St. Alphonsus Liguori: The History of Heresies and Their Refutation

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CHAPTER XI. – THE HERESIES OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

III. – ERRORS OF LUTHER

26. Forty-one Errors of Luther condemned by Leo X.
27. Other Errors taken from his Books.
28. Luther’s Remorse of Conscience.
29. His Abuse of Henry VIII.; his erroneous translation of the New Testament; the Books he rejected.
30. His method of celebrating Mass.
31. His Book against the Sacramentarians, who denied the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.



26. First in order, come the forty-one propositions of Luther, condemned by Leo X. in his Bull Exurge Domine, published in 1520, which is found in the Bullarium of Leo X. (Constit. 40), in Cochleus’s account of Luther’s proceedings, and also in Bernini’s (1) works. They are as follows:

1st – It is a usual, but a heretical opinion, that the Sacraments of the New Law give justifying grace to those who place no hindrance in the way.

2nd – To deny that sin remains in a child after baptism, is, through the mouth of Paul, to trample both on Christ and Paul.

3rd – The tendency to sin (Fomes peccati), although there is no actual sin, delays the soul, after leaving the body, from entering into heaven.

4th  -The imperfect charity of one about to die necessarily induces a great fear, which of itself is enough to make the pains of Purgatory, and excludes from the kingdom.

5th – That the parts of Penance are three Contrition, Confession, and Satisfaction; is founded neither in Scripture, nor in the ancient Holy Christian Doctors.

Sixth – Contrition, which is obtained by examination, recollection, and detestation of sins, by which a person recollects his years in the bitterness of his soul, pondering on the grievousness, the multitude, and the foulness of his sins, the loss of eternal beatitude, and the incurring eternal damnation this contrition only makes a man a hypocrite, and a greater sinner.

7th – That proverb is most true, and better than all the doctrine about conditions given as yet : the highest Penance is not to act so again, and the best Penance is a new life.

8th – Presume not by any means to confess venial sins, and not even every wicked sin; for it is impossible that you should know all your mortal sins; and hence, in the primitive Church only these manifestly mortal were confessed.

9th – When we wish clearly to confess everything, we act as if we wished to leave nothing to the mercy of God to pardon.

10th – Sins are not remitted to any one, unless (the Priest remitting them) he believes they are remitted yea, the sin remains, unless he believes it remitted; for the remission of sin and the donation of grace is not enough, but we must also believe it is remitted.

11th – You should on no account trust you are absolved on account of your contrition, but because of the words of Christ: “Whatsoever thou shalt loose.” Hence, I say, trust, if you obtain the Priest’s absolution, and believe strongly you are absolved, and you will be truly absolved, no matter about contrition.

12th – If by impossibility you should confess without contrition, or the Priest should absolve you only in joke, and you, nevertheless, believe you are absolved, you are most certainly absolved.

13th –  In the Sacraments of Penance and the Remission of Sins, the Pope or Bishop does no more than the lowest Priest nay, if a Priest cannot be had, any Christian, even a woman or child, has the same power.

14th – No one ought to answer a Priest that he is contrite, nor ought a Priest to ask such a question.

15th  – They are in great error who approach the Sacrament of the Eucharist with trust, because they have confessed, are not conscious to themselves of any mortal sins, have said the prayers and preparations for Communion all these eat and drink unto themselves judgment; but if they believe and trust, they will then obtain grace : this faith alone makes them pure and worthy.

16th – It seems advisable that the Church, in a General Council, should declare that the laity should communicate under both kinds, and the Bohemians who do so are not heretics, but schismatics.

17th – The treasures of the Church, from which the Pope grants Indulgences, are not the merits of Christ or his Saints.

18th – Indulgences are pious frauds of the faithful, and remission of good works, and are of the number of those things that are lawful, but not expedient.

19th- Indulgences are of no value to those who truly obtain them for the remission of the punishment due to the Divine justice for their actual sins.

20th – They are seduced who believe Indulgences are salutary and useful for the fruit of the spirit.

21st- Indulgences are necessary only for public crimes, and should be granted only to the hardened and impatient.

22nd – For six classes of persons Indulgences are neither useful nor necessary to wit, the dead, those on the point of death, the sick, those who are lawfully impeded, those who have not committed crimes, those who have committed crimes, but not public ones, and those who mend their lives.

23rd – Excommunications are merely external penalties, and do not deprive a man of the common spiritual prayers of the Church.

24th – Christians should be taught rather to love excommunication than to fear it.

25th – The Roman Pontiff, the successor of Peter, is not the Vicar of Christ instituted by Christ himself in St. Peter, Vicar over all the Churches of the world.

26th – The word of Christ to St. Peter, ” Whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth,” &c., extended but to what St. Peter himself alone had bound.

27th – It is not certainly in the power of the  Pope or the Church by any means to lay down articles of faith nor laws of morals, nor good works.

28th – If the Pope, with a great part of the Church, should think so and so, although not in error, it is, nevertheless, neither sin nor heresy to think the contrary, especially in a matter not necessary to salvation, until by a General Council one thing is rejected and the other approved.

29th – We have a way open to us for weakening the authority of Councils, and freely contradicting their acts, and judging their decrees, by freely confessing whatever appears true, no matter whether approved or condemned by any Council.

30th  – Some of the articles of John Huss, condemned in the Council of Constance, are most Christian, most true, and most Evangelical, such as not even the universal Church could condemn.

31st – The just man sins in every good work.

32nd -A good work, be it never so well performed, is a venial sin.

33rd – It is against the will of the spirit to burn heretics.

34th - To fight against the Turks is to oppose the will of God, who punishes our iniquities through them.

35th- No man can be certain that he is not in a constant state of mortal sin on account of the most hidden vice of pride.

36th – Free will after sin is a matter of name alone, and while one does what is in him, he sins mortally.

37th – Purgatory cannot be proved from the Holy Scriptures contained in the Canon of Scripture.

38th – The souls in Purgatory are not sure of their salvation at least all of them; nor is it proved by reason or Scripture that they are beyond the state of merit or of increasing charity.

39th -The souls in Purgatory continually sin, as long as they seek relief and dread their punishment.

40th – Souls freed from Purgatory by the suffrages of the living, enjoy a less share of beatitude than if they satisfied the Divine justice themselves.

41st – Ecclesiastical Prelates and secular Princes would do no wrong if they abolished the mendicant Orders.



27. Besides the errors here enumerated and condemned by the Bull, there are many others mentioned and enumerated by Noel Alexander, and Cardinal Gotti (2), extracted from various works of Luther, as from the treatise ” De Indulgentiis,” ” De Reformatione,” ” Respon. ad lib. Catharini,” ” De Captivitate Babilonica,” ” Contra Latomum,” ” De Missa privata,” ” Contra Episc. Ordinem,” ” Contra Henricum VIII. Regem,” “Novi Testamenti Translatio,” ” De Formula Missæ et Communionis,” ” Ad Waldenses, &c.,” ” Contra Carlostadium,” ” De Servo arbitro,” ” Contra Anabaptistas,” and other works, printed in Wittemberg, in several volumes. Here are some of his most remarkable errors:

1st – A Priest, though he does it in mockery or in jest, still both validly baptizes and absolves.

2nd – It is a foul error for any one to imagine he can make satisfaction for his sins, which God gratuitously pardons.

3rd – Baptism does not take away all sin.

4th – Led astray by wicked Doctors, we think we are free from sin, by Baptism and contrition; also that good works are available for increasing merit, and satisfying for sin.

5th – Those who have made it a precept, obliging under mortal sin to communicate at Easter, have sinned grievously themselves.

6th – It is not God, but the Pope, who commands auricular confession to a Priest. Whoever wishes to receive the Holy Sacrament, should receive it entire (that is under both kinds), or abstain from it altogether.

7th – The right of interpreting Scriptures is equal in the laity as in the learned.

8th – The Roman Church in the time of St. Gregory was not above other Churches.

9th – God commands impossibilities to man.

10th – God requires supreme perfection from every Christian.

11th  – There are no such things as Evangelical Counsels; they are all Precepts.

12th – We should give greater faith to a layman, having the authority of Scripture, than to a Pope, a Council, or even to the Church.

13th – Peter as not the Prince of the Apostles.

14th – The Pope is the Vicar of Christ by human right alone.

15th – A sin is venial, not by its own nature, but by the mercy of God.

16th – I believe a Council and the Church never errs in matters of Faith, but as to the rest, it is not necessary they should be infallible.

17th  – The primacy of the Roman Pontiff is not of Divine right.

18th – There are not Seven Sacraments, and for the present there should only be established Baptism, Penance, and the Bread.

19th - We can believe, without heresy, that real bread is present on the altar.

20th – The Gospel does not permit the Mass to be a sacrifice.

21st – The Mass is nothing else but the words of Christ: "Take and eat, &c.,” the promise of Christ.

22nd – It is a dangerous error to call Penance, and believe it to be, the plank after shipwreck.

23rd – It impious to assert that the Sacraments are efficacious signs of grace, unless we should say that when there is undoubted faith, they confer grace.

24t – All vows, both of Religious Orders and of good works, should be abolished.

25th-  It is sufficient for a brother to confess to a brother, for to all Christians that were, has been addressed : ” Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth.”

26th – Bishops have not the right of reserving cases.

27th – A change of life is true satisfaction.

28th – There is no reason why Confirmation should be reckoned among the Sacraments.

29th – Matrimony is not a Sacrament.

30th – Impediments of Spiritual affinity, of crime, and of order, are but human comments.

31st – The Sacrament of Orders was invented by the Pope’s Church.

32nd – The Council of Constance erred, and many things were rashly determined on, such as, that the Divine essence neither generates nor is generated, that the soul is the substantial form of the human body.

33rd- All Christians are Priests, and have the same power in the words and Sacraments.

34th – Extreme Unction is not a Sacrament; there are only two Sacraments, Baptism and the Bread.

35th – The Sacrament of Penance is nothing also, but a way and return to Baptism.

36th - Antecedent grace is that movement which is made in us without us, not without our active and vital concurrence (as a stone which is merely passive to physical acts), but without our free and indifferent action. It was thus Luther explained efficacious grace, and on this he founded his system, that the will of a man, both for good and evil, is operated upon by necessity; saying, that by grace a necessity is induced into the will, not by coaction, for the will acts spontaneously, but by necessity; and in another place, he says, that by sin the will has lost its liberty, not that liberty which Theologians call a coactione, but, a necessitate, it has lost its indifference.


28. In his book on the Sacrifice of the Mass, we may perceive how remorse torments him. ” How often,” he says, ” has my heart beat, reprehending me Are you always wise ? Do all others err ? Have so many centuries passed in ignorance ? How will it be if you are in error, and you lead so many along with you to damnation ? But at length Christ (the devil he should have said) confirmed me.”


29. In the year 1522, Henry VIII. wrote a book in defence of the Seven Sacraments. Luther, answering him, calls him a fool, says he will trample on the crowned blasphemer, and that his own doctrines are from heaven. In the same year, he published his German translation of the New Testament, in which learned Catholics discover a thousand errors; he rejects altogether the Epistle of St. Paul to the Hebrews, the Epistles of St. James and St. Jude, and the Apocalypse; he made many changes after the first edition, no less than thirty-three, in the Gospel of St. Matthew alone. In the words of St. Paul, chap, iii, v. 3, ” For we account a man to be justified by Faith without the works of the law,” he adds the word alone, ” by Faith alone.” In the Diet of Augsburg, some one said to him, that the Catholics spoke very loudly of this interpretation, when he made that arrogant answer : ” If your Papist prattles any more about this word alone, tell him that Doctor Martin Luther wishes it to be so; sic volo, sic jubeo, sit pro ratione voluntas I wish so, I order so, let my will be sufficient reason for it.”


30. In the year 1523, he composed his book, ” De Formula Missæ et Communionis ;” he abolished the Introits of the Sundays, all the Festivals of Saints, with the exception of the Purification and Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin; he retained the Kyrie, the Gloria, and one Collect, the Epistle, the Gospel, and the Nicene Creed, but all in the vulgar tongue; he then passed on to the Preface, omitting all the rest; he then says : “Who, the day before he suffered,” &c., as in the Catholic Sacrifice of the Mass, but the words of the Consecration are chaunted as loud as the Pater Noster, that they may be heard by the people. After the Consecration, the Sanctus is sung, and the Benedictus qui venit, said; the bread and the chalice is elevated, immediately after the Pater Noster is said, without any other prayer; then the Pax Domini, &c. The communion follows, and while that is going on, the Agnus Dei is sung; he approves of the Orationes Domine Jesu, &c., and Corpus D. N. J. C., custodiat, &c. He allows the Communion to be sung, but in place of the last Collect, chaunts the prayer, Quod ore sumpsimus, &c., and instead of the Ite Missa est, says Benedicamus Domine. He gives the chalice to all, permits the use of vestments, but without any blessing, and prohibits private Masses. To prepare for Communion, he says, Confession may be permitted as useful, but it is not necessary. He allows Matins to be said, with three lessons, the Hours, Vespers, and Complin.


31. In the year 1525, Carlostad attacked the doctrine of the Real Presence of Christ in the Holy Sacrament, saying that the word this did not refer to the bread, but to the body of Christ crucified. Luther opposed him in his book, ” Contra Prophetas sen Fanaticos ;” in this he first speaks of Images, and says that in the law of Moses it was Images of the Deity alone which were prohibited; he before admitted the Images of the Saints and the Cross. Speaking of the Sacrament he says, by the word hoc, this, the bread is pointed out, and that Christ is truly and carnally in the supper. The bread and the body are united in the bread, and (speaking of the Incarnation) as man is God, so the bread is called his body and the body bread. Thus Luther falsely constitutes a second hypostatic union between the bread and the body of Christ. Hospinian quotes a sermon Luther preached against the Sacramentarians, where, speaking of the peace they wished to have established, if the Lutherans would grant them the liberty to deny the Real Presence, he says: ” Cursed be such concord, which tears asunder and despises the Church.”

He then derides their false interpretation of the words, ” This is my body.” He commences with Zuinglius, who says the word is is the same as signifies. ” We have the Scripture,” says Luther, ” which says, This is my body; but is there any place in the Scriptures where it is written, This signifies my body.” He then ridicules the interpretation of the others. ” Carlostad,” he says, ” distorts the word this; Ecolampadius tortures the word body; others transpose the word this, and say, my body which shall be delivered for you is this; others say, that which is given for you, this is my body; others maintain the text, this is my body, for my commemoration; and others again say, this is not an article of Faith.” Returning, then, on Ecolampadius, who said it was blasphemous to assert that God was kneaded, baked, and made of bread, he retorts : ” It would also, I suppose, be blasphemous to say God was made man that it was most insulting to the Divine Majesty to be crucified by wicked men and concludes, by ” saying : ” The  Sacramentarians prepare the way for denial of all the articles of Faith, and they already begin to believe nothing.” Speaking of Transubstantiation, he says : ” It makes but little difference for any one to believe the bread to remain or not to remain in the Eucharist, if he believes in Transubstantiation.” In an agreement made with Bucer, at Wittemberg, in 1526, he granted that the body and blood of Christ remained in the Sacrament only while it was received.



(1) Bernin. t. 4, sec. 16, c. 2, p. 285.
(2) Nat. Alex. t. 19, art, 11, sec. 2; Gotti, c, 108, sec. 4; Tournelly, Comp, Thol. t. 5, p. 1, diss. 5, art. 2.