The Freedom of a Christian
A short treatise of 1520, sent with a letter to Leo X, in which Luther sets out how faith alone makes a Christian free and how love makes the same Christian a servant of all.
Read the text at projectwittenberg.org ↗The prefatory letter to Leo X (Project Wittenberg) ↗
Martin Luther published the treatise with an open letter to Pope Leo X. The letter addresses Leo with respect, as a lamb and a Daniel among lions, and attacks the Roman court in the harshest terms. The treatise itself is not a polemic. It starts from two statements that Luther says are both Paul’s: a Christian is a free lord of all, subject to none, and a Christian is a dutiful servant of all, subject to every one. The first he explains by faith, which alone justifies; the second by love, which works freely for the neighbour.
It is the calmest of the three books of 1520 and the plainest statement of what Luther meant by justification by faith at that date.
Cited in
- 1520 to 1521, firm date