ABSTRACT
In the
Christian tradition, pastoral care to the dying has a long history. This tradition encompasses the medieval
literary genre of self-help books known as the ars moriendi, or “art of dying.” Martin Luther contributed to this genre with
his Sermon on Preparing to Die (1519);
dozens of Lutheran pastors, among them Wenzeslaus Linck in Nuremberg and Martin Moller in Görlitz,
followed in his footsteps. All of them
offered spiritual comfort to the dying in ways that addressed contemporary
concerns. The recently-published The Divine Art of Dying (2014) by Karen Speerstra and Herbert Anderson heralds a long-overdue
renaissance of this genre.
[1] Introduction
[2] My
task is to describe the beginnings of Lutheran pastoral care for the dying in
the sixteenth century. I will do so, and
I will also identify some theological and pastoral issues we might consider in
our discussion of Lutheran approaches to caring for the dying in our own
secularized, pluralistic, and medically advanced day and age. In order to better understand Martin Luther’s
approach to this dimension of pastoral care, I will begin with a consideration
of the type of ministry to the dying that Luther himself would have witnessed
as a child and a young man.
[3] Preparing for a Christian Death in Late-Medieval
Germany
[4] In
the Middle Ages, it was more difficult to avoid contact with death and dying
than it is in the twenty-first century.
Repeated waves of the plague killed not only adults, but children as
well; women often died in childbirth; the infection of a small wound could have
deadly consequences. Most people sought
to die at home; people who died surrounded by family and loved ones considered
themselves blessed.
[5] Medieval
priests taught dying persons to call for both medical and spiritual
assistance. They considered spiritual assistance
more important than medical, because they believed the eternal fate of the soul
to be at stake at the moment of death. Surviving
liturgical manuals, such as the Rituale of Bishop
Henry I. of Breslau from the fourteenth century, show that sick persons
were expected to confess their sins to their priest, who would then absolve
them. Thereupon they received the
sacraments of the eucharist,
or communion, and the anointing of the sick.
Psalms and prayers were spoken; the rituals were performed in Latin, the
liturgical language of the medieval church.[1] Confession was the most important aspect of
medieval preparation for death, because only persons who had been reconciled
with God by having confessed all of their mortal, that
is, very serious sins, could hope to escape eternal damnation. Moreover, the church taught that dying
persons could not be certain of their eternal salvation. Even if they had remembered and confessed all
their mortal sins, they could not know whether God had elevated them to a state
of grace. And even if they had attained
a state of grace, they could not be certain they would succeed in remaining in
this state until the moment they died.[2]
[6] Because
eternal salvation was at stake at the moment of death, it was considered
necessary for people to prepare to die while they were still in good
health. Clergy thought it wise to teach
Christian laypersons to minister to the dying, given that, especially at times
of plague, priests were either already dead, or so busy they were unable to
attend every deathbed. To assist with
this, theologians and clergy devised a variety of self-help books and handbooks
known by the Latin term ars
moriendi,
or art of dying. One of the most
widely-disseminated of these books was the anonymous Art of Dying Well (Speculum artis bene moriendi)
(ca. 1414-18). Originally written in
Latin, it circulated in manuscript before the invention of the printing press,
and was translated into several languages, including English. This book consisted of a variety of
sections: Instructions to caregivers in
the form of exhortations to dying persons to confess their sins, questions to
ask of dying persons to elicit a confession of faith, prayers to be said with
and by the dying, instructions on how dying persons were to face the demonic
temptations they could expect on their deathbed, and a series of concluding
prayers.[3] A condensed version of the Art of Dying Well, consisting of the exhortations,
the demonic temptations illustrated with vivid woodcuts, and a series of
concluding admonitions to prayer along with prayer texts was also published in
a variety of languages, including German, but not English. The five demonic temptations it taught dying
Christians to resist were: to doubt
their faith, to despair of their salvation, to fail to be patient in suffering,
to believe they deserved salvation on account of all their good works, and to
regret leaving behind their material possessions.[4] Thus the first devil tells the dying person
that he has sinned so much it is impossible for God to forgive him. He even quotes Scripture: “[N]o one knows whether he is worthy of hate
or love [Ecclesiastes 9:1].”[5] Against the devil’s temptation to despair, an
angel admonishes the dying person not to give in to despair, but rather to keep
on hoping. It was important to learn to
expect and resist these temptations, because the person who gave in to any one
of them would face eternity in hell.
[7] Martin Luther’s Sermon on Preparing to Die (1519)
[8] Commenting
on these books on preparing to die, Luther once wrote: “Many books have been written . . . on how we
are to prepare for death: nothing but
error, and people have become more downcast.”[6] His own Sermon
on Preparing to Die (1519) became a bestseller, likely because Luther
accurately diagnosed and addressed the overriding spiritual concern of devout
persons of his day: despair of eternal
salvation, and fear of hell.
[9] Martin
Luther rejected the traditional teaching that Christians could not be certain
of their eternal salvation. On the
contrary, he taught that Christians could rest assured of their salvation, and
that this assurance could be attained through faith in God’s gracious promise
to forgive sins. This teaching, which
came to be known as justification by faith, became the basis for Lutheran
teaching on preparing for death.
[10] The
title of Luther’s Sermon on Preparing to
Die (1519) is a bit misleading, because Luther did not preach it from a
pulpit, rather, he wrote and published it for devotional reading by all
Christians, and especially those close to death. Following tradition, Luther taught that dying
persons were to draw up a will, to seek reconciliation with loved ones and
neighbors, and to receive the traditional deathbed sacraments. In his exhortation to confession, however,
Luther broke with tradition; he instructed dying persons to confess not all of
their sins, but only the serious sins which lay most heavily on their
conscience.[7] This was a radical break with tradition,
because the church had taught for hundreds of years that even one unconfessed
mortal sin would send a person to hell for eternity. The remainder of the sermon consisted of
instruction on the meaning of the deathbed sacraments. These are best understood, Luther writes,
when one recognizes that they help one overcome the demonic temptations. Luther speaks of these temptations as images
of death, sin, and hell; they correspond to the late medieval temptation of
despair of salvation.[8] Luther teaches that the images or temptations
can be overcome by meditating on Christ’s passion. When Christians are tempted to despair of
salvation on account of the certainty of impending death, the gravity of their
sins, or the fear of damnation, they are to contemplate the death of Christ on
the cross, through which their own death and sin are defeated and eternal life
is given to them. Thus, when the dying
Christian contemplates the image of sin, the devil holds up to him all those
who have sinned and who have been damned on account of fewer sins than
his. This the Christian is not to do;
instead, he is to contemplate the image of grace: Christ, Luther writes, “takes your sins upon
himself and overcomes them for you with his righteousness out of sheer mercy,
and if you believe that, your sins will never do you harm.”[9] In conclusion, Luther encourages dying
persons to receive the deathbed sacraments joyfully, and to trust in the
certainty of salvation that is Christ’s gift.
Luther concludes his sermon as follows:
Thus we read in Psalm 111 [:2], ‘Great are the works of the Lord, selected according to his pleasure.’ Therefore, we ought to thank him with a joyful heart for showing us such wonderful, rich, and immeasurable grace and mercy against death, hell, and sin, and to laud and love his grace rather than fearing death so greatly. Love and praise make dying very much easier, as God tells us through Isaiah, ‘I shall curb your mouth in its praise of me, so that you will not perish’ [Isaiah 48:9]. To that end may God help us. Amen.[10]
Thus
Luther draws on motifs found in traditional ars moriendi works, like the temptation to
despair, but rejects their central teaching that dying Christians cannot be
certain of their salvation.
[11] Wenzeslaus Linck’s
(1482-1547) and Martin Moller’s (1547-1606) Approaches to Pastoral Care for the
Dying
[12] Luther’s
colleagues and successors followed in Luther’s footsteps, teaching and
consoling the Christians entrusted to their spiritual care with numerous
contributions to the ars moriendi
genre. In the sixteenth century alone,
they published over one hundred such booklets, among them Wenzeslaus
Linck’s How One
May Console the Sick in a Christian Manner (1529) and Martin Moller’s Manual for the Rightful Art of Dying (1593).[11]
[13] Unlike
Luther’s Sermon, Linck’s
booklet, published in 1529, was a manual that caregivers could use in looking
after the dying. Linck
and Luther had been fellow-Augustinian monks in Wittenberg. In 1525, Linck
became a preacher at the Spitalkirche
(lit. Hospital Church) in what was now Lutheran Nuremberg.[12] While serving in this capacity, he wrote his How One May Console the Sick. Interestingly, Linck’s
manual is equally liturgical and catechetical in nature; it sees the hospital
bed as a venue for both consolation and instruction. In this manual, each section of the catechism
is explained in such a way as to existentially relate it to the situation of
the dying individual. For example, the
caregiver is to instruct the dying person to reflect on the Ten Commandments
and “keep in mind God’s judgment, which he has spoken over all people on
account of sin . . . (1 Peter 4[:5, 17]).”[13] He is to encourage him to repent of his
sins: “I confess that I am a sinner,
worthy of death . . ..”[14] Following the confession, the pastor (“der kirchendiener”) is to pronounce absolution; the persons
attending the deathbed (“die vmbstehende(n)”) may join in:
“Dear man, set your heart on God’s gracious promise, who promises you
grace and forgiveness.”[15] Then the sick person is to take courage in
the Christian faith as communicated in the Apostles’ Creed: “[D]ear man, keep in mind what a God you
have, who both knows how and wills to help you overcome your fear of sin,
death, hell, etc.”[16] For your sake, he sent his only son Jesus
Christ. “Through his suffering, dying
and descent into hell [Christ] redeemed you from sin, death and hell.”[17] Furthermore, to dispel your doubts, “through
the preaching of the gospel and the hearing of the faith [God] has given the
Holy Spirit into your heart ([cf.] Galatians 3[:1-5]).”[18] The sick person is to meditate on Christ’s
passion, and to remember his own baptism, which will be “completed” (“volbracht”) in his death.[19] He is to receive the Lord’s Supper, which
Christ has given him “for [his] consolation, and to assure [him], that by its
power [his] sins are forgiven.”[20] Finally, he is to pray the Lord’s
prayer, and to commit his spirit into God’s hands: “Into your hands I commit my spirit . . .
[Psalm 31:5]. I pray you would lead it
into eternal life . . ..”[21]
[14] In
essence, Linck’s booklet is a hybrid of a medieval
liturgical manual and Luther’s Sermon on
Preparing to Die. Like the medieval
liturgical manuals, it leads the dying person through the traditional rituals
of confession, absolution, the Lord’s Supper, meditation on Christ’s passion,
and committing his soul into God’s hands.
Unlike the traditional manuals, but like Luther’s Sermon, it provides extensive evangelical instruction which
emphasizes God’s gracious will to forgive sins and to be reconciled to human
beings.
[15] In
contrast to Linck’s How One May Console the Sick and Luther’s Sermon on Preparing to Die, Martin Moller’s Manual for the Rightful Art of Dying (1593), written more than a
half-century later, is essentially a devotional work on Christian living and
dying. Born near Wittenberg the year
after Luther’s death, Moller obtained his secondary education first in
Wittenberg, and then in Görlitz (today on the border
between Germany and Poland). A rural
church near Görlitz called him as cantor, then as
pastor; toward the end of his life he became principal pastor at the Church of
Saints Peter and Paul in Görlitz. He also became known as the author of several
bestselling devotional works, including his Manual
for Dying.[22]
[16] While
Moller takes up a striking number of “old” themes from the late medieval Art of Dying Well, theologically he
preserves Martin Luther’s theme of the joyful certainty of salvation. The nine chapters of Moller’s book treat,
respectively, the topics of 1.Contemplating human mortality; 2.Preparing for a
blessed death with daily confession of sins; 3.Leading a Christian life;
4.Conducting oneself appropriately when afflicted with illness; 5.Dealing with
the traditional demonic temptations; 6.Surrendering to death joyfully;
7.Confronting the torment of dying and the ugliness of death; 8.Finding
Scripture verses, prayers, hymns, and formulas for commending the dying
person’s soul to God; 9.Knowing about the eternal bliss or eternal damnation
that awaits those who have died.
[17] In
his introduction, Moller emphasizes that his intention is not only to provide
his readers with good Christian teaching, but also to show them how to apply
the teaching to their own lives to reap spiritual benefit. Such application takes place primarily by
means of prayer. In the third section of
his first chapter, for example, Moller asks:
“What does it mean to die blessedly?”
Alluding to several New Testament passages, he teaches: “To die blessedly means to conclude one’s
life in the right and true faith, to commend one’s soul to the Lord Jesus
Christ, and – with a heartfelt desire for eternal bliss – to fall asleep gently
and joyously, and to depart from here (Luke 2[:29]; Philippians 1[:23]; 1 Timothy
4[:6]).” He then provides a prayer,
likewise rooted in Scripture, which explicitly reinforces the preceding
teaching: “LORD Jesus Christ! you alone know my
hour: I pray [that] you . . . give me a
blessed ending and thereupon take my soul into your hands. Amen!” (Matthew 6:[10,
33]; Acts 7[:59]).[23] The historian Elke Axmacher writes that in contrast to the authors of the
earliest Lutheran handbooks on dying, for Moller, Christian teaching, and the
application of Christian teaching to the life of the individual believer
through prayer, are two distinct, albeit closely related concerns.[24]
[18] Axmacher has also observed that while Moller agreed with
the biblical, medieval, and early Reformation understanding of death as God’s
just punishment for human sin, a punishment which was to be obediently accepted
in faith, his teaching on dying reflected a broader shift in cultural attitudes
toward death that had taken place since the Reformation. To a greater extent than in the early
Reformation, in Moller’s day, popular culture had come to place greater value
on earthly life and its enjoyments, and had come to perceive death as
unnatural, and therefore a threat to life.[25] In the fifth chapter, Moller acknowledges
such changed perceptions toward life and death, and treats them, if not as
sins, nevertheless as temptations to be overcome. Speaking of the human tendency to fear death,
he writes: “It is natural, dear soul,
for our nature was created in the beginning not for death, but for life.” After all, as Moller points out, Jesus, too,
feared death. In the prayer that
reinforces this teaching, however, Moller brings together the theme of fear of
natural death with the traditional teaching that death is a deserved punishment
for sin:[26] “I thank you, LORD Jesus Christ, that you
created me not for death, but for life, and that you formed love of life in my
heart. I ask you from the bottom of my
heart, teach me to remember that death rules over me on account of sin, and
finally will strangle me. . . . But
help me, that I may firmly cling to you, my LORD, to you who are life itself,
with true faith, [and thus] overcome all fear of death . . . (John
11[:25-26])”.[27]
[19] Given
that death is punishment for sin, forgiveness, that is, justification, is the
ultimate spiritual comfort that Moller, like Luther, offers his readers.[28] Also like Luther, Moller offers consolation
that is permeated with the conviction that penitent sinners can be certain of
divine forgiveness: “Yes, I know and I
believe, I trust and I am certain, my Redeemer, . . . that your descent into
hell is my rescue from the force of hell and of the devil; . . . and that your
ascension to heaven is my assurance that I am a distinct heir of eternal life,
and that through you I have heaven already within me.”[29] Moller, however, goes a step beyond Luther in
offering comfort in the promise of mystical union with God. This comfort is also expressed in a prayer:[30] “You [Jesus] are within me, and I am within
you; everything that is yours is also mine, namely, life, and eternal delight
and joy. . . . When I have you, then I have everything that
pleases me, here, temporally, and there, eternally.”[31]
[20] Despite
sharing many themes with Luther, Linck, and late
medieval writers, Moller’s book differs somewhat from their writings in both
content and form. In form, it is a
devotional manual both for Christian living and for Christian dying, providing
both Christian instruction and formulas for prayer. In content, it acknowledges and addresses
changed cultural attitudes toward living and dying.
[21] The Future of the Lutheran Art of Dying?
[22] Without
a doubt, one reason these Lutheran works on dying were helpful and successful
was that they spoke to timely spiritual and practical concerns. Luther and Linck,
writing in the early years of the Reformation, addressed the spiritual fear of
dying induced by the Church’s teaching that the fate of one’s soul would depend
on one’s spiritual “performance” on one’s deathbed. Knowing that devout Christians of their day
doubted that their sins would be forgiven and feared eternal damnation, Luther
and Linck emphasized God’s mercy and taught that
salvation was certain. Writing much
later, near the end of the sixteenth century, Moller, though he firmly embraced
traditional Lutheran teaching, acknowledged and spoke to the new valuation in
his day of life as positive and pleasurable, even as he held to the traditional
theology of death as punishment for sin.
[23] To
conclude, what might a modern Lutheran Art
of Dying look like? To be helpful
and gracious and ultimately relevant, today’s and tomorrow’s Lutheran pastors
will, like their forebears, have to bring together traditional Christian
teaching with contemporary cultural assumptions and medical realities. Luther’s emphasis on a gracious God, and on a
confident and joyful approach to Christian living and dying in the presence of
God, is an emphasis we Lutherans will want keep in mind when considering the
profound moral questions raised by modern medical technology. Surely there were times when Luther, too,
doubted himself, and his own questioning of the teachings of his church. Who was he to teach that mortally ill
Christians need only to confess those sins that lay most heavily on their
conscience, and not all their sins, when the Church had taught for hundreds of
years that the failure to confess even one serious sin would lead to eternal
damnation? Would he, Luther, at the Last
Judgment be found guilty of sending sinners to hell? I’m not aware that we have evidence that
Luther committed these particular doubts to paper, but I do know that he often
spoke of himself as being tempted by the devil.
[24] Second,
having found and read not only prayers, but also extensive Christian
instruction in the manuals written by sixteenth-century pastors, I think that
we Lutherans might consider developing literature for the “spiritual guidance”
of persons contemplating their own mortality, as well as for laypersons and
pastors caring for the seriously ill.
[25] Finally,
I think that when considering spiritual care to gravely ill persons, it will behoove
us Lutherans to follow Moller in being attuned to cultural changes taking place
around us. In particular, I think it
will be helpful for us to keep in mind that today’s Lutheran Christians
increasingly live in confessionally and religiously
diverse environments, and are more and more coming to appreciate the positive
value of the teachings of other religions, including Judaism, Buddhism and
Native American spirituality, and their respective approaches to living and
dying.
[26] The
recently published The Divine Art of
Dying by Herbert Anderson and Karen Speerstra is
a welcome step in this direction. Diary
entries by Speerstra, who herself is living with
cancer and contemplating her own approaching death, comprise the core of this
book. They are accompanied by Anderson’s
reflections on topics such as “Facing finality,” and “How do we talk about
death?” Although rooted in the Christian
tradition, this book is an ecumenical, interreligious, and thus in the widest
sense, “spiritual,” contribution to the literature of the art of dying.[32]
Luther, Linck,
and Moller would likely have approved!
Austra Reinis is Associate Professor of History of Christianity at Missouri State
University in Springfield, Missouri.