THE COUNCIL OF TRENT IS CONVOKED, 1542. LUTHER’S POLEMICS AT THEIR
HIGHEST TENSION
1. Steps taken and Tracts Published subsequent to 1537 against the
Council of the Church
AT the meeting held in 1537 by the protesting Princes and Estates at
Schmalkalden the General Council, which had been suggested as a means
of bringing about a settlement and of establishing religious peace,
was most outspokenly rejected, and that in a way very insulting to
Rome.[1514] In its blunt refusal the assembly was more logical than
Luther and his theologians, who as yet were averse to an absolute
repudiation of the Council. The hatred of the Pope which Luther himself
had been so earnest in inculcating at Schmalkalden caused those with
whom the decision rested to overlook certain considerations of prudence
and diplomacy.
If Luther opposed a thoroughgoing rejection of the Council it was not
because he had the slightest intention of accepting any Council that
did not at once declare in his favour. He knew very well that under the
conditions on which he insisted there could be no question of a real
Council as the Church had always understood it. The real motive for
his hesitation was that, for him and his followers, it was a delicate
matter, in view of the attitude they had previously adopted on this
question, to oppose too abruptly the idea of a Council. He foresaw
that the Catholic Imperialists would overwhelm the Protestants with
most righteous and bitter reproaches for now turning their backs upon
the Council after having at one time been loudest in their demands for
it, and outdone themselves in complaints and murmurs on account of its
postponement. What impression would the attitude of the protesting
Princes make on the Emperor, who was now full of plans for the Council?
And would not many be scared away who were still halting at the
parting of the ways and were inclined to delay their decision until
the looked-for Council? “The Papists assert that we are so reprobate,”
wrote Luther, “that we refuse to listen to anybody, whether Pope,
Church, Emperor, or Empire, or even the Council which we had so often
called for.”[1515] Such considerations, however, were not strong enough
to prevent him at once lending the whole weight of his voice in support
of the resolution arrived at by the Schmalkalden Leaguers.
After so offensive a rejection of any further attempts at reunion, the
armed conflict with the Emperor which had so long been threatening now
seemed bound to come. Luther, putting all subterfuge aside, looked this
contingency boldly in the face. In a memorandum to his Elector dating
from the end of January, 1539, he expressed himself even more strongly
than before in favour of the right of armed resistance to the Emperor
and the Empire; should the former have recourse to violent measures
against the Evangel, then there would be no difference between the
Emperor and a hired assassin; if the overlord attempts to impose on his
subjects blasphemy and idolatry, he must expect to meet with bloody
resistance on the part of those attacked.[1516]
While negotiations on which hung war or peace were in progress at
Frankfurt, and while, in consequence of this, the question of the
Council receded once more into the background, Luther was putting the
finishing touch to his “Von den Conciliis und Kirchen,” which appeared
in the spring of 1539.[1517] In spite of being weak and unwell his
powers of work seemed inexhaustible; his own troubles and worries
were all forgotten when it was a question of entering the lists as
the leader of the movement. The work was intended to forestall the
Œcumenical Council should it ever become an accomplished fact, and to
frustrate as far as possible its harmful effects on himself. In it
with the utmost audacity the author pits his own authority against
that of the highest secular and ecclesiastical powers; his tone is at
once so self-confident and so coarse that here again it provides the
psychologist with an enigma.
With his projected Council, so he says at the commencement, the Pope
in reality only wanted to deal the Emperor and all Christians “a blow
on the snout.” He held out the Council to them just as, in playing
with a dog, we offer him a morsel on the point of a knife, and, when
he snaps at it, we hit him with the handle. He declares roundly that,
“the Papists would not and could not hold a Council unless indeed they
first took captive the Emperor, the kings and all the princes.”[1518]
If the Emperor and the Princes wished “reprobates to slap their
cheeks,” then let them continue to debate about the Council. The
alleged impossibility of the Council he proclaims still more rudely,
asserting that, the Papists being what they are, the whole world must
despair of any amelioration of the Church: “They would rather leave
Christendom to perish, and have the devil himself for their God and
Lord, than accept Christ and give up even one jot of their idolatry.”
Hence we must look for reformation from Christ our Lord, “and let them
fare devilwards as they are bent on doing.”[1519]
He then goes on to explain that amendment was impossible on the olden
principles of the Fathers and canons, but could come about only by
means of Holy Scripture; the Fathers and canons were not at one;
even the first four Œcumenical Councils—the history of which he
treats summarily though with little real historical knowledge—had
only been able to ratify the belief laid down in Scripture; for
faith a surer and more stable foundation was necessary than that of
ecclesiastical Councils ever subject to make mistakes. At the same
time he has nothing but scorn for the claims of the ancient and
universal Church to be the permanent infallible teacher on matters
of faith; he has no eye for her divinely guaranteed power as it had
been exemplified in the General Councils, so solemnly representing the
Churches of the whole world. On the other hand, his own pretensions
are far above question. He knows, so he asserts, much more about the
ancient Councils than all the Papists in a lump. He could instruct
the Council, should one actually be summoned, on its procedure and
its standards. It has, according to him, no power in the Church save
to reject new errors which do not agree with Scripture (as though
a Council had ever adopted any other course). Even the office of a
clergyman or schoolmaster may, he says, be compared with that of the
Councils in so far as, within their own small sphere, they judge human
opinions and human rules by the standard of the Word of God, and seek
to oppose the devil. But just as, in the case of these, he cannot
guarantee that they will always read Holy Scripture aright, so also in
the case of the Councils.
If, however, such a solemn Council was convened—and such a thing
might conceivably be of some use—then the first requirement, so he
declares with surprising frankness, was “that, in the Council, the
Pope should not merely lay aside his tyranny of human law, but also
hold with us.... The Emperor and the kings must also help in this
and compel the Pope should he refuse.”[1520] This he wrote for the
disabusal of the infatuated, for at that time, strange to say, some
Germans of the greatest influence still fancied it possible to pave
the way for a reconciliation by means of negotiations and religious
conferences, and were anxious to leave the Lutheran question in
suspense until a General Council should meet. Luther further demands,
that “the thoroughly learned in Holy Scripture ... and a few prudent
and well-disposed laymen ... should also be invited to the Council.
Then the abominations of the Pope would speedily be condemned.”
He adds: “Yes, you will say, but of such a Council there is no hope.
That is what I think too.”[1521]
He is ready, however, to be content with a Provincial Council of the
same sort held in Germany, and expresses the strange hope, that “the
other monarchs would in time approve and accept the decisions of
such a Council.” With this reference to the Provincial Council he is
dallying with a proposal made by some short-sighted imperial advisers,
viz. that a “free, German Council” should attempt to settle the
controversy.
The author then proceeds to set forth his jumbled theories on the
“Church” and finally brings the lengthy work to a conclusion with a
protestation that his doctrine forms the very pillars on which the
Church rests: “Whoever teaches differently, even were he an angel from
heaven, let him be anathema” (Gal. i. 8). “We are determined to be the
Pope’s master and to tread him under foot, as Psalm xci. [13] says:
Thou shalt walk upon the asp and the basilisk and thou shalt trample
under foot the lion and the dragon.”[1522]
In many parts of the “Von den Conciliis und Kirchen” Luther is inclined
to repeat himself, whilst the style exhibits a certain dreariness and
monotony often met with in this class of Luther’s productions, at least
when the ardour of his polemics begins to fail, or when his object in
view is not popular instruction and edification. He himself on its
completion wrote of it to Melanchthon who was attending the meeting at
Frankfurt: “The book sadly vexes me, I find it weak and wordy.”[1523]
At any rate with many who lacked any real discernment it no doubt
served to cover Luther’s and his friends’ retreat from a position they
had so long and persistently defended, viz. that a Council was the
chief thing called for.
The fruitless meetings of Frankfurt and Hagenau and the equally
fruitless conferences of Worms and Ratisbon were followed, in 1541,
by the Ratisbon Interim. This, as might have been foreseen, satisfied
neither party. As for the Council it had been repeatedly postponed by
Paul III on account of the embroilments between the Emperor and France
and the opposition of the Protestants.
At last, on May 22, 1542, the Pope convened a General Synod to begin
in the town of Trent on Nov. 1 of that same year. The head on earth
of the Catholic Church, in the Bull summoning the Council, spoke
of the political obstacles now at last happily removed. The aim of
the assembly was to be to debate, and by the light of divine wisdom
and truth, settle on such steps “as might appear effective for the
safeguarding of the purity and truth of the Christian religion, for
the restoration of good morals and the amendment of the bad, for
the establishing of peace, harmony and concord among Christians,
both rulers and ruled, and lastly for opposing the inroads of the
unbelievers [the Turks].” The Pope most earnestly implores the Emperor
and the other Christian monarchs “by the mercy of our Lord Jesus
Christ, Whose faith and religion are being most violently assailed both
from within and from without,” not to forsake God’s cause but by active
co-operation to support it in every way.
The grand project of a Council was, however, further delayed by the war
which suddenly broke out between Charles V and France. Only on Dec. 13,
1545, could the first session be held at Trent. It was then indeed high
time, for the Emperor Charles V, in the hope of securing a united front
against the French, had shown himself much too disposed to yield to the
German Protestants, as is evident from the Reichsabschied of Spires in
1544.
As to Luther: up to the very last moment he scoffed at the efforts of
Rome, as though her proposals for reform were all mere sham. Under this
cloak of contempt he concealed his real annoyance at the opening of the
Council.
As soon as the new Bull of Convocation for 1545 appeared he wrote to
his old friend, Wenceslaus Link: “I have seen the Pope’s writing and
the Bull convening the Council to Trent for Lætare Sunday. May Christ
laugh last at the reprobates who laugh at Him. Amen.”[1524] A few
days later he said in a letter to his confidant, Justus Jonas: “To
believe the Pope’s promises would be like placing faith in the father
of lies whose own darling son he is.”[1525]—“The Pope is mad and
foolish from top to toe,” so he informs his Elector.[1526] A “Feast
of Fools”[1527] is the only fit word with which he can describe the
assembly of the ablest and most learned men in the Church, who came
from every land, honourably intent on bringing peace to Christians and
gaining a victory for truth. Luther had not the slightest doubt where
the real well-spring of truth undefiled was to be found; on the same
day that he wrote to his Elector the words just quoted, in a letter
to Nicholas Amsdorf, the “true and genuine bishop of the Church of
Naumburg,” as he styles him, he says: “I glory in the fact that this
at least is certain: The Son of God is seated at the right hand of
the Father and by His Spirit speaks most sweetly to us here below,
just as He spoke to the Apostles; we, however, are His disciples
and hear the Word from His lips. Praise be to God Who has chosen us
unworthy sinners to be thus honoured by His Son and has permitted us
to hearken to His Majesty through the Word of the Evangel. The angels
and the whole of God’s creation wish us luck; but the Pope, Satan’s
own monster, grieves and is affrighted, and all the gates of hell
shake. Let us rejoice in the Lord. For them the Day approaches and
the end. I have in mind another book against Popery, but the state
of my head and my endless correspondence hinders me. Yet with God’s
help I shall set about it shortly.”[1528] What he is thinking of is a
continuation—which death prevented him from carrying out—of a new
book with which we must now deal.
2. “Wider das Bapstum zu Rom vom Teuffel Gestifft.” The Papacy renews
its Strength
Luther’s anger against the Papacy had been kindled into a glowing flame
by the sight of the unity displayed by the Catholic Church in view of
the Council. It seemed incredible to him that the old body which he had
pronounced dead should again sit in Council and prepare to infuse new
life into itself, to revive ecclesiastical discipline and to condemn
the Church he himself had founded. His soreness at such a consolidation
of Catholicism he relieved by a sort of last effort in his book
“Against the Roman Papacy founded by the devil.”[1529]
It was only his broken health, a foretoken of approaching death, and
his many cares that prevented his following it up as he had threatened
in his letter to Amsdorf just quoted. As he says there, he only hopes
that God will give him “bodily strength and ghostly energy enough” to
enable him, “like Samson of old, to wreak one act of vengeance on these
Philistines.” The simile is truly a horrible one; the unhappy man,
broken down from the effects of a life of tireless labour and endless
excitement, still burns with the desire once more to shake the pillars
of the ancient Church so as to bury all faithful Catholics beneath her
ruins. As to what would be his, the blind Samson’s, fate beneath the
ruins he does not consider as seriously as the true members of the
ancient Church would have wished him to do.
The occasion of the book was the following. Pope Paul III had sent to
the Emperor two briefs in quick succession to dissuade him from making
perilous concessions to the Protestants, and, in particular, in the
interests of the Œcumenical Council, to oppose the project of holding a
German National Council. Luther received from two different quarters an
invitation to write against the supposed interference of the Pope. His
Elector, through Chancellor Brück, requested, “that the said Martin may
deal with the Pope’s writing, particularly as the formal announcement
of the Council is now to hand; for we have no doubt that he is well
able to do this. The same might then be printed and launched into the
public.”[1530] Another invitation to the same effect, supported by
information to be used against the Pope, reached Luther indirectly
from the Imperial chancery itself through the intermediary of Nicholas
Perrenoti, a councillor; some of the officials seem to have been
anxious to avenge themselves on Paul III for crossing their plans.[1531]
The work was published on March 26, 1545. As early as April 13,
Marsupino, Secretary to King Ferdinand, was able to present a copy
to the Papal Legates at the Council of Trent. Justice Jonas at once
brought out a Latin translation entitled “_Contra papatum romanum a
diabolo inventum_.” Thus at the very time the General Council made its
bow before the world, Luther’s attack was brought to the notice of
educated readers of all nations. No great harm was done to Catholic
interests by Luther’s hanging up the drastic picture of himself,
depicted in this scurrilous writing, as a warning to the whole world;
humanistic culture and the grand classic idiom had, however, scarcely
ever before suffered such degradation as in the Latin rendering of this
foul book.
The first and chief part of the work was to prove, that it was both
wrong and presumptuous for the Popes to style themselves heads of
Christendom, and that it was the devil alone who had put such a notion
into their heads. In the second part it is demonstrated that in
particular the claim made by the Popes that no one had the right to
judge or to depose them was of fiendish origin. Finally, in the third,
it is shown that the alleged handing over of the Roman Empire by the
Greeks to the Germans through the instrumentality of the Popes was also
a mere hellish lie.
Sincere admirers of Luther read with amazement this book, which, for
all its ferocity, is so reminiscent of the gutter. Some, even of his
followers, again openly expressed the opinion that by it he had harmed
himself more than any foe could have done—so unmeasured are his words
and so utterly crazy the things he propounds. At times the pages seem
to have been written in nothing short of a paroxysm of hate, and can
only be understood by bearing in mind the author’s frightful state of
inward turmoil.
The very first words give us a glimpse of what is to come: “The most
hellish Father, St. Paulus Tertius, as though he were Bishop of the
Roman Churches, has written two briefs to Carolus Quintus, our Lord
Emperor.... He has also, to speak by permission, issued a Bull almost
for the fifth time, and now once more the Council is to meet at Trent;
no one, however, may attend it but only his own brew, the Epicureans
and those who please him.” Luther proceeds to ask whether this can
really be a Council, which is ruled by the “gruesome abomination at
Rome, who styles himself Pope,” and not rather some “puppet-show got
up during the Carnival to tickle the Pope’s fancy.”
The fury of the writer increases as he proceeds and he goes on to
make the following demands: “Now let Emperor, kings, princes, lords
and whoever can, set the axe to the root, and may God give no luck
to hands that hang idle. First of all let them take from the Pope,
Rome, Romandiol, Urbino, Bononia and all that he holds as Pope.... He
won them by blasphemy and idolatry, and has laid waste the kingdom
of Christ, wherefore he is termed the abomination of desolation [Mt.
xxiv. 15]. After this the Pope himself, the Cardinals and the whole
scoundrely train of his idolatrous Popish Holiness should be seized,
and, as blasphemers, have their tongues torn from their throats and
nailed in a row on the gallows-tree, in like manner as they affix
their seals in a row to their Bulls; though even this would be but
slight punishment for all their blasphemy and idolatry. After this
let them hold as many Councils as they please on the gallows, or in
hell with all the demons.... They are criminal, shameless, obstinate
creatures.”[1532]
The gloomy fancy that inspires his furious pen has, however, another
kind of death in readiness for such opponents. “Were I Emperor I
know full well what I should do: I would couple together all the
blasphemous knaves, Pope, Cardinals and all the Popish crew, bind them
and take them down to Ostia where there is a little stretch of water
called in Latin the Mare Tyrrhenum.... Into it I would drop the lot
and give them a good bath, along with the keys with which they bind
and loose everything.... They might also take their pastoral staves
so as to be able to smite the face of the waters.... And, lastly,
as refreshing fodder and drink, they might have all the decrees,
decretals, bulls, indulgences, etc. What do you wager that after half
an hour in this healing bath all their diseases would cease?... On it
I would risk Christ our Lord.”[1533]
“The Pope,” so he exclaims on the same page, “is the head of the
accursed Churches of all the worst knaves upon earth, a Vicar of
the devil, a foe of God, an adversary of Christ and a destroyer of
His Churches, a teacher of all lies, blasphemy and idolatry, an
arch-church-thief and robber of the Church’s keys, a murderer of kings
and an inciter to all kinds of bloodshed, a whoremonger above all
whoremongers and the author of every kind of immorality, even of that
which may not be mentioned, an antichrist, a man of sin, a child of
destruction, a real werewolf. Whoever refuses to believe this, let him
fare away with his God, the Pope.”[1534]
“As an elect teacher and preacher to the Churches of Christ bound
to speak the truth, I have herewith done my part. He who is set
on stinking may go on stinking.... Let a Church be where it may
throughout the world it can have no other Gospel ... than we have here
in our Churches at Wittenberg.”[1535]
As to how high Luther as a preacher and man of learning set himself
and his Church above the Pope and his, we can see from what follows:
“The whole Roman mob is nothing else but a stable full of great,
rude, loutish, shameless donkeys, who know nothing of Holy Scripture,
or of God, or of Christ, or what a bishop is, what God’s Word, or
the Spirit, or baptism is, or what are sacraments, the keys and good
works.... I, Dr. Martin, am still living, and having been brought up
in the Pope’s school and donkey’s stable became a Doctor of Theology,
and was even accounted a good and learned Doctor, which I assuredly
was, so that I can truly testify how deep, and high, and broad, and
long is their skill in Holy Scripture.”[1536]—And lest someone should
object: “Have you any right to judge?” he replies lightheartedly: “It
is enough for us to know that the Pope-Ass has been condemned by God
Himself and all the angels.” “We cannot be heretics, for we have
believed and confessed the Scriptures.”[1537]
An earlier saying of his to the effect that: “I am carried away and
know not by what spirit” (“_rapior nescio quo spiritu_”), comes before
the mind of the reader when Luther describes yet a third form of death
for the Pope and his courtiers. He would fain see him, the Cardinals
and the whole court, dealt with according “to fox-law, their hides
being dragged over their heads, that they may thus be taught to pay
with their skins; after this the hides may be thrown into the healing
bath of Ostia, or into the fire.” “See and behold,” he exclaims, “how
my blood boils! How it longs to see the Papacy punished though my
spirit is well aware that no temporal penalty can make amends, even
for one single Bull or decree!”[1538]
Luther’s defenders have, strange to say, thought it necessary to
lay stress on the fact that these three proposals cannot have been
seriously meant.[1539] Everyone will admit that they are not a
settled plan, for the carrying out of one would have rendered the
others difficult or unfeasible. But does this fact modify in any way
the revolting character of these words or cancel the invitation to
make use of violence? It would be better to argue, that, owing to
his fanatism about which only a pathologist can judge, he was not
fully aware of what he was doing.—Some Catholics have suggested
that the abnormal virulence of many pages of this book was due to
the excitement caused by intoxicating liquors. Of this unfortunately
there is no proof. That the reason for his horrible language must be
sought rather in mental overstrain, in the preponderance just then of
an abnormal side of his spiritual life, seems fairly clear also from
the other quotations from this work which we were obliged to adduce
elsewhere.[1540]
Some time before the work in question was written, Brück, the
Chancellor, had written to the Elector that, if the Council convened
by the Pope “were to resume and continue its knavery” it would be
necessary for Luther “to put the axe to the root of the tree, which by
the Grace of God he is better able to do than other men”; this he wrote
on Jan. 20, 1545.[1541]
At that same time a calmer scene was being enacted in Saxony. On
Jan. 14, the Wittenberg theologians, headed by Luther, presented
to the Elector the so-called Wittenberg Reformation, drawn up at
the sovereign’s request. This work had a close connection with the
Œcumenical Council. It is true it was merely written in view of the
approaching negotiations at the Diet, to facilitate one of those
“religious compromises” which had now become so common. It was,
however, at the same time, so to speak, a theological manifesto of the
Protestants called forth by the Council. Hence it had been drawn up by
Melanchthon (and not by Luther) in terms cautious and moderate. “The
theologians,” wrote Brück, “have drawn up their ‘Reformation’ very
courteously, nor is there any trace of Dr. Martin’s boisterousness” in
it.[1542]
The “Reformation” treats successively of “doctrine true and undefiled,”
which it asserts is to be found in the Confession of Augsburg, “of the
right use of the sacraments,” of the preaching office and episcopal
government, of the ecclesiastical courts and spiritual jurisdiction,
of learning and the schools, and of the defence and support of the
churches. Many useful elements which meet the actual needs of the time
are found scattered through the document. Stress is laid on the need
of some direction and supervision of the preachers in such a way as to
suggest the recognition of episcopal authority; the German episcopate
is to be retained ... provided it accepts Luther’s doctrine![1543]
It would in many respects be instructive to draw a parallel between
the “Wittenberg Reformation” and the Catholic reformation proclaimed
by the Council of Trent in the course of its successive sessions. We
shall emphasise only one point. In the case of proceedings against
“false doctrine” the Wittenbergers go much further than the Council
in their demands for submission on the part of the individual.
According to them the ecclesiastical courts (Consistories) were to
lend their firm support to Luther’s own doctrine and interpretation
of the Bible—for which, as a matter of fact, his name offered the
sole guarantee—these courts were moreover to comprise “God-fearing
men, chosen from among the laity of high standing in the Church.” The
question of any deviation from the faith, was, with their assistance,
“first to be examined into and then judgment pronounced in the ordinary
way.” So painful a subordination of the individual to private opinions
concerning faith, and so uncalled-for an introduction of the lay
element into the spiritual courts, never entered the mind of any
member of the Council.
* * * * *
Conscious of its divine right the Council of Trent, even during
Luther’s lifetime, solemnly laid the foundations of those decisions on
doctrine which are now, and for ever will be, binding on the Catholic
Church. It rose far above the quarrels of the day and the personal
attacks on the successor of Peter and the venerable hierarchy; in what
it laid down it was careful ever to preserve intact the great bond with
the past.
It was but a few days before Luther departed this life that the “Holy
Œcumenical and General Synod legitimately called together in the Holy
Ghost,” as in accordance with ancient usage it styles itself, declared
in its third session, that its highest task was to oppose the heresies
of the day and to reform the morals of the people. During this session,
on Feb. 4, 1546, the Council renewed the creed of the Roman Church as
the “basis on which all who confess the faith of Christ are agreed
and as the one firm foundation against which the gates of hell cannot
prevail.”
As the opposing camp had the habit of constantly appealing to Holy
Writ so the Council, in its next session, held after Luther’s death on
April 8, 1546, solemnly declared Holy Scripture to be the “Spring of
wholesome truth and discipline of morals,” though at the same time,
agreeably to the ancient and uninterrupted teaching of the Church,
it also included tradition: “Which truth is contained in the written
books, and the unwritten traditions which the Apostles received from
the lips of Christ ... and which, having been as it were handed down,
have survived to our own day”; it, on the one hand, declared the sacred
books of both Old and New Testament, the Canon of which it fixed anew,
to have God for their author (“_Deus auctor_”) and to be worthy of
equal affection and reverence; on the other, it reasserted the rights
of the teaching office of the Church and of the tradition handed down
from ages past, both of which Protestantism had questioned. To prevent
any abuse of the Word of God, it also enacted that no member of the
Church, relying on his own prudence, should, in matters of faith and
morals, twist Holy Writ so as to make it mean anything else “than Holy
Mother Church held and holds, seeing that it is hers to interpret
Scripture” in accordance “with the unanimous consensus of the Fathers.”
The Council’s first reforming decree also seeks to safeguard the
treasure of Holy Scripture by forbidding any profanation of it or its
use for superstitious purposes.
After long adjournments, necessitated by the state of public affairs
and after the ground had been prepared by careful study of the Bible,
the Fathers and the Schoolmen, there followed, in 1546 and 1547, the
weighty discussions on original sin and justification. In the final
Canon on the justification of the sinner by grace (vol. iii., p. 185),
the point on which all the questions raised by the innovations turned,
the Synod pronounces an anathema on any man who shall declare that the
Catholic doctrine it has just laid down “detracts from the glory of God
or the merits of Jesus Christ our Lord, and does not rather enhance the
truth of our faith and the glory of God and of Jesus Christ.” There
followed resolutions concerning the sacraments in general, then, in
1551, on the Holy Eucharist and the Sacrament of Penance; and finally,
to pass over other points, in 1562 and 1563, the decrees on Communion,
the Sacrifice of the Mass, the Sacrament of priestly ordination, and on
Marriage. The 25th and last session, on Dec. 4, 1563, was devoted to
the doctrine of Purgatory, of the veneration of the saints and relics,
indulgences, fast-days and festivals, and also to the drawing up of
various far-reaching regulations on discipline.
The Synod had striven throughout to make its disciplinary decrees keep
pace with its doctrinal promulgations. Thereby it provided a lasting
and effectual foundation for the reform of the Church. This, taken in
connection with so clear a statement of the unanimity of the Church’s
teaching throughout the ages, deprived the separatists of every pretext
for remaining estranged from the unity of the faith. The main point was
that the Church, purified from the many abuses to which human frailty
had given rise, or at least earnestly resolved to remove those still
remaining, stood forth again as the city on the hill, visible afar off
in her splendour and calling all to her in order to make them sharers
in the hope of life. She was confident that He Who had said: “I will be
with you all days, even to the consummation of the world,” had extended
His protecting Hand over the assembly, and had spoken through it for
the instruction of the faithful and also of the erring brethren. The
infallibility of such general Councils was never questioned by any
Catholic.
A fresh outburst of zeal was the result, and the ancient Church soon
showed that she had within her unsuspected powers for self-improvement.
3. Some Sayings of Luther’s on the Council and his own Authority
“They now seek to get at us under cover of a nominal Council,” says
Luther, “in order to be able to shriek at us.... This is Satan’s wisdom
as against the foolishness of God. How will God extricate Himself from
their cunning schemes? Still, he is the Lord Who will mock at His
contemners. If we are to submit to this Council we might as well have
submitted twenty-five years since to the lord of the Councils, viz.
the Pope and his Bulls. We shall not consent to discuss the matter
until the Pope admits that the Council stands above him, and until the
Council takes sides [with us] against the Pope, for even the Pope’s
own conscience already reproaches him. They are mad and crazy. ‘_Deo
gratias._’”[1544]
A series of similar utterances may be quoted.
“The Papists are ashamed of themselves and stand in fear of their own
conscience. Us they do not fear because, like Virgil of old, they
console themselves with having already survived worse things. The
paroxysm will cease suddenly.... They put to death the pious John Hus,
who never departed in the least from the Papacy but only reproved
moral disorders.”[1545] “For it was then not yet the time to unmask
the [Roman] beast” (this having been reserved for me). “I, however,
have not attacked merely the abuses but even the doctrine, and have
bitten off the [Pope’s] heart. I don’t think the Pope will grow
again.... The article of Justification has practically taken the shine
out of the Pope’s thunderbolts.”[1546]
“Our Church by the grace of God comes quite near to that of the
Apostles, because we have the pure doctrine, the catechism, the
sacraments and the [right] use of government, both in the State and
in the home. If the Word, which alone makes the Church, stands and
flourishes, then all is well. The Papists, however, who seek to
erect a Church on conciliar decrees and decretals will only arouse
dissensions among themselves and ‘wash the tiles’—however much they
may pride themselves on their reason and wisdom.”[1547]
“I must for once boast, for it is a long while since I did so last. A
Council whereby the Church might be reformed has long been clamoured
for. I think I have summoned such a Council as will make the ears
of the Papists tingle and their heart burst with malice: for I take
it, that, even should the Pope hold a General Council, he will not
be able to effect so much by it. First, I have driven the Papists
to their books, particularly to Scripture, and deposed the heathen
Aristotle and the ‘Summists.’ ... Secondly, I have made them to be
more reserved about their indulgences. Thirdly, I have almost put an
end to the pilgrimages and field-devilry.” Only look, he says, at
the reduction of the monasteries and the many other things which no
Council could ever have achieved but which have been brought about by
“our people.” Everything had been lost, the “Our Father, the Creed,
the Ten Commandments, Penance, Baptism, Prayer [etc., he enumerates
twenty-one similar things].” “No institution, no monastery, university
or presbytery” taught even one of these articles aright; now, however,
“I have set all things in order.”[1548]
I can “write books as well as the Fathers and the Councils,” and this
I may say “without pride.”[1549] This is because I have “exercised
myself” in the Word of God by “prayer, meditation and temptations”
(“_oratio, meditatio, tentatio_”).[1550] In my “temptation” the
devil raged against me in every way, but God in a wonderful manner
“kept alight His torch so that it did not go out.”[1551] Persecution
overtook me “like the Apostles,” who “fared no better than their
Lord and Master.”[1552] But the devil has entered into His foes
the Papists, to whom, “in spite of all our good and well-meant
admonitions, prayers and entreaties,”[1553] they have surrendered
themselves; and rightly so, for the Papists (as I know from my own
youthful experience when I did the same myself) refuse even to
recognise the Gospel as a mystery.[1554] They simply make an end of
all religion.
But, all this notwithstanding, as the Council shall learn “I am really
a defender and prop of the Pope. After my death the Pope will suffer a
blow which he will be unable to withstand. Then they will say: Would
that we now had Luther to give some advice; but if anyone offers
advice now they refuse it; when the hour is passed God will no longer
be willing.”[1555]
After “God had given me that splendid victory which enabled me to get
the better of my monkish vocation, the vows, masses and all the other
abominations ... Pope and Emperor were alike unable to stop me.” It
is true that I still have temptations to humble me, “but we remain
victorious and shall conquer.”[1556]
“These Italians [at Trent they were present in large numbers] are
profane men and Epicureans. No Pope or cardinal for the last six
hundred years has read the Bible. They understand less of the
catechism than does my little daughter. May God preserve us from such
blindness and leave us His divine Word.”[1557]
This was the frame of mind in which Luther confronted the Council.
We shall be better able to appreciate the strangeness of his attitude
if we imagine Luther, attended by a few theologians of his own circle,
journeying to the Council at Trent and there holding converse with the
foreign prelates, as he had done at Wittenberg with the Legate Vergerio.
In his wonted fashion he would not have hesitated to express plainly
his views concerning his own authority. Some examples of his opinions
of himself have already been given.[1558] What impression would the
Wittenberger’s novel claims have made on bishops and theologians from
distant lands where the Church was still in perfect peace, and where
the spiritual supremacy of the hierarchy was unquestioned? With what
astonishment would they have listened to those strange replies, which
the Saxon had always ready in plenty, to such objections as they might
have raised on the score of his disturbance of the peace of both Church
and State, of the disorders within his own fold and of his own private
life and that of his followers?
A number of other statements taken from his writings and conversations
with his intimates may help to make the picture even more vivid.
“I have the Word,” we can hear him saying to the bishops in his usual
vein, “that is enough for me! Were even an angel to come to me now I
should not believe him.”[1559]
“Whoever obtrudes his doctrine on me and refuses to yield, must
inevitably be lost; for I must be right, my cause being not mine, but
God’s, Whose Word it also is. Hence those who are against it must go
under. Hence my unfailing defiance.... I have risked my life on it and
will die for it. Therefore whoever sets himself against me must be
ruined if a God exists at all.”[1560]
To friend and foe I can only say: “Take in faith what Christ says to
you through me; for I am not deceived, so far as I know. It is not the
words of Satan that I speak. Christ speaks through me.”[1561]
“Though there are many who regard my cause as diabolical and condemn
it, yet I know that my word and undertaking is not of me but of God,
and neither death nor persecution will teach me otherwise.”[1562]
And before anyone can slip in a word of rejoinder he, again, as his
way was, appeals to his personal knowledge. “I know that God together
with all His angels bears me witness that I have not falsified
His Word, baptism or sacrament, but have preached rightly and
truthfully.”[1563]
This doctrine I learnt in my “temptations,” during which “I had to
ponder ever more and more deeply.” “What is lacking to the fanatics
and the mob is that they have not that real foeman who is the devil;
he certainly teaches a man thoroughly.”[1564]
The hostility met with, particularly from false brethren, is also
“God’s sure seal upon us”; by such “we have become like St. Paul, nay,
like the whole Church.”[1565]
The chief thing for me, however, so he continues, is conscience and
conviction. “Take heed,” such is my axiom, “not to make mere play
of it. If you wish to begin it, then begin it with such a clear
conscience that you may defy the devil.... Be a man and do everything
that goes against and vexes them [the opponents] and omit everything
that might please them.”[1566]
To those who ask whether his conscience did not upbraid him for
breaking the peace and for overthrowing all order, he replies: It is
quite true “Satan makes my conscience to prick me for having by false
doctrine thrown the world into confusion and caused revolts.... But I
meet him with this: The doctrine is not mine, but the Son of God’s;
whole worlds are nothing to God, even should ten of them be rent
by rebellion and go headlong to destruction. It is written in Holy
Scripture [Mt. xvii. 5], ‘Hear ye Him’ (Christ), or everything will
fall into ruins, and again [Ps. ii. 10], ‘Hearken, ye kings,’ or else
ye shall perish. It was thus that Paul too had to console himself,
when, in the Acts, he was accused of treason against God and Cæsar.
God wills that the article of Justification shall stand, and if men
accept it then no State or government will perish, but, if not, then
they alone are the cause of their misfortune.”[1567]
With no less confidence is he prepared to counter the other
objections. My doctrine breeds evil? “After the proclamation of the
Evangel it is true we see in the world great wickedness, ingratitude
and profanation; this followed on the overthrow of Antichrist [which
I brought about]; but in reality it is only, that, formerly, before
the dawn of the Evangel, we did not see so plainly these sins which
all were already there, but now that the morning star has risen the
whole world awakens, as though from a drunken sleep, and perceives
the sins which previously, while all men were asleep and sunk in the
gloom of night, they had failed to recognise. But [in view of all the
wickedness] I set my hopes on the Last Day being not far distant;
things cannot go on for more than a hundred years; for the Word of
God will again grow weaker; owing to lack of ministers of the Word
darkness will arise. Then the whole world will grow savage and so lull
itself into a state of security. After this the voice will resound
(Mt. xxv. 6): ‘Behold, the bridegroom cometh.’ Then God will not be
able to endure it any longer.”[1568]
Is our own life any objection? It is no question of life but of
doctrine, “and, as to the doctrine, it is indubitable that it is
the Word of God. ‘The words that I speak,’ saith the Lord [John
xiv. 10], ‘are not mine but the Father’s.’” Certainly “I should not
like God to judge me by my life.”[1569]—“My doctrine is true and
includes the forgiveness of sins, because my doctrine is not mine;
Christ also says, ‘My doctrine is not Mine.’ My doctrine stands fast,
be my life what it may.”[1570] “True enough, it is hard when Satan
comes and upbraids us saying: You have laid violent hands on this
marvellous edifice of the Papacy,” you, “a man full of error and
sin.” “But Paul also, according to Rom. ix., had at times to endure
similar reproaches.” “We answer: We do not attack the Pope on account
of his personal errors and trespasses; we must indeed condemn them,
but we will overlook them and forgive them as we ourselves wish to
be forgiven. Thus it is not a question for us of the Pope’s personal
faults and sins, but of his doctrine and of submission to the Word.
The Pope and his followers, quite apart from their own sins, offend
against the glory and the grace of God, nay, against Christ Himself,
of whom the Father says: Hear ye Him. But the Pope would have men’s
ears attentive only to what he says!”[1571]
But, because my doctrine is true, so he concludes, this had
to come about, “as I had long ago foreseen; in spite of the
purity of my theology I [like Paul] was alleged to have preached
‘scandal’ to the holy Jews and ‘foolishness’ to the sapient
heathen.”[1572]—Nevertheless, “whoever teaches otherwise than I
have taught, or condemns me, condemns God and must remain a child of
hell.”[1573]—“For the future I will not do the Papists the honour,”
of permitting them, “or even an angel from heaven, to judge of my
doctrine, for we have had too much already of foolish humility.”[1574]
With what wonder and perplexity at so unaccountable an attitude would
the foreign bishops have listened to words such as these!
4. Notable Movements of the Times accompanied by Luther with “Abuse and
Defiance down to the very Grave.” The Caricatures
_Brunswick, Cleves, the Schmalkalden Leaguers_
Luther followed with great sympathy and perturbation the warlike
proceedings instituted by the Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave of
Hesse against Duke Henry of Brunswick, whom he had himself already
attacked with the pen in his “Wider Hans Worst.” They made war on the
Duke in the summer of 1542, seized upon his lands and of their own
initiative introduced the innovations, their troops at the same time
committing unexampled excesses.
Luther acclaimed the victory as a deed of God; such a proceeding could
not be described as the work of man; such a success foreboded the
approach of the Day of Judgment and retribution.[1575]
The Imperial Chamber of Justice protested against the violent
appropriation of the country by the Schmalkalden Leaguers, and, on Sep.
3, summoned the two princes and their confederates to Spires to answer
for the breach of the peace committed at the expense of Duke Henry.
Thereupon all the members of the League of Schmalkalden repudiated
their obedience to the “wicked, dissolute, Popish rascals,” as the
Landgrave Philip politely styled the Imperial Court. In this he was at
one with Luther, who, in former years, had called the Imperial Chamber
“a devil’s whore.”[1576]
A new war of the Leaguers on Henry, who was anxious to recover his
lands, was crowned in 1545 by a still more notable success on the
part of the rebels, who this time contrived to take the Duke himself
prisoner. When, however, Philip of Hesse, out of consideration
for the Emperor, seemed inclined to set the captive free, Luther
intervened with a circular letter addressed to Philip and his own
Elector. He was determined to characterise any idea of setting free
the “mischievous, wild tool of the Roman idol” as an open attack
not merely on the Evangel, but even on the manifest will of God as
displayed in the recent war which had been waged “by His angels.” Here
his pseudo-mysticism is again much to the fore. The circular letter was
soon printed and spread broadcast.[1577]
Without any deep insight into the real state of affairs, either
political or ecclesiastical, unmindful even of diplomacy, Luther seeks
to work on the fears of the Protestant princes by an extravagant
description of the Divine Judgments which were overtaking blasphemers,
and tells them they will be sharers in the sin of others if, now that
God had “broken down the bulwark” of the Papacy, they were to set it up
anew.
To the Papists he says: “Stop, you mad fools, Pope and Papists, and
do not blow the flame that God has kindled. For it will turn against
yourselves so that the sparks and cinders will fly into your eyes. Yes,
indeed, this is God’s fire, Who calls Himself a consuming fire. You
know and are convinced in your own conscience that your cause is wicked
and lost and that you are striving against God.”[1578]
He writes confidently: We on this side, without causing either Emperor
or Pope “to raise a hair, have unceasingly prayed, implored, besought
and clamoured for peace, as they very well know; this, however, we
have never been able to obtain from them, but have had daily to endure
nothing but insults, attacks and extermination.” The defensive alliance
of the Catholic Princes and Estates became in his eyes a robber-league,
established under pretext of religion; “what they wanted was not the
Christian religion but the lands of the Elector and Landgrave.”[1579]
The captive Duke had obtained help from Italy, very likely from the
Pope. “In short, we all know that the Pope and the Papists would gladly
see us dead, body and soul, whereas we for our part would have them all
to be saved body and soul together with us.”[1580] The whole writing,
with its combination of rage and mysticism, and likewise much else
dating from that period, may well raise grave doubts as to the state
of the author’s mind.
The inroad into Brunswick was merely a preliminary to the religious
wars soon to break out and ravage Germany. No sooner had Luther
closed his eyes in death than they began on a larger scale with the
Schmalkalden War, which was to prove so disastrous to the Protestants.
His words just quoted to the princes of his party were repeated almost
word for word in the Protestant manifestos during the religious wars.
It is possible that he may have been roused to make such attacks on
the Catholics by certain disagreeable events which occurred from 1541
onwards. Political steps were being taken which were unfavourable to
Lutheranism and not at all adequately balanced by the Protestants’
victory in Brunswick and elsewhere.
Luther was made painfully aware of the unexpected weakening of the
League of Schmalkalden which resulted from the bigamy of Landgrave
Philip of Hesse. By virtue of a secret compact with the Emperor, into
which Philip of Hesse had found himself forced (June 13, 1541),[1581]
the latter, in his position of head of the German Protestants, had
bound himself not to consent that Duke William of Cleves, who inclined
to Protestantism, should be admitted into the Schmalkalden League; he
had also to refuse any assistance to the Duke when the Emperor Charles
V took the field against him on account of the union of Guelders with
Cleves. The progress of Protestantism in these districts was checked by
the Emperor’s victory in 1543. The formal introduction of the new faith
into Metz was frustrated by the Emperor; at Cologne too the Reformers
saw all their efforts brought to naught.
The Diet of Spires, in 1544, it is true brought the Protestants an
extension of that peace which was so favourable to their interests,
but the campaign which Charles V thereupon undertook against François
I—whom Philip of Hesse and the Schmalkaldeners were compelled by the
above-mentioned compact to leave on the lurch—led to the humiliation
of the Frenchman, who was compelled to make peace at Crespy on Sep. 14,
1544. There the King of France promised the Emperor never again to
side with the German Protestants.
Luther was also troubled by the dissensions within the League of
Schmalkalden, by the refusal of Joachim II of Brandenburg, of Louis,
Elector of the Palatinate, and especially of Duke Maurice of Saxony
to join the League; the last sovereign’s intimate relations with the
Emperor were also a source of anxiety. At Wittenberg it was clearly
seen what danger threatened Lutheranism should the Imperial power
gather strength and intervene on behalf of the Roman Church.
The Roman Church, so Luther exclaims fretfully in his “Kurtz Bekentnis”
(1545), is made up of “nothing but Epicureans and scoffers at the
Christian faith.” The Pope, “the greatest foe of Christ and the
real Antichrist, has made himself head of Christendom, nay, the
very hind-piece and bottom-hole of the devil through which so many
abominations of Masses, monkery and immorality are cacked into the
world.”[1582]
_The Zwinglian “Sacramentarians”_
One controversy which greatly excited Luther at this time was that with
the Swiss Sacramentarians. Once more his old feud with Zwinglianism was
to break out and embitter his days. When, in 1542, the elevation was
abolished in the parish church of Wittenberg (to some extent out of
deference to the wishes of the Landgrave of Hesse who objected to this
rite), some people too hastily concluded that Luther was renouncing
his own doctrine in favour of that of the Swiss; hence he deemed it
necessary once more to deny, in language too clear to be mistaken, any
intention to make common cause with a company, which, as he puts it,
had been “infected and intoxicated with an alien spirit.”
Moreover, Caspar Schwenckfeld, with the object of moving the feelings
of Luther’s opponents, made known to them Luther’s rude and so
discreditable letter.[1583] The animosity of the Swiss and of their
South German sympathisers now assumed serious dimensions. Luther
accordingly determined to address the reply which he had been planning
for some time to the Sacramentarians as a body, declaring that that
“slanderer” Schwenckfeld was not worth a single line.
He was also very desirous of once more before his death giving
vigorous and lasting expression to the positive faith which he still
shared and to which he was wont eagerly to fly when hard pressed
by the devil. The spectre of scepticism of which, as many of his
statements show, he dreaded the advent among his followers as soon as
he himself had been taken away, was to be exorcised beforehand.
The writing against the Swiss is the work just alluded to, which
appeared at the end of Sep., 1544, under the title “Kurtz Bekentnis
vom heiligen Sacrament.”[1584]
After briefly disposing of their arguments, with which he had
already sufficiently dealt, the work culminates in a most outspoken
condemnation of the errors and arbitrary opinions of the Swiss, the
most striking sentence of all being the following: “Hence, in a word,
either believe everything fully or else nothing at all.”[1585] This
was practically what the Catholic Church had said to him at his own
apostasy: The principle of faith permits of no picking and choosing
between the truths revealed by God and guaranteed by the Church’s
teaching authority; one must choose between either accepting the whole
body of the Church’s doctrines, or leaving her.[1586]
For the rest the writing was another bad example of the boundless fury
and offensiveness of his mode of controversy. In the first lines he
declares: “It is quite the same to me ... when the accursed mob of
fanatics, Zwinglians and the like praise or abuse me, as when Jews,
Turks, Pope or all the devils in unison scold or laud me. For I, who
am now about to go down into the grave, am determined to bring this
testimony and this boasting with me to the Judgment-seat of my dear
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, that I have with the utmost earnestness
condemned and shunned the fanatics and Sacramentarians, Carlstadt,
Zwingli, Œcolampadius, Stinkfield and their disciples, whether at
Zürich or wherever else they were, according to His command, Titus
iii. 10: ‘A man that is a heretic avoid.’”[1587]—He goes on to call
the Zwinglian Sacramentarians “devourers and murderers of souls, who
have an endevilled, perdevilled, supradevilled and blasphemous heart
and a lying jaw.” “Hence no Christian can or ought to pray for the
fanatics or to assist them. They are reprobates.... They want to have
nothing to do with me, and I want to have nothing to do with them.
They boast that they have nothing from me, for which I heartily thank
God: I have borrowed even less from them, for which, too, God be
praised.”[1588]
In this writing against the Zwinglians Luther also attacks the Papacy
with unspeakable coarseness. Was it perhaps that he was seeking to
atone in this way for his apparent agreement with the Catholics
in their belief in the Presence of Christ in the Sacrament? This
agreement with the Papacy was, however, as he boasts, only due to his
holding fast to the ancient doctrine, to that doctrine which the “true
olden Christian Church has held for fifteen hundred years.”[1589]
He did not bethink himself of his treatment of many other doctrines
of this “true, olden Church.” Moreover, even his doctrine of the
Sacrament was but a shadow of the ancient one. He insisted on denying
any change of substance in the Bread and on affirming that the Body of
Christ is actually and everywhere in heaven and on earth present as a
body. He is also known to have praised Calvin for a writing in which
the latter belied the “local presence” of Christ in the Bread,[1590]
and that he declared his readiness to “learn something from so able
a mind.” Thus what he retained was but a distorted fragment of the
ancient doctrine of the Sacrament, salved from the shattered treasure
of his former Catholic convictions.
_Calvin_
Very different from that which he displayed towards Zwingli and his
co-religionists was Luther’s attitude towards Calvin, the head of the
theocracy of Geneva, whose power in the “Swiss Rome” had developed so
amazingly since 1541, when he had returned after six years’ exile at
Strasburg in the companionship of Bucer.
Thanks to Bucer, Calvin’s opinions, which in the main had always been
Lutheran, had been directed more towards that form of Lutheranism
represented by Bucer and Melanchthon, his earlier humanistic education
making this all the easier. On account of his views some have, not
so wrongly, dubbed him the “South-German Lutheran,”[1591] though
his stiffness and harshness were not at all in keeping with the
South-German character. Being in close touch with Lutheranism he had
frequently visited Germany during his theological wanderings, and as
the representative of the Strasburg Protestants. He had taken a part
in the negotiations at the Frankfurt Convention and at the religious
conferences at Hagenau, Worms and Ratisbon.
Calvin esteemed Luther far higher than Zwingli. “If we compare them,”
he wrote to his friend Guillaume Farel, “Luther towers far above him,
as you yourself are well aware.”[1592]
Calvin’s doctrine, as exemplified in his frequently quoted
“_Institutio religionis christianæ_” (1536) and in his later writings,
like that of Luther, excludes any participation of the human will in
the work of salvation; all freedom is abolished, everything being
enacted by the unchangeable “_Providentia Dei_” in the deterministic
sense; with him, as with Luther, Adam’s fall was inevitable, owing to
the divine Predestination, and so was the consequent enthralling of
the whole of the human race under the bondage of sin.[1593]
On the elect, however, more particularly on those who follow Calvin’s
doctrines and admonitions, the assurance of salvation is infallibly
bestowed, just as he possesses it himself. Those thus predestined
cannot be lost, while such as are predestined to hell must inevitably
incur the penalty of eternal suffering; amongst the latter are not
only all the heathen, but also those who oppose the new belief; they
are a reprobate mass of humanity who have forfeited all right to live
by rising up against God and the authorities.[1594] In his doctrine of
predestination Calvin, who is the more logical of the two, sets aside
the distinction insisted on by Luther between the Revealed Will of God
that all men should be saved and His Hidden Will which nullifies it.
The predestinarian ideas of both are at bottom identical, but with
Luther, as Friedrich Loofs expresses it, “reprobation tends to recede
more and more into the background and thus to hold only a secondary
place; Calvin, on the other hand, is ever and of set purpose dwelling
on this background, because (according to him) it is also part of the
revealed doctrine of salvation, and also because it is only another
aspect of predestination.”[1595]
Calvin taught Justification in the same way as Luther, and, like him,
denied entirely any merit to good works.
It was with unmixed joy that Luther saw “so able a mind” coming forward
as a champion of the new theology against the Roman errors.
* * * * *
This explains how Melanchthon could announce to Bucer at Strasburg,
in a note evidently intended for Calvin himself, that, though certain
persons had tried to incite Luther against Calvin on account of a
statement [on the Supper] which was at variance with Luther’s views,
“Calvin stands in high favour [with Luther]” (“_magnam gratiam
iniit_”). Calvin himself with great satisfaction quoted this passage
in a letter to Farel.[1596] As for Luther, writing to Bucer on Oct.
14, 1539, he sent his “respectful greetings” to Calvin and mentioned
that he had perused “with peculiar pleasure”[1597] his writing (the
“_Responsio_” against Jacopo Sadoleto in which was the incriminated
statement).
When, in April, 1545, Luther glanced through a newly published Latin
translation of Calvin’s principal work on the Supper, “Petit traicté de
la sainte cene” (1541), he observed, that the author was a learned and
pious man; had Œcolampadius and Zwingli expressed themselves in this
way from the beginning, then no such quarrel would have arisen. Thus
Luther accepted the Genevese theologian’s essay “in a friendly way and
without misgiving”—though “in it, Calvin recognised a bodily presence
in Luther’s sense as little as before.”[1598] On the contrary, Calvin
agrees in the main with Zwingli’s denial of the Real Presence, though
he insists very strongly on the spiritual working of the Body of
Christ enthroned in heaven on the recipients of the Supper, so strongly
indeed as to speak of the “real substance of His Body and Blood” which
Christ communicates.[1599] As Loofs puts it: “He had come nearer to
Luther’s view, at least so far as terminology went.” Later on, however,
so Loofs adds, “the delusive terminological approximation to Luther
disappeared”; in support of this Loofs quotes from the 1559 edition
of the “_Institutio_”: “Christ breathes life into our souls from the
substance of His Flesh ... though the flesh of Christ does not enter
us.”[1600]
It was fortunate for the relations between the leaders at Wittenberg
and Geneva that Luther was no longer amongst the living when Calvin
expressed such a view of the Supper.
The amenities and courtesies between the two heads would have ceased
and Luther’s wrath would have once again asserted itself. As a
matter of fact the ambiguity of which Calvin had learnt the use in
Bucer’s school came to an end very shortly after Luther’s death, when
Calvin and Farel reached an agreement with Bullinger of Zürich (The
“_Consensus Tigurinus_”); here the Genevese without any reservation put
forward the theses: “Any idea of a local presence of Christ [in the
Sacrament] must be set aside ... it is a wrong and godless superstition
to circumscribe Christ as man under elements of this world.”[1601]
The words “This is My Body” are, on the contrary, to be understood by
metonymy, the name of the thing represented being transferred to the
“sign.”—Now it was just the fact that Zwingli and the sacramentarians
made of the Eucharist nothing more than a “sign” that had kept alive
Luther’s indignation against them even till his last hour.
“_On the Jews and their Lies._” “_On Shem Hammephorash_,” 1543
Amongst the prominent events of the day in Central Germany the Jewish
movement deserves a place; on the one hand there was an increase in
the influence and power of the Jews, and, on the other, repressive
measures secured their banishment from several territories. In this
movement Luther took a leading part.
In the Saxon Electorate the expulsion of the Jews had taken place
in 1536 by virtue of an edict of Johann Frederick’s. They were even
refused the usual safe conduct through the country and threatened
with the severest penalties should they be caught within the borders.
In the matter of this regulation Luther sided with the sovereign.
When the Jew, Josel Rosheim, a zealous advocate of his race, besought
Luther repeatedly in the most urgent manner by letter to procure him
an audience with the Elector, Luther not only refused to do anything
for him, on the grounds that the Jews were hostile to Christianity, but
even declared his intention to attack their obstinacy in print as soon
as God granted him time and opportunity.[1602]