ANTO ́NIA SZABARIwhat was conventionally accepted as pious language is in fact blasphemy and that what
appeared to be blasphemy is in fact true piety. This rhetorical strategy is manifest in a
pamphlet in which he fashions the tool of popular satire for the purposes of his own
theology of offense.
‘‘Be not offended’’
Among the ‘‘angry little booklets’’ that Luther published for popular consumption was
one entitled theMonk-Calf; it is a mock exegesis, and as such singular in Luther’s œuvre,
an occasional piece that corresponds to the literary form of satire. The pamphlet’s patent
antipapist polemical agenda is underscored by the fact that Luther’s text appeared to-
gether with a satirical piece by the humanist Melanchthon concerning the Pope-Ass, a
fictional monster allegedly found on the banks of the Tiber in Rome after the flooding of
- Unlike Melanchthon’s Pope-Ass, Luther’s Monk-Calf has a kernel of historical
truth: indeed, a disfigured calf was born near Freyberg, Saxony, on December 8, 1522. In
response to satirical poems that termed this ‘‘monster’’ ‘‘Luther,’’^40 Luther picked up his
pen and responded with theMonk-Calf. As both Luther’s text describes and the accompa-
nying woodcut illustrates, the Monk-Calf pokes fun at the depravity of monks, nuns, and,
in particular, the preachers of the mendicant orders. He is blind, is dressed in the cassock
of a monk, wears the tonsure, and preaches, standing on his rear legs with an out-
stretched tongue. His upper jaw is human, but his lower one is bovine. His enormous
ears, Luther explains, signify the tyranny of the sacrament of confession:
As a first and comprehensive point of this sign: Be not offended [laß dir das keyn
schimpff seyn] that God has clothed a calf with a clerical garb, a holy cassock: through
this he signified many things with one figure, namely, that it must become manifest
that all the monks and nuns are nothing but false, deceitful phantoms and secular
hypocrites [ein falscher lugenhafftiger schein und eußerlich gleyssen] of a spiritual, godly
life.^41What is noteworthy about this passage is not so much the message or the manner of
Luther’s critique, which appears at first sight to be a crude satire of Catholic religious
practices and institutions, but rather Luther’s stretching of the popular view that monsters
(monstra) are divine portents that indicate (monstrare) the future.^42 In sacramental theol-
ogy, Luther condemns ordination and confession as man-made ceremonials, refusing the
Church the power to initiate a rite. This the divine word alone, as the act of promise, has
the authority to do: ‘‘For the church was born by the word of promise through faith, and
by this same word is nourished and preserved. That is to say, it is the promises of God
that make the Church, and not the Church that makes the promise of God. For the word
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