The revelations which confirmed him in the idea of his mission deserve

more careful examination than has hitherto been possible to us in the

course of our narrative.

That Luther ever laid claim to having received his doctrine by a personal

revelation from God has been several times denied in recent times by his

defenders. They urge that he merely claimed to have received his doctrine

from above, “in the same way that God reveals it to all true Christians”;

in this and in no other sense, does he speak of his revelations, nor

does he ascribe to himself any “peculiar mission.”

It is true Luther taught that the content of the faith to which every

true Christian adheres had come into the world by a revelation bestowed

on mankind; he also taught that the Holy Ghost lends His assistance

to every man to enable him to grasp and hold fast to this revelation:

“This is a wisdom such as reason has never framed, nor has the heart

of man conceived it, no, not even the great ones of this world, but

it is revealed from heaven by the Holy Ghost to those who believe the

Gospel.”[448]—This, however, is not the question, but rather, whether

he never gave out that he had reached his own fresh knowledge, and

that reading of the Bible which he sets up against all the rest of

Christendom, thanks to a private and particular illumination, and whether

he did not base on such a revelation his claim to infallible certainty?

_Luther’s Insistence on Private Revelation_

Luther certainly never dreamt of making so bold and hazardous an

assertion so long as a spark of hope remained in him that the Church of

Rome would fall in with his doctrines. It was only gradually that the

phantom of a personal revelation grew upon him, and, even later, its sway

was never absolute, as we can see from our occasional glimpses into his

inward struggles of conscience.

We may begin with one of his latest utterances, following it up with

one of his earliest. Towards the end of his life he insisted on the

suddenness with which the light streamed in upon him when he had at

last penetrated into the meaning of Rom. i. 17 (in the Tower), thus

setting the coping-stone on his doctrines by that of the certainty of

salvation.[449] Again, at the outset of his public career, we meet with

those words of which Adolf Harnack says: “Such self-reliance almost fills

us with anxiety.”[450]

The words Harnack refers to are those in which Luther solemnly assures

his Elector that he had “received the Evangel, not from man, but from

heaven alone, through our Lord Jesus Christ.” This he wrote in 1522 when

on the point of quitting the Wartburg.[451]

In the same year in his “Wyder den falsch genantten geystlichen Standt,”

full of the spirit he had inhaled at the Wartburg, he declared that he

could no longer remain without “name or title” in order that he might

rightly honour and extol the “Word, office and work he had from God.”

For the Father of all Mercies, out of the boundless riches of His Grace,

had brought him, for all his sinfulness, “to the knowledge of His Son

Jesus Christ and set him to teach others until they too saw the truth”;

for this reason he had a better right to term himself an “Evangelist by

the Grace of God” than the bishops had to call themselves bishops. “I am

quite sure that Christ Himself, Who is the Master of my doctrine, calls

and regards me as such.” Hence he will not permit even “an angel from

heaven to judge or take him to task concerning his doctrine”; “since

I am certain of it I am determined to be judge, not only of you, but,

as St. Paul says (Gal. i. 8), even of the angels, so that whoever does

not accept my doctrine cannot be saved; for it is God’s and not mine,

therefore my judgment also is not mine but God’s own.”[452]

Such Wartburg enthusiasm, where all that is wanting is the actual word

revelation, agrees well with his statement about the sort of ultimatum

(“_Interminatio_”) sent him by God: “Under pain of eternal wrath it had

been enjoined on him from above,” that he must preach what had been given

him; he describes this species of vision as one of the greatest favours

God had bestowed on his soul.[453] Nor did he scruple to make use of the

word “revelation.”

The dispute he had with Cochlæus in the presence of others at Worms

in 1521 shows not only that he had sufficient courage to do this but

also, that, previously, from whatever cause, he had hesitated to do

so. We have Cochlæus’s already quoted account of the incident in

the detailed report of his encounter with Luther.[454] It is true

he only published it in 1540, but it is evidently based on notes

made by the narrator at the time. In reply to the admonition, not

to interpret Holy Scripture “arbitrarily, and against the authority

and interpretation of the Church,” Luther urged that there might be

circumstances where it was permissible to oppose the decrees of the

Councils, for Paul said in 1 Corinthians: “If anything be revealed

to another sitting, let the first hold his peace,”[455] though, so

Luther proceeded, he had no wish to lay claim to a revelation. In the

event, however, as he was always harking back to this instance of

revelation mentioned by the Apostle it occurred to Cochlæus to pin him

down to this expression. Hence, without any beating about the bush,

he asked him: “Have _you_ then received a revelation?” Luther looked

at him, hesitated a moment and then said: “Yes, it has been revealed

to me, ‘_Est mihi revelatum._’” His opponent at once reminded him

that, before this, he had protested against being the recipient of

any revelation. Luther, however, said: “I did not deny it.” Cochlæus

rejoined: “But who will believe that you have had a revelation? What

miracle have you worked in proof of it? By what sign will you confirm

it? Would it not be possible for anyone to defend his errors in this

way?” The text in question speaks of a direct revelation. It was in

this sense that Luther had appealed to it before, and that Cochlæus

framed his question. It is impossible to understand Luther’s answer

as referring to a revelation common to all true Christians. Either

Luther made no answer to Cochlæus’s last words or it was lost in

the interruption of his friend Hieronymus Schurf.[456] In any case

his position was a difficult one and it was simpler for him when he

repeated the same assertion later in his printed writings quietly to

treat all objections with contempt. At any rate he never accused the

above account given by Cochlæus of being false.

Again, in 1522, Luther declares in his sermons at Wittenberg,[457]

that “it was God Who had set him to work on this scheme” (the reform

of the faith), and had given him the “first place” in it. “I cannot

escape from God but must remain so long as it pleases God my Lord;

moreover, it was to me that God first revealed that the Word must be

preached and proclaimed to you.” Hence his revelation was similar to

that of the prophets, for he is alluding to the prophet Jonas when he

says that he could “not escape from God.”[458] The Wittenbergers, he

says, ought therefore to have consulted him before rashly undertaking

their own innovations under Carlstadt’s influence: “We see here that

you have not the Spirit though you may have an exalted knowledge of

Scripture.”[459] Hence, on the top of his knowledge of Scripture, he

himself possesses the “Spirit.”

From the twelvemonth that followed Luther’s spiritual baptism at the

Wartburg also date the asseverations he makes, that his doctrine was,

not his, but Christ’s own,[460] and that it was “certain he had his

doctrines from heaven.”[461]

“By Divine revelation,” as we learn from him not long after, “he had

been summoned as an anti-pope to undo, root out and sweep away the

kingdom of malediction” (the Papacy).[462] In 1527 he assures us:

This doctrine “God has revealed to me by His Grace.”[463] And, at a

later period, though rather more cautiously, he does not shrink from

occasionally making use of the word revelation. From the pulpit in

1532 he urged opponents in his own camp to lay aside their peculiar

doctrines, because, “God has enjoined and commanded _one man_ to teach

the Evangel,” i.e. himself.[464]

So familiar is this idea to him that it intrudes itself into his

conversations at home. It was the “Holy Ghost” who had “given” to him

his doctrine, so he told his friends and pupils in his old age.[465]

At Wittenberg, according to his own words which Mathesius noted down,

they possessed, thanks to him, the divine revelation. “Whoever, after

my death, despises the authority of the Wittenberg school, provided

it remains the same as now, is a heretic and a pervert, for in this

school God has revealed His Word.” He also complains in the same

passage that the sectarians within the new fold who turned against him

had fallen away from the faith.[466]

At that time, i.e. during the ’forties, the idea of an inspiration

grew stronger in him. He boasts that his understanding of Romans i.

17 was due to the “illumination of the Holy Ghost,” and tells how he

suddenly felt himself “completely born anew,” as if he had passed

“through the open portals into Paradise itself,” and how, “at once,

the whole of Scripture bore another aspect.”[467]

Thus his idea of the revelation with which he had been favoured

gradually assumed in his mind a more concrete shape.

According to the funeral oration delivered by his friend Jonas on

Feb. 19, 1546, at Eisleben, Luther often spoke to his friends of his

revelations, hinting in a vague and mysterious way at the sufferings

they had entailed. Jonas tells the people in so many words, “that

Martin himself had often said: ‘What I endure and have endured for

the doctrine of the beloved Evangel which God has again revealed to

the world, no one shall learn from me here in this world, but on That

Day it will be laid open.’ Only at the Last Day will he tell us what

during his life he ever kept sealed up in his heart, viz. the great

victories which the Son of God won through him against sin, devil,

Papists and false brethren, etc. All this he will tell us and also

what sublime revelations he had when he began to preach the Evangel,

so that verily we shall be amazed and praise God for them.”[468]

Hence Luther had persuaded his friends that he had been favoured with

particular revelations.

From all the above it becomes clear that the revelation which Luther

claimed was regarded by him throughout as a true and personal

communication from above, and not merely as a knowledge acquired by

reflection and prayer under the Divine assistance common to all. It was

in fact only by considering the matter in this light that he was able

effectually to refute the objections of outsiders and to allay to some

extent the storms within him. The very character of his revolt against

the Church, against the tradition of a thousand years, against the

episcopate, universities, Catholic princes and Catholic instincts of the

nation demanded something more than could have been afforded by a mere

appeal to the revelation common to all. Of what service would it have

been to him in his struggles of conscience, and when contending with the

malice and jealousy of the sects, to have laid claim to a vague, general

revelation?

Nevertheless, the appeals Luther makes to the revelation he had received

are at times somewhat vague, as some of the passages quoted serve to

prove. We shall not be far wrong if we say that he himself was often not

quite clear as to what he should lay claim. His ideas, or at any rate his

statements, concerning the exalted communications he had received, vary

with the circumstances, being, now more definite, now somewhat misty.

Here, as in the parallel case of his belief in his mission, his

assertions are at certain periods more energetic and defiant than at

others (see above, vol. iii., p. 120 ff.).

However this may be, the idea of a revelation in the strict sense was

no mere passing whim; it emerges at its strongest under the influence

of the Wartburg spirit, and, once more, summons up all its forces

towards the end of his days, when Luther seeks for comfort amid his sad

experiences and for some relief in his weariness. Yet, in him, the idea

of a revelation always seems a matter of the will, something which he can

summon to his assistance and to which he deliberately holds fast, and

which, as occasion requires, is decked out with the necessary adjuncts

of angels descending from heaven, visions, spirits, inward experiences,

inward menaces, or triumphs over the temptations of the devil.

_Some Apparent Withdrawals_

Various apparently contradictory statements, such as the reader must

expect to meet with in Luther, are not, however, wanting, even concerning

his revelations.

Discordant statements of the sort do not, indeed, occur in the passages,

where, as in the quotations given above, he is defending his theological

innovations against the authority of the Church. Often they are a mere

rhetorical trick to impress his hearers with his modesty. In his sermons

at Wittenberg in 1522, for instance, he declared that he was perfectly

willing to submit his “feeling and understanding” to anyone to whom “more

has been revealed”; by this, however, he does not mean his doctrine but

merely the practical details of the introduction of the new ritual of

public worship, then being discussed at Wittenberg. This is clear from

the very emphasis he here lays on his teaching, thanks to which the

Wittenbergers now have the “Word of God true and undefiled,” and from his

description of the devil’s rage who now sees that “the sun of the true

Evangel has risen.”[469]

Again, when, in his later revision of the same course of sermons, we hear

him say: “You must be disciples, not of Luther, but of Christ,”[470]

and: “You must not say I am Luther’s, or I am the Pope’s, for neither

has died for you nor is your master, but only Christ,”[471] he has not

the least intention of denying the authority of the doctrine revealed

to him, on the contrary, on the same page, he has it that, “Luther’s

doctrine is not his but Christ’s own”;[472] he had already said, “Even

were Luther himself or an angel from heaven to teach otherwise, let

it be anathema.”[473] He is simply following St. Paul’s lead[474] and

pointing out to his hearers the supreme source of truth; he still remains

its instrument, the “Prophet,” “Evangelist” and “Ecclesiastes by the

grace of God,” favoured, like the inspired Apostle of the Gentiles, with

revelations.

Nevertheless, we cannot shut our eyes to the fact, that, subsequent to

1525, Luther tended at times to be less insistent on his revelations.

From strategic considerations he was careful to keep more in the

background his revelations from the Spirit now that the fanatics were

also claiming their own special enlightenment by the “Spirit.” His eyes

were now opened to the danger inherent in such arbitrary claims to

revelation, and, accordingly, he now begins to insist more on the outward

“Word.”[475]

It is true, that, in Nov., 1525, in refutation of the Zwinglian

theologians of Strasburg, he still appealed not merely to his visions of

angels (see above, p. 127) but also to the certain light of his doctrine

inspired by the Holy Ghost, and to his sense of the “Spirit.” “I see

very well,” he says, “that they have no certainty, but the Spirit is

certain of His cause.”[476] Even then, however, a change had begun and

he preferred to appeal to Holy Scripture, which, so he argued, spoke

plainly in his favour, rather than to inspirations and revelations. Hence

his asseveration that this outward Word of God has much more claim to

consideration than the inward Word, which can so easily be twisted to

suit one’s frame of mind. He now comes unduly to depreciate the inward

Word and the Spirit which formerly he had so highly vaunted, though, on

the other hand, he continues to teach that the Spirit and the inward

enlightening of the Word are necessary for the interpretation of Holy

Scripture.

His Commentary on Isaias contains a delightful attack on the “all-too

spiritual folk, who, to-day, cry Spirit, Spirit!” “Let us not look

for any private revelations. It is Christ who tells us to ‘search

the Scriptures’ [John v. 39]. Revelations puff us up and make us

presumptuous. I have not been instructed,” so he goes on, “either by

signs or by special revelations, nor have I ever begged signs of God;

on the contrary I have asked Him never to let me become proud, or be

led astray from the outward Word through the devil’s tricks.” He then

launches out against those who pretend they have “particular revelations

on the faith,” being “misled by the devil.” These words occur in the

revised and enlarged Scholia on Isaias published in 1534. It may,

however, be that they did not figure in Luther’s lectures on Isaias

(1527-30) but were appended somewhat later.[477]

After thus apparently disowning any title to private revelation and

a higher light Luther’s inevitable appeal to the certainty of his

doctrine only becomes the more confident. Thanks to his temptations and

death-throes, he had become so certain, that he can declare: Possessed of

the “Word” as I am, I have not the least wish “that an angel should come

to me, for, now, I should not believe him.”

“Nevertheless, the time might well come,” so he continues in this passage

of the Table-Talk, “when I might be pleased to see one [an angel] on

certain matters.” “I do not, however, admit dreams and signs, nor do I

worry about them. We have in Scripture all that we require. Sad dreams

come from the devil, for everything that ministers to death and dread,

lies and murder is the devil’s handiwork.”[478]

It is true Luther was often plagued by terrifying dreams, and as he

numbered them among his “anxieties and death-throes” what he says about

them may fittingly be utilised to complete the picture of his inward

state. To such an extent was the devil able to affright him, so he says,

that he “broke out into a sweat in the midst of his sleep”; thus “Satan

was present even when men slept; but angels too were also there.”[479] He

assures us, that, in his sleep, he had witnessed even the horrors of the

Last Judgment.

_The “Temptations” as one of Luther’s Bulwarks_

The states of terror and the temptations he underwent were to Luther

so many confirmations of his doctrine. Some of his utterances on this

subject ring very oddly.

To be “in deaths often” was, according to him, a sort of “apostolic

gift,” shared by Peter and Paul. In order to be a doctor above

suspicion, a man must have experienced the pains of death and the

“melting of the bones.” In the Psalms he hears, as it were, an echo

of his own state of soul. “To despair where hope itself despairs,”

and “to live in unspeakable groanings,” “this no one can understand

who has not tasted it.” This he said in 1520 in a Commentary on the

Psalms.[480] And, later, in 1530, when engaged at the Coburg in

expounding the first twenty-five psalms: “‘My heart is become like

wax melting in the midst of my bowels’ [Ps. xxi. 15]. What that was

no one grasps who has not felt it.”[481] “In such trouble there must

needs be despair, but, if I say: ‘This I do simply and solely at God’s

command,’ there comes the assurance: Hence God will take your part and

comfort you. It was thus we consoled ourselves at Augsburg.”[482]

Many others who followed him were also overtaken by similar distress

of mind. Struggles of conscience and gloomy depression were the fate

of many who flocked to his standard (cp. above, vol. iv., pp. 218-27).

Johann Mathesius, Luther’s favourite pupil, so frequently referred to

above, towards the end of his life, when pastor at Joachimsthal, once

declared, when brooding sadly, that the devil with his temptations was

sifting him as it were in a sieve and that he was enduring the pangs

of hell described by David. The very mention of a knife led him to

think of suicide. He was eager to hold fast to Christ alone, but this

he could not do. After the struggle had lasted two or three months his

condition finally improved.[483]

Such were Luther’s temptations, of which, afterwards, he did not

scruple to boast. “Often did they bring us to death’s door,” he says

of the mental struggles in which his new doctrine and practice of

sheltering himself behind the merits of Christ involved him. But,

nevertheless, “I will hold fast to that Man alone, even though it

should bring me to the grave!”[484]

Again, in 1532, we hear him making his own the words: “Out of the

depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord” (Ps. cxxix. 1). The prophet

is not complaining of any mere “worldly temptations,” but of “that

anguish of conscience, of those blows and terrors of death such as the

heart feels when on the brink of despair and when it fancies itself

abandoned by God; when it both sees its sin and how all its good works

are condemned by God the angry Judge.… When a man is sunk in such

anxiety and trouble he cannot recover unless help is bestowed on him

from above.… Nearly all the great saints suffered in this way and were

dragged almost to the gates of death by sin and the Law; hence David’s

exclamation: ‘Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord!’”—The

whole trend of what he says, likewise the counsels he gives on the

remedies that may bring consolation, show plainly his attachment to

this dark night of the soul and his conviction that he is but treading

in the footsteps of the “great Saints” and “Prophets.”[485]

At any rate there is no room for doubt that this opened out a rich

field for delusion; what he says depicts a frame of mind in which

hallucinations might well thrive; we shall, however, leave it to others

to determine how far pathological elements intervene.

In the certainty that his cause was inspired he calmly awaits the

approach of the fanatics; they can serve only to strengthen in him his

sense of confidence. Of them and their “presumptuous certainty” he makes

short work in a conversation noted down by Cordatus:[486] Marcus Thomae

(Stübner) he requests to perform a miracle in proof of his views, warning

him, however, that “My God will assuredly forbid your God to let you work

a sign”; he also hurls against him the formula of exorcism: “God rebuke

thee, Satan” (Zach. iii. 2).[487] Nicholas Storch and Thomas Münzer,

so he assures us, openly show their presumption. A pupil of Stübner was

anxious to set himself up as a teacher, but the fellow had only been able

to talk fantastic rubbish to him. Of people such as these he had come

across quite sixty. Campanus, again, is simply to be numbered among the

biggest blasphemers. Carlstadt, who wanted to be esteemed learned, was

only distinguished by his arrogant mouthing. Nowhere was there profundity

or truth. “Not one of you has endured such anxieties and temptations

as I.”[488] “And yet Carlstadt wanted us to bow to his teaching.… Like

Christ, however, I say: ‘My doctrine is not mine but his that sent me’

(John vii. 16). I cannot betray it as the world would have me do. The

malice of all these ministers of Satan only serves my cause and exercises

me in indomitable firmness.”[489] Hence he derives equal benefit from the

malice of his opponents within the fold and from the inward apprehensions

of which Satan was the cause.

The manifold errors which had sprung from the seed of his own principles,

in any other man would have elicited doubts and scruples; Luther,

however, finds in them fresh support for his dominating conviction:

My glorious sufferings at the devil’s hands are being multiplied and,

thereby, too, the witness on behalf of my doctrine is being strengthened.

The mystical halo of the “man of suffering” certainly made a great

impression on some of his young followers and admirers such as

Spangenberg, Mathesius, Cordatus and Veit Dietrich. On others of his

circle the effect was not so lasting.

Melanchthon, for instance, was well acquainted with Luther’s fits of

mystic terror, yet how severe is the criticism he passes on Luther’s

ground-dogmas, particularly after the latter’s death.

The doctrine of man’s entire unfreedom in doing what is good may serve as

an instance.

This palladium of the new theology had been discovered by Luther when

overwhelmed with despair; by it he sought to commit himself entirely

into God’s hands and blindly and passively to await salvation from Him;

this he regarded as the only way out of inward trials; no man could

face the devil with his free will; he himself, so he wrote, “would not

wish to have” free-will, even were it offered him (“_nollem mihi dari

liberum arbitrium_”), in order that he might at least be safe from the

devil; nay, even were there no devil, free-will would still be to him an

abomination, because, with it, his “conscience would never be safe and

at rest.” The words occur in the work he declared to be his very best

and a lasting heirloom for posterity.[490] This particular doctrine,

Melanchthon was, however, so far from regarding as a “revelation,” that

he wrote in 1559: “Both during Luther’s lifetime and also later, I

withstood that Stoical and Manichæan delusion which led Luther and others

to write, that all works whether good or evil, in all men whether good

or bad, take place of necessity. Now it is evident that this doctrine

is contrary to God’s Word, subversive of all discipline and a blasphemy

against God.”[491] Melanchthon did not even scruple to call upon the

State to intervene and prohibit such things being said. In his Postils,

dealing with the question whether heretics should be put to death, he

declares: “By divine command the public authorities must proceed against

idolaters and also interdict blasphemous language, as, for instance,

when a man teaches that good or evil takes place of necessity and under

compulsion.”[492]

He could not well have said anything more deadly against the foundation

on which Luther’s whole edifice was reared.

In spite of all, Luther always stood by his pseudo-mystic idea of his

having received revelations. Without it he could never have ventured to

threaten as he did the secular and ecclesiastical authorities who opposed

his dogmas, with “extermination” and “great revolts,” or to proclaim so

confidently that they would fall, blown over by the breath of Christ’s

mouth, or to prophesy that, even beyond the grave, he would be to the

impenitent Papists, what, according to the prophet Osee, God threatened

to be to Israel, viz. “a bear in the road and a lion in the path.”[493]

His whole process of thought was, as it were, held captive in the heavy

chains of this idea.

_Three Perverted Theories Dominating Luther’s Outlook_

In order to enter even more deeply into Luther’s mentality three

categories of ideas by which he determined his life well deserve

consideration here. Only at the point we have now reached can some of his

statements be judged of aright.

Among his strange ideas must be reckoned his threefold conviction, first,

that he was called to be the opponent of Antichrist, secondly, that

Popery was a thing of boundless and utter depravity, thirdly, that in

his own personal experiences and gifts he was blessed beyond all other

men. Here again we shall have to refer to many passages already quoted

and also to some fresh ones of Luther’s which afford a glimpse into his

perverted mode of thought and incredible prejudice.

His obstinate belief in his mission against Antichrist keeps the thought

of a mortal combat ever before his mind; a decisive battle at the

approaching end of all, between heaven and hell, between Christ and the

dragon. This struggle, such as he viewed it, needless to say existed only

in his imagination. If, according to him, the devil fights so furiously

that at times Christ Himself seems on the point of succumbing, this is

only because Luther’s cause does not thrive, or because Luther himself

is again the butt of gloomy fears. As early as 1518, as we know, he

fancied he had detected the Papal Antichrist, and could read the thoughts

of Satan, who was at work behind his opponents.[494] In this idea he

subsequently confirmed himself by his reading of the Old-Testament

prophecies, on which, till almost the very end of his life, he was wont

laboriously to base new calculations. From the dawn of his career it has

been borne in on him with ever-growing clearness how Christ, using Luther

as His tool, will overthrow, as though in sport, this “man of sin” of

which Popery is the embodiment; at the very close of his days, when the

sight of the evils rampant in Germany was causing him the utmost anxiety,

he seems to hear the trump that heralds the Coming of the Judge.

Using images that suggest a positive obsession, he depicts the world as

full of the traces of Antichrist and the devil his forerunner. Yet all

the machinations of the old serpent avail only to strengthen the defiance

with which he opposes Satan and all his myrmidons. The signs in the

heavens above and on the earth below all point to him, the great, albeit

unworthy, champion of God’s cause. Though Antichrist and the powers

that are his backers in this world may for the time have the better of

the struggle this is but the last flicker of the dying flame which, by

prophecy and vision, he had been predestined to extinguish (above, vol.

iii., p. 165 ff., etc.).

Hence his confidence in unveiling the action of Antichrist as portrayed

in the birth of the Monk-Calf; like some seer he hastens to pen a special

work for the instruction of the people in the meaning of the Calf’s

anatomy.[495] His growing uncanny imagination goes on to describe, in

colours more and more glaring, the abominations of that Antichrist from

whom he has torn the veil. The fury of the Turk is but child’s play to

the horror of the Papal Antichrist. That portion of the Table-Talk which

deals with Antichrist, comprising no less than 165 sections brimful of

the maddest fancies, begins with the description of Antichrist’s head.

“The head is at the same time the Pope and the Turk. A living animal must

have both soul and body. The spirit or soul of Antichrist is the Pope,

his flesh or body the Turk”;[496] the concluding words on the subject

are in the same vein: “The blood of Abel cries for vengeance on them,”

viz. on the followers of the Pope-Antichrist.[497] These chapters of the

Table-Talk dealing with Antichrist scarcely do credit to the human mind.

We can, however, understand them, for to Luther nothing is plainer than

that the “nature of his foes is utterly devilish”; all he sees is the

claws, paws, horns and poison-fangs of Antichrist.[498]

Luther revealed the anti-Christian nature of the Pope, in accordance with

the prophet Daniel whom he read on the principle: “_Sic volo, sic iubeo,

sit pro ratione voluntas_”; “Nevertheless we attach but little importance

to our deliverance and are very ungrateful. This, however, is our

consolation, viz. that the Last Day cannot now be long delayed. Daniel’s

prophecy is fulfilled to the letter and paints the Papacy as plainly as

though it had been written _post factum_.”[499]

In spite of Antichrist and “all that is mighty” the Article concerning

Holy Scripture and the Cross still holds the field. And, so Luther

proceeds in the Table-Talk, “I, a poor monk, had to come,” with “an

unfortunate nun” [Catherine Bora who doubtless was present], and “seize

upon it and hold it. Thus ‘_verbum_’ and ‘_crux_’ are the conquerors;

they make us confident.”[500]

The reason why Luther longed with such ardour for the coming of the

Last Day has already been shown to have been his growing pessimism and

the depression resulting from the sad experiences with which he had met

(above, vol. v., p. 245 ff.). In his elastic way he, however, manages,

when preaching to the people, to give a rather different reason for

his prediction of the fall of Antichrist and the coming of the end. In

Popery, he declares, we were not allowed to speak of the Last Judgment;

“how we dreaded it”; “we pictured Christ to ourselves as a Judge to Whom

we had to give account. To that we came, thanks to our works.” But now

it is quite otherwise. “Now on the contrary I should be glad if the Last

Day were to come, because there is no greater consolation.”[501] Here

he speaks as though inspired solely by the purest of intentions when he

looked forward to the coming of the vanquisher of Antichrist.

* * * * *

The wickedness of his opponents and the weapons to be used against them

constitute a second group of ideas. Here, once again, the psychological

or pathological appreciation of Luther’s strange and morbid train of

thought makes imperative a further investigation of certain points

already discussed in other connections.

Often Luther seems unable to stem the torrent of charges and insults

that streams from him as soon as adversaries appear in his field of

vision. Frequently it almost looks as though some superhuman agency

outside himself had opened the sluice-gates of his terrible eloquence.

He is determined to rage against them “even to the very grave”; his

wrath against them “refreshes his blood.” It is actually when expressing

his hatred in the most incredible language that he is most sensible of

the “nearness of God.” Do not his Popish foes deserve even worse than

he, a mere man, is able to heap on them? Those scoundrels who “only

seek a pretext for telling lies against us and misleading simple folk,

though quite well aware that they are in the wrong.”[502] Their palpable

obstinacy, in spite of their better judgment, was so great, so he argued,

that it was only because Luther advocated it that they refused to hear of

any moral reform, for instance, of the clergy marrying, etc., otherwise

they would have held it “quite all right.” He does not shrink from

demanding that such roguery should “be hunted down with hounds,” no less

than the wickedness of these “most depraved of brothel-keepers, open

adulterers, stealers of women and seducers of maidens.”[503]

The most curious thing, however, one, too, that must weigh heavily in the

balance when judging of his mental state, is that, as shown elsewhere, by

dint of repeating this he actually came to believe that his caricature

of Catholicism was perfectly true to fact. The calumnies become part of

his mental framework, the very frequency and heat of his charges blinding

him to all sense of their enormity, and clouding his outlook. What is

even worse is, that, even when he occasionally glimpses the truth he

yet believes it lawful to deviate from it where this suits his purpose.

Thus he came to formulate the dangerous theory of the lie of necessity

and the useful lie which we have already described in his own words. He

goes so far as to say, that the nature of his foes was utterly devilish

(above, p. 155, n. 4), and, when assailing the wickedness of Popery, he

considers “everything lawful for the salvation of souls” (“_omnia nobis

licere arbitramur_”).[504] Our “tricks, lies and stumblings” may “easily

be atoned for, for God’s Mercy watches over us.”[505]

On other occasions his opponents become “a pack of fools”; they deserve

nothing but scorn and no heed should be paid to their objections. Even

should the world write against him he will only pity them. All earlier

ages and “a thousand Fathers and Councils of the Church” cannot rob him

of the golden grains of truth which he alone possesses.

No sooner does he speak of the Papists and their religion, than,

irresistibly, there rises up before his mind the picture of the

“tonsures, cowls, frocks and bawling in the choir,” in short the

so-called holiness-by-works, on which he seizes to load ridicule on all

that is Popish.

This Luther is apt to do even when treating of subjects quite alien to

this sort of polemics.

In his “Von den Conciliis und Kirchen” (1539) he has a lengthy

dissertation on the marks of the Church; the subject being a wide

one he is anxious to get on with it, yet, even so, his pen again

and again wanders off into vituperation. He apostrophises himself

incidentally as follows: “But how is it that I come again to speak of

the infamous, filthy menials of the Pope? Let them begone, and, for

ever,” etc. With these words he breaks off a wild outburst in which he

had declared that the Pope and his men were persecuting the Word of

God, i.e. Luther’s doctrine, “though well aware of its truth; very bad

Apostles, Evangelists and Prophets must they be, like the devil and

his angels.”[506]

Yet, on the very next page, the same subject crops up again. A lay

figure serves to introduce it. To him Luther says: “There you come

again dragging in your Pope with you, though I wanted to have no more

to do with you. Well, as you insist on annoying me with your unwelcome

presence I shall give you a thoroughly Lutheran reception.” He then

proceeds to enlarge in “Lutheran” fashion on the fact, that the Pope

“condemns the wedded life of the bishops and priests.” “If a man

has seduced a hundred maidens, violated a hundred honourable widows

and has besides a hundred prostitutes behind him, he is allowed to

be not merely a preacher or parson but even a bishop or Pope, and

though he keeps on in his evil ways he would still be tolerated in

such an office.” “Are you not mad and foolish? Out on you, you rude

fools and donkeys!… Truly Popes and bishops are fine fellows to be

the bridegrooms of the Churches. Better suited were they to be the

bridegrooms of female keepers of bawdy houses, or of the devil’s own

daughter in hell! True bishops are the servants of this bride and she

is their wife and mistress.” According to you “matrimony is unclean,

and a merdiferous sacrament which cannot please God”; at the same

time it is supposed to be right and a sacrament. “See how the devil

cheats and befools you when he teaches you such twaddle!” Further on

he begins anew: “To violate virgins, widows and married women, to

keep many prostitutes and to commit all sorts of hidden sins, this he

is free to do, and thereby becomes worthy of the priestly calling;

but this is the sum total of it all: The Pope, the devil and his

Church are enemies to the married state as Dan. (xi. 37) says, and

are determined to abuse it in this way so that the priestly office

may not thrive. This amounts to saying that the state of matrimony is

adulterous, sinful, impure and abominated of God.”

Bidding farewell to Popery, Luther gives it a truly “Lutheran” send

off: “So for the present let us be done with the Ass-Pope and the

Pope-Ass, and all his asinine lawyers. We will now get back to our own

affairs.”

This, however, he only partially succeeds in doing. After discussing

the 6th and 7th mark of the Church the “spirit” once more seizes

him. The caricature of Popery with which he is wont to pacify his

conscience here again figures with the whole of the inevitable

paraphernalia: “[Holy] water, salt, herbs, tapers, bells, images,

Agnus Dei, pallia, altar, chasubles, tonsures, fingers, hands. Who can

enumerate them all? Finally the monks’ cowls,” etc. A page further we

again read: “Holy water, Agnus Dei, bulls, briefs, Masses and monks’

cowls.… The devil has decked himself out in them all.”

Weary as he is at the end of the lengthy work, he is still anxious to

“tread under foot the Pope, as Psalm xci. [xc., verse 13] says: ‘Thou

shalt walk upon the asp and the basilisk, and shalt trample under foot

the lion and the dragon’; this we will do with the help and strength

of the Seed of the woman that has crushed and still crushes the

serpent’s head, albeit we know that he will turn and bite our heel. To

the same blessed Seed of the woman be all praise and glory together

with the Father and the Holy Ghost, One True God and Lord for ever and

ever. Amen.”

Here, in the few pages we have selected for quotation, the whole

psychological Luther-problem unrolls itself.

In the pictures his imagination conjures up, the sacrifice of the

Mass—the most sacred mystery of Catholic worship—occupies a special

place. It is the idolatrous abomination foretold by the prophet, or

rather the idol Moasim itself (above, vol. iv., p. 524). One wonders

whether he really succeeded in persuading himself that his greatest sin,

a sin that cried to heaven for vengeance and deserved eternal damnation

(above, p. 136; cp. vol. iv., p. 509), was his having—as a monk and at

a time when he knew no better—celebrated the sacrifice of the Mass? It

is true that, in the solemn profession he makes of his belief in the

Sacrament (1528), when resolved to confess his faith “before God and the

whole world,” he says: “These were my greatest sins, that I was such a

holy monk and for over fifteen years angered, plagued and martyred my

dear Master so gruesomely by my many Masses.” The words occur at the

close of his “Vom Abendmal Christi Bekentnis,” with the asseveration,

that he would stand firm in this faith to the very end; “and were I,

which God forbid, under stress of temptation or in the hour of death to

say otherwise, then [what I might say] must be accounted as nought and I

hereby openly proclaim it to be false and to come from the devil. So help

me My Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Who is blessed for ever and ever.

Amen.”[507]

According to what he once remarked in 1531 (above, p. 136 f.) it was,

however, not the devil who was prompting him to despair by calling up his

crying sin of having said Mass. If Luther is indeed telling the truth,

and if his doings as a zealous monk really seemed to him to be his worse

sins, then we can only marvel at his confusion of mind having gone so

far. From other admissions we should rather gather that what disquieted

his conscience was more the subversion of the olden worship, the ruin of

the religious life and, in fact, the whole working of the innovations.

And yet, here, we have a solemn assurance that the very contrary was the

case.

It is in itself a problem how he contrives to make such frightful sins

of his monastic life—into which, on his own showing, he had entered

in ignorance—and of the Masses which he had said all unaware of their

wickedness.

But, in his polemics, such is the force with which he is swept along,

that he does not pause to consider his blatant self-contradictions, or

how much he is putting himself at the mercy of his opponents, or how

inadequately his rhetoric and all his playing to the gallery hides the

lack of valid proofs and the deficiencies of his reading of Scripture.

As for his foes, in his mind’s eye he sees them wavering and falling,

blown over, as it were, by the strength of his reasoning, even when they

are not overtaken and slain by the righteous judgment of God. When need

arises he has ready a list of deaths, particularly of sudden ones, by

which opponents had been snatched away.[508] The “blessed upheaval,”

however, which is one day to carry them all off together, is, so at least

his morbid fancy tells him, still delayed by his prayers.

* * * * *

As for himself personally, he stood under the spell of a train of thought

displaying pathological symptoms, which, taken in the lump, must raise

serious questions as to the nature of his changing mental state.

Being chosen by God for such great things, being not merely the “prophet

of the Germans” but also destined to bring back the Gospel to the whole

Christian world, Providence, in his opinion, has equipped him with

qualities such as have hitherto rarely graced a man. This he does not

tire of repeating, albeit he ever refers his gifts to God. He is fond

of comparing himself not merely with the Popish doctors of his day but

also with the most famous of bygone time. In the same way he is fond of

measuring foes within the fold by the standard of his own greatness. He

is thus betrayed into utterances such as one usually hears only from

those affected with megalomania; this sort of thing pleases him so well,

that, intent on his own higher mission, he fails to see the bad taste of

certain of his exaggerations and how repulsive their tone is.[509]

God at all times has saved His Church “by means of individuals and for

the sake of a few”; this Luther pointed out to his friends in 1540,

instancing Adam, Abraham, Moses, Elias, Isaias, Augustine, Ambrose and

others. “God also did something by means of Bernard and now again through

me, the new Jeremias. And so the end draws nigh!”[510] The end, however,

for which he has made everything ready, may now come quite peacefully and

speedily, for he has not merely done “something,” but “everything that

pertains to the knowledge of God has been restored”; “the Gospel has been

revealed and the Last Day is at the door.”[511]

Fancying himself the passive tool of Divine Providence, it becomes lawful

for him deliberately to scatter over the world his literary bomb-shells,

exclaiming: God wills it, for, did He not, He could prevent it! He

flings broadcast atrocious charges of a character to arouse men’s worst

passions, and, at the same time, writes to his friends: If it is too

much, God at our prayer must provide a remedy.[512] Hence it is God Who

must bear the blame for everything, seeing that He works through Luther.

God made him a Doctor of Holy Scripture, let Him therefore see to it.

He “throws down the keys at the door” of God when the work goes ill.

Why did He will it? “I cannot stop the course of events,” he says

somewhat more truly in 1525, “for matters have gone too far”; he adds,

however: “I will shut my eyes and leave God to act; He will do as He

pleases.”[513]

This way of thinking was nothing new in Luther, but may be traced in

his earliest literary efforts, which only shows how deeply it was

rooted in his mind. “In all I do I wish to be led, not by the rede and

deed of man, but by the rede and deed of God!” so he said in 1517,

when declining the advice of those who only wished to serve his best

interests; yet, in the same letter in which these words occur, he

confesses his “precipitancy, presumption and prejudice,” qualities “on

account of which he was blamed by all.”[514]

Later, too, as we know, he saw in things both great and small the hand

of God at work in him; all his efforts and even his very mistakes were

God’s, not his. It was by God that, while yet a monk, he had been

“forcibly torn from the Hours,”[515] i.e. freed from the duty of

reciting the Divine Office; God had led him like a blinkered charger

into the midst of the battle; it was God, again, Who had “flung him

into matrimony” and Who had laid upon him, the “wonderful monk,” the

burden of preaching to the great ones and the tenor of his message.

“Hence you ought to believe my word absolutely … but, even to this

day, people do not believe that my preaching is the Word of God.… But,

on it I will stake my soul, that I preach the true and pure Word of

God, and for it I am also ready to die.… If you believe it you will be

saved, if you don’t you will be damned.”[516]

Seeing the tumults and disorders that had arisen through him, he

cries: “It is the Lord Who does this”; “we see God’s plan in these

things”; “It was God Who began it”; “in our doings we are guided by

the Divine Counsel alone.”[517]

It is when in such a frame of mind that he detects those signs and

wonders that witness against his foes; given the magnitude of the war

he was waging whilst waiting for the coming of the Judge, these signs

were no more to be wondered at than the obstinacy of his foes: “Now

that the end of the world is coming the people [the Papists] storm and

rage against God most gruesomely, blaspheming and condemning the Word

of God, though knowing it to be indeed the Word and the Truth. And,

on the top of this, are the many dreadful signs and wonders in the

skies and among almost all creatures, which are a terrible menace to

them.”[518]

Though quite full of the idea that his own doctrine was alone right,

yet, as already shown, he went in early days so far as to grant to every

man freedom of belief and the right to read Scripture according to his

lights; for to him every Christian is a judge of Holy Scripture, a doctor

and a tool of the Holy Ghost. The assumption underlying this, viz. that,

in spite of all, the necessary unity of doctrine would be preserved, is

not easy to explain. When, however, experience stepped in and disproved

the assumption, Luther’s behaviour became even more inexplicable.

He was by nature so disposed to ignore the claims of logic that the

contradiction between his demand that all should bow to his doctrine,

and such theories as that the Bible is, for all, the true and only fount

of knowledge, and that no other outward ecclesiastical authority exists,

never seems to have troubled him. Though he claimed to be the “liberator

of minds and consciences,” he, nevertheless, called on the authorities to

put down all other doctrines.[519]

The dignity of his chair at Wittenberg is exalted by him to giddy

heights. “This university and town,” he said of Wittenberg, may vie with

any others. “All the highest authorities of the day are at one with

us, like Amsdorf, Brenz and Rhegius. Such men are our correspondents.”

In comparison, the sects are simply ludicrous in their insignificance.

Woe to those within the fold who dare to run counter to Luther, “like

‘Jeckel’ and ‘Grickel’; they imagine that they alone are clever and

that they, like ‘Zwingel’ also, never learnt anything from us! Yet who

knew anything 25 years ago? Who stood by me 21 years since, when God,

against both my will and my knowledge, led me into the fray? Alas, what

a misfortune is ambition!” This he said in 1540,[520] but already eight

years before he had complained bitterly: “Each one wants to make himself

out to be alone in knowing everything.… Everywhere we find the same

Master Wiseacre, who is so clever that he can lead a horse by its tail.”

Though one alone has received from God the mission of preaching the

Gospel, yet “there are others, even among his pupils, who think they know

ten times more about it than he.… Then, hey presto, another doctrine is

set up.”[521] “Deadly harm” to Christianity is the result; nevertheless,

according to Christ’s prophecy, “factions and sects” there must be; but

their source is and remains the devil[522]—who, according to Luther, is

the true God of this world in which indeed his finger can everywhere be

seen. (See above, vol. v., p. 275 ff.)

Strange indeed is the frame of mind here presented to the observer. So

much is Luther the plaything of his fancy and the feeling of the moment,

that, at times he seems the victim of a sort of self-suggestion and to be

following blindly the idea which happens to hold the field.

His judgment being seen to be so confused, it becomes easier to estimate

at their right value certain of his ideas, particularly his conviction

that he and his cause owed their preservation to a series of palpable

miracles. He contrived to spread among his pupils the belief that “holy

Luther” was the greatest prophet since the time of the Apostles.[523] Yet

anyone who reflects how Luther could devote a special tract to proving

that so everyday an occurrence as the “escape” of a nun from her convent

was worthy of being deemed a great miracle for all time, can only marvel

at the facility with which Luther could delude himself.[524]

_Other Abnormal Lines of Thought and Behaviour_

Luther’s action presents many other problems to the psychologist, for

instance, in its waverings and contradictions. Strong in his belief in

his Divine mission, he roundly abuses kings and princes in the vilest

terms, and yet, at the same time, he teaches respect and obedience

towards them and even sets himself up as a model in this respect, all

according to his mood and as they happen to be favourable to him or

the reverse. On the one hand, he presumes to incite the people to acts

of violence, and, on the other, he preaches no less cogently the need

of calmness and submission. He boasts of the courage with which he had

dashed into the very jaws of Behemoth, and of his utter contempt for his

foes; yet this same Luther is obsessed by the idea that his own life is

threatened by poison and sorcery, just as his party is menaced by the

hired assassins of the monks and Papists. While he extols the University

of Wittenberg as the bulwark of theological unity, he is at the same time

so distrustful of the doctrine of his friends that his intercourse with

them suffers, and, to at least one of his intimates, Wittenberg becomes a

“cave of the Cyclops.”

Such contradictions and many of the like combined to induce in him an

abnormal state of mind. Harmony and consistency of thought and feeling

was something he never knew. Hence the charge brought against him, not

merely by opponents, but even by many of his own followers, viz. of being

muddled, illogical and not sure of his ground.

While he is perfectly able at times to speak and write with such

candour and truth that one cannot but admire the wholesome sense, and

sober, witty, cheery style of his literary productions, yet their tone

and character change entirely as soon as it becomes a question of his

polemics or of his Evangel. Then his mind becomes overcast, his thoughts

pursue one another like storm-clouds, assuming meanwhile the strangest

shapes and the reader is over whelmed by a torrent of mingled abuse

and paradox. His very proofs are caught up in the whirl and become so

distorted that it is often impossible even to tell whether they are meant

in earnest or are merely in the nature of a challenge.

According to Luther, to mention only a few of the strangest of his

sayings, his doctrine of justification and the forgiveness of sins is

present “in all creatures” and is confirmed by analogy.[525] The very

doctrine of creation rests on the doctrine of justification as on “its

foundation.”[526] “If the article of our souls’ salvation is embraced

and adhered to with a firm faith, then the other articles follow

naturally, for instance, that of the Trinity.”[527]

Marriage he finds stamped on the whole of nature, “even on the hardest

stones.” New-born infants he assumes capable of eliciting an act of

faith in baptism; simply because he could not otherwise defend against

the Anabaptists the traditional infant baptism and at the same time

maintain that the efficacy of the sacraments depends on faith. His

doctrine of the spiritual omnipresence of the body of Christ is an

absurdity involving the presence of Christ in all food; but even this

is not too much for him if it enables him to defend his theory of the

Supper. His imputation-theory led him to that considered utterance

which has shocked so many: “Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe

more boldly still.”[528] “_Sic volo, sic iubeo, sit pro ratione

voluntas_,” was elsewhere his answer to another objection.[529]

He made no odds about declaring rhetorically, of all classes of men

and all branches of religious knowledge: that, “in a word, before

me no one knew anything.”[530] Of the daring eloquence he can use

when expressing such ideas we have a sample in the statement: “Were

the Papists, particularly those who are now bawling at me in their

writings, all stamped together in the wine-press and then boiled down

and distilled seven times over, not a quarter would be left capable

of using their tongues to teach even one article [of the Catechism],

nor from the whole of their doctrine could so much be drawn as would

serve to teach a manservant how to behave in God’s sight towards his

master or a maid towards her mistress.”[531] He alone, Luther, it was,

who had brought to all ranks and classes throughout the world “a good

conscience and order.”[532]

Finally we have the paradox apparent in his practical instructions and

the curious behaviour into which his belief in his mission occasionally

led him. We may recall the means to be employed for overcoming

temptations, one of the mildest of which was a good drink,[533] and the

measures to be taken to induce peace of soul. “Break out into abuse,”

such is his advice, and that will bring inward peace.[534] If this does

not work, then coarse humour will often succeed, one of those jests, for

instance, where the sacred and sublime is vulgarised simply to raise

a laugh. “Against the devil Luther makes use of ‘stronger buffoonery’

and dismisses him curtly, nay, often rudely.”[535] Pointless jests

often spoil the force of his words. For instance, he found himself in

a difficulty about the second wife whom one of Carlstadt’s followers,

acting on Luther’s own principles, wished to take in addition to his

ailing spouse; whilst stipulating that the man must first “feel his

conscience assured and convinced by the Word of God,” and doing his

best to dissuade him from taking such a step, Luther adds in a jesting

tone, that it were perhaps better to let the matter take its course, as

at Orlamünde (under the rule of Carlstadt and his Old-Testament ideas)

they would soon be introducing circumcision and the Mosaic Law in its

entirety.[536]

His instability of mind and ever-changing feeling ended by impressing a

peculiar stamp on his whole mentality.

At one time he is delighted to see all things subject to the new Evangel,

and extols the gigantic success of his efforts; at another he complains

bitterly that the world is turning its back on the Word and deserting

the little flock of true Evangelicals. Thus the world could promptly

assume in his mind quite contradictory aspects. Of his alternating moods

of confidence and despair he told his friends: “My moods vary quite a

hundred times a day—nevertheless I stand up to the devil.”[537] Hence he

was aware of his vacillations, though on the same occasion he declares

that he knows right well how Holy Scripture strengthens him against

them. He also feels and acknowledges his inconsistency, in being, for

all his changeableness, so rigid and obstinate in his dealings with his

friends. They knew his character, he said, and called it “obstinate.”[538]

Profound depression can alone account for the step he took in 1530, when,

for a while, he discontinued his sermons at Wittenberg because he was

sick of the indifference of his hearers to the Word of God and disgusted

with their conduct. The editor of the sermons of this year, which have

only recently been published, remarks justly, that “the only possible

explanation of this step is a pathological one.”[539] Luther even went

so far as to declare from the pulpit that he was “not going to be a

swine-herd.”[540] Yet, a little after, during the journey to the Coburg,

a sudden change occurred, and we find Luther making jokes and writing in

a quite optimistic vein, and, no sooner had he reached his new abode,

than he plunged into new literary labours. Nevertheless, whilst at the

Castle, he was again a victim of intense depression, was visited by

Satan’s “embassy” and even vouchsafed a glimpse of the enemy of God. On

his departure from the Coburg good humour again got the better of him,

as we see from his jovial letter to Baumgärtner of Oct. 4, 1530, and on

reaching Wittenberg, he was soon up to his ears in work, so that he could

write: “I am not only Luther, but Pomeranus, Vicar-General, Moses, Jethro

and I know not who else besides.”[541] The facility with which his moods

altered is again apparent when, in his last days, he left Wittenberg

in disgust only to return again forthwith in the best of spirits. (See

below, xxxix., 1.)

Yet in his attitude to the olden Church this same man, who otherwise

shows himself so instable, knows how to display such defiant obstinacy

that Protestants who look too exclusively at this side of his character

have even been able to speak of his inflexible firmness. What steels him

here is his ardent belief in his calling.

The idea of his vocation ever serves to help him over his difficulties.

An instance of that marvellous elasticity of mind with which he seizes

on his calling to pacify both himself and his friends, is to be found in

an intimate conversation held after the “greatest of his temptations”

in 1527, and recorded by Bugenhagen. After Luther had declared that he

saw nothing to regret in his severity towards his foes he went on to

speak, with tears in his eyes, of the sects that would spring up and

which his friends would not be able to withstand. He proceeded to admit

that “he was sorry if he had given scandal by his buffoonery and by

his vituperation,[542] but that the cause could not be displeasing to

the pious, for he loved mankind [this is Bugenhagen’s remark] too much

and was an enemy to all hypocrisy.” “God had not ordained” that he, so

Luther here declares, “should appear as a stern and austere figure. The

world finds no sins (‘_crimina_’) wherewith to reproach me, but, because

it follows its own judgment, it takes great offence at me, as I see.

Possibly,” so he goes on, “God wishes to delude the blind and ungrateful

world (‘_mundum stultum facere_’) so that it may perish in its contempt

and never see what excellent gifts God has bestowed on me alone out of

so many thousands, wherewith I am to minister unto those who are His

friends. Thus the world, which refuses to acclaim the word of salvation

which God sends through me, will find in me, according to the divine

counsel, what offends it and is to it a stumbling-block. For this God

is answerable; for I shall pray that I may never be to any a cause of

scandal by my sins.”

“This I learnt with wondrous joy from his own lips,” adds

Bugenhagen.[543] Others will, however, find Luther’s enigmatical train of

thought more difficult to understand.

* * * * *

The above are but a few instances of an abnormal turn of mind; of the

like the present work contains others in abundance. Anyone desirous of

penetrating further into the folds and windings of a mind so involved

should study Luther’s letters, particularly those dating from 1517 to

1522 and from 1540 to 1546. He will there find much of the same sort,

which can hardly be termed either sane or reasonable; but even the

passages we have quoted suffice to reveal in him an uncanny power of

self-deception such as few historic characters display. Many a great

genius has betrayed psychological peculiarities, indeed it seems at

times to be the fate of those endowed with eminent gifts to overstep

the boundaries and to venture further than the reason and reflection

of thinking men can follow.[544] That Luther carried certain mental

peculiarities to their utmost limit is plain from what we have seen, nor

can it be right to close one’s eyes to the fact.

Luther showed the defects of a “genius” not least in his vituperation

and in the other far from commendable methods he used in his polemics.

It was precisely these defects which led Erasmus to question whether he

was quite in his right mind. “Had a man said this in the delirium of

fever, could he have uttered anything more insane?” Thus Erasmus in his

“Hyperaspistes.”[545] He often speaks of his opponent’s feverish fancies.

He denies that his spirit is a “sober” one, and maliciously supposes

that he was drunk. In spite of his usual moderation and reticence, the

scholar, when dealing with Luther’s assertions, constantly uses such

words as “_delirus_,” “_insanus_,” “_lymphatus_,” “_sine mente_,” “_mera

insania_.” On one occasion he says of the “devils, spectres, ‘_lamiæ_,’

‘_megæræ_’ and other more than tragic words” which Luther was addicted to

flinging at his foes, that such a habit was a “sign of coming madness”

(“_venturæ insaniæ præsagia_”); elsewhere he views with misgiving the

sort of compulsion (“_non agere sed agi_”) which urges Luther to abuse

all who differ from him.[546]

In other circles, too, the opinion prevailed that Luther was suffering

from some sort of mental disease. We may recall the remarks of Boniface

Amerbach, who was not unkindly disposed to Luther, in sending the

latter’s tract of 1534 against Erasmus, to his brother Basil (above, vol.

iv., p. 183).

In Luther’s immediate surroundings we also find traces of a fear that the

Master stood in some danger of losing his mind.

A thoroughgoing investigation of the matter by some unbiassed expert in

mental diseases would, however, be of immeasurably greater value than the

mere opinions of contemporary admirers and opponents. But the difficulty

is to find an impartial expert. Protestant theologians will not easily be

found ready to agree with Catholic writers regarding the process which

made of a quondam monk the founder of the Protestant faith, or to see

Luther’s scruples in quite the same light. Entire agreement would seem

for ever excluded, owing to differences of outlook so deep-seated. If,

to some, Luther appears as a “new Paul,” and as one who removed every

obstacle to free religious research, then the view they take of his

inward change and later spiritual life must perforce be coloured to some

extent by this idea.

Nor must the fact be lost to sight that many of the apparently suspicious

symptoms were, in Luther’s case, quite wilful. Thus his outbreaks of

fury against Popery, the psychological origin of which we have already

described (vol. iv., p. 306 ff.), are largely an outcome of the feelings

of hatred he deliberately encouraged, and a reaction against his earlier

and better convictions. Again, self-deception and lack of self-control,

i.e. moral elements, played a great part in him. Since, however, even at

the outset of his career he already displayed these moral defects, they

must be carefully distinguished from his morbid states and no less from

his doubts and remorse of conscience.

At the very least, however, we should give to the purely historical facts

such unbiassed, broadminded recognition as that editor of the great

Weimar Edition of Luther’s works (see above, p. 168), who, as we heard,

spoke of the “pathological” explanation of certain acts and statements

of Luther’s as the only one possible. The word “pathological,” and other

similar ones, had, however, been used even earlier, and, that, even by

non-Catholics, as descriptive of certain of Luther’s states, nor was

the remark entirely new, that in many a great genius we find something

pathological.[547]

5. Luther’s Psychology according to Physicians and Historians

It is not our intention in the following to criticise the opinions

quoted; they have been collected chiefly with the object in view of

providing those qualified to judge with matter on which to exercise their

wits. Nevertheless, we have no intention of depriving ourselves of the

right of making occasional observations. Thus Hausrath’s opinion, to be

given immediately, calls for some revision, as will be clear even to the

lay mind. No disturbance of Luther’s intellectual functions or mental

malady amounting to actual “psychosis” can be assumed at any period of

his life. This, however, is a quite different thing from admitting that

his case was not entirely normal.

“The psychology of men, who, like him, are engaged in such a struggle,”

rightly remarks a Protestant theologian, “is exceedingly complicated.

Discrepancies are to be met with side by side, and, according to the

circumstances, now one element now another comes to the fore.”[548] In

Luther’s case the co-existence of bouts of illness with the unfettered

use of his powers, of fundamental delusions with true though misapplied

ideas, of frivolity, sensuality and temptations to despair, and, on the

top of all this, the contradictory statements he himself makes about

himself, i.e.—he, the only man who could have told us how the facts

really stood—all these circumstances render any sure conclusion extremely

difficult.

No Protestant hitherto has used terms so strong to describe Luther’s

overwrought nerves as his most recent biographer, Hausrath, the

Heidelberg theologian, in his first edition of his “Life of Luther.”

His assertions do undoubtedly err on the side of exaggeration.[549] For

instance, when he says, that, owing to his illness in the monastery

Luther had more than once been in danger of sinking into “the abyss of

religious melancholia.”[550] Erroneously regarding the “temptations”—in

reality mere remorse of conscience—from which Luther suffered, as the

outcome of his morbid bodily and mental state, he even ventures to hint

expressly at the nature of the malady: “The regularity with which the

attacks return during all the years spent in the monastery and after he

had commenced his public career, leads us to infer a recurrent psychosis,

the attacks of which became less frequent after his marriage, but never

altogether ceased.”[551]

In recent times, apart from Hausrath, two other writers, both of them

non-Catholics, have looked more closely into Luther’s pathology. Dr.

Berkhan in an article in the “Archiv für Psychiatrie” entitled “Die

nervösen Beschwerden Luthers,” and Gustav Kawerau in the study “Etwas

vom kranken Luther,” printed in the “Deutsch-evangelische Blätter.” The

two Protestants, Küchenmeister and Ebstein, who also dealt with Luther’s

maladies,[552] failed to discuss the psychological phenomena here under

consideration; what interested them was more Luther’s ordinary illnesses

though, it is true, they bring forward various data which may prove of

interest here; these, nevertheless, must be cautiously used, as the

authors are somewhat deficient in historical criticism. Older writers

who treated of Luther’s illnesses, e.g. the Protestant pastor Friedrich

Siegmund Keil, Garmann, the Chemnitz physician and an anonymous writer in

the “Neues Hannöversche Magazin” are even less satisfactory.

Of the two first mentioned, Kawerau supplies a careful review of those

statements of Luther’s which concern his nervous maladies, not, however,

carrying them back to his earliest years. He gives us the picture “of

a man occupying a most responsible position, ever in friction with his

surroundings” and “in a state of nervous overstrain due to too much

work of body and mind.”[553] With these words he seeks to pave the way

for a psychological appreciation of all that, as he says, “so often

appears repulsive or regrettable in Luther, for instance, his waxing

irritability, his unbridled anger, the excesses he commits by word and

pen, and his sudden changes of mood.” He even opines that “the spiritual

temptations may be accounted for by his all-too-great labours and

anxieties, and their effect upon his constitution”;[554] his conclusion

is that a fuller knowledge of Luther’s ailments “helps us to understand

him aright and better to appreciate his greatness.”[555]

The other writer, Dr. Berkhan, a Brunswick physician, had, previous

to Kawerau, attempted to lift the veil which shrouds the “anomalies”

presented by Luther; he did not, however, properly sift his materials,

nor did he consider the various symptoms in their complexus.[556] He

comes to the conclusion that some of Luther’s troubles, for instance,

his “hallucinations,” “must be ascribed to an affection of the nerve

centres.” These “hallucinations” he attributes to “fluxions” due to

overwork. Such hallucinations, according to him, were, in Luther’s case,

of two kinds; some optical and some auditory. They were induced, so he

thinks, not only by the permanent excitement of Luther’s life, but also

by “his doubts and controversies.” What Luther terms temptations Berkhan

also regards as, in the main, mere psychic depression bound up with nerve

disturbance. In view of certain other symptoms he diagnoses a case of

præcordial trouble.[557]

After Kawerau and Berkhan we must refer to P. J. Möbius, the Leipzig

expert in mental ailments. He is known in connection with his highly

original studies on Rousseau, Goethe, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche; on

Luther he has not expressed his views at any great length, but, such as

they are, they are drastic enough.[558]

Möbius points out[559] that “in Luther’s case the pathological element

is of the utmost significance.” “Even Luther’s recent biographer,

Professor Hausrath,” he writes, “spoke of ‘recurrent psychosis.’[560]

According to what Kraepelin now says, it would be better to term it a

mild form of maniacal depression.[561] The main point is that Luther,

from his youth upwards, suffered at times from the dumps without any

apparent cause, was oppressed with gloomy forebodings, sadness, fear

and despair. The melancholic phases may easily be traced throughout

Luther’s life; probably, too, the periods when he felt his power and

gave vent to his boundless wrath should be regarded as morbid and

maniacal. We may take it that, in Luther’s case, the morbid mood

made the illness, and that his fantastic interpretation of certain

incidents—combats with the devil, intercourse with spirits and Divine

inspirations—are to be explained, not as delusions, but as the

explanations he sought in the ideas then current.”

“The present writer,” continues Möbius, “does not in the least believe

that Luther suffered from hallucinations. It seems always to have been

a case of placing a superstitious interpretation on real phenomena.

The black pig in the garden and the black dog on his bed, were, most

likely, of flesh and blood. In many instances (the wrestling with

the demon, and so forth) the language is simply figurative. With

Luther the pathological element made history. His morbid fear led

him to brood over justification; the sense of his own utter weakness

convinced him that man can do nothing of his own strength and by

his own works, and that the only possible course is to stretch out

yearning hands and seize on Grace. In his melancholic state he fell

in with the doctrine of justification by faith alone of St. Paul (who

himself suffered from the same ailment [!]), and, around this centre,

his theological ideas grouped themselves, and, with ‘_sola fides_’ as

his war-cry, he proceeded to do battle with the ancient Church. Thus,

from the monk’s melancholia, sprang the Reformation.”

Proceeding on similar lines, Professor Willy Hellpach, of Carlsruhe,

observed in the Berlin “Tag” (“Psychologische Rundschau,” Jan. 18,

1912): “Several years ago the Jesuit scholar, Pater Grisar, published

in the ‘Kölnische Volkszeitung’ an article entitled ‘Ein Grundproblem

aus Luthers Seelenleben.’ Of this work Möbius said, and quite rightly,

that it was the best account so far given of the pathology of Luther’s

mind. That Luther’s mind was at times morbidly depressed without any

reasonable cause has never been doubted by any who knew him, even when

they happened to be Evangelicals. Hausrath, in his biography, had

spoken of ‘recurrent psychosis’ a statement, which, it is true, he

modified later on account of the storm of indignation which broke out

among those queer folk who seem to look upon a gifted man’s malady as

a worse blot than the greatest crime.” Hellpach points out that laymen

are wrong when they imagine that “psychosis” involves “an absolute

derangement of the power of thought.”

Wilhelm Ebstein, a Professor of Medicine,[562] recently, and not without

reason, registered a protest against the view of those who maintain that

Luther was actually out of his mind. Himself interested in the treatment

of cases of gout and calculus, he comes to the conclusion that Luther’s

chief sufferings were caused by uric acid and faulty digestion, the two

together constituting the principal trouble, and being accompanied, as

is so often the case with gout, by “neurasthenic symptoms which at times

recall psychosis”;[563] his “hypochondriacal depression which passed

all bounds” was entirely due to these ailments. Not only these “nervous

symptoms,” but also the other ailments of which Luther had to complain,

his palpitations, headaches, dizziness, sore-throat, defective hearing,

impaired digestion, fainting fits, and particularly his oppression in the

region of the heart and the feelings of fear which accompanied it, all

these were, according to Ebstein, due more or less to gout and the other

troubles resulting from the presence of uric acid.[564]

There can be no doubt that this learned physician gives us many useful

observations, but he has not himself selected his historical matter

and carefully tested its source. Much of it comes from Küchenmeister,

whereas, at the present stage of research, a medical opinion, to carry

real weight, must necessarily enter at greater length into the facts

more recently brought to light. Some of Küchenmeister’s opinions have,

however, been revised by Ebstein, and not without good reason.

Among those of Ebstein’s statements that must be characterised

as historically untenable are the following, viz. that Luther’s

hallucinations and visions occurred “almost without exception at a

time when he was yet under the influence of the asceticism of the

monastery, with its night-vigils, spiritual exercises and strenuous

mental labours,” i.e. in his Catholic days; likewise, that, in the

monastery, he had striven “most diligently to outdo the other monks in

the matter of fasting, watching,” etc.; that, in later days, he had

“_always_ been able to master his morbid states, and to bid defiance

to his moods of depression,” and that these latter had “in no way

detracted” from his mental labours; that his method of controversy had

never been a morbid one, as Küchenmeister had asserted on insufficient

grounds, and that, when even Luther referred to mental sufferings and

temptations, his “bodily ailments” _always_ occupied the first place

and constituted the leading factor.[565]

His theory that Luther suffered from gout is also eminently doubtful.

Of any symptoms of gout, for instance, of gouty swellings, we hear

nothing from Luther[566] though he was wont to expatiate on his

complaints, and though, according to Ebstein, he possessed a “rare

knowledge of medical matters.”[567] Nor did Luther permanently suffer

from sluggishness and constipation of the bowels; we hear of it only

at Worms and at the Wartburg in 1521, and then again in 1525. To put

down “his moodiness, melancholia and depression” as Ebstein terms the

remorse of conscience experienced in 1528 at the time of his greatest

“temptations” to an attack of piles, described by Luther in a letter

to his friend Jonas on Jan. 6, 1528, is to misapprehend the facts of

the case; for, actually, it was three years before this that Luther

had for a while been troubled with hæmorrhoids, as is evident both

from the text of the inquiry made by Jonas (“_ante triennium_”), and

from Luther’s answer: “My illness _was_ as follows,” etc.[568]

Moreover, Luther was not suffering from stone in 1521, and it is only

in 1526 that we hear him speaking of it for the first time; after this

the malady was for a long time in abeyance,[569] until, between 1537

and 1539, it once more attacked him severely; it is again referred to

in 1543.

Hence we must still await a more accurate medical diagnosis to

determine—if indeed this be possible—how far the history of Luther’s

outward and inward troubles was dependent on uric acid.[570] Maybe,

eventually, greater stress than hitherto will be laid on Luther’s

heart troubles; if so, then it will become necessary to find out what

the so-called “cardiogmus” was, from which, according to Melanchthon,

Luther suffered severely early in 1545; for, in his friend’s opinion,

it was to this that Luther’s death later on was due.[571] Ebstein

himself says of the oppression in the region of the heart and the

resultant anxiety[572] from which Luther suffered, until his death

was ultimately brought about by “heart failure,” that it “leads us

to diagnose some heart affection”; this, according to his theory,

was due, in part directly to gout, in part also to the obstinate

constipation which accompanied it. According to him the periodic

attacks of heart-oppression suggest heart asthma or angina pectoris,

which, notoriously, often co-exists with gout.

As regards Luther’s mental sufferings, Ebstein will not hear of Berkhan’s

hypothesis of “fluxions”; he himself, however,—and herein lies his

principal fault,—does not make sufficient account of his patient’s

frequent nervous states. He thinks that Luther’s black outlook, which,

according to him, resulted from gout, was not bound up directly with

any sufferings.[573] As regards the “hallucinations of sight and

hearing,”[574] which Luther regarded as the work of the devil, he

declares, that Luther, from time to time, fell into a condition of

“weakness and irritability which make the temporary disturbance of his

brain-powers quite intelligible”; as to the cause of the lapses, Ebstein

finds it in “the strenuous mental labour” leading to a “condition of

inanition.”[575] He also allows, that, even as a monk, and in early

life, Luther was a victim of moodiness.[576] He is, however, quite right

when he says: “Insanity cannot be thought of, nor even epilepsy.”[577]

In his admiration for Luther, he also credits him with having in his

lifetime endured “more days of suffering than of well-being.” To make

this statement entirely true it would, however, be necessary to include

amongst the days of suffering, those when he was so paralysed by remorse

of conscience as to be incapable of work. At any rate we quite admit with

Ebstein that, in Luther, we have “a man, during a great part of his life,

sorely tried by bodily ailments,”[578] a fact which can only make one

wonder the more at the extent of his labours.

* * * * *

To pass now to some older Catholic writers. In 1874 Bruno Schön, of

Vienna, published an essay in which he depicted Luther as mentally

deranged.[579]

The author, who was chaplain to a lunatic asylum, was not merely no

historian and still less an expert in mental disease, but lacked even

a proper acquaintance with Luther’s life and writings. His historical

groundwork he took from second-rate works, and his opinion was biassed

by his conviction that Luther could not but be insane. He makes no

real attempt to prove such a thing; all he does is to give us an

account, clothed in psychiatric terminology, of the different forms

of madness from which Luther suffered; in the first place he was

afflicted with megalomania and the mania of persecution, two forms of

insanity frequently found together.—But nervous irritability, anxiety,

moodiness, excitability, a too high opinion of himself, perversion

of judgment and even hallucinations—could such be proved in Luther’s

case—all these would not entitle us to say that he was ever really

insane. Nervous derangement, says Kirchhoff, is not psychosis, and

people subject to hallucinations are not always insane.[580]

Long before this other Catholic writers had instanced certain

peculiarities in Luther’s mental state, though they, like almost all

recent writers, with the exception of Hausrath, were ignorant of one

of the most remarkable elements to be taken into consideration, viz.

the fits of terror to which Luther had been subject from early youth.

The treatment of this matter was made all the harder by the fact that

Luther’s extravagant after-accounts of his life in the monastery, and

the growth of his ideas, were received with too much credulity, and that

his letters, his Table-Talk and many details of his life were but little

known.

Maximilian Prechtl, Abbot of Michaelfeld (†1832), though he refuses

to regard Luther as insane, nevertheless calls attention to the many

“phantoms of a sick brain” which he had seen; “Luther believed,”

so he says, “that he often saw the devil, and that under different

shapes.”[581] The learned Abbot brought out a new annotated edition of

Luther’s “Against the Papacy founded by the Devil,” which he published

at the time of the Reformation-Festival in 1817, in order to show the

mad fury, hate and mental confusion to which its author had fallen a

victim. Luther’s writing betrays, so he opines, “no common fury but the

insane passion of the man, then almost at death’s door.”[582] Too great

stress must not be laid on some of the opinions he here advances, which

overstep the limits he himself had traced and appear to credit Luther

with insanity. Prechtl spoke out more strongly in his “Rejoinder” to the

attacks made on his remarks. He emphasises “the incontrovertible proofs”

to be found in Luther “of a troubled fancy,” and asserts that “he was not

always in his right mind.”

Somewhat earlier, in 1810, the Catholic layman Friedrich von Kerz, who

continued Stolberg’s “Geschichte der Religion Christi,” published a book

“Über den Geist und die Folgen der Reformation” in which he comes to a

far too unfavourable opinion of Luther’s mental state, which he seeks to

bolster up by statements incapable of historical proof. In a nutshell,

what he tentatively advances is, that, “owing to the shock following the

death of a friend struck down at his side, Luther had lost his reason”;

“the symptoms of a twisted mind soon became apparent.” “Luther not seldom

appears in the light of an inexplicable moral enigma, so that we are

led, not indeed willingly, to wonder whether a certain recurrent mental

aberration and periodic madness was not in reality the first and perhaps

the only source of his vocation as a Reformer, of all his public acts

and of the greater part of his reforms.”[583]

As against Kerz, Schön and even Prechtl, we must urge that we have no

proof that Luther was actually the slave of his morbid fancies, or

mentally diseased; no such proof to support the hypothesis of insanity

is adduced by any of the writers named. Of the temporary clouding of the

mind they make no mention.

As for the kind of megalomania met with in Luther, when he insists on

his being the mouthpiece of revelation, this is not the sort usual in

the case of the mentally deranged, when the patient appears to be held

captive under the spell of his delusion. Luther often wavered in his

statements regarding his special revelation, indeed sometimes went so

far as to deny it; in other words he was open to doubt. Moreover, at the

very times when he clung (or professed to cling) to it with the greatest

self-complacency, he was suffering from severe attacks of depression,

whereas it is not usual for megalomania and depression to exist side

by side. As for the periodic fits of insanity suggested by Hausrath

his moods alternated too rapidly. His morbid ideas do not constitute a

paranoic system of madness, and still less is it possible to attribute

everything to mere hypochondriacal lunacy.

The theory of Luther’s not being a free agent is excluded not only by his

doubts and remorse of conscience, but also by the bitter determination

with which at the very beginning he persuades himself of his ideas,

insists upon them later when doubts arise, and finally surrenders himself

to their spell by systematic self-deception. Such behaviour does not

accord with that of a man who is not free. It must also be noted that

the morbid symptoms of which Schön speaks, in whatever light they be

regarded, do not occur simultaneously; some disappear while others become

more marked as time goes on. This, however, also makes it difficult and

wellnigh impossible to discover what were the components which originally

went to make up Luther’s mentality before it had been seared by the

errors and inward commotion of his later passionate life. Above all a

fact repeatedly pointed out already must not be overlooked, viz. that,

throughout, wilful giving way to passion, lack of self-control and too

high an opinion of himself, united with self-deception played a great

part with him, particularly in those outbreaks of fury against Pope and

Papists in which one might be tempted to see the work of a maniac. In

view of Luther’s aptitude to pass rapidly from craven fear to humorous

self-confidence it would be necessary in order to prove his insanity,

to show clearly as far as possible—a demonstration which has not yet

been attempted—that periods of depression or fear really alternated with

periods of exaltation, and what the duration of these periods was.

We cannot too much impress on those who may be inclined to assume that,

at least at times, Luther was not in his right mind the huge and truly

astounding powers of work displayed by the man. Only comparatively

seldom do we hear of his being disinclined to labour or incapable of

work, and almost always the reason is clear. Even were the advocates

of intermittent insanity ready to allow the existence of lengthy lucid

intervals still so extraordinary a power for work would prevent our

agreeing with them any more than with Schön, Möbius, Hausrath and the

older authors referred to above.

As to the question of the possibility of such a disability having been

inherited either from his father or his mother—a matter into which modern

psychiaters are always anxious to inquire: Here, again, we find nothing

to support the theory of mental derangement. Hans Luther, his father,

was a stern, rude man of violent temper, and his wife, Margaret, would

also appear to have been a harsh woman, without any joy in life and

displaying small traces of the more winning traits of affection. Neither

of the pair did much to sweeten the lad’s hard boyhood and youth. This

certainly explains to some extent the thread of depression and pessimism

which runs side by side with the lively and more cheerful one in the

monk and university professor. Of greater importance to the question

in hand is the irritability and violence of temper which showed itself

in his father. If the latter really committed manslaughter in a fit of

anger, as seems probable, and as has also been admitted by Protestant

scholars,[584] then the son’s irritability, and his startling tendency

to break out into foaming rage against his opponents, may doubtless be

traced back in part to the effects of heredity. In 1906 the fact came

to light that another Hans Luther, besides Martin’s father, resided at

Mansfeld, and the latter, according to the records of the law-courts,

would appear to have borne a bad character and to have been frequently

punished for brawling and for being too ready with his knife. If the

latter, as the name would imply, was a relative of Martin’s we have

here one more argument to prove that the family was exceptionally

irritable.[585]

Luther’s nervous irritability ought, indeed, to be made more account of

than it has hitherto been.

_Addendum. Some Medical Opinions on Nervous Degeneration, and Abnormal

Ideas._

What was said above about Luther’s “nervousness” (p. 105 ff) may here

be supplemented by some quotations from August Cramer, the expert

psychiater, now of Berlin. It is true that what we shall quote is not

intended to refer to Luther, yet what he says may serve to explain

certain of Luther’s symptoms, and, possibly, to show that some which were

put down to mental derangement may have been due rather to a form of

neurasthenia.[586]

“Even perfectly normal children are sometimes inclined in their

growing period to display great variations of temper, and to be

violent and changeable in their affections about the age of puberty.

This, however, is far more noticeable in the case of people of a

strongly developed nervous temperament. Groundless outbreaks of

anger, marked pathological absence of mind and entire inability to

concentrate their thoughts are often the result. Fits of oppression

and anxiety are not unknown; headaches are fairly frequent and the

patients seem at times not to be masters of themselves. They also

tend to swing from an exaggerated idea of their own importance to a

despondent lack of self-confidence. In their bents and friendships

they are very fickle.” Hence we have here already in a very marked

degree that instability which von Magnan has pointed out as

characteristic of degenerates.

In later life, too, such highly strung temperaments are often, at

least in the worse cases, predisposed to sudden changes of views,

and to fly to extremes, their varying moods tend at times to become

periodic, they are over-sensitive, are frequently unable to bear

alcohol, their sexual inclinations are abnormal and they are often

addicted from an early age to masturbation.… Thus the predominant

characteristic of the degenerate is lack of constancy (p. 175).

Of “nervosity” where it is combined with fear the same author says:

“The change of mood is often entirely without cause and is by no

means of a regular type, though instances of a periodic character

are occasionally to be met with.… We meet, for example, persons whom

we cannot possibly describe as ill, who at times are exceptionally

capable, lively and good-tempered, and yet at other times give the

impression of being downhearted, self-centred and scarcely able to get

through their daily tasks.”

“Apart from those who are habitually depressed, there are others who

suffer from time to time, without any outward cause, from slight fits

of depression, mostly accompanied by more or less severe fits of

anxiety. Looking more carefully into these various types, we shall

find that they belong almost exclusively to strongly marked nervous

temperaments.… In bad cases the periodic changes of mood may become

stronger and stronger, and lead eventually between the fortieth and

sixtieth year to actual ‘_folie circulaire_.’ Anxiety is, of course,

common to all nervous people, but in many cases it plays the prominent

part.… Often the patients complain of all kinds of accompanying

symptoms, not seldom of palpitations, weakness in the legs, headaches,

attacks of dizziness, and, particularly, of the paralysing effects

of their vague dreads. When this anxiety overtakes them they become

unable to work as usual, and their spirit of enterprise is checked”

(p. 207 ff.).

As to how far what Cramer says is applicable to Luther’s mental

states may here be left open. The same holds good of what we shall

quote below from C. Wernicke and H. Friedmann. What the former says

of “autochthonous” ideas may conceivably be applicable to Luther’s

conviction of the private revelations he had received and of which he

speaks so strongly above (p. 142 ff.) as even to suggest actual auditory

hallucination; that there was no real hallucination seems more likely

for the reason that Luther elsewhere is disposed to regard the incidents

as of an inward character and is not quite so wholly under their sway as

would have been the case had they been strictly speaking hallucinatory.

As to “exalted ideas,” of which both speak, they put us in mind of some

of Luther’s ideas concerning his own person, position, achievements and

persecutions (cp. our summary in vol. iv., pp. 329-41).

It must, however, be noted that “exalted ideas” can be present in a mind

otherwise perfectly sound, and that, consequently, even if Luther had

such ideas it would not prove him to have been mentally deranged; the

same holds good of “autochthonous” ideas, which, occurring singly, are no

warrant of insanity.

Again, even should Luther’s idea of his revelations turn out to be

originally “autochthonous,” yet the reception he accorded it, the

interpretation he placed on it and the use he made of it seem, as we have

already set forth, to have been both deliberate and responsible. This

is confirmed by the circumstance that, in time, his keen sense of such

impressions waned under the objections brought against them, and that his

insistence on the “revelations” and his interpretation of them no longer

found quite the same vigorous expression as before. Nevertheless, we

repeat it once more: It is for experts to pass a definite judgment, but,

in order to do so fairly, they must not submit to the microscope merely

one class of Luther’s mental manifestations, but consider him as a whole,

as monk no less than as Reformer, and examine his mentality on all its

sides.

Writing of certain kinds of abnormal ideas, viz. those which he

calls “autochthonous,” Carl Wernicke says:[587] “The patient becomes

aware of ideas springing up in his mind that are alien to him and

not his own, i.e. which have not arisen along the normal ideas and

on the ordinary lines of association.” Speaking of those actually

suffering from mental derangement, Wernicke again alludes to this

class: “Objective observers, who are quite conscious of the alien

character of the autochthonous ideas and attach no fundamental

importance to them, are only to be found as the exception among those

who are really mentally unsound. Almost always the ideas are conceived

as ‘ready-made,’ as ‘forced upon the mind,’ as ‘inspired,’ or as

‘derived,’ but, from whom, depends entirely on the individuality of

the patient and on the nature of the autochthonous idea (which is

not uninfluenced by the former). Pious thoughts are inspired by God,

evil thoughts by the devil; more enlightened people have recourse to

material remedies and put their case in the hands of a doctor.”

Of the so-called “exalted ideas” Wernicke says: “These are sharply

defined from autochthonous ideas by the fact that they are in no

way regarded by the patient himself as alien intruders into his

consciousness: on the contrary, he sees in them the stamp of his

innermost self, and fancies that, in vindicating them, he is in

reality asserting his own personality.”

“One has to determine in each individual case whether the idea

is truly morbid and ‘exalted,’ or does not come within normal

bounds.”[588] On the next page he declares: “That almost any incident

may give rise to an ‘exalted idea,’ that the nature of the emotion

may be of the most varied character, and that ideas exist, which,

though in themselves normal, are nevertheless able so to determine the

individual’s action as to impress on it a morbid stamp.”

H. Friedmann[589] says of the same class of ideas: “According to its

origin the ‘exalted’ idea … may find a place in the mental process

without any apparent cause. A strong emotion may, so to speak, fling

itself on a single idea, and, without any actual derangement of the

mind, allow it, and it alone, to assume a morbid supremacy.” A few

pages further we read:[590] “Hence, as a matter of fact, in the case

of the ‘exalted’ idea, we have not an isolated monomaniacal affection

but a general disturbance of the emotions and judgment. The result,

likewise, is not an _idée fixe_ as in the case of mania, but merely a

strong belief.”