FOOTNOTES

[3] Sexternlein.

[4] Questions debated in the schools.

[5] Here "the Faith" means the Creed, as a statement of faith.

[6] I.e., In faith.

[7] A quality, state or condition, independent of works.

[8] St. Jacob di Compostella, a place in Spain, where the Apostle James, the son of Zebedee, who was killed in Jerusalem (Acts 12:2), is in Spanish tradition said to have died a martyr's death; since the Ninth Century a noted and much frequented goal of pilgrimages. The name Compostella is a corruption of Giacomo Postolo, that is "James the Apostle."

[9] St. Bridget of Ireland, who died in 523, was considered a second Virgin Mary, the "Mary of the Irish." Perhaps here confused with another Bridget, or Brigita, who died 1373, a Scottish saint, who wrote several prayers, printed for the first time in 1492 and translated into almost all European languages.

[10] I.e., by us men.

[11] This translation indicates the imperfection of the German form of Bible quotation throughout this treatise.

[12] Page 190.

[13] Page 190.

[14] A Jarmarkt; the reference here being to the bargaining common at such fairs.

[15] The theme developed in the treatise De Libertate, 1520.

[16] Page 190.

[17] A gold coin, the value of which is very uncertain. It was an adaptation of the florin, which was first coined in Florence in the year 1252, and was worth about $2.50. Of the value of the gold gulden of Luther's time various estimates are given. Schaff, Church History, 3 vi., p. 470, calls it a guilder and says it was equal to about $4.00 of the present day. Preserved Smith, Life of Luther, p. 367, fixes its intrinsic value at about fifty cents, but believes its purchasing power was almost twenty times as great. To us a gold piece worth fifty cents seems almost impossible; but the New English Dictionary quotes, under the year 1611: "Florin or Franc: an ancient coin of gold in France, worth ij s. sterling." As the gold coins of those times were not made of pure gold, rarely 17 carats fine, the possibility may be granted. But in 1617, the Dictionary quotes "The Gold Rehnish Guldens of Germany are almost of the same standard as the Crowne Gold of England," and the Crown was worth at the time 6s. 3 1/2 d.—somewhat more than $1.50.

The later silver gulden, worth about forty cents was current in Europe until modern times, and a gulden, worth 48 1/2 cents, was, until recently, a standard coin in Austro-Hungary.

[18] Grosse Hansen.

[19] Men who exercised a delegated authority and acted as the representatives of pope and bishop in matters of church law.

[20] See especially the Address to the Christian Nobility and the Babylonian Captivity.

[21] On the number of the sections see the Introduction, p. 178.

[22] Here, as also in his Catechism, Luther departs from the Old Testament form of the Third Commandment. His restatement of it is extremely difficult to put into English, because of the various meanings of the word Feiertag. It may mean "day of rest," or "holiday," or "holy day." By the use of this word Luther avoids the difficulty of first retaining the Jewish Sabbath in the Commandment and then rejecting it in favor of the Christian Sunday in the explanation.

[23] Gottesdienst.

[24] A reference to the Requiem Mass, sung both at the burial of the dead, and on the anniversary of the day of death. The word translated "memorial," Begängniss, is literally, "a burial service."

[25] See also the Treatise on the New Testament, elsewhere in this volume.

[26] The sermons were frequently either scholastic arguments or popular, often comic tirades against current immorality; the materials were taken from the stories of the saints as much as from the Bible.

[27] Lived 1091-1153. Founder of the Cistercian monastery at Clairvaux, of whom Luther says: "If there ever lived on earth a God-fearing and holy monk, it was Saint Bernard, of Clairvaux." Erl. Ed., 36, 8.

[28] Cf. Discussion of Confession, above, p. 81 f.

[29] The prayer-book and the rosary. The Breviary, a collection of prayers, was used by the clergy; the Rosary, the beads of which represent prayers, the smaller and more numerous Ave Marias, the larger of the Lord's Prayer, Paternoster, was the layman's prayer book.

[30] Cf. Introduction to The Fourteen of Consolation, p. 106.

[31] See note, p. 191.

[32] The German, Oelgötzen, means the wooden images of saints, which were painted with oil paints. It was transferred to any dull person, block-head, sometimes also to priests, who were anointed with oil at their consecration.

[33] Sinnlichkeit.

[34] St. Barbara, a legendary saint, whose day falls on December 4, was thought to protect against storm and fire. See above, p. 237. St. Sebastian, a martyr of the third century, whose day falls on January 20, was supposed to ward off the plague.

[35] Cf. The Fourteen of Consolation, above, p. 162.

[36] Page 194 f.

[37] I. e., by fear without love.

[38] The patron saint of music, of whose life and martyrdom little that is definite is known.

[39] Canonisations, giving a dead man the rank of a saint, who may be or shall be worshiped.

[40] I.e., faith.

[41] Cf. the similar statements in the Sermon vom Wucher (Weimar Ed., VI, 59) and in the Address to the Christian Nobility (ibid., 438).

[42] A name for the dependents of the papal court at Rome.

[43] At Constance, 1414-1443; at Rome, the Lateran council, 1512-1517.

[44] Or, "Who is said to rule the councils."

[45] This program of reform is further elaborated in the Address to the Christian Nobility.

[46] Augustus Caesar, first Roman Emperor (B.C. 63-A.D. 14), the Caesar Augustus of Luke 2:1.

[47] "The purchase of a rent-charge (rent, census, Zins) was one of the methods of investing money frequently resorted to during the later middle ages. From the transfer from one person to another of the right to receive a rent already due the step was but a short one to the creation of an altogether new rent-charge, for the express purpose of raising money by the sale of it…The practice seems to have arisen spontaneously, and to have been by no means a mere evasion of the prohibition of usury." Dictionary of Political Economy, ed. by R. H. Inglish Palgrave, vol. ii. Cf. Ashley, Economic History, vol. i, p.t. ii, §§ 66, 74, 75. For a fuller discussion of the subject by Luther, see the Sermon vom Wucher (Weimar Ed., VI, 51-60).

[48] See note above, p. 220.

[49] Sorgfäitigkeit, Luther's translation of the Vulgate solicitndo in Rom. 12:8, where our English Version reads "diligence." The word as Luther uses it includes the two kinds of carefulness and considerateness.

[50] A most strict monastic order; the phrase here is equivalent to "becomes a monk."

[51] Sanftmüthlgkeit.

[52] Luther discusses these tricks in detail in his Sermon von Kaufhandlung und Wucher (1524) Weimar Ed., XV, pp. 279 ff.

[53] Sermon von dem Wucher, Weimar Ed., VI, 36 ff. Cf. also Address to the German Nobility.

[54] Cf. The Fourteen of Consolation above, p. 149.