much worse at that time, owing partly to his deep concern for his
cause, partly to his too great literary output during his sojourn
in the solitude. Against his inner anxieties he tried the weapon of
humour.[1386] But all in vain. The “spiritual temptations” set in, and
his loneliness made them even worse. It was at the beginning of May
that he received Satan’s famous “embassy.” Because he had been left
quite alone (in the absence of Veit Dietrich and Cyriacus Kaufmann),
so he says, Satan had so far got the better of him that he had been
obliged to flee from the room and to seek the society of men. When
writing to Melanchthon about this he uses some strange-sounding words:
“Hardly can I await the day when I shall at last behold the tremendous
power of this spirit and his majesty, which, in its kind, is quite
divine (‘_planeque divinam maiestatem quandam_’).”[1387] Here he is
presumably alluding to the time of his death and of the judgment when
he would behold Satan. He had, however, not to wait so long, for, in
the following month and while still at the Coburg, he was vouchsafed
a glimpse of the Enemy under a certain shape; at least such was his
belief; the actual vision will be described later (vol. vi., xxxvi., 3).
He must have suffered grievously from his fears whilst in the castle;
he compares himself to the parched country surrounding it, so greatly
was he tried inwardly by storms and heat;[1388] but “our cause is safe
if our Word is true, and that it is true is sufficiently demonstrated
by the ferocity and frenzy of our foes.”[1389] He was visited by
thoughts of death, and, during these, he sought, as he related later,
the spot in the castle chapel where he would be laid to rest.[1390]
Then, when his disquiet of mind began to abate, intense bodily weakness
again made him think of death; this too, in his opinion, was Satan’s
doing. When ultimately he left the Coburg he felt himself a broken man
and began to sigh more and more over his burden of years, though, as a
matter of fact, he was still comparatively young.
Nevertheless, in a letter to Melanchthon of June 29, 1530, he praised
the comfort of his place of residence. Above all he was able to report
that “the spirit who formerly beat me with fists [in mind] seems to be
losing heart.”[1391] Yet, alluding to his bodily pains, he says sadly:
“I fancy that another has taken his [the other tormentor’s] place and
plagues my body; but I prefer to endure this torture of the body rather
than that hangman of the spirit. But he has sworn to have my life, this
I feel plainly, and will never stop until he has gobbled me up.”[1392]
But when he had returned safe and sound to Wittenberg he was disposed
to look back with utter horror on what he had gone through, physically
and mentally, when at the Coburg. “Now my shoulders are really
beginning to feel the weight of my years,” he writes to trusty Amsdorf;
“and my powers are going. The angel of Satan has indeed dealt hardly
with me.”[1393]
“My thoughts did me more harm than all my work,” he said, in May,
1532, speaking of those which came by night (“_curæ nocturnæ_”).[1394]
Nothing, so he says elsewhere, had brought him so nigh to death as
these; with them all his labours, to which the great numbers of letters
he received bore witness, were not to be compared.[1395] To young
Schlaginhaufen Veit Dietrich related, as a memory of the Coburg days,
how Luther had said to him there: “Were I to die now and be cut open,
my heart would be found all shrivelled up in consequence of my distress
and sadness of spirit.”[1396]
His having to wrestle with such moods is also in great part responsible
for the stormy and extravagant tone of the works he wrote during, or
shortly after, his stay at the Coburg.[1397]
“_I should have Died without any Struggle_”
In 1537, in his second serious illness, at Schmalkalden, and on the
return journey from this town to Wittenberg, Luther displayed the same
stubborn spirit as in 1527. In 1537 it was an attack of stone which
brought him to the brink of the grave. Later on he himself declared
of this crisis, that he would have died quite easily and trustfully.
Into his deepest feelings at that time we have, of course, no means of
probing, but it may be, that, by dint of persistently repressing his
earlier scruples, he had indeed reached the state of calm resignation
he depicts. At the same time his great bodily exhaustion will probably
have reacted on his spirit, his very weakness thus explaining the
silence of the inward voices.
“At Gotha [on my way back],” so he told his friends in 1540, “I was
quite certain I was to die; I said good-bye to all, called Bugenhagen,
commended to him the Church, the school, my wife and all else, and
begged him to give me absolution.... Thus I should have died in Christ
with a perfectly quiet soul and without a struggle. But the Lord
wished to preserve me in life. My ‘_Catena_’ [Katey] too,” so he goes
on to speak of one of his wife’s illnesses, “when once we had already
given up all hopes for her life, would have died gladly, and readily,
and with a quiet soul; she merely repeated a thousand times over the
words: ‘In Thee, O Lord, have I hoped, I shall not be confounded
for ever.’” From such experiences in her case and in his own Luther
draws the conclusion, that “at times the devil desists from tempting
to blasphemy.” “At other times God allows him,” so he thinks, “to
try us thereby, so that we may not become indolent but may learn to
fight. At the end of our life, however, all such temptations cease;
for then the Holy Spirit is at the side of the faithful believer,
restrains the devil by force and pours into the heart perfect peace
and security.”[1398]
Such was his interpretation of the case.
At other times Luther expresses wonder at the wrong-headed sectarians
who can with such confidence look even death itself in the face.
He refuses to apply to them what has just been said; it is no real
peace that they die in, rather they are blinded by Satan’s delusions.
“This new sect of the Anabaptists,” he says indignantly, “grows
marvellously, they live with a great show [of the spirit] and boldly
face death by fire and water.”[1399] He is thinking of the Anabaptists
who were executed in 1527—“May God have mercy on these poor captives
of Satan.... They cannot be coerced either by fire or by the sword; so
greatly does Satan rage in this hour because it is his last.” And yet
the whole thing was little more than a joke of Satan’s.
“With me, however, he certainly does not jest; I believe that I am
pleasing to God and displeasing to Satan.”[1400]
He overlooks the fact that the Anabaptists, too, fancied they were
pleasing Christ, nay, were passionately convinced that they were
living for Christ and not for Satan; they even exposed themselves of
their own accord to the worst torments of the executioner before they
passed out of life, obstinately declaring that it was impossible for
them to recant. The words in which Luther complains of their obstinacy
are a two-edged sword.
He is fond of bewailing the stubbornness of the heretics; it was a
subject of wholesome fear for all; it penetrated “like water into
their inward parts and like oil into their bones”: so far do they go
that they see “salvation and blessing” in their own doctrine alone;
few are they who “come right again,” “the others remain under their
own curse.” “Neither have I ever read,” he assures us, “of any teacher
who originated a heresy being converted”; “the true Evangel which
teaches the contrary of their doctrine is and always will be to them
a devil’s thing.”[1401]—“No heretic,” he cries, “will let himself
be talked over.... A man is soon done for when the devil thus lays
hold of him.”[1402] Such a one boasts that, “he is quite certain of
things”; “No Christian ever held so fast to his Christ as a Jew or a
fanatic does to his pet doctrine.”[1403] He also believes his opponent
to be a liar “as surely as God is God.”[1404] And yet, so Luther
argues, the sectarian or fanatic can never be certain at all; not one
of his gainsayers is sure of his cause; not one has “felt the struggle
and been at grips with the devil” like himself.[1405]
But I, “I am certain that my word is not mine but the word of Christ,”
and “every man who speaks the word of Christ is free to boast that
his mouth is the mouth of Christ.”[1406]—“Had not the devil attacked
us with such power and cunning during all these years,” he says in his
second exposition of the 1st Epistle of Peter (published in 1539), “we
should never have acquired this certainty on doctrine.”[1407] It is to
his awful “temptations,” that, as we have heard him repeatedly assure
us, he owes the strength of his faith.[1408] Unceasingly did he strive
to acquire a feeling of strong certainty in defiance of the devil,
as indeed his theology demanded: We must by fiducial faith have made
our position secure against the devil, otherwise we have no stay at
all.[1409]
“Even though I stumble yet I am resolved to stand by what I have
taught.” And, as though to falter in this way was inevitable, he
continues: “for although a Christian holds fast until death to his
doctrine, yet he often stumbles and begins to doubt; but it is not
so with the fanatics, they stand firm.”[1410] And yet, according to
Luther, everyone must “stand firm,” for in theology there is no room
for “fears and doubts. And we must have certainty concerning God. But
in conversing with other men we must be modest and say, ‘If anyone
knows better let him say so.’”[1411]
_The “Struggles by Day and by Night” gradually Wane_
Hardly had Luther recovered from his second bout of illness than the
gloomy thoughts once more emerged from their hiding-place and began
again to dog his footsteps, though perhaps not quite so persistently as
after his recovery from his previous sickness ten years earlier. It is
as though on both occasions the sight of the gaping jaws of death had
set free the troubled spirits within, and as though the spell which
momentarily restrained his terrors of soul had been loosed as soon as
his bodily powers returned. This was the last great attack he had to
endure, or at least from this time onward definite allusions to his
struggles of conscience are not forthcoming as before.
In 1537 he lay for a fortnight under the stress of that “spiritual
malady” (above, p. 319), during which he “disputed with God,” was
scarcely able to take food, to sleep or to preach, in spite of his
“understanding a little” “the Psalter and its consolation,” viz. that
one must be patient.[1412]—On Oct. 7, 1538, he bewails his “daily
agony.”[1413] In the same year he wrings some comfort out of Paul, who
also had been unable to “lay hold of” what was right;[1414] he also has
a poke at the devil: “Why arraign us so sternly before God as though
you were quite holy, and the highest judge!”[1415]
He then realised in his own person how one thus oppressed with terrors
of soul could be tempted, like Job (iii. 1 ff.), to curse the day of
his birth. After having, during the night of Aug. 1, 1538, suffered
severe pains in the joints of the arm, he said next day, that such
pains were tolerable in comparison with others: “The flesh can get used
to this sort of thing. But when the spiritual temptations come and the
‘Cursed be the day I was born’ follows, that is a harder matter. Christ
was tried in a similar way in the Garden of Olives.... He, on account
of His temptations, is our best advocate in all temptations.... Let us
but cling fast to hope!”[1416]
It cannot be established that he was speaking seriously or was prompted
by despair when he wished that “he had died as a child,” nay, “had
never been born,” and stated that he would gladly see “all his books
perish.” We must beware of laying too great stress on occasional
deliverances spoken in moments of irritation, or on little tricks of
speech such as his depreciatory remarks concerning his books.[1417]
It may be to the purpose to quote here some undated statements of
Luther’s which paint in lurid style his frequent struggles of mind and
his manner of resistance.
Jerome, Augustine and Ambrose had “carnal and childish temptations”;
“these are nothing compared with Satan who strikes us, the
[Greek: skolops], that, as it were, fastens us to the gallows;
then Jerome’s and the others’ child-temptations are chased away
entirely.”[1418]—“On one occasion I was greatly tempted in my garden
near the bush of lavender, whereupon I sang the hymn ‘Now praise we
Christ the Holy One,’ otherwise I should have expired on the spot.
Hence, when you feel such a thought, say, ‘This is not Christ.’ ...
This I preach and write, but I am not yet at home in this art when
tempted in this way.”[1419]
The worst temptations of all are those when “one does not know whether
God is the devil or the devil God.”[1420] “The Apostle Judas, when the
hour [of temptation] came, walked into the snare and knew not how to
get out. But we who have taken the field against him [the devil] and
are at grips with him know, by God’s grace, how to meet and resist
him.”[1421]—“The devil can affright me to such an extent that in my
sleep the sweat breaks out all over me; otherwise I do not trouble
about dreams or signs.... Sad dreams are the work of the devil. Often
has he driven me from prayer and put such thoughts into my head that I
have run away; the best fights I have had with him were in my bed by
the side of my Katey.”[1422]
Elsewhere, however, he says: “I have found the nocturnal encounters
far harder than the daylight ones”; “but, that Christ is master, this
I can show not merely by Holy Scripture but also by experience”; “God
gives richly of both. But all has become bitter to me through these
temptations.”[1423]—“I know from my own experience what we read of
in the Psalms (vi. 7): ‘Every night I will wash my bed: I will water
my couch with my tears.’ In my temptations I have often wondered and
asked myself whether I had any heart left in my body, so great a
murderer is Satan; but he will not long keep the upper hand, for he
has indeed burnt his fingers on Christ.”[1424]
To add to the terrors of such struggles came thoughts of suicide. When
Leonard Beyer, an Augustinian, who had become pastor of Guben, spoke to
Luther of his temptations to take his own life, and of the voice which
occasionally whispered to him “Stick a knife into yourself,” Luther
answered: “This used to be the same with me. No sooner did I take a
knife in my hand, than such thoughts came to me; nor could I kneel
down to pray without the devil driving me out of the room. We have to
suffer from the great devils, the ‘_theologiæ doctores_’; but the Turks
and Papists have only the little devils” to tempt them.[1425] It would
indeed be no wonder if Luther in his excited frame of mind was for a
while troubled by such thoughts of suicide. By thoughts of the sort
sufferers of gloomy disposition are often tormented quite involuntarily
and without any fault of their own. It is hardly worth our while to
prove that another passage, which occurs in Cordatus, is not at all
to the point though it has been quoted against Luther as showing his
inclination to suicide. There, in his usual vein of exaggeration, he
says that he “would hang himself on the nearest tree” were Satan to
succeed in dragging down Christ from heaven. Surely there was just
as little likelihood of his being his own hangman as of the enemy
succeeding in this.[1426] And yet some Catholic polemists who believed
in the fable that Luther killed himself, seized on such passages in
order to show that Luther had long been bent on suicide.
_How to find Peace of Conscience_
If, towards the end of the ‘thirties, Luther was more successful in
countering his inward anxieties, this may have been due to the means
he used and the efficacy of which he frequently extols. Some of the
remedies to which he had recourse appear comparatively innocent, and
had even been recommended by Catholic spiritual writers to be used
when the circumstances demanded. Others, however, must be described as
doubtful and even dangerous, particularly considering what his moral
position was.
Above all he recommends distraction; people tempted should engage in
cheerful intercourse, or in games; in his own case he had urgently
desired the return of his friends, “in order that Satan may no longer
rejoice that we are so far apart.”[1427] He also bears witness to the
improvement which resulted from cheerful, animated conversation.
He also advises people to awaken some “stronger emotion so as to
counteract the disquieting thoughts.”[1428] For instance, it is a good
thing “to break out into scolding,”[1429] or to give vent to a “brave
outburst of anger.”[1430]
Further, animal pleasures are, according to him, of advantage; he
himself, on his own admission, sought to distract his thoughts by
sensual joys of the most material kind.[1431] In the case of gloomy
thoughts “a draught of beer” was, so he avers, of much greater use
than, e.g. astrology.[1432]
Sensuality, however, is not always sufficiently powerful or effective.
It is better to have recourse from the beginning to religious remedies.
“If I but seize the Scripture [text] I have gained the day,”[1433] but,
unfortunately, the verse wanted often won’t come. In general, what is
required is prayer, much patience and the arousing of confidence.[1434]
One’s patience may be fortified by the thought that “perhaps, thanks
to these temptations, I shall become a great man,” as he himself had
actually become, thanks largely to his temptations.[1435]
Further, the words of “great and learned men to one who is tempted
may serve him as an oracle or prophecy, which indeed they may really
be.”[1436] To hold fast to a single word spoken by a stranger had
often proved very helpful. We may recall how he compared Bugenhagen’s
words to him: “You must not despise our consolation,” to “a voice from
heaven.”[1437] Another saying of his same friend and confessor, had,
so he declares, greatly strengthened him. “Surely enough, God thinks:
‘What more can I do for this man [Luther]? I have given him such
excellent gifts and yet he despairs of my grace!’”[1438]
In these “temptations,” whether in his own case or in that of others,
he hardly gives a thought to penance and mortification, such as olden
Churchmen had always recommended and employed. On the contrary, ascetic
remedies of the sort would, according to him, only make things worse.
Needless to say, even Catholics were anxious that such remedies should
not be applied without discretion, since lessening of the bodily
powers might conceivably weaken the resistance of the spirit, nay,
even promote fears and temptations. Luther says, in 1531: “Were I to
follow my inclination I should [when in this state] go three days
without eating anything. This then is a double fasting, to eat and
drink without the least appetite. When the world sees it, it looks on
it as drunkenness, but God will judge whether it is drunkenness or
fasting. They will have fasts, but not as I fast. Therefore keep head
and belly full. Sleep also helps.”[1439] Sleep seemed to him especially
important, not merely as a condition for hard work, but also to enable
one to resist low spirits. It was when unable to sleep, that, as he
tells us, “the devil had annoyed him until he said: ‘_Lambe mihi
nates_,’ etc. We have the treasure of the Word; God be praised.”[1440]
His practice and teaching with regard to inward sources of troubles
were indeed miles apart from those of earlier Catholic times, and
even from what in his own day Catholic masters of the first rank
in the spiritual life had written for the benefit of posterity.
Everybody knows how these writers are, above all, desirous to provide
their readers with a method whereby they may discern between, on the
one hand, the voice of conscience, whether it warns us to desist
from wrong or encourages us to do what is good, and, on the other,
the promptings of the Evil Spirit. They say that it is the devil’s
practice alternately to disquiet and to cheer, though in a way very
different from that of the spirits from above. It was unfortunate for
Luther that he chose to close his eyes to any such “discerning of the
spirits.” He resolutely steeled his conscience once for all against
even wholesome disquietude and anxiety, and of set purpose he bore down
all misgivings. Of one thing he was determined to be convinced: “Above
all hold fast to this, that thoughts bad and sad come, not from God,
but from the devil;” “make it your wont at once to tell all inward
reproaches: ‘You were not sent by God.’”
“At first,” he adds, as though describing his own case, “this struggle
is hard, but practice makes it easier.”[1441]
He claimed that, owing to the amount of practice he had had in inward
combats, his “faith had been much strengthened”; the “temptations”
had won for him a “wealth of Divine gifts,” had taught him humility
and qualified him for his task, nay, had set a Divine seal on his
mission;[1442] his “_theologia_” he had learnt in the school of the
devil’s temptations; without such a devil to help, one remains a mere
speculative theologian.[1443]
Such sayings lead us to ask whether his life of faith really underwent
a strengthening as he advanced in years.
6. Luther on his Faith, his Doctrine and his Doubts, particularly in
his Later Years
Whoever would judge correctly of the remarkable statements made by
Luther which we are now about to consider must measure them, at least
in the lump, by the standard of his doctrine on faith. If anything in
him calls for explanation and consideration in the light of the views
on doctrine which he held, surely this is especially the case with the
mental state now under discussion to which he alludes so frequently in
both public and private utterances. At the same time it must not be
overlooked that occasionally he is speaking with his wonted hyperbole
and love of paradox, and that sometimes what he says is not meant quite
seriously; moreover, that sometimes, when apparently blaming himself,
he is really only trying to describe the heights which he fain would
attain; the true standard by which to judge all these many statements
which are yet so remarkably uniform must, however, be sought in the
theological groundwork of his attitude towards faith.
_Luther’s Notion of Faith_
As we already know, by faith he understands on the one hand the
accepting of all the verities of revelation as true; more often,
however, he means by it simply a believing trust in salvation through
Christ, a certainty of that justification by faith which constitutes
his “Evangel.”[1444]
For faith in the former sense he rightly appeals to the firm and
immovable foundation of God’s truth. But, as regards the source whence
mankind obtains its knowledge of revealed truth, he practically
undermines the authority of Scripture—which he nevertheless esteems so
highly—first, by his wanton rejection of whole books of the Bible and
by his neglect of the criteria necessary for determining which books
belong to Holy Scripture and for recognising which are canonical;[1445]
secondly, by his interpretation of the Bible, more particularly in
ascertaining the Divine truths therein contained, he flings open the
door to subjectivism and leaves each one to judge for himself, refusing
even to furnish him with any sure guidance.[1446] He set aside the
teaching office of the Church, which had been for the Catholic the
authentic exponent of Scripture, and at the same time had guaranteed
the canonicity of each of its parts. Of the Church’s olden creeds he
retained only a fragment, and even this he interpreted in his own
sense.[1447]
Thus, under the olden name of faith in revelation he had really
introduced a new objective faith, one utterly devoid of any stay.
It is sufficient to consider certain of his quite early theses to
appreciate the blow dealt at the Church’s traditional view of faith.
To these theses he was moved by his polemics against certain, to him,
distasteful dogmas of the ancient Church, but from the very outset his
attack was, at bottom, directed against all barriers of dogma, and,
even later, continued to threaten to some extent the very foundations
of that religious knowledge which he held in common with all other
Christians.[1448] The unrestrained freedom of opinion which many
Protestants claim to-day as part of the heirloom of Christianity they
are wont to justify by citing passages from Luther’s writings, e.g.
from his work of 1523, “Das eyn Christliche Versamlung odder Gemeyne
... Macht habe, alle Lere zu urteylen,” etc.[1449]
* * * * *
The fact of having taught faith in the second sense mentioned above,
and of having put it in the place of faith in the first and olden sense
is, according to many moderns, the achievement that more than any other
redounds to Luther’s credit.—He made an end of the “unevangelical idea
of faith as a mere holding for true, and of the submission of the most
inward and tender of questions to the decision of courts of law”;[1450]
in the trustful belief in Christ he rediscovered the only faith
deserving of the name and thereby brought back religion to mankind.
This trusting faith, however, by its very nature and according to
Luther’s express admission is, as has already been pointed out in
detail, also devoid of any true stay, is ever exposed to wavering
and uncertainty and is wholly dependent on feeling; above all, for a
conscience oppressed with the sense of guilt to lay hold on the alien
righteousness of Christ by faith alone is a task scarcely within its
power; it admittedly involves an unceasing struggle;[1451] lastly, true
faith, according to Luther, comes only from God, from whom man, who has
no free-will, can only passively look for it,[1452] nay, it belongs in
the last instance only to the Revealed God, for of the dispensations
of the Hidden Will of God concerning our future in heaven or in hell we
are entirely ignorant.[1453]
Here too, then, we have a new kind of faith.
This explains how it is that in Luther’s statements concerning his
personal faith, his preaching, his absorption in the religious point of
view he has discovered, his doubts and his fears, we meet with so much
that sounds strange. We say strange, for they cannot but unpleasantly
surprise anyone accustomed to regard faith in the truths of religion
as a firm possession of the mind and heart, above all a Catholic
believer. Before Luther’s day scarcely can a single Christian teacher
be instanced who was so open in speaking of the weakness of his own
faith or who so frequently and so persistently insisted on pitting his
own experience against the calm inward certainty with which God ever
rewards a humble and heartfelt faith, even in those most beset with
temptations.
When, in spite of this, we find Luther throughout his life plainly and
indubitably accepting as true a large portion of the common body of
faith (as we have repeatedly admitted him to have done),[1454] then
it is easy to see that in so doing he is not taking his stand on his
new and shaky foundations, but on the old and solid basis to which he
reverts with a happy want of logic, often perhaps unconsciously. We
should see him taking his stand on this foundation even more frequently
had not his sad breach with the whole past moved his soul to its very
depths. There can be no doubt that his terrors of conscience, or
“struggles with the devil,” had much to do in inducing the condition in
which he reveals himself to the reader of what follows.
_Luther as Pictured by Himself during Later Years_
It is clear that, in order to judge of Luther’s life of faith, stress
must not be laid on isolated statements of his torn from their context,
but that they must be taken in the lump.
When speaking of his temptations, as a man of fifty-six, he bewailed
the prevailing unbelief, at the same time including himself: “If only
we could believe concerning the [Divine] promises that it was God
Who spoke them! If only we paid heed to His Word we should esteem it
highly. But when we hear it [God’s Word] from the lips of a man, we
care no more for it than for the lowing of a cow.”[1455]—Shortly
before this, again including all, he consoles himself as follows: Our
weakness was ever disposed to doubt of God’s mercy, and even Paul
felt his shortcomings. “I am comforted when I see that even Paul did
not rise high enough. Away with the ambitious who pretend they have
succeeded in everything! We have God’s words to strengthen us and yet
even we do not believe.”[1456] “I have preached for five-and-twenty
years,” so he said about that time, “and do not yet understand the
text ‘The just man liveth by faith.’”[1457]
Of his trusting belief in his personal salvation he admits, in 1543,
that he did not feel it to be very steadfast, and that it still lagged
behind that of ordinary believers. He speaks of a woman at Torgau who
had told him that she looked upon herself as “lost,” and shut out
from salvation, because she was unable to believe (i.e. trust). He
had thereupon asked her whether she did not hold fast to the Creed,
and when she assured him that she did he had said: “My good woman, go
in God’s name! You believe more and better than I do.” “Yes, dear Dr.
Jonas,” so he said, turning to his friend, “yes, if a man could verily
believe it as it there stands, his heart would indeed jump for joy!
That is certain.”[1458]
So strongly did he express himself on this point on May 6, 1540,
that, taking the words as they stand, he would _seem_ to deny his
belief in Christ’s miracles and work. “I cannot believe it and yet
I teach others. I know it is true, but I am unable to believe it. I
think sometimes: ‘Sure enough you teach aright, for you are in the
sacred ministry and are called, you are helpful to many and glorify
Christ; for we do not preach Aristotle or Cæsar, but Jesus Christ.’
But when I consider my weakness, how I eat, drink, joke and am a merry
man about the town, then I begin to doubt. Oh, if only a man could
believe it!”[1459] These words were spoken on Ascension-Day, after
Luther had expressed his marvel at the strong faith of the Apostles
in the Divinity of Him Who was ascending into heaven. “Wonderful; I
cannot understand it nor can I believe it, and yet all the Apostles
believed.”[1460] “I am fond of Jonas [who was seated near him] but if
he were to ascend into heaven here and now, and disappear out of our
sight, what should I think?”
“Oh, if only a man could believe it!”
It is evident that he did not wish by such words to give himself
out as an unbeliever or a sceptic in religious matters. What he was
painfully aware of was the fact that that strong, clear faith in the
ordinary truths of revelation and matters of faith, which he himself
was wont to depict as essential, was absent in his own case. His
former violent struggles of conscience seem in later years to have
been replaced by this uncomfortable feeling.
The depressing sense of the feebleness of his religious belief was
not removed by the frequent references Luther was so fond of making
in his old age to the coming of the Redeemer and Judge of the world,
and to the nighness of the devil’s downfall, who is the Lord of this
world.[1461] We know already the psychological reasons for the stress
he lays on such expectations. Yet all the unnatural ardour he showed
in voicing them could not disguise the fact that his faith lacked any
real strength or fervour. Spiritual coldness could quite well co-exist
with a virulent hatred of the devil and a longing desire for the end
of the world.
“The devil is an evil spirit ... as I do not fail to realise day after
day; for a man waxes cold, and the more so the longer he lives.” Thus
to Count Albert of Mansfeld in 1542.[1462]—He was “in pain and very
morose,” he tells Jonas in 1541, “feeling disgusted with everything,
especially with his illnesses.”.[1463] In 1544, and frequently about
that time, he declares that he was quite tired of the devil and of his
struggles with him; his only wish was to see the “end of his raging,”
and to “die a good and wholesome death.”[1464] “God Himself may see
to my soul’s lodging”; He loved souls, says Luther, and it was a good
thing that his salvation was not in his own hands, otherwise he “would
soon be gobbled up by Satan”; but God’s care and the “many mansions”
in His gift were a sufficient consolation (1539).[1465]
On one occasion, in 1542, he mentioned that, unless he had escaped
from certain “thoughts and temptations,” he would have been drowned in
them and would have long ago found himself in hell; for such “devilish
thoughts” breed “desperate people,” and “contemners of God.”[1466]
“Though, towards the end of life, such temptations are wont to cease,”
he says, in 1540, yet other inward worries remain: “I am often angry
with myself because I find so much in me that is unclean. But what can
I do? I cannot strip off my nature. Meanwhile Christ looks upon us as
righteous because we desire to be righteous, abhor our uncleanliness,
and love, and confess the Word.”[1467]—Others, like Spalatin, in
their old age, felt the bite of conscience more strongly than did
Luther; they had not been through the same violent struggles and
mental gymnastics as Luther, nor had they learnt how to suppress the
voice from within. It was to Spalatin, then sunk in melancholy, that,
in 1544, Luther addressed the words already quoted: He (Spalatin) was
“too timid a sinner” (“_nimis tener peccator_”). “Unite yourself with
us great and hardened sinners, in a believing trust in Christ!”[1468]
_Earlier Undated Statements_
Many utterances and confidences of Luther’s still exist, about the
meaning of which there can be no doubt, though it is difficult
correctly to place them. Some of these concern the subject now under
discussion; several may well date from Luther’s later years, and thus
throw light on his interior in his old age. We shall give first of all
his statements concerning St. Paul in their bearing upon himself.
Speaking once of a pet view of his in which he seems to have found
great consolation, viz. that even Paul had not believed firmly (_neque
Paulum fortiter credidisse_), Luther went so far as to question the
apostle’s belief in the “crown of justice” which he professed to
look for, as “laid up for him in heaven” (2 Tim. iv. 8). Jonas, who
was present, had declared “he could not bestow any credence on this
statement of Paul’s.” Luther replied: It is quite true that Paul did
not believe it firmly, “for it was above him. I too am unable to
believe as I preach, although they all think I believe these things
firmly.” He goes on to allege the Divine Clemency, and jestingly says:
Were we to fulfil the will of God _perfectly_ we should be cheating
God of His Godhead; and what would then become of the article of the
forgiveness of sins?[1469] At any rate he would fain have believed his
own doctrines more strongly and vividly.
“Temptations against the faith,” says Luther, “are St. Paul’s goad and
sting of the flesh [2 Cor. xii. 7], a great skewer and roasting-spit
which pierces right through both spirit and flesh, both body and
soul.”[1470]—And elsewhere: “At times I think: I really do not know
where I stand, whether I preach aright or not. This was also St.
Paul’s temptation and martyrdom, which, as I believe, he found it
hard to speak of to many.” Yet, so Luther opines, Paul sufficiently
hinted at it in the words “I die daily” (1 Cor. xv. 31).—The fact
is, the Apostle is far from attributing to himself doubts on the
faith either here or elsewhere. Luther, however, would gladly have us
believe, that, with his doubts, he had been through precisely that
experience to which St. Paul refers when he says, “I die daily”;
he, too, has his agonies, he, too, has descended into hell.[1471]
Not merely in this does he resemble Paul, but also in his inability
to distinguish between the Law and the Gospel: “Paul and I have
never been able to manage this.”[1472] He saw also another point of
similarity between himself and the Apostle of the Gentiles. For, like
him, St. Paul, too, “had been much bothered by the objection, that,
one should listen to the Fathers (cp. Rom. ix. 5) and not oppose the
whole world single-handed.”[1473]
Not Paul alone, according to Luther, but all the other Apostles too
had been assailed by doubts.
He was always consoled to find new and illustrious companions in his
misery. Christ, he declares, had foretold this to the Apostles; He had
also spoken to them of this sort of persecution: “Your conscience will
grow weak so that you will often think: ‘Who knows whether I have been
right? Alas, have I not gone too far?’ Thus in the eyes of the world
and to your own conscience you will seem to be in the wrong”; it had,
however, been the duty of the Holy Ghost to comfort the Apostles in
all such trials.[1474]
And did not “even the man Christ have His momentary failing in the
Garden?”[1475] Did not Christ then confess: “‘I know not how I stand
with God, or whether I am doing right or not.’ This occurred even in
the case of Christ.”[1476] “All who are tempted must set Christ, Who
also was tempted in everything, as a model before their eyes; but it
was much harder for Him than for us and for me.”[1477] Luther fails
to take into account the world-wide difference between the sadness of
Christ, Who could never waver in the Truth, and his own doubts and
wavering in the faith.
“O, my God,” he said on another occasion, “the article on faith won’t
go home; hence so many sad moods arise. Often I have to take myself to
task for failing to master such moods when they come, I who have so
often taught in lectures, sermons and writings how such temptations
are to be overcome.”[1478]
His pupil Mathesius relates the following in his sermons on Luther,
the preface to the printed edition of which he wrote in 1565: “Antony
Musa, pastor of Rochlitz, told me that he once complained bitterly
to the Doctor of being unable to believe himself what he preached
to others. ‘Praise and thanks be to God,’ replied the Doctor, ‘that
this also happens to others. I fancied it was true only in my case.’
All his life Musa never forgot this consolation.”[1479] So full of
admiration for Luther was Mathesius, and probably so well schooled by
his master in the theory and practice of a faith which has ever to
strive after firmness, that he saw in this statement nothing at all
unfavourable to his hero. On the contrary, he includes the story in a
list of “all manner of wise sayings” which had fallen from the lips of
Luther. He even assures us at the beginning of these notes that, “The
man was full of grace and of the Holy Ghost, hence all who went to
him for advice as to a prophet of God found what they sought.”[1480]
Judging by this Mathesius must have been very easily satisfied in the
matter of firmness of faith. Perhaps had his faith been stronger it
would have fared better with him in the melancholy which came upon him
towards the end of his life.[1481]
“Ah,” said Dr. Martin, so we read elsewhere in Notes made by his
pupils, “I used to believe every single thing that the Pope and the
monks chose to say, but now I actually cannot believe even what Christ
says, Who assuredly does not lie. This is very sad and distressing.
Never mind, we must and will keep it for that Day.”[1482]—“When the
words of the prophet Hosea, ‘Thus saith the Lord,’ set to music by
Josquinus, were sung at Dr. Martin Luther’s table, the Doctor said
to Dr. Jonas: ‘As little as you believe this singing to be good, so
little do I believe theology to be true.... I do indeed love Christ,
but my faith ought to be much stronger and warmer.”[1483]—“Many boast
of having at their fingers’ ends the doctrine of the forgiveness of
sins, and I, wretch that I am, find so little comfort in the passion,
resurrection, and forgiveness of sins! One thing indeed I can do, viz.
eat our Lord God’s bread and drink His beer; but to take that far
more necessary treasure which is the free forgiveness of sins, this I
cannot succeed in doing.”[1484]
Not merely does he ascribe his own experiences to the first followers
of Christ, viz. to Paul and the other Apostles, but again and again
he seeks to make them out to be an evil common to all, an heritage
of all Christians, nay, something actually involved in the idea of
faith. Often he speaks of faith as of something altogether mystical
and intangible of the presence of which no man can be conscious.
Faith, he thinks, might well not be present at all just when a man
fancies he possesses it; again, it might exist in the man who thought
he lacked it; or “at any rate such is the case in times of stress and
temptation; for it often happens with faith that he who fancies he
believes, believes nothing at all, while the man who thinks he believes
nothing and lies in despair, really believes the most.... He who has
it, has it. We must believe, but we neither must nor can know it for
certain” [i.e. whether we really believe]. Thus in 1528.[1485] Needless
to say this theory of his was far removed from the strong, simple and
perfectly conscious faith of so many thousands even of the humblest
followers of the olden religion.
Some years before this, in a work intended for all, he had made a
practical application to himself of this curious doctrine of the
frequent impossibility of saying whether one really has the faith.
Owing to his temptations he admitted that he was not qualified to be
reckoned an authority on this question, nor “even a disciple, much less
a master.”
“Whoever boasts,” he says in his work on Psalm cxvii., “that he knows
very well we must be saved without our works by the grace of God,
does not know what he is saying”; “it is an art which keeps us ever
schoolboys,” a scent after which we must “sniff and run.” “Let anyone
who chooses take me as an example of this, which I admit myself to
be. Several times, when I was not thinking of this cardinal doctrine,
the devil has caught me and plagued me with texts from Scripture till
heaven and earth seemed too tight to hold me. Then human works and laws
would seem quite right and not an error would be noticed in the whole
of Popery. In short, no one but Luther had ever erred; and all my best
works, doctrines, sermons, books were condemned.... You hear now how
I am confessing to you and admitting what the devil was able to do
against Luther, who of all men ought surely to have been a very adept
in this art. For he has preached, told, written, spoken, sung and read
so much about it and yet remains a tyro in it, and is at times not even
a disciple, much less a master.”[1486]
What he is trying to impress on the reader is, that even if you “can
do all things,” take care that “your art does not fail you.”
Thus he did not enjoy the happiness which, according to the testimony
of Catholics both learned and unlearned, was shared by all the faithful
so long as they paid attention to their religious duties. Guided from
their youth by the hand of the Church they were acquainted with no
fears and uncertainties, for, thanks to her divine commission and
gift of infallibility, she could make up for the insufficiency of
human knowledge. Catholics did not look for salvation in a blind and
unattainable trust in an imputation of Christ’s righteousness.
Their attitude indeed presents a striking contrast to Luther’s restless
struggle after faith.
Not only in the last cold, barren years of his life but even at an
earlier period we notice in him a tendency to regard this clutching
at faith as the one great matter. In some quite early statements he
depicts himself as on the look-out for a believing trust, as violently
striving to clasp it to his breast, and, generally, as making this the
end of all religious effort.
Even in 1517 in his unpublished Commentary on Hebrews we find a
remarkable and oft-repeated admonition which bears on the subject in
hand. He sees the troubled conscience “in fear and oppressed whichever
way it turns”; hence it must learn to embrace faith in the power of
Christ’s blood: “By faith conscience is cleansed and put to rest.”
It is this faith in the blood of Christ which we must seek with all
our powers to reach. It follows, “that the best of contemplating the
sufferings of Christ is that it awakens in the soul this faith or
believing trust.” “The oftener he dwells on the Passion, the more
strongly will every man believe that the blood of Christ was shed for
his own sins. This is ‘to eat and drink spiritually,’ i.e. to feed on
Christ in faith and thus become one body with Him.”[1487]
On the other hand, the teaching of antiquity concerning meditation on
Christ’s Passion and likewise the hints contained in the language of
the Church’s liturgy, do not stop short at such an arousing of faith.
Taking for granted the Christian’s faith, what they seek to awaken is
a real love; meditation on the sufferings and death of our Lord was
above all to stimulate the faithful to feelings of loving gratitude,
holy compassion and self-sacrifice; in wholesome compunction people
were wont, by dwelling on the sufferings of the innocent Lamb, to
rouse themselves to a sense of shame, to a holy desire to imitate
Christ by good works of self-conquest and by zeal for souls. The
ancient hymn, the “_Stabat Mater_,” which is at the same time so
profound and wonderful a prayer, says never a word of faith, precious
as this grace is, but, taking it for granted as the groundwork, it
teaches us to pray: “_Fac ut tecum lugeam—fac ut ardeat cor meum in
amando Christum Deum—passionis fac consortem_,” etc. This is surely
something higher than that mere appropriation of trusting faith in
which Luther sums up all the heights and depths of our union with
Christ.
Luther, in his exaggerated language, declares that it was something
“almost Gentile” for a man when contemplating the Passion of Christ to
“strive after anything else but faith”; this statement, however, he
refutes in practice by himself occasionally introducing other good and
moral reflexions on the Passion, though he is always chiefly concerned
with its bearing on his own peculiar view of faith.
He was too ready to confuse the sentiment of faith with actual faith.
Religious writers before Luther’s day, when dealing with distrust and
unbelief, had been careful to distinguish between the involuntary acts
of man’s lower nature which do not rise above the realm of feeling,
and those which have the definite consent of the will and which
alone they regarded as grievous sins against faith or the virtue of
hope. With Luther everything is sin; he bewails the actual distrust,
and real weakness of faith springing from a fault of the will; but,
according to him, the involuntary movements of our corrupt nature also
deserve God’s signal anger; original sin whereby we bring this upon
ourselves must daily be cloaked over by means of the faith wrought by
God. But since it is God alone Who works this faith Luther might well
have excused himself even had he lost the faith completely. When he
is upset and begins to reproach himself as he often does on account
of the weakness of his faith, he is really saying good-bye to his own
teaching and again reverting to the standpoint of the olden faith, for
only the assumption of man’s free-will can justify self-reproaches.
“Sin” and “the devil” are made to bear the blame for the deeds of man
who lacks free-will.
“The sin which still persists in us,” says Luther, in his last sermon
at Eisleben,[1488] “compels us not to believe.” “Because we have it
daily before our eyes and at our door, it goes in at one ear and out
at the other.” “This is what the rude, savage folk do who care nought
for God and place no trust in Him; we, the best of Christians, also
do the same.” “We are too prone to obey original sin, the taint of
evil which yet sticks to our flesh, and although we would willingly
believe, and are fond of hearing and reading God’s Word, still we
cannot rise as high as we ought.”[1489] Before this he had said: “If a
man were to ask you: Good fellow, do you believe that the Son of God
... died for your sins? and that it is really true? You would have to
say—did you wish to answer right and truthfully and as you really
feel—and confess with dismay, that you cannot after all believe it so
strongly and indubitably.... You would have to say.... Alas, I see and
feel that I do not ... believe as I ought.”[1490] Later he returns to
this thought which evidently was much before his mind: “Although we
cannot now believe so strongly as we should, still God has patience
with us.”[1491] Yet “we ought to go on and believe more firmly and
be angered with ourselves and say: Heavenly Father, is it true that
I must believe that Thou didst send Thine only-begotten Son into the
world?... And when I hear that there is no doubt, then I shall go on
to say: Well, for this shall I thank God all the days of my life and
praise and extol Him.”[1492]
In reality, according to him, we should “run and jump for joy”
because by faith “we hear the Lord Christ speaking.” “The life of the
Christian ought, by rights, to be all joy and delight, but there are
few who really feel this joy.” The martyrs, with their glad, nay, even
jubilant confession of faith amidst their torments, are to him an
example of a sound, hardy, unshaken faith, for in them the Word was
strong and the teaching of the Gospel all-powerful.[1493] But, as he
had remarked in another of his Eisleben sermons, “We, owing to the
weakness of our faith, feel doubts and fears, as by our very nature we
cannot help doing”; yet we must “have wisdom enough again and again
to run to Christ and cry aloud and awaken Him with our shouts and
prayers.”[1494]
Luther’s farewell address where these words occur furnishes at the
same time an example of how, throughout his life, when assailed by
doubts and fears, or when the Evangel was in danger, as it then was
owing to the Emperor’s warlike preparations, he carried out his
injunction of “running to Christ.” He seeks to pour into his faith a
little of the strengthening cordial of defiance, and calls upon all
his followers to do the same: “Christ says.... Obey me; if you have My
Word, hold fast to it.... Leave Pope, Emperor, the mighty and learned
to be as wise as ever they please, but do not you follow them.... Do
not that which even the angels in heaven may not do.... The poor,
wretched creatures, the Pope, Emperor, kings and all the sects fear
not to presume this; but God has set His Son at His right hand and
said, Thou art My Son, I have given Thee all the kings and the whole
world for Thy possession, etc. To Him you kings and lords must
hearken.” “I will give you courage,” Christ says, “to laugh when the
Turk, Pope and Emperor rage and storm their very worst; come ye only
to me. Though you be burdened, faced by death or martyrdom, though
Pope and Turk and Emperor attack you, fear ye not.”[1495]
It is, in fact, quite characteristic of his faith, that, when in
difficulties, the more he becomes conscious of its lack of theological
foundation and of its purely emotional character, the more he arms
himself with the weapons of defiant violence. On the one hand he can
say, as he does in the Table-Talk of Cordatus: “Had I such great faith
as I ought to have, I should long ago have slain the Turk and curbed
every tyrant.”[1496] “I have indeed tormented myself greatly about
them. But my faith is wanting.” And yet on another occasion, with a
sadness which does him credit, he expresses his envy of the “pure and
simple faith” of the children, and laments: “We old fools torment
ourselves and make our hearts heavy with our disputations on the Word,
whether this be true, or whether that be possible.”[1497]
_Luther’s Pretended Condemnations of his whole Life-work_
Certain controversialists have alleged that Luther came outspokenly
to disown his doctrine and his work; they tell us that he expressed
his regret for ever having undertaken the religious innovation. Words
are even quoted as his which furnish “the tersest condemnation of the
Reformation by the Reformer himself.”
No genuine utterances of his to this effect exist.
The first abjuration of the whole of his life’s work is supposed to
be contained in the statement: “Well, since I have begun it I will
carry it through, but, not for the whole world would I begin it again
now.”[1498] But why was he disinclined to begin again anew? Not by a
single word does Luther give us to understand the reason to be that
he regarded what he had done as reprehensible; on the contrary, he
explains that he would not begin it again “on account of the great and
excessive cares and anxieties this office brings with it.” That he
by no means regarded the office itself as blameworthy is plain from
the words that immediately follow: “If I looked to Him Who called
me to it, then I would not even wish not to have begun it; nor do
I now desire to have any other God.” And before this, in the same
passage, extolling his office, he had said: Moses had besought God
as many as six times to excuse him from so arduous a mission. “Yet
he had to go. And in the same way God led me into it. Had I known
about it beforehand He would have had difficulty in inducing me to
undertake it.” It was Luther’s wont thus to represent the beginning
of his undertaking as having been entirely directed by God. He is
fond of saying that he had foreseen neither its final aims nor its
immense difficulties and then to proceed: My ignorance was a piece
of luck and a dispensation of providence, for, otherwise, affrighted
by the dangers, I should have drawn back from my labours. Here his
idea is much the same, and is as far removed as possible from any
self-condemnation. Of course the question, whether his idea that
God alone was responsible for his work was based on truth, is quite
another one.
The second utterance of Luther’s which has been brought forward
against him merely voices anew his disappointment with this wicked
world and his complaint of the cold way in which people had received
his Evangel though it is the Word of God: “Had I known when I first
began to write what I have now seen and experienced, namely that
people would be so hostile to the Word of God and would so violently
oppose it, I would assuredly have held my tongue, for I should never
have been so bold as to attack and anger the Pope and indeed all
mankind.”[1499] Here, moreover, we have little more than a rhetorical
exaggeration of the difficulties he had overcome.
Nor is it hard to estimate at its true value a third utterance wrung
from him: “I can never rid myself of the thought and wish, that I
had better never have begun this business.”[1500] The feeling which
prompted this deliverance is plainly expressed in what follows
immediately: “Item, I would rather be dead than witness such contempt
of God’s Word and of His faithful servants.” Here again he is simply
giving vent to his ill-temper, that his preaching of the divine truths
should receive such scant attention; not in the least can this be read
as an admission of the falsehood of his mission.
Two other curious statements which have further been cited, besides
having been spoken under the influence of the disappointment above
referred to, also bear the stamp of his peculiar rhetoric which alone
can explain their tenor. The context at any rate makes it impossible
to find in them any repudiation of his previous conduct.
One of these sayings of Luther’s does indeed ring strange: “The
tyrants in the Papacy” “plagued the world with their violence”; but
the people, now that they have been delivered from them, refuse to
lend an ear to those who preach “at God’s command,” but prefer to run
after seducers. “Hence I am going to help to set up again the Papacy
and raise the monks on high, for the world cannot get along without
such clowns and comedians.”—The truth is, however, that Luther never
seriously contemplated carrying out such a threat or countenancing
the rule of “Antichrist.” People simply misapprehended him when they
read into this jest of his a real intention to re-establish “the Papal
rule.”
In the other saying brought up against him he states: “Had I now to
begin to preach the Evangel, I would set about it otherwise.” Here he
is referring to a preceding remark, viz. that a preacher must have
great experience of the world. He then proceeds: “I would leave the
great, rude masses under the dominion of the Pope, for they are no
better off for the Evangel but only abuse its freedom. But I should
preach the Evangel and its comfort to the troubled in spirit and
the meek, to the despondent and the simple-minded.” A preacher, he
declares, could not paint the world in colours bad enough, seeing that
it belongs altogether to the devil; he must not be such a “simple
sheep” as he himself (Luther) had been at the outset when he had
expected all “at once to flock to the Evangel.”[1501]—Thus there is
again no question of any repentant condemnation of the whole work
of his lifetime. He clothes in his strange “rhetoric” an idea which
is indeed peculiar to him, viz. the special value of his Evangel
for those troubled in mind. It is his sad experiences, his personal
embitterment and also a certain irritation with his own party that
lead him here to lay such stress on the preference to be shown to
troubled consciences, even to the abandonment of all others. Of his
own exaggeration he himself was perfectly aware, for he also makes
far too much of his simplicity and lack of prudence. The resemblance
between what we have just heard him say and his theory of the Church
Apart of the True Believers, can hardly escape the reader.[1502]
* * * * *
The wish Luther is supposed to have expressed, viz. never to have
been born, and some other strong things to which he gave vent, when
in a state of depression, have likewise been quoted in support of the
assertion that he himself branded his work “more cruelly than any foe
dared to do.” If, however, we take the statements in their setting
we find they have quite a different meaning. As an instance we may
quote one passage from a tract of 1539 “Against the Antinomians”[1503]
where, apparently, he curses the day of his birth and regrets that all
his writings had not been destroyed. Alluding to Johann Agricola, an
opponent within the camp, he writes: “I might in good sooth expect my
own followers to leave me in peace, having quite enough to do with the
Papists. One might well cry out with Job and Jeremias: ‘Would that I
had never been born!’ and in the same way I am tempted to say: ‘Would
I had never come with my books,’ I care nothing for them, I should not
mind had they all been destroyed and did the works of such great minds
[as Agricola] outsell them in all the booksellers’ shops—as they
would like, being so desirous of being fed up with honour.”
Here both his good wishes to his adversary and his repudiation of
his own books are the merest irony, though, reading between the
lines, we get a glimpse of his pain and annoyance at the hostility
he encountered. In the same vein of mingled grief and sarcasm he
continues: Christ too (like himself) had complained through the
Prophet (Isaias xlix. 4): “I have laboured in vain”; but it was plain
(so little does he condemn his own preaching), that “the devil is
master of the world” since the Gospel of the “beloved master of the
house,” which Luther taught, was so violently attacked. “We must and
shall strive and suffer,” so he cries, “for it cannot fare better with
us than with the dear prophets and apostles who also had to bear these
things.” Seeing that, throughout the tract, he is inveighing against
“devilish” deformations of his doctrine, is it likely that here he is
cursing the day of his birth out of remorse for his teaching?[1504]
* * * * *
An old story that has repeatedly found its way even in recent times
into popular writings tells how Luther, in conversation, sadly
admitted to Catherine that “heaven is not for us.”
“One fine evening,” so the tale goes, “Luther was in the garden
with Catherine and both were looking up at the starlit sky. ‘Oh,
how beautiful heaven is,’ Catherine exclaimed. ‘Yes,’ said Luther
ruefully, ‘but I fear it will not be ours.’ ‘Will not be ours?’ cried
Catherine, ‘then in God’s name let us retrace our steps.’ ‘It is too
late,’ replied Luther, and went back into his study with a heavy
heart.”
A recent work against Luther quotes in support of the legend a modern
Danish writer, Pastor Stub. It would have been better to cite J. M.
Audin, an uncritical French author of a “Vie de M. Luther,” who helped
to spread the story.[1505] Audin, on his side, refers to George
Iwanek, S. J.(† 1693), who relates it in his “_Norma Vitæ_”[1506];
also to Johannes Kraus, S. J., author of a rather credulous polemical
work entitled “_Ovicula ex lutheranismo redux_.”[1507] Kraus certainly
took it from Iwanek, but from what source the latter had it we do not
know. He mentions no authority and probably took the legend on hearsay
and gave it too ready credence. As Luther seems occasionally to have
said his night prayers in the open air, and as he frequently enough
admits his struggles of conscience, the two together may have given
rise to the legend.
Far from being sorry for the work he had undertaken Luther, on
the contrary, is ever throwing on the devil the blame for all its
drawbacks. He it is who has to bear the blame for Luther’s own
wretchedness, for inward wavering no less than for the lack of order,
faith and morals among the Evangelical preachers and laity. He so
works upon me “that I sometimes believe, and sometimes do not.”[1508]
He could not view Satan’s raging as of small account; it was far more
to be dreaded than all the persecution of men. “You see from my books
what scorn I have for those men who withstand me. I look upon them as
fools”; even the lawyers I am ready to defy; “but when these fellows,
the evil spirits, come, then the congregation must back me up in the
fight,” for then the devil, the very “Lord of the world,” is entering
the lists against me.[1509] A glance at what has gone before shows how
these “combats” must be understood.
The tone he adopts, though frequently humorous and satirical, does not
conceal the deep depression which unquestionably underlies many of his
utterances.
Such depression would quite well explain passing fits of real sorrow
for all he had done. But that he really felt such sorrow is not
sufficiently attested, so that all one can say is, that the ground
for such a feeling of remorse was there. A discouraging sense of the
instability of his doctrine and “reformation” might well have aroused
contrition, for Luther himself saw only too plainly, as Döllinger
rightly remarks, that, though he was strong enough to bring about
an apostasy from the ancient Church yet he was powerless to effect
a moral regeneration, or even to preserve religious order.[1510]
Döllinger adds very truly: The reasons for his doubts were, “first
of all the recognition of the evil effects produced by his doctrine,
then the consciousness of having cut himself adrift from the Church
for the sake of a new doctrine previously unknown, and lastly the
inward contradictions from which his doctrinal system suffered and the
impossibility of squaring it with the many Bible passages which embody
or presuppose a contrary doctrine.”[1511]
The words “agonies” and “nocturnal combats” which Luther so often used
to describe his struggles of conscience remain to testify to their
severity.
In the years immediately preceding Luther’s death, these seem to have
become less violent. Remorse of conscience, as experience teaches,
however great it may at one period have been, can in progress of time
be lulled to rest. We may quote in this connection the words of one
of the most highly esteemed of the older Catholic spiritual guides,
without however applying them unconditionally to Luther, as it is
always difficult to gauge the extent and working of inward prejudice
in the various stages of a man’s mental growth, particularly in the
case of such a man as Luther. “Sometimes God withdraws himself from the
soul,” writes this author, “on account of secret grievous sins which
have been committed from culpable ignorance, or from that ignorance
which, at the instigation of the Evil One, seeks to hide itself beneath
a mantle of virtue. God then departs from the man, though the latter
is not aware of it, and may remain unaware for the rest of his life
until the night of death comes. The deluded man fancies he possesses
God, but, to his infinite pain and loss, ultimately finds that he has
been all the while without Him. In the Book of Proverbs (xiv. 12) it
is written: ‘There is a way which seemeth just to a man, but the ends
thereof lead to death.’”[1512]
Who would venture to determine in Luther’s case when exactly he
first clearly realised his moral responsibility, and when exactly he
succeeded in forming himself a false conscience? Though on the one hand
it is certain to every Catholic that at first, and for a considerable
while, his attack on the Church was extremely culpable, still one
cannot close one’s eyes to the fact that Luther himself was convinced
that he was in the right, and that this conviction grew with advancing
years. (See vol. iv., p. 306 f.) It was, however, of his own free-will
that he persisted in the unhappy attitude of apostasy and revolt which
had become a habit with him and thus, in itself, his burden of moral
responsibility remained.[1513]