Fortunately for Luther there was more than noisy adulation among the
people. A few sober minds knew how relentless the papal wolves would be
in tracking him down after the safe-conduct expired, and so a
“kidnapping” and removal to a safe place was planned.
Luther made a detour along the road to Wittenberg in order to visit
relatives at Möhra. For months the outside world knew only that he had
been captured near there in the Thuringian forest by a band of knights.
Many lamented him as dead, but gradually the flow of thorny letters to
his adversaries and the new treatises rolling from the press allayed
their fears.
By a circuitous route Luther had been conveyed to the Wartburg, an
ancient fortress-castle near Eisenach. He arrived on May 4 and, with the
exception of short trips into the forest and to near-by villages, did
not leave for seven months. To outward appearances he was Junker George,
a carefree, bearded knight with sword swinging impressively at his side.
The secret was well kept and at the outset even the elector, who
authorized the masquerade, did not know Luther’s whereabouts.
Luther chafed at his forced inactivity, and, ever the monk, fell to
contemplation and examination of himself. Could past generations and
earlier scholars have been so completely out of step with the gospel?
Could a mere friar be right against them all? Might he not be in error
and drag many others to eternal damnation?
[Illustration: (uncaptioned)]
Hard work helped take his mind off his problems. During his stay in the
Wartburg, in addition to correspondence and pamphlets, he authored a
work on confession, expositions on several Psalms, a commentary on the
Magnificat, had a volume of sermons on the Epistles and Gospels well
underway, and had translated the entire New Testament into German.
Prayer and study restored his conviction. To doubt, or even to remain
silent was like going against conscience—neither right nor safe. With
conviction came a sense of divine commission. When events called him
back into the world again he went courageously and with determination.
He was a revolutionary, but a conservative one. That quality is what
took him back to Wittenberg.