# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_September 1861_S274
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

274 That the Pope at Rome is the Antichrist.

...still spoken mildly, Luther gives, in a somewhat coarser manner, the sum of his teaching on the Antichrist in the Smalcald Articles (II, 4) as follows: "The Pope has raised his head above everyone, and this fact shows powerfully that he is the true Antichrist or adversary of Christ, who has set and exalted himself over and against Christ. — — Therefore we must not kiss his feet or say: You are my gracious lord, but rather, as in Zechariah 3:2 the angel said to the devil: The LORD rebuke thee, Satan." (Erlangen ed. 25, 124 ff.) More calmly and thoroughly, in dogmatic terms, Melanchthon then again develops this matter in the appendix to the Smalcald Articles as follows: "So also all the vices that are prophesied in Scripture concerning the Antichrist agree with the Pope's kingdom and its members. For Paul, when he depicts the Antichrist, 2 Thess. 2:4, calls him an adversary of Christ, who exalts himself above everything that is called God or worship, so that he sets himself in the temple of God as a god and pretends to be a god. Here Paul speaks of one who rules in the church, and not of secular kings, and calls him an adversary of Christ, because he will devise another doctrine, and because he will presume to claim all this as though he did it by divine right. Now, first, it is true that the Pope rules in the church, and under the appearance of spiritual power has brought such dominion upon himself; for he grounds himself on these words, Matt. 16:19: I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven. — Second, the Pope's doctrine is indeed in every way against the Gospel. — Third, that he pretends to be God is to be noted in all three points: first, that he presumes that he may change the doctrine of Christ and the true worship instituted by God himself, and wishes his own doctrine and self-invented forms of worship to be held as though God himself had commanded them. Second, that he presumes the power to bind and to loose, not only in this temporal life here but also in that life to come. Third, that the Pope will not suffer the church or anyone else to judge him, but his power is to extend over all councils and the whole church; but that means making oneself a god, when one will suffer neither the church's nor anyone's judgment. — Finally, the Pope has also defended such error and godless behavior with unjust force and murder, in that he has had all those killed who did not agree with him in every respect. — Since this is so, all Christians should most diligently guard themselves against having any part in such godless doctrine, blasphemy, and unjust cruelty, but should, from the Pope and his members and followers, as

...become righteous. Thus the papacy too becomes a part of the kingdom of Antichrist" (alongside the oriental Mohammed's), "in that it teaches that forgiveness of sin and reconciliation with God are obtained through human commandment. . . Daniel in the 11th chapter depicts the kingdom of Antichrist in such a way that he indicates that such new forms of worship, invented by men, are to be the polity and the true essence of the antichristian kingdom. For thus he says: He shall honor the god Maozim, and the god whom his fathers did not know he shall serve with gold, silver, and precious stones. There he describes such new forms of worship," etc.,