James Swan Rationalizes Luther’s Intolerance Again

My title is a reaction to a thread at the virulently anti-Catholic CARM forum, in the Lutheranism section, called, “Bloody Marty” [referring to Martin Luther], dated 4-14-24). I’ve been dealing with the ultra-biased treatments of Martin Luther by Reformed Protestant anti-Catholic polemicist James Swan for over twenty years. See his lengthy section on my Anti-Catholicism web page.  Swan’s words from this discussion will be in blue; his Lutheran sidekick BJ Bear’s in green; Martin Luther’s in purple; and his best friend and successor Philp Melanchthon’s in brown.

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The person who started the thread cited an article of mine at length: Reply to Reformed Luther Apologist James Swan’s Request for Documentation of Executions of Anabaptists Sanctioned by Luther, in the 1530s [8-17-14]. As the thread proceeded, both realize that it was from my paper that this person was making his arguments about Luther’s intolerance and espousal of persecution of Anabaptists, including the death penalty, and they engage in their usual mockery and contemptuous dismissal, on inadequate grounds. Swan plays his usual game of not naming me, which he has done for years, even though my material is being discussed.

He apparently thinks that (my best guess) this will wound my supposed excessive pride or vanity or whatever. I simply point out how ludicrous it is and laugh at it. He’d rather do these silly things and ignore any critique I make (which he has done since 2010) than write rational replies. It’s the response of an intellectual coward, who can’t defend his own positions when they are seriously critiqued.

Some of my research was cited:

“If anyone wishes to preach or to teach, let him make known the call or the command which impels him to do so, or else let him keep silence. If he will not keep quiet, then let the civil authorities command the scoundrel to his rightful master, namely, Master Hans [i.e., the hangman].” Source: Martin Luther, Commentary on 82nd Psalm, 1530
(Janssen, X, 222; EA, Bd. 39, 250-258; Commentary on 82nd Psalm, 1530; cf. Durant, 423, Grisar, VI, 26-27

Swan opined:

Internet Luther rule number #1: look quotes up and read them in context. Back in 2017. I did an extensive treatment of this quote here, including all the documentation (The Grisar reference is bogus).

Of course, that’s what I did. I didn’t have the 55-volume set, Luther’s Works in the early 90s when I did a lot of Luther research, but I had extensive photocopies from Johannes Janssen, History of the German People from the Close of the Middle Ages, 16 volumes, translated by A.M. Christie, St. Louis: B. Herder, 1910 [orig. 1891]: obtained at the (Jesuit) University of Detroit library. I do have the Luther’s Works (LW) set now, in hardcover, in my living room. The Commentary on the 82nd Psalm (vol. 13 of LW, pp. 39-72) was written in 1530 and it was here that Luther first advocated intolerance towards more radical Protestants such as the Anabaptists (not Catholics). The portion that was cited above, from my citation, reads as follows in LW, vol. 13, pp. 65-66:

If he wants to preach or teach, let him give proof of the call or command which drives and compels him to it, or else let him be silent. If he does not want to do this, then let the rulers hand the knave over to the right master, the police. (footnote 40 states: “The German phrase is Meister Hans; . . . “)

I cited Janssen word-for-word, from volume X of the above-mentioned multi-volume work, page 222, as can be seen in an online posting of that page at Internet Archive. It follows closely the English version from LW, and Janssen noted that Luther was referring to a hangman. I did, however, cite Grisar, Luther wrongly (simple human error, there). The citation in question is found on page 250 of volume VI:

then let the authorities hand over knaves of that ilk to their proper master, to wit Master Hans (Grisar clarifies that this means “the hangman”).

There is also evidence that Luther was not fully on board with the severe punishments that Melanchthon was suggesting but went along with it (Luther supported a broader concept of religious freedom previous to 1530). Luther did have a change in attitude. He eventually saw public blasphemy and sedition as two offenses that should be reprimanded. The death penalty may be invoked in certain instances, like, sedition, insurrection, and rebellion against the state. In 1540, he softened his position that only seditious Anabaptists should be executed. Sedition: Conduct or language inciting rebellion against the authority of a state. The reason for this flux in Luther’s vacillation was the difficulty in navigating between peaceful and radical Anabaptists.

Swan drew directly from the most famous Luther biographer, Roland Bainton here, from a portion of his biography, Here I Stand, that I cited in my article, “Luther Favored the Death Penalty for Anabaptists” (2-24-04). But he engages in his usual sophistry and cynically selective, unsavory cherry-picking tactics, in ignoring a key point that Bainton made about “the distinction between the peaceful and the revolutionary Anabaptists” being “obliterated”:

In 1530 Luther advanced the view that two offences should be penalized even with death, namely sedition and blasphemy. The emphasis was thus shifted from incorrect belief to its public manifestation by word and deed. This was, however, no great gain for liberty, because Luther construed mere abstention from public office and military service as sedition and a rejection of an article of the Apostles’ Creed as blasphemy.

In a memorandum of 1531, composed by Melanchthon and signed by Luther, a rejection of the ministerial office was described as insufferable blasphemy, and the disintegration of the Church as sedition against the ecclesiastical order. In a memorandum of 1536, again composed by Melanchthon and signed by Luther, the distinction between the peaceful and the revolutionary Anabaptists was obliterated . . .

Melanchthon this time argued that even the passive action of the Anabaptists in rejecting government, oaths, private property, and marriages outside the faith was itself disruptive of the civil order and therefore seditious. The Anabaptist protest against the punishment of blasphemy was itself blasphemy. The discontinuance of infant baptism would produce a heathen society and separation from the Church, and the formation of sects was an offense against God. . . .

[O]ne cannot forget that Melanchthon’s memorandum justified the eradication of the peaceful, not because they were incipient and clandestine revolutionaries, but on the ground that even a peaceful renunciation of the state itself constituted sedition. (Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther, New York: Mentor, 1950, 295-296)

Here’s the portion that Swan paraphrased from Bainton, in his usual attempt to pose as an “expert.” In contrast, I cited Bainton’s actual words in my article and here:

Luther may not have been too happy about signing these memoranda. At any rate he appended postscripts to each. To the first he said,

I assent. Although it seems cruel to punish them with the sword, it is crueler that they condemn the ministry of the Word and have no well-grounded doctrine and suppress the true and in this way seek to subvert the civil order.

. . . In 1540 he is reported in his Table Talk to have returned to the position of Philip of Hesse that only seditious Anabaptists should be executed; the others should be merely banished. But Luther passed by many an opportunity to speak a word for those who with joy gave themselves as sheep for the slaughter.

. . . For the understanding of Luther’s position one must bear in mind that Anabaptism was not in every instance socially innocuous. The year in which Luther signed the memorandum counseling death even for the peaceful Anabaptists was the year in which a group of them ceases to be peaceful . . . By forcible measures they took over the city of Munster in Westphalia . . .

Another portion of my research was cited:

“…when it is a case of only upholding some spiritual tenet, such as infant baptism, original sin, and unnecessary separation, then … we conclude that … the stubborn sectaries must be put to death.” (Janssen, X, 222-223; pamphlet of 1536)

Here is a lengthy quotation (the above portion being near the end) from the pamphlet or “memorandum” of 1536, written by Philip Melanchthon, from Janssen (see it online):

That seditious articles of doctrine should be punished with the sword needed no further proof. For the rest, the Anabaptists hold tenets relating to infant baptism, original sin, and inspiration which have no connection with the Word of God, and are indeed opposed to it. . . . Concerning such tenets, this is our answer : As the secular authorities are bound to control and punish open blasphemy, so they are also bound to restrain and punish avowedly false doctrine, irregular Church services and heresies in their own dominions; for this is commanded by God in the other commandment where He says : “Whoso dishonours God’s name shall not go unpunished.” Everybody is bound, according to his position and office, to prevent and check blasphemy, and by virtue of this command the princes and magistrates have power and authority to put a stop to irregular Church worship. The text in Leviticus xxiv. goes to show the same thing : “He that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, he shall surely be put to death.” The ruling authorities, however, must suffer themselves to be property and correctly instructed in order that they may be certain how to proceed, and that nobody may do wrong. Now there are some among these articles of faith which signify very much. For think what disaster would ensue if children were not baptized; what would be the final outcome but thoroughly heathenish existence? Item, infant baptism rests on such sure foundations that the Anabaptists have no legitimate grounds for rejecting it. Item, if they say that children do not need forgiveness of sins, that there is no original sin, such statements are downright and very dangerous errors. Besides this the Anabaptists separate themselves from the churches, even in those places where pure Christian doctrine prevails, and where the abuses and idolatrous practices have been abolished, and they set up a ministry and congregation of their own, which is also contrary to the command of God. From all this it becomes clear that the secular authorities are bound to suppress blasphemy, false doctrine, and heresy, and to inflict corporal punishment on the offenders. In the case of Anabaptist tenets which are opposed to the secular government the matter is easier to deal with ; for there is no doubt that in such cases the stiffnecked recalcitrants are sure to be punished as sedition-mongers. Also when it is a case of only upholding some spiritual tenet, such as infant baptism, original sin, and unnecessary separation, then, because these articles are also important. . .  we conclude that in these cases also the stubborn sectaries must be put to death.

For the record, Luther did not write “pamphlet of 1536.”

Again, Swan issues one of his notorious half-truths (so often he wishes to “major on the minors” and to indulge irrelevancies and non sequiturs). Bainton refers (above) to “a memorandum of 1531, composed by Melanchthon and signed by Luther” and “a memorandum of 1536, again composed by Melanchthon and signed by Luther.” Luther agreed to both, and stated, “I assent” with regard to the first.

BJ Bear then joins in on the revisionist sophistry:

When it came to the enthusiasts using violence and force to further their error it is incumbent on the magistrates, princes, or civil authorities in general to put it down, by force if necessary.

As Bainton noted, with proof, Luther did not believe in capital punishment only for violent Baptists . . . But BJ Bear, either out of ignorance or deliberate misinformation (based on past experience with him, I think it could be either one), wants to pretend that this was not the case.

The Anabaptists were violent, lawless, gospel-less anarchists who were trying to implement an apocalyptic judgement by force. . . . you are not aware of the violent and lawless beliefs and actions of the Anabaptists/enthusiasts of the sixteenth century.

This is so distorted as to be virtually a lie. A small faction of them were indeed that. But most were peaceful, and Luther sanctioned their executions as well. Again, this is Protestant Luther biographer Bainton’s contention, not my own. An article by historian Walter Klaassen in Christian History (Issue #5 1985) noted this:

Like most religious movements of that time—including Lutheran, Reformed, and Anglican, Anabaptism had its share of black sheep. . . . There was the apocalyptic lunacy of certain Anabaptists from Thuringia, one of whom claimed to be the Son of God. Most important of all there was the violent terror of the Kingdom of God of Münster when Anabaptists turned to violence and oppression. In this latter event Anabaptists employed tactics of Catholics and Protestants all over Europe for the coercion of people toward a religious faith. These are skeletons in the Mennonite family closet, but they represented a minority that never had much support and which was in fact rejected by the majority of persons in the movement.

With no awareness of the irony or his hypocrisy, Swan adds:

I and a few others have responded to your slander against Luther and demonstrated that you either don’t know Reformation history or don’t understand history.

You’ve only posted someone’s misguided opinion that Luther put people to death. Luther wasn’t a Pope, didn’t think he was a Pope, and wasn’t a civil magistrate. In other words, Luther didn’t have any power over the civil sword nor did he bear the sword.

That’s irrelevant. In my writings about Luther, I was simply documenting that he favored the execution of Anabaptists, and peaceful ones at that. Under Luther’s view in the 1530s, folks like the Reformed Baptists James White and Gavin Ortlund and evangelical apologist Jason Engwer (and myself in the 80s, when I believed in adult believer’s baptism, but not now as a Catholic) could have been executed as dangerous seditionists.

The fact remains that at least 45 people were executed for theological beliefs  under the influential opinions of Luther and Melanchthon in the domain where they held sway in a theological sense. This ought to be known, in fairness, since the Catholic Inquisition is always discussed, as if the first Protestants didn’t do the same sort of thing, and continued to for some two hundred years afterwards.

So you also want to gloss over the history of your choosing, invent history of your choosing, and insist your imaginative assertions are the true historical record?

An accurate description of BJ Bear himself!

Luther was not . . . a civil magistrate, and he had no power or influence over the civil magistrates involved.

This is nonsense. He certainly had a strong influence, along with Melanchthon in their domain of Saxony, which is why the policies of persecution that they advocated in 1530, 1531, and 1536 were actually carried out. It was Luther, after all, who wanted to replace bishops with princes. They influenced several important princes.

Even so, there are people who have made a cottage industry of trying to blame Luther for what happened in the peasant’s war.

I’m sure many do. As for my own view (since I’m the one being cited and to some extent pilloried in this thread, it’s much more nuanced and complex and partially sympathetic to Luther. See my very lengthy article: Martin Luther’s Inflammatory Rhetoric and the Peasants’ Revolt (1524-1525) (+ Part II) [10-31-03].

If someone wants to say that Luther also wrote some stupid wrong stuff which he shouldn’t have then I doubt anyone would disagree.

Exactly! Finally, some blessed agreement . . .

Certainly, I can understand someone does not like Luther’s views on the death penalty or his harsh comments about the Jews (I also do not like them). On the other hand, Luther was not a “civil magistrate” as you succinctly point out. He did not kill anyone. 

Neither (in this sense) did Henry VIII or Queen Elizabeth or even Hitler. That’s utterly beside the point. They favored execution for various theological positions and other “non-criminal” beliefs. So did Luther.

Lol! I searched on the one source provided and it linked to a site listing the usual suspects with which you are very familiar.

This is referring to me (I’m massively cited on this page), and as usual, both of these fools won’t name me. At least they gave me the courtesy later of actually linking one of my articles so people could read it for themselves.

It is a matter of record that Melanchthon took credit for the 1536 doc. 

And it’s a matter of record (verified by Bainton) that Luther assented to it and signed it.

You’ve never read Melanchthon’s 1536 work and don’t know what you are writing about.

I’ve read much of it, and posted the lengthy excerpt in one of my articles over twenty years ago.

For example, in Melanchthon’s document of 1536 he makes it plain that people shouldn’t be or aren’t to be punished for what they believe internally.

That’s false, as already documented. Internal beliefs mentioned in it include “tenets relating to infant baptism, original sin, and inspiration” and “unnecessary separation”: all worthy of the death penalty.

OK, so the book showed up yesterday, opened it up and discovered they sent me two copies.

It looks like the bracketed numbers in the OP are footnotes, and yes, as you pointed out, the OP appears to be a cut-and-paste of another webpage. From a cursory look at the new book, the footnotes are primarily to a secondary source, I think its this book. What’s interesting is that in the OP, “[61] (p. 22)” refers to footnote 61 on page 22 of the book I just ordered. Yes, that footnote is on page 22… but footnote [61] refers to page “234, 204 ff.” in the secondary source I linked above. Unless I’m missing something or have my wires crossed, there is no page 234.

As usual, Swan is obsessed with minutiae, and missing the forest for the trees. What he describes as “another webpage” is my article, Martin Luther and Anabaptist Executions in the 1530s [formerly titled, “Reply to Reformed Luther Apologist James Swan’s Request for Documentation of Executions of Anabaptists Sanctioned by Luther, in the 1530s”] (8-17-14). So he picks away at it in his usual cynical, hostile attempt to prove that I am a dumbbell unable to conduct rudimentary research.

Yes, the bracketed numbers are footnotes from the original. If the footnote gave a wrong page number, that’s not my fault. It came from a work entitled, Valentin Weigel (1533-1588): German Religious Dissenter, Speculative Theorist, and Advocate of Tolerance (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000), written by Andrew Weeks, who is a Professor of Languages, Literatures and Cultures at Illinois State University. As I noted:

I ran across some documentation via Google Books . . .

Unfortunately, I can’t access the footnotes from the Google Books edition of this book, and both Paulus and Wappler wrote in German, so I can’t get at further details of these executions from those sources.

Since we’re on the topic of accurate research, I will remind my readers of a very dumb mistake that Swan made, which I documented at the time. Swan had written in a thread on the Catholic Answers Forum on 3 September 2014 (comment #692; no longer available):

Indeed there were executions in Saxony. Search out these sources:

Valentin Weigel, German Religious Dissenter, Speculative Theorist, and Advocate of Tolerance

John S. Oyer, Lutheran Reformers Against Anabaptists

Peter Pestel, The Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia

He was trying to pose as an expert of Lutheran persecution of Anabaptists; trotting out sources for further study. But where did he run across these two sources (other than Oyer, whom he had cited before on his blog)? They were two sources I cited in my paper, above, a little over two weeks before Swan’s comment.

We do have one person mentioned by name in Weeks’ book: Peter Pestel. The Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online provides an article about him and more detail:

Now, this may seem like my nitpicking or piling on, in a case of a simple mistake or human error. Readers may wonder why I am making such a “big deal” about it. I do precisely because Swan is always pointing out human errors in Catholic works (he’s noted real or — usually — falsely alleged — ones in my writings for twelve years). If a Catholic had made such an embarrassing error like this, we can be sure Swan would have trumpeted it from the rooftops as yet more evidence that we don’t know how to properly cite a source, and that we’re always trying to lie about and misrepresent Luther; that we’re, well, kind of dumb, and that we know nothing about context in reading and citing sources. He’s noted this many hundreds of times.

The picture of Luther put forth by Armstrong is that Luther was always an advocate of severe punishment, in all circumstances, and Roland Bainton agrees with and supports this position . . . 

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Armstrong also leaves out, that according to Bainton, Luther’s view was in flux. Bainton notes that Luther did support a broader concept of religious freedom previous to 1530.

I wrote in a paper dated March 2000: “I (like many Catholics) do admire him in certain ways. I like his passion and boldness and apparent sincerity and good intentions (though thoroughly deluded and wrongheaded). He had a great devotion to the Virgin Mary and to the Eucharist.” And in February 2001, I posted on the Catholic Convert Message Board: “I have never maintained that Luther was ‘evil’ or essentially a ‘bad’ man, nor have I ever denied his good intentions . . . No one can find those sentiments on my website.”

. . . Wappler [Catholic], Paulus [Lutheran], Kohler [Lutheran], Kuhn, Lecler [Catholic: I have his two-volume book, Toleration and the Reformation in hardcover], and others have explored the issues of tolerance in the Reformation and documented a perennially underestimated Lutheran repression that prevailed in the Saxon territories . . . (p. 19; my italics and bolding)

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Wappler or Paulus . . . [were] demonstrating the religious premise and the generalized rationale for persecution. Dissenting sectarians were vilified or persecuted with the same rigor that characterized the . . . (p. 21; the text cuts off; he was possibly going to make reference to Catholics?]

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Of the various studies of Reformation-era intolerance, those of [Paul] Wappler and [Nikolaus] Paulus document conditions in Saxony . . . In Luther’s part of Saxony, there were executions for the offense of rebaptism as early as 1527 (before the imperial mandate of 1529), and afterward in the years 1530, 1532, and 1538. Unlike the milder regime in Hessen, where as a rule only the openly rebellious dissenters were sentenced to death, the Wittenberg reformers soon came to support capital punishment even against peaceful heretics. (p. 22)

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Wappler drew his documentation from the records of heresy trials that took place in Zwickau and other parts of Electoral Saxony between the years 1529 and 1548 . . . (p. 26)

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Wappler’s study comes through more clearly than the inadvisability of assessing the beliefs and intentions of so-called heretics through the eyes of their opponents. (p. 30)