heart, because it seemed to indicate not only a change of the heart, but also a manner of changing it, i. e., the grace of God. For that "passing over of the mind,"[1] which is true repentance, is of very frequent mention in the Scriptures. Christ has displayed the true significance of that old word "Passover"; and long before the Passover,[2] Abraham was a type of it, when he was called a "pilgrim," [3] i. e., a "Hebrew,"[4] that is to say, one who "passed over" into Mesopotamia, as the Doctor of Bourgos[5] learnedly explains. With this accords, too, the title of the Psalm [6] in which Jeduthun, i. e., "the pilgrim,"[7] is introduced as the singer.
Depending on these things, I ventured to think those men false teachers who ascribed so much to works of penitence that they left us scarcely anything of penitence itself except trivial satisfactions[8] and laborious confession, because, forsooth, they had derived their idea from the Latin words poenitentiam agere,[9]. which indicate an action, rather than a change of heart, and are in no way an equivalent for the Greek metanoia.
While this thought was boiling in my mind, suddenly new trumpets of indulgences and bugles of remissions began to peal and to bray all about us; but they were not intended to arouse us to keen eagerness for battle. In a word, the doctrine of true penitence was passed by, and they presumed to praise not even that poorest part of penitence which is called "satisfaction,"[10] but the remission of that poorest part of penitence; and they praised it
- ↑ Transitus mentis.
- ↑ Ex. 12:11
- ↑ I Cor. 5:7
- ↑ The derivation of the term "Hebrew" is still disputed (v. PRE3 VII, p. 507). Luther conceives it to mean transitor, "one who passes through or across the land," "a pilgrim." Cf. Genesis 12:6.
- ↑ Burgensis, i. e., Paul of Bourgos (1353-1435).
- ↑ Ps. 39
- ↑ Another bit of Mediaeval philology.
- ↑ See Introduction, p. 19.
- ↑ Cf. Thesis 1, and foot-note.
- ↑ Here again, as above, we have the double sense of poenitentia. Satisfaction is a part of sacramental penance. Luther's charge is that in preaching the remission of this part of the Sacrament the doctrine of true penitence (cf. Thesis 1) is passed by.
