“I am he to whom God first revealed it.”[1191]
“Show me a single passage on justification by faith in the Decrees, Decretals, Clementines, ‘Liber Sextus’ or ‘Extravagantes’” in any of the Summas, books of Sentences, monkish sermons, synodal definitions, collegial or monastic Rules, in any Postils, in any work of Jerome and Gregory, in any decisions of the Councils, in any disputations of the theologians, in any lectures of any University, in any Mass or Vigil of any Church, in any “Cæremoniale Episcoporum,” in the institutes of any monastery, in any manual of any confraternity or guild, in any pilgrims’ book anywhere, in the pious exercises of any Saint, in any Indulgence, Bull, anywhere in the Papal Chancery or the Roman Curia or in the Curia of any bishop. And yet it was there that the doctrine of faith should have been expressed in all its fulness.[1192]
“My Evangel,” that was what was wanting. “I have, praise be to God, achieved more reformation by my Evangel than they probably would have done even by five Councils.... Here comes our Evangel ... and works wonders, which they themselves accept and make use of, but which they could not have secured by any Councils.”[1193]
“I believe I have summoned such a Council and effected such a reformation as will make the ears of the Papists tingle and their heart burst with malice.... In brief: It is Luther’s own Reformation.”[1194]
“I, who am nothing, may say with truth that during the [twenty] years that I have served my dear Lord Christ in the preaching office, I have had more than twenty factions opposing me”; but now they are, some of them, extirpated, others, “like worms with their heads trodden off.”[1195]
“I have now become a wonderful monk, who, by God’s grace, has deposed the Roman devil, viz. the Pope; yet not I, but God through me, His poor, weak instrument; no emperor or potentate could have done that.”[1196]
In point of fact “the devil is not angry with me without good reason, for I have rent his kingdom asunder. What not one of the kings and princes was able to do, that God has effected, through me, a poor beggar and lonely monk.”[1197]
How poor are the ancient Fathers in comparison! “Chrysostom was a mere gossip. Jerome, the good Father, and lauder of nuns, understood precious little of Christianity. Ambrose has indeed some good sayings. If Peter Lombard had only happened upon the Bible he would have excelled all the Fathers.”[1198]
“See what darkness prevailed among the Fathers of the Church concerning faith! Once the article concerning justification was obscured it became impossible to stem the course of error. St. Jerome writes on Matthew, on Galatians and on Titus, but how paltry it all is! Ambrose wrote six books on Genesis, but what poor stuff they are! Augustine never writes powerfully on faith except when assailing the Pelagians.... They left not a single commentary on Romans and Galatians that is worth anything. Oh, how great, on the other hand, is our age in purity of doctrine, and yet, alas, we despise it! The holy Fathers taught better than they wrote; we, God be praised, write better than we live.” Had Gregory the Great at least refrained from spoiling what remained! “He broke in with his pestilent traditions, bound men down to observances concerning flesh-meat, cowls and Masses, and imposed on them his filthy, merdiferous law. And in the event this dreadful state of things grew from day to day worse.”[1199]