For Such as Labor and Are Heavy Laden
(Tessaradecas Consolatoria)
Introduction
1. When Luther’s Elector, Frederick the Wise (1486-1525), returned to his residence at Torgau, after participating in the election of Emperor Charles V, at Frankfort-on-the-Main, in the summer of 1519, he was stricken with a serious illness, from which there seemed little hope of his recovery Concerned for his noble patron, and urged by Dr. George Spalatin, his friend at court, to prepare a “spiritual consolation” for the Elector, Luther wrote “The Fourteen of Consolation,” one of his finest and tenderest devotional writings, and, in conception and execution, one of the most original of all his works.
Its composition falls within the months of August and September of the year 1519. On August 29th, the Day of the Beheading of St. John Baptist, we find him writing in Part I, chapter vi: “Does not the example of St. John Baptist, whom we commemorate on this day as beheaded by Herod, shame and amaze us all?” On September 22d, he sends the completed manuscript (in Latin) to Spalatin, requesting him to make a free translation of it into German and present it to the Elector. By the end of November Spalatin had completed his task (one marvels at the leisureliness of this, in view of the serious condition of the Elector; or was the manuscript translated and administered piecemeal to the noble patient?), and early in December he returned the original, doubtless together with his own translation, to Luther, who had requested its return, “in order to comfort himself therewith.” The work was, therefore, in the strictest sense, a private writing, and not in the least intended for publication.[1] But the importunities of those who had seen it, particularly of Spalatin, prevailed, and on December 18th Luther writes to the latter that “the Tessaradecas, in both Latin and German, is in the hands of the printer.” On February 8th, 1520, he sends Spalatin a printed copy of the Latin, and six days later, one of the German edition. The latter contained a dedicatory letter to the Elector, which, however, by an oversight of the printer, and owing to Luther’s absence at the time, was omitted in the Latin edition.
In 1535, fifteen years after its first appearance in print, Luther issued his Tessaradecas in a new and final edition, adding a brief prefatory note. He no longer holds many of his former views, and there is much in his little book that he has outgrown and might now correct. But with characteristic unconcern, he lets it all stand, and even restores many passages that had been corrupted or omitted to their original form. It is a revised edition, with the errors, as it were, underscored. It is to be chiefly an historical record, to show the world how far he has progressed since its first writing (1 Tim. 4:15), a mile-post on the road of his inner development.[2] And more than this—and here one fancies he can see the sardonic smile on the battle-scarred face—it is to furnish his enemies with weapons against himself; he desires to show a favor to the hunters of contradictions in his works, “that they may have whereon to exercise their malice.”
2. The plan of the work is in the highest degree original and artificial. The title, Tessaradecas consolatoria, which we have rendered “The Fourteen of Consolation,” [3] is explained by Luther in the dedicatory epistle to the Elector, pp. 110 ff. The “Fourteen” were the fourteen patron saints of medieval devotion, called the “Defenders from all evils” (defendores, auxiliatores). Whence the cult arose is not altogether certain. It is said to have become popular in Germany since the vision of a Franconian shepherd, in 1446, to whom there appeared, in the fields, the Christ-child surrounded by the fourteen saints. The Vierzehnheiligenkirche at Staffelstein, a famous shrine for pilgrims, marks the spot. The names of the “Fourteen,” each of whom was a defender against some particular disease or danger, are as follows: Achatius (Acacius), Aegidius, Barbara (cf. St. Barbara’s cress), Blasius (the “defender” of those afflicted with throat diseases), Catharine (cf. St. Catharine’s flower), Christopher (cf. St. Christopher’s herb), Cyriacus, Dionysius, Erasmus (Italian: San Elmo; cf. St. Elmo’s fire), Eustachius, George the Martyr (cf. St. George’s herb), Margaret, Pantaleon, and Vitus (cf. St. Vitus’s dance). Luther’s Sermons on the First Commandment (1516) may be compared lot references to some of these saints and to many others.