The Suffering Body in Sixteenth-Century Lutheran Devotional Literature

(excerpt) One of the central yet under-studied goals of Lutheran reformers was to change in dramatic fashion the way their contemporaries understood and sought to cope with the suffering that was so much part of early modern existence. According to the reformers, many of the traditional ways of approaching suffering were essentially pagan in origin, because they either relied on ‘superstitious’ means of manipulating God, or they attempted to barter with God by means of ‘good works’ for health, protection or salvation..