Note 2222 — Chapter XXXV

Luther’s answer to the question he raises, “Werke,” Erl. ed., 62, p. 207, in the Table-Talk: “Whether it be lawful to kill a tyrant, who at his own pleasure acts contrary to right and justice” is aimed at absolutism. He replies confidently: Yes, where the latter really oppresses his subjects by crying deeds of wrong and where the “citizens and subjects unite together” to make an end of him as they would of any “other murderer or highwayman.” In his “Ob Kriegsleutte auch ynn seligen Stande seyn künden,” 1526, Luther does not sanction private revenge nor any disorderly or violent action on the part of the mob, “whereby the people rise and depose their lord or strangle him.” He emphasises in this passage as the reason the absence of legal proceedings: “It does not do to pipe too much to the mob, or it will only too readily lose its head.” “Werke,” Weim. ed., 19, p. 635; Erl. ed., 22, p. 259.