Clergy

"The Master was exceedingly gracious to university dons who visited him, but he would never reply to their questions or be drawn into their theological speculations. To his disciples, who marveled at this, he said, "Can one talk about the ocean to a frog in a well or about the divine to people who are restricted by their concepts?""

"Whatever is truly alive must die. Look at the flowers; only plastic flowers never die."

"When you come to see you are not as wise today as you thought you were yesterday, you are wiser today."

"Wisdom tends to grow in proportion to one's awareness of one's ignorance."

"Is there life before death? — that is the question!"

"When you are guilty, it is not your sins you hate but yourself."

"To a visitor who described himself as a seeker after Truth the Master said, "If what you seek is Truth, there is one thing you must have above all else." "I know. An overwhelming passion for it." "No. An unremitting readiness to admit you may be wrong.""

"Help us to find God." "No one can help you there." "Why not?" "For the same reason that no one can help the fish to find the ocean."

"The sun and its light, the ocean and the wave, the singer and his song — not one. Not two."

"You are only a disciple because your eyes are closed. The day you open them you will see there is nothing you can learn from me or anyone." "What then is a Master for?" "To make you see the uselessness of having one."

"There were rules in the monastery, but the Master always warned against the tyranny of the law. "Obedience keeps the rules," he would say. "Love knows when to break them.""

"Why is everyone here so happy except me?" "Because they have learned to see goodness and beauty everywhere," said the Master. "Why don't I see goodness and beauty everywhere?" "Because you cannot see outside of you what you fail to see inside."

"To a visitor who asked to become his disciple the Master said, "You may live with me, but don't become my follower." "Whom, then, shall I follow?" "No one. The day you follow someone you cease to follow Truth.""

"This is what Wisdom means: To be changed without the slightest effort on your part, to be transformed, believe it or not, merely by waking to the reality that is not words, that lies beyond the reach of words. If you are fortunate enough to be Awakened thus, you will know why the finest language is the one that is not spoken, the finest action is the one that is not done and the finest change is the one that is not willed."

"What, concretely, is Enlightenment?" "Seeing Reality as it is," said the Master. "Doesn't everyone see Reality as it is?" "Oh, no! Most people see it as they believe it is." "What's the difference?" "The difference between thinking you are drowning in a stormy sea and knowing you cannot drown because there isn't any water in sight for miles around."

"The genius of a composer is found in the notes of his music; but analyzing the notes will not reveal his genius. The poet's greatness is contained in his words; yet the study of his words will not disclose his inspiration. God reveals himself in creation; but scrutinize creation as minutely as you wish, you will not find God, any more than you will find the soul through careful examination of your body."

"Spirituality means waking up. Most people, even though they don't know it, are asleep. They're born asleep, they live asleep, they marry in their sleep, they breed children in their sleep, they die in their sleep without ever waking up. They never understand the loveliness and the beauty of this thing that we call human existence. You know — all mystics — Catholic, Christian, non-Christian, no matter what their theology, no matter what their religion — are unanimous on one thing: that all is well, all is well. Though everything is a mess, all is well. Strange paradox, to be sure. But, tragically, most people never get to see that all is well because they are asleep. They are having a nightmare."

"I wish to become a teacher of the Truth." "Are you prepared to be ridiculed, ignored and starving till you are forty-five?" "I am. But tell me: What will happen after I am forty-five?" "You will have grown accustomed to it."

"The Master is not concerned with what we believe — only with what we see."

"Silence is not the absence of sound, but the absence of self."

"When I speak, you must not listen to the words, my dear. Listen to the Silence."

"The disciples were absorbed in a discussion of Lao-tzu's dictum: Those who know do not say; Those who say do not know. When the master entered, they asked him what the words meant. Said the master, "Which of you knows the fragrance of a rose?" All of them indicated that they knew. Then he said, "put it into words." All of them were silent."

"Every word, every image used for God is a distortion more than a description."

"A disciple said to him, "I am ready, in the quest for God, to give up anything: wealth, friends, family, country, life itself. What else can a person give up?" The Master calmly replied, "One's beliefs about God.""

"People who want a cure, provided they can have it without pain, are like those who favour progress, provided they can have it without change."

"Had Luther and Calvin been confined before they had begun to dogmatize, the states would have been spared many troubles."

"Lucas Cranach (1472–1553) is today acknowledged as one of the great painters of the Northern Renaissance, the creator of a large number of remarkable paintings in a distinctive, highly recognisable style. He was also responsible for the iconic series of images of the Protestant reformer Martin Luther (1483–1546), his friend and contemporary who had also settled in the small north German city of Wittenberg. His images of Luther and friends provide the definitive pictorial chronicle of the reformer’s life, from the time he first burst on to the public stage, and into old age. All of the many books that celebrate Luther in this run-up to the 500th anniversary in 2017 of the publishing of his 95 Theses will draw on Cranach for their image of the reformer."

"Luther exclaimed: "I would have no compassion on these witches. I would burn them all.""

"Luther went so far as to rejoice over the death of Zwingli: "God knows the thoughts of the heart. It is well that Zwingli, Carlstadt, and Pellicanus lie dead on the battle field. ... Oh, what a triumph is this, that they have perished! God indeed knows His business well.""

"Freedom was the watchword of Martin Luther in his early days. His theology rested upon the foundation of the right of private judgment, and he boldly proclaimed the "universal priesthood of all Christians." …His own conduct, however, often departed widely from his abstract teaching. ... In practice he was often bitterly intolerant of his opponents. ... He favored banishment for Catholics who remained steadfast to their faith, and in 1530 signed a memorandum drafted by Melanchthon which justified the setting up of a regular system of coercion and the use of the death penalty for the most dangerous heretics or blasphemers. Concerning this point a Protestant theologian [Walther Kohler] says: "The death-penalty for heresy rested on the highest Lutheran authority.""

"In later years Luther showed no regret for his attitude toward this rebellion. Indeed, he went so far as to say: "Preachers are the biggest murderers about, for they admonish the authorities to fulfill their duty and punish the wicked. I, Martin Luther, slew all the peasants in the rebellion, for I said they should be slain; all their blood is on my head. But I cast it on our Lord God, who commanded me to speak in this way.""

"By a strange inconsistency, Luther justified all wars of self-defense except those waged by subjects against tyrannical rulers. He unconditionally condemned rebellion and revolution. In referring to the peasants' revolt. ... To the soldiers who took the field against the peasants, he said: "If you die in battle against them, you could never have a more blessed end, for you die obedient to God's Word in Romans 13, and in the service of love to free your neighbor from the bands of hell and the devil.""

"Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, and Calvin, chief among the formative minds of Christendom, although separated by the centuries and antagonistic in many of their views, are united in their belief that war is legitimate when used in a righteous cause."

""God himself cannot subsist without wise men," said Luther, and with good reason; but "God can still less subsist without unwise men,"—good Luther did not say that!"

"Luther defined the Devil as a giant anus, and in much iconography we see Evil and Sin personified by farting, shitting, and sodomy. There is no satisfactory explanation for this anal phobia, though no doubt it had something to do with what we now call the "anal-retentive" personality of authoritarian types."

"The poverty-stricken rural population rose up against their despoilers; they burnt down the castles of the nobles, and swore that they would leave nothing to be seen upon the land but the cabins of the poor. The rich middle-class seemed at first to side with them, and at Strasburg, Nuremberg, and Ulm the peasants were encouraged, aided, and provided for. However, the bourgeoisie soon grew alarmed at the spreading of the insurrection, and made common cause with the nobles in smothering the revolt in the rural districts. Luther, who was then at the apex of his power, condemned the rising in the name of religion, and proclaimed the servitude of the people as holy and legitimate. "You seek," wrote he, "to free your persons and your goods. You desire the power and the goods of this earth. You will suffer no wrong. The Gospel, on the contrary, has no care for such things, and makes exterior life consist in suffering, supporting injustice, the cross, patience, and contempt of life, as of all the things of this world. To suffer! To suffer! The cross! The cross! Behold what Christ teaches!" Were not these teachings, given in the name of the faith to a famishing people in revolt against the tyranny and avidity of the ruling aristocracy, fatal to the future of the peasant masses, whose very sufferings were thus legitimised in the name of the religion that should have come to their aid?"

"Bruder Sanftleben und Vater Leisentret ... meinet, er wollte gerne seine fürgenommene Lüste alle ins Werk führen, seine Pracht und Reichtümer behalten und gleichwohl einen bewährten Glauben haben, welches doch der Sohn Gottes mit klaren Worten den Schriftgelehrten getadelt hat (Joh. am 5.), da er spricht: »Wie ist's möglich, daß ihr könnet glauben, wenn ihr eure Ehre sucht?«"

"Luther was not the first theologian to criticize the powers of the papacy. ... John Wyclif at the end of the fourteenth century and John Hus at the beginning of the fifteenth century had attacked the excessive power of papacy. Luther was certainly well aware of John Hus's fate at the Council of Constance, where he was burned at the stake on charges of heresy."

"According to the false prophet of Mecca, everything happens out of inevitable necessity; there is no free will in man: God works all actions in us, both good and bad; so that he punishes the wicked for the sins that he himself has wrought in them. To those who cried out against such blasphemy, Muhammad gave only one answer: This is a mystery, a secret. Yes, the mystery of Satan, the author of all evil, who wants to place all blame on God himself, the author of all good. Now, the same mystery of impiety is revealed in Lutheranism. According to the false prophet of Wittenberg, as according to the false prophet of Mecca, everything happens to man out of inevitable necessity, and there is no free will in us. God works in us both evil and good; and he will punish us not only for the evil we could not avoid, but also for the good we did as best we could. In this, Luther greatly surpasses Muhammad in impiety, for Muhammad never said that God would punish us for the same good, and that good works were as many sins."

"Protestantism itself, in its early phases, was plainly a movement toward mysticism: its purpose, at least in theory, was to remove the priestly veil separating man from the revealed Word of God. But that veil was restored almost instantly, and by the year 1522, five years after Wittenberg, Luther was damning the Anabaptists with all the ferocious certainty of a medieval Pope, and his followers were docily accepting his teaching."

"I am now engaged on the refutation of Luther's book, which refutation you will see about September 1st. I am indeed wholly averse to this kind of fighting; but what do they think is to be done by him who is attacked with edge and point? Do not all believe that in repelling an enemy he is to be kept away, and if this is to be accomplished in no other way, he is to be cut down? And must we not oppose engines to those battering-rams which cause not theology but faith and truth to be overthrown, friendship to perish, and whatever is sacred and in moderation to be held in contempt among mortals? That book of Luther's, what else is it than an example of denying what you a little while ago? Or a fog through which you cannot see rightly the mystery of Christ? I shall put forth nothing wild against Luther - a thing he himself ought not to have done. Since he has done it I shall remember piety and Christian decorum."

"Religion may be purified. This great work was begun two hundred years ago: but men can only bear light to come in upon them by degrees."

"Luther now had too much reason to complain of the impiety and cruelty of the Pope, who he openly declared to be the Man of Sin, and the great Antichrist."

"Holy Christendom has, in my judgment, no better teacher after the apostles than St. Augustine."

"No. 4638: Luther Rejects the Copernican Cosmology June 4, 1539 There was mention of a certain new astrologer who wanted to prove that the earth moves and not the sky, the sun, and the moon. This would be as if somebody were riding on a cart or in a ship and imagined that he was standing still while the earth and the trees were moving. [Luther remarked,] “So it goes now. Whoever wants to be clever must agree with nothing that others esteem. He must do something of his own. This is what that fellow does who wishes to turn the whole of astronomy upside down. Even in these things that are thrown into disorder I believe the Holy Scriptures, for Joshua commanded the sun to stand still and not the earth [Josh. 10:12].”"

"He was possessed of a more Slavic than Germanic grudge against Latin clarity and legalism; the meticulous adherence to the iron laws of logic, dry and well-weighted argumentation of a gradual and conclusive nature were alien to him. His whole appearance reminds one rather of a Prussian N.C. officer or of a Slovakian butcher, than of a West German intellectual. His bulging eyes and unkempt hair; his fat neck and bellowing voice; his inordinate love for food, drink, and sex; his coarse speech and eruptive nature are characteristic of certain low-class East Europeans. When he says: "I do not admit that my doctrine can be judged by anyone, not by the angels," one could almost imagine hearing Hitler speak."

"From the day on which Luther denied the authority of the Pope, and publicly declared in the Diet "that his teachings must be controverted through the words of the Bible itself, or with sensible reasons," there begins a new era in Germany. The fetters with which Saint Boniface had chained the German Church to Rome are broken. This Church, which has hitherto formed an integral part of the great hierarchy, now splits into religious democracies. The character of the religion itself is essentially changed: the Hindoo-Gnostic element disappears from it, and the Judaic-theistic element again becomes prominent. We behold the rise of evangelical Christianity. By recognising and legitimising the most importunate claims of the senses, religion becomes once more a reality. The priest becomes man, takes to himself a wife, and begets children, as God desires."

"With the new geographic threat, Luther, in his subsequent War against the Turks (1529), declares that the Turk is the clear “enemy of Christ”, a man who “despises women and marriage”, and is “nothing but a murderer or highwayman”. In the face of an impending military threat, Luther felt no compunction in leveling his quill at the people he had a mere year before called ‘virtuous’. Broadly speaking, Luther wanted no part of statecraft or politics and considered the Ottoman incursion of Europe to be a matter best solved by politicians, not the Church. In fact, Luther directly states that he opposes “religious war”."

"Luther’s early writings concerning the threat of Islamdom focused more on the Ottoman Turks as a military threat to Europe rather than as ideological opponents.11In the late 1520s, Luther wrote two works specifically addressing the Ottoman Turks: On War against the Turk (1528) and Sermon against the Turk (1529). In both of these works, Luther implored the Emperor, the German princes, and the German people to defend the principalities against Suleiman, the Ottoman Sultan. In his 1528 On War against the Turk, Luther promotes a live–and–let–live policy. “Let the Turk believe and live as he will, just as one lets the papacy and other false Christians live”. In fact, Luther sounds outright amiable toward the Turks when he states, “It is said that the Turks are among themselves faithful and friendly, and careful to tell the truth. I believe and I think that they probably have more fine virtues than that”. In the following year, however, with the siege of Vienna and march on Hungary, Luther changed his tune."

"The deceit of Muhammad was a fundamental concern for Luther as he feared that a false prophet might tempt Protestant Christians to falter—much as the practice of indulgences had done for Catholics. For a modern man like Luther, the antidote for such deceit was knowledge. The Protestant Reformation was founded on the principle that any Christian could pick up a Bible in the vernacular and make sense of it for him or herself. In like manner, Luther promoted the study of the Qur’an so that Christians would be prepared should they ever have a direct encounter with Islam. Three works illustrate this hermeneutic: his foreword to the Tract on the Religion and Customs of the Turk (1530); his introduction to the German translation of Ricoldo’s Confutatio al-Koran (1542); and the preface to the Swiss publication of the Qur’an (1543)."