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Title: Life of Luther

Author: Julius Koestlin

Release Date: April, 2005 [EBook #7970]
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[This file was first posted on June 8, 2003]

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[Illustration: LUTHER. (From a Portrait by Cranach in the Town
Church at Weimar.)]




LIFE OF LUTHER

BY

JULIUS KOSTLIN


WITH ILLUSTRATIONS from AUTHENTIC SOURCES


TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN




_AUTHOR'S DEDICATION_

TO

MY DEAR WIFE PAULINE

WITH THE WORDS OF LUTHER

'God's highest gift on earth is to have a pious, cheerful,
God-fearing, home-keeping wife.'




AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

No German has ever influenced so powerfully as Luther the religious
life, and, through it, the whole history, of his people; none has
ever reflected so faithfully, in his whole personal character and
conduct, the peculiar features of that life and history, and been
enabled by that very means to render us a service so effectual and
so popular. If we recall to fresh life and remembrance the great men
of past ages, we Germans shall always put Luther in the van: for us
Protestants, the object of our love and veneration, who will not
prevent, however, or prejudice the most candid historical inquiry;
for others, a rock of offence, whom even slander and falsehood will
never overcome.

I have already in my larger work, 'Martin Luther: his Life and
Writings,' 2 vols., 1875, put together all the materials available
for that subject, together with the necessary references, historical
and critical, and have endeavoured to explain and illustrate at
length the subject matter of his various writings. I now offer this
sketch of his life to the wide circle of what are called educated
German readers. For further explanations and proofs of statements
herein contained I would refer them to my larger work. Further
investigation has prompted me to make some alterations, but only a
few, in matters of detail.

For the illustrations and illustrative documents I beg to express my
warm thanks, and those of the publisher, to the friends who have
kindly assisted us in the work.

J. KOSTLIN, Professor at the University of Halle-Wittenberg.

_Oct_. 31, 1881, the anniversary of Luther's 95 Theses.




CONTENTS.


PART I.

_LUTHER'S CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH, UP TO HIS ENTERING THE
CONVENT.--1483-1505._

I. Birth and Parentage

II. Childhood and School-days

III. Student-days at Erfurt and Entry into the Convent.--1501-1505


PART II.

_LUTHER AS MONK AND PROFESSOR, UNTIL HIS ENTRY ON THE WAR OF
REFORMATION.--1505-1517._

I. At the Convent at Erfurt, till 1508

II. Call to Wittenberg. Journey to Rome

III. Luther as Theological Teacher, to 1517


PART III.

_THE BREACH WITH ROME, UP TO THE DIET OF WORMS.--1517-1521._

I. The Ninety-five Theses

II. The Controversy concerning Indulgences

III. Luther at Angsburg before Caietan. Appeal to a Council

IV. Miltitz and the Disputation at Leipzig, with its Results

V. Luther's further Work, Writings, and Inward Progress until 1520

VI. Alliance with the Humanists and Nobility

VII. Crisis of Secession: Luther's Works--to the Christian Nobility
of the German Nation, and on the Babylonian Captivity.

VIII. The Bull of Excommunication, and Luther's Reply

IX. The Diet of Worms


PART IV.

_FROM THE DIET OF WORMS TO THE PEASANTS' WAR AND LUTHER'S
MARRIAGE._

I. Luther at the Wartburg, to his Visit to Wittenberg in 1521.

II. Luther's further Sojourn at the Wartburg, and his Return to
Wittenberg, 1522

III. Luther's Reappearance and fresh Labours at Wittenberg, 1522

IV. Luther and his anti-Catholic work of Reformation, up to 1525

V. The Reformer against the Fanatics and Peasants, up to 1525

VI. Luther's Marriage


PART V.

_LUTHER AND THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE CHURCH, TO THE FIRST
RELIGIOUS PEACE.--1525-1532._

I. Survey

II. Continued Labours and Personal Life

III. Erasmus and Henry VIII. Controversy with Zwingli and his
Followers, up to 1528

IV. Church Divisions in Germany. War with the Turks. The Conference
at Marburg, 1529

V. The Diet of Augsburg, and Luther at Coburg, 1530

VI. From the Diet of Augsburg to the Religious Peace of Nuremberg,
1632. Death of the Elector John


PART VI.

_FROM THE RELIGIOUS PEACE OF NUREMBERG TO THE DEATH OF LUTHER._

I. Luther under John Frederick

II. Negotiations respecting a Council and Union among the
Protestants. The Legate Vergerius, 1535. The Wittenberg Concord,
1536

III. Negotiations respecting a Council and Union among the
Protestants (continued). The Meeting at Schmalkald, 1537. Peace with
the Swiss.

IV. Other Labours and Proceedings, 1533-39. The Archbishop Albert
and Schonitz. Agricola

V. Luther and the Progress and Internal Troubles of Protestantism,
1538-41

VI. Luther and the Progress and Internal Troubles of Protestantism
(continued), 1541-44

VII. Luther's Later Life; Domestic and Personal

VIII. Luther's Last Year and Death




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.


LUTHER. (From a Portrait by Cranach in the Town Church at Weimar)

1. COAT OF ARMS

2. HANS LUTHER

3. MARGARET LUTHER

4. LUTHER'S CELL AT ERFURT

5. STAUPITZ. (From the Portrait in St. Peter's Convent at Salzburg)
FACSIMILE FROM LUTHER'S PSALTER, AT WOLFENBUTTEL

6. TITLE AND PREFACE OF PENITENTIAL PSALMS

7. SPALATIN. (From L. Cranach's Portrait)

8. ERASMUS. (From the Portrait by A. Durer)

9. LEO X. (From his Portrait by Raphael) FACSIMILE OF PLACARD OF
INDULGENCES, 1517

10. THE ABCHBISHOP ALBERT. (From Durer's engraving)

11. TITLE-PAGE OF A PAMPHLET WRITTEN AT THE BEGINNING OF THE
REFORMATION, with an Illustration showing the Sale of Indulgences

12. THE CASTLE CHURCH. (From the Wittenberg Book of Relics, 1509)

13. THE EMPEROR MAXIMILIAN. (From his Portrait by Albert Durer)

14. DUKE GEORGE OF SAXONY. (From an old woodcut)

15. LUTHER. (From an engraving of Cranach, in 1520)

16. DR. JOHN ECK. (From an old woodcut)

17. MELANCTHON. (From a Portrait by Durer)

18. LUCAS CRANACH. (From a Portrait by himself)

19. W. PIRKHEIMER. (From a Portrait by Albert Durer)

20. ULRICH VON HUTTEN. (From an old woodcut)

21. FRANCIS VON SICKINGEN. (From an old engraving)

22. TITLE-PAGE OF THE SECOND EDITION OF LUTHER'S TREATISE TO THE
CHRISTIAN NOBILITY OF THE GERMAN NATION

23. TITLE-PAGE, slightly reduced, of the original Tract 'On the
Liberty of a Christian Man'

24. CHARLES V. (From an engraving by B. Beham, in 1531)

25. LUTHER. (From an engraving by Cranach, in 1521)

26. LUTHER as "SQUIRE GEORGE." (From a woodcut by Cranach)

27. BUGENHAGEN. (From a picture by Cranach in his album, at Berlin,
1543)

28. MUNZER. (From an old woodcut)

29. LUTHER. (From a Portrait by Cranach in 1525.) At Wittenberg.

30. CATHARINE VON BORA, LUTHER'S WIPE. (From a Portrait by Cranach
about 1525.) At Berlin

31. LUTHER'S RING FBOM CATHARINE

32. LUTHER'S DOUBLE RING

33. THE SAXON ELECTORS, FREDERICK THE WISE, JOHN, AND JOHN
FREDERICK. (From a Picture by Cranach.) At Nuremberg

34. FACSIMILE OF FREDERICK'S SIGNATURE

35. PHILIP OF HESSE. (From a woodcut of Brosamer)

36. LUTHER. (From a Portrait by Cranach in 1528.) At Berlin

37. LUTHER'S WIFE. (From a Portrait by Cranach in 1528.) At Berlin

38. ZWINGLI. (From an old engraving)

39. FACSIMILE OF THE SUPERSCRIPTION AND SIGNATURE TO THE MARBURG
ARTICLES

40. VEIT DIETRICH, as Pastor of Nuremberg. (From an old woodcut)

41. LUTHER'S SEAL. (Taken from letters written in 1517)

42. LUTHER'S COAT OF ARMS. (From old prints)

43. BUTZER. (From the old original woodcut of Beusner)

44. AGRICOLA. (From a miniature Portrait by Cranach, in the
University Album at Wittenberg, 1531)

45. JONAS. (From a Portrait by Cranach, in his Album at Berlin,
1543)

46. AMSDORF. (From an old woodcut)

47. LUTHER. (From a Portrait by Cranach, in his Album, at Berlin)

48. WITTENBERG. (From an old engraving)

49. THE "LUTHER-HOUSE" (previously the Convent), before its recent
restoration

50. LUTHER'S ROOM

51. LUTHER'S DAUGHTER 'LENE.' (From Cranach's Portrait)

52. DOOR OF LUTHER'S HOUSE AT WITTENBERG

53. MATHESIUS. (From an old woodcut)

54. LUTHER IN 1546. (From a woodcut of Cranach)

55. JONAS' GLASS

56. ADDRESS OF LUTHER'S LETTER OF FEBRUARY 7

57. LUTHER AFTER DEATH. (From a Picture ascribed to Cranach)

58. CAST OF LUTHER AFTER DEATH. (At Halle)

FACSIMILE OF PART OF THE EDICT OF WORMS, 8 MAY (1521), being the
title and conclusion, with the signature of the Emperor Charles

TITLE AND COMMENCEMENT OF THE GOSPEL OF ST. MATTHEW, IN THE FIRST
EDITION OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, 1522. (From the original in the Royal
Public Library at Stuttgart)

FACSIMILE OF CONCLUDING PORTION OF LUTHER'S WILL, with the
attestations of Melancthon, Crueiger, and Bugenhagen. (At Pesth)

FACSIMILE OF LETTER OF LUTHER TO HIS WIFE, OF FEBRUARY 7, 1546. (At
Breslau)




LUTHER'S LIFE.

PART I.

LUTHER'S CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH UP TO HIS ENTERING THE CONVENT.--1483-1505.




CHAPTER I.

BIRTH AND PARENTAGE.


On the 10th of November, 1483, their first child was born to a young
couple, Hans and Margaret Luder, at Eisleben, in Saxony, where the
former earned his living as a miner. That child was Martin Luther.

His parents had shortly before removed thither from Mohra, the old
home of his family. This place, called in old records More and More,
lies among the low hills where the Thuringian chain of wooded
heights runs out westwards towards the valley of the Werra, about
eight miles south of Eisenach, and four miles north of Salzungen,
close to the railway which now connects these two towns. Luther thus
comes from the very centre of Germany. The ruler there was the
Elector of Saxony.

Mohra was an insignificant village, without even a priest of its
own, and with only a chapel affiliated to the church of the
neighbouring parish. The population consisted for the most part of
independent peasants, with house and farmstead, cattle and horses.
Mining, moreover, was being carried on there in the fifteenth
century, and copper was being discovered in the copper schist, of
which the names of Schieferhalden and Schlackenhaufen still survive
to remind us. The soil was not very favourable for agriculture, and
consisted partly of moorland, which gave the place its name. Those
peasants who possessed land were obliged to work extremely hard.
They were a strong and sturdy race.

From this peasantry sprang Luther. 'I am a peasant's son,' he said
once to Melancthon in conversation. 'My father, grandfather--all my
ancestors were thorough peasants.'

[Illustration: Coat of arms]

His father's relations were to be found in several families and
houses in Mohra, and even scattered in the country around. The name
was then written Luder, and also Ludher, Luder, and Leuder. We find
the name of Luther for the first time as that of Martin Luther, the
Professor at Wittenberg, shortly before he entered on his war of
Reformation, and from him it was adopted by the other branches of
the family. Originally it was not a surname, but a Christian name,
identical with Lothar, which signifies one renowned in battle. A
very singular coat of arms, consisting of a cross-bow, with a rose
on each side, had been handed down through, no doubt, many
generations in the family, and is to be seen on the seal of Luther's
brother James. The origin of these arms is unknown; the device leads
one to conclude that the family must have blended with another by
intermarriage, or by succeeding to its property. Contemporaneous
records exist to show how conspicuously the relatives of Luther, at
Mohra and in the district, shared the sturdy character of the local
peasantry, always ready for self-help, and equally ready for
fisticuffs. Firmly and resolutely, for many generations, and amidst
grievous persecutions and disorders, such as visited Mohra in
particular during the Thirty Years' War, this race maintained its
ground. Three families of Luther exist there at this day, who are
all engaged in agriculture; and a striking likeness to the features
of Martin Luther may still be traced in many of his descendants, and
even in other inhabitants of Mohra. Not less remarkable, as noted by
one who is familiar with the present people of the place, are the
depth of feeling and strong common sense which distinguish them, in
general, to this day. The house in which Luther's grandfather lived,
or rather that which was afterwards built on the site, can still, it
is believed, but not with certainty, be identified. Near this house
stands now a statue of Luther in bronze.

At Mohra, then, Luther's father, Hans, had grown up to manhood. His
grandfather's name was Henry, but of him we hear nothing during
Luther's time. His grandmother died in 1521. His mother's maiden
name was Ziegler; we afterwards find relations of hers at Eisenach;
the other old account, which made her maiden name Lindemann,
probably originated from confusing her with Luther's grandmother.

What brought Hans to Eisleben was the copper mining, which here, and
especially in the county of Mansfeld, to which Eisleben belonged,
had prospered to an extent never known around Mohra, and was even
then in full swing of activity. At Eisleben, the miners' settlements
soon formed two new quarters of the town. Hans had, as we know, two
brothers, and very possibly there were more of the family, so that
the paternal inheritance had to be divided. He was evidently the
eldest of the brothers, of whom one, Heinz, or Henry, who owned a
farm of his own, was still living in 1540, ten years after the death
of Hans. But at Mohra the law of primogeniture, which vests the
possession of the land in the eldest son, was not recognised; either
the property was equally divided, or, as was customary in other
parts of the country, the estate fell to the share of the youngest.
This custom was referred to in after years by Luther in his remark
that in this world, according to civil law, the youngest son is the
heir of his father's house.

We must not omit to notice the other reasons which have been
assigned for his leaving his old home. It has been repeatedly
asserted, in recent times, and even by Protestant writers, that the
father of our great Reformer had sought to escape the consequences
of a crime committed by him at Mohra. The matter stands thus: In
Luther's lifetime his Catholic opponent Witzel happened to call out
to Jonas, a friend of Luther's, in the heat of a quarrel, 'I might
call the father of your Luther a murderer.' Twenty years later the
anonymous author of a polemical work which appeared at Paris
actually calls the Reformer 'the son of the Mohra assassin.' With
these exceptions, not a trace of any story of this kind, in the
writings of either friend or foe, can be found in that or in the
following century. It was at the beginning of the eighteenth
century, in an official report on mining at Mohra, that the story,
evidently based on oral tradition, assumed all at once a more
definite shape; the statement being that Luther's father had
accidentally killed a peasant, who was minding some horses grazing.
This story has been told to travellers in our own time by people of
Mohra, who have gone so far as to point out the fatal meadow. We are
forced to notice it, not, indeed, as being in the least
authenticated, but simply on account of the authority recently
claimed for the tradition. For it is plain that what is now a matter
of hearsay at Mohra was a story wholly unknown there not many years
ago, was first introduced by strangers, and has since met with
several variations at their hands. The idea of a criminal flying
from Mohra to Mansfeld, which was only a few miles off, and was
equally subject to the Elector of Saxony, is absurd, and in this
case is strangely inconsistent with the honourable position soon
attained, as we shall see, by Hans Luther himself at Mansfeld.
Moreover, the very fact that Witzel's spiteful remark was long known
to Luther's enemies, coupled with the fact that they never turned it
to account, shows plainly how little they ventured to make it a
matter of serious reproach. Luther during his lifetime had to hear
from them that his father was a Bohemian heretic, his mother a loose
woman, employed at the baths, and he himself a changeling, born of
his mother and the Devil. How triumphantly would they have talked
about the murder or manslaughter committed by his father, had the
charge admitted of proof! Whatever occurrence may have given rise to
such a story, we have no right to ascribe it either to any fault or
any crime of the father. More on this subject it is needless to add;
the two strange statements we have mentioned do not attempt to
establish any definite connection between the supposed crime and the
removal to Eisleben.

The day, and even the very hour, when her first-born came into the
world, Luther's mother carefully treasured in her mind. It was
between eleven and twelve o'clock at night. Agreeably to the custom
of the time, he was baptised in the Church of St. Peter the next
day. It was the feast of St. Martin, and he was called after that
saint. Tradition still identifies the house where he was born; it
stands in the lower part of the town, close to St. Peter's Church.
Several conflagrations, which devastated Eisleben, have left it
undestroyed. But of the original building only the walls of the
ground-floor remain: within these there is a room facing the street,
which is pointed out as the one where Luther first saw the light.
The church was rebuilt soon after his birth, and was then called
after St. Peter and St. Paul; the present font still retains, it is
said, some portions of the old one.

[Illustration: Fig. 2.--HANS LUTHER.]

When the child was six months old, his parents removed to the town of
Mansfeld, about six miles off. So great was the number of the miners
who were then crowding to Eisleben, the most important place in the
county, that we can well understand how Luther's father failed there
to realise his expectations, and went in search of better prospects
to the other capital of the rich mining district. Here, at Mansfeld,
or, more strictly, at Lower Mansfeld, as it is called, from its
position, and to distinguish it from Cloister-Mansfeld, he came among
a people whose whole life and labour were devoted to mining. The town
itself lay on the banks of a stream, inclosed by hills, on the edge
of the Harz country. Above it towered the stately castle of the
Counts, to whom the place belonged. The character of the scenery is
more severe, and the air harsher than in the neighbourhood of Mohra.
Luther himself called his Mansfeld countrymen sons of the Harz. In
the main, these Harz people are much rougher than the Thuringians.

[Illustration: MARGARET LUTHER.]

Here also, at first, Luther's parents found it a hard struggle to
get on. 'My father,' said the Reformer, 'was a poor miner; my mother
carried in all the wood upon her back; they worked the flesh off
their bones to bring us up: no one nowadays would ever have such
endurance.' It must not, however, be forgotten that carrying wood in
those days was less a sign of poverty than now. Gradually their
affairs improved. The whole working of the mines belonged to the
Counts, and they leased out single portions, called smelting
furnaces, sometimes for lives, sometimes for a term of years. Harts
Luther succeeded in obtaining two furnaces, though only on a lease
of years. He must have risen in the esteem of his town-fellows even
more rapidly than in outward prosperity.

The magistracy of the town consisted of a bailiff, the chief
landowners, and four of the community. Among these four Hans Luther
appears in a public document as early as 1491. His children were
numerous enough to cause him constant anxiety for their maintenance
and education: there were at least seven of them, for we know of
three brothers and three sisters of the Reformer. The Luther family
never rose to be one of the rich families of Mansfeld, who possessed
furnaces by inheritance, and in time became landowners; but they
associated with them, and in some cases numbered them among their
intimate friends. The old Hans was also personally known to his
Counts, and was much esteemed by them. In 1520 the Reformer publicly
appealed to their personal acquaintance with his father and himself,
against the slanders circulated about his origin. Hans, in course of
time, bought himself a substantial dwelling-house in the principal
street of the town. A small portion of it remains standing to this
day. There is still to be seen a gateway, with a well-built arch of
sandstone, which bears the Luther arms of cross-bow and roses, and
the inscription J.L. 1530. This was, no doubt, the work of James
Luther, in the year when his father Hans died, and he took
possession of the property. It is only quite recently that the stone
has so far decayed as to cause the arms and part of the inscription
to peel off.

The earliest personal accounts that we have of Luther's parents,
date from the time when they already shared in the honour and renown
acquired by their son. They frequently visited him at Wittenberg,
and moved with simple dignity among his friends. The father, in
particular, Melancthon describes as a man, who, by purity of
character and conduct, won for himself universal affection and
esteem. Of the mother he says that the worthy woman, amongst other
virtues, was distinguished above all for her modesty, her fear of
God, and her constant communion with God in prayer. Luther's friend,
the Court-preacher Spalatin, spoke of her as a rare and exemplary
woman. As regards their personal appearance, the Swiss Kessler
describes them in 1522 as small and short persons, far surpassed by
their son Martin in height and build; he adds, also, that they were
dark-complexioned. Five years later their portraits were painted by
Lucas Cranach: these are now to be seen in the Wartburg, and are the
only ones of this couple which we possess. [Footnote: Strange to
say, subsequently and even in our own days, a portrait of Martin
Luther's wife in her old age has been mistaken for one of his
mother.] In these portraits, the features of both the parents have a
certain hardness; they indicate severe toil during a long life. At
the same time, the mouth and eyes of the father wear an intelligent,
lively, energetic, and clever expression. He has also, as his son
Martin observed, retained to old age a 'strong and hardy frame.' The
mother looks more wearied by life, but resigned, quiet, and
meditative. Her thin face, with its large bones, presents a mixture
of mildness and gravity. Spalatin was amazed, on seeing her for the
first time in 1522, how much Luther resembled her in bearing and
features. Indeed, a certain likeness is observable between him and
her portrait, in the eyes and the lower part of the face. At the
same time, from what is known of the appearance of the Luthers who
lived afterwards at Mohra, he must also have resembled his father's
family.




CHAPTER II.

CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOLDAYS.


As to the childhood of Martin Luther, and his further growth and
mental development, at Mansfeld and elsewhere, we have absolutely no
information from others to enlighten us. For this portion of his
life we can only avail ourselves of occasional and isolated remarks
of his own, partly met with in his writings, partly culled from his
lips by Melancthon, or his physician Ratzeberger, or his pupil
Mathesius, or other friends, and by them recorded for the benefit of
posterity. These remarks are very imperfect, but are significant
enough to enable us to understand the direction which his inner life
had taken, and which prepared him for his future calling. Nor less
significant is the fact that those opponents who, from the
commencement of his war with the Church, tracked out his origin, and
sought therein for evidence to his detriment, have failed, for their
part, to contribute anything new whatever to the history of his
childhood and youth, although, as the Reformer, he had plenty of
enemies at his own and his parents' home, and several of the Counts
of Mansfeld, in particular, continued in the Romish Church. There
was nothing, therefore, dark or discreditable, at any rate, to be
found attaching either to his home or to his own youth.

It is said that childhood is a Paradise. Luther in after years found
it joyful and edifying to contemplate the happiness of those little
ones who know neither the cares of daily life nor the troubles of
the soul, and enjoy with light hearts the good thing which God has
given them. But in his own reminiscences of life, so far as he has
given them, no such sunny childhood is reflected. The hard time,
which his parents at first had to struggle through at Mansfeld, had
to be shared in by the children, and the lot fell most hardly on the
eldest. As the former spent their days in hard toil, and persevered
in it with unflinching severity, the tone of the house was unusually
earnest and severe. The upright, honourable, industrious father was
honestly resolved to make a useful man of his son, and enable him to
rise higher than himself. He strictly maintained at all times his
paternal authority. After his death, Martin recorded, in touching
language, instances of his father's love, and the sweet intercourse
he was permitted to have with him. But it is not surprising, if, at
the period of childhood, so peculiarly in need of tender affection,
the severity of the father was felt rather too much. He was once, as
he tells us, so severely flogged by his father that he fled from
him, and bore him a temporary grudge. Luther, in speaking of the
discipline of children, has even quoted his mother as an example of
the way in which parents, with the best intentions, are apt to go
too far in punishing, and forget to pay due attention to the
peculiarities of each child. His mother, he said, once whipped him
till the blood came, for having taken a paltry little nut. He adds,
that, in punishing children, the apple should be placed beside the
rod, and they should not be chastised for an offence about nuts or
cherries as if they had broken open a money-box. His parents, he
acknowledged, had meant it for the very best, but they had kept him,
nevertheless, so strictly that he had become shy and timid. Theirs,
however, was not that unloving severity which blunts the spirit of a
child, and leads to artfulness and deceit. Their strictness, well
intended, and proceeding from a genuine moral earnestness of
purpose, furthered in him a strictness and tenderness of conscience,
which then and in after years made him deeply and keenly sensitive
of every fault committed in the eyes of God; a sensitiveness,
indeed, which, so far from relieving him of fear, made him
apprehensive on account of sins that existed only in his
imagination. It was a later consequence of this discipline, as
Luther himself informs us, that he took refuge in a convent. He
adds, at the same time, that it is better not to spare the rod with
children even from the very cradle, than to let them grow up without
any punishment at all; and that it is pure mercy to young folk to
bend their wills, even though it costs labour and trouble, and leads
to threats and blows.

We have a reference by Luther to the lessons he learned in childhood
from his experience of poverty at home, in his remarks in later
life, on the sons of poor men, who by sheer hard work raise
themselves from obscurity, and have much to endure, and no time to
strut and swagger, but must be humble and learn to be silent and to
trust in God, and to whom God also has given good sound heads.

As to Luther's relations with his brothers and sisters we have the
testimony of one who knew the household at Mansfeld, and
particularly his brother James, that from childhood they were those
of brotherly companionship, and that from his mother's own account
he had exercised a governing influence both by word and deed on the
good conduct of the younger members of the family.

His father must have taken him to school at a very early age. Long
after, in fact only two years before his death, he noted down in the
Bible of a 'good old friend,' Emler, a townsman of Mansfeld, his
recollection how, more than once, Emler, as the elder, had carried
him, still a weakly child, to and from school; a proof, not indeed,
as a Catholic opponent of the next century imagined, that it was
necessary to compel the boy to go to school, but that he was still
of an age to benefit by being carried. The school-house, of which
the lower portion still remains, stood at the upper end of the
little town, part of which runs with steep streets up the hill. The
children there were taught not only reading and writing, but also
the rudiments of Latin, though doubtless in a very clumsy and
mechanical fashion. From his experience of the teaching here, Luther
speaks in later years of the vexations and torments with declining
and conjugating and other tasks which school children in his youth
had to undergo. The severity he there met with from his teacher was
a very different thing from the strictness of his parents.
Schoolmasters, he says, in those days were tyrants and executioners,
the schools were prisons and hells, and in spite of blows,
trembling, fear, and misery, nothing was ever taught. He had been
whipped, he tells us, fifteen times one morning, without any fault
of his own, having been called on to repeat what he had never been
taught.

At this school he remained till he was fourteen, when his father
resolved to send him to a better and higher-class place of
education. He chose for that purpose Magdeburg; but what particular
school he attended is not known. His friend Mathesius tells us that
the town-school there was 'far renowned above many others.' Luther
himself says that he went to school with the Null-brethren. These
Null-brethren or Noll-brethren, as they were called, were a
brotherhood of pious clergymen and laymen, who had combined
together, but without taking any vows, to promote among themselves
the salvation of their souls and the practice of a godly life, and
to labour at the same time for the social and moral welfare of the
people, by preaching the Word of God, by instruction, and by
spiritual ministration. They undertook in particular the care of
youth. They were, moreover, the chief originators of the great
movement in Germany, at that time, for promoting intellectual
culture, and reviving the treasures of ancient Roman and Greek
literature. Since 1488 a colony of them had existed at Magdeburg,
which had come from Hildesheim, one of their head-quarters. As there
is no evidence of heir having had a school of their own at
Magdeburg, they may have devoted their services to the town-school.
Thither, then, Hans Luther sent his eldest son in 1497. The idea had
probably been suggested by Peter Reinicke, the overseer of the
mines, who had a son there. With this son John, who afterwards rose
to an important office in the mines at Mansfeld, Martin Luther
contracted a lifelong friendship. Hans, however, only let his son
remain one year at Magdeburg, and then sent him to school at
Eisenach. Whether he was induced to make this change by finding his
expectations of the school not sufficiently realised, or whether
other reasons, possibly those regarding a cheaper maintenance of his
son, may have determined him in the matter, there is no evidence to
show. What strikes one here only is his zeal for the better
education of his son.

Ratzeberger is the only one who tells us of an incident he heard of
Luther from his own lips, during his stay at Magdeburg, and this was
one which, as a physician, he relates with interest. Luther, it
happened, was lying sick of a burning fever, and tormented with
thirst, and in the heat of the fever they refused him drink. So one
Friday, when the people of the house had gone to church, and left
him alone, he, no longer able to endure the thirst, crawled off on
hands and feet to the kitchen, where he drank off with great avidity
a jug of cold water. He could reach his room again, but having done
so he fell into a deep sleep, and on waking the fever had left him.

The maintenance his father was able to afford him was not sufficient
to cover the expenses of his board and lodging as well as of his
schooling, either at Magdeburg or afterwards at Eisenach. He was
obliged to help himself after the manner of poor scholars, who, as
he tells us, went about from door to door collecting small gifts or
doles by singing hymns. 'I myself,' he says,' was one of those young
colts, particularly at Eisenach, my beloved town.' He would also
ramble about the neighbourhood with his school-fellows; and often,
from the pulpit or the lecturer's chair, would he tell little
anecdotes about those days. The boys used to sing quartettes at
Christmas-time in the villages, carols on the birth of the Holy
Child at Bethlehem. Once, as they were singing before the door of a
solitary farmhouse, the farmer came out and called to them roughly,
'Where are you, young rascals?' He had two large sausages in his
hand for them, but they ran away terrified, till he shouted after
them to come back and fetch the sausages. So intimidated, says
Luther, had he become by the terrors of school discipline. His
object, however, in relating this incident was to show his hearers
how the heart of man too often construes manifestations of God's
goodness and mercy into messages of fear, and how men should pray to
God perseveringly, and without timidity or shamefacedness. In those
days it was not rare to find even scholars of the better classes,
such as the son of a magistrate at Mansfeld, and those who, for the
sake of a better education, were sent to distant schools, seeking to
add to their means in the manner we have mentioned.

After this, his father sent him to Eisenach, bearing in mind the
numerous relatives who lived in the town and surrounding country,
and who might be of service to him. But of these no mention has
reached us, except of one, named Konrad, who was sacristan in the
church of St. Nicholas. The others, no doubt, were not in a position
to give him any material assistance.

About this time his singing brought him under the notice of one Frau
Cotta, who with genuine affection took up the promising boy, and
whose memory, in connection with the great Reformer, still lives in
the hearts of the German people. Her husband, Konrad or Kunz, was
one of the most influential citizens of the town, and sprang from a
noble Italian family who had acquired wealth by commerce. Ursula
Cotta, as her name was, belonged to the Eisenach family of Schalbe.
She died in 1511. Mathesius tells us how the boy won her heart by
his singing and his earnestness in prayer, and she welcomed him to
her own table. Luther met with similar acts of kindness from a
brother or other relative of hers, and also from an institution
belonging to Franciscan friars at Eisenach, which was indebted to
the Schalbe family for several rich endowments, and was named, in
consequence, the Schalbe College. At Frau Cotta's, Luther was first
introduced to the life in a patrician's house, and learned to move
in that society.

At Eisenach he remained at school for four years. Many years
afterwards we find him on terms of friendly and grateful intercourse
with one Father Wiegand, who had been his schoolmaster there.
Ratzeberger, speaking of the then schoolmaster at Eisenach, mentions
a 'distinguished poet and man of learning, John Trebonius,' who, as
he tells us, every morning, on entering the schoolroom, would take
off his biretta, because God might have chosen many a one of the
lads present to be a future mayor, or chancellor, or learned doctor;
a thought which, as he adds, was amply realised afterwards in the
person of Doctor Luther. The relations of these two at the school,
which contained several classes, must be a matter of conjecture. But
the system of teaching pursued there was praised afterwards by
Luther himself to Melancthon. The former acquired there that
thorough knowledge of Latin which was then the chief preparation for
University study. He learned to write it, not only in prose, but
also in verse, which leads us to suppose that the school at Eisenach
took a part in the Humanistic movement already mentioned. Happily,
his active mind and quick understanding had already begun to
develop; not only did he make up for lost ground, but he even
outstripped those of his own age.

As we see him growing up to manhood, the future hero of the faith,
the teacher, and the warrior, the most important question for us is
the course which his religious development took from childhood.

He who, in after years, waged such a tremendous warfare with the
Church of his time, always gratefully acknowledged, and in his own
teaching and conduct kept steadily in view, how, within herself, and
underneath all the corruptions he denounced, she still preserved the
groundwork of a Christian life, the charter of salvation, the
fundamental truths of Christianity, and the means of redemption and
blessing, vouchsafed by the grace of God. Especially did he
acknowledge all that he had himself received from the Church since
childhood. In that House, he says on one occasion, he was baptised,
and catechised in the Christian truth, and for that reason he would
always honour it as the House of his Father. The Church would at any
rate take care that children, at home and at school, should learn by
heart the Apostles' Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten
Commandments; that they should pray, and sing psalms and Christian
hymns. Printed books, containing them, were already in existence.
Among the old Christian hymns in the German language, of which a
surprisingly rich collection has been formed, a certain number, at
least, were in common use in the churches, especially for festivals.
'Fine songs' Luther called them, and he took care that they should
live on in the Evangelical communities. Those old verses form in
part the foundation of the hymns which we owe to his own poetical
genius. Thus for Christmas we still have the carol of those times,
_Ein Kindelein so lobelich_; and the first verse of Luther's
Whitsun hymn, _Nun bitten wir den Heiligen Geist_, is taken, he
tells us, from one of those old-fashioned melodies. Of the portions
of Scripture read in church, the Gospels and Epistles were given in
the mother-tongue. Sermons, also, had long been preached in German,
and there were printed collections of them for the use of the
clergy.

The places where Luther grew up were certainly better off in this
respect than many others. For, in the main, very much was still
wanting to realise what had been recommended and striven for by
pious Churchmen, and writers and religious fraternities, or even
enjoined by the Church herself. The Reformers had, indeed, a heavy
and an irrefutable indictment to bring against the Catholic Church
system of their time. The grossest ignorance and shortcomings were
exposed by the Visitations which they undertook, and from these we
may fairly judge of the actual state of things existing for many
years before. It appeared, that even where these portions of the
catechism were taught by parents and schoolmasters, they never
formed the subject of clerical instruction to the young. It was
precisely one of the charges brought against the enemies of the
Reformation, that, notwithstanding the injunctions of their Church,
they habitually neglected this instruction, and preferred teaching
the children such things as carrying banners in processions and holy
tapers. Priests were found, in the course of these visitations, who
had scarcely any knowledge of the chief articles of the faith. His
own personal experience of this neglect, when young, is not noticed
by Luther in his later complaints on the subject.

But the main fault and failing which he recognised in after life,
and which, as he tells us, was a source of inward suffering to him
from childhood, was the distorted view, held up to him at school and
from the pulpit, of the conditions of Christian salvation, and,
consequently, of his own proper religious attitude and demeanour.

Luther himself, as we learn from him later life, would have
Christian children brought up in the happy assurance that God is a
loving Father, Christ a faithful Saviour, and that it is their
privilege and duty to approach their Father with frank and childlike
confidence, and, if aroused to a consciousness of sin or wrong, to
entreat at once His forgiveness. Such however, he tells us, was not
what he was taught. On the contrary, he was instructed, and trained
up from childhood in that narrowing conception of Christianity, and
that outward form of religiousness, against which, more than
anything, he bore witness as a Reformer.

God was pictured to him as a Being unapproachably sublime, and of
awful holiness; Christ, the Saviour, Mediator, and Advocate, whose
revelation can only bring judgment to those who reject salvation, as
the threatening Judge, against whose wrath, as against that of God,
man sought for intercession and mediation from the Virgin and the
other saints. This latter worship, towards the close of the middle
ages, had increased in importance and extent. Peculiar honour was
paid to particular saints, in particular places, and for the
furtherance of particular interests. The warlike St. George was the
special saint of the town and county of Mansfeld: his effigy still
surmounts the entrance to the old school-house. Among the miners the
worship of St. Anne, the mother of the Virgin, soon became popular
towards the end of the century, and the mining town of Annaberg,
built in 1496, was named after her. Luther records how the 'great
stir' was first made about her, when he was a boy of fifteen, and
how he was then anxious to place himself under her protection. There
is no lack of religious writings of that time, which, with the view
of preserving the Catholic faith, warn men earnestly against the
danger of overvaluing the saints, and of placing their hopes more in
them than in God; but we see from those very warnings how necessary
they were, and later history shows us how little fruit they bore. As
for Luther, certain beautiful features in the lives and legends of
the saints exercised over him a power of attraction which he never
afterwards renounced; and of the Virgin he always spoke with tender
reverence, only regretting that men wished to make an idol of her.
But of his early religious belief, he says that Christ appeared to
him as seated on a rainbow, like a stern Judge; from Christ men
turned to the saints, to be their patrons, and called on the Virgin
to bare her breasts to her Son, and dispose him thereby to mercy. An
example of what deceptions were sometimes practised in such worship
came to the notice of the Elector John Frederick, the friend of
Luther, and probably originated in a convent at Eisenach. It was a
figure, carved in wood, of the Virgin with the infant Saviour in her
arms, which was furnished with a secret contrivance by means of
which the Child, when the people prayed to him, first turned away to
His mother, and only when they had invoked her as intercessor, bowed
towards them with His little arms outstretched.

On the other hand, the sinner who was troubled with cares about his
soul and thoughts of Divine judgment, found himself directed to the
performance of particular acts of penance and pious exercises, as
the means to appease a righteous God. He received judgment and
commands through the Church at the confessional. The Reformers
themselves, and Luther especially, fully recognised the value of
being able to pour out the inner temptations of the heart to some
Christian father-confessor, or even to some other brother in the
faith, and to obtain from his lips that comfort of forgiveness which
God, in His love and mercy, bestows freely on the faithful. But
nothing of this kind, they said, was to be found in the
confessional. The conscience was tormented with the enumeration of
single sins, and burdened with all sorts of penitential formalities;
and it was just with a view that everyone should be drawn to this
discipline of the Church, should use it regularly, and should seek
for no other way to make his peace with God, that the educational
activity of the Church, both with young and old, was especially
directed.

Luther, in after life, as we have already remarked, always
recognised and found comfort in the fact that, even under such
conditions as the above, enough of the simple message of salvation
in the Bible could penetrate the heart, and awaken a faith which, in
spite of all artificial restraints and perplexing dogmas, should
throw itself, with inward longing and childlike trust, into the arms
of God's mercy, and so enjoy true forgiveness. He received, as we
shall see, some salutary directions for so doing from later friends
of his, who belonged to the Romish Church, nor was that character of
ecclesiastical religiousness, so to speak, stamped everywhere, or to
the same degree, on Christian life in Germany during his youth.
Nevertheless, his whole inner being, from boyhood, was dominated by
its influence; he, at all events, had never been taught to
appreciate the Gospel as a child. Looking back in later years on his
monastic days, and the whole of his previous life, he declared that
he never could feel assured that his baptism in Christ was
sufficient for his salvation, and that he was sorely troubled with
doubt whether any piety of his own would be able to secure for him
God's mercy. Thoughts of this kind he said induced him to become a
monk.

Men have never been wanting, either before or since the time of
Luther's youth, to denounce the abuses and corruptions of the
Church, and particularly of the clergy. Language of this sort had
long found its way to the popular ear, and had proceeded also from
the people themselves. Complaints were made of the tyranny of the
Papal hierarchy, and of their encroachments on social and civil
life, as well as of the worldliness and gross immorality of the
priests and monks. The Papacy had reached its lowest depth of moral
degradation under Pope Alexander VI. We hear nothing, however, of
the impressions produced on Luther, in this respect, in the
circumstances of his early life. The news of such scandals as were
then enacted at Rome, shamelessly and in open day, very likely took
a long while to reach Luther and those about him. With regard to the
carnal offences of the clergy, against which, to the honour of
Germany be it said, the German conscience especially revolted, he
made afterwards the noteworthy remark, that although during his
boyhood the priests allowed themselves mistresses, they never
incurred the suspicion of anything like unbridled sensuality or
adulterous conduct. Examples of such kind date only from a later
period.

The loyalty with which Mansfeld, his home, adhered to the ancient
Church, is shown by several foundations of that time, all of which
have reference to altars and the celebration of mass. The overseer
of the mines, Reinicke, the friend of Luther's family, is among the
founders: he left provision for keeping up services in honour of the
Virgin and St. George.

A peculiarly reverential demeanour, in regard to religion and the
Church, is observable in Luther's father, and one which was common
no doubt among his honest, simple, pious fellow townsfolk. His
conduct was consistently God-fearing. In his house it was afterwards
told how he would often pray at the bedside of his little Martin,--how,
as the friend of godliness and learning, he had enjoyed the friendship
of priests and school-teachers. Words of pious reflection from his
lips remained stamped on Luther's memory from his boyhood. Thus
Luther tells us, in a sermon preached towards the close of his life,
how he had often heard his dear father say, that, as his own parents
had told him, the earth contains many more who require to be fed
than there are sheaves, even if collected from all the fields in the
world; and yet how wondrously does God know how to preserve mankind!
In common with his fellow-townsmen, he followed the precepts and
commands of his Church. When, in the year in which he sent his son to
Magdeburg, two new altars in the church at Mansfeld were consecrated
to a number of saints, and sixty days' indulgence was granted to
anyone who heard mass at them, Hans Luther, with Reinicke and other
fellow-magistrates, was among the first to make use of the invitation.
The enemies of the Reformer, while fain to trace his origin to a
heretic Bohemian, had not a shadow of a reason for suspecting his real
father of any leanings to heresy. Nor do we hear a word in later years
from the Reformer, after his father had separated with him from the
Catholic Church, to show a trace of any hostile or critical remark
against that Church, remembered from the lips of his father during
childhood. Quietly but firmly the latter asserted his own judgment,
and framed his will accordingly. He was firm, in particular, in the
consciousness of his paternal rights and duties, even against the
pretensions of the clergy. Thus, as his son Martin tells us, when he
lay once on the point of death, and the priest admonished him to
leave something to the clergy, he replied in the simplicity of his
heart, 'I have many children: I will leave it them, for they want it
more.' We shall see how unyieldingly, when his son entered a convent,
he insisted, as against all the value and usefulness of monasticism,
on the paramount obligation of God's command, that children should
obey their parents. Luther also tells us how his father once praised
in high terms the will left by a Count of Mansfeld, who without
leaving any property to the Church, was content to depart from this
world trusting solely to the bitter sufferings and death of Christ,
and commending his soul to Him. Luther himself, when a young student,
would have considered, as he tells us, a bequest to churches or
convents a proper will to make. His father afterwards accepted his
son's doctrine of salvation without hesitation, and with the full
conviction that it was right. But remarks of his such as we have
quoted, were consistent with a perfectly blameless demeanour in
regard to the forms of conduct and belief as prescribed by the Church,
with an avoidance of criticism and argument on ecclesiastical matters,
which he knew were not his vocation, and above all with a complete
abstention from such talk in the presence of his children. As to what
concerns further the positive religious influence which he exercised
over his children, any such impressions as he might have given by what
he said of the Count of Mansfeld, were fully counterbalanced by the
severity and firmness of his paternal discipline.

Concurrent with the doctrine of salvation through the intercession
of the saints and the Church, and one's own good works, which Luther
had been taught from his youth, were the dark popular ideas of the
power of the devil--ideas, which, though not actually invented, were
at least patronised by the Church, and which not only threaten the
souls of men, but cast a baneful spell over all their natural life.
Luther, as is well known, has frequently expressed his own opinions
about the devil, in connection with the enchantments supposed to be
practised by the Evil One on mankind, and, more especially, on the
subject of witchcraft. Of one thing he was certain, that in God's
hand we are safe from the Evil One, and can triumph over him. But
even he believed the devil's work was manifested in sudden accidents
and striking phenomena of Nature, in storms, conflagrations, and the
like. As to the tales of sorcery and magic, which were told and
believed in by the people, some he declared to be incredible, others
he ascribed to the hallucinations effected by the devil. But that
witches had power to do one bodily harm, that they plagued children
in particular, and that their spells could affect the soul, he never
seriously doubted.

From his earliest childhood, and especially at home, ideas of that
kind had been instilled into Luther, and accordingly they ministered
strong food to his imagination. They had just then spread to a
remarkable extent among the Germans, and had developed in remarkable
ways. They had affected the administration of ecclesiastical and
civil law, they had given rise to the Inquisition and the most
barbarous cruelties in the punishment of those who were pretended to
be in league with the devil, and they had gradually multiplied their
baneful effects. The year after Luther's birth, appeared the
remarkable Papal bull which sanctioned the trial of witches. When a
boy, Luther heard a great deal about witches, though later in life
he thought there was no longer so much talk about them, and he would
not scruple to tell stories of how they harmed men and cattle, and
brought down storms and hail. Nay, of his own mother he believed
that she had suffered much from the witcheries of a female
neighbour, who, as he said, 'plagued her children till they nearly
screamed themselves to death.' Delusions such as these are certainly
dark shadows in the picture of Luther's youth, and are important
towards understanding his inner life as a man.

But while admitting the existence of these superstitious and
pseudo-religious notions, we must not imagine that they composed the
whole portraiture of Luther's early life. He was, as Mathesius
describes him, a merry, jovial young fellow. In his later reflections
on himself and his youthful days, the very war he was waging against
the false teachings of the Church, from which he himself had
suffered, made him dwell, as was natural, on this side of his early
life. But amidst all those trials and depressing influences, the
fresh and elastic vigour of his nature stood the strain--a vigour
innate and inherited, and which afterwards shone forth in a new and
brighter light, under a new aspect of religious life. His childlike
joy in Nature around him, which afterwards distinguished so
remarkably the theologian and champion of the faith, must be
referred back to his original bent of mind and his life, when a boy,
amid Nature's surroundings.

How much he lived, from childhood, with the peasantry, is shown by
the natural ease with which he spoke in the popular dialect, even
when he was learning Latin and enjoying a higher culture, and by the
frequency with which the native roughnesses of that dialect broke
out in his learned discourses or sermons. In no other theologian,
nay, in no other known German writer of his century, do we meet with
so many popular proverbs as in Luther, to whom they came naturally
in his conversations and letters. German legends also, and popular
tales, such as the history of Dietrich von Bern and other heroes, or
of Eulenspiegel or Markolf, would hardly have been remembered so
accurately by him in later years, if he had not familiarised himself
with them in childhood. He would at times inveigh against the
worthless, and even shameless tales and 'gossip,' as he called it,
which such books contained, and especially against the priests who
used to spice their sermons with such stories; but that he also
recognised their value we know from his allusion to 'some people,
who had written songs about Dietrich and other giants, and in so
doing had expounded much greater subjects in a short and simple
manner.' The pleasure with which he himself may have read or
listened to them, can be gathered from his remark that 'when a story
of Dietrich von Bern is told, one is bound to remember it
afterwards, even though one has only heard it once.'

He maintained through life a faithful devotion to the places where he
had grown up. Eisenach remained, as we have already seen, his beloved
town. Mansfeld was particularly dear to him as his home, and the whole
county as his 'fatherland;' he calls it with pride a 'noble and famous
county.' The miners also, who were his fellow-countrymen and his dear
father's work-mates, he loved all his life long. But a wider horizon
was not opened to him among the people of the little town of Mansfeld,
or where he afterwards went to school. To this fact, and to his quiet
life as a monk, we must ascribe the peculiar feature of his later
activity, namely, that while prosecuting with far-seeing eye and a
warm heart the highest and most extensive tasks for his Church and
for the German people in general, still, at the beginning of his work
and campaign, he understood but little of the great world outside,
and of politics, or even of the general state of Germany; nay, he
shows at times a touchingly childlike simplicity in these matters.

The last few years of his school-life enabled him to make brave
progress on the road to intellectual culture, which his father
wished him to pursue. Thus equipped, he was prepared at the age of
eighteen, to remove, in the summer of 1501 to the university at
Erfurt.




CHAPTER III.

STUDENT-DAYS AT ERFURT AND ENTRY INTO THE CONVENT. 1501-1505.


Among the German universities, that of Erfurt, which could count
already a hundred years of prosperous existence, occupied at this
time a brilliant position. So high, Luther tells us, was its
standing and reputation, that all its sister institutions were
regarded as mere pigmies by its side. His parents could now afford
to give him the necessary means for studying at such a place. 'My
dear father,' he says, 'maintained me there with loyal affection,
and by his labour and the sweat of his brow enabled me to go there.'
He had now begun to feel a burning thirst for learning, and here, at
the 'fountain of all knowledge,' to use Melancthon's words, he hoped
to be able to quench it.

He began with a complete course of philosophy, as that science was
then understood. It dealt, in the first place, with the laws and
forms of thought and knowledge, with language, in which Latin formed
the basis, or with grammar and rhetoric, as also with the highest
problems and most abstruse questions of physics, and comprised even
a general knowledge of natural science and astronomy. A complete
study of all these subjects was not merely requisite for learned
theologians, but frequently served as an introduction to that of
law, and even of medicine.

When Luther first came from Eisenach to Erfurt, there was nothing
yet about him that attracted the attention of others so far as to
call forth any contemporary account of him. Enough, however, is
known of the most eminent teachers there, at whose feet he sat, and
also of the general kind of intellectual food which they
administered. He gained entrance into a circle of older and younger
men than himself, teachers and fellow-students, who in later years,
either as friends or opponents, were able to bear witness,
favourably or the reverse, as to his life and work at Erfurt.

The leading professor of philosophy at Erfurt was then Jodocus
Trutvetter, who, three years after Luther's arrival, became also
doctor of theology and lecturer of the theological faculty. Next to
him, in this department, ranked Bartholomew Arnoldi of Usingen. It
was to these two men above others, and particularly to the former,
that Luther looked for his instruction.

The philosophy which was then in vogue at Erfurt, and which found its
most vigorous champion in Trutvetter, was that of the Scholasticism of
later days. It is common to associate with the idea of Scholasticism,
or the theological and philosophical School-science of the middle
ages, a system of thought and instruction, embracing, indeed, the
highest questions of knowledge and existence, but at the same time
not venturing to strike into any independent paths, or to deviate an
inch from tradition, but submitting rather, in everything connected,
or supposed to be connected, with religious belief, to the dogmas and
decrees of the Church and the authority of the early Fathers, and
wasting the understanding and intellect in dry formalism or subtle
but barren controversies. This conception fails to appreciate the
vast labour of thought bestowed by leading minds on the attempt to
unravel the mass of ecclesiastical teaching which had twined round
the innermost lives of themselves and their fellow-Christians, and
at the same time to follow those general questions under the guidance
of the old philosophers, especially Aristotle, of whom they knew but
little. But it is applicable, at any rate, to the Scholasticism of
later days. The confidence with which its older exponents had thought
to explain and establish orthodoxy by means of their favourite science,
was gone; all the more, therefore, should that science keep silence in
face of the commands of the Church. Men, moreover, had grown tired of
the old questions of philosophy about the reality and real existence
of Universals. It had been formerly a question of dispute whether our
general ideas had a real existence, or whether they were nothing
more than words or names, mere abstractions, comprehending the
individual, which alone was supposed to possess Reality. At that
time the latter doctrine, that of Nominalism, as it was called,
prevailed. At length, these new or 'modern' philosophers abandoned
the question of Realism, and the relation of thought to Reality, in
favour of a system of pure logic or dialectics, dealing with the
mere forms and expressions of thought, the formal analysis of ideas
and words, the mutual relation of propositions and conclusions--in
short, all that constitutes what we call formal logic, in its widest
acceptation. At this point, the far-famed scholastic intellect, with
its subtleties, its fine distinctions, its nice questions, its
sophistical conclusions, reached its zenith.

To this logic Trutvetter also devoted himself, and in it he taught
his pupils. He had just then published a series of treatises on the
subject. To him this study was real earnest. Compared with others,
he has shown in these excursions a cautious and discreet moderation,
and no inclination for the quarrels and verbal combats often dear to
logicians. The same can be said of his colleague Usingen. Trutvetter
has shown also that he enjoyed and was widely read in earlier and
modern, especially, of course, in Scholastic literature, including
the works not only of the most important, but also of very obscure
authors. We can imagine what delight he took in all this when in his
professor's chair, and how much he expected from his pupils.

At Erfurt meanwhile, and by this same philosophical facility, a
fresh and vigorous impulse was being given to that study of
classical antiquity, which gave birth to a new learning, and ushered
in a new era of intellectual culture in Germany. We have already had
occasion to refer to the movement and influence of Humanism at the
schools which Luther attended at Magdeburg and Eisenach. He now
found himself at one of the chief nurseries of these 'arts and
letters' in Germany, nay, at the very place where their richest
blossoms were unfolded. Erfurt could boast of having issued the
first Greek book printed in Germany in Greek type, namely, a
grammar, printed in Luther's first year at the University. It was
the Greek and Latin poets, in particular, whose writings stirred the
enthusiasm and emulation of the students. For refined expression and
learned intercourse, the fluent and elegant Latin language was
studied, as given in the works of classical writers. But far more
important still was the free movement of thought, and the new world
of ideas thus opened up.

In proportion as these young disciples of antiquity learned to
despise the barbarous Latin and insipidity of the monkish and
scholastic education of the day, they began to revolt against
Scholasticism, against the dogmas of faith propounded by the Church,
and even against the religious opinions of Christendom in general.
History shows us the different paths taken, in this respect, by the
Humanists; and we shall come across them, in another way, during the
career of the Reformer, as having an important influence on the
course of the Reformation. With many, an honest striving after
religion and morality allied itself with the impulse for independent
intellectual culture, and tried to utilise it for improving the
condition of the Church. When the struggle of the Reformation began,
some followed Luther and the other religious teachers on his side,
some, shrinking back from his trenchant conclusions, and, above all,
concerned for their own stock-in-trade of learning, counselled
others to practise prudence and moderation, and themselves retired
to the service of their muses. Others again, broke away altogether
from the Christian faith and the principles of Christian morality.
They took delight in a new life of Heathenism, devoted sometimes to
sensual pleasures and gross immoralities, sometimes to the
indulgence of refined tastes and the enjoyment of art. These latter
never raised a weapon against the Church, but for the most part
accommodated themselves to her forms. In her teachings, her
ordinances, and her discipline, they saw something indispensable to
the multitude, as whose conscious superiors they behaved. Indeed,
they themselves wielded this government in the Church, and
comfortably enjoyed their authority and its fruits. In Italy, at
Rome, and on the Papal chair these despotic pretensions were then
asserted without shame or reserve. In Germany, on the other hand,
the leading champions of the new learning, even when in open arms
against the barbarism of the monks and clergy, sought, for
themselves and their disciples, to remain faithful on the ground of
their Mother Church. At Erfurt, in particular, the relations between
them and the representatives of Scholasticism were peaceful,
unconstrained, and friendly. The dry writings of a Trutvetter they
prefaced with panegyrics in Latin verse, and the Trutvetter would
try to imitate their purer style.

Some talented young students of the classics at Erfurt formed
themselves into a small coterie of their own. They enjoyed the
cheerful pleasures of youthful society, nor were poetry and wine
wanting, but the rules of decorum and good manners were not
overlooked. Several men, whom we shall come across afterwards in the
history of Luther, belonged to this circle;--for instance, John
Jager, known as Crotus Eubianus, the friend of Ulrich Hutten, and
George Spalatin (properly Burkhard), the trusted fellow-labourer of
the Reformer. Both had already been three years at the university
when Luther entered it. Three years after his arrival, came Eoban
Hess, the most brilliant, talented, and amiable of the young
Humanists and poets of Germany.

Such was the learned company to which Luther was introduced in the
philosophical faculty at Erfurt. So far, different avenues of
intellectual culture were opened to him. He threw himself into the
study of that philosophy in all its bearings, and, not content with
exploring the tangled and thorny paths of logic, took counsel how to
enjoy, as far as possible, the fruits of the newly-revived knowledge
of antiquity.

As regards the latter, he carried the study of Ovid, Virgil, and
Cicero, in particular, farther than was customary with the professed
students of Humanism, and the same with the poetical works of more
modern Latin writers. But his chief aim was not so much to master
the mere language of the classical authors, or to mould himself
according to their form, as to cull from their pages rich
apophthegms of human wisdom, and pictures of human life and of the
history of peoples. He learned to express pregnant and powerful
thoughts clearly and vigorously in learned Latin, but he was himself
well aware how much his language was wanting in the elegance,
refinement, and charm of the new school; indeed, this elegance he
never attempted to attain.

With the members of this circle of young Humanists, Luther was on
terms of personal friendship. Crotus was able to remind him in after
life how, in close intimacy, they had studied the fine arts together
at the university. But there is no mention of him in the numerous
letters and poems left to posterity by the aspiring Humanists at
Erfurt. He had made himself, Crotus adds, a name among his
companions as the 'learned philosopher' and the 'musician,' but he
never belonged to the 'poets,' which was the favourite title of the
young Humanists. Many, including even Melancthon, have lamented that
he was not more deeply imbued with the spirit of those 'noble arts
and letters,' which educate the mind, and would have tended to
soften his rugged nature and manner. But they would have been of
little value to him for the quick decision and energy required for
the war he had afterwards to wage. Those intellectual treasures and
enjoyments kept aloof not only from such contests, but also from
sharp and searching investigations of the highest questions of
religion and morality, and from the inward struggle, so often
painful, which they bring. As regards the merits of Humanism, which
Luther again, as a Reformer, eagerly acknowledged, we must not
forget how selfishly it withdrew itself from contact and communion
with German popular life, nor how it helped to create an exclusive
aristocracy of intellect, and allowed the noblest talents to become
as clumsy in their own natural mother-tongue, as they were clever in
the handling of foreign, acquired forms of art. Luther, in not
yielding further to those influences, remained a German.

Philosophy, then, engrossed him, and allowed him but little time for
other things. And in studying this, he sought to grapple with the
highest problems of the human understanding. These problems occupied
also the labours of the later Scholastics, however faulty were the
forms in which they clothed their ideas. At the same time, these
very forms attracted him, from the scope they gave to the exercise
of his natural acuteness and understanding. Disputation was his
great delight; and argumentative contests were then in fashion at
the universities. But in after years, as soon as the contents of the
Bible were opened to his inner understanding, and he recognised in
its pages the object of real theological knowledge, he regretted the
time and labour which he had wasted on those studies, and even spoke
of them with disgust.

Crotus has already told us of the sociable life that Luther led with his
friends. The love for music, which he had shown in school-days, he
continued to keep up, and indulged in it merrily with his fellow-students.
He had a high-pitched voice, not strong, but audible at a distance.
Besides singing, he learned also to play the lute, and this without a
master, and he employed his time in this way when laid up once by an
accident to his leg.

Such rapid progress did he make in his philosophical studies, that
in his third term he was able to attain his baccalaureate, the first
academical degree of the theological faculty. This degree, according
to the general custom of the universities, preceded that of Master,
corresponding to the present Doctor, of philosophy. The examination
for it, which Luther passed on Michaelmas day 1502, professed to
include the most important subjects in the province of philosophy.
But it could not have been very severe. The chief work came when he
took his next degree as Master, which was at the beginning of 1505.
He then experienced what afterwards, speaking of Erfurt's former
glory, he thus describes: 'What a moment of majesty and splendour
was that, when one took the degree of Master, and torches were
carried before, and honour was paid one. I consider that no temporal
or worldly joy can equal it.' Melancthon tells us, on the authority
of several of Luther's fellow-students, that his talent was then the
wonder of the whole university.

In accordance with the wish of his father and the advice of his
relations, he was now to fit himself for a lawyer. In this
profession, they thought, he would be able to turn his talents to
the best account, and make a name in the world. And in this
department also, the university of Erfurt could boast of one of the
most distinguished men of learning of that time, Henning Goede, who
was now in the prime of his vigour. Luther, accordingly, began to
attend the lectures on law, and his father allowed him to buy some
valuable books for that purpose, particularly a 'Corpus Juris.'

Meanwhile, however, in his inner religious life a change was being
prepared, which proved the turning-point of his career.

Luther himself, as we have seen, frequently pointed out in after
life the influences which, even from childhood, under the discipline
of home, the experiences of school, and the teaching of the Church,
combined to bring about this result. He could never shake off for
any length of time, even when in the midst of learned study or the
enjoyment of student life, the consciousness that he must be pious
and satisfy all the strict commands of God, that he must make good
all the shortcomings of his life, and reconcile himself with Heaven,
and that an angry Judge was throned above who threatened him with
damnation. Inner voices of this kind, in a man of sensitive and
tender conscience, were bound to assert themselves the more loudly
and earnestly, as, in his progress from youth to manhood, he
realised more fully his personal responsibility to God, and also his
personal independence. To religious observances, in which he had
been trained from childhood, Luther, as a student, remained
faithful. Regularly he began his day with prayer, and as regularly
attended mass. But of any new or comforting means of access to God
and salvation, he heard nothing, even here. In the town of Erfurt
there was an earnest and powerful preacher, named Sebastian
Weinmann, who denounced in incisive language the prevalent vices of
the day, and exposed the corruption of ecclesiastical life, and whom
the students thronged to hear. But even he had nothing to offer to
satisfy Luther's inward cravings of the soul. It was an episode in
his life when he once found a Latin Bible in the library of the
university. Though then nearly twenty years of age, he had never yet
seen a Bible. Now for the first time he saw how much more it
contained than was ever read out and explained in the churches. With
delight he perused the story of Samuel and his mother, on the first
pages that met his eye; though, as yet, he could make nothing more
out of the Sacred Book. It was not on account of any particular
offences, such as youthful excesses, that Luther feared the wrath of
God. Staunch Catholics at Erfurt, including even later avowed
enemies of the Reformer, who knew him there as a student, have never
hinted at anything of that sort against him. 'The more we wash our
hands, the fouler they become,' was a favourite saying of Luther's.
He referred, no doubt, to the numerous faults in thought, word, and
deed, which, in spite of human carefulness, every day brings, and
which, however insignificant they might seem to others, his
conscience told him were sins against God's holy law. Disquieting
questions, moreover, now arose in his mind, so sorely troubled with
temptation; and his subtle and penetrating intellect, so far from
being able to solve them, only plunged him deeper in distress. Was
it then really God's own will, he asked himself, that he should
become actually purged from sin and thereby be saved? Was not the
way to hell or the way to heaven already fixed for him immutably in
God's will and decree, by which everything is determined and
preordained? And did not the very futility of his own endeavours
hitherto prove that it was the former fate that hung over him? He
was in danger of going utterly astray in his conception of such a
God. Expressions in the Bible such as those which speak of serving
Him with fear became to him intolerable and hateful. He was seized
at times with fits of despair such as might have tempted him to
blaspheme God. It was this that he afterwards referred to as the
greatest temptation he had experienced when young.

His physical condition probably contributed to this gloomy frame of
mind. Already during his baccalaureate we hear of an illness of his,
which awakened in him thoughts of death. A friend, represented by
later tradition as an aged priest, said to him on his sick bed,
'Take courage; God will yet make you the means of comfort to many
others;' and these words impressed him strongly even then. An
accident also, which threatened to be fatal, must have tended to
alarm him. As he was travelling home at Easter, and was within an
hour's distance of Erfurt, he accidentally injured the main artery
of his leg with the rapier which, like other students, he carried at
his side. Whilst a friend who was with him had gone for a doctor,
and he was left alone, he pressed the wound tightly as he lay on his
back, but the leg continued to swell. In the anguish of death he
called upon the Virgin to help him. That night his terror was
renewed when the wound broke open afresh, and again he invoked the
Mother of God. It was during his convalescence after this accident
that he resolved upon learning to play the lute.

He was terribly distressed also, a few months after he had taken his
degree as Master, by the sudden death of one of his friends, not
further known to us, who was either assassinated or snatched away by
some other fatality.

Well might the thought even then have occurred to him, while so
disturbed in his mind and overpowered by feelings of sadness,
whether it would not be better to seek his cure in the monastic
holiness recommended by the Church, and to renounce altogether the
world and all the success he had hitherto aspired to. The young
Master of Arts, as he tells us himself in later years, was indeed a
sorrowful man.

Suddenly and offhand he was hurried into a most momentous decision.
Towards the end of June 1505, when several Church festivals fall
together, he paid a visit to his home at Mansfeld, in quest, very
possibly, of rest and comfort to his mind. Returning on July 2, the
feast of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary, he was already near
Erfurt, when, at the village of Stotternheim a terrific storm broke
over his head. A fearful flash of lightning darted from heaven
before his eyes. Trembling with fear, he fell to the earth, and
exclaimed, 'Help, Anna, beloved Saint! I will be a monk.' A few days
after, when quietly settled again at Erfurt, he repented having used
these words. But he felt that he had taken a vow, and that, on the
strength of that vow, he had obtained a hearing. The time, he knew,
was past for doubt or indecision. Nor did he think it necessary to
get his father's consent; his own conviction and the teaching of the
Church told him that no objection on the part of his father could
release him from his vow. Thus he severed himself at once from his
former life and companions. On July 16 he called his best friends
together to bid them leave. Once more they tried to keep him back;
he answered them, 'To-day you see me, and never again.' The next
day, that of St. Alexius, they accompanied him with tears to the
gates of the Augustinian convent in the town, which he thought was
to receive him for ever.

It is chiefly from what Luther himself has told us that we are
enabled to picture to ourselves this remarkable occurrence. Rumour,
and rumour only, has given the name of Alexius to that unknown
friend whose death so terrified him, and has represented this friend
as having been struck dead by lightning at his side.

The Luther of later days declared that his monastic vow was a
compulsory one, forced from him by terror and the fear of death.
But, at the same time, he never doubted that it was God who urged
him. Thus he said afterwards, 'I never thought to leave again the
convent. I was entirely dead to the world, until God thought that
the time had come.'




PART II.

_LUTHER AS MONK AND PROFESSOR, UNTIL HIS ENTRY ON THE WAR OF
REFORMATION--1505-1517._




CHAPTER I.

AT THE CONTENT AT ERFURT, TILL 1508.


Luther's resolve to follow a monastic life was arrived at suddenly,
as we have seen. But he weighed that resolve well in his mind, and
just as carefully considered the choice of the convent which he
entered.

The Augustinian monks, whose society he announced his intention to join,
belonged at that time to the most important monastic order in Germany.
So much had already been said with justice, in the way of complaint and
ridicule, of the depravation of monastic life, its idleness, hypocrisy,
and gross immorality, that many of them fancied that the solemn
renunciation of marriage and the world's goods, and the absolute
submission of their wills to the commands of their superiors and the
regulations of their Order, constituted true service to God, and raised
them to a peculiar position of holiness and merit. Outward discipline,
at all events, was universally insisted on. Among the German institutions
of this Order, whilst neglect and depravity had crept in elsewhere, a
large number had, for some time past, distinguished themselves by a
strict adherence to their old statutes, originating, it was supposed,
from their founder St. Augustine, but relating, at the best, to mere
matters of form. These institutions formed themselves into an
association, presided over by a Vicar of the Order, as he was called,
a Vicar-General for Germany. To this association belonged the convent
at Erfurt. Its inmates were treated with marked favour and respect by
the higher and educated classes in the town. They were said to be
active in preaching and in the care of souls, and to cultivate among
themselves the study of theology. Arnoldi, Luther's teacher,
belonged to this convent. As the Order possessed no property, but
all its members lived on alms, the monks went about the town and
country to collect gifts of money, bread, cheese, and other
victuals.

According to the rules of the Order, applications for admission were
not granted at once, but time was taken to see whether the applicant
was in earnest. After that he was received as a novice for at least
a year of probation. Until that year expired he was at liberty to
reconsider his wish.

Luther, before taking this final step, thought of his parents, with
a view to lay before them his resolve. The monastic brethren,
however, endeavoured to dissuade him, by reminding him how one must
leave father and mother for Christ and His Cross, and how no one who
has put his hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom
of God. Upon his writing to his father on the subject, the latter,
strong in the conviction of his paternal rights, flew into a passion
with his son. 'My father,' says Luther later, 'was near going mad
about it; he was ill satisfied, and would not allow it. He sent me
an answer in writing, addressing me in terms that showed his
displeasure, and renouncing all further affection. Soon after he
lost two of his sons by the plague. This epidemic had likewise
broken out so violently at Erfurt, that about harvesttime whole
crowds of students fled with their teachers from the town, and
Luther's father received news that his son Martin had also fallen a
victim. His friends then urged him that, if the report proved false,
he ought at least to devote his dearest to God, by letting this son
who still remained to him, enter the blessed Order of God's
servants. At last the father let himself be talked over; but he
yielded, as Luther informs us, with a sad and reluctant heart.

The young novice was welcomed among his brethren with hymns of joy,
and prayers, and other ceremonies. He was soon clothed in the garb
of his Order. Over a white woollen shirt he was made to wear a frock
and cowl of black cloth, with a black leathern girdle. Whenever he
put these on or off a Latin prayer was repeated to him aloud, that
the Lord might put off the old and put on the new man, fashioned
according to God. Above the cowl he received a scapulary, as it was
called--in other words, a narrow strip of cloth hanging over
shoulders, breast, and back, and reaching down to his feet. This was
meant to signify that he took upon him the yoke of Him who said, 'My
yoke is easy, and my burden is light.' At the same time, he was
handed over to a superior, appointed to take charge of the novices,
to introduce them to the practices of monastic devotion, to
superintend their conduct, and to watch over their souls.

Above all, it was held important that the monks should be taught to
subdue their own wills. They had to learn to endure, without
opposition, whatever was imposed upon them, and that, indeed, all
the more cheerfully, the more distasteful it appeared. Any tendency
to pride was overcome by enjoining immediately the most menial
offices on the offender. Friends of Luther tell us how, during his
first period of probation in particular, he had to perform the
meanest daily labour with brush and broom, and how his jealous
brethren took particular pleasure in seeing the proud young graduate
of yesterday trudge through the streets, with his beggar's wallet on
his back, by the side of another monk more accustomed to the work.
At first, we are told, the university interceded on his behalf as a
member of their own body, and obtained for him at least some
relaxation from his menial duties. From Luther's own lips, in after
life, we hear not a word of complaint about any special vexations
and burdens. As far as was possible, he did not allow them to daunt
him; nay, he longed for even severer exercises, to enable him to win
the favour of God. Even as a Reformer he remembered with gratitude
the 'Pedagogue,' or superintendent of his noviciate; he was a fine
old man, he tells us, a true Christian under that execrable cowl.

The novice found each day, as it went by, fully occupied with the
repetition of set prayers and the performance of other acts of
devotion. For the day and night together there were seven or eight
appointed hours of prayer, or _Horae_. During each of these the
brethren who were not yet priests had to say twenty-five
Paternosters with the Ave Maria, more ample formulas of prayer being
prescribed meanwhile to the priests. Luther was also introduced
already then to certain theological studies, which were under the
supervision of two learned fathers of the monastery. But what was of
the most importance for him was that a Bible--the Latin translation
then in general use in the Church--was put into his hands. Just
about this time, a new code of statutes had come in force for these
Augustinian convents, drawn up by Staupitz, the Vicar of the Order,
which enjoined, as matters of duty, assiduous reading, devout
attention to the Hours, and a zealous study of Holy Writ. Teachers
were wanting to Luther, and he found it very difficult to understand
all he read. But with genuine appetite he read himself, so to speak,
into his Bible, and clung to it ever afterwards.

At the end of his year of probation followed his solemn admission to
the Order. Faithfully 'unto death' did Luther then promise to live
according to the rules of the holy father Augustine, and to render
obedience to Almighty God, to the Virgin Mary, and to the prior of
the monastery. Before doing so, he put on anew the dress of his
Order, which had been consecrated with holy water and incense. The
prior received his vows and sprinkled holy water upon him as he
prostrated himself upon the ground in the form of a cross. When the
ceremony was over, his brethren congratulated him on being now like
an innocent child fresh from the baptism. He was then given a cell
of his own, with table, bedstead, and chair. It looked out upon the
cloistered yard of the monastery. It was destroyed by a fire on
March 7, 1872.

[Illustration: Fig. 4.--LUTHER'S CELL AT ERFURT.]

Luther now, by an inviolable promise, had bound himself to that
vocation through which he aspired to gain heaven. The means whereby
he hoped to realise his aspiration were abundantly provided for him
in his new home. If he sought the favour of the Virgin and of other
saints who should intercede for him before the judgment-seat of God
and Christ, he found at once in his Order a fervent worship of the
Virgin in particular, and all possible directions for her service.
The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, which Pius IX., in our
own days, first ventured to raise into a dogma of the Church, was
zealously defended by the Augustinians, and firmly maintained by
Luther himself, even after the beginning of his war of Reformation.
John Palz, one of his two theological teachers in the convent, wrote
profusely in honour of this doctrine, and described all Christians
as its spiritual children. Under its mantle, says Luther, he had to
creep into the presence of Christ. From the multitude of other
saints Luther selected a number as his constant helpers in need. We
notice particularly that among these, in addition to St. Anne and
St. George, was the Apostle Thomas; from him who himself had once
betrayed such cowardice and want of faith he might well hope for
peculiar sympathy. We have already mentioned the set prayers which
filled up a great portion of the day. He was required above all
things to learn and repeat them accurately, word by word.
Afterwards, as he tells us, the _Horae_ were read aloud after
the manner of magpies, jackdaws, or parrots.

If he wished in penitence to be freed from the sins which had
tormented him so long, and were a daily burden on his conscience,
the means of confession provided by the Church were always ready for
him in the convent. Once a week, at the least, every brother had to
attend the private confessional. All his sins, without exception,
had then to be revealed, if he wished to obtain for them
forgiveness. Luther endeavoured to unbosom to his father-confessor
all he had done from his youth up; but this was too much even for
the priest. It was by means of a complete inward contrition,
corresponding to the infinite burden of sin, that the person
confessing was to make himself worthy of the forgiveness which the
priest then testified to him by absolution. According to the
prevailing doctrine, however, what was wanting to the penitent in
completeness of contrition, was supplied by the Sacrament of
Absolution. But the punishments reserved by God for sinners were not
supposed to be ended by this absolution or forgiveness; these had to
be atoned for by peculiar observances, imposed by the priest, and by
prayer, alms, fasting, and other acts of mortification. For him who
was not forgiven, remained hell; for him who had not expiated his
sins, at least the fear and pains of purgatory. Such was and still
is the teaching of the Catholic Church.

Thus Luther was now summoned and directed to pursue methodically the
painful work of self-examination, which had oppressed him even
before he entered the convent, and to use all the means of grace
here offered to him. But the more he searched into his life and
thoughts, the more transgressions of God's will he found, and the
more grievously did they afflict his conscience. It was not, indeed,
as might have been imagined with a strong young man like himself, a
question of any sensual appetites, stimulated all the more by the
restraints of the convent. It was with the passions of anger,
hatred, and envy against his brethren and fellow-creatures, that he
had to reproach himself. Those who disliked him accused him in
particular of self-conceit, and of letting his temper break out too
easily. Faults of that description, in thought, word, or deed, were
to his own conscience as deadly sins, though to the priest who
listened to him at confession, they seemed too trifling to call for
enumeration. To these were added a number of smaller offences
against the ordinances of the Church and the convent, with reference
to outward observances and forms of worship, prayers, and so on, all
of which, insignificant as they must seem to us, the Church was
accustomed to treat as grievous sins. Finally, there arose in his
mind a constant restlessness, which made him look for sins where
none in reality existed. What he had said once before about washing
one's hands, that it only made them become fouler, he had now to
experience for himself. His contrition made him feel pain and fear
in abundance, but not so as to enable him to say to himself that it
purged the evil in the sight of God. Absolution was pronounced over
him again and again, but who ever gave him any assurance that he had
fulfilled its conditions, and therefore could really confide in its
efficacy? As for acts of penance, he willingly performed them, and,
indeed, did far more in the way of prayer, fasting, and vigil than
either the rules of the convent demanded or his father-confessor
enjoined. His body, from his hardy training as a child, was well
prepared for such austerities, but in spite of that, he had for a
long while to suffer from their results. Luther, in later years,
could well bear witness of himself that he had caused his own body
far more pain and torture with those practices of penance than all
his enemies and persecutors had caused to theirs.

What leisure remained, after his other monastic duties were over, he
devoted most industriously to the study of theology. He read, in
particular, the writings of the later Scholastic theologians, with
whom he had partly occupied himself during his philosophical course.
Of some of these, such as the Englishman Occam, in particular, whose
acuteness of reasoning he especially admired, there were writings
which, in reference to questions of external Church polity, might
have led him even then into paths of his own, if his mind had been
disposed for it. These writings were directed against the absolute
power of the Pope in the Church, and against his aggressions in the
territory of Empire and State. But any such aim was very far removed
from the monastic Order to which Luther had devoted himself, and
from the theologians who were here his teachers. Palz, whom we have
mentioned already, had especially distinguished himself by his
glorification of the Papal indulgences. Moreover, the whole Order,
and the German convents belonging to it in particular, were indebted
to the Pope for various acts of favour. Nor was Luther himself less
careful to hold firmly to the ordinances of the hierarchy, than to
avail himself of the means of salvation offered by the Church.

What at all times in his theological studies enlisted his warmest
personal interest was the difficult question, how sinners could
obtain everlasting salvation. And all that he came to read on that
subject in the writings of those theologians, and to hear from his
learned teachers in the convent, served only to increase his
fruitless inward wrestlings, and his anxiety and sense of need. The
great father of the Church, from whom his Order was named, and to
whom their rules were ascribed, had once, on the ground of his own
experiences of the struggle with sin and the flesh, laid down with
great force, and in a triumphant controversy with his opponents, the
doctrine that, as the Apostle says, salvation depends not on the
conduct of man, but on the grace of God, not on the will of man, but
on the willingness of God to pardon, Who alone transforms the
sinner, and grants him the power and the will for good. But any
knowledge or understanding of this theology of Augustine was as
strange to his own Order as to the Scholastics. It was taught,
indeed, that heaven was too high for man to attain to otherwise than
by the grace of God. But it was also taught that the sinner, by his
own natural strength, both could and ought to do enough in God's
sight to earn that grace which would then help him further on the
way to heaven. He who had thus obtained that grace, it was said,
felt himself enabled and impelled to do even more than God's
commands require. Reference to the bitter passion and death of the
Saviour was not omitted, it is true, by the theologians with whom
Luther had to do, and frequently, as, for example, by his teacher
Palz, was impressed on Christian hearts in words full of feeling.
But the chief stress was laid, not on the redeeming love on which
man could rest his confident assurance, but on the necessity of
offering oneself to Him who had offered Himself for man, and of
submitting even to the pains of death, in imitation of Him, and to
pay the penalty of sin. In this way, again and again, Luther saw
before him claims on the part of God which he could never hope to
satisfy. His sorest trial was caused by the thought that God Himself
should have the will to let him fail after all his fruitless
efforts, and finally be numbered with the lost. And it was just with
the later Scholastics that he found, not indeed a theory according
to which God had simply predestined a part of mankind to perdition,
but a general conception of God which would represent Him as a Being
not so much of holy love, as of arbitrary, absolute will.

Luther spent two years in the convent amidst these strivings and
inward sufferings. His spiritual life, as it was called, of strict
discipline and asceticism was quoted in other convents as a model
for imitation. Now and then, indeed, he felt himself puffed up with
a sense of superior sanctity--'a proud saint,' as he afterwards
called himself. But humility was the ruling temper of his mind.
Frequently, in after life, he described his condition as a warning
to others. Thus he speaks of the disciples of the law, who try by
their own works, by constant labour, by wearing shirts of hair, by
self-scourging, by fasting, by every means, in short, to satisfy the
law. Such a one, he tells us, he himself had been. But he had also
learned by experience, he adds, what happens when a man is tempted,
and death or danger frightens him; how he despairs, nay, would fly
from God as from the devil, and would rather that there were no God
at all. So great became his inward sufferings, that he thought both
body and soul must succumb. Thus he tells us later on, when speaking
of the torments of purgatory, of a man, who doubtless was himself,
how he had often endured such agony, only momentary it is true, but
so hellish in its violence, that no tongue could express nor pen
describe it; that, had it lasted longer, even for half an hour, or
only five minutes, he must have died then and there, and his bones
have been consumed to ashes. He himself saw afterwards in these
pains, visitations of a special kind, such as God does not send to
everyone. But they served him then as a proof, and one of universal
application, that that school of the law, as he called it, would
bring no real holiness either to others or himself, but must teach a
man to despair of himself and of any claims or merits of his own.
And, indeed, as we know from all that had gone before, it was not
simply the external barrenness of the regulations of Church and
convent, or a sense of imperfect fulfilment on his part, that caused
his restlessness of conscience; what gave him the deepest anxiety
and harassed him the most were those very inward stirrings, which
revealed to him his opposition to God's eternal demands, the
fulfilment of which he thought indispensable for reconciliation to
God.

His experiences at the convent led him to the perception of those
principles which formed the groundwork of his preaching as a
Reformer. From his exemplary conduct there, and his wonderful and
active conversion, he was compared to St. Paul. In quite another
sense he resembled the great Apostle. The latter, when a Pharisee,
had laboured to justify himself before God by the law and the
prophets. 'O wretched man that I am,' Luther there must have
exclaimed of himself, and afterwards looking back on his
experiences, have counted all as 'dung and loss' in order to be
justified rather by faith through the grace of God and the Saviour,
and to become free and holy.

Just as, meanwhile, inside the Catholic Church, the laws, dogmas,
and School theories relating to the means of salvation, were never
able to supplant entirely the thought of the simple testimony of the
Bible, and of the Church's own confession of God's forgiving love
and His redeeming and absolving grace, or to prevent simple, pious
Christians from seeking here a refuge in the inmost depths of their
hearts, so now, at this very convent of Erfurt, where Luther's
inward development in those theories and dogmas had reached so high
a pitch, he received also the first serious impressions in the other
direction. They found with him a difficult and gradual entrance,
from the energy and consistency with which he had taken up his
original standpoint. But with all the more energy, and with perfect
consistency, did he abandon that standpoint, when new light dawned
upon him from his new conception of the truth.

Luther's teacher at the convent, by whom we shall have to understand
the superintendent of the novices, had already made a deep
impression upon him, by reminding him of the words of the Apostles'
Creed about the forgiveness of sins, and representing to him, what
Luther had never ventured to apply to himself, that the Lord himself
had commanded us to hope. For this he referred him to a passage in
the writings of St. Bernard, where that fervent preacher, imbued
though he was in his theology with the Church notions of the middle
ages, insists on the importance of this very faith in God's
forgiveness, and appeals to the words of St. Paul that man is
justified by grace through faith. Remarks of this kind sank into
Luther's mind, and took root there, though their fruit only ripened
by degrees. Of his teacher Arnoldi, also, he spoke with admiration
and gratitude, for the comfort he had known how to impart to him.

But the one who at this time acquired by far the most potent,
wholesome, and lasting influence upon Luther, was the Vicar-General,
John von Staupitz. He was a remarkable man, of a noble and pious
disposition, and a refined and far-seeing mind. A master of the
forms of Scholastic theology, he was also deeply read in Scripture;
he made its teachings the special standard of his life, and was
careful to enjoin others to do the same. He strove after an inward,
practical life in God, not confined to mere forms and observances.
Sharp conflicts and controversies were not to his taste; but mildly
and discreetly he sought to plant, in his own field of work, and to
leave what he had planted in God's name to grow up.

[Illustration: FIG. 5.--STAUPITZ. (From the Portrait in St. Peter's
Convent at Salzburg.)]

It was during his visits to Erfurt that Staupitz came in contact
with the gifted, thoughtful, and melancholy young monk. He treated
Luther, both in conversation and letter, with fatherly confidence,
and Luther unlocked to him, as to a father, his heart and its cares.
Upon his wishing to confess to him all his many small sins, Staupitz
insisted first on distinguishing between what were really sins, and
what were not; as for self-imagined sins, or such a patchwork of
offences as Luther laid before him, he would not listen to them;
that was not the kind of seriousness, he would say, that God wished
to have. Luther tormented himself with a system of penance,
consisting of actual pain, punishments, and expiations. Staupitz
taught him that repentance, in the Scriptural meaning, was an inward
change and conversion, which must proceed from the love of holiness
and of God; and that, for peace with God, he must not look to his
own good resolutions to lead a better life, which he had not the
strength to carry out, or to his own acts, which could never satisfy
the law of God, but must trust with patience to God's forgiving
mercy, and learn to see in Christ, whom God permitted to suffer for
the sins of man, not the threatening Judge, but rather the loving
Saviour. To Christ above all he referred him, when Luther pondered
on the secret eternal will of God, and was near despair. God's
eternal purpose, he would say, shines clearly in the wounds of
Christ. Did his temptations not cease, he bade him see in them means
to draw him to the love of God. The thoughts of Staupitz turned in
this on the temptations to pride, which might themselves be the
means of curing that pride, and on the great things for which God
wished to prepare him. In a simple, practical manner, and from the
experiences of his own life, he would thus counsel and converse with
Luther. During the long course of a confidential intercourse with
his friend, his own theology in later years became visibly
developed, and his pupil of earlier days became afterwards his
teacher. But Luther, both then and throughout his life, spoke of him
with grateful affection as his spiritual father, and thanked God
that he had been helped out of his temptations by Dr. Staupitz,
without whom he would have been swallowed up in them and perished.

The first firm ground, however, for his convictions and his inner
life, and the foundation for all his later teachings and works, was
found by Luther in his own persevering study of Holy Writ. In this
also he was encouraged by Staupitz, who must, however, have been
amazed at his indefatigable industry and zeal. For the
interpretation of the Bible the means at his command were meagre in
the extreme. He himself explored in all cases to their very centre
the truths of Christian salvation and the highest questions of moral
and religious life. A single passage of importance would occupy his
thoughts for days. Significant words, which he was not able yet to
comprehend, remained fixed in his mind, and he carried them silently
about with him. Thus it was, for example, as he tells us, with the
text in Ezekiel, 'I will not the death of a sinner,' a passage which
engrossed his earnest thoughts.

It was the third and last year of his monastic life at Erfurt that
brought with it, as far as we see, the decisive turn for his inward
struggles and labours.

In his second year, on May 2, 1507, he received, by command of his
superiors, his solemn ordination as a priest. It was then for the
first time since his entry into the convent against his father's
will, that the latter saw him again. A convenient day was expressly
arranged for him, to enable him to take part personally at the
solemnity. He rode into Erfurt with a stately train of friends and
relations. But in his opinion of the step taken by his son he
remained unalterably firm. At the entertainment which was given in
the convent to the young priest, the latter tried to extort from him
a friendly remark upon the subject, by asking him why he seemed so
angry, when monastic life was such a high and holy thing. His father
replied in the presence of all the company, 'Learned brothers, have
you not read in Holy Writ, that a man must honour father and
mother?' And on being reminded how his son had been called, nay,
compelled to this new life by heaven, 'Would to God,' he answered,
'it were no spirit of the devil!' He let them understand that he was
there, eating and drinking, as a matter of duty, but that he would
much rather be away.

To Luther, however, the post of high dignity to which he was now
promoted brought new fear and anxiety. He had now to appear before God
as a priest; to have Christ's Body, the very Christ Himself, and God
actually present before him at the mass on the altar; to offer the
Body of Christ as a sacrifice to the living and eternal God. Added
to this, there were a multitude of forms to observe, any oversight
wherein was a sin. All this so overpowered him at his first mass,
that he could scarcely remain at the altar; he was well-nigh, as he
said afterwards, a dead man.

With these priestly functions he united an assiduous devotion to his
saints. By reading mass every morning, he invoked twenty-one
particular saints, whom he had chosen as his helpers, taking three
at a time, so as to include them all within the week.

As regards the most important problems of life, his study of the
Scriptures gradually revealed to him the light which determined his
future convictions. The path had already been pointed out to him by
the words of St. Paul quoted by St. Bernard. When looking back, at
the close of his life, on this his inward development, he tells us
how perplexed he had been by what St. Paul said of the
'righteousness of God' (Rom. i. 17). For a long time he troubled
himself about the expression, connecting it as he did, according to
the ruling theology of the day, with God's righteousness in His
punishment of sinners. Day and night he pondered over the meaning
and context of the Apostle's words. But at length, he adds, God in
His great mercy revealed to him that what St. Paul and the gospel
proclaimed was a righteousness given freely to us by the grace of
God, Who forgives those who have faith in His message of mercy, and
justifies them, and gives them eternal life. Therewith the gate of
heaven was opened to him, and thenceforth the whole remaining
purport of God's word became clearly revealed. Still it was only by
degrees, during the latter portion of his stay at Erfurt, and even
after that, that he arrived at this full perception of the truth.

After their ordination the monks received the title of fathers.
Luther was not as yet relieved of the duty of going out with a
brother in quest of alms. But he was soon employed in the more
important business of the Order, as, for instance, in transactions
with a high official of the Archbishop, in which he displayed great
zeal for the priesthood and for his Order.

With the Scholastic theology of his time, albeit even now in a path
marked out by himself, his keen understanding and happy memory had
enabled him to become thoroughly familiar. He was scarcely twenty-five
years old when Staupitz, occupied with making provision for the
newly-founded university of Wittenberg, recognised in him the right
man for a professorial chair.




CHAPTER II.

CALL TO WITTENBERG. JOURNEY TO ROME.


Wittenberg was at that time the youngest of the German universities.
It was founded in 1502 by the Elector Frederick the Wise of Saxony,
a man pre-eminent among the German princes, not only from his
prudence and circumspection, but also from his faithful care for his
country, his genuine love for knowledge, and his deep religious
feeling. His country was not a rich one. Wittenberg itself was a
poor, badly-built town of about three thousand inhabitants. But the
Elector showed his wisdom above all by his right choice of men whom
he consulted in his work, and to whose hands he entrusted its
conduct. These, in their turn, were very careful to select talented
and trustworthy teachers for the institution, which was to depend
for its success on the attractions offered by pure learning, and not
those of outward show and a luxurious style of life among the
students. The supervision of theology was entrusted by Frederick to
Staupitz, whom personally he held in high esteem, and who, together
with the learned and versatile Martin Pollich of Melrichstadt, had
already been the most active in his service in promoting the
foundation of the university. Staupitz himself entered the
theological faculty as its first Dean. A constant or regular
application to his duties was rendered impossible by the
multifarious business of his Order, and the journeys it entailed.
But in his very capacity of Vicar-General, he strove to supply the
theological needs of the university, and, by the means of education
thus offered, to assist the members of his Order. Already before
this the Augustinian monks had had a settlement at Wittenberg,
though little is known about it. A handsome convent was built for
them in 1506. In a short time young inmates of this convent, and
afterwards more monks of the same Order who came from other parts,
entered the university as students and took academical degrees. The
patron saint of the University was, next to the Virgin Mary, St.
Augustine. Trutvetter of Erfurt became professor of theology at
Wittenberg in 1507. It was early in the winter of 1508-9, when
Staupitz, who had been re-elected for the second time, was still
dean of the theological faculty, that Luther was suddenly and
unexpectedly summoned thither. He had to obey not merely the advice
and wish of an affectionate friend, but the will of the principal of
his Order.

As hitherto he had simply graduated as a master in philosophy, and
had not qualified himself academically for a professor of theology,
Luther at first was only called on to lecture on those philosophical
subjects which, as we have seen, occupied his studies at Erfurt.
Theologians, it is true, had been entrusted with these duties, just
as, here at Wittenberg, the first dean of the philosophical faculty
was a theologian, and, in addition to that indeed, a member of the
Augustinian Order. But from the beginning, Luther was anxious to
exchange the province of philosophy for that of theology, meaning
thereby, as he expressed it, that theology which searched into the
very kernel of the nut, the heart of the wheat, the marrow of the
bones. So far, he was already confident of having found a sure
ground for his Christian faith, as well as for his inner life, and
having found it, of being able to begin teaching others. Indeed,
while busily engaged in his first lectures on philosophy, he was
preparing to qualify himself for his theological degrees. Here also
he had to begin with his baccalaureate, comprising in fact three
different steps in the theological faculty, each of which had to be
reached by an examination and disputation. The first step was that
of bachelor of biblical knowledge, which qualified him to lecture on
the Holy Scriptures. The second, or that of a _Sententiarius_,
was necessary for lecturing on the chief compendium of mediaeval
School-theology, the so-called Sentences of Peter Lombardus, the due
performance of which duly led to the attainment of the third step.
Above the baccalaureate, with its three grades, came the rank of
licentiate, which gave the right to teach the whole of theology, and
lastly the formal, solemn admission as doctor of theology. Already,
on March 9, 1509, Luther had attained his first step in the
baccalaureate. At the end of six months he was qualified, by the
statutes of the university, to reach the second step, and in the
course of the next six months he actually reached it.

But before gaining his new rights as a _Sententiarius_, he was
summoned back by the authorities of his Order to Erfurt. The reason
we do not know; we only know that he entered the theological faculty
there as professor, receiving, at the same time, the recognition of
the academical rank he had acquired at Wittenberg. At Erfurt he
remained about three terms, or eighteen months. After that he
returned to the university at Wittenberg. Trutvetter, towards the
end of 1510, had received a summons back to Erfurt from Wittenberg.
The void thus caused by his summons away may have had something to
do with Luther's return thither. At all events his position at
Wittenberg was now vastly different from that which he had
previously held. No theologian, his superior in years or fame, was
any longer above him.

Ere long, however, Luther received another commission from his
Order; a proof of the confidence reposed also in his zeal for the
Order, his practical understanding, and his energy. It was about a
matter in which, by Staupitz's desire, other Augustinian convents in
Germany were to enter into a union with the reformed convents and
the Vicar of the Order. As opposition had been raised, Luther in
1511, no doubt at the suggestion of Staupitz, was sent on this
matter to Rome, where the decision was to be given. The journey
thither and back may easily have taken six weeks or more. According
to rule and custom, two monks were always sent out together, and a
lay-brother was given them for service and company. They used to
make their way on foot. In Rome the brethren of the Order were
received by the Augustinian monastery of Maria del Popolo. Thus
Luther went forth to the great capital of the world, to the throne
of the Head of the Church. He remained there four weeks, discharging
his duties, and surrounded by all her monuments and relics of
ecclesiastical interest.

No definite account of the result of the business he had to
transact, has been handed down to us. We only learn that Staupitz,
the Vicar of the Order, was afterwards on friendly relations with
the convents which had opposed his scheme, and that he refrained
from urging any more unwelcome innovations. For us, however, the
most important parts of this journey are the general observations
and experiences which Luther made in Italy, and, above all, at the
Papal chair itself. He often refers to them later in his speeches
and writings, in the midst of his work and warfare, and he tells us
plainly how important to him afterwards was all that he there saw
and heard.

The devotion of a pilgrim inspired him as he arrived at the city
which he had long regarded with holy veneration. It had been his
wish, during his troubles and heart-searchings, to make one day a
regular and general confession in that city. When he came in sight
of her, he fell upon the earth, raised his hands, and exclaimed
'Hail to thee, holy Rome!' She was truly sanctified, he declared
afterwards, through the blessed martyrs, and their blood which had
flowed within her walls. But he added, with indignation at himself,
how he had run like a crazy saint on a pilgrimage through all the
churches and catacombs, and had believed what turned out to be a
mass of rank lies and impostures. He would gladly then have done
something for the welfare of his friends' souls by mass-reading and
acts of devotion in places of particular sanctity. He felt downright
sorry, he tells us, that his parents were still alive, as he might
have performed some special act to release them from the pains of
purgatory.

But in all this he found no real peace of mind: on the contrary, his
soul was stirred to the consciousness of another way of salvation
which had already begun to dawn upon him. Whilst climbing, on his
knees and in prayer, the sacred stairs which were said to have led
to the Judgment-hall of Pilate, and whither, to this day,
worshippers are invited by the promise of Papal absolutions, he
thought of the words of St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans (i.
17), 'The just shall live by faith. As for any spiritual
enlightenment and consolation, he found none among the priests and
monks of Rome. He was struck indeed with the external administration
of business and the nice arrangement of legal matters at the Papal
see. But he was shocked by all that he observed of the moral and
religious life and doings at this centre of Christianity; the
immorality of the clergy, and particularly of the highest
dignitaries of the Church, who thought themselves highly virtuous if
they abstained from the very grossest offences; the wanton levity
with which the most sacred names and things were treated; the
frivolous unbelief, openly expressed among themselves by the
spiritual pastors and masters of the Church. He complains of the
priests scrambling through mass as if they were juggling; while he
was reading one mass, he found they had finished seven: one of them
once urged him to be quick by saying 'Get on, get on, and make haste
to send her Son home to our Lady.' He heard jokes even made about
the priests when consecrating the elements at mass, repeating in
Latin the words 'Bread thou art, and bread thou shalt remain: wine
thou art, and wine thou shalt remain.' He often remarked in later
years how they would apply in derision the term 'good Christian' to
those who were stupid enough to believe in Christian truth, and to
be scandalised by anything said to the contrary. No one, he
declared, would believe what villanies and shameful doings were then
in vogue, if they had not seen and heard them with their own eyes
and ears. But the truth of his testimony is confirmed by those very
men whose life and conduct so shocked and revolted him. He must have
been indignant, moreover, at the contemptuous tone in which the
'stupid Germans' or 'German beasts' were spoken of, as persons
entitled to no notice or respect at Rome.

He was astonished at the pomp and splendour which surrounded the
Pope when he appeared in public. He speaks, as an eye-witness, of
the processions, like those of a triumphing monarch. But the
horrible stories were then still fresh at Rome of the late Pope
Alexander and his children, the murder of his brother, the
poisoning, the incest, and other crimes. Of the then Pope, Julius
II., Luther heard nothing reported, except that he managed his
temporal affairs with energy and shrewdness, made war, collected
money, and contracted and dissolved, entered into and broke,
political alliances. At the time of Luther's visit, he was just
returning from a campaign in which he had conducted in person the
sanguinary siege of a town. Luther did not fail to observe that he
had established in the sacred city an excellent body of police, and
that he caused the streets to be kept clean, so that there was not
much pestilence about. But he looked upon him simply as a man of the
world, and afterwards fulminated against him as a strong man of
blood.

All these experiences at Rome did not, however, then avail to shake
Luther's faith in the authority of the hierarchy which had such
unworthy ministers; though, later on, when he was forced to attack
the Papacy itself, they made it easier for him to shape his judgment
and conclusions. 'I would not have missed seeing Rome,' he then
declared, 'for a hundred thousand florins, for I might then have
felt some apprehension that I had done injustice to the Pope. But as
we see, we speak.'

During his visit he also roamed about among the ruins of the ancient
capital of the world, and was astonished at the remains of bygone
worldly splendour. The works of the new art which Pope Julius was
then beginning to call into existence, did not appear to have
particularly engaged his attention. The Pope was then progressing
with the building of the new Church of St. Peter. The indulgence, of
which the proceeds were to enable the completion of this vast
undertaking, led afterwards to the struggle between the Augustinian
monk and the Papacy.




CHAPTER III.

LUTHER AS THEOLOGICAL TEACHER, TO 1517


On his return to his Wittenberg convent, Luther was made sub-prior.
At the university he entered fully upon all the rights and duties of
a teacher of theology, having been made licentiate and doctor. Here
again it was Staupitz, his friend and spiritual superior, who urged
this step: Luther's own wish was to leave the university and devote
himself entirely to the office of his Order. The Elector Frederick,
who had been struck with Luther by hearing one of his sermons, took
this, the first opportunity, of showing him personal sympathy, by
offering to defray the expenses of his degree. Luther was reluctant
to accept this, and years after he was fond of showing his friends a
pear-tree in the courtyard of the convent, under which he discussed
the matter with Staupitz, who, however, insisted on his demand. He
must have felt the more sensibly the responsibility of his new task,
from his own personal strivings after new and true theological
light. It was a satisfaction to him afterwards, amidst the endless
and unexpected labours and contests which his vocation brought with
it, to reflect that he had undertaken it, not from choice, but so
entirely from obedience. 'Had I known what I now know,' he would
exclaim in his later trials and dangers, 'not ten horses would ever
have dragged me into it.'

After the necessary preliminaries and customary forms, he received
on October 4, 1512, the rights of a licentiate, and on the 18th and
19th was solemnly admitted to the degree of doctor. As licentiate he
promised to defend with all his power the truth of the gospel, and
he must have had this oath particularly in his mind when he
afterwards appealed to the fact of his having sworn on his beloved
Bible to preach it faithfully and in its purity. His oath as doctor,
which followed, bound him to abstain from doctrines condemned by the
Church and offensive to pious ears. Obedience to the Pope was not
required at Wittenberg, as it was at other universities.

Others, besides Staupitz, expected from the beginning something
original and remarkable from the new professor. Pollich, the first
great representative of Wittenberg in its early days, and who died
in the following year, said of him, 'This monk will revolutionise
the whole system of Scholastic teaching.' He seems, like others whom
we hear of afterwards, to have been especially struck with the depth
of Luther's eyes, and thought that they must reveal the working of a
wonderful mind.

A new theology, in fact, presented itself at once to Luther in the
subject which, as doctor, he chose and exclusively adhered to in his
lectures. This was the Bible, the very book of which the study was
so generally undervalued in School-theology, which so many doctors
of theology scarcely knew, and which was usually so hastily forsaken
for those Scholastic sentences and a corresponding exposition of
ecclesiastical dogmas.

Luther began with lectures upon the Psalms. It is his first work on
theology which has remained to posterity. We still possess a Latin
text of the Psalter furnished with running notes for his lectures (a
copy of it is given in these pages), and also his own manuscript of
those lectures themselves. In these also he states that his task was
imposed upon him by a distinct command: he frankly confessed that as
yet he was insufficiently acquainted with the Psalms; a comparison
of his notes and lectures shows further, how continually he was
engaged in prosecuting these studies. His explanations indeed fall
short of what is required at present, and even of what he himself
required later on. He still follows wholly the mediaeval practice of
thinking it necessary to find, throughout the words of the Psalmist,
pictorial allegories relating to Christ, His work of salvation, and
His people. But he was thus enabled to propound, while explaining
the Psalms, the fundamental principles of that doctrine of salvation
which for some years past had taken such hold on his inmost thoughts
and so engrossed his theological studies. And in addition to the
fruits of his researches in Scripture, especially in the writings of
St. Paul, we observe the use he made of the works of St. Augustine.
His acquaintance with the latter did not commence until years after
he had joined the Order, and had acquired independently an intimate
knowledge of the Bible. It was mainly through them that he was
enabled to comprehend the teaching of St. Paul, and to find how the
doctrine of Divine grace, which we have already alluded to, was
based on Pauline authority. Thus the founder of the Order became, as
it were, his first teacher among human theologians.

From his lectures on the Psalms Luther proceeded a few years later
to an exposition of those Epistles which were to him the main source
of his new belief in God's mercy and justice, namely, the Epistles
to the Romans and the Galatians.

In the convent also at Wittenberg, the direction of the theological
studies of the brethren was entrusted to Luther. His fellow-labourer
in this field was his friend John Lange, who had been with him also
in the convent at Erfurt. He was distinguished for a rare knowledge
of Greek, and was therefore a valuable help even to Luther, to whom
he was indebted in turn for a prolific advance in learning of
another kind. Closely allied with Luther also was Wenzeslaus Link,
the prior of the convent, who obtained his degree as doctor of the
theological faculty a year before him. These men were drawn together
by similarity of ideas, and by a strong and enduring personal
friendship; they had possibly been acquainted at the school at
Magdeburg. The new life and activity awakened at Wittenberg
attracted clever young monks more and more from a distance. The
convent, not yet quite finished, had scarcely room enough for them,
or means for their maintenance.

When in 1515 the associated convents had to choose at Gotha, on a
chapter-day, their new authorities, Luther was appointed, Staupitz
being still Vicar-General, the Provincial Vicar for Meissen and
Thuringia. He obtained by this office the superintendence of eleven
convents, to which in the next year he paid the customary
visitation. In person, by word of mouth, and equally by letters, we
see him labouring with self-sacrificing zeal for the spiritual
welfare of those committed to his care, for the correction of bad
monks, for the comfort of those oppressed with temptations, as also
for the temporal and domestic, and even the legal business of the
different convents.

In addition to his academical duties, he performed double service as
a preacher. In the first place he had to preach in his convent, as
he had already done at Erfurt. When the new convent at Wittenberg
was opened, the church was not yet ready; and in a small, poor,
tumbledown chapel close by, made up of wood and clay, he began to
preach the gospel and unfold the power of his eloquence. When,
shortly after, the town-priest of Wittenberg became weak and ailing,
his congregation pressed Luther to occupy the pulpit in his place.
He performed these different duties with alacrity, energy, and
power. He would preach sometimes daily for a week together,
sometimes even three times in one day; during Lent in 1517 he gave
two sermons every day in addition to his lectures at the university.
The zeal which he displayed in proclaiming the gospel to his hearers
in church, was quite as new and peculiar to himself as the lofty
interest he imparted to his professorial lectures on the Scriptures.

Melancthon says of these first lectures by Luther on the Psalms and
the Epistle to the Romans, that after a long and dark night, a new
day was now seen to dawn on Christian doctrine. In these lectures
Luther pointed out the difference between the law and the gospel. He
refuted the errors, then predominant in the Church and schools, the
old teaching of the Pharisees, that men could earn forgiveness by
their works, and that mere outward penance would justify them in the
sight of God. Luther called men back to the Son of God; and just as
John the Baptist pointed to the Lamb of God who bore our sins, so
Luther showed how, for his Son's sake, God in His mercy will forgive
us our sins, and how we must accept such mercy in faith.

In fact, the whole groundwork of that Christian faith on which the
inner life of the Reformer rests, for which he fought, and which gave
him strength and fresh courage for the fight, lies already before us
in his lectures and sermons during those years, and increases in
clearness and decision. The 'new day' had, in reality, broken upon
his eyes. That fundamental truth which he designated later as the
article by which a Christian Church must stand or fall, stands here
already firmly established, before he in the least suspects that it
would lead him to separate from the Catholic Church, or that his
adopting it would occasion a reconstruction of the Church. The primary
question around which everything else centred, remained always this--how
he, the sinful man, could possibly stand before God and obtain salvation.
With this came the question as to the righteousness of God; and now he
was no longer terrified by the avenging justice of God, wherewith He
threatens the sinner; but he recognised and saw the meaning of that
righteousness declared in the gospel (Rom. i. 17, iii. 25), by which
the merciful God justifies the faithful, in that He of His own grace
re-establishes them in His sight, and effects an inward change, and
lets them thenceforth, like children, enjoy His fatherly love and
blessing. Luther, in teaching now that justification proceeds from
faith, rejects, above all, the notion that man by any outward acts
of his own can ever atone for his sins and merit the favour of God.
He reminds us, moreover, with regard to moral works especially, that
good fruits always presuppose a good tree, upon which alone they can
grow, and that, in like manner, goodness can only proceed from a
man, if and when, in his inward being, his inward thoughts,
tendencies, and feelings, he has already become good; he must be
righteous himself, in a word, before he works righteousness. But it
is faith, and faith alone, which in the inward man determines real
communion with God. Then only, and gradually, can a man's own inner
being, trusting to God, and by means of His imparted grace, become
truly renovated and purged from sin. Had Luther, indeed, made
salvation depend on such a righteousness, derived from a man's own
works, as should satisfy the holy God, the very consciousness of his
own sins and infirmities would have made him despair of such
salvation. Moreover, all the working of the Holy Spirit, and His
gifts in our hearts, presuppose that we are already participators of
the forgiving mercy and grace of God, and are received into
communion with Him. To this, as Luther teaches after St. Paul, we
can only attain through faith in the joyful message of His mercy, in
His compassion, and in His Son, whom He has sent to be our Redeemer.
Thus he speaks of faith, even in his earliest notes on the Psalter,
as the keystone, the marrow, the short road. The worst enemy, in his
sight, is self-righteousness; he confesses having had to combat it
himself.

Herein also Luther found the theology of St. Augustine in accord
with the testimony of the great Apostle. While studying that
theology, his conviction of the power of sin and the powerlessness
of man's own strength to overcome it, grew more and more decided.
But St. Paul taught him to understand that belief somewhat
differently to St. Augustine. To Luther it was not merely a
recognition of objective truths or historical facts. What he
understood by it, with a clearness and decision which are wanting in
St. Augustine's teaching, was the trusting of the heart in the mercy
offered by the message of salvation, the personal confidence in the
Saviour Christ and in that which He has gained for us. With this
faith, then, and by the merits and mediation of the Saviour in whom
this faith is placed, we stand before God, we have already the
assurance of being known by God and of being saved, and we are
partakers of the Holy Spirit, who sanctifies more and more the inner
man. According to St. Augustine, on the contrary, and to all
Catholic theologians who followed his teaching, what will help us
before God is rather that inward righteousness which God Himself
gives to man by His Holy Spirit and the workings of His grace, or,
as the expression was, the righteousness infused by God. The good,
therefore, already existing in a Christian is so highly esteemed
that he can thereby gain merit before the just God and even do more
than is required of him. But to a conscience like Luther's, which
applied so severe a standard to human virtue and works, and took
such stern count of past and present sins, such a doctrine could
bring no assurance of forgiveness, mercy, and salvation. It was in
faith alone that Luther had found this assurance, and for it he
needed no merits of his own. The happy spirit of the child of God,
by its own free impulse, would produce in a Christian the genuine
good fruit pleasing in God's sight. It was a long time before Luther
himself became aware how he differed on this point from his chief
teacher amongst theologians. But we see the difference appear at the
very root and beginning of his new doctrine of salvation; and it
comes out finally, based on apostolic authority, clear and sharp, in
the theology of the Reformer.

And inseparably connected with this is what Melancthon said about
the Law and the Gospel. Luther himself always declared in later
days, that the whole understanding of the truth of Christian
salvation, as revealed by God, depends on a right perception of the
relation of one to the other, and this very relation he explained,
shortly before the beginning of his contest with the Church, upon
the authority of St. Paul's Epistles. The Law is to him the epitome
of God's demands with regard to will and works, which still the
sinner cannot fulfil. The Gospel is the blessed offer and
announcement of that forgiving mercy of God which is to be accepted
in simple faith. By the Law says Luther, the sinner is judged,
condemned, killed; he himself had to toil and disquiet himself under
it, as though he were in the hands of a gaoler and executioner. The
Gospel first lifts up those who are crushed, and makes them alive by
the faith which the good message awakens in their hearts. But God
works in both; in the one, a work which to Him, the God of love,
would properly be strange; in the other, His own work of love, for
which, however, he has first prepared the sinner by the former.

Whilst Luther was prosecuting his labours in this path, he became
acquainted in 1516 with the sermons of the pious, deep-thinking
theologian Tauler, who died in 1361; and at the same time an old
theological tract, written not long after Tauler, fell into his
hands, to which he gave the name of 'German Theology.' Now for the
first time, and in the person of their noblest representatives, he
was confronted with the Christian and theological views which were
commonly designated as the practical German mysticism of the middle
ages. Here, instead of the value which the mediaeval Church, so
addicted to externals, ascribed to outward acts and ordinances, he
found the most devout absorption in the sentiments of real Christian
religion. Instead of the barren, formal expositions and logical
operations of the scholastic intellect, he found a striving and
wrestling of the whole inner man, with all the mind and will, after
direct communion and union with God, who Himself seeks to draw into
this union the soul devoted to Him, and makes it become like to
himself. Such a depth of contemplation and such fervour of a
Christian mind Luther had not found even in an Augustine. He
rejoiced to see this treasure written in his native German, and it
certainly was the noblest German he had ever read. He felt himself
marvellously impressed by this theology; he knew of no sermons, so
he wrote to a friend, which agreed more faithfully with the gospel
than those of Tauler. He published that tract--then not quite
complete--in 1516, and again afterwards in 1518. It was the first
publication from his hand. His further sermons and writings show how
deeply he was imbued with its contents. The influences he here
received had a lasting effect on the formation of his inner life and
his theology.

With regard to sin, he now learned that its deepest roots and
fundamental character lay in our own wills, in self-love and
selfishness. To enjoy communion with God it is necessary that the
heart should put away all worldliness, and let its natural will be
dead, so that God alone may live and work in us. So, as he says on
the title-page of 'German Theology,' shall Adam die in us and Christ
be made alive. But the essential peculiarity of Luther's doctrine of
salvation, grounded as it was directly on Scripture, still remained
intact, despite the theology no less of the mystics than of
Augustine, and, after passing through these influences, developed
its full independence during his struggles as a Reformer. For this
communion with God he never thought it necessary, as the mystics
maintained, to renounce one's personality and retire altogether from
the world and things temporal: a purely passive attitude towards
God, and a blessedness consisting in such an attitude, was not his
highest or ultimate ideal. A man's personality, he held, should only
be destroyed so far as it resists the will of God, and dares to
assert its self-righteousness and merits before Him. The road to
real communion with God was always that 'short road' of faith, in
which the contrite sinner, who feels his personality crushed by the
consciousness of sin, grasps the hand of Divine mercy, and is lifted
up by it and restored. Christ was manifested, as the mystics said
with Scripture, in order that the man's personality should die with
Him, and imitate Him in self-renunciation. But the faith, on which
Luther insisted, saw in Christ above all the Saviour who has died
for us, and who pleads for us before God with His holy life and
conduct, that the faithful may obtain through Him reconciliation and
salvation. What the Saviour is to us in this respect Luther has thus
summarised in words of his own: 'Lord Jesus,' he says, 'Thou hast
taken to Thyself what is mine, and given to me what is Thine.' The
main divergence between Luther and the German mysticism of the
middle ages consists primarily in a different estimate of the
general relations between God and the moral personality of man. With
the mystics, behind the Christian and religious, lay a metaphysical
conception of God, as a Being of absolute power, superior to all
destiny, apparently rich in attributes, but in reality an empty
Abstraction,--above all, a Being who suffers nothing finite to exist
in independence of Himself. With Luther the fundamental conception
of God remained this, that He is the perfect Good, and that, in His
perfect holiness, He is Love. This is the God by whom the sinner who
has faith is restored and justified. From this conception as a
starting-point, Luther acquired fresh strength and energy for
advancing in the fight, whilst the pious mystic remained passively
and quietly behind. From this also he learned to realise Christian
liberty and moral duty in regard to daily life and its vocations,
whilst the mystics remained shut off altogether from the world. The
intimate connection between the conclusions to which the views of
Tauler tended, and the principles from which Luther started, is
shown further by the superior attraction which those sermons, so
warmly recommended by Luther, continued to exercise upon members of
the Evangelical, compared with those of the Catholic Church.

What Christ has suffered and done for us, and how we gain through
Him the righteousness of God, peace, and real life,--these thoughts
of practical religion pervaded now all Luther's discourses. To the
saving knowledge of these facts he endeavoured to direct his
lectures, and discarded the dogmatical inquiries and subtle
investigations and speculations of School-theology. At first, and
even in his sermons at the convent, he had employed in his
exposition of Biblical truths, as was the custom of learned
preachers, philosophical expressions and references to Aristotle and
famous Scholastics. But latterly, and at the time we are speaking
of, he had entirely left this off; and, as regards the form of his
sermons, instead of a stiff, logical construction of sentences, he
employed that simple, lively, powerful eloquence which distinguished
him above all preachers of his time. In 1516 and 1517 he delivered a
course of sermons on the Ten Commandments and the Lord's Prayer
before his town congregation, with the view of showing the
connection of the truths of Christian religion. He further had
printed in 1517, for Christian readers generally, an explanation of
the seven penitential psalms. He wished, as the title stated, to
expound them thoroughly in their Scriptural meaning, for setting
forth the grace of Christ and God, and enabling true self-knowledge.
It is the first of his writings, published by himself, and in the
German language, which we possess; for the later lectures that were
published were delivered by him in Latin, and the first sermons we
have of his were also written by him in that language. We give here
the title and preface from the original print.

[Illustration: FIG. 6--Title and Preface of Penitential Psalms.]

Luther had now become possessed with a burning desire to refute, by
means of the truth he had newly learned, the teaching and system of
that School-theology on which he himself had wasted so much time and
labour, and by which he saw that same truth darkened and obstructed.
He first attacked Aristotle, the heathen philosopher from whom this
theology, he said, received its empty and perverted formalism, whose
system of physics was worthless, and who, especially in his
conception of moral life and moral good, was blind, since he knew
nothing of the essence and ground of true righteousness. The
Scholastics, as Luther himself remarked against them, had failed
signally to understand the genuine original philosophy of Aristotle.
But the real greatness and significance which must be allowed to
that philosophy, in the development of human thought and knowledge,
were far removed from those profound questions of Christian morality
and religion which engrossed Luther's mind, and from those truths to
which he again had to testify. In theses which formed the subject of
disputation among his followers, Luther expressed with particular
acuteness his own doctrine, and that of Augustine, concerning the
inability of man, and the grace of God, and his opposition to the
previously dominant Schoolmen and their Aristotle. He was anxious
also to hear the verdict of others, particularly of his teacher
Trutvetter, upon his new polemics.

He already could boast that, at Wittenberg, his, or as he called it,
the Augustinian theology, had found its way to victory. It was
adopted by the theologians who had taught there, though wholly in
the old Scholastic fashion, before him, especially by Carlstadt, who
soon strove to outbid him in this new direction, and who, later on,
in his own zeal for reform, fell into disputes with the great
Reformer himself, and also by Nicholas von Amsdorf, whom we shall
see afterwards at Luther's side as his personal friend and strongest
supporter. At Erfurt, Luther's former convent, his friend and
sympathiser Lange was now prior, having returned thither from
Wittenberg, where indeed his former teachers could not yet
accommodate themselves to his new ways. Of great importance to
Luther's work and position was his friendship with George Spalatin
(properly Burkardt of Spelt), the court preacher and private
secretary of the Elector Frederick, a conscientious, clear-minded
theologian, and a man of varied culture and calm, thoughtful
judgment. He was of the same age as Luther; he had been with him at
Erfurt as a fellow-student, and at Wittenberg afterwards, whither he
came as tutor to the prince, and had remained on terms of intimacy
with him. To Luther he proved an upright, warmhearted friend, and to
the Elector a faithful and sagacious adviser. It was mainly due to
his influence that the Elector showed such continued favour to
Luther, marks of which he displayed by presents, such as that of a
piece of richly-wrought cloth, which Luther thought almost too good
for a monk's frock. Spalatin had also been a member of that circle
of 'poets' at Erfurt; he kept up his connection with them, and
corresponded with Erasmus, the head of the Humanists, and thus acted
as a medium of communication for Luther in this quarter. Elsewhere
in Germany we find the theology of Augustine or of St. Paul, as
represented by Luther, taking root first among his friends at
Nuremberg; in 1517 W. Link came there as prior of the Augustinian
convent.

[Illustration: Fig. 7.--SPALATIN. (from L. Cranach's Portrait.)]

We have seen how Luther as a student associated with the young
Humanists at Erfurt, and now, whilst striving further on that road
of theology which he had marked out for himself, he was still
accessible to the general interests of learning as represented by
the Humanistic movement. He made the acquaintance, at least by
letter, of the celebrated Mutianus Rufus of Gotha, whom those
'poets' honoured as their famous master, and with whom Lange and
Spalatin maintained a respectful intercourse. When the Humanist John
Reuchlin, then the first Hebrew scholar in Germany, was declared a
heretic by zealous theologians and monks, on account of the protests
he raised against the burning of the Rabbinical books of the Jews,
and a fierce quarrel broke out in consequence, Luther, on being
asked by Spalatin for his opinion, declared himself strongly for the
Humanists against those who, being gnats themselves, tried to
swallow camels. His heart, he said, was so full of this matter that
his tongue could not find utterance. Still, the bold satire with
which his former college friend Crotus and other Humanists lashed
their opponents and held them up to ridicule, as in the famous
'Epistolae Virorum Obscurorum,' was not to Luther's taste at all.
The matter was to him far too serious for such treatment.

The first place among the men who revived the knowledge of
antiquity, and strove to apply that knowledge for the benefit of
their own times and particularly of theology, belongs undoubtedly to
Erasmus, from his comprehensive learning, his refinement of mind,
and his indefatigable industry. Just when, in 1516, he brought out a
remarkable edition of the New Testament, with a translation and
explanatory comments, which forms in fact an epoch in its history.
Luther recognised his high talents and services, and was anxious to
see him exercise the influence he deserved. He speaks of him in a
letter to Spalatin as 'our Erasmus.' But nevertheless he steadily
asserted his own independence, and reserved the right of free
judgment about him. Two things he lamented in him; first of all that
he lacked, as was the case, the comprehension of that fundamental
doctrine of St. Paul as to human sin and righteousness by faith; and
further, that he made even the errors of the Church, which should be
a source of genuine sorrow to every Christian, a subject of
ridicule. He sought, however, to keep his opinion of Erasmus to
himself, to avoid giving occasion to his jealous and unscrupulous
enemies to malign him.

[Illustration: Fig. 8.--ERASMUS. (From the Portrait by A. Durer.)]

Bitterness and ill-will, aroused by Luther's words and works, were
already not wanting among the followers of the hitherto dominant
views of theology and the Church. But of any separation from the
Church, her authority and her fundamental forms, he had as yet no
intention or idea. Nor, on the other hand, did his enemies take
occasion to obtain sentence of expulsion against him, until he found
himself forced to conclusions which threatened the power and the
income of the hierarchy.

As yet he had not expressed or entertained a thought against the
ordinances which enslaved every Christian to the priesthood and its
power. He certainly showed, in his new doctrine of salvation, the
way which leads the soul, by simple faith in the message of mercy
sent to all alike, to its God and Saviour. But he had no idea of
disputing that everyone should confess to the priests, receive from
them absolution, and submit to all the penances and ordinances
ordained by the Church. And in that very doctrine of salvation he
knew that he was at one with Augustine, the most eminent teacher of
the Western Church, whilst the opposite views, however dominant in
point of fact, had never yet received any formal sanction of the
Church. Zealously, indeed, he soon exposed many practical abuses and
errors in the religious life of the Church. But hitherto these were
only such as had been long before complained of and combated by
others, and which the Church had never expressly declared as
essential parts of her own system. He gave vent freely to his
opinions about the superstitious worship of saints, about absurd
legends, about the heathen practice of invoking the saints for
temporal welfare or success. But praying to the saints to intercede
for us with God he still justified against the heresy originating
with Huss, and with fervour he invoked the Virgin from the pulpit.
He was anxious that the priests and bishops should do their duty
much better and more conscientiously than was the case, and that
instead of troubling themselves about worldly matters, they should
care for the good of souls, and feed their flocks with God's word.
He saw in the office of bishop, from the difficulties and
temptations it involved, an office fraught with danger, and one
therefore that he did not wish for his Staupitz. But the Divine
origin and Divine right of the hierarchical offices of pope, bishop,
and priest, and the infallibility of the Church, thus governed, he
held inviolably sacred. The Hussites who broke from her were to him
'sinful heretics.' Nay, at that time he used the very argument by
which afterwards the Romish Church thought to crush the principles
and claims of the Reformation, namely, that if we deny that power of
the Church and Papacy, any man may equally say that he is filled
with the Holy Ghost; everyone will claim to be his own master, and
there will be as many Churches as heads.

As yet he was only seeking to combat those abuses which were outside
the spirit and teaching of the Catholic Church, when the scandals of
the traffic in indulgences called him to the field of battle. And it
was only when in this battle the Pope and the hierarchy sought to
rob him of his evangelical doctrine of salvation, and of the joy and
comfort he derived from the knowledge of redemption by Christ, that,
from his stand on the Bible, he laid his hands upon the strongholds
of this Churchdom.




PART III.

THE BREACH WITH ROME, UP TO THE DIET OF WORMS. 1517-21.




CHAPTER I.

THE NINETY-FIVE THESES.


The first occasion for the struggle which led to the great division
in the Christian world was given by that magnificent edifice of
ecclesiastical splendour intended by the popes as the creation of
the new Italian art; by the building, in a word, of St. Peter's
Church, which had already been commenced when Luther was at Rome.
Indulgences were to furnish the necessary means. Julius II. had now
been succeeded on the Papal chair by Leo X. So far as concerned the
encouragement of the various arts, the revival of ancient learning,
and the opening up, by that means, to the cultivated and upper
classes of society of a spring of rich intellectual enjoyment, Leo
would have been just the man for the new age. But whilst actively
engaged in these pursuits and pleasures, he remained indifferent to
the care and the spiritual welfare of his flock, whom as Christ's
vicar he had undertaken to feed. The frivolous tone of morals that
ruled at the Papal see was looked upon as an element of the new
culture. As regards the Christian faith, a blasphemous saying is
reported of Leo, how profitable had been the fable of Christ. He had
no scruples in procuring money for the new church, which, as he
said, was to protect and glorify the bones of the holy Apostles, by
a dirty traffic, pernicious to the soul. Meanwhile, the popes were
not ashamed to appropriate freely to their own needs that indulgence
money, which was nominally for the Church and for other objects,
such as the war against the Turks.

In order to appreciate the nature of these indulgences and of
Luther's attack upon them, it is necessary first to realise more
exactly the significance which the teachers of the Church ascribed
to them. The simple statement that absolution or forgiveness of sins
was sold for money, must in itself be offence enough to any moral
Christian conscience; and we can only wonder that Luther proceeded
so prudently and gradually towards his object of getting rid of
indulgences altogether. But the arguments by which they were
explained and justified did not sound so simple or concise.

[Illustration: Leo X. (From his Portrait by Raphael.)]

Forgiveness of sins, it was maintained, must be gained by penance, namely,
by the so-called sacrament of penance, including the acts of private
confession and priestly absolution. In this the father-confessor promised
to him who had confessed his sins, absolution for them, whereby his guilt
was forgiven and he was freed from eternal punishment. A certain
contrition of the heart was required from him, even if only imperfect,
and proceeding perhaps solely from the fear of punishment, but which
nevertheless was deemed sufficient, its imperfection being supplied by
the sacrament. But though absolved, he had still to discharge heavy
burdens of temporal punishment, penances imposed by the Church, and
chastisements which, in the remission of eternal punishment, God in His
righteousness still laid upon him. If he failed to satisfy these penances
in this life, he must, even if no longer in danger of hell, atone for the
rest in the torments of the fire of purgatory. The indulgence now came in
to relieve him. The Church was content with easier tasks, as, at that
time, with a donation to the sacred edifice at Rome. And even this
was made to rest on a certain basis of right. The Church, it was
said, had to dispose of a treasure of merits which Christ and the
saints, by their good works, had accumulated before the righteous
God, and those riches were now to be so disposed of by Christ's
representatives, that they should benefit the buyer of indulgences.
In this manner penances which otherwise would have to be endured for
years were commuted into small donations of money, quickly paid off.
The contrition required for the forgiveness of sins was not
altogether ignored; as, for instance, in the official announcements
of indulgences, and in the letters or certificates granting
indulgences to individuals in return for payment. But in those
documents, as also in the sermons exhorting the multitude to
purchase, the chief stress, so far as possible, was laid upon the
payment. The confession, and with it the contrition, was also
mentioned, but nothing was said about the personal remission of sins
depending on this rather than on the money. Perfect forgiveness of
sins was announced to him who, after having confessed and felt
contrition, had thrown his contribution into the box. For the souls
in purgatory nothing was required but money offered for them by the
living. 'The moment the money tinkles in the box, the soul springs
up out of purgatory.' A special tariff was arranged for the
commission of particular sins, as, for example, six ducats for
adultery.

The traffic in indulgences for the building of St. Peter's was
delegated by commission from the Pope, over a large part of Germany, to
Albert, Archbishop of Mayence and Magdeburg. We shall meet with this
great prince of the Church, as now in connection with the origin of
the Reformation, so during its subsequent course. Albert, the brother
of the Elector of Brandenburg, and cousin of the Grand-Master of the
Teutonic Order in Prussia, stood in 1517, though only twenty-seven
years old, already at the head of those two great ecclesiastical
provinces of Germany; Wittenberg also belonged to his Magdeburg
diocese. Raised to such an eminence and so rapidly by good fortune,
he was filled with ambitious thoughts. He troubled himself little
about theology. He loved to shine as the friend of the new Humanistic
learning, especially of an Erasmus, and as patron of the fine arts,
particularly of architecture, and to keep a court the splendour of
which might correspond with his own dignity and love of art. For this
his means were inadequate, especially as, on entering upon his
Archbishopric of Mayence, he had had to pay, as was customary, a heavy
sum to the Pope for the _pallium_ given for the occasion. For
this he had been forced to borrow thirty thousand gulden from the
house of Fugger at Augsburg, and he found his aspirations incessantly
crippled by want of money and by debts. He succeeded at last in
striking a bargain with the Pope, by which he was allowed to keep half
of the profits arising from the sale of indulgences, in order to repay
the Fuggers their loan. Behind the preacher of indulgences, who announced
God's mercy to the paying believers, stood the agents of that commercial
house, who collected their share for their principals. The Dominican monk,
John Tetzel, a profligate man, whom the Archbishop had appointed his
sub-commissioner, drove the largest trade in this business with an
audacity and a power of popular declamation well suited to his work.

[Illustration: Fig. 10.--The Archbishop Albert. (From Durer's
engraving.)]

Contemporaries have described the lofty and well-ordered pomp with
which such a commissioner entered on the performance of his exalted
duties. Priests, monks, and magistrates, schoolmasters and scholars,
men, women, and children, went forth in procession to meet him, with
songs and ringing of bells, with flags and torches. They entered the
church together amidst the pealing of the organ. In the middle of
the church, before the altar, was erected a large red cross, hung
with a silken banner which bore the Papal arms. Before the cross was
placed a large iron chest to receive the money; specimens of these
chests are still shown in many places. Daily, by sermons, hymns,
processions round the cross, and other means of attraction, the
people were invited and urged to embrace this incomparable offer of
salvation. It was arranged that auricular confession should be taken
wholesale. The main object was the payment, in return for which the
'contrite' sinners received a letter of indulgence from the
commissioner, who, with a significant reference to the absolute
power granted to himself, promised them complete absolution and the
good opinion of their fellow-men.

[Illustration: Fig. 11--Title-page of a Pamphlet Written at the
Beginning of the Reformation, with an Illustration showing the Sale
of Indulgences.]

We have evidence to show how Tetzel preached himself, and what he
wished these sermons on indulgences to be like. Calling upon the
people, he summoned all, and especially the great sinners, such as
murderers and robbers, to turn to their God and receive the medicine
which God, in his mercy and wisdom, had provided for their benefit.
St. Stephen once had given up his body to be stoned, St. Lawrence
his to be roasted, St. Bartholomew his to a fearful death. Would
they not willingly sacrifice a little gift in order to obtain
everlasting life? Of the souls in purgatory it was said, 'They, your
parents and relatives, are crying out to you, "We are in the
bitterest torments, you could deliver us by giving a small alms, and
yet you will not. We have given you birth, nourished you, and left
to you our temporal goods; and such is your cruelty that you, who
might so easily make us free, leave us here to lie in the flames."'

To all who directly or indirectly, in public or in private, should
in any way depreciate, or murmur against, or obstruct these
indulgences, it was announced that, by Papal edict, they lay already
by so doing under the ban of excommunication, and could only be
absolved by the Pope or by one of his commissioners.

After Luther had once ventured to attack openly this sale of
indulgences, it was admitted even by their defenders and the violent
enemies of the Reformer, that in those days 'greedy commissioners,
monks and priests, had preached unblushingly about indulgences, and
had laid more stress upon the money than upon confession,
repentance, and sorrow.' Christian people were shocked and
scandalised at the abuse. It was asked whether indeed God so loved
the money, that for the sake of a few pence He would leave a soul in
everlasting torments, or why the Pope did not out of love empty the
whole of purgatory, since he was willing to free innumerable souls
in return for such a trifle as a contribution to the building of a
church. But not one of them found it then expedient to incur the
abuse and slander of a Tetzel by a word spoken openly against the
gross misconduct the fruits of which were so important to the Pope
and the Archbishop.

Tetzel now came to the borders of the Elector of Saxony's dominion,
and to the neighbourhood of Wittenberg. The Elector would not allow
him to enter his territory, on account of so much money being taken
away, and accordingly he opened his trade at Juterbok. Among those
who confessed to Luther, there were some who appealed to letters of
indulgence which they had purchased from him there.

In a sermon preached as early as the summer of 1516, Luther had
warned his congregation against trusting to indulgences, and he did
not conceal his aversion to the system, whilst admitting his doubts
and ignorance as to some important questions on the subject. He knew
that these opinions and objections would grieve the heart of his
sovereign; for Frederick, who with all his sincere piety, still
shared the exaggerated veneration of the middle ages for relics, and
had formed a rich collection of them in the Church of the Castle and
Convent at Wittenberg, which he was always endeavouring to enrich,
rejoiced at the Pope's lavish offer of indulgences to all who at an
annual exhibition of these sacred treasures should pay their
devotions at the nineteen altars of this church. A few years before
he had caused a 'Book of Relics' to be printed, which enumerated
upwards of five thousand different specimens, and showed how they
represented half a million days of indulgence. Luther relates how he
had incurred the Elector's displeasure by a sermon preached in his
Castle Church against indulgences: he preached, however, again
before the exhibition held in February 1517. The honour and
interest, moreover, of his university had to be considered, for that
church was attached to it, the professors were also dignitaries of
the convent, and the university benefited by the revenues of the
foundation.

[Illustration: FIG. l2.--THE CASTLE CHURCH. (From the Wittenberg
Book of Relics, 1509: the hill in the background is an addition by
the artist.)]

Luther was then, as he afterwards described himself, a young doctor
of divinity, ardent, and fresh from the forge. He was burning to
protest against the scandal. But as yet he restrained himself and
kept quiet. He wrote, indeed, on the subject to some of the bishops.
Some listened to him graciously; others laughed at him; none wished
to take any steps in the matter.

He longed now to make known to theologians and ecclesiastics
generally his thoughts about indulgences, his own principles, his
own opinions and doubts, to excite public discussion on the subject,
and to awake and maintain the fray. This he did by the ninety-five
Latin theses or propositions which he posted on the doors of the
Castle Church at Wittenberg, on October 31, 1517, the eve of All
Saints' Day and of the anniversary of the consecration of the
Church.

These theses were intended as a challenge for disputation. Such
public disputations were then very common at the universities and
among theologians, and they were meant to serve as means not only of
exercising learned thought, but of elucidating the truth. Luther
headed his theses as follows:--

_'Disputation to explain the virtue of indulgences._-In charity
and in the endeavour to bring the truth to light, a disputation on
the following propositions will be held at Wittenberg, presided over
by the Reverend Father Martin Luther.... Those who are unable to
attend personally may discuss the question with us by letter. In the
name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.'

It was in accordance with the general custom of that time that, on
the occasion of a high festival, particular acts and announcements,
and likewise disputations at a university, were arranged, and the
doors of a collegiate church were used for posting such notices.

The contents of these theses show that their author really had such
a disputation in view. He was resolved to defend with all his might
certain fundamental truths to which he firmly adhered. Some points
he considered still within the region of dispute; it was his wish
and object to make these clear to himself by arguing about them with
others.

Recognising the connection between the system of indulgences and the
view of penance entertained by the Church, he starts with
considering the nature of true Christian repentance; but he would
have this understood in the sense and spirit taught by Christ and
the Scriptures, as, indeed, Staupitz had first taught it to him. He
begins with the thesis 'Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, when He
says Repent, desires that the whole life of the believer should be
one of repentance.' He means, as the subsequent theses express it,
that true inward repentance, that sorrow for sin and hatred of one's
own sinful self, from which must proceed good works and
mortification of the sinful flesh. The Pope could only remit his sin
to the penitent so far as to declare that God had forgiven it.

Thus then the theses expressly declare that God forgives no man his
sin without making him submit himself in humility to the priest who
represents Him, and that He recognises the punishments enjoined by
the Church in her outward sacrament of penance. But Luther's leading
principles are consistently opposed to the customary announcements
of indulgences by the Church. The Pope, he holds, can only grant
indulgences for what the Pope and the law of the Church have
imposed; nay, the Pope himself means absolution from these
obligations only, when he promises absolution from all punishment.
And it is only the living against whom those punishments are
directed which the Church's discipline of penance enjoins: nothing,
according to her own laws, can be imposed upon those in another
world.

Further on, Luther declares, 'When true repentance is awakened in a
man, full absolution from punishment and sin comes to him without
any letters of indulgence.' At the same time he says that such a man
would willingly undergo self-imposed chastisement, nay, he would
even seek and love it.

Still, it is not the indulgences themselves, if understood in the
right sense, that he wishes to be attacked, but the loose babble of
those who sold them. Blessed, he says, be he who protests against
this, but cursed be he who speaks against the truth of apostolic
indulgences. He finds it difficult, however, to praise these to the
people, and at the same time to teach them the true repentance of
the heart. He would have them even taught that a Christian would do
better by giving money to the poor than by spending it in buying
indulgences, and that he who allows a poor man near him to starve
draws down on himself, not indulgences, but the wrath of God. In
sharp and scornful language he denounces the iniquitous trader in
indulgences, and gives the Pope credit for the same abhorrence for
the traffic that he felt himself. Christians must be told, he says,
that if the Pope only knew of it, he would rather see St. Peter's
Church in ashes, than have it built with the flesh and bones of his
sheep.

Agreeably with what the preceding theses had said about the true
penitent's earnestness and willingness to suffer, and the temptation
offered to a mere carnal sense of security, Luther concludes as
follows: 'Away therefore with all those prophets who say to Christ's
people "Peace, peace!" when there is no peace, but welcome to all
those who bid them seek the Cross of Christ, not the Cross which
bears the Papal arms. Christians must be admonished to follow Christ
their Master through torture, death, and hell, and thus through much
tribulation, rather than by a carnal feeling of false security, hope
to enter the kingdom of heaven.

The Catholics objected to this doctrine of salvation advanced by
Luther, that by trusting to God's free mercy and by undervaluing
good works, it led to moral indolence. But on the contrary, it was
to the very unbending moral earnestness of a Christian conscience,
which, indignant at the temptations offered to moral frivolity, to a
deceitful feeling of ease in respect to sin and guilt, and to a
contempt of the fruits of true morality, rebelled against the false
value attached to this indulgence money, that these Theses, the
germ, so to speak, of the Reformation, owed their origin and
prosecution. With the same earnestness he now for the first time
publicly attacked the ecclesiastical power of the Papacy, in so far
namely as, in his conviction, it invaded the territory reserved to
Himself by the Heavenly Lord and Judge. This was what the Pope and
his theologians and ecclesiastics could least of all endure.

On the same day that these theses were published, Luther sent a copy
of them with a letter to the Archbishop Albert, his 'revered and
gracious Lord and Shepherd in Christ.' After a humble introduction,
he begged him most earnestly to prevent the scandalising and
iniquitous harangues with which his agents hawked about their
indulgences, and reminded him that he would have to give an account
of the souls entrusted to his episcopal care.

The next day he addressed himself to the people from the pulpit, in
a sermon he had to preach on the festival of All Saints. After
exhorting them to seek their salvation in God and Christ alone, and
to let the consecration by the Church become a real consecration of
the heart, he went on to tell them plainly, with regard to
indulgences, that he could only absolve from duties imposed by the
Church, and that they dare not rely on him for more, nor delay on
his account the duties of true repentance.




CHAPTER II.

THE CONTROVERSY CONCERNING INDULGENCES.


Anyone who has heard that the great movement of the Reformation in
Germany, and with it the founding of the Evangelical Church,
originated in the ninety-five theses of Luther, and who then reads
these theses through, might perhaps be surprised at the importance
of their results. They referred, in the first place, to only one
particular point of Christian doctrine, not at all to the general
fundamental question as to how sinners could obtain forgiveness and
be saved, but merely to the remission of punishments connected with
penance. They contained no positive declaration against the most
essential elements of the Catholic theory of penance, or against the
necessity of oral confession, or of priestly absolution, and such
subjects; they presupposed, in fact, the existence of a purgatory.
Much of what they attacked, not one of the learned theologians of
the middle ages or of those times had ever ventured to assert; as,
for instance, the notion that indulgences made the remission of sins
to the individual complete on the part of God. Moreover, the ruling
principles of the theology of the day, which defended the system of
indulgences, though resting mainly on the authority of the great
Scholastic teacher Thomas Aquinas, were not adopted by other
Scholastics, and had never been erected into a dogma by any decree
of the Church. Theologians before Luther, and with far more
acuteness and penetration than he showed in his theses, had already
assailed the whole system of indulgences. And, in regard to any idea
on Luther's part of the effects of his theses extending widely in
Germany, it may be noticed that not only were they composed in
Latin, but that they dealt largely with Scholastic expressions and
ideas, which a layman would find it difficult to understand.

Nevertheless the theses created a sensation which far surpassed
Luther's expectations. In fourteen days, as he tells us, they ran
through the whole of Germany, and were immediately translated and
circulated in German. They found, indeed, the soil already prepared
for them, through the indignation long since and generally aroused
by the shameless doings they attacked; though till then nobody, as
Luther expresses it, had liked to bell the cat, nobody had dared to
expose himself to the blasphemous clamour of the indulgence-mongers
and the monks who were in league with them, still less to the
threatened charge of heresy.

On the other hand, the very impunity with which this traffic in
indulgences had been maintained throughout German Christendom, had
served to increase from day to day the audacity of its promoters.
Ranged on the side of these doctrines of Thomas Aquinas, the chief
mainstay of this trade, stood the whole powerful order of the
Dominicans. And to this order Tetzel himself, the sub-commissioner of
indulgences, belonged. Already other doctrines of the Pope's authority,
of his power over the salvation of the human soul, and the infallibility
of his decisions, had been asserted with ever-increasing boldness. The
mediaeval writings of Thomas Aquinas had conspicuously tended to this
 result. And a climax had just been reached at a so-called General
Council, which met at Rome shortly after Luther's visit there, and
continued its sittings for several years.

Tetzel, who hitherto had only made himself notorious as a preacher, or
rather as a bawling mountebank, now answered Luther with two series of
theses of his own, drawn up in learned scholastic form. One Conrad
Wimpina, a theologian of the university of Frankfort-on-the-Oder, whom
the Archbishop Albert had recommended, assisted Tetzel in this work.
The university of Frankfort immediately made Tetzel doctor of theology,
and thus espoused his theses. Three hundred Dominican monks assembled
round him while he conducted an academical disputation upon them. The
doctrines he now advanced were the doctrines of Thomas Aquinas. But at
the same time he took care to make the question of the Pope's position
and power the cardinal point at issue; he and his patrons knew well
enough, that for Luther, who in his theses had touched upon this
question so significantly though so briefly, this was the most fatal
blow that he could deal. 'Christians must be taught,' he declared,
'that in all that relates to faith and salvation, the judgment of the
Pope is absolutely infallible, and that all observances connected with
matters of faith on which the Papal see has expressed itself, are
equivalent to Christian truths, even if they are not to be found in
scripture.' With distinct reference to his opponent, but without
actually mentioning him by name, he insists that whoever defends
heretical error must be held to be excommunicated, and if he fails
within a given time to make satisfaction, incurs by right and law
the most frightful penalties. Furthermore, he argued--and this has
always been held up against Luther and Protestantism--that if the
authority of the Church and Pope should not be recognised, every man
would believe only what was pleasing to himself and what he found in
the Bible, and thus the souls of all Christendom would be
imperilled.

Luther's theses now found another assailant, and one stronger even
than Tetzel, in the person of a Dominican and Thomist, one Sylvester
Mazolini of Prierio (Prierias), master of the sacred palace at Rome,
and a confidant of the Pope. He too, like Tetzel, based his chief
contention on the question of Papal authority, and was the first to
carry that contention to an extreme. The Pope, he said, is the
Church of Rome; the Romish Church is the Universal Christian Church;
whoever disputes the right of the Romish Church to act entirely as
she may, is a heretic. In this way he treated as contemptuously as
he could the obscure German, whose theses, that 'bite like a cur,'
as he expressed it, he only wished to dismiss with all despatch.

Another Dominican, James van Hoogstraten, prior at Cologne, who had
already figured as the prime zealot in the affair about Reuchlin,
which he was still prosecuting, now demanded, in his preface to a
pamphlet on that subject, that Luther should be sent to the stake as
a dangerous heretic.

But a far more important, and to Luther an utterly unexpected
opponent, appeared in the person of John Eck, professor at the
university of Ingolstadt, and canon at Eichstadt. He was a man of
very extensive learning in the earlier and later Scholastic theology
of the Church; he was a sharp-witted and ready controversialist, and
he knew how to use his weapons in disputations. He was fully
conscious of these gifts, and made a bold push to advance himself by
their means, whilst troubling himself very little in reality about
the high and sacred issues involved in the dispute. He sought to
keep on friendly and useful relations with other circles than those
of Scholastic theology, such as with learned Humanists, and a short
time before, with Luther himself and his colleague Carlstadt, to
whom he had been introduced through a jurist of Nuremberg named
Scheuerl. Luther, after the publication of his theses, had written a
friendly letter to Eck. What then was his surprise to find himself
attacked by Eck in a critical reply entitled 'Obelisks.' The tone of
his remarks was as wounding, coarse, and vindictive as their
substance was superficial. They aimed a well-meditated blow, by
stigmatising Luther's propositions as Bohemian poison, mere Hussite
heresy. Eck, when reproached for such a breach of friendship,
declared that he had written the book for his bishop of Eichstadt,
and not with any view of publication.

Luther himself, loud as was his call to battle in his theses, had
still no intention of engaging in a general contest about the
leading principles of the Church. He had not yet realised the whole
extent and bearings of the question about indulgences. Referring
afterwards to the rapid circulation of his theses through Germany,
and to the fame which his onslaught had earned him, he says, 'I did
not relish the fame, for I myself was not aware of what there was in
the indulgences, and the song was pitched too high for my voice.'
People far and wide were proud of the man who spoke out so boldly in
his theses, while the multitude of doctors and bishops kept silence;
but he still stood alone before the public, confronting the storm
which he had aroused against himself. He did not conceal the fact,
that now and then he felt strange and anxious about his position.
But he had learned to take his stand singly and firmly on the word
of Scripture, and on the truth which God therein revealed to him and
brought home to his conviction. He was only the more strengthened in
that conviction by the replies of his opponents; for he must well
have been amazed at their utter want of Scriptural reference to
disprove his conclusions, and at the blind subservience with which
they merely repeated the statements of their Scholastic authorities.
The arrogant reply of Prierias, his opponent of highest rank, seemed
to him particularly poor. In confident words Luther assures his
friends of his conviction that what he taught was the purest
theology, that what he upheld and his opponents attacked, was a
revelation direct from God. He knew too, that, in the words of St.
Paul, he had to preach what to the holiest of the Jews was a
stumbling-block, and to the wisest of the Greeks foolishness. He was
none the less ready to do so, that Jesus Christ, his Lord, might say
of him, as He said once of that Apostle, 'I will show him how great
things he must suffer for my name's sake.' Luther's enemies in the
Romish Church have thought to see in these words an instance of
boundless self-assertion on the part of an individual subject.

From henceforth Luther, while pursuing with unabated zeal his active
duties at the university and in the pulpit at Wittenberg, and taking
up his pen again and again to write short pamphlets of a simple and
edifying kind, occupied himself untiringly with controversial
writings, with the object partly of defending himself against
attacks, partly of establishing on a firm basis the principles he
had set forth, and of further investigating and making plain the way
of true Christian knowledge. He first addressed himself to German
Christendom, in German, in his 'Sermon on Indulgences and Grace.'
His inward excitement is shown by the vehemence and ruggedness of
expression which now and henceforth marked his polemical writings.
It recalls to mind the tone then commonly met with not only among
ordinary monks, but even in the controversies of theologians and
learned men, and in which Luther's own opponents, especially that
high Roman theologian, had set him the example. In Luther we see
now, throughout his whole method of polemics, as we shall see still
more later on, a mighty, Vulcanic, natural power breaking forth, but
always regulated by the humblest devotion to the lofty mission that
his conscience has imposed upon him. Even in his most vehement
outbursts we never fail to catch the tender expressions of a
Christian warmth and fervour of the heart, and a loftiness of
language corresponding to the sacredness of the subject.

In the midst of these labours and controversies, Luther had to
undertake a journey in the spring of 1518 (about the middle of
April) to a chapter general of his Order at Heidelberg, where,
according to the rules, a new Vicar was chosen after a triennial
term of office. His friends feared the snares that his enemies might
have prepared for him on the road. He himself did not hesitate for a
moment to obey the call of duty.

The Elector Frederick, who owed him at least a debt of gratitude for
having helped to keep his territory free from the rapacious Tetzel,
but who, both now and afterwards, conscientiously held aloof from
the contest, gave proof on this occasion of his undiminished
kindness and regard for him, in a letter he addressed to Staupitz.
He writes as follows:--'As you have required Martin Luder to attend
a Chapter at Heidelberg, it is his wish, although we grudge giving
him permission to leave our university, to go there and render due
obedience. And as we are indebted to your suggestion for this
excellent doctor of theology, in whom we are so well pleased, ... it
is our desire that you will further his safe return here, and not
allow him to be delayed.' He also gave Luther cordial letters of
introduction to Bishop Laurence of Wurzburg, through whose town his
road passed, and to the Count Palatine Wolfgang, at Heidelberg. From
both of these, though many had already declaimed against him as a
heretic, he met with a most friendly and obliging reception.

His relations, moreover, at Heidelberg with his fellow-members of
the Order, and, above all, with Staupitz, remained unclouded.
Staupitz was re-elected here as Vicar of the Order; the office of
provincial Vicar passed from Luther to John Lange, of Erfurt, his
intimate friend and fellow-thinker. The question about indulgences
had not entered at all into the business of the chapter. But at a
disputation held in the convent, according to custom, Luther
presided, and wrote for it some propositions embodying the
fundamental points of his doctrines concerning the sinfulness and
powerlessness of man, and righteousness, through God's grace, in
Christ, and against the philosophy and theology of Aristotelian
Scholasticism. He attracted the keen interest of several young
inmates of the convent who afterwards became his coadjutors, such as
John Brenz, Erhardt Schnepf, and Martin Butzer. They marvelled at
his power of drawing out the meaning from the Scriptures, and of
speaking not only with clearness and decision, but also with
refinement and grace. Thus his journey served to promote at once his
reputation and his influence.

On his return to Wittenberg on May 15, after an absence of five
weeks, he hastened to complete a detailed explanation in Latin of
the contents of his theses, under the title of 'Solutions,' the
greatest and most important work that he published at this period of
the contest.

The most valuable fruit of the controversy so far as regards Luther
and his later work, and evidence of which is given in these
'Solutions,' was the advance he had made, and had been compelled to
make, in the course of his own self-reasoning and researches. New
questions presented themselves: the inward connection of the truth
became gradually manifest: new results forced themselves upon him:
his anxiety to solve his difficulties still continued.

 Luther in his theses, when speaking of the call of Jesus to
repentance, had never indeed admitted that the sacrament of penance
enjoined by the Church, with auricular confession and the penances
and satisfactions imposed by the priest, was based on God's command
or the authority of the Bible. He now openly acknowledged and
declared that these ecclesiastical acts were not enjoined by Christ
at all, but solely by the Pope and the Church.

The contest about the indulgences granted by the Pope in respect of
these acts, opened up now the doctrine of the so-called treasures of
the Church, on which the Pope drew for his bounty. Luther, while
conceding to the Pope the right of dispensing indulgences in the
sense understood by himself, guarded himself against admitting that
the merits of Christ constituted that treasure, and so should be
disposed of by the Pope in this manner: the dispensation of
indulgences rested simply on the Papal power of the keys. It was now
objected to him that herein he was going counter to an express and
duly recorded declaration of a pope, Clement VI., namely, that the
merits of Christ were undoubtedly to be dispensed in indulgences.
Luther, who in his theses against the abuse of indulgences had
abstained as yet from propounding anything which might be
inconsistent with the ascertained meaning of the Pope, now insisted
without hesitation on this contradiction. That Papal pronouncement,
he declared, did not bear the character of a dogmatic decree, and a
distinction was to be drawn between a decree of the Pope and its
acceptance by the Church through a Council.

How then, Luther proceeded to inquire, should the Christian obtain
forgiveness of sin, reconciliation with God, righteousness before
God, peace and holiness in God? And in answering this question he
reverted to the key-note of his doctrine of salvation, which he had
begun to preach before the contest about indulgences commenced. He
had already declared that salvation came through faith; in other
words, through heartfelt trust in God's mercy, as announced by the
Bible, and in the Saviour Christ. How was that consistent with the
acts of ecclesiastical penance, such as absolution in particular,
which must be obtained from the priest? Luther now declared that God
would assuredly allow his offer of forgiveness to be conveyed to
those who longed for it, by His commissioned servant of the Church,
the priest, but that the assurance of such forgiveness must lean
simply on the promise of God, by virtue and on behalf of Whom the
priest performed his office. And at the same time he declared that
this promise could be conveyed to a troubled Christian by any
brother-Christian, and that full forgiveness would be granted to him
if he had faith. No enumeration of particular sins was necessary for
that end; it was enough if the repentant and faithful yearning for
the word of mercy was made known to the priest or brother from whom
the message of comfort was sought. Hence it followed, on the one
hand, that priestly absolution and the sacrament availed nothing to
the receiver unless he turned with inward faith to his God and
Saviour, received with faith the word spoken to him, and through
that word let himself be raised to greater faith. It followed also,
on the other hand, that a penitent and faithful Christian, holding
fast to that word, to whom the priest should arbitrarily refuse the
absolution he looked for, could, in spite of such refusal,
participate in God's forgiveness to the full. Herewith was broken at
once the most powerful bond by which the dominant Church enslaved
the souls to the organs of her hierarchy. Luther has humbled man to
the lowest before God, through Whose grace alone the sinner, in meek
and believing trustfulness, can be saved. But in God and through
this grace he teaches him to be free and certain of salvation.
Christ, he says, has not willed that man's salvation should lie in
the hand or at the pleasure of a man.

As for the outward acts and punishments which the Church and the
Pope imposed, he did not seek to abolish them. In this external
province at least he recognised in the Pope a power originating
direct from God. Here, in his opinion, the Christian was bound to
put up with even an abuse of power and the infliction of unjust
punishment.

 The whole contest turned ultimately on the question as to who
should determine disputes about the truth, and where to seek the
highest standard and the purest source of Christian verity.
Gradually at first, and manifestly with many inward struggles on the
part of Luther, his views and principles gained clearness and
consistency. Even within the Catholic Church the doctrine as to the
highest authority to be recognised in questions of belief and
conduct was by no means so firmly established as is frequently
represented by both Protestants and Roman Catholics. The doctrine of
the infallibility of the Pope, and of the absolute authority
attaching thereby to his decisions, however confidently asserted by
the admirers of Aquinas and accepted by the Popes, was not erected
into a dogma of the Roman Catholic Church until 1870. The other
theory, that even the Pope can err, and that the supreme decision
rests with a General Council, had been maintained by theologians
whom, at the same time, no Pope had ever ventured to treat as
heretics. It was on the ground of this latter theory that the
University of Paris, then the first university in Europe, had just
appealed from the Pope to a General Council. In Germany opinions
were on the whole divided between this and the theory of Papal
absolutism. Again, the view that neither the decisions of a Council
nor of a Pope were _ipso facto_ infallible, but that an appeal
therefrom lay to a council possibly better informed, had already
been advanced with impunity by writers of the fifteenth century. The
only point as to which no doubt was expressed, was that the
decisions of previous General Councils, acknowledged also by the
Pope, contained absolutely pure Divine truth, and that the Christian
Universal Church could never fall into error; but even then, with
reference to this Church, the question still remained as to who or
what was her true and final representative.

Luther now followed what he found to be the teaching of the Bible,
so far as that teaching presented itself to his own independent and
conscientious research, and as, traced home in the New Testament and
especially in the Epistles of St. Paul, it shaped itself to his
perception. But for all this, he would not yet abandon his agreement
with the Church of which he was a member. The very man whom Eck had
branded as full of 'Bohemian poison,' complained of the Bohemian
Brethren or Moravians for exalting themselves in their ignorance
above the rest of Christendom. A Thomist indeed, who to him was only
a Scholastic among others, he fearlessly opposed; but still we find
no expression of a thought that the Church, assembled at a General
Council, had ever erred, nor even that any future Council could
pronounce an erroneous decision upon the present points in dispute.
Nay, he awaits the decision of such a Council against the charges of
heresy already brought against him, though without ever admitting
his readiness, if such a Council should assemble, to submit
beforehand and unconditionally to its decision, whatever it might
be. Above and before any such decision he held firm to the authority
of his own conviction: his conscience, he said, would not allow him
to yield from that resolve; he was not standing alone in this
contest, but with him stood the truth, together with all those who
shared his doubts as to the virtue of indulgences.

Still, while rejecting the doctrine of the infallibility of the
Popes, it was a hard matter for Luther to reproach them also with
actual error in their decisions. We have seen how necessity forced
him to do so in the case of Clement VI. Towards the existing Head of
the Church he desired to remain, as far as possible, in concord and
subjection. It was not for mere appearance' sake, that in his
ninety-five theses he represented his own view of indulgences as
being also that of the Pope. He hoped, at all events, and wished
with all his heart that it was so; and later on, towards the close
of his life, he tells us how confidently he had cherished the
expectation that the Pope would be his patron in the war against the
shameless vendors of indulgences. Even after those hopes had failed,
he spoke of Leo X. with respect as a man of good disposition and an
educated theologian, whose only misfortune was that he lived in an
atmosphere of corruption and in a vicious age. He was none the less
assured of his Divine credentials as the supreme earthly Shepherd of
Christendom, and the depositary of all canonical power. The duty of
humility and obedience, impressed on him to excess as a monk, must,
no less than the fear of the possible dangers and troubles in store
for himself and his Christian brethren, have made Luther shrink from
the thought of having actually to testify and fight against him. He
ventured to dedicate his 'Solutions' to the Pope himself. The letter
of May 30, 1518, in which he did this, shows the peculiar,
anomalous, and untenable position in which he now found himself
placed. He is horrified, he says, at the charges of heresy and
schism brought against himself. He who would much prefer to live in
peace, had no wish to set up any dogmas in his theses, provoked as
they were by a public scandal, but simply in Christian zeal, or, as
others might have it, in youthful ardour, to invite men to a
disputation, and his present desire was to publish his explanation
of them under the patronage and protection of the Pope himself. But
at the same time he declares that his conscience was innocent and
untroubled, and he adds with emphatic brevity, 'Retract I cannot.'
He concludes by humbly casting himself at the Pope's feet with the
words, 'Give me life or death, accept or reject me as you please.'
He will recognise the Papal voice as that of the Lord Jesus Himself.
He will, if worthy of death, not flinch from it. But that
declaration of his, which he could not retract, must stand.




CHAPTER III.

LUTHER AT AUGSBURG BEFORE CAIETAN. APPEAL TO A COUNCIL.


The task that Luther had now undertaken lay heavy upon his soul. He
was sincerely anxious, whilst fighting for the truth, to remain at
peace with his Church, and to serve her by the struggle. Pope Leo,
on the contrary, as was consistent with his whole character, treated
the matter at first very lightly, and when it threatened to become
dangerous, thought only how, by means of his Papal power, to make
the restless German monk harmless.

Two expressions of his in these early days of the contest are
recorded. 'Brother Martin,' he said, 'is a man of a very fine
genius, and this outbreak the mere squabble of envious monks;' and
again, 'It is a drunken German who has written the theses; he will
think differently about them when sober.' Three months after the
theses had appeared, he ordered the Vicar-General of the
Augustinians to 'quiet down the man,' hoping still to extinguish
easily the flame. The next step was to institute a tribunal for
heretics at Rome, for Luther's trial: what its judgment would be was
patent from the fact that the single theologian of learning among
the judges was Sylvester Prierias. Before this tribunal Luther was
cited on August 7; within sixty days he was to appear there at Rome.
Friend and foe could well feel certain that they would look in vain
for his return.

Papal influence, meanwhile, had been brought to bear on the Elector
Frederick, to induce him not to take the part of Luther, and the
chief agent chosen for working on the Elector and the Emperor
Maximilian was the Papal legate, Cardinal Thomas Vio of Gaeta,
called Caietan, who had made his appearance in Germany. The
University of Wittenberg, on the other hand, interposed on behalf of
their member, whose theology was popular there, and whose biblical
lectures attracted crowds of enthusiastic hearers. He had just been
joined at Wittenberg by his fellow-professor Philip Melancthon, then
only twenty-one years old, but already in the first rank of Greek
scholars, and the bond of friendship was now formed which lasted
through their lives. The university claimed that Luther should at
least be tried in Germany.

Luther expressed the same wish through Spalatin to his sovereign. He
now also answered publicly the attack of Prierias upon his theses,
and declared not only that a Council alone could represent the
Church, but that even a decree of Council might err, and that an Act
of the Church was no final evidence of the truth of a doctrine.
Being threatened with excommunication, he preached a sermon on the
subject, and showed how a Christian, even if under the ban of the
Church, or excluded from _outward_ communion with her, could
still remain in true _inward_ communion with Christ and His
believers, and might then see in his excommunication the noblest
merit of his own.

The Pope, meanwhile, had passed from his previous state of haughty
complacency to one of violent haste. Already, on August 23, thus
long before the sixty days had expired, he demanded the Elector to
deliver up this 'child of the devil,' who boasted of his protection,
to the legate, to bring away with him. This is clearly shown by two
private briefs from the Pope, of August 23 and 25, the one addressed
to the legate, the other to the head of all the Augustinian convents
in Saxony, as distinguished from the Vicar of those congregations,
Staupitz, who already was looked on with suspicion at Borne. These
briefs instructed both men to hasten the arrest of the heretic; his
adherents were to be secured with him, and every place where he was
tolerated laid under the interdict. So unheard of seemed this
conduct of the Pope, that Protestant historians would not believe in
the genuineness of the briefs; but we shall soon see how Caietan
himself refers to the one in his possession.

Other and general relations, interests, and movements of the
ecclesiastical and political life of the German nation now began to
exercise an influence, direct or indirect, upon the history of
Luther and the development of the struggles of the Reformation, and
even caused the Pope himself to moderate his conduct.

Whilst questions of the deepest kind about the means of salvation,
and the grounds and rules of Christian truth, had been opened up for
the first time by Luther during the contest about indulgences, the
abuses, encroachments, and acts of tyranny committed by the Pope on
the temporal domain of the Church, and closely affecting the
political and social life of the people, had long been the subject
of bitter complaints and vigorous remonstrances throughout Germany.
These complaints and remonstrances had been raised by princes and
states of the Empire, who would not be silenced by any theories or
dogmas about the Divine authority and infallibility of the Pope, nor
crushed by any mere sentence of excommunication. And in raising them
they had made no question of the Divine right of the Papacy. Was it
not natural that, in the indignation excited by their wrongs, they
should turn to the man who had laid the axe to the root of the tree
which bore such fruit, and at least consider the possibility of
profiting by his work? Luther, on his part, showed at first a
singularly small acquaintance with the circumstances of their
complaints, and seemed hardly aware of the loud protests raised so
long on this subject at the Diets. But with the question of
indulgences the field of his experience broadened in this respect.
The care he evinced in this matter for the care of souls and true
Christian morality made him the ally of all those who were alarmed
at the vast export of money to Rome, about which he had already said
in his theses that the Christian sheep were being regularly fleeced.

In another respect, also, the ecclesiastical policy of the Papal see
was closely interwoven with the political condition and history of
Germany. If in theory the Pope claimed to control and confirm the
decrees even of the civil power, in practice he at least attempted
to assert and maintain an omnipresent influence. And with regard to
Germany it was all-important to him that the Empire should not
become so powerful as to endanger his authority in general and his
territorial sovereignty in Italy. However loftily the Popes in their
briefs proclaimed their immutable rights, derived from God, and
their plenary power, and took care to let theologians and jurists
advance such pretensions, they understood clearly enough in their
practical conduct to adjust those relations to the rules of
political or diplomatic necessity.

In the summer of 1518 a Diet was held at Augsburg, at which the
Papal legate attended. The Pope was anxious to obtain its consent to
the imposition of a heavy tax throughout the Empire, to be applied
ostensibly for the war against the Turks, but alleged to be wanted
in reality for entirely other objects. The Emperor Maximilian, now
old and hastening to his end, was endeavouring to secure the
succession of his grandson Charles, and Caietan's chief task was to
exert his influence with Maximilian and the Elector Frederick to
bring Luther into their disfavour. The Archbishop Albert, who had
been hit so hard by Luther's attack on the traffic in indulgences,
was solemnly proclaimed Cardinal by order of the Pope.

Of Maximilian it might fairly have been expected that, after his
many experiences and contests with the Popes, he would at least
protect Luther from the worst, however unlikely it might be that he
should entertain the idea of effecting, by his help, a great reform
in the National Church. He did indeed express his wish to
Pfeffinger, a counsellor of the Elector, that his prince should take
care of the monk, as his services might some day be wanted. But he
supported the Pope in the matter of the tax, and hoped to gain him
for his own political ends. He opposed Luther also in his attack on
indulgences, on the ground that it endangered the Church, and that
he was resolved to uphold the action taken by the Pope.

This demand for a tax, however, was received with the utmost
disfavour both by the Diet and the Empire; and a long-cherished
bitterness of feeling now found expression. An anonymous pamphlet
was circulated, from the pen of one Fischer, a prebendary of
Wiirzburg, which bluntly declared that the avaricious lords of Rome
only wished to cheat the 'drunken Germans,' and that the real Turks
were to be looked for in Italy. This pamphlet reached Wittenberg and
fell into the hands of Luther, whom now for the first time we hear
denouncing 'Roman cunning,' though he only charged the Pope himself
with allowing his grasping Florentine relations to deceive him. The
Diet seized the opportunity offered by this demand for a tax, to
bring up a whole list of old grievances; the large sums drawn from
German benefices by the Pope under the name of annates, or extorted
under other pretexts; the illegal usurpation of ecclesiastical
patronage in Germany, the constant infringement of concordats, and
so on. The demand itself was refused, and in addition to this, an
address was presented to the Diet from the bishop and clergy of
Liege, inveighing against the lying, thieving, avaricious conduct of
the Romish minions, in such sharp and violent tones that Luther, on
reading it afterwards when printed, thought it only a hoax, and not
really an episcopal remonstrance.

This was reason enough why Caietan, to avoid increasing the
excitement, should not attempt to lay hands on the Wittenberg
opponent of indulgences. The Elector Frederick, from whose hands
Caietan would have to demand Luther, was one of the most powerful
and personally respected princes of the Empire, and his influence
was especially important in view of the election of a new Emperor.
This prince went now in person to Caietan on Luther's behalf, and
Caietan promised him, at the very time that the brief was on its way
to him from Rome, that he would hear Luther at Augsburg, treat him
with fatherly kindness, and let him depart in safety.

Luther accordingly was sent to Augsburg. It was an anxious time for
himself and his friends when he had to leave for that distant place,
where the Elector, with all his care, could not employ any physical
means for his protection, and to stand accused as a heretic before
that Papal legate who, from his own theological principles, was
bound to condemn him, Caietan being a zealous Thomist like Prierias,
and already notorious as a champion of indulgences and Papal
absolutism. 'My thoughts on the way,' said Luther afterwards, 'were
now I must die; and I often lamented the disgrace I should be to my
dear parents.'

He went thither in humble garb and manner. He made his way on foot
till within a short distance of Augsburg, when illness and weakness
overcame him, and he was forced to proceed by carriage. Another
younger monk of Wittenberg accompanied him, his pupil Leonard Baier.
At Nuremberg he was joined by his friend Link, who held an
appointment there as preacher. From him he borrowed a monk's frock,
his own being too bad for Augsburg. He arrived here on October 7.

The surroundings he now entered, and the proceedings impending over
him, were wholly novel and unaccustomed. But he met with men who
received him with kindness and consideration; several of them were
gentlemen of Augsburg favourable to him, especially the respected
patrician, Dr. Conrad Peutinger, and two counsellors of the Elector.
They advised him to behave with prudence, and to observe carefully
all the necessary forms, to which as yet he was a stranger.

Luther at once announced his arrival to Caietan, who was anxious to
receive him without delay. His friends, however, kept him back until
they had obtained a written safe-conduct from the Emperor, who was
then hunting in the environs. In the meantime, a distinguished
friend of Caietan, one Urbanus of Serralonga, tried to persuade him,
in a flippant, and, as Luther thought, a downright Italian manner,
to come forward and simply pronounce six letters,--_Revoco_--I
retract. Urbanus asked him with a smile if he thought his sovereign
would risk his country for his sake. 'God forbid!' answered Luther.
'Where then do you mean to take refuge?' he went on to ask him.
'Under Heaven,' was Luther's reply.

To Melancthon Luther wrote as follows: 'There is no news here,
except that the town is full of talk about me, and everybody wants
to see the man who, like a second Herostratus, has kindled such a
flame. Remain a man as you are, and instruct the youth aright. I go
to be sacrificed for them and for you, if God so will. For I will
rather die, and, what is the hardest fate, lose for ever the sweet
intercourse with you, than revoke anything that it was right for me
to say.'

On October 11 Luther received the letter of safe-conduct, and the
next day he appeared before Caietan. Humbly, as he had been advised,
he prostrated himself before the representative of the Pope, who
received him graciously and bade him rise.

The Cardinal addressed him civilly, and with a courtesy Luther was
not accustomed to meet with from his opponents; but he immediately
demanded him, in the name and by command of the Pope, to retract his
errors, and promise in future to abstain from them and from
everything that might disturb the peace of the Church. He pointed
out, in particular, two errors in his theses; namely, that the
Church's treasure of indulgences did not consist of the merits of
Christ, and that faith on the part of the recipient was necessary
for the efficacy of the sacrament. With respect to the second point,
the religious principles upon which Luther based his doctrine were
altogether strange and unintelligible to the Scholastic standpoint
of Caietan; mere tittering and laughter followed Luther's
observations, and he was required to retract this thesis
unconditionally. The first point settled the question of Papal
authority. On this, the Cardinal-legate took his chief stand on the
express declaration of Pope Clement: he could not believe that
Luther would venture to resist a Papal bull, and thought he had
probably not read it. He read him a vigorous lecture of his own on
the paramount authority of the Pope over Council, Church, and
Scripture. As to any argument, however, about the theses to be
retracted, Caietan refused from the first to engage in it, and
undoubtedly he went further in that direction than he originally
desired or intended. His sole wish was, as he said, to give fatherly
correction, and with fatherly friendliness to arrange the matter.
But in reality, says Luther, it was a blunt, naked, unyielding
display of power. Luther could only beg from him further time for
consideration.

Luther's friends at Augsburg, and Staupitz, who had just arrived
there, now attempted to divert the course of these proceedings, to
collect other decisions of importance bearing on the subject, and to
give him the opportunity of a public vindication. Accompanied
therefore by several jurists friendly to his cause, and by a notary
and Staupitz, he laid before the legate next day a short and formal
statement of defence. He could not retract unless convicted of
error, and to all that he had said he must hold as being Catholic
truth. Nevertheless he was only human, and therefore fallible, and
he was willing to submit to a legitimate decision of the Church. He
offered, at the same time, publicly to justify his theses, and he
was ready to hear the judgment of the learned doctors of Basle,
Freiburg, Louvain, and even Paris upon them. Caietan with a smile
dismissed Luther and his proposals, but consented to receive a more
detailed reply in writing to the principal points discussed on the
previous day.

On the morrow, October 14, Luther brought his reply to the legate.
But in this document also he insisted clearly and resolutely from
the commencement on those very principles which his opponents
regarded as destructive of all ecclesiastical authority and of the
foundations of Christian belief. He spoke with crucial emphasis of
the trouble he had taken to interpret the words of Pope Clement in a
Scriptural sense. The Papal decrees might err, and be at variance
with Holy Writ. Even the Apostle Peter himself had once to be
reproved (Galat. ii. 11 sqq.) for 'walking not uprightly according
to the truth of the gospel;' surely then his successor was not
infallible. Every faithful believer in Christ was superior to the
Pope, if he could show better proofs and grounds of his belief.
Still he entreated Caietan to intercede with Leo X., that the latter
might not harshly thrust out into darkness his soul, which was
seeking for the light. But he repeated that he could do nothing
against his conscience: one must obey God rather than man, and he
had the fullest confidence that he had Scripture on his side.
Caietan, to whom he delivered this reply in person, once more tried
to persuade him. They fell into a lively and vehement argument; but
Caietan cut it short with the exclamation 'Revoke.' In the event of
Luther not revoking or submitting to judgment at Rome, he threatened
him and all his friends with excommunication, and whatever place he
might go to with an interdict; he had a mandate from the Pope to
that effect already in his hands. He then dismissed him with the
words, 'Revoke, or do not come again into my presence.'

Nevertheless he spoke in quite a friendly manner after this to
Staupitz, urging him to try his best to convert Luther, whom he
wished well. Luther, however, wrote the same day to his friend
Spalatin, who was with the Elector, and to his friends at
Wittenberg, telling them that he had refused to yield. The legate,
he said, had behaved with all friendliness of manner to Staupitz in
his affair, but neither Staupitz nor himself trusted the Italian
when out of sight. If Caietan should use force against him, he would
publish the written reply he gave him. Caietan might call himself a
Thomist, but he was a muddle-headed, ignorant theologian and
Christian, and as clumsy in giving judgment in the matter as a
donkey with a harp. Luther added further that an appeal would be
drawn up for him in the form best fitted to the occasion. He further
hinted to his Wittenberg friends at the possibility of his having to
go elsewhere in exile; indeed, his friends already thought of taking
him to Paris, where the university still rejected the doctrine of
Papal absolutism. He concluded this letter by saying that he refused
to become a heretic by denying that which had made him a Christian;
sooner than do that, he would be burned, exiled, or cursed.

The appeal of which Luther here spoke, was 'from the Pope ill-informed
to the same when better informed.' On October 16 he submitted it,
formally prepared, to a public notary. While Staupitz and Link, warned
to consult their personal safety, and despairing of any good result,
left Augsburg, Luther still remained there. He even addressed on
October 17 a letter to Caietan, conceding to him the utmost he thought
possible. Moved, as he said, by the persuasions of his dear father
Staupitz and his brother Link, he offered to let the whole question of
indulgences rest, if only that which drove him to this tragedy were
put a stop to; he confessed also to having been too violent and
disrespectful in dispute. In after years he said to his friends, when
referring to this concession, that God had never allowed him to sink
deeper than when he had yielded so much. The next day, however, he
gave notice of his appeal to the legate, and told him he did not wish
longer to waste his time in Augsburg. To this letter he received no
answer.

Luther waited, however, till the 20th. He and his Augsburg patrons
began to suspect whether measures had not already been taken to detain
him. They therefore had a small gate in the city wall opened in the
night, and sent with him an escort well acquainted with the road. Thus
he hastened away, as he himself described it, on a hard-trotting hack,
in a simple monk's frock, with only knee-breeches, without boots or
spurs, and unarmed. On the first day he rode eight miles, as far as
the little town of Monheim. As he entered in the evening an inn and
dismounted in the stable, he was unable to stand from fatigue, and
fell down instantly among the straw. He travelled thus on horseback
to Wittenberg, where he arrived well and joyful, on the anniversary of
his ninety-five theses. He had heard on the way of the Pope's brief to
Caietan, but he refused to think it could be genuine. His appeal,
meanwhile, was delivered to the Cardinal at Augsburg, who had it
posted by his notary on the doors of the cathedral.

From Augsburg Luther was followed by a letter from Caietan to the
Elector, full of bitter complaints against him. He had formed, he
said, the highest hopes of his spiritual recovery, and had been
grievously disappointed in him; the Elector, for his own honour and
conscience' sake, must now either send him to Rome or, at least,
expel him from his territory, since measures of fatherly kindness
had failed to make him acknowledge his error. Frederick, after
waiting four weeks, returned a quiet answer, showing how the conduct
of Luther quite agreed with his own view of the matter. He would
have expected that no recantation would have been required of Luther
till the matter in dispute had been satisfactorily examined and
explained. There were a number of learned men, also, at foreign
universities, from whom he could not yet have learned with certainty
that Luther's doctrine was unchristian; while, to say the least, it
was chiefly those whose personal and financial interests were
affected by it that had become his opponents. He would propose
therefore that the judgment of several universities should be
obtained, and have the matter disputed at a safe place. Luther,
however, to whom the Elector showed this letter, at once declared
himself ready to go into exile, but would not be deterred from
publishing new declarations or taking further steps.

He had a report of his conference with Caietan printed, with a
justification of himself to the readers. And in this he advanced
propositions against the Papacy which entirely shook its whole
foundation. Already, in the solutions to his theses, he had
incidentally, and without attracting further notice by the remark,
spoken of a time when the Papacy had not yet acquired supremacy over
the Universal Church, thereby contradicting what the Romish Church
maintained and had made into a dogma, namely, that the Papal see
possessed this primacy by original institution through Christ, and
by means of immutable Divine right. He now expressed this opinion as
a positive proposition. The Papal monarchy, he declared, was only a
Divine institution in the sense in which every temporal power,
advanced by the progress of historical development, might be called
so also. 'The kingdom of God cometh not with observation.'

Without waiting for an answer direct from Rome, Luther now abandoned
all thoughts of success with Leo X. On November 28 he formally and
solemnly appealed from the Pope to a General Christian Council. By
so doing he anticipated the sentence of excommunication which he was
daily expecting. With Rome he had broken for ever, unless she were
to surrender her claims and acquisitions of more than a thousand
years.

After once the first restraints of awe were removed with which
Luther had regarded the Papacy, behind and beyond the matter of the
indulgences, and he had learned to know the Papal representative at
Augsburg, and made a stand against his demands and menaces, and
escaped from his dangerous clutches, he enjoyed for the first time
the fearless consciousness of freedom. He took a wider survey around
him, and saw plainly the deep corruption and ungodliness of the
powers arrayed against him. His mind was impelled forward with more
energy as his spirit for the fight was stirred within him. Even the
prospect that he might have to fly, and the uncertainty whither his
flight could be, did not daunt or deter him. His thought was how he
could throw himself with more freedom into the struggle, if no
longer hampered by any obligations to his prince and his university.
Writing at that time to his friend Link, to inform him of his new
publications and his appeal, he invited his opinion as to whether he
was not right in saying that the Antichrist of whom St. Paul speaks
(2 Thess. ii.), ruled at the Papal court. 'My pen,' he went on to
say, 'is already giving birth to something much greater. I know not
whence these thoughts come. The work, as far as I can see, has
hardly yet begun, so little reason have the great men at Rome for
hoping it is finished.' Again, while informing Spalatin, through
whom the Elector always urged him to moderation, of new Papal edicts
and regulations aimed against him, he declared, 'The more those
Romish grandees rage and meditate the use of force, the less do I
fear them. All the more free shall I become to fight against the
serpents of Rome. I am prepared for all, and await the judgment of
God.'

He was really prepared for exile or flight at any moment. At
Wittenberg his friends were alarmed by rumours of designs on the
part of the Pope against his life and liberty, and insisted on his
being placed in safety. Flight to France was continually talked of;
had he not followed in his appeal a precedent set by the university
of Paris? We certainly cannot see how he could safely have been
conveyed thither, or where, indeed, any other and safer place could
have been found for him. Some urged that the Elector himself should
take him into custody and keep him in a place of safety, and then
write to the legate that he held him securely in confinement and was
in future responsible for him. Luther proposed this to Spalatin, and
added, 'I leave the decision of this matter to your discretion; I am
in the hands of God and of my friends.' The Elector himself, anxious
also in this respect, arranged early in December a confidential
interview between Luther and Spalatin at the Castle of Lichtenberg.
He also, as Luther reported to Staupitz, wished that Luther had some
other place to be in, but he advised him against going away so
hastily to France. His own wish and counsel, however, he refrained
as yet from making known. Luther declared that at all events, if a
ban of excommunication were to come from Rome, he would not remain
longer at Wittenberg. On this point also the prince kept secret his
resolve.




CHAPTER IV.

MILTITZ AND THE DISPUTATION AT LEIPZIG, WITH IT RESULTS.


The rumours of the dangers that threatened Luther from Rome had a
good foundation. A new agent from there had now arrived in Germany,
the Papal chamberlain, Charles von Miltitz.

His errand was designed to remove the chief obstacle to summoning
the Wittenberg heretic to Rome, or imprisoning him there, namely,
the protection afforded him by his sovereign. Miltitz was of a noble
Saxon family, himself a Saxon subject by birth, and a friend of the
Electoral court. He brought with him a high token of favour for the
Elector. The latter had formerly expressed a wish to receive the
golden rose; a symbol solemnly consecrated by the Pope himself, and
bestowed by his ambassadors on princely personages to this day, for
services rendered to the Church or the Papal see. The bearer of this
decoration was Miltitz, and on October 24, 1518, he was furnished
with a whole armful of Papal indulgences.

Above all, he took with him two letters of Leo X. to Frederick. The
Elector, his beloved son, so ran the first missive, was to receive
the most holy rose, anointed with the sacred chrism, sprinkled with
scented musk, consecrated with the Apostolic blessing, a gift of
transcendent worth and the symbol of a deep mystery, in remembrance
and as a pledge of the Pope's paternal love and singular good-will,
conveyed through an ambassador specially appointed by the Pope, and
charged with particular greetings on that behalf &c. &c. Such a
costly gift, proffered him by the Church through her Pontiff, was
intended to manifest her joy at the redemption of mankind by the
precious blood of Jesus Christ, and the rose was an appropriate
symbol of the quickening and refreshing body of our Redeemer. These
high-sounding and long-winded expressions showed very plainly the
real object of the Pope. The divine fragrance of this flower was so
to permeate the inmost heart of Frederick, the 'beloved son,' that
he being filled with it, might with pious mind receive and cherish
in his noble breast those matters which Miltitz would explain to
him, and whereof the second brief made mention; and thus the more
fervently comprehend the Pope's holy and pious longing, agreeably to
the hope he placed in him. The other letter, however, after
referring to the call for aid against the Turks, goes on to speak of
Luther. From Satan himself came this son of perdition, who was
preaching notorious heresy, and that chiefly in Frederick's own
land. Inasmuch as this diseased sheep must not be suffered to infect
the heavenly flock, and as the honour and conscience of the Elector
also must needs be stained by his presence, Miltitz was commissioned
to take measures against him and his associates, and Frederick was
exhorted in the name of the Lord to assist him with his authority
and favour.

Papal instructions in writing to the same effect were given to
Miltitz for Spalatin, as Frederick's private secretary, and for
Degenhard Pfeffinger, a counsellor of the Elector. To Spalatin in
particular, the most trusted adviser of Frederick in religious
matters, it was represented, how horrible was the heretical audacity
of this 'son of Satan,' and how he imperilled the good name of the
Elector. In like manner the chief magistrate of Wittenberg was
required by letter to give assistance to Miltitz, and enable him to
execute freely and unhindered the Pope's commands against the
heretic Luther, who came of the devil. Miltitz took with him similar
injunctions for a number of other towns in Germany, to ensure safe
passage for himself and his prisoner to Rome, in the event of his
arresting Luther. He was armed, it was said, with no less than
seventy letters of this kind.

As regards the rose, Miltitz had strict orders to make the actual
delivery of it to Frederick depend wholly on his compliance with
Caietan's advice and will. It was deposited first of all in the
mercantile house of the Fuggers at Augsburg. This public precaution
was taken, to prevent Miltitz from parting with the precious gift in
haste or from too anxious a desire for the thanks and praise in
prospect, before there were reasonable grounds for hoping that it
had served its purpose.

Towards the middle of December a Papal bull, issued on November 9,
was published by Caietan in Germany, which finally laid down the
doctrine of indulgences in the sense directly combated by Luther,
and, although not mentioning him by name, threatened excommunication
against all who shared the errors which had lately been promulgated
in certain quarters.

So utterly did the Pope appear to have set his face against all
reconciliation or compromise. And yet, as the event showed, room was
left for Miltitz in his secret instructions to try another method,
according as circumstances might dictate.

Miltitz, after having crossed the Alps, sought an interview first
with Caietan in Southern Germany, and, as the latter had gone to the
Emperor in Austria, he paid a visit to his old friend Pfeffinger, at
his home in Bavaria. Continuing his journey with him, he arrived on
December 25 at the town of Gera, and from there announced his
arrival to Spalatin, who was at Altenburg. On the way he had had
constant opportunities of noticing, both among learned men and the
common people, signs of sympathy for the man against whom his
mission was directed, and a feeling hostile to Rome, of which those
at Rome neither knew nor cared to know. He was a young and clever
man, full of the enjoyment of life, who knew how to mix and converse
with people of every kind, and even to touch now and then on the
situation and doings at Rome which were exciting such lively
indignation. Tetzel also, whom Miltitz summoned to meet him, wrote
complaining that the people in Germany were so excited against him
by Luther, that his life would not be safe on the road. Miltitz
accordingly, with his usual readiness, resolved speedily on an
attempt to make Luther harmless by other means. After paying his
visit to the Elector at Altenburg, he agreed to treat with him there
in a friendly manner.

The remarkable interview with Luther took place at Spalatin's house
at Altenburg in the first week of the new year. Miltitz feigned the
utmost frankness and friendliness, nay, even cordiality. He himself
declared to Luther, that for the last hundred years no business had
caused so much trouble at Rome as this one, and that they would
gladly there give ten thousand ducats to prevent its going further.
He described the state of popular feeling as he had found it on his
journey; three were for Luther where only one was for the Pope. He
would not venture, even with an escort of 25,000 men, to carry off
Luther through Germany to Rome. 'Oh, Martin!' he exclaimed, 'I
thought you were some old theologian, who had carried on his
disputations with himself, in his warm corner behind the stove. Now
I see how young, and fresh, and vigorous you are.' Whilst plying him
with exhortations and reproaches about the injury he did to the
Romish Church, he accompanied them with tears. He fancied by this
means to make him his confidant and conformable to his schemes.

Luther, however, soon showed him that he could be his match in
cleverness. He refrained, he tells us, from letting Miltitz see that
he was aware what crocodile's tears they were. Indeed he was quite
prepared, as he had been before under the menaces of a Papal
ambassador, so now under his persuasions and entreaties, to yield
all that his conscience allowed, but nothing beyond, and then
quietly to let matters take their own course.

In the event of Miltitz withdrawing his demand for a retractation,
Luther agreed to write a letter to the Pope, acknowledging that he
had been too hasty and severe, and promising to publish a
declaration to German Christendom urging and admonishing reverence
to the Romish Church. His cause, and the charges brought against
him, might be tried before a German bishop, but he reserved to
himself the right, in case the judgment should be unacceptable, of
reviving his appeal to the Church in Council. Personally he desired
to desist from further strife, but silence must also be imposed on
his adversaries.

Having come to this point of agreement, they partook of a friendly
supper together, and on parting Miltitz bestowed on him a kiss.

In a report given of this conference to the Elector, Luther
expressed the hope that the matter by mutual silence might 'bleed
itself to death,' but added his fear that, if the contest were
prolonged, the question would grow larger and become serious.

He now wrote his promised address to the people. He bated not an
inch from his standpoint, so that, even if he should for the future
let the controversy rest, he might not appear to have retracted
anything. He allowed a value to indulgences, but only as a
recompense for the 'satisfaction' given by the sinner, and adding
that it was better to do good than to purchase indulgences. He urged
the duty of holding fast in Christian love and unity, and
notwithstanding her faults and sins, to the Romish Church, in which
St. Peter and St. Paul and hundreds of martyrs had shed their blood,
and of submitting to her authority, though with reference only to
external matters. Propositions going beyond what was here conceded
he wished to be regarded as in no way affecting the people or the
common man. They should be left, he said, to the schools of
theology, and learned men might fight the matter out between them.
His opponents indeed, if they had admitted what Luther declared in
this address, would have had to abandon their main principles, for
to them the doctrine that indulgences and Church authority meant far
more than was here stated was a truth indispensable for salvation.

Luther wrote his letter to the Pope on March 3, 1519. It began with
expressions of the deepest personal humility, but differed
significantly in the quiet firmness of its tone from his other
letter of the previous year to Leo X. Quietly, but as resolutely, he
repudiated all idea of retracting his principles. They had already,
through the opposition raised by his enemies, been propagated far
and wide, beyond all his expectations, and had sunk into the hearts
of the Germans, whose knowledge and judgment were now more matured.
If he let himself be forced to retract them he would give occasion
to accusation and revilement against the Romish Church; for the sake
of her own honour he must refuse to do so. As for his battle against
indulgences, his only thought had been to prevent the Mother Church
from being defiled by foreign avarice, and that the people should
not be led astray, but learn to set love before indulgences.

Meanwhile, on January 12, Maximilian had died. He was the last
national Emperor with whom Germany was blessed; in character a true
German, endowed with rich gifts both mental and physical, a man of
high courage and a warm heart, thoroughly understanding how to deal
with high and low, and to win their esteem and love. By Luther too
we hear him often spoken of afterwards in terms of affectionate
remembrance: he tells us of his kindness and courtesy to everyone,
of his efforts to attract around him trusty and capable servants
from all ranks, of his apt remarks, of his tact in jest and in
earnest; further of the troubles he had in his government of the
Empire and with his princes, of the insolence he had to put up with
from the Italians, and of the humour with which he speaks of himself
and his imperial rule. 'God,' said he on one occasion, 'has well
ordered the temporal and spiritual government; the former is ruled
over by a chamois-hunter, and the latter by a drunken priest' (Pope
Julius). He called himself a king of kings, because his German
princes only acted like kings when it suited them. With the lofty
ideas and projects which he cherished as sovereign, he stood before
the people as a worthy representative of Imperialism, even though
his eyes may have been fixed in reality more on his own family and
the power of his dynasty, than on the general interests of the
Empire. The ecclesiastical grievances of the German nation, which we
heard of at the Diet of 1518, had long engaged his lively sympathy,
though he deemed it wiser to abstain from interfering. He had an
opinion on these matters and on the necessary reforms drawn up by
the Humanist Wimpheling. Nay, he had once, in his contest with Pope
Julius, worked to bring about a general reforming Council. The
question forces itself on the mind--however vain such an inquiry may
be from a historical point of view--what turn Luther's great work,
and the fortunes of the German nation and Church would have taken,
if Maximilian had identified his own imperial projects with the
interests for which Luther contended, and thus had come forward as
the leader of a great national movement. As it was, Maximilian died
without ever having realised more of the importance of this monk
than was shown by his remark about him, already noticed, at
Augsburg.

[Illustration: FIG. l3.--THE EMPEROR MAXIMILIAN. (From his Portrait
by Albert Durer.)]

His death served to increase the respect which the Pope found it
necessary to show to the Elector Frederick. For, pending the
election of a new Emperor, the latter was Administrator of the
Empire for Northern Germany, and the issue of the election depended
largely on his influence. On June 28 Maximilian's grandson, King
Charles of Spain, then nineteen years of age, was chosen Emperor. He
was a stranger to German life and customs, as the German people and
the Reformer must constantly have had to feel. For the Pope,
however, these considerations were of further import, for in his
dealings with the new Emperor he had to proceed at least with
caution, since the latter was aware that he had done his best to
prevent his election. On the other hand, Charles was under an
obligation to the Elector, being mainly indebted to him for his
crown, and unable to come himself immediately to Germany to accept
his rule.

Miltitz meanwhile had further prosecuted his scheme, without
revealing his own ultimate object. He chose for a judge of Luther's
cause the Archbishop of Treves, and persuaded him to accept the
office. Early in May he had an interview with Caietan at Coblentz,
the chief town of the archiepiscopal diocese, and now summoned
Luther to appear there before the Archbishop.

But Miltitz took good care to say nothing about the opinions
entertained at Rome of his negotiations with Luther. Would Luther
venture from his refuge at Wittenberg without the consent of his
faithful sovereign, who himself evinced suspicion in the matter, and
set forth in the dark, so to speak, on his long journey to the two
ambassadors of the Pope? He would be held a fool, he wrote to
Miltitz, if he did; moreover, he did not know where to find the
money for the journey. What took place between Rome and Miltitz in
this affair was altogether unknown to Luther, as it is to us.

Whilst this attempt at a mediation--if such it could be called--remained
thus in abeyance, a serious occasion of strife had been prepared, which
caused the seemingly muffled storm to break out with all its violence.

Luther's colleague, Carlstadt, who at first, on the appearance of
Luther's theses, had viewed them with anxiety, but who afterwards
espoused the new Wittenberg theology, and pressed forward in that
path, had had a literary feud since 1518 with Eck, on account of his
attacks upon Luther. The latter, meeting Eck at Augsburg in October,
arranged with him for a public disputation in which Eck and
Carlstadt could fight the matter out. Luther hoped, as he told Eck
and his friends, that there might be a worthy battle for the truth,
and the world should then see that theologians could not only
dispute but come to an agreement. Thus then, at least between him
and Eck, there seemed the prospect of a friendly understanding. The
university of Leipzig was chosen as the scene of the disputation.
Duke George of Saxony, the local ruler, gave his consent, and
rejected the protest of the theological faculty, to whom the affair
seemed very critical.

When, however, towards the end of the year, Eck published the theses
which he intended to defend, Luther found with astonishment that
they dealt with cardinal points of doctrine, which he himself,
rather than Carlstadt, had maintained, and that Carlstadt was
expressly designated the 'champion of Luther.' Only one of these
theses related to a doctrine specially defended by Carlstadt,
namely, that of the subjection of the will in sinful man. Among the
other points noticed was the denial of the primacy of the Romish
Church during the first few centuries after Christ. Eck had
extracted this from Luther's recent publications; so far as
Carlstadt was concerned, he could not have read or heard a word of
such a statement.

Luther fired up. In a public letter addressed to Carlstadt he
observed that Eck had let loose against him, in reality, the frogs
or flies intended for Carlstadt, and he challenged Eck himself. He
would not reproach him for having so maliciously, uncourteously, and
in an untheological manner charged Carlstadt with doctrines to which
he was a stranger; he would not complain of being drawn himself
again into the contest by a piece of base flattery on Eck's part
towards the Pope; he would merely show that his crafty wiles were
well understood, and he wished to exhort him in a friendly spirit,
for the future, if only for his own reputation, to be a little more
sensible in his stratagems. Eck might then gird his sword upon his
thigh, and add a Saxon triumph to the others of which he boasted,
and so at length rest on his laurels. Let him bring forth to the
world what he was in labour of; let him disgorge what had long been
lying heavy on his stomach, and bring his vainglorious menaces at
length to an end.

Luther was anxious, indeed, apart from this special reason, to be
allowed to defend in a public disputation the truth for which he was
called a heretic; he had made this proposal in vain to the legate at
Augsburg. He now demanded to be admitted to the lists at Leipzig. He
wished in particular, to take up the contest, openly and decisively,
about the Papal primacy.

His friends just on this point grew anxious about him. But he
prepared his weapons with great diligence, studying thoroughly the
ecclesiastical law-books and the history of ecclesiastical law, with
which until now he had never occupied himself so much. Herein he
found his own conclusions fully confirmed. Nay, he found that the
tyrannical pretensions of the Pope, even if more than a thousand
years old, derived their sole and ultimate authority from the Papal
decretals of the last four centuries. Arrayed against the theory of
that primacy were the history of the previous centuries, the
authority of the Council of Nice in 325, and the express declaration
of Scripture. This he stated now in a thesis, and announced his
opinion in print.

We have already noticed the high importance of this historical
evidence in regard to matters of belief, as well as to the entire
conception of Christian salvation, and of the true community or
Church of Christ. The real essence of the Church is shown not to
depend on its constitution under a Pope. And the course of history,
wherein God allowed the Christians of the West to come under the
external authority of the Pope, just as people come to be under the
rule of different princes, in no way subjected, or should subject,
the whole of Christendom to his dominion. The millions of Eastern
Christians, who are not his subjects, and who are therefore
condemned by the Pope as schismatics, are all, as Luther now
distinctly declares, none the less members of Christendom, of the
Church, of the Body of Christ. Participation in salvation does not
exist only in the community of the Church of Rome. For Christendom
collectively, or the Universal Church, there is no other Head but
Christ. Luther now also discovered and declared that the bishops did
not receive their posts over individual dioceses and flocks until
after the Apostolic period; the episcopate therefore ceases to be an
essential and necessary element of the Church system. What, then, is
really essential for the continuance of the Church, and how far does
it extend? Luther answers this question with the fundamental
principle of Evangelical Protestantism. The Church, he says, is not
at Rome only, but there, and there only, where the Word of God is
preached and believed in; where Christian faith, hope, and charity
are alive, where Christ, inwardly received, stands before a united
Christendom as her bridegroom. This Universal Church, says Luther,
is the one intended by the Creed, when it says 'I believe in a Holy
Catholic Church, the communion of saints.'

The mere external power which the Popedom exercised in its
government of the Church, in the imposition of outward acts and
penalties--appeared, so far, to Luther a matter of indifference in
respect to religion and the salvation of souls. But it was another
and more serious matter with regard to the claim to Divine right
asserted for that power by the Papacy, and to its extension over the
soul and conscience, over the community of the faithful, nay, over
the fate of departed souls. Here Luther saw an invasion of the
rights reserved by God to Himself, and a perversion of the true
conditions of salvation, as established by Christ and testified in
Scripture. Here he saw a human potentate and tyrant, setting himself
up in the place of Christ and God. He shuddered, so he wrote to his
friends, when, in reading the Papal decretals, he looked further
into the doings of the Popes, with their demands and edicts, into
this smithy of human laws, this fresh crucifixion of Christ, this
ill-treatment and contempt of His people. As previously he had said
that Antichrist ruled at the Papal court, so now, in a letter of
March 13, 1519, he wrote privately to Spalatin, 'I know not whether
the Pope is Antichrist himself, or one of his Apostles,' so
antichristian seemed to him the institution of the Papacy itself,
with its principles and its fruits. Of these decretals he says in
another letter: 'If the death-blow dealt to indulgences has so
damaged the see of Rome, what will it do when, by the will of God,
its decretals have to breathe their last? Not that I glory in
victory, trusting to my own strength, but my trust is in the mercy
of God, whose wrath is against the edicts of man.'

[Illustration: Fig. 14.--DUKE GEORGE OF SAXONY. (From an old
woodcut.)]

Luther earnestly entreated Duke George to allow him to take part in
the disputation. His Elector, who no doubt was personally desirous
of a public, free, and learned treatment of the questions at issue,
had already given him his permission. Luther's understanding with
Miltitz presented no obstacle, since the silence required as a
condition on the part of his opponents, had never been observed, nor
indeed had ever been enjoined or recommended either by Miltitz or
any other authorities of the Church. His application, nevertheless,
to the Duke was referred to Eck for his concurrence, and the latter
let him wait in vain for an answer. At last the Duke drew up a
letter of safe-conduct for Carlstadt and all whom he might bring
with him, and under this designation Luther was included. He might
safely trust himself to George's word as a man and a prince.

The whole disputation was opposed and protested against from the
outset by the Bishop of Merseburg, the chancellor of the university
of Leipzig and the spiritual head of the faculty of theology. The
project must have been inadmissible in his eyes from the mere fact
that Eck's theses revived the controversy about indulgences, which
was supposed to have been settled once and for ever by the Papal
bull. He appealed to this pronouncement as a reason for not holding
it. Inasmuch as the disputation took place, in spite of this
protest, with the Duke's consent, it became an affair of all the
more importance.

Duke George himself took an active interest in the matter. His was a
robust, upright, and sturdy character. He was a staunch and faithful
upholder of the ecclesiastical traditions in which he had grown up;
it was difficult for him to extend his views. But he was honestly
interested in the truth. He wished that his own men of learning
might have a good scuffle in the lists for the truth's sake. On
hearing of the objections of the Leipzig theologians to the
disputation, his remark was, 'They are evidently afraid to be
disturbed in their idleness and guzzling, and think that whenever
they hear a shot fired, it has hit them.' An unusually large
audience being expected for the disputation, he had the large hall
of his Castle of Pleissenburg cleared and furnished for the
occasion. He commissioned two of his counsellors to preside, and was
anxious himself to be present. How much depended on the impression
which the disputation itself, and Luther with it, should produce
upon him!

On June 24 the Wittenbergers entered Leipzig, with Carlstadt at
their head. An eye-witness has described the scene: 'They entered at
the Grimma Gate, and their students, two hundred in number, ran
beside the carriages with pikes and halberds, and thus accompanied
their professors. Dr. Carlstadt drove first; after him, Dr. Martin
and Philip (Melancthon) in a light basket carriage with solid wooden
wheels (Rollwagen); none of the wagons were either curtained or
covered. Just as they had passed the town-gate and had reached the
churchyard of St. Paul, Dr. Carlstadt's carriage broke down, and the
doctor fell out into the dirt; but Dr. Martin and his _fidus
Achates_ Philip, drove on.' Meanwhile, an episcopal mandate,
forbidding the disputation on pain of excommunication, had been
nailed up on the church doors, but no heed was paid to it. The
magistrate even imprisoned the man who posted the bill for having
done so without his permission.

Before commencing the disputation, certain preliminary conditions
were arranged. The proceedings were to be taken down by notaries.
Eck had opposed this, fearing to be hindered in the free use of his
tongue, and not liking to have all his utterances in debate so
exactly defined. The protocols, however, were to be submitted to
umpires charged to decide the result of the disputation, and were to
be published after their verdict was announced. In vain had both
Luther and Carlstadt, who refused to bind themselves to this
decision, opposed this stipulation. The Duke, however, insisted on
it, as a means of terminating judicially the contest.

Early on the morning of June 27 the disputation was opened with all
the worldly and spiritual solemnity that could be given to a most
important academical event. First came an address of welcome in the
hall, spoken by the Leipzig professor, Simon Pistoris; then a mass
in the church of St. Thomas, whither the assembly repaired in a
procession of state; then a still grander procession to the
Pleissenburg, where a division of armed citizens was stationed as a
guard of honour; then a long speech on the right way of disputing,
delivered in the Castle hall by the famous Peter Schade Mosellanus,
a professor at Leipzig and a master of Latin eloquence; and lastly
the chanting three times of the Latin hymn, 'Come, Holy Ghost,' the
whole assembly kneeling. At two o'clock the disputation between Eck
and Carlstadt began. They were placed opposite each other in
pulpits.

A host of theologians and learned laymen had flocked together to the
scene. From Wittenberg had come the Pomeranian Duke Barnim, then
Rector of the University. Prince George of Anhalt, then a young
Leipzig student, and afterwards a friend of Luther, was there. Duke
George of Saxony frequently attended the proceedings, and listened
attentively. His court jester is said to have appeared with him, and
a comic scene is mentioned as having occurred between him and Eck,
to the great diversion of the meeting. Frederick the Wise was
represented by one of his counsellors, Hans von Planitz.

Eck and Carlstadt contended for four days, from June 27 to July 8,
on the question of free will and its relations to the operation of
the grace of God. It was a wearisome contest, with disconnected
texts from Scripture and passages from old teachers of the Church,
but without any of the lively and free animation of moral and
religious spirit, which, in Luther's treatment of such questions,
carried his hearers with him. In power of memory, as in readiness of
speech, Eck proved himself superior to his opponent. On Carlstadt
bringing books of reference with him, he got this disallowed, and
had now the advantage that no one could check his own quotations.
Thus, confident of triumph, he proceeded to his contest with Luther.

Luther meanwhile, on June 29, the day of St. Peter and St. Paul, had
preached a sermon at the request of Duke Barnim at the Castle of
Pleissenburg, wherein, referring to the Gospel of the day, he
treated, in a simple, practical, and edifying manner, of the main
point of the disputation between Eck and Carlstadt, and at the same
time of the point he himself was about to argue, namely, the meaning
of the power of the keys granted to St. Peter. In opposition to him,
Eck delivered four sermons in various churches of the town (none of
which Luther would have been allowed to preach in), and speaking of
them afterwards he said, 'I simply stirred up the people to be
disgusted with the Lutheran errors.' The members of the Leipzig
university kept peevishly aloof from their brethren of Wittenberg
throughout the disputation, while paying all possible homage to Eck.
When Luther one day entered a church, the monks who were conducting
service hastily took away the monstrance and the elements, to avoid
having them defiled by his presence. And yet he was afterwards
reproached for neglecting to go to church at Leipzig. In the
hostelries where the Wittenberg students lodged, such violent scenes
occurred between them and their Leipzig brethren, that halberdiers
had to be stationed at the tables to keep order.

Duke George invited the heretic, together with Eck and Carlstadt, to
his own table, and to a private audience as well. So frank and
genial was he, and so intent on making himself acquainted with
Luther and his cause. Luther spoke of him then as a good, pious
prince, who knew how to speak in princely fashion. The Duke,
however, told him at that audience, that the Bohemians entertained
great expectations of him; and yet George, who on his mother's side
was grand-son to Podiebrad, King of Bohemia, was anxious to have all
taint of the hateful Bohemian heresy most carefully avoided. On this
point Luther remarked to him that he knew well how to distinguish
between the pipe and the piper, and was only sorry to see how
accessible princes might be to the influence of foreign agitations.
Leipzig altogether must have been a strange and uncomfortable
atmosphere for Luther.

On Monday, July 4, he entered the lists with Eck. On the morning of
that day he signed the conditions, which had been arranged in spite
of his protest; but he stated that, against the verdict of the
judges, whatever it might be, he maintained the right of appeal to a
Council, and would not accept the Papal curia as his judge. The
protocol on this point ran as follows: 'Nevertheless Dr. Martin has
stipulated for his appeal, which he has already announced, and so
far as the same is lawful, will in no wise abandon his claim
thereto. He has stipulated further that, for reasons touching
himself, the report of this disputation shall not be submitted for
approval to the Papal court.'

[Illustration: Fig. 15.--LUTHER. (From an engraving of Cranach, in
1520.)]

The appearance of Luther at this disputation has given occasion for
the first description of his person which we possess from the pen of
a contemporary. Mosellanus, already mentioned, says of him in a
letter: 'He is of middle stature, his body thin, and so wasted by
care and study, that nearly all his bones may be counted. He is in
the prime of life. His voice is clear and melodious. His learning
and his knowledge of Scripture are extraordinary; he has nearly
everything at his fingers' ends. Greek and Hebrew he understands
sufficiently well to give his judgment on the interpretation of the
Scriptures. In speaking, he has a vast store of subjects and words
at his command; he is moreover refined and sociable in his life and
manners; he has no rough Stoicism or pride about him, and he
understands how to adapt himself to different persons and times. In
society he is lively and witty. He is always fresh, cheerful, and at
his ease, and has a pleasant countenance, however hard his enemies
may threaten him, so that one cannot but believe that Heaven is with
him in his great undertaking. Most people however reproach him with
wanting moderation in polemics, and with being more cutting than
befits a theologian and one who propounds something new in sacred
matters.' His ability as a disputant was afterwards acknowledged by
Eck, who in referring to this tourney, quoted Aristotle's remark
that when two men dispute together, each of whom has learned the
art, there is sure to be a good disputation.

Eck is described by Mosellanus as a man of a tall, square figure,
with a voice fit for a public crier, but more coarse than distinct,
and with nothing pleasant about it; with the mouth, the eyes, and
the whole appearance of a butcher or soldier, but with a most
remarkable memory. In power of memory and elocution he surpassed
even Luther; but in solidity and real breadth of learning, impartial
men like Pistoris gave the palm to Luther. Eck is said to have
imitated the Italians in his great animation of speech, his
declamation, and gesticulations with his arms and his whole body.
Melancthon even said in a letter after the disputation, 'Most of us
must admire Eck for his manifold and distinguished intellectual
gifts.' Later on he calls him, 'Eckeckeck, the daws'-voice.' At any
rate Eck displayed a rare power and endurance in those Leipzig days,
and understood above all how to pursue with cleverness the real
object he had in view in his contest with Luther.

The two began at once with that point which Eck had singled out as
the chief object of debate, and about which Luther had advanced his
boldest proposition, namely, the question of the Papal power.

[Illustration: Fig 16.--DR. JOHN ECK. (From an old woodcut.)]

After lengthy discussions on the evidence of texts of Scripture; on
the old Fathers of the Church, to whom the Papal supremacy was
unknown; on the Western Church of middle ages, by whom that
supremacy was acknowledged at an earlier period than Luther would
admit; on the non-subjection to Rome of Eastern Christendom, to whom
Luther referred, and whom Eck with a light heart put outside the
pale of salvation, Eck on the second day of the disputation passed,
after due premeditation, from the ecclesiastical authorities he had
quoted in favour of the Divine right of the Papal primacy, to the
statements of the English heretic Wicliffe, and the Bohemian Huss,
who had denied this right, and had therefore been justly condemned.
He was bound to notice them, he said, since, in his own frail and
humble judgment, Luther's thesis favoured in the highest degree the
errors of the Bohemians, who, it was reported, wished him well for
his opinions. Luther answered him as he had done in each case
before. He condemned the separation of the Bohemians from the
Catholic Church, on the ground that the highest right derived from
God was that of love and the Spirit, and he repudiated the reproach
which Eck sought to cast upon him. But he declared at the same time
that the Bohemians on that point had never yet been refuted. And
with perfect self-conviction and calm reflection he proceeded to
assert that among the articles of Huss some were fundamentally
Christian and Evangelical, such as, for example, his statements that
there was only one Universal Church (to which even Greek Christendom
had always and still belonged), and that the belief in the supremacy
of the Church of Rome was not necessary to salvation. No man, he
added, durst impose upon a Christian an article of belief which was
antiscriptural; the judgment of an individual Christian must be
worth more than that of the Pope or even of a Council, provided he
has a better ground for it.

That moment, when Luther spoke thus of the doctrines of Huss, a
heretic already condemned by a Council and proscribed in Germany,
was the most impressive and important in the whole disputation. An
eye-witness, who sat below Duke George and Barnim, relates that the
Duke, on hearing the words, shouted out in a voice heard by all the
assembly, 'A plague upon it!' and shook his head, and put both hands
to his sides. The whole audience, variously as they thought of the
assertion, must have been fairly astounded. Luther, it was true, had
already stated in writing that a Council could err. But now he
declared himself for principles which a Council, namely that of
Constance, solemnly appointed and unanimously recognised by the
whole of Western Christendom, had condemned, and thus openly accused
that Council of error in a decision of the most momentous
importance. Nay more, that decision had been concurred in by the
very men who, while recognising the Papal primacy, strenuously
defended against Papal despotism the rights of General Councils, and
of the nations and states which they represented. The Western
Catholic Church entertained, as we have seen, a diversity of views
as to the relative authority of the Popedom, as an institution of
Christ, and that which appertained to Councils. Luther now, by
denying the Divine institution and authority of the Papacy, seemed
to have broken with all authority whatsoever existing in the Church,
and with every possible exercise of the same.

Luther himself does not appear to have considered at the moment this
extent of his acknowledgment of the 'Christian' character of some of
Huss's articles, nor to have adequately reflected on the attitude of
direct opposition in which it placed him to the Council of
Constance. When Eck declared it 'horrible' that the 'reverend
father' had not shrunk from contradicting that holy Council,
assembled by consent of all Christendom, Luther interrupted him with
the words, 'It is not true that I have spoken against the Council of
Constance.' He then went on to draw the inference that the authority
of the Council, if it erred in respect of those articles, was
consequently fallible altogether.

Some days later, and after further consideration, Luther produced
four propositions of Huss, which were perfectly Christian, although
they had been formally rejected by the Council. He sought means,
nevertheless, to preserve for the Council its dignity. As for these
rejected articles, he said, it had declared only some to be
heretical, and others to be simply mistaken, and the latter, at all
events, must not be counted as heresies--nay, he took the liberty of
supposing that the former were interpolations in the text of the
Council's resolutions. He would grant, further, that the decisions
of a Council in matters of faith must at all times be accepted. And
in order to guard himself against any misunderstanding and
misconstruction, he once broke off from the Latin, in which the
whole disputation had been conducted, and declared in German that he
in no way desired to see allegiance renounced to the Romish Church,
but that the only question in dispute was whether its supremacy
rested on Divine right--that is to say, on direct Divine institution
in the New Testament, or whether its origin and character were
simply such as the Imperial Crown, for example, possessed in
relation to the German nation. He was well aware how charges of
heresy and apostasy were raised against him, and how industriously
Eck had promoted them. It was only with pain and inward struggles
that he stood out, Bible in hand, against the Council of Constance
and such a general gathering of Western Christendom. But not a step
would he go towards any recognition of the Papacy as an institution
resting on Scripture. He insisted that even a Council could not
compel him to do this, or make an essential article of Christian
belief out of anything not found in the Bible. Again and again he
declared that even a Council could err.

For five whole days they contested this main point of the
disputation, without arriving at any further result.

The other subjects of discussion, relating to purgatory,
indulgences, and penance, were after this of very little importance.
With regard to indulgences even Eck now displayed striking
moderation. The dispute on the correct conception of purgatory led
to a new and important declaration by Luther as to the power of the
Church in relation to Scripture. Eck quoted as Biblical proof a
passage from the Apocryphal Books of the Old Testament, which
although not originally included in the records of the Old Covenant,
had been accepted by the middle ages as of equal authority with the
other Biblical writings. For the first time Luther now protested
against the equal value thus assigned to them, and especially
against the Church conferring upon them an authority they did not
possess.

The disputation between Eck and Luther lasted till July 13. Luther
concluded his argument with the words: 'I am sorry that the learned
doctor only dips into Scripture as deep as the water-spider into the
water--nay, that he seems to fly from it as the devil from the
Cross. I prefer, with all deference to the Fathers, the authority of
Scripture, which I herewith recommend to the arbiters of our cause.'

After this Carlstadt and Eck had only a short passage of arms. The
disputation was to be concluded on the 15th, as Duke George wished
to receive the Elector of Brandenburg on a visit to the
Pleissenburg. With regard to the universities, to whom the report
of the disputation was to be submitted, those agreed upon were Paris
and Erfurt, but neither of the two would undertake so responsible a
task.

Eck left the disputation with triumph, applauded by his friends and
rewarded by Duke George with favours and honours. He followed up his
fancied victory by further exciting the people against Luther, and
pointing out to them in particular the sympathy between him and
Huss. He wrote even to the Elector Frederick from Leipzig, proposing
that he should have Luther's books burnt. The two men henceforth and
for ever were mutual enemies, with no dealings together but those of
heated controversy in writing. Eck's chief efforts were directed to
securing Luther's formal and public condemnation.

At Leipzig Luther had been watched with the utmost suspicion. The
common people had actually been told that there was something
mysterious in the little silver ring he wore on his finger, very
likely a small charm with the devil inside. It was even remarked on
and wondered at that he carried a bunch of flowers in his hand,
which he would look at and smell. From that time probably originated
the saying of a devout old dame at Leipzig, as published by one of
his theological opponents, the old woman having once lived at
Eisleben with Luther's mother, that her son Martin was the fruit of
an embrace by the devil.

For real information, however, about Luther at Leipzig, and the
impression he produced by his arguments, more is to be gathered from
the effect of his public appearance there during this disputation,
than from a whole heap of printed matter. We allude not only to the
educated laity and men of learning, but to the mass of the people
who shared in the excitement caused by this controversy. A few
months later we hear an opponent complain that Luther's teaching had
given rise to so much squabbling, discord, and rebellion among the
people, that 'there was absolutely not a town, village, or house,
where men were not ready to tear each other to pieces on his
account.'

Luther returned to Wittenberg full of dejection. The time at Leipzig
had only been wasted; the disputation had been unworthy of the name;
Eck and his friends there had cared nothing whatever about the
truth. Eck, he said, had made more clamour in an hour than he or
Carlstadt could have done in a couple of years, and yet all the time
the question at issue was one of peaceful and abstruse theology. His
disappointment, however, did not refer, as people perhaps might have
imagined, to the treatment his thesis on the Papal primacy had met
with, or to any embarrassment occasioned him on that account. On the
contrary, while complaining of the unworthy character of the
disputation, he excepted that particular thesis. He alluded rather
to the superficiality and want of interest with which such important
questions as justification by faith, and the sinfulness attaching
even to the best works of man, were passed over or evaded. On all
the points which he had wished to contend for and expound at
Leipzig, he now published further explanations. And with regard to
the Councils, he declared in still stronger terms than at Leipzig,
that they certainly might err and had erred even in the most
important matters; one had no right to identify either them or the
Pope with the Church.

From this he proceeded to explain his true relations with the
Bohemians. The theologian Jerome Emser, a friend of Eck, and a
favourite of Duke George, contributed in his own way to this end. He
had had a hot discussion with Luther before the disputation at
Leipzig, in which he reproached him with causing trouble in the
Church. He now prepared a remarkable public letter to a high
Catholic ecclesiastic at Prague, of the name of Zack. Whilst
asserting in it that the Bohemian schismatics appealed to Luther and
had actually offered prayers and held services for him during the
disputation, he announced, with feigned kindness to Luther, that the
latter, on the contrary, had eagerly repudiated at Leipzig any
fellowship with them, and had denounced their apostasy from Rome.
Luther detected in all this, mere trickery and malice, and we also
can only recognise in it a crafty attempt to ruin Luther's position
all round. If, says Luther, he were to accept in silence the praise
here meted out to him, he would seem to have retracted his whole
teaching, and laid down his arms before Eck; if, on the other hand,
he were to disclaim it, he would be cried down at once as a patron
of the Bohemians, and charged with base ingratitude to Emser.
Accordingly, in a small pamphlet, he broke out, full of wrath and
bitterness, against Emser, who replied to him in a similar tone. But
he represented the case with great clearness. If his doctrines had
pleased the Bohemians, he would not retract them on that account. He
had no desire to screen their errors, but he found on their side
Christ, the Scriptures, and the sacraments of the Church, and
therewith a Christian hatred of the worldliness, immorality, and
arrogance of the Romish clergy. Nay, he rejoiced to think that his
doctrines pleased them, and would be glad if they pleased Jews and
Turks, and Emser, who was enthralled in godless error, and even Eck
himself.

Letters were now already on the way to Luther from two ecclesiastics
of Prague, Paduschka and Rossdalovicky, members of the Utraquist
Hussite Church, which in opposition to Rome insisted on the
sacramental cup being given to the laity. They assured Luther of
their joyful and prayerful sympathy with him in his struggle. One of
them sent him a present of knives of Bohemian workmanship, the other
a writing of Huss upon the Church. Luther accepted the presents with
cordiality, and sent them his own writings in return. With regard to
separation from the Romish Church, the experience of Huss plainly
showed him how impossible that Church made it, even to one whose
heart was heavy at the thought of leaving her, to remain in her
communion.

Thus the contest at Leipzig was now over, whilst in the meantime at
Frankfort-on-the-Main, after the election of the new Emperor, the
Elector Frederick and the Archbishop of Treves consulted together
about an examination of Luther before the Archbishop, as proposed by
Miltitz. Both wished to postpone it till the Diet, then about to be
held. Miltitz, however, notwithstanding the result of the
disputation and the further declarations of Luther, still clung to
his plan of mediation. He arranged once more an interview with
Luther on October 9 at Liebenwerda, when the latter renewed his
promise to appear before the Archbishop, but he failed to induce the
Elector to let Luther travel with him to the Archbishop. For the
delivery of the golden rose, when it at last took place, he was
richly rewarded with money. But the fruitlessness of his
negotiations with Luther had become apparent.




CHAPTER V.

LUTHER'S FURTHER WORK, WRITINGS, AND INWARD PROGRESS, UNTIL 1520.


Luther looked upon his disputation at Leipzig as an idle waste of
time. He longed to get back to his work at Wittenberg. He remained,
in fact, devoted with his whole soul to his official duties there,
though to the historian, of course, his work and struggles in the
broader and general arena of the Church engage the most attention.
He might well quarrel with the occasions that constantly called him
out to it, as so many interruptions to his proper calling.

His energy there in the pulpit was as constant as his energy in the
professor's chair. He glowed with zeal to unfold the one truth of
salvation from its original source, the Scriptures, and to declare
it and impress it on the hearts of his young pupils and his
Wittenberg congregation, of educated and uneducated, of great and
small. But he also wished to lay it before his students as a truth
for life. With this object, he continued active with his pen, both
in the Latin and the German languages. He was glad to turn to this
from the questions of ecclesiastical controversy, which had formed
the subject of his disputation, and of the writings referring to it.
It was enough for him to show forth simply the merciful love of God
and of the Saviour Christ, to point out the simple road of faith,
and to destroy all trust in mere outward works, in one's own merit
and virtue. Only to this extent, and because the authority pretended
by the Church was opposed to this truth and this road to salvation,
he was forced here also, and in face of his congregation, to wield
the sword of his eloquence against that authority, and this he did
with a zeal regardless of consequences. In all that he did, in his
lectures as well as in his sermons, in his exposition of God's word
in particular, as in his own polemics, he always threw his whole
personality into the subject. We see him inwardly moved and often
elated by the joyful message which he himself had learned, and had
to announce to others, inspired by love to his fellow-Christians,
whom he would wish to help save, and zealous even to anger for the
cause of his Lord. At the same time, it cannot be denied that he was
often carried away by the vehemence of his views, which saw at once
in every opponent an uncompromising enemy to the truth; and that his
naturally passionate temperament was often powerfully stirred,
though even then his whole tone and demeanour was blended with
outbursts of the noblest and the purest zeal.

In his academical lectures Luther still remained faithful to that
path which he had struck out on entering the theological faculty. He
wished simply to propound the revealed word of God, by explaining
the books of the Old and New Testaments; though he took pains in
these lectures, in which he devoted several terms to the study of a
single book, to explain thoroughly and impressively the most
important doctrines of Christian faith and conduct. Thus he occupied
himself during the time of the contest about indulgences, and after
the autumn of 1516, with the Epistle to the Galatians, wherein he
found comprised clearly and briefly the fundamental truth of
salvation, the doctrine of the way of faith, of God's laws of
requirements and punishments, and of gospel grace. He then turned
anew to the Psalms, dissatisfied with his own earlier exposition of
them. His exposition of St. Paul's Epistle he had sent to the press
whilst engaged in his preparations for the Leipzig disputation. His
opponents, he says here, might busy themselves with their much
larger affairs, with their indulgences, their Papal bulls, and the
power of the Church, and so on; he would retire to smaller matters,
to the Holy Scriptures and to the Apostle, who called himself not a
prince of Apostles, but the least of the Apostles. He also now began
the printing of his work on the Psalms.

Crowds of listeners gathered around him; his audience at times
numbered upwards of four hundred. During the three years following
the outbreak of the quarrel about indulgences, the number of those
who matriculated annually at the university increased threefold.
Luther wrote to Spalatin that the number of students increased
mightily, like an overflowing river; the town could no longer
contain them, many had to leave again for want of dwellings.

To this prosperity of the university Melancthon especially
contributed. He had been appointed, as we have already mentioned,
first professor of Greek by the Elector, and in addition to the
young theologians, he attracted a number of other students to his
lectures. Of still greater importance for Luther and his work, was
the personal friendship and community of ideas, convictions, and
aspirations which had bound the two men together in close intimacy
from their first acquaintance. Their paths in life had hitherto been
very different. Philip Schwarzerd, surnamed Melancthon, born in 1497
of a burgher's family of the little town of Bretten in the
Palatinate, had passed a happy youth, and harmoniously and
peacefully developed into manhood. He had had from early life
capable teachers for his education, and was under the protection of
the great philologist Reuchlin, who was a brother of his
grandmother. He then showed gifts of mind wonderfully rich and early
ripening. Besides the classics, he learnt mathematics, astronomy,
and law. He also studied the Scriptures, grew to love them, and even
when a youth had made himself familiar with their contents, without
having had first to learn to know their worth by a heavy sense of
inward need, by inward struggles or a long unsatisfied hunger of the
soul. Thus, at seventeen he was already master of arts, and at
twenty-one was appointed professor at Wittenberg. The young man,
with an insignificant, delicate frame, and a shy, awkward demeanour,
yet with a handsome, powerful forehead, an intellectual eye, and
refined, thoughtful features, effaced at once, by his inaugural
address, any doubts arising from his youthful appearance.

[Illustration: FIG. 17.--MELANCTHON. (From a Portrait by Durer.)]

In this speech, however, he already declared that the chief object
of classical studies was to teach theologians to draw from the
original fount of Holy Scripture. He himself delivered a lecture on
the New Testament immediately after one on Homer. And it was the
Lutheran conception of the doctrine of salvation which he adopted in
his own continued study of the Bible.

The year of his arrival at Wittenberg he celebrated Luther in a
poem. He accompanied him to Leipzig. During the disputation there he
is said to have assisted his friend with occasional suggestions or
notes of argument, and thereby to have roused the anger of Eck. He
now took the lowest theological degree of bachelor, to qualify
himself for giving theological lectures on Scripture. He who from
early youth had enjoyed so abundantly the treasures of Humanistic
learning, and had won for himself the admiration of an Erasmus, now
found in this study of Scripture a 'heavenly ambrosia' for his soul,
and something much higher than all human wisdom. And already, in
independent judgment on the traditional doctrines of the Church, he
not only kept pace with Luther but even outwent him. It was he who
attacked the dogma of transubstantiation, according to which in the
mass the bread and wine of the sacrament are so changed by the
consecration of the priest into the body and blood of our Lord, that
nothing really remains of their original substance, but they only
appear to the senses to retain it.

Luther at once recognised with joy the marvellous wealth of talent
and knowledge in his new colleague, whose senior he was by fourteen
years, besides being far ahead of him in theological study and
experience. We have seen, during Luther's stay at Augsburg, how
closely his heart clung to Melancthon and to the 'sweet intercourse'
with him; we know of no other instance where Luther formed a
friendship so rapidly. The more intimately he knew him, the more
highly he esteemed him. When Eck spoke slightingly of him as a mere
paltry grammarian, Luther exclaimed, 'I, the doctor of philosophy
and theology, am not ashamed to yield the point, if this
grammarian's mind thinks differently to myself; I have done so often
already, and do the same daily, because of the gifts with which God
has so richly filled this fragile vessel; I honour the work of my
God in him.' 'Philip,' he said at another time, 'is a wonder to us
all; if the Lord will, he will beat many Martins as the mightiest
enemy to the devil and Scholasticism;' and again, 'This little Greek
is even my master in theology.' Such were Luther's words, not
uttered to particular friends of Melancthon, in order to please
them, nor in public speeches or poetry, in which at that time
friends showered fulsome flattery on friends, but in confidential
letters to his own most intimate friends, to Spalatin, Staupitz, and
others. So willing and ready was he, whilst himself on the road to
the loftiest work and successes, to give precedence to this new
companion whom God had given him. Luther also interested himself
with Spalatin to obtain a higher salary for Melancthon, and thus
keep him at Wittenberg. In common with other friends, he endeavoured
to induce him to marry; for he needed a wife who would care for his
health and household better than he did himself. His marriage
actually took place in 1520, after he had at first resisted, in
order to allow no interruption to his highest enjoyment, his learned
studies.

At the university Luther was also busily engaged with the necessary
preparations for many lectures that were not theological. He
steadily persisted in his efforts to secure the appointment of a
competent professor of Hebrew. He also worked hard to get a
qualified printer, the son of the printer Letter at Leipzig, to
settle at the university, and set up there for the first time a
press for three languages, German, Latin, and Greek. For everything
of this kind that was submitted to the Elector, who took a constant
interest in the prosperity of the university, his friend Spalatin
was his confidential intermediary. As early as 1518 Luther had
expressed to him the wish and hope that Wittenberg, in honour of
Frederick the Wise, should, by a new arrangement of study, become
the occasion and pattern for a general reform of the universities.
In addition to his constant and arduous labours of various kinds, he
took part also in the social intercourse of his colleagues, although
he complained of the time he lost by invitations and entertainments.

In the town church at Wittenberg he continued his active duties not
only on Sundays but during the week. His custom was to expound
consecutively in a course of sermons the Old and New Testaments, and
he explained particularly to children and those under age, the
Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments. This work alone, he once
complained to Spalatin, required properly a man for it and nothing
else. These services he gave to the town congregation gratuitously.
The magistracy were content to recognise them by trifling presents
now and then; for instance, by a gift of money on his return from
Leipzig, where he had had to live on his own very scanty means. In
simple, powerful, and thoroughly popular language, Luther sought to
bring home to the people who filled his church, the supreme truth he
had newly gained. Here in particular he employed his own peculiar
German, as he employed it also in his writings.

Both he and Melancthon formed a close personal intimacy with several
worthy townsmen of Wittenberg. The most prominent man among them,
the painter Lucas Cranach, from Bamberg, owner of a house and estate
at Wittenberg, the proprietor of an apothecary's and also of a
stationer's business, besides being a member of the magistracy, and
finally burgomaster, belonged to the circle of Luther's nearest
friends. Luther took a genuine pleasure in Cranach's art, and the
latter, in his turn, soon employed it in the service of the
Reformation.

[Illustration: Fig. l8.--LUCAS CRANACH. (From a Portrait by
himself.)]

While occupied thus in delivering simple and practical sermons to
his congregation in the town, he continued to publish written works
of the same character and purport, in addition to his labours in the
field of learned ecclesiastical controversy, thus showing the love
with which he worked for them at large in this matter. These
writings were little books, tracts, so-called sermons. It did not
disturb him, he once said, to hear daily of certain people who
despised his poverty because he only wrote little books and German
sermons for the unlearned laymen. 'Would to God,' he said, 'I had
all my life long and with all my power served a layman to his
improvement; I should then be content to thank God, and would very
willingly after that let all my little books perish. I leave it to
others to judge whether writing large books and a great number of
them constitutes art and is useful to Christianity; I consider
rather, even if I cared to write large books after their art, I
might do that quicker, with God's help, than making a little sermon
in my fashion. I have never compelled or entreated anyone to listen
to me or read my sermons. I have given freely to the congregation of
what God has given to me and I owe to them; whoever does not like
His word, let him read and listen to others.'

In this spirit he composed, after the Leipzig disputation, a little
consolatory tract for Christians, full of reflection and wisdom. He
dedicated it to the Elector, an illness of whom had prompted him to
write it. Even his most bigoted opponents could not withhold their
approbation of the work. Luther's pupil and biographer Mathesius,
thought there had never been such words of comfort written before in
the German language. In a similar strain Luther wrote about
preparation for dying, the contemplation of Christ's sufferings, and
other matters of like kind. He explained to the people in a few
pages the Ten Commandments, the Creed, and the Lord's Prayer. At the
desire of the Elector, conveyed to him through Spalatin, and
notwithstanding the difficulty he had in finding time for such a
large work, he applied himself to a practical exposition of the
Epistles and Gospels read in church, intended principally for the
use of preachers.

At the same time he made steady progress with his own Scriptural
researches, which led him away more and more from the main articles
of the purely traditional doctrines of the Church. And the light
which dawned upon him in these studies he took pains to impart at
once to his congregation. But it was no mere negative or
hypercritical interest that led him on and induced him to write. In
connection with the saving efficacy of faith, which he had gathered
from the Bible, new truths, full of import, unfolded themselves
before him. On the other hand, such dogmas of the Church as he found
to have no warrant in Scripture, nor to harmonise with the
Scriptural doctrine of salvation, frequently faded from his notice,
and perished even before he was fully conscious of their hollowness.
The new knowledge had ripened with him before the old husk was
thrown away.

Thus he now learnt and taught others to understand anew the meaning
of the Christian sacrament of the Lord's Supper. The Church of the
middle ages beheld with wonder in this sacrament the miracle of
transubstantiation. The body of our Lord, moreover, here present as
the object of adoration, was to serve above all as the bloodless
repetition of the bloody sacrifice for sin on Golgotha, to be
offered to God for the good of Christendom and mankind. To offer
that sacrifice was the highest act which the priesthood could boast
of, as being thought worthy to perform by God. This whole
mysterious, sacred transaction was clothed in the mass, for the eye
and ear of the members of the congregation, with a number of
ritualistic forms. In giving them, moreover, the consecrated
elements in the sacrament, the priest alone partook of the cup.
Luther, on the contrary, found the whole meaning of that institution
of the departing Saviour, according to His own words, 'Take, eat,
and drink,' in the blessed and joyful communion here prepared by Him
for the congregation of receivers, each one of whom was verily to
partake of it in faith. Here, as he taught in a sermon on the
Sacrament in 1519, they were to celebrate and enjoy real communion;
communion with the Saviour, who feeds them with His flesh and blood;
communion with one another, that they, eating of one bread, should
become one cake, one bread, one body united in love; communion in
all the benefits purchased by their Saviour and Head; and communion
also in all gifts of grace bestowed upon His people, in all
sufferings to be endured, and in all virtues alive in their hearts.
Above all, he appealed to Christ's own words, that He had shed His
blood for the forgiveness of sins. Here at His holy Supper, He
wished to dispense this forgiveness, and, with it, eternal life to
all His guests; He pledged it to them here by the gift of His own
body. Luther, but only incidentally, remarked in this sermon, when
speaking of the cup: 'I should be well pleased to see the Church
decree in a General Council, that communion in _both kinds_
should be given to the laity as to the priests.' Even then he
regarded as unfounded that idea of sacrifice at the mass which in
his later writings he so strenuously denied and combated. At the
same time he pointed out the sacrifice which Christendom, and indeed
every Christian, must continually offer to God, namely, the
sacrifice to God of himself and all that he possesses, offered with
inward humility, prayer, and thankfulness. The question as to a
change of the elements, which Melancthon had already denied, Luther
passed by as an unnecessary subtlety. Lastly, together with the
sacrifice supposed to be offered by the priest, he dismissed also
the notion of a peculiar priesthood; for with the real sacrifice
offered by Christians, as he understood it, all became priests.
Instead of the difference theretofore existing between priests and
laymen, he would recognise no difference among Christians but such
as was conferred by the public ministration of God's word and
sacrament.

Whilst discoursing in a sermon, in a similar manner, on the inner
meaning of baptism, he passed from the vow of baptism to the vow of
chastity, so highly prized in the Catholic Church. He admits this
vow, but represents the former one as so immeasurably higher and
all-embracing, as to deprive the Church of her grounds for attaching
such value to the latter.

He enlarged on moral and religious life in general in a long sermon
'On Good Works,' which he dedicated early in 1520 to Duke John, the
brother of the Elector. In clear and earnest language he explained
how faith itself, on which everything depended, was a matter of
innermost moral life and conduct, nay, the very highest work
conformable to God's will; and further, how that same faith cannot
possibly remain merely passive, but, on the contrary, the faithful
Christian must himself become pleasing to God, on whose grace he
relies, must love Him again, and fulfil His holy Will with energy
and activity in all duties and relations of life. These duties he
proceeds to explain according to the Ten Commandments. He will not,
however, have the conscience further laden with duties imposed by
the Church, for which no corresponding moral obligation exists. He
turns then with earnest exhortation to rebuke certain common faults
and crimes in the public life of his nation, the gluttony and
drunkenness, the excessive luxury, the loose living, and the usury,
which was then the subject of so much complaint. Against this last
practice he preached a special sermon, in which, agreeably with the
older teaching of the Church, he spoke of all interest taken for
money as questionable, inasmuch as Jesus had exhorted only to
lending without looking for a return. The creditor, at any rate, he
said, should take his share of the risks to which his capital, in
the hands of the debtor, was exposed from accident or misadventure.

The essence of the Church of Christ he placed in that inner
communion of the faithful with one another and their heavenly Head,
on which he dwelt with such emphasis in connection with the
sacrament of the Lord's Supper. For the stability and prosperity of
this Church he considered no externals necessary beyond the
preaching of God's Word and the administration of the Sacraments, as
ordained by Christ,--no Romish Popedom, nor any other hierarchical
arrangements. But in the same spirit of love and brotherly
fellowship with which he embraced Hussites, as well as the Eastern
Christians who were denounced as Schismatics, he still wished to
hold fast to the visible community of the Church of Rome, declining
to identify it with the corrupt Romish Curia. That love, he said,
should make him assist and sympathise with the Church, even in her
infirmities and faults.

He was anxious also to fulfil personally all the minor duties
incumbent on him as a monk and a priest. And yet the higher
obligations of his calling, that incessant activity in proclaiming
the word, both by speech and writing, were of much greater
importance in his eyes. He performed with diligence such duties as
the regular repetition of prayers, singing, reading the
_Horae_, and never dreamed of venturing to omit them. He
relates afterwards, how wonderfully industrious he had been in this
respect. Often, if he happened to neglect these duties during the
week, he would make up for it in the course of the Sunday from early
morning till the evening, going without his breakfast and dinner. In
vain his friend Melancthon represented to him that, if the neglect
were such a sin, so foolish a reparation would not atone for it.

Measures, however, were now taken by the Romish Church and its
representatives, which, by attacking the word, as he preached it,
drove him further into the battle.

It will be remembered that the Papal bull, directed against his
theses on indulgences, had not actually mentioned him by name.
Contemptuously, therefore, as the Pope had spoken of him as an
execrable heretic, he had never yet uttered a formal public judgment
upon him. Two theological faculties, those of the universities of
Cologne and Louvain, were the first to pronounce an official
condemnation of him and his writings. The latter were to be burnt,
and their author compelled publicly to recant. This sentence, though
pronounced after the disputation at Leipzig, related only to a small
collection of earlier writings. In a published reply he dismissed,
not without scorn, these learned divines, who, in a spirit of vain
self-exaltation and without the smallest grounds, had presumed to
pass sentence on Christian verities. Their boasting, he said, was
empty wind; their condemnation frightened him no more than the curse
of a drunken woman.

The first official pronouncement of a German bishop touched him more
nearly. This was a decree, issued in January 1520 by John, Bishop of
Meissen, from his residence at Stolpen. Herein, Luther's one
statement about the cup, which the Church, as he said, would do well
to restore to the laity, was picked out of his Sermon on the
Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. The people were to be warned against
the grievous errors and inconveniences which were bound to ensue
from such a step; and the sermon was to be suppressed. Luther was
now classed as an open ally of the Hussites, whose very ground of
contention was the cup. Duke George in alarm complained of him to
the Elector Frederick. It was rumoured about him even that he had
been born and educated among the Bohemians.

To this episcopal note, which he ridiculed in a pun, Luther
published a short and pungent reply in Latin and German. He was
particularly indignant that this occasion should have been seized to
tax his sermon with false doctrine, since the wish he there
expressed did not contain, as even his enemies must admit, anything
contrary to any dogma of the Church. For his enemies, no doubt, this
one point was of more practical importance than many deviations from
orthodoxy with which they might have reproached him in his doctrine
of salvation; for it concerned a jealously guarded privilege of
their priestly office, and was connected with the 'Bohemian heresy.'
As for Huss, however, Luther now confessed without reserve the
sympathy he shared with his evangelical teaching. He had learned to
know him better since the Leipzig disputation. He now wrote to
Spalatin: 'I have hitherto, unconsciously, taught everything that
Huss taught, and so did John Staupitz, in short we are all Hussites,
without knowing it. Paul and Augustine are also Hussites. I know
not, for very terror, what to think as to God's fearful judgments
among men, seeing that the most palpable evangelical truth known for
more than a century, has been burnt and condemned, and nobody has
ever ventured to say so.'

On the part of the Elector, Luther still continued to reap the
benefit of that placid good-will which disregarded all attempts,
either by friendly words or menaces, to set that prince against him.
Luther for this thanked him publicly, without meeting with any
demurrer from the Elector, as well in a dedication of the first part
of his new work on the Psalms, which he had sent to the press early
in 1519, as in another prefixed to his tract on Christian comfort,
already noticed. This last work he had been encouraged to write by
Spalatin, the confidant of the sick prince whom it was intended to
please. In the dedication prefixed to the Psalms, he expressed his
joy at hearing how Frederick had declared in a conversation reported
by Staupitz, that all sermons, made by man's wit and uttering man's
opinions, were cold and powerless, and the Scriptures alone inspired
with such marvellous power and majesty that one must needs say,
'There is something more there than mere Scribe and Pharisee; there
is the finger of God;' and how, when Staupitz had concurred in the
remark, the prince had taken his hand and said, 'Promise me that you
will always think thus.' Luther also thanked Frederick for having,
as all his subjects knew, taken more care of his safety than he had
done himself. In his thoughtlessness, he himself had thrown the die,
and had already prepared himself for the worst, and only hoped to be
able to retire into some corner, when his prince had come forward as
his champion.

At the same time the Elector remained constant in his efforts to
check the impetuosity of Luther. We have noticed how he encouraged
him, through Spalatin, to peaceful work in the service of Christian
preaching. When the episcopal missive from Stolpen threatened to
make the storm break out afresh, he sent, by Spalatin, an urgent
exhortation to Luther to restrain his pen, and further advised him
to send letters of explanation, in a conciliatory spirit, to Albert,
Archbishop of Magdeburg and Mayence, and the Bishop of Merseburg.

Luther wrote to both in a tone of perfect dignity. He begged them
not to lend an ear to the complaints and calumniations which were
being circulated against him, especially in reference to giving the
cup to the laity, and to the Papal power, until the matter had been
seriously examined. He spoke at the same time of malicious accusers,
who on those points held secretly the same opinions as himself.

But from this contest with the Bishop of Meissen he refused to
withdraw. To Spalatin he broke out again in February 1520, in terms
more decided than any he had previously given vent to, and which led
people to expect still sharper utterances. 'Do not suppose,' he
said, 'that the cause of Christ is to be furthered on earth in sweet
peace: the Word of God can never be set forth without danger and
disquiet: it is a Word of infinite majesty, it works great things,
and is wonderful among the great and the high; it slew, as the
prophet says (Psalm lxxviii. 31), the wealthiest of them, and smote
down the chosen ones of Israel. In this matter one must either
renounce peace or deny the Word; the battle is the Lord's, who has
not come to bring peace into the world.' Again he says: 'If you
would think rightly of the Gospel, do not believe that its cause can
be advanced without tumult, trouble, and uproar. You cannot make a
pen out of a sword: the Word of God is a sword; it is war,
overthrow, trouble, destruction, poison; it meets the children of
Ephraim, as Amos says, like a bear on the road, or like a lioness in
the wood.' Of himself he adds: 'I cannot deny that I am more violent
than I ought to be; they know it, and therefore should not provoke
the dog. How hard it is to moderate one's heat and one's pen you can
learn for yourself. That is the reason why I was always unwilling to
be forced to come forward in public; and the more unwilling I am,
the more I am drawn into the contest; that this happens so is due to
those scandalous libels which are heaped against me and the Word of
God. So shameful are they that, even if my heat and my pen did not
carry me away, a very heart of stone would be moved to seize a
weapon, how much more myself, who am hot and whose pen is not
entirely blunt.'

The two dignitaries of the Church answered not ungraciously. They
merely expressed an opinion that he was too violent, and that his
writings would have a questionable influence with the mass of the
people. They refrained from giving judgment on the matter; a proof
that, in the Catholic Church in Germany, the questions raised by
Luther could not then have been considered of such importance as the
upholders of the strict Papal system maintained and desired. Even
Albert, the Cardinal, Archbishop, and Primate of the German Church,
ventured to speak of the whole question about the Divine or merely
human right of the Papacy as an insignificant affair, which had but
little to do with real Christianity, and therefore should never have
become the occasion of such passionate dispute.

From Rome was now awaited the supreme judicial decision as to Luther
and his cause. The Pope had already in 1518 indicated clearly enough
to Frederick the Wise in what sense he intended to give this
decision. But it kept on being delayed, because, on the one hand, it
still appeared necessary to act with caution and consideration, and,
on the other, because Roman arrogance continued to underestimate the
danger of the German movement. Meanwhile Eck, by a report of his
disputation and by letters had stirred the fire at Rome. The
theologians of Cologne and Louvain worked in the same direction, and
called on the whole Dominican Order to assist them with their
influence. The Papal pretensions which Luther had disputed were now
for the first time proclaimed in all their fulness of audacity and
exaggeration. Luther's old opponent Prierias, in a new pamphlet,
extended them to the temporal as well as the spiritual sovereignty
of the world; the Pope, he said, was head of the Universe. Eck now
devoted an entire treatise to justifying the Divine right of the
Papal primacy, resting his proofs boldly, and without any attempt at
critical inquiry, on spurious old documents. With this book he
hastened in February 1520 to Rome, in order personally to push
forward and assist in publishing the bull of excommunication which
was to demolish his enemy and extinguish the flame he had kindled.

But Luther's work, in proportion as it advanced and became bolder,
had stirred already the minds of the people both wider and deeper.
Opponents of Rome who had risen up against her in other quarters, on
other grounds, and with other weapons, now ranged themselves upon
his side. Among all alike the ardour of battle grew the more
powerful and violent, the more it was attempted to smother them with
edicts of arbitrary power.




CHAPTER VI.

ALLIANCE WITH THE HUMANISTS AND THE NOBILITY.


We have already seen how astonished Miltitz was at the sympathy with
Luther which he found among all classes of the German people. The
growth of this sympathy is shown in particular by the increasing
number of printed editions of his writings; the perfect freedom then
enjoyed by the press contributed largely to their wide circulation.
In 1520 alone there were more than a hundred editions of Luther's
works in German. Though the ordinary book-trade as now carried on
was then unknown, there were a multitude of colporteurs actively
employed in going with books from house to house, some of them
merely in the interests of their trade, others also as emissaries of
those who were friends of the cause, thus intended to be furthered.
As reading was a difficult matter to the masses, and even to many of
the higher classes, there were travelling students who went about to
different places, and proffered their assistance. The earnest,
deeply instructive contents of Luther's small popular tracts met the
needs of both the educated and uneducated classes, in a manner never
done by any other religious writings of that time, and served to
stimulate their appetite for more. And to this was added the strong
impression produced directly on their minds by the elementary
exposition of his doctrine, irreconcilable with all notions of the
Church system hitherto prevailing, and stigmatised by his enemies as
poison. All, in short, that this condemned heretic wrote, became
dear to the hearts of the people.

Luther found now, moreover, most valuable allies in the leading
champions of that Humanistic movement, the importance of which, as
regards the culture of the priesthood and the religious and
ecclesiastical development of that time, we had occasion to notice
during Luther's residence at the university of Erfurt. That
Humanism, more than anything else, represented the general
aspiration of the age to attain a higher standard of learning and
culture. The alliance between Luther and the Humanists inaugurated
and symbolised the union between this culture and the Evangelical
Reformation.

Luther, even before entering the convent, had formed a friendship with
at least some of the young 'poets,' or enthusiasts of this new learning.
Later on, when, after the inward struggles and heart-searchings of
those gloomy years of monastic experience, the light dawned upon him
of his Scriptural doctrine of salvation, we find him expressing his
sympathy and reverence for the two leading spirits of the movement,
Reuchlin and Erasmus; and this notwithstanding the fact that he never
approved the method of defence adopted by the supporters of the former,
nor could ever conceal his dislike of the attitude taken up by Erasmus
in regard to theology and religion.

Meanwhile, such Humanists as wished to enjoy the utmost possible
freedom for their own learned pursuits flocked around Reuchlin
against his literary enemies, and cared very little about the
authorities of the Church. The bold monk and his party excited
neither their interest nor their concern. Many of them thought of
him, no doubt, when he was engaged in the heat of the contest about
indulgences, as did Ulrich von Hutten, who wrote to a friend: 'A
quarrel has broken out at Wittenberg between two hot-headed monks,
who are screaming and shouting against each other. It is to be hoped
that they will eat one another up.' To such men the theological
questions at issue seemed not worth consideration. At the same time
they took care to pay all necessary respect to the princes of the
Church, who had shown favour to them personally and to their
learning, and did homage to them, notwithstanding much that must
have shocked them in their conduct as ecclesiastics. Thus Hutten did
not scruple to enter the service of the same Archbishop Albert who
had opened the great traffic in indulgences in Germany, but who was
also a patron of literature and art, and was only too glad to be
recognised publicly by an Erasmus. We hear nothing of any
remonstrances made to him by Erasmus himself. In the same spirit
that dictated the above remark of Hutten, Mosellanus, who opened
with a speech the disputation at Leipzig, wrote to Erasmus during
the preparations for that event. There will be a rare battle, he
said, and a bloody one, coming off between two Scholastics; ten such
men as Democritus would find enough to laugh over till they were
tired. Moreover, Luther's fundamental conception of religion, with
his doctrine of man's sinfulness and need of salvation, so far from
corresponding, was in direct antagonism with that Humanistic view of
life which seemed to have originated from the devotion to classical
antiquity, and to revive the proud, self-satisfied, independent
spirit of heathendom. Even in an Erasmus Luther had thought he
perceived an inability to appreciate his new doctrine.

Melancthon's arrival at Wittenberg was, in this respect, an event of
the first importance. This highly-gifted young man, who had united
in his person all the learning and culture of his time, whose mind
had unfolded in such beauty and richness, and whose personal
urbanity had so endeared him to men of culture wherever he went, now
found his true happiness in that gospel and in that path of grace
which Luther had been the first to make known. And whilst offering
the right hand of fellowship to Luther, he continued working with
energy in his own particular sphere, kept up his intimacy with his
fellow-labourers therein, and won their respect and admiration.
Humanists at a distance, meanwhile, must have noticed the fact, that
the most violent attacks against Luther proceeded from those very
quarters, as for instance, from Hoogstraten, and afterwards from the
theological faculty at Cologne, where Reuchlin had been the most
bitterly persecuted. At length the actual details of the disputation
between Luther and Eck opened men's eyes to the magnitude of the
contest there waged for the highest interests of Christian life and
true Christian knowledge, and to the greatness of the man who had
ventured single-handed to wage it.

At Erfurt Luther had found already in the spring of 1518, on his
return from the meeting of his Order at Heidelberg, in pleasing
contrast to the displeasure he had aroused among his old teachers
there, a spirit prevailing among the students of the university,
which gave him hope that true theology would pass from the old to
the young, just as once Christianity, rejected by the Jews, passed
from them to the heathen. Those well-wishers and advisers who took
his part at Augsburg, when he had to go thither to meet Caietan,
were friends of Humanistic learning. Among the earliest of those,
outside Wittenberg, who united that learning with the new tendency
of religious teaching, we find some prominent citizens of the
flourishing town of Nuremberg, where, as we have seen, Luther's old
friend Link was also actively engaged. Already before the contest
about indulgences broke out, the learned jurist Scheuerl of that
place had made friends with Luther, whom the next year he speaks of
as the most celebrated man in Germany. The most important of the
Humanists there, Willibald Pirkheimer, a patrician of high esteem
and an influential counsellor, and who had once held local military
command, corresponded with Luther, and after learning from him the
progress of his views and studies concerning the Papal power, made
his Leipzig opponent the object of a bitter anonymous satire, 'The
Polished Corner' (Eck). Another learned Nuremberger, the Secretary
of the Senate, Lazarus Spengler, was on terms of close Christian
fellowship with Luther: he published in 1519 a 'Defence and
Christian Answer,' which contained a powerful and worthy vindication
of Luther's popular tracts. Albert Durer also, the famous painter,
took a deep interest in Luther's evangelical doctrine, and revered
him as a man inspired by the Holy Ghost. Among the number of
theologians who ranked next to Erasmus, the well-known John
Oecolampadius, then a preacher at Augsburg, and almost of the same
age as Luther, came forward in his support, towards the end of 1519,
with a pamphlet directed against Eck. Erasmus himself in 1518, at
least in a private letter to Luther's friend Lange at Erfurt, of
which the latter we may be sure did not leave Luther in ignorance,
declared that Luther's theses were bound to commend themselves to
all good men, almost without exception; that the present Papal
domination was a plague to Christendom; the only question was
whether tearing open the wound would do any good, and whether it was
not conceivable that the matter could be carried through without an
actual rupture.

Luther, on his part, approached Reuchlin and Erasmus by letter. To
the former he wrote, at the urgent entreaty of Melancthon, in
December 1518, to the latter in the following March. Both letters
are couched in the refined language befitting these learned men, and
particularly Erasmus, and contain warm expressions of respect and
deference, though in a tone of perfect dignity, and free from the
hyperboles to which Erasmus was usually treated by his common
admirers. At the same time Luther was careful indeed to conceal the
other and less favourable side of his estimate of Erasmus, which he
had already formed in his own mind and expressed to his friends. We
can see how bent he was, notwithstanding, upon a closer intimacy
with that distinguished man.

Reuchlin, then an old man, would have nothing to do with Luther and
the questions he had raised. He even sought to alienate his nephew
Melancthon from him, by bidding him abstain from so perilous an
enterprise.

[Illustration: Fig. l9.--W. PIRKHEIMER. (From a Portrait by Albert
Durer.)]

Erasmus replied with characteristic evasion. He had not yet read
Luther's writings, but he advised everyone to read them before
crying them down to the people. He himself believed that more was to
be gained by quietness and moderation than by violence, and he felt
bound to warn him in the spirit of Christ against all intemperate
and passionate language; but he did not wish to admonish Luther what
to do, but only to continue steadfastly what he was doing already.
The chief thought to which he gives expression is the earnest hope
that the movement kindled by Luther's writings would not give
occasion to opponents to accuse and suppress the 'noble arts and
letters.' A regard for these, which indeed were the object of his
own high calling, was always of paramount importance in his eyes.
Not content with attacking by means of ridicule the abuses in the
Church, Erasmus took a genuine interest in the improvement of its
general condition, and in the elevation and refinement of moral and
religious life, as well as of theological science; and the high
esteem he enjoyed made him an influential man among even the
superior clergy and the princes of the Church. But from the first he
recognised, as he says in his letter to Lange, and possibly better
than Luther himself, the difficulties and dangers of attacking the
Church system on the points selected by Luther. And when Luther
boldly anticipated the disturbances which the Word must cause in the
world, and dwelt on Christ's saying that He had come to bring a
sword, Erasmus shrank back in terror at the thought of tumult and
destruction. Conformably with the whole bent of his natural
disposition and character, he adhered anxiously to the peaceful
course of his work and the pursuit of his intellectual pleasures.
Questions involving deep principles, such as those of the Divine
right of the Papacy, the absolute character of Church authority, or
the freedom of Christian judgment, as founded on the Bible, he
regarded from aloof; notwithstanding that silence or concealment
towards either party, when once these principles were publicly put
in question, was bound to be construed as a denial of the truth.

We shall see how this same standpoint, from which this learned man
still retained his inward sympathy with Church matters, dictated
further his attitude towards Luther and the Reformation. For the
present, Luther had to thank the good opinion of Erasmus, cautiously
expressed though it was, for a great advancement of his cause. It
was valuable to Luther in regard to those who had no personal
knowledge of him, as giving them conclusive proof that his character
and conduct were irreproachable. His influence is apparent in the
answer of the Archbishop Albert to Luther, in its tone of gracious
reticence, and its remarks about needless contention. Erasmus had
written some time before to the Archbishop, contrasting the excesses
charged against Luther with those of the Papal party, and denouncing
the corruptions of the Church, and particularly the lack of
preachers of the gospel. Much to the annoyance of Erasmus, this
letter was published, and it worked more in Luther's favour than he
wished.

Those hopes which Luther had placed in the young students at Erfurt
were shortly fulfilled by the so-called 'poets' beginning now to
read and expound the New Testament. The theology, which, in its
Scholastic and monastic form, they regarded with contempt, attracted
them as knowledge of the Divine Word. Justus Jonas, Luther's junior
by ten years, a friend of Eoban Hess, and one of the most talented
of the circle of young 'poets,' now exchanged for theology the study
of the law, which he had already begun to teach. To his respect for
Erasmus was now added an enthusiastic admiration for Luther, the
courageous Erfurt champion of this new evangelical doctrine. A close
intimacy sprang up between Jonas and Luther, as also between Jonas
and Luther's friend Lange. Erasmus had persuaded him to take up
theology; Luther, on hearing of it in 1520, congratulated him on
taking refuge from the stormy sea of law in the asylum of the
Scriptures.

None of the old Erfurt students, however, had cultivated Luther's
friendship more zealously than Crotus, his former companion at that
university; and this even from Italy, where his sympathies with
Luther had been stirred by the news from Germany, and where he had
learned to realise, from the evidence of his eyes, the full extent
of the scandals and evils against which Luther was waging war. He,
who in the 'Epistolae Virorum Obscurorum,' had failed to exhibit in
his satire the solemn earnestness which recommended itself to
Luther's taste and judgment, now openly declared his concurrence
with Luther's fundamental ideas of religion and theology, and his
high appreciation of Scripture and of the Scriptural doctrine of
salvation. He wrote repeatedly to him, reminding him of their days
together at Erfurt, telling him about the 'Plague-chair' at Rome,
and the intrigues carried on there by Eck, and encouraging him to
persevere in his work. Expressions common to the 'poets' of his
university days were curiously mingled in his letters with others of
a religious kind. He would like to glorify, as a father of their
fatherland, worthy of a golden statue and an annual festival, his
friend Martin, who had been the first to venture to liberate the
people of God, and show them the way to true piety. Not only from
Italy, but also after his return, he employed his characteristic
literary activity, by means of anonymous pamphlets, in the service
of Luther. It was he who, towards the end of 1519, sent from Italy
to Luther and Melancthon at Wittenberg, the Humanist theologian,
John Hess, afterwards the reformer of the Church at Breslau. Crotus
himself returned in the spring of 1520 to Germany.

[Illustration: Fig. 20.--ULRICH VON HUTTEN. (From an old woodcut.)]

Here these Humanist friends of the Lutheran movement had already
been joined by Crotus' personal friend, Ulrich von Hutten, who not
only could wield his pen with more vigour and acuteness than almost
all his associates, but who declared himself ready to take up the
sword for the cause he defended, and to call in powerful allies of
his own class to the fight. He sprang from an old Franconian family,
the heirs, not indeed of much wealth or property, but of an old
knightly spirit of independence. Hatred of monasticism and all that
belonged to it, must have been nursed by him from youth; for having
been placed, when a boy, in a convent, he ran away with the aid of
Crotus, when only sixteen. Sharing the literary tastes of his
friend, he learned to write with proficiency the poetical and
rhetorical Latin of the Humanists of that time. In spite of all his
irregularities, adventures, and unsettlement of habits, he had
preserved an elastic and elevated turn of mind, desirous of serving
the interests of a 'free and noble learning,' and a knightly
courage, which urged him to the fight with a frankness and
straightforwardness not often found among his fellow-Humanists.
Whilst laughing at Luther's controversy as a petty monkish quarrel,
he himself dealt a heavy blow to the traditional pretensions of the
Papacy by the republication of a work by the famous Italian Humanist
Laurentius Valla, long since dead, on the pretended donation of
Constantine, in which the writer exposed the forgery of the edict
purporting to grant the possession of Rome, Italy, and indeed the
entire Western world to the Roman see. This work Hutten actually
dedicated to Pope Leo himself. But what distinguished this knight
and Humanist above all the others who were contending on behalf of
learning and against the oppressions and usurpations of the Church
and monasticism, were his thoroughly German sympathies, and his zeal
for the honour and independence of his nation. He saw her enslaved
in ecclesiastical bondage to the Papal see, and at the mercy of the
avarice and caprice of Rome. He heard with indignation how scornfully
the 'rough and simple Germans' were spoken of in Italy, how even on
German soil the Roman emissaries openly paraded their arrogance, how
some Germans, unworthy of the name, pandered to such scorn and
contempt by a cringing servility which made them crouch before the
Papal chair and sue for favour and office. He warned them to prepare
for a mighty outburst of German liberty, already well-nigh strangled
by Rome. At the same time he denounced the vices of his own countrymen,
particularly that of drunkenness, and the proneness to luxury and
usurious dealing in trade and commerce, all of which, as we have
seen, had been complained of by Luther. Nor less than of the honour
of Germany herself, was he jealous of the honour and power of the
Empire. In all that he did he was guided, perhaps involuntarily, but
in a special degree, by the principles and interests of knighthood.
His order was indebted to the Empire for its chief support, although
the imperial authority no less than that of his own class, had sunk
in a great measure through the increasing power of the different
princes. In the prosperous middle class of Germany he saw the spirit
of trade prevailing to an excess, with its attendant evils. In the
firmly-settled regulations of law and order, which had been established
in Germany with great trouble at the end of the middle ages, he felt
most out of his element: he longed rather to resort to the old method
of force whenever he saw justice trampled on. And in this respect also
Hutten proved true to the traditions of knighthood.

But in the material power required to give effect to his ideas of
reform in the kindred spheres of politics and of the Church in her
external aspect, Hutten was entirely wanting. More than this, we
fail to find in him any clear and positive plans or projects of
reform, nor any such calm and searching insight into the relations
and problems before him as was indispensable for that object. His
call, however rousing and stirring it was, died away in the distance
of time and the dimness of uncertainty.

Hutten found, however, an active and powerful friend, and one versed
in war and politics, in Francis von Sickingen, the 'knight of manly,
noble, and courageous spirit,' as an old chronicler describes him.
He was the owner of fine estates, among them the strong castles of
Landstuhl near Kaiserslautern, and Ebernburg near Kreuznach, and had
already, in a number of battles conducted on his own account and to
redress the wrongs of others, given ample proof of his energy and
skill in raising hosts of rustic soldiery, and leading them with
reckless valour, in pursuit of his objects, to the fray. Hutten won
him over to support the cause of Reuchlin, still entangled in a
prosecution by his old accusers of heresy, Hoogstraten and the
Dominicans at Cologne. A sentence of the Bishop of Spires, rejecting
the charges of his opponents, and mulcting them in the costs of the
suit, had been annulled, at their instance, by the Pope. Against
them and against the Dominican Order in particular, Sickingen now
declared his open enmity, and his sympathy with the 'good old doctor
Reuchlin.' In spite of delay and resistance, they were forced to pay
the sum demanded. Meanwhile, no doubt under the influence of his
friend Crotus, Hutten's eyes were opened about the monk Luther.
During a visit in January 1520 to Sickingen at his castle of
Landstuhl, he consulted with him as to the help to be given to the
man now threatened with excommunication, and Sickingen offered him
his protection. Hutten at the same time proceeded to launch the most
violent controversial diatribes and satires against Rome; one in
particular, called 'The Roman Trinity,' wherein he detailed in
striking triplets the long series of Romish pretensions, trickeries,
and vexatious abuses. At Easter he held a personal interview at
Bamberg with Crotus, on his return from Italy.

For the furtherance of their objects and desires, in respect to the
affairs of Germany and the Church these two knights placed high
hopes in the new young Emperor, who had left Spain, and on the 1st
of July landed on the coast of the Netherlands. Sickingen had earned
merit in his election. He had hoped to find in him a truly German
Emperor, in contrast to King Francis of France, who was a competitor
for the imperial crown. The Pope, as we have seen, had opposed his
election; his chief advocate, on the contrary, was Luther's friend,
the Elector Frederick. Support was also looked for from Charles'
brother Ferdinand, as being a friend of arts and letters. Hutten
even hoped to obtain a place at his court.

[Illustration: Fig. 2l.--FRANCIS VON SICKINGEN. (From an old
engraving.)]

On this side, therefore, and from these quarters, Luther was offered
a friendly hand.

We hear Hutten first mentioned by Luther in February 1520, in
connection with his edition of the work of Valla. This work, though
published two years before, had been made known to Luther then, for
the first time, by a friend. It had awakened his keenest interest;
the falsehoods exposed in its pages confirmed him in his opinion
that the Pope was the real Antichrist.

Shortly after, a letter from Hutten reached Melancthon, containing
Sickingen's offer of assistance; a similar communication forwarded
to him some weeks before, had never reached its destination.
Sickingen had charged Hutten to write to Luther, but Hutten was
cautious enough to make Melancthon the medium, in order not to let
his dealings with Luther be known. Sickingen, he wrote, invited
Luther, if menaced with danger, to stay with him, and was willing to
do what he could for him. Hutten added that Sickingen might be able
to do as much for Luther as he had done for Reuchlin; but Melancthon
would see for himself what Sickingen had then written to the monks.
He spoke, with an air of mystery, of negotiations of the highest
importance between Sickingen and himself; he hoped it would fare
badly with the Barbarians, that is, the enemies of learning,--and
all those who sought to bring them under the Romish yoke. With such
objects in view, he had hopes even of Ferdinand's support. Crotus,
meanwhile, after his interview with Hutten at Bamberg, advised
Luther not to despise the kindness of Sickingen, the great leader of
the German nobility. It was rumoured that Luther, if driven from
Wittenberg, would take refuge among the Bohemians. Crotus earnestly
warned him against doing so. His enemies, he said, might force him
to do so, knowing, as they did, how hateful the name of Bohemian was
in Germany. Hutten himself wrote also to Luther, encouraging him, in
pious Scriptural language, to stand firm and persevere in working
with him for the liberation of their fatherland. He repeated to him
the invitation of N., (he did not mention his name,) and assured him
that the latter would defend him with vigour against his enemies of
every kind.

Another invitation, at the same time, and of the same purport, came
to Luther from the knight Silvester von Schauenburg. He too had
heard that Luther was going to the Bohemians. He was willing,
however, to protect him from his enemies, as were also a hundred
other nobles whom with God's help he would bring with him, until his
cause was decided in a right and Christian manner.

Whether Luther really entertained the thought of flying to Bohemia,
we cannot determine with certainty. But we know with what
seriousness, as early as the autumn of 1518, after he had refused to
retract to the Papal legate, he anticipated the duty and necessity
of leaving Wittenberg. How much more forcibly must the thoughts have
recurred to him, when the news arrived of the impending decision at
Rome, of the warning received from there by the Elector, and of the
protest uttered even in Germany, and by such a prince as Duke George
of Saxony, against any further toleration of his proceedings. The
refuge which Luther had previously looked for at Paris was no longer
to be hoped for. Since the Leipzig disputation he had advanced in
his doctrines, and especially in his avowed support of Huss, far
beyond what the university of Paris either liked or would endure.

Such then was Luther's position when he received these invitations.
They must have stirred him as distinct messages from above. The
letters in which he replied to them have not been preserved to us.
We hear, however, that he wrote to Hutten, saying that he placed
greater hopes in Sickingen than in any prince under heaven.
Schauenburg and Sickingen, he says, had freed him from the fear of
man; he would now have to withstand the rage of demons. He wished
that even the Pope would note the fact that he could now find
protection from all his thunderbolts, not indeed in Bohemia, but in
the very heart of Germany; and that, under this protection, he could
break loose against the Romanists in a very different fashion to
what he could now do in his official position.

As he reviewed, in the course of the contest, the proceedings of his
enemies, and was further informed of the conduct of the Papal see,
the picture of corruption and utter worthlessness, nay the
antichristian character of the Church system at Rome, unfolded
itself more and more painfully and fully before his eyes. The
richest materials for this conclusion he found in the pamphlets of
the writers already referred to, and in the descriptions sent from
Italy by men like Hess and others, who shared his own convictions.

All this time, moreover, Luther's feelings as a German were more and
more stirred within him, while thinking of what German Christianity
in particular was compelled to suffer at the hands of Rome. A lively
consciousness of this had been awakened in his mind since the Diet
of Augsburg in 1518, with its protest against the claims of the
Papacy, its statement of the grievances of the German nation, and
the vigorous writings on that subject which were circulated at that
time. He referred in 1519 to that Diet, as having drawn a
distinction between the Romish Church and the Romish Curia, and
repudiated the latter with its demands. As for the Romanists, who
made the two identical, they looked on a German as a simple fool, a
lubberhead, a dolt, a barbarian, a beast, and yet they laughed at
him for letting himself be fleeced and pulled by the nose. Luther's
words were now re-echoed in louder tones by Hutten, whose own wish,
moreover, was to incite his fellow-countrymen, as such, to rise and
betake themselves to battle.

There were certain of the laity who had already brought these German
grievances in Church matters before the Diets, and who now gave vent
in pamphlets to their denunciations of the corruption and tyranny of
the Romish Church. As for Luther, he valued the judgment of a
Christian layman, who had the Bible on his side, as highly, and
higher, than that of a priest and prince of the Church, and ascribed
the true character of a priest to all Christians alike: these
Estates of the Augsburg Diet he speaks of as 'lay theologians.'
Leading laymen of the nobility now came forward and offered to
assist him in his labours on behalf of the German Church. Both he
and Melancthon placed their confidence also gladly in the new German
Emperor.

Several letters of Luther at this time, closely following on each
other, express at once the keenest enthusiasm for the contest, and
the idea of a Reformation proceeding from the laity, represented, as
he understood them, by their established authorities and Estates.

We find in these letters powerful effusions of holy zeal and
language full of Christian instruction, mingled with the most
vehement outbursts of the natural passion which was boiling in
Luther's breast. Compared with them, the cleverest controversial
writings of the Humanists, and even the fiercest satires of Hutten,
sound only like rhetoric and elaborate displays of wit.

Luther, in his Sermon on Good Works, already noticed as so replete
with wholesome doctrine and advice, had already complained that
God's ministry was perverted into a means of supporting the lowest
creatures of the Pope, and had declared that the best and only thing
left was for kings, princes, nobles, towns, and parishes to set to
work themselves, and 'make a breach in the abuse,' so that the
hitherto intimidated clergy might follow. As for excommunication and
threats, such things need not trouble them: they meant as little as
if a mad father were to threaten his son who was guarding him.

The sharpest replies on the part of Luther were next provoked by two
writings which justified and glorified the Divine authority and
power of the Papacy. One was by a Franciscan friar, Augustin von
Alveld; the other by Silvester Prierias, already mentioned, who was
his most active opponent in this matter.

Luther broke out against 'the Alveld Ass' (as he called him in a
letter to Spalatin) in a long reply entitled 'The Popedom at Rome,'
with the object of exposing once and finally the secrets of
Antichrist. 'From Rome' he says 'flow all evil examples of spiritual
and temporal iniquity into the world, as from a sea of wickedness.
Whoever mourns to see it, is called by the Romans a 'good
Christian,' or in their language, a fool. It was a proverb among
them that one ought to wheedle the gold out of the German simpletons
as much as one could.' If the German princes and nobles did not
'make short work of them in good earnest,' Germany would either be
devastated or would have to devour herself.

Prierias' pamphlet provoked him to exclaim, in that same letter to
Spalatin, 'I think that at Rome they are all mad, silly, and raging,
and have become mere fools, sticks and stones, hells and devils.'
His remarks on this pamphlet, written in Latin, contain the
strongest words that we have yet heard from his lips about the 'only
means left,' and the 'short work' to be made of Rome. Emperors,
kings, and princes, he says, would yet have to take up the sword
against the rage and plague of the Romanists. 'When we hang thieves,
and behead murderers, and burn heretics, why do not we lay hands on
these Cardinals and Popes and all the rabble of the Romish Sodom,
and bathe our hands in their blood?' What Luther now in reality
wished to see done, was, as he goes on to say, that the Pope should
be corrected as Christ commands men to deal with their offending
brethren (St. Matth. xviii. 15 sqq.), and, if he neglected to hear,
should be held as an heathen man and a publican.

While these pages of Luther's were in the press, towards the middle
of June, Hutten, full of hope himself, and carrying with him the
hopes of Luther and Melancthon, set off on his journey to the
Emperor's brother in the Netherlands, and, on his way, paid a visit
at Cologne to the learned Agrippa von Nettesheim, accompanied, as
the latter says, by a 'few adherents of the Lutheran party.' There,
as Agrippa relates with terror, they expressed aloud their thoughts.
'What have we to do with Rome and its Bishop?' they asked. 'Have we
no Archbishops and Bishops in Germany, that we must kiss the feet of
this one? Let Germany turn, and turn she will, to her own bishops
and pastors.' Hutten paid the expenses of this journey out of money
given him by the Archbishop Albert; between these two, therefore,
the bonds of friendship were not yet broken. Albert was the first of
the German bishops; Hutten, and very possibly the Archbishop also,
might reasonably suppose that a reform proceeding from the Emperor
and the Empire, might place him at the head of a German National
Church.

But Luther had already put his pen to a composition which was to
summon the German laity to the grand work before them, to establish
the foundations of Christian belief, and to set forth in full the
most crying needs and aims of the time. He had resolved to give the
strongest and amplest expression in his power to the truth for which
he was contending.




CHAPTER VII.

LUTHER'S WORKS TO THE CHRISTIAN NOBILITY OF THE GERMAN NATION, AND
ON THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY.


In a dedication to his friend and colleague Amsdorf, prefixed to the
first of these works, he begins, 'The time of silence is past, and
the time for speaking is come.' He had several points, he tells us,
concerning the improvement of the Christian condition, to lay before
the Christian nobility of Germany; perhaps God would help His Church
through the laity, since the clergy had become entirely careless. If
charged with presumption in venturing to address such high people on
such great matters, so be it, then perhaps he was guilty of a folly
towards his God and the world, and might one day become court-jester.
But inasmuch as he was a sworn doctor of Holy Scripture, he rejoiced
in the opportunity of satisfying his oath in this manner.

He then turns to the 'Most illustrious, Most powerful Imperial
Majesty, and to the Christian nobility of the German nation,' with
the greeting, 'Grace and strength from God first of all, most
illustrious, gracious, and beloved Lords!'

The need and troubles of Christendom, and especially of Germany,
constrained him, as he said, to cry to God that He might inspire
some one to stretch out his hand to the suffering nation. His hopes
were in the noble young blood now given by God as her head. He would
likewise do his part.

The Romanists, in order to prevent their being reformed, had shut
themselves within three walls. Firstly, they said, the temporal
power had no rights over them, the spiritual power, but the
spiritual was above the temporal; secondly, the Scriptures, which
were sought to be employed against them, could only be expounded by
the Pope; thirdly, no one but the Pope could summon a Council.
Against this, Luther calls to God for one of those trumpets which
once blew down the walls of Jericho, in order to blow down also,
these walls of straw and paper.

His assault upon the first wall was decisive for the rest. He
accomplished it with his doctrine of the spiritual and priestly
character of all Christians, who had been baptised and consecrated
by the blood of Christ (1 Peter ii. 9; Rev. v. 10). Thus, according
to Luther, they are all of one character, one rank. The only thing
peculiar to the so-called ecclesiastics or priests, is the special
office or work of 'administering the Word of God and the Sacraments'
to the congregation. The power to do this is given, indeed, by God
to all Christians as priests, but, being so given, cannot be assumed
by an individual without the will and command of the community. The
ordination of priests, as they are called, by a bishop can in
reality only signify that, out of the collective body of Christians,
all possessing equal power, one is selected, and commanded to
exercise this power on behalf of the rest. They hold, therefore,
this peculiar office, like their fellow-members of the community who
are entrusted with temporal authority, namely, to wield the sword
for the punishment of the bad and the protection of the good. They
hold it, as every shoemaker, smith, or builder holds office in his
particular trade, and yet all alike are priests. Moreover, this
temporal magisterial power has the right to exercise its office free
and unhindered in its own sphere of action; no Pope or bishop must
here interfere, no so-called priest must usurp it.

As a consequence of this spiritual character of Christians, the
second wall was also doomed to fall. Christ said of all Christians,
that they shall all be taught of God (St. John vi. 45). Thus any
man, however humble, if he was a true Christian, could have a right
understanding of the Scriptures; and the Pope, if wicked and not a
true Christian, was not taught of God. If the Pope alone were always
in the right, one would have to pray 'I believe in the Pope at Rome,'
and the whole Christian Church would then be centred in one man,
which would be nothing short of devilish and hellish error. After
this the third wall fell by itself. For, says Luther, when the Pope
acts against the Scriptures, it is our duty to stand by the Scriptures
and to punish him as Christ taught us to punish offending brethren
(St. Matthew xviii. 17), when He said, 'Tell it unto the Church.' Now
the Church or Christendom must be gathered together in a Council. And
like as the most famous of the Councils, that of Nice, and others after
it, had been summoned by the Emperor, so must everyone, as a true member
of the whole body, and when necessary, do what he can to make it a
really free Council: 'which nobody can do so well as the temporal
authorities, who meet these as fellow-Christians, fellow-priests.' Just
as if a fire broke out in a city, no one, because he had not the power
of the burgomaster, durst stand still and let it burn, but every
citizen must run and call others together, so was it in the spiritual
city of Christ, if a fire of trouble and affliction should arise. The
question as to the composition of such a Council Luther does not proceed
to discuss. That he wished, however, the laity to be represented, we may
safely assume from the whole context, though it is doubtful how far he
may then have thought of a representation of the temporal authorities as
such, and, above all, of the Christian body collectively, through
its political members. But the main point on which he insisted was,
that the Council should be a free and really Christian one, bound by
no oath to the Pope, fettered by no so-called Canon law, but subject
only to the Word of God in Holy Writ.

Under twenty-six heads Luther then proceeds to enumerate the points
on which such a Council should treat, and which should be urged in
particular in connection with the question of reform.

The whole arrogance of the Papacy, the temporal pride with which the
Pope clothed himself, the idolatry with which he was treated, were
to Luther a scandal and unchristian. Lord of the universe, the Pope
styled himself, and paraded about with a triple crown in all
temporal splendour, and with an endless train of followers and
baggage, whilst claiming to be the vicegerent of the Lord who
wandered about in poverty, and gave Himself up to the Cross, and
declared that His kingdom was not of this world. Clearly and fully
Luther shows the various ways, embracing the whole life of the
Church, in which Romish tyranny had enslaved the Churches of other
countries, especially of Germany, and had turned them to account and
plundered them: by means of fees and taxes of all kinds, by drawing
away the trial of ecclesiastical cases to Rome, by accumulating
benefices in the hands of Papal favourites of the worst description,
by the unprincipled and usurious sale of dispensations, by the oath
which made the bishops mere vassals of the Pope, and effectually
prevented all reform. In this greed for money in particular, and in
the crafty methods of collecting it, Luther saw the genuine
Antichrist, who, as Daniel had foretold, was to gather the treasures
of the earth (Daniel xi. 8, 39, 43).

To confront this oppression and these acts of usurpation, Luther
would not have men wait for a Council. As for these impositions and
taxes, he says that every prince, noble, and town should straightway
repudiate and forbid them. This lawless pillaging of ecclesiastical
benefices and fiefs by Rome should be resisted at once by the
nobility. Anyone coming from the Papal court to Germany with such
claims, must be ordered to desist, or to jump into the nearest piece
of water with his seals and letters and the ban of excommunication.
Luther insists especially on demanding, as Hutten had already
demanded, that the individual Churches, and particularly those of
Germany, should order and conduct their own affairs independently of
Rome. The bishops were not to obtain their confirmation at Rome,
but, as already decreed by the Nicene Council, from a couple of
neighbouring bishops or an archbishop. The German bishops were to be
under their own primate, who might hold a general consistory with
chancellors and counsellors, to receive appeals from the whole of
Germany. The Pope, in other respects, was still to be left a
position of supremacy in the collective Christian Church, and the
adjudication of matters of importance on which the primates could
not agree. One other matter Luther dwells on, as affecting the
entire constitution of the Church. It is not the mere administrative
and judicial functions that constitute the true meaning of office,
whether in a priest, a bishop, or a Pope, but a constant service to
God's Word. Luther therefore is anxious that the Pope should not be
burdened with small matters. He calls to mind how once the Apostles
would not leave the Word of God, and serve tables, but wished to
give themselves to prayer and to the ministry of the Word (Acts vi.
2, 4). But he would have a clean sweep made of the so-called
ecclesiastical law, contained in the law-books of the Church. The
Scriptures were sufficient. Besides, the Pope himself did not keep
that law, but pretended to carry all law in the shrine of his own
heart.

Consistently with all that he has said about the relative positions
of the temporal and spiritual powers, Luther goes on to protest, on
behalf especially of the German Empire, against the 'overbearing and
criminal behaviour' of the Pope, who arrogates to himself power over
the Emperor, and allows the latter to kiss his foot and hold his
stirrup. Granted that he is superior to the Emperor in spiritual
office, in preaching, in administering the Word of grace; in other
matters he is his inferior.

But the most important demand advanced by Luther, while pushing
further his inquiries into the moral and social regulations and
condition of the Church, is the abolition of the celibacy of the
clergy. If Popes and bishops wish to impose upon themselves the
burden of an unmarried life, he has nothing to say to that. He
speaks only of the clergy in general, whom God has appointed, who
are needed by every Christian community for the service of preaching
and the sacraments, and who must live and keep house amongst their
fellow-Christians. Not an angel from Heaven, much less a Pope, dare
bind this man to what God has never bound him, and thereby
precipitate him into danger and, sin. A limit at least must be
imposed on monastic life. Luther would like to see the convents and
cloisters turned into Christian schools, where men might learn the
Scriptures and discipline, and be trained to govern others and to
preach. He would further give full liberty to quit such institutions
at pleasure. He reverts to the question of clerical celibacy, in
lamenting the gross immoralities of the priesthood, and complaining
that marriage was so frequently avoided on account simply of the
responsibilities it entailed, and the restraints it imposed on loose
living.

Luther would abolish all commands to fast, on the ground that these
ordinances of man are opposed to the freedom of the Bible. He would
do away also with the multitude of festivals and holidays, as
leading only to idleness, carousing, and gambling. He would check
the foolish pilgrimages to Rome, on which so much money was wasted,
whilst wife and child, and poor Christian neighbours were left at
home to starve, and which drew people into so much trouble and
temptation. As regards the management of the poor, Luther's
requirements were somewhat stringent. All begging among Christians
was to be forbidden; each town was to provide for its own poor, and
not admit strange beggars. As the universities at that time, no less
than the schools, were in connection with the Church, Luther offers
some suggestions for their reform. He singles out the writings of
the ancients which were read in the philosophical faculty, and
others, which might be done away with as useless or even pernicious.
With regard to the mass of civil law, he agreed with the complaint
often heard among Germans, that it had become a wilderness: each
state should be governed, as far as possible, 'by its own brief
laws.' For children, girls as well as boys, he would like to see a
school in every town. It grieved him to see how, in the very heart
of Christendom, the young folk were neglected and allowed to perish
for lack of timely sustenance with the bread of the gospel.

He reverts again to the question about the Bohemians, with a view to
silencing at length the vile calumniations of his enemies. And in so
doing he remarks of Huss, that even if he had been a heretic,
'heretics must be conquered with the pen and not with fire. If to
conquer them with fire were an art, the executioners would be the
most learned doctors on the earth.'

Lastly he refers briefly to the prevalent evils of worldly and
social life; to wit, the luxury in dress and food, the habits of
excess common among Germans, the practice of usury and taking
interest. He would like to put a bridle into the mouth of the great
commercial firms, especially the rich house of Fugger; for the
amassing of such enormous wealth, during the life of one man, could
never be done by right and godly means. It seemed to him 'far more
godly to promote agriculture and lessen commerce.' Luther speaks in
this as a man of the people, who were already suspicious about this
accumulation of money, from a right feeling really of the moral and
economical dangers thence accruing to the nation, even if ignorant
of the necessary relations of supply and demand. As to this, Luther
adds: 'I leave that to the worldly-wise; I, as a theologian, can
only say, Abstain from all appearance of evil.' (1 Thessalonians v.
22.)

So wide a field of subjects did this little book embrace. We have
only here mentioned the chief points. Luther himself acknowledges at
the conclusion: 'I am well aware that I have pitched my note high,
that I have proposed many things which will be looked upon as
impossible, and have attacked many points too sharply. I am bound to
add, that if I could, I would not only talk but act; I would rather
the world were angry with me than God.' But Rome always remained the
chief object of his attacks. 'Well then,' he says of her, 'I know of
another little song of Rome; if her ear itches for it, I will sing
it to her and pitch the notes at their highest.' He concludes, 'God
give us all a Christian understanding, and to the Christian nobility
of the German nation, especially, a true spiritual courage to do
their best for the poor Church. Amen.'

Whilst Luther was working on this treatise, new disquieting rumours
and remonstrances addressed from Rome to the Elector reached him
through Spalatin. But with them came also that promise of protection
from Schauenburg. Luther answered Spalatin, 'The die is cast, I
despise alike the wrath and the favour of Rome; I will have no
reconciliation with her, no fellowship.' Friends who heard of his
new work grew alarmed; Staupitz, even at the eleventh hour, tried to
dissuade him from it. But before August was far advanced, four
thousand copies were already printed and published. A new edition
was immediately called for. Luther now added another section
repudiating the arrogant pretension of the Pope, that through his
means the Roman Empire had been brought to Germany.

Well might Luther's friend Lange call this treatise a war-trumpet.
The Reformer, who at first merely wished to point out and open to
men the right way of salvation, and to fight for it with the sword
of his word, now stepped forward boldly and with determination,
demanding the abolition of all unlawful and unchristian ordinances
of the Romish Church, and calling upon the temporal power to assist
him, if need be, with material force. The groundwork of this resolve
had been laid, as we have seen, in the progress of his moral and
religious convictions; in the inalienable rights which belong to
Christianity in general, and the mission with which God entrusts
also the temporal power or state; in the independence granted by Him
to this power on its own domain, and the duties He has imposed upon
all Christian authorities, even in regard to all moral and religious
needs and dangers. But he denied altogether, and we may well believe
him, that he had any wish to create disorder or disturbance; his
intention was merely to prepare the way for a free Council. Not
indeed that he shrank from the thought of battle and tumult, should
the powers whom he invoked meet with resistance from the adherents
of Rome or Antichrist. As for himself, though forced to make such a
stormy appearance, he had no idea of himself being destined to
become the Reformer, but was content rather to prepare the way for a
greater man, and his thoughts herein turned to Melancthon. Thus he
wrote to Lange these remarkable words: 'It may be that I am the
forerunner of Philip, and like Elias, prepare the way for him in
spirit and in strength, destroying the people of Ahab' (1 Kings
xviii). Melancthon, on the other hand, wrote to Lange just then
about Luther, saying that he did not venture to check the spirit of
Martin in this matter, to which Providence seemed to have appointed
him.

From the Electoral court Luther learned that his treatise was 'not
altogether displeasing.' And just at this time he had to thank his
prince for a present of game.

[Illustration: Fig. 22.--TITLE-PAGE OF THE SECOND EDITION OF THIS
TREATISE, in a rather smaller size.]

There is no doubt that Luther received also from that quarter the
advice to approach the Emperor, who had just arrived in Germany, and
whom he had wished to address in his treatise, with a direct
personal request for protection, to prevent his being condemned
unheard. He addressed to him a well-considered letter, couched in
dignified language. He issued at the same time a short public
'offer,' appealing therein to the fact, that he had so long begged
in vain for a proper refutation. These two writings were first
examined and corrected by Spalatin, and so appeared only at the end
of August, not, as is generally supposed, in the January of this
year. Luther never received an answer to his letter to the Emperor,
and therefore never heard how it was received.

The dangers which threatened Luther, and through him also the honour
and prosperity of his Order, affected further his companions and
friends who belonged to it. And of this Miltitz took advantage to
renew his attempts at mediation. He induced the brethren, at a
convention of Augustinian friars held at Eisleben, to persuade
Luther once more to write to the Pope, and solemnly assure him that
he had never wished to attack him personally. A deputation of these
monks, with Staupitz and Link at their head, came to Luther at
Wittenberg on the 4th or 5th of September, and received his promise
to comply with their wishes. At this convention, Staupitz, who felt
his strength no longer equal to the difficult questions and
controversies of the time, had resigned his office as Vicar of the
Order, and Link had succeeded him. Luther saw him now at Wittenberg
for the last time. He retired in quiet seclusion to Salzburg, where
the Archbishop was his personal friend.

But Luther's spirit would not let him desist for a moment from
prosecuting his contest with Rome. He had yet 'a little song' to
sing about her. He was in fact at work in August, while rumours were
already afloat that Eck was on his way with the bull, upon a new
tract, and had even begun to have it printed. It was to treat of the
'Babylonian Captivity of the Church,' taking as its subject the
Christian sacraments. Luther knew that in this he cut deeper into
the theological and religious principles of the Church, which had
come under discussion in his quarrel with Rome, than in all his
demands for reform, put forward in his address to the nobility. For
while, in common with the Church herself, he saw in the Sacraments,
instituted by Christ, the most sacred acts of worship, and the
channels through which salvation itself, forgiveness, grace, and
strength are imparted from above, in those principles he saw them
limited by man's caprice in their original scope and meaning, robbed
of their true significance, and made the instruments of Papal and
priestly domination, while other pretended sacraments were joined to
them, never instituted by Christ. On this account he complained of
the tyranny to which these sacraments, and with them the Church,
were subject, of the captivity in which they lay. Against him were
arrayed not only the hierarchy, but the whole forces of Scholastic
learning. He knew that what he now propounded would sound
preposterous to these opponents; he would make, he said, his feeble
revilers feel their blood run cold. But he met them in the armour of
profound erudition, and with learned arguments lucidly and concisely
expressed in Latin. At the same time his language, where he explains
the real essence of the sacraments, shows a clearness and religious
fervour which no layman could fail to understand.

The subject of the deepest importance to Luther in this treatise was
the sacrament of the altar. He dwells on the mutilated form, without
the cup, in which the Lord's Supper was given to the laity; on the
doctrine invented about the change of the bread, instead of keeping
to the simple word of Scripture; and, lastly, on the substitution of
a sacrifice, supposed to be offered to God by the priest, for the
institution ordained by Christ for the nourishment of the faithful.
The withholding of the cup he calls an act of ungodliness and
tyranny, beyond the power of either Pope or Council to prescribe.
Against the sacrifice of the mass he had published just before a
sermon in German. He was well aware that his principles involved, as
indeed he intended, a revolution of the whole service, and an attack
on an ordinance, upon which a number of other abuses, of great
importance to the hierarchy, depended. But he ventured it, because
God's word obliged him to do it. So now he proceeds to describe, in
contrast to this mass, the one of true Christian institution, and
resting wholly, as he conceived it, on the words of Christ, when
instituting the Last Supper, 'Take, and eat,' etc. Christ would here
say, 'See, thou poor sinner, out of pure love I promise to thee,
before thou canst either earn or promise anything, forgiveness of
all thy sins, and eternal life, and to assure thee of this I give
here my Body and shed my Blood; do thou, by my death, rest assured
of this promise, and take as a sign my Body and my Blood.'

For the worthy celebration of this mass, nothing is required but
faith, which shall trust securely in this promise; with this faith
will come the sweetest stirrings of the heart, which will unfold
itself in love, and yearn for the good Saviour, and in Him will
become a new creature.

As regards baptism Luther lamented that it was no longer allowed to
possess the true significance and value it ought to have for a man's
whole life. Whereas in truth the person baptized received a promise
of mercy from God, to which time after time, even from the sins of
his future life, he might and was bound to turn, it was taught, that
in sinning after baptism, the Christian was like a shipwrecked man,
who, instead of the ship, could only reach a plank; this being the
sacrament of penance, with its accompanying outward formalities.
Whereas further, in true baptism he had vowed to dedicate his whole
life and conduct to God, other vows of human invention were now
demanded of him. Whereas he then became a full partaker of Christian
liberty, he was now burdened with ordinances of the Church, devised
by man.

Concerning this sacrament of penance, with confession, absolution,
and its other adjuncts, Luther rates at its full value the word of
forgiveness spoken to the individual, and values also the free
confession made to his Christian brother by the Christian seeking
comfort. But confession, he said, had been perverted into an
institution of compulsion and torture. Instead of leading the
tempted brother to trust in God's mercy, he was ordered to perform
acts of penance, whereby nominally to give satisfaction to God, but
in reality to minister to the ambition and insatiable avarice of the
Roman see.

From all these abuses and perversions Luther seeks to liberate the
sacraments, and restore them in their purity to Christians.
Nevertheless, he takes care to insist on the fact that it is not the
mere external ceremony, the act of the priest in administering, and
the visible partaking of the receiver, that make the latter a sharer
in the promised grace and blessedness. This, he says, depends upon a
hearty faith in the Divine promise. He who believes enjoys the
benefit of the sacrament, even though its outward administration be
denied him.

The mediaeval Church ordained four other sacraments, namely,
confirmation, marriage, consecration of priests, and extreme
unction. But Luther refuses to acknowledge any of these as a
sacrament. Marriage, he says, in its sacramental aspect, was not an
institution of the New Testament, nor was it connected with any
especial promise of grace. It was but a holy moral ordinance of
daily life, existing since the beginning of the world and among
those who were not Christians as well as those who were. At the same
time he takes the opportunity to protest against those human
regulations with which even this ordinance had been invaded by the
Romish Church, especially against the arbitrary obstacles to
marriage she had created. Even these were made a source of revenue
to her, by the granting of dispensations. For the other three
sacraments there was no especial promise. In the Epistle of St.
James (v. 14), where it speaks of anointing the sick with oil, the
allusion is not to extreme unction to the dying, but to the exercise
of that wonderful Apostolic gift of healing the sick through the
power of faith and prayer. With regard to the consecration of
priests, Luther repeats the principles laid down in his address to
the nobility. Ordination consists simply of this, that out of a
community, all of whom are priests, one is chosen for the particular
work of administering God's word. If, as in consecration, the hand
is laid upon him, this is a human custom and not instituted by the
Lord Himself. But in truth, says Luther, the outrageous tyranny of
the clergy, with their priestly bodily anointing, their tonsure, and
their dress, would arrogate a higher position than other Christians
anointed with the Spirit; these are counted almost as unworthy as
dogs to belong to the Church. And most seriously he warns a man not
to strive for that outward anointing, unless he is earnestly intent
on the true service of the gospel, and has disclaimed all pretension
to become, by consecration, better than lay Christians.

In conclusion Luther declares: he hears that Papal excommunication
is prepared for him, to force him to recant. In that case this
little treatise shall form part of his recantation. After that he
will soon publish the rest, the like of which has never been seen or
heard by the Romish see.

In the beginning of October, probably on the 6th of that month, the
book was issued. Luther had heard some ten days before that Eck had
actually arrived with the bull. He had already caused it to be
posted publicly at Meissen on September 21. Early in October he sent
a copy of it also to the university of Wittenberg.




CHAPTER VIII.

THE BULL OF EXCOMMUNICATION, AND LUTHER'S REPLY.


At Rome, the bull, now newly arrived in Germany, had been published
as early as June 16. It had been considered, when at length, under
the pressure of the influences described above, the subject was
taken up in earnest, very carefully in the Papal consistory. The
jurists there were of opinion that Luther should be cited once more,
but their views did not prevail. As for the negotiations, conducted
through Miltitz, for an examination of Luther before the Archbishop
of Treves, no heed was now paid to the affair.

The bull begins with the words, 'Arise, O Lord, and avenge Thy
cause.' It proceeds to invoke St. Peter, St. Paul, the whole body of
the saints, and the Church. A wild boar had broken into the vineyard
of the Lord, a wild beast was there seeking to devour &c. Of the
heresy against which it was directed, the Pope, as he states, had
additional reason to complain, since the Germans, among whom it had
broken out, had always been regarded by him with such tender
affection: he gives them to understand that they owed the Empire to
the Romish Church. Forty-one propositions from Luther's writings are
then rejected and condemned, as heretical or at least scandalous and
corrupting, and his works collectively are sentenced to be burnt. As
to Luther himself, the Pope calls God to witness that he has
neglected no means of fatherly love to bring him into the right way.
Even now he is ready to follow towards him the example of Divine
mercy which wills not the death of a sinner, but that he should be
converted and live; and so once more he calls upon him to repent, in
which case he will receive him graciously like the prodigal son.
Sixty days are given him to recant. But if he and his adherents will
not repent, they are to be regarded as obstinate heretics and
withered branches of the vine of Christ, and must be punished
according to law. No doubt the punishment of burning was meant; the
bull in fact expressly condemns the proposition of Luther which
denounces the burning of heretics.

All this was called then at Rome, and has been called even latterly
by the Papal party, 'the tone rather of fatherly sorrow than of
penal severity.' The means by which the bull had been brought about,
made it fitting that Eck himself should be commissioned with its
circulation throughout Germany, and especially with its publication
in Saxony. More than this, he received the unheard of permission to
denounce any of the adherents of Luther at his pleasure, when he
published the bull.

Accordingly, Eck had the bull publicly posted up in September at
Meissen, Merseburg, and Brandenburg. He was charged, moreover, by a
Papal brief, in the event of Luther's refusing to submit, to call
upon the temporal power to punish the heretic. But at Leipzig, where
the magistrate, by order of Duke George, had to present him with a
goblet full of money, he was so hustled in the streets by his
indignant opponents, that he was forced to take refuge in the
Convent of St. Paul, and hastened to pursue his journey by night,
whilst the city officials rode about the neighbourhood with the
bull. A number of Wittenberg students, adds Miltitz, made their
appearance also at Leipzig, who 'behaved in a good-for-nothing way
towards him.'

At Wittenberg, where the publication of the bull rested with the
university, the latter notified its arrival to the Elector, and
objected for various reasons to publish it, alleging, in particular,
that Eck, its sender, was not furnished with proper authority from
the Pope. Luther for the first time felt himself, as he wrote to
Spalatin, really free, being at length convinced that the Popedom
was Antichrist and the seat of Satan. He was not at all discouraged
by a letter sent at this time by Erasmus from Holland to Wittenberg,
saying that no hopes could be placed in the Emperor Charles, as he
was in the hands of the Mendicant Friars. As for the bull, so
extraordinary were its contents, that he wished to consider it a
forgery.

Still the promise which Luther had given to his Augustinian
brethren, only a few weeks before, under pressure from Miltitz,
remained as yet unfulfilled. Nor did Miltitz himself wish the
threads of the web then spun to slip from his fingers. Even at this
hour, with the consent and at the wish of the Elector, an interview
had been arranged between Miltitz and Luther at the Castle of
Lichtenberg (now Lichtenburg, in the district of Torgau), where the
monks of St. Antony were then housed. Just as Miltitz, as we have
seen, had thought to be able to avert the bull by getting Luther to
write a letter to the Pope, so now he promised the Elector still to
conciliate the Pope by that means. Only the letter was to be dated
back to the time, before the publication of the bull, when Luther
first gave his consent to write it. Its substance was to be as then
agreed upon; Luther, as Miltitz expressed it, was to 'eulogise the
Pope personally in a manner agreeable to him,' and at the same time
submit to him an historical statement of what he had done. Luther
consented to publish a letter in these terms, in Latin and German,
under date of September 6, and immediately gave effect to his
promise.

It is hardly conceivable how Miltitz could still have nurtured such
a hope. Neither his wish to ingratiate himself with the Elector
Frederick, and to checkmate the plans of Eck whom he detested, nor
his personal vanity and flippancy of character, are sufficient to
account for it. He must have learnt from his own previous personal
intercourse with the Pope, and his experiences of the Papal court,
that Leo did not take up Church questions and controversies so
gravely and so seriously as not to remain fully open all the time to
influences and considerations of other kinds, and that around him
were parties and influential personages, arrayed in mutual hostility
and rivalry. He must have been strangely ignorant of the state of
things at Rome. But as to Luther and his cause there was no longer
any hesitation in that quarter.

In what sense Luther himself was willing to comply with the demand
of Miltitz, the contents of his letter suffice to show. He makes it
clear that nothing was further from his intention than to appease
the angry Pontiff by any dexterous artifices or concealments. The
assurance required from him, that he had no wish to attack the Pope
personally, he construes in its literal terms, apart altogether from
the official character and acts of Leo. And in fact against his
personal character and conduct he had never said a word. But he
takes this opportunity, at the same time, of speaking to him plainly,
as a Christian is bound to do to his fellow-Christian; of repeating
to him, face to face, the severest charges yet made by him against
the Romish chair; of excusing Leo's own conduct in this chair simply
and solely on the ground that he regarded him as a victim of the
monstrous corruption which surrounded him, and of warning him once
more against it as a brother. He tells him to his face that he
himself, the Holy Father, must acknowledge that the Papal see was
more wicked and shameful than any Sodom, Gomorrah, or Babylon; that
God's wrath had fallen upon it without ceasing; that Rome, which
had once been the gate of heaven, was now an open jaw of hell. Most
earnestly he warns Leo against his flatterers,--the 'ear-ticklers'
who would make him a God. He assures him that he wishes him all
that is good, and therefore he wishes that he should not be devoured
by these jaws of hell, but on the contrary, should be freed from
this godless idolatry of parasites, and be placed in a position where
he would be able to live on some smaller ecclesiastical preferment,
or on his own patrimony. As for the historical retrospect which
Miltitz wanted, and which Luther briefly appends to this letter, all
that the latter says in vindication of himself is, that it was not
his own fault, but that of his enemies, who had driven him further
and further onward, that 'no small part of the unchristian doings at
Rome had been dragged to light.'

[Illustration: Fig. 23.--TITLE-PAGE, slightly reduced, of the
original Tract 'On the Liberty of a Christian Man.' The Saxon swords
are represented above, and the arms of Wittenberg below.]

Luther sent with this letter, as a present to the Pope, a pamphlet
entitled 'On the Liberty of a Christian Man.' This is no
controversial treatise intended for the great struggle of churchmen
and theologians, but a tract to minister to 'simple men.' For their
benefit he wished to describe compendiously the 'sum of a Christian
life'; to deal thoroughly with the question, 'What was a Christian?
and how he was to use the liberty which Christ had won and given to
him.' He premises as an axiom that a Christian is a free lord over
all things, and subject to nobody. He considers, first of all, the
new, inner, spiritual man, and asks what makes him a good and free
Christian. Nothing external, he says, can make him either good or
free. It does not profit the soul if the body puts on sacred
vestments, or fasts, or prays with the lips. To make the soul live,
and be good and free, there is nothing else in heaven or on earth
but the Holy Scriptures, in other words, God's Word of comfort by
His dear Son Jesus Christ, through Whom our sins are forgiven us. In
this Word the soul has perfect joy, happiness, peace, light, and all
good things in abundance. And to obtain this, nothing more is
required of the soul than what is told us in the Scriptures, namely,
to give itself to Jesus with firm faith and to trust joyfully in
Him. At first, no doubt, God's command must terrify a man, seeing
that it must be fulfilled, or man condemned; but when once he has
been brought thereby to recognise his own worthlessness, then comes
God's promise and the gospel, and says, Have faith in Christ, in
Whom I promise thee all grace; believe in Him, and thou hast Him. A
right faith so blends the soul with God's word, that the virtues of
the latter become her own, as the iron becomes glowing hot from its
union with the fire. And the soul becomes joined to Christ as a
bride to the bridegroom; her wedding-ring is faith. All that Christ,
the rich and noble bridegroom possesses, He makes His bride's; all
that she has, He takes unto Himself. He takes upon Himself her sins,
so that they are swallowed up in Him and in His unconquerable
righteousness. Thus the Christian is exalted above all things, and
becomes a lord; for nothing can injure his salvation; everything
must be subject to him and help towards his salvation; it is a
spiritual kingdom. And thus all Christians are priests; they can all
approach God through Christ, and pray for others. 'Who can
comprehend the honour and dignity of a Christian? Through his
kingship he has power over all things, through his priesthood he has
power over God, for God does what he desires and prays for.'

But the Christian, as Luther states in his second axiom, is not only
this new inner man. He has another will in his flesh, which would
make him captive to sin. Accordingly, he dare not be idle, but must
work hard to drive out evil lusts and mortify his body. He lives,
moreover, among other men on earth, and must labour together with
them. And as Christ, though Himself full of the Kingdom of God, for
our sake stripped Himself of His power and ministered as a servant,
so should we Christians, to whom God through Christ has given the
Kingdom of all goodness and blessedness, and therewith all that is
sufficient to satisfy us, do freely and cheerfully for our heavenly
Father whatever pleases Him, and do unto our neighbours as Christ
has done for us. In particular, we must not despise the weakness and
weak faith of our neighbour, nor vex him with the use of our
liberty, but rather minister with all we have to his improvement.
Thus the Christian, who is a free lord and master, becomes a useful
servant of all and subject to all. But he does these works, not that
he may become thereby good and blessed in the sight of God; he is
already blessed through his faith, and what he does now he does
freely and gratuitously. Luther thus sums up in conclusion: 'A
Christian lives not in himself, but in Christ and in his neighbour;
in Christ through faith, in his neighbour through love. Through
faith he rises above himself in God, from God he descends again
below himself through love; and yet remains always in God and in
godlike love.'

This tract was a remarkable pendant to Luther's remarkable letter to
the Pope. His Holiness, so he wrote to him in his dedication, might
taste from its contents what kind of occupation the author would
rather, and might with more profit, be engaged in, if only the
godless Papal flatterers did not hinder him. And in fact the Pope
could plainly see from it how Luther lived and laboured, with his
inmost being, in these profound but simple ideas of Christian truth,
and how he was inwardly compelled and delighted to represent them in
their noble simplicity. The whole tone and tenor of this dedication,
so tranquil, fervent, and tender, shows further what profound peace
reigned in the soul of this vehement champion of the faith, and what
happiness the excommunicated heretic found in his God. Next to
Luther's Address to the German Nobility and his Babylonian
Captivity, this tract is one of the most important contributions of
his pen to the cause of the Reformation. It is clear from its pages
that when Luther wrote his letter, at the request of Miltitz, to the
Pope, he had no thought of making peace with the Papacy, or of even
a moment's truce in the campaign.

The bull of excommunication he met in the manner intimated to
Spalatin from the first. He launched a short tract against it, 'On
the new Bull and Falsehoods of Eck,' treating it as Eck's forgery.
This he followed up with another tract in German and Latin, 'Against
the Bull of Antichrist.' He was resolved to unmask the blindness and
wickedness of the Roman evil-doers. He saw partly his own real
doctrines perverted, partly the Christian and Scriptural truth that
his doctrines contained, stigmatised as heresy and condemned. He
declared that if the Pope did not retract and condemn this bull, no
one would doubt that he was the enemy of God and the disturber of
Christianity.

He then solemnly renewed, on November 17, the appeal to a Council,
which he had made two years before. But how was his attitude changed
since then! He, the accused and condemned heretic, now himself
proclaims condemnation and ruin to his enemy, the antichristian
power that seeks to domineer the world. Nor is it only from a future
Council, and one constituted as the previous great assemblies of the
Church, that he expects and demands protection for himself and the
Christian truth; again and again he calls upon the Christian laity
to assist him. Thus in his appeal now published, he invites the
Emperor Charles, the Electors and Princes of the Empire, the counts,
barons, and nobles, the town councils, and all Christian authorities
throughout Germany, to support him and his appeal, that so the true
Christian belief and the freedom of a Council might be saved.
Similarly, in the Latin edition of his tract against the bull, he
calls upon the Emperor Charles, on Christian kings and princes and
all who believe in Christ, together with all Christian bishops and
learned doctors, to resist the iniquities of the Popedom. In his
German version he defends himself against the charge of stirring up
the laity against the Pope and priesthood; but he asks if, indeed,
the laity will be reconciled, or the Pope excused, by the command to
burn the truth. The Pope himself, he says, and his bishops, priests,
and monks are wrestling to their own downfall, through this
iniquitous bull, and want to bring upon themselves the hatred of the
laity. 'What wonder were it, should princes, nobles, and laymen beat
them on the head, and hunt them out of the country?'

Hutten now followed with a stormy demand for a general rising of
Germany against the tyranny of Rome, whose hirelings and emissaries
were to be chased away by main force. When two papal legates,
Aleander and Caraccioli, appeared on the Rhine to execute the bull
and work upon the Emperor in person, he was anxious to strike a blow
at them on his own account, little good as, on calm reflection, it
was evident could have come of it. Luther, on hearing of it, could
not refrain remarking in a letter to Spalatin, 'If only he had
caught them!'

Luther however persisted in repeating to himself and his friends the
warning of the Psalmist, 'Put not your trust in princes, nor in any
child of man, for there is no help in them.' Nay, when Spalatin, who
had gone with the Elector to the Emperor, told him how little was to
be hoped for from the latter, he expressed to him his joy at finding
that he too had learned the same lesson. God, he said, would never
have entrusted simple fishermen with the Gospel, if it had needed
worldly potentates to propagate it. It was to the Last Day that he
looked with full confidence for the overthrow of Antichrist. And,
indeed, his idea that Antichrist had long reigned at Rome was
connected in his mind with the belief that the Last Day was close at
hand. Of this, as he wrote to Spalatin, he was convinced, and for
many strong reasons.

And in fact the Emperor Charles, before leaving the Netherlands, on
his journey to Aix-la-Chapelle to be crowned, had already been
induced by Aleander to take his first step against Luther. He had
consented to the execution of the sentence in the bull, condemning
Luther's works to be burnt, and had issued orders to that effect
throughout the Netherlands. They were burnt in public at Louvain,
Cologne, and Mayence. At Cologne this was done while he was staying
there. It was in this town that the two legates approached the
Elector Frederick with the demand to have the same done in his
territory, and to execute due punishment on the heretic himself, or
at least to keep him close prisoner, or deliver him over to the
Pope. Frederick however refused, saying that Luther must first be
heard by impartial judges. Erasmus also, who was then staying at
Cologne, expressed himself to the same effect, in an opinion
obtained from him by Frederick through Spalatin. At an interview
with the Elector he said to him, 'Luther has committed two great
faults; he has touched the Pope on his crown and the monks on their
bellies.' The Archbishop of Mayence, Cardinal Albert, received
directions from the Pope to take more decisive and energetic steps
against Hutten as well. The burning of Luther's books at Mayence was
effected without hindrance, though Hutten was able to inform Luther
that, according to the account received from a friend, Aleander
narrowly escaped stoning, and the multitude were all the more
inflamed in favour of Luther. The legates in triumph proceeded to
carry out their mission elsewhere.

Luther, however, lost no time in following up their execution of the
bull with his reply. On December 10 he posted a public announcement
that the next morning, at nine o'clock, the antichristian decretals,
that is, the Papal law-books, would be burnt, and he invited all the
Wittenberg students to attend. He chose for this purpose a spot in
front of the Elster Gate, to the east of the town, near the
Augustinian convent. A multitude poured forth to the scene. With
Luther appeared a number of other doctors and masters, and among
them Melancthon and Carlstadt. After one of the masters of arts had
built up a pile, Luther laid the decretals upon it, and the former
applied the fire. Luther then threw the Papal bull into the flames,
with the words 'Because thou hast vexed the Holy One of the Lord,
[Footnote: It is obvious that he refers to Christ, who is spoken of
in Scripture as the Holy One of God (St. Mark i. 24, Acts ii. 27),
not, as ignorance and malice have suggested, to himself.] let the
everlasting fire consume thee.' Whilst Luther with the other
teachers returned to the town, some hundreds of students remained
upon the scene, and sang a Te Deum, and a Dirge for the decretals.
After the ten o'clock meal, some of the young students, grotesquely
attired, drove through the town in a large carriage, with a banner
emblazoned with a bull four yards in length, amidst the blowing of
brass trumpets and other absurdities. They collected from all
quarters a mass of Scholastic and Papal writings, and especially
those of Eck, and hastened with them and the bull, to the pile,
which their companions had meanwhile kept alight. Another Te Deum
was then sung, with a requiem, and the hymn 'O du armer Judas.'

Luther at his lecture the next day told his hearers with great
earnestness and emotion what he had done. The Papal chair he said,
would yet have to be burnt. Unless with all their hearts they
abjured the Kingdom of the Pope, they could not obtain salvation.

He next announced and justified his act in a short treatise entitled
'Why the Books of the Pope and his disciples were burnt by Dr.
Martin Luther.' 'I, Martin Luther,' he says, 'doctor of Holy
Scripture, an Augustinian of Wittenberg, make known hereby to
everyone, that by my wish, advice, and act, on Monday after St.
Nicholas' day, in the year 1520, the books of the Pope of Rome, and
of some of his disciples, were burnt. If anyone wonders, as I fully
expect they will, and asks for what reason and by whose command I
did it, let this be his answer.' Luther considers it his bounden
duty, as a baptized Christian, a sworn doctor of Holy Scripture, and
a daily preacher, to root out, on account of his office, all
unchristian doctrines. The example of others, on whom the same duty
devolved, but who shrank from doing as he did, would not deter him.
'I should not,' he says, 'be excused in my own sight; of that my
conscience is assured, and my spirit, by God's grace, has been
roused to the necessary courage.' He then proceeds to cite from the
law-books thirty erroneous doctrines, in glorification of the
Papacy, which deserved to be burnt. The sum total of this Canon law
was as follows: 'The Pope is a God on earth, above all things,
heavenly and earthly, spiritual and temporal, and everything is his,
since no one durst say, What doest thou?' This, says Luther, is the
abomination of desolation (St: Matth. xxiv. 15), or in other words
Antichrist (2 Thess. ii. 4).

Simultaneously with this, he set out in a longer and exhaustive work
the 'ground and reason' of all his own articles which had been
condemned by the bull. He takes his stand upon God's word in
Scripture against the dogmas of the earthly God;--upon the
revelation by God Himself, which, to everyone who studies it deeply
and with devotion, will lighten his understanding, and make clear
its substance and meaning. What though, as he is reminded, he is
only a solitary, humble man, he is sure of this, that God's Word is
with him.

To Staupitz, who felt faint-hearted and desponding about the bull,
Luther wrote, saying that, when burning it, he trembled at first and
prayed; but now he felt more rejoiced than at any other act in all
his life. He now released himself finally from the restraints of
those monastic rules, with which, as we have remarked before, he had
always tormented himself, besides performing the higher duties of
his calling. He was freed now, as he wrote to his friend Lange, by
the authority of the bull, from the commands of his Order and of the
Pope, being now an excommunicated man. Of this he was glad; he
retained merely the garb and lodging of a monk: he had more than
enough of real duties to perform with his daily lectures and
sermons, with his constant writings, educational, edifying, and
polemical, and with his letters, discourses, and the assistance he
was able to give his brethren.

By this bold act, Luther consummated his final rupture with the
Papal system, which for centuries had dominated the Christian world,
and had identified itself with Christianity. The news of it must
also have made the fire which his words had kindled throughout
Germany, blaze out in all its violence. He saw now, as he wrote to
Staupitz, a storm raging, such as only the Last Day could allay; so
fiercely were passions aroused on both sides.

Germany was then, in fact, in a state of excitement and tension more
critical than at any other period of her history. Side by side with
Luther stood Hutten, in the forefront of the battle with Rome. The
bull he published with sarcastic comments: the burning of Luther's
works of devotion he denounced in Latin and German verses. Eberlin
von Gunzburg, who shortly after began to wield his pen as a popular
writer on reform, called these two men 'two chosen messengers of
God.' A German Litany, which appeared early in 1521, implored God's
grace and help for Martin Luther, the unshaken pillar of the
Christian faith, and for the brave German knight Ulrich Hutten, his
Pylades.

Hutten also wrote now in German for the German people, both in prose
and verse. During his stay with Sickingen in the winter at his
Castle of Ebernburg, he read to him Luther's works, which roused in
this powerful warrior an active sympathy with the doctrines of the
Reformation, and stirred up projects in his mind, of what his own
strong arm could accomplish for the good cause.

Pamphlets, both anonymous and pseudonymous, were circulated in
increasing numbers among the people. They took the form chiefly of
dialogues, in which laymen, in a simple Christian spirit, and with
their natural understanding, complain of the needs of Christendom,
ask questions and are enlightened. The outward evils of the Papal
system are put clearly before the people:--the scandals among the
priesthood and in the convents, the iniquities of the Romish
courtiers and creatures of the Pope, who pandered with menial
subservience to the magnates at Rome, in order to fatten on German
benefices, and reap their harvest of taxes and extortions of every
kind. The simple Word of God, with its sublime evangelical truths,
must be freed from the sophistries woven round it by man, and be
made accessible to all without distinction. Luther is represented as
its foremost champion, and a true man of the people, whose testimony
penetrated to the heart. His portrait, as painted by Cranach, was
circulated together with his small tracts. In later editions the
Holy Ghost appears in the form of a dove hovering above his head;
his enemies spread the calumny, that Luther intended this emblem to
represent himself.

Satirical pictures also were used as weapons on both sides in this
contest. Cranach pourtrayed the meek and suffering Saviour on one side,
and on the other the arrogant Roman Antichrist, in the twenty-six
woodcuts of his 'Passion of Christ and Antichrist:' Luther added short
texts to these pictures.

Luther's enemies now began, on their side, to write in German and
for the people. The most talented among them, as regards vigorous,
popular German and coarse satire, was the Franciscan Thomas Murner;
but his theology seemed to Luther so weak, that he only favoured him
once with a brief allusion. He entered now into a longer literary
duel with the Dresden theologian Emser, who had challenged him after
the disputation at Leipzig, and who now published a work 'Against
the Unchristian Address of Martin Luther to the German Nobility.'
Luther replied with a tract 'To the Goat at Leipzig,' Emser with
another 'To the Bull at Wittenberg,' Luther with another 'On the
Answer of the Goat at Leipzig,' and Emser with a third, 'On the
furious Answer of the Bull at Wittenberg.' Luther, whose reply to
Emser's original work had been directed to the first sheets that
appeared, met the work, when published in its complete form, with
his 'Answer to the over-Christian, over-priestly, over-artful Book
of the Goat Emser.' Emser followed up with a 'Quadruplica,' to which
Luther rejoined with another treatise entitled 'A Refutation by
Doctor Luther of Emser's error, extorted by the most learned priest
of God, H. Emser.' When later, during Luther's residence at the
Wartburg, Emser published a reply, Luther let him have the last
word. Nothing new was contributed to the great struggle by this
interchange of polemics. The most effective point made by Emser and
the other defenders of the old Church system, was the old charge
that Luther, one man, presumed to oppose the whole of Christendom as
hitherto constituted, and by the overthrow of all foundations and
authorities of the Church, to bring unbelief, distraction, and
disturbance upon Church and State. Thus Emser says once in German
doggrel, that Luther imagined that

  What Church and Fathers teach was nought;
  None lived but Luther;--so he thought.

In threatening Luther with the consequences of his heresy, he never
failed to hold up Huss as a bugbear.

In Germany, as Emser complains, there was already 'such quarrelling,
noise, and uproar, that not a district, town, village, or house was
free from partisans, and one man was against another.' Aleander wrote
to Rome saying that everywhere exasperation and excitement prevailed,
and the Papal bull was laughed at. Among the adherents of the old
Church system one heard rumours of strange and terrible import. A
letter written shortly after the burning of the bull, gave out that
Luther reckoned on thirty-five thousand Bohemians, and as many Saxons
and other North Germans, who were ready, like the Goths and Vandals
of old, to march on Italy and Rome. But it was evident, even at this
stage, that from rancorous words to energetic and self-sacrificing
action was a long step to take. Even in central Germany the bull was
executed without any disturbance breaking out; and that in the
bishoprics of Meissen and Merseburg, which were adjacent to Wittenberg.
Pirkheimer and Spengler at Nuremberg, whose names Eck had included in
the bull, now bowed to the authority of the Pope, represented though
it was by their personal enemy.

Hutten, who saw his hopes in the Emperor's brother deceived, and
believed his own liberty and even his life was menaced by the Papal
bull, burned with impatient ardour to strike a blow. He was anxious
also to see whether a resort to force, after his own meaning of the
term, would meet with any support from the Elector Frederick. He
ventured even, when speaking of Sickingen's lofty mission, to refer
to the precedent of Ziska, the powerful champion of the Hussites,
who had once been the terror and abomination of the Germans. He, a
member of the proud Equestrian order, was willing now to join hands
with the towns and the burghers to do battle with Rome for the
liberty of Germany. But, passionate as were his words, it was by no
means clear what particular end under present circumstances he
sought to achieve by means of arms. Sickingen, who had grasped the
situation in a practical spirit, advised him to moderate his
impatience, and sought, for his own part, to keep on good terms with
the Emperor, in whom Hutten accordingly renewed his hopes. Each, in
short, had overrated the influence which Sickingen really possessed
with the Emperor.

In this posture of affairs, Luther reverted, with increased
conviction, to his original opinion, that the future must be left
with God alone, without trusting to the help of man. Hutten himself
had written to him, during the Diet of Worms, as follows: 'I will
fight manfully with you for Christ; but our counsels differ in this
respect, that mine are human, while you, more perfect than I am,
trust solely in those of God.' And when Hutten seemed really bent on
taking the sword, Luther declared to him and to others, with all
decision of purpose: 'I would not have man fight with force and
bloodshed for the Gospel. By the Word has the world been subdued, by
the Word has the Church been preserved, by the Word will she be
restored. As Antichrist has begun without a blow, so without a blow
will Antichrist be crushed by the Word.' Even against the Romish
hirelings among the German clergy, he would have no acts of violence
committed, such as were committed in Bohemia. He had not laboured
with the German nobility to have such men restrained by the sword,
but by advice and command. He was only afraid that their own rage
would not allow of peaceful means to check them, but would bring
misery and disaster upon their heads.

His expectation--not indeed ungrounded--of the approaching end of
the world, to which, as we have seen, he alluded in a letter to
Spalatin on January 16, 1521, Luther now announced more fully in a
book, written in answer to an attack by the Romish theologian
Ambrosius Catharinus. He based his opinion on the prophecies of the
Old and New Testament, on which Christian men and Christian
communities, sore pressed in the battle with the powers of darkness,
had been wont ere then to rely, in the sure hope of the approaching
victory of God. Luther referred in particular to the vision of
Daniel (chap. viii.), where he states that after the four great
Kingdoms of the World, the last of which Luther takes to be the
Roman Empire, a bold and crafty ruler should rise up, and 'by his
policy should cause craft to prosper in his hand, and should stand
up against the Prince of princes, but should be broken without
hand.' He saw this vision fulfilled in the Popedom; which must,
therefore, be destroyed 'without hand,' or outward force. St. Paul,
in his view, said the same in the passage in which (2 Thess. ii.) he
foreshadowed long before the Roman Antichrist. That 'man of sin' who
set himself up as God in the temple of God, 'the Lord shall consume
with the spirit of His mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness
of His coming.' So, said Luther, the Pope and his kingdom would not
be destroyed by the laity, but would be reserved for a heavier
punishment until the coming of Christ. He must fall, as he had
raised himself, not 'with the hand,' but with the spirit of Satan.
The Spirit must kill the spirit; the truth must reveal deceit.

Luther, as we shall see, had all his life held firmly to this belief
that the end was near. As his glowing zeal pictured the loftiest
images and contrasts to his mind, so also this assurance of victory
was already before his eyes. In his hope of the near completion of
the earthly history of Christianity and mankind, he became the
instrument of carving out a new grand chapter in its career.

The announcement of the retractation required from Luther by the
bull, was to have been sent to Rome within 120 days. Luther had
given his answer. The Pope declared that the time of grace had
expired; and on the 3rd of January Leo X. finally pronounced the ban
against Luther and his followers, and an interdict on the places
where they were harboured.




CHAPTER IX.

THE DIET OF WORMS.


If we consider the powerful influences then at work to further the
ecclesiastical movement in Germany, it seems reasonable to suppose
that they would succeed in accomplishing its ends through the power
of the Word alone, without any such bloodshed and political
convulsions as were feared; and that Germany, therefore, though
vexed with spiritual tempests--the 'tumult and uproar' whose
outburst Luther already discerned--must inevitably rid herself of
the forms and fetters of Romish Churchdom, by the sheer force of her
new religious convictions. And, indeed, even in the short interval
since Luther had commenced, and only with slow steps had advanced
further in the contest, a success had been attained which no one at
the beginning could have ventured to expect, or even hope for.
Frederick the Wise, the Nestor among the great German Princes of the
Empire, had plainly freed himself inwardly from those fetters, and
though, as yet, he did not feel himself called upon to express his
sentiments by decisive action, his conduct, nevertheless, could not
fail to make an impression on those about him. The nobility and
burgher class, among whom the new doctrines had made most progress,
were, politically speaking, powerfully represented at the Diets. The
most important of the spiritual lords, the Archbishop of Magdeburg
and Mayence, who had most cause to resent Luther's onslaught on
indulgences, had hitherto adopted a cautious and expectant attitude,
which left him free to join at some future time a national revolt
against his Romish sovereign. The Diets, indeed, had hitherto
submitted to their old ecclesiastical grievances without any fear of
the wrath or scolding of the Pope. But, as soon as the conviction
prevailed among the Estates, that the pretensions of the Roman see
had no eternal, Divine foundation, they could take in hand at once,
on their own account, the reformation of the Church. As for the
episcopacy, in particular, Luther had never desired, as his Address
to the Nobility sufficiently showed, to interfere with or disturb it
in any way, provided only the bishops would feed their flocks
according to God's Word. An independent German episcopate would then
have been well able to undertake the reforms necessary in the system
of worship. Luther himself, as we shall see, wished and continued to
wish that those reforms should be as few and simple as possible.

In the various German states which afterwards became Protestant, the
work of reform was in fact accomplished, without any serious
agitation, by the Princes themselves, in concert with their Estates;
and in the free towns by the magistrates and representatives of the
burghers, notwithstanding the fact that its opponents were supported
by the majority of the Empire and by the Emperor himself, who was a
staunch adherent of the Romish system. How much easier, in
comparison, must the work of Evangelical reformation have been, had
it been resolved on by the power of the Empire itself, in accord
with the overwhelming voice of the whole nation.

Reference was made, and in significant terms, to the savage and
cruel war of the Hussites. But no one could deny to Luther's
teaching, a clearness, a religious depth, and a freedom from
fanaticism, peculiar to itself, and utterly wanting in the preaching
of the followers of Huss. Again, the wild Hussite wars, which were
still fresh in the sorrowful memory of the Germans, had in the first
instance been provoked by the use of force, on the part of the
Church, against the Bohemians. When Germany revolted, Rome found no
such means of force at her command.

It might fairly be questioned, if the thought were worth pursuing,
whether Luther at that time had sufficient ground for looking for
the triumph of his cause, not indeed to the power of the Word and
the influences then active in his favour, but to the Day of the
Lord, which he believed was near.

It is true that in such great crises of history as this, the final
issue never depends alone on the character and conduct of particular
personages, however eminent they may be. In this antichristian
system of the Papacy, Luther saw Satanic powers at work, which
blinded the human heart, and might indeed succeed, by dint of
suffering and oppression, in overcoming for the moment the Word of
God, but which could never finally extirpate or extinguish it. And
we Protestants must confess that not only did a great mass of the
German people remain bound by the spell of tradition, but that even
to honest and independent-minded adherents of the old system, the
interests of religion and morality might in reality have seemed to
be seriously endangered by the new teaching and by the breach with
the past. But never did the most momentous issue in the fortunes of
the German nation and Church rest so entirely with one man as they
did now with the German Emperor. Everything depended on this,
whether he, as head of the Empire, should take the great work in
hand, or should fling his authority and might into the opposite
scale.

Charles had been welcomed in Germany as one whose youthful heart
seemed likely to respond to the newly-awakened life and aspirations;
as the son of an old German princely family, who by his election as
Emperor had won a triumph over the foreign king Francis, supported
though the latter was by the Pope. Rumour now alleged that he was in
the hands of the Mendicant Friars: the Franciscan Glapio was his
confessor and influential adviser, the very man who had instigated
the burning of Luther's works.

[Illustration: Fig. 24.--CHARLES V. (From an engraving by B. Beham,
in 1531.)]

He was, however, by no means so dependent on those about him as
might have been supposed. His counsellors, in the general interests
of his government, pursued an independent line of policy, and
Charles himself, even in these his youthful days, knew to assert his
independence as a monarch and display his cleverness as a statesman.

But a German he was not, in spite of his grandfather Maximilian; he
had not even an ordinary knowledge of the German language. First and
foremost, he was King of Spain and Naples; in his Spanish kingdom he
retained, even after his accession to the imperial dignity, the
chief basis of his power. His religious training and education had
familiarised him only with the strict orthodoxy of the Church and
his duties in respect to her traditional ordinances. To these his
conscience also constrained him to adhere. He never showed any
inclination to investigate the opposite opinions of his German
subjects, at least with any independent or critical exercise of
judgment. A strict regard to his rights and duties as a sovereign
was his sole guide, next to his religious principles, in dictating
his conduct towards the Church. In Spain some reforms were being
then introduced, based essentially on the doctrines and hierarchical
constitution of the mediaeval Church. Stricter discipline, in
particular, was observed with regard to the clergy and monks, who
were admonished to attend more faithfully to their duties of
promoting the moral and religious welfare of the people; and the
result was seen in a revival of popular interest in the forms and
ordinances of religion. Furthermore, the crown enjoyed certain
rights independently of the Roman Curia: an absolute monarchy was
here ingeniously united with Papal absolutism. Such a union,
however, sufficed in itself to make any severance of the German
Church from the Papacy impossible under Charles V. The unity of his
dominions was bound up with the unity of the Catholic Church, to
which his subjects, alike in Spain and Germany, belonged. Added to
this, he had to consider his foreign policy. Provoked as he had been
by Leo X., who had leagued with France to prevent his election,
still, with menaces of war from France, he saw the prudence of
cultivating friendship, and contracting, if possible, an alliance
with the Pope. The pressure desirable for this purpose could now be
supplied by means of the very danger with which the Papacy was
threatened by the great German heresy, and against which Rome so
sorely needed the aid of a temporal power. At the same time, Charles
was far too astute to allow his regard for the Pope, and his desire
for the unity of the Church, to entangle his policy in measures for
which his own power was inadequate, or by which his authority might
be shaken, and possibly destroyed. Strengthened as was his
monarchical power in Spain, in Germany he found it hemmed in and
fettered by the Estates of the Empire and the whole contexture of
political relations.

Such were the main points of view which determined for Charles V.
his conduct towards Luther and his cause. Luther thus was at least a
passive sharer in the game of high policy, ecclesiastical and
temporal, now being played, and had to pursue his own course
accordingly.

The imperial court was quickly enough acquainted with the state of
feeling in Germany. The Emperor showed himself prudent at this
juncture, and accessible to opinions differing from his own, however
small cause his proclamations gave to the friends of Luther to hope
for any positive act of favour on his part.

Whilst Charles was on his way up the Rhine, to hold, at the
beginning of the New Year, a Diet at Worms, the Elector Frederick
approached him with the request that Luther should at least be heard
before the Emperor took any proceedings against him. The Emperor
informed him in reply that he might bring Luther for this purpose to
Worms, promising that the monk should not be molested. The Elector,
however, felt doubts on this point: possibly he thought of the
danger to which Huss had been exposed at Constance. But Luther, to
whom he announced through Spalatin the Emperor's offer, replied
immediately, 'If I am summoned, I will, so far as I am concerned,
come; even if I have to be carried there ill; for no man can doubt
that, if the Emperor calls me, I am called by the Lord.' Violence,
he said, would no doubt be offered him; but God still lived, who had
delivered the three youths from the fiery furnace at Babylon, and if
it was not His will that he should be saved, his head was of little
value. There was one thing only to beseech of God, that the Emperor
might not commence his reign by shedding innocent blood to shield
ungodliness: he would far rather perish by the hands of the
Romanists alone. Some time before, Luther had thought of a place to
fly to, in case it were impossible to stay at Wittenberg; Bohemia
was always open to him. But now he roundly declared, 'I will not
fly, still less can I recant.'

Meanwhile the Emperor began to reflect whether Luther, who lay
already under the ban and interdict, ought to be admitted to the
place of the Diet. As to what proceedings should be taken against
him, if he came, long, wavering, and anxious negotiations now took
place between the Emperor, the Estates, and the legate Aleander, at
Worms, where the Estates assembled in January, and the Diet was
opened on the 28th.

A Papal brief demanded the Emperor to enforce the bull, by which
Luther was now definitely condemned, by an imperial edict. In vain,
he wrote, had God girded him with the sword of supreme earthly
power, if he did not use it against heretics, who were even worse
than infidels. His advisers, however, were agreed in the conviction
that he could not move in this matter without the consent of his
Estates. Aleander sought to gain them over in an elaborate harangue.
He, according to whose principles the appeal to a Council was a
crime, cleverly diverted from himself the comparison and retort
which his present arguments suggested, and insisted all the more on
his complaint, that Luther always despised the authority of Councils
and would take no correction from anyone. Glapio, then the Emperor's
confessor and diplomatist, addressed himself, with expressions of
wonderful friendship, to Frederick's chancellor, Bruck. Even he
found much that was good in Luther's writings, but the contents of
his book, the 'Babylonian Captivity,' were detestable. All that need
be done was that Luther should disclaim or retract that offensive
work, so that what was good in his writings might bear fruit for the
Church, and Luther, together with the Emperor, might co-operate in
the work of true reform. He might be invited to meet some learned,
impartial men at a suitable place, and submit himself to their
judgment. This, at all events, would be a happy means of preventing
his having to appear before the Emperor and the Estates of the
Empire, and if he persisted in refusing to recant, of deciding then
and there his fate. We must leave it an open question, how far
Glapio still seriously thought it possible, by dint of threats and
entreaties, to utilise Luther for effecting a reform in the Spanish
sense, and as an instrument against any Pope who should prove
hostile to the Emperor. But the Elector Frederick would undertake no
responsibility in this dark design: he refused flatly to grant to
Glapio the private audience he desired.

The Emperor acceded so far to the urgency of the Pope as to cause a
draft mandate to be laid before the Estates, proposing that Luther
should be arrested, and his protectors punished for high treason.
The Frankfort deputy wrote home: 'The monk makes plenty of work.
Some would gladly crucify him, and I fear he will hardly escape
them; only they must take care that he does not rise again on the
third day.' After seven days' excited debate in the Diet, in which
the Elector took a prominent and lively part, an answer to the
imperial mandate was at length agreed upon, offering for
consideration 'whether, inasmuch as Luther's preaching, doctrines,
and writings had awakened among the common people all kinds of
thoughts, fancies, and desires, any good result or advantage would
accrue from issuing the mandate alone in all its stringency, without
first having cited Luther before them and heard him.' At the same
time, his examination was to be so far restricted, that no
discussion with him should be allowed, but simply the question put
to him, 'whether or not he intended to insist upon the writings he
had published against our holy Christian faith.' If he retracted
them, he should be heard further on other points and matters, and
dealt with in all equity upon them. If, on the contrary, he
persisted in all or any of the articles at variance with the faith,
then all the Estates of the Empire should, without further
disputation, adhere to and help to maintain the faith handed down by
their fathers, and the imperial edict should then go abroad
throughout the land.

The Emperor, accordingly, on March 6, issued a citation to Luther,
summoning him to Worms, to give 'information concerning his
doctrines and books.' An imperial herald was sent to conduct him. In
the event of his disobeying the citation, or refusing to retract,
the Estates declared their consent to treat him as an open heretic.

Luther, therefore, had to renounce at once all hope of having the
truth touching his articles of faith tested fairly at Worms by the
standard of God's word in Scripture. Spalatin indicated to him the
points on which, according to Glapio's statement, he would in any
case be expected to make a public recantation.

It remained still doubtful, however, how far those articles would be
extended, and how far the 'other points' might be stretched, or
possibly be made the subject of further and profitable discussion,
if he submitted in respect to the former. Glapio had made no
reference to the question of the patristic belief in the
infallibility of the Pope, or his absolute power over the Church
collectively and her Councils: even the Papal nuncio himself had not
ventured to touch on these subjects. There was room enough for the
more liberal and independent principles entertained on these points
by the members of the earlier reforming Councils, if only Luther had
not disputed their authority with that of Councils altogether. The
ecclesiastical abuses, against which the Diet had already
remonstrated to the Pope, were just now at Worms the subject of
general and bitter complaint. The imposts levied by Rome on
ecclesiastical benefices and fiefs, mere outward symbols of
supremacy it is true, but highly important to the Pope, swallowed up
enormous sums; while the Empire hardly knew how to scrape together a
miserable subsidy for the newly organised government and the
expenses of justice, and men talked openly of retaining these Papal
tributes, notwithstanding all protests from Rome, for these
purposes. Even faithful adherents of the old Church system, like
Duke George of Saxony, demanded a comprehensive reformation of the
clergy, whose scandals were so destructive of religion, and, as the
best means to effect this reformation, a General Council of the
Church. Aleander had to report to Rome, that all parties were
unanimous in this desire, so hateful to the Pope himself, and that
the Germans wished to have the Council in their own country.

Luther formed his resolve at once on the two points required of him.
He determined to obey the summons to the Diet, and, if there
unconvicted of error, to refuse the recantation demanded.

The Emperor's citation was delivered to him on March 26 by the
imperial herald, Kaspar Sturm, who was to accompany him to Worms.
Within twenty-one days after its receipt, Luther was to appear
before the Emperor; he was due therefore at Worms on April 16, at
the latest.

Up till now he had continued uninterruptedly his arduous and
multifarious labours, and, to use his own expression, like Nehemiah
he carried on at once the work of peace and of war; he built with
one hand, and wielded the sword with the other. His controversy with
Catharinus he brought quickly to a conclusion. During March he
finished the first part of his Exposition of the Gospel as read in
church, which he had undertaken, as a peaceful and edifying work, at
the request of the Elector, to whom he wrote a dedication; and he
was now at work on a fervent and tender practical explanation of the
_Magnificat_, which he had intended for his devoted friend,
Prince John Frederick, the son of Duke John and nephew of the
Elector Frederick. He addressed a short letter to him on March 31,
enclosing the first printed sheets of this treatise; and the next
day sent him the epilogue, addressed to his friend Link, to his
reply to Catharinus, dedicated also to Link. 'I know,' he says here,
'and am certain, that our Lord Jesus Christ still lives and rules.
Upon this knowledge and assurance I rely, and therefore I will not
fear ten thousand Popes; for He Who is with us is greater than he
who is in the world.'

On the following day, April 2, the Tuesday after Easter, he set out
on his way to Worms. His friend Amsdorf and the Pomeranian nobleman
Peter Swaven, who was then studying at Wittenberg, accompanied him.
He took with him also, according to the rules of the Order, a
brother of the Order, John Pezensteiner. The Wittenberg magistracy
provided carriages and horses.

The way led past Leipzig, through Thuringia from Naumburg to
Eisenach, then southward past Berka, Hersfeld, Grunberg, Friedberg,
Frankfort, and Oppenheim. The herald rode on before in his coat of
arms, and announced the man whose word had everywhere so mightily
stirred the minds of people, and for whose future behaviour and fate
friend and foe were alike anxious. Everywhere people collected to
catch a glimpse of him.

On April 6 he was very solemnly received at Erfurt. The large
majority of the university there were by this time full of
enthusiasm for his cause. His friend Crotus, on his return from
Italy, had been chosen Rector. The ban of excommunication had not
been published by the university, and had been thrown into the water
by the students. Justus Jonas was foremost in zeal; and even
Erasmus, his honoured friend, had no longer been able to restrain
him. Lange and others were active in preaching among the people.

Jonas hastened to Weimar to meet Luther on his approach. Forty
members of the university, with the Rector at their head, went on
horseback, accompanied by a number of others on foot, to welcome him
at the boundary of the town. Luther had also a small retinue with
him. Crotus expressed to him the infinite pleasure it was to see
him, the great champion of the faith; whereupon Luther answered,
that he did not deserve such praise, but he thanked them for their
love. The poet Eoban also stammered out, as he said of himself, a
few words; he afterwards described the progress in a set of Latin
songs.

The following day, a Sunday, Luther spent at Erfurt. He preached
there, in the church of the Augustine convent, a sermon which has
been preserved. Beginning with the words, of the Gospel of the day,
'Peace be unto you,' he spoke of the peace which we find through
Christ the Redeemer, by faith in whom and in his work of salvation
we are justified, without any works or merit of our own; of the
freedom with which Christians may act in faith and love; and of the
duty of every man, who possessed this peace of God, so to order his
work and conduct, that it shall be useful not only to himself but to
his neighbour. This he said in protest against the justification by
works taught by most preachers, against the system of Papal
commands, and against the wisdom of heathen teachers, of an
Aristotle or a Plato. Of his present personal position and the
difficult path he had now to tread, he took no thought, but only of
the general obligation he was under, whatever other men might teach;
'I will speak the truth and must speak it; for that reason I am
here, and take no money for it.' During the sermon a crash was
suddenly heard in the overweighted balconies of the crowded church,
the doors of which were blocked with multitudes eager to hear him.
The crowd were about to rush out in a panic, when Luther exclaimed,
'I know thy wiles, thou Satan,' and quieted the congregation with
the assurance that no danger threatened, it was only the devil who
was carrying on his wicked sport.

Luther also preached in the Augustine convents at Gotha and
Eisenach. At Gotha the people thought it significant that after the
sermon the devil tore off some stones from the gable of the church.

In the inns Luther liked to refresh himself with music, and often
took up the lute.

At Eisenach, however, he was seized with an attack of illness, and
had to be bled. From Frankfort he writes to Spalatin, who was then
at Worms, that he felt since then a degree of suffering and weakness
unknown to him before.

On the way he found a new imperial edict posted up, which ordered
all his books to be seized, as having been condemned by the Pope and
being contrary to the Christian faith. Charles V. by this edict had
given satisfaction again to the legates, who were annoyed at Luther
being summoned to Worms. Many doubted whether Luther, after this
condemnation of his cause by the Emperor, would venture to present
himself in person at Worms. He himself was alarmed, but travelled
on.

Meanwhile at Worms disquietude and suspense prevailed on both sides.
Hutten from the Castle of Ebernburg sent threatening and angry
letters to the Papal legates, who became really anxious lest a blow
might be struck from that quarter. Aleander complained that
Sickingen now was king in Germany, since he could command a
following whenever and as large as he pleased. But in truth he was
in no case ready for an attack at that moment. He still reckoned on
being able, with his Church sympathies, to remain the Emperor's
friend, and was just now on the point of taking a post of military
command in his service. Some anxious friends of Luther's were afraid
that, according to Papal law, the safe-conduct would not be observed
in the case of a condemned heretic. Spalatin himself sent from Worms
a second warning to Luther after he had left Frankfort, intimating
that he would suffer the fate of Huss.

Meanwhile Glapio, on the other side, no doubt with the knowledge and
consent of his imperial master, made one more attempt in a very
unexpected manner to influence Luther, or at least to prevent him
from going to Worms. He went with the imperial chamberlain, Paul von
Armsdorf, to Sickingen and Hutten at the Castle of Ebernburg, spoke
of Luther as he had formerly done to Bruck, in an unconstrained and
friendly manner, and offered to hold a peaceable interview with
Luther in Sickingen's presence. Armsdorf at the same time earnestly
dissuaded Hutten from his attacks and threats against the legates,
and made him the offer of an imperial pension if he would desist.
Had Luther agreed to this proposal and gone to the Ebernburg, he
could not have reached Worms in time; the safe-conduct promised him
would have been no longer valid, and the Emperor would have been
free to act against him. Nevertheless Sickingen entered into the
proposal. The danger threatening Luther at Worms must have appeared
still greater to him, and Luther could then have enjoyed the
protection of his castle, which he had offered him before. Martin
Butzer, the theologian from Schlettstadt, happened then to be with
Sickingen; he had already met Luther at Heidelberg in 1518, had then
learned to know him, and had embraced his opinions. He was now
commissioned to convey this invitation to him at Oppenheim, which
lay on Luther's road.

But Luther continued on his way. He told Butzer that Glapio would be
able to speak with him at Worms. To Spalatin he replied, though Huss
were burnt, yet the truth was not burnt; he would go to Worms,
though there were as many devils there as there were tiles on the
roofs of the houses.

On April 16, at ten o'clock in the morning, Luther entered Worms. He
sat in an open carriage with his three companions from Wittenberg,
clothed in his monk's habit. He was accompanied by a large number of
men on horseback, some of whom, like Jonas, had joined him earlier
in his journey, others, like some gentlemen belonging to the
Elector's court, had ridden out from Worms to receive him. The
imperial herald rode on before. The watchman blew a horn from the
tower of the cathedral on seeing the procession approach the gate.
Thousands streamed hither to see Luther. The gentlemen of the court
escorted him into the house of the Knights of St. John, where he
lodged with two counsellors of the Elector. As he stepped from his
carriage he said, 'God will be with me.' Aleander, writing to Rome,
said that he looked around with the eyes of a demon.

Crowds of distinguished men, ecclesiastics and laymen, who were
anxious to know him personally, flocked daily to see him.

On the evening of the following day he had to appear before the
Diet, which was assembled in the Bishop's palace, the residence of
the Emperor, not far from where Luther was lodging. He was conducted
thither by side streets, it being impossible to get through the
crowds assembled in the main thoroughfare to see him. On his way
into the hall where the Diet was assembled, tradition tells us how
the famous warrior, George von Frundsberg, clapped him on the
shoulder, and said: 'My poor monk! my poor monk! thou art on thy way
to make such a stand as I and many of my knights have never done in
our toughest battles. If thou art sure of the justice of thy cause,
then forward in the name of God, and be of good courage--God will
not forsake thee.' The Elector had given Luther as his advocate the
lawyer Jerome Schurf, his Wittenberg colleague and friend.

[Illustration: FIG. 25.-LUTHER. (From an engraving by Cranach, in
1521.)]

When at length, after waiting two hours, Luther was admitted to the
Diet, Eck, [Footnote: This Eck must not be confused with the other
John Eck, the theologian.] the official of the Archbishop of Treves,
put to him simply, in the name of the Emperor, two questions,
whether he acknowledged the books (pointing to them on a bench
beside him) to be his own, and next, whether he would retract their
contents or persist in them. Schurf here exclaimed, 'Let the titles
of the books be named.' Eck then read them out. Among them there
were some merely edifying writings, such as 'A Commentary on the
Lord's Prayer,' which had never been made the subject of complaint.

Luther was not prepared for this proceeding, and possibly the first
sight of the august assembly made him nervous. He answered in a low
voice, and as if frightened, that the books were his, but that since
the question as to their contents concerned the highest of all
things, the Word of God and the salvation of souls, he must beware
of giving a rash answer, and must therefore humbly entreat further
time for consideration.

After a short deliberation the Emperor instructed Eck to reply that
he would, out of his clemency, grant him a respite till the next
day.

So Luther had again, on April 18, a Thursday, to appear before the
Diet. Again he had to wait two hours, till six o'clock. He stood
there in the hall among the dense crowd, talking unconstrained and
cheerfully with the ambassador of the Diet, Peutinger, his patron at
Augsburg.

After he was called in, Eck began by reproaching him for having
wanted time for consideration. He then put the second question to
him in a form more befitting and more conformable with the wishes of
the members of the Diet: 'Wilt thou defend _all_ the books
acknowledged by thee to be thine, or recant some part?' Luther now
answered with firmness and modesty, in a well-considered speech. He
divided his works into three classes. In some of them he had set
forth simple evangelical truths, professed alike by friend and foe.
Those he could on no account retract. In others he had attacked
corrupt laws and doctrines of the Papacy, which no one could deny
had miserably vexed and martyred the consciences of Christians, and
had tyrannically devoured the property of the German nation; if he
were to retract these books, he would make himself a cloak for
wickedness and tyranny. In the third class of his books he had
written against individuals, who endeavoured to shield that tyranny,
and to subvert godly doctrine. Against these he freely confessed
that he had been more violent than was befitting. Yet even these
writings it was impossible for him to retract, without lending a
hand to tyranny and godlessness. But in defence of his books he
could only say in the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, 'If I have
spoken evil, bear witness of the evil; but if well, why smitest thou
me?' If anyone could do so, let him produce his evidence and confute
him from the sacred writings, the Old Testament and the Gospel, and
he would be the first to throw his books into the fire. And now, as
in the course of his speech he had sounded a new challenge to the
Papacy, so he concluded by an earnest warning to Emperor and Empire,
lest by endeavouring to promote peace by a condemnation of the
Divine Word, they might; rather bring a dreadful deluge of evils,
and thus give an unhappy and inauspicious beginning to the reign of
the noble young Emperor. He said not these things as if the great
personages who heard him stood in any need of his admonitions, but
because it was a duty that he owed to his native Germany, and he
could not neglect to discharge it.

Luther, like Eck, spoke in Latin, and then, by desire, repeated his
speech with equal firmness in German. Schurf, who was standing by
his side, declared afterwards with pride, 'how Martin had made this
answer with such bravery and modest candour, with eyes upraised to
Heaven, that he and everyone was astonished.'

The princes held a short consultation after this harangue. Then Eck,
commissioned by the Emperor, sharply reproved him for having spoken
impertinently and not really answered the question put to him. He
rejected his demand that evidence from Scripture might be brought
against him, by declaring that his heresies had already been
condemned by the Church, and in particular by the Council of
Constance, and such judgments must suffice if anything were to be
held settled in Christianity. He promised him, however, if he would
retract the offensive articles, that his other writings should be
fairly dealt with, and finally demanded a plain answer 'without
horns' to the question, whether he intended to adhere to all he had
written, or would retract any part of it.

To this Luther replied he would give an answer 'with neither horns
nor teeth.' Unless he were refuted by proofs from Scripture, or by
evident reason, his conscience bound him to adhere to the Word of
God which he had quoted in his defence. Popes and Councils, as was
clear, had often erred and contradicted themselves. He could, not,
therefore, and he would not, retract anything, for it was neither
safe nor honest to act against one's conscience.

Eck exchanged only a few more words with him in reply to his
assertion that Councils had erred. 'You cannot prove that, 'said
Eck. 'I will pledge myself to do it,' was Luther's answer. Pressed
and threatened by his enemy, he concluded with the famous words:
'Here I stand, I can do, no otherwise. God help me. Amen.'

The Emperor reluctantly broke up the Diet, at about eight o'clock in
the evening. Darkness had meanwhile come on; the hall was lighted
with torches, and the audience were in a state of general excitement
and agitation. Luther was led out; whereupon an uproar arose among
the Germans, who thought that he had been taken prisoner. As he
stood among the heated crowd, Duke Erich of Brunswick sent him a
silver tankard of Eimbeck beer, after having first drank of it
himself.

On reaching his lodging, 'Luther,' to use the words of a Nuremberger
present there, 'stretched out his hands, and with a joyful
countenance exclaimed, "I am through! I am through!"' Spalatin says:
'He entered the lodging so courageous, comforted and joyful in the
Lord, that he said before others and myself, "if he had a thousand
heads, he would rather have them all cut off than make one
recantation.' He relates also how the Elector Frederick, before his
supper, sent for him from Luther's dwelling, took him into his room
and expressed to him his astonishment, and delight at Luther's
speech. 'How excellently did, Father Martin speak both in Latin and
German before the Emperor and the Orders. He was bold enough, if not
too much so.' The Emperor, on the contrary, had been so little
impressed by Luther's personality, and had understood so little of
it, that he fancied the writings ascribed to him must have been
written by some one else. Many of his Spaniards had pursued Luther,
as he left the Diet, with hisses and shouts of scorn.

Luther, by refusing thus point-blank to retract, effectually
destroyed whatever hopes of mediation or reconciliation had been
entertained by the milder and more moderate adherents of the Church
who still wished for reform. Nor was any union possible with those
who, while looking to a truly representative Council as the best
safeguard against the tyranny of a Pope, were anxious also to obtain
at such a Council a secure and final settlement of all questions of
Christian faith and morals. It was these very Councils about which
Eck purposely called on Luther for a declaration; and Luther's words
on this point might well have been considered by the Elector as 'too
bold.' Aleander, who had used such efforts to prevent Luther's being
heard, was now well satisfied with the result. But Luther remained
faithful to himself. True it was that he had often formerly spoken
of yielding in mere externals, and of the duty of living in love and
harmony, and respecting the weaknesses of others; and his conduct
during the elaboration of his own Church system will show us how
well he knew to accommodate himself to the time, and, where
perfection was impossible, to be content with what was imperfect.
But the question here was not about externals, or whether a given
proceeding were judicious or not for the attainment of an object
admittedly good. It was a question of confessing or denying the
truth--the highest and holiest truths, as he expressed it, relating
to God and the salvation of man. In this matter his conscience was
bound.

And the trial thus offered for his endurance was not yet over. On
the morning of the 19th, the Emperor sent word to the Estates, that
he would now send Luther back hi safety to Wittenberg, but treat him
as a heretic. The majority insisted on attempting further
negotiations with him through a Committee specially appointed. These
were conducted accordingly by the Elector of Treves, to whom
Frederick the Wise and Miltitz had once been anxious to submit
Luther's affair. The friendliness, and the visible interest in his
cause, with which Luther now was urged, was more calculated to move
him than Eck's behaviour at the Diet. He himself bore witness
afterwards how the Archbishop had shown himself more than gracious
to him, and would willingly have arranged matters peaceably. Instead
of being urged simply to retract all his propositions condemned by
the Pope, or his writings directed against the Papacy, he was
referred in particular to those articles in which he rejected the
decisions of the Council of Constance. He was desired to submit in
confidence to a verdict of the Emperor and the Empire, when his
books should be submitted to judges beyond suspicion. After that he
should at least accept the decision of a future Council, unfettered
by any acknowledgment of the previous sentence of the Pope. So
freely and independently of the Pope did this Committee of the
German Diet, including several bishops and Duke George of Saxony,
proceed in negotiating with a Papal heretic. But everything was
shipwrecked on Luther's firm reservation that the decision must not
be contrary to the Word of God; and on that question his conscience
would not allow him to renounce the right of judging for himself.
After two days' negotiations, he thus, on April 25, according to
Spalatin, declared himself to the Archbishop: 'Most gracious Lord, I
cannot yield; it must happen with me as God wills;' and continued:
'I beg of your Grace that you will obtain for me the gracious
permission of His Imperial Majesty that I may go home again, for I
have now been here for ten days and nothing yet has been effected.'
Three hours later the Emperor sent word to Luther that he might
return to the place he came from, and should be given a safe-conduct
for twenty-one days, but would not be allowed to preach on the way.

Free residence, however, and protection at Wittenberg, in case
Luther were condemned by the Empire, was more than even Frederick
the Wise would be able to assure him. But he had already laid his
plan for the emergency. Spalatin refers to it in these words: 'Now
was my most gracious, Lord somewhat disheartened; he was certainly
fond of Dr. Martin, and was also most unwilling to act against the
Word of God, or to bring upon himself the displeasure of the
Emperor. Accordingly, he devised means how to get Dr. Martin out of
the way for a time, until matters might be quietly settled, and
caused Luther also to be informed, the evening before he left Worms,
of his scheme for getting him out of the way. At this Dr. Martin,
out of deference to his Elector, was submissively content, though,
certainly, then and at all times he would much rather have gone
courageously to the attack.'

The very next morning, Friday the 26th, Luther departed. The imperial
herald went behind him, so as not to attract notice. They took the
usual road to Eisenach. At Friedberg Luther dismissed the herald,
giving him a letter to the Emperor and the Estates, in which he
defended his conduct at Worms, and his refusal to trust in the
decision of men, by saying that when God's Word and things eternal
were at stake, one's trust and dependence should be placed, not on
one man or many men, but on God alone. At Hersfeld, where Abbot Crato,
in spite of the ban, received him with all marks of honour, and again
at Eisenach, he preached, notwithstanding the Emperor's prohibition,
not daring to let the Word of God be bound. From Eisenach, whilst
Swaven, Schurf, and several other of his companions went straight
on, he struck southward, together with Amsdorf and Brother Pezensteiner,
in order to go and see his relations at Mohra. Here, after spending
the night at the house of his uncle Heinz, he preached the next
morning, Saturday, May 4. Then, accompanied by some of his relations,
he took the road through Schweina, past the Castle of Altenstein, and
then across the back of the Thuringian Forest to Waltershausen and Gotha.
Towards evening, when near Altenstein, he bade leave of his relations.
About half an hour farther on, at a spot where the road enters the
wooded heights, and ascending between hills along a brook, leads to an
old chapel, which even then was in ruins, and has now quite disappeared,
armed horsemen attacked the carriage, ordered it to stop with threats
and curses, pulled Luther out of it, and then hurried him away at full
speed. Pezensteiner had run away as soon as he saw them approach.
Amsdorf and the coachman were allowed to pass on; the former was in the
secret, and pretended to be terrified, to avoid any suspicion on the
part of his companion. The Wartburg lay to the north, about eight miles
distant, and had been the starting-point of the horsemen, as it now was
their goal; but precaution made them ride first in an eastern direction
with Luther. The coachman afterwards related how Luther in the haste of
the flight dropped a grey hat he had worn. And now Luther 'was given a
horse to ride. The night was dark, and about eleven o'clock they arrived
at the stately castle, situated above Eisenach. Here he was to be kept
as a knight-prisoner. The secret was kept as strictly as possible
towards friend and foe. For many weeks afterwards even Frederick's
brother John had no idea of it, on the contrary, he wrote to Frederick
that Luther, he had heard, was residing at one of Sickingen's castles.
Among his friends and followers the terrible news had spread,
immediately upon his capture, that he had been made away with by his
enemies.

At Worms, however, while the Pope was concluding an alliance with
Charles against France, the Papal legate Aleander, by commission of
the Emperor, prepared the edict against Luther on the 8th of May. It
was not, however, until the 25th, after Frederick, the Elector of
the Palatinate, and a great part of the other members of the Diet
had already left, that it was deemed advisable to have it
communicated to the rest of the Estates; nevertheless it was
antedated the 8th, and issued 'by the unanimous advice of the
Electors and Estates.' It pronounced upon Luther, applying the
customary strong expressions of Papal bulls, the ban and re-ban; no
one was to receive him any longer, or feed him &c., but wherever he
was found, he was to be seized and handed over to the Emperor.




PART IV.

_FROM THE DIET OF WORMS TO THE PEASANTS' WAR AND LUTHER'S
MARRIAGE_.




CHAPTER I.

LUTHER AT THE WARTBURG, TO HIS VISIT TO WITTENBERG IN 1521.


Luther, after being brought to the fortress, had to live there as a
knight-prisoner. He was called Squire George, he grew a stately
beard, and doffed his monk's cowl for the dress of a knight, with a
sword at his side. The governor of the castle, Herr von Berlepsch,
entertained him with all honour, and he was liberally supplied with
food and drink. He was free to go about as he pleased in the
apartments of the castle, and was permitted, in the company of a
trusty servant, to take rides and walks out of doors. Thus, as he
writes to a friend, he sat up aloft, in the region of the birds, as
a curious prisoner, _nolens volens_, whether he willed or no;
willing, because God would have it so, not willing, because he would
far rather have stood up for the Word of God in public, but of such
an honour God had not yet found him worthy.

[Illustration: Fig 26--LUTHER as "Squire George." (From a woodcut by
Cranach.)]

Care was also taken at once that he should be able to correspond at
least by letter with his friends, and especially with those at
Wittenberg. These letters were sent by messengers of the Elector
through the hands of Spalatin. When Luther afterwards heard that a
rumour had got abroad as to his place of residence, he sent a letter
to Spalatin, in which he said: 'A report, so I hear, is spread that
Luther is staying at the Wartburg near Eisenach; the people suppose
this to be the case, because I was taken prisoner in the wood below;
but while they believe that, I sit here safely hidden. If the books
that I publish betray me, then I shall change my abode; it is very
strange that nobody thinks of Bohemia.' This letter, so Luther
thought, Spalatin might let fall into the hands of some of his
spying opponents, so as to lead them astray in their conjecture.
Spalatin made no use of this naive attempt at trickery. He could
hardly have done much in the matter, and would probably have
directed those who saw through the meaning of the letter straight to
the Wartburg. He succeeded, however, remarkably well in keeping the
spot a secret, even after it was generally guessed and known that
Luther was to be found somewhere in Saxony. As late as 1528,
Luther's friend Agricola remarks that he had hitherto remained
concealed, whilst some even sought to hear of him by questioning of
the devil; and more than twenty years later Luther's opponent
Cochlaeus declares that he was hidden at Alstedt in Thuringia.

There was no imperial power at that time which might have deemed it
necessary or expedient to track out the man who had been condemned
by the Edict of Worms. The Emperor had left Germany again, and was
engaged in a war with France.

In his quiet solitude Luther threw himself again without delay into
the work of his calling, so far as he could here perform it. This
was the study of Scripture and the active exercise of his own pen in
the service of God's Word. He had now more time than before to
investigate the meaning of the Bible in its original languages. 'I
sit here,' he writes to Spalatin ten days after his arrival, 'the
whole day at leisure, and read the Greek and Hebrew Bible.'

His sojourn at the castle began in the festival time between Easter
and Whitsuntide. He wrote at once an exposition of the sixty-eighth
Psalm, with particular reference to the events of Ascension and
Whitsuntide.

For the liberation of the laity from the Papal yoke, he set at once
further to work by composing a treatise 'On Confession, whether the
Pope has power to order it.' He commends confession, when a man
humbles himself and, receives forgiveness of God through the lips of
a Christian brother, but he denounces any compulsion in the matter,
and warns men against priests who pervert it into a means of
increasing their own power. He now expressed his public thanks to
Sickingen, and dedicated the book to him--'To the just and firm
Francis von Sickingen, my especial lord and patron.' In this
dedication he repeats the fears he had long expressed of the
judgment that the clergy would bring upon themselves by their hatred
of improvement and their obstinacy. 'I have,' he says, 'often
offered peace, I have offered them an answer, I have disputed, but
all has been of no avail: I have met with no justice, but only with
vain malice and violence, nothing more. I have been simply called on
to retract, and threatened with every evil if I refused.' Then
speaking of the critical moment at which he was obliged to withdraw,
'I can do no more,' he says, 'I am now out of the game. They have
now time to change that which cannot, and should not, and will not
be tolerated from them any longer. If they refuse to make the
change, another will make it for them, without their thanks, one who
will not teach like Luther with letters and words, but with deeds.
Thank God, the fear and awe of those rogues at Borne is now less
than it was.' And again, speaking of Roman insolence: 'They push on
blindly ahead--there is no listening or reasoning. Well, I have
seen; more water-bubbles than even theirs, and once such an
outrageous smoke that it managed to blot out the sun, but the smoke
never lasted, and the sun still shines. I shall continue to keep the
truth bright and expose it, and am as far from fearing my ungracious
masters as they are ready to despise me.'

Luther now finished his exposition of the _Magnificat_, which,
with loving devotion to the subject, he had intended for Prince John
Frederick. He resumed also his work on the Sunday Gospels and
Epistles. The first part of it he had already published in Latin.
But he gave it now a new, and for the Christian people of Germany, a
most important character, by writing in German his comments on these
passages of Scripture, including those already dealt with in Latin,
which formed the text of the sermon for the day. Thus arose his
first collection of sermons, the 'Church-Postills.' By November he
had already sent the first part to the press, though the work
progressed but slowly. In a simple exposition of the words of the
Bible, without any artificial and rhetorical additions or ornament,
but with a constant and cheerful regard to practical life, with an
unceasing attention to the primary questions of salvation, and in
pithy, clear, and thoroughly popular language, he began to lay
before his readers the sum total of Christian truth, and impress it
on their hearts. The work served as much for the instruction and
support of other preachers of the gospel now newly proclaimed, as
for the direct teaching and edifying of the members of their flocks.
It advanced, however, only by degrees, and Luther after many years
was obliged to have it finished by friends, who collected together
printed or written copies of his various sermons.

For the special comfort and advice of his Wittenberg congregation
Luther wrote an exposition of the thirty-seventh Psalm. Nor with
less energy and force did he wield his pen during June, in a
vigorous and learned polemical reply in Latin to the Louvain
theologian, Latomus.

And yet Luther all this while continued to lament that he had to sit
there so idly in his Patmos: he would rather be burnt in the service
of God's Word than stagnate there alone. The bodily rest which took
the place of his former unwearied activity in the pulpit and the
lecturer's chair, together with the sumptuous fare now substituted
for the simple diet of the convent, were no doubt the cause of the
physical suffering which for a long time had grievously distressed
him and put his patience to the test, and which must have weighed
upon his spirits. In his distress he once thought of going to Erfurt
to consult physicians. Some strong remedies, however, which Spalatin
got for him, gave him temporary relief.

He took exercise in the beautiful woods around the castle, and
there, as he related afterwards, he used to look for strawberries.
In August he had news to give Spalatin of a hunt, at which he had
been present two days. He wished to look on at 'this bitter-sweet
pleasure of heroes.' 'We have,' he says, 'hunted two hares and a few
poor little partridges; truly a worthy occupation for idle people!'
But among the nets and hounds he managed, as he says, to pursue
theology. He saw in it all a picture of the devil, who by cunning
and godless doctrines ensnares poor innocent creatures. Graver
thoughts still were suggested to his mind by the fate of a little
hare, which he had helped to save, and had rolled up in the long
sleeve of his cloak, but which, on his putting it down afterwards
and going away, the dogs caught and killed. 'Thus,' he says, 'do the
Pope and Satan rage together, to destroy, despite my efforts, souls
already saved.'

At that time too he fancied he heard and saw all kinds of devil's
noises and sights, which long afterwards he frequently described to
his friends, but which he took at the time with great calmness.
Such, for instance, were a strange continual rumbling in a chest in
which he kept hazel nuts, nightly noises of falling on the stairs,
and the unaccountable appearance of a black dog in his bed.

Of the well-known ink-stain at the Wartburg we hear nothing either
from those or after-times; and a similar spot was shown in the last
century at the Castle of Coburg, where Luther stayed in 1530.

In the outer world, meanwhile, the great movement that emanated from
Luther continued to advance and grow, in spite of his disappearance.
It was apparent how powerless was his enforced absence to suppress
it. Soon too it was to be seen how much on the other hand it
depended on him that the movement should not bring real danger and
destruction.

At Wittenberg his friends continued labouring faithfully and
undisturbed. Much as Melancthon troubled himself about Luther and
longed for his return, Luther relied with confidence upon him and
his efforts, as rendering his own presence unnecessary. With joyful
congratulations to his friend he acknowledged his receipt at the
Wartburg of the sheets of his work--the _Loci Communes_--wherein
Melancthon, whilst intending at first only to proclaim the
fundamental principles and doctrines of the Bible, and especially of
the Epistle to the Romans, actually laid the foundation for the
dogma of the Evangelical Church.

Just at this time new forces had stepped in to further the work and the
battle. Shortly before Luther's departure to Worms, John Bugenhagen of
Pomerania had appeared at Wittenberg,--a man only two years younger
than Luther, well trained in theology and humanistic learning, and
already won over to Luther's doctrines by his writings, and more
especially by his work on the Babylonish Captivity. He had made friends
with Luther and Melancthon, and soon began to teach with them at the
university. John Agricola from Eisleben had already taken part in the
biblical lectures at the university, which was then the chief place for
the exposition of evangelical doctrine. This man, born in 1494, had
lived at Wittenberg since 1516. He had from the first been an adherent
of Luther, and had won his confidence, as also that of Melancthon. He
was now their fellow-lecturer at the university, and since the spring
of 1521 had been appointed by the town as catechist at the parish
church, charged with the duty of teaching children religion. Wittenberg
had also gained the services of the learned Justus Jonas, so conspicuous
for his high culture, and a staunch and open friend of Luther. Shortly
after his journey with Luther from Erfurt to the Diet of Worms, he
obtained, by grant of the Elector, the office of provost to the church
of All Saints at Wittenberg, and became a member also of the theological
faculty at the university. The excommunication under which Melancthon
had fallen with Luther did not deter the mass of students from their
cause. The academical youth who had assembled here from the whole of
Germany, and from Switzerland, Poland, and other countries, were
renowned for the exemplary unity in which, unlike their brethren in
most of the universities in those days, they lived together and
devoted themselves to the purest and most elevating studies.
Everywhere students might be seen with Bibles in their hands; the
young nobles and sons of burghers applied themselves diligently to
self-discipline; and the drinking-bouts practised elsewhere, and so
destructive to the muses, were unknown among them.

Luther, by his behaviour at Worms in particular, had fastened upon
himself the eyes of all Germany. The proceedings before the Diet,
made known, as they would be nowadays, by the newspapers, were then
published abroad by means of fugitive pamphlets of a longer or
shorter kind. Luther's speech in particular was circulated from
notes made partly by himself, partly by others. Day after day, and
especially during the sittings of the Diet, a number of other short
tracts and fly-sheets set forth, mainly in the form of a dialogue, a
popular discussion and explanation of his cause. His fate at Worms
was immediately proclaimed in a book called 'The Passion of Dr.
Martin Luther,' the title of which sufficiently indicated the
analogy suggested. Then came the stirring and disquieting news of
his sudden kidnapping by the powers of darkness; rumours which only
served to stimulate him further in his concealment to speak out and
march forwards with undaunted courage and assurance.

As writers who now began to labour for the cause in a similar spirit
to Luther's and in a similarly popular style and manner, we must not
omit to name the following. First and foremost was Eberlin of
Gunzburg, formerly a Franciscan at Tubingen; next, the Augustine
monk Michael Stifel of Esslingen, who came himself to Wittenberg and
joined there the circle of friends; and lastly, the Franciscan Henry
von Kettenbach at Ulm. The authors of some other influential works,
such as the dialogue 'Neu Karsthans' (Karsthans being a name for
peasants), are not known with certainty. In these men and their
writings, ideas and thoughts already made their appearance, going
beyond the intentions of Luther, and into a territory which, from
his standpoint of religion, he would rather have seen more exactly
defined, and taking up weapons which he had rejected. Thus
'Karsthans' contains the advice to break off, after the example of
the Hussites in Bohemia, from most of the Churches, as being tainted
with avarice and superstition; and a rising against the clergy is
contemplated, in which the nobles and peasants should combine.
Eberlin, with his extraordinary energy, not content with the most
comprehensive and far-reaching schemes of ecclesiastical reform,
plunged into questions affecting the wants of municipal, social, and
political life, which Luther, in his Address to the German Nobility,
had only briefly alluded to, and had carefully distinguished from
his own particular work in hand. To the dealings of the great
merchants he showed himself more hostile even than Luther; and put
forward such proposals as the establishment by the civil authorities
of a cheaper tariff of prices for provisions, the appointment to
magisterial offices by election, for which peasants also should be
qualified, and free rights of hunting and fishing.

The Edict of Worms, intended to proscribe and suppress throughout
Germany the heretic and his writings, was published in the different
states and towns by the princes and magistrates; but the power, and
partly also the will, was wanting to enforce its execution. At
Erfurt, shortly after Luther's passage through the town upon his way
to Worms, the interference of the clergy against a member of a
religious institution which had taken part in the ovation accorded
to the Reformer, gave the first occasion to violent and repeated
tumults. Students and townspeople attacked upwards of sixty houses
of the priests, and demolished them. Luther told his friends at
once, that he saw in this the work of Satan, who sought by this
means to bring contempt and legitimate reproach upon the gospel.

Elsewhere, and above all at Wittenberg, his followers busied
themselves in his absence with putting into practice what he had
defended with his words. Calmly and with mature deliberation and
courage, Luther took part in their labours from the solitude of his
watch-tower. He had a very lively and, as he himself confesses,
often painful consciousness of his own responsibility, as the one
who had put the first match to the great fire, and whose first
duties lay with his Wittenberg brethren, as their teacher and
pastor.

Shortly after his arrival at the Wartburg, he received the news that
Bartholomew Bernhardi of Feldkirchen, provost in the little town of
Kemberg near Wittenberg, had publicly, and with the consent of his
congregation, taken a wife. He was not the first priest who had
ventured to break the unchristian prohibition of marriage by the
Romish Church. But he was the most distinguished of such offenders
hitherto, besides being a particular disciple of Luther and a man of
unimpeachable integrity. Luther wrote about it to Melancthon,
saying: 'I admire the newly married man, who in these stormy times
has no fears, and has lost no time about it. May God guide him.'

At Wittenberg it was now demanded, not without violence, that
monasticism should be abolished, and that the mass and the Lord's
Supper should be changed in conformity with the institution of
Christ. It seemed as if here, in the place of Luther, who had gone
before with the simple testimony of the Word and doctrine, two other
men were now to step in as practical and energetic Reformers. One of
them was Luther's old colleague, Carlstadt, who had returned in July
from a short visit to Copenhagen, whither the King of Denmark had
invited him to promote the new evangelical theology at the
university, but had soon again dismissed him, and who now assumed
the lead at Wittenberg with a passionate and ambitious, but
undeterminate zeal. The other was the Augustine monk, Gabriel
Zwilling, who had introduced himself to notice as a fiery preacher
in the convent church, and in spite of his unattractive appearance
and weak voice had drawn together a large congregation from the town
and university, and fascinated them with his eloquence. A young
Silesian wrote home from the university of Wittenberg about him,
saying: 'God has raised up for us another prophet; many call him a
second Luther. Melancthon is never absent when he preaches.'

For the clergy Carlstadt sought, by a perverse interpretation of
Scripture, to make the married state into a law. Only married men
were to be appointed to offices in the Church. For monks and nuns he
claimed the liberty of renouncing their cloistered and celibate
life, if they found its moral requirements insupportable; but the
biblical evidence that he adduced in support of this doctrine was
unhappily chosen; and he still declared the renunciation of vows to
be a sin, though justified by the avoidance thereby of a still
greater sin, that of unchastity in monastic life. Luther had
required that at the Lord's Supper the cup, in accordance with the
original institution of Christ, should be given to the laity.
Carlstadt and Zwilling, however, wished to make it a sin for a
person to partake of the Communion without the cup being given to
the communicants. Other changes also were now demanded in the mode
of administering the elements, conformably with the Holy Supper held
by Jesus Himself with His twelve disciples. Zwilling would have
twelve communicants at a time partake of the bread and wine. It was
further insisted that, like as at ordinary meals, the elements
should be given into the hand of each individual to partake of, and
not put into his mouth by the priest. The sacrifice of the mass
Zwilling would abolish altogether, but Carlstadt thought it
necessary, in dealing with so important a feature of the old form of
worship, to proceed with caution.

Upon these questions and proceedings Luther expressed his opinion
early in August to Melancthon, who was keenly excited about them,
but on many points was unsettled in his mind. The project of
restoring at Wittenberg the celebration of the Lord's Supper, as
originally instituted, with the cup, met with Luther's full
approval; for the tyranny which the Christian congregations had
hitherto endured in this respect had been acknowledged there, and
there was a general wish to resist it. He declared further, with
regard to private masses, that he was resolved never to say any more
while he lived. But compulsion he would not dream of: if any who
still suffered from this tyranny partook of the Communion without
the cup, no man durst account it to him as a sin. As for the
troubles of the monks and nuns, under their self-imposed vows, his
sympathy for them was no less acute than that of his friends at
Wittenberg, but the arguments by which they sought to help them to
liberty he did not consider sound. He gave now this subject a more
searching and deeper consideration, and shortly addressed a series
of theses on celibacy to the bishops and deacons of the church at
Wittenberg. He attacked vows in general, and assailed them at the
very root. Inasmuch, moreover, as the vows of chastity, he said, and
of other monastic observances were commonly made to God with the
intent and purpose of working out one's own salvation by one's own
works and righteousness, these were not vows in accordance with the
will of God, but denials of the faith. And even though a man should
have made a vow in a spirit of piety, he placed himself at all
events, by his own will and act, under a restraint and yoke at
variance with the gospel and the liberty which faith in Christ
bestows. Luther went still farther, and declared that the chastity
enjoined upon the monk was only possible if he possessed the special
gift of continence spoken of by St. Paul. How dare a man make a vow
to God, which God must first endue him with the power to keep? A
man, therefore, in vowing chastity, makes a vow which it is not
really possible for him to keep, whilst true chastity is made
possible for him by God in the married life which he condemns. These
vows, accordingly, are radically vicious and displeasing to God, and
cease to be binding on a Christian who has been made free in faith,
and has recognised the true will of God.

Personally concerned as Luther was, as an Augustine monk himself, in
these questions which he discussed, he treated the liberty, which
inwardly he knew himself to possess, as quietly and coolly as
possible. On receiving the news from Wittenberg, he wrote to
Spalatin, 'Good Heaven! our Wittenbergers will allow even the monks
to have wives, but they shall not force me to take one.' And he asks
Melancthon jokingly, if he was going to revenge himself upon him for
having helped him to get a wife; he would know well enough how to
guard against that.

At Wittenberg there was great excitement, particularly on account of
the mass. In the Augustinian convent there, the majority of the
monks held with Zwilling; they wished to celebrate the sacrament of
the Lord's Supper in strict accordance with the institution of
Christ. Their prior, Conrad Held, took the opposite side, and
adhered to the ancient usage. Justus Jonas, the provost, expressed
his views with equal ardour in the convent church attached to the
university, and met with violent opposition from other members of
the foundation. A committee, composed of deputies from the
university and chapter of canons, from whom the Elector in October
demanded a formal opinion on the subject, expressed by their
majority the same view, and requested the Elector himself to abolish
the abuse of the mass. But Frederick utterly rejected the idea of
decreeing on his own authority innovations which would constitute a
deviation from the great Christian Catholic Church, more especially
as opinions were not agreed on them even at Wittenberg. He would do
no more than give free scope and protection to the new testimony of
biblical truth, until it should be properly sifted by the Church. In
the church of the Augustinian convent, the mass and the Lord's
Supper were now both suspended.

Men set to work now in earnest to give effect to the new principles
applied to monachism. Thirteen Augustine monks, about a third of the
then inmates of the convent at Wittenberg, quitted that convent
early in November, and cast away their cowls. Some of them took up
at once a civil trade or handicraft. This step increased the growing
feeling of hostility to the monks among the students and inhabitants
of the town. All kinds of enormities ensued: monks were mocked at in
the streets; the convents were threatened; and even the service of
the mass was disturbed by rioters who forced their way into the
parish church.

Meanwhile Luther went on, in the quietness of his seclusion, to
teach the Christian truth about vows and masses, to explain and
establish his newly-acquired knowledge and convictions, and to
prepare by that means the way of ultimate reform. He composed a
tract, in Latin and German, 'On the Abuse of Masses,' and another,
in Latin, 'On Monastic Vows.' The latter he dedicated to his father,
taking note of his protest against his entering the convent, and
telling him with joy that he was now a free man, a monk, and yet no
longer a monk. As for his brethren's desertion of the convent,
however, he disapproved the manner of it. They could, and should,
have parted in peace and amity, not as they did, in a tumult. These
two works he completed in November, and sent them to Spalatin, to
have them printed at Wittenberg.

In this manner Luther occupied himself from the summer to the
winter, continuing all the while his biblical studies and the
composition of his Church-Postills. But he was also preparing to
deal a heavy blow at the Cardinal Albert. This prelate had abstained
as yet, with great caution, from taking any stringent measures to
prevent the spread of Lutheran preaching in his diocese. But he was
in want of money. To supply this want, he published a work, giving
news of a precious relic, which he had placed for view at Halle, his
town, and inviting pilgrimages to see it. A multitude of other rich
and wondrous relics had been collected there; not only heaps of
bones and entire corpses of saints, with a portion of the body of
the patriarch Isaac, but also pieces of the manna, as it had fallen
from heaven in the desert, little bits of the burning bush of Moses,
jars from the wedding at Cana, and some of the wine into which Jesus
there had changed the water, thorns from the Saviour's crown, one of
the stones with which Stephen was stoned, and a multitude of other,
in all nearly 9,000, relics. Whoever should attend with devotion at
the exhibition of these sacred treasures in the Collegiate Church at
Halle, and should give a pious alms to the institution, was to
receive a 'surpassing' indulgence. The first exhibition of this kind
took place about the beginning of September. Albert also had not
scrupled to cause one of the priests who wished to marry to be
imprisoned, though it was notorious how he himself made up for his
celibacy by his loose living.

Luther now, as he wrote to Spalatin on October 7, 1521, could not
restrain himself any longer from breaking out, in private and in
public, against his 'Idol of indulgences' and his scandalous
whoredoms. He took no thought of the fact that his own pious
Elector, only a few years before, had arranged a similar, though
less showy exhibition of relics at the convent church at Wittenberg,
and was thus indirectly assailed by reproaches now no longer
deserved. By the end of the month Luther had a pamphlet ready for
publication. But an attack of such a kind on a magnate like Albert,
the great prince of the Empire, Elector of Mayence, and brother of
the Elector of Brandenburg, was not to Frederick's taste, and he
informed Luther, through Spalatin that he forbade it. He would not
sanction anything, he said, which might disturb the public peace.
Luther told Spalatin, in his reply, that he had never read a more
disagreeable letter than Frederick's. 'I will not put up with it,'
he indignantly broke out; 'I will rather lose you and the prince
himself, and every living being. If I have stood up against the
Pope, why should I yield to his creature?' He wished only to show
his pamphlet first to Melancthon, and submit a few alterations in it
to the judgment of his friend. For this purpose he sent it to
Spalatin, requesting him to forward it. Then, on December 1, he
wrote a letter to Albert himself. Its tone and contents indicate
pretty plainly what the pamphlet itself contained. In clear vigorous
German, and without any circumlocution, he submits to the Cardinal
his 'humble request,' to abstain from corrupting the poor people,
and not to show himself a wolf in bishop's clothing. He must surely
know by this time that indulgences were sheer knavery and trickery.
He was not to imagine that Luther was dead: Luther would trust
cheerfully in God, and carry on a game with the Cardinal of Mayence,
of which not many people were yet aware. As for the priests who had
wished to marry, he warned the Archbishop that a cry would be raised
from the gospel about it; and the bishops would learn that they had
better first pluck out the beam from their own eyes, and drive their
own mistresses away. Luther concluded by giving him fourteen days
for a 'proper' answer; otherwise, when that time expired, he would
immediately publish his pamphlet on 'The Idol at Halle.' All this
while, the news from Wittenberg kept Luther in a state of constant
anxiety. The distance and the difficulty of correspondence had
become quite insupportable. A few days after his letter of December
1, he suddenly re-appeared there among his friends. In secret, and
accompanied only by a servant, he had gone thither on horseback in
his knight's dress. He stayed there for three days with Amsdorf.
Only his most intimate friends were allowed to know of his arrival.
His meeting with them again gave him, as he wrote to Spalatin, the
keenest pleasure and enjoyment. But it was a bitter sorrow to hear
that Spalatin would not look at, or listen to, his pamphlet against
Albert, nor his tracts on masses and monastic vows, but had kept
them back. What his friends now told him of their efforts and
labours he approved of, and he wished them strength from above to
persevere. But he had heard already, when on his way, of fresh
outrages committed by some of the townspeople and students against
the priests and monks, and henceforth he deemed it his nearest duty
to warn them publicly against such acts of violence and disorder.




CHAPTER II.

LUTHER'S FURTHER SOJOURN AT THE WARTBURG, AND HIS RETURN TO
WITTENBERG, 1522.


In secret, as he had first gone there, Luther returned to the
Wartburg, and now set to work with his 'True Admonition for all
Christians to abstain from turbulence and rebellion.' He had before
his eyes the danger of an insurrection, involving the lives of all
the priests and monks who opposed reform, and one in which the
common people, in revenge for their many grievances, might fall to
laying about them with clubs and flails, as the 'Karsthans'
threatened. To the princes, magistrates, and nobles, he had already
addressed a demand to put a stop to the corruption of the Church and
the tyranny of the Pope. Of the civil authorities and the nobility,
he says now that 'they ought to do this, in duty to their ordinary
position and power, every prince and lord on his own territory; for
what is brought about by the exercise of ordinary power is not to be
accounted turbulence.' At the same time, to the masses and to
individuals he plainly prohibits a rising by force. Turbulence was
the usurpation of justice, and revenge, which God would not suffer,
for He said, 'Revenge is Mine.' All turbulence, he said, was wrong,
however good might be the cause, and only made bad worse. As for the
magistrates, he would not have them kill the priests, as once Moses
and Elias had done to the worshippers of idols; they were simply to
forbid them from acting contrary to the gospel. Words would do more
than was enough with them, so there was no need of hewing and
stabbing. We have seen how emphatically Luther expressed himself to
the same effect before he went to Worms. The Apostle's words that
the Lord should consume the Antichrist with the Spirit of His Mouth,
were to be fulfilled, according to Luther, in the words of gospel
preaching. It was his own previous experience that had taught him to
rely with such lofty confidence on the simple Word; he had done more
injury with it alone to the Pope, and the priests and monks, than
all the emperors and princes had ever done with all their power. He
still looked forward steadfastly to the approach of the Last Day,
when Christ by His coming should utterly destroy the Pope, whose
iniquity the Word had exposed. As he had done formerly in his
treatise on Christian liberty, and had now good reason to do with
the Wittenbergers, he exhorts men to a loving and merciful regard to
their weaker brethren, whose consciences were still ensnared by the
old ordinances respecting fasting and masses. They ought not to be
taken unawares, but instructed kindly and, if unable to agree at
once, dealt with patiently. 'The wolves,' he says, 'cannot be
treated too severely, nor the tender sheep too gently.'

Luther's works on the mass and monastic vows were now actually in
print. Cardinal Albert, however, gave the answer demanded by Luther,
in a short letter of December 21. He assured him that the subject of
his complaint had been removed; that as to himself, he did not deny
that he was a miserable sinner, the very filth of the earth, as bad
as anyone. Christian chastisement he could well endure; he looked to
God for grace and strength, to live according to His will. So
abjectly did this magnate quail before the Word, with which Luther
threatened to expose his doings. He must no doubt have been ashamed
of his traffic in indulgences before all his Humanist friends, and
especially Erasmus; and must have expected that the other scandals
with which Luther charged him would be laid bare without mercy or
regard. At the same time we see in all this, how perfectly free from
reproach in this matter of morality must Luther have been, not only
in his own conscience, but also in the eyes of Albert. Luther, on
receiving this letter, doubted indeed the sincerity of its
professions, and even abstained from acknowledging it. But he now
finally abandoned, nevertheless, the publication of the pamphlet,
intended to expose him, which had hitherto been hindered by the
Elector.

But the most important task that Luther now undertook, and in which
he persevered with steadfast devotion during his further stay at the
Wartburg, was one of a peaceful character, the most beautiful fruit
of his seclusion, the noblest gift that he has bequeathed to his
countrymen. This was his translation of the Bible--first of the New
Testament. 'Our brethren demand it of me,' he wrote to Lange shortly
after his return from Wittenberg. And in these words the wish was
evidently expressed, or else laid to heart anew. The Bible, it is
true, had been translated into German before Luther's time, but in a
clumsy idiom that sounded foreign to the people, and not, like
Luther's version, from the original text, but from the Latin
translation used in the churches. Luther declared that no one could
speak German of this outlandish kind, 'but,' he said, 'one has to
ask the mother in her home, the children in the street, the common
man in the market-place, and look at their mouths to see how they
speak, and thence interpret it to oneself, and so make them
understand. I have often laboured to do this, but have not always
succeeded or hit the meaning.' None the less strictly and faithfully
did he seek to adhere to the spirit of the text, and, where
necessary, even to the letter. Such an interpretation, he said,
required a 'truly devout, faithful, diligent, fearful, Christian,
learned, experienced, and practised heart.' Penetrated himself with
the substance and spirit of the Scriptures, he understood how to
combine in his language, as if by intuition, a dignified tone and a
national character. So hard did he work, that he finished the New
Testament at the Wartburg in a few months; he then wished to revise
it with the help of Melancthon.

Meanwhile, affairs at Wittenberg were assuming so serious an aspect
as to make Luther's apprehensions increase from day to day. The
question of monastic vows indeed was settled peaceably, and in a
manner such as Luther would have desired, by some resolutions (so
far as resolutions could settle it), passed by the Augustinian
brethren at a chapter held at Wittenberg by Link, the Vicar of the
Order. It was there resolved that free permission should be given to
leave the convent, but that those who preferred to adhere to the
monastic life should remain there in voluntary but strict
subordination to their superiors and to the established rules; some
of them should be employed in preaching the Word of God, others
should contribute by manual labour to the support of the
institution. Outside, however, among the people of Wittenberg,
Carlstadt, who had shortly before restrained even his own partisans
in regard to the question of the mass, and who was neither a regular
preacher in the town nor in the possession of any other office, now
pressed forward, by his sermons and writings, impetuously in the
van, and made hasty strides towards the furtherance of his misty
projects of reform. Anticipating a prohibition from the Elector, he
celebrated the Lord's Supper at Christmas in the new manner. Even
the usual vestments were discarded as idolatrous: Zwilling performed
the service in a student's gown. The people were enjoined to eat
meat and eggs on fast days; and confession was no longer held before
the Communion. Carlstadt went further, and denounced the pictures
and images in the churches; it was not enough to desist from
worshipping them, nor durst it be hinted that they served as books
for the instruction of laymen. God had plainly forbidden them; their
proper place was in the fire and not in God's house. Whilst the
town-council, at his instance, resolved to have the images removed
from the parish church, some of the populace stormed in, tore them
down, hewed them to pieces, and burned them.

Luther himself, even with regard to rites and ordinances which he
rejected altogether, always counselled moderation and patience
towards the weak. He could not believe that the great body of his
Wittenberg congregation were already ripe for such changes, or that
many conscientious but weaker brethren among them were not in need
of tender consideration. People might say that it was only a
question of time; well, he did not wish to delay genuine reform for
ever, merely to humour the minority. But it was precisely that those
members should have proper time allowed them, and every means taken
for their instruction and edification, that was to Luther a matter
of conscience. External matters, of which the other Reformers made
so much, such as eating on fast days, the taking with one's own
hands the bread and wine at the Communion, and so forth, he regarded
as trifles, the performance or non-performance of which in no way
affected the true liberty of the faithful, while grievous wrong was
done to the souls of the weaker brethren, if they were compelled to
do anything therein against their consciences. 'By acting thus,' he
says, 'you have made many consciences miserable; if they had to give
an account on their death-beds, or when troubled with temptation,
they would not for the life of them know why or how they had
offended.' Nay, he accuses a man of corrupting souls, who 'plunges'
them carelessly into practices that offend their consciences. 'You
wish,' he says, 'to serve God, and you don't know that you are the
forerunners of the devil. He has begun by attempting to dishonour
the Word; he has set you to work at that bit of folly, so that
meanwhile you may forget faith and love.' Thus Luther wrote in a
work intended for the Wittenbergers. Even the innovations with
regard to pictures and images he numbers among the 'trivial matters
which are not worth the sacrifice of faith and love.' Those which
represented truly Christian subjects he would preserve at all times,
and he valued them highly.

These Wittenberg Reformers, however, with all their desire to assert
the higher spiritual character of evangelical Christianity, still
remained devotees, in their peculiar 'spirit,' to the externals of
worship and, in regard to images, to the letter of the Old Testament
law. And yet their conception of the Christian spirit and of
Christian revelation produced results of another and still stranger
kind. Not only did they repudiate all titles and dignities conferred
by the university, on the plea that, in the words of Christ, no man
durst call himself Rabbi or master, but Carlstadt and Zwilling now
openly expressed their contempt of all human theology and biblical
learning. God, they said, has hid these things from the wise and
prudent, and has revealed them unto babes; the Spirit from above
must enlighten a man. Carlstadt went to simple burghers in their
houses, to have passages in the Bible explained to him. He and
Zwilling won over to their side the master of the boys' school in
the town, and the school was broken up. A new municipal
constitution, supported by the magistracy, made strange inroads on
the rights of the citizens and the domain of social life; a common
chest, containing the revenues of the Church, was utilised for
advancing money without interest to needy handicraftsmen, and making
loans to other townsmen at a low rate of interest. Meantime the
spiritual wants of the community were neglected, and in the
hospitals and prisons entirely overlooked.

Such was the direction here taken by the reform for which Luther's
preaching had prepared the way. And just at this time, at Christmas,
three fanatics came to Wittenberg from Zwickau, with the object of
taking part in the movement and furthering the work of God. These were
Nicholas Storch, a weaver, Mark Stubner, a former student at Wittenberg,
and another weaver, who were now zealously joined by the theologian
Martin Cellarius. They boasted of a direct revelation from God, of
prophetic visions, dreams, and familiar conversations with the Deity.
Compared with these pretensions, Scripture was a thing of small
importance in their eyes. They rejected infant baptism, as incapable
of imparting the Spirit. For communion and intercourse with God they
looked not to faith, which, as Luther taught, accepts submissively
what the Word of God reveals to the conscience and the heart, but to
a mystic process of self-abstraction from everything external, sensual,
and finite, until the soul becomes immovably centred in the one Divine
Being. This spirit, seemingly so elevated and pure, broke out
nevertheless into fanaticism of the wildest kind, by proclaiming and
demanding a general revolution, in which all the priests were to be
killed, all godless men destroyed, and the kingdom of God established.

These fanatical displays had begun at Zwickau, no doubt under
Bohemian influence, and were characterised by the ravings common to
the middle ages. Thomas Munzer, from Stolberg in the Harz country,
who was a preacher at one of the churches, took the lead; and he was
certainly the most important and most dangerous personage among
them. He accounted the civil authorities, with their rights, no more
as Christians than he did the clergy and the hierarchy; and began
already to prate of universal equality and communism. This novel and
exciting doctrine soon won adherents, and propagated the 'spirit of
revelation.' Already disturbances were brewing. But the magistrates
took vigorous and timely measures. Storch, Stubner, and Cellarius
fled to Wittenberg, while Munzer roamed about elsewhere in Germany.

Carlstadt went on with his innovations without allying himself
outwardly with these refugees. But the connection of his aims with
theirs could not be mistaken, and as time went on, became more and
more apparent. Melancthon, with all his refinement and purity of
soul, had not sufficient energy and independence to bridle the
passions and forces that had been aroused by Carlstadt. The Zwickau
prophets, with their visions and revelations, haunted him; he seemed
incapable of forming any settled or sober judgment on this strange
and sudden phenomenon.

Luther, on the contrary, received the news with calmness and
composure. He marvelled at the anxiety of his friend, who in
intellect and learning was his superior. He found no difficulty in
testing these enthusiasts by the standard of the New Testament.
There was nothing, he said, in their words and acts, so far as he
had heard anything of them, which the devil might not do or mimic.
As for their so-called ecstasies of devotion, there was nothing in
all that, even though they boasted of being rapt into the third
heaven. The Majesty of God was not wont to hold such familiar
converse with men in old time. The creature must first perish before
his Creator, as before a consuming fire: when God speaks, he must
feel the meaning of the words of Isaiah, 'As a lion, so will he
break all my bones.' And yet Luther would not have them imprisoned
or dealt with by violence; they could be disposed of without
bloodshed and the sword, and be laughed out of their folly.

But his cares for his Wittenberg congregation and the trouble which
Carlstadt's doings there were giving him, left him no peace. He
could not justify those acts before God and the world: they lay upon
his own shoulders, and above all, they brought discredit on the
gospel. In January he went back to Wittenberg. He was entreated to
do so by the magistrates. In vain did the Elector attempt to detain
him, and so prevent his risking an appearance in public. Moreover,
the Council of Regency at Nuremberg, which represented the Emperor
in his absence, had just demanded of Frederick a strict suppression
of the innovations at Wittenberg.

Luther quitted the Wartburg, without leave, on March 1. About his
journey thence we only know that he passed through Jena and the town
of Borna, lying south of Leipzig. A young Swiss, John Kessler from
St. Gallen, who was then on his way with a companion to the
university at Wittenberg, has left us an interesting account of
their meeting with Luther at the inn of the 'Black Bear,' just
outside Jena. They found there a solitary horseman sitting at the
table, 'dressed after the fashion of the country in a red
_schlepli_ (or slouched hat), plain hose and doublet--he had
thrown aside his tabard--with a sword at his side, his right hand
resting on the pommel, and the other grasping the hilt.' Before him
lay a little book. He invited them in a friendly manner, bashful as
they were, to take a seat by him, and spoke to them about the
Wittenberg studies, about Melancthon and other men of learning, and
as to what people thought of Luther in Switzerland. Discoursing
thus, he made them feel so much at ease, that Kessler's companion
took up the little book lying before him, and opened it: it was a
Hebrew Psalter. At supper, where they were joined by two merchants,
he paid for Kessler and his friend, and fascinated them all by his
'agreeable and godly discourse.' Afterwards he drank with his young
friends 'one more friendly glass for a blessing,' gave them his hand
at parting, and charged them to greet the jurist Schurf at
Wittenberg, who was a fellow-countryman of theirs by birth, with the
words 'He who is coming, salutes you.' The host had recognised
Luther, and told his guests who he was. Early next morning the
merchants found him in the stable: he mounted his horse, and rode
forward on his way.

At Borna, where he lodged with an official of the Elector, he wrote
in haste a long answer to the warning instructions of his prince,
conveyed to him by the governor of Eisenach on the eve of his
departure. He did not seek to excuse himself, or to beg forgiveness,
but to quiet his 'most gracious Highness,' and confirm him in the
faith. He had never spoken with greater certainty about what he had
to do, nor with a calmer and more joyful, bold, and proud assurance,
in view of what lay before him, than now, when he had to encounter,
on two contrary sides, opposition and danger. In his resolve and his
hopes he threw himself entirely on his God. 'I go to Wittenberg,' he
writes to Frederick, 'under a far higher protection than yours. Nay,
I hold that I can offer your Highness more protection than your
Highness can offer me.... God alone must be the worker here, without
any human care or help; therefore, he who has the most faith will be
able to give the most protection.' To the question what the Elector
should do in his cause, he answered, 'nothing at all.' The Elector
must allow the Imperial authorities to exercise their powers in his
territory without let or hindrance, even if they chose to seize him
or put him to death. The Elector would surely not be called on to be
his executioner. Should he leave the door open and give safe-conduct
to those who sought to capture him, he would have done his duty
quite enough.

Luther rode on undaunted, even through the territory of Duke George,
who was now violently exasperated with him and the people of
Wittenberg; and on the evening of March 6 he reached his destination
and his friends, safe in body and happy in his mind.

On the morning of the following Saturday, Kessler and his companion,
on visiting Schurf, found Luther sitting at his house with
Melancthon, Jonas, and Amsdorf, and telling them about his doings.
Kessler thus describes his appearance. 'When I saw Martin in 1522,
he was somewhat stout, but upright, bending backwards rather than
stooping; with a face upturned to heaven; with deep, dark eyes and
eyebrows, twinkling and sparkling like stars, so that one could
hardly look steadily at them.'




CHAPTER III.

LUTHER'S RE-APPEARANCE AND FRESH LABOURS AT WITTENBEBG, 1522.


It was on a Thursday that Luther arrived again at Wittenberg. The
very next Sunday he re-appeared in his old pulpit among his town
congregation. In clear, simple, earnest, and Scriptural language he
endeavoured to explain to them their errors, and to lead them again
into the right way. For eight successive days he preached in this
manner. The truths and principles he propounded were the same that
he uttered from the Wartburg, and, indeed, ever since his career of
reformation began. Above all things he exhorted them to charity, and
to deal with their faithful fellow-Christians as God had dealt with
them in His love, whereof through faith they were partakers. 'In
this, dear friends,' he said, 'you are almost entirely wanting, and
not a trace of charity can I see in you, but perceive rather that
you have not been thankful to God. I see, indeed, that you can
discourse well enough on the doctrines of faith and love which have
been preached to you, and no wonder: cannot even a donkey sing his
lesson? and should you not then speak and teach the doctrine or the
little Word? But the kingdom of God does not consist in talk or
words, but in deeds, in works and practice.' He taught them to
distinguish between what was obligatory and what was free, between
what was to be observed or what was not. Charity must be practised,
he said, even in essentials, since no man must compel his brother by
force, but must let the Word operate on the hearts of the weak and
erring, and pray for them. Whatever is free must be left free, so as
not to cause vexation to the weak; but against unchristian tyrants a
stand must be made for freedom.

Thus, with the sheer power and fervour of his eloquence, Luther
prevailed with his congregation, and soon had the conduct of the
Church movement again in his hands. Zwilling allowed himself to be
reproved. Carlstadt shrank back silently, though sullenly; Luther
earnestly begged him not to publish anything hostile and thus compel
him to a battle. In his sermons he refrained from all personal
references. Of the recent innovations, only one was retained, the
omission from the mass of the words relating to the sacrifice of the
Body of Christ by the priests. Luther considered them downright
objectionable and unchristian; and important as they were in
themselves, they were scarcely noticed by the weak and simple, being
uttered in Latin, and in a low voice. The sacrament was again
administered to the majority in one kind; and only those who
expressly desired it could receive it with the lay-cup at an altar
set aside for the purpose. The latter form of celebration, however,
soon became the general custom, to the exclusion of the former. As
regards the vestments to be worn during service, the taking the
elements into one's own hand, and such-like matters, Luther
maintained that they were too trifling to make a fuss about, or to
be allowed to be a stumbling-block to the weak adherents of the old
system. Luther himself returned to live at the convent, resumed his
cowl, and observed again the customary ordinance of fasting. It was
only after two years, when his frock was quite worn out, and he had
a new suit made of some good cloth which the Elector had given him,
that he laid aside altogether his monk's dress.

The prophets of Zwickau were away from Wittenberg at the moment when
Luther returned there. A few weeks after Stubner and Cellarius
appeared before Luther. Their real character and spirit were now
fully shown him by the arrogance and violence with which they
demanded belief in their superior authority, and by their outburst
of rage when he ventured to contradict them. He writes thus to
Spalatin: 'I have caught them even in open lying; when they tried to
evade me with miserable smooth words, I at last bade them prove
their teaching by miracles, of which they boasted against the
Scriptures. This they refused, but threatened that I should have to
believe them some day. Thereupon I told them that their God could
work no miracle against the will of my God. Thus we separated.' They
then left the town for ever, without having gained any ground there.

Thus Luther, who was accused by his enemies of subverting all
ordinances of the Church, began his practical labours of reform by
checking, through the firmness and clearness of his principles, the
violence of others, and concentrating all his thoughts on the
spiritual welfare of his congregation. The preacher of free and
saving faith was the foremost to insist, in the practical conduct of
the Church, upon the active exercise of brotherly love in the
service of true freedom. The great man of the people opposed
himself, regardless of popular favour or dislike, to the current
which had now become national. Under the influence of his preaching
the Elector could now quietly allow matters in Wittenberg and the
neighbourhood to shape their further course in quiet. Nevertheless,
he permitted the neighbouring bishops to work against the new
doctrines by visitations in his country; he only denied them the
assistance of magisterial compulsion and temporal penalties. The
truth should make its own way.

Luther, immediately on his return to Wittenberg, was impatient to
explain in full to German Christendom his position, without the
restraints imposed on his words during his residence at the
Wartburg. This he did in a letter to the knight Hartmuth von
Kronberg, near Frankfort-on-the-Main, which he intended for
publication. The latter, son-in-law to Sickingen, a man of upright,
honourable, Christian character, had published a couple of little
tracts in Luther's spirit. Luther, by his letter wished to 'visit
him in spirit and make known to him his joy.' He took the
opportunity, at the same time, of speaking his mind plainly, both
about the contest he had to wage at Wittenberg, and the hostility to
the gospel displayed by Romanists in Germany. But harder yet for the
faith than the snares of such enemies, appeared to him 'the cunning
game' devised by Satan at Wittenberg, to bring reproach upon the
gospel. 'Not all my enemies,' he said, 'have hit me as I now am hit
by our people, and I must confess that the smoke makes my eyes smart
and almost tickles my heart. "Hereby," thought the Evil One, "I will
take the heart out of Luther and weary the tough spirit; this attack
he will neither understand nor conquer!"' Fearlessly also, and in a
manner which would have been impossible to him at the Wartburg, he
spoke out against the grievous 'sin at Worms, when the truth of God
was so childishly despised, so publicly, defiantly, wilfully
condemned;' it was a sin of the whole German nation, because the
heads had done this, and no one at the godless Diet had opposed
them. He reproached himself with having, in order to please good
friends there, and not to appear too obstinate, smothered his
feelings and not spoken out his belief with more vigour and decision
before the tyrants, however much the unbelieving heathens might have
abused him for answering haughtily. Of one of his 'miserable
enemies' he says: 'The chief one is the water-bladder N., who defies
Heaven with his high stomach, and has renounced the gospel. He would
like to devour Christ, as the wolf does a gnat.' This was an
unmistakable allusion to Duke George, who, in his bigoted devotion
to the Church, was especially excited by the dangerous influences
which threatened his country from the neighbouring Wittenberg, and
who shortly before had made violent complaints on that account to
the Elector Frederick. Indeed, in a copy of this letter, he was
mentioned by name. Duke George afterwards demanded satisfaction, but
the matter was prolonged without any result. Luther informs Hartmuth
of his return to Wittenberg, but adds that he does not know how long
he will remain there. He announces to him the portion of his
Postills which had just been published, and states that he had made
up his mind to translate the Bible into German. This, he said, was
necessary for him, for it would show him his mistake in fancying he
was a learned man.

Luther now threw himself into his work in all its branches. He
resumed his academical lectures as well as the regular preaching in
the town church, and he also preached on week days on the different
books of the Bible. These sermons he continued when, in the
following year, after the death of the old pastor Heins, for whom he
had hitherto acted as deputy, his friend Bugenhagen was appointed to
the living. He and Bugenhagen remained from now until the latter
died, united by personal friendship and common theological views,
and laboured faithfully together in the service of their parochial
congregation. Bugenhagen, as town pastor, appears as one of the most
prominent figures in the history of Wittenberg at this time. Luther
assisted him and his congregation with unselfish affection and
friendship, and in turn made confidential use of his services as
pastor and father-confessor.

[Illustration: Fig. 27.--Bugenuagen. From a picture by Cranach in
his album, (at Berlin,) 1543.]

During the busy times of Lent and Easter, 1522, Luther had again
undertaken duty among the Wittenberg congregation, and immediately
after Easter he visited Borna, Altenburg, Zwickau, and Eilenburg,
where the people were longing to hear his preaching, and where he
exerted himself to have an evangelical preacher appointed. His eyes
indeed were chiefly fixed on Zwickau, where he was resolved to
counteract finally by his words the consequences of the recent
infatuation. According to a report, made by a state official, 25,000
people assembled to hear Luther, who preached from a balcony of the
town-hall to the multitude gathered below. At Borna he preached
immediately before a visitation held there by the Bishop of
Merseburg, and again on the day after it. During the following
autumn he also preached several times at Weimar, whither he had been
invited by John, the brother of the Elector Frederick; and likewise
before the congregation at Erfurt, to whom during the summer he had
addressed an instructive exhortation in writing on the subject of
the innovations.

Even at Wittenberg his literary labours, as we have seen from his
letter to Kronberg, were still mainly devoted to the Bible. In
concert with Melancthon, and with the assistance of other friends,
he set about a revision of his translation of the New Testament. He
sent the first sheets when printed to Spalatin, on May 10, as a
'foretaste of our new Bible.' With the aid of three presses the
printing progressed so rapidly, that already in September the work
was ready for publication. September 21, dedicated to St. Matthew,
is distinguished as the birthday of the German New Testament. In
December already a second edition was called for, though the price
of the book, a florin and a half, was a high one at that time.

The work was greedily and thankfully pounced upon by many thousands
in all parts of Germany, who had learnt from Luther to distinguish
the 'pure Word of God' from the dogmas of the Church, and to honour
it accordingly. Nor could any means more powerful than this be found
of spreading the doctrine thus founded on the Word of God, and
making it the real property of hearers and readers. All the greater
was the danger recognised herein by those who adhered to
ecclesiastical authority and traditions. Of great significance for
both sides are the words of one of the most violent of Luther's
contemporary opponents, the theologian Cochlaeus: 'Luther's New
Testament was multiplied by the printers in a most wonderful degree,
so that even shoemakers and women, and every and any lay person
acquainted with the German type, read it greedily as the fountain of
all truth, and by repeatedly, reading it, impressed it on their
memory. By this means they acquired in a few months so much
knowledge, that they ventured to dispute, not only with Catholic
laymen, but even with masters and doctors of theology, about faith
and the gospel. Luther himself, indeed, had long before taught that
even Christian women, and everyone who had been baptized, were in
truth priests, as much as pope, bishop, and priests. The crowd of
Lutherans gave themselves far more trouble in learning the
translation of the Bible than did the Catholics, where the laity
left such matters chiefly to the priests and monks.' The Catholic
authorities immediately issued orders forbidding the book, and
directing it to be delivered up and confiscated. They hastened also
to accuse the translation of a number of pretended errors and
falsifications, which were mostly corrections of passages
mistranslated in the established Latin version from the words of the
original Greek text. Cochlaeus brought one particular charge against
Luther's translation, that he had ventured to alter the beginning of
the Lord's Prayer in contradiction to the Universal, including the
German Church, and likewise to the original text, by substituting
'Unser Vater in dem Himmel' for 'Vater unser, der du bist im
Himmel.' ('Our Father in Heaven,' for 'Our Father which art in
Heaven'). When, some years later, Emser published a rival
translation of the New Testament, it was found to be in great part a
transcript of Luther's, with only a few corrections according to the
old Latin.

Whilst the New Testament was still in the press, Luther set
zealously to work on the Old. Here he encountered more difficulties,
on account of the language; but he had long been studying Hebrew
with devotion and zeal, and moreover he could now get the assistance
of his new colleague, Aurogallus, who was especially famous for
teaching Hebrew. Before Christmas the five Books of Moses were ready
for press; these were to be published by themselves. In 1524 they
were followed by two other parts, containing the biblical books
(according to the present German order) up to the Song of Solomon.
His translation of the prophets, interrupted by other work, was
delayed for several years.

Nor was Luther's sharp pen long idle against Rome, as indeed might
have been anticipated from his letter to Kronberg. He found his
chief occasion for attack in a series of new edicts and other
measures of the German bishops against the innovations--the
abolition of clerical celibacy, the transgression of the laws of
fasting, and so on. For this purpose ecclesiastical visitations were
undertaken by the Bishops of Meissen and Merseburg, such as have
already been alluded to when Luther went to Zwickau.

Luther's sermons against the abuse of Christian liberty were
followed by a small tract entitled 'On the necessity of avoiding
human doctrine.' He did not mean it, as he said, for those 'bold,
intemperate heads;' but he wished to preach Christian liberty to the
poor, humble consciences, enslaved by monkish vows and ordinances,
that they might be instructed how, by God's help and without danger,
to escape and to use their liberty discreetly. Against the existing
Romish episcopacy he declared war to the knife in a treatise
'Against the Order, falsely called Spiritual, of Pope and Bishops.'
He who had been robbed of his title of priest and doctor by the
displeasure of Pope and Emperor, and from whom, by Papal bulls, the
'mark of the beast' (Rev. xiii. 16) was washed off, confronts the
'popish bishops' now, as 'by God's grace, preacher at Wittenberg.'

Luther's further writings against the Romish Churchdom and dogma do
not possess the same interest for us as his earlier ones, inasmuch
as they no longer show the progress and development of his own views
on the Church. In the violent language he now employs he vents his
chief anger in complaining that he, and the truth he represented,
'had been condemned unheard--an unexampled proceeding--unrefuted,
and in headlong and criminal haste.'

With reference to the attack he had made on the 'episcopal
masqueraders' in the tract above mentioned, Luther remarked in a
letter to Spalatin on July 26 that he had purposely been so sharp in
it, because he saw how vainly he had humbled himself, yielded,
prayed and complained. And he added that he would just as little
flatter, the King of England.

King Henry VIII., who later on, for other reasons, broke so entirely
with the Church of Rome and began reforms after his own fashion, had
at that time gained for himself from the Pope the title of 'Defender
of the Faith,' on account of a learned scholastic treatise against
Luther's 'Babylonish Captivity.' This treatise had made such a stir,
that Luther thought it expedient to answer it in one of his own. The
latter, originally written in Latin, gives a carefully considered
explanation of the points of doctrine at issue, and proceeds to
prove the propositions he had previously advanced. He points out
fundamental, and, indeed, irreconcilable variance between his
principles and those of the King, by showing how he, Luther, fought
for freedom and established it, while the King, on the contrary,
took up the cudgels for captivity, without even attempting to
justify it by argument, but simply kept talking of what it consists
of, and how people must be content to remain in it. In fact, the
whole book was a mere reiteration of the dogmas of ecclesiastical
authorities, of the Councils, and of tradition, always taking it for
granted that these dare not be disputed. 'I do not need,' says
Luther,' the King to teach me this.' But the personal tone adopted
by Luther against Henry went beyond anything that his expressions to
Spalatin might have led one to expect, and was even more marked in a
German edition of his treatise, which he published after the royal
one had been translated into German. The King had, moreover, set the
example of abuse, as coarse and defiant as that of his opponent.
Luther did not shrink from an incidental remark at the expense of
other princes. 'King Henry,' he says, 'must help to prove the truth
of the proverb, that there are no greater fools than kings and
princes.'

But the most important among the works which Luther was now led to
undertake by his opposition to the Romish Church and her teaching,
and by her hostile proceedings against himself, was a treatise on
the secular power, which he began in December, as soon as he had
finished the translation of the five Books of Moses. It appeared
under the title of 'On the Secular Power, and how far obedience is
due to it.'

How far obedience is due to it? This was the question provoked by
the commands and threats of punishment with which Catholic princes
were now endeavouring to aid the spiritual power in suppressing the
gospel, the writings on reform, and especially the new translation
of the Bible. The question was, how far a Christian was bound to
obey.

Nor had Luther to step forward less decisively as the champion of
the rights, the Divine authority, and the dignity of the civil
power, against the pretensions of the Catholic Church. Words of
Jesus such as these lay before him: 'But I say unto you, that ye
resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek,
turn to him the other also.' How could these words be reconciled
with the fact that the secular arm resisted wrong with force, and
raised the sword against the evil-doer? The Church of the middle
ages and the School theology maintained that these words were not
general moral commands for all Christians, but merely advice for
those among them who wished to attain a higher degree of perfection.
Hereby the whole civil government with its authorities was assigned
a lower grade of ordinary morality, whilst higher morality or true
perfection was to be represented in the priestly office and
monasticism. On the other hand, friends of Luther, ere now, while
taking note that Christ had spoken these words direct to all his
disciples, and therefore to all Christians, had been troubled to
know how to establish, with regard to Christians, the right