HEROES OF THE REFORMATION
v v
LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
SAN OIEGO
FROM AMONO THE BOOKS OF *. W. ROEN1O
LUTHER.
AFTEH A PAINTING BY CRANACH.
Frontispiece.
THI JF THE REFORMATION
1483-1546
\COBS
VANGELICAL LUTHERAN ,, PA.
> DURING THB REIGNS OK .TS" ;
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ID STATES"
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THE HERO OF THE REFORMATION 1483-1546
BY HENRY EYSTER JACOBS
DEAN AND PROFESSOR OF SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGVf EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN
SEMINARY, PHILADELPHIA, PA.
AUTHOR OF " THE LUTHERAN MOVEMENT IN ENGLAND DURING THE REIGNS OF
HENRY VIII. AND EDWARD VI., AND ITS LITERARY MONUMENTS" J
"A HISTORY OF THE EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CHURCH
IN THE UNITED STATES"
SEVENTH IMPRESSION
G. P. -PUTNAM'S SONS NEW YORK AND LONDON
•Knickerbocker press
1909
COPYRIGHT, 1898
BY G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
Entered at Stationers1 Hall, London
Ube Knickerbocker press, Hew fiorfe
PREFACE
IN preparing this outline, the chief difficulty has been to select and condense the material. The aim has been to follow the growth of Luther into the position which has given him his fame, and to describe that position with fairness. I have drawn chiefly from the letters and works of Luther and Melanchthon, and collections of documents in Loscher, Gerdesius, and Seckendorf, but have util- ised also all other available sources of information and aids in classifying material, particularly the scientific biographies of Julius Kostlin ' and Th. Kolde,1 the admirable sketch of Karl Burk,' and the still more extensive popular work of Martin Rade.4
1 Martin Luther, Sein Leben und seine Schriften, 2 vols. ; vol. i., p. 811 ; vol. ii., p. 679. Elberfeld, 1875.
* Martin Luther ; Eine Biographie, 2 vols. ; vol. i., p. 396. Gotha, 1884. Vol. ii., p. 626. Gotha, 1893.
3 Martin Luther, p. 343. Stuttgart, 1883.
4 Doktor Martin Luther's Leben, Thaten, und Mcinungen, auf
iv Preface
Particular acknowledgments are due the editor of this series, the Rev. Samuel Macauley Jackson, D.D., LL.D., for many valuable suggestions ; to my colleague, the Rev. Adolph Spaeth, D.D., LL.D., a lifelong student and expounder of Luther's writ- ings, for constant advice and numberless favours; and to Julius F. Sachse, the author of The History of the German Pietists in Pennsylvania, for import- ant aid in the selection and preparation of illustra- tions. The apparatus collected by my predecessor in this seminary, Rev. Charles Porterfield Krauth, D.D., LL.D., for an exhaustive scientific presenta- tion of Luther's life from an American standpoint, upon which he was engaged at the time of his death in January, 1883, has been constantly at hand and gratefully used.
HENRY EYSTER JACOBS.
LUTHERAN THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, PHILADELPHIA, PA., April 27,
Grund reichlicher Mittheilungen aus seinen Brief en und Schriften dem Volke erzahlt -von Lie. theol. Martin Rade (Paul Martin), 3 vols. ; vol. i., p. 772 ; vol. ii., p. 746 ; vol. iii., p. 718. Neusalza, 1887.
KEY TO THE CHIEF REFERENCES.
ERLANGEN= Edition of Luther 's Works, published at Erlangen, originally edited by J. G. Ploch- mann and J. K. Irmischer. German treatises, 1826-57, 67 vols; Latin treatises, 1829-86, 38 vols.
ERLANGEN "= Reissue of first 20 vols. of the Ger- man treatises in the above edition. Frankfort, 1862-86.
WALCH = Edition of Luther's Works, published at Halle, edited by J. G. Walch. 1740-50, 24 parts.
WEIMAR= Edition of Luther s Works, in process of publication under patronage of the German Emperor, edited by J. C. F. Knaake and others. 1883 S44-
OP. EX. = Erlangen edition of Luther's Latin ex- egetical works.
OP. VAR. ARG. = Erlangen edition of Luther's Latin works pertaining to the history of the Refor- mation.
DE WETTE= Luther's Letters, edited by W. M. L. De Wette and J. K. Seidemann. Berlin, 1825- 56, 6 parts.
C. R. = Corpus Re formatorum, vols. 1-28, containing Melanchthon's works edited by Bretschneider and Bindseil, Halle, 1832-50,
CONTENTS
BOOK I.
PAOfl
THE MONK (1483-1517).
CHAPTER I. BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD 3
CHAPTER II. STUDENT LIFE . . . . ' . . 14
CHAPTER III. IN THE CLOISTER 22
CHAPTER IV. THE PROFESSOR 33
BOOK II.
THE PROTESTANT (1517-1522). CHAPTER I.
THE SALE OF INDULGENCES ; AND THE XCV.
THESES 59
viii Contents
PAGE
CHAPTER II.
THE RECEPTION OF THE THESES AND THE HEI- DELBERG CONFERENCE ..... 77
CHAPTER III. ECK, PRIERIAS, AND THE POPE .... 89
CHAPTER IV. BEFORE CAJETAN AT AUGSBURG .... 107
CHAPTER V. MILTITZ AND THE LEIPZIG DISPUTATION . . I2O
CHAPTER VI.
POLITICAL COMPLICATIONS ; NEW ALLIES J THE
THREE GREAT TREATISES OF 1520 . . . 149
CHAPTER VII. THE BULL . . ... . . . l68
CHAPTER VIII. THE DIET OF WORMS 179
CHAPTER IX. AT THE WARTBURG 198
BOOK III.
THE REFORMER (1522-1546).
CHAPTER I. CARLSTADT AND THE ZWICKAU PROPHETS . . 211
CHAPTER II. REBUILDING 2l8
Contents ix
PAGE
CHAPTER III. THE LINES DRAWN . . . . . . 235
CHAPTER IV.
THE PEASANTS' WAR . . . . . ..251
CHAPTER V.
MARRIAGE " 263
CHAPTER VI. VISITATION OF CHURCHES AND THE CATECHISMS . 268
CHAPTER VII. ZWINGLI AND THE MARBURG COLLOQUY . . 278
CHAPTER VIII. COBURG AND AUGSBURG 29!
CHAPTER IX.
THE SCHMALKALD LEAGUE AND THE STRUGGLES
WITH ROME AND FANATICISM . . . 303
CHAPTER X.
VERGERIUS ; THE WITTENBERG CONCORD ; AND
THE SCHMALKALD ARTICLES . . . 314
CHAPTER XI. NEW TRIUMPHS AND TRIALS 323
CHAPTER XII.
THE LANDGRAVE OF HESSE 331
CHAPTER XIII.
DIET OF RATISBON ; CONTROVERSIES WITH THE
JURISTS, EMPEROR, AND POPE . . . 338
CHAPTER XIV.
LUTHER'S THEOLOGY .... . 347
CHAPTER XV.
HOME LIFE AND LAST DAYS . 395
APPENDIX I. ...... . 4*3
APPENDIX II 436
INDEX 444
ILLUSTRATIONS
PACK
MARTIN LUTHER . ... . 1 . *, . Frontispiece After a painting by Cranach.
EISLEBEN IN LUTHER'S TIME ..... 3
AUTOGRAPH OF REUCHLIN 13
EISENACH IN LUTHER'S TIME 14
MEDAL DESIGNED BY LUTHER*S COLLEAGUE, DR.
JUSTUS JONAS . 22
BUILDING OF THE CISTERCIAN MONASTERY, SCHONAU,
NEAR HEIDELBERG ...... 24
From a German MS. of the XVIth century.
DR. STAUPITZ . . . . . . . -3°
After a contemporary oil painting in the Augus- tinian monastery at Salzburg.
UNIVERSITY OF ERFURT .... .' . 32
WITTENBERG IN LUTHER*S TIME 33
JOHANNES COCHLAUS, EOBANUS HESSUS, JOHANNES REUCHLINUS, HANS SACHS, AND CONRAD
CELTES 44
From engraving in Kreussler's Andenken in Mtinzen.
xii Illustrations
PAGE
DESIDERIUS ERASMUS 52
From a copper engraving by Albrecht Dlirer.
LUTHER AS ELIAS (MAL. IV., 5) (MEDAL). . . 59
LEO X. 64
After the picture by Raphael in the Pitti Gallery, Florence.
DESIDERIUS ERASMUS (MEDAL) . . . • 77
JOHN BRENTZ 86
From an old engraving.
HUS AND LUTHER (MEDALS) ..... 89 TITLE-PAGE OF FIRST EDITION OF " EPISTOL-iE OB-
SCURORUM VIRORUM " 96
PHILIP MELANCHTHON 106
From Melanchthon's funeral oration on Luther, 1546.
MEDAL COMMEMORATING LUTHER'S BIRTH . . 107
PHILIP MELANCHTHON (MEDAL) . . . . I2O
DR. JOHN ECK .128
Traditional portrait.
TITLE-PAGE OF ECK'S " LEIPZIG ARTICLES " . . 138
MARTIN LUTHER 142
From the title-page of Luther's treatise, The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, 1520.
LUTHER'S SEAL 149
FREDERICK THE WISE, ELECTOR OF SAXONY . .150 From a painting by Albrecht Dlirer, 1524.
ULRICH VON HUTTEN 154
From a contemporary wood-cut.
TITLE-PAGE OF FIRST EDITION OF LUTHER'S "AD- DRESS TO THE GERMAN NOBILITY," 1520 . . l6o
LUTHER AS SAMSON. A LEIPZIG MEDAL OF 1617 . 1 68
Illustrations xiii
PAGE
LUTHER BURNING THE PAPAL BULL . . . 176
After a drawing by E. Lessing.
MEDAL COMMEMORATING LUTHER AT WORMS . - 179 EMPEROR CHARLES V. . . . . . 1 88
From an engraving by Bartel Beham, 1531.
ARREST OF LUTHER BY HIS FRIENDS WHEN RETURN- ING FROM THE DIET OF WORMS . . .198 LUTHER AS A KNIGHT (MEDAL) . . . . 198 MELANCHTHON'S COAT OF ARMS . . . 208
From Gretser's De Sancta Cruce.
FACSIMILE LETTER OF MARTIN LUTHER TO PASTOR
LESTURUS, 1524 2IO
Decision concerning a matrimonial question. (Original in collection of Mr. Frederick Dreer, Philadelphia.)
ELECTOR JOHN OF SAXONY (MEDAL) . . . 211
DR. JOHN BUGENHAGEN . . . . . 2l8
From an engraving by Cranach, 1543.
LUTHER AND MELANCHTHON (MEDAL) . . . 2l8
FRANZ VON SICKINGEN 230
LUTHER AS A TEACHER (MEDAL) . . .• - . 235
DR. MARTIN BUCER 244
JOHN FREDERICK OF SAXONY (MEDAL) . . 256
LUTHER AND CATHERINE, 1538 (MEDAL) . . 263
CATHERINE VON BORA 264
From a painting by Cranach in Nuremberg.
DR. FREDERICK MYCONIUS (MEDAL) . . . 268
LUCAS CRANACH 274
From his own painting.
ULRIC ZWINGLI. A MEMORIAL OF HIS DEATH
(MEDAL) 278
THE ELECTOR JOHN FREDERICK OF SAXONY . . 284 After the copper engraving by G. Pencz, 1543.
xiv Illustrations
PAGE
KASPAR CRUCIGER . 286
From a wood-cut by Tobias Stimmer.
LUTHER'S COAT OF ARMS (MEDAL) .... 291
TITLE-PAGE OF ECK?S 404 THESES CIRCULATED AT AUGSBURG, TO WHICH THE AUGSBURG CON- FESSION IS IN PART A REPLY .... 294
MUSIC COMPOSED BY LUTHER FOR HIS GREAT RE- FORMATION HYMN 302
LUTHER IN 1537 (MEDAL) . . . . . 303
FERDINAND I. 304
From an engraving by Beham. MARTIN BUCER (MEDAL) . ... 314
CARDINAL VERGERIUS . , 314
From an engraving by Hendrik Hondius.
DUKE HENRY OF SAXONY (MEDAL) .... 323
DUKE ALBERT OF PRUSSIA 328
From an old engraving.
LUTHER AT SIXTY (MEDAL) 331
DR. PAUL LUTHER (MEDAL) 331
CHARLES V. AND FERDINAND (MEDAL) . . . 338
DUKE MORITZ OF SAXONY 338
From a painting by Cranach the Younger.
PORTRAITS OF CONRAD WIMPINA, ANDREAS MUSCU- LUS, JOHANN AGRICOLA, AND HIERONYMUS SCHURF 342
From engraving in Kreussler's Andenken in Munzen.
THE CENTRE OF LUTHER'S THEOLOGY (MEDAL) . 347
MARTIN LUTHER 382
From Melanchthon's funeral oration on Luther, 1546.
Illustrations xv
PAGE
JUSTUS JONAS 390
After a portrait by L. Cranach, Genealogy, 1543.
COMMEMORATING THE DEFEAT OF JOHN FREDERICK,
APRIL 24, 1547 (MEDAL) . . 395
THE LORD'S SUPPER (A MEDAL OF 1546) . . 395
DR. JOHN MATTHESIUS 398
From a wood-cut by Tobias Stimmer.
MEDAL OF LUTHER . 411
From Gretser's De Sancta Cruce.
LUDWIG VON SECKENDORF, THE HISTORIAN OF
THE REFORMATION 428
From an engraving by Heinzelmann.
DUKE ERNEST THE PIOUS, CHAMPION OF THE LUTH- ERAN CAUSE IN THE THIRTY YEARS* WAR . 442 From an engraving by Jacob Sandrart.
The headpieces to the chapters are, with two exceptions, from the Vita D. Martini Lutheri numtnis atqtte iconibus illustrata, studio M. Christiani Juncker, Franckfort and Leipzig, 1699, containing 137 illustrations of medals commemorative of Luther and the Reform- ation. The headpieces to Chapters II and IV of Book I are from Dr. Martin Luvher's Andenken in Miinzen von M. Heinrich Gottlieb Kreussler, Leipzig, 1818, in which, with illustrations of 195 medals, are found these and several others reproduced in this volume.
BOOK I THE MONK
1483-1517
EISLEBEN IN LUTHER'S TIME.
CHAPTER I
BIRTH AND CHILDHOOD
WHATEVER may have been its defects and abuses, a genuine religious life deeply per- vaded the German people during the Middle Ages. The great movement known as the Reformation was not the introduction from without of a new principle doing violence to the matured product of forces nurtured throughout its entire existence within the Mediaeval Church. Within great institu- tions, as well as within the minds of individuals, principles often coexist in apparent peace, that need only to be earnestly applied and to be carried to their necessary conclusions, in order to be found antagonistic. The break comes when adherents, hitherto dwelling in one camp, divide according to their convictions of the truth or the error of the one or the other principle which both have thus far con- fessed in common. Luther was a true son of the Church. His spiritual life had been enkindled and
3
4 Martin Luther [1483-
nurtured from the Church's ministration of word and sacrament. Devout parents had trained him from childhood in the fear of God. His earlier school-days afforded him at least some truth for the faith of his heart to grasp. The daily services to which he was accustomed long before he found the Bible at Erfurt, familiarised him with much of the saving word of God. All through his uni- versity career, to the decisive moment when he retired from the world and became a monk, and then again, as within the monastery he fought over in his own heart the battles he was afterwards to fight without, his struggle towards the light was the necessary result of his honest belief of much that the Church had taught him, and of the constraint of conscience that impelled him to be true to his convictions. Luther is to be regarded, not as the founder of a new Church, or as the leader of a new school of Church life and thought, so much as the representative and heir of all that was noblest and best in mediaeval Christianity; and as the pioneer of a new order of things only in so far as he fear- lessly carried to their conclusions the premises that others were either unable or unwilling to apply.
As often happens with those who have attained a world-wide distinction, there have been writers who have claimed for Luther noble ancestry. This claim he himself silenced in the words: "I am a peasant's son. My father, grandfather, and ances- tors were all peasants." ' According to general
1 Walch's Halle edition of Luther's works (subsequently referred to as Walch), xxii., 55.
Childhood
agreement, the name is properly the personal name " Lothar," which, in course of time, became the family name, Luther.
The home of the Luther family, which is still that of some of its descendants, was on the western slope of the Thuringian forest, at the small village of Mohra, a dry and treeless hamlet, containing at that time about fifty families. Henry, the grand- father of Martin Luther, owned considerable prop- erty ; and the entire family at Mohra, during the life of their great representative, seems to have been in relatively comfortable circumstances, owning, as was usual among their neighbours, the farms which they tilled, and the houses in which they lived. Here Luther's grandmother lived until 1522. It was from the house of his uncle, with whom she was making her home, that Luther went forth on the morning of that memorable day in May, 1521, when, upon his way from the Diet of Worms, he was arrested and carried to the Wartburg. Two brothers of his father, eminently respectable men, who had the high esteem of their nephew, appear again and again, until a late period in Luther's life, and thus render the inference highly probable that John, the father of Martin, was the eldest son.
Much conjecture has been spent upon the ques- tion, as to what took John Luther and his wife to Eisleben, about eighty miles northeast of Mohra, where, during a brief stay, their son, Martin, was born, November 10, 1483. Who can believe that, with the primitive mode of travelling then in use, and at a time so critical for the wife and mother,
6 Martin Luther [1483^
the young couple could have gone thither either for attendance on the fair, or for purchases ? ' If, ac- cording to a widely circulated report, for which no evidence exists, however, John Luther had actually slain a man with whom he had had an altercation, the fact that he remained within the territory of the Elector of Saxony shows that he was no fugitive from justice, while the position of honour to which he was elevated afterwards by his fellow-citizens in Mansfeld, removes any stigma which an accidental or justifiable homicide may have entailed. On the contrary, we may well believe that John Luther, realising that not all the children could be supported from the estate at Mohra, left his younger brothers with their mother in the possession at least of the family home, while he went forth to search for another field of labour and means of livelihood. In the hills around Mohra, he had learned the art of mining copper, and adopted it as his trade. The neighbourhood of Eisleben, like that of Mansfeld, which was only a few miles distant, abounded in copper-mines. When the child was only six months old, his parents removed from Eisleben to Mans- feld ; so that the latter, and not his birthplace, was known as the home of his childhood. Of both parents, as they appeared in later days, on their visits to Wittenberg, cotemporaries have left de- scriptions. The portraits painted by Lucas Cranach in 1527 perpetuate their faces. Both were of dark complexion, and less than medium stature. In the features of the father, determination, honesty, com- mon sense, and thrift are clearly traceable. He
Childhood
would be taken for a thoroughly practical man, who has struggled upwards, through severe hardship, to an honourable position, in which he has found his highest ambition realised. From a workman he had risen, not indeed to wealth, but to joint proprietor- ship in mines and furnaces, membership in the town council, and such esteem from his rulers, the Counts of Mansfeld, that his son could afterwards appeal to them for a testimony to his father's char- acter. Between the mother, whose maiden name was Margaretha Ziegler (not Lindemann, as often given), and son, the resemblance was said to have been far more striking than between father and son. Earnest, devout, and strict, the religious character of the mother had much to do with that of her son, though her anxiety for the highest welfare of her child sometimes led her imperfectly educated conscience to unjustifiable severity in dealing with his faults. Coming, as Melanchthon reports, from an ancient and honourable family of Eisenach, her face wears the shadow of the struggles of her early married life with poverty, when she carried upon her back from the forest the supply of wood needed for the family fires.
Upon the testimony of his brother James, the year 1483 is assigned as the year of Martin Luther's birth ; the parents, in later life, not being certain, and he himself caring little for the preservation of such per- sonal matters. But the day and hour, November loth, between eleven and twelve P.M., were never forgotten by his mother. Baptised the next day in St. Peter's Church, where the font of his baptism
8 Martin Luther [i483-
may still be seen, he received the name of the saint commemorated on that day in the calendar.
His reminiscences of his childhood were not those of sunshine and rainbows and joyful sports and the delight of parents in the pleasure and playfulness of their children. With all his love for them, and his appreciation of the efforts they made to do the very best for his welfare, he regretted the harshness and severity which clouded the memory of his early years. Their love for their children expressed itself in the strictness with which they exacted the per- formance of the utmost detail of every duty, and the excessive punishment that was sure to follow the detection of the most trifling offence. Under the law themselves, the fear of punishment and the hope of reward were the chief motives for their dis- charge of duty; and they ruled their families as they thought that God ruled them. Their sombre view of life was doubtless intensified by their pov- erty and the strain of overwork.
" The apple," says Luther,1 " should always lie beside the rod. Children should not be punished for trifling things, like cherries, apples, pears, nuts, as though they were serious matters. My parents dealt with me so severely that I was completely cowed. My mother once beat me for the sake of an insignificant nut, until the blood came. Her strictness and the rigorous life she compelled me to lead drove me into the monastery and made me a monk. But at heart they meant it well.
1 Erlangen edition of Luther's works, first issue (subsequently re- f erred to as Erlangen), 61: 274.
i5oi] Childhood 9
They were unable to discriminate between dispositions, and to adapt their correction accordingly."
Never did their devotion to their son cease. As, in later years, they followed him with implicit con- fidence, as their spiritual guide, and rejoiced in the freedom of the Gospel to which he led them, so in childhood his highest interests ever weighed on their hearts. Friends report that his father was found bending over his child's cradle in earnest prayer. He was early taught to pray. From his mother he learned the Ten Commandments, the Creed, and the Lord's Prayer. But of the meaning of most of that with which his memory was stored he was ignorant. The instructions of the mother abounded in the superstitions current at that time among the German peasantry, while the pictures and legends of the saints, and the processions and other ceremonies of the Church, made a deep im- pression upon his youthful mind. St. George, the patron of the Counts of Mansfeld, and St. Anna, the patroness of miners, were peculiarly revered. In his mature years he was pleased to read in the legend of the former a useful allegory. As his ven- eration for St. Anna was a later acquisition than that for St. George, it was more readily dismissed. The vivid sense of diabolical agency which characterised him throughout life was deeply rooted in the fears of supernatural enemies to be encountered in the dark, that pervaded the mining community in which he was raised.
Determined that his son should receive the very
io Martin Luther [i483-
best advantages for education that his limited means could afford, John Luther made many sacrifices in order to carry out this purpose. School-days began at so early an age that the child was sometimes carried to school by John Oemler, one of his older schoolmates, and, afterwards, his brother-in-law. The methods of the school were crude and mechan- ical ; the teachers, rough and cruel. Reading, writing, and arithmetic were supplemented by some elementary religious instruction, and some pretence at teaching Latin. So liberal were the blows with which the blustering schoolmaster attempted to cover his incompetency, that the pupils had love neither for the teacher nor the branches which he represented. No less than fifteen times in a single morning did this bungling pedagogue beat this young child ! He speaks from experience when, in mature life, he says: " It is a miserable thing, when, on account of severe punishments, children learn to dislike their parents ; or pupils, their teach- ers. Many a clumsy schoolmaster, by blustering and storming and striking and beating, and by treating children precisely as though he were a hang- man, completely ruins children of good disposition and excellent ability." ' But for this school, with all its defects, it may be said that it gave him a knowledge of the Psalter, and of a number of the classical hymns, which he was in future years to translate and adapt to popular use.
In 1497, at the age of fourteen, a better school was found for him at Magdeburg. He did not go
1 Erlangen, 6l: 374.
Childhood n
from Mansfeld alone. John Reineck, who accom- panied him, remained his lifelong friend. Forty years afterwards, when Reineck, then foreman of a foundry, lost his wife, he received a letter of con- solation from the schoolmate of his youth. Magde- burg, about forty miles north of his home, afforded him his first experience and contact with city life. The veneration with which he regarded the eccle- siastical buildings that were the ornament of the place, and were even then grey with age, can be imagined. As his teachers, he tells us, he had mem- bers of the religious society of the " Noll Brothers," a branch settlement of the " Brethren of the Com- mon Life." This organisation, without exacting vows, had, as its end, the cultivation of a deeper spiritual life. Among his comrades was his subse- quent co-labourer, Wenceslaus Link. Thrown upon his own resources for support, he sang for alms at the windows of the wealthier citizens, a mode of livelihood that had been rendered respectable by the example of the mendicant friars, who had ex- alted poverty to the rank of a virtue. Here he remained for but one year.
The next year, his parents preferring that he should not remain among entire strangers, he was transferred to Eisenach, the home of his mother's family, and not far from Mohra. But, as he con- tinued to sing for his support, his relatives were probably not in such circumstances that they could aid him. Attracted by the open countenance and sweet voice of the boy, Madame Ursula Cotta, whose maiden name was Schalbe, the wife of a lead-
12 Martin Luther [i483-
ing merchant and member of a prominent family of Italian descent, invited him into her house, and, finally, gave him a home for the rest of his Eisenach life. Not from its wealth and standing among co- temporaries does the Cotta family live in history, but from this benevolent act, that has linked the name of Ursula Cotta with that of her renowned pensioner. In her home he was introduced to an entirely new sphere of life, and, just at the age when he most needed such advantages, experienced the ennobling influence of a cultivated Christian woman, and of a peaceful family life, unembarrassed by anxiety for daily support, spent in the fear of God, and attentive to the wants of those less highly favoured. At Eisenach he found also an instructor who contrasted greatly with those under whom he had previously been, and who gave him the first de- cided intellectual stimulus. In John Trebonius learning and courtesy were combined. What must have been the feeling of the boy, accustomed to the barbarous treatment in the school at his home, at finding at last a preceptor, eminent for his scholar- ship, uncovering his head in the presence of his pupils, and publicly censuring his assistants for neglecting to show the same respect to the future dignitaries who were, for the time, under their in- struction! Such consideration inspired the pupils with self-respect, and rendered them eager to prove themselves worthy of the honour shown them. Melanchthon tells us that Luther was accustomed to boast of having been a pupil of such a teacher. Under Trebonius his progress was most rapid. All
i5oi] Childhood *3
his fellow-students were far surpassed. During this period his studies were chiefly grammatical and classical. Two influences must have affected his religious development at this time. His home in the Cotta family brought him into close relations with the institution of the Franciscans, in the near neighbourhood, founded and endowed by the Schalbe family, from which Mrs. Cotta came. He also became intimate with an Eisenach priest, by the name of Braun, who afterwards appears promi- nently as a correspondent.
Four years having been spent at Eisenach, almost under the shadow of the Wartburg, he entered the University of Erfurt in the summer semester of 1501. His name was enrolled as " Martinus Lud- her ex Mansfeld." His father having prospered financially, he was relieved of all further care con- cerning his own support, and was thus enabled to devote himself entirely to his studies.
AUTOGRAPH OF REUCHLIN.
EISENACH IN LUTHER'S TIME.
CHAPTER II
STUDENT LIFE
F7RFURT stood at the head of the German uni- J_^ versities of the fifteenth century. Opened to students in 1392, it was chronologically the fifth, but in number of students the first. Called some- times " The German Bologna." a current saying ran, that in Erfurt there were as many Masters of Arts as there were stones in the pavement ; while another adage was: " He who would study well, must go to Erfurt." In 1455 alone, five hundred and thirty-eight students were matriculated, the entire attendance reaching two thousand. Popular demonstrations marked all public exercises of the University ; for it was the pride of the city, which, while not ranking as a free town, was ambitious and enterprising, and a place of much importance,
1505] Student Life 15
chafing under the dominion of the Archbishop of Mayence.
In entering the University, Luther's plans for his future were not fixed. His father, who appreciated his marked abilities, thought that the profession of law offered him the best opportunities for success, and had shaped his course accordingly. As the first years were devoted to liberal studies, an immediate decision as to a profession was unnecessary. The two branches to which he devoted himself were philosophy and classical literature, or Humanism, as it was then called. Philosophy embraced not only logic and rhetoric, and some of the topics now assigned to metaphysics, but also the elements of the physical sciences, including astronomy, as taught in those days. The two best -known profes- sors in the philosophical faculty at Erfurt were Jodocus Trutvetter, of Eisenach, and Bartholomew Arnoldi, of Usingen, both representatives of the later Scholasticism, which, under the banner of Nominalism, was gradually disintegrating. With all the ardour of his nature, Luther applied himself to philosophy, and eagerly accepted the teachings of his professors, especially Trutvetter. The text- books in use were the writings of William Occam, Peter D'Ailly, John Gerson, and Gabriel Biel. Nominalism, whose adherents were called also Ter- minists, denied the reality of general ideas, affirming that they have existence only as creations of the mind, and that, as reality is to be found only in the concrete and particular, objects can be known only as individuals.
1 6 Martin Luther [1483^
" The Terminists," said Luther, " is the name of a school in the universities, to which I belonged. They oppose the Thomists, Scotists, and Albertinists, and are called also Occamists, from Occam, their founder. The controversy was as to whether such words as * humanity ' mean a common humanity, existing in all men, as Thomas and the rest held, or, as the Occamites and the Terminists say, there is no such common humanity, but it means all men individually, just as the picture of a man stands for all men. They, then, are called Termin- ists, who speak of a thing in its own proper terms just as they sound and mean, and attach thereto no strange and fanciful meanings. Occam is a wise and sensible man, who endeavoured earnestly to amplify and explain a subject" '
But he criticises Occam for his lack of spirituality, and " as one who had no knowledge of spiritual temptations."1 Biel, he says, was read with great disappointment ; but Gerson he held in the highest esteem, as one who had advanced far towards a true knowledge of the Gospel.8 To Luther, the mysti- cal side of Nominalism was attractive ; since it taught that, as subjects can be known only individually, all other truths must be remitted to the domain of faith.
The time given to logic he never regretted.
" Logic," he says, " teaches one to say a thing dis- tinctly and plainly, and in short, clear words. It does not give the ability to teach concerning all subjects, but is only an instrument enabling one to teach correctly, and
1 Erlangen, 62 : 113. J72.,ii6.
i5os] Student Life 17
in proper order, what he has already learned. It en- ables one to give a round, short, and straight-to-the-point definition, and is highly necessary for use in schools, courts, and churches." '
Like arithmetic, he regarded it an indispensable formal science. His only criticism is that the tech- nical terms, such as " syllogism," " enthymeme," " proposition," ought to be translated into plain German.2 For the study of astronomy, he found a direct command in Gen. xv., 5, and commended it for the wonders it disclosed, such as the rapid move- ment of the firmament, whereby, in twenty-four hours, it traverses " several thousand miles"; the fact that "a star is larger than the whole earth, and, yet, there are so many stars "; the peculiar move- ments of the planets; the twinkling of the stars, etc. " Astronomy and mathematics I praise; but astrology I regard of no account." *
But since, at Erfurt, Humanism was undermining Scholasticism, the study of the Greek and Latin classics corrected the one-sided development, which exclusive attention to the merely formal and natural sciences would have given. The classics were the windows through which he looked from the seclu- sion of his study into the world, and was able to read human nature, and to learn the habits and passions and motives of men of other times and other lands. Little did he care for comparative etymology or textual criticism. What he sought was the picture of life, to be found in these writers.
1 Erlangen, 62 : 303. */5., 298 sq., 303. s It., 317 sqq.
1 8 Martin Luther
He estimated them, not according to their style, but according to their sense. Like a well-trained logician, he weighed their arguments. " He read them," says Melanchthon, " not like boys who pick out words, but for their doctrine and pictures of life. The maxims and judgments of these writers were closely examined, and, as his memory was faithful, most that he read and heard was ever at his com- mand."1 His illustrations from these sources, in after life, were numerous and apt. Cicero was, above all, his favourite. ' He who wants to learn true philosophy, must read Cicero." ' He has written more than all the philosophers, and has read all the books of the Greeks." * Next in his regard came Ovid and Vergil, whom he prized for their maxims. He was familiar also with Livy and Strabo, Plautus and Terence. The descriptions and allusions, reflecting the corruption of the age in which they lived, he would have banished from the schools.
In the prosecution of these studies, according to the testimony of Melanchthon, Luther became so distinguished that " his talents were the admiration of the University." But he was not so absorbed in his studies as to take no interest in the general life of the place. Academic ceremonies he continued, throughout life, to commend, as advancing the glory of God. In circles of intimate friends, the sociability of his nature found frank, and, possibly, even boisterous expression. They called him Musicus, " because of his skill in playing the lyre, 1 C. R.t 6 : 157 (see note 2, p. 29). 9 Erlangen, 62 : 341.
1505] Student Life 19
an art in which he was self-taught, having learned it while confined to his room on account of a danger- ous wound he had accidentally received in his leg. One of his comrades in the University, John Lange, continued to be a lifelong confidential friend. On September 29, 1502, he received the degree of Bachelor of Arts ; and, at Epiphany, 1505, his graduation, with seventeen others, as Master of Arts, was celebrated by a torch-light procession and other brilliant demonstrations usual at that time in the University.
Of his religious life during his student days we know little. Matthesius, his pupil and intimate friend, is authority for two important statements. One is that he began the work of every day with prayer, according to his motto : Bene orasse est bene studuisse (" To pray well is to study well "). The other is that, in the examination of the volumes in the University library, he found a copy of the Latin Bible, and was delighted at having, at last, in his hands the entire volume, from which the lessons already well known to him in the Missal and Brevi- ary, had been taken. The first passage that met his eyes was the story of Hannah, in First Samuel.
Among the preachers at Erfurt, he used to speak of a Dr. Sebastian Weinmann, as a zealous advocate of the law, but lamented that, during his entire career there, he had never heard either a gospel or a psalm properly explained. The city abounded in evidences of religious life. Rich in churches and chapels, cloisters and fraternities, it recalled at every step the religious instruction of his childhood.
20 Martin Luther [i483~
The burning coal, thus kept alive, was destined to start a conflagration when the great crisis in his career came. That crisis was his choice of a pro- fession. His father intended him for a lawyer. At considerable expense, the necessary books had been purchased, and he had begun to attend lectures on jurisprudence. But Luther was never made to be a jurist. For collecting precedents he had no taste. Red tape has its uses, and the world needs those who insist upon it ; but the free spirit of Luther could never have been confined by its trammels, or sup- pressed by the rigidity and minuteness of its de- mands. His sympathy with his fellow-men, and his love of determining general principles, and, through them, reaching a destined end, were too great. Often throughout his life the adage, Summum jus, summa injuria (" The strictest justice may be the greatest injustice "), came from his pen. There must be, said he, not law, but equity; since there must be forgiveness of sins. The spiritual danger of those who adopted the legal profession was a fre- quent subject of his remarks. For the calling, there- fore, for which his father had intended him, he had no love ; and yet, from obedience to his parents, he felt it his duty to follow the path they had pre- scribed. This conflict quickened within him the sense of his relation to the higher law, on which his obedience to parents was based. The sudden death of a friend, who, according to the best accounts, was assassinated, some say by his very side, fol- lowed, shortly afterwards, by a narrow escape from death by lightning, in a forest on the way between
1505] Student Life 21
Erfurt and Eisleben, determined him to obey what he then regarded as the commands of a higher law. Terrified by the violence of the storm that was raging around him, and especially by the fearful bolts that were crashing through the trees, ad- dressing one of the patron saints of his childhood, the protectress of the Saxon miners, he cried out : " Help me, dear St. Anna! I will become a monk." Misguided in this though he was, he thus, under the sense of his responsibility to God, asserted his Christian freedom.
The vow thus made was faithfully performed. Two weeks later, on July 16, 1505, he invited his most intimate friends to spend the evening with him. It was what he believed to be his farewell to the world. For the last time he determined to enjoy music and song. The decision once made, all sadness was gone. The contradictions of his life were clearly reflected by his conduct that evening. He who could sing and play over the prospect of renouncing, for Christ's sake, singing and playing, was to find, hereafter, that Christ was to be honoured by song and music, rather than by silence, and by social intercourse and contact with the world, rather than by seclusion. Sorrowfully his friends accom- panied him, the next morning, to the gates of the Augustinian cloister, where he knocked for admis- sion. As they opened, he entered. They closed. The monastic habit was assumed. The world was left behind.
DESIGNED BY LUTHER'S COLLEAQUE, DR. JUSTUS JONA&
CHAPTER III
IN THE CLOISTER
HE was now face to face with the deepest ques- tion that could agitate man's mind. The one great subject that was henceforth to absorb his at- tention was that of his relation to God. Deeply devout, the principles were already rooted in his heart that were to push their way through severe conflict to a complete victory over the errors that attended them and held him captive.
Whatever abuses pervaded monachism, due credit should ever be given to the moral earnestness in which it originated, and the spiritual influence which, during the period of the Church's decline, it often exercised and diffused. Even though they fell under the corrupting influences against which they arose as protests, nevertheless what mediaeval Christianity would have been without its religious orders, it is difficult to surmise. In the midst of an ignorant, careless, and often immoral clergy, and
22
i5o8] In the Cloister 23
under bishops completely secularised, the monks, as they moved from place to place, were the preach- ers and spiritual guides of the people, and, mistaken though they often were, they asserted the claims of God, and awakened men to the sense of the eternal and spiritual. When time wrought changes, and institutions, intent on spiritual interests, were cor- rupted, reforms were repeatedly instituted, or new orders were founded, to fulfil the design that the orders then existing had no longer in view.
The Augustinian Hermits, to whom the cloister at Erfurt belonged, originated in 1256 by the union of eight minor orders, and received its name from the" Rule of St. Augustine," compiled from the writings of the great Church Father, which formed the basis of their constitution. A recent vigorous attempt, on the part of Andreas Proles, to correct abuses and to enforce the requirements of a stricter life, had led to the establishment, within the Order, of an organisation or " special congregation," to whom the Augustinians of Saxony belonged. Pur- ity of outward life, deep earnestness, and, especially, activity and reputation as preachers, characterised these Saxon monks. Among the new requirements of this " special congregation " was that of diligence in the study of the Holy Scriptures. But it would be erroneous to infer from their name that any par- ticular stress was laid upon the Augustinian doctrines of sin and grace. It was rather for the churchly side of his teaching, than as the opponent of Pela- gius, that Augustine was revered. The Vicar- General of the " congregation," John Staupitz,
24 Martin Luther [i483-
accepted a purer teaching of the Gospel than was hitherto current ; but he did not realise whither his principles led. Such questions as were agitating the mind of Luther were regarded with indifference by the great body of monks.
Proud though the entire cloister was that it had gained so brilliant a master of arts, no difference was at first made between him and other novitiates. In this first grade one year was spent. With his name exchanged for that of " Brother Augustine," and under the charge of the master of novices, he endured the most rigid discipline, until the authori- ties of the University interfered, and obtained some mitigations for its distinguished alumnus. Sweep- ing, scrubbing, scouring, begging from door to door, occupied a good portion of his time. The instruc- tions which he received were chiefly concerning such trivialities as how to stand, to walk, to sit, to kneel, how to hold his hands and direct his eyes, how to eat and drink, and how to conduct himself in the presence of priests and other superiors. Every effort was taken to suppress any germs of pride that might still exist, and to accustom him to the most humiliating obedience. At a weekly confessional service, each brother publicly enumerated his sins, and reports were made by censors of such sins in others as had come to their notice. If the novice had at any time been late, or had fallen asleep, or had made an unnecessary noise, or occasioned a laugh during service, he could be absolved upon the repe- tition of a psalm. But if he had broken the silence in his cell, or had spoken to a woman, the rod de-
BUILDING OF THE CISTERCIAN MONASTERY, SCHONAU, NEAR HEIDELBERG.
FROM A GERMAN MS. OF THE XVITH CENTURY.
i5o8] In the Cloister 25
scended upon his bared shoulders. Imprisonment, fetters, a fare of bread and water, were the penalties for the most serious offences. So exacting were the rules, and so sure the punishment, that a tender conscience would readily find matters of sin within spheres concerning which God's word is silent, and would be tortured lest it might fail to notice any omissions of duty. In order to detect any trace of sin, every thought and word was analysed. For solid study, there was little time or taste. Luther's associates were envious of their more scholarly brother, and reminded him that his duty was to beg rather than to study. But what time he could com- mand, was chiefly given to the Holy Scriptures, a copy of which was placed in his hands. Matthesius reports how he read the Psalter and the Epistles to the Romans and the Hebrews, weighing each sen- tence word by word. Much of his time was occupied with the daily services of the cloister. Mention may be made alone of the repetition of the Pater Noster twenty times, with the Ave Maria, at each of the seven daily canonical hours. Some concession, however, was made in the omission of some hours at certain seasons of the year.
At the end of the year he was admitted, with the customary rites, to full membership in the Order. To Almighty God, the Virgin Mary, and the prior of the monastery he vowed obedience, promising to live, until death, without property and in celibacy. The ceremony over, he was pronounced free from sin, just as though he were a child coming forth from holy baptism. Allotted a cell with the very
26 Martin Luther [i483-
plainest furniture — a table, a chair, a couch, and a lamp, — he was introduced to the study of scholastic theology, under professors living in the monastery, John Paltz and John Natin. The text-books for instruction were mainly the writings of the teachers who had been his masters in philosophy, Occam and Gerson, Biel and D'Ailly. But he was dissatisfied. In his studies he took no real interest. He pursued them alone for the practical end that, by subjection to this discipline, he might find peace of conscience in the assurance of salvation. So attentive was he to every duty, that his instructor, Natin, declared to a cloister of nuns, at Muehlhausen, that he was a model of holiness, and had been miraculously con- verted. " In all the exercises of lessons, discus- sions, fastings, prayers," says Melanchthon, " he far surpassed all." " If a monk ever could have gone to heaven by his observance of monastic vows," Luther afterwards declared, " I would have been the one." ' But the more he was commended, the more he felt his spiritual poverty. Nothing was as interesting to him as his Bible; and, yet, he was warned against its constant use, lest it might nurture his pride, and cause him to undervalue the scholas- tic writers, in whom, it was asserted, the very mar- row of Scriptural teaching was to be found.
A survey of the religious opinions and teachings with which he was struggling, can be gathered, with- out difficulty, from his full confessions in subsequent years. The one thought of God, overshadowing all others, was that of His wrath. Notwithstanding
1 Erlangen, 31 : 273.
In the Cloister 27
all his efforts for righteousness, he regarded himself as the object of this wrath. Christ, he knew, had been given as Redeemer; but not for the sins of all men, nor even for all the sins of the redeemed. He was entangled in speculations concerning predestina- tion. Redemption afforded the opportunity for a new effort on man's part, rather than paid the full penalty for sin. Only sins committed before baptism were forgiven because of Christ's death; the effect of His vicarious work upon other sins was only to commute the penalty, so as to render man's satisfac- tion possible. Instead of Redeemer, Christ was re- garded as a new Lawgiver, offering salvation upon easier terms than Moses. But, even with these terms mitigated, how could man ever be sure that he fulfilled them ? If monastic observances were to advance his salvation, how could he ever be satisfied that they were performed with sufficient perfection ? He confesses:
" For so long a time I laboured and tortured myself with fasts, vigils, prayers, etc., that thereby I might at- tain this assurance. But, for my whole life, my heart could not be assured that God was well pleased with the work that I had done, or had certainly heard my prayer. Even when I prayed most devoutly every day, and con- fessed most fully, and said Mass, and did the very best, if any one had asked me, ' Are you sure that you have the Holy Ghost ? ' I must have answered : ' God forbid that I should be so presumptuous ! I am a poor sinner. I have done this and that ; but know not whether it have certainly pleased God.' For fifteen years I was just such a pious monk ; and yet never advanced so far
28 Martin Luther [i483~
as to be able to say, * Now I am sure that God is gracious to me,' or, * Now I have sought and experienced that my devotion to my Order and my strict life have helped and led me towards heaven.' Never was I able to say, ' O God, I know that my prayer, made in the Name and faith of Christ, Thy dear Son, pleases Thee, and is assuredly heard.' "
Such prayers were not what the Holy Scriptures know as prayers. There was no joyful communion of the soul with a reconciled and loving Father. Estimated by their number and frequency, so that prayers omitted at one time could be made up after- wards, they were only exercises of self-mortification, whereby an attempt was made to purchase God's favour. Between Christ Himself, regarded as Law- giver, and therefore, like the Father, an angry Judge, the Virgin Mary and the saints were inter- posed ; and only through them could the distressed soul reach its Redeemer. Even of his favourite among the scholastics, he says: " Occam, my dear Master, writes that it cannot be proved from the Holy Scriptures that, in order to do good works, the Holy Spirit is necessary." *
But, amidst this darkness, there were those who were enlightened by the truth contained in the por- tions of the Holy Scriptures they had read, and in the collects and other portions of the Missal and Breviary. Not so keenly as Luther had they felt the conflict between the evangelical and unevangeli- cal elements so strangely intermingled in the Church.
1 Erlangen, 17 : 13 sq. Cf. ib., 46 : 64, 73 ; 49: 300, 314. * Walch, xix., 2324.
i5o8] In the Cloister 29
Without the same depth of spiritual earnestness, they had not made the same endeavour to fulfil every requirement and meet every condition ; and, therefore, were content to be comforted by the truth that they apprehended, and to overlook the errors that pervaded the entire system of doctrine and orders of devotion. To this class belonged an old monk, to whom he once confessed his mental anguish, and who comforted him by saying: " My son, do you not know that God has commanded us to hope?"1 Still more impressive was another answer, when his adviser pointed him to the article of the Creed: " I believe the forgiveness of sins "; with the interpretation that we are not to believe that only some persons receive forgiveness, as the demons believe that David or Peter is forgiven, but that it is God's command that each one should be- lieve that his own sins are forgiven.* A passage, cited from Bernard of Clairvaux, in which the em- phasis was laid upon the one word, Tibi, " For thee," became a permanent treasure of his heart, as its echo in the explanation of the Small Catechism, treating of the Lord's Supper, clearly shows. But, even with the answer to his doubts within him, the conflict for a long time continued. The works of Augustine were studied, especially his notes on the Psalms. The treatise, Of the Spirit and Letter, afforded much support to his faith, but, again, oc-
1 Erlangen edition of Luther's Latin exegetical works (subsequently referred to as Op. ex.), 19 : 200.
8 Corpus Reformatorum (containing in its first 28 vols. the works of Melanchthon and subsequently referred to as C. 11.), 6 : 159.
30 Martin Luther [1483.
casioned doubt by its suggestions concerning an absolute predestination.
Another member of the Order, in whom the evan- gelical principle prevailed, and who was of inestim- able service to Luther, was its Vicar-General, John von Staupitz. A man of noble family, of imposing appearance, of liberal culture, of a deeply mystical type of Christianity, a graduate of Tuebingen, a professor and dean of the University of Wittenberg, an intimate friend and influential adviser of the Elector of Saxony, he had, in 1503, succeeded An- drew Proles as the head of the Reformed Augus- tinians. In his visitations to Erfurt he became acquainted with Luther and his spiritual conflicts. With the utmost freedom the young monk disclosed to him the secrets of his heart. Staupitz told him that the difficulty was that he was constantly trying to find sins where there were none, and that his confessions were occupied with matters that were absolutely trivial. When Luther spoke of his fear of Christ, Staupitz answered: " That is not Christ, for Christ does not terrify ; He only consoles." When he explained his difficulties concerning pre- destination, Staupitz advised that, whenever he con- sidered the subject, he should think of the wounds of Christ, and all his controversial zeal would vanish.1 Many years after, Luther wrote: " If Dr. Staupitz, or rather God, through Dr. Staupitz, had not aided me in this, I would have been long since
1 Luther's Letters, edited by De Wette and Seidemann (subsequently referred to as De Wette), 4: 187 ; Op. ex., 6: 296 ; Erlangen, 57: 146.
DR. STAUPITZ.
AFTER A CONTEMPORARY OIL PAINTING IN THE AUGUSTINIAN MONASTERY AT SALZBURG.
i5o8] In the Cloister 31
in hell."1 Staupitz warned against the danger of trusting to his own powers, and taught man's in- ability to do aught, except by the grace of God, upon which man is to implicitly trust. The true meaning of repentance was, likewise, explained as a habit, or state of heart and life, rooted in love to God, rather than an act or a succession of acts.1 This explanation afterwards emerged in the very first of the Ninety-five Theses of 1517.
Ordained to the priesthood in 1507, his first cele- bration of the Mass was an occasion of peculiar in- terest. Cantate Sunday, May 2d, was designated as the time, with especial reference to the conven- ience of his father, who, deeply offended by his entrance into the monastery, had pronounced the son a madman, but had been softened by the death, from plague, of two other sons. He came, accom- panied by no less than twenty friends, on horseback. To the new priest the service was a great trial. The sense of his unworthiness and the fear of committing a grievous sin by making even the most trifling mis- take, oppressed him. As he contemplated the thought, which he actually believed a reality, that his words brought the Body and Blood of his Lord to the altar, he trembled. The act over, he received the presents and congratulations of friends, his father honouring the occasion with a liberal gift. Now was the opportunity, thought Luther, to obtain a word of acquiescence and approval from his hitherto relentless parent. At the banquet that followed, he publicly put to him the question, as to whether he
1 Erlangen, 56 : 39. * De Wette, i : 116.
32 Martin Luther [1508
were not satisfied. With characteristic frankness and firmness, the plain old man addressed, not his son, but the whole company: " Ye learned men, have ye not read in the Holy Scriptures, that father and mother are to be honoured?" When some one answered that the son, however, had had a call from heaven, the father was not disconcerted, but suggested that what they regarded a call from heaven, might have been a delusion of the devil.1
1 De Wette, 2 : 100 sqq.
V * i^ *.*Jm&*^^ *. -- (i iBiMiitui rj
a1 IB '"-"'
UNIVERSITY OF ERFURT.
WITTENBERG IN LUTHER'S TIME.
CHAPTER IV
THE PROFESSOR
ABOUT sixty miles S.S.W. from Berlin, and forty miles N.N.E. from Leipzig, on the railway route between the two cities, lies Witten- berg, the small city which is most closely associated with Luther's name. At the beginning of the six- teenth century it was, according to Luther, " on the borders of civilisation," and contained about three thousand poverty-stricken inhabitants, living in three or four hundred low, frame, straw-thatched houses, built upon a sandy plain, that suffered severely from periodical visitations of the plague. But there were compensations. Here, until 1542, was the residence of the Electoral princes of Saxony. Two large churches, known as the Stadt Kirche, or Parochial church, and the Schloss Kirche, or Castle 3 33
34 Martin Luther [1483-
church, were centres of religious life. The latter, having originated in the chapel of the castle, was erected in 1449, and became a point from which the neighbouring village churches were supplied with priests, a work that had necessitated the founding of a chapter-house for the accommodation of the clergy. An Augustinian cloister had also found a home there.
The Elector Frederick the Wise (born 1463 ; Elec- tor from 1486) was a man of liberal culture, being well versed in the Latin classics, and having the French language at his command. He was also an interested student of all that was then taught of the natural sciences, and had supplemented his studies by extensive travels. In him the suggestion of the Emperor Maximilian I., at the Diet of Worms in 1495, that each of the Electors should endeavour to found a university within his territory, for the culti- vation of his subjects, met with hearty sympathy. There is a tradition of a break in the faculty of Leipzig, on account of a controversy between its two leading medical professors, Pistoris and Pollich, rendering their continued association an impossibil- ity, and the consequent effort of each to establish a new university in which to find a new field of labour, resulting in the University of Frankfort as the new school for Pistoris, and that of Wittenberg for Pol- lich. However this may be, Dr. Pollich certainly performed an important part in laying the founda- tions of Wittenberg. He had been the tutor of the Elector, was both physician and jurist, and had ac- companied Frederick on his pilgrimage to the Holy
I5i7] The Professor 35
Sepulchre. Neither Erfurt nor Leipzig could be relied upon for any great service to Ernestine Sax- ony. The former was under the control of the Archbishop of Mayence, while the latter belonged to the territory of the Albertine branch of the Elec- tor's family. The chapter-house and Augustinian cloister at Wittenberg offered a supply of teachers who could be advantageously used, as long as the University would be in a formative state, and its revenues too limited for the support of a better- equipped corps of instructors. Besides Pollich, Staupitz was soon enlisted in the enterprise. On October 18, 1502, the University was formally opened, with Pollich as the first rector, and Stau- pitz as the dean of the theological faculty. It was modelled after the University of Tuebingen, with which it stood in close relations. The opening ser- mon played upon the name of the place,and prophe- sied concerning the true wisdom that would emanate thence, and be diffused throughout the world. It was an Augustinian institution, a truly denomina- tional college of the sixteenth century. Augustine was made its patron saint, and St. Paul the peculiar model of the members of its theological faculty. On the first day four hundred and sixteen students were enrolled. But the project was too extensive for the resources. Enthusiasm was chilled, and a rapid decline in the attendance seemed to indicate its early dissolution. The removal to Herzberg, in 1506, on account of the plague, threatened to be the death-blow of the young institution. But in 1507 it was again in Wittenberg, and from that time it
36 Martin Luther
ceased to be an experiment. The Pope having, in that year, given its establishment his formal ratifica- tion, the Elector, who had hitherto supported it exclusively by private gifts, was justified in applying public revenues to this end. The number of instruct- ors and lecturers for that year rose to thirty-eight. With wise forethought, Staupitz not only called eminent scholars to important chairs, but provided for the training of future professors, by appointing the most promising young scholars among the Augustinians under him as instructors. In Novem- ber, 1508, seven such instructors were sent by him to Wittenberg, where, although engaged in univer- sity work, they were to reside at the Augustinian monastery, and devote a large portion of their time to study, evidently with a view to service in after years. Luther was summoned to become one of this number, and so suddenly that he was unable to take leave of his most intimate friends. At Witten- berg he found the most stimulating of his Erfurt professors, Trutvetter, who had preceded him by a year, while his former professor of law, Henning Goede, was soon to follow, and to be the main in- strument in thoroughly organising the new Univer- sity. The energetic administration of a young professor of law, Christopher Scheurl, of Nurem- berg, as rector, had contributed much toward in- creasing the numbers and good discipline of the students, whom he forbade to carry weapons, or to visit saloons or taverns. In the theological faculty were Nicholas von Amsdorf, destined to become one of Luther's warmest adherents, and Andrew
i5i7] The Professor 37
Bodenstein von Carlstadt, whose revolutionary radi- calism Luther was to resist with as much vigour as the assumptions of the Papacy.
For the first few months, the distasteful task of lecturing upon the Dialectics and Physics of Aris- totle was assigned to Luther. These lectures were delivered, probably, not in the University, but in the monastery. To his friend, Braun of Eisenach, he wrote that he would very gladly exchange philo- sophy for theology. " Theology is the branch, which examines the kernel of the nut, the flour of the wheat, and the marrow of the bones." ' Not long did he wait. On March 9, 1509, he became a Bachelor of Theology, with authority to lecture upon the text of the Holy Scriptures. The method em- ployed was to read cursorily large portions of the books of the Bible, adding brief comments. Ac- cording to Melanchthon, so experienced and discrim- inating a judge as Dr. Pollich declared, after several of these lectures, that Luther was destined to change the entire method of instruction then current in the schools. While engaged in this work, and before attaining the next degree in theology, that of a Sententiarist, or one authorised to lecture on the first two books of the Sentences of Peter Lombard, he was recalled, in the autumn of 1509, to Erfurt, where he entered upon the duties in the theological faculty assigned those who had taken the second degree. A spirited controversy was agitating the Saxon Augustinians concerning the policy of their Vicar-General, Staupitz, in which the sentiment at
1 De Wette, i : 6.
38 Martin Luther [1483-
Erfurt was, to say the least, not on his side. Pos- sibly it was for this reason that Staupitz desired Luther to return to Erfurt. He had been making the effort to bring all the monasteries of the Augus- tinians in Germany within the so-called Reformed Congregation; but had met with the most obstin- ate resistance from the Nuremberg Augustinians and their adherents, who dreaded concessions relaxing the severity of the discipline.
Towards the close of September or beginning of October, 1511, Luther was sent, with John von Mecheln of the Netherlands, to Rome, in order to represent there the case of Staupitz; the eminent strictness of Luther's life, and his rigid observance of the rules of the Order, giving his advocacy of what was regarded the liberal side all the greater weight. By the end of February they had returned. The result of their mission can only be inferred from the fact that the project of Staupitz was abandoned, and that he retained the esteem of the monasteries that had made successful protest.
For Luther's training, this mission was far more important than it was for the end directly in view. He often declared that it was worth to him more than one hundred thousand guilders. Every theo- logical student, Luther thought, ought to go to Rome if opportunity offered. Upon foot, from monastery to monastery, he and his companion went across the Alps, and, by the picturesque plain of Lombardy, passed into Italy. Everywhere his eyes were open, and important lessons for the future were learned. At Florence, the hospitals, adminis-
i5i7] The Professor 39
tered by Christian women, delighted him. The first sight of Rome inspired him with an enthusiasm similar to that with which the crusaders greeted Jerusalem. He fell upon the ground, and, with out- stretched hands, exclaimed: " Hail, holy Rome!" Such marks of the ancient city as could still be found he was interested in tracing, and mentioned afterwards the Colosseum and the Baths of Diocle- tian, remarking that the houses of the modern, city are built above the roofs of their predecessors. Still greater attraction for him did the ecclesiastical buildings have. With admiration he gazed upon St. Peter's, as an edifice which, although then very recent, he believed, in his simplicity, to be thirteen hundred years old.1
The chief attraction, however, was not that of sight-seeing, but the spiritual blessing that he hoped to receive. It was his purpose to make there an un- reserved confession of all the sins that he had ever committed. Although he had made such confession twice before at Erfurt, he expected an especial bless- ing from the same confession, if made in the Holy City. Mass he celebrated a number of times, and actually wished that his parents were dead because, by such service at Rome, he thought that he would have been able to deliver them from purgatory. His son Paul told the story that has become familiar, as one that he had heard from him, concerning his toilsome ascent, upon his knees, of Pilate's stairway, and how the words, " The just shall live by faith," came to him as though uttered in tones of thunder.
1 Erlangen, 62 : 438, 441.
40 Martin Luther [1483-
To his German earnestness the frivolity of the Italian priests was a grievous offence. If he was shocked when, on reading Mass, a priest by his side urged him to hurry on, he was startled still more when, at the table, some Carmelites told the story as a matter of mirth, how the holy elements had been consecrated with the words: Pants es, et panis manebis. Vinum es, et vinum manebis (" Thou art bread, and bread shalt thou remain ; wine thou art, and wine thou shalt remain"), thus turning the Holy Eucharist into a farce.1 On his return journey, in the cathedral at Milan, he heard the Ambrosian, in- stead of the Gregorian Mass, and thus learned, for the first time, that within the Roman Church, and even in Italy, there was no absolute uniformity in .the services.
Yet it was as a faithful son of the Church, and a zealous champion of the Papacy, that he returned to Germany. The criticism of many things that he saw and heard does not date from that period, but was made as, in later years, he recalled his experi- ences, and judged them in the new light that had dawned upon him.
On his return to Germany, Luther's home was for the second time made at Wittenberg. In the summer of 1512, he was appointed sub-prior of the monastery ; in October of the same year, he be- came, on the 4th, a licentiate, and, on the ipth, a Doctor of Theology. His conduct of the mission to Rome had won for him universal esteem. Stau- pitz desired to assign him, at as early a date as
J Erlangen, 31 : 327.
i5i7] The Professor 41
possible, to a prominent position in the University. The rapid succession of degrees in October had this end in view. They aroused jealousy, however, at Erfurt, whose authorities were unwilling to relin- quish their claim upon Luther, as an alumnus, and regarded the haste with which the degrees were con- ferred by Wittenberg as an unjustifiable attempt to anticipate the institution from which these degrees would otherwise shortly have come. To Luther the degrees came without his seeking them. The degree of doctor of theology, he realised, brought with it new duties and responsibilities. " Upon a Doctor," he says, " it is incumbent, according to his oath of office, to explain the Scriptures to all the world, and to teach every one." * Although he shrank from such publicity, and preferred the retire- ment and quiet studies of the monastery to the con- flict and bustle of life, he could not dissuade Staupitz from his purpose. Ten years afterwards, he showed some of his friends a pear tree, under which he had pleaded with his superior to excuse him from this promotion, with its responsibilities. But Staupitz was inexorable, and Luther's vow of obedience com- pelled him to submit. The Elector, having heard him preach, showed his appreciation by providing all the expenses of the promotion. At the cere- mony, his later antagonist, Dr. Carlstadt, presided and conferred the degree. His old schoolmate, Wenceslaus Link, at that time the prior of the Wittenberg monastery, participated prominently in the service. He received the hat and ring of the 1 Erlangen, 39 : 356.
42 Martin Luther [1483-
doctorate; the latter may be seen to-day in the Ducal Museum at Brunswick.
At the age of twenty-nine, Luther found himself not only installed into a professorship of theology, with the right to lecture on all the branches of that science, but, also, with the main responsibility rest- ing upon him for all the instruction that was to be given. From that time, the presence of Staupitz at Wittenberg was not frequent, while Trutvetter had been recalled to Erfurt, and neither Amsdorf nor Link could command the influence of a leader. In this position, he did not hesitate to break through all traditional modes of theological instruction. As he preferred to be called a " Doctor of the Holy Scriptures" to a " Doctor of Theology," so, in- stead of commenting upon the Scholastics, or at- tempting to formulate a theological system, he made the study of the Book of books the first and main part of all his teaching. When the statement is sometimes made, that he began the Reformation by the assertion of the Material Principle of Protestant- ism, and that its Formal Principle, viz., that of the supreme authority of the Holy Scriptures, was an after-thought, this revolution, which, five years be- fore the publication of his Theses, he introduced into the mode and order of a theological course, is overlooked. The Book of Psalms was selected, not only because, of all the books of the Bible, he was most familiar with it, but, especially, since, in the daily services, the words of the Psalmist were so deeply impressed upon the minds of his students, and pervaded to such an extent the entire life of the
The Professor 43
Church, that it was of first importance that they who so frequently used the words, should under- stand what they mean. " From the sixth century to the sixteenth," says the late Dr. John Mason Neale, " it is scarcely an exaggeration to assert that a portion equal to two times the whole Psalter was hebdomadally recited." The Book of Psalms was always Luther's Prayer-Book. To this Melanchthon referred in his funeral address, stating that he de- voted a fixed period of time almost every day to the private recitation of the Psalms, and had no patience with those who, either because of indolence, or press- ing duties, were content to pray by the mere direc- tion of the sighs of their heart to heaven.1
New also was his mode of lecturing. The Psalms in their Latin version were printed with wide mar- gins, and with spaces between the lines for the inser- tion of annotations. The translation was compared constantly with the original, and an occasional refer- ence was made to Augustine and Reuchlin. The traditional rule of the fourfold sense of Scripture was observed. The chief canon of interpretation, with which he starts, is that " all prophecies and prophets must be understood as referring to Christ, wherever there are no express words to the effect that something else is meant." * The Psalter being interpreted by his own experience of the grace of God, the exposition is occupied with such topics as the righteousness of faith, the merit of Christ, and the distinction between the Law and the Gospel.
1 C. R., n : 731.
* Walch, ix., 1476 sq.
44 Martin Luther [1483-
However loyal still to the Church of Rome, and however zealous in performance of the duties of his Order, in these notes it can be seen that he had al- ready thoroughly assimilated the principles that were hereafter to determine his course. Still more significant than its presentation of doctrine is the omission of much upon which a mediaeval writer would have been particularly explicit. Nor must it be thought that all this was, at the time, unnoticed. Matthesius tells us that his teaching was condemned as heretical by some both in his own and in other orders, who were prevented from preferring charges by their inability to meet his arguments.
After completing his exposition of the Psalms in 1516, he next made the Epistle to the Romans the basis of his instruction. Deterred from this for a while by his inadequate knowledge of Greek, he applied himself with the greatest diligence to the study of that language, and found an important assistant and adviser in John Lange, prior of the monastery at Erfurt. The lectures on Romans are not extant. In subsequent comments on the Psalms, he speaks of the insight into their meaning given him by his preparations for these lectures on Romans. Paul is the best interpreter of David. Then followed a series on Galatians, re-elaborated in 1519, com- ments on Hebrews, based on Chrysostom, and on Titus. As to the impression made by these lectures, Melanchthon writes :
" After a long and dark night the light of new doc- trine seemed to dawn. He showed the distinction be-
JOHANNES COCHLAUS. EOBANUS HESSUS.
JOHANNES REUCHLINUS. HANS SACHS. CONRAD CELTES.
FROM ENGRAVING IN KREUSSLER's ANDENKEN IN MUNZEN."
i5i7] The Professor 45
tween the Law and the Gospel, and refuted the then prevalent error that, by their own works, men merit the forgiveness of sins, and, by their observance of discipline, are righteous before God. Recalling the minds of men to the Son of God, and, like the Baptist, pointing to the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world, he declared that sins are remitted freely, on account of the Son of God, and that this benefit is to be received by faith. Other portions of the Church's doctrine were made clear. These beginnings of still better things gave him great influence, especially since his life corresponded with his speech, and his words seemed to spring, not from his lips, but from his heart." '
The writer whom Luther read during this period, next to Augustine, if not to an even greater extent, was John Tauler. The plain and simple language, the popular style, the directness, the practical point, and the devotional fervor of his sermons would, of themselves, have attracted Luther. But the com- plete renunciation of self, the denial of man's merits, the clear and forcible presentation of the work and merits of Christ, and the immediate access of the be- lieving child of God through Christ to his Father, rendered his writings peculiarly grateful. The spirit- ual priesthood of believers is clearly presented in Tau- ler, and only by inference in Augustine. In 1516 he wrote to Spalatin: " If you take any pleasure in reading the ancient and pure theology in the German language, read the sermons of John Tauler. For neither in the Latin, nor the German language, have I found purer and more wholesome theology,
1 C. R., 6 : 160 sg.
46 Martin Luther [i483-
nor any that so agrees with the Gospel. " ' At another time: " Although he is unknown to theolo- gians in the schools, nevertheless I know that I have found more pure divine doctrine therein than I have found or can be found in all the books of the Scho- lastics at all universities." " Since the time of the Apostles, scarcely any writer like him has been born."* One who would thoroughly understand Luther must, therefore, read Tauler. A few ex- tracts from Tauler will suggest how important such study must prove.
" The regenerate and renewed are not concerned as to whether their works be regarded great or small, glorious or despised. For they ever look only to the will of God and to the duties of the office they are under obligation to fulfil. Because of such faith, all their works, even the most trifling and despised, are in heaven great and glorious. They look not as to whether they may be as- signed a higher or lower station ; for in all things they desire nothing but the sole will and pleasure of God." '
" Is it credible that any human heart should be so hardened as not to melt with joy and love, on hearing that the Creator of all things, in the womb of the Virgin Mary, took upon Himself our nature, and was subject to death and suffering, and that the Lord of all lords be- came the servant and slave of all ; the Eternal Son of God, our Bridegroom ; the Judge of all men and angels, our elder brother ? With all His heavenly treasures and
1 De Wette, I : 46. Cf. ib., 34, 102 ; also Walch, xviii., 359.
* Walch, xxi., 567.
3 Sermons, with an Introduction by Dr. Philip Jacob Spener, Frankfort-on-the-Main and Leipzig, 1703. On Epistle for First Sunday in Advent.
i5i7] The Professor 47
gifts, He has made Himself our own. All this He has given as a treasure to us, mortal men, unrighteous sin- ners, who are only earth and dust."
" Since He is in us, and the human nature, which He has assumed of us, has been united into one Person with His own Almighty Godhead, there is in Him nothing whereof we cannot partake. Since this human nature has been assumed by the Eternal Son of God into the unity of His Person, the believing man is a child and son of God, with Christ, the Eternal Son of the Father." '
" How is it that men of to-day are so blinded that they are always trying to do so much, and are ever undertaking new enterprises, as though they had to sup- port God in heaven ? But all this they do of them- selves, /. e., according to their own will and the impulse of their nature, and they have especial pleasure in them- selves." *
" Prayer is nothing but the going of the heart to God. Where we should pray the Lord Himself teaches when He says, ' in spirit.' No one should imagine that that is a true prayer when one mumbles many outward words and runs over many psalms." *
The theologian notices here that, with all his spirituality, Tauler's doctrine of Justification differs from that of Luther in that it lays more stress upon "Christ in us" than upon "Christ for us." Neither was Luther able to rest in that purely pas- sive enjoyment of the grace of God, which was the ideal life of Mysticism ; but the more he experienced this grace, the more it impelled him to energetic
1 Sermons. On Gospel for First Sunday in Advent.
* 73. On Judica Sunday.
*Ib. On Fifth Sunday p. Trinity.
48 Martin Luther
activity within the world. From the mystics, how- ever, he learned to submit patiently to the will of God, to abide by his calling, and to await God's time and call for the conflicts of life.
A book which he had found, without title or name of author, but which he believed to have been writ- ten by Tauler, as it contained an epitome of his theology, he published, with a preface, in 1516, under the title, What the Old and the New Man Are. Two years later, having found the entire work, of which the volume he had published had been only a fragment, he issued it with a new title, A German Theology concerning the Right Knowledge of How Adam should Die and Christ Rise within Us. Ac- cording to a discovery of the present century, the real author was a priest of Frankfort-on-the-Main, and a member of the mystical society of " The Friends of God," a churchly communion, in an- tagonism with the rationalistic " Brethren of the Free Spirit." To English readers of to-day the book is known from the translation of Miss Wink- worth under the title Theologia Germanicd, with an introduction by Canon Kingsley.
The foundation of his distinction as a preacher was laid about this time. In an old dilapidated frame building, thirty by twenty feet in size, held together by props, and daubed with clay, standing within the foundation of the walls of the new mon- astery that had been begun, but whose erection had been temporarily suspended, and from a pulpit, constructed of rough boards, raised three feet above the ground, the greatest preacher of modern times
is:?] The Professor 49
preached his first sermon. Tradition tells of his extreme reluctance to preach, and that, when Stau- pitz first suggested it, he answered that it was no light matter to preach to the people in God's stead. At first he took his turn as one of the preachers of the monastery ; then his services were in demand as a supply. The pastor of the parochial church, or Stadt Kirche, at Wittenberg, Simon Heinse of Brueck, brother of Dr. George Brueck, afterwards Chancellor of Saxony, being in delicate health, Luther was called in to take his place. What at first was only a temporary expedient became a fixed arrangement when, in 1515, he received from the town council a regular call, as a preacher, to supply all otherwise unprovided-for appointments in that church. The forty sermons, or extracts of them, that remain, lack the force and fire and popularity of those that followed. They are more scholastic in their method, and abound in quotations from Church writers. But they give promise of the future. The spirit struggles energetically to break through the bonds by which it is still fettered. He speaks out freely his convictions concerning the word of God that he treats, but he has in view the clear statement of truth rather than its practical adaptation and ap- plication to his hearers. Allowance must be made for the fact that we have only his notes, written in Latin, and not in the vernacular in which they were delivered in a more direct and popular form. How- ever this may be, his earnestness, and ardour, and clearness of statement won a hearing, and drew all classes to his preaching.
50 Martin Luther [i483-
The story is told that Duke George of Saxony, early in 1517, had applied to Staupitz for some one to preach in the chapel of the castle at Dresden, and that, when Luther was sent, he preached with such power that, at the table after the sermon, while one of the lady attendants of the Duchess declared, if she could only hear another sermon like that, she would die in peace, the Duke said that he would be willing to give a large sum of money not to have heard it. In the sermon he had plainly shown that no one who hears God's word with joy should doubt concerning his salvation ; for such person must be a true follower of Christ, and one of the elect. Then he dwelt upon the truth that, when its consideration is begun with the doctrine concerning Christ, the article of predestination affords the very highest consolation. Within a month the devout hearer of the sermon had departed this life.
Both for his own edification and for that of the people he completed early in 1517, and published the same year, a brief explanation of the seven pen- itential Psalms. This exposition, he writes, was prepared, not for cultured Nurembergers, but for coarse Saxons, to whom Christian doctrine could not be explained in too simple words.
Administrative duties, committed to him by his Order, occasioned frequent interruptions of his pro- fessorial and literary labours. Appointed vicar in May, 1515, he was charged with the oversight of eleven monasteries, viz. : those at Wittenberg, Dres- den, Herzberg, Gotha, Salza, Nordhausen, Sanger- hausen, Erfurt, Magdeburg, Neustadt, and Eisleben.
The Professor 51
It was his duty, by means of visitations and frequent correspondence, to learn of the condition and decide concerning the necessities of each monastery and its inmates. The already thoroughly occupied pro- fessor of theology was thus called to a truly pastoral care of an extensive and difficult field. His letters testify to the fact that, while in this position he had to settle troublesome quarrels and misunder- standings, and had often to inquire concerning very material things, as the cost of clothing, and the amount of beer, wine, bread, and meat consumed, and even had to compute, according to a money standard, the damage that a storm had done the vineyards of the Order, nevertheless, the main thought was the spiritual interest of those with whom he had to deal. Every one in doubts and perplexities, like those which had agitated him, he seeks to give the full benefit of his experience.
" Dear brother," he writes to one, " learn Christ and Him crucified. Learn to despair of thyself, and to say to Him : ' Thou, Lord Jesus, art my righteousness ; but I am Thy sin. Thou hast assumed what was mine, and given me what was Thine. Thou hast assumed what Thou wast not, and hast given me what I was not.' Be- ware of aspiring to such purity as to be unwilling to seem to be, aye, even to be a sinner. For it is only in sinners that Christ dwells ; for He descended from Heaven, where He dwells among the righteous, in order that He might dwell among sinners. If, by our labours and afflictions, we could attain peace of conscience, why, then, did Christ die ? If you firmly believe this, as you ought (for he who believes it not is accursed), then re-
52 Martin Luther [1483-
ceive your uninstructed and still erring brethren and patiently bear with them. Make their sins yours, and if you have anything good, grant it to them." '
One of the Dresden monks having fled in disgrace to Mayence, Luther writes to the prior at the latter place to send the monk either back to Dresden, or to him at Wittenberg, and then adds :
" That offences come I know is necessary ; the won- der is that man rises and stands. Peter fell, that he might know himself to be a man ; to-day the cedars of Lebanon* which touch the heavens with their heads, are falling. Even an angel (a wonder surpassing all won- ders) fell in Heaven, and Adam in Paradise. What wonder then if a reed be moved by the wind, and the smoking flax be quenched ! " *
To Michael Dressel, prior in Neustadt, he writes:
" You are seeking peace, but in the reverse order ; for you are seeking it as the world, and not as Christ gives. Do you not know, good father, that God is wonderful in His people, just because He has placed His peace in the midst of no peace. Peace, therefore, is not to be found with the man whom no one disturbs, for this is the peace of the world, but with him whom all men and all things disturb, and who, nevertheless, calmly and joy- fully bears all things. With Israel, you are saying : * Peace, peace ' ; and there is no peace. Say rather, with Christ : ' Cross, cross ' ; and there is no cross. For the cross ceases to be a cross as soon as you can joyfully exclaim : * Blessed Cross, among all trees there is none like thee.' " '
1 De Wette, 1 : 17. s /£., 20. *Ib., 27.
IA\AGO- ERASMI-ROTEROUA
AB • ALBERTO • DVRERO-AD VlVAAV EFFIGiEM-DELiXlATA'
MATA-MZEI
ERASMUS.
FROM A COPPER ENGRAVING BY ALBERT OURER.
1517] The Professor 53
The above is a fair specimen of the correspondence that occupied, as he declares, the most of his time. But a storm was approaching. Current methods and authorities could not be ignored and discarded in silence. The time came when he was compelled to be their critic. Luther's criticism was the direct result of his positive statement of doctrine. He had no love of criticism and controversy for their own sake. The theology of the Scholastics was the re- sult of the effort to force the contents of Revelation into the moulds of thought of the Aristotelian philo- sophy. In course of time Aristotle afforded not only the form, but much of the material of the definitions and principles of these writers. As Luther progressed, he was indignant at finding that most of his difficulties and perplexities had arisen from this source; the teaching of the Church had been corrupted by a rationalism, in which Aristotle had been permitted to sit in judgment on Christ and the Apostles. Hence, in 1516, he indignantly de- clared that if Aristotle had not been flesh, he would not hesitate to affirm that he was the very devil ; and that it was a great cross to him that so much time was wasted in the universities in studying this writer." '
Appreciating the great impulse that Erasmus had given to the study of the Bible, by the new interest that he had enkindled not only for the study of the Greek language, but also of the text of the New Testament, and sympathising with his exposure of the errors of monks and priests, he was deeply dis-
1 To Lange, De Wette, i : 15.
54 Martin Luther
appointed to find this great teacher, after all, miss- ing the central point of the discussion, and reiterating the platitudes of the Aristotelians. Erasmus, he thought, would have done far better if he had fol- lowed Augustine rather than Jerome as his master. What particularly grieved him was that Erasmus had misunderstood the argument of the Epistle to the Romans by interpreting the " deeds of the law," to which Paul denies justifying power, as referring to the ceremonial, and not the moral law.
To overthrow the foundation on which this entire conception of theology rested, he had in preparation, in 1516, a commentary on the First Book of Aris- totle's Physics. While nothing of this work has reached us, its results were undoubtedly embodied in a series of Ninety-seven Theses concerning the Scholastic Theology, which he prepared for a dis- cussion to be held under his presidency, on Septem- ber 4, 1517. These theses were an arraignment of the scholastic theology for its departures from the teachings of Augustine concerning the bondage of the will in spiritual things, and the absolute need of God's grace, from beginning to end, in man's return to God. The natural man, they declare, is a bad tree, that cannot bear good fruit ; he can neither do nor will to do aught but evil. Man, by his natural powers, cannot conform to a correct standard, or wish that God be God, but, instead of being able to love God above all things, wants self to be God, and, therefore, God not to be God. Natural virtues, as, e. g,t those belonging to friendship, come from pre- venient grace. The only preparation for grace is
i5i7] The Professor 55
God's election. On man's part, nothing but indis- position precedes grace. Not by doing righteous deeds do we become righteous, but only when we become righteous do righteous deeds result. All citations from Aristotle must be ruled out ; since no one becomes a theologian until he abandons Aris- totle.1
In the discussion and defence of these theses, Francis Guenther of Nordhausen received the degree of Bachelor of Divinity " by the unanimous vote of the Faculty." Among all at Wittenberg, especially the younger theologians, there was now general sympathy with this break through the trammels whereby all theological progress had hitherto been re- strained. At first, Carlstadt and Lupinus had with- stood the movement ; but the former was soon converted from a zealous Thomist into an ardent friend and champion of Luther's position. A thoughtful present of a set of Augustine's works to Amsdorf was followed by his early accession to the ranks of those who were advocating this cause.
At Erfurt there was some personal hostility to Luther because he had received his degree elsewhere than from his Alma Mater. He writes with much concern as to the probability of his two former in- structors, Trutvetter and Arnoldi, accepting his position. The strength of Luther at Erfurt was in the monastery, of which his intimate friend, John Lange, was prior. At Nuremberg his former col- league, Christopher Scheurl, who had become legal
1 Opera varii argumentiCErtangen), subsequently referred to as Op. var. arg., i., 315 sqq.; Weimar, i., 221 sqq.
56 Martin Luther [1517
counsel to the city, and was a leading member of the literary circle for which the place was distin- guished, was in full sympathy and frequent corre- spondence with Luther, while Wenceslaus Link, another intimate friend, had become a prominent preacher there. After reading the Theses of Sep- tember 4, 1517, Scheurl wrote that he was convinced that a great change was about taking place in theo- logical studies, so that one could become a theologian without either Aristotle or Plato. At the court of the Elector Frederick was the chaplain and private secretary, George Spalatin, a fellow-student of Luther at Erfurt, whose acquaintance had ripened into intimacy, when he attended the University of Wittenberg in 151 1, in order to supervise the studies of the young Duke of Brunswick, and who had now become an enthusiastic advocate of the revived Augustinianism.
All through these efforts, and this period of the maturing of his convictions, Luther never dreamt of breaking with the Church, or occasioning a serious conflict within it. So scrupulous was he in the ob- servance of every ecclesiastical requirement that he afterwards told how, even at this late date, when his engagements were so numerous as to interfere with his observance of the canonical hours, he once shut himself up in his cell on Sunday, in order to make up the number of prayers that he had lost during the pressing labours of the preceding week.
BOOK II
THE PROTESTANT 1517-1522
LUTHER A3 ELIAS (MAL. IV., 5).
CHAPTER I
THE SALE OF INDULGENCES; AND THE XCV THESES
THE life of Luther is marked by sudden and un- looked-for events ; such were his entrance into the monastery, his doctorate of theology, and his marriage. Such, also, were the Ninety-five Theses of October 31, 1517, and their immediate effect. They were the outcome of his pastoral fidelity to the souls with whom he had to deal in the confessional. What was intended as a matter of discussion for a very limited circle of the learned, with a view to an early remedy for an abuse of whose extent he had at the moment no conception, soon became the property of Christendom, and revolutionised the social and political, as well as the religious world of Europe. The day on which the Theses were pub- lished is the birthday of the Protestant Reformation. Luther was himself unconscious of what his pro- test implied. His criticism was called forth, not by
59
60 Martin Luther (1483-
papal indulgences in themselves, but what he had found to be their abuse in a specific case falling under his pastoral jurisdiction. The conception of indulgences then prevalent had been a gradual growth. The prerequisites to absolution, such as fasts, alms, and pilgrimages, which the Church had once demanded only as external pledges of the sin- cerity of penitents making confession, just as to-day a consistent Christian life for a considerable period is often required among Protestants before one separated for gross sin is restored to full communion, were regarded in course of time as an essential part of the penitence itself. What at first had the place only of evidence of a change of heart, at last had attained the rank of a means whereby such change was effected. The rendering of the satisfactions, appointed by the priest to whom the confession was made, became an indispensable condition for deliver- ance from the consequences of sin. According to the current teaching, sin brought guilt and punish- ment. In baptism the guilt and punishment of original sin were remitted. The guilt of each actual sin, if confessed with true sorrow of heart, was re- mitted ; but, while the penitent was absolved from the guilt, he was not from all the punishment. In virtue of the merits of Christ, eternal was commuted to temporal punishment; penalties beyond man's power were, by the priestly absolution, brought within the reach of man's ability to make for them satisfaction. Man escapes Hell, but he does not, by Christ's atonement, enter Heaven. In order to escape the temporal punishments of sin, satisfactions,
i5i7] The XCV Theses 61
such as prayers, fasts, alms, prescribed by the con- fessor, must be rendered. Since, therefore, every sin, to have its penalties removed, must be known and grieved over and confessed, and have its conse- quences offset by penances appointed by the Church ; and since in this life the greater number of offences pass the scrutiny of even the most spiritually-minded, Purgatory remains as the realm in which all these unsatisfied sins of contrite children of God meet their temporal punishment. From its fires only an indulgence could deliver. The saints, it was taught, had acquired, by their works of supererogation, a fund of superfluous merits, and these merits could be transferred by the Church. The making of satis- factions for crimes, by means of fines, customary in German law, obtruded itself in course of time into the practice of the sale of indulgences to those con- tributing to approved Church funds. In treating of Luther's protest, it should always be explicitly taught that the Church, as such, had not declared that, by indulgences, the guilt of sin or its eternal punishments were remitted, but only that exemp- tion from Purgatory was provided for all who, by true contrition and confession, had been absolved of guilt. But, in the minds of worldly and avaricious venders of indulgences, such distinctions were not made. The guilt of sin was overlooked and only its punishments kept in mind, while indulgences from the penalties of sins repented of were soon con- founded with indulgences from the penalties of sins yet to be committed, or, in other words, with pur- chased permission to commit sin. Indulgences were
62 Martin Luther [i483-
distinguished as general and particular, the latter re- ferring solely to individual dioceses : and as plenary and incomplete, according as the indulgence per- tained to the entire burden of penalties, or was limited to the abbreviation of the time of punishment.
Thus a means was at hand whereby the money often sorely needed, as the Church or its dignitaries became secularised, could be most readily raised. The Turkish invasion formed the occasion for nu- merous resorts to this convenient expedient. Such indulgences were authorised by the Council of Basel of 1433, and tne decrees of Pope Nicholas V. in 1450 and 1451, and were endorsed by the German Estates in 1471 as the best means of raising funds for carry- ing on war against the Turks. The completion of St. Peter's at Rome, and his own luxurious habits, induced Pope Leo X., in 1516, to resort to the trade in indulgences upon a more extensive scale than had heretofore been attempted. To prosecute the work in Germany, three commissioners were ap- pointed, viz. : Dr. John Angelus Archimbold, the Franciscan General Christopher de Forli, and Al- brecht, Margrave of Brandenburg, and Archbishop of Magdeburg and Mayence. The last is to us of particular interest, since Saxony was a portion of the territory assigned him. A young man of only twenty-seven years, his position as Archbishop, which he had filled already for four years, and as Electoral Prince and Imperial Chancellor, made him the most prominent and influential figure in Ger- many. A cultivated scholar, and one of the leaders of the New Learning, he was the intimate friend of
i5i7] The XCV Theses 63
Erasmus, and his praises had been celebrated in verse by Ulrich von Hutten. Thus the two men, who in Italy and Germany were known as the leaders of the Renaissance, Leo and Albrecht, show by their prominence in this traffic, that a more sturdy force than that of the revival of literature was needed to produce the Reformation.
Living far beyond his income, and pressed severely by the Augsburg bankers, the Fuggers, for the pay- ment of loans, of which at least twenty, and some say thirty thousand guldens had gone to the pur- chase of the pallium of an archbishop, Albrecht eagerly engaged in the undertaking for one half of the receipts. Thirty years later he died, still a debtor to the Fuggers.
In September, 1517, Albrecht called to his aid, as sub-commissioner, the Dominican, John Tetzel, who had served the preceding year under Archimbold. Tetzel (originally Tietze) was a native of Leipzig, of about sixty years of age, of imposing presence and distinguished gifts of popular oratory that had been devoted for nearly half a generation to the sale of indulgences. The traffic had developed so as to demand the services of specialists. Even though we should concede the claims of the writers of the Roman Catholic Church, that contemporary Protest- ant authorities have done him injustice in the charges that, in 1512, he had been condemned to death, at Innsbruck, for adultery, but had been saved at the intercession of the Elector of Saxony, and that he offered indulgences without the conditions of con- trition and confession, their own admissions concern-
64 Martin Luther
ing the nature of his work and preaching demonstrate the necessity for an earnest protest against his ac- tivity. By sheer audacity he had overborne the resistance that had heretofore been evoked by his assumptions, and had gained from the Emperor Maximilian the recall of his edict against indulg- ences, and the substitution of an express authorisa- tion. Whithersoever he went, therefore, he appeared as the representative of both State and Church, for, beside his position of commissioner, he had the rank of Inquisitor-General. The bells of the towns and cities announced his approach ; the officials of the place, the citizens, even the school-children, went in procession to meet him. A red cross, on which the coat of arms of the Pope was emblazoned, preceded him. On a velvet cushion his papal commission was displayed. Entering a church, the red cross was raised in front of the high altar, and the indulgence chest placed beside it. Sermons were preached by the commissioner or his deputies, extolling the worth of indulgences, and urging their purchase. The terrors of the hearers were excited by graphic pictures of the seven years' penalty reserved in Purgatory for every mortal sin, and of the remedy offered at so small a cost in the letters that were then to be purchased. The indulg- ence sellers were reported as bidding the people worship the red cross as the holy of holies ; as de- claring that indulgences were more efficacious than baptism, and restored the innocency that had been lost in Adam ; as proclaiming that a commissioner of indulgences saved more souls than Peter; and
LEO X.
AFTER THE PICTURE BY RAPHAEL IN THE PITTI GALLERY, FLORENCE.
i5i7] The XCV Theses 65
that as soon as the penny sounded in the chest, the soul was delivered from Purgatory. Indulgences would avail for justification and salvation, even for him who had violated the mother of God !
" Lo ! Heaven is open. When will you enter, if not now ? Oh senseless men, who do not appreciate such a shedding forth of grace ! How hard-hearted ! For twelve pennies you can deliver your father, and, never- theless, you are so ungrateful as not to relieve him in his distress. At the last judgment, I am free ; but you are responsible. I tell you, that if you have but one gar- ment, you should part with it, rather than fail of such grace." *
Gratuitous indulgences were granted the poor, upon the assurance of payment from the first money they could obtain. Wives were encouraged to pur- chase without the knowledge of their husbands.
Numerous incidents of Tetzel's traffic are to be read, from which we select one of especial interest, because relating to one of Luther's most trusted friends and co-labourers in later years. Frederick Myconius resided at Annaberg during Tetzel's earlier activity, when for two years he preached in- dulgences daily. At last a time came when he an- nounced that the cross was to be removed and the gates of Heaven closed forever. " Now," he ex- claimed, " is the acceptable time; now is the day of salvation." Plenary indulgences were offered at a reduced rate, with the generous codicil : Pauperibus
1 One out of numerous examples, most of them confirmed by documentary proofs, in Loescher. This passage is in i., 420 sq.
66 Martin Luther [1483-
gratis propter Deum (" To the poor, gratuitously, for God's sake "). Myconius, who had been better taught concerning the free grace of God in Christ than most of the youth of his time, at the last mo- ment asked for an indulgence upon the ground of his poverty, and when he persisted, after many re- fusals, constantly urging: " To the poor, it is given gratuitously, for God's sake," the money was placed in his hands by the deputies, who could not escape his importunity, and who, at the same time, did not wish to admit a precedent that threatened so seri- ously to diminish the receipts. But Myconius had the courage to reject the offer, pleading that he asked for the indulgence gratuitously, or not at all.1
During his visitation of the cloisters, in the spring of 1516, Luther had heard of Tetzel's proceedings, and, in a sermon on the Tenth Sunday after Trinity, had taken occasion to give a warning. How gradu- ally he reached his conclusions is seen from the fact that, in this sermon, he rejects not indulgences, but their abuse. What should be regarded with all reverence, he says, has become a horrid means of pampering avarice, since it is not the salvation of souls, but solely pecuniary profit that is in view. The people are taught not concerning the forgive- ness of sins, but only concerning the remission of the penances, as though when these be paid, the soul immediately flies to Heaven. " Besides, there is no foundation for the doctrine that, by such in-
1 Loescher's Vollstandige Reformations Aeta, Leipzig, 1720, i., 405, gives the account written by Myconius in 1546. Cf. Adam's Vita Thtologorum, p. ia.
i5i7] The XCV Theses 67
dulgences, souls are redeemed from Purgatory. For the Pope is cruel if he do not grant poor souls gra- tuitously what can be granted on the payment of money needed by the Church." If no one can be certain whether he be himself sufficiently contrite and have confessed sufficiently, much less can he be so as to others. How, then, can he assert that the soul of one for whom indulgences have been procured is immediately released from Purgatory ? The ser- mon ends with an appeal against treating indulg- ences so that they administer only to cherishing spiritual security and indifference.1
In a sermon, preached just one year before his theses that provoked the crisis, viz., on October 31, 1516, Luther is, if possible, still more explicit. He speaks of the seducers who are misleading the people, and announces that the " parade of indulgences is at the very doors." The intention of the Pope is justified ; but the charge is made that his words have been misinterpreted. Revising the definition of penitence, he distributes it into two parts, viz., of the sign and of the thing. Penitence of the thing, i. e., actual penitence, is inner penitence of the heart, and is the only true penitence. That of the sign is the exterior penitence, occurring frequently when the interior is feigned, and has two parts, con- fession and satisfaction.
" To jurists I refer the proof as to where confession and satisfaction, as now used, are commanded by Divine
'Weimar edition of Luther's works (subsequently referred to as Weimar), i., 65-69; Op. var, arg., i., 101-104,
68 Martin Luther [1483-
law ; for the satisfaction prescribed by John (Luke iii.) belongs to the entire Christian life. Indulgences imply that there has been true contrition ; but remove nothing except impositions of purely private significance. Hence it is to be feared that indulgences conspire against inner penitence. One who is truly penitent wants, if possible, every creature to see and hate his sin, and he is ready to be trodden under foot by all. He seeks not for indulg- ences and remissions of penalties, but for exactions of penalties." '
In a sermon of February 24, 1517, he grows in severity. Indulgences, he declares, are teaching the people to dread the punishment of sin, instead of sin itself. If it were not to escape the punishment for sin, no one would care about indulgences, even if offered gratuitously. Such punishment should rather be sought for ; the people should be exhorted to embrace the cross. He ends with the words : " O the dangers of our times ! O ye slumbering priests ! O darkness denser than that of Egypt ! How secure are we in these extreme evils ! " a
The Elector Frederick, although in a far less offensive way, had provided for the sale of indulg- ences in connection with visits to the relics he had gathered in 1493 in the Holy Land, as a partial source of revenue for the Castle Church and cloister. The 5005 relics that were treasured in the Castle Church were said to give one hundred days' indulg- ence each, if properly worshipped, /. e., 1371 years and 85 days, if all were thus used. These vigorous
1 Weimar, i., 94-99 ; Of. var. arg., i., 177-184. * Weimar, i., 138-141.
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words of Luther, Frederick therefore regarded as, at least, indiscreet. But as Tetzel drew near Wit- tenberg, attracting large numbers of its inhabitants to his preaching, and as some over whom Luther had spiritual jurisdiction sought to excuse themselves from worshipping the relics by the presentation of letters, which they had procured at Jueterbock and Zerbst, he could not, by silence, connive at what would have carried with it the violation of his fidelity as a spiritual guide and of his oath as a Doctor of the Holy Scriptures. Ignorant of the pecuniary interest of the Archbishop of Magdeburg in the sale, Luther, in his simplicity, appealed to Albrecht to prohibit Tetzel's further activity ; and, when his letter remained unanswered, a second appeal was made to his bishop, viz., of Brandenburg, by whom he was warned of the danger of arraying himself against the Pope. But the widespread dissatis- faction with Tetzel's extravagances expressed itself in frequent complaints and appeals from friends and others who sought his advice. Among them was his spiritual father, Staupitz. The matter could not rest until some solution of the problem would be reached. There was an expectation that a crisis was approaching, but no one could tell when or where it would come.
On the night of October 30, 1517, according to Spalatin, the Elector tarried at Schweinitz, and in the morning of the next day committed to writing an account of a dream, which he said he could never forget, even though he were to live a thou- sand years. He had seen a monk, a son of the
70 Martin Luther [i483-
Apostle Paul, and commissioned as a special mes- senger from Heaven, writing upon the door of the Castle Church at Wittenberg, in letters so large that they could be read at Schweinitz, twelve miles away to the east, and with a goose quill one hundred years old, of such length that it reached Rome, pierc- ing first the ear of a lion, that roared with pain, and then striking the triple crown of the Pope, so that it almost fell from his head. This pen was readily ap- plied, after the Reformation began, to John Hus, whose name means " a goose," and who had suffered martyrdom about one hundred years before. Al- though attested by the Elector's own private secre- tary, the correspondence with facts is so close that it has brought this story into discredit. Why may it not have been the product of the " Wise " Elect- or's waking thoughts concerning the impending conflict, and the part that one of his most distin- guished subjects was to bear in it ?
The signal was at last given. The circumstances were not such as Luther had chosen. Nothing sen- sational marked the hour. Notwithstanding his ex- traordinary popular gifts, he was no agitator, and did not move more rapidly than Providence opened clearly the way. On Fridays the theologians at Wittenberg were accustomed, in regular order, to conduct theological discussions, and to prepare and post up in advance the theses which, on a given date, they were ready to discuss. Sometimes circu- lated among scholars in other universities, in order to give the discussion still greater publicity, the form of a placard was adopted, that this purpose
i5i7] The XCV Theses 71
might be served. The current statement, that the eve of All Saints' Day was chosen in order to attract greater attention to the subject, is not borne out by the facts. The document which Luther prepared and that at once gained a universal hearing, was wr'tten not in the German, but in the Latin language. It was not for the people, but for the consideration of scholars and students. Nor had it in view any circle beyond that at Wittenberg ; until recently, it has been universally held that the Theses were posted up in Luther's manuscript. Intimate friends who afterwards expressed surprise that Luther should have omitted them in the distribution, were in- formed that it was neither his intention nor his wish that the Theses should be noticed, except by a very few at Wittenberg, with whom he wanted to have a comparison of views, and by a limited number elsewhere whose written criticisms he invited.
It was, according to Melanchthon, about noon, when the Theses were attached to the door of the Castle Church, whether by Luther himself or by someone commissioned for the work we are not in- formed. As the church was supported largely from the revenue of indulgences, and All Saints' Day was the anniversary of its consecration, the eve of the festival seems to have been aptly chosen, just as one year before Luther had selected the same festival for a sermon on the same subject. The responsibility rested upon him alone, and he took counsel with none of his intimate friends. Nevertheless, appre- ciating the seriousness of the step he had taken, be.
72 Martin Luther
fore he went to rest that night, he promptly informed his archbishop of the fact, transmitting, with a most humble letter, a copy of the Theses, as well as of the sermon preached that evening.
The other theses are only an expansion of the thought with which the whole series begins.
' When our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, says, 4 Repent,' He means that the entire life of believers should be a repentance." In these words, he ap- peals from the scholastic to the Scriptural meaning of the expression rendered in the Vulgate translation of Matthew iii., 2: " Poenitentiam agite" These words of John the Baptist, although generally inter- preted, 44 Do penance," meant more than any act or series of satisfactions, and comprised a complete revolution of thought, heart, mind, and will, that can never be ended while life lasts. Be the explan- ation of the Church teachers what it may, the great question to be answered is: 4< What does the Lord Jesus say ? " From the obligation to such duty no one could be discharged. There is no price that could be paid for a release. Thus the root of the practice of indulgences is cut at one blow, the in- evitable conclusion being that of the second thesis :
' This word," viz., of the Lord Jesus, 4< cannot be understood of sacramental penance, i. e., of confes- sion and satisfaction as celebrated by the ministry of priests." The fallacy of the sale of papal indulg- ences is exposed by the statement that the Pope can remit no penalties except those which he has him- self imposed, and hence that he is powerless with respect to any penalties due Divine justice. Priests
i5i7] The XCV Theses 73
have no authority to reserve some penalties for Pur- gatory. Death brings immunity from all canonical requirements, and the Pope, therefore, can remit no penalty to souls in Purgatory. If the Pope have the power to deliver souls from Purgatory, why does he not exercise it out of Christian love, instead of demanding money with which to build a church ? Or why does he not, from his enormous wealth, buy the release of souls in torment ? Notice is taken of various extravagant statements that have accom- panied the preaching of indulgences. Eternal pun- ishment is declared to be the lot of those who rely upon letters of indulgence for their salvation. The truly contrite and believing are proclaimed as need- ing no resort to such an expedient. " Every Chris- tian, truly contrite, has full remission from both punishment and guilt, even without letters of indulg- ence." " Every true Christian, whether alive or dead, has participation in all the blessings of Christ and the Church, granted him by God, even without letters of indulgence." The Pope is regarded as esteeming works of mercy far more highly than the diversion of money from such purpose to that of this trade. The man who, neglecting the appeal of those in actual need, devotes his means to the pur- chase of indulgences, is declared to incur the anger of God. The treasures of Christ and the saints be- long to Christians before and without any indulg- ences. The true treasure of the Church is the Holy Gospel of the grace and glory of God. " Cursed be he who speaks against the truth of Apostolical in- dulgences," i. e., against the Gospel. " Blessed is
74 Martin Luther [i483-
he who opposes the lust and licence of the words of a preacher of indulgences." '
In Latin, the English words " Repentance" and " Penance " are designated by the one term, " Pce- nitentia." Luther's effort, in the Theses, is to separate the two conceptions. " Repentance," in the biblical sense, is the inner dissatisfaction with self, on account of sin, combined with the sincere purpose to conform both the inner and outward life to the Divine will. But " Penances," which Luther is not yet ready to entirely repudiate, refer alto- gether to certain external pledges of the sincerity of repentance, which, in his opinion, the Church could require, as a matter of discipline and order, but on no other grounds. From such ecclesiastical appoint- ments the Pope could give a release, but from no penalties pertaining to the life beyond. Neither could the Pope release any one from works of Chris- tian love, even though the means so diverted were applied to ecclesiastical purposes.
That night, in the chapel of the Augustinian clois- ter, he preached a trenchant sermon, presenting the same subject in German, and in a less technical and more popular form. The outline, as afterwards published, gives evidently only notes prepared be- forehand. Among other things, it declares that the analysis of the elements of " repentance " by Thomas Aquinas and his followers, although not found in Scripture, might be conceded. Neverthe-
1 Theses in Op. var. arg., i., 285 sq q. ; Weimar, i., 229 sqq. ; Loescher, i., 438 sqq. English translation in Wace and Buchheim's First Principles of the Reformation, pp. 6-14.
i5i7] The XCV Theses 75
less these teachers were careful to declare that the " satisfaction " is of service only where the two preceding parts are present. The satisfaction they distribute into three parts, viz., prayer, fasting, and alms; the former comprising also all works of the soul, as the hearing, preaching, and teaching of God's word, etc. ; the second, all mortifications of the flesh, as vigils, the use of a hard bed, rough clothing; and the last, all works of love and mercy for one's neighbour. Not a single passage of Scrip- ture can be found, declaring that God's justice makes any other requirement than true and heart- felt sorrow, combined with the purpose to bear here- after the cross of Christ. A thousand times better would it be, if a Christian were to desire no in- dulgence, but would cheerfully do all the appointed works, and suffer all the appointed pain, since indulg- ence means exemption from good works and salu- tary suffering. The plea that such works and suffering exceed man's power cannot be urged, since neither God nor the Holy Church will lay upon anyone more than he can bear (i Cor. x., 13). It is only for the sake of indolent and imperfect Christians that indulgences are allowed. Far better to make a contribution towards the building of St. Peter's as a present, than that it should reach the same end as the compensation for an indulgence. A most serious interference with good works are in- dulgences. Indigent persons nearest to us demand the first care. If in one's own city there be no poor people, contributions to churches, altars, etc., in that city are in place. When their necessities are
76 Martin Luther [1517
provided for, then, according to I Tim. v., 8, the turn of St. Peter comes. " If to this, however, the ob- jection be made that this will effectually prevent all purchase of indulgences, my answer is that my advice is against such purchase. They may well be left to lazy and sleepy Christians. ' ' The probability of a charge of heresy is anticipated as likely to fol- low at the instance of stupid men, who have never read the Bible, and who are notorious for judging a case before giving it a hearing.1
1 Weimar, i., 239 sqq. ; Op. var. arg., i., 326 sqq. In fixing the date we have followed Knaake's introduction to this sermon in Weimar edition.
ERASMUS.
CHAPTER II
THE RECEPTION OF THE THESES AND THE HEIDELBERG CONFERENCE
CROWDS of eager students may have gathered for hours before the door of the Castle Church, intent upon reading and copying the sensation of the day, but this indicated no general approval, at that time and place, of the aggressive character of the Theses. The first effect upon those nearest Luther was stunning. Whatever their abhorrence of the methods of Tetzel, and their dissatisfaction with the whole system which admitted such mani- fest abuses, the impression was that he had spoken unadvisedly. His colleagues were apprehensive of the result for the University. Carlstadt withheld his approval, and Dr. Schurf of the legal faculty expostulated with him. The Augustinian monks saw the stake in the foreground, and dreaded the disgrace which the presence among them of a second Savonarola would cast upon their Order; while his
77
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former teachers and associates at Erfurt lamented the pride, which they thought could be read in his vigorous sentences. Repelling these charges in a letter to Lange, the prior at Erfurt, he writes: " If the work be of God, who shall prevent it ? If it be of man, who shall promote it ? Not my will, nor their will, nor our will, but Thy will, O Holy Father, be done ! " As the expression of his confidence and calmness, he signs the letter " F. Martinus Eleuthe- rius, Augustiniensis " ; thus, in the play upon his name (i. e., " the liberated "), asserting that, by his apprehension of the fact of his sonship with God, he has become the Lord's freeman.1
His remarks of self-depreciation and the con- temptuous slurs of opponents must not be inter- preted as indicating that when he entered upon the contest he was an unknown and insignificant monk. Throughout a large portion of Germany his attain- ments were already conceded, as his rank in his Order and his position in the University show. Even though, for the moment, he stood alone at Wittenberg, the Theses, or their general contents, were immediately circulated through the channels of communication between the various universities; and from them, as centres, in all directions. It was a live subject of which they treated. The most pressing question of the hour was here answered. The revulsion of the general Christian feeling to the indulgence traffic had found clearest expression. Men were only waiting for some one to speak the first word ; and this had now been done. But more
' De Wette, i : 73.
i5i8] The Reception of the Theses 79
had been said than they had anticipated. New thoughts of the greatest moment and the most far- reaching consequences had been suggested. The antagonisms hitherto felt and the protests made had been directed to the more superficial aspects of the subject. New relations come to view, as the founda- tions and consequences of the teaching by which indulgences were supported, are brought to examin- ation. The Theses are more than a series of nega- tions; they offer the positive teaching needed for the rest of the soul. Hence the words of approval rising from many widely separated quarters, and quickly sent back to encourage and strengthen weak hearts at Wittenberg. " In fourteen days," says Luther, " they flew all over Germany." " In four weeks," says his cotemporary, Myconius, " they were diffused throughout all Christendom, as though the angels were the postmen."
The result was unexpected and even startling to the author. Prepared, as they had been, for a small circle, the Theses would have been differently framed if he had anticipated the extent of their influence. On some of the topics presented he was not yet fully clear, and was earnestly seeking light through a possi- ble discussion. But they were no longer his property.
Among those who responded favourably was the preacher, Dr. Fleck, whose discourse at the inaugu- ration of the University contained the famous play upon the name Wittenberg, as the ' ' berg, ' ' or mount of " wit" or wisdom. Reading the Theses, he ex- claimed, " Well, the man has at last come!" and immediately sent to Luther a letter of approval.
8o Martin Luther [i483-
Meanwhile the opposition was also gathering its forces. Whether the Archbishop of Mayence ever received the letter written by Luther that evening is a question. But the circumstances are promptly reported by his deputies, and his anxiety as to the effect upon his revenue is excited. At the advice of the theologians and jurists of the University of Mayence, he issues on the I3th of December " an inhibitory process " against Luther, sends a copy of the Theses to the Pope, with the request that prompt measures be taken to resist the spread of such teaching, and seeks to remove some of the complaints against the sale of indulgences, by in- structions to the subordinates of Tetzel to discon- tinue some of the practices that have given most offence. But, blind to the real principle involved, he provides at the same time for an extension of the territory for the traffic.
Tetzel also is aroused, and, in order that he may reply to Luther, receives at the close of the year the degree of a licentiate, and shortly afterwards that of a Doctor of Theology. Luther's sermon on indulgences, of the same date as the Theses, was not published until the succeeding March, the Bishop of Brandenburg having treated Luther with more con- sideration than the Archbishop, and sent the Abbot of Lenin to Wittenberg, with the special request, which Luther for a long time respected, that he should refrain from its publication. But as the sub- ject became one of general notoriety, the time came when he felt that no such restriction should be ob- served. When published, it evoked an early reply
i5i8] The Reception of the Theses 81
from Tetzel, who carefully avoids mentioning either Luther or Wittenberg, but attempts to refute each of the twenty propositions of the sermon. Prior to this, however, in the very last days of 1517, one hundred and six theses were published under the name of Tetzel, generally understood to have been composed by the Frankfort theologian, Conrad Wimpina, which were directed against Luther's, imitating closely their very language, and were soon followed by a series of fifty more, bearing the same character. When eight hundred copies of these theses sent to Wittenberg for sale were seized by the students and publicly burned, Luther expressed from the pulpit his deep regret that, in their zeal, they had resorted to such lawless methods.
Besides the publication of the sermon on indulg- ences, heretofore withheld, he attempted for the present no further contribution to the controversy than a sermon upon repentance. He was prepar- ing meanwhile for the gathering storm by the careful elaboration of an explanation of the Theses, the precise form of which, as well as the occasion for its publication, was to be determined hereafter. Calmly he went about his daily work as a professor, project- ing schemes for the enlargement of the course of the University, and faithfully preaching the word with reference to the individual wants of his hearers. His correspondence during this period with Spalatin, the secretary and chaplain of the Elector, is interesting. The latter has asked various perplexing questions, which Luther promptly answers. One relates to the guilt of invincible ignorance; to which, after
6
82 Martin Luther [i483-
stating the ordinary scholastic distinction, he replies that, so far as we are concerned, all ignorance is in- vincible, while, so far as the grace of God is con- cerned, no ignorance is invincible ; and that, there- fore, ignorance is no excuse for a sin. Other- wise there would be no sin in the world.1 In another letter he answers the question as to how many Marys are mentioned in the Gospels, and how many women were at the sepulchre." He undertakes to prescribe for his friend a course of theological reading, warning him, with some hesi- tancy, against the extravagant estimate Erasmus has placed upon Jerome as a Church teacher. The very first thing, he says, is to apprehend the fact that the Scriptures cannot be penetrated by our study, and that, therefore, prayer is the very first requisite. Despairing, thus, of our own ability, and looking to God for His Spirit, the next thing is to read the Bible through, from beginning to end, first with re- gard to the simple narrative, in connection with which the reading of the Epistles of Jerome is ad- vised; and then with regard to the knowledge of Christ, in which Augustine will be found most serv- iceable.* The Elector, in connection with a kind intercession on behalf of Staupitz and a warning concerning new charges that he may expect to hear soon against Luther, is courteously reminded of a promise to furnish his humble subject with a new coat. Spiritual refreshment he found in the writing of an exposition of the One Hundred and Tenth Psalm, which, after transmission to Spalatin, was 1 De Wette, I : 74. • Ib,, 80 sq. 3I6., 88.
i5i8] The Reception of the Theses 83
sent by the latter to the press, and appeared during the summer of 1518.
Early that spring his academical labours were in- terrupted by a journey to Heidelberg, to attend a meeting of the members of the Augustinian Order, which, as it had no connection with the controversy, afforded him great physical benefit, by the respite it gave him from the strain under which he had been labouring. Friends were apprehensive of danger; but he answered by reminding them of his vow of obedience, and declaring in reference to enemies: " The more they rage, the more I go forward." ' The Elector's consent was obtained with some dif- ficulty ; but when Luther could not be dissuaded he wrote to Staupitz, requesting that he be not de- tained longer than was necessary, and gratefully referred to the fact that Staupitz had recommended him to the place he was filling with signal success. At the same time, he furnished Luther with a pass- port and with letters of introduction to the Bishop of Wuerzburg, and to the brother of the Palatinate Elector, whose residence was at Heidelberg. On the nth of April Luther set out on foot with an attend- ant, for whose services he was not able to pay farther than Wuerzburg. His fame had not brought with it exemption from pecuniary straits. In four days he reached Coburg, where the Saxon treasury officials had been instructed to provide for his neces- sities. Two days later he was hospitably received by Bishop Lorenz of Wuerzburg, who, shortly before his death in the following year, wrote to the
1 De Wette, i : 101.
84 Martin Luther [i483-
Elector concerning the favourable impression that Luther had made during the visit. Here he was joined by his friend Lange, the prior at Erfurt, and other members of his Order. Taking carriages, they reached Heidelberg on the 2 1st, and found a home in the Augustinian monastery. No reception could have been more cordial than that which they re- ceived from the Count, who showed them every hospitality, not only because of the letter from the Elector Frederick, but especially because he was himself an alumnus of Wittenberg, and in 1515 had been elected Rector of the University.
The convention having adjourned, after the elec- tion of Staupitz as Vicar-General, and Lange as Provincial Vicar, the usual custom of holding a theological discussion before separating was ob- served. Luther was requested to prepare the theses and preside at the discussion, while the Augustin- ian, Leonard Beyer, was made the respondent. The Heidelberg professors not desiring to commit them- selves so far to the endorsement of Luther's position, the conference was held, not in the auditorium of the University, but in the Augustinian monastery. The Count and his friends, all the University pro- fessors, and many of the students, besides the mem- bers of the Order, attended. The main interest, of course, was to hear Luther in his exposition of the principles then attracting the attention of all Christ- endom. But neither in the theses nor in their de- fence did he touch upon the question of indulgences. He preferred to treat of the underlying principles that had determined his attitude, and that, in his
i5i8] The Reception of the Theses 85
opinion, were indispensable to all sound theological discussion, as well as to all true Christian life. To him there were thoughts of still greater moment than those that had thus far entered into public dis- cussion. They were the inability of man to be justified before God by works of the Law, man's bondage to sin, and the absolute need of Divine grace. Even the Divine Law, he says, cannot pro- mote salvation. How much more impotent are the works of purely natural reason! What is it that renders the works of the godly other than mortal sins, but the fact that they distrust them ? What, then, if men trust in their works ? " Sins are venial before God, only when dreaded by men as though they were mortal." "A man who imagines that he attains grace by doing according to his power, only adds one sin to another." " Man must utterly de- spair of self, in order to be prepared for the reception of the grace of God." ' The Law says: ' Do this,' and it is never done. Grace says : ' Believe in Him,' and, lo, all is done." ' The love of God does not find, but it makes one worthy of the grace of God." To twenty-eight such theses, twelve on philosoph- ical questions were added, in which he seeks to find a more correct philosophical method for theological discussions than had heretofore prevailed, contrast- ing Aristotle with Plato, etc., and entering a field into which he never advanced farther. It is doubt- ful whether any time was actually given in the con- ference to these latter theses.1
Although the Heidelberg theologians were still
1 Op. var. arg., i., 387 sqq. ; Weimar, i., 353 sqq.
86 Martin Luther [i483-
ardent adherents of the scholastic theology, the best spirit marked the debate. Strange as his position appeared, they treated Luther with all courtesy, and he, in turn, appreciated their consid- eration and admired their acuteness. Only one re- mark formed an exception, when one of the younger professors addressed Luther, " If the rustics hear such remarks from you, they will stone you."
None in the audience were more interested in the proceedings than a group of young men, whose minds had for some time been exercised on the themes under discussion. Among them was John Brentz, then nineteen years old, afterwards to be- come the Reformer of Wuerttemburg ; Erhard Schnepf, then twenty-three, afterwards professor at Jena; Theobald Billicanus, the Reformer of Noerd- lingen ; and Martin Bucer, a young Dominican monk, who, although a member of the same Order as Tet- zel, was an accomplished scholar and a youth of deep earnestness. A letter of Bucer, written directly afterwards, is full of the glow of admiration that the discussion had infused, and gives a summary of Luther's treatment of each of the theses that were reached.
"With all the force that our leaders brought to bear against him, they were not able with their quibbles to move him even a finger's breadth. It is astonishing, with what amenity he answers, with what incomparable pa- tience he listens to his opponents, and with what genuine Pauline, not Scotist, acuteness, he unties the knots of objections, so that by his brief and forcible answers
JOHN BRENTZ.
FROM AN OLD ENGRAVING.
i5i8] The Reception of the Theses 87
derived likewise from the treasure of Holy Scripture, he easily won the admiration of all." *
After the discussion these students conferred with Luther. He accepted Bucer's invitation to a meal, during which they were alone, and had ample op- portunity for the freest conversation. Bucer makes the significant remark: " In all things he agrees with Erasmus ; only that what Erasmus merely sug- gests, he teaches plainly.*
Leaving Heidelberg in the beginning of May, his return was not as fatiguing as his journey thither had been, for his friends saw to it that he rode the entire distance back. During part of the way he had the company of one of his former teachers at Erfurt, Dr. Usingen, and used all his powers of persuasion to win him over. " I left him," he says,1 " thinking and wondering," and concludes that little hope can be entertained of those who have grown old in their opinions, but that it is with the rising generation that the best results are to be ob- tained. During his stay at Erfurt he called upon another of his former instructors, Dr. Jodocus Trut- vetter, hoping to answer in person the charges that the latter had made in a letter reproving him for the Theses, and especially the sermon on indulgences, but he was not admitted to an interview. He im-
1 Bucer to Rhenanus, in Gerdesius, Historia Reformationis, i., Monumenta, pp. 176 sq. Other documents of the conference in Loescher, ii., 40-62.
* Gerdesius, i., Monumenta, p. 78.
1 DeWette, i- 112.
88 Martin Luther [1518
mediately wrote a long letter, full of affection, to the man to whom he confesses that he owes so much, calmly denying some of the matters with which he has been charged, and expressing the desire to cor- respond with him at length as to the points involved, if there be no other way of conferring. But the pupil had advanced too far for his instructor when he laid down the sweeping proposition that must have cut the adherent of Scholasticism to the very quick, in the words: " I absolutely believe that it is impossible to reform the Church, unless the can- ons, decretals, scholastic theology, philosophy, and logic, as they are now, be eradicated, and other studies be instituted."1 There was a subsequent interview, but without result. On the i$th of May Luther is again at home, with his strength greatly renewed for the conflicts that are at hand.
1 De Wette, 1 : 107 sqq.
HUS.
LUTHER.
CHAPTER III
ECK, PRIERIAS, AND THE POPE
Q HORTLY before Luther's departure for Heidel- O berg he was annoyed by an underhanded attack from a man who professed to be his friend, Dr. John Eck, of Ingolstadt. A year before they had been in- troduced by Scheurl, and had corresponded. In his " Obelisks," Eck applied to Luther epithets justifia- ble only when every effort has failed to convince an opponent of his error. Luther was the more indig- nant because he conceded the learning and ability of Eck, and would have been pleased to have en- gaged with him in public and honourable discussion. Although not caring to reply, his friends induced him to prepare a series of " Asterisks," as an an- swer, which Knaake has lately shown was not pub- lished until in the first collected edition of Luther's Works, but, like the attack of Eck, was circulated in manuscript.1 During Luther's absence, however,
1 Op. var. arg., i., 406 sqq. ; Weimar, i., 278 sqq. 89
90 Martin Luther [1483-
Carlstadt had posted up theses, announcing his readi- ness to refute Eck publicly, and a few days later received from Eck the apology, not unusual with controversialists, that he was the friend of both Luther and Carlstadt, and that, if he could have foreseen that his private writing would have been made so public, he would have written with much greater care.
But the discussion soon extended beyond Ger- many. The earliest reports sent to Rome by the Archbishop of Mayence made no impression upon the Pope. Leo X., a true humanist, favoured the utmost freedom of opinion, so long as the revenues of the Papacy were not seriously affected or its orderly government disturbed. Secure in his posi- tion, and preoccupied with other subjects, he seems to have been secretly amused at the agitation of Albrecht and the Dominicans. The entire contro- versy he looked upon as a mere incident of monastic wrangling. " Brother Martin," he said, " has a very fine head!" Luther heard the report that, after reading the Theses, the Pope said that they had been written by a drunken German, who would think differently after he had become sober. So simple a matter did it seem, by a very mild remedy, to heal the wound, that in February, 1518, Leo in- structed the General of the Augustinians to " pacify the man." But the Dominicans at Rome took the matter more seriously. The credit of their great teacher, Thomas Aquinas, was at stake. In the attack upon one of their prominent brethren, Tetzel, the Order itself had been injured. The German
i5i8] Eck, Prierias, and the Pope 91
Dominicans clamoured for active measures. The effort to arouse Leo from his indifference was made by Silvester Mazzolini, generally called, from his native place, Prierias, the official censor, a Domin- ican learned in St. Thomas. An attack upon the Theses was published in June, and received by Luther in August. Luther acknowledges that on its reception he was terrified, because of the high rank of his critic ; but when he undertook to read it, its superficiality amused him to such an extent, that he concluded that the best way to reply would be to republish it. The edition being immediately ab- sorbed after publication, he inferred that the Domin- icans had bought it up, and therefore again reprinted it, this time with an answer.1
Prierias entered upon the work with much preten- sion, referring to the weight of his years and the extraordinary circumstances that had rendered it necessary for him to enter the field, but, in order to show how easily Luther could be answered, boasted that he had written his pamphlet within three days. His entire strength is applied to the work of testing Luther's statements according to the theology of Thomas, with vapid declamations against every questioning of such authority as final. Four propo- sitions concerning the nature of the Church, a topic which, as Prierias correctly apprehended, was funda- mental to the controversy, introduce the discussion. He precedes by three centuries and a half the de- cree of the Vatican Council concerning papal infal- libility.
1 Op. var. arg., ii., i sqq. ; Weimar, i., 647 sqq.
92 Martin Luther [i483-
. " i. The Church Universal is essentially the assembly for worship, of all believers in Christ. But the Church Universal is virtually the Church of Rome, the head of all the churches, and the Pope. The Roman Church is representatively the college of cardinals ; but virtually it is the Pope, who is Head of the Church, although otherwise than Christ. 2. Just as the Church Universal cannot err in deciding concerning faith and morals, so also a true council, acting according to its end, viz., to understand truth, and including its Head, cannot finally err. Although, for a time, it may be deceived, neverthe- less, as long as the motive to inquire after the truth re- main, even although it sometimes err, it shall at length, through the Holy Spirit, have the correct understanding of the truth. Thus, neither the Roman Church nor its Pope can err, when he decides concerning that with respect to which he is Pope, /. <?., when he makes official declarations and acts for the understanding of the truth. 3. Whoever does not rest upon the doctrine of the Roman Church and the Roman Pope, as an infallible rule of faith, from which even the Holy Scriptures derive their authority, is a heretic. 4. The Roman Church can determine anything concerning faith and life, by deed as well as by word. The only difference is that words are more precise. Custom, therefore, contains the force of law, because the will of a ruler is expressed in deeds, permissively or effectively. As a heretic, therefore, is one who thinks incorrectly concerning the truth of the Scriptures, so also is one who thinks incorrectly as to the doctrine and deeds of the Church, pertaining to faith and life." '
Thus the practice of the Roman Church, whatever
1 Op. var. arg., i., 346 sq.
i5i8] Eck, Prierias, and the Pope 93
it be, is elevated to the rank of an absolute standard of right.
Luther introduces his reply by asserting the abso- lute authority of Holy Scripture above that of all teachers and churches. Further on he criticises the propositions concerning the Church, in these forcible words :
" The Church, virtually, I do not know, except in Christ ; nor do I know it representatively, except in a council. Otherwise, if whatever the Church, virtually, /'. e.t the Pope, do, is called the deed of the Church, what monstrous crimes, I ask, must we not reckon as good deeds ! Must we not include among them the horrible shedding of blood by Julius II. ? Must we not include also the tyranny of Boniface VIII., abhorred by the whole world ? Nevertheless as to the latter, the proverb is well known : ' Like a fox he entered ; like a lion he reigned ; like a dog he died ! ' Surely you would not have us believe that all these intolerable monstrosities are the most holy deeds of the Church ! But, if the Pope be the virtual Church, and the cardinals the representa- tive Church, and the collection of believers the essen- tial Church, what will you call a general council ? A virtual Church ? No ! A representative Church ? No ! An essential Church ? No ! What then ? An acciden- tal, perhaps a nominal and verbal church ! " '
If it took Prierias only three days to write the attack upon Luther, the latter replies that he spent one day less in preparing the answer! In two sub- sequent pamphlets Prierias tried to escape the force of Luther's reasoning, but was so heavily encum-
1 Weimar, i., 656, 657 ; Op. var. arg., ii., 22.
94 Martin Luther [i483-
bered by reliance upon the definitions of Thomas that he could not adapt himself to his opponent. He belonged to a past generation, and had no weapons for the new warfare that had arisen.
But a still more important contribution to this controversy had already appeared. During the en- tire winter Luther had been at work on a calm and thorough exposition of his Theses, in which he had availed himself of all the results of his other contro- versial writings on the same subject. The aim was to enter into its consideration more scientifically and without a polemical spirit. In the Resolutiones,1 to whose completion he devoted himself with absorb- ing interest, immediately after his return from Heidelberg, we find a review of the questions at issue in the light of subsequent events, and con- stantly maturing convictions. It shows that on more than one point he had outgrown the Theses; that on others, what he had advanced with hesita- tion he was now ready to confess boldly before all men ; that on still others, concerning which he was afterwards clear, he was still feeling his way. But even in this paper, there are inconsistencies that are to be explained only upon the supposition that his opinions changed as he wrote, and even after the earlier pages were in type. All these facts reveal the sincerity of his character, and that every step forward was the result of a struggle. Side by side we read " the devotion of a monk who had been reared in awe of the Roman See, and the bold self- consciousness of a Christian and theologian who, if
1 Op. var. arg., ii., 137 sqq. ; Weimar, i., 522 sqq.
i5i8] Eck, Prierias, and the Pope 95
what he hopes cannot be accomplished otherwise, is ready to oppose the convictions of his conscience against the world."
In order that this document be appreciated, it is necessary to read the letters to the Pope and Stau- pitz that accompany it.1 To the Pope it was dedi- cated, and Staupitz was asked to transmit it to His Holiness. In the letter to Staupitz he explains the manner in which the controversy began. An inci- dental remark of Staupitz concerning the foundation of all true repentance in love to God had given Luther the clue to the meaning of all the passages of Scripture in which the word " Repentance " oc- curs. As he became more proficient in Greek, he found that the New Testament word, by which it is translated, means no more than a change of mind. When the preachers of indulgences utterly perverted this meaning, making it nothing else than a series of satisfactions and confessions, he could not keep silent ; and thus, although he preferred to be hidden in a corner, he had been brought into publicity. He closes with the eloquent words:
" To my friends, with their threats, I have no other answer than that of Reuchlin : ' He who is poor fears nothing and can lose nothing.' Property I neither have nor desire. If I have had fame and honour, he who now loses them loses them forever. If, then, by force or plots, as God wills, they take away the one thing that is left, viz., my poor, frail body, already worn out with in- cessant troubles, they will make me poorer for perhaps
1 Op. var. arg., ii., 132, 129 ; Weimar, i.f 527, 525.
96 Martin Luther [1483-
one or two hours of this life ! Enough for me is it to have my precious Redeemer and Advocate, my Lord Jesus Christ, to Whom I will sing as long as I have being. If any one be unwilling to sing with me, what is that to me ? Let him howl to himself if he so prefer ! " '
To the Pope he writes with a reverence that would be unintelligible if it were not the rule that in all progress there is, in every sincere student, a strange combination of contradictory principles. He states the manner in which he had come forward, claiming that, all the while, he had been acting by the authority conferred upon him by his theological doctorate that had been given him by the Pope. The protection of the Elector of Saxony, with his well-known zeal for the truth, ought to assure the Pope that he could not be the dangerous man that he was represented to be ! No words of submission could be more emphatic than those with which he closes: " Quicken, kill, call, recall, approve, reprove, as you please. I will acknowledge your voice as that of Christ, presiding and speaking in you." *
Introducing the Resolutiones with a statement of the standard according to which doctrines are to be judged, the decisions of the scholastics and canonists are ruled out, and only the Holy Scriptures, the Church Fathers, and the usage of the Roman Church admitted. While the line between Scriptural and ecclesiastical authority is not explicitly drawn, nevertheless the treatment shows that he regards Holy Scripture as the only final authority. Ex- amining each of the Theses, his main effort is de-
1 Op. var. arg., ii., 132. * It., 135.
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i5i8] Eck, Prierias, and the Pope 97
voted to showing its Scriptural foundations. An array of proof-texts meets us, particularly in the treatment of the earlier and fundamental Theses, suggestive of the methods of later text-books of theology. Great care is taken to distinguish be- tween repentance and satisfactions, and to de- termine the actual grounds of forgiveness. The principle is maintained that faith alone receives the forgiveness of sins. Absolution is declared to be the assurance of the forgiveness that God has already given. It imparts nothing when the Di- vine condition of forgiveness is absent. Christ, he says, has not willed that the salvation of anyone should depend upon the power of any man ; and yet, as a means whereby consciences are assured of the truth of Christ's promise and thus consoled, the power of the keys is to be prized as a gift of God, for which we cannot be sufficiently thankful. The opinion of the superfluous merits of saints is opposed by the argument that so far from being able to do more than the law demands, they cannot fulfil it. The power of the Pope, he teaches, is to be most highly honoured; but all such authority is to be limited to the externals of religion, and not to those matters that concern man's inner relations to God. The foundation of such authority is placed on the same grounds as that for obedience to the civil gov- ernment, but no other. Unless the decisions of the Pope be inwardly just, they are of no validity, and the consciences of Christians are not bound to them. The theory of the two swords, spiritual and tempo- ral, is repudiated, and the point urged that if this
98 Martin Luther [i483-
were so, then it might also be taught that there are two keys, one to the riches of Heaven and the other to those of this world. The Church, he de- clares, needs a reformation, which is not the duty of a single Pope, or of any cardinals, but of the whole Christian world, nay, of God alone. Only He who has created times, knows when the time of this re- formation is to be. In hope of it, many things are to be patiently endured. Leo is praised as a pontiff worthy of better times, whose integrity and learning are the delight of all who hear of him. He affirms in one place his most firm belief in Purgatory, although he afterwards adduces arguments against it.
Before this treatise, with its extravagant compli- ments, had left the press, Luther had reason to change his good opinion of the Pope. The phleg- matic spirit of Leo had at length been excited by the persistent efforts of the Dominicans. The papal solicitor, Mario Perusco, had preferred charges of heresy against Luther, and the Pope had ap- pointed a commission to try the case, consisting of his auditor, Jerome Ghinucci, Bishop of Ascoli, and Prierias. The former not being eminent for theo- logical attainments, but known only as a financier and executive officer, the person upon whom would rest the decision as to Luther's guilt was the very advocate who had already argued that he was a heretic! The case was prejudged, and no one could doubt what the verdict was to be.
The citation reached Luther on the /th of August. He was summoned to appear at Rome within sixty
i5i8] Eck, Prierias, and the Pope 99
days. The charge of heresy for having ventured to take a positive stand upon a question as to which the Church had never given its decision, combined with the wrong done him in the selection of the person to judge the case, aroused the indignation of the entire University, as it felt itself involved in the affront given its most prominent professor. The Elector, always ready to respond to appeals where the interests of his University were at stake, was asked by Luther to intercede with the Emperor and Pope for a change of the place of making answer from Rome to some city in Germany. Spalatin was im- plored to use all his influence with the Elector to this end.1 At the time both Frederick and his secretary were at Augsburg, where the Emperor Maximilian was holding an imperial diet. Kept in suspense for at least two weeks, Luther urges Spala- tin to have the decision hastened.
" You know," he writes, " that in all these matters I fear nothing. For if by means of their flattery or power they cause me to be hated, I have in my heart and con- science this one thing, that I know and confess that all that I have, and against which they are contending, I have of God, to Whom I will gladly offer all. If He re- move them, let them be removed ; If He preserve them, let them be preserved ! His holy Name be blessed for- ever ! Amen. But I do not see in what way I can escape the verdict intended against me, unless by aid of the Prince. I would much rather suffer than that the Prince should, for my sake, incur any ill reputation. Never will I be a heretic. In disputing, indeed, I can
1 De Wette, i : 131.
ioo Martin Luther [1483-
err ; but I am unwilling to decide anything, and yet I cannot be subservient to the opinions of men." '
By these last words he means to declare that the decision rests with the Church, and that he cannot accept the decisions of any individuals as those of the Church. " Our friends," he continues, " have thought that I should ask of the Elector a safe- conduct through his dominions, and that when he would refuse, as I know that he would, I should have a valid excuse for not appearing. ' ' *
Some weeks before the citation was received, the Count of Mansfeld, who, as the ruler of Luther's old home, was deeply interested in his welfare, ad- vised John Lange, the Erfurt Augustinian Vicar, not to allow Luther to leave Wittenberg, as there was reason to believe that his life was in danger. Writing to his friend, Wenceslaus Link, of Nurem- berg, Luther says :
" Like Jeremiah, I am clearly a man of strife, since I am daily irritating the Pharisees with what they call new doctrines. But while I am unconscious of having taught anything but the pure doctrine I, nevertheless, foresee that I will be an offence to the most holy Jews and foolishness to the most wise Greeks. I hope that I am debtor to Jesus Christ, who says : ' I will show him what great things he must suffer for My name.' For if He do not say this, why has He put such an obstinate man as I am in the ministry, or why has He not taught me something else to say ? " 3
In this confidence, he poured forth the innermost
1 De Wette, i : 132 sq. */£., 132. 8/<J., 129 sq.
Eck, Prierias, and the Pope 101
convictions of his heart as to the real significance of perils he had encountered, in a sermon on the significance and validity of excommunication, preached shortly after his return from Heidelberg, but which was not published until after the recep- tion of the summons to Rome. Commended most highly by friends, when preached, it had met with such gross misrepresentations from enemies, that he felt it his duty, weeks after its delivery, to write it out, from memory. Excommunication, he declares, is the denial of communion, and the placing of one outside the community of believers. But this is twofold, viz., internal, or that of faith, hope, and love to God ; and external and corporeal, or, prop- erly, participation in the same sacraments, or, more widely, every form of intimate association. Of the former, or spiritual communion, a creature can de- prive us no more than it can bestow such a gift (Rom. viii., 38, 39; I Pet. iii., 13). Ecclesiastical excommunication is only the deprivation of external communion (i Cor. v., II ; 2 Thess. iii., 14; 2 John v., 10). If just, excommunication means that the soul has been delivered already to the devil, and is deprived of spiritual communion; ecclesiastical excommunication therefore inflicts neither death nor punishment, but presupposes them, and is valid only as this condition is present. God must excommunicate before the Church can. It is the inner excommunication of God that is to be dreaded rather than the external excommunication of the Church. Unjust excommunication, viz., that which occurs when external excommunication is inflicted
102 Martin Luther [1483-
upon those who are not already spiritually ex- communicated of God, is a noble merit, and is to be cheerfully endured if the answer which, in all humility, we make to charges preferred against us, be unheeded.1 By this argument, dispelling the dread of extreme discipline, he wrested from the Roman Church the chief means whereby it had maintained its authority, and encouraged the freest criticism of its principles and policy. Published at the very time when he was endeavouring to have his case tried in Germany, it is not strange that some of his friends were alarmed by what seemed to be its imprudent expressions, and that the Elector, as well as Spalatin, were much displeased when their efforts to prevent its publication failed, not because they dissented from its statements, but because they thought that, of all times, this was the most unsuit- able for a presentation scarcely less irritating than the Ninety-five Theses themselves. Almost im- mediately the sermon was republished, three times at Leipzig and once at Augsburg, and new editions appeared the next year.
At Augsburg the course to be taken concerning Luther had become the subject of protracted nego- tiations. The Pope's purpose in the Diet was to secure a tax from Germany for the prosecution of the war against the Turks. The task of conciliating the Emperor and the German Electors was entrusted to his delegate, Cajetan, the former General of the Dominicans, now a cardinal, and a master in the art of diplomacy. As part of the policy, the Arch-
1 Op. var. arg., ii., 306 sq. j Weimar, i., 634 sqq.
i5i8] Eck, Prierias, and the Pope 103
bishop of Mayence, the chief German champion of the indulgence system, was invested with the cardi- nalate, while the Emperor Maximilian was presented with a consecrated hat and sword. The Emperor was closing the twenty-fifth year of his reign, and the last summer of his life. A ruler of versatile ac- complishments, his ambitions had been disappointed. No papal coronation had given its sanction to his election; the title of " Holy Roman Emperor," for which he always aspired, never became his. Made " Protector of the Church " in Germany by his oath of office, the pontiff, for whose favour he was aspiring, was exacting a rigorous enforcement of the papal policy against Luther. But another mo- tive deterred him from complying with the papal will. His heart was set upon the succession of his grandson, Charles, to the imperial throne, and the prince from whom he had most to fear, and whose favour was most important for this end, was the Elector of Saxony. Thus distracted by conflicting motives, sympathising on the one hand with the protest against abuses, and even commending the monk as one of whom care must be taken and whom the Church needed, and on the other unable to treat the question except as one of political expediency, he acquiesced in a formal letter to the Pope against Luther. Such responses, however, had been awak- ened from all ranks in Germany, chafing under the papal exactions, and regarding the tax for the war with the Turks only an expedient to obtain money for other purposes, that some concessions were un- avoidable. The Elector was inflexible in his de-
104 Martin Luther [i483-
mand that Luther must be tried only upon German soil, and with an entire appreciation of the Emperor's embarrassment, conducted the negotiations with Cajetan in such a way that he gained his point. The Pope tried his own hand with the Elector, and in a personal letter to Frederick l stigmatised Luther as a son of iniquity, and enjoined that he should see to it that Luther be brought " within the power and jurisdiction of this Holy See"; while, about the same date, in his instructions to Cajetan 3 he pro- claimed his intention to inflict the interdict upon " all princes, communities, universities, and powers, or any of them," receiving Martin or his adherents, or, for any reason whatever, giving him aid, advice, or favour, whether directly or indirectly, " until three days after Luther appeared at the place desig- nated." During the long suspense as to the result of the Elector's intercession, Luther's nearest friends were almost in despair. Spalatin wrote most gloomy letters from Augsburg, while Staupitz, in a very touching letter, urged him to come to him secretly at Saltzburg.
" The world," he writes, " seems to be enraged against the truth. Once, in its hatred, Christ was crucified ; and what to-day awaits you except the cross I do not see. Unless I am deceived, the prevalent opinion is that, save by the will of the Pope, no one should search the Script- ures to determine what Christ has commanded. A few advocates you have. O that, for fear of adversaries, they were not hidden ! I want you to leave Wittenberg for
1 Weimar, ii., 352. * 16., 354.
isi8] Eck, Prierias, and the Pope 105
a while and come to me, that we may live and die to- gether. This is also the pleasure of the Prince. As deserted men let us follow the deserted Christ ! " l
Meanwhile other interests divide his attention and relieve the strain of his apprehensions. His univer- sity work proceeds with a constant increase of students. His thoughts are intent upon the enlarge- ment of the scope of the instruction. Especially desirous that the Word of God in its original text should be accessible, a vigorous effort had been made to secure a professor of Greek thoroughly versed in all the results of the revival of letters. With laudable ambition, Wittenberg aspired at securing Reuchlin, who, on declining, recommended his grand-nephew and prottgt, Philip Melanchthon, then barely past his twenty-first year, and already widely celebrated for his attainments. On August 25th he reached Wittenberg, where his extreme youth, unpretentious appearance, and retiring dis- position caused universal disappointment. But his inaugural address awakened the greatest enthusiasm. No one was more delighted than Luther. He found in the young professor the accomplished classical scholar, through whom the results of the New Learn- ing were made available as instruments for the de- fence of the faith of the Reformation and the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures. Sensible of his defects in the knowledge of Greek and Hebrew, and candid in acknowledging them, he had now one by his side upon whose judgment and advice within
1 Loescher, ii., 446.
io6 Martin Luther [1518
those spheres he could ever rely. He regarded him as a boy, cherished him as a son, confided in him as a brother, and in many things submitted to his advice and instruction as though he were his father and teacher. So constant and unreserved was the inti- macy between them that, from this time on, it be- comes impossible to absolutely separate their labours, since in the preparation of most books and papers, and in their decisions on all important questions, they acted with mutual consultation and revision of each other's work. It was the work of Luther to draw from the Holy Scriptures, under the pressure of severe conflict, the testimony which the particu- lar emergency required. These testimonies came forth like sparks from the anvil, without regard to any rigid system. Melanchthon gathered them to- gether, reduced them to scientific statement and methodical order, enriched them by his more varied reading, and carried to completion much that Luther had only suggested. Luther became the represent- ative of the Reformation to the people ; Melanchthon to scholars and courts. As mild and tender as Luther was fiery and impetuous, he moderated the spirit of his friend, and gained a hearing for their common cause, where Luther's methods were some- times apt only to repell.
PHILIP MELANCHTHON. FROM MELANCHTHON'S FUNERAL ORATION ON LUTHER, »5»6.
BIRTH MEDAL.
CHAPTER IV
BEFORE CAJETAN AT AUGSBURG
NOT until the last week in September was Luther informed that he was to be heard, not in Rome, but at Augsburg. After the other business of the Diet was disposed of, it was proposed to con- sider his case. Responding without delay, he left Wittenberg with Leonard Beyer, who is remembered as one of the participants in the Heidelberg Con- ference, and made the journey, with the exception of a few miles, upon foot. The trying autumn weather, with its raw atmosphere and overcast skies, is particularly mentioned. At Weimar, where the Elector, who had already left the Diet, was tarrying, he preached on St. Michael's Day a sermon upon Matt, xviii., i-ii, that surprised his hearers by its absence of any allusion to the proper theme of the day, the guardianship of angels, and confined its at- tention to the sin of self-righteousness. There also he received through Spalatin instructions from the Elector as to the course to be pursued, letters to
107
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persons of influence in Augsburg, and twenty guldens for expenses. The Franciscans entertained him, and when one of them expressed his apprehen- sions for Luther's safety, he was asked for his pray- ers, Luther adding that if the work were not of God it must be destroyed, but that otherwise no one could hinder it. As he proceeded, however, the thought of the disgrace that his parents would suffer in case he were to be condemned could not be entirely suppressed. At Nuremberg, kind friends notice that his coat is too shabby for the occasion, and provide him with a new one. There also his old friend, Link, joins him, and attends him the rest of the way, a partial compensation for the disap- pointment that the jurist Scheurl was absent from home, and therefore unable, according to the Elect- or's plans, to be his legal adviser. To many the journey to Augsburg seemed a death-march; but their expressions of sympathy are answered by the assurance that, even in Augsburg, Jesus Christ reigns. " Let Christ live; let Martin die." Worn out and sick, and unable for the last few miles to walk, he enters Augsburg October 7th.
Luther's unexpected arrival was the sensation of the hour. Everyone was eager to see and hear him. The Diet had practically adjourned, the most of the princes having left, and the Emperor being on a hunting expedition in the mountains. Luther's first abode was with his brethren of the Augustinian Order, and afterwards with the Carmelites. Trust- worthy advisers were found in the Elector's counsel- lors and the citizens of Augsburg to whom the
isi8] Before Cajetan at Augsburg 109
Elector's letters introduced him. Beyer immediately was sent to bring Staupitz, who had promised to ap- pear as soon as he would learn of Luther's arrival. On the day of Luther's entrance, Link was sent to Cajetan, to notify him that a response to the sum- mons would be made at any hour. Here, however, a protracted series of negotiations began, that delayed procedure for nearly a week, Luther's counsellors insisting that the imperial " safe-conduct " must be given before he could personally appear. In the absence of Maximilian, the imperial counsellors re- garded themselves unauthorised to give such an as- surance to one who had already been adjudged a heretic. Cajetan's profuse personal pledges Luther firmly declined to accept. Even the intervention of one whom the Elector had commended to Luther, Urbanus de Serralonga, could not induce him to comply. " Do you suppose," asked Urbanus, " that the Elector will go to war on your be- half ? " " No," answered Luther. " Where, then, will you stay ? " ' Under the heavens," was the response. ' What would you do," continued the diplomat, " if the Pope and his cardinals were in your power?" 'Treat them with all respect," was the prompt answer. The difficulty was finally adjusted, when Cajetan assured the imperial coun- sellors that he would connive at their taking the responsibility for the issue of the safe-conduct, although declining to sign the document. Luther being satisfied, the I2th of October1 witnessed the
1 For proceedings at Augsburg see Weimar, ii., i sqq.; DeWette, i : 142-167, 175 sqq.; Op. var. arg., ii., 340 sqq. ; Loscher, ii., 435 sqq.
no Martin Luther
beginning of the conferences. The delay had en- abled Staupitz to reach him in ample time, as he appeared at Augsburg that very day.
In character and learning Cajetan stood in the first rank among the Roman ecclesiastics. The display, in which he is said to have outshone the Emperor at Augsburg, was intended to make a profound im- pression of the importance of the interests he repre- sented. The preparation of a book on the subject of indulgences, even before the publication of Luther's Theses, had peculiarly fitted him for his mission. As an enthusiastic Dominican, his inter- pretation of the powers of the Papacy fully antici- pated the position which the Roman Church did not venture to officially endorse until the late Vatican Council.
Instructed as to the proper procedure by Serra- longa, Luther appeared before Cajetan, attended by his friends Link and Beyer, the prior Frosch, and two brethren of the Carmelites. A large num- ber of Italian ecclesiastics, desirous of seeing and hearing Luther, attended the cardinal. According to instructions, Luther threw himself prostrate be- fore the representative of the Pope. At the com- mand to rise he knelt, and then, at the second command, he stood up. A moment of silence followed. Luther, interpreting it as meaning that now is the time to speak, expresses regret if, in any way, he has spoken unadvisedly, and asks to be better instructed. In a courteous and even com- plimentary reply, Cajetan declares his unwillingness to enter into a discussion, and propounds, in the
is is] Before Cajetan at Augsburg 1 1 1
name of the Pope, three demands, viz., first, a recan- tation of errors ; secondly, a promise to refrain from them in the future; and, thirdly, the avoidance of all other acts that might disturb the peace of the Church. Luther asks what the errors are that he is required to recant. Cajetan specifies two, which represent what have since been known as the formal and the material principles of Protestantism. The formal principle, viz., the sole authority of Holy Scripture in matters of faith, comes into immediate discussion, when Cajetan points Luther to Thesis LVIII.,1 in which he has denied that the merits of Christ are the treasures of the Church, distributed by indulgences. The cardinal triumphantly adduces as his authority, by which to prove the error, the fact that the thesis is directly contrary to the Bull of Clement VI., beginning, " Unigenitus," a document of some rarity, of which he seems to think Luther is ignorant. Luther not only shows his acquaintance with it, but directs the cardinal's attention to a similar statement of Sixtus IV. He meets the argument, not by questioning the genuineness of these documents, but by antagonising their teach- ing as doing violence to Holy Scripture. The cardinal replying that the authority of the Pope is above that of councils and Scripture, and Luther denying this, the discussion becomes warm, and diverges into a number of important side topics. The second error alleged against Luther was that in
1 " Nee sunt merita Christi et sanctorum, quia haec semper sine Papa operantur gratiam hominis interioris, et crucem, mortem, in- fernumque exterioris."
ii2 Martin Luther [1483-
his Resolutiones ' he had taught that the sacraments confer no blessing except upon those confidently believing that the promise attached to the sacrament received belongs to them. The objection of Cajetan rested upon the assumption that no one can be sure whether or not he receives the grace of God. In all the great inner struggles of Luther's life this had been the burning-point. The mere suggestion that he should surrender a doctrine entering so deeply into his entire Christian experience, he tells us, oc- casioned the deepest pain, and he made prompt answer that, on this point, he could not recant, since this alleged error was the clear teaching of Holy Scripture. The uncompromising answer was: " Willingly or unwillingly, you must recant to-day, or, because of this one point, I shall condemn all your Theses." No result could be reached in the way of an agreement where the one aimed at nothing more than the accumulation of citations from the de- cretals and scholastics, while the other would admit no evidence not derived from the Scriptures.
The experience of the first day showed the import- ance of proceeding to the further discussions with the utmost caution. Accompanied by the Saxon counsellor, Dr. Peutinger, and by Staupitz and a notary, he presented at the very beginning of the interview of the next day a protest, setting forth with most careful discrimination the precise points of dissent.
" First of all," it ran, " I, Brother Martin Luther the
1 Conc/usioVII., Op. var. arg,t ii., 155 sqq.
i5i8] Before Cajetan at Augsburg 113
Augustinian, protest that I revere and follow the Holy Roman Church in all my words and deeds, present, past, and future. If anything otherwise has been said I wish it unsaid. ... I protest that I am not conscious of having said anything contrary to Holy Scripture, the Church Fathers, the papal decrees, or right reason, but that all that I have said seems to me to-day to be sound, true, and catholic. Nevertheless, as I am not infallible, I have submitted myself, and also now submit myself to the judgment and determination of the lawful holy Church, and to all of better mind. Besides, I offer either here or elsewhere to present publicly a reason for my statements. But if this be not agreeable to Your Reverence, I am ready either to respond in writing to the objections urged and to hear the judgment and de- cision of the doctors of the renowned Imperial Universi- ties of Basel, Freiburg, Louvain ; or, if they be not enough, of Paris also, the parent of studies, and from antiquity ever the most Christian University, and that in which theology has been particularly cultivated." '
At what he deemed the presumption of this ap- peal, Cajetan professed to be amused. Unwilling to admit any argument, he insists upon the one word, " Recant." Luther's plea that he might be permitted to present a defence in writing, being sup- ported by Staupitz, is finally conceded with the de- claration that he will admit it, not as a judge but as a father, since no disputation with Luther can even be thought of. Dismissed the second time, Luther prepares in the monastery of the Carmelites a very thorough and comprehensive argument in answer to
1 Op. var. arg., ii., 371 sq. 8
ii4 Martin Luther
the two specifications of error that Cajetan had pre- ferred on the preceding day.
Laying down at the very beginning the proposi- tion that the decretals of popes are to be received only when they are in harmony with Scripture, he shows that as Peter erred (Gal. ii., 11), and that as, in the synod at Jerusalem, it was not the teaching of Peter but that of James that was approved, those who claimed to be his successors certainly should not expect any higher immunity from error.
" I had not the temerity, on the ground of one am- biguous and obscure decretal of a pope, a mere man, to depart from numerous and most clear testimonies of Scripture, in which the saints are said to be without merits, since the Pope is not above but beneath the word of God, according to Gal. i., 8." l
He proceeds to show that there is a sense, after all, in which the statements of the Bull could be ad- mitted, but urges that, as the words are ambiguous, and can afford only matters of dispute, the language that he had employed in his Theses is preferable.
As to the second specification, he says:
" The second objection is that I have said that no one can be justified except by faith, viz., that it is necessary for him, with confident faith, to believe that he is justi- fied, and in no way doubt that he has received grace ; for if he doubt and be uncertain, he is not justified, but rejects grace. To this I reply : i. The truth is infallible that no one is righteous save he who believes in God (Rom. i., 17). Whoever believes not is already condemned
lOf. var. arg., ii., 374.
Before Cajetan at Augsburg 115
and dead, and hence the righteousness and life of the righteous man is his faith. 2. But faith is nothing but to believe what God promises or says (Rom. iv., 3). 3. That one coming to the sacrament must believe that he receives grace and must not doubt, but believe with sur- est confidence, or must otherwise come into condemna- tion, we prove : i. From Heb. xi., 6, ' But if he must believe God as rewarder, he must also believe him as a justifier and a present bestower of grace.' 2. Under penalty of eternal condemnation and the sin of infidelity, it is necessary to believe the words of Christ : ' Whatso- ever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.' If, then, you come to the sacrament of repentance, and believe not firmly that you are to be absolved in heaven, you enter into judgment, because you believe not that Christ spake the truth, when He said : ' Whatsoever ye shall loose,' etc., and thus, by your doubt, make Christ a liar, which is a fearful sin. But should you say : ' I am unworthy and unprepared for the sacrament," I answer : By no preparation will you be worthy : by no works will you be prepared, but by faith alone, since faith in Christ's word alone justifies, renders worthy, quickens, and prepares, without which all else are efforts either of presumption or of despair. For the just lives not from his preparation, but from his faith. Hence your lack of worthiness should occasion no doubts : for just because you are unworthy you should come, in order to be made worthy ; and you are justified by Him Who seeks for sinners, and not for the righteous. In believing the word of Christ you honour His word, and by His work you are righteous." '
Scripture proof after proof is quoted and com-
1 Op. var. arg., ii., 377 sq.
n6 Martin Luther [1483-
mented upon, viz.: Matt, xv., 28, viii., 13, viii., 8; John iv., 50; Mark xi., 24; Matt, xvii., 20; James i., 5-7; Luke i., 45; Rom. iv., 21. Sup- ported thus by Scripture, he quotes triumphantly the adage: " Not the sacrament of faith, but the faith of the sacrament justifies," and he concludes with words in which we can read his declaration at Worms: " Only compel me to do nothing against my conscience. For, without qualification, I be- lieve that this is the meaning of the Scriptures." '
Such a mode of argument is beyond the apprecia- tion of one who relies exclusively upon the decrees of popes and the definitions of scholastics. When Luther, therefore, read it to the cardinal on the morning of October I4th, the indifference with which he listened and the summary way in which he dis- posed of it, with the promise, however, of sending it to Rome, were only what was to be expected.
The closing scene of this conference was one of excitement. Not a single passage of Scripture was produced against Luther's statements, but, instead, the one word that he heard was the monotone, " Recant," " Recant." Ten times Luther tried to speak, but was fairly shouted down, until he adopted the cardinal's method, and also let his voice be heard. As the heat of the contest grew, the cardi- nal's citation of his favourite authorities was parried by Luther's quickness in detecting and exposing the wrong construction placed upon them. He charged the cardinal with imagining that the Germans could not understand grammar, and forgot himself so far
1 Op. var. arg. , ii. , 379 sqq.
Before Cajetan at Augsburg 117
as at one time to dispense with the courtly style of address. Cajetan finally dismissed him with the words: " Recant, or do not come again before my eyes." Luther never troubled him afterwards with his presence.
Unwearied in his efforts, Cajetan next sought to effect his purpose through Staupitz, whom, with Link, he summoned to an interview. But Staupitz assured him that he had ever taught Luther the duty of obedience to the Church, and that, as Luther had passed beyond his ability to influence him, the representative of the Pope was the proper person to persuade him, if any one could. To the sug- gestion that Luther be granted another audience, Cajetan is said by Myconius to have replied: " I will talk no more with that beast ; for he has deep eyes and wonderful speculations in his head." ' In an interview shortly afterwards with Link, the offer was made to ignore the position concerning the as- surance of faith, provided he would recant his de- clarations concerning indulgences. Staupitz and Link attempted to persuade him to yield, but were overwhelmed with such an array of Scripture texts that they desisted. Fearing that, as his Vicar-Gen- eral, the unpleasant task of calling Luther to ac- count might be imposed upon him, Staupitz released him from the obligation of -obedience, and greatly encouraged him with the words: " Remember, brother, that thou hast begun these things in the
1 Quoted by Loescher, ii., 477, from Myconius, Hist. Ref., p. 73 : " Ego nolo amplius cum hac bestia loqui. Habet enim profundos oculos et mirabiles speculationes in capite suo."
ii8 Martin Luther [i483-
name of our Lord Jesus Christ." The runjour having reached them that Cajetan was planning to have them arrested, and taken with Luther to Rome, these two friends departed hastily and secretly for Nuremberg, leaving Luther awaiting the pleasure of the cardinal, in case he desired another interview. On Sunday, October I7th, he wrote a most humble letter to Cajetan, apologising for any discourtesy he had shown at the last inter- view. With all due respect, however, he repeats his constant reply, that while ready to concede everything else, he can surrender nothing that is a matter of conscience. He also very candidly gives his judgment concerning the folly of relying upon Thomas Aquinas as an authority.1 Waiting still another day without an answer, he informed the car- dinal that, unless he heard from him soon, he would waste no more time imposing upon the hospitality of the Carmelites while there seemed to be nothing for him to do. On the advice of the legal counsel- lors of Luther, a protest had already been prepared from Cajetan to the Pope, or, as he states it, " from the Pope ill-informed to the Pope better informed." * Leaving this protest to be handed to Cajetan by his friend Beyer, he passed, in the night of October 2Oth, through a small gate in the city walls, opened for him by a trusted friend, and, attended by an escort, rode on horseback in a monk's habit, and without a horseman's outfit, on the road to Nuremberg. Reaching the village of Monheim, a distance of eight
1 De Wette, i : 161, 163 ; Op. var. arg., ii., 393, 395. ' Protest in Op. var. arg. , ii. , 307 sqq.
i5i8] Before Cajetan at Augsburg 119
German miles (thirty-two English miles), on the 2 1st, he was so fatigued from the unaccustomed mode of travelling that when he dismounted he fell from exhaustion upon the straw of the stable. On the next day the protest that he had left was posted by the cardinal upon the door of the cathedral at Augsburg.
On his arrival at Nuremberg he received from Spalatin a copy of the instructions sent, August 23d, to Cajetan by the Pope, showing that all through the pretended impartial treatment, he was already adjudged a heretic. Unwilling at first to surrender his good opinion of Leo, he openly pronounced the document a forgery, fabricated by enemies in Ger- many. Reaching home on the anniversary of the nailing up of the Theses, he wrote that evening: " I am full of peace and joy, so that I am surprised that this trial of mine seems anything important to many and great men." At the same time he an- nounced his intention to appeal to a future council.
MELANCHTHON.
CHAPTER V
MILTITZ AND THE LEIPZIG DISPUTATION
ONCE more at Wittenberg, Luther entered with customary zeal upon his university duties, having been made the dean of the faculty during his absence. An interesting incident of the univer- sity life was the conferring of the degree of doctor of divinity upon the Carmelite prior, John Frosch, who had entertained Luther during his stay at Augsburg, and the banquet in his honour. Luther was immediately occupied with the preparation of a full report of the transactions between himself and Cajetan, since he was confident that his course and responses would be misrepresented. Before it was completed a letter was received by the Elector from Cajetan laying a complaint against Luther for his conduct at Augsburg, and demanding that the Elec- tor should either send him to Rome, or banish him. The letter being immediately sent to Luther, he prepared on the same day an answer recounting all
120
The Leipzig Disputation 121
the circumstances, and expressing his deep regret at the unpleasant position in which the Elector was placed. He begs not to be sent to Rome, as that would be nothing else than murder. But, at the same time, he declares his readiness, whenever the Elector thinks best, to leave Saxony. Paris seems to have been in his mind, and in that of his friends, as a possible place of refuge. From the pulpit he declared that he might suddenly depart without being able to bid the congregation farewell. Only once, and that for a brief moment, did the Elector think that Luther should be asked to leave. His prompt answer to Cajetan was :
" Since Dr. Martin offers to submit his case to the judgment of several universities, and to enter into a dis- cussion at any places that are safe, and, when the case has been presented, will obediently permit himself to be taught and persuaded, we think that in all justice his re- quest should be granted, or, at least, his errors ought to be shown him in writing, — a request that we also make, in order that we may know why he should be regarded a heretic, and that we may have the facts upon which to act. For we hold that one not yet convicted should not be held and branded as a heretic." '
As a preliminary to a personal attack, the Pope published, on November gih, a Bull directed in general against all who were protesting against the sale of indulgences. It was the assumption by Leo of the full responsibility, in answer to Luther's be- lief, so often expressed, that his representatives were
1 Of. var. arg., ii., 409 sy.
122 Martin Luther ex-
acting beyond their instructions. Anticipating the arrival at any day of a sentence of excommunication, Luther made a formal appeal, before a notary and witnesses, in the chapel of the Parochial Church, from the decision of the Pope to a General Council.1 Sent to the press, but not intended for publication before the arrival of the papal Bull, the printer, to Luther's displeasure, complied with the demand for its immediate issue. In making this appeal, he had in view the precedent afforded only a few months previously by the University of Paris.
But meanwhile Cajetan's course was not regarded with unqualified satisfaction at Rome. The firm- ness of the Elector of Saxony, it was felt, must have some reason. Tetzel had fallen into disrepute, as one whose extravagant statements and lack of judg- ment had occasioned the trouble. A special effort to win over the Elector was, therefore, determined upon. Mincio, the Venetian ambassador to the papal court, wrote home, that on September 4th the Pope had announced his intention of conferring upon the Elector the high honour of the presenta- tion of the Golden Rose, and added: " The Pope did thus try, through the medium of the Duke of Saxony, to allay a heresy of a certain Dominican (!) friar, who was preaching in those parts of the Apos- tolic See." In order to render the present still more grateful, the nuncio chosen to transmit it was a Saxon nobleman, Carl von Miltitz, who for a num- ber of years had represented the interests of the Elector at Rome. But his mission was wider. The
1 Op. var. arg.t ii., 435 sqq.
1519] The Leipzig Disputation 123
work that Cajetan had failed in accomplishing was intrusted to him. He was not only to report as to the actual condition of affairs in Germany, but also to use every effort to bring about a reconciliation. The contrasts with his predecessor were very marked. The one was an Italian, not only unacquainted with the German people, but unable to understand their feeling, or adapt himself to their peculiarities ; the other, as a German, not only knew the Germans, but had facilities of information and influence that were entirely closed to Cajetan. The one was an ecclesiastic, the other a jurist and diplomat. The one lived in the fossilised opinions of Thomas Aquinas, seeking to bend everything to his defini- tions, and thinking that all search for truth could be suppressed by the six letters, " Recant " ; the other was a man of the world, devoted to social pleasure, and adjusting every thing to the influences dominant at the hour. The one was reserved and secretive ; the other, at the table, delighted in giving full liberty to his geniality, by graceful compliments and un- anticipated revelations of what ordinarily belongs to the confidential relations between ambassadors and their sovereigns.
Miltitz had scarcely entered Germany before he was convinced that the Pope had a conflict before him, of the magnitude of which he had no concep- tion. It was not the work of suppressing a single individual, but that of meeting the thoroughly aroused indignation of a large part of the nation. Mingling freely, on his way to Saxony, with the most influential circles at Augsburg and Nuremberg, he
124 Martin Luther [i&-
learned more and more of the circumstances of the controversy. To Luther himself he afterwards ac- knowledged that, of every five men whom he met, scarcely two or three were on the side of the Pope. Tetzel, although summoned to his presence, did not venture to appear, the excuse being offered that the popular feeling against him was such that he could not come to Altenburg, except at peril of his life.
The greatest respect and consideration were shown Luther in the conference in the house of Spalatin, at Altenburg, during the first week of January, 1519. Miltitz freely conceded the extreme perplexity of the Papacy and the widespread sympathy and en- thusiasm for Luther throughout all Germany. He was surprised at Luther's relative youth and vigour, having expected to find an old theologian, who pre- ferred a quiet corner behind a warm stove from which to carry on his discussions. He would not venture, he said, with 25,000 men, to attempt to carry Luther across the Alps. Luther received these professions for what they were worth, regard- ing the tears shed by the nuncio, when he dwelt upon his peril, as " crocodile's tears," and the kiss, with which after dining together they parted, as " the kiss of Judas." The conference was not, however, without some temporary prospect of re- sults. A German bishop, either of Treves or Saltz- burg, was to be made arbiter, the disputants on both sides to refrain from writing on indulgences, Luther to address another letter of apology to the Pope, and to prepare an address to the people admonishing them of the duty of submission.
1519] The Leipzig Disputation 125
From Altenburg Miltitz went to Leipzig to look after Tetzel, whom he reproved so severely that this mortification, following the other expressions of censure, hastened his physical decline. He died on July 4th, 1519. The tenderness of Luther's charac- ter appears in a letter of consolation sent him during his last days, in which Luther assures him that he is not to be regarded the author of the trouble, but only the agent of another.1
Every effort seems to have been made by Miltitz to carry out his part of the program. A new political influence entered with the death of the Emperor Maximilian, January I2th. Pending the election of a new emperor, the Elector of Saxony became regent for Northern Germany, and was re- garded not only the most influential ruler in the country, but even as the possible successor to the Imperial throne. Every motive advised a more con- ciliatory policy. Hopes of reconciliation without recantation began to dawn upon Luther. If, on the one hand, Miltitz secured the approval of Cajetan, Luther, on the other, fulfilled to the letter every promise he had made. His apology to the Pope, of March 3d, was written in an entirely differ- ent tone from his appeal to a General Council of the preceding December. It is a combination of the most humiliating, if not obsequious, professions of
1 De Wette, 6 : 18.
Kostlin says that on July 4th Luther began his discussion at Leipzig with Tetzel, " on the day of the evening of which Tetzel departed in the Dominican cloister at Leipzig." Bottcher, Ger- mania Sacra, gives same date.
i26 Martin Luther [1483-
respect, with the reassertion of his complete justifi- cation in regard to the points in which the contro- versy had originated.
" Necessity forces me," he writes, " as the very dregs of men and the dust of the earth, to address again Thy Holiness and Majesty. Deign then to bend thy paternal ears, which are truly those of the Vicar of Christ, to this Thy little lamb, and attend to my bleating. . . . What am I to thee, Most Blessed Father ? I know not what to do. Thy wrath I cannot endure ; and yet how to be delivered from it I know not. I am commanded to re- call the discussion. If I could accomplish what is intended by this demand, it would be done without de- lay. But, on account of the resistance of my adversa- ries, my writings have been published to a much greater extent than I had intended. They have entered many hearts so deeply that they cannot be recalled. Nay, our Germany to-day flourishes so remarkably in learning and sound judgment, that however much I desire to honour the Roman Church, they cannot be recalled. For this is impossible without bringing still greater disgrace upon the Roman Church. They whom I have resisted have brought infamy and shame among us in Germany upon the Church of Rome. . . . Before God and all crea- tures I attest that I have never wished, nor do I wish to-day, to touch in any way or plot against Thy power and that of the Roman Church ; on the contrary, I ac- knowledge the power of the Church to be above all things ; nor is anything in heaven or earth to be preferred to it, except alone the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of all." '
Two points of contrast distinguish this letter
1 De Wette, 1 : 233 sq .
1519] The Leipzig Disputation 127
from the preceding one (May 31, 1518) to Leo. The struggle is no longer an individual one, but that of the German people ; and it is no longer the power of the Pope, but that of the Church, to which he declares himself ready to submit.
In the Instructions concerning Some Articles* pub- lished almost cotemporaneously with the writing of this letter, he makes a statement on some of the topics concerning which his teaching had been mis- represented. It is interesting to observe how gradual is his progress towards the position he ultimately attained. The invocation of saints, Purgatory, even indulgences, with certain qualifications, are ap- proved. Miracles, he thinks, are still performed at the tombs of saints. The great abuse, against which he warns, is that of seeking only temporal and bodily blessings instead of spiritual by their in- tercession. ' Who now invokes them for patience, faith, love, chastity ? " Nor should they be invoked as though they had the power, of themselves, to bestow these things ; they secure them only by their intercession with God. Indulgences are entirely matters of freedom. No one sins who does not procure them; nor does one obtain merit through their purchase. He who withholds needed help from a poor man in order to purchase an indulgence, mocks God. God's commandments are to be es- teemed above those of the Church, as gold and precious stones are to be preferred to wood and stubble.
1 Weimar, ii., 69 sqq.
128 Martin Luther [1483,
" A man who swears, curses, slanders, or refuses his neighbour needed assistance is much worse than one who eats meat or does not fast on Friday. Nevertheless both classes of commandments are to be observed ; only it is advisable that to prevent their being placed upon an equal footing, some of the ecclesiastical requirements be abolished in a General Council. That the Roman Church is honoured by God above all others is a matter of no doubt, for there Sts. Peter and Paul and forty-six popes, besides many hundred thousand martyrs, have shed their blood. Even though matters might be better at Rome, nevertheless no reason can justify one in separating from this Church. Nay, the worse it is the more should one adhere to it. No sin or evil can be imagined, for the sake of which the bonds of love should be sundered and spiritual unity divided. But as to the power and sov- ereignty of the Roman See, and as to how far it extends, the learned must decide."
Such was the presentation of the case made by Luther in fulfilment of his promise to Miltitz.
But the efforts of the papal nuncio were fruitless. At the beginning of May he invited Luther to Co- blentz, where the Archbishop of Treves would hear the case ; but, in the absence of an invitation from the Archbishop himself, and of any approval of the propositions of Miltitz by the Pope, he declined to take it into consideration. Another barrier was the presence of Cajetan, whom Luther regarded as dis- qualified from any participation in the arbitration, since he had prejudged the case at Augsburg. " I doubt," writes Luther, " whether he be a Catholic Christian." A later attempt, in October, to bring
DR. JOHN ECK.
TRADITIONAL PORTRAIT.
i5i9] The Leipzig Disputation 129
Luther before the Archbishop at Liebenwerda failed by the absolute prohibition of the Elector after Luther had responded that he was ready.
Circumstances had changed. The agreement of mutual silence awaiting an arbitration had been broken by the champions of the Papacy.
Two habitual agitators, both fond of controversy and ambitious of fame, one on the side of Rome and the other on the side of Luther, Eck and Carl- stadt, could not be suppressed. With Luther, Eck's controversy had ceased with the latter's apology; and, as neither had published his paper, there was no reason for its renewal. But Carlstadt, who had changed from an unfriendly critic to a radical and injudicious advocate of Luther's course, had posted up theses attacking Eck, which occasioned much irritation and wrangling. Eck proposed a public discussion, and Carlstadt eagerly assented. Luther, while not regarding himself involved, was favourable to the plan, " in order that there might be an end of the dispute and the writing of books," that the world might see that theologians not only can fight, but can also come to an agreement. In- golstadt, Eck's home, being in the near neighbour- hood of Augsburg, Luther, during his appearance before Cajetan, had private conferences with Eck, in which the arrangements for the proposed discus- sion were considered, as Carlstadt had requested. The Wittenberg theologians invited Eck to meet Carlstadt in their University ; but he declined the invitation, expressing a preference for Cologne, Paris, or Rome, where the discussion would attract
9
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more attention; but to this Luther objected. Finally, either Erfurt or Leipzig was agreed upon, and Carlstadt leaving the choice to Eck, the latter was chosen. A joint letter from the two disputants requesting the hospitality of the University of Leip- zig met with a cold reception. The professors dreaded having their academic calm disturbed by what they apprehended might be a furious storm. The Bishop of Merseburg, within whose jurisdiction Leipzig lay, supported them in their opposition. But their protests were disregarded by Duke George, who was anxious that the opportunity should be used to bring his University into prominence, and who was annoyed at the indolence and want of enterprise shown by his scholars.
As he had issued the challenge, Eck published, six months in advance, the theses which he would make the basis of the discussion. Luther, receiving them shortly after his conference with Miltitz, was astonished to find that the subjects of controversy with Carlstadt were almost entirely ignored, and that Eck, quoting passage after passage from Lu- ther's own writings, declared himself ready to refute them. His indignation was thoroughly aroused be- cause of the underhanded manner in which the attack was made. No other course was open than to immediately announce his readiness to respond. All obligations to silence were binding only if mutu- ally observed. Cajetan could soon have silenced Eck, if his theses had not met his approval. First in an open letter to Carlstadt, and then in a series of counter-theses, Luther exposes Eck's duplicity
i5i9] The Leipzig Disputation
and repels his propositions. From that time it is manifest that the focus of any discussion between them must be in the closing thesis; Eck affirming: " We deny the assertion that the Roman Church was not superior to other churches before the time of Sylvester; but we acknowledge him who has the see and faith of St. Peter, as the perpetual successor of St. Peter, and the general vicar of Christ " ; and Luther:
" That the Roman Church is superior to all others is proved from the most silly decrees of the Roman pon- tiffs who have been born within the last four hundred years ; against which is the approved history of fifteen hundred years, the text of the Holy Scripture, and the decree of the Council of Nice, the most holy of all