Mystery Luther Quote
Alright. Somewhere along the line, I believe it was in an undergraduate course, I heard a quote attributed to Martin Luther regarding vocation. The gist of which was comparing the work of a monk to the vocation of a dung-shoveler. It would certainly not be out of character for Luther to use a scatological reference to make a point. Unfortunately, I'm not certain how to spell dung-shoveler in German, or I probably could have found the reference already. Does anyone know if this is a real Luther quote or if my source was full of it (heh, pun).
posted by Kletos Sumboulos at 5:29 PM
3 Comments:
The comments are from:
THE JUDGMENT OF MARTIN LUTHER ON MONASTIC VOWS
The only direct reference to Dung is when Luther quotes Paul. For example:
You see now why Paul condemned the works of the divine law (or the righteousness by the law)—and also why he considered his own pharisaic righteousness as dung and loss, even though he boasts in Colossians 2 [Phil. 3:6–7] that his righteousness was blameless—because it is opposed to the righteousness which is from Christ and in Christ.
and
But there is nothing in that except the kind of righteousness which Paul discarded as dung and dead loss [Phil. 3:8]
Those are the only two references to Dung in the work.
Ted,
Thanks for checking - you apparently have the CD-ROM of Luther's Works?
Anyway, I guess Dr. Martin was less of a "potty mouth" than I have been led to believe. Wait a minute, what about the famous snow covered dung reference?
Thanks again,
Kletos
That might just explain this guy's vow of silence.
Jeffrey G.
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