This article investigates Martin Luther s theology of bodily healing and medicine, which has been largely overlooked in scholarly treatments of Luther s approaches to suffering. In the last twenty years, changing religious approaches to suffering in early modernity have constituted a fruitful topic of inquiry among historians of Christian thought.1 Martin Luther remains a prominent figure in these investigations, due to his deep theological and pastoral interest in suffering and the major impact of his interest on the emerging Protestant tradition. In addition to the earlier well-established scholarship on Luther s theologia crucis (theology of the cross), recent studies highlight affective, pastoral, and polemical dimensions of Luther s theology of suffering.2 Susan Karant-Nunn argued that Luther sought to disrupt certain expressions of medieval Catholic affective piety and remold his audience s emotional responses to death and suffering in light of Protestant religious instruction.3 She offered a herme-neutic of the Reformations as a "reformation of feeling" reflecting the importance early modern religious leaders placed on eliciting proper religious emotions in response to suffering. Ronald Rittgers contended that, in light of his Protestant soteriology, Luther and his followers undertook a "reformation of suffering," intending to re-shape inherited medieval Catholic religious understandings and lived piety of suffering.4 According to Rittgers, Luther came to understand a true Christian (Christianus) as a "Crosstian" (Crucianus) who, while not intentionally pursuing suffering, obediently submitted to it when suffering inevitably came. Rittgers further argued that, rather than viewing suffering as a form of penance for sin, Luther wanted Christians to willingly embrace suffering as a divine gift that tested and strengthened their faith, mortified their sinful nature, and conformed them to Christ.5 Finally, Vincent Evener showed that, under the influence of late medieval mysticism, Luther believed that Christians were to accept suffering, including from disease, as a divinely imposed transformational experience mortifying their self-will. True Christian teachings had to proclaim such suffering as essential for spiritual discernment, the reception of true doctrine and faith, and living a pious life pleasing to God.6 In sum, recent studies have emphasized the important spiritual, theological, and formational dimensions of the proper experiences of suffering in Luther s thought. © 2023 De Gruyter. All rights reserved.
