# Lehre und Wehre_St. Louis Missouri_Februar 1864_S50
# AI translation — CHI Digital Archive (demonstration)

50 Church Service and Military Service.

Thus, for example, Luther writes in the year 1528: “How many wars, do you suppose, have there been against the Turk in which we did not suffer great harm, when the bishops and clergy were involved? How wretchedly was the noble King Ladislaus defeated at Varna along with his bishops by the Turk, so that this misfortune caused the Hungarians themselves to blame Cardinal Giuliano and to stab him to death for it. And now recently King Louis might perhaps have fought more happily had he not led a priests' army, or, as they boast, a Christians' army, against the Turk. And if I were emperor, king, or prince on a campaign against the Turk, I would admonish my bishops and priests to stay at home and tend to their office with fasting, reading, preaching, and caring for the poor, as not only Holy Scripture but also their own spiritual law teaches and requires. But if they, as the disobedient against God and their own law, insisted on being in the war with me, I would compel them by force to tend to their office, and would not let myself and my army be exposed, through their disobedience, to God's wrath and every peril; for it would do me less harm to have three devils in my army than one disobedient, apostate bishop who forgets his office and meddles in what he was not commanded to do; for there can be no good fortune among such people, who fight against God and their own laws. I have heard from noble soldiers who thought that the King of France, when he was defeated before Pavia by the Emperor, had all his misfortune from this, that he had with him the Pope's people, or, as they boast, the Church's people. For after these came into his camp with a great cry: Ecclesia! Ecclesia! Here is the Church! Here is the Church! — there was never again any good fortune to be had. So say the soldiers, and perhaps they do not know the reasons: that it does not befit the Pope (since he wishes to be a Christian, indeed the highest and best preacher of Christians) to lead a church army or a Christians' army; for the Church is not to fight, nor to contend with the sword; she has other enemies than flesh and blood, namely the evil devils in the air, Ephesians 6:12. Therefore she also has other weapons and swords and other wars, with which she has quite enough to do, and she must not meddle in the wars of emperor or princes; for Scripture says there shall be no good fortune where one is disobedient to God. Again, if I were a soldier and saw in the field a priests' or a cross-banner, even if it were a crucifix itself, I would run from it as if the devil were chasing me; and even if they should win a victory by God's permission, I would still not wish to share in the spoils and rejoicing. Would that it had not succeeded for that wicked iron-eater Pope Julius, who was nearly half a devil — he had in the end to call upon Emperor Maximilian and let him attend to the game, regardless of the fact that Julius had more money, weapons, and men. So I do think that this latest Pope Clement has had his warring succeed almost too well! — a man whom people all but held to be a god of war, until he lost Rome, together with all its wealth,