ABSTRACT

When Philip Melanchthon’s son Georg died on 15 August 1529, Martin Luther asked his friend Justus Jonas to write Melanchthon a letter employing his rhetoric of consolation. He was convinced that rhetoric could help to write a letter in such a way that it would serve to console and to comfort.1 This chapter examines how Luther himself employed the craft of rhetoric in his Sermon on Preparing to Die (1519) to speak to his readers both at an intellectual and an emotional level.2 Rejecting the traditional idea that human beings must contribute to their salvation, Luther sought to teach (docere) that the three deathbed sacraments of confession, the body of Christ and unction signify that Christ’s victory over the evil powers of death, sin and hell is also the Christian’s victory. Further he sought to exhort (movere) the dying Christian to receive the sacraments joyfully, with condence that his own death, sin and hell are overcome in Christ’s passion and that his salvation is assured.3