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 scandalizing 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 intrusted 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.
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 clamor 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.
The task that Luther had now undertaken lay heavy upon his soul. He was
sincerely anxious, while 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 7th; 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[25] 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 Cajetan, 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 Melanchthon, 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[26] to his sovereign.
The Pope meanwhile had passed from his previous state of haughty
complacency to one of violent haste. Already, on August 23d, 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 23d and 25th, 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 Rome. 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.
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 demand for a tax, however, was
received with the utmost disfavor 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
Wuerzburg, 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 afterward
when printed, thought it only a hoax, and not really an episcopal
remonstrance.
This was reason enough why Cajetan, to avoid increasing the excitement,
should not attempt to lay hands on the Wittenberg opponent of
indulgences. The elector Frederick, from whose hands Cajetan 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
Cajetan on Luther's behalf, and Cajetan 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. "My thoughts on the way," said Luther afterward, "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 7th.
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 favorable 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 Cajetan, 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 mean time a distinguished friend of
Cajetan, 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.
On October 11th Luther received the letter of safe-conduct, and the next
day he appeared before Cajetan. 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 Cajetan; 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. The Cardinal-legate 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, Cajetan 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 Basel, Freiburg, Louvain, and even Paris upon
them. Cajetan with a smile dismissed Luther and his proposals, but
consented to receive a more detailed reply in writing to the principal
points discussed the previous day.
On the morrow, October 14th, 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. Still he entreated Cajetan 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.
Cajetan, to whom he delivered this reply in person, once more tried to
persuade him. They fell into a lively and vehement argument; but Cajetan
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 he had refused to yield. 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 16th he submitted it,
formally prepared, to a public notary.
Luther even addressed, on October 17th, a letter to Cajetan, 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 Cajetan, 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.
Without waiting for an answer direct from Rome, Luther now abandoned all
thoughts of success with Leo X. On November 28th 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 forever, 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.
He was really prepared for exile or flight at any moment. At Wittenberg
his friends were alarmed by rumors 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.
At Rome the bull of excommunication was published as early as June 16th.
It had been considered 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. 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,
etc. 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
Roman 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 burned. 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 toward 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 emperor Charles V, before leaving the Netherlands on his journey to
Aix-la-Chapelle to be crowned (1520),[27] had already been induced 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 burned, and had
issued orders to that effect throughout the Netherlands. They were
burned in public at Louvain, Cologne, and Mainz. 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 to 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
burning of Luther's books at Mainz was effected without hinderance, and
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 10th he posted a public announcement
that the next morning, at nine o'clock, the anti-Christian decretals,
that is, the papal law-books, would be burned, 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 Melanchthon and
Carlstadt. After one of the masters of art 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,[28] let the everlasting fire consume
thee." While 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,
amid the blowing of brass trumpets and other absurdities. They collected
from all quarters a mass of scholastic and papal writings, 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 burned. Unless with all their hearts they abjured
the kingdom of the pope, they could not obtain salvation.