To judge intelligently the activity of Luther it is necessary to
understand the state of the Church in his day and the character of the
chief bishops of the Church. When reading modern censures of Luther's
attacks upon the papacy, one wonders why nothing is said about the thing
that Luther attacked. Catholic critics of Luther surely must know what
papal filth lies accumulated in the _Commentarii di Marino Sanuto,_ in
Alegretto Alegretti's _Diari Sanesi,_ in the _Relazione di Polo
Capello,_ in the _Diario de Sebastiano di Branca de Tilini,_ in the
_Successo di la Morte di Papa Alessandro,_ in Tommaso Inghirami's _Fea,
Notizie Intorno Rafaele Sanzio da Urbino,_ and others. Ranke worked with
these authorities when he wrote his _History of the Popes_. What about
the authorities which Gieseler cites in his _Ecclesiastical History_--
Muratori, Fabronius, Machiavelli, Sabellicus, Raynaldus, Eccardus,
Burchardus, etc.? A compassionate age has relegated the exact account of
the moral state of the papacy in Luther's days to learned works, and
even in these they are given mostly in Latin footnotes. In the language
of Augustus Birrell, they are "too coarse."
Luther's life (1483-1546) falls into the administration of nine Popes:
Sixtus IV, 1471-1484; Innocent VIII, 1484-1492; Alexander VI, 1492-1503;
Pius III, 26 days in 1503; Julius II, 1503-1513; Leo X, 1513-1521;
Hadrian VI, 1522-1523; Clement VII, 1523-1534; Paul III, 1534-1549.
Speaking of this series of Popes, the historian Gieseler says: "The
succession of Popes which now follows proves the degeneracy of the
cardinals (from among whom the Pope is chosen) as to all discipline and
sense of shame: they were distinguished for nothing but undisguised
meanness and wickedness; they were reprobates."
Of Sixtus IV he says: "His chief motive was the small ambition to raise
his family from their low estate to the highest rank." Infamous
transactions which resulted in the murder of Julian de Medici while at
high mass in church and the hanging of the archbishop of Pisa from a
window of the town hall by the exasperated people, wars, conspiracies,
alliances, annulments of alliances, in short, all the acts that fill up
the turbulent life of a crafty and grasping politician, are recorded for
his administration. He did not scruple to employ the authority of his
exalted office for the furtherance of his political schemes. Thus he
excommunicated Venice and formed a warlike alliance against the city.
But the Venetians regarded his religious thunderbolts as little as his
physical prowess. "Vexation at this hastened the death of the Pope, who
was hated as much as he was despised."
Ranke, on the authority of Alegretti, relates of Pope Sixtus IV: "The
Colonna family, opponents of the Pope's nephew Riario, was persecuted by
him with the most savage ferocity. He seized on their domain of Marino,
and causing the prothonotary Colonna to be attacked in his own house,
took him prisoner, and put him to death. The mother of Colonna came to
St. Celso, in Banchi, where the corpse lay, and lifting the severed head
by its hair, she exclaimed: 'Behold the head of my son. Such is the
truth of the Pope. He promised that my son should be set at liberty if
Marino were delivered into his hands. He is possessed of Marino, and,
behold, we have my son--but dead. Thus does the Pope keep his word.'"
His successor, Innocent VIII, "in defiance of the conditions of his
election, sought with a still more profligate vileness to exalt and
enrich his seven illegitimate children." He had been elected on the
condition that he would make only one blood relative a cardinal, and
that certain other benefices of the Church should not be given to any
one related to him. The people called him Nocens (the Guilty One, or the
Harmful One) instead of Innocent, and immortalized the prolific
paternity of this saintly celibate in the following epigram:
Octo Nocens genuit pueros totidemque puellas,
Hunc merito poterit dicere Roma patrem,
that is,
Nocens begat eight boys and an equal number of maidens;
Rightly, then, Rome will be able to call this gentleman father.
"He carried on two wars with Ferdinand, king of Naples, until the year
1492, and brought forward Renatus, duke of Lorraine, as pretender to his
crown. True, he proceeded, as his predecessors had done, to encourage
princes and people to undertake expeditions against the Turks; but when
Dschem, the brother and rival of the Turkish Sultan Bajazet, was
delivered over to him at the head of an army against the Turks, he chose
rather to detain him in prison on consideration of an annual tribute
from the Turkish Sultan." The story how the Pope got possession of the
Turkish prince and refused 200,000 ducats ransom for him because he had
received an offer of 600,000 from another party, reads like a story of
professional brigandage.
Alexander VI, "the most depraved of all the Popes, likewise recognized
no loftier aim than to heap honors and possessions upon his five
illegitimate children, and among them especially his favorite, Caesar
Borgia." The nuptials celebrated for the Pope's daughter Lucretia--who,
by the way, was a _divorcee_--were "by no means peculiarly decorous."
The Latin chronicler who has related them reports in this connection
that the moral state of the clergy at Rome was indescribably low. The
example of the Popes had set the pace for the rest. From the highest to
the lowest each priest had his concubine as a substitute for married
life (_"concubinas in figura matrimonii"_), and that, quite openly. The
good chronicler remarks: "If God does not provide a restraint, this
corruption will pass on to the monks and the religious orders; however,
the monasteries of the city are nearly all become brothels already, and
no one raises his voice against it." Wading through the mephitic
rottenness of these ancient chronicles, one is seized with nausea.
Holy things, religious privileges, had become merchandise with which the
Popes trafficked. The chronicler Burchardus relates: "In those days the
following couplet was sung in nearly the whole Christian world:
"Vendit Alexander claves, Altaria, Christum,
Emerat ista prius, vendere juste potest."
The meaning of this satire is: Alexander sells the power of the keys of
heaven, the right to officiate at the altar, yea, Christ Himself; he had
first bought these things himself, therefore he has a right to sell them
again. Unblushing perfidy was practised by this Pope in his dealings
with kings who were his religious subjects. In a quarrel with Charles
VIII of France he threatened the king with excommunication, and sought
aid from the Turkish Sultan. "However, when Charles appeared in Rome,
the Pope went over to his side immediately, and delivered up to him
Prince Dschem; but he took care to have him poisoned immediately, that
he might not lose the price set upon his head by the Sultan." Thus he
conciliated the French monarch and filled his purse by one and the same
act. "By traffic in benefices, sale of indulgences, exercise of the
right of spoils, and taxes for the Turkish war, as well as by the murder
of rich or troublesome persons, Alexander was seeking to scrape together
as much money as possible to support the wanton luxury and shameful
licentiousness of his court, and provide treasures for his children." In
their correspondence men who had dealings with him would refer to him in
such terms as these: "That monstrous head--that infamous beast!" ("_Hoc
monstruoso capite--hac infami belua!"_)
"At length the poison which the Pope had meant for a rich cardinal, in
order to make himself master of his wealth, brought upon himself
well-deserved death." The Pope's butler had been bribed and exchanged
the poison-cup intended for the Pope's victim for the Pope's cup, and
the Pope took his own medicine.
On the basis of Alegretti's notes, Ranke has drawn a fine pen-picture of
the reign of terror which Caesar Borgia, the favorite son of Alexander
VI, inaugurated at Rome. "With no relative or favorite would Caesar
Borgia endure the participation of his power. His own brother stood in
his way: Caesar caused him to be murdered and thrown into the Tiber. His
brother-in-law was assailed and stabbed, by his orders, on the steps of
his palace. The wounded man was nursed by his wife and sister, the
latter preparing his food with her own hands, to secure him from poison;
the Pope set a guard upon the house to protect his son-in-law from his
son. Caesar laughed these precautions to scorn. 'What cannot be done at
noonday,' said he, 'may be brought about in the evening.' When the
prince was on the point of recovery, he burst into his chamber, drove
out the wife and sister, called in the common executioner, and caused
his unfortunate brother-in-law to be strangled. Toward his father, whose
life and station he valued only as a means to his own aggrandizement, he
displayed not the slightest respect or feeling. He slew Peroto,
Alexander's favorite, while the unhappy man clung to his patron for
protection, and was wrapped within the pontifical mantle. The blood of
the favorite flowed over the face of the Pope.--For a certain time the
city of the apostles and the whole state of the Church were in the hands
of Caesar Borgia. . . . How did Rome tremble at his name! Caesar
required gold, and possessed enemies. Every night were the corpses of
murdered men found in the streets, yet none dared move; for who but
might fear that his turn would be next? Those whom violence could not
reach were taken off by poison. There was but one place on earth where
such deeds were possible--that, namely, where unlimited temporal power
was united to the highest spiritual authority, where the laws, civil and
ecclesiastical, were held in one and the same hand."
Pope Julius, who came into power after the twenty-six days' reign of
Pius III, was a warlike man. "He engaged in the boldest operations,
risking all to obtain all. He took the field in person, and having
stormed Mirandola, he pressed into the city across the frozen ditches
and through the breach; the most disastrous reverses could not shake his
purpose, but rather seemed to waken new resources in him." "He wrested
Perugia and Bologna from their lords. As the powerful state of Venice
refused to surrender her conquests, he resolved at length, albeit
unwillingly, to avail himself of foreign aid; he joined the League of
Cambrai, concluded between France and the Emperor, and assisted with
spiritual and temporal weapons to subdue the republic. Venice, now hard
pressed, yielded to the Pope, in order to divide this overwhelming
alliance. Julius, already alarmed at the progress of the French in
Italy, readily granted his forgiveness, and now commenced hostilities
against the French and their ally, Alphonso, Duke of Ferrara. He
declared that the king of France had forfeited his claim on Naples, and
invested Ferdinand the Catholic with the solo dominion of his realm. He
issued a sentence of condemnation against the Duke of Ferrara. Lewis XII
strove in vain to alarm him by the National Council of Tours,--Germany,
by severe gravamina (complaints of national grievances against the Papal
See), and by the threat of the Pragmatic Sanction (an imperial order to
confirm the decrees of such reform councils as that of Basel). Not even
a General Council, summoned at Pisa by the two monarchs for the first of
September, 1511, with the dread phantom of a reform of the Church, could
bend the violent Pope." The Council of Pisa the Pope neutralized by
convening a Lateran Council, which at the Pope's bidding hurled its
thundering manifestos in the name of the Almighty against the Pope's
enemies. He died while this conflict was raging. Luther was in Rome
while the Pope was engaged as just related.
What elements of appalling greed and levity had entered the holiest
transactions of the Church can be seen from the following summing up of
the situation daring Luther's time: "A large amount of worldly power was
at this time conferred in most instances, together with the bishoprics;
they were held more or less as sinecures according to the degree of
influence or court favor possessed by the recipient or his family. The
Roman Curia thought only of how it might best derive advantage from the
vacancies and presentations; Alexander extorted double annates or
first-fruits, and levied double, nay, triple tithes; there remained few
things that had not become matter of purchase. The taxes of the papal
chancery rose higher from day to day, and the comptroller, whose duty it
was to prevent all abuses in that department, most commonly referred the
revision of the imposts to those very men who had fixed their amounts.
For every indulgence obtained from the datary's office, a stipulated sum
was paid; nearly all the disputes occurring at this period between the
states of Europe and the Roman Court arose out of these exactions, which
the Curia sought by every possible means to increase, while the people
of all countries as zealously strove to restrain them.
"Principles such as these necessarily acted on all ranks affected by the
system based on them, from the highest to the lowest. Many ecclesiastics
were found ready to renounce their bishoprics; but they retained the
greater part of the revenues, and not unfrequently the presentation of
the benefices dependent on them also. Even the laws forbidding the son
of a clergyman (!) to procure induction to the living of his father, and
enacting that no ecclesiastic should dispose of his office by will (!),
were continually evaded; for as all could obtain permission to appoint
whomsoever he might choose as his coadjutor, provided he were liberal of
his money, so the benefices of the Church became in a manner hereditary.
"It followed of necessity that the performance of ecclesiastical duties
was grievously neglected. . . . In all places incompetent persons were
intrusted with the performance of clerical duties; they were appointed
without scrutiny or selection. The incumbents of benefices were
principally interested in finding substitutes at the lowest possible
cost; thus the mendicant friars were frequently chosen as particularly
suitable in this respect. These men occupied the bishoprics under the
title (previously unheard of in that sense) of suffragans; the cures
they held in the capacity of vicars." (!)
In order not to extend this review too long, we shall refer only to one
other Pope, Leo X. It was in the main a prosperous reign that was
inaugurated by Leo X. A treaty was concluded with France, which had
invaded Italy. By a diplomatic maneuver the Pragmatic Sanction was
annulled, and the Lateran Council was ordered to pronounce its
death-warrant. France was humbled. "All resistance was vain against the
alliance of the highest spiritual with the highest temporal power. Now,
at last, the papacy seemed once more to have quelled the hostile spirit
which had grown up at Constance and Basel (two church councils which
tried to reform the papacy, but failed), and found its stronghold in
France, and at this very time it was near its most grievous fall." Two
years later Luther, not fathoming as yet the depths of iniquity which he
was beginning to lay bare, published his Ninety-Five Theses.
Leo X is the Pope that excommunicated Luther. Ranke describes the
closing hours of his life. The Pope had been extremely successful in his
political schemes. "Parma and Placentia were recovered, the French were
compelled to withdraw, and the Pope might safely calculate on exercising
great influence over the new sovereign of Milan. It was a crisis of
infinite moment: a new state of things had arisen in politics--a great
movement had commenced in the Church. The aspect of affairs permitted
Leo to flatter himself that he should retain the power of directing the
first, and he had succeeded in repressing the second." (This refers to
Luther's protest; the Pope was, of course, mistaken in the view that he
had put a stop to Luther's movement by excommunicating him.) "He was
still young enough to indulge the anticipation of fully profiting by the
results of this auspicious moment. Strange and delusive destiny of man!
The Pope was at his villa of Malliana when he received intelligence that
his party had triumphantly entered Milan; he abandoned himself to the
exultation arising naturally from the successful completion of an
important enterprise, and looked cheerfully on at the festivities his
people were preparing on the occasion. He paced backward and forward
till deep in the night, between the window and the blazing hearth--it
was the month of November. Somewhat exhausted, but still in high
spirits, he arrived at Rome, and the rejoicings there celebrated for his
triumph were not yet concluded, when he was attacked by a mortal
disease. 'Pray for me,' said he to his servants, 'that I may yet make
you all happy.' We see that he loved life, but his hour was come, he had
not time to receive the sacrament nor extreme unction. So suddenly, so
prematurely, and surrounded by hopes so bright! he died-'as the poppy
fadeth.'" In the record of Sanuto, who is witness for these events,
there is a "Lettera di Hieronymo Bon a suo barba, a di 5 Dec." which
contains the following: "It is not certainly known whether the Pope died
of poison or not. He was opened. Master Fernando judged that he was
poisoned, others thought not. Of this last opinion is Master Severino,
who saw him opened, and says he was not poisoned." (Ranke, I, 34 ff.;
Gieseler, III, 290 ff., at random.)
Out of such conditions grew Luther's work. But on these conditions
Catholic critics of Luther maintain a discreet--shall we not say, a
guilty?--silence. Few Catholic laymen to whom the horrors of Luther's
life are painted with repulsive effect know the horrors which Luther
faced. They are only told that Luther attacked "Holy Mother." They are
not told that "Holy Mother" had become the harlot of the ages.