On War Against the Turk

Last updated
On War Against the Turk
Author Martin Luther
Original titleVom Kriege wider die Türken
Country Holy Roman Empire
Language German
Genre War, religion
Publication date
1528

On War Against the Turk (German: Vom Kriege wider die Türken) was a book written by Martin Luther in 1528 and published in 1529. [1] It was one of several pamphlets and sermons by Martin Luther about Islam and resistance to the Ottoman Empire, during the critical period of territorial expansion of the Ottoman Empire in Europe, marked by the capture of Buda in 1526 and the Siege of Vienna in 1529.

Martin Luther Saxon priest, monk and theologian, seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Martin Luther, was a German professor of theology, composer, priest, monk, and a seminal figure in the Protestant Reformation.

Islam is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion teaching that there is only one God, and that Muhammad is the messenger of God. It is the world's second-largest religion with over 1.8 billion followers or 24% of the world's population, most commonly known as Muslims. Muslims make up a majority of the population in 50 countries. Islam teaches that God is merciful, all-powerful, and unique, and has guided humankind through prophets, revealed scriptures and natural signs. The primary scriptures of Islam are the Quran, viewed by Muslims as the verbatim word of God, and the teachings and normative examples of Muhammad.

Ottoman Empire Former empire in Asia, Europe and Africa

The Ottoman Empire, historically known in Western Europe as the Turkish Empire or simply Turkey, was a state that controlled much of Southeast Europe, Western Asia and North Africa between the 14th and early 20th centuries. It was founded at the end of the 13th century in northwestern Anatolia in the town of Söğüt by the Oghuz Turkish tribal leader Osman I. After 1354, the Ottomans crossed into Europe, and with the conquest of the Balkans, the Ottoman beylik was transformed into a transcontinental empire. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the 1453 conquest of Constantinople by Mehmed the Conqueror.

Contents

Content

Initially, in his 1518 Explanation of the Ninety-five Theses, Luther had argued against resisting the Turks, whom he presented as a scourge intentionally sent by God to sinning Christians, and that resisting it would have been equivalent to resisting the will of God. [2] This position had been initially shared by Erasmus as well, but was strongly criticized by authors such as Thomas More:

Erasmus Dutch Renaissance humanist, Catholic priest, and theologian

Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, known as Erasmus or Erasmus of Rotterdam, was a Dutch Christian humanist who was the greatest scholar of the northern Renaissance. Originally trained as a Catholic priest, Erasmus was an important figure in classical scholarship who wrote in a pure Latin style. Among humanists he enjoyed the sobriquet "Prince of the Humanists", and has been called "the crowning glory of the Christian humanists". Using humanist techniques for working on texts, he prepared important new Latin and Greek editions of the New Testament, which raised questions that would be influential in the Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation. He also wrote On Free Will,In Praise of Folly, Handbook of a Christian Knight, On Civility in Children, Copia: Foundations of the Abundant Style, Julius Exclusus, and many other works.

Thomas More 15th/16th-century English statesman

Sir Thomas More, venerated in the Catholic Church as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, social philosopher, author, statesman, and noted Renaissance humanist. He was also a councillor to Henry VIII, and Lord High Chancellor of England from October 1529 to 16 May 1532. He wrote Utopia, published in 1516, about the political system of an imaginary, ideal island nation.

"It is a gentle holiness to abstain for devotion from resisting the Turk, and in the meanwhile to rise up in routs and fight against Christian men, and destroy as that sect has done, many a good religious house, spoiled, maimed and slain many a good virtuous man, robbed, polluted, and pulled down many a goodly church of Christ."
Thomas More. [3]

With the Turkish advance becoming ever more threatening, however, in 1528 Luther modified his stance and wrote On War against the Turk and in 1529 Sermon against the Turk, encouraging the German people and Emperor Charles V to resist the invasion. [4]

Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor 16th-century Holy Roman Emperor

Charles V was Holy Roman Emperor (1519–1556), King of Germany (1520-1556), King of Italy (1530-1556), King of Spain (1516-1556), King of the Indies (1521-1556), Lord of the Habsburg Netherlands (1506–1555), and head of the House of Austria (1519-1556). Charles V revitalized the medieval concept of the universal monarchy of Charlemagne and travelled from city to city, with no single fixed capital: overall he spent 28 years in the Habsburg Netherlands, 18 years in Spain, and 9 years in Germany. After four decades of incessant warfare with the Protestants, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of France, Charles V abandoned his multi-national project with a series of abdications between 1554 and 1556 in favor of his son Philip II of Spain and brother Ferdinand I of Austria. The personal union of his European and American territories, spanning over nearly 4 million square kilometres, was the first collection of realms to be defined as "the empire on which the sun never sets".

Compared with his anger over what he perceived as the annoying-but-not-incurable stubbornness of Judaism, Luther's positions against Islam portrayed an attitude of hopelessness and acceptance of failure, resulting in milder condemnation. [5] On the one hand Luther extensively criticized the principles of Islam, but on the other hand he also expressed a view that the practice of the Islamic faith was not worth the effort to combat as strongly:

Martin Luther (1483–1546) was a German professor of theology, priest and seminal leader of the Reformation. However, despite his importance as a figure in the development of Protestant theology, his positions on Judaism continue to be controversial. These changed dramatically from his early career, where he showed concern for the plight of European Jews to his later years, when embittered by his failure to convert them to Christianity, he became outspokenly antisemitic in his statements and writings. Recent historical studies have focused on Luther's influence on modern antisemitism, with a particular focus on Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.

Judaism ancient, monotheistic, Abrahamic religion with the Torah as its foundational text

Judaism is the ethnic religion of the Jewish people. It is an ancient, monotheistic, Abrahamic religion with the Torah as its foundational text. It encompasses the religion, philosophy, and culture of the Jewish people. Judaism is considered by religious Jews to be the expression of the covenant that God established with the Children of Israel. Judaism encompasses a wide body of texts, practices, theological positions, and forms of organization. The Torah is part of the larger text known as the Tanakh or the Hebrew Bible, and supplemental oral tradition represented by later texts such as the Midrash and the Talmud. With between 14.5 and 17.4 million adherents worldwide, Judaism is the tenth largest religion in the world.

"Let the Turk believe and live as he will, just as one lets the papacy and other false Christians live."
Excerpt from On war against the Turk, 1529. [6]

In On War Against the Turk, Luther is less critical of the Turks than he is of the Pope, whom he calls an anti-Christ, or the Jews, whom he describes as "the Devil incarnate". [7] He urges his contemporaries to also see that some Turks, guided by their beliefs, had good intentions. He refers to some who were favorable to the Ottoman Empire "who actually want the Turk to come and rule, because they think that our German people are wild and uncivilized – indeed that they are half-devil and half-man". [8]

Pope leader of the Catholic Church

The pope, also known as the supreme pontiff, is the Bishop of Rome and ex officio leader of the worldwide Catholic Church. Since 1929, the pope has also been head of state of Vatican City, a city-state enclaved within Rome, Italy. The current pope is Francis, who was elected on 13 March 2013, succeeding Benedict XVI.

Jews ancient nation and ethnoreligious group from the Levant

Jews or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and a nation, originating from the Israelites and Hebrews of historical Israel and Judah. Jewish ethnicity, nationhood, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish people, while its observance varies from strict observance to complete nonobservance.

He also argued that the fight against the Turks should not be a holy war, but only a secular one, made in self-defense (thus a war not to gain territory but to protect neighbors' lives and property as taught in the Ten Commandments [9] ), and led by the secular authorities of the Emperor and the Princes, and strongly warned against leading it as a religious war:

Religious war war primarily caused or justified by differences in religion

A religious war or holy war is a war primarily caused or justified by differences in religion. In the modern period, debates are common over the extent to which religious, economic, or ethnic aspects of a conflict predominate in a given war. According to the Encyclopedia of Wars, out of all 1,763 known/recorded historical conflicts, 123, or 6.98%, had religion as their primary cause. Matthew White's The Great Big Book of Horrible Things gives religion as the cause of 13 of the world's 100 deadliest atrocities. In several conflicts including the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, the Syrian civil war, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, religious elements are overtly present but variously described as fundamentalism or religious extremism—depending upon the observer's sympathies. However, studies on these cases often conclude that ethnic animosities drive much of the conflicts.

"...as though our people were an army of Christians against the Turks, who were enemies of Christ. This is absolutely contrary to Christ's doctrine and name"
Excerpt from On war against the Turk, 1529. [10]

See also

Notes

  1. Brecht, p. 364.
  2. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse by Andrew Cunningham, p. 141.
  3. Quoted in Cunningham, p. 141.
  4. Miller, p. 208.
  5. The Ottoman Empire and early modern Europe by Daniel Goffman, p. 109
  6. Quoted in Miller, p. 208.
  7. Goffman, p. 109.
  8. Goffman, p. 110.
  9. The Small Catechism, by Dr. Martin Luther
  10. Quoted in The Ten commandments. William P. Brown, p. 258.

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