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The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 by Various

V >> Various >> The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12




From that time date our reports about the troubles of his soul. At
odds with his father, full of awe at the thought of an incomprehensible
eternity, cowed by the wrath of God, he began with supernatural
exertions a life of renunciation, devotion, and penance. He found no
peace. All the highest questions of life rushed with fearful force
upon his defenseless, wandering soul. Remarkably strong and passionate
with him was the necessity of feeling himself in harmony with God and
the universe. What theology offered him was all unintelligible,
bitter, and repulsive. To his nature the riddles of the moral order of
the universe were most important. That the good should suffer, and the
evil succeed; that God should condemn the human race to the monstrous
burden of sin because a simple-minded woman had bitten into an apple;
that this same God should endure our sins with love, toleration, and
patience; that Christ at one time sent away honorable people with
severity, and at another time associated with harlots, publicans,
and sinners--"human understanding with its wisdom turns to folly at
this." Then he would complain to his spiritual adviser, Staupitz:
"Dear Doctor, our Lord treats people so cruelly. Who can serve Him
if he lays on blows like this?" But when he got the answer, "How
else could He subdue the stubborn heads?" this sensible argument
could not console the young man. With fervid desire to find the
incomprehensible God, he searched all his thoughts and dreams with
self-torture. Every earthly thought, every beat of his youthful blood,
became for him a cruel wrong. He began to despair of himself; he
wrestled in unceasing prayer, fasted and scourged himself. At one time
the priests had to break into his cell in which he had been lying for
days in a condition not far from insanity. With warm sympathy Staupitz
looked upon such heart-rending torment, and sought to give him peace
by blunt counsel. Once when Luther had written to him, "Oh, my sin! My
sin! My sin!" his spiritual adviser gave him the answer, "You long to
be without sin, and you have no real sin. Christ is the forgiveness of
real sins, such as parricide and the like. If Christ is to help you,
you must have a list of real sins, and not come to Him with such trash
and make-believe sins, seeing a sin in every trifle." The manner in
which Luther gradually raised himself above such despair was decisive
for his whole life. The God whom he served was at that time a God of
terror. His anger was to be appeased only by the means of grace which
the ancient Church prescribed--in the first place through constant
confession, for which there were innumerable prescriptions and formulae
which seemed to the heart empty and cold. By strictly prescribed
activities and the practice of so-called good works, the feeling of
real atonement and inward peace had not come to the young man. Finally
a saying of his spiritual adviser pierced his heart like an arrow:
"That alone is true penance which begins with love for God. Love for
God and inward exaltation is not the result of the means of grace
which the Church teaches; it must go before them." This doctrine from
Tauler's school became for the young man the basis of a new spiritual
and moral relation to God; it was for him a sacred discovery. The
transformation of his spiritual life was the principal thing. For that
he had to work. From the depths of every human heart must come
repentance, expiation, and atonement. He and every man could lift
himself up to God, alone. Not until now did he realize what free
prayer was. In place of a far-off divine power which he had formerly
sought in vain through a hundred forms and childish confessions, there
came before him at last the image of an all-loving protector to whom
he could speak at any time joyfully and in tears; to whom he could
bring all sorrow, every doubt; who took unceasing interest in him,
cared for him, granted or denied his heartfelt petitions tenderly,
like a good father. So he learned to pray; and how ardent his prayers
became! From this time he lived in peace with the beloved God whom he
had finally found, every day, every hour. His intercourse with the
Most High became more intimate than with the dearest companions of
this earth. When he poured out his whole self before Him, then calm
came over him and a holy peace, a feeling of unspeakable love. He felt
himself a part of God, and remained in this relation to Him from that
time throughout his whole life. He heeded no longer the roundabout
ways of the ancient Church; he could, with God in his heart, defy the
whole world. Even thus early he ventured to believe that those held
false doctrine who put so much stress on works of penance, that there
was nothing beyond these works but a cold satisfaction and a
ceremonious confession; and when, later, he learned from Melanchthon
that the Greek word for penitence, _metanoia_ meant literally "change
of mind," it seemed to him a wonderful revelation. On this ground
rested the confident assurance with which he opposed the words of
Scripture to the ordinances of the Church. By this means Luther in the
monastery gradually worked his way to spiritual liberty. All his later
doctrines, his battles against indulgences, his imperturbable
steadfastness, his method of interpreting the Scriptures, rested upon
the struggles through which he, while a monk, had found his God; and
it may well be said that the new era of German history began with
Luther's prayers in the monastery. Life was soon to thrust him under
its hammer, to harden the pure metal of his soul.

In 1508 Luther reluctantly accepted the professorship of dialectics at
the new university of Wittenberg. He would rather have taught that
theology which even then he believed the true one. When, in 1510, he
went to Rome on business for his order, it is well known what devotion
and piety marked his sojourn in the Holy City, and with what horror
the heathen life of the Romans and the moral corruption and
worldliness of the clergy filled him. It was there where his
devotions, while he was officiating at mass, were disturbed by the
reckless jests which the Roman priests of his order called out to him.
He never forgot the devil-inspired words[2] as long as he lived.

But the hierarchy, however deeply its corruption shocked him, still
contained his whole hope; outside of it there was no God and no
salvation. The noble idea of the Catholic Church, and its conquests of
fifteen hundred years, enraptured the mind even of the strongest. And
when this German in Roman clerical dress, at the risk of his life,
inspected the ruins of ancient Rome and stood in awe before the
gigantic columns of the temples which, according to report, the Goths
had once destroyed, the sturdy man from the mountains of the old
Hermunduri little dreamed that it would be his own fate to destroy the
temples of medieval Rome more thoroughly, more fiercely, more grandly.
Luther came back from Rome still a faithful son of the great Mother
Church. All heresy, such as that of the Bohemians, was hateful to him.
He took a warm interest, after his return, in Reuchlin's contest
against the judges of heresy at Cologne, and, in 1512, stood on the
side of the Humanists; but even then he felt that something separated
him from this movement. When, a few years later, he was in Gotha, he
did not call upon the worthy Mutianus Rufus, although he wrote him a
very polite letter of apology; and soon after he was offended by the
inward coldness and secular tone in which theological sinners were
ridiculed in Erasmus' dialogues. The profane worldliness of the
Humanists was never quite in harmony with the cheerful faith of
Luther's soul, and the pride with which he afterward offended the
sensitive Erasmus in a letter which was meant to be conciliatory, was
probably even then in his soul. Even the forms of literary modesty
adopted by Luther at that time give the impression that they were
wrung from an unbending spirit by the power of Christian humility.

For even at that time he felt himself secure and strong in his faith.
As early as 1516 he wrote to Spalatin, who was the link of intercourse
between him and the Elector, Frederick the Wise, that the Elector was
the most prudent of men in the things of this world, but was afflicted
with sevenfold blindness in matters concerning God and the salvation
of the soul. And Luther had reason for this expression, for the
provident spirit of that moderate prince appeared in his careful
efforts, among other things, to gather in for domestic use the means
of grace recommended by the Church. For instance, he had a special
hobby for sacred relics, and just at this time Staupitz, the vicar of
the Augustinian order for Saxony, was occupied in the Rhine region and
elsewhere in collecting them for the Elector. For Luther the absence
of his superior was important, for he had to fill his place. He was
already a respected man in his order. Although professor (of theology
since 1512), he still lived in his monastery in Wittenberg and
generally wore his monk's habit; and now he visited the thirty
monasteries in his charge, deposed priors, uttered severe censure of
bad discipline, and urged severity against fallen monks. But something
of the simple faith of the brother of the monastery still clung to
him.

It was in this spirit of confidence and German sincerity that he
wrote, October 31, 1517, after he had posted the theses against Tetzel
on the church door, to Archbishop Albert of Mainz, the protector of
the seller of indulgences. Full of the popular belief in the wisdom
and the goodwill of the highest rulers, Luther thought (he often said
so later) that it was only necessary to present honestly to the
princes of the Church the disadvantage and immorality of such abuses.
But how childish this zeal of the monk appeared to the polished and
worldly prince of the Church! What so deeply offended the honest man
was, from the point of view of the Archbishop, a matter long settled.
The sale of indulgences was an evil in the Church a hundred times
deplored, but as unavoidable as many institutions seem to the
politician; while not good in themselves, they must be kept for the
sake of a greater interest. The greatest interest of the Archbishop
and the curia was their supremacy, which was acquired and maintained
by such commercial dealings. The great interest of Luther and the
people was truth. This was the parting of the ways.

And so Luther entered upon the struggle, a poor and faithful son of
the Church, full of German devotion to authority; but yet he had in
his character something which gave him strength against too extreme
exercise of this authority--a close relation to his God. He was then
thirty-four years old, in the fulness of his strength, of medium
stature, his body vigorous and without the corpulency of his later
years, appearing tall beside the small, delicate, boyish form of
Melanchthon. In the face which showed the effects of vigils and inward
struggles, shone two fiery eyes whose keen brilliancy was hard to
meet. He was a respected man, not only in his order, but at the
University; not a great scholar--he learned Greek from Melanchthon in
the first year of his professorship, and Hebrew soon after. He had no
extensive book learning, and never had the ambition to shine as a
writer of Latin verse; but he was astonishingly well-read in the
Scriptures and some of the Fathers of the Church, and what he had once
learned he assimilated with German thoroughness. He was the untiring
shepherd of his flock, a zealous preacher, a warm friend, once more
full of a decorous cheerfulness; he was of an assured bearing, polite
and skilful in social intercourse, with a confidence of spirit which
often lighted up his face in a smile. The small events of the day
might indeed affect him and annoy him. He was excitable, and easily
moved to tears, but on any great emergency, after he had overcome his
early nervous excitement, such as, for instance, embarrassed him when
he first appeared before the Diet at Worms--then he showed wonderful
calmness and self-command. He knew no fear. Indeed, his lion's nature
found satisfaction in the most dangerous situations. The danger of
death into which he sometimes fell, the malicious ambushes of his
enemies, seemed to him at that time hardly worthy of mention. The
reason for this superhuman heroism, as one may call it, was again his
close personal relation to his God. He had long periods in which he
wished, with a cheerful smile, for martyrdom in the service of truth
and of his God. Terrible struggles were still before him, but those in
which men opposed him did not seem to deserve this name. He had
defeated the devil himself again and again for years. He even
overcame the fear and torment of hell, which did its utmost to cloud
his reason. Such a man might perhaps be killed, but he could hardly be
conquered.

The period of the struggle which now follows, from the beginning of
the indulgences controversy until his departure from the Wartburg--the
time of his greatest victories and of his tremendous popularity--is
perhaps best known; but it seems to us that even here his nature has
never yet been correctly judged.

Nothing is more remarkable at this period than the manner in which
Luther became gradually estranged from the Church of Rome. His life
was modest and without ambition. He clung with the deepest reverence
to the lofty idea of the Church, for fifteen hundred years the
communion of saints; and yet in four short years he was destined to be
cut off from the faith of his fathers, torn from the soil in which he
had been so firmly rooted. And during all this time he was destined to
stand alone in the struggle, or at best with a few faithful
companions--after 1518 together with Melanchthon. He was to be exposed
to all the perils of the fiercest war, not only against innumerable
enemies, but also in defiance of the anxious warnings of sincere
friends and patrons. Three times the Roman party tried to silence
him--through the official activity of Cajetan, through the persuasive
arts of Miltitz, and the untimely persistence of the contentious Eck.
Three times he spoke to the Pope himself in letters which are among
the most valuable documents of those years. Then came the parting. He
was anathematized and outlawed. According to the old university
custom, he burned the enemy's declaration of war, and with it the
possibility of return. With cheerful confidence he went to Worms in
order that the princes of his nation might decide whether he should
die or thenceforth live among them without pope or church, according
to the Bible alone.

[Illustration: _Permission F Pruelmann A G Munich_
FREDERICK WILLIAM I INSPECTING A SCHOOL Adolph von Menzel.]

At first, when he had printed his theses against Tetzel, he was
astonished at the enormous excitement which they caused in Germany, at
the venomous hatred of his enemies, and at the signs of joyful
recognition which he received from many sides. Had he, then, done such
an unheard-of thing? What he had expressed was, he knew, the belief of
all the best men of the Church. When the Bishop of Brandenburg had
sent the Abbot of Lehnin to him, with the request that Luther would
suppress the printed edition of his German sermon on indulgences and
grace, however near the truth he might be, the brother of the poor
Augustinian monastery was deeply moved that such great men should
speak to him in so friendly and cordial a manner, and he was ready to
give up the printing rather than make himself a monster that disturbed
the Church. Eagerly he sought to refute the report that the Elector
had instigated his quarrel with Tetzel--"they wish to involve the
innocent prince in the enmity that falls on me." He was ready to do
anything to keep the peace before Cajetan and with Miltitz. One thing
he would not do--recant what he had said against the unchristian
extension of the system of indulgences; but recantation was the only
thing the hierarchy wanted of him. For a long time he still wished for
peace, reconciliation, and return to the peaceful activity of his
cell; and again and again a false assertion of his opponents set his
blood on fire, and every opposition was followed by a new and sharper
blow from his weapon.

Even in the first letter to Leo X, May 30, 1518, Luther's heroic
assurance is remarkable. He is still entirely the faithful son of the
Church. He still concludes by falling at the Pope's feet, offers him
his whole life and being, and promises to honor his voice as the voice
of Christ, whose representative the head of the Church is; but even
from this devotion befitting the monk, the vigorous words flash out:
"If I have merited death, I refuse not to die." In the body of the
letter, how strong are the expressions in which he sets forth the
coarseness of the sellers of indulgences! Here, too, his surprise is
honest that his theses are making so much stir with their
unintelligible sentences, involved, according to the old custom, to
the point of riddles. And good humor sounds in the manly words: "What
shall I do? I cannot recant. In our century full of intellect and
beauty, which might put Cicero into a corner, I am only an unlearned,
limited, poorly educated man! But the goose must needs cackle among
the swans."

The following year almost all who honored Luther united in the
endeavor to bring about a reconciliation. Staupitz and Palatin, and
the Elector through them, scolded, besought, and urged; the papal
chamberlain, Miltitz himself, praised Luther's attitude, and whispered
to him that he was entirely right, implored him, drank with him, and
kissed him. Luther, to be sure, thought he knew that the courtier had
a secret mission to make him a captive, if possible, and bring him to
Rome. But the peacemakers successfully hit upon the point in which the
stubborn man heartily agreed with them--that respect for the Church
must be maintained, and its unity must not be destroyed. Luther
promised to keep quiet and to submit the decision of the contested
points to three worthy bishops. While in this position he was urged to
write a letter of apology to the Pope. But even this letter of March
3, 1519, though approved by the mediators and written under
compulsion, is characteristic as showing the advance Luther had made.
Humility, such as our theologians see in it, is hardly present, but a
cautious diplomatic attitude throughout. Luther regrets that what he
has done to defend the honor of the Roman Church should have been
interpreted as lack of respect in him. He promises henceforth to say
nothing more about indulgences--if, that is, his opponents will do
the same; he offers to address a manifesto to the people in which he
will advise them to give proper obedience to the Church and not to be
estranged from her because his adversaries have been insolent and he
himself harsh. But all these submissive words do not conceal the rift
which already separates his mind from the essential basis of the
Church of Rome. It sounds like cold irony when he writes: "What shall
I do, Most Holy Father? I am at a complete loss. I cannot endure the
weight of your anger, and yet I do not know how to escape it. They
demand a recantation from me. If it could accomplish what they propose
by it, I would recant without hesitation, but the opposition of my
adversaries has spread my writings farther than I had ever hoped; they
have taken hold too deeply on the souls of men. In Germany today
talent, learning, freedom of judgment are flourishing. If I should
recant, I should cover the Church, in the judgment of my Germans, with
still greater disgrace. It is they--my adversaries--who have brought
the Church of Rome into disrepute with us in Germany." He finally
closes politely: "If I should be able to do more, I shall without
doubt be very ready. May Christ preserve your Holiness! Martin
Luther."

Much is to be read between the lines of this studied reserve. Even if
the vain Eck had not immediately set all Wittenberg University by the
ears, this letter could hardly have been considered at Rome as a token
of repentant submission.

The thunderbolt of excommunication had been hurled; Rome had spoken.
Now Luther, again completely his old self, wrote once more to the Pope
that great and famous letter which, at the request of the untiring
Miltitz, he dated back to September 6, 1520, that he might be able to
ignore the bull of excommunication. It is a beautiful reflection of a
resolute mind which from a lofty standpoint calmly surveys its
opponent, and at the same time is magnificent in its sincerity, and of
the noblest spirit. With sincere sympathy he speaks of the personality
and of the difficult position of the Pope; but it is the sympathy of a
stranger. He still laments with melancholy the condition of the
Church, but it is plain that he himself has already outgrown it. It is
a farewell letter. With the keenest severity there is still a firm
attitude and silent sorrow. Such is the way a man parts from what he
has once loved and found unworthy. This letter was to be the last
bridge for the peacemakers. For Luther it was the liberation of his
soul.

In these years Luther had become a different man. In the first place
he had acquired prudence and self-reliance in his intercourse with the
most exalted personages, and at heavy cost had won insight into the
policies and the private character of the rulers. Nothing was at heart
more painful to the peaceable nature of his sovereign than this bitter
theological controversy, which sometimes furthered his political ends
but always disturbed his peace of mind. Constant efforts were made by
his court to keep the Wittenberg people within bounds, and Luther
always saw to it that they were made too late. Whenever the faithful
Spalatin dissuaded him from the publication of a new polemic, he
received the answer that there was no help for it, that the sheets
were printed and already in the hands of many and could not be
suppressed. And in his dealings with his adversaries Luther had
acquired the assurance of a seasoned warrior. He was bitterly hurt
when Hieronymus Emser, in the spring of 1518, craftily took him to a
banquet in Dresden where he was forced to argue with angry enemies,
especially when he learned that a Dominican friar had listened at the
door and the next day had spread it in the town that Luther had been
completely silenced, and that the listener had had difficulty to
restrain himself from rushing into the room and spitting in Luther's
face. At that first meeting with Cajetan Luther still prostrated
himself humbly at the feet of the prince of the Church; after the
second he allowed himself to express the view that the cardinal was as
fit for his office as an ass to play the harp. He treated the polite
Miltitz with fitting politeness. The Roman had hoped to tame the
German bear, but soon the courtier came of his own accord into the
position which was appropriate for him--he was used by Luther. And in
the Leipzig disputation against Eck the favorable impression which the
self-possessed, honest, and sturdy nature of Luther produced was the
best counterpoise to the self-satisfied assurance of his clever
opponent.

But Luther's inward life calls for greater sympathy. It was after all
a terrible period for him. Close to exaltation and victory lay for him
deathly anxiety, torturing doubt, and horrible apparitions. He, almost
alone, was in arms against all Christendom, and was becoming more and
more irreconcilably hostile to the mightiest power, which still
included everything that had been sacred to him since his youth. What
if, after all, he were wrong in this or that! He was responsible for
every soul that he led away with him--and whither? What was there
outside the Church but destruction and perdition for time and for
eternity? If his adversaries and anxious friends cut him to the heart
with reproaches and warnings, the pain, the secret remorse, the
uncertainty which he must not acknowledge to any one, were greater
beyond comparison. He found peace, to be sure, in prayer. Whenever his
fervid soul, seeking its God, rose in mighty flights, he was filled
with strength, peace, and cheerfulness. But in hours of less tense
exaltation, when his sensitive spirit quivered under unpleasant
impressions, then he felt himself embarrassed, divided, under the
spell of another power which was hostile to his God. He knew from
childhood how actively evil spirits ensnare mankind; he had learned
from the Scripture that the Devil works against the purest to ruin
them. On his path the busy devils were lurking to weaken him, to
mislead him, to make innumerable others wretched through him. He saw
their work in the angry bearing of the cardinal, in the scornful face
of Eck, even in the thoughts of his own soul. He knew how powerful
they had been in Rome. Even in his youth apparitions had tormented
him; now they reappeared. From the dark shadows of his study the
spectre of the tempter lifted its claw-like hand against his reason.
Even while he was praying the Devil approached him in the form of
the Redeemer, radiant as King of Heaven with the five wounds, as
the ancient Church represented Him. But Luther knew that Christ
appears to poor humanity only in His words, or in humble form, as He
hung upon the cross; and he roused himself vigorously and cried
to the apparition: "Avaunt, foul fiend!"--and the vision disappeared.
Thus the strong heart of the man worked for years in savage
indignation--always renewed. It was a sad struggle between reason and
insanity, but Luther always came out victorious; the native strength
of his sound nature prevailed. In long prayer, often lasting for
hours, the stormy waves of his emotion became calm, and his massive
intelligence and his conscience brought him every time out of doubt to
certainty. He considered this process of liberation as a gracious
inspiration of his God, and after such moments he who had once been in
such anxious doubt was as firm as steel, indifferent to the opinion of
men, not to be moved, inexorable. Quite a different picture is that of
his personality in contest with earthly foes. Here he retains almost
everywhere the superiority of conviction, particularly in his literary
feuds.

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