THE ROCKS OF FALSE MYSTICISM
1. Tauler and Luther
JOHN TAULER, the mystic and Dominican preacher of Strasburg, whom
Luther so favoured, was quite Catholic in his teaching; to attribute
to him, as has been done, any Pantheistic ideas is to do him an
injustice, and it is equally wrong to imagine that he forestalled
Luther’s notions regarding grace and justification. Yet his fanciful
and suggestive mode of expression, his language which voiced, not the
conceptual definiteness of Scholasticism, but the deep feelings of the
speaker, often allows of his words being interpreted in a way quite
foreign to his real meaning. It was just this depth of feeling and this
obscurity which attracted Luther. As his letters show, he breathed more
freely while perusing Tauler’s writings, because they responded to his
natural disposition and his moods, not the least point in their favour
being the absence in them of those hard-and-dry philosophical and
dialectical mannerisms which were hateful to him. Without even rightly
understanding it, he at once applied the teaching of this master of
mysticism to his own inward condition and his new, growing opinions; he
clothed his own feelings and views in Tauler’s beautiful and inspiring
words. His beloved mother-tongue, so expertly handled in Tauler’s
sermons, was at the same time a new means of binding him still more
firmly to the mystic. In Tauler the necessity of the complete surrender
of the soul to the action of God, of indifference and self-abandonment,
is strongly emphasised. To free oneself as far as possible of self; to
renounce all confidence in oneself in so far as this implies self-love
and the pride of the sinful creature; to accept with waiting, longing,
suffering confidence God’s almighty working, this, with Tauler as with
all true mystics, is the fundamental condition for a union through
love with the most Perfect Being. Luther, in his false interpretation
of Tauler, came to dream of a certain false passivity on man’s part,
which he then expanded into that complete passivity which accompanies
the process of justification. He thought that Tauler repudiated the
doing of good works in his own sense. He fancied that in him he
had an ally in his fight against the so-called self-righteous and
holy-by-works. He quite overlooked the contrary exhortations to the
practice of good works and all observances of the Church which the
great mystic had so much at heart.[408]
Tauler frequently speaks of the night of the soul, of the darkness in
which the natural man must place himself on the way from death to life
and through the cross to light; by this he means the self-humiliation
which is pleasing to God, by which man fills himself with the sense
of his own nothingness, and so prepares for the incoming of God into
his innermost being. He often insists that the Creator, by means of
the suffering and cruel inward desolation which He sends His elect,
brings about that state of night, cross and death, to prove and refine
the soul in order to prepare it for an intimate union with Himself.
Such passages Luther referred to the states of fear and fright from
which he so frequently suffered, possibly also to his want of joy in
his vocation, and the state of unrest which, as he complains to his
brother monk, George Leiffer, owing to his surrendering himself too
much to his own excessive cleverness, pressed heavily upon him.[409]
When, during the warfare he had to wage on behalf of his new doctrine,
his inward unrest increased, and at times almost mastered him, he
took refuge still more eagerly in the tenets of the mystic, striving
to calm himself with the idea that his pangs of conscience and his
mental anguish were merely a preparation for the strong, joyous faith
which must spring up in his soul and those of his followers as a
pledge of justification. His very doubts and difficulties became to
him, with the help of his misunderstood mysticism, a sign that he was
chosen for the highest things, and that God would lead him and all to
peace through the new doctrine. It is in connection with his teaching
concerning the night of the soul that he most frequently quotes Tauler
at the commencement of his public struggle, whereas, before that, he
had been wont to bring him into the field only against the so-called
self-righteous, or against Scholasticism.[410]
It was known at that time that he had become a pupil of Tauler, whom he
frequently quoted, but few of his adversaries seem to have recognised
the above-mentioned psychological connection. Dungersheim of Leipzig
on one occasion, in 1519, rightly holds up before him the teaching and
example of Tauler, and tells him he might have learnt from him how
useful it was to accept from others warnings and criticisms; he gloried
in having learnt from Tauler many more spiritual doctrines than from
any other man, but he really only understood one thing well, namely,
how to kick against the pricks to his own hurt.[411]
Luther’s first mention of Tauler is not contained in his letter to
Lang of the late summer of 1516,[412] as was hitherto thought, but in
the Commentary on Romans, which was already finished in the summer of
1516.
It follows from this circumstance that he was already acquainted with
Tauler’s sermons during the time that he was busy on this Epistle.
He had come across them somewhat earlier, probably in the course of
1515, when he was nearing his inward crisis. In this passage of the
Commentary[413] he declares that God works secretly in man and without
his knowledge, and that what He does must be borne, i.e. must be
accepted with humility and neglect of self. How we are thus to suffer
what God sends, “Tauler,” he says, “explains in the German language
better than the others. Yes, yes, we do not know how to pray in the
way we should. Therefore God’s strength must come to the assistance
of our misery. We, however, must acknowledge our despair and utter
nakedness.”
But without actually mentioning Tauler by name, he frequently in
this Commentary, utilises ideas which he supports by his teaching.
Thus, when in Romans v. 3 he describes in far-fetched terms the
self-annihilation of the soul, its fears and pains, from which finally
its firm hope in God emerges. The “_tribulatio patientiam operator_”
of the Apostle he takes there to mean mystical inward tribulation;
one must desire to be as nothing, in order that the honour of the
Eternal God as Creator may remain.[414] Only the self-righteous and
the hypocrites shun the mystical death which lies in a renunciation of
all self-merit; according to a mystical interpretation of a certain
Bible passage the “strong man armed” (Luke xi. 21 f.) will destroy
the “mountains of their works”; but the good, in their absolute
destitution and tribulation, rejoice in God only, because, according
to Paul, “the charity of God is poured forth” in the hearts of the
sorely proved; they are drawn into the mysterious darkness of the
Divine union and recognise therein not what they love, but only what
they do not love; they find nothing but satiety in what they know
and experience, only what they know not, that they desire.[415] Such
language simply misinterprets some of Tauler’s profound meditations.
As, in his Commentary on the Psalms, Luther does not yet refer either
directly or indirectly to Tauler, although the matter frequently
invited him to do so, this confirms the supposition that it was only
after the termination of those lectures, or towards their conclusion
in 1515, that he became acquainted with the Master’s sermons—which
alone come under consideration. Probably, as mentioned elsewhere, he
owed his knowledge of them to Johann Lang.[416]
One of the books used by Luther in his youth and preserved in the
Ratsschul-Library at Zwickau is a copy of Tauler’s sermons in the 1508
Augsburg edition with Luther’s annotations made about 1515.[417] The
notes prove how strongly his active imagination was caught up into this
new world of ideas, and how, with swelling sails, he set out for the
port he thought lay beyond the mystic horizon.
Mysticism teaches the true wisdom, he there says, warmly praising this
knowledge as “experimental, not doctrinal” (“_sapientia experimentalis
et non doctrinalis_”). Dimly the error breaks in upon his mind, that
man can have no wish, no will of his own with respect to God; true
religion (_vera fides_) is the complete renunciation of the will,
the most absolute passivity; only thus is the empty vessel of the
heart filled by God, the cause of all; the work of salvation is a
“_negotium absconditum_,” entirely the work of God, and He commences
it by the destruction of our self (“_quod nos et nostra destruat_”);
He empties us not only of our good works and desires, but even of our
knowledge, for “He can only work in us while we are ignorant and do
not comprehend what He is doing.” Any active striving after virtue on
our part (“_operatio virtutum_”) only hinders the birth of the word in
our soul.[418]
His new ideal of virtue necessarily involves our not striving
after any particular virtues; we are not to imitate this or that
special virtue of some saint lest this prove to be the result of
our own planning, and not God’s direction, and thus be contrary to
passivity.[419] Not only will he grant nothing to sexual desire,
or allow it anywhere, but even the enjoyment of the five senses
(he calls it simply _luxuria_) must be struggled against, and the
“sweets of the spirit” be kept at a distance, namely, “_devotiones_,”
“_affectiones_,” “_consolationes et hominum bonorum societates_.”[420]
In his recommendation of passivity two tendencies unite, the negative
influence of the school of Occam, viz. the opposition to human works,
and the influence of certain dimly apprehended mystical thoughts.
While Luther twists Tauler’s expressions to suit the errors which
were germinating in his mind in opposition to Scholasticism, or,
rather, to Occamism, he proceeds, according to his manuscript notes in
Tauler’s book, seriously to jeopardise free will without, however, as
yet actually attacking it. He finds the origin of all evil in man’s
setting up against God his own will, and cherishing his own individual
intentions and hopes. He thinks he is summing up the whole of Tauler’s
doctrine with the words “God does everything in us” (“_omnia in nobis
operatur Deus_”).[421] Where Tauler in one of his sermons, obviously
speaking of other matters, says: “When God is in all things,” Luther
immediately follows up the author’s words with: “_Hoc, quæso,
nota_”;[422] the exclusiveness of the Divine being and working appears
to him of the utmost moment.
And yet it should be expressly pointed out that Tauler and the
real Christian mystics knew nothing of that passivity and complete
surrendering of self which floated before Luther’s mind. On the
contrary, they declare such ideas to be false. “The ideal of Christian
mysticism is not an ideal of apathy but of energy,”[423] “a striving
after an annihilation of individuality” was always a mark of mock
mysticism. Another essential difference between true mysticism and
that of Luther is to be found in the quality of the state of spiritual
sadness and abandonment. Luther’s descriptions of the state mirror
the condition of a soul without hope or trust and merely filled with
despair and dull resignation; this we shall see more clearly in his
accounts of the pains of hell and of readiness for hell. With the
recognised Catholic mystics this is not the case, and, in spite of
all loss of consolation, there yet remains, according to them, “in
the very depths of the soul, the heroic resolve of fidelity in silent
prayer.”[424] Confidence and love are never quenched though they are
not sensibly felt, and the feeling of the separation of the soul from
its God in this Gethsemane proceeds merely from a great love of God
which does not think of any “readiness for hell.” “That is love,”
Tauler says, where there is a burning in the midst of starvation,
want and deprivations, and yet at the same time perfect calm.[425]
It is no wonder that in Luther’s Commentary on Romans, written
at about the same time as the notes, or shortly after, his
pseudo-mysticism breaks out. In addition to the already quoted
passages from the Commentary let us take the following, which is
characteristic of his new conception of perfect love: With the cross
we must put everything of self to death; should God give spiritual
graces, we must not enjoy them, not rejoice over them; for they may
bring us in place of death a mistaken life of self, so that we stop
short at the creature and leave the Creator. Therefore away with all
trust in works! Only the most perfect love, the embracing of God’s
will absolutely, without any personal advantage is of any worth,
only such love as would, if it could, strip itself even of its own
being.[426]
Frequently in this period of strange spiritual transition Luther’s
manner of speaking of the dissolving of the soul in God, and the
penetrating of all things by the Divine, borders on Pantheism, or on
false Neo-Platonism. This, however, is merely owing to his faulty
mode of expression. He does not appear to have been either disposed
or tempted to leave the path of Christianity for actual Pantheism or
Neo-Platonism, although the previous example of Master Eckhart and of
others shows us, that mysticism has not infrequently allured even great
and talented minds on to these rocks. That he should, as already shown,
have welcomed without any sign of scruple the actual destruction of
all free will for good must, in part, be explained by his lack of a
thorough theological and philosophical training. How different might
have been his development, given his mental character, had he, instead
of devoting his attention in his unripe years to the teachings of
mysticism, steeped himself, for instance, in the “_Summa Theologica_”
of Thomas of Aquin, that brightest and greatest mind of the Middle
Ages! After making himself thoroughly at home in such a theology he
would then have been qualified to summon to his assistance the better
sort of mysticism, in which he would have found much agreeing with
his stamp of mind and which would have allowed him to rise to a still
higher enjoyment of the true and good. If then he was not content to
stop short at Tauler and the “German Theology,” there was the Dominican
Henry Suso also at his service, the godly author of writings such as
“The Little Book of Eternal Wisdom,” which has been called the “finest
fruit of German mysticism” (Denifle). He shows in how inspiring a union
pious immersion in God can be combined with theological clearness of
thought. Many others who flourished after the time of Suso, in Germany
and elsewhere, and who distinguished themselves as practical and at the
same time theoretical mystics by the depth of their feeling and their
theological culture would have served as his examples. Such were Johann
Ruysbroek, of Groenendael near Brussels, Gerard Groot of Deventer, the
founder of the Brothers of the Common Life, Henry of Louvain, Ludolf
the Carthusian, Gerson of Paris—with his excellent Introduction
to Mysticism, on the lines of the so-called Areopagite—Thomas à
Kempis, the pious guide, and, among enlightened women, Lidwina of
Schiedam in Holland, Catherine of Bologna and Catherine of Genoa.
The names mentioned, so far as they belong to the domain of German
mysticism, point to a fertile religious and literary field in Luther’s
own country, as attractive by profundity of thought and beauty of
representation as by depth of feeling and heartiness of expression.
It was a cruel misunderstanding—which, however, is now breaking down
more and more, even in the case of Protestant writers—to represent the
ideas of German mysticism as precursors of Luther’s later doctrine.
This vein of true mysticism remained sealed to Luther. By attempting to
create a theology of his own with the fantastic notions which he read
into Tauler, he fell into the mistake against which Thomas of Aquin had
already sounded a warning note in his “_Summa Theologica_.” Without a
safe guiding star many minds are led astray by the attraction of the
extraordinary, by the delusions of an excited fancy or the influence of
disordered inclinations, and consider that to be the work of Divine
grace which is merely deception, as experience shows.[427]
As an expression of the spiritual turmoil going on in Luther, we
may quote a passage from a sermon of January, 1517. Speaking of the
gifts of the three kings he says: “the pure and choice myrrh is
the abnegation with which we must be ready to return to absolute
nothingness, to the state before creation; every longing for God is
there relinquished (!), and likewise the desire for things outside
of God; one thing only is desired: to be led according to His good
pleasure back to the starting-point, i.e. to nothingness. Ah, yes,
just as before God called us into existence we were nothing, desired
nothing, and existed only in the mind of God, so we must return to
that point, to know nothing, to desire nothing, to be nothing. That
is a short way, the way of the cross, by which we may most speedily
arrive at life.”[428] Whether a sermon was the right place for such,
at best purely incomprehensible, an outburst, is doubtful. Luther,
the idealist, was then disposed to pay but little attention to such
practical considerations. In the eyes of many of his pupils and
friends, however, mystical discourses of this sort may have lent him
the appearance of a pious, spiritually minded man.
With regard to the “way of the cross” and the “theology of the cross,”
which he began to teach as soon as he had lost himself in the maze of
mysticism, he explains himself more clearly in the Disputations which
he organised at Wittenberg, and which will be dealt with below.[429]
2. Effect of Mysticism on Luther
The study of mysticism was not altogether disadvantageous to Luther,
for it proved of use to him in various ways.
First, as regards his grasp of spiritual subjects and their expression
in words, Tauler’s simple and heartfelt manner taught him how to
clothe his thoughts in popular and attractive dress. The proof of
this is to be found in his writings for the people and in several of
his more carefully prepared sermons, particularly in the works and
sermons of the first period when the mystical influence was still
predominant. Also with regard to the common body of Christian belief,
so far as he still held fast to the same, several excellent elements of
Catholic mysticism stood him in good stead, notwithstanding his inward
alienation. The intimate attachment of the mystics to Christ and their
longing expectation of salvation through the Lord alone, sentiments
which made an immense impression on his soul, notwithstanding the fact
that he understood them in a one-sided and mistaken fashion, probably
had their share in preserving in him to the very end his faith in
the Divinity of Christ and in the salvation He wrought. They also
led him to esteem the whole Bible as the Word of God, and to hold
fast to various other mysteries which some of the Reformers opposed,
for instance, the mysterious presence of Christ in the Sacrament,
even though they did not prevent him from modifying these doctrines
according to his whim. While Luther retained many of the views rooted
in the faith and sentiment of earlier ages, the Rationalism of Zwingli
was much more ready to throw overboard what did not appear to be
sanctioned by reason; this came out especially in the controversy on
the Lord’s Supper. The reason of this was that Zwingli had been trained
in the school of a narrow and critical Humanism; of mysticism in any
shape or form he knew nothing at all.
Among the advantages which Luther derived from mysticism we cannot,
however, reckon, as some have done, his later success against the
fanatics; this success was not a result of his having overcome their
false mysticism by the true one. By that time he had almost completely
given up his mysticism, whether true or false. He certainly met
the attacks of the fanatics and Anabaptists by appealing to his own
mystical experiences, but that was really a mere tactical, though
none the less effective, manœuvre on his part, which, with his ready
tongue and pen, he was able to put to excellent account. “Who spoke of
spirits?” he says; “I also know the spirit and have had experience of
the spirit; I am able, yea, am called, to reveal their delusions.” And
in the eyes of many he may certainly have been considered, on account
of the “mystical” terrors he had suffered, and to which he frequently
referred in public, to be specially fitted to unmask the false
spiritualism of his opponents. As a matter of fact, his fears and his
mysticism had nothing to do with the real discerning of spirits; they
never brought him light, but only darkness. The truth is that, at the
time of his contest with the fanatics, he had become more sober, had
a clear, practical eye for the mischief of the movement, and regarded
it as the highest duty of self-preservation to stamp out the flame of
revolt against his patrons and his own teaching. We shall see, however,
that the fanatics were, in a certain sense, the children of Luther’s
own spirit.
* * * * *
The real good which Luther may have derived from the study of mysticism
was far more than counterbalanced by the regrettable results of his
notions concerning the “pure myrrh” of passivity, and the desire for
nothingness, which at one and the same time involved him in a real
labyrinth, and raised his estimation of his own mission to an enormous
and dangerous height. He came to fancy himself far superior not only
to the Occamists, but to the whole of the secular and regular clergy,
the “swarm of religious and priests,” even to all the theologians, and
particularly to the Scholastics, those “sow theologians,” who knew
nothing of what he was conversant with.
His mysticism had already paved the way for his later belief with
regard to his own Divine call to establish the new teaching; it was
supported by his views of God’s guidance of the unconscious soul;
what he would formerly have regarded as a mistaken road and due to
diabolical inspiration was now labelled a godly act.
True and real mysticism could not take root in him because, to start
with, the necessary predisposition, concerning which the other
mystics and Tauler are agreed, was wanting, viz. above all humility,
calmness and that holy indifference, which allows itself to be led by
God along the path of the rules of its calling without any ulterior,
private aims; peaceableness, composure of mind and zeal in prayer were
not his. What mysticism left behind in Luther was scarcely more than
the fragrance of its words, without any real fruit. What took root
and grew in him was rather the hard wood from which lances are made,
ready for every combat that may arise. His mysticism itself gives the
impression of being part of the battle which his antagonism to the
Occamists led him to give to Scholasticism. Those who contradicted
his new ideas—even his brother monks, like the Erfurt philosophers
and theologians—appeared to him to be opposed on account of their
Scholasticism. The most effective way of escaping or overcoming them
seemed to him the replacing of the older theology by another, in which,
together with Holy Scripture and St. Augustine, mysticism should occupy
a chief place.
By this, however, we do not mean that the mysticism of Luther was
merely a fighting weapon. From his letters we may gather that he lived
in the belief that his new road would conduct him to a joyous nearness
to God.
The letter is dated December 14, 1516, in which he exhorts his friend
Spalatin, at the Court of the Elector, to taste in Tauler “the pure,
thorough theology, which so closely resembles the old, and to see
how bitter everything is that is ourselves,” in order to “discover
how sweet the Lord is.”[430] He is already so mystically inclined
that he will not even advise his friend in answer to a query, which
little religious books he should translate into German for the use of
the people; this advice lay in the counsel of God, as what was most
wholesome for man was generally not appreciated; hardly was there one
who sought for Christ; the world was full of wolves (these thoughts
certainly seem to have remained with him in his public career); we
must mistrust even our best intentions and be guided only by Christ in
prayer; but the “swarm of religious and priests always follow their
own good and pious notions and are thereby miserably deceived.”
His letter to George Spenlein, which is saturated with an extravagant
mysticism of grace, also belongs to the same year, 1516.[431]
On December 4, 1516 (see above, p. 87), Luther finished seeing through
the press the “Theologia Deutsch,” which he brought out, first in an
incomplete edition, because he was under the impression that it was by
Tauler. It is an echo of Tauler’s authentic works, somewhat distorted,
however, by Luther’s Preface, at the end of which he declares that a
thorough teaching of the Holy Scripture “must make fools,” intending
thereby to contrast the insignificance of natural knowledge with
Divine revelation. The booklet teaches mysticism from the Church’s
standpoint, though its language is not well chosen. There is, however,
no real need to interpret certain obscure passages in a pantheistic
sense, as has been done. The booklet cannot therefore be taken as a
proof that Luther at that time was pantheistically inclined, or that
he possessed so little theological and philosophical knowledge as not
to be able to distinguish between Pantheism and the teaching of the
Church. Nor is there the slightest trace of specifically Lutheran
doctrine in the “Theologia Deutsch.”[432]
In a sermon of February 15, 1517, based on Tauler, Luther busies
himself with those priests, laymen, and in particular religious,
who, so he says, wish to be thought especially pious, but who
are hypocrites because, even in spiritual things, they do not
overcome their self-love because they attempt, for the love of God,
to accomplish much and to do great things; almost all Tauler’s
sermons, he remarks, show how clearly he saw through these false
self-righteous, and how energetically he opposed them.[433] As a
matter of fact, Tauler, in the remarks referred to, has in his mind
those who deserve, for other reasons, to be blamed on account of their
perverse and proud mind, while Luther utilises such utterances in
support of his own notorious dislike for good works and for zealous
individual effort.[434]
In his defence of his Wittenberg Indulgence Theses against Eck’s
“Obelisci” (1518), we also find a characteristic misrepresentation
of Tauler. Tauler, speaking of the possible torments resulting from
the deprivation of religious consolation which may be experienced on
earth, instances the vision of a poor soul who, by humble resignation
to God’s Will, was delivered from its trouble. Luther takes the story
as referring to a soul in Purgatory, and sees therein not merely a
proof that souls are resigned in the place of purgation, but that
they actually rejoice in the separation from salvation which God
has imposed upon them; finally, he uses the story in support of
his twenty-ninth pseudo-mystical thesis, in which he says that, on
account of the piety of those who have died in the peace of God, it
is uncertain whether all souls in Purgatory even wish to be delivered
from their torments.[435] His mystical ideas concerning abandonment to
God’s good pleasure had warped his understanding.
In the above passage, and again later, he instances Paul and Moses as
men who had desired to become a curse of God. If they expressed such
a wish during life, he declares, a similar desire on the part of the
dead is comprehensible. The common and better interpretation of the
Bible passages in question regarding Moses and Paul differs very much
from that of Luther.
Luther embraced the idea, which permeates Tauler’s works, of
the painful annihilation of self-will and of all man’s sensual
inclinations, not in order to mortify his own self-will and sensuality
by obedience to the rules of his Order and humble submission to the
practices of the Church, but the better to make his delusive disregard
for the zealous performance of good works appear high and perfect to
his own mind and in that of others.
One should be ready, so he asserts in the defence of his theses
against Prierias, to renounce all hope in any merit or reward to
such an extent that “if you were to see heaven open before you, you
would nevertheless, as the learned Dr. Tauler, one of your own Order
[Prierias was also a Dominican], says, not enter unless you had first
consulted God’s Will as regards your entering, so that even in glory
you may not be seeking your own will.”[436] In Tauler there is, it
is true, something of the sort,[437] though it does not authorise
Luther to assume the standpoint he does in his theory of resignation.
Luther in his Commentary on Romans, as already stated, goes so far as
to preach resignation to eternal damnation, and even to demand of us
a desire to be damned should it please God to decree it for us (see
below, vi. 9). All this for the ostensible purpose of excluding the
slightest appearance of self-love. “But how,” a modern author asks,
writing with a knowledge of the better Christian mysticism, “can there
be less merit in striving after the final consummation in the next
life which is offered and recommended to us by the Divine favour, and
from which final salvation is inseparable? How then can the ideal
state of the mystic consist in indifference to his perfection and
salvation, to heaven or hell?”[438] “Indifference with regard to the
attainment of the highest, uncreated, eternal, endless Good can never
be postulated.”[439] But Luther thinks he can justify this and other
errors with the help of Tauler and his own mysticism.
But he did not, and could not, use Tauler as a weapon against the
Schoolmen. All he could do was to magnify the loss which these had
suffered through not being acquainted with such a theology as Tauler’s,
“the truest theology.” Tauler, as a matter of fact, was not opposed
to Scholasticism, indeed, the pith of his exhortations rests upon
well-grounded scholastic principles.
By the time his second and complete edition of the “Theologia Deutsch”
appeared, the printing of which was finished on June 4, 1518, Luther
knew with certainty that this booklet was not by Tauler. Nevertheless,
in the Preface he heaps exaggerated praise upon it, gives it a
place beside the Bible and St. Augustine, and declares that his own
teaching, on account of which Wittenberg is being assailed, possesses
in it a real bulwark: “Only now” has he discovered that, before his
time, “other people” thought just the same as he. Here then we see
the alliance which he has entered into with mysticism, now placed
completely at the service of his rediscovered Evangel; the sympathy
which had attracted him to the German mystics during the last few years
here reveals its true character and is led to its overdue triumph. In a
certain sense mysticism was always to remain harnessed to his chariot.
On the other hand, Luther very soon gave up pseudo-Dionysius the
Areopagite, the mystic whose teaching had spread from the East over
the whole of the West. At first, following public opinion, he had
esteemed him very highly, the more so since he had taken him for a
disciple of the Apostles; but, subsequently to the Disputation at
Leipzig, where the Areopagite was urged against him, he shows himself
very much opposed to him. According to Luther, he does not allow
Christ to come to His rights, he grants too much to philosophy and is,
of course, all wrong in his teaching concerning the hierarchy of the
Church.[440] Luther, however, always remained true to St. Bernard, with
whom he had become acquainted, together with Gerson, in his spiritual
reading at the monastery. From St. Bernard, as likewise from Tauler, he
borrowed many mystic ideas, yet not without at the same time forcibly
misinterpreting them and ascribing to the former, ideas which are
altogether foreign to his mind.[441] Gerson’s theologico-mystical
introduction, which Luther cites in his glosses on Tauler, did not
experience any better treatment at his hands,[442] while Bonaventure,
the mystic whom he once prized, came under suspicion on account of his
theological teaching, even before the Areopagite.[443]
On the other hand, he retained his esteem for Tauler till the end.
Some very remarkable references which Luther makes to Tauler’s teaching
are in connection with the troubles of conscience which dogged the
steps of the Wittenberg Doctor from his first public appearance. These
will be mentioned later, together with the means of allaying such
torments of soul, which he gives in his “_Operationes in Psalmos_”
(1519-21), borrowing them from misunderstood passages of Tauler.
We conclude with another passage from the “_Operationes_” in which,
following Tauler, he gives expression to that favourite idea of
his, which like a star of ill-omen presided at the rise of his new
theology. Psalm xi., according to him, is intended to demonstrate
the “righteousness by faith” against “the supporters of holiness by
works and the deceptive appearance of human righteousness.” This is a
forced interpretation going far beyond his own former exposition of
the Psalm in question. “To-day,” he says—with an eye on the so-called
holy-by-works, or _iustitiarii_—“there are many such seducers, as
Johann Tauler also frequently warns us.”[444] Of course, here again,
what he has in mind are the well-known admonitions of Tauler, to trust
in God more than in our own acts of virtue, though he takes them
quite wrongly as implying the worthlessness of works for salvation. A
Protestant authority here meets us at least half-way: “Tauler certainly
did not hold in so accentuated a fashion as Luther the antithesis
between grace and works, for he allows that ‘good works’ bring a man
forward on the way of salvation.”[445]
Luther, since beginning his over-zealous and excited perusal of
Tauler’s writings, presents to the calm observer the appearance of a
man caught up in a dangerous whirl of overstrain. Even in the first
months this whirl of a mystic world brought up from the depth of his
soul all the accumulated sediment of anti-theological feeling and
disgust with the state of the Church. The enthusiasm with which Luther
speaks of the “Theologia Deutsch” and Tauler, shows, as a Protestant
theologian has it, “that the mysticism of the late Middle Ages had
intoxicated him.” “It is clear that we have here a turning-point in
Luther’s theology.”[446]
Of mighty importance for the future was his unfortunate choice, perhaps
due to his state of mind, just in that period of storm and stress,
to deliver lectures at the University on the Epistle to the Romans.
Through his Commentary on this Epistle he set a seal upon his new views
directed against the Church’s doctrine concerning grace, works and
justification.