"But," they say, "this way you condemn all of Christendom which has always maintained this - until now." I answer: I know very well that the priests and monks seek this cloak for their blasphemies. They want to give to Christendom the damage caused by their own negligence. Then, when we say, "Christendom does not err," we shall also be saying that they do not err, since Christendom believes it to be so. So no pilgrimage can be wrong, no matter how obviously the Devil is a participant in it. No indulgence can be wrong, regardless of how horrible the lies involved. In other words, there is nothing there but holiness!
Therefore to this you reply, "It is not a question of who is and who is not condemned." They inject this irrelevant idea in order to divert us from the topic at hand. We are now discussing the Word of God. What Christendom is or does belongs somewhere else. The question here is: "What is or is not the Word of God?
What is not the Word of God does not make Christendom.
We read that in the days of Elijah the prophet there was apparently no word from God and no worship of God in Israel. For Elijah says, "Lord, they have killed your prophets and destroyed your altars, and I am left totally alone" [I Kings 19]. Here King Ahab and others could have said, "Elijah, with talk like that you are condemning all the people of God." However God had at the same time kept seven thousand [I Kings 19]. How? Do you not also think that God could now, under the papacy, have preserved his own, even though the priests and monks of Christendom have been teachers of the devil and gone to hell? Many children and young people have died in Christ. For even under the anti-Christ, Christ has strongly sustained baptism, the bare text of the gospel in the pulpit, the Lord's Prayer, and the Creed. By this means he sustained many of his Christians, and therefore also his Christendom, and said nothing about it to these devil's teachers.
Now even though Christians have done some parts of the papal blasphemy, the papal asses have not yet proved that they did it gladly. Still less does it prove that they even did the right thing. All Christians can err and sin, but God has taught them to pray in the Lord's Prayer for the forgiveness of sins. God could very well forgive the sins they had to unwillingly, unknowingly, and under the coercion of the Antichrist commit, without saying anything about it to the priests and monks! It can, however, be easily proven that there has always been a great deal of secret murmuring and complaining against the clergy throughout the world, and that they are not treating Christendom properly. And the papal asses have courageously withstood such complaining with fire and sword, even to the present day. This murmuring proves how happy Christians have been over these blasphemies, and how right they have been in doing them!
So out with it, you papal asses! Say that this is the teaching of Christendom: these stinking lies which you villains and traitors have forced upon Christendom and for the sake of which you murderers have killed many Christians. Why each letter of every papal law gives testimony to the fact that nothing has ever been taught by the counsel and the consent of Christendom. There is nothing there but "districte precipiendo mandamus" ["we teach and strictly command"]. That has been your Holy Spirit. Christendom has had to suffer this tyranny. This tyranny has robbed it of the sacrament and, not by its own fault, has been held in captivity.
And still the asses would pawn off on us this intolerable tyranny of their own wickedness as a willing act and example of Christendom - and thereby acquit themselves!
But this is getting too long. Let this be enough of an answer to your questions for now. More another time. Excuse this long letter. Christ our Lord be with us all. Amen.
Martin Luther, Your good friend.
The Wilderness, September 8, 1530
End