coin, and to God the image of God, which is in man, namely so that you give Caesar the money and give God yourself: otherwise, what would be left for God if everything were Caesar’s? (Tertullian)
27. It would be seditious for a preacher not to chastise someone who scoffs at the government. (Luther)
28. The gospel does not abolish civil ordinances.
29. Earth has one kind of authority: heaven has another. (Hackspan)[3]
30. In spiritual matters the government belongs to the sheep, but in political matters to the shepherd. (Gerhard)
31. The government owes obedience to the pastors in spiritual things, since in that relationship it is part of the sheep; on the other hand, in the same way, the church’s ministers owe obedience to the government in political matters, since in that relationship they are the sheep. (ibid.)
32. The prince, as a prince, is chief over the state, just as Christ is chief over the members of the church and protector of its churchly fellowship. (ibid.)
33. If the government is made up of believers who are members of the church, then they extend the call (to the preacher), not because they are the government, but because they are members of the church. (Luther)
34. Secular rule has to do with far different matters than the gospel does: its power is not to protect souls, but body and goods against external forces by using the sword and physical punishments. (Augsburg Confession)
35. The bishop, as a prince, cannot impose anything upon the church, for that would mean mixing the two governments together and then he would be a real “allotri-episkopos,” or a bishop who sticks his hands in other people’s business. If we let him have his way in this matter, then we would be guilty of the same robbery of churches as he is. Here you must sooner give up your life than permit such godlessness and injustice. (Luther)
36. The bishop, as a prince, can impose whatever he wants upon his (Christian) subjects and give them commands, insofar as they are subjects and what he commands is pious and just, and the subjects must obey, for they are then obeying not as the church, but as citizens. (Luther)
37. It is not the business of kings to give laws to the church. (John of Damascus)
38. Secular government should be content and look after its own business and let people believe this or that, however they can and want to believe, and no one should compel people with force to believe something. When it comes to believing, it is something free and cannot be compelled by anyone. Yes, it is something God effects in the spirit. Be quiet, then, about compelling people to believe through outward force. (Luther)
39. Commandments don’t get people to believe the truth, nor is any compromise possible when it comes to the truth. (Balser)
40. The subjects are bound to vindicate their beliefs when the government so commands, but are not bound by a command to believe. (Dannhauer)
41. Heresy as such is a spiritual crime and hence is to be overcome also with the spiritual sword. (Gerhard)
42. Who may force me to believe what I am unwilling to believe or not to believe what I am willing to believe? Nothing is as voluntary as religion: once the disposition for it leaves you, that religion has ceased, it is no more. (Lactantius)
43. The church of Christ does not thirst for blood, since its bridegroom is the Lamb. (Christoph Agricola)[4]
44. The good people in the worldwide church are by no means pleased when anyone, even a heretic, is made to feel the wrath of the death penalty. (Augustine)[5]
45. The government bears the sword for nothing if, in cases of necessity, when there is no other means available for obtaining peace, the sword cannot be drawn from its sheath for the defense of their subjects. (Gerhard)
46. In order for a war to be lawful, it requires that the government has the right to declare and begin the war, that the reasons why the war is undertaken are righteous and fair, that the war is waged in a lawful manner, and that it is waged for a good purpose. (Gerhard)
47. The reasons for the war must be acknowledged not only by the government under whose oversight the war is waged, but also by the soldiers with whose help and service they wage it. (Arcularius)[6]
48. Citizens are not bound to help the government accomplish the waging of an unjust war. (Arcularius)
49. If the government hides the true reason for a war and puts forth another reason in pretence, then the citizens who are called to serve in the war must obey, until a time when it becomes completely obvious that the war is an unjust one. (ibid.)
50. Not for the spread of religion, but for its defense, can a war be waged by a lawful government. (Gerhard)
51. A Christian government certainly can and should use its orderly authority to intervene for a neighboring nation that is being oppressed for its confession of the truth, in order that the strictness might abate somewhat and the free exercise of the true religion be permitted there. (Gerhard)
52. Conducting a case before the judge and calling for the government to pass sentence against the injustice of a neighbor, does not in and of itself conflict with love for one’s neighbor, since God commands justice just as well as love for one’s enemy. (Gerhard)
53. You should argue your legal case in such a way that you are not arguing with your own heart. (ibid.)
54. Besides situations in which you must confess your faith also by denying earthly things, every true Christian is a citizen of this world and must do what the duties of the second table of the law require, as well as pay their debts to others. (Luther)
55. When a murderer wants to do violence to you or a thief wants to take what is yours, then since you are a Christian and you want to be an upright citizen of this world, you must offer resistance to such evil: likewise the secular government, whose member and subject you are, in such a case itself offers resistance and commands you also to offer resistance, on the strength of the second table of the law, if you have the power to do so, and you are bound to obey. (Luther)
56. When a murderer attacks you on the street without warning and is going to do away with you, since you are a Christian you must offer him resistance, even if it should cost him his life, for you know that the government has commanded that people offer resistance to a murderer and that the citizens should be protected from murder. In such a case you are complying with both the first and second tables of the law. (Luther)
57. To change the government and to improve the government are two different things, as far from one another as heaven from earth. (ibid.)
58. To make a contract is a God-given and natural right. (Gerhard)
59. The right to rule is a God-given and natural right, but the determination of what specific form that rule will take belongs to international law, which is to some extant derived from natural rights. (Gerhard)
60. Note that he (David in Ps. 82:1) calls all assemblies or orderly gatherings, God’s assemblies, as God’s own are there and he accepts them as his works, just as he calls Nineveh a city of God in Jonah 1. For he has created all assemblies and he calls them into being and still brings them together, tends them, increases them, blesses and preserves them. Raving mad reason in its cleverness, along with all the wise people of the world, does not know at all that an assembly is something created and ordained by God, but thinks nothing other than that it comes together in a reckless and chaotic manner, and that a nation stays together and lives in one place in the very same way that murderers, robbers, and other evil rabble (which are the devil’s assemblies) intermingle with one another in order to destroy peace and God’s order. (Luther)
[2] The power of the sword which Romans 13 assigns to the government includes the execution of criminals and the power of war.
[3] According to Darling’s Cyclopaedia Bibliographica, accessed online, Theodore Hackspan lived 1607-1659 and was a “Lutheran divine and eminent oriental scholar” whose writings included the Cabbalae Judaicae expositio.
[4] Couldn’t find much about this person: Wikipedia mentions a Christoph Agricola who was a violent opponent of Pistorius, but clicking on his name gets you to an article about Christoph Agricola the landscape painter. There is also a composer Wolfgang Christoph Agricola, who lived 1600-1659: three different people?
[5] This refers especially to acts like those of the Inquisition.
[6] According to http://www.geni.com, Daniel (Schreiner) Arcularius lived 1541-1596 and was a doctor of theology at Marburg.
The following appeared in Lehre und Wehre V. 75 (1929) p. 154:
The Crucified Jew. Who Crucified Jesus? By Max Hunterberg. Block Publishing Co, New York.
The author of this little book is obviously a Jew. His goal is to prove that it was not the Jews who were responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus, but Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor. All Christians who read their Bible know what the true facts are. Furthermore, the book is completely based on radical Bible criticism. For example, when the author writes (p. 73), “Not a line of His life was transmitted to us from any of His disciples who loved Him and toiled with Him,” we know where he got this “wisdom,” namely from the camp of critics who still call themselves Christians but deny the truthfulness of the Scriptures. A[rndt].
So far Dr. Arndt. Walther predicted this state of affairs back in 1880.
The following was reported in Lehre und Wehre V. 26 (1880) p. 122
Searching for the Lost Ten Tribes. The “Pilger [Pilgrim]” of February 21st reports: “‘The Heir of the World’ is the name of a new magazine from Brooklyn which is trying to prove that the Anglo-Saxon race (English and Yankees) are the lost ten tribes of Israel. In England, on the other hand, the idea has arisen that the Afghans are the descendants of the ten tribes because of their Jewish noses.”
In the same volume (p. 128) it is reported that the Mormons were claiming that the North American Indians were the descendants of the ten tribes.
Walther reported in Lehre und Wehre V. 21 (1875) p. 128
The Lost Ten Tribes. The many scientific associations in England have been joined by a new one: the “Anglo-Israel Association.” It includes many preachers, professors, doctors and officers, but as yet not a single rabbi. Its purpose is “to promote and further disseminate the ‘truthful’ assertion that the Anglo-Saxon race is descended from the lost tribes of Israel, besides supporting research in the field of the general history of Israel and Judah.” – This much, at any rate, is true: that the Jewish haggling spirit distinguishes the Anglo-Saxon human species above others; and if this perception has led to the hoax of the aforesaid Association, a certain degree of self-knowledge cannot be denied to the members of it. W[alther].
And still more on this topic appears in Lehre und Wehre V. 23 (1877) p. 128
“The People of God.” Under this heading, Dr. Münkel writes in his Neues Zeitblatt [New Newspaper] from Feb. 22: Victor Boreau has published a “History of France” which has been introduced in many schools in France and Belgium and is strongly favored by the Catholic clergy. It says: “In the ancient world there was a people whom God had chosen from the multitude of peoples in order that they might preserve intact the original tradition and the laws of morality given by man. It can be said that in the renewed world France is the new chosen people. In its bosom it carries all that is necessary to enlighten or to crush the empires.” France is the firstborn son of the Roman Church, its focal point and its strongest fortress. Why should the Catholic French not consider themselves the chosen people of God? The same claim is made by other peoples… Now in England a “Society for English Israel” has been formed, not to convert the English Jews, but to prove that the English of the tribe of the Anglo-Saxons are the immigrated ten tribes. Once the proof is given, it is also certain that the English are not only spiritually but also physically and in truth the people of God, and that explains why the English cling so faithfully and devoutly to the Bible. All Anglo-Saxons who consider themselves to be descendants of Israel are asked to enter their names in the Israelite genealogy. According to the “Grenzboten” the committee of the society consists of 50 members, among them generals, colonels, captains, professors, 5 doctors of medicine, 12 clergymen, etc., all respectable persons. But for us Germans something falls short. The Anglo-Saxons are Germans who immigrated from Germany. If the English belong to the ten tribes of Israel, so do the Germans. Certainly the Germans are not Assyrians. Nevertheless, the English have an advantage; they are descendants of Ephraim and therefore have the right of the first-born and the most favored tribe. One of the members of the society was grieved that the German Empire had introduced decimal division; this was the image of the beast (Revelation 14:9-11). However, Germany was defended against such biblical interpretation.
Jewish Sensitivity. The Praepositus Milarch, in his speech at the last Sedan celebration, said, among other things: “Shall it be said of us, as it was once said of the children of Israel at the foot of Mount Sinai: ‘They sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play’? Curse him who degrades the Sedan celebration in such a way.” But the speaker also had Jews in his audience. Thus there appeared in the public papers an “urgent declaration” signed by the Jewish congregation in Neubrandenburg, in which it rejected with “deepest indignation” that Milarch had used this opportunity “for an extremely violent outburst against our ancestors at Mount Sinai.” Eventually these Jewish fellows will probably forbid this also: that preachers continue to preach what they did on Mount Golgotha. W[alther].
The February 6th issue of the “Lutherische Kirchenbote” gives two excerpts from the writing of Dorpater Kurtz, “Bible and Astronomy.” And what does he give his poor readers from this work, which, certainly contains many wonderful things?–the assertion that the first man before the creation of woman was a hermaphrodite! How could the church messenger find nothing better than this old Jewish fable, newly warmed up by the enthusiasts Jacob Böhme, Valentin Wiegel, Gichtel, the author of the Berleburger Bible and others? Luther writes about this: “The second chapter (of the 1st book of Moses) overthrows and drives back all such lies. For if this were true, how could it be written here that God took one of Adam’s ribs and made a woman out of it? Such lies are found in the Talmud, and have been mentioned, that we may see from them the wickedness of the devil, who puts such absurd things into men’s heads.” (See Luther’s Lectures on Genesis 1:27.)
The following appeared in Lehre und Wehre V. 9 (1863) pp. 26-27
The Jews and Freemasons.
Dr. Münkel reports the following about the influence that the Jews and Freemasons have finally gained on all public affairs in Europe in his Neues Zeitblatt of Oct. 3. of last year.
“A Berlin Freemason has issued a cry of distress, to which the elections of April and May of this year for the Prussian Chamber of Deputies have urged him. He reports that in Berlin 217 Jews were elected as electors, and in two districts only Jews were elected. This is an alarming event, since every Jew is a born progressive or a democrat who necessarily works toward the overthrow of princely power because it stands in the way of the Jews’ penetration of the highest offices of state. The Jews would not have achieved such successes if they had not been used and pushed forward by the rapidly growing Progressive Party in order to shake the religious and political foundations of the state.
The threads of the connection between Jews and progressives are joined in the Masonic lodges. For in these lodges, progress reigns in a frightening manner, as the Berlin elections once again prove. The nine Progressives who were elected as deputies with the help of the Jewish electors are all Freemasons, and from the 23 Berlin lodges at least three quarters of the Freemasons voted for them. ‘Practically the same ratio is in Breslau, Magdeburg, Stettin and all cities where lodges and Freemasons are widely distributed, wherefore they wrote in their secret writing: Wherever our union flourishes, it has become a power against which no one is able to do anything, which will triumph over everything and everyone.’ This means that the Federation will eventually give birth to the Free State without the Church.
The Jews are welcome collaborators in this association. Even if they were temporarily excluded from some lodges, they are now generally accepted in all lodges of the world. Only in Berlin, for the sake of the King, no Jews are accepted, but they are accepted through a back door, by admitting them as brothers as soon as they have been accepted elsewhere. The Jew, however, knows how to help himself even better, he profits from a certain peculiar feature of Freemasonry. Three masons are allowed to make someone a mason, and in doing so they have the right to communicate the masonic secrets outside the lodges without the usual ceremonies. The Jews use this to draw their co-religionists into the secrets of the Order and to establish an Order next to the Order, in which bribery and speculative arts do their work. ‘While no Christian lodge is any longer inaccessible to the Jews, there exist Jewish lodges where admission is absolutely denied to any non-Jew. In London, where, as is well known, the real hearth of the revolution is under the Grand Master Palmerston, there are two Jewish lodges where no Christian ever finds admission, or is even allowed over the threshold. The threads of all revolutionary elements that are in Christian lodges lead into these lodges. Such a Jewish lodge is now the highest revolutionary tribunal in Rome. In Leipzig, at mass time, there is always a secret Jewish lodge which, strangely enough, never opens itself to a Christian mason.’ If the lodges work for general progress, then of course the Jewish lodges work for Jewish progress; the one uses the other, and the cleverest robs the other blind. But, crucify, crucify! resounds from both regarding the church.
The Berlin Freemason concludes: ‘O would that the All-Gracious would mitigate for the nobles and princes the severe trials now befalling them as a result of their indulgence and guilelessness towards the actual “hypocrites” and let them come to a clear understanding of the aspirations of the revolutionary “works” hidden in the Masonic League.’ Yes, if only! Even Von Bennigsen, as Grand Master of the German Eclectic Masonic League and President of the National Association, delivered a good piece of work, of which the procedure of catechesis is the crown. The King of Prussia’s eyes are said to have opened somewhat at this writing, and he is said to have found the ‘hypocrites’ where he did not look for them at the beginning of his reign. Hopefully he has not found them too late!
The Order of Masons is, by the way, a mere vessel which the tendencies of the age make use of in their own way, as well as of the Jews. Accordingly, it is sometimes more, sometimes less dangerous. But the secrecy of an inaccessible covenant must always cause concern, because it can serve as a hiding place as well as a vehicle for dangerous machinations. Bishop Ketteler of Mainz is therefore right to demand that the federation be made public at a time when publicity is the law everywhere in all proceedings. But this would be the end of the Masonic Order, and not the end of secret orders. For if a certain party wants to rule the world and have everything controlled by its strings, it must demand that everything in state and church be drawn into the light of publicity, in order to be able to treat it with the arrows of suspicion or the protection of vociferous praise, while the party itself does undisturbed mole work in the dark. The Berlin Freemason should not complain if his brethren take his whole hand after he has offered them his finger.”
The following appeared in Lehre und Wehre V. 46 (1900) p. 180
Luther League of America. From May 22nd to 24th, this association held its meetings in Cincinnati. There two female members, Sister Jennie Christ and Miss Magdalene King, gave speeches. Sister Jennie spoke on deaconess work and Miss Magdalene on women’s work in the church. The latter said, among other things, “The future of the church depends on the children, and the future of the children is in the hands of woman…. It is as natural for woman to work for children as it is for the sun to shine or for flowers to bloom…. Woman has a special influence over boys. She softens and uplifts them. She encourages and guides them and gives the sympathy for which the heart longs.”–What Miss King says here is not exceptionally deep and ingenious, but otherwise quite correct. But if she had wanted to act on her words, she would have stayed at home, where the very children are for whom she shines and blossoms, and left public speaking to men. And as for the Luther League, it should, if not before, at least after this speech, have made a decision at once to send Miss King and her sisters home from the League to the women’s sphere. And if the Luther League cannot or will not see this, then the respective synods have the duty to make it clear to the Luther League that according to God’s Word, woman is not to teach publicly, but is to remain silent in the congregation. 1 Tim. 2:12, 1 Cor. 14:34-35. Moreover, we would like to note here that “The Lutheran World” should not take its mouth too full when it brags about the Luther League. It writes, for example: “The Luther League is one of the broadest organizations in this country. It embraces all young people’s societies of every name and description of every division of the Lutheran body in this country.” But from our Synod, for example, not a single society belongs to the Luther League. We mention this because we consider it not an honor, but unionism and a denial of the truth to join the Luther League. And without proof, even the “World” should not accuse us of this sin. F[riedrich]. B[ente].
The following appeared in Lehre und Wehre V. 52 (1906) p. 329
Rome and Women’s Suffrage. The Roman bishop McQuaid of Rochester explained: “Nothing counts in the United States but votes. The time will come when women will vote, and then we will see the greatest voting the world ever saw. We are not afraid of woman suffrage. Our Catholic women will save the day for us.” According to this, the goal of the Romanists is domination of the state by the papal church and the means to this end is the woman in the confessional and at the ballot box. F[riedrich]. B[ente].
Walther published the following remark in Lehre und Wehre V. 12 (1866) p. 121:
Women’s Emancipation. In Massachusetts the Legislature has granted women the right to serve as preachers and to officiate weddings. Since women’s emancipation has not succeeded in the state, they have imposed it on the church. W[alther].
John Henry Hopkins, First Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Vermont
This book review appears in Lehre und Wehre Volume 11 (1865), Number 4 (April), pages 102-113.
“A Scriptural, Ecclesiastical, and Historical View of Slavery,
From the days of the Patriarch Abraham, to the nineteenth century. Addressed to the Right Rev. Alonzo Potter, D. D., Bishop of the Prot. Episcopal Church, in the Diocese of Pennsylvania. By John Henry Hopkins, D. D., LL. D., Bishop of the Diocese of Vermont. New York: W. J. Pooley &. Co, Harpers Building, Franklin Square, pp. VII, & 376 8vo.”[1], [2]
That the devil has succeeded splendidly in driving Christianity out of a large part of the present generation by making humanists out of Christians,—that also the present so-called Christian theology itself is infected, poisoned and corrupted by humanism, no sober Christian will or can deny. At every turn he is haunted by the ill-fated cry: “Liberty and equality!”—On every line of the prevailing daily literature someone is trying to prove to him that our treasure and salvation is not above, where Christ is, but that the truly reasonable, educated, and noble man must find his salvation in himself, and that therefore his endeavors for himself and others are only to be directed to breaking down all so-called restricting barriers, in order to procure for himself free access to all earthly treasures and free space for a full enjoyment of them. And only then, but also certainly then, will there be heaven on earth!
Even if upon a mere reasonable examination of these and similar manifestations of the “human spirit that has come to the right self-awareness,” nonsense and endless confusion of all concepts and conditions arise as a pitiable result; nevertheless even “theologians” of earlier and more recent times, but especially of the most recent time, have allowed themselves to be blinded by the devil to such an extent that they have paid homage to humanism—if initially only to this or that part of its aspirations—as being in harmony with divine revelation, and have become humanists. Even if they are not clearly aware of the spirit that drives them, if they only want to be righteous servants of Christ (which regarding some of them certainly cannot be denied), their speeches and writings prove, nevertheless, that, in certain matters at least, they mix Christ’s kingdom and the world’s kingdom together and portray all kinds of worldly, civil orders, which the gospel allows to remain, not only as hindering barriers, but even as sinful conditions that are to be abolished. This has happened especially with regard to slavery. Theologians of all stripes have declared that slavery, especially the relationship of the master to his slaves, is in itself, that is, in its essence, sin. One, in order to cut off from the outset all objections to such an assertion contrary to Scripture, pointed to Golgotha and asked: “Did not Christ by his death and shedding of blood make all men free?” Isn’t that appalling? Is that not enthusiast madness? Is the spirit that drives one to such assertions and proofs any better than that which fills the manifest children of unbelief? Does that spirit really become a righteous one by taking God’s word in its mouth? Isn’t the devil most dangerous when he uses God’s word?
It is truly refreshing in this time of progress (called “progress” because everything is to be turned upside down) to be able to read through a work like the “View of Slavery” which lies before us. This book combats with all seriousness, with worthy weapons, and with the most brilliant success the manifestations of humanism in the slavery question. And if here the honored reader of “Lehre und Wehre” is shown a selection of this work, it is mainly done in order to draw attention to its precious content and to encourage him to purchase it.
The author, Dr. J. H. Hopkins, is a bishop of the Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Vermont. He is, as he expressly remarks (pp. 51, 52), “no lover of slavery, and no advocate for its perpetuity any longer than circumstances may seem to require.” He says: “All my habits, sympathies, and associations are opposed to slavery and in favor of abolition.” “I am, and always shall be, in favor of a gradual, just, and kindly abolition of slavery, whenever it may please Divine Providence to incline the minds of Southern statesmen to adopt it.” Therefore, in 1857, the author published a work, “The American Citizen,”[3] in which he presented, among other things, a plan for a “gradual and thorough” abolition of slavery, a plan which said essentially the same thing as that presented by the President of the United States in his address to Congress in 1862[4]. But the “ultra-abolitionism” (as the author calls it), which teaches that it is sinful to hold a man as a slave under any circumstances, and teaches that the relation of masters and slaves makes a mockery of the principles of Christianity; that the Constitution of the United States, because it protects the rights of the slaveholder, is “a covenant with death, and an agreement with hell,” and that slavery is the root of all evil and slaveholding among Christians is such a crime for which even hell has no sufficient punishment,—the author combats this ultra-abolitionism, whose teachings he condemns. His whole book is the testimony of a “man in Christ” against this hypocritical abolitionism, which is really nothing but a child of unbelief and one of the many arms of humanism, whereby it draws its “millions” into its happy community, with the result, of course, of choking the inner life.
The history of the present work (which should always be kept in mind for a better understanding of it) is briefly as follows: The author was asked in 1860 from New York “to state in writing [his] opinion of the Biblical argument on the subject of negro slavery in the Southern States.”[5] This he did in a pamphlet entitled: “Bible View of Slavery,” (pp. 5-41. of the present book). Against this appeared a “Protest” from the Bishop and clergy of the Diocese of Pennsylvania, signed by Alonzo Potter, Bishop, and a multitude of Episcopal preachers in Pennsylvania. To this our author replied (pp. 44-50), promising an accurate exposition “of the truth in wherein [he] stand[s],” joined with the testimony of ecclesiastical authorities and history from the apostles’ time to the present day. We find this exposition in our book in pages 51-376.
Let us now turn our attention to the actual content of the present work. In his “Bible View of Slavery” the author defines slavery as servitude for life, passing also to the descendants. And “this kind of bondage appears to have existed as an established institution in all the ages of our world, by the universal evidence of history, whether sacred or profane.”[6] Now he does not want to deny that slavery may be an evil; but then it is only a physical, not a moral one, and therefore no sin, because sin is transgression of the law. If it is now asked: What does the Bible say about slavery?—One must not answer according to one’s own ideas, desires, habits, and personal relationships. For a Christian can only be sure of his judgment if it agrees with God’s Word. Convinced by the word for a long time, the author also only lets the word give answer to the above question. The curse of Noah over Canaan, Abraham’s household, the (9th and) 10th commandment, as well as other regulations and ordinances of the Mosaic law concerning slavery, are first brought forward as proof that the relationship of the master to his slaves was by no means regarded as a sinful one by God, but rather regulated and confirmed by him. The fact that the Lord Christ does not utter a word against slavery, although in his time it was widespread throughout Judea, and the Roman Empire counted sixty million slaves, as well as the well-known sayings of the apostles concerning “servants and masters,” he cites as evidence for the legality of slavery from the New Testament.
The author then proceeds to the refutation of various objections against slavery, on which occasion the well-known propositions from the Declaration of Independence: that all men are born equal, etc., are thoroughly and all-round illuminated and dispatched. One will not read this section without rich profit, even if one could not agree with the author’s reasoning everywhere. Throughout this section also, we see a man who is not dominated by the spirit of the times, who does not sacrifice the Word of God to his favorite opinions, but who lets the Word be his lamp and a light unto his path. What he says against the objections regarding: “Barbaric treatment of slaves;” “Immorality as a necessary consequence of the possession of slaves;” “Ownership of men;” “Would you like to be a slave?” “Separation of spouses, or of parents from children;” “polygamy and slavery were permitted in the Old Testament;”—is as true as it is thorough. He also knows very well how little these principles of his appeal to the taste of his fellow citizens and neighbors. But he does not want to suppress the truth out of cowardice in order to make himself agreeable. “It can not be long” (he says), “before I shall stand at the tribunal of that Almighty and unerring Judge, who has given us the inspired Scriptures to be our supreme directory in every moral and religious duty. My gray hairs admonish me that I may soon be called to give an account of my stewardship. And I have no fear of the sentence which He will pronounce upon an honest though humble effort to sustain the authority of His Word, in just alliance with the Constitution, the peace, and the public welfare of my country.”[7] —So far “The Bible View.”
In the following chapters of the present work, written as a defense, substantiation, and closer analysis of the “Bible View”, the author shows a thorough knowledge as well as a skillful treatment of the accumulated material. In a mass of excerpts from the writings of older and newer philosophers, jurists and theologians, from the resolutions of councils, etc., we do not have chaos in our book, but we find everything well ordered and appropriately strung together, so that one may follow the author at every turn not only without fatigue, but with ever curious interest. We find a “cloud of witnesses,” who all, although coming from the most different times, countries, and relations, directly or indirectly represent the author’s object. To the Justinian institutions we are first referred, and afterwards led to the “fathers, councils, historians, lawyers, divines and commentators.”[8] They all proved “that Christianity never undertook to abolish slavery, even when it extended over all races and all varieties of men—that religion operated to ameliorate, but not to do it away—that its extinction in Europe was not the result of any direct assault, but a gradual dying out through the changes of society—that the first positive attack upon it was not from the Church, nor from Christians, but from the Atheists of the French Revolution; and that it was never supposed to be a sin to hold a slave, where the laws of the country authorized it, until our own age assumed the novel work of ultra-abolitionism.”[9]
It would perhaps not be without interest for the reader to have some of the otherwise probably less known excerpts shared here. From the institutions of Justinian it is shown that the laws of the Roman Empire recognized and regulated slavery during the reign of the Christian Emperor Justinian; that slavery existed according to the law of nations, that its origin was attributed to war (for those captured in battle were subject to death, from which slavery saved them, and therefore the Romans called them servi, “saved ones”). It is further shown that the slavery of those times was by no means limited to Ham’s descendants, but included all nations with which the Romans had ever waged war; and although therefore many slaves were equal to their masters in descent, knowledge, skill, and mental energy, yet power over the life and death of their slaves was conferred upon the masters, and even the church in the fourth century could not emancipate a slave, even if he had been ordained a bishop, without the knowledge and consent of his master.
After our author, as it were in passing, enlists Aristotle and Philo of Alexandria as witnesses for himself, the writings of the “Fathers” are presented. There we first hear Tertullian regarding the attempt to draw away a slave from the service of his master. “What can be more unjust, what more iniquitous, what more shameful than an attempt to benefit the slave in such a way that he shall be snatched from his master, that he shall be delivered to another, that he shall be suborned against the life of his master, while he is yet in his house, living on his granary and trembling under his correction? Such a rescuer would be condemned in the world no less than a man-stealer.”[10] Then we hear Jerome on 1 Tim. 6:1, 1 Cor. 7:21. and Eph. 6:5-9.
From Augustine the following passage, among others, is shared: “The first and daily power of man over man, is that of the master over the slave. Almost every house has this sort of power. There are masters, there are also slaves—those names are different, but men and men are equal names. And what saith the Apostle, teaching slaves to be subject to their masters? ‘Ye bondservants, be obedient to your masters according to the flesh, because there is a Master according to the Spirit.’ He is the true Master and Eternal, but these are temporal, according to the time. While thou art walking in the way, while thou art living in this world, Christ is not willing to make thee proud. This happens to thee that thou mayest be made a Christian, and having a man for thy master, thou art not made a Christian that thou shouldst disdain to serve. Yet since thou servest man, by the order of Christ, thou dost not serve the man, but Him who has so ordered thee. And therefore he (the Apostle) saith: ‘Obey your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in simplicity of heart, not as eye-servants, or as men pleasers, but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the mind, with good will’[11] Behold, therefore, he does not make free men of servants, but he makes good servants of bad servants. How much do the wealthy owe to Christ, who thus regulates their home.”[12]
St. Basil the Great, in his rules for the monastic orders, says: “Moreover, let slaves detained under the yoke, if they fly to the convent of the brethren, be first admonished and made better, and then be returned to their masters; in which the blessed Paul is to be imitated, who, when he had brought forth Onesimus, through the Gospel, sent him back to Philemon.”[13] Space does not allow to share testimonies also from Chrysostom, Prosper, and Gregory the Great. Also out of quite a number of conciliar decisions only one shall be shared here. At the Council of Gangra A. D. 341 it was decided: “If anyone, under pretext of religion, shall teach a slave to despise his own master, that he should depart from his service and no longer submit to him with benevolence and honor, let him be accursed.”[14]
After some excerpts from Fleury’s Church History and from Bingham’s “Antiquities of the Christian Church,” we find Melanchthon and Calvin (Luther is missing, which is very regrettable!) presented as witnesses from the Reformation era, and then comes a long series of exegetes from the Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, Congregationalists, and Episcopalians. It will be to the author’s credit that he always lets these witnesses speak to us to such an extent that we can form our own judgment about their actual views on the question at hand. That there are also such statements which are contrary to the biblical doctrine of slavery, will surprise no one, if one considers that many of the witnesses are people who are not always ready to give up cherished views to the service of truth in matters “where reason fights against faith.” But those very anti-biblical statements about slavery are only occasional,—and even if a testimony cannot serve to make the waverers firm and certain because of such internal contradictions, it is always the case with our compiler, that even these witnesses do not declare slavery to be sin per se, so far as and as long as they interpret a relevant passage of Scripture,—and that is sufficient for his purpose. On the whole, many of the cited testimonies give the impression that their writers, initially subdued by the power of the word, simply let themselves be guided by the word, until suddenly the abolitionist spirit gains the upper hand, and then not only the spirit [of the word] but also common sense seems to have departed from the writers. Hereafter follow some passages from the commentaries of more recent times; the above will be confirmed by them.
The Rev. Thomas Scott, whose Commentary, republished in Philadelphia in 1862 from the London edition of 1822, writes under the unmistakable influence of his time, soon after the great movement for the abolition of slavery under Wilberforce, in his notes on Exodus 21: “Slavery was almost universal in the world, and though, like war, it always proceeded of evil, and was generally evil in itself, yet the wisdom of God deemed it better to regulate, than to prohibit it. We should not, however, judge of the practice itself by these judicial regulations, but by the law of love. Slavery, like war, may in some cases in the present state of things be lawful; for the crime which forfeits life no doubt forfeits liberty; and it is not inconsistent even with the moral law for a criminal to be sold and treated as a slave, during a term of time proportioned to his offense. In most other cases, if not in all, it must be inconsistent with the law of love.”[15][16] Concerning Eph. 6:5: “Servants, be obedient to your masters,” etc., Scott says: “The Apostle next exhorts servants who had embraced Christianity to be obedient to their masters, according to the flesh, that is, to whom they were subjected in temporal matters. In general, the servants at that time were slaves, the property of their masters, and were often treated with great severity, though seldom with that systematic cruelty which commonly attends slavery in these days.”[17] (“Where,” asks our author, “did Dr. Scott find his authority for this statement? The testimony of history is altogether against him.”) “But the apostles were ministers of religion,” continues Dr. Scott, “not politicians; they had not that influence among rulers and legislators which would have been necessary for the abolition of slavery. Indeed, in that state of society as to other things, this [Lehre und Wehre interjects: “the influence on the legislators for the abolition of slavery”] would not have been expedient: God did not please miraculously to interpose in the case, and they were not required to exasperate their persecutors by expressly contending against the lawfulness of slavery. Yet both the law of love and the Gospel of grace tend to its abolition as far as they are known and regarded; and the universal prevalence of Christianity must annihilate slavery, with many other evils, which, in the present state of things, can not wholly be avoided. In the wisdom of God the apostles were left to take such matters as they found them, and to teach servants and masters their respective duties, in the performance of which the evil would be mitigated, till in due time it should be extirpated by Christian legislators.”[18]
But even more clearly than Dr. Scott in the shared excerpts, Dr. Adam Clarke, a Methodist, shows us the conflict between the spirit of God and the spirit of abolitionism. For instance: “1 Tim. 6:1: Let as many servants as are under the yoke, etc. “The word δουλος here,” saith Dr. Clarke, “means slaves converted to the Christian faith, and the ζυγον or yoke, is the state of slavery. Even these, in such circumstances, and under such domination, are commanded to treat their masters with all honor and respect, that the name of God, by which they were called, and the doctrine of God, Christianity, which they had professed, might not be blasphemed, might not be evil spoken of, in consequence of their improper conduct. Civil rights are never abolished by any communications from God’s Spirit. The civil state in which man was before his conversion is not altered by that conversion, nor does the grace of God absolve him from any claims which either the state or his neighbor may have upon him. All these outward things continue unaltered.”[19] This is, of course, quite healthy fare that Dr. Clarke is presenting to his readers here. The same Dr. Clarke, however, who lets the Holy Spirit speak to his readers from 1 Tim. 6:1, allows another spirit to speak concerning Eph. 6:5, and says: “Although in heathen countries slavery was in some sort excusable, yet among Christians it is an enormity and a crime, for which perdition has scarcely an adequate state of punishment.”[20] Thus he (or the spirit of ultra-abolitionism) speaks of Eph. 6:5. But the words “with good will” in the 7th verse of the same chapter he explains, “Do not take up your service as a cross, or bear it as a burden, but take it as coming in the order of God’s Providence, and a thing that is pleasing to him!”[21]
From a commentary which has found the widest circulation among the “Orthodox Congregationalists,” a note by Dr. Jenks, on 1 Cor. 7:21, “Art thou called being a servant, etc.,” is transcribed, which thus reads: “The sense is not clear. Chrysostom and all the old commentators understand, ‘You need care so little, that even if you can gain your freedom, prefer your servitude as a greater trial of Christian patience!’ (So a religion of despotism counsels, contrary to the precept, ‘Do not evil that good may come,’ and to the prayer, ‘Lead us not into temptation.’ By what right can any man imbrute God’s image, which Christ atoned for, to a mindless, will-less, soulless, rightless chattel! Yet) so Camer, Schmidt, Sparck, Estius, De Dieu, and the Syr. And this sense, they think, is confirmed by the following consolatory words, ‘For he,’ etc. It is also ably defended by De Dieu and Wolf. But there is a certain harshness about it to which necessity alone would reconcile me. What is detrimental to human happiness can not be promotive of virtue. The true intent seems that of Beza, Grot., Ham., and most recent commentators. ‘Do not feel a too great trouble on that account, as if it could materially affect your acceptance with God, and as if that were a condition unworthy of a Christian.’ ‘Grace knows no distinctions of freedom or servitude, therefore bear it patiently.’ Grotius adds: ‘And above all, let it not drive you to seek your freedom by unjustifiable means.’ And he remarks that a misunderstanding of the nature of Christian liberty had made many Christian slaves not only murmur at their situation, but seek to throw off all bondage. O just yet merciful God! enlighten the slave and his master in these United States, at once and always to do Thy will!”[22]
Our author calls the excerpt just given a “fair specimen of the rhetoric that has been so common, of late years, on the subject of slavery,” and he continues, “taking it for granted that the slave must be made a brute, without mind, soul, will or right, a mere chattel; although these gentlemen must know that among the ancients the slaves were often highly educated to be instructors of youth, that Esop was a slave, and Terence was a slave, and Epictetus was a slave, while amongst the slave population of the South, enough of their negroes have been taught and emancipated to plant the new State of Liberia, and of those who still remain with their masters, nearly five hundred thousand are reported as members of Christian societies, in good standing. These facts being perfectly notorious, one can hardly read such a display of our commentator’s anti-slavery prejudice without desiring that he might study the Ninth [Eighth] Commandment, ‘Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor,’ with a wholesome regard to personal application.”[23]
The reader should not tire if a few more excerpts are given from two chapters of our book. Headings of the further chapters are: Man-Stealing; The Golden Rule; Personal Fitness; St. Domingo; Wilberforce; Results of Emancipation; Gradual Cessation of Slavery; Gibbon; Robertson; Motley; Margrave; Public Opinion; The English Poor; Treatment of Slaves; Mrs. Kemble; Theodore Parker; Emerson. Let us take the chapter on “Man-Stealing” first. On this topic a pamphlet directed against the author says: “In the year 1562, Sir John Hawkins set fire to a city in Africa and carried off two hundred and fifty slaves. And the king of Dahomey captured, quite lately, a town in which he slew one third of the population and took the remainder into captivity.”[24] To which our author replies:[25], [26] “This is assumed to be the mode in which all the slaves at the South were originally reduced to bondage; and as their masters can have no better title than those who sold them, therefore they are all involved in the sin of man-stealing!” “Now, really, this sort of absurdity strikes me as a most extraordinary example of sophistical perverseness. If these facts were brought forward against the slave-trade, they might be deemed appropriate.” [….] “But what has that to do with their domestic slavery? Have they attacked the African towns, and slaughtered the inhabitants, and taken away the captives?” In former times, Old England and New England carried on the trade, but the southerners brought the Africans into their possession through proper purchase. Now, of course, ‘the receiver is as bad as the thief,’ but only if the receiver knows that the property is stolen. Now, with respect to the original stock of Africans, from which the southern Negroes have descended, can it be proved 1. that they were stolen, and 2. that the buyers knew about this crime? Not at all. “We are told, by Malte Brun, that in Africa two thirds of the population are slaves, which, as the whole is estimated at ninety millions, would give sixty millions for the present number of the native slaves.” Now, “No one can be farther than I from justifying the barbarity of the African slave-trade.” But if the slave traders received their sad cargo of human beings from the King of Dahomey out of the number of Negroes who were already slaves, can they therefore be called man-stealers? The Negroes were sold at certain prices, and if the slave traders had inquired into the origin of their sad cargo of human beings, the barbarian despot would simply have replied: That’s none of your business! So even the traders themselves cannot be convicted that they have stolen the slaves. Now, how could the southern planters have known that the slaves were stolen in the time when the slave trade was still permitted? And if they did not know, since they could not have known, how could they be accused of participating in man-stealing? But even if those planters had learned that the first slaves were really stolen, it would be neither right nor reasonable to call their heirs and descendants, who came into the possession of the slaves in a right and legal way, accomplices of men-stealers. For consider by what right you or anyone here is in possession of land and house! The land belonged to the Indians; England based its legal claim to it on the discovery of it. But can the discovery of the property of another make it my property? But according to the old European maxim, ‘All land inhabited by savage, heathen tribes belongs to us,’ this land was taken, just as the natives were taken and made slaves of them. Thus: “the ultra-abolitionist holds his property by the same title precisely, that the Southern planter claims in his slaves.” By force or fraud the land has been taken away from the real owners, the Indians. “When our ultra-abolitionist talks of the negro, he tells us that all men are brothers, and is pathetically eloquent upon the Christian rule of doing to others as we would that they should unto us. But when his subject is the Indian, he has no idea that the rule is applicable.”[27]
The author then makes a comparison between the Indians of today and the slaves of the South, which is entirely to the advantage of the latter, and says in conclusion: “Can a Christian believer in the providence of God fail to see that a blessing to the African has followed in the train of Southern slavery, while a blight has rested on the system adopted for the Indian? Is it possible to doubt that if the Indians could have been successfully subjected to the white man, it would have been infinitely better for them at the present day?”[28]
The author introduces the 42nd chapter, “The English Poor,” by speaking of the treatment of the slaves, and making a comparison between the evils which the slaves have to endure at the hands of their masters, and those to which the laboring free classes are subjected. He already remarked that he is truly hostile to all cruel treatment and oppression of the Negroes, and that he rejects it everywhere; but this kind of treatment is so little the general one in the South that in the majority of cases there is evidence of such a pleasant relationship as can only exist between slaves and masters. If, on the other hand, one looks at the misery in which, for example, a large part of the poor in England find themselves, then it can be rightly asserted that the slaves are generally much better off than those unfortunates. For proof of this he quotes a recent work by Joseph Kay, Esq. on the social condition of the people of England.[29] There we read, among other things: “In the civilized world there are few sadder spectacles than the present contrast in Great Britain of unbounded wealth and luxury, with the starvation of thousands and tens of thousands, crowded into cellars and dens, without ventilation or light, compared with which the wigwam of the Indian is a palace. Misery, famine, brutal degradation, in the neighborhood of stately mansions which ring with gayety and dazzle with pomp and unbounded profusion, shock us as no other wretchedness does.”[30]—Thus is the situation in England.
The misery of thousands of children in London and other cities of England is truly terrible. They grow up in the greatest filth of body and soul without instruction, discipline and care. “It has been calculated that there are at the present day in England and Wales nearly eight millions of persons who can not read and write…. Of all the children in England and Wales, between the ages of five and fourteen, more than the half are not attending any school.”[31] Thousands upon thousands of vagrants of both sexes, who roam the highways and byways by day, congregate by night in the most miserable dens, called “vagrant lodging houses”; men old and young, women old and young, and children of all ages pass the nights there in ghastly confusion. “The scenes which take place are horrible.” Abominations of all kinds take place.[32]
Among the poor of England, the use they make of ‘burial clubs’ is also terrible. In order to get the money for the burial of their children (a sum that of course exceeds the real costs), they not infrequently cause the death of their children by starvation, other bad treatment, or poison.[33] Sins against the 6th commandment are the norm among these poor in the most horrible way, and that in the rural districts not less than in the big cities. In certain districts it is reported not only that the women are not ashamed of fornication, but also that this sin garners no attention among the other inhabitants.[34] Even incest is no longer rare.[35] The pen refuses to copy verbatim even the mildest reports about this vice. Read this chapter in the book itself, and compare the conditions described therein with the worst that has been said of slave life, and you will be able to call it a good life compared to the misery among the poor of England, which mocks all description.
At the end of our book we find a serious and dignified admonition to the bishop Potter mentioned at the beginning. In an appendix we also have the Latin text of many of the excerpts given. The whole work is, as said, worthy of the most detailed study; one will have rich profit from it. And even if it is very regrettable that the Venerable Bishop Hopkins (now the oldest bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States) does not stand in the one true position from which one may argue with earnestness and strength against chiliasm, which is merely “ultra-abolitionism” in the spiritual sphere, as he has against the abolitionism of the humanists, we do not want to let ourselves be hindered by this from heartily thanking him for the mass of good and instructive things presented in his book, and urgently recommending the work to all readers. W. St.
[1] Even now, when the end of slavery in our new fatherland is obviously approaching, we gladly accept the present submission, not, of course, for the purpose of stopping that end, for we, as native Germans, have never been able to acquire a taste for this peculiarly republican institution of the “glorious Union” and are therefore far from weeping a tear for this dying institution. The reason for our joy is much rather this, that thereby a testimony is given that, even if everything else becomes prey to transitoriness, nevertheless the truth concerning it remains unchanged, namely in our case, the doctrine of the Scriptures on slavery, whether the thing itself continues to exist or perishes. In the same way, the doctrine of the obedience of subjects remains true for absolute monarchies also, even if all kingdoms should one day become free republics. In addition to this, every doctrine of Scripture is of the highest importance not only with regard to its primary subject, but also in a thousand other respects, and spreads the clearest light over other areas as well. We are also happy about it, when again and again that glittering spirit of fraud, which wants to make the world happy, is opposed, which wants to put the humanistic lie in place of the biblical truth by temperance agitations, by women’s emancipation agitations, by slavery agitations, and by who knows what other agitations. Also, it will certainly please the readers of “Lehre und Wehre” to see that there are still some among the American theologians who have the courage not to give Christianity away to the fashionable American sentimentality which passes for religion. B. [Original footnote]
In Lehre und Wehre V. 8 pp. 105-110 (April 1862) a short article appeared by Craemer entitled “Dr. Hengstenberg über die Sclavenfrage.” This reproduced what Dr. Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg had written earlier in the Evangelische Kirchenzeitung [Evangelical Church Paper], the conservative German church paper.
In the foreword to this year’s volume of the Evangelische Kirchenzeitung, Dr. Hengstenberg also discusses our sad situation here and thus, naturally, also the slavery issue that is causing it. We are pleased to see from this that this theologian, who, although in the midst of the union church, possesses in many respects more light and a more correct judgment than hundreds of so-called Lutheran theologians, and also agrees with our highly enlightened, sober, pious fathers in the matter of slavery, and has the courage to express his conviction freely and unambiguously, in spite of all the scornful looks of the spirit of the age. He also sees where this agitation actually leads, and to which anti-Christian current of the time it belongs, which unfortunately so many here, even those who bear the Lutheran name, do not recognize. For their shame and instruction, but for the sake of the truth, we cannot do otherwise here than to allow Hengstenberg’s sound pronunciation to be produced verbatim, as it is found in the third number of the Evangelische Kirchenzeitung:
In the United States of America, the division between the slave-holding South and the slave-free North has progressed to formal and bitter civil war. Christian conviction has often taken it for granted that it must necessarily take sides with the North. At the Geneva meeting of the Evangelical Alliance, Dr. Kerr from America said that among the people of the great West the conviction had spread that it was a religious duty to take part in the present war, and expressed the hope that God would not permit the perpetuation of slavery. His view of the situation was adopted by a resolution of the assembly. The well-known American theologian Beecher, the brother of the woman who authored Uncle Tom’s Cabin, declared the present war to be a crusade, a holy war, that the trumpet of war should not rest until the last slave had been freed, that it was sad to shed brotherly blood, but that the continuance of slavery was even more atrocious. We cannot agree with this view of the situation, but are rather convinced that in the slavery question, no less than in Romans 13, a significant and alarming alteration of Christian views has taken place among Christians of English-speaking tongue, a transposition of these views with principles that sprang from a completely different soil, and that the American War is a sad consequence of this transposition and a judgment on the same.
Restless agitation against slavery, incitement of the slaves to disobedience, promotion of their escape, violent measures for their liberation, blowing the trumpet of a holy war to bring it about, a war in which a Methodist preacher has gained the fame of being able to cut off heads with one blow better than all the others, all this has Holy Scripture and also history, the practice of the entire older Christian church, against it. It has its ultimate purpose in a view that has sprung from completely un-Christian circles, which dreams of a common human dignity, because it ignores the Fall and the ghastly devastation caused by it in its manifold gradations down to animal dullness and stupidity; which ignores the mysterious counsel of God after on the Fall, whereby, as Agobard says, “He exalts some by all kinds of distinctions, and subjects others to the yoke of slavery;” which, in the psychological superficiality peculiar to the natural man, lumps all men together and fails to recognize that the relationship of rulers and servants has its basis in the peculiarities of peoples; which overestimates the importance of external freedom, because it has not itself become partaker of the great good of internal freedom and does not know how to appreciate it, and falls under the judgment of the apostle: “they promise them liberty, while they themselves are servants of destruction;” which, finally, does not know the eternal possessions and the existence hereafter, and therefore attaches an excessive importance to the goods of this world, and has lost all sense of the understanding of the apostle’s word: “Art thou called being a servant? care not for it.” [1 Cor. 7:21]
Already by an event in the earliest days, Gen. 9:25-27, we are instructed to raise our eyes above human arbitrariness and injustice in the matter of slavery and to direct them to divine fate, to God’s well-deserved judgments, which, if one does not violently evade them, but humbly submits to them and uses them for the purpose for which they are sent, are always at the same time means of salvation. We must enter the kingdom of God through many tribulations. Slavery, too, is a gateway to the same, and all that matters is to open this gateway, and grace will break out from behind the judgment.
In the New Testament, slavery is placed under the fourth commandment, no less than the relationship of wives to husbands and children to parents, Eph. 5, 21-23, 6, 1-4, 5 ff. Col. 3. The relationship can therefore not be an immoral one in itself, as is now preached. Otherwise Holy Scripture would not have recognized it as a divine order. Slaves are instructed to see behind the earthly lords another Lord who has imposed such a status on them and to serve this Lord willingly and joyfully in the earthly lords, however much the earthly lords may make it difficult for them to see in their rule a manifestation of His. As Paul says in Col. 3:22-25, “Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh; not with eyeservice, as menpleasers; but in singleness of heart, fearing God: and whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men; knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ.” And as proof that even within the church the relationship of master and slave is not a purely inadmissible one, the same apostle says in 1 Tim. 6:2: “And they that have believing masters, let them not despise them, because they are brethren; but rather do them service, because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit. These things teach and exhort.” Peter exhorts: “Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward. For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully.” (1 Peter 2:18-19)
How far one has departed from the foundation of the Holy Scriptures in America is particularly clear if one compares the practice common there with the procedure of the apostle Paul in this question. The slave Onesimus ran away from his master and found the gospel as a freedman. Paul, who brought it to him, does not leave him in the state of freedom in which he found him, which he could have taken for granted, but sends him back to his master Philemon, inwardly reborn, and only asks that he lovingly accept him again and treat him as a brother in Christ. If Philemon wants to do more than the apostle says, then he should follow the course of his heart, but the general Christian duty is only what the apostle expressly demands of him.
Holy Scripture knows no other way to remove the ungodly nature of slavery than the inward one, that of teaching the masters that they have a Lord in heaven and filling their hearts with humility and love. And this way has proved more effective than any other. “In the Christian Church,” says Chrysostom, “there is no slavery in the old sense of the word; it is only in name among the Lord’s disciples; the thing has ceased.” Where this path does not lead to the goal, Scripture leaves the relationship in place, because any forcible change in it can only make matters worse.
“Before the slaves were on a higher level of moral education,” says Möhler,1 “any external liberation could only have a corrupting effect, and certainly if Christianity had preached the liberation of the slaves as such, and had succeeded in enforcing it without first loosening the inner bonds, it would have brought about a desolation similar to that which would have resulted if hell itself had sent forth all its inhabitants at once and given them a free hand on earth; in the general destruction caused by Christianity it would itself have found its downfall.” Whoever wants to see vividly what will become of the hastily emancipated slaves, especially the lowest of all, the Negro slaves, who can hardly be compared with the slaves of the old world, should read the descriptions which Count Goertz has sketched in his fascinating and instructive Journey Around the World2 on the basis of his own observations in Haiti.
If we turn from Holy Scripture to history, we will also find there a striking contrast to the restless activity of the abolitionists in North America, which has finally made the saying true: whoever strikes the nose hard, forces blood out. The Council of Gangra pronounces a ban on anyone who, under religious pretext, teaches slaves to despise their masters, to leave their service, and not to serve with benevolence and all reverence. The Council of Chalcedon forbids the monasteries to accept slaves who have not received permission from their masters, and threatens them with excommunication, lest the name of God be dishonored, i.e., lest Christianity be accused of causing disobedience. With reference to the Middle Ages, Möhler says: “The Christian spirit created for itself the form that corresponded to it, and threw off the foreign one without revolution, indeed without any external and compelling law; for such a law was only applied here and there against the last remnants of slavery.”
Shall the great work, which was begun in the Christian Church in spirit and carried on for many centuries, be completed in the flesh? Do we want to ignore the word: the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds? (2 Cor. 10:4) We do not fail to recognize that in the southern slave states there is damage which must deeply grieve the heart of the Christian philanthropist. But one should not have been driven by such distress to ranting and raving, which can only bring about greater evils, but to redoubled zeal in the preaching of the Gospel in general, and especially of the truths which it preaches in view of slavery, that all men, masters and slaves, have one Lord, Creator and Redeemer, with whom no respect of person is valid, who does not know the rich more than the lowly, because they are all the work of his hands, who is a judge of all harshness and injustice of the rulers against the servants, who loves all with equal love, before whom there is no slave and no free, Gal. 3, 28. Philm. 16, who has wrapped the holy bond of love around all. The preaching of the gospel is the only means by which the serious wounds of these conditions can be healed. Where this remedy does not work, one must, even if with a bleeding heart, leave the matter to God for the time being and wait until His hour comes, and in the meantime work all the more earnestly for the removal of the intolerable conditions in one’s own heart, one’s own home and one’s immediate surroundings, which, of course, is more difficult than to get worked up over the removal of slavery in the Southern States and to agitate for it in the Northern States.
As Dr. von Harleß aptly says, “The gospel does not abrogate the outward consequences and punishments for sin, so that it only then looks to see whether anything good can still be made out of the now unfettered perverse heart; yes, even to the Christian who is a slave it does not say: break your chains, but it breaks the chains by taking away the hardness of the masters in the fear of a higher Lord, by erasing the reluctance of the servant in the willing obedience to Him who is Master of masters and of slaves.”3 We have good reason to wait and hope that the gospel will accomplish its work, albeit slowly, if only it is preached faithfully and diligently and not–to the gravest accountability before God for the agitators–made ineffective for the poor slaves and for their masters by a false admixture, a bad leaven of ranting and raving. It has worked wonders in this very area and has shown itself to be a force from on high. Wherever Christianity has penetrated, slavery has not been able to assert itself; it has been abolished in substance and gradually also in form, to the same extent that the slaves have proved themselves capable and worthy of freedom.
As we read in a report on the Geneva meeting of the Evangelical Confederation; The brethren from North America were deeply bowed by the grave misfortune affecting their fatherland, and more deeply still by the vivid and undoubted consciousness that this misfortune was only too much their own fault and nothing other than a judgment of God upon their people’s arrogance, greed for gold, and materialism. Such an approach, which led to the observation of a Day of Repentance and Prayer in North America on September 26th of last year, is certainly a very heartening one, an encouragement for us to the same humility. We should be mindful of the earnest word in Luke 13, 3. But besides the more distant causes, we should not have forgotten the proximate ones. It seems, however, that the “earnest insistence on the release of the Negroes in the slave states” was only counted as a merit and that there was no realization that there could be fault here as well.
The following appeared in Lehre und Wehre V. 20 (1874) p. 150.
The “Declaration of Independence”. Just now we have read the following judgment about the same, that is to say, about the expressed introductory principles therein, in a local political newspaper, proficiently edited by an unbeliever in his own way: “The statement of the Declaration of Independence, according to which ‘all men are created free and equal’ (as indeed the entire theory of the American Declaration of Independence), stems out of Rousseau’s so-called social contract theory, or actually out of the natural-right doctrine of the old Roman lawyers, and, in the vein of his usual outlook, is mindless nonsense. Men are not born in the state of freedom, but in that of greatest helplessness and dependency; and from the beginning of their lives—whether we consider the individual or the race—we do not find equality, but inequality.” So writes Judge Stallo in Cincinnati. We see from this, even the light of bare reason leads to this knowledge, when one simply follows it, which unfortunately the idolaters of reason usually do least of all.
The following remarks appeared in Lehre und Wehre V. 17 (1871) p. 217.
There is a real rage among the false believers of our time to bring the Bible and the results of the so-called exact sciences into harmony with each other. In “The Present Age” (a spiritualist journal published in Chicago) we see that a professor at Yale College even goes so far as to claim in a pamphlet that even the theory that man is descended from an ape is in no way in conflict with the account in Holy Scripture regarding the origin of man! The professor cites Genesis 2, 7: “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul,” and then adds: “The fact that man is the result of the modification of an ape-like ancestor is in no way in conflict with the above account.”–We would like, however, to call the attention of such interpreters of Scripture to a more suitable passage for the biblical proof of their descent; we mean this one: “Ye are of your father the devil.” Joh. 8, 44. Yes, without a doubt, he is their progenitor. Hopefully, they will also not resist much longer to acknowledge him as such, since he is–as is well known–God’s ape.
Lehre und Wehre, Vol. 12, October 1866, pp. 297-308
(Note: This position was presented at a preacher conference held in Chester, Illinois. The following article is the substance of this presentation.)
The history of entire peoples, as well as of individual people, teaches that a man who does not find his highest good in God seeks it in himself and in the visible world, and that whoever does not recognize heaven as his true homeland makes this pitiful earth his homeland. “Away with the afterlife, if only we have a happy life here!”— that is the watchword of unbelief, which has reached its apex in materialism. While the man who is sunken in coarse sensuality lives by the popular saying: “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die,” likewise the cultivated and imaginative man endowed with higher intellectual gifts makes himself an ideal of earthly bliss, whether he stops at bare ideas or attempts to bring these ideas into actual life. Whoever does not know the true freedom won by Christ regards political and civil freedom as the highest goal of human endeavors and happiness. Thus unbelief in its various forms has become the fruitful ground out of which the strangest theories of human freedom, human equality, human happiness, and inalienable human rights have come forth.
According to some strange dreams of the heathen philosopher Plato of an ideal state life, and according to some sporadic doctrines and efforts partly of individual persons and partly of individual sects in the early Christian centuries, it was especially reserved for the eighteenth century to systematically develop the ideas of inherent freedom and equality of men and of inalienable human rights, and not only that, but also to bring them practically into political and social life. It was the Englishmen Thomas Hobbes and John Locke with some like-minded men who propagated and sought to establish the theory of an inherent freedom and equality, and the Frenchman Jean-Jacques Rousseau transplanted them to the European continent. This doctrine of Rousseau spread itself across the entire civilized world with unbelievable speed; no wonder, because it found the minds there well prepared for it; even men like Kaiser Joseph II set themselves at this man’s feet. One fruit of this doctrine was the French Revolution, after it already had had its forerunner a few decades before in the American Revolution. That the American Revolution is a child of this doctrine, is proven by the Declaration of Independence of 1776, at the beginning of which the following sentences stand:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such a form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
In France by the proposal of Lafayette who had returned from America and had been an enthusiast for the Revolution that was just completed there, the famous Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen[1] was raised up as a decree and incorporated into the Constitution of 1791. These ideas, after they had made way for the political revolutions of the old and new world, also finally began as an unavoidable consequence to exert their influence on social life in the socialism and communism of recent times. We confine ourselves here to the political sphere and will attempt to show how the theory of the inherent inalienable human rights contradicts the word of God and is damned by the same.
We are not afraid to receive the objection that we, as theologians are involving ourselves in political matters. Were that which we are here dealing with only a political question, then we wouldn’t say a word about it. But it is not precisely that. These days politics is all too often misused in order to spread manifestly irreligious, immoral, and above all revolutionary ideas. Then because some take up these ideas in politics, the theologians are compelled to step up against this politics. Or may we be silent when one brings manifest errors among the people in the name of politics? It is our holy duty to bear earnest witness against it so that the ignorant may be instructed and the wavering made firm. Where sin is found, the office of the theologian is also found; where sin stops, there this office also stops. When sin impudently raises its head in the realm of politics, it is the duty of the theologian to stand against it. Of course we cannot put an end to the seed of corruption, but the greater the danger becomes, all the more earnestly must we testify against it, and not just we theologians, but all Christians in general. Christians should be a light of the world because they testify to the truth; but if the Christians cease to testify to the truth against error, how can the world be enlightened? If this witness ceases, then the world can no longer remain preserved against this rot and decay. Without this witness a people will come to ruin. It depends on the right conduct of the theologians whether the blessing of God prevails in a land. If they are silent, then the weeds will gain so much ground in the field of the church that it will not be that the ideas of unbelief are swallowed up by those of Christianity, but those of Christianity by unbelief.
If we stick with our adopted fatherland, then we cannot deny that the ideas of inalienable human rights, of the inherent equality and freedom of all men have deeply permeated the spirit of the American people and bear their wicked fruits in a characteristic arrogance, in an overweening self-opinion, and a tendency to disobedience and license not merely in the adults, but also already in the youth. They also threaten the Lutheran Christians who have made this country their homeland with peculiar temptations, because the political newspapers— with hardly any exception— are the heralds of these ideas and carry them into their homes and hearts. Preachers of the gospel must not only be armed against this for themselves, so that they are not carried away by this Zeitgeist, but they also have the necessity to instruct those entrusted to them about it.
Now before we come to the matter itself we want to give notice that when we, according to the word of God, deny man these inherent inalienable human rights, we do not mean the rights of the soul and of the conscience, the right to do right, to avoid sin, and to serve God; these are undeniably given by God to man as a rational creature intended for eternal life; man can neither surrender nor allow these to be taken from himself. We also do not mean the rights which a man acquires as soon as he enters into an ordered organic political relationship, but we speak only of political and civil rights which we maintain are neither inherent nor inalienable. As Lutheran Christians, our concern may be less about investigating how those ideas comport with sound reason, and much more about becoming acutely aware of how they militate against the divine word.
1. The first reason why the doctrine of inalienable human rights of inherent equality and freedom of all men must be rejected is that it contradicts the teaching of Holy Scripture about the Fall and original sin and denies it, as if there were no difference between man before and after the Fall or as if there were no Fall. Such inequality as now exists among men, would, however, not have existed before the Fall. Other than the distinction between man and wife, parents and children, such equality would have prevailed that knew no rich and poor, no lords and servants. Love, that diamond in the crown of the image of God, which man originally bore on his head, would not have allowed that others be set back and to exalt itself over them. None had desired more for himself than he needed, and no one would have begrudged him this. There was the most perfect commonwealth, because the most perfect love animated man. It would have occurred to no one to gather riches, everyone would have had enough.
But after the fall it is different. The image of God consisting in holiness and righteousness is not only entirely lost, but also the natural, spiritual and physical powers of man are weakened, corrupted, and brought into disorder, but in different levels and degrees all the way down to bodily deformity and idiocy. Indeed the fall has made all men alike in sin and death, but it is also the reason for which the devil has attained power over men, to harm him under God’s permission in the greatest variety of ways and in the most diverse degrees in soul and body, whereby fallen men naturally became highly different among themselves in strength, health, property and honor. As sin begins with birth, likewise this inequality also begins already at birth, and even if all men were equal at their entrance into the world, inequality would still become more and more apparent in the course of a man’s development. Suppose two persons of different bodily and intellectual abilities possessed each the same sum of money, the more capable would soon gain more with this sum than the less capable, one would become richer, the other poorer.
What a truly ridiculous undertaking is that of today’s humanitarians! If they wanted to establish even some level of equality among men, then they would need to be without sin and have body and soul, life and death, health and sickness, fortune and misfortune in their hands— they would have to be God himself. Who does not see what insanity this idea of equality is? Yea, one could hardly believe that there would be men who presume to propose and realize these ideas if God’s word did not tell us that God punishes those who transgress his commands with a confused heart. The Fall has ultimately brought about such a state among men that resembles a war of all against all. The consequence of the Fall is selfishness, out of which arises ambition, wrath, hatred, envy, lies, deception, greed, theft, robbery, murder, and the subjugation of the weak by the strong. For the correction of this evil, God instituted the government. This is so obvious that even the deist Hobbes could not deny it and from this realization deduced the necessity of the state, which he, of course, only based on a social contract, while Holy Scripture calls it an ordinance of God. Therefore Luther says: politia est necessarium remedium corruptae naturae, “government is a necessary remedy of corrupt nature.” But where there is government, there must also be a reduction of individual freedom and a diversity of status. Where is the inherent freedom and equality of all men here? It was lost through the fall. To insist on it anyway is to deny the Fall and original sin. All humanitarians do this at least indirectly, and when Christians let themselves be fooled into agreeing with them, they are obviously pulling a foreign yoke with the unbelievers.
2. The theory of human rights also militates against the teaching of Holy Scripture concerning the providence of God. On the basis of the fall, Holy Scripture teaches that God appoints different stations to people in social life according to his unsearchable wisdom, justice, and free power partly passively, partly actively, through bodily birth, through different distribution of intellectual gifts and bodily goods, through the linking of countless external circumstances, and although the wickedness of other men is often the proximate cause for one being poor the other rich, one despised the other in high honor, God nevertheless avails himself of the very same as his instruments to carry about the counsel of His providence. If God let his strict justice alone reign, we would of course be equally naked, equally miserable, equally poor, the sentence of death would already be executed for us all in the womb— yea, the entire world, which was originally created for the service of man, would be destroyed and turned into nothing; but according to his mercy and patience and in view of the reconciliation of the world through Christ, God upholds and preserves this world with its population, until the last man who will be saved is born, and he distributes his gifts variously, in order to make known that he is the Lord who owes no one anything— yea, this various distribution of his goods he uses partly as a means through goodness and earnestness to provoke fallen men to repentance and partly as a means of instruction whereby he is wont to exercise his chosen children in faith and in love; for if all had the same fullness of heart, how could faith in God’s fatherly care, how could patience, how could love, which applies itself to the need of the neighbor as its own, be exercised?
An image of the inequality of men is found in the entire visible nature of things, which would lose all charm and beauty if it were nothing but a vast plain without mountain or valley. And to show that this view is no mere human thought, we will point to the following places in Holy Scripture: “For out of prison he cometh to reign; whereas also he that is born in his kingdom becometh poor,” writes Solomon in Ecclesiastes 4:14; in which he describes the wonderful governance of God. “The rich and poor meet together: the Lord is the maker of them all” (Proverbs 22:2). “He hath shewed strength with his arm; he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree” (Luke 1:51, 52). “He hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation” (Acts 17:26).
What do the enlightened humanitarians do with their theory of equality? They dare to meddle in God’s governance and to censure him for making everything unequal. They level the world to an inhospitable wasteland. They are far too blind to see God’s counsels in the fates of men. They want to cast God from his throne and set themselves in his place.
3. Further it militates against the fourth, sixth, and seventh commandments, which have established diversity of rank and distinction of property. If the Ten Commandments are nothing other than a summary of the law that was originally written on man’s heart, then it follows that according to the fourth and sixth commandments, even in the state of innocence, despite general equality, a distinction between parents and children, man and wife, would have existed even if we admit that this distinction has received a peculiar character through the Fall. Seemingly bodily life is vindicated as an inalienable right to man by the fifth commandment, but even if it is also true that with the fifth commandment God has protected life from harm by other men as well as from suicide, it is still not to be considered an inalienable possession since through the command of love, which is derived from the fifth commandment, man is obligated to offer up his life in service to his neighbor or his government, or insofar as God has given the punishment of death to evildoers. The execution of a murderer would be a murder and unlawful if a man had an inalienable right to life.
With regards to the seventh commandment, God has expressly sanctioned the right to property and with it the inequality of property. Johannes Brenz writes in his catechism:
This commandment: thou shalt not steal, shows us clearly that a difference in possessions and property rights among men is a Godly ordinance. For there would hardly be room for theft if, by God’s ordinance, everything were possessed in common.
The humanitarians by contrast declare all distinction of pof property to be theft, as they cannot do otherwise, driven by their terrible logic. The most extreme practical consequence comes to light in communism, and if this theory has usually confined itself to the political sphere, as in the origins of the United States, then it has only been a felicitous inconsistency.
4. It further strives against the teaching of Holy Scripture concerning the divine ordering of government. Without going deeper into the derivation of government from the fourth commandment, in which it of course has its root and foundation, it will suffice to recall the passage in Romans 13 in which the government is expressly called an ordinance of God. The apostle Peter appears to contradict this when he calls government an ordinance of man in 1 Peter 2:13; but far from conceding to the humanitarians and declaring government to be a pure human invention or a social contract, he merely wishes to say four things thereby:
that men are commonly the tools whereby governments are set in order,
that it is men who rule in the governmental office,
that governments are set in order for the benefit of men and
that they are occupied with purely human things which serve the preservation of the earthly life of men, and not with spiritual things concerning the kingdom of God.
Reason left to itself can and must of course come to the conclusion that governmental order is necessary among men; but when it bases the government solely on a social contract and not on a divine foundation, we should not be surprised that it speaks in the manner and extent to which it understands. Luther speaks very pertinently about this in the following way:
This passage, therefore, solves the problem that engaged the attention of Plato and all the sages. They come to the conclusion that it is impossible to carry on government without injustice. Their reason for this is that among themselves human beings are of the same rank and station. Why does the emperor rule in the world? Why do others obey him, when he is a human being just like the others, no better, no braver, and no more permanent? He is subject to all human circumstances, just as others are. Hence it seems to be despotism when he usurps the rule over men, even though he is like other men. For if he is like other men, it is the height of wrong and injustice for him not to want to be like others but to place himself at the head of others through despotism. This is how reason argues. It is incapable of coming up with a counterargument. But we who have the word are aware that the counterargument must be the command of God, who regulates and establishes affairs in this manner. Hence it is our duty to obey the divine regulation and to submit to it. Otherwise, in addition to the rest of our sins, we shall become guilty of disobeying God’s will, [which is, as we can see so beneficial to this life of ours]. (Commentary to Genesis 9[:6] [AE vol. 2 p. 142])
From this, the question is easily answered, what is to be thought of the now so highly exalted sovereignty of the people. Even if it is rational, it is not biblical. If it is the case, as we have shown in the above, that there is nothing to the inherent freedom and equality, then there is also nothing to the inherent sovereignty of the people, according to which all power [Gewalt] is supposed to lie in the hands of the people. Holy Scripture knows nothing of this. It declares no existing form of government to be the exclusively right and godly one; on the contrary, it requires the submission of a Christian to any existing form of government. It is a recognized axiom: the gospel does not abolish governments, but affirms them. There can only be talk of a sovereignty of the people, where either there is as yet no government at all or where it is sanctioned by a special state law as in pure republican states. But where there is a non-republican constitution of state, there the people have either never had sovereignty or have entirely or partially lost it, and cannot seize it again without militating against God’s ordinance. To rebel against existing governments, to do away with them and make new ones under the pretext of the sovereignty of the people, is nothing other than a revolt condemned by the word of God.
5. The theory of inalienable human rights further strives against the teaching of Holy Scripture concerning bondservanthood [Leibeigenschaft]. Even if the entire present cultured world should shudder and tremble with utmost horror at the name of bondservanthood, or slavery as it is called here, the fundamental law stands nevertheless firm for Christians: what Holy Scripture does not call a sin, that must not be called a sin by them, even if the entire world called it so. The Apostles who were inspired by the Holy Ghost never made it a sin for Christians to possess servants or slaves, although they admonish them to treat them in a Christian manner, and furthermore, they never permit the servants or slaves to emancipate themselves by their own power, but admonish them, if they are Christians, to remain in their unfree condition, to show obedience and patience, and thereby to adorn the gospel.
If there were really inalienable human rights, and if political and civil freedom were among them, then it would be robbery to possess slaves, and every slave would have the right and the duty to assert his rights and to emancipate himself. But where is there anything of the sort in Holy Scripture? Abolitionism, the child of that doctrine of the rights of man, must of necessity strike out at the face of Holy Scripture, as it does in its fanatical representatives and dares to throw away Holy Scripture merely on the basis that it does not stand on its side, or it seizes upon hypocritical ways to twist the places in scripture that deal with slavery and declares that when scripture teaches differently than it imagines, it is permitted to ignore it. Proof enough what spirit’s child abolitionism is.
6. It is the aping and disfiguring of the evangelical teaching of freedom and equality in Christ. Whence the manifest unbelievers, deists, and materialists may have borrowed their ideas of freedom and equality, whether from biblical reminiscences or from Plato, or from their own mind, we are little interested to discover; but it is a fact that many who confess the Christian name have taken up these ideas for themselves, in the delusion of finding harmony between them and the teaching of the gospel regarding freedom and equality in Christ. It is known that in the year 1525 the peasants in Thuringia demanded freedom from serfdom [Leibeigenschaft], supposedly because they had been made free through Christ, and the puritanical zealots [Schwärmer] in the Old and New World repeat this abolitionist reference to Christian freedom to the point of disgust; even Germany’s well-known Lutheran theologians know of no more striking reason to oppose American slavery than Christian freedom. Such an uncouth mistaking of Christian and civil freedom would be inexplicable if we did not know that the natural man does not accept what is of the spirit of God. Just as the Jews made the kingdom of their messiah into a worldly kingdom from which they expected nothing other than bodily relief from the yoke of the Romans, these enthusiasts [Schwärmer] likewise drag the evangelical freedom and equality in Christ down into earthly political things and show that they have no idea of the spirituality and splendor of the kingdom of Christ.
It is a precious, comforting truth that whomsoever the son makes free, is free indeed [John 8:36] and that in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female [Gal. 3:28]; but this freedom and equality in Christ in no way implies an equally free position in civil and political life, just as the poverty of the latter in no way removes or diminishes the former. The freest man in the world, if he is no Christian, is the most miserable slave to himself and to sin, to say nothing of the devil, and the least free slave, if he believes in Christ, is a freedman of the Lord and possesses a freedom which infinitely outshines all civil freedom and bondage. Luther expresses this very beautifully:
Christians are all alike in Christ. Before the world inequality must remain, that the father is more than the son, the lord more than the servant, that the king and prince are more than their subjects. God will have it so, who has prescribed and ordered the estates in this way. Whosoever would make equality here, that the servant should be worth as much as his master, he will set up a very praiseworthy rule, as was seen under the riotous peasants. Even if things in the world were as unequal as they possibly could be, we should nevertheless take comfort that, however high or low our estate is, that we all together have one Christ, one baptism, one gospel, one Spirit, that nobody has a better gospel, a better baptism, another Christ, than the lowest servant and the lowest maid. (Hauspostil for the Sunday of Septuagesima)
And to the rebellious peasants claiming Christian freedom, he replies:
There should be no serfs [Leibeignen] because Christ has made all free? What is this? That would be to make Christian freedom entirely carnal. Did not Abraham and other Patriarchs and Prophets also have bondservants [Leibeignen]? Read St. Paul, what he teaches about the servants [Knechten], who were all bondservants [Leibeigne] at that time. Therefore this article is directly against the Gospel and it is robbery, that everyone takes away his body, which has become property, away from his master. A bondman can very well be a Christian and have Christian freedom, just as a prisoner or sick person is a Christian, and yet is not free. This article would make all men free, and make a worldly external kingdom out of the spiritual kingdom of Christ, which is impossible. For a worldly kingdom cannot exist unless there is inequality in persons, that some are free, some imprisoned, some are masters, and some are subjects. (Refutation of the 12 Articles of the Peasantry)
From this last piece it is as clear as daylight how unjust and absurd is the accusation by the Romanists and by some Romanizing Protestants, which even Leo in his textbook of universal history gives, that the development of revolutionary civil rights theories has been the entirely necessary and inevitable consequence of the Reformation. Nobody has taught to respect the estate of government higher than Luther himself. The cause of revolutionary theories and movements is to be sought not in the Reformation, but in the apostasy from it.
7. It is the offspring of unbelief and of human reason tearing itself away from God’s word. It will suffice to point to the biographies of those who invented, developed, defended, and disseminated this theory. To say nothing of the worldly-wise philosopher Plato, who is to be regarded as the forefather of this theory, although he wanted rather to give a fantasy painting of the state rather than an seriously intended doctrine of state, but just with this he proved how far human reason left to itself can go; but it was especially the deists, atheists, and materialists of the last three centuries, who have hatched this basilisk egg and raised the spawn to maturity. The English deist Thomas Hobbes, who died in 1679, who declared the gospel of Christ to be an oriental fantasy and a mere tool of politics was the one who, in his famous Leviathan, laid down the statement out of which he deduced the origin of the state: Nature gave everything to everyone. From this principle— already in itself false— he reasoned further: there are two undeniable postulates of human nature, one is natural greed according to which everyone seeks to make his own that which is for all in common, the other is natural reason, according to which everyone seeks to avoid a violent death as the greatest evil of nature. Thus the original state of men is a war of all against all. In order to end this war, the head of the state exists, whose will must be held to be the will of the men themselves on account of the contract of several men so that the powers and abilities of individuals may be used for peace and common defense. It is remarkable that Hobbes was a defender of absolute monarchy and also wanted to have the church subject to the will of the head of state.
John Locke, who died in 1704, the author of the piece: The Reasonableness of Christianity, with which he paved the way for deism, was the one who, in his Two Treatises on Government which appeared in 1690, laid down the statement: all power has its source in the people; but by the people he understood the individuals in their atomistic state as a numerical mass. It has been said, not without reason, that the Koran has not spread greater misfortune over the earth than this work of Locke’s. Anthony Collins, who died in 1729, the English Freethinker, who was occupied with refuting the proof of the truth of the Christian religion from the prophecies, was Locke’s friend and successor in his theory of the state.
Jean Jacques Rousseau, who died in 1778, the nature-idolizing hater of all positive religion, who praised himself happily at his end, that he was aware of no sin, was the one who in his writing: The Social Contract, which first appeared in 1772, further developed Locke’s lie, and became the father of modern humanitarianism and thus giving life to a host of theories of human dignity, human rights, human freedom, human equality, human brotherhood, and human happiness.
We could enumerate a long list of such men; but it suffices to say that the very fact that it has become the creed and watchword of all contemporary unbelievers of all shades and gradations, from rationalists down to materialists and atheists, must arouse the most serious prejudice against this doctrine of human rights. So closely are unbelief and this doctrine connected with each other. Proof enough of what esteem it deserves. Given a bad tree, the fruit will also be bad, says the Lord (Matt. 12:23).
8. Finally, this theory, when put into practice, is the fruitful mother of uprisings and revolutions, as is taught by the history of the English Revolution in the seventeenth century, of the American and French Revolutions of the eighteenth century and the German Revolution of 1848; for, that these upheavals were not mere outbreaks of the wrath of the people against an unbearable tyranny on the part of the aristocracy, but primarily fruits of the seed of revolutionary humanitarian ideas of revolution sown among the people, is easy to prove from the history of those times. In direct contradiction to its own promises of happiness, it destroys precisely the happiness of humanity. If the happiness and life of only one person or one family would suffer as a result of revolution, then the harm caused would already be disproportionately greater than the supposed advantage that it would bring, which is really just an empty fantasy; how much more so, when thousands and millions lose their property, happiness, and lives by it?
That great advantages for the land and especially for the later generations have grown up out of the American Revolution, cannot in itself justify the Revolution. God has not sanctioned the revolution thereby, but has only proven that according to his wonderful goodness and wisdom he can create something good out of something evil. And what bitter fruits the ever-growing unchristian ideas which lie at the root of the American Revolution are yet to bring forth according to God’s righteous judgment, perhaps only the future will teach.
“Slavery, Humanism, and the Bible”: Selections from Lehre und Wehre
By C. F. W. Walther, 1863 Translated by Erika Bullmann Flores, 2000 Revised by Old Lutherans, 2023
The following selections were from several issues of Lehre und Wehre (Doctrine and Defense), published in St. Louis in 1863; all of the articles translated in this paper are from Volume (Jahrgang) 9. They have been pieced together for ease of reading. The first two articles were published in several issues of Lehre und Wehre and are joined together here for clarity. Where the articles spanned issues is indicated by a horizontal line. Bible quotations are from The New English Bible, Oxford University Press, 1971.
It is an irrefutable fact that humanism has not only supplanted Christianity among a large part of the current population, it has also infected Christian theology in its very inner core, has poisoned and weakened it. We define humanism as the belief in a human ideal, the belief that man within himself has the ability to develop into a state of completeness and achieve happiness. Therefore, in order to reach this ideal state nothing else is needed than to grant each person as much room as possible to develop freely and without restraint. Freedom and equality, equal rights, equal possessions, equal enjoyment and pleasure, are thus the goal of man’s striving, the attainment of which will eradicate poverty and suffering from this earth. Happiness will have found its domicile on earth; there will be heaven on earth.
This humanism is as old as the fallen world itself. As soon as man had fallen away from God, he became aware of the bitter consequences of his sin, of the curse under which God had placed this earth because of him. Despite all that still had remained for man, he felt dissatisfied, unhappy, and wretched. However, instead of recognizing his sin as the cause of his wretchedness, seeking to return to God and His help, he saw the consequences themselves as the cause, and deemed that he could achieve happiness by gaining what this world has to offer.
Therefore, the church’s antithesis of this humanism in the world of unbelievers is as old as the church itself. Already during the first world Cain’s unbelieving race sought their salvation in exploitation of the earth (Gen. 4:16-22), while the believing race of Seth (though already diminishing in numbers) renounced worldly happiness and possessions. They sought their salvation in the proclamation of the name of the Lord, that is, the promise of the one who would smash the head of the serpent and all evil, in the promise of the coming redemption from sin, death and hell, upon which they based their hope for eternal life, happiness and salvation (Gen. 4:25-26). We find the same conflict in the race after the flood. Paganism evolved which made creatures and things of this world the object of its utmost desire, to the point where it elevated creation, i.e. the creature, itself as its god and its final refuge. Meanwhile, the church— through Abraham— considered itself to be an earthly pilgrim, was waiting for a city whose builder was God and continued to seek its promised heavenly home. When finally the one whom all the prophets referred to as “the comforter of all heathens” appeared, the Jews, lost in their earthly anticipations, expected to hear from the mouth of the promised one nothing other than the pronouncement of the start of a complete, happy age. When he, the hope of all people, opened his mouth, they heard: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” They had expected to hear: “Blessed are you, for now you shall become rich.” Instead they heard the opposite: blessed are they, regardless of their worldly riches, whose spirit and heart is poor, those who are rich as if they were not, and those who are poor consider themselves rich (Matt. 5:3, cf. Luke 6:20, I Cor. 7:29, II Cor. 6:10).
Though Christianity is directly opposed to humanism, we find this concept accepted and practiced by name-only-Christians throughout the centuries. In the history of our Christian church we are confronted with numerous pages where the most consequent humanism is theoretically presented as the only right belief and openly and freely confessed. The grossest depiction of it appears during the 14th century among certain groups of The Brothers and Sisters of Free Spirit, especially the Turlupines, the Adamites and the Luciferians, who express their common theory thus:
Everything which is done in love is pure, because the spirit which is God dwelling in us cannot sin; neither can worldly desire damage the spirit. On the contrary, it redeems by disintegrating marriage and property and the feeling of uncleanliness resulting from unnatural fissure.[2]
It was this spirit which was apparent during the time of the reformation among the farmers of Swabia and Thuringia— under the leadership of Thomas Münzer; among the Anabaptists under Jan von Leide, and the Libertines of Switzerland. It was no other spirit but the spirit of humanism which promised Adam heaven on earth, promised to relieve him from his earthly burdens, thereby making all men into abolitionists and communists, with equal rights and possessions, making all superiority in these things a punishable transgression. Though the first two of these groups base their humanism on doctrine and promises of Christian revelation, and the latter on a pantheistic system, the underlying spirit is the same. For instance, the farmers stated in their “Twelve Articles”:
3) It has been the custom that we were considered property, which is abominable, in view of the fact that Christ has redeemed and saved us with his precious blood, the lowly shepherd as well as the highest placed, none excluded. Therefore Scripture tells us that we are to be free. 4) It has been the custom that no poor man has the right to game, birds, or fish in the water, which seems to us to be entirely unseemly and unbrotherly, selfish and not at all in accord with the word of God… When God, the Lord, created man He gave him dominion over all creatures, over the birds in the air and fish in the waters, Gen. 1:28, 30. God the Lord created animals for man’s free use. (Luther’s Works, Walch, XVI, 26, 27)
Münzer expressed what these articles demanded with the words “Omnia simul communia” which means all things should be communal and distributed according to need and ability. It is understood, of course, that with this new “order” there was no mention of rulers and lords. Ranke explained:
The concept was that since all are the children of one God, and all have been redeemed by the blood of Christ, it followed that there should be no more inequality in possessions or rank. Münzer preached everywhere about the liberation of Israel and the establishment of a heavenly kingdom on earth.[3]
At that time, what was the position of the church? It certainly did recognize the misuse of power by the privileged classes which had driven the oppressed into desperation and delusion. The church declared the farmer’s rebellion to be a well-deserved, divine punishment, and demanded that oppression of the poor and the tyranny against subordinates cease. It called for improvement of the shamefully flagrant, social and civil conditions of the underclass. However, the church did not succumb to the temptation to perceive the distinction between master and servant, sovereign and vassal, rich and poor, as incompatible with the Gospel. The church, together with its attempt to change these conditions, denounced with a loud voice the wrongful application and explanation of the Gospel of Christ and His Kingdom.
Pertaining to the first point, Luther wrote in his Ermahnung zum Frieden auf die zwölf Artikel der Bauernschaft in Schwaben, (Admonishment to Peace on the Twelve Articles of the Swabian Farmers), written in 1525:
First, we can’t blame anyone here on earth for this rebellion other than you lords and sovereigns, especially you blind bishops, mad monks and clergymen. To this day you are determined and do not cease your efforts against the Holy Gospel, even though you know that it is the truth and you cannot contradict it. In addition, in your worldly administrations you do no more than abuse and lay on taxes so as to increase your own glory and arrogance, until the common man can no longer endure. Know this, dear lords, God is making it so that your fury cannot nor will it be tolerated any longer. You must change your ways and accept God’s word. If you don’t do this willingly, others will do it for you in a destructive manner. If the farmers don’t do it, someone else will. Even though you may slay them all, they are undefeated, God will call forth others. For he wants to slay you and He will slay you. It is not the farmers, dear lords, who are opposing you, it is God Himself who seeks to destroy you and your madness.
However, after Luther spoke in this and similar manner to the lords and preached to them the Word of God, he turned to the subordinates, the farmers, and chastised their rebellion. Among other things he said:
What, there is to be no serf because Christ has redeemed us all? What is this? This means that Christian liberty is turned into liberty of the flesh. Did not Abraham and other patriarchs and prophets own serfs? Read what St. Paul has to say about servants, who at that time were all in bondage. Therefore this article is directly opposed to the Gospel and it is rapacious, for everyone who is a bondman to remove himself from his master. A bondman can very well be a Christian and have Christian freedom, just as a prisoner or sick person can be a Christian, but yet is not free. This article proposes to make all men equal (This is literally what Luther says in the original—“alle Menschen gleich machen.” I wonder why the American edition would alter the sense.) , and turn the spiritual kingdom of Christ into a worldly one, which is impossible. For a worldly kingdom cannot exist where there is no class distinction, where some are free, some are prisoners, some are masters, and some are vassals, etc. As St. Paul says in Gal. 3:28, that in Christ both master and vassal are one. (See also XVI, 60, 61, 85, 86.)
Luther’s coworkers were in agreement with him. Amongst other things, Melanchthon writes in his Schrift wider die Artikel der Bauernschaft (“Statement Against the Farmers’ Articles”):
It is wanton and violent that they do not want to be bondmen. They are citing Scripture, that Christ has freed them. This pertains to spiritual freedom: that we are assured that through Him our sins have been forgiven without our own doing, and that henceforth we may look to God’s blessings, that we may beseech Him and be hopeful; that Christ poured out the Holy Spirit on those who believe in Him so that they may oppose Satan and not fall under his power like the godless whose hearts he has in his power. He forces them to commit murder, adultery, etc. Therefore, Christian freedom is of the heart, it cannot be seen with the eye. Outwardly a Christian submits joyfully and patiently to all worldly and social order and makes personal use of it. He can be a bondman or a subject, he can avail himself of the Saxon or Roman law regarding the division of goods. These things do not, however, influence the faith, indeed, the Gospel demands that such worldly order be maintained for the sake of peace. Paulus writes in his letter to the Ephesians 6:5-7: “You slaves, obey your masters with fear and trembling, with a willing heart, as serving Christ, not merely with outward show of service to curry favor with men, but as slaves of Christ, do wholeheartedly the will of God.” And in Colossians 3:22, he writes: “Slaves, give entire obedience to your earthly masters… Whoever does wrong, will receive what he has done wrong.” Joseph too was a slave in Egypt for a long time, as well as many other saints. Therefore, the farmer’s demands have no basis, indeed, it seems necessary that these wild, insolent people as the Germans are, should have less freedom than they have now. (See also 48, 49)
So writes Melanchthon, the one so finely educated by humaniora, the humanist in the best meaning of the word. He was at the same time, however, an obedient and humble Christian, and a theologian who saw through the false wisdom of the blind world which concerns itself only with matters of the flesh.
This battle by the Church was not in vain. The terrible flames which would consume the entire social and governmental order of Germany, threatening to leave behind nothing but the terror of destruction, soon died down and after some time extinguished completely. However, humanism, which wants to be independent of God and men, wants man to renounce the happiness and life to come as something which is dubious. It wants man to find within himself such happiness as will surely change the earth into heaven and promise equal happiness to all. This humanism is the chiliasm of the secular world; it is its religion. It always appears with force wherever Christianity waivers. When at the end of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th century Deism raised its head in England, moved on to France and finally was exported to Germany, there were many heralds of humanism. Rousseau stands out as a proponent of humanism. It was he who first expressed the idea that man by nature is pure and good, and that in order to achieve happiness, he needs to leave all that is unnatural and return to nature, to himself, to become human again. He spoke in a truly magical manner which, like a sweet poison, saturated the hearts of millions.[4] This idea developed into the evermore common theories of undeniable, inherent human rights, of inherent freedom and equality, that only the democratic-republican constitution as well as the socialist and communist theories of the “new times” were acceptable. These theories came to fruition in the world-shaking catastrophe of the first French revolution whose well-known slogan was “freedom, equality, and brotherhood.” They incorporated these tenets in their constitution of 1791 as the basis for their model state, and proclaimed that “human rights” was the most important principle of all state laws. It is known what pinnacle of human and national happiness this grand humanistic experiment did achieve. It was a happiness in which all of hell’s murderous spirits triumphed over the world with their demonic laughter against humanity itself, which caused terror even among humanists abroad.
Nevertheless, these first seeds of humanistic theories germinated, grew and were nourished, first through the German rationalismus vulgaris and then the German pantheistic and materialistic, philosophical systems. Communism or some other form of ochlocratic state, abrogation of all monarchies and the church, extermination of all nobility and proclaimers of Christianity and all religions (whom they refer to as Paffen[5]), that is what these public speakers of the race are presenting as the ultimate national happiness. They refer to it as the beginning of the golden age, as predicted down through the centuries by all prophets of the human spirit. The masses who have fallen away from God and who are renouncing their hope for eternal life, the masses who have been charmed and deluded, upon them they are trying to inflict brutality and bestiality as humanity.
In this respect, how is our America doing? The founding of our union occurs exactly at the time when humanism was in its youth and had the attraction of something new. In addition, it seemed to furnish the only basis for a new republican state, which obviously could not become a reality without absolute freedom of religion. Thus humanists like Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, and others gained immense influence, not only in the formulation of our government, but also in the ideas, concepts, and views of the people. These elements of destruction and dissolution were greatly strengthened during the last decades by whole hordes of men with revolutionary tendencies. None of them acknowledge God and eternal life, for them earthly life is the only goal of human existence. They see the beginning of common human happiness in the realization of their tenets of common freedom and equality.
Especially during recent years, Christian communities have had to face trial by fire. But, to put it bluntly, they have not passed this trial. Not that the American theology— if we want to mention it— has only just now succumbed! It has been quite obvious for some time, that in addition to the various sects with their false teachings, many humanistic ideas and efforts of the modern world have found their way into Christianity. Wherever in the old world there was a revolutionary movement against a monarchy, the religious press here has announced their support of the rebels. Wherever atheistic journalists and their correspondents reported wrong-doing by a European sovereign, they have busily claimed that this was further evidence that only under a republican constitution the masses could achieve happiness; that the model republic for the entire world was the American one, and that the world was yet to enjoy freedom and happiness under such an ideal constitution. Participation in temperance agitations has almost become a test of godliness among the believers. Reverends of all so-called denominations are members of all lodges. They not only assert their freemasonic, deistic philanthropism in the hidey-holes of their meetings, but also from their pulpits, their publications and their administrations. Not one important discovery or invention is made which is not shown by the local theologians as new proof of the grandeur, the fruitfulness, the creative and all-overcoming power of the human intellect, and as actual evidence that finally the age of progress and enlightenment has come. Earlier centuries are denounced, with great pride and self-complacency, as times of darkness, superstition, barbarism, and subordination. The local theology is carried along by this stream of fashionable, current opinions. They do not even shy away from serving movements who are obviously nothing other than affirmation of the spirit of these days; movements which are quite easily such that one can perceive them as the beginning of the world’s terrible, final drama of the battle of the anti-Christian powers against the estates of state, church, and home.
The question about slavery has been foremost in the hearts and minds of many. In following issues, we intend to deal with this question. Of course, not as it relates to political issues, for we have nothing to do with that, but as it relates to Christian-religious morals.
Before we discuss the agitating question of slavery, we wish to reiterate that we are not concerned with emancipation, which for political reasons is being considered by the government, for this is not a theological issue. For us Christians here too the word of God applies: “Be subject to those who are in authority over you.” What we are dealing with here is the question whether slavery itself, that is, the relationship between slave and master, is a sin; or does sin adhere to this relationship merely in concreto, as all relationships between sinful men, for instance between poor and rich, seller and buyer. Is therefore slavery a sin which must be unconditionally opposed, or should Christians concentrate on doing away with the connected sinfulness, so that the relationship between slave and master is according to God’s will and order, according to the laws of justice, fairness, and love.[6] We therefore hold that abolitionism, which deems slavery a sin and therefore considers every slave holder a criminal and strives for its eradication, is the result of unbelief in its development of rationalism, deistic philanthropy, pantheism, materialism, and atheism. It is a brother of modern socialism, Jacobinism and communism. Together with the emancipation of women it is the rehabilitation of the flesh. As proof of this blood-relationship it suffices to point not only to its history, but also to the close union between abolition-minded representatives of Christianity and the abolitionist tendencies of anti-Christians and radical revolutionaries in church, state, and home. The more their non-religiosity increases and reaches the pinnacles of theoretical atheism and indifferentism, the more fanatically they fight for the principle of slave emancipation. Often they have no economic interests and even oppose those who do. Therefore, a Christian abolitionist, who finds himself in the company of such as these, should become aware of the wrong path he has chosen. How could it be possible that these enemies of Christianity and religion per se, all those who are intent on doing away with the existing religious, political, and economical order of things to realize their humanistic utopia, that especially they would be so enthusiastic for something good and holy, for “the final reason of Christianity” and so greatly exert themselves? Can a Christian accept that now, in the 19th century, Christ’s word has come to naught through progress, enlightenment, and civilization? “Can grapes be harvested from thorns, or figs from the thistle tree? A rotten tree does not bear fruit.” We can only pity those Christians who have forgotten all this and with best intentions, in the desire to work for a Christian-humane purpose, have allied themselves with the enemies of Christendom, and have come under the banner of anti-Christian humanism and philanthropy, thus having lent themselves as mediums of the spirit of the age.
However, we do not demand that these our erring fellow-Christians be satisfied with these á priori reasons. Regarding questions of morals or religion, Christians do not acquiesce until they have the answer to the question: “What is written?” They are ever mindful of the words of the prophet: “Yes, according to the law and witness. If they do not say this, they will not see the sun rise” (Is. 8:20). The Christian’s thoughts are as Solomon’s: “A man may think that he is always right, but the Lord fixes a standard for the heart” (Prov. 21:2). Therefore, he “gladly compels every human thought to surrender in obedience to Christ” (2 Cor. 10:6). When man has found the clear witness of Scripture, even though it may go totally against the grain of his own intellect, heart, and his entire view of the world, he will say together with Christ: “Scripture cannot be set aside” (John 10:36). For such Christians then, who are Christians according to John 14:23, 8:31, 32, 47, we will consult Scripture which alone is “the true fount of Israel,” which alone is the true guide upon which all doctrine and teachers are to be fixed and judged.[7]
In order not to commit any blunders, it is necessary that we agree with our opponents on the definition “slavery.” However, we do not know a better definition than the one rendered by the magister Germaniae, Melanchthon. It is found in the appendix to his examination of those who are to be publicly ordained and given the office of the ministry (1556). There he says:
Civil slavery, which is approved by God (as Joseph and Onesimus were slaves), is the lawful removal of the ability of ownership, the freedom to chose one’s vocation or employment, and to move from one place to another. (Corpus reformatorum, Vol. XXI, p. 1096)[8]
There is no doubt that Holy Scripture, Old and New Testament, deal with slavery in this sense. Though the word “slave” is not contained in our German Bible, the words “man-servant” (Hebrew Aebed, Greek Doulos) and “maid-servant” (Hebrew Amah or Schiphchah, Greek Doule) have the same basic meaning.[9] They are often used in reference to those without civil freedom, or to vassals, those whom we now refer to as “slaves.” That is why Melanchthon, in a citation from the New Testament quoted in the previous issue, translates the word Douloi with Leibeigene[10] and Luther himself often translated the Hebrew words Aebed and Amah with “man or maid-servant owned by another,” i.e. a slave (Gen. 47:19, 15; Lev. 25:39, 42, 44), and the Hebrew word Schiphchah with “maid-servant owned by another.” It is clear that this translation is correct, that the meaning of the words Aebed, Amah, Schiphchah, Doulos, and Doule mean nothing other than maid- or man-servants owned by another person, as is apparent by usage and context. Thus the servants of Abraham “men born in his household and those purchased from foreigners” (Gen. 14:14, 17:12) and the maid and man-servants are juxtapositioned with the “free” (Eph. 6:8; Gal. 4:30-31; 3:28; 1 Cor. 7:22). It is deceptive when the laity are told that whenever Scripture (especially the New Testament) speaks of maid- or man-servants it speaks of hired workers, which these days are called “maid or man servants.” The Hebrew and Greek languages have specific words for these, in Hebrew Sachir (from the root word Sachar = to hire out for wages). Compare Job 7:2; Lev. 19:13 (“a laborer”), Ex. 12:45 (“a hireling”), and the Greek Ergates in Matt. 10:10; 20:1 (“a worker”), or Misthotes in John 10:12 (“a hireling”).
What then do we read in Holy Scripture about slavery? Certainly it is not our intent to deal completely with every mention of slavery in Scripture. One can find relative instructions in every good, complete biblical archeology. It should suffice to highlight that which expresses God’s view of the morality and immorality of these political and economical issues.
The first mention of slavery we read in Scripture is the prophetic oath Noah utters over his godless son Ham, when he tells him that as a godly punishment his descendants shall be the slaves of slaves to his brothers (Gen. 9:20-27).
In the following we learn that almost all wealthy saints of the old covenant owned such slaves. According to Gen. 12:16, Abraham, the father of all believers, already acquired such servants in Egypt, and later we learn that he had 318 of these, able to bear arms, who were born in his house (Gen. 14:14). In the report about the institution of circumcision (Gen 17:12) slaves are mentioned which “were purchased from foreigners, not of your own seed.” Following that we read that Isaac (Gen. 26:12-14), Jacob (Gen. 32:6), Job (Job 1:3, 31:53), Solomon (Eccl. 2:7), and others, all had slaves, some of them in great number.
Further we read in the Holy Ten Commandments that slaves are to be considered as family members, whom the master bids obey just as he bids his children obey. The third commandment: “You shall do no work, neither your son, your daughter, your maid- or man-servant…,” and in the tenth commandment God Himself solemnly declares again blessing for all who will keep this commandment, and a curse for those who will not: “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his cattle, nor anything that is thy neighbor’s.” In the words of Ex. 20:17: “Do not lust after your neighbor’s wife, his man-servant, his maid-servant, nor his oxen, his ass, or anything which is your neighbor’s.”[11]
We also read that Moses, as commanded by God, established the law that convicted thieves, who were unable to make restitution for the goods they had stolen, could be sold into slavery (Ex. 22:3). In addition, the Israelites were allowed to purchase slaves, but with one condition: an Israelite sold into slavery to another Israelite for non-payment of debt had to be freed in the seventh year of his slavery. The Jewish people were to demonstrate also with their civil laws that they were free people of God, and because of the promised Messiah they were to retain their division into tribes until the coming of the Promised One. Thus the “slave” was to return to his father’s house, unless he chose not to be freed, in which case he had to remain as a slave “forever.” In regard to Hebrew slaves, it was also the law that if the freed slave had come into bondage without wife and children, he was discharged without wife and children. In these cases, they remained the property of the master (Ex. 21:1-6; Lev. 25:39-43).
For slaves purchased from heathens there were different rules. “Should you desire to own slaves, you shall purchase them from the nations round about you, from your guests and the foreigners among you, and from their descendants which they sired in your land. Those you may have to own, and your children after you, as your property for ever and ever, and shall have them as your slaves” (Lev. 25:44-46).
In this manner God defines the relationship between master and slave as a civil, physical, and temporal order. He reiterates this order by defining all manner of duties of the master to the slave, and the slave to the master. The master is to consider his slaves as family members and is therefore responsible for their spirituality (Gen. 17:12; 18:19; Ex. 20:10; Deut. 5:14; Ex. 12:44), not regarding them as free persons, but as slaves (Prov. 29:21), treating them with justice, fairness, and love (Job 31:13). Exodus 21:26-27 decreed that if a slave was brutally treated, where his master struck him and the slave lost an eye, the master was bound to set the slave free as a recompense for the lost eye. Servants and slaves were so tightly bound to the family that for instance, if the family was that of a priest, the servants enjoyed priestly privileges, even though a married daughter was no longer entitled to these privileges. We read in Lev. 22:10-12: “No one shall eat of the holy gift, nor may a stranger lodging with him nor his hired man. A slave bought by the priest with his own money may do so, and slaves born in his horse may eat of it. When a priest’s daughter marries an unqualified person, she shall not eat of the holy gift.”
The slaves themselves are under the obligation of honor, which includes love, loyalty and obedience towards their master. So says the Lord in Malachi 1:6: “A son shall honor his father, and a slave his master.” When the Egyptian slave girl Hagar ran away from her mistress after she had been chastised, the angel of the Lord, that is the Lord Himself, appeared to her and asked her: “Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?” She answered: “I am running away from Sarai, my mistress.” And the angel of the Lord said to her: “Go back to your mistress, and submit to her ill treatment.” In this manner God Himself decided when a slave girl tried to emancipate herself.
From all this we can conclude that according to Holy Scripture (here the Old Testament) God did not initially institute slavery or servitude as he did the state of matrimony or civil authority. Neither did He institute absolute monarchy, the class of the poor or any other social burden in life. Rather He deemed them punishment for sin itself and considered them as a “duty-relationship” based on the fourth commandment. Furthermore, he declared slaves to be the indisputable property of their master in the tenth commandment, in societies where such a relationship is lawful, just as He confirmed all other worldly and civil freedoms, burdens, rights, duties, ownership, etc.
We willingly agree, however, that if the Old Testament alone spoke of such slavery, there would still be room for the idea that the morality of such a relationship has not been proven beyond all doubts. The people of Israel received from God, through Moses, their civil laws. These civil laws, though, could not punish all that which is punished by “moral law,” the law of the eternal will of God Himself. Therefore, because of the wickedness of man a lot could not be held to be moral, but things were allowed which were directly in opposition to the “moral law” in order to maintain civil peace, based on the old axiom: aliud jus poli, aliud jus soli, “a different law for heaven, a different law for the earth.” One might think that this relationship between master and slave could fall into this latter category.
For instance, divorce was allowed, according to Deut. 24:1, with a letter of divorce “if the wife does not win her husband’s favor.” And yet, when the Pharisees referred to this passage, our Lord directed them to God’s institution of matrimony as the eternal valid order and added: “Moses allowed you to divorce your wives because of the hardness of your hearts. It was not like this in the beginning. I say to you: If a man divorces his wife for any cause other than unchastity, and he marries another, he commits adultery. And whoever marries the divorced woman, is also committing adultery” (Matt. 19:3-9).
Does the question of master-slave therefore also belong to the category which during Old Testament times were permitted, according to worldly law, but according to moral law and conscience were sinful and therefore punishable by God? Does it belong to those liberties which were only granted on behalf of the stiffnecked people but was not used by those who wanted not only to keep worldly law but also wanted to remain faultless in the face of God? Does this belong to the New Testament where only moral law is valid, and Old Testament dispensations have been canceled? The manner in which not only Moses, but other prophets of the Old Testament deal with this issue makes it quite clear that it does not belong into the latter category, but concurs with moral law. In order to achieve certainty, let us therefore search the New Testament.
Even though during the times of the apostles, under the Roman Empire, slavery was closely tied to the injustice of raiding by the envious and everlasting thirst for conquest of the Romans (often with the worst types of tyranny, where the masters had the right over life or death of the slaves, a right which was not withdrawn until Antonin), we never read that the apostles themselves denounced slavery as a sin against the law of “love thy neighbor.” Neither did they denounce the authority of Nero, despite this monster’s horrible abuse of his power. They do, however, emphasize the masters’ responsibilities. Thus writes the holy apostle Paul in his letter to the Christians in Ephesians: “You masters also must do the same by them (the slaves), give up the use of threats, remember you have the same master in heaven, and He has no favorites.” In a similar manner he writes to the Christians in Colossae: “Master, be just and fair to your slaves, knowing that you too have a master in heaven” (Col. 4:1). At the time, however, the same apostle admonishes the slaves to obey their masters. In his letter to the Ephesians, after having addressed children and parents regarding their duties to one another: “Slaves, obey your masters with fear and trembling, single mindedly as serving Christ. Do not offer merely the outward show of service, to curry favor with men, but, as slaves of Christ, do wholeheartedly the will of God. Give the cheerful service of those who serve the Lord, not men. For you know that whatever good each man may do, slave or free, will be repaid him by the Lord” (Eph. 6:5-8).
He uses almost the same words as he counsels the slaves in his letter to the Colossians in Col. 3:22-25. Paul also asks the bishop of Titus in Crete to remind the slaves: “Tell the slaves to respect their masters’ authority in everything, and to comply with their demands without answering back; not to pilfer, but to show themselves strictly honest and trustworthy; for in all such ways they will add luster to the doctrine of God our Savior” (Titus 2:9-10). He gives the same pastoral advice to Timothy when he writes to him: “All who wear the yoke of slavery must count their own masters worthy of all respect, so that the name of God and the Christian teaching are not brought into disrepute” (1 Tim. 6:1). Unanimous with Paul, because he is inspired and driven by the same Spirit, Peter writes, after having explained his basic principle: “Servants, accept the authority of your masters with all due submission, not only when they are kind and considerate, but even when they are perverse. For it is a fine thing if a man endure the pain of undeserved suffering because God is in his thought” (1 Peter 2:18-19). Thus Peter equals obedience and disobedience of a slave to his master to obedience and disobedience to authority per se, and declares the disobedient slave and the one who has incited him to be a rebel.
Who then can read all of this, in his heart accepting Holy Scripture as the word of God, and still consider the relationship of master and slave to be a sinful one, offensive to God’s will and order and to the spirit of the Gospel which therefore must be abolished? Is every slave owner a thief, a robber, and a denier of the truth and therefore guilty; and if he wants to be just before the eyes of God must he release his slaves? How could than the apostle give instructions to the masters, as he does, and how could the apostle demand from the slaves that they obey their masters “as Christ” and to “give them all honor,” even those masters who mistreat them, to submit to them for “the sake of their conscience”? Can one give rules and instructions to a thief and robber to treat that which he has stolen in a decent and righteous manner? Does one consider a thief and robber who has unlawfully set himself over us “with all honors” and submit even to those who mistreat us “for the sake of conscience”? Or does one want to believe that the holy apostles thought up such teachings only for political reasons, and for political reasons explained the duties of master and slave, based on the fourth commandment; that the Gospel actually condemns slavery and demands emancipation? Did they avoid this issue because they feared the power and rage of those in authority and did not want general unrest and change?
What Christian could speak in such a blasphemous manner of God’s chosen saints and His word? No, those who say of themselves: “We cannot agree with falsehood, neither do we pervert God’s word, rather we confess the truth and stand fast before God against the conscience of others” (2 Cor. 4:2); they cannot turn light into dark and evil into good for political reasons or fear of their fellow man. Had the Holy Spirit enlightened them that slavery is an immoral practice which is irreconcilable with the spirit of the Gospel, they would have boldly spoken out against it. They would have demanded its abolishment from all those wanting to be saved, without compromise, just as they have fought any other ungodly ways of the pagan and Jewish world. They would have demanded that they desist, or else lose salvation. They were under the command: “What I say to you in the dark, you must repeat in broad daylight; what you hear whispered, you must shout from the housetops” (Matt. 10:27). They had the promise: “However, when He comes who is the spirit of truth, He will guide you into all truth…” (John 16:13). And they knew that Christ “had not come to bring peace to the earth, but a sword” (Matt. 10:34), and to “light a fire on earth” (Luke 12:49) which would burn them too. And note, not fearing this sword and fire, they fearlessly “disclosed to them the whole purpose of God” (Acts 20:27). Therefore, far be it from every true Christian to suspect that these “chosen instruments” (Acts 9:15) who did not shrink from the fight with the whole word, namely the rich, would have agreed with the worldly view concerning slavery.
Had the apostles only admonished the slaves and bade them to be obedient and loyal to their masters, one might think that slavery was a cross to be borne patiently. To be a slave owner, however, would be incompatible with Christianity, such as a Christian is required to patiently endure the tyranny of a despot, but may himself not be a tyrant. However, as we have already learned, the apostles of the Lord did not only admonish the slaves, they also admonished their masters and instructed the latter not how to set their slaves free, but how to treat them properly. Even escaped slaves whom they converted, were sent back to their masters from whom nothing else was demanded but to accept them as their spiritual brothers (Philem. 10-19). It is quite clear that the apostles did not only address pagans and Jews, but Christians as well, as can be ascertained from a letter Paul wrote to Timothy, in which there is explicit mention of “believing” slave owners. It states: “If the masters are believers, the slaves must not respect them any less for being their Christian brothers. Quite contrary, they must be all the better servants because those who receive the benefit of their service are one with them in faith and love” (1 Tim. 6:2). It is not the intention of the Holy Spirit that the slaves of believers should get the idea: “My master is my brother in Christ, therefore I am his equal. Consequently he should free me, and I need no longer serve him.” To the contrary, they should think: “My master is my brother in Christ, before God I am his equal, he has no greater father in heaven, no greater savior nor spirit, no better mercy and justice, no greater hope, than I. So I will not concern myself with the physical inequality in which I find myself here on earth, but I will serve him all the better as a dear brother in faith.” In another letter the apostle writes: “For the man who as a slave received the call to be a Christian is the Lord’s freedman, and equally, the free man who received the call is a slave in the service of Christ” (1 Cor. 7:22).
It is noteworthy at 1 Tim. 6:1-2 that the apostle, after first having defined the duties of slaves—both those belonging to believers and non-believers—addresses Timothy himself with these words: “This is what you are to teach and preach. If anyone is teaching otherwise, and will not give his mind to wholesome precepts—I mean those of our Lord Jesus Christ—and to good religious teaching, I call him a pompous ignoramus. He is morbidly keen on mere verbal questions and quibbles, which give rise to jealousy, quarreling slander, base suspicions, and endless wrangles: all typical of men who have let their reasoning powers become atrophied and have lost grip of the truth. They think religion should yield dividends” (1 Tim. 6:2-5).
Truly, we cannot understand how a believing Christian can read this and still agree with the humanists of our times that slavery and serfdom are unjust. We assert that anyone who still has regard for God’s Word will be pierced by these words into his very heart. Anyone dreaming this modern world’s dream of abolition should perceive these words as God’s slaps, waking him from his dream. For here the apostle, in the Holy Spirit, explains in plain words that all he had said before, concerning the slave’s conduct towards his master, should be taught by every preacher of the Gospel; and that he who teaches otherwise is in the dark and knows nothing, no matter how brilliant he considers himself. Such a man, therefore, is to be avoided by the believing Christian! This must, therefore, be a matter of consequence and great importance, on which hinges God’s honor and man’s salvation. And so it is! For the Christian this is not merely a neutral, political issue. The question is not: Is it advantageous for a state, a country, a people, to lawfully abolish slavery? The question is: Does the law of love and justice demand that all people enjoy equal civil liberties and rights; is it right or wrong to use the existing civil law which enables one to exercise rights over another person; is it right or wrong to acknowledge and accept such a law? The question is whether the old canon—Evangelium non abolet politias—the Gospel does not remove political law—is a lie, and whether the Gospel demands civil equality. The question is whether Christian freedom, that is the freedom we received from Christ, is a physical, civil one; whether Christ was the kind of Messiah expected by the Jews, who would free his people from earthly oppression; whether the Gospel contains elements of rebellion which seek to do away with worldly law. The issue is whether the apostle’s words are the truth applied to all conditions: “Where there is authority, it is ordained by God.” According to the old logical principle Non variant speciem plusve minusve suam, (“more or less does not change the essence of a thing”), every other involuntary relationship of subservience especially in a monarchy where voters do not elect their leaders, would also be against the law of human rights. Furthermore, it is a question whether it is a sin to be rich while the neighbor is poor, and whether love and “inherent equal human rights” demands that the rich use his possessions to prevent the poor from falling into slavery and thus effect emancipation via sharing of goods.[12] It is a question whether he is a thief, who, though he lawfully acquired his possessions, cannot prove whether those from whom he acquired them legitimately owned them; whether all owners, based on the origin of their property, are thieves and should be treated as such. And finally it is a question whether the large number of saints mentioned in Holy Scripture in the Old Testament who owned slaves, were in reality tyrannical thieves of men, and whether Holy Scripture is the holy, eternal, unchanging word of God, or man’s composition to effect a quasi-godly approval of oppression and a product of papal lies and deceit (as claimed by atheists).
“What then,” comes the cry, “does the Gospel not demand compassion for the often terrible conditions of slavery? Does the Gospel demand that one remain unsympathetic to the tears and sighs forced from these slaves by inhumane masters? Does the Gospel not demand that at least one works on removing these horrible atrocities so often connected with slavery? Or does the Gospel cover all these obscenities, this total spiritual neglect, injustice, destruction of marriages, cruelty, etc., with a halo?” We answer: “Far from it!” We have already pointed to Gen. 18:19, 17:12; Exod. 20:10; Deut. 5:14; Ex. 12:44, 21:26-27; Job 31:13; Eph. 6:8-9; Col. 4:1, where it is shown how slaves are to be treated by their masters. We also remind of scripture which deals with abduction or selling of men into slavery and the punishment thereof (1 Tim. 1:10; Ex. 21:16; Deut. 24:7). To see to it that these godly rules are observed, especially by authority, this we consider to be the true task of each Christian who lives in a land where slavery is lawful. Such efforts, where slavery itself remains (in principle: Abusus non tollit usum, sed confirmat substantiam, “misuse does not abolish proper use but rather confirms the essence of a thing”), which would result in a Christian, just, loving, formulation of this political and economical condition which would honor God and serve man. Such efforts are worthy of the diligent efforts of the true Christian.
May this suffice as proof that slavery is not against Christian morals. In the following issues we intend to let our true theologians of old speak to this matter. Their comments will make clear that we have no hidden agenda underlying our protest against acceptance of the humanistic, revolutionary leaven into our Lutheran theology. We are merely concerned with the preservation of purity of our Lutheran, biblical theology. We have long since given witness privately, and in publications, of our opposition to the current political confusion and the dangerous abolitionist movements which are anti-Gospel and anti-Christ.
We come to the close of this year’s foreword by declaring our serious fight against the spread of humanism, which has already infiltrated our church with its deistic and atheistic concepts of philanthropy, as the most important issue for this year.
True to our promise, we are now citing some of our old scholars on the question of slavery. Quite properly, we start with Luther. He mentions slavery often, especially in his exegetical writings. In his explanation of Chapter 7 of 1 Corinthians, Paul’s words give him the necessary impetus. We quote:
1 Cor. 7:20-21: “Everyone should remain in the condition in which he was called. Were you a slave when you were called? Do not let that trouble you, but if a chance for liberty should come, take it.”
At another time Paul reiterates this counsel. At that time there were still many who were slaves, as still are to this day. Just as a spouse is to relate to the other spouse, which is also a form of slavery, so shall a slave relate to his master, if his master owns him. That is, his slavery is no hindrance to his Christian belief. Therefore, he should not run away from his master, but remain with him, whether his master is a believer or not, whether he is good or evil; except in cases where the master keeps or forces the slave from his belief, then it is time to escape and run. However, as mentioned above concerning a Christian spouse, that applies also to a Christian slave of a non-Christian master. “…But if a chance for liberty should come, take it.” Not that you rob your master of yourself, and run away without his will and knowledge. This does not mean that you should remain in bondage though you want to be free and your master is willing to set you free. Paul merely wants to inform your conscience so that you know how both these states are free in the sight of God— whether you are a slave or not. He does not want to deny you the right to become free, with your master’s agreement, rather to assure your conscience that you are equal in the sight of God, free to honor God. For Christian doctrine does not teach to steal another’s property, but rather to honor all commitments one has towards another.
Verse 22: “For the man who as a slave received the call to be a Christian is the Lord’s freedman, and, equally, the free man who received the call is a slave in the service of Christ.”
This means: It is all the same to God whether you are free or a slave; just as circumcision does not matter: none of these are a hindrance to faith and salvation. In this respect I might say: in matters of faith it is of no consequence whether you are rich or poor, young or old, handsome or unattractive, educated or uneducated, a lay-person or a cleric. Whosoever was poor when called into the faith is rich in the sight of God. Whosoever was rich when called into the faith is poor in the sight of God; whoever was young when called is old in the sight of God; whoever was unattractive when called is handsome in the sight of God. And vice-versa: The uneducated one is educated before God; the layperson is a cleric before God. All this is to show that our faith makes us equal in the sight of God, and that before God there is no difference between persons or class. Therefore here too: Whoever was a slave when called to faith is a freedman of God, that is, God values him the same as if he were free. And again: Whoever was a freedman when called to faith is a slave of Christ, that is, he is no better than the slave. It is as Paul said in Gal. 3:28: “There is no such thing as Jew and Greek, slave and freedman, male and female; for you are all one person in Christ Jesus.” For there is equal faith, equal property, equal inheritance and all is equal. So you might also say: “If a male has been called, he is female before God, and where a female has been called, she is male.” Therefore, the words “slave of Christ” do not refer to the service for Christ, but mean that he is a slave among men on earth, because he belongs to Christ and is subject to Him. Thus, he is equal to the freedman, and the freedman is equal to the slave, and yet he belongs to Christ because he is His slave.
Verse 23: “You were bought at a price, do not become slaves of men.”
What has been said here? Just now he taught that to remain a slave for slavery is no hindrance to the faith, and then he admonishes not to become a slave? Without doubt this is a statement against men’s teaching, which wants to negate such freedom and equality in faith and burden the conscience. It becomes clear that this is what he means when he says: “You have been bought at a price…” He is referring to Christ here, who has redeemed us from all our sins and laws with his own blood (Gal. 5:1) This redemption does not occur in a worldly manner, and it disregards all relationships men have with one another, such as between slave and master, husband and wife. These relationships all come to naught, for here something spiritual is happening, in the knowledge that before God we are no longer bound by the law, but we are all free of it. Before we were prisoners of sin, but now we are without sin. Whatever worldly obligations or freedom remain, however, are neither sin nor virtue, they are merely external comfort or discomfort, sorrow or joy, just as other worldly possessions or unpleasantries. With either of them we can live freely and without sin.
Verse 24: “Thus each one, my brothers, is to remain before God in the condition in which he received his call.”
Here he reiterates for the third time the concept of Christian freedom, that all external things are free before God. A Christian may therefore use them as he likes; he may take advantage of them or leave them. Then he adds: “before God,” which means it is between you and God. For you are not performing a service to God when you marry or remain unmarried, are a slave or free, or become this and that, eat certain things only. Neither are you offending God if you do the one or the other. Finally, all you owe God is to believe and confess. Concerning all other matters He gives you the freedom to do as you want, without risk to your conscience. Neither does He care whether you release a woman, run away from your master or keep a promise. What does He care if you do these things or omit them? But since you are obligated to your neighbor by becoming his slave, God does not want to deprive anyone of his property by demanding freedom for another. He wants you to honor your commitment to your neighbor. For even though God does not care for His own sake, He does care for your neighbor’s sake. This is what He means when He says: “Among men or your neighbor I will not free you, for I do not want to take what is his, until he himself sets you free. But for me you are free and cannot come to ruin, whether you hold on to or let go of things external.” Therefore, note and understand this freedom properly, that the relationship between you and God is not like the one between you and your neighbor; in the former there is freedom, in the latter there is not. The reason for this is that God gives you this freedom only in what is yours, not what is your neighbor’s. Differentiate, therefore, between what is yours and what is your neighbor’s. For this reason a man cannot leave his wife, his body is not his, it belongs to his wife. And again. The physical body of the slave is not his own, but it belongs to the master. Before God it is nothing whether a man leaves his wife; for the physical body is nothing to God but has been freely given by God for external use. Only the inner faith belongs to God, but men must honor their commitment to each other. Sum total therefore: We owe no one anything except to love them and serve our neighbor with our love. Where there is love there is no danger of conscience or sin before God with eating, drinking, clothing, living this way or that— where it is not offensive to one’s neighbor. We cannot sin against God in this manner, only against our neighbor.
Now it must be noted that the word “call” here does not refer to position (status) into which one is called, as one says: matrimony is a position, the priesthood is a position, and so on, each has such a call from God. St. Paul is not referring to such a “call” here, rather he is speaking about the evangelical call which means: Remain in the call to which you have been called, that is, as the Gospel calls and finds you, there remain. If you are married when receiving the call, remain in that position; if it calls you while in slavery, remain in slavery into which you have been called. What then? If it is calling me while in a sinful position, must I remain therein? Answer: If you are in the faith and love, that is, you have received the Gospel’s call, do whatever you will, go on sinning; but how can you sin if you have faith and love, since by faith things are done for God and by love for your neighbor. Therefore it is impossible that you would be called while in a sinful position, remaining in it. However, if you so remain, you either have not been called or you have not perceived the call. For this call causes you to change from the sinful position to the devout one so that you cannot sin as long as you remain within the call. You are free before God by faith; but for man you are everyone’s servant through love. From this you can determine that monasticism and spirit-mongering are wrong for our times, for they join forces before God with external things, though God readily releases them they strive against faith’s freedom and God’s order. Again, they ought to be committed to man in that they lovingly serve everyone, yet they obtain their freedom and are of no use or service to anyone but themselves, striving against love. Thus it is a foolish people, reversing all of God’s rights, wanting to be free though they are committed, and committed where they are free, and yet aiming to obtain higher seats in heaven than the ordinary Christian. Indeed, they will be seated in the abyss of hell, they who perverted heavenly freedom into hellish constraints and made loving servitude into hostile freedom. (Walch Tom., IIXX, 1123-1130)
Melanchthon writes further:
Aristotle rightfully denounces those who, based on their unlawful and excessive desire for freedom, indict the type of slavery accepted by international law. However, we would be greatly more justified to indict the Schwärmerei of our times, who under the guise of the Gospel are calling people to freedom, insisting that slavery is against the Gospel. Since we have already discussed this matter quite often, let it suffice for now to remind the reader that just as the Gospel does not negate the command: “Honor your father and mother,” neither does it disapprove of masters or slavery, but rather confirms them by its witness and teaches that for the taming of the godless, human masters and slaves are necessary. And these things are being made use of by the saints, as well as other good creatures of God… The concept that according to natural law all is common is being explained in that it applies to man’s nature as it was before the occurrence of original sin. Speaking of the current condition, after the fall, we rightfully ascertain that the apportionment of things is a matter of natural law. And I do not agree with the assertion of the old lawyers that based on natural law all is common; for they are speaking of the current natural condition which indicates that apportionment of things is necessary. Thus they say: “According to natural reasoning that which previously belonged to no one will be apportioned to the one who takes possession.” This assertion teaches that based on natural reasoning one gains a thing by simply taking possession. Natural reasoning here means natural law. I am saying this in order to warn the reader not to be fooled by those declarations which praise those platonic communes which because of their newness tempt the uninitiated, giving opportunity for vast, destructive, errors. No other virtue adorns Christian cognizance more fully than when one conscientiously honors the state’s laws and its heads. Therefore statements which speak against public peace must be far removed from the Gospel. If someone says that community of goods is a godly law, let your reply be: “Thou shalt not steal.” For that command demands that everyone keeps that which is his. If someone insists that community of property is an evangelical prerogative, answer with St. Paul’s statement which refers to lawful orders of government as God’s order, Rom. 13:1. If someone argues that community of property is based on natural law, reply with the judgment of reason, proving that based on the sinful nature of man it is impossible to have property in common. For the slothful would want to be sustained by the labor of others, against natural law, which is validated by the words of Gen. 3:19: “You shall gain your bread by the sweat of your brow…” (Corpus Reformator, XVI, 426, 427, 432, 433)[14]
Luther writes about Johannes Brenz, whom he respected highly:
Among the Israelites, there were two systems of slavery. One concerned Israelites who were sold to other Israelites or to foreigners living among them. About these the law says: “When your brother is reduced to poverty and sells himself to you, you shall not use him to work for you as a slave. His status shall be that of a hired man or a stranger lodging with you; he shall work for you until the year of jubilee. He shall then leave your service…” (Lev. 25:39-41). Concerning those who sell themselves to foreigners, it says: “One of his brothers shall redeem him…” (v. 49). Shortly thereafter it says: “…you shall not let him be driven with ruthless severity by his owner. If the man is not redeemed in the intervening years, he and his children shall be released in the year of jubilee…” (v. 53-54). The other dealt with conditions for slaves which the Israelites purchased from foreigners or had taken as prisoners of war. There conditions were much more severe. Here the law says that “These may become your property and you may leave them to your sons after you; you may use them as slaves permanently” (v. 46). These never gained freedom, not even during the year of jubilee, except when their master released them or they were redeemed with money, or in cases of disability (see Ex. 31). One can thus see that the conditions for slaves were sometimes severe, sometimes more easily bearable. Though the experts of the law contend that slavery is against natural law, for according to natural law all men are at first born free. However, because of sin, slavery is one of the bonds with which those who are mentally weak are held to their duties; and those who are reckless and irresponsible are controlled.
Therefore, God does not condemn civil law where slavery is legal, as long as it is bearable and not in conflict with Love with which we are to treat our neighbors; where the master does not have the right to mistreat or kill the slave according to his own desires, treating them like beasts of burden, but must provide sustenance and discipline for the slave, as discussed by Syrach. The Holy Spirit Himself expressed that God does not abhor slavery among men, and that the wicked and wild must be held in check and punished with the yoke of slavery when He cursed Canaan: “Cursed be Canaan, slave of slaves shall he be to his brothers” (Ex. 9:25), and to Esau He said: “…the older shall be servant to the younger” (Gen. 25:23). And St. Paul says: “Every man should remain in the condition in which he was called for the man who as a slave received the call to be a Christian…” (1 Cor. 7:20-21). Elsewhere he admonishes the masters, not that they should set their slaves free if they want to be Christians— though this is allowed and would be a great mercy— but that they demonstrate justice to their slaves and to remember that they too have a master who is in heaven. (About Leviticus, Chap. I, p. 902, 903)
Brenz, the old, enlightened theologian, is very certain that the duty of the slave against his master is part of the fourth commandment. Instead of proving this, he uses it as proof. About Gen. 16:9 he writes:
Let us analyze what the angel is saying to Hagar, the slave woman. First he orders her to return home and obey her mistress according to the law. We can see from this that we are dealing with a good angel, for Satan’s angel does not teach lawful obedience, but unlawful rebellion and riots. (ibid)
Luther says about Caspar Cruciger, his co-worker on Bible translation: “His books are ample proof of the spirit in which he teaches and advances God’s word.”[15] Cruciger writes the following, among others, about 1 Tim. 6:
To instruct people of various social positions, St. Paul also instructs the slaves of their duties. Here we have to accept that the Gospel does not abolish civil slavery or the difference between freedmen and slaves. Indeed, as the Gospel confirms other political issues, so it also confirms freedom, dominion and slavery. Other testimony by St. Paul regarding masters and slaves must be viewed in the same manner, in opposition to that of the Schwärmgeister (those filled with the spirit of religious visions)[16] who strive to abolish dominion, property rights, slavery, and similar political orders. Without doubt, at the time of our church’s beginning there were some, wrongly informed, who had similar views, as if man ought not be burdened with slavery. These views caused dissension among the slaves. For these reasons St. Paul often repeats the relevant commandment, adding that they should not desecrate the Gospel. For men, upon hearing that the Gospel negates political relationships, become fearful of the Gospel and insult it. Even believers must diligently beware of such vexations. (In epist. Pauli ad Tim. Argentor, 1540, pp. 257-258.)
Martin Chemnitz, the well-known, incomparable, “Second Martin” (“Alter Martinus”) of our church, citing Scripture in his Loci dealing with the slave owner’s duties, continues:
However, the slaves’ duties are more carefully defined because their conditions are harsh, and seem unworthy of the Christian confession, in that those who have been freed with the blood of Christ should be under men’s yoke of slavery. St. Paul describes the obedience of slaves by first explaining that they are not in slavery as the result of chance or human oppression, but that God Himself has established these differences of occupation. Therefore they are to be obedient to their masters for thus they are doing God’s will, for God has in this manner given their (the slaves’) labors to their masters. Consequently they need not doubt that God regards these labors as if having been done for Him. (Loc. Th. II, 64.)
Friedrich Balduin, professor in Wittenberg (d. 1627), writes concerning 1 Tim. 6:1-2:
The apostle begins with the slaves, as his letters often do, especially those letters to Asian congregations, such as the Ephesians, the Colossians, and Timothy. He was compelled by five reasons.
There were many slaves in Asia who were well reputed, as Agesilaus, king of the Lacedaemonians, used to say that the freedman among the residents of Asia were wicked while the slaves were good. If these slaves were to be converted to Christianity, they needed to be instructed that though their worldly position was disdainful, it was nevertheless pleasing to God as long as they would diligently perform their duties according to their positions.
Hebrew slaves obtained their freedom after six years (Ex. 21:2). To prevent Christian slaves from demanding the same of their masters, they are commanded by St. Paul’s apostolic authority to be subject to their masters, as explained by Augustinus in his 77th question about Exodus.
Already at that time there were people who misunderstood the apostolic doctrine of Christian freedom, which frees from sin, death, hell, and other spiritual enemies. These people understood this to mean political freedom as if Christians are not subject to authority and sovereignty. This instruction was therefore necessary because the Gospel does not negate political law. This issue is treated by Chrysostomus in his 16th Homily, a commentary on this text.
Disgust expressed by the heathen had to be dealt with lest they become more repulsed by the Christian religion when they observed immorality even among the slaves. For the heathen did not base their judgment on words, but on works and conduct, says Chrysostomus in his fourth homily on the letter to Titus.
The lifestyles of the slaves themselves demanded repeated instruction of this kind, Chrysostomus continues. It was accepted as fact among all peoples that slaves were usually impudent, intolerant, spiteful, sly, and scarcely able to accept the doctrine of virtue; not because of their very nature, but because of their consociates and negligent lifestyle. Concerning morality they seem to have been totally neglected by their masters. For these reasons then the apostle often reminds the slaves of their duties.
In our text he gives them two rules: One pertains to those slaves whose masters are unbelievers; the other to those whose masters are believers. The first one: “Slaves are to honor their masters, so as not to revile the name of God and His doctrine.” Slaves are different from laborers, though. Laborers serve many. They are also called banausi and also thetes. The Athenisians called them thessae because they were low-class women serving for hire. Among these same Athenisians the “thetic” class was the fourth after the census which included tradesmen and day laborers which were excluded from holding public office and were exempt from tax.
Slaves, however, are those whose service has become the property of another. Of these it is said that they have either been born into this class or have been made slaves. Born into it because they were born by women slaves; made into slaves by political power, e.g., by being a prisoner of war or, as a freedman over twenty years old, who sold himself into slavery. The apostle is not talking about hired laborers here, because they are not owned by any one master, and are under the rule of 1 Thess. 4:6. “No man must do his brother wrong in this matter or invade his rights…” He is speaking of slaves, of whom he says are “under the yoke,” for they are not their own masters but tied to a master.
Slavery is indeed a yoke under which one suffers. It is a lowly and terrible state, for nothing is lower and more terrible than to be given to another as his own, and if one obtains something, it is obtained for the other. “Yoke” (zygos or zygon) is a pair of oxen, tied together. As a metaphor it relates to slavery. Plato speaks of the yoke of slavery, describing the hardship and misery of slavery. Those who are under the yoke of slavery are called by the apostle to “honor their masters.” He defines as “their masters” those who have authority over them, regardless of their social position or their religion, as long as they are masters of slaves. He wants these not only to be honored— something which is often against the slave’s will— he also wants them deemed to be worthy of honor, because God Himself has found them worthy of this honor, He defined the difference between slave and master. This is made clear in the fourth commandment which says to honor father and mother, names which also apply to our masters and all those who have been set over us. He refers to “all honor” which slaves owe their masters, for there is also an honor which is due only to God and which we exclude here, of course. This honor to which masters are entitled, is not only reverence, but all acts of kindness[17], and everything else which is not against God. The basis for this rule is: “So as not to revile the name of God,” namely among the heathens. For, as we said above, the heathens do not judge our belief by words, but by the actions and lives of men.
Homer writes about slaves in his Odyssey that they have lost half of all virtues, that slaves usually are evil and sly and are perceived as such. For these reasons, terrible punishments were devised by governments in order to curb this evil and increasing audacity. Therefore, says Chrysostomus in his fourth homily on the Epistle to Titus, once the heathens notice that such an impudent, insolent type of people are influenced by our religion and become controllable, honorable and humble, their masters will respect the tenets of our religion, though they (the heathens) may be ignorant and unreasonable. Obedient slaves can be of great service to our church. As Chrysostomus himself adds, the more wicked they once were, the more the power of the Gospel becomes apparent through them once they have become believers.
This is the other rule for slaves: “Those whose masters are believers ought not despise them because they are brothers, but rather be all the more of service to them because they are one with them in faith and love.” Converted slaves could have objected that all Christians are united by Christ, and therefore it is iniquitous that one assume authority over the other, or that one should become subservient to another. The apostle answers that Christians should not scorn their masters. The relation through Christ refers to the soul, the faith, word and sacrament, and salvation itself, where there is no difference between slave and freedman (Gal.3:28). However, concerning their vocation and social position, they are different. Therefore, they ought to be even more willing to serve those masters whom they know to be believers. These faithful he calls “brothers” of the church.
It must be noted here what Hieronymus said to contradict Helvidius towards the end. Holy Scripture uses the term “brothers” with four different meanings: based on nature, based on race, based on kinship, and based on affection. Based on nature, brothers are those with the same parents like Esau and Jacob; based on race such as all Jews (Deut. 15:12); based on kinship as Lot is referred to as Abraham’s brother. Brothers based on affection are divided into two categories— spiritual and general. In the spiritual sense all Christians are brothers, according to Psalm 133:1 “How good it is and how pleasant for brothers to live together.” In this sense then slaves become the brothers of their masters who are believers, because all people are of one father and therefore in brotherhood with one another. 1 Cor. 5:11 states: “I now write that you must have nothing to do with any so-called Christian who leads a loose life…” However, the apostle adds three reasons why slaves should obey their masters who are believers.
“Because they are believers.” Common faith works toward greater love, and the apostle advises elsewhere to do good works but first of all to those who are fellow believers (Gal. 6:10).
Because they are “loved.” The Greek word agapetos usually means a loved one or one who already is being loved by another. Hieronymus comments on the epistle to Philemon that it means the same as being worthy of love, because the run-away slave Onesimus is referred to as a beloved (agapetos) brother (v. 16), which means that he is worthy of love. Christian masters are loved by God, therefore worthy of the love of men. Others use the words “gentle, kind, not testy but affable.” All this is the result of the Christian religion, for the sake of which slaves are to honor these masters even more.
Because “they are the recipients of good deeds.” Chrysostomus relates these words to the slaves as if they receive more good from their masters than the masters receive from the slaves. However, because this is the same for slaves of believers and non-believers, this explanation does not fit. We tend to agree instead with Ambrosius who speaks of “God’s good deeds,” which is otherwise referred to as God’s mercy which He grants, through Jesus, to the slaves as well as to their believing masters. That is why some have added the word “God”: “They are recipients of God’s good deeds,” which is not found in the Greek text. Because all believers receive God’s mercy in Christ, no one is to scorn the other, nor should the believing slave deny his service to his master.
These are the rules for slaves. According to the apostle’s admonishment they should not only be taught, but also be impressed upon the slaves. It is in their nature to defy those masters whom they know to be their equal concerning spiritual blessings, against whom they easily rebel unless they are regularly reminded of their duties. He goes on to discuss false teachers, who either scorn certain doctrines concerning domestic life and therefore claim to possess superior wisdom and concoct new, but useless ideas, or are otherwise not sound in their faith. (Commentar. in Epp. Pauli Francof, 1664, pp. 1367-1369)
Michael Reichard, during a Latin disputation held in 1617 in Wittenberg, answered the question “Does slavery disagree with Christian freedom?” thus:
Erasmus of Rotterdam writes about Eph. 6:5: “Among the Christians the words master and slave seem to be scorned; for as baptism makes us all brothers, how then is it fitting for a brother to call the other ‘slave’”? However, it is quite wrong to mistake Christian freedom for civil freedom. We need to realize that man must be regarded in two vocations and social positions. First as a Christian and in fellowship with God, all of which relates to spiritual matters. Here of course is the highest measure of equality between masters and slaves, for in Christ we are neither man nor woman, neither slave nor freedman (Gal. 5:13); in love we serve one another. Such services were probably performed by men while in the state of innocence; as it is fitting that the younger obey the older and the inexperienced obey the experienced. Secondly, man is also viewed as a citizen, which pertains to matters of physical and external nature. Here there is a difference between freedmen and slaves, but neither does being a master increase Christian freedom nor does slavery decrease it. Christian freedom is not of external relations, nor is it part of civil law; but it belongs to Christ’s kingdom which is spiritual. Therefore, slavery can coexist with Christianity and Christian freedom as well as submission of children to their parents.
Politicians and theologians view the origin of slavery differently. The former are of the opinion (according to Plinius in the Seventh Book of Natural History, ch. 56) that the Lacedaemonians were the first Greek people (among which slavery was unknown for a long time, according to Herodotus’s witness in the Seventh Book) to espouse the concept of slavery; as it spread, the victor would not slay those whom he had actually captured (manu cepissent), keep them for himself (servarent) whereby they became servants (servi) and were consequently called slaves (mancipia). Horace refers to this in his Epistles, Book 1, Ep. 16 when he says: “If you can sell the prisoner, do not slay him” (“vendere cum possis captivum, occidere noli”).
The apostle Peter writes in 2 Peter 2:19 “…for a man is the slave of whatever has mastered him.” However, the origin of slavery accepted by theologians is much older. They refer to slavery as a consequence of sin, and rightly so. Man was made in the image of God, but it is God’s nature to rule, not to obey. Therefore it follows that it is not in man’s nature to be a slave. For this reason then, while in the state of innocence, men were not masters over men, for they willingly did everything in order to do the will of the Creator. However, after the fall all this changed, and soon dominion of men over men and the difference between master and slave developed as punishment for sin on both parties. For the master is subject to much toil and endless dangers. The slave must submit to another’s will, and neither of them lives his life without severe hardships. They are both suffering the just punishment from a just God. That is why Scripture mentions the first slave after the flood, Gen. 9:25 where Noah says: “Cursed be Canaan, slave of slaves shall he be to his brothers.” Ambrosius refers to this section of scripture in his Book of Elisha and Fasting, Chapter 5: “If there had been no dipsomania, there would be no slavery today.” That is why God Himself later on gave the law, defining the duties of slaves in the Hebrew republic (Ex. 21ff.). Based on these, the condition of our slaves is much more bearable.
All of this leads us to believe that slavery is a God-pleasing condition, ordered by Him; a condition under which everyone can live as best as possible and do God-pleasing works, even though there are enough tribulations. Some of these are because by nature we are not suitable for slavery, some of them are because we were born to pride and arrogance. It is much easier, though, to serve than to rule, especially if one deals with wicked, stupid, people. For these reasons we repeatedly read apostolic admonishments concerning slavery, such as Eph. 6:5; Co. 3:22; 1 Tim. 6:6; 1 Peter 2:18, and so on. (Quaestiones Illustres Ex Epp. Ad. Phil. et Col. Erutae Aut, F. Balduino, Disp. 8, Mich. Reichard. pp. 5-7)
III. A Later Lutheran Theologian About Slavery.[18]
We could refer to many more testimonials by old Lutheran teachers. The above, however, suffice to show to what conclusions they have come, concerning Christian doctrine and slavery. After having cited a number of these testimonials, we now turn to a newer theologian.
Dr. G. C. A. von Harless writes in his Ethics:
It is the relationship of Christian brotherhood under whose guise the slaves attempted to change the God-ordered difference between master and slave into a false equality; or, in the name of Christian freedom tried to replace Christian obedience with disobedience and rebellion. (Compare admonishments to the slaves by St. Paul and Peter: “If the masters are believers, the slaves must not respect them any less for being their Christian brothers. Quite the contrary, they must be all the better servants because those who receive the benefit of their service are one with them in faith and love” (1 Tim.6:2). “Servants, accept the authority of your masters with all due submission, not only when they are kind and considerate, but even when they are perverse. For it is a fine thing if a man endure the pain of undeserved suffering because God is in his thoughts” (1 Peter 2:18, ff.). The perverse attitude of the slaves is often met with the equally perverse attitude of the masters. They either think that they must yield their right over the slaves in order to demonstrate to them the concept of Christian brotherhood, or, under the pretense of their Christian rights, they harbor selfish and cruel harshness.
The spirit of Christ reacts against this self-delusion or deceit of all sorts. By His power we transfer to relationships within the family those principles with which we are already familiar, we realize that within the family too there is godly order and structure. These are not to be torn down but to be fulfilled, filled with the power of the spirit of Christ, which is a spirit of righteousness as well as of self-denying, merciful love. According to the apostle, in this manner then the slaves obey their masters “as serving Christ” (Eph. 6:5), and the masters forget the state of slavery in their treatment of slaves “as their brothers.” (See also Philem. 15)
Therefore, the form is not changed (1 Cor. 7:21), but everything is new through the spirit of Christ’s freedom, which gives the proper content to all earthly form, excluding all selfish misuse which is perversion of earthly form. (See also 1 Cor.7:22). (Christian Ethics, 5 ed., Stuttgart 1853, pp. 287, 288.)
Concerning Eph. 6:1 and following, he writes:
The apostle discusses the issue of slaves also in Col. 3:22ff; compare Tit. 2:9ff.; 1 Tim. 6:1 ff.; 1 Cor. 7:21 (where I accept the explanation of the Greek elders “if you can obtain freedom remain a slave,” as the right one, based on language and content), also on 1 Pet.2:18. The apostle shows that even under these conditions the power of the Gospel can be manifest in the individual, not by repulsion of slavery, but in that the curse of slavery turns into a blessing through ready obedience.
The Gospel does not abrogate external consequences and punishment for sin. First it waits to see if the contrite, unfettered heart can be turned around. Neither does it say to the Christian slave: “break your fetters.” It breaks the fetters for him in that it removes the master’s cruelty in his fear of a higher master. The repulsion of the slave turns into willing obedience towards him who is the lord of both slave and master. External slavery is neither a product nor a hindrance of the power of the Gospel’s truth. Once the truth takes over, whatever external issue does not agree with it will disappear on its own. It penetrates the roots of the dead tree and with renewed life-power it casts off the dead leaves. Human wisdom cleans the hard trunk of the dead leaves, making it more visible in its ugliness.
I cannot understand, however, how one can consider the concept “general(?) human dignity and human rights”[19] as the doctrine by which the Gospel abolishes slavery— defining it as a doctrine based on Gospel. Heathen antiquity already had this realization. “They are slaves? No, human beings. They are slaves? No, companions. They are slaves? No, fellow servants (conservi)” said Seneca. Antiquity does not lack good principles, suggestions for proper authority and proper service (“serve freely and you will not be a slave,” says Menander).
However, none of these realizations led to abolishment of slavery. Heathendom was not able to get beyond the following: “Every freedman is under a law, but the slave is under two, the law and his master.” That which caused slavery to remain slavery was done away with by Christianity, in that it gave one redeemer to both master and slave, where there is only brotherly love, no slave and no freedman (Gal. 3:28; Philem. 16), but all are one in Christ.
Faced with such a freedom, could the apostle advise to remain in earthly slavery? Or should he at least advise it (1 Cor.7:21) where the concept of Christian freedom was in danger of being misused for the flesh? It is evident that the ancient church did not use this section as perverted ascetics (compare Ignatius im Briefe an Polykarp, chapter 4), as also taught by Thedoret’s comments to 1 Cor. 7:21: “He did not mean this hyperbole to be a generalization, but saw its use in preventing escape from slavery under the guise of religion.” And the master remained master, and the slave remained slave, even though they had become brothers in Christ.
Notes:
Forward. “Vorwort,” No. 1, January 1863, pp. 1-8 and No. 2, February 1863, pp. 33-46. ↑
It seems that these brothers and sisters of the free spirit, with their ways of the flesh, free love, and communism, have already robbed our “young Germany” of the glory to have introduced something new, and impress on our era the stamp of emancipation. ↑
Cf. Ranke’s Deutsche Geschichte im Zeitalter der Reformation, 3rd. Ed., Ch. II, pp. 144-183 (German History During the Reformation). ↑
It is the same Rousseau who turned over his five illegitimate children to an orphanage, and on his deathbed declared that he was returning his soul to nature in as pure a condition as he had received it. ↑
Paffe = a cleric, referred to in a contemptuous sense. ↑
We are quite aware of what kind of antagonism we are inviting in that we are discussing the issue based on God’s word. We are quite aware of what terrible weapon against us we are placing into the hands of those who oppose slavery. However, the word and honor of God is higher than all else. What God has made known to us in His word, we will confess, for as long as God allows us to live, no matter how the world and its charmers rage against us or laugh at us. We are not conformists, rather we stand on God’s word. We know that ultimately God’s word and the truth will be victorious, and all who have fought against this word will see that they have fought against God himself, in vain. We see quite well that the wild waters of the new spirit will not be dammed. Unobstructed they flow their way, washing away all that now exists. We, however, do not want to throw ourselves into this stream and perish in it. We will raise our voices, though weak, and give witness against it, hoping for the day when it will be apparent that “God’s foolishness is wiser than man’s wisdom.” That day will grant, without doubt, that for which Christendom has prayed for nearly two thousand years. Amen! ↑
We are therefore inconsiderate of those who have themselves confessed that they will no longer accept the Bible as the word of God if it justifies slavery, but rather condemn it as a work of tyranny. It is clear that these have never truly regarded Holy Scripture as God’s word. Should this article prompt rebuttals, we will only deal with those who seriously consider our biblical explanations. Others, merely expressions of power under the influence of Zeitgeist, empty humanistic declamations or even malicious insinuations with political motives, will be disregarded, no matter how long or seemingly thorough they might be. According to Hamann “those with the emptiest heads have the loosest tongues and most prolific pens” (See Hamann’s Schriften III, 10). ↑
Immediately before that, Melanchthon defines civil liberty thus: “It is the physical ability, as decreed by law, to move one’s body in an honorable manner, from locality to locality, to freely elect an honorable vocation, to own property and to dispose of it at will, as well as enjoying lawful protection of person and property; while Joseph could not move his person from locality to locality neither could he take it away from his master. However, the emphasis is on ‘as decreed by law’ because freedom is not uncontrolled licentiousness. . .” (see also p. 1095). ↑
It is a given that these words also have other, related meanings, just like other words; and it is not important here. ↑
Translator’s note: Leibeigene means literally the proprietary right over the person of another, i.e. a vassal, bondman, or slave. ↑
Therefore Luther says about the ninth and tenth commandments in his Large Catechism, as can be found in our Book of Concord: “God has added these two, that it should be considered a sin; he forbade that one covet his neighbor’s wife or property, especially because under Jewish rule servants were not free to serve for hire, as they do now, but rather they were owned by their masters together with all they might have.” ↑
These latter consequences are readily understood by our radical men of rebellion. The same spirit which in Europe declared the rank of princes to be an outrage in this century, who strove to depose them and replace them with democracy as the only rightful order; this same spirit compels them here to denounce slavery as a degradation of free-born man. It drives them to communism, demanding women’s emancipation (though they quite clearly agree that the female, according to God’s order, is in a certain kind of slavery). Every Christian who aids these agitators concerning slavery, is in the service of this radical-revolutionary spirit. Horrified, they will find out that these contemporary revolutionaries will not be satisfied, that after having achieved once, they will determinedly go on. By then regret over the coalition with these men of radical advancement will be too late. ↑
“The Old Lutheran Scholars About Slavery.” “Die alten lutherischen Lehrer über Sclaverei,” No. 3, March 1863, pp. 79-84, No. 4, April 1863, pp. 118-120, and No. 5, May 1863, pp. 142-147. ↑
Even Calvin could not avoid recognizing that this teaching about servanthood was Biblical. He writes about Ephesians 6:5-9: “The apostle is not speaking about servants who are working for a salary, as is the case today, but about that of those whose servanthood was permanent, unless they were set free out of the goodness of their masters. Their masters had bought them with money for the purpose of misusing them for the dirtiest of services, and by law they had the power of life and death over them. To those servants, he commanded that they should obey their masters, so that they should not dream, but that they might obtain a freedom of the flesh through the gospel…He testifies, however, that they are obedient to God when they serve their earthly masters faithfully; as if he wished to say: do not be sorrowful that you have been brought into servanthood through human arbitrariness. It is God who has placed this burden upon you, who has lent your services to your masters. So the one who does the duties which he owes his earthly master with a clear conscience, not only fulfills his obligations to a person, but to God.” (John Calvin in N.T. Commentary. Ed. A. Tholuck. II, 68.) About Philemon, said Calvin in his commentary about the epistle to the same: “Philemon was not one of the common people, but a coworker with Paul in Christ’s vineyard, and yet his lordship over his servant, which was his through the law, was not taken from him, but he was only instructed to grant forgiveness to the same, and to reinstate him, yes, Paul pleaded on his behalf, that he should receive his former position.” (U. a. D. G. 371.) ↑
See Luther’s introduction to his explanation of Genesis. ↑
Translator’s note: There is no satisfactory one-word translation of the German word Schwärmer; he is a person whose views are not based on fact, but rather on his own visions and imaging. The word Schwärmer can be used with negative as well as positive connotations. ↑
Translator’s note: The German word used is Liebesdienste, i.e. services as an expression of love. ↑
“A Later Lutheran Theologian About Slavery.” “Ein neuerer lutherischer Theolog über Sclaverei”, No. 6, June 1863, pp. 186-187. ↑
