Bible connection

“I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.” — Romans 1:16

All about Argula von Grumbach (1492–1554/7)

Argula Von Grumbach was born in 1492 (the year Columbus sailed for India) into the lively, educated, and chivalrous von Stauff family, living in Ehrenfels Castle on the Laber River in Germany. Her first name recalls the noble Argeluse, a prominent character in the epic Parsifal about King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table. “Orgelûse” is a proud and beautiful duchess associated with the Castle of Marvels. She is depicted as a “lure to love’s desire” and is described in verses like “aller wîbes varwe ein bêâ flûrs” meaning “the fairest flower of feminine beauty.”  No one in her family thought small. 

When she was 10, her father gave her a beautiful Koberger edition of the Bible in German. That Bible was notable as the ninth German Bible to be printed full of numerous hand-colored woodcuts. It is also significant as the first Bible printed in Nuremberg. The Koberger Bible is an incunabulum, meaning it was printed before 1500.  

When she married nobleman Friedrich von Grumbach in 1510, she set up homes in little Bavarian villages and market towns: Lenting, Dietfurt, Burggrumbach, and Zeilitzheim. Her children were born there. Her time in small villages prepared von Grumbach for her later role in establishing Lutheranism in these rural areas.

In 1523, during the exciting early years of the Reformation, this Bavarian noblewoman, with four little children dependent on her, took a big risk when she challenged the influential theologians of Ingolstadt University to a public debate in German about their persecution of a young student. They arrested and interrogated an 18-year-old student, and threatened him with death if he would not renounce his evangelical views. Theologians didn’t lower themselves to debate with lay people, much less a women, not to mention in German rather than Latin.

But Von Grumbach knew the young man and reacted with horror:

“My heart and all my limbs tremble. Nowhere in the Bible do I find that Christ, or his apostles, or his prophets, put people in prison, burnt or murdered them. How in God’s name can you and your university expect to prevail, when you deploy such foolish violence against the word of God?”

The professors tried to ignore her, but friends had her letter to them published by the new social media of the time: the printing press. Sympathizers and publishers with a  nose for news raced to reprint the compilation. It went “viral” — a mere woman challenges a university!

The woodcuts on the front cover portray von Grumbach, Bible in hand, alone, confronting an intimidated, bewildered group of scholars. The heavy books of their traditional theology and canon law lie discarded on the ground.

Earlier that year in Zürich, a public debate took place between defenders of the old church and the evangelical reformer Huldrych Zwingli (1484–1531). It was conducted in German, and it had convinced the city fathers to promote the Reformation. Von Grumbach followed the news. No doubt this dramatic event encouraged her to make her own protest—though she said that she did so in fear and trembling:

I suppressed my inclinations [to criticize Catholic preaching against Luther]; heavy of heart, I did nothing. Because Paul says in 1 Timothy 2: “The women should keep silence, and should not speak in church.” But now that I cannot see any man who is up to it, who is either willing or able to speak, I am constrained . . . .

She had found it impossible, following Matthew 10, to keep silent:

I find there is a text in Matthew 10 which runs: “Whoever confesses me before another I too will confess before my heavenly Father.” And Luke 9: “Whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, I too will be ashamed of when I come in my majesty,” etc. Words like these, coming from the very mouth of God, are always before my eyes. For they exclude neither woman nor man. And this is why I am compelled as a Christian to write to you.

Von Grumbach’s responses were both substantial and sensational. In words that ordinary people could understand, her pamphlet—which was soon followed by seven others she wrote—raised key issues about freedom of speech, the authority of Scripture, and the urgent need to reform the church.  She pointed out that throughout Scripture and the history of the church, the Holy Spirit had moved women like her to speak out. She felt she was another woman following that prophetic tradition.

Argula von Grumbach’s forthrightness infuriated every leading institution of her time: the university, the hierarchy of the Catholic Church, the Bavarian princes under whose rule she lived, and not least of all her own husband, “Fritz.” Critics pointed to his inability to “control his wife,” and Fritz lost his lucrative job in the service of the Bavarian dukes as punishment.  Her letters only survived because authorities confiscated them as they gathered evidence for a legal challenge involving her son, Gottfried. She had tough times.

Von Grumbach never received the public debate she asked for, but instead struggled with financial difficulties for the remainder of her life, pawning a precious necklace again and again to raise funds. Her second husband, Burian von Schlick, a Bohemian nobleman, ardently supported the Reformation but also died prematurely, imprisoned by his relatives over a family dispute. In a raw and violent society, tragedy upon tragedy befell von Grumbach. Near the end of her life, she herself was grossly mistreated, held captive, and forced to flee her family home in Bavaria.

Quotes

God’s spirit is within you, read,
Is woman shut out, there, indeed?
While you oppress God’s word,
Consign souls to the devil’s game
I cannot and I will not cease
To speak at home and on the street.

What I have written to you is no woman’s chit-chat, but the word of God.

Ah, but what a joy it is when the spirit of God teaches us and gives us understanding, flitting from one text to the next, so that I came to see the true genuine light shining out.

A excerpt of the letter she wrote to the University of Ingolstadt:

To the honorable, worthy, highborn, erudite, noble, stalwart Rector and all the Faculty of the University of Ingolstadt: When I heard what you had done to Arsacius Seehofer under terror of imprisonment and the stake, my heart trembled and my bones quaked. What have Luther and Melanchthon taught save the Word of God? You have condemned them. You have not refuted them. Where do you read in the Bible that Christ, the apostles, and the prophets imprisoned, banished, burned, or murdered anyone? You tell us that we must obey the magistrates. Correct. But neither the pope, nor the Kaiser, not the princes have any authority over the Word of God. You need not think you can pull God, the prophets and the apostles out of heaven with papal decretals drawn from Aristotle, who was not a Christian at all. . . .

You seek to destroy all of Luther’s works. In that case you will have to destroy the New Testament, which he has translated. In the German writings of Luther and Melanchthon I have found nothing heretical. . . Even if Luther should recant, what he has said would still be the Word of God. I would be willing to come and dispute with you in German. . . . You have the key of knowledge and you close the kingdom of heaven. But you are defeating yourselves. The news of what has been done to this lad of 18 has reached us and other cities in so short a time that soon it will be known to all the world. The Lord will forgive Arsacius, as he forgave Peter, who denied his master, though not threatened by prison and fire. Great good will yet come from this young man. I send you not a woman’s ranting, but the Word of God. I write as a member of the Church of Christ against which the gates of hell shall not prevail. . .

More

An exhibition in Munster included a musical:

An 1860 biography by Eduard Engelhardt (online in German).

Peter Matheson, emeritus professor at Knox Theological College, Dunedin, New Zealand, wrote the definitive biography: Argula von Grumbach: A Woman’s Voice in the Reformation and Argula von Grumbach: A Woman Before Her Time

What do we do with this?

If you are a woman, you might enjoy some overdue validation.

If you are a Bavarian, you might wonder at the violence and division religion caused in your territory. It still exists today. Millions of people have turned their backs on the church because of it.

Von Grumbach was so brave! Her convictions carried her into all sorts of good trouble. Jesus was buried in a lot of nonsense in her day. She worked hard to sweep it all away. We could use some sweeping in our era , couldn’t we?