Catholic writers have found so much to censure in the character and
writings of Luther that one is amazed, after reading them, how Luther
ever could become regarded as a great and good man. Criminal blindness
must have held the eyes, not only of Luther's associates, but of his
entire age, yea, of men for centuries after, if they failed to see
Luther's constitutional baseness. Quite recently a Catholic writer has
told the world in one chapter of his book that "the apostate monk of
Wittenberg" was possessed of "a violent, despotic, and uncontrolled
nature," that he was "depraved in manners and in speech." He speaks of
Luther's "ungovernable transports, riotous proceedings, angry conflicts,
and intemperate controversies," of Luther's "contempt of all the
accepted forms of human right and all authority, human and divine," of
"his unscrupulous mendacity," "his perverse principles," "his wild
pronouncements." He calls Luther "a lawless one," "one of the most
intolerant of men," "a revolutionist, not a reformer." He says that
Luther "attempted reformation and ended in deformation." He charges
Luther with having written and preached "not for, but against good
works," with having assumed rights to himself in the matter of liberty
of conscience which "he unhesitatingly and imperiously denied to all who
differed from him," with having "rent asunder the unity of the Church,"
with having "disgraced the Church by a notoriously wicked and scandalous
life," with having "declared it to be the right of every man to
interpret the Bible to his own individual conception," with "one day
proclaiming the binding force of the Ten Commandments and the next
declaring they were not obligatory on Christian observance," with having
"reviled and hated and cursed the Church of his fathers."
These opprobrious remarks are only a part of the vileness of which the
writer has delivered himself in his first chapter. His whole book
bristles with assertions of Luther's inveterate badness. This coarse and
crooked Luther, we are told, is the real Luther, the genuine article.
The Luther of history is only a Protestant fiction. Protestants like
Prof. Seeberg of Berlin, and others, who have criticized Luther, are
introduced as witnesses for the Catholic allegation that Luther was a
thoroughly bad man. We should like to ascertain the feelings of these
Protestants when they are informed what use has been made of their
remarks about Luther. Some of them may yet let the world know what they
think of the attempt to make them the squires of such knights errant as
Denifle and Grisar.
It is about ten years ago since the Jesuit Grisar began to publish his
_Life of Luther,_ twice that time, since Denifle painted his caricature
of Luther. Several generations ago Janssen, in his _History of the
German Nation,_ gave the Catholic interpretation of Luther and the
Reformation. Going back still further, we come to the Jesuit Maimbourg,
to Witzel, and in Luther's own time to Cochlaeus and Oldecop, all of
whom strove to convince the world that Luther was a moral degenerate and
a reprobate. The book of Mgr. O'Hare, which has made its appearance on
the eve of the Four-hundredth Anniversary of Luther's Theses, is merely
another eruption from the same mud volcano that became active in
Luther's lifetime. It is the old dirt that has come forth. Rome must
periodically relieve itself in this manner, or burst. Rome hated the
living Luther, and cannot forget him since he is dead. It hates him
still. Its hatred is become full-grown, robust, vigorous with the
advancing years. When Rome speaks its mind about Luther, it cannot but
speak in terms of malignant scorn. If Luther could read Mgr. O'Hare's
book, he would say: "Wes das Herz voll ist, des gehet der Mund ueber."
(Matt. 12, 34: "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.")
Luther has done one thing which Rome will never pardon: he dared to
attack the supreme authority of the Pope. He made men see the
ignominious bondage in which cunning priests had ensnared them, and by
restoring them to the liberty with which Christ had made them free
Luther caused the papacy an irreparable loss. The papal system of
teaching and government was so thoroughly exposed by Luther, and has
since been so completely disavowed by a great part of professing
Christians that Rome cannot practise its old frauds any longer. Men have
become extremely wary of Rome. That is what hurts. The Catholic writer
to whom we referred sums up the situation thus: Since Luther "all
Protestant mankind descending by ordinary generation have come into the
world with a mentality biased, perverted, and prejudiced." That is
Rome's way of looking at the matter. The truth is: the world is
forewarned, hence forearmed against the pleas of Rome. It pays only an
indifferent attention to vilifications of Luther that come from that
quarter, because it expects no encomiums and only scant justice for
Luther from Rome. But it is the business of the teachers of Protestant
principles in religion, particularly of the church historians of
Protestantism, to take notice of the campaign of slander that is
launched against Luther by Catholic writers at convenient intervals. It
is not a task to delight the soul, rather to try the patience, of
Christians. For in the study of the causes for these calumnies against a
great man of history, and of the possible means for their removal, one
is forced invariably to the conclusion that there is but one cause, and
that is hatred. What can poor mortal man do to break down such a cause?
It does not yield to logic and historical facts, because it is in its
very nature unreasoning and unreasonable.
Still, for the hour that God sends to all the Sauls that roam the earth
breathing threatening and slaughter, the counter arguments should be
ready. No slander against Luther has ever gone unanswered. As the
charges against Luther have become stereotyped, so the rejoinder cannot
hope to bring forward any new facts. But it seems necessary that each
generation in the Church Militant be put through the old drills, and
learn its fruitful lessons of spiritual adversity. Thus even these
polemical exchanges between Catholics and Protestants become blessings
in disguise. But they do not affect Luther. The sublime figure of the
courageous confessor of Christ that has stood towering in the annals of
the Christian Church for four hundred years stands unshaken, silent, and
grand, despite the froth that is dashed against its base and the
lightning from angry clouds that strikes its top. "Surely, the wrath of
man shall praise thee." (Ps. 76, 10.)