3:3. Their own impudence makes me want to mention certain of them by name, who, simply to carry the point that infants should not be baptized, have dragged into the fiercest discussions whole cities that were beginning to have real knowledge of Christ. What, good God, is insanity, what is madness, what is dementia, if it is not this, namely, thinking that this is your spirit which by its very fruits shows that it cannot be of any one but man’s enemy, the Devil? This is the way Satan tempts us: when he sees that he has not succeeded by means of persecution, he tempts us with contentiousness, so that persecution is almost to be chosen in preference to contentiousness; for the one is a peril to the body only, the other to the soul. Some are like this: When they see that images have been removed at Zurich, both in the city and in the country districts, without the least disturbance wherever they were worshipped, they likewise bend all their efforts to having them removed in their own jurisdictions also, so that they shall not be behind others, though their brethren are still tender and strongly opposed to the change. Let them first teach their hearers to be upright in the things that pertain to God, and they will immediately see all these objectionable things fall away. For where there is trust in God, there we behold “Satan falling as lightning from heaven,” Luke 10:18. Let us, therefore, implant blamelessness, peace, and cheerfulness of soul in the Holy Spirit, and we shall drag Satan from heaven, and in all things duly take offence into account; for God aideth His own work.
[29]. Statues and Images
I had determined to say nothing here about statues and images, because I had decided to write a special book about them in German at the earliest opportunity; but when I was already beginning to shorten sail, some of the brethren would not allow me to make for port until I had explored this bay also. I will, therefore, set down very briefly the essential things in this matter. For who could ever satisfy the contentious spirits?
No one is so stupid as to think that we ought to do away
[The Anabaptists. 1Eine Antwort Valentin Compar gegeben, dated April 27, 1525.]
with statues, images, and other representations, where no worship is offered them; for who is affected by the flying cherubim on the mercy seat or embroidered on the curtains, whether for their mystie meaning or for decoration, or by the palms, lions, oxen, pomegranates, and such like ornaments cunningly wrought in Solomon’s temple [cf. I Kings 6:1-38]? Again, when they are worshipped, who is so senseless, not to say faithless, as to think they ought to be tolerated? Of course, offence is to be taken into account. But if it had nowhere in the Seriptures been commanded that statues and images if worshipped should be destroyed, love would be enough, which certainly admonishes every faithful heart to convert to the use of the needy that whieh is spent on the worship of images. For as soon as human reason says, “Thou shalt set up this statue in honor of God or of some Saint,” faith certainly contradicts, declaring that all the moneys you expend for the honor of the Lord ought to be converted to the use of the poor. For when Christ in reply to the insulting words of Judas said to all the disciples [Jn. 12: 8], “The poor ye have with you always; but me ye have not always, and ye can do good to them,” He turned aside all material service from Himself to the poor. Let us, then, not weary God with any of these marks of honor which He transferred to the poor, but bestow them where He directed. For when He rose from the dead He would not suffer the same Magdalene who had bathed his feet with her tears [Jn. 12:3] to touch Him [Jn. 20:17]; for He was on the eve of His ascent to heaven (though He had not yet begun His departure, though everything necessary to it was prepared) where there would be no need of the ministrations which she was preparing to offer. And when some people say that man is taught by the images, and influenced to piety, this is an idea of their own. For Christ nowhere taught this method of teaching, and He certainly would not have omitted it if He had foreseen that it would be profitable. On the contrary, knowing all things that were to come, He saw that it frequently happens that we turn to the things that are evident to sense, and. He did not wish images to be made more impressive to us by the influence of teaching. For we do seem to owe something to those who teach us. We ought to be taught by the word of
God externally, and by the Spirit internally, those things that have to do with piety, and not by sculpture wrought by the artist’s hand. But I return to the worship. Who has not seen statues publicly worshipped? Has their worship brought to ecclesiastics the smallest part of their wealth? What monks have ever feigned such lowly poverty that they have not begged a donation for the worship of images? Why should I tell of the gold, silver, gems, and pearls of which solid images are made, just as among the heathen, or with which their vestments are so stiff that, if you would command it, they would stand alone? Have we not all thought it a sacred thing to touch these images? Why have we imprinted kisses upon them, why have we bowed the knee, why have we paid a high price merely for a view of them? Such images, I say, the Lord orders removed. But contentiousness again objects that not the images are worshipped, but those whose images they are. 1 answer that neither were any of the heathen ever so stupid as to worship their images of stone, bronze, and wood for what they were in themselves; they reverenced in these their Joves and Apollos. Hence, although the Holy Scriptures frequently mock at the worship of images, as if the worshippers worshipped wood and stone, yet everybody knew that they did not in the least worship these things, but in them those rather whom they regarded as gods. But since those gods were nothing, unless perhaps evil spirits making sport of poor mortals, it was said in contempt of these who were no gods that they were nothing but stones or wood, gold, bronze, silver, so that worshippers might feel greater abhorrence for them.