Brück on account of the two violent tracts, “Warnunge an seine lieben
Deudschen” and “Auff das vermeint keiserlich Edict.” George of Saxony
had, it appears, complained to the Elector, that these writings
“served in no small measure to incite to rebellion, and also contained
much abuse both of high and low.”[1091] Hereupon Luther, with the
utmost impudence, vindicated his cause to his sovereign: “That
certain persons may have informed your Electoral Highness that the
two writings were sharp and hasty, this is indeed true; I never meant
them to be blunt and kind, and only regret that they were not more
severe and violent”; for all he had said of such “lying, blasphemous,
asinine” opponents--especially considering the danger in which the
Electoral house stood--fell short of the mark; the Prince should bear
in mind that he [Luther] had been “far too mild and soft in dealing
with such evil knots and boughs.”[1092]
But “the knots and boughs” of his literary opponents did not consist
entirely in coarse insults, but largely in the well-grounded
vindication against his unwarranted attacks of the religion of their
fathers, in which they saw the true basis of the common weal. His
opponents had necessarily to take the defensive; Luther, with his
furious words and actions, was in almost every case the aggressor, and
forestalled their writings.
It is plain that, at the very time when he thus explained his position
to the Elector Johann, i.e. about the time of the Diet of Augsburg,
in 1530, he was under the influence of that inner power of which he
had said: “I am carried away I know not by what spirit”; “I am not
master of myself.” He exclaims: “In God’s name and at His command I
will tread upon the lion and adder and trample under foot the lion and
dragon [it is thus that he applies the Messianic prophecy in Ps. xc.
13]; this shall commence during my lifetime and be accomplished after
my death. St. John Hus prophesied of me,” etc.[1093] More than ever
he lays stress on the fact that he has a “Divine mission,” and was
“called by God to a work,” not commenced “of his own initiative”; for
which cause also “God was with him and assisted him.”[1094] He means
to realise his earlier threat (1521): “If I live I shall never make
peace with the Papacy; if you kill me you shall have twice as little
peace. Do your worst, you swine and Thomists. Luther will be to you a
bear in the road and a lion in the path [as Osee says]. He will meet
you everywhere and not leave you in peace until your brazen front and
stiff neck be broken, either by gentleness or by force. I have lost
enough patience already; if you will not amend you may continue to
rage against me and I to despise you, you abandoned monsters.”[1095]
He is now determined to carry out his threat of 1527 even at the cost
of his life: “My teaching shall cry aloud and smite right and left;
may God deny me the gifts of patience and meekness. My cry is: No, No,
No, so long as I can move a muscle, let it vex King, Emperor, Princes,
the devil, or whom it may.... Bishops, priests, monks, great Johnnies,
scholars and the whole world are all thirsting for the gore of Luther,
whose executioners they would gladly be, and the devil likewise and
his crew.... My teaching is the main thing by which I defy not only
princes and kings but even all the devils. I am and remain a mere
sheep.... Not following my own conceit, I may have attacked a tyrant
or great scholar and given him a cut and made him angry, but let him
be ready for thirty more.... Let no one, least of all the tyrants
and persecutors of the Evangel, expect any patience or humility from
me.... What must not my wrath be with the Papists who are my avowed
enemies?... Come on, all together, since you all belong to one batch,
devils, Papists, fanatics, fall upon Luther! Papists from the front,
fanatics from the rear, devils from every side! Chase him, hunt him
down gaily, you have found the right quarry. Once Luther is down you
are saved and have won the day. But I see plainly that words are of no
avail; no abuse, no teaching, no exhortation, no menaces, no promises,
no beseeching serve our purpose.... Well, then, in God’s name, let us
try defiance. Whoever relents, let him go; whoever is afraid, let him
flee; I have at my back a strong Defender.... I have well served the
world and brought Holy Scripture and the Word of God to light in a way
unheard of for a thousand years. I have done my part; your blood be
upon your own head and not on my hands!”[1096]
Nevertheless, at times he appears to have had some slight qualms.
Yet after having described the Papists as “Pope-Asses, slaves of
the Mass, blasphemers, miscreants and murderers of souls,”[1097] he
continues: “Should anyone here say that I confine myself to flinging
coarse epithets about me and can do nothing but slander and abuse, I
would reply, firstly, that such abuse is nothing compared with the
unspeakable wickedness. For what is it if I abuse the devil as a
murderer, miscreant, traitor, blasphemer and liar? To him all this
is but a gentle breeze! But what else are the Pope-Asses but devils
incarnate, who know not penance, whose hearts are hardened and who
knowingly defend their palpable blasphemy.... Hence my abuse is not
abuse at all, but just the same as were I to call a turnip a turnip, an
apple an apple, or a pear a pear.”[1098]
A psychological explanation of Luther’s mania for invective is also to
be looked for in the admixture of vile ingredients which went to make
up his abuse. So frequently had he recourse to such when in a state of
excitement that they must be familiar to every observer of Luther’s
development and general behaviour; it is, however, our duty here to
incorporate this element, so characteristic of his polemics, in our
sketch of the angry Luther.
_The Unpleasant Seasoning of Luther’s Abuse._
The filthy expressions, to which Luther was so prone when angry, are
psychologically interesting, throwing light as they do on the depth
of his passion and on the all too earthly atmosphere which pervades
his abuse. Had Luther’s one object, as writer and teacher, been to
vindicate spiritual treasures he would surely have scorned to make use
of such adjuncts as these in his teaching or his polemics. Even when
desirous of speaking forcibly, as beseemed a man of his stamp, he would
have done so without introducing these disreputable and often repulsive
elements of speech. He was, however, carried away by an imagination
only too familiar with such vulgar imagery, and a tongue and pen much
too ready to speak or write of things of that sort. Unless he places
pressure on himself a man’s writings give a true picture of his inner
standards, and pressure was something which Luther’s genius could never
endure.
Luther had, moreover, a special motive for drawing his creations
from this polluted well. He wished to arouse the lower classes and
to ingratiate himself with those who, the less capable they were of
thinking for themselves or of forming a true judgment, were all the
readier to welcome coarseness, banter and the tone of the gutter.
Amidst their derisive laughter he flings his filth in the face of
his opponents, of the Catholics throughout the world, the Pope, the
hierarchy and the German past.
If at Rome they had to prove that the Keys had been given to St.
Peter “the Pope’s nether garments would fare badly.”[1099] Of the
Papal dispensation for the clergy to marry, which many confidently
expected, Luther says, that it would be just the thing for the devil;
“let him open his bowels over his dispensation and sling it about his
neck.”[1100]--The Princes and nobles (those who were on the other
side) “soiled their breeches so shamefully in the Peasant War that
even now they can be smelt afar off.”[1101]--He declares of the head
of the Church of Rome: “Among real Christians no one is more utterly
despicable than the Pope ... he stinks like a hoopoe’s nest.”[1102]
Of those generally who opposed the Divine Word he says: “No smell is
worse than yours.”[1103]--“Good-bye, beloved Rome; let what stinks go
on stinking.”[1104]
“It is stupid of the Papists to wear breeches. How if they were to get
drunk and let slip a motion?”[1105] This concern we find expressed in
Luther’s “Etliche Sprüche wider das Concilium Obstantiense” (1535).
And it is quite in keeping with other utterances in the same writing.
He there speaks of the “dragons’ heads that peep and spew out of the
hind-quarters of the Pope-Ass,”[1106] and on the same page ventures to
address our Saviour as follows: “Beloved Lord Jesus Christ, it is high
time that Thou shouldst lay bare, back and front, the shame of the
furious, bloodthirsty, purple-clad harridan and reveal it to the whole
world in preparation for the dawn of Thy bright Coming.”
Naturally he is no less unrestrained in his attacks on all who
defended Popery. Of Eck’s ideas on chastity he remarks: “Your he-goat
to your nostrils smells like balsam.”[1107] Of Cardinal Albert of
Mayence and his party he wrote, during the Schönitz controversy:
These “knaves and liars” “bring out foul rags fit only for devils
and men to use in the closet.”[1108] The epithet, merd-priest,
merd-bishop, is several times applied by him to members of the
Catholic hierarchy.[1109] “The poor merd-priest wanted to ease
himself, but, alas, there was nothing in his bowels.”[1110]
The Jurists who still clung to Canon Law he declares “invade the
churches with their Pope like so many swine; yet there is another
place whither they might more seemingly betake themselves if they
wish to wipe the fundament of their Pope.”[1111] The Italians think
that “whatever a Cardinal gives vent to, however vile it be, is a new
article of faith promulgated for the benefit of the Germans.”[1112]
To the Papists who threaten him with a Council he says: “If they are
angry let them ease themselves into their breeches and sling it round
their neck; that will be real balsam and pax for such thin-skinned
saints.”[1113]--The fanatics who opposed his teaching on the Sacrament
were also twitted on the score that “they would surely ease themselves
on it and make use of it in the privy.”[1114] The Princes and
scoundrel nobles faithfully followed the devil’s lead, who cannot
bear to listen to God’s Word “but shows it his backside.”[1115] How
are we best to answer an opponent, even the Pope? As though he were
a “despicable drunkard.” “Give them the fig” (i.e. make a certain
obscene gesture with the fist).[1116]--Such is his own remedy in all
hostility and every misfortune: “I give them the fig.”[1117] His usual
counsel is, however, to turn one’s “posterior” on them.
The Pope is the “filth which the devil has dropped in the Church”;
he is the “devil’s bishop and the devil himself.”[1118]--Commenting
on the Papal formula “_districte mandantes_,” he adds: “Ja, in
Ars.”[1119] They want “me to run to Rome and fetch forgiveness of
sins. Yes, forsooth, an evacuation!”[1120]
Of the Pope’s Bull of excommunication he says “they ought to order his
horrid ban to be taken to the back quarters where children of Adam go
to stool; it might then be used as a pocket-handkerchief.”[1121]--We
must seize hold of the “vices” of the Pope and his clergy and show
them up as real lechers; thus should all those who hold the office of
preacher “set their droppings under the very noses of the Pope and the
bishops.”[1122] “The spirit of the Pope, the father of lies,” wishes
to display his wisdom by so altering the Word of God, that it “reeks
of his stale filth.”[1123]--These people, who, like the Pope, are so
learned in the Scripture, are “clever sophists,” experts in equine
anal functions.[1124] They have “taken it upon themselves to come to
the assistance of the whole world with their chastity and good works,”
but, in reality, they merely “stuff our mouths with horse-dung.”[1125]
Of the alleged Papal usurpations he exclaims: “Were such muck
as this stirred up in a free Council, what a stench there would
be!”[1126]--The same favourite figure of speech helps him against the
Sacramentarians: “What useful purpose can be served by my raking up
all the devil’s filth?”[1127]--This phrase was at least more in place
when Luther, referring to Philip of Hesse’s bigamy, said, that he “was
not going to stir up the filth under the public nose.”[1128]--After
their defeat he refused to comply with the demand of the peasants,
that he should support them in their lawlessness: They want us to lend
them a hand in “stirring up thoroughly the filth that is so eager to
stink, till their mouths and noses are choked with it.”[1129] But it
is to the Pope and his followers that, by preference, he applies such
imagery. “They have forsaken the stool of St. Peter and St. Paul and
now parade their filth [concerning original sin]; to such a pass have
they come that they no longer believe anything, whether concerning
the Gospel, or Christ, or even their own teaching.”[1130]--“This is
the filth they now purvey, viz. that we are saved by our works; this
is the devil’s own poisonous tail.”[1131]--Of those who awaited the
decision of a Council he writes: “Let the devil wait if he chooses....
The members of the body must not wait till the filth says and decrees
whether the body is healthy or not. We are determined to learn this
from the members themselves and not from the urine, excrement and
filth. In the same way we shall not wait for the Pope and bishops in
Council to say: This is right. For they are no part of the body, or
clean and healthy members, but merely the filth of squiredom, merd
spattered on the sleeve and veritable ordure, for they persecute the
true Evangel, well knowing it to be the Word of God. Therefore we can
see they are but filth, stench and limbs of Satan.”[1132]
At the time of the Diet of Augsburg, in 1530, he informed the
delegates of his party: “You are treating, not with men, but with the
very gates of hell.... But they have fallen foul of the wisdom of
God and [the final sentence of this Latin epistle is in German] soil
themselves with their own filthy wisdom. Amen, Amen.”[1133]--The words
“bescheissen” and “beschmeissen” (cp. popular French: “emmerder”) flow
naturally from Luther’s pen. Neobulus, the Hessian defender of the
bigamy, he describes as “a prince of darkness,” who “has ‘defiled’
himself with his wisdom”;[1134] the papal “Jackanapes” who “declare
that the Lutherans have risen in revolt,” have likewise “‘defiled’
themselves with their sophistry.”[1135]
He asserts he can say “with a clear conscience that the Pope is a
merd-ass and the foe of God.”[1136] “The Pope-Ass has emitted a great
and horrible ordure here.... A wonder it did not tear his anus or
burst his belly.” “There lies the Pope in his own dung.”[1137] “The
Popes are so fond of lies and scurrilities that their paunch waxes fat
on them”; they are waiting to see “whether the Pope’s motions will
not ultimately scare the kings.... The Papal hypocrites--I had almost
said the devil’s excrements--boast of being masters over the whole
world.”[1138]
Amidst these unavoidable quotations from Luther’s unpleasant vocabulary
of abuse the historian is confronted again and again with the question:
What relation does this coarser side of Luther’s style bear to the
manners of his times? We have already pointed out how great the
distance is between him and all other writers, particularly such as
treat of religious subjects in a popular or polemical vein; obviously
it is with the latter category of writings that his should be compared,
rather than with the isolated aberrations of certain writers of romance
or the lascivious works produced by the Humanists.[1139] Various
quotations from contemporaries of Luther’s, even from friends of the
innovations, have shown that his language both astonished and shocked
them.[1140] It was felt that none other could pretend to measure
himself beside this giant of invective.
Duke George of Saxony on one occasion told Luther in no kindly way that
he knew peasants who spoke just the same, “particularly when the worse
for drink”; indeed they went one better and “knew how to use their
fists”; among them Luther would be taken for a swine-herd.[1141]
“Their inexhaustible passion for abuse,” wrote a Catholic contemporary
in 1526, “makes me not a little suspicious of the teaching of this
sect. No one is accounted a good pupil of Luther’s who is not an adept
in abusive language; Luther’s own abuse knows no bounds.... Who can
put up with such vituperation the like of which has not been heard for
ages?... Read all this man’s writings and you will hardly find a page
that is not sullied with vile abuse.”[1142]
It is true that the lowest classes, particularly in Saxony, as it
would appear, were addicted to the use of smutty language in which
they couched their resentment or their wit; this, however, was among
themselves. In the writings of the Wittenberg professor of theology,
on the other hand, this native failing emerges unabashed into the
light of day, and the foul sayings which Luther--in his anxiety to
achieve popularity--gathered from the lips of the rabble swept like
a flood over the whole of the German literary field. Foul language
became habitual, and, during the polemics subsequent on Luther’s death,
whether against the Catholics or among the members of the Protestant
fold, was a favourite weapon of attack with those who admired Luther’s
drastic ways.
As early as 1522 Thomas Blaurer, a youthful student at Wittenberg,
wrote: “No abuse, however low and shameful,” must be spared until
Popery is loathed by all.[1143] Thus the object in view was to besmirch
the Papacy by pelting it with mire. When, in 1558, Tilman Hesshusen,
an old Wittenberg student, became Professor of Theology and General
Superintendent at Heidelberg and thundered with much invective against
his opponents and in favour of the Confession of Augsburg, even his
friends asked the question, “whether the thousand devils he was wont
to purvey from the pulpit helped to promote the pure cause of the
Lutheran Evangel?” At Bremen, preaching against Hardenberg, a follower
of Melanchthon’s, he declared, that he had turned the Cathedral into a
den of murderers.[1144] In 1593 Nigrinus incited the people to abuse
the Papists with the words: “Up against them boldly and fan the flames
so that things may be made right warm for them!” George Steinhausen
remarks in this connection in his History of German Civilisation:
“Luther became quite a pattern of violent abuse and set the tone for
the anti-popish ranters, who, most of them, belonged to the lowest
class. On their side the Catholics, for instance, Hans Salat of
Lucern or the convert Johann Engerd, were also not behindhand in this
respect.... The preachers, however, were always intent on egging them
on to yet worse attacks.”[1145]
The manner in which Luther in his polemics treated his opponents, wrote
Döllinger in his “Sketch of Luther,” “is really quite unparalleled.
He never displays any of that kindly charity, which, while hating the
error, seeks to win over those who err; on the contrary, with him all
is abuse and anger, defiance and contemptuous scorn voiced in a tempest
of invective, often of a most personal and vulgar kind.... It is quite
wrong to say that Luther in this respect merely followed in the wake
of his contemporaries; this is clear enough to everyone familiar with
the literature of that age and the one which preceded it; the virulence
of Luther’s writings astonished everybody; those who did not owe him
allegiance were not slow to express their amazement, to blame him and
to emphasise the harmful effects of these outbursts of abuse, whilst
his disciples and admirers were wont to appeal to Luther’s ‘heroic
spirit’ which lifted him above the common herd and, as it were,
dispensed him from the observance of the moral law and allowed him to
say things that would have been immoral and criminal in others.”[1146]
Especially his obscene abuse of the Pope did those of Luther’s
contemporaries who remained faithful to the Church brand as wicked,
immoral and altogether unchristian. “What ears can listen to these
words without being offended?” wrote Emser, “or who is the pious
Christian who is not cut to the quick by this cruel insult and
blasphemy offered to the vicar of Christ? Is this sort of thing
Christian or Evangelical?”[1147]
_Protestant Opinions Old and New._
Erasmus’s complaints concerning Luther’s abusiveness were re-echoed,
though with bated breath, by those of the new faith whose passion had
not entirely carried them away. The great scholar, speaking of Luther’s
slanders on him and his faith, had even said that they were such as to
compel a reasonable reader to come to the conclusion that he was either
completely blinded by hate, or suffering from some mental malady, or
else possessed by the devil.[1148] Many of Luther’s own party agreed
with Erasmus, at any rate when he wrote: “This unbridled abuse showered
upon all, poisons the reader’s mind, particularly in the case of the
uneducated, and can promote only anger and dissension.”[1149]
The Protestant theologians of Switzerland were much shocked by
Luther’s ways. To the complaints already quoted from their letters and
writings may be added the following utterances of Zwingli’s successor,
Heinrich Bullinger, who likewise judged Luther’s offensive tone to be
quite without parallel: Most of Luther’s books “are cast in such a
mould as to give grievous scandal to many simple folk, so that they
become suspicious of the Evangelical cause as a whole.... His writings
are for the most part nothing but invective and abuse.... He sends to
the devil all who do not at once side with him. Thus all his censure
is imbued with hostility and contains little that is friendly or
fatherly.” Seeing that the world already teems with abuse and curses,
Bullinger thinks that it would better befit Luther “to be the salt”
and to strive to mend matters, instead of which he only makes bad
worse and incites his preachers to “abuse and blaspheme.” “For there
are far too many preachers who have sought and found in Luther’s books
a load of bad words.... From them we hear of nothing but of fanatics,
rotters, Sacramentarians, foes of the Sacrament, blasphemers,
scoundrels, hypocrites, rebels, devils, heretics and endless things of
the like.... And this, too, is praised by many [who say]: Why, even
Luther, the Prophet and Apostle of the Germans, does the same!”[1150]
Of Luther’s “Schem Hamphoras” Bullinger wrote: “Were it written,
not by a famous pastor of souls, but by a swine-herd,” it would
still be hard to excuse.[1151] In a writing to Bucer, Bullinger
also protested against endangering the Evangel by such unexampled
abuse and invective. If no one could stop Luther then the Papists
were right when they said of him, and the preachers who followed in
his footsteps, that they were no “Evangelists, but rather scolding,
foul-mouthed buffoons.”[1152]
In answer to such complaints Martin Bucer wrote to Bullinger admitting
the existence of grievous shortcomings, but setting against it
Luther’s greatness as evinced in the admiration he called forth. The
party interests of the Evangel and his hatred of the Papal Antichrist
made him to regard as merely human in Luther, frailties which to
others were a clear proof of his lack of a Divine mission. As Bucer
puts it: “I am willing to admit what you say of Luther’s venomous
discourses and writings. Oh, that I could only change his ways.... But
the fellow allows himself to be carried away by the storm that rages
within him so that no one can stop him. It is God, however, Who makes
use of him to proclaim His Evangel and to overthrow Antichrist.... He
has made Luther to be so greatly respected in so many Churches that
no one thinks of opposing him, still less of removing him from his
position. Most people are proud of him, even those whom he does not
acknowledge as his followers; many admire and copy his faults rather
than his virtues; but huge indeed is the multitude of faithful who
revere him as the Apostle of Christ.... I too give him the first place
in the sacred ministry. It is true there is much about him that is
human, but who is there who displays nothing but what is Divine?” In
spite of all he was a great tool of God (“_admirandum organum Dei pro
salute populi Dei_”); such was the opinion of all pious and learned
men who really knew him.[1153]
Yet Bucer had some strong things to say to Landgrave Philip of Hesse,
regarding Luther’s addiction to abuse. To try and persuade him to
deal courteously with his foes, particularly with the Zürichers after
their “mistaken booklet,” so Bucer writes to the Prince, “would be
like trying to put out a fire with oil. If Master Philip and I--who
have kept rigidly and loyally to the Concord--succeed in turning away
the man’s wrath from ourselves, then we shall esteem ourselves lucky.”
The “foolhardiness” of the Zürichers has “so enraged him, that even
Emperors, though they should be good Evangelicals, would find it hard
to pacify him.” “No one has ever got the better of Dr. Luther in
invective.”[1154]
Fresh light is thrown on the psychological side of Luther’s
controversial methods when we bring together those utterances in which
his sense of his own greatness finds expression. We must observe a
little more closely Luther’s inner thoughts and feelings from the
standpoint of his own ideal.
4. Luther on his own Greatness and Superiority to Criticism The art of
“Rhetoric”
Characteristic utterances of Luther’s regarding his own gifts and
excellencies, the wisdom and courage displayed in his undertaking and
the important place he would occupy in history as the discoverer and
proclaimer of the Evangelical truth, are to be met with in such plenty,
both in his works and in the authentic notes of his conversations,
that we have merely to select some of the most striking and bring them
together. They form a link connecting his whole public career; he never
ceased to regard all his labours from the point of view of his Divine
mission, and what he says merely varies in tone and colour with the
progress which took place in his work as time went on.
It is true that he knew perfectly well that it was impossible to figure
a Divine mission without the pediment and shield of humility. How
indeed could those words of profound humility, so frequent with St.
Paul, have rung in Luther’s ears without finding some echo? Hence we
find Luther, too, from time to time making such his own; and this he
did, not out of mere hypocrisy, but from a real wish to identify his
feelings with those of the Apostle; in almost every instance, however,
his egotism destroys any good impulse and drives him in the opposite
direction.
Luther’s confessions of his faults and general unworthiness are often
quite impressive. We may notice that such were not unfrequently made
to persons of influence, to Princes and exalted patrons on whom his
success depended, and whom he hoped thereby to dispose favourably;
others, however, are the natural, communicative outpourings of that
“colossal frankness”--as it has been termed--which posterity has
to thank for its knowledge of so many of Luther’s foibles. In his
conversations we sometimes find him speaking slightingly of himself,
for instance, when he says: “Philip is of a better brand than I. He
fights and teaches; I am more of a rhetorician or gossip.”[1155]
A passage frequently quoted by Luther’s admirers in proof of his
humility is that which occurs in his preface to the “Psalter”
published by Eobanus Hessus. The Psalms, he says, had been his school
from his youth upwards. “While unwilling to put my gifts before those
of others, I may yet boast with a holy presumption, that I would not,
as they say, for all the thrones and kingdoms of the world, forgo the
benefits, that, by the blessing of the Holy Spirit, I have derived
from lingering and meditating on the Psalms.” He was not going to
hide the gifts he had received from God, and in Him he would be proud,
albeit in himself he found reasons enough to make him humble; he took
less pleasure in his own German Psalter than in that of Eobanus, “but
all to the honour and glory of God, to Whom be praise for ever and
ever.”[1156]
In order to know Luther as he really was we should observe him amongst
his pupils at Wittenberg, for instance, as he left the Schlosskirche
after one of his powerful sermons to the people, and familiarly
addressed those who pressed about him on the steps of the church. There
were the burghers and students whose faults he had just been scourging;
the theologians of his circle crowding with pride around their master;
the lawyers, privy councillors and Court officials in the background,
probably grumbling under their breath at Luther’s peculiarities and
harsh words. His friends wish him many years of health and strength
that he may continue his great work in the pulpit and press; he, on the
other hand, thinks only of death; he insists on speaking of his Last
Will and Testament, of the chances of his cause, of his enemies and of
the threatened Council which he so dreaded.[1157]
“Let me be,” Luther cries, turning to the lawyers, “even in my Last
Will, the man I really am, one well known both in heaven and on earth,
and not unknown in hell, standing in sufficient esteem and authority to
be trusted and believed in more than any notary; for God, the Father
of Mercies, has entrusted to me, poor, unworthy, wretched sinner that
I am, the Gospel of His Dear Son and has made and hitherto kept me
faithful and true to it, so that many in the world have accepted it
through me, and consider me a teacher of the truth in spite of the
Pope’s ban and the wrath of Emperors, Kings, Princes, priests and all
the devils.... Dr. Martin Luther, God’s own notary and the witness of
His Gospel.”[1158]
I am “Our Lord Jesus Christ’s unworthy evangelist.”[1159]
I am “the Prophet of the Germans, for such is the haughty title I must
henceforth assume.”[1160]
“I am Ecclesiastes by the Grace of God”; “Evangelist by the Grace of
God.”[1161]
“I must not deny the gifts of Jesus Christ, viz. that, however small
be my acquaintance with Holy Scripture, I understand it a great deal
better than the Pope and all his people.”[1162]
“I believe that we are the last trump that sounds before Christ’s
coming.”[1163]
Many arise against me, but with “a breath of my mouth” I blow them
over.--All their prints are mere “autumn leaves.”[1164]
“One only of my opponents, viz. Latomus, is worth his salt, he is the
scribe who writes best against me. Latomus alone has really written
against Luther, make a note of that! All the others, like Erasmus, were
but frogs. Not one of them really meant it seriously. Yes indeed all,
Erasmus included, were just croaking frogs.”[1165]
I have been tried in the school of temptations; “these are the exalted
temptations which no Pope has ever understood,” I mean, “being tempted
to blasphemy and to question God’s Judgments when we know nothing
either of sin or of the remedy.”[1166]
Because I have destroyed the devil’s kingdom “many say I was the man
foretold by the Prophet of Lichtenberg; for in their opinion I must be
he. This was a prophecy of the devil, who well saw that the kingdom he
had founded on lies must fall. Hence he beheld a monk, though he could
not tell to which Order he belonged.”[1167]
“Be assured of this, that no one will give you a Doctor of Holy
Scripture save only the Holy Ghost who is in heaven.... He indeed
testified aforetimes against the prophet by the mouth of the she-ass
on which the prophet rode. Would to God we were worthy to have such
doctors sent us!”[1168]
“I have become a great Doctor, this I am justified in saying; I would
not have thought this possible in the days of my temptations” when
Staupitz comforted me with the assurance, “that God would make use of
me as His assistant in mighty things.”[1169]
“St. John Hus” was not alone in prophesying of me that ... “they will
perforce have to listen to the singing of a swan,” but likewise the
prophet at Rome foretold “the coming hermit who would lay waste the
Papacy.”[1170]
When I was a young monk and lay sick at Erfurt they said to me: “Be
consoled, good bachelor ... our God will still make a great man of you.
This has been fulfilled.”[1171]
“On one occasion when I was consoling a man on the loss of his son he,
too, said to me: ‘You will see, Martin, you will become a great man!’ I
often call this to mind, for such words have something of the omen or
oracle about them.”[1172]
“Small and insignificant as they [Luther’s and the preachers’ reforms]
are, they have done more good in the Churches than all the Popes and
lawyers with all their decrees.”[1173]
“No one has expounded St. Paul better” than you, Philip (Melanchthon).
“The commentaries of St. Jerome and Origen are the merest trash in
comparison with your annotations” (on Romans and Corinthians). “Be
humble if you like, but at least let me be proud of you.” “Be content
that you come so near to St. Paul himself.”[1174]
“In Popery such darkness prevailed that they taught neither the Ten
Commandments, nor the Creed, nor the Our Father; such knowledge was
considered quite superfluous.”[1175]
“The blindness was excessive, and unless those days had been shortened
we should all have grown into beasts! I fear, however, that after us it
will be still worse, owing to the dreadful contempt for the Word.”[1176]
“Before my day nothing was known,” not even “what parents or children
were, or what wife or maid.”[1177]
“Such was then the state of things: No one taught, or had heard or
knew what secular authority was, whence it came, or what its office
and task was, or how it must serve God.”--“But I wrote so usefully and
splendidly concerning the secular authorities as no teacher has ever
done since Apostolic times, save perhaps St. Augustine; of this I may
boast with a good conscience, relying on the testimony of the whole
world.”[1178]
Similarly, “we could prove before the whole world that we have preached
much more grandly and powerfully of good works than those very people
who abuse us.”[1179]
“Not one of the Fathers ever wrote anything remarkable or particularly
good concerning matrimony.... In marriage they saw only evil luxury....
They fell into the ocean of sensuality and evil lusts.” “But [by my
preaching] God with His Word and by His peculiar Grace has restored,
before the Last Day, matrimony, secular authority and the preaching
office to their rightful position, as He instituted and ordained them,
in order that we might behold His own institutions in what hitherto had
been but shams.”[1180]
The Papists “know nothing about Holy Scripture, or what God is ... or
what Baptism or the Sacrament.”[1181] But thanks to me “we now have the
Gospel almost as pure and undefiled as the Apostles had it.”[1182]
“Not for a thousand years has God bestowed such great gifts on any
bishop as He has on me; for it is our duty to extol God’s gifts.”[1183]
It is easy to understand what an impression such assurances and
such appeals to the heavenly origin of his gifts must have made on
enthusiastic pupils. Before allowing the speaker to continue we may
perhaps set on record what one of his defenders alleges in Luther’s
favour.[1184] “An energetic character to whom all pretence is
hateful may surely speak quite freely and openly of his own merits
and capabilities.” “Why should such a thing seem strange? Because
now, among well-bred people, conventions demand that, even should
we be conscious of good deeds and qualities in ourselves, we should
nevertheless speak as though unaware of them.” Luther, however, was
“certain that he had found the centre of all truth, and that he
possessed it as his very own; he knew that by his ‘faith’ he had
become something, viz. that which every man ought to become according
to the will of God. This explains that self-reliance whereby he felt
himself raised above those who either continued to withstand the
truth, or else had not yet discovered it.” By such utterances he “only
wished to explain why he feared nothing for his cause.” “Arrogance and
self-conceit are sinful, but he who by God’s grace really is something
must feel proud and self-reliant.” “The only question is whether it
is a proof of pride that he was not altogether oblivious of this,
and that he himself occasionally spoke of it.” “Christ and Paul knew
what they were and openly proclaimed it. Just as Christ found Himself
accused of arrogance, so Paul, too, felt that his boasting would be
misunderstood.” Besides, “Luther, because the title prophet [which he
had applied to himself] was open to misconstruction, writes elsewhere:
‘I do not say that I am a prophet.’”[1185]
The comparison between Christ’s sayings and Luther’s had best
be quietly dropped. As to the parallel with the Apostle of the
Gentiles--his so-called boasting (2 Cor. xi. 16; xii. 1 ff.) and his
frequent and humble admissions of frailty--St. Paul certainly has no
need to fear comparison with Luther. He could have set before the
world other proofs of his Divine mission, and yet he preferred to make
the most humble confessions:
“But for myself I will glory in nothing but in my infirmities,” says
Paul ... “gladly therefore will I glory in my infirmities that the
power of Christ may dwell in me; for which cause I please myself
in my infirmities, in reproaches, necessities, in persecutions, in
distresses, for Christ. For when I am weak then am I powerful ...
although I be nothing, yet the signs of my apostleship have been
wrought in you in all patience, in signs and wonders and mighty
deeds.” “For I am the least of the Apostles, who am not worthy to be
called an Apostle because I persecuted the Church of God. But by the
grace of God I am what I am and His grace hath not been void, but I
have laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I but the grace
of God with me.” “But we became little ones in the midst of you, as
if a nurse should cherish her children: so desirous of you, we would
gladly impart unto you not only the Gospel of God but also our own
souls because you were become most dear to us.... You are our glory
and joy” (2 Cor. xii. 5 ff.; 1 Cor. xv. 9; 1 Thess. ii. 7 ff.).
“God has appointed me for the whole of the German land,” Luther
continues, “and I boldly vouch and declare that when you obey me in
this [the founding of Evangelical schools] you are without a doubt
obeying not me but Christ, and that, whoever obeys me not, despises,
not me, but Christ [Luke xx. 16]. For I know well and am certain of
what and whereto I speak and teach.”[1186]
“And now, dear Germans, I have told you enough; you have heard your
prophet; God grant we may obey His words.”[1187]
As Germany does not obey “misery” must needs overtake it; “when I pray
for my beloved Germany I feel that my prayer recoils on me and will not
ascend upwards as it does when I pray for other things.... God grant
that I be wrong and a false prophet in this matter.”[1188]
“Our Lord God had to summon Moses six times; me, too, He has led in
the same way.... Others who lived before me attacked the wicked and
scandalous life of the Pope; but I assailed his very doctrine and
stormed in upon the monkery and the Mass, on which two pillars the
whole Papacy rests. I could never have foreseen that these two pillars
would fall, for it was almost like declaring war on God and all
creation.”[1189]
“I picked the first fruits of the knowledge and faith of Christ, viz.
that we are justified by faith in Christ and not by works.”[1190]
“I am he to whom God first revealed it.”[1191]
“Show me a single passage on justification by faith in the Decrees,
Decretals, Clementines, ‘_Liber Sextus_’ or ‘_Extravagantes_’” in
any of the Summas, books of Sentences, monkish sermons, synodal
definitions, collegial or monastic Rules, in any Postils, in any
work of Jerome and Gregory, in any decisions of the Councils, in any
disputations of the theologians, in any lectures of any University, in
any Mass or Vigil of any Church, in any “_Cæremoniale Episcoporum_,”
in the institutes of any monastery, in any manual of any confraternity
or guild, in any pilgrims’ book anywhere, in the pious exercises of
any Saint, in any Indulgence, Bull, anywhere in the Papal Chancery or
the Roman Curia or in the Curia of any bishop. And yet it was there
that the doctrine of faith should have been expressed in all its
fulness.[1192]
“My Evangel,” that was what was wanting. “I have, praise be to God,
achieved more reformation by my Evangel than they probably would have
done even by five Councils.... Here comes our Evangel ... and works
wonders, which they themselves accept and make use of, but which they
could not have secured by any Councils.”[1193]
“I believe I have summoned such a Council and effected such a
reformation as will make the ears of the Papists tingle and their heart
burst with malice.... In brief: It is Luther’s own Reformation.”[1194]
“I, who am nothing, may say with truth that during the [twenty] years
that I have served my dear Lord Christ in the preaching office, I have
had more than twenty factions opposing me”; but now they are, some
of them, extirpated, others, “like worms with their heads trodden
off.”[1195]
“I have now become a wonderful monk, who, by God’s grace, has deposed
the Roman devil, viz. the Pope; yet not I, but God through me, His
poor, weak instrument; no emperor or potentate could have done
that.”[1196]
In point of fact “the devil is not angry with me without good reason,
for I have rent his kingdom asunder. What not one of the kings and
princes was able to do, that God has effected, through me, a poor
beggar and lonely monk.”[1197]
How poor are the ancient Fathers in comparison! “Chrysostom was a
mere gossip. Jerome, the good Father, and lauder of nuns, understood
precious little of Christianity. Ambrose has indeed some good sayings.
If Peter Lombard had only happened upon the Bible he would have
excelled all the Fathers.”[1198]
“See what darkness prevailed among the Fathers of the Church concerning
faith! Once the article concerning justification was obscured it became
impossible to stem the course of error. St. Jerome writes on Matthew,
on Galatians and on Titus, but how paltry it all is! Ambrose wrote
six books on Genesis, but what poor stuff they are! Augustine never
writes powerfully on faith except when assailing the Pelagians.... They
left not a single commentary on Romans and Galatians that is worth
anything. Oh, how great, on the other hand, is our age in purity of
doctrine, and yet, alas, we despise it! The holy Fathers taught better
than they wrote; we, God be praised, write better than we live.” Had
Gregory the Great at least refrained from spoiling what remained! “He
broke in with his pestilent traditions, bound men down to observances
concerning flesh-meat, cowls and Masses, and imposed on them his
filthy, merdiferous law. And in the event this dreadful state of things
grew from day to day worse.”[1199]
“On the other hand, it is plain that I may venture to boast in God,
without arrogance or untruth, that, when it comes to the writing of
books I am not far behind many of the Fathers.”[1200]
“In short the fault lay in this, that [before I came], even in the
Universities the Bible was not read; when it was read at all it had
to be interpreted in accordance with Aristotle. What blindness that
was!”[1201]
But then my translation of Holy Scripture appeared. Whereas the
Schoolmen never were acquainted with Scripture, indeed “never were at
home even in the Catechism,”[1202] all admit my Bible scholarship. On
one occasion “Carlstadt said to the Doctors at Wittenberg: My dear
sirs, Dr. Martin is far too learned for us; he read the Bible ten years
ago and now if we read it for ten years, he will then have read it for
twenty; in any case, therefore, we are lost.” “Don’t start disputing
with him.”[1203]
“Nevertheless I never should have attained to the great abundance of
Divine gifts, which I am forced to confess and admit, unless Satan had
tried me with temptations; without these temptations pride would have
cast me into the abyss of hell.”[1204]
“The Papists are blind to the clear light of truth because it was
revealed by a man. As though Elias, who wrought such great things
against the servants of Baal, was not likewise a man and a beggar.
As though John the Baptist, who so brilliantly put to flight the
Pharisees, was not a man too. One’s being a man does not matter
provided one be a man of God. For heroes are not merely men.”[1205]
Certain statements of contemporaries, both Catholics and Protestants,
sound like interjections in the midst of Luther’s discourse. They
point out how unheard-of was his demand that faith should be placed
in him alone to the exclusion of all Christian authorities past and
present. “What unexampled pride is this,” exclaims the learned Ulrich
Zasius, who in earlier days had favoured Luther’s more moderate plans
of reform, “when a man demands that his interpretation of the Bible
should be given precedence over that of the Fathers of the Church
herself, and of the whole of Christendom!”[1206] “He has stuck himself
in the Pope’s place,” cries Thomas Münzer, and does the grand as
though, forsooth, he had not come into the world in the ordinary way,
but “had sprung from the brain.” “Make yourself cosy in the Papal
chair,” is Valentine Ickelsamer’s comment, since you are determined to
“listen only to your own song.”[1207]
Luther concludes his address to his followers by replying first of all
to the frequent objection we have just heard Zasius bring forward:
“I, Dr. Martin Luther by name, have taken it upon me to prove for
further instruction each and every article in a well-grounded work....
But first I must answer certain imputations made by some against me.”
“They twit me with coming forward all alone and seeking to teach
everybody. To this I reply that I have never put myself forward and
would have been glad to creep into a corner; they it is who dragged me
out by force and cunning.”[1208]
“But who knows whether God has not raised me up and called me to this,
and whether they have not cause to fear that they are condemning God in
me? Do we not read in the Old Testament that God, as a rule, raised up
only one prophet at a time? Moses was alone when he led the people out
of Egypt; Helias was alone in the time of King Achab; later on Helisæus
was also alone; Isaias was alone in Jerusalem, Oseas in Israel,
Hieremias in Judea, Ezechiel in Babylon, and so on.”[1209]
“The dear Saints have always had to preach against and reprove the
great ones, the kings, princes, priests and scholars.”[1210]
“I do not say that I am a prophet, but I do say that the Papists have
the more reason to fear I am one, the more they despise me and esteem
themselves. God is wonderful in His works and judgments.... If I am not
a prophet yet I am certain within myself that the Word of God is with
me and not with them; for I have Scripture on my side, but they, only
their own doctrine.”[1211]
“There were plenty donkeys in the world in Balaam’s time, yet God did
not speak through all of them, but only through Balaam’s ass.”[1212]
“They also say that I bring forward new things, and that it is not to
be supposed that all others were in the wrong for so long. To this
reproof the ancient prophets also had to listen.... Christ’s teaching
was different from what the Jews had heard for a thousand years. On the
strength of this objection the heathen, too, might well have despised
the Apostles, seeing that their ancestors had believed otherwise for
more than three thousand years.”[1213]
“I say that all Christian truth had perished amongst those who ought to
have been its upholders, viz. the bishops and learned men. Yet I do not
doubt that the truth has survived in some hearts, even though only in
those of babes in the cradle.”[1214]
“I do not reject them [all the Doctors of the Church] ... but I refuse
to believe them except in so far as they prove their contentions from
that Scripture which has never erred.... Necessity forces us to test
every Doctor’s writings by the Bible and to judge and decide upon them.
The standing as well as the number of my foes is to me a proof that I
am in the right.”[1215]
“Were I opposed only by a few insignificant men I should know that
what I wrote and taught was not from God.... Truth has ever caused
disturbance, and false teachers have ever cried ‘Peace, peace.’”[1216]
“They say they don’t want to be reformed by such a beggar....” “Daniel
has arisen in his place and is determined to perform what the angel
Gabriel has pointed out to him; for the same prophet told us how
he would rise up at the end of the world. That he is now doing.”
“God has made Luther a Samson over them; He is God and His ways are
wonderful.... Let good people say the best they can of me and let the
Papists talk and lie to their hearts’ content.”[1217]
Neither councils nor reformations will help them. “They wish to reform
and govern the Church according to their own lights and by human
wisdom; but that is something that lies far above the counsel of men.
When our Lord God wished to reform His Church He did so ‘_divinitus_,’
not by human methods; thus it was at the time of Josue, of the Judges,
Samuel, the Apostles and also in my own time.”[1218]
Even should our work be frustrated, yet the “power of the Almighty
could make a new Luther out of nothing.” In this wise “God raised up
Noe when He was obliged to destroy the world by the deluge. And, in
Abraham’s time, when the whole world was plunged in darkness and under
the empire of Satan, Abraham and his seed came as a great light; and He
drowned King Pharao and slew seven great nations in Canaan. And again
when Caiphas crucified the Son of God ... He rose again from the dead
and Caiphas was brought to nought.”[1219]
“Christ was not so greatly considered, nor had He ever such a number of
hearers as the Apostles had and we now have; Christ Himself said to His
disciples: ‘You will do greater works than I,’ and, truly enough, at
the time of the Apostles, and now amongst us, the Gospel and the Divine
Word is preached much more powerfully and is more widely spread than at
the time of Christ.”[1220]
It is true that “my conviction is, that, for a thousand years,
the world has never loathed anyone so much as me. I return its
hatred.”[1221]
It “is probable that my name stinks in the nostrils of many who wish
to belong to us, but you [Bugenhagen] will put things right without my
troubling.” Formerly the decisions of the Councils ranked above God’s
Word, “but now, thank God, this would not be believed among us even by
ducks or geese, mice or lice.” “God has no liking for the ‘expectants’
[those who looked for a Council], for He will have His Word honoured
above all angels, let alone men or Councils, and will have no waiting
or expectancy. Our best plan will be to send them to the devil in the
abyss of hell, to do their waiting there.”[1222]
“So the Council is going to be held at Trent. Tridentum, however,
signifies in German, ‘divided, torn asunder, dissolved,’ for God
will scatter it and its Legates. I believe they do not know what
they are doing or what they mean to do. God has cursed them with
blindness.”[1223] “Nay, under Satan’s rule they have all gone mad; they
condemn us and then want our approval.”[1224] “The Council is worthy
of its monsters. May misfortune fall upon them; the wrath of God is
verily at their heels.”[1225] “They look upon us as donkeys, and yet do
not realise their own dense stupidity and malice.”[1226]
“Should we fall, then Christ will fall with us, the ruler of the world.
Granted, however, that He is to fall, I would rather fall with Christ
than stand with the Emperor.” “Put your trust in your Emperor and we
will put our trust in ours [in Christ], and wait and see who holds the
field. Let them do their best, they have not yet got their way.” They
shall perish. “I fear they wish to hear those words of Julius Cæsar:
‘They themselves have willed it!’”[1227]
Should I be carried to the grave, for instance, as a victim of the
religious war, people will say at the sight of the Popish rout
that will ensue: “Dr. Martin was escorted to his grave by a great
procession. For he was a great Doctor, above all bishops, monks and
parsons, therefore it was fitting that they should all follow him into
the grave, and furnish a subject for talk and song. And to end up, we
shall all make a little pilgrimage together; they, the Papists, to the
bottomless pit to their god of lying and murder, whom they have served
with lies and murders; I to my Lord, Jesus Christ, Whom I have served
in truth and peace; ... they to hell in the name of all the devils, I
to heaven in God’s name.”[1228]
* * * * *
No mortal ever spoke of himself as Luther did. He reveals himself as
a man immeasurably different from that insipid portrait which depicts
him as one who made no claim on people’s submission to his higher light
and higher authority, but who humbly advanced what he fancied he had
discovered, an ordinary human being, even though a great one, who was
only at pains to convince others by the usual means in all wisdom and
charity. Everyday psychology does not avail to explain the language
Luther used, and we are faced by the graver question of the actual
condition of such a mind, raised so far above the normal level. “We
have,” says Adolf Harnack, “to choose between two alternatives: Either
he suffered from the mania of greatness, or his self-reliance really
corresponded with his task and achievements.”[1229]
Luther, at the very commencement of the tract which he published soon
after leaving the Wartburg, and in which he describes himself as
“Ecclesiastes by the grace of God,” says: “Should you, dear Sirs, look
upon me as a fool for my assumption of so haughty a title,” I should
not be in the least surprised; he adds, however: “I am convinced of
this, that Christ Himself, Who is the Master of my teaching, calls me
thus and regards me as such”; his “Word, office and work” had come
to him “from God,” and his “judgment was God’s own” no less than his
doctrine.[1230] The bishops of the Catholic world may well have raised
their eyebrows at the tone of this work, couched in the form of a
Bull and addressed to all the “Popish bishops”; the following year it
was even reprinted in Latin at Wittenberg in order to make it known
throughout the world. Bossuet’s words on the opening lines of the
tract well render the feeling of apprehension they must have created:
“Hence Luther’s is the same call as St. Paul’s, no less direct and
no less extraordinary!... And on the strength of this Divine mission
Luther proceeds to reform the Church!”[1231]--We should, however,
note that Luther, in his extraordinary demands, goes far beyond any
mere claim to a Divine call. A heavenly vocation might perfectly well
have been present without any such haughty treading under foot of the
past, without any such conceit as to his own and his fellow-workers’
achievements, and without all this boasting of prophecies, of victories
over fanatics and devils, and of world-wide fame, rather, a true
vocation would dread anything of the kind. Hence, in the whole series
of statements we have quoted, commencing with the title of Ecclesiastes
by the Grace of God, which he adopted soon after his Wartburg
“baptism,” we find not only the consciousness of a mission conferred
on him at the Wartburg, but also an altogether unique idea of his own
greatness which no one who wishes to study Luther’s character must lose
sight of. We shall have, later on, to ask ourselves whether those were
in the right who looked upon this manifestation as a sign of disease.
* * * * *
Luther’s language would be even more puzzling were it not certain that
much that he said was not really meant seriously. With him rhetoric
plays a greater rôle than is commonly admitted, and even some of his
utterances regarding his own greatness are clearly flowers of rhetoric
written half in jest.
Luther himself ingenuously called his art of abusing all opponents
with the utmost vigour, “_rhetorica mea_.” This he did in those
difficult days when it was a question of finding some means of escape
in connection with the threatening Diet of Augsburg: “By my rhetoric
I will show the Papists that they, who pretend to be the champions of
the faith and the Gospel, have there [at Augsburg] made demands of
us which are contrary to the Gospel; verily I shall fall upon them
tooth and nail.... Come, Luther most certainly will, and with great
pomp set free the eagle [the Evangel] now held caught in the snare
(‘_aquilam liberaturus magnifice_’).”[1232] So much did he trust his
rhetorical talent that on another occasion he told the lawyers: “If I
have painted you white, then I can equally well paint you black again
and make you look like regular devils.”[1233] Amidst the embarrassments
subsequent on Landgrave Philip’s bigamy Luther’s one ray of hope was in
his consciousness, that he could easily manage to “extricate” himself
with the help of his pen; at the same time, when confiding this to
the Landgrave, he also told him quite openly, that, should he, the
Landgrave, “start a literary feud” with him, Luther would soon “leave
him sticking in the mud.”[1234]
We have already heard him say plainly: “I have more in me of the
rhetorician or the gossip”;[1235] he adds that his only writings which
were strictly doctrinal were his commentaries on Galatians and on
Deuteronomy and his sermons on four chapters of the Gospel of St.
John; all the rest the printers might well pass over, for they merely
traced the history of his conflict; the truth being that his doctrine
“had not been so clear at first as it is now.” And yet he had formerly
written much on doctrine; as he once said in a conversation recorded
in Schlaginhaufen’s notes of 1532: “I don’t care for my Psalter,
it is long and garrulous. Formerly I was so eloquent that I wanted
to talk the whole world to death. Now I can do this no longer, for
the thoughts won’t come. Once upon a time I could talk more about a
little flower than I now could about a whole meadow. I am not fond of
any superfluity of words. Jonas replied: The Psalter [you wrote] is,
however, of the Holy Ghost and pleases me well.”[1236]
That he avoided “any superfluity of words” later in life is not
apparent. What he says of himself in the Table-Talk, viz. that he
resembled an Italian in liveliness and wealth of language, holds
good of him equally at a later date; on the other hand, his remark,
that Erasmus purveyed “words without content” and he content without
words,[1237] is not true of the facts.
An example of his rhetorical ability to enlarge upon a thought is
found in the continuation of the sentence already mentioned (p. 331):
“Before my day nothing was known.”
“Formerly no one knew what the Gospel was, what Christ, or baptism,
or confession, or the Sacrament was, what faith, what spirit, what
flesh, what good works, the Ten Commandments, the Our Father, prayer,
suffering, consolation, secular authority, matrimony, parents or
children were, what master, servant, wife, maid, devils, angels,
world, life, death, sin, law, forgiveness, God, bishop, pastor, or
Church was, or what was a Christian, or what the cross; in fine, we
knew nothing whatever of all a Christian ought to know. Everything
was hidden and overborne by the Pope-Ass. For they are donkeys,
great, rude, unlettered donkeys in Christian things.... But now,
thank God, things are better and male and female, young and old, know
the Catechism.... The things mentioned above have again emerged into
the light.” The Papists, however, “will not suffer any one of these
things.... You must help us [so they say] to prevent anyone from
learning the Ten Commandments, the Our Father and Creed; or about
baptism, the Sacrament, faith, authority, matrimony or the Gospel....
You must lend us a hand so that, in place of marriage, Christendom may
again be filled with fornication, adultery and other unnatural and
shameful vices.”[1238]
A particular quality of Luther’s “rhetoric” was its exaggeration. By
his exaggeration his controversy becomes a strangely glaring picture
of his mind; nor was it merely in controversy that his boundless
exaggeration shows itself. Sometimes, apparently, without his being
aware of it, but likewise even in the course of his literary labours
and his preaching, things had a tendency to assume gigantic proportions
and fantastic shapes in his eyes. Among his friends the aberrations
into which his fondness for vigorous and far-fetched language led him
were well known. It was certain of his own followers who dubbed him
“_Doctor Hyperbolicus_” and declared that “he made a camel of a flea,
and said a thousand when he meant less than five.” This is related
by the Lutheran zealot, Cyriacus Spangenberg, who dutifully seeks to
refute the “many, who, though disciples of his,” were in the habit of
making such complaints.[1239]
His “rhetoric,” in spite of a literary style in many respects
excellent, occasionally becomes grotesque and insipid owing to the
utter want of taste he shows in his choice of expressions. This was
particularly the case in his old age, when he no longer had at his
command the figures of speech in which to clothe decently those all
too vigorous words to which, as the years went by, he became more and
more addicted. In the last year of his life, for instance, writing to
his Elector and the Hessian Landgrave concerning the “Defensive league”
of those who stood up for “the old religion,” he says: God Himself has
intervened to oppose this league, not being unaware of its aims; “God
and all His angels must indeed have had a terrible cold in the head not
to have been able to smell, even until this 21st day of October, the
savoury dish that goes by the name of Defensive league; but then He
took some sneeze-wort and cleared His brain and gave them to understand
pretty plainly that His catarrh was gone and that He now knew very well
what Defensive league was.”[1240] Luther does not seem to feel how much
out of place such buffoonery was in a theologian, let alone in the
founder of a new religion. Even in some of his earlier writings and in
those which he prized the most, e.g. in the Commentary on Galatians, a
similar want of taste is noticeable. It is also unnecessary to repeat
that even his “best” writings, among them the work on Galatians,
are frequently rendered highly unpalatable by an excess of useless
repetitions. Everybody can see that the monotony of Luther’s works is
chiefly due to the haste and carelessness with which they were written
and then rushed through the press.
In considering Luther’s “rhetoric,” however, our attention perforce
wanders from the form to the matter, for Luther based his claim to
originality on his art of bringing forward striking and effective
thoughts and thus charming and captivating the reader. In his thoughts
the same glaring, grotesque and contradictory element is apparent as
in his literary style and outward conduct. Much is mere impressionism,
useful indeed for his present purposes, but contradicted or modified
by statements elsewhere. Whatever comes to his pen must needs be put
on paper and worked for all it is worth. Thus in many instances his
thoughts stray into the region of paradox. Thereby he seemed indeed to
be rendering easier the task of opponents who wished to refute him, but
as a matter of fact he only increased the difficulty of dealing with
him owing to his elusiveness.
Even down to the present day the incautious reader or historian is all
too frequently exposed to the temptation of taking Luther at his word
in passages where in point of fact his thoughts are the plaything of
his “rhetoric.” Anybody seeking to portray Luther’s train of thought is
liable to be confronted with passages, whether from the same writing or
from another composed under different influences, where statements to
an entirely different effect occur. Hence, when attempting to describe
his views, it is essential to lay stress only on statements that are
clear, devoid of any hyperbolical vesture and frequently reiterated.
He was not, of course, serious and meant to introduce no new rule
for the interpretation of Scripture when he pronounced the words so
often brought up against him (“_sic volo, sic iubeo_”) in connection
with his interpolation of the term “alone” in Rom. iii. 28;[1241] yet
this sentence occupies such a position in a famous passage of his
works that it will repay us to give it with its context as a typical
instance:
“If your Papist insists on making much needless ado about the word
‘alone,’ tell him smartly: Dr. Martin Luther will have it so and
says: Papist and donkey is one and the same. ‘_Sic volo, sic iubeo;
sit pro ratione voluntas._’ For we will not be the Papists’ pupils
or disciples, but their masters and judges, and, for once in a way,
we shall strut, and rap these asses’ heads; and as Paul boasted to
his crazy saints, so I too will boast to these my donkeys. They are
Doctors? So am I. They are learned? So am I. They are preachers? So am
I. They are theologians? So am I. They are disputants? So am I. They
are philosophers? So am I. They are dialecticians? So am I. They are
lecturers? So am I. They write books? So do I. And I will boast still
further: I can expound the Psalms and the Prophets; this they can’t
do. I can interpret; they, they can’t.”
He proceeds in the same vein and finally concludes: “And if there is
one amongst them who rightly understands a single preface or chapter
of Aristotle, then I will allow myself to be tossed. Here I am not too
generous with my words.”--And yet there is still more to follow that
does not belong to the subject! Having had his say he begins again:
“Give no further answer to these donkeys when they idly bray about the
word ‘_sola_,’ but merely tell them: ‘Luther will have it so and says
he is a Doctor above all the Doctors of the Papacy.’ There it shall
remain; in future I will despise them utterly and have them despised,
so long as they continue to be such people, I mean, donkeys. For there
are unblushing scoundrels amongst them who have never even learnt
their own, viz. the sophists’, art, for instance, Dr. Schmidt, Dr.
Dirty Spoon [Cochlæus] and their ilk. And yet they dare to stand in my
way.”
He nevertheless seeks to give a more satisfactory answer, and admits,
“that the word ‘alone’ is not found in either Latin or Greek text, ...
at the letters of which our donkeys stare like cows at a new gate.
They don’t see that the meaning of the text requires it.”[1242]--The
last assertion may be taken for what it is worth. The principal thing,
however, is that he introduced the interpolation with a meaning of
his own, though he could not have held that his doctrine of a dead
faith (for this was what his “faith alone” amounted to) really tallied
with the Apostle’s teaching. On this point he is quite silent in
his strange answers. He is far more concerned in parrying the blows
with his rhetorical artifice. His appeal to the will of Dr. Martin
Luther may be termed the feint of a skilful swordsman; his whole
treatment of the matter is designed to surprise, to puzzle and amuse,
and, as a matter of fact, could impress only the populace. It is not
without reason that Adolf Harnack speaks of the “strange logic of his
arguments, the faults of his exegesis and the injustice and barbarity
of his polemics.”[1243]
The strange controversial methods of his rhetoric give, however, a true
picture of his soul.
All this inconstancy and self-contradiction, this restless upheaval
of assertions, now rendered doubtful by their palpable exaggeration,
now uncertain owing to the admixture of humour they contain, now
questionable because already rejected elsewhere by their author, all
this mirrors the unrest of his soul, the zigzag course of his thought,
in short a mind unenlightened by the truth, which thrives only amidst
the excitement of conflict and contradiction. Moderation in resolve
and deed is as little to his taste as any consistent submission of
his word to the yoke of reflection and truthfulness. He abandons his
actions as well as his most powerful organ, his voice, to the impulse
and the aims of the moment. He finds no difficulty, for instance, even
in his early days, in soundly rating his fellow-monks even in the
most insulting and haughty manner, and in assuring them in the same
breath of his “peaceable heart” and his “perfect calm,” or in shifting
the responsibility for his earlier outbursts of anger on God, Who so
willed it and Whose action cannot be withstood. All this we find in
his letter in 1514 to the Erfurt Augustinians, where his singular
disposition already reveals itself.[1244] No less easy was it to him at
the commencement of his struggle to protest most extravagant humility
towards both Pope and Emperor, to liken himself to a “flea,” and yet to
promise resistance to the uttermost. He was guilty of exaggeration in
his championship of the downtrodden peasants before the war, and, when
it was over, was again extravagant in his demand for their punishment.
With an all too lavish hand he abandons Holy Scripture to each one’s
private interpretation, even to the “miller’s maid,” and yet, as soon
as anyone, without the support of “miracles,” attempted to bring
forward some new doctrine differing from his own, he withdrew it with
the utmost imperiousness as a treasure reserved.
As in style, so in deed, he was a chameleon. This he was in his inmost
feelings, and not less in his theology.[1245]
In one matter only did he remain always the same, on one point
only is his language always consistent and clear, viz. in his
hatred and defiance of the Church of Rome. Some have praised his
straightforwardness, and it must be admitted, that, in this particular,
he certainly always shows his true character with entire unrestraint.
This hate permeates all his thoughts, his prayer, all his exalted
reflections, his good wishes for others, his sighs at the approach of
death. Even in his serious illness in 1527 he was, at least according
to the account of his friend Jonas, principally concerned that God
should not magnify his enemies, the Papists, but exalt His name
“against the enemies of His most holy Word”; he recalls to mind that
John the Evangelist, too, “had written a good, strong book against the
Pope” (the Apocalypse); as John did not die a martyr, he also would be
content without martyrdom. Above all, he was not in the least contrite
for what he had printed against the doctrines of the Pope, “even though
some thought he had been too outspoken and bitter.”[1246] In his second
dangerous illness, in 1537, Luther declared even more emphatically,
that he had “done right” in “storming the Papacy,” and that if he
could live longer he would undertake still “worse things against that
beast.”[1247]
* * * * *
Luther’s over-estimation of himself was partly due to the seductive
effect of the exaggerated praise and admiration of his friends, amongst
whom Jonas must also be reckoned. They, like Jonas, could see in
him nothing but the “inspiration of the Holy Ghost.”[1248] Luther’s
responsibility must appear less to those who lay due stress on the
surroundings amidst which he lived. He was good-natured enough to give
credence to such eulogies. Just as, moved by sympathy, he was prone
to lavish alms on the undeserving, so he was too apt to be influenced
by the exaggerations of his admirers and the applause of the masses,
though, occasionally, he did not fail to protest.
This veneration went so far that many, in spite of his remonstrances,
placed him not only on a level with but even above the Apostles.[1249]
His devoted pupils usually called him Elias. He himself was not
averse to the thought that he had something in common with the fiery
prophet. As early as 1522 Wolfgang Rychard, his zealous assistant
at Ulm, greets him in his letters as the risen Elias, and actually
dates a new era from his coming. In this the physician Magenbuch
imitated him, and the title was as well received by Melanchthon and
the other Wittenbergers as it was by outsiders.[1250] In the Preface
which Luther wrote in 1530 to a work by the theologian Johann Brenz,
he contrasts the comparative calmness of the preacher to his own
ways, and remarks that his own uncouth style vomited forth a chaos
and torrent of words, and was stormy and fierce, because he was ever
battling with countless hordes of monsters; he had received as his
share of the fourfold spirit of Elias (4 Kings xix.), the “whirlwind
and the fire” which “overthrew mountains and uprooted rocks”; the
Heavenly Father had bestowed this upon him to use against the thick
heads, and had made him a “strong wedge wherewith to split asunder
hard blocks.”[1251]
When, in 1532, his great victory over the Sacramentarians was
discussed in the circle of his friends, the words of the Magdeburg
Chancellor, Laurentius Zoch, recurred to him: “After reading my books
against the Sacramentarians he said of me: ‘Now I see that this man is
enlightened by the Holy Ghost; such a thing as this no Papist could
ever have achieved,’” and so, Luther adds in corroboration, “he was
won over to the Evangel; what I say is, that all the Papists together,
with all their strength, would not have been able to refute the
Sacramentarians, either by authority [the Fathers] or from Scripture.
Yet I get no thanks!”[1252]
Not his admirers only, but even his literary opponents contributed, at
least indirectly, to inflate his rhetoric and his assurance; his sense
of his own superiority grew in the measure that he saw his foes lagging
far behind him both in language and in vigour.
Amongst the Catholic theologians of Germany there were too few able
to compete with him in point of literary dexterity. Luther stood on a
pinnacle and carried away the multitude by the war-cry he hurled over
the heads of the Catholic polemists and apologists who bore witness to
the ancient truths, some well and creditably, others more humbly and
awkwardly. The apparent disadvantage under which the Catholic writers
laboured, was, that they were not so relentless in treading under foot
considerations of charity and decency; unlike him, they could not
address fiery appeals to the passions in order to enlist them as their
allies, though traces far too many of the violence of the conflict are
found even in their polemics. Amongst them were men of high culture and
refinement, who stood far above the turmoils of the day and knew how to
estimate them at their true worth. They felt themselves supported by
the Catholics throughout the world, whose most sacred possessions were
being so unjustly attacked.