# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_December 1860_S363
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

The Rose Months of Holy Women. 363

to take Mary to heart. (p. 110 ff.) Has, then, the Word of God, which calls
to repentance, become so dear a commodity in the land that it needs the
substitute of legends? And is it to pass over my lips that I say: I do not
believe the whole story; but I nevertheless feel myself called upon to do
penance for my sins? To what perversity, or better, to what blind belief in
legend must one have brought oneself before such a thing became possible!
Where, then, amid all this traffic in tales and fables, is the warning sign of
the faithful Eckart?

When Luther has to preach on St. Catharine's day, he begins thus: "I have
not taken up this gospel for myself in order to confirm the legends of St.
Catharine, which, when one looks at them rightly, contain more lies than
truth. Be that as it may, let us let the legends go, since they are uncertain,
and let us take up the gospel before us, which indeed cannot deceive or
mislead us." And since Francis and Dominic were spoken of above, let us at
once let another passage from Luther follow. "In the second place they set
before us the legends and examples of the saints, in order thereby also to
strengthen and ground their human doctrine. And this truly presses hard and
corrupts countless souls. Thus one comes so secretly away from Scripture and
faith that no one can notice it. Thus they read about St. Benedict, Gregory,
Bernard, Augustine, Francis, Dominic, and many great saints, whom no one may
deny to be holy, who nevertheless lived and became holy in such human
doctrines and orders. Tell me, how can a simple heart endure such blows and
remain in the faith? There must be an apostolic or evangelical spirit here to
hold fast through it!" — Yet of such passages, and others, from Luther it
will be said that they do not fit here in the least. Here one would not be
pointed to the saints of earlier times for confirmation in false human
doctrine, but rather for encouragement to walk after Christ according to
their model, and indeed more purely and faithfully than they, according to
the measure of the pure light. It will therefore be a matter of conscience to
examine exactly whether this book is really suited to achieve that purpose
and to promote a truly evangelical character.

Whoever indeed comes fresh from Luther and observes, in the rose months,
alongside the martyred women, all the nuns, hermitesses, and the like, has
from the outset some scruples to overcome. It is to him as though he heard
Luther's words: "Christ does not want such saints either, who run away from
people. For if that were to hold good, one would not need the Ten Commandments
at all."

Such thoughts, as Luther expresses them here, and as our confessional
writings repeat them when they say that it is no perfection to leave wife,
child, and temporal calling and to go into solitude — such thoughts, I say,
Löhe too does not now escape. On the contrary, he repeats them in express
words, for instance in the life