HARBINGERS OF CHANGE
1. Sources, Old and New
THE history of Luther’s inward development during his first years
at Wittenberg up to 1517, is, to a certain extent, rather obscure.
The study of deep psychological processes must always be reckoned
amongst the most complex of problems, and in our case the difficulty
is increased by the nature of Luther’s own statements with regard
to himself. These belong without exception to his later years, are
uncertain and contradictory in character, and in nearly every instance
represent views influenced by his controversies and such as he was
wont to advocate in his old age. Thanks to more recent discoveries,
however, we are now possessed of works written by Luther in his youth
which supply us with better information. By a proper use of these, we
are able to obtain a much clearer picture of his development than was
formerly possible.
Many false ideas which were once current have now been dispelled;
more especially there can no longer be any question of the customary
Protestant view, namely, that the Monk of Wittenberg was first led to
his new doctrine through some unusual inward religious experience by
which he attained the joyful assurance of salvation by faith alone,
and not by means of the good works of Popery and monasticism. This
so-called inner experience, which used to be placed in the forefront
of his change of opinions, as a “Divine Experience,” as shown below,
must disappear altogether from history.[117] Objection must equally
be taken to some of the views with which Catholics have been wont to
explain Luther’s apostasy. The path Luther followed, though subject to
numerous and varied influences, is now seen to be much less complicated
than was hitherto supposed.
Two results already brought to light by other authors are now
confirmed. First, the process of his falling away from the Church’s
teaching was already accomplished in Luther’s mind before he began
the dispute about Indulgences with Tetzel; secondly, a certain moral
change, the outlines of which are clearly marked, went hand in hand
with his theological views, indeed, if anything, preceded them;
the signs of such an ethical change are apparent in his growing
indifference to good works, and to the aims and rules of conventual
life, and in the quite extraordinary self-confidence he displayed, more
especially when disputes arose.
Characteristic of the ethical side of his nature are the remarks
and marginal annotations we have of his, which were published by
Buchwald in 1893; these notes were written by Luther in many of the
books he made use of in his early days as theological lecturer at
Erfurt (1509-10). These books are the oldest available sources for
a correct estimation of his intellectual activity. They were found
in the Ratsschul-Library at Zwickau. Of special interest is a volume
containing various writings of St. Augustine, and a copy of the
Sentences of Peter Lombard, which is of great importance on account
of the notes. The running commentary in Luther’s early handwriting
shows his great industry, enables us to see what especially impressed
him, and betrays also his marvellous belief in himself as well as his
stormy, unbridled temper.
Of Luther’s letters written previous to 1514 only five remain, and are
of comparatively little historical interest. Of the year 1515 there is
only one, of 1516 there are nineteen, of 1517 already twenty-one, and
they increase in importance as well as in number.
In 1513 he began, at Wittenberg University, his Commentary on the
Psalms, which has been known since 1876, and continued those lectures
up to 1515 or 1516. Following his lively and practical bent, he refers
therein to the most varied questions of theology and the religious
life, and occasionally even introduces contemporary matters, so that
these lectures afford many opportunities by which to judge of his
development and mode of thought. First the scholia, which till then
had been known only in part, were edited in a somewhat cumbersome
form by Seidemann, then a better edition by Kawerau, containing both
the scholia and the glosses, followed in 1885.[118] In dividing this
exegetical work into scholia and glosses, Luther was following the
traditional method of the Middle Ages. The glosses are very short, as
was customary; they were written by Luther between the lines of the
text itself or in the margin and explained the words and grammatical
construction; on the sense they touch only in the most meagre fashion.
On the other hand, the detailed scholia seek to unfold the meaning of
the verses and often expand into free digressions. In addition to the
glosses and the scholia on the Psalms, Kawerau’s edition also includes
the preparatory notes, written by Luther in a copy of the first edition
of the “_Psalterium quincuplex_” of Faber Stapulensis (Paris, 1509),
which, like the glosses and scholia, attest both the learning of their
author and the peculiar tendency of his mind. Luther used for his
text the Latin Vulgate, making a very sparing use of his rudimentary
Hebrew. The glosses and the scholia were, however, intended chiefly
for the professor himself; to the students who attended his biblical
lectures Luther was in the habit of giving a short dictation comprising
a summary of what he had prepared, and then, with the assistance of
his glosses and scholia, dilating more fully on the subject. Scholars’
notebooks containing such dictations given by Luther in early days
together with his fuller explanation are in existence, but have never
been printed.
After the Psalms, the lectures of our Wittenberg “Doctor of the
Bible” dealt with St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. This work—of
such supreme importance for the comprehension of Luther’s spiritual
development—with its glosses and scholia complete, was published
only in 1908 in Ficker’s edition.[119] The lectures on the Book of
Judges, edited in 1884 by Buchwald and then again by Kawerau as a work
of Luther supposed to have been delivered in 1516, are, according
to Denifle, not Luther’s at all; they are largely borrowed from St.
Augustine, and, at the very most, are a redaction by another hand of
the notes of one of Luther’s pupils.[120] Transcripts of Luther’s
lectures on the Epistle to Titus, and Epistle to the Hebrews, delivered
in 1516 and 1517 respectively, are still lying unedited in the Vatican
Library.[121] On the other hand, his lectures on the Epistle to the
Galatians (1516-17) were brought out by himself in 1519.
Further light may be shed on them by the publication of a hitherto
unedited student’s notebook, discovered at Cologne in 1877.
To the years 1514-20 belongs a rich mine of information in the sermons
preached by Luther in the monastery church of the Augustinians, or in
the parish church of the town. They consist of more or less detailed
notes, written in Latin, on the Gospels and Epistles of the Sundays
and Feast days; some are the merest sketches, but all, as we may
assume, were written down by himself for his own use, or to be handed
to others.[122] Chronologically, they are headed by three sermons for
Christmas time, probably dating from 1515. The exact dating of these
older sermons is sometimes rather difficult, and will have to be
undertaken in the future, the Weimar edition of Luther’s works having
made no attempt at this. The sermons were all of them printed in 1720,
with the exception of two printed only in 1886. A complete discourse
held at a synodal meeting at Leitzkau, near Zerbst, and printed in
1708, stands apart, and probably belongs to 1515, a year of the
greatest consequence in Luther’s development. To the same year belongs,
without a doubt, the lecture delivered at a chapter of the Order, which
may aptly be entitled: “Against the little Saints.” (See below, p. 69.)
The first of the works written and published by Luther himself was of
a homiletic nature; this was his Commentary on the Seven Penitential
Psalms, published in 1517. To the same year, or the next, belong his
expositions of the Lord’s Prayer and Ten Commandments, consisting of
excerpts from his sermons sent by him to the press. The celebrated
ninety-five Theses, which led directly to the dispute on Indulgences,
followed next in point of time.
Just as the Theses referred to throw light upon his development,[123]
so also, and to an even greater extent, do the Disputations which
took place at academic festivals about that same period. In these
Disputations propositions drawn up either by himself or by his
colleagues, were defended by his pupils under his own direction. They
display his theological views as he was wont to vent them at home, and
are therefore all the more natural and reliable. Of such Disputations
we have that of Bartholomew Bernhardi in 1516 “On the Powers and
the Will of Man without Grace”; that of Francis Günther in 1517
“Concerning Grace and Nature,” also entitled “Against the Theology of
the Schoolmen,” and the Heidelberg Disputation of 1518, with Leonard
Beyer as defendant of twenty-eight philosophical and twelve theological
theses. In the latter theses there are also various notes in Luther’s
handwriting.
Of Luther’s writings, dating from the strenuous year 1518, some of
which are in Latin and others in German and which throw some light on
his previous development, we may mention in their chronological order:
the sermon on “Indulgence and Grace,” the detailed “Resolutions” on the
Indulgence Theses, the discourse on Penance, the “Asterisci” against
Eck, the pamphlet “Freedom of the Sermon on Indulgence and Grace,”
an exposition of Psalm cx., the reply to Prierias, the sermon on the
power of excommunication, then the report of his trial at Augsburg and
the sermon on the “Threefold Righteousness.” To these we must add his
complete edition of “Theologia Deutsch,” an anonymous mystical pamphlet
of the fourteenth century a portion of which he had brought out in 1516
with a preface of his own.[124]
These are the sources which Luther himself has left behind him and from
which the inner history of his apostasy and of his new theology must
principally be taken. The further evidence derivable from his later
works, his sermons, letters and Table-Talk, will be dealt with in due
course.
* * * * *
Only at the end of 1518 was his new teaching practically complete.
At that time a new and final element had been added, the doctrine
of absolute individual certainty of salvation by “Fiducial Faith.”
This was regarded by Luther and his followers as the corner-stone of
evangelical Christianity now once again recovered. At the commencement
of 1519, we find it expressed in the new Commentary on the Epistle to
the Galatians (a new and enlarged edition of the earlier lectures), and
in the new Commentary on the Psalms, which was printed simultaneously.
Hence Luther’s whole process of development up to that time may be
divided into two stages by the doctrine of the assurance of salvation;
in the first, up to 1517, this essential element was still wanting:
the doctrine of the necessity of belief in personal justification and
future salvation does not appear, and for this reason Luther himself,
later on, speaks of this time as a period of unstable, and in part
despairing, search.[125] The second stage covers the years 1517-18, and
commences with the Resolutions and the Augsburg trial, where we find
the Professor gradually acquiring that absolute certainty of salvation
to which he finally attained through an illumination which he was wont
to regard as God’s own work.[126]
In the next section we deal merely with the first stage, which we shall
seek to elucidate from the psychological, theological and ethical
standpoint.
2. Luther’s Commentary on the Psalms (1513-15). Dispute with the
Observantines and the “Self-righteous”
Presages of the storm which Luther was about to raise were visible in
his first course of lectures on the Psalms given at Wittenberg. With
regard to several particularly important parts of his work on the
Psalms, it would be desirable to determine to what precise time during
the period 1513-15 they belong; but this is a matter of considerable
difficulty. The polemics they contain against the so-called “Saints by
works,” the “Self-righteous” and the Observantines, the last of which
must here be considered first, seem to belong to the earlier part of
the period. In particular his animus against the Observantines, traces
of which are plentiful, seems to have been of early growth. It also
deserves more attention than has hitherto been bestowed on it, on
account of its psychological and theological influence on Luther.[127]
Under the Observantines Luther in his Commentary on the Psalms
refers, openly or covertly, to the members of the German Augustinian
Congregation, i.e. to those who adhered to that party to which, since
his return from Rome, he had been opposed.
No sooner had Luther, as Cochlæus remarked (p. 38), “deserted to
Staupitz” and begun to defend his opinions, the aim of which was
to surrender the privileged position of the Congregation and the
stringency of the Rule, than his fiery temper led him to constitute
himself the champion of the monasteries with whose cause he had
allied himself, particularly that of Wittenberg; indeed, he was, if
not actually the first, one of the earliest to take up the cudgels on
their behalf. The mission to Rome with which he had previously been
entrusted lent him special authority, and his expert knowledge of the
case seemed to entitle him to a voice on the subject. To this was added
the importance of his position at the University, his reputation as
a talented and eloquent lecturer, and his power as a preacher. His
sociability drew many to him, especially among the young, and his
readiness of tongue marked him out as a real party man.
In his lectures on the Psalms his fiery nature led him to attack
sharply the Observantines, whom he frequently mentions by name; even
in the lecture-room his aim was to prejudice the young Augustinians
who were his audience against the defenders of the traditional
constitution; instead of encouraging the rising generation of monks
to strive after perfection on the tried and proved lines of their
Congregation, he broke out into declamatory attacks against those
monks who took their vocation seriously as they received it from their
predecessors, and abused them as Pharisees and hypocrites; according
to him, they were puffed up by their carnal mind because they esteemed
“fasting and lengthy prayers.”
There are Pharisees, he cries, even now who extol fasting and
long-drawn prayer; “they make rules,” but “their zeal is directed
against the Lord.” There are many in the Church who “dispute
about ceremonies and are enthusiastic for the hollowness of
exterior observances.” “I am acquainted with still more obstinate
hypocrites.”[128] “It is to be feared that all Observantines, all
exempted, and privileged religious, must be reckoned among those
puffed up in their carnal mind. How harmful they are to the Church
has not yet become clear, but the fact remains and will make itself
apparent in time. If we ask why they insist upon isolation, they
reply: On account of the protection of the cloistral discipline. But
that is the light of an angel of Satan.”[129]
The following attack on the Observantines in the lectures on the
Psalms is on the same lines: There are plenty of “men proud of their
holiness and observance, hypocrites and false brothers.”[130] “But
the fate of a Divine condemnation” will fall upon “all the proud and
stiff-necked, all the superstitious, rebellious, disobedient, also, as
I fear, on our Observantines, who under a show of strict discipline
are only loading themselves with insubordination and rebellion.”[131]
The Observantines were plainly in his opinion demonstrating their
unruliness by seeking to stand by the old foundation principles of
the Congregation. He is angered by their exemption from the General
and their isolation from the other German Augustinians, and still
less does he like their severities; they ought to fall into line with
the Conventuals and join them. We know nothing further of the matter
nor anything of the rights of the case; it may be noted, however,
that the after history of the party with which Luther sided and the
eventual dissolution of the Congregation, appear rather to justify the
Observantines.
On the occasion of a convention of the Order at Gotha in 1515—at
which the Conventuals must have had a decided majority, seeing
that Luther was chosen as Rural Vicar—he delivered, on May 1, the
strange address on slander, which has been preserved. He represents
this fault as prevalent amongst the opposite party and lashes in
unmeasured terms those in the Order “who wish to appear holy,” “who
see no fault in themselves,” but who unearth the hidden sins and
faults of others, and hinder them in doing good and “in teaching.”
Thus the estrangement had proceeded very far. Perhaps, even allowing
for Luther’s exaggeration, the other side may have had its weaknesses,
and been guilty of precipitancy and sins of the tongue, though it
is unlikely that the faults were all on one side. It is noticeable,
however, that Luther’s discourse is not directed against calumniators
who invent and disseminate untruths against their opponents, but only
against those who bring to light the real faults of their brethren.
Scattered through the Latin text of the sermon are highly opprobrious
epithets in German. The preacher, for their want of charity, calls
his opponents “poisonous serpents, traitors, vagabonds, murderers,
tyrants, devils, and all that is evil, desperate, incredulous,
envious, and haters.” He speaks in detail of their devil’s filth and
of the human excrement which they busy themselves in sorting, anxious
to discover the faults of their adversaries.[132] The wealth of
biblical passages quoted in this strange address cannot make up for
the lack of clear ideas and of any discrimination and judgment as to
the limits to be observed by a preacher in commenting on the faults
of his time. Luther’s fondness for the use of filthy and repulsive
figures of speech also makes a very disagreeable impression. It is
true that there we must take into account the manners of the time, and
his Saxon surroundings, but even Julius Köstlin, Luther’s biographer,
was shocked at the indecency of the expressions which Luther uses.[133]
The real reason of this discourse was probably that Luther wished to
enter on his office as Rural Vicar by striking a deadly blow at the
Observant faction and at their habit of crying down his own party. It
was this address which his friend Lang, fully alive to its range, sent
at once to Mutian, the frivolous leader of the Humanists at Gotha,
describing it as a sermon “Against the little Saints.”
Returning to the Commentary on the Psalms, we find that therein Luther
sometimes makes characteristic statements about himself. On one
occasion, doubtless in a fit of depression, he pours out the following
effusion: “If Ezechiel says the eyes wax feeble, this prophecy is
largely fulfilled at the present time, as I perceive in myself and in
many others. They know very well all that must be believed, but their
faith and assent is so dull that they are oppressed as by sleep, are
heavy of heart, and unable to raise themselves up to God.” Such states
of lukewarmness were to be banished by means of fear, but woe to him
who permits the feeling of self-righteousness to take the place of the
weariness, for “there is no greater unrighteousness than excessive
righteousness.”[134] In the latter words he seems to be again alluding
to the “little Saints” and the ostensibly self-righteous members of his
Order.
His ill-humour is partly a result of his dissatisfaction with the
disorders which he knew or believed to exist in his immediate
surroundings, in the Order, and in ecclesiastical life generally.
He frequently speaks of them with indignation, though from the new
standpoint which he was gradually taking. “We live in a false peace,”
he cries, and fancy we can draw on the “Treasure of the merits of
Christ and the Saints.” “Popes and bishops are flinging about graces
and indulgences.”[135] Unmindful of the consequences, he diminished
the respect of his youthful hearers for the authority of the Church.
As to the religious life, he was wont to speak as follows: “Here come
men of religion and vaunt their confraternities and indulgences at
every street corner only to get money for food and clothing. Oh! those
begging friars! those begging friars! those begging friars! Perhaps
you are to be excused because you receive alms in God’s name, and
preach the word and perform the other services gratis. That may be,
but see you look to it.”[136] These words in the mouth of one who was
himself a member of a mendicant Order, for this the Augustinian Hermits
undoubtedly were, amounted to an attack on the constitution of his own
Congregation.
In his Commentary on the Psalms he frequently at one and the same time
rails at the “self-righteous” and “holy by works” and at the opposition
party in his Order, so that it is not easy to distinguish against whom
his attacks are directed. Already at this period he shows a certain
tendency to under-estimate the value of Christian good works and to
insist one-sidedly on the power and efficacy of faith and on the
application of the merits of Christ.
Most emphatically, as opposed to trust in good works and merits, does
he insist on the grace of Christ, the “_nuda et sola misericordia Dei
et benignitas gratuita_” which must be our support and stay.[137]
His exhortations against works and human efforts sound as though
intended to dissuade from any such, whether inward or outward, as
though the merits of Christ and the righteousness which God gives us
might thereby suffer.[138] Man’s interior efforts towards repentance
by means of the contemplation of the misery and the consequences of
sin, do not appeal to him. He is well aware that repentance consists
in sorrow for and hatred of sin,[139] but he says that he himself has
no personal experience of this kind of compunction.[140] He complains
that so many turn to exterior works, they “follow their own inventions
and make rules of their own at their choice; their ceremonies and the
works they have devised are everything to them”: but to act thus is
to set up “a new standard of righteousness instead of cultivating the
spiritual things which God prescribes, namely, the Word of God, Grace
and Salvation. These persons are in so much the greater error because
it is a fine spiritual by-path, they are obstinate and stiff-necked,
full of hidden pride in spite of the wonderful humility of which they
make a show.” At last, carried away by his anger with what is mostly a
phantom of his own creation, he exclaims: “Yes, they are given up to
spiritual idolatry, a sin against the Holy Ghost for which there is no
forgiveness.”[141]
With such-like harsh accusations of presumptuous zeal for good
works he frequently attacks the “_capitosi et ostentiosi monachi et
sacerdotes_.” Let us go for them, he cries, since they are proud of
despising others.[142] Obedience and humility they have none, for
they are seduced by the angel of darkness, who assumes the garb of an
angel of light. They wish to do great works and they set themselves
above the small and insignificant things demanded by obedience. These
devotees in religious dress (“_religiosi devotarii_”) should beware
of putting their trust in the pious exercises peculiar to them,
while they remain lazy, languid, careless, and disobedient in the
common life of the Order.[143] The last words “_si in iis quæ sunt
conventualia et communia_” are, in the MS., pointed to by a hand
drawn in the margin. The term “_conventualia_” seems reminiscent of
the Conventuals, but not much further on, in the Commentary on the
same Psalm (cxviii.), we find the word “observance.” The Psalmist,
he says, implicitly condemns “those who are proud of their holiness,
and observance, who destroy humility and obedience.”[144] He goes
on to advocate something akin to Quietism, saying we should do, not
our own works, but God’s works, i.e. “those which God works in us”:
everything we do of ourselves belongs only to outward or carnal
righteousness.[145] It is quite possible that he did not wish to deny
the correct sense these words might convey, for, elsewhere in his
controversies, he appears unaware of the exaggeration of his language.
But the skirmish with the so-called self-righteous had a deeper
explanation. Luther was so fascinated with the righteousness which God
gives through faith, that man’s share in securing the same is already
relegated too much to the background.
Thus he explains the verse of Psalm cxlii. where the words occur “Give
ear to my supplication in Thy truth and hear me in Thy righteousness”
as follows: “Hear me by Thy mercy and truth, i.e. through the truth
of Thy promises of mercy to the penitent and those who beseech
Thee, not for my merits’ sake; hear me in Thy righteousness, not
in my righteousness, but in that which Thou givest and wilt give
me through faith.”[146] With words of remarkable forcefulness he
declares that, to be in sin, only makes more evident the value of the
“_iustitia_” which comes through Christ. “It is therefore fitting
that we become unrighteous and sinners”; what he really means to
say is, that we should feel ourselves to be such.[147] Elsewhere he
dwells, not incorrectly, but with startling emphasis, on the fact that
justification comes only from God and without any effort on our part
(_gratis_),[148] and that it is not due to works;[149] sanctification
must proceed not from our own righteousness and according to the
letter, but from the heart, and with grace, spirit and truth.[150]
The desire for justification is to him the same as the desire for “a
lively and strong faith in which I live and am justified.” “Enliven
me,” he says, “i.e. penetrate me with faith, because the just man
lives by faith; faith is our life.”[151]
Even at that time he was not averse to dwelling on the strength of
concupiscence and, in his usual hyperbolical style, he lays stress
on the weakness and wickedness of human nature. “We are all a lost
lump”;[152] “whoever is without God sins necessarily, i.e. he is in
sin”;[153] “unconquerable” or “necessary” are terms he is fond of
applying to concupiscence in his discourses.[154] From other passages
it would almost appear as if, even then, he admitted the persistence
of original sin, even after baptism; for instance, he says that the
whole world is “_in peccatis originalibus_,” though unaware of it, and
must therefore cry “_mea culpa_”;[155] our righteousness is nothing
but sin;[156] understanding, will, and memory, even in the baptised,
are all fallen, and, like the wounded Jew, await the coming of the
Samaritan.[157] He also speaks of the imputation of righteousness by
God who, instead of attributing to us our sins, “imputes [the merits
of Christ] unto our righteousness.”[158]
Still, taken in their context, none of these passages furnish any
decisive proof of a deviation from the Church’s faith. They forebode,
indeed, Luther’s later errors, but contain as yet no explicit denial
of Catholic doctrine. In this we must subscribe to Denifle’s view, and
admit that no teaching actually heretical is found in the Commentary on
the Psalms.[159]
With reference to man’s natural powers, that cardinal point of
Luther’s later teaching, neither the ability to be good and pleasing
to God, nor the freedom of choosing what is right and good in spite
of concupiscence, is denied.[160] Concupiscence, as he frequently
admonishes us, must be driven back, “it must not be allowed the
mastery,” though it will always make itself felt; it is like a Red
Sea through the midst of which we must pass, refusing our consent
to the temptations which press upon us like an advancing tide.[161]
Luther lays great weight on the so-called Syntheresis, the inner
voice which, according to the explanation of the schoolmen, he
believes cries longingly to God, by whom also it is heard; it is the
ineradicable precious remnant of good left in us,[162] and upon which
grace acts. Man’s salvation is in his own hands inasmuch as he is
able either to accept or to reject the law of God.[163] Luther also
speaks of a preparation for grace (“_dispositio et præparatio_”)
which God’s preventing, supernatural grace assists.[164] He expressly
invokes the traditional theological axiom that “God’s grace is
vouchsafed to everyone who does his part.”[165] He even teaches,
following Occam’s school, that such self-preparation constitutes a
merit “_de congruo_.”[166] He speaks as a Catholic of the doctrine
of merit, admits the so-called _thesaurus meritorum_ from which
indulgences derive their efficacy, and, without taking offence,
alludes to satisfaction (_satisfactio operis_),”[167] to works of
supererogation,[168] as also to the place of purification in the next
world (_purgatorium_).[169]
Regarding God’s imputing of righteousness he follows, it is true, the
Occamist doctrine, and on this subject the following words are the
most interesting: faith and grace by which we to-day (i.e. in the
present order of things) are justified, would not justify without the
intervention of the _pactum Dei_; i.e. of God’s mercy, who has so
ordained it, but who might have ordained otherwise.[170] Friedrich
Loofs rightly says regarding imputation in the Commentary on the
Psalms: “It must be noted that the _reputari iustum_, i.e. the
being-declared-justified, is not considered by Luther as the reverse
of making righteous; on the contrary, the _sine merito iustificari_
in the sense of _absolvi_ is at the same time the beginning of a new
life.”[171] “The faith,” so A. Hunzinger opines of the passages in
question in the same work, “is as yet no imputative faith,” i.e. not
in the later Lutheran sense.[172]
The Protestant scholar last mentioned has dissected the Commentary
on the Psalms in detail; particularly did he examine its connection
with the philosophical and mystical system sometimes designated as
Augustinian Neo-Platonism.[173] It may be left an open question
whether his complicated researches have succeeded in proving that in
the Commentary—interpreted in the light of some of the older sermons
and the marginal glosses in the Zwickau books—Luther’s teaching
resolves itself into a “somewhat loose and contradictory mixture of
four elements,” namely, Augustinian Neo-Platonism, an Augustinian
doctrine on sin and grace, a trace of scholastic theology, and some of
the mysticism of St. Bernard.[174] His researches and his comparison
of many passages in the Commentary on the Psalms with the works of
Augustine, especially with the “_Soliloquia_” and the book “_De vera
religione_,” have certainly shown that Luther was indebted for his
expressions and to a certain extent for his line of thought, to those
works of Augustine with which he was then acquainted. He had probably
been attracted by the mystical tendency of these writings, by that
reflection of Platonism, which, however, neither in St. Augustine’s
nor in Luther’s case, as Hunzinger himself admits, involved any real
acceptance of the erroneous ideas of the heathen Neo-Platonism. Luther
was weary of the dry Scholasticism he had learned at the schools and
greedily absorbed the theology of the Bishop of Hippo, which appealed
far more to him, though his previous studies had been insufficient to
equip him for its proper understanding. His own words in 1532 express
his case fairly accurately. He says: “In the beginning I devoured
rather than read Augustine.”[175] In a marginal note on the Sentences
of Peter Lombard he speaks, in 1509, of this Doctor as “_numquam satis
laudatus_,” like him, he, too, would fain send the “_moderni_” and that
“fabulator Aristoteles” about their business.[176]
The obscure and tangled mysticism which the young author of the
Commentary on the Psalms built up on Augustine—whose spirit was far
more profound than Luther’s—the smattering of Augustinian theology,
altered to suit his controversial purposes, with which he supplemented
his own scholastic, or rather Occamistic, theology, and the needless
length of the work, make his Commentary into an unattractive congeries
of moral, philosophical and theological thoughts, undigested,
disconnected and sometimes unintelligible. Various causes contributed
to this tangle, not the least being the nature of the subject itself.
Most of the Psalms present all sorts of ideas and figures, and give
the theological and practical commentator opportunity to introduce
whatever he pleases from the stores of his knowledge. With some truth
Luther himself said of his work in a letter to Spalatin, dated December
26, 1515, that it was not worth printing, that it contained too much
superficial matter, and deserved rather to be effaced with a sponge
than to be perpetuated by the press.[177] There is something unfinished
about the work, because the author himself was still feeling his way
towards that great alteration which he had at heart; as yet he has no
wish to seek for a reform from without the Church, he not only values
the authority of the Church and the belief she expounds, but also, on
the whole, the learned tradition of previous ages with which his rather
scanty knowledge of Scholasticism made him conversant. This, however,
did not prevent him attacking the real or imaginary abuses of the
Schoolmen, nor was his esteem for the Church and his Order great enough
to hinder him from criticising, rightly or wrongly, the condition and
institutions of the Church and of monasticism.
The statement made by him in 1537, that he discovered his new doctrine
at the time he took his degree as Doctor, i.e. in 1512, cannot
therefore be taken as chronologically accurate. His words, in a sermon
preached on May 21, were: “Now we have again reached the light, but I
reached it when I became a Doctor ... you should know that Christ is
not sent as a judge.”[178]
3. Excerpts from the Oldest Sermons. His Adversaries
In the sermons which Luther, during his professorship, preached at
Wittenberg in 1515-16, we notice the cutting, and at times ironical,
censure with which he speaks to the people of the abuses and excesses
which pervaded the exercise of the priestly office, particularly
preaching. He is displeased with certain excesses in the veneration
of the Saints, and reproves what he considers wrong in the popular
celebration of the festivals of the Church and in other matters. These
religious discourses contain many beautiful thoughts and give proof,
as do the lectures also, of a rich imagination and great knowledge of
the Bible. But even apart from the harsh denunciation of the conditions
in the Church, the prevailing tone is one of too great hastiness and
self-sufficiency, nor are the Faithful treated justly. It was not
surprising that remarks were made, and that he was jeered at as a
“greenhorn” by the listeners, who told him that he could not “convert
old rogues” with that sort of thing.[179]
He complains bitterly, and with some show of reason, that at that
time preaching had fallen to a very low ebb in Germany. The preachers
too often treated of trivial and useless subjects, enlarged, with
distinctions and sub-distinctions, on subjects belonging to the
province of philosophy and theology, and lost themselves in artificial
allegorical interpretations of the Bible. In their recommendation of
popular devotions they sometimes went to extremes and sometimes lapsed
into platitude. There was too little of the wealth of thought, power
and inward unction of Brother Bertold of Regensburg and his school
to be found in the pulpits of that day. Even in Luther’s own sermons
during these years we meet with numerous defects of the time, barren
speculations in the style of the nominalistic school through which he
had passed, too much forcing and allegorising of the Bible text, and
too much coarse and exaggerated declamation. To be pert and provoking
was then more usual than now, and owing to his natural tendency he
was very prone to assume that tone. The shyness which more recent
biographers and admirers frequently ascribe to the young professor
is not recognisable in his sermons. That he ever was shy can only be
established by remarks dropped by Luther in later life, and, as is well
known, such remarks cannot be taken as reliable sources of information
concerning his early years. Were Luther’s later account correct, then
we should be forced to ascribe to the young preacher and professor a
burning desire to live in the solitude of his cell and to spend his
days quite apart from the world and the debates and struggles going
forward in the Church outside. Yet, in reality, there was nothing to
which he was more inclined in his sermons than to allow his personal
opinions to carry him to violent polemics against people and things
displeasing to him; he was also in the habit of crediting opponents
more friendly to the Church than he, or even the Church itself, with
views which they certainly did not hold. Johann Mensing, one of his
then pupils at the University of Wittenberg, speaks of this in words
to which little attention has hitherto been paid: “I may say,” he
writes, “and have often heard it myself, that when Luther had something
especially good or new to say in a sermon he was wont to attribute to
other theologians the opposite opinion, and in spite of their having
written and taught just the same, and of his very likely taking it
from them himself, to represent it as a precious thing he had just
discovered and of which others were ignorant; all this in order to
make a name for himself, like Herostratus, who set fire to the temple
of Diana.”[180] We may also mention here a remark of Hieronymus Emser.
After saying that Luther’s sermons were not those of a cleric, he adds:
“I may say with truth that I have never in all my life heard such an
audacious preacher.”[181] These, it is true, are testimonies from the
camp of Luther’s opponents, but some passages from his early sermons
will show the tone which frequently prevails in them.
Already in the Christmas sermons of 1515 Luther does not scruple to
place himself, as it were, on the same footing with the prophets, wise
men and those learned in the Scriptures, whose persecution Christ
foretold, more particularly among the last of the three groups. Even
then his view was unorthodox.
“There are some,” he says, “who by the study of Holy Scripture form
themselves into teachers and who are taught neither by men nor
directly by God alone.” These are the learned in the Scriptures.
“They exercise themselves in the knowledge of the truth by meditation
and research. Thus they become able to interpret the Bible and to
write for the instruction of others.” But such men are persecuted,
he continues, and, as the Lord prophesied of the prophets and wise
men and scribes that they would not be received, but attacked, so is
it also with me. They murmur against my teaching, as I am aware, and
oppose it. They reproach me with being in error because “I preach
always of Christ as the hen under whose wings all who wish to be
righteous must gather.” Thus his ideas with regard to righteousness
must have been looked upon as importunate or exaggerated, and, by
some, in all probability, as erroneous. He immediately launches out
into an apology: “What I have said is this: We are not saved by all
our righteousness, but it is the wings of the hen which protect us
against the birds of prey, i.e. against the devil ... but, as it was
with the Jews, who persecuted righteousness, so it is to-day. My
adversaries do not know what righteousness is, they call their own
fancies grace. They become birds of prey and pounce upon the chicks
who hope for salvation through the mercy of our hen.”[182]
Such rude treatment meted out to those who found fault with him (and
one naturally thinks of clergy and religious, perhaps even of his very
brethren, as the culprits), the denouncing them from the pulpit as
“birds of prey,” and his claim to lay down the law, this, and similar
passages in the sermons, throw a strong light on his disputatious
temper.
In a well-ordered condition of things the Superiors of the Augustinians
or the diocesan authorities would have intervened to put a stop to
sermons so scandalously offensive; at Wittenberg, however, the evil
was left unchecked and allowed to take deeper root. The students, the
younger monks and some of the burghers, became loud and enthusiastic
followers of the bold preacher. Staupitz was altogether on his side,
and, owing to him, also the Elector of Saxony. The Prince was, however,
so little of an authority on matters theological that Luther once
writes of him that he was “in things concerning God and the salvation
of the soul almost seven times blind.”[183]
Luther’s notes on his Sunday sermons during the summer of 1516—a
time when he had already expressed his errors quite plainly in his
lectures on the Epistle to the Romans—afford us a glimpse of an acute
controversy. At this time his sermons dealt with the first Commandment.
The Gospel for the 7th Sunday after Pentecost with the words: “Beware
of false prophets” gives him an all too tempting opportunity for a
brush with his adversaries, and, on July 6, he attacks them from
the standpoint of his new ideas on righteousness. “Much fasting,
and long prayers,” he cries, “study, preaching, watching, and poor
clothing, these are the pious lambskins under which ravening wolves
hide themselves.” In their case these are only “works done for show.”
These Observantines, for all their great outward display of holiness,
are “heretics and schismatics.” Thus does he storm, evidently applying
his words to his brother monks of the Observantine party, who probably
had been among the first to criticise him. The following remarks on
rebellion and defamation make this application all the clearer.[184]
“The true works by which we may recognise the prophets are done in
the inner and hidden man. But these proud men are wanting above all
in patience and the charity which is forgetful of self, but concerned
for others.” “When they have to do works which are not to their liking
they are slow, rebellious, obstinate, but they well know how to
take away the name of others and to pass judgment on them.... There
is no greater plague in the Church to-day than these men with the
words: ‘Good works are necessary’ in their mouths; men who refuse to
distinguish between what is good and evil because they are enemies of
the Cross, i.e. of the good things of God.”[185]
Such a daring challenge on Luther’s part did not fail in its effect.
Within as well as outside the Order united preparations were being
made for a strong resistance, his foes working both openly and in
secret.
Luther’s adversaries were again made the object of his public
vituperation in two sermons preached on the same day a little
later. This was on July 27, the 10th Sunday after Pentecost. In one
sermon the passionate orator attempted to show the danger of the
times; he describes how powerful the devil had become and how under
the appearance of good works he was making certain persons “fine
breakers” of the first Commandment. “And these venture,” he says, “to
shoot arrows secretly against those who are right of heart.”[186]
In the other sermon his opponents had to submit to being called—in
allusion to the Sunday’s Gospel of the Pharisee and the Publican—real
“Pharisees, who by reason of their assumed holiness and merits seek
the praise of men,” whereas in reality, with their self-righteousness,
they have merely erected an idol in their hearts.[187]
Even this was not enough however. The continuous complaints of those
who thought differently from himself called Luther into the field
again the very next Sunday (August 3).[188] They heard what they might
have anticipated, as soon as the fiery preacher, whose appearance was
doubtless greeted by his pupils and adherents with looks of joy, got
to work on his thesis: To place our hope in anything but God, even in
the merit of our good works, is to have false idols before God. Then
the stream of words flowed apace against the “proud saints,” against
the presumptuous assurance of salvation on the part of the servitors
of works, against the fools who make the narrow way to heaven still
narrower, against the A B C pupils, who know nothing outside their
own works. “These are old stagers,” he cries, because, like certain
horses who only go along one track, they know only the one path of
their own works. As though he recollected his own short-lived zeal for
the work of the Order, he adds: “At the commencement, when a man first
enters on the path of the religious life he has to exercise himself in
many good works, fasts, vigils, prayers, works of mercy, submission,
obedience and other such-like.” But to remain permanently stuck fast
in these, that is what makes a man a Pharisee. “The truly pious who
are led by the Spirit,” he continues, in a vein of peculiar mysticism,
“once initiated into these things, do not trouble much more about
them. Rather they offer themselves to God, ready for any work to which
He may call them, and are led through many sufferings and humiliations
without knowing whither they are going.”[189]
Luther frequently spoke at that time in the language of a certain
school of mysticism with which he was much enamoured. The following
extract from the sermon under consideration, together with some
thoughts on similar lines, from his synodal address at Leitzau, belong
here.
“The man of God leaves himself entirely in God’s hands and does
not attach himself to any works. His works are nameless at the
commencement, though not at the end, because he does not act, but
remains passive; he does not calculate with his own cleverness, or
make projects, but allows himself to be led and does differently
from what he had intended; thus he is calm and at rest in God.
Whereas the self-righteous who abound in their own sense (‘_sensuales
iustitiarii_’) are apt to despair of their own works—for they want to
determine and name every word beforehand, and with them the name is
the first thing and this they follow up with their works—the man of
God on the contrary hurries forward in advance of every name.”
In the discourse which Luther wrote, probably in the autumn or winter
months of 1515, for Georg Mascov, provost of Leitzau (see above, p.
65), and which was intended for a synodal meeting of the clergy, he
says, in his most exaggerated fashion: “The whole world lies as it
were under a deluge of false and filthy teaching.” The Word of God
like a tiny flame is barely kept alive. Egoism, worldliness and vice
are predominant. And the remedy? He will cry it aloud over the whole
world: the only remedy is to preach “the word of truth” with much
greater zeal. The greatest, “nay almost the only sin of the priests”
is the neglect of the “word of truth” and it is much to be deplored,
according to him, “that priests who fall into sins of the flesh make
more account of them than of the neglect of the preaching of the word
of truth.”[190]
The address deals further at great length with the holy regeneration
of man in God. This is something which God works in us while we remain
altogether passive: a man’s seeking, praying, knocking has nothing to
do with it because mercy alone effects it. Man does nothing (“_ipso
nihil agente, petente, merente_”); in this mystical regeneration by
God, it is as with the natural generation of man: “he who is generated
in both cases does not count, and can do nothing by his work or merits
towards his begetting, but lies wholly in the will of the Father.”
As sons of God we must bear fruit—here the discourse becomes quite
practical—and the purpose of this meeting is to demand it of the
clergy. “We must not expose our Synod to the scorn of our enemies.”
It is more important that chastity and every virtue should dwell in
the priests than that statutes should be made with regard to readings,
prayers, festivals, and ceremonies.
The vague, obscure mysticism which played a part in Luther’s
spiritual development at that time, as well as his wrong, one-sided
interpretation of the Epistle to the Romans, had, as already stated,
led him into a heterodox by-way.
A cursory glance at the influence of Scholasticism and Mysticism on his
mental progress, may perhaps be here in place.
4. Preliminary Remarks on Young Luther’s Relations to Scholasticism and
Mysticism
In the years of Luther’s development the two great intellectual forces
of the Middle Ages, Scholasticism and Mysticism, no longer exercised
quite so powerful an influence as of yore, when they ruled over the
world of intellect. Their influence on Luther’s views and his career
was diverse. Scholasticism in its then state of decay, with its endless
subtilties and disputatiousness, which, moreover, he knew only under
the form of Occam’s nominalism, repelled him, to his own great loss.
As a result he never acquired those elements of knowledge of true
and lasting value to be found in the better schools, of which the
traditions embodied the work of centuries of intellectual effort on the
part of some of the world’s greatest minds. Mysticism, on the other
hand, attracted him on account of his natural disposition, so full of
feeling and imagination. He had been initiated into it at the monastery
by the works of Bernard of Clairvaux, Bonaventure and Gerson, and,
later, by the sermons of Tauler and the so-called German Theology. This
study had been recommended him by Staupitz and also by his brother
monks, especially by Johann Lang. It was, however, the more obscure and
ambiguous writings and extracts from mystic works which appealed to him
most, owing to his being able to read into them his own ideas.
As regards Scholasticism, his character predisposed him against it.
Scholastic learning is founded on conceptual operations of reason; it
aims at clear definitions, logical proofs and a systematic linking
together of propositions. Luther’s mind, on the other hand, inclined
more to a free treatment of the subject, one which allowed for feeling
and imagination, and to such descriptions as offered a field for his
eloquence. One of the chief reasons, however, for his lifelong dislike
of Scholasticism was his very partial acquaintance with the same.
He had, as we shall see, never studied its great representatives in
the thirteenth century; he had made acquaintance only with its later
exponents, viz. the Nominalists of Occam’s school, who gave the tone to
his theological instructions and whose teachings were very prevalent in
the schools in that day. He speaks repeatedly of William of Occam as
his teacher. Of Luther’s relations to his doctrines we shall have to
speak later: some of Occam’s views he opposed, others, which happened
to be at variance with those of St. Thomas of Aquin, he approved. He
would not have attributed to the latter and to other exponents of the
better school of Scholasticism such foolish theses as he did—theses
of which they never even dreamt—had he possessed any clear notion of
their teaching. There can be no doubt that he also imbibed during his
first years as a student at Erfurt, the spirit of antagonism against
Scholasticism which Humanism with its craving for novelty displayed,
an antagonism based ostensibly on disgust at the unclassic form of the
former.
Already during the earliest period of his career at Wittenberg, as
soon, indeed, as he began to preach and lecture, he commenced his
attacks against Scholasticism.
He considers that Aristotle, on whom in the Middle Ages both
theologians and philosophers had set such store, had been grossly
misunderstood by most of the scholastics; all the good there is
in Aristotle, he says, he has stolen from others; whatever in him
is right, others must understand and make use of better than he
himself.[191]
He often passes judgment on the theology of the Middle Ages from the
point of view of the narrow, one-sided school of Occam, and then, with
his lively imagination, he grossly exaggerates the opposition between
it and St. Thomas of Aquin and the more classic schoolmen. The whole
herd of theologians, he says, has been led astray by Aristotle; nor
have they understood him in the least; according to him, Thomas of
Aquin—the Doctor whom the Church has so greatly honoured and placed
at the head of all theologians—did not expound a single chapter of
Aristotle aright; “all the Thomists together” have not understood
one chapter. Aristotle has only led them all to lay too much stress
upon the importance and merit of human effort and human works to
the disadvantage of God’s grace. Here lay Aristotle’s chief crime
discovered by Luther, thanks to his own new theology.[192]
In his lectures on the Psalms Luther already tells his hearers that
the bold loquacity of theology was due to Aristotle;[193] he makes
highly exaggerated remarks regarding the disputes between the Scotists
and Occam and between Occam and Scotus.[194] Peter Lombard, no less
than Scotus and St. Thomas, comes in for some harsh criticism. But
Luther ever reverts to Aristotle. He wishes, so he writes to his
friend Lang in February, 1516, to tear off “the Greek mask which
this comedian has assumed to pass himself off in the Church as a
philosopher; his shame should be laid bare to all.”[195]
Such audacious language had probably never before been used against
the greatest minds in the history of human thought by a theological
professor, who himself had as yet given no proof whatever of his
capacity.
His attacks on Scholasticism and the philosophical and theological
schools up to that day, were soon employed to cover his attacks on
dogma and the laws of the Church. In 1518 he places Scholasticism and
Canon Law on the same footing, both needing reform.[196]
The learned Martin Pollich, who was teaching law at the University
of Wittenberg, looked at the young assailant with forebodings as to
the future. He frequently said that this monk would overthrow the
teaching which yet prevailed at all the universities. “This brother has
deep-set eyes,” he once remarked, “he must have strange fancies.”[197]
His strange eyes, with their pensive gleam, ever ready to smile on a
friend, and, in fact, his whole presence, made an impression upon all
who were brought into close contact with him. It is an undoubted fact,
true even of his later days, that intercourse with him was pleasant,
especially to those whom he honoured with his friendship or whom he
wished to influence. Not only were his pupils at Wittenberg devoted
admirers of the brave critic of the Schoolmen, but, little by little,
he also gained an unquestioned authority over the other professors,
the more so as there was no one at the University able or willing to
take the risks of a challenge.
The psychological reaction on himself of so high a position at the
University must not be under-estimated as a factor in his development.
He felt himself to be a pioneer in the struggle against Scholasticism,
and one called to reinstate a new theology.
His attitude to mysticism was absolutely different from that which he
assumed with regard to Aristotle and Scholasticism.
Luther speaks in praise of Tauler for the first time in 1516, though
he had probably become acquainted with him earlier. At about that
same time a little booklet, “_Theologia Deutsch_,” exercised a great
influence upon him.
In a letter to Lang—who was also inclined to look with favour on
Tauler, the master of German mystic theology—Luther betrays how
greatly he was attracted by this writer. In his sonorous, expansive
language, he speaks of him as a teacher whose enlightenment was such,
that, though utterly unknown in the theological schools, he contains
more real theology than all the scholastic theologians of all the
universities put together. He also repeatedly assured his hearers that
Tauler’s book of sermons had “led him to the spirit.”[198]
At that time Luther showed great preference for the exhortations of
the German mystics on self-abasement, apathy and abnegation of self.
“_Theologia Deutsch_,” that little work of an unknown Frankfort
priest of the fourteenth century, which he came across in a MS.,
so fascinated him that, adding to it a preface and his own name,
“Martinus Luder,” he published it in 1516 at Wittenberg. It was the
first occasion of his making use of the press; this first edition
was, however, incomplete, owing to the state of the MS.; the work was
finally reissued complete and under the title which Luther himself had
selected, viz. “A German Theologia,” in 1518. In the sub-title of the
first edition he had called it a “noble spiritual booklet,” and in
the preface had praised it, saying that it did not float like foam on
the top of the water, but that it had been brought up from the bottom
of the Jordan by a true Israelite.[199] In the first edition he had
erroneously attributed the booklet to Tauler; in the second he says it
is equal in merit to Tauler’s own writings. Yet, to tell the truth,
it is far from reaching Tauler’s high standard of thought. Luther,
however, assures us that, next to the Bible and St. Augustine, he
can mention no book from which he has learned more of the nature of
God, Christ, man and all other things, than from this work. When he
forwarded a printed copy of the first edition to Spalatin (December
14, 1516), he wrote, that Tauler offered a solid theology which was
quite similar to the old; that he was acquainted with no theology
more wholesome and evangelical. Spalatin should saturate himself with
Tauler’s sermons; “taste and see how sweet the Lord is, after you have
first tasted and seen how bitter is everything that is ourselves.”[200]
In addition to the authors mentioned, the mysticism of
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite and of Gerard Groot, the founder of
the Community of the Brethren of the Common Life, were known to him.
That he was, or had been, fond of reading the writings of St. Bernard,
we may guess from his many—often misunderstood—quotations from the
same.
Luther was also well able, whilst under the influence of that
inwardness which he loved so much in the mystics, to make his own
their truly devotional and often moving language.
In a friendly letter he comforts, as follows, an Augustinian at
Erfurt, Georg Leiffer, regarding his spiritual troubles: “The Cross
of Christ is distributed throughout the whole world and each one gets
a small piece of it. Do not throw yours away, but lay it, like a
sacred relic, in a golden shrine, i.e. in a heart filled with gentle
charity. For even the wrongs which we suffer from men, persecutions,
passion and hatred, which are caused us either by the wicked or by
those who mean well, are priceless relics, which have not indeed, like
the wood of the cross, been hallowed by contact with our Lord’s body,
but which have been blessed by His most loving heart, encompassed by
His friendly, Divine Will, kissed and sanctified. The curse becomes a
blessing, insult becomes righteousness, suffering becomes an aureole,
and the cross a joy. Farewell, sweet father and brother, and pray for
me.”
5. Excerpts from the Earliest Letters
The above letter of Luther’s is one of the few remaining which belong
to that transition period in his life. His letters are naturally not
devoid of traces of the theological change which was going forward
within him, and they may therefore be considered among the precursors
of his future doctrine.
His new theological standpoint is already apparent in the charitable
and sympathetic letter of encouragement which, as Rural Vicar, he
sent to one of his brother monks about that time. “Learn, my sweet
brother,” he writes to George Spenlein, an Augustinian of the monastery
of Memmingen, “learn Christ and Him Crucified, learn to sing to Him,
and, despairing of your own self, say to Him: Thou, Lord Jesus, art
my righteousness, but I am Thy sin; Thou hast accepted what I am and
given me what Thou art; Thou hast thus become what Thou wast not, and
what I was not I have received.... Never desire,” he exhorts him, “a
purity so great as to make you cease thinking yourself, nay being, a
sinner; for Christ dwells only in sinners; He came down from heaven
where He dwells in the righteous in order to live also in sinners. If
you ponder upon His love, then you will become conscious of His most
sweet consolation. What were the use of His death had we to attain to
peace of conscience by our own trouble and labour? Therefore only in
Him will you find peace through a trustful despair of yourself and your
works.”[201]
A similar mystical tone (we are not here concerned with the theology
it implied) shows itself also here and there in Luther’s later
correspondence. The life of public controversy in which he was soon to
engage was certainly not conducive to the peaceful, mystical tone of
thought and to the cultivation of the interior spirit; as might have
been expected, the result of the struggle was to cast his feeling and
his mode of thought in a very different mould. It was impossible for
him to become the mystic some people have made him out to be owing to
the distractions and excitement of his life of struggle.[202]
In the above letter to Spenlein, Luther speaks of this monk’s relations
to his brethren. Spenlein had previously been in the monastery at
Wittenberg, where Luther had known him as a zealous monk, much troubled
about the details of the Rule, and who even found it difficult to have
to live with monks who were less exact in their observance. “When
you were with us,” says the writer, “you were under the impression,
or rather in the error in which I also was at one time held captive,
and of which I have not even now completely rid myself (‘_nondum
expugnavi_’), that it is necessary to perform good works until one is
confident of being able to appear before God decked out, as it were,
in deeds and merits, a thing which is utterly impossible.” Luther is
desirous of hearing what Spenlein now thinks, “whether he has not at
last grown sick of self-righteousness and learnt to breathe freely and
trust in the righteousness of Christ.” “If, however, you believe firmly
in the righteousness of Christ—and cursed be he who does not—then
you will be able to bear with careless and erring brothers patiently
and charitably; you will make their sins your own,” as Christ does
with ours, “and in whatever good you do, in that you will allow them
to participate ... be as one of them and bear with them. To think of
flight and solitude, and to wish to be far away from those who we think
are worse than ourselves, that is an unhappy righteousness.... On the
contrary, if you are a lily and a rose of Christ, then remember that
you must be among thorns, and beware of becoming yourself a thorn by
impatience, rash judgment and secret pride.... If Christ had willed to
live only amongst the good or to die only for His friends, for whom,
pray, would He ever have died, or with whom would He have lived?”
Spenlein was then no longer living in a monastery subject to the Rural
Vicar. It is even probable that he had left Wittenberg and the new
Vicar’s district on account of differences of opinion on the matter
of Observance. He betook himself to the imperial city of Memmingen,
presumably because a different spirit prevailed in the monastery there.
This would seem to explain how Luther came to speak to this doubtless
most worthy religious of “unhappy righteousness,” interpreting the
state of the case in his own perverse fashion.
Among the other letters despatched in 1516 that to Lang at Erfurt
deserves special attention; in it Luther expresses himself in
confidence, quite openly, on the disapproval of his work and of his
theological standpoint which was showing itself at Wittenberg and at
Erfurt.[203]
His study of St. Augustine had put him in a position to recognise, on
internal grounds, that a work, “On true and false penance,” generally
attributed to this African Father, was not really his. He tells his
friend that his opinion of the book had “given great offence to all”;
though the insipid contents of the same were so far removed from the
spirit of Augustine, yet it was esteemed because it had been quoted
and employed by Gratian and Peter Lombard as one of Augustine’s works.
That he had been aware of this and nevertheless had stood up for the
truth, that was his crime, which had aroused the enmity particularly
of Dr. Carlstadt; not, however, that he cared very much; both Lombard
and Gratian had done much harm to consciences by means of this stupid
book.
His opinion regarding the spuriousness of the work was in the end
generally accepted, even, for instance, by Bellarmine; Trithemius,
moreover, had been of the same opinion before Luther’s time; in his
attacks on its contents, however, Luther, led astray by his false
ideas of penance, exceeded all bounds, and thus vexed, beyond measure,
his colleagues who at that time still held the opposite view.
According to this letter, he had also challenged all the critics of
his new ideas in a disputation held by one of his pupils under his
direction. “They barked and screeched at me on account of my lectures,
but their mouths were to be stopped and the opinions of others heard.”
It was a question of defending his erroneous doctrine, regarding the
absolute helplessness of nature, which he had meantime formulated,
and to which we shall return immediately. In consequence, he says,
all the “Gabrielists” (i.e. followers of the scholastic Gabriel Biel)
here, as well as in the Faculty at Erfurt, were nonplussed. But I
know my Gabriel quite as well as his own wonderful, wonderstruck
worshippers; “he writes well, but as soon as he touches on grace,
charity, hope, and faith, then, like Scotus his leader, he treads in
the footprints of Pelagius.” Luther was quite free to dissent from the
view, even of so good a professor as Biel, in this question of grace
and virtue, but, already at that time, he had denounced as Pelagian
several doctrines of the Church. Among those who were angered was the
theologian Nicholas von Amsdorf, who took his licentiate at the same
time as Luther, and became later on his close friend. Amsdorf secretly
sent one of Luther’s theses, of which he disapproved, to Erfurt, but
afterwards allowed himself to be pacified.
The humanistic tendency which was at that time beginning to make its
way had, as we see from the letters, little part in the rise of the
Lutheran movement at Wittenberg.
The view that Luther’s new teaching was due to the direct influence
of the mode of thought of such men as Hutten, Crotus and Mutian is
incorrect. On the contrary, Luther, full as he was of his one-sided
supra-naturalism, was bound to disapprove of the Humanist ideal and
made no secret of his disapproval. In his letters in 1516 he also
found fault with the satirical and frivolous attacks of the Humanists
on the state of the Church and the theological learning of the day.
He considered the “_Epistolæ obscurorum virorum_” impudent, and
called the author a clown.[204] A similar work by the same group of
Humanists against the “Theologasters,” entitled “_Tenor supplicationis
Pasquillianæ_”—as he informs Spalatin, himself a Humanist—he had held
up to the ridicule of his colleagues, as it richly deserved on account
of the invective and slanders which it contained.[205]
He appealed to Spalatin to draw the attention of Erasmus to his
misapprehension of righteousness as it appears in the Epistle to the
Romans; he says that Erasmus overrates the virtues of heathen heroes,
whereas even the most blameless of men, even Fabricius and Regulus,
were miles away from righteousness; outside of faith in Christ there
is, according to him, no righteousness whatever; Aristotle, whom
everybody follows, likewise knew nothing of this righteousness; but
Paul and Augustine teach it; what Paul calls self-righteousness is not
merely, as Erasmus says, a righteousness founded on the observances of
the Mosaic Law, but any righteousness whatever which springs out of
works, or out of the observance of any law; Paul also teaches original
sin in the fifth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, a fact which
Erasmus wrongly denies. With regard to Augustine, he could unfold
to him (Erasmus) St. Paul’s meaning better than he thinks, but he
should diligently read the writings against the Pelagians, above all
the _De Spiritu et littera_. Augustine there takes a firm stand on
the foundation of the earlier Fathers (Luther’s quotations from his
authorities show how much the study had fascinated him). But after
Augustine’s day, dead literalism became the general rule. Lyra’s Bible
Commentary, for instance, is full of it; the right interpretation of
Holy Scripture is also wanting in Faber Stapulensis, notwithstanding
his many excellencies. Hence, he writes, we must fall back on
Augustine, on Augustine rather than on Jerome to whom Erasmus gives
the preference in Bible matters, for Jerome keeps too much to the
historical side; he recommends Augustine not merely because he is an
Augustinian monk, for formerly he himself did not think him worthy of
consideration until he “fell in” (_incidissem_) with his books.[206]
Augustine’s “On the Spirit and the Letter,” a work dedicated to
Marcellinus, and dating from the end of 412, with which Luther
had become acquainted in 1515, had a lasting influence on him. In
this book the great Doctor of the Church strikes at the very root
of Pelagianism and shows the necessity, for the accomplishment of
supernatural good works (“_facere et perficere bonum_”), of inward
grace which he calls “_spiritus_” in contradistinction to outward
grace which he terms “_littera_.” Luther, however, referred this
necessity more and more to everything good, even to what is purely
natural, hence his loud accusations soon after against the theology of
the Church as savouring of Pelagianism.
Humanism at that time stood for a Pelagian view of life and therefore
could not be altogether sympathetic to Luther. Its influence on him,
especially in his youth, cannot, however, be altogether disregarded;
he had been brought into too close contact with it in his student days
and also during his theological course at Erfurt, and his mind was too
lively and too open to the currents of the time for him not to have
felt something of its effects. The very extravagance of his criticism
of things theological may, in part, be traced back to the example of
the Humanists.
From Luther’s lectures on the Psalms, as well as from his sermons and
letters till 1516 inclusive, we have adduced various elements which may
be considered to forebode the greater and more important change yet to
come. They are, indeed, not exactly precursors of what one designates
usually as the Reformation, but rather of the new Lutheran theology
which was responsible for that upheaval in the ecclesiastical, ethical
and social sphere which became known as the Reformation.
6. The Theological Goal
Before continuing in a more systematic form the examination of the
origin of Luther’s new theology, of which we have just seen some of
the antecedents, we must cast a glance at the erroneous theological
result which Luther had already reached in 1515-16, and which must be
considered as the goal of his actual development.
Several of the above passages, from sermons and letters of the years
1515-16, have already in part betrayed the result. It appears,
however, in full in the lectures on the Epistle to the Romans
delivered between the autumn, 1515, and the summer, 1516, already
several times referred to.[207] Everyone who has followed the course
of Luther research during the last decade will recall the commotion
aroused when Denifle announced the discovery in the Vatican Library
of a copy hitherto unknown of Luther’s youthful work (Palat. 1826).
Much labour has since been expended in connection with the numerous
passages quoted from it by this scholar. A popular Protestant history
of dogma even attempted to arrange Denifle’s quotations so as to form
with them a complete picture.[208] Meanwhile a complete edition
of the lectures on the Epistle to the Romans has been brought out
by Johann Ficker which will serve as the foundation for a proper
treatment of the new material. It may, however, be of interest, and
serve to recall the literary movement of the last few years, if
we here sum up Luther’s errors of 1516 according to the extracts
from the lectures on the Epistle to the Romans adduced by Denifle.
The present writer, on the ground of his study of the Vatican copy
undertaken previous to the appearance of Ficker’s edition, can assure
the reader that the extracts really give the kernel of the lectures.
Some additions which he then noted as elucidating Denifle’s excerpts
are given in the notes according to the MS. and alongside of the
quotations from Denifle; everywhere, however, Ficker’s new edition
has also been quoted, reference being made to the scholia, or to the
glosses, on the Epistle to the Romans, according as the passages are
taken from the one or the other part of Luther’s Commentary.
The Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans really represents the first
taking shape of Luther’s heretical views. From the very beginning he
expresses some of them without concealment. It is clear that during his
preparation for these lectures in the summer and early autumn of 1515
things within him had reached a climax, and, overcoming all scruples,
he determined to take the decisive step of laying the result of his new
and quite peculiar views before his audience at the University. At the
very commencement his confident theses declare that the commentator
will deduce everything from Paul, and as we proceed we see more and
more clearly how his immersion in his mistaken interpretation of the
Epistle to the Romans—that deep well of apostolic teaching—led him
to propound the false doctrines born of his earlier antipathy for
Scholasticism and liking for pseudo-mysticism.
In the very first pages Luther endeavours to show how imputed
righteousness is the principal doctrine advocated by St. Paul in
the Epistle to the Romans. Justification by faith alone and the new
appreciation of works is expressed quite openly.
“God has willed to save us,” this he represents as the sum total of
the Epistle, “not by our own but by extraneous righteousness and
wisdom, not by such as is in us or produced by our inner self, but by
that which comes to us from elsewhere.” “We must rest altogether on
an extraneous and foreign righteousness,” he repeats, “and therefore
destroy our own, i.e. our homely righteousness” (“_non per domesticam
sed per extraneam iustitiam_,” etc.).[209] So fascinated is he by
the terrifying picture of self-righteousness and holiness by works,
that he is more than inclined to weaken the inclination for good
works, though he indeed declares them necessary: according to him
they produce in man a self-consciousness which prevents him regarding
himself as unrighteous and as needing the justification of Christ.
The truly righteous, such are his actual words, always believe “that
they are sinners ... they sigh until they are completely cured of
concupiscence, a release which takes place at death.” Everyone must
be distrustful even of his good intentions, he tells his adversaries,
i.e. “those who trust in themselves, who, thinking they are in
possession of God’s grace, cease to prove themselves, and sink daily
into greater lukewarmness.” He asks ironically whether “they acted
from the pure love of God,” for now, erroneously, he will allow only
the purest love of God as a motive.[210] He writes: “he who thinks,
that the greater his works, the more sure he is of salvation shows
himself to be an unbeliever, a proud man and a contemner of the word.
It does not depend at all on the multitude of works [in the right
sense this was admitted by the old theologians]; it is nothing but
temptation to pay any attention to this.” It is mere “wisdom of the
flesh,” he thinks, for anyone to pay attention to the “difference of
works” rather than to the word, particularly the inward word and its
impulses.[211]
Here in his mystical language he states the following paradoxical
thesis: “the wisdom of the spiritually minded knows neither good
nor evil (“_prudentia spiritualium neque bonum neque malum scit_”);
it keeps its eyes fixed always on the word, not on the work.”[212]
He concludes: “let us only close our eyes, listen in simplicity to
the word, and do what it commands whether it be foolish or evil or
great or small” (“_sive stultum sive malum, sive magnum sive parvum
præcipiat, hoc faciamus_”).[213] As righteousness does not proceed
from works we must so much the more cling to imputation. “Our works
are nothing, we find in ourselves nothing but thoughts which accuse
us ... where shall we find defenders? Nowhere but in Christ ... the
heart, it is true, reproves a man for his evil works, it accuses
him and witnesses against him. But he who believes in Christ turns
at once [from himself] to Christ and says: He has done enough, He
is righteous, He is my defence, He died for me, He has made His
righteousness mine and my sin His. But if He has made my sin His, then
it is no longer mine and I am free. If He has made His righteousness
mine, then I am righteous through the same righteousness as He.”[214]
Here then the sinner, as Luther teaches in his letter to Spenlein (see
above, p. 88 ff.), simply casts himself upon Christ and hides himself
just as he is “under the wings of the hen” (p. 80), comforting himself
with the doctrine of imputation. The old Church, on the contrary,
not only pointed to the merits of Christ (see above, pp. 10, 18) but
also to the exhortations of St. Paul where he calls for zealous,
active co-operation with the Divine grace, for inward conversion in
the spirit, for works of penance and for purification from sin by
contrition in order that our reconciliation with God and real pardon
may become possible. Hence, while the Catholic doctrine conceives of
justification as an interior, organic process, Luther is beginning
to take it as something exterior and mechanical, as a process which
results from the pushing forward of a foreign righteousness, as if it
were a curtain. He turns away from the Catholic doctrine according
to which a man justified by a living and active faith is really
incorporated in Christ as the shoot is grafted into the olive tree, or
the branch on the vine, i.e. to a new life, to an interior ennobling
through sanctifying grace and the infused supernatural virtues of
faith, hope and charity.
Nevertheless Luther himself was affrighted at the theory of faith
alone, and imputation. He feared lest he should be reproached with
setting good works aside with his doctrine of imputed merit. He
therefore explains in self-defence that he did not desire a bare
faith; “the hypocrites and the lawyers” thought they would be saved by
such a faith, but according to Paul’s words a faith was requisite by
which we “approach Christ” (“_per quem habemus accessum per fidem_,”
Rom. v. 2). Those are therefore in error who go forward in Christ
with over-great certainty, but not by faith; as though they would
be saved by Christ, for not doing anything themselves and giving no
sign of faith. These possess too much faith, or, better still, none
at all. Both must exist: “by faith” and “by Christ”; we must do and
suffer gladly all that we can in the faith of Christ, and yet account
ourselves in all things unprofitable servants, and only through Christ
alone think ourselves able to go to God. For the object of works of
faith is to make us worthy of Christ and of the refuge and protection
of His righteousness.”[215] With this is connected Luther’s insistence
on the necessity of invoking God’s grace in order that we may be
able to fight against our passions and to bring forth good works,
and in order that the passions, which in themselves are sin, may not
be imputed by God.[216] Thus can “the body of sin be destroyed” and
the “old man overcome.”[217] Luther admits, though with hesitation
and in contradiction with himself, works which prepare us for
justification.[218]
In spite of everything, in this first stage of his development,
justification appears to him uncertain. He declares in so many words:
“We cannot know whether we are justified and whether we believe”; and
he can only add rather lamely: “we must look upon our works as works
of the Law and be, in humility, sinners, hoping only to be justified
through the mercy of Christ.”[219] He has no “joyful assurance of
salvation”—which, in fact, had no place whatever in the new teaching
as expounded by Luther himself—and its name is always drowned by the
loud cry of sin. Even saints, on account of the sin which still clings
to them, do not know whether they are pleasing to God. If they are well
advised, they beg solely for the forgiveness of their sin which lies
like lead on their conscience. “That is,” the mystic explains, “the
wisdom which is hidden in secret” (“_abscondita in mysterio_”), because
our righteousness “being entirely dependent on God’s decree remains
unknown to us.”[220]
Luther cannot assure us sufficiently often that man is nothing but sin,
and sins in everything. His reason is that concupiscence remains in man
after baptism. This concupiscence he looks upon as real sin, in fact
it is the original sin, enduring original sin, so that original sin is
not removed by baptism, remains obdurate to all subsequent justifying
grace,[221] and, until death, can, at the utmost, only be diminished.
He says expressly, quite against the Church’s teaching, that original
sin is only covered over in baptism, and he tries to support this
by a misunderstood text from Augustine and by misrepresenting
Scholasticism.[222]
Augustine teaches with clearness and precision in many passages that
original sin is blotted out by baptism and entirely remitted;[223]
Luther, however, quotes him to the opposite effect. The passage in
question occurs in _De nuptiis et concupiscentia_ (l., c. xxv.,
n. 28) where Luther makes this Father say: sin (_peccatum_) is
forgiven in baptism, not so that it no longer remains, but that it
is no longer imputed.[224] Whereas what Augustine actually says
is: the concupiscence of the flesh is forgiven, etc. (“_dimitti
concupiscentiam carnis non ut non sit, sed ut in peccatum non
imputetur_”). And yet Luther was acquainted with the true reading of
the passage—which is really opposed to his view—as he had annotated
it in the margin of the Sentences of Peter Lombard, where it is
correctly given.[225] Luther, after having thus twisted the passage
as above, employs it frequently later.[226] In the original lecture
on the Epistle to the Romans he has, it is true, added to the text,
after the word “_peccatum_,” the word “_concupiscentia_,” as the new
editor points out, in excuse of Luther.[227] But on the preceding page
Luther adds in exactly the same way in two passages of his own text
where he speaks of “_peccatum_,” the word “_concupiscentia_,” so that
his addition to Augustine cannot be regarded as a mere correction
of a false citation, all the less since the incorrect form is found
unaltered elsewhere in his writings.[228]
As regards Scholasticism, Luther holds that its teaching on original
sin was very faulty, because it “dreamt” that original sin, like
actual sin, was entirely removed (by baptism).[229] This is one of his
first attacks on a particular doctrine of Scholasticism, his earlier
opposition having been to Scholasticism in general. The blame he here
administers presupposes the truth of his view that concupiscence and
original sin come under the same category, and that the former is
culpable. Almost all the Scholastics had made the essence of original
sin to consist in the loss of original justice, whilst allowing
that its “_materiale_,” as they called it, lay in concupiscence, so
that without any “dream” it was quite easy to conceive of original
sin as blotted out, while the “_materiale_” or “_fomes peccati_” or
concupiscence remained.[230] Other examples of how Luther, partly
owing to his ignorance of true Scholasticism, came to bring the most
glaring charges against that school, will be given later.
Actual sins remain, according to Luther, even after forgiveness,
for they too are only covered over. Formerly, it is true, he admits
having believed that repentance and the sacrament of penance removed
everything (“_omnia ablata putabam et evacuata, etiam intrinsece_”),
and therefore in his madness he had thought himself better after
confession than those who had not confessed.[231] “Thus I struggled
with myself, not knowing that whilst forgiveness is certainly true, yet
there is no removal of sin.”
Not only does real sin continue to dwell in man through concupiscence,
but, according to a further statement of Luther, the keeping of God’s
law is impossible to man. “As we cannot keep God’s commandments we are
really always in unrighteousness, and therefore there remains nothing
for us but to fear and to beg for remission of the unrighteousness, or
rather that it may not be imputed, for it is never altogether remitted,
but remains and requires the act of non-imputation.[232]
But how, then, he must have asked himself in following out the train of
thought of his new system, if, owing to the depravity of human nature
as the result of original sin there remains in man no freedom in the
choice of good? “Where does the freedom of the will come in?” he asks,
as it follows from the Apostle’s teaching that “the keeping of the law
is simply impossible” (“_sæpius dixi, simpliciter esse impossibile
legem implere?_”).[233] He hesitates, it is true, to deny free will,
but only for a moment, and then tells us boldly that the will has been
robbed of its freedom (of choosing) good. “Had I said this, people
would curse me,” but, according to him, it is St. Paul who advocates
the doctrine that without grace there is no freedom of the will in the
choice of good which can please God.[234] Here we have a foretaste
of the doctrine Luther was to express at the Leipzig disputation and
elsewhere, viz. that the freedom of the will for good is merely a
name (“_res de solo titulo_”),[235] and of that later terrible thesis
of his that free will in general is dead (“_liberum arbitrium est
mortuum_”),[236] a thesis he defended more particularly against Erasmus.
The young Monk was thus prepared to admit all the consequences of his
new ideas, whereas the Apostle Paul, more particularly in his Epistle
to the Romans, recognises the ability of man for natural goodness, and
speaks of the law of nature in the heathen world and the possibility
and actuality of its observance. “They do by nature the things of the
law” (Rom. ii. 14). Luther will only allow that they do such things by
means of grace, and the word grace again he uses merely for the grace
of justification. His opinion with regard to the virtues of the heathen
sages is noteworthy. He says that the philosophers of olden time had to
be damned, although they may have been virtuous from their very inmost
soul (“_ex animo et medullis_”), because they had at least experienced
some self-satisfaction in their virtue, and, in consequence of the
sinfulness of nature, must necessarily have succumbed to sinful love of
self.[237] Not long after, i.e. as early as 1517, he declares in his
MS. Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews their virtues to be merely
vices (“_revera sunt vitia_”).[238]
But what place is given to the virtues of the righteous in
Christianity? “As even the righteous man is depraved by sin he cannot
be inwardly righteous without the mercy of God.... In the believers
and in those who sigh unrighteousness is absent only because Christ
comes to their assistance with the fulness of His sinlessness, and
covers over their imperfections.”[239] Even when we “do good, we sin”
(“_bene operando peccamus_”), so runs his paradoxical thesis; “but
Christ covers over what is wanting and does not impute it.” And why
do we always sin in doing good? “Because owing to concupiscence and
sensuality we do not perform the good with the intensity and purity
of intention which the law demands, i.e. not with all our might (‘_ex
omnibus viribus_,’ Luke x. 27), the desires of the flesh being too
strong.”[240] The Church, on the other hand, teaches that good works
done in the state of sanctifying grace are pleasing to God in spite of
concupiscence, which, it is true, remains after baptism and after the
blotting out of original sin which ensued, but which is not sinful so
long as there is no consent to its enticements.
As regards the distinction between mortal and venial sin, we find
Luther’s doctrine has already reached its later standpoint, according
to which there is no difference between them. In the same way he
already denies the merit of good works. “It is clear,” he writes,
“that according to substance and nature venial sin does not exist, and
that there is no such thing as merit.”[241] All sins, in his opinion,
are mortal, because even the smallest contains the deadly poison of
concupiscence. With regard to merit, according to him, even “the saints
have no merit of their own, but only Christ’s merits.”[242] Even in
their actions the motive of perfect love was not sufficiently lively.
“If it might be done unpunished and there were no expectation of
reward, then even the good man would omit the good and do evil like the
bad.”[243]
With this pessimistic view of Luther’s we conclude our preliminary
glance at the theological goal to which his development had led him. We
will not at present pursue further the theme of pessimism which might
be brought out more clearly in the light of the doctrine contained
in his Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans regarding absolute
predestination to hell, and resignation to hell as the highest act of
virtue.[244] All the new doctrines we have passed in review may be
regarded as forerunners of the great revolution soon to come; we see
here in these questions of doctrine the utter lack of respect and the
boldness which the originator of this revolutionary theology will,
later on, manifest against the Church, when it became clear that,
without being untrue to herself, she could not approve his teaching.
Meanwhile the connection of these doctrines among themselves and with
the coming world-historic movement calls for further elucidation. We
need offer no excuse for attempting this in detail in the following
pages. The history of Luther’s development has passed into the
foreground of literary interest by reason of the works which have
appeared within the last few years, and, owing to the numerous sources
and particular studies recently published, the historian is now in the
fortunate position of being able to offer a sure solution of much that
has hitherto been doubtful on a subject which has always exercised, and
doubtless will continue to exercise, people’s minds.