War is the greatest plague that can afflict humanity, it destroys religion, it destroys states, it destroys families. Any scourge is preferable to it.
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"Thirdly, their prayer books and Talmudic writings, which are full of idolatry, lies, curses, and blasphemy, should be taken from them."
"The greatest blessing of God is a virtuous and pious wife, who fears God and loves her husband."
"You are not only responsible for what you say, but also for what you do not say."
"If you want to have a good laugh, read the Papal Bulls. They are so full of nonsense that they will make you split your sides."
"Peace if possible, truth at all costs."
German theologian whose 95 Theses (1517) launched the Protestant Reformation and broke the Catholic Church's monopoly on Western Christianity. Closely associated with Philipp Melanchthon (Lutheran systematizer) and John Calvin (later Reformer who built on Luther's break). For an intellectual contrast, see Pope Leo X, Renaissance pope (1513-1521) — Leo X's indulgence sales triggered Luther's break and Leo excommunicated him in 1521 — Luther's entire Reformation is structured as a direct answer to the indulgence-funded Vatican Leo represented.
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War is the worst disaster people can face. It wrecks everything that holds society together: faith communities, governments, and households. Plagues, famines, or any other calamity would be easier to endure, because those hardships do not poison human relationships the way armed conflict does. Luther is saying that any suffering, no matter how severe, is better than the total collapse war brings to every layer of ordinary life.
Luther watched German lands convulse with religious and political violence after his 1517 theses cracked Western Christendom. The Peasants' War of 1524-25 killed roughly 100,000 people, many invoking his name, which horrified him. As a former Augustinian friar who valued settled congregations, stable princes, and family life, he saw firsthand how fighting ruined parishes, shattered households like his own with Katharina, and weaponized his theology.
Early-modern Europe was drenched in war: the Ottoman siege of Vienna in 1529, Habsburg-Valois campaigns, and constant confessional skirmishes foreshadowing the Thirty Years' War. Mercenary armies ravaged civilians, plague followed troop movements, and the Holy Roman Empire fractured along Catholic-Protestant lines. Against this backdrop, Luther's warning carried urgent weight, because readers had personally seen villages burned, churches looted, and families displaced by roving soldiers.
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