That he still adheres in the Commentary to the principle of the

hierarchy is apparent from the fact that he declares its office

to be sublime, and loudly bewails the fact that so many unworthy

individuals had forced themselves at that time into its ranks; he

says in his curious language: “It is horrifying and the greatest of

all perils that there can be in this world or the next; it is simply

the one biggest danger of all.”[577] In the hierarchy, he says, God

condescended to our weakness by choosing to speak to us and come to

our assistance through the medium of men, and not directly, in His

unapproachable and terrible majesty.[578]

He also recognises the various grades of the hierarchy, priestly

and episcopal Orders. “The Church is a general hospital for healing

those who are spiritually sick”;[579] the rules which she gives to

the clergy, the recital of the Divine Office for instance, must be

obediently carried out.[580] She has a right to temporal possessions,

only “at the present day almost all declare these to be spiritual

things; they, the clergy, are masters in this ‘spiritual’ domain and

are more careful about it than about their real spiritualities, or

about their use of thunderbolts [excommunications] in the sentences

pronounced by the Church.”[581]

According to him, the prelates and the Church have a perfect right

to condemn false teachers however much the latter may “utter their

foolish cry of ‘we have the truth, we believe, we hear, we call

upon God.’” “Just as though they must be of God because they seem

to themselves to be of God. No, we have an authority which has been

implanted in the Church, and the Roman Church has this authority in

her hands. Therefore the preachers of the Church, unless they fall

into error, preach with assurance [on account of their commission].

But false teachers are pleased with their own words, because they

are according to their own ideas. They appear to demand the greatest

piety, but are themselves governed by their own opinion, and their

self-will.”[582] “Whoever declares that he is sent by God must either

give proof of his mission by wonders and heavenly testimony, as

the Apostles did, or he must be recognised and commissioned by an

authority confirmed by Heaven. In the latter case, he must stand and

teach in humble subjection to such authority, ever ready to submit to

its judgment; he must speak what he is commissioned to speak and not

what his own taste leads him to invent.... Anathema is the weapon,”

he exclaims—unconscious of his own future—“which lays low the

heretics.”[583]

Whenever he gets the chance he magnifies the corruption of the Church

so much that his expressions might lead one to suppose that the saving

institution founded by Christ was either completely decayed and fallen

away or was at least on the road to forsaking its vocation as teacher

and as the guardian of morals. His complaints may, it is true, be in

part accounted for by the impetuosity which carries him away and by his

rhetorical turn. He probably did not at that time really think that

a healthy reformation from within was absolutely impossible. Still,

had anyone attempted to carry out his immature and excessive demands

for reform, they would hardly have achieved much in the way of a real

regeneration. His ideas of a radical change were deeply ingrained in

his mind; this we naturally gather from his bringing them forward so

frequently and under such varied forms. In his mystical moods he sees

the errors and abuses opposed to the “Word” swollen into a veritable

“deluge”; his professorial chair is only just above the waves. Hence he

will cry out as loudly as he can. In his voice we can, however, detect

a false note, and his exaggerations and all his stormings do not avail

to inspire us with confidence. He is too full of his own subjectivity,

too impetuous and passionate to be a reformer, though his other gifts

might have fitted him for the office. His very sensitiveness to neglect

of duty in others, had it been purified and disciplined, aided by his

eloquence, might have been able to inaugurate a movement of reform. In

many of his sayings he comes nigh the position of a Catholic reformer,

and even, at times, makes exaggerated demands on obedience and the need

of feeling with the Church.[584]

We may add the following to the complaints above mentioned, as

occurring in the Commentary on Romans with regard to the state of the

Church.

“The Pope and the chief pastors of the Church,” so runs Luther’s

general and bitter charge, “have become corrupt and their works are

deserving of malediction; they stand forth at the present day as

seducers of the Christian people” (“_seducti et seducentes populum

Christi a vera cultura Dei_”).[585] He waxes eloquent not only against

their too frequent granting of indulgences—from which in their

avarice they derived worldly profit for the Church—but also against

their luxurious lives which fill the whole world with the vices of

Sodom, and others too; under their wicked stewardship the faithful

throughout the Church have altogether forgotten what good works,

faith and humility are, and make their eternal salvation depend upon

external observances and foolish legends. Even those who have more

insight and are better men, are all self-righteous and more like

idolaters than Christians.

The Apostle Paul, he says, expounds in the Epistle to the Romans, the

command of loving our neighbour (xii. 6 _seq._), but is this followed

by the Church? Instead of fulfilling it “we busy ourselves with

trivialities, build churches, increase the possessions of the Church,

heap money together, multiply the ornaments and vessels of silver and

gold in the churches, erect organs and other pomps which please the

eye. We make piety to consist in this. But where is the man who sets

himself to carry out the Apostle’s exhortations, not to speak of the

great prevailing vices of pride, arrogance, avarice, immorality and

ambition.”[586] Not long after this outburst, speaking in a milder

strain, he says: “We exalt ourselves so as to instruct the whole

world, and hardly understand ourselves what we are teaching.” “People

without training or knowledge of the world, sent by their bishops and

religious superiors, undertake to instruct men, but really only add to

the number of chatterers and windbags.”[587]

On another occasion he declares, people think bustle in the church,

loud organ playing and pompous solemnities at Mass are all that is

needed; for such things collections are made, whereas alms-giving for

the relief of our neighbour is not accounted anything. Nothing is

thought of swearing, lying or backbiting, even on Feast Days, but if

anyone eats flesh-meat or eggs on a Friday, he gives great scandal, so

unreasonable are all people nowadays (“_adeo nunc omnes desipiunt_”).

What is needed to-day is to do away with the Fast Days and to abrogate

many of the Festivals ... the whole Christian Code ought to be

purified and changed, and the solemnities, ceremonies, devotions and

the adorning of the churches reduced. But all this is on the increase

daily, so that faith and charity are stifled, and avarice, arrogance

and worldliness grow apace. What is worse, the faithful hope to find

in this their eternal salvation and do not trouble about the inner

man.[588]

The lawyers, he says, speaking in a mystical vein, act quite wrongly

when, as soon as they see that anyone has the law on his side, they

encourage him to assert his rights (“_qui statim quod secundum iura

iustum sciunt, prosequendum suadent_”). “On the contrary, every

Christian should rejoice in suffering injustice, even in matters of

the greatest moment (‘_quoad maximas iustitias nostras_’).... But

almost the whole world runs after the contrary error [i.e. sternly

asserts its rights]. Cardinals, bishops, princes act like the Jews did

to the King of Babylon (2 Kings xxiv. 20; xxv. 1 ff.); they cling to

their petty privileges, lose sight of morality and so perish.” Someone

should have told Duke George (of Saxony) when he fought against the

Duke of Frisia: “Your own and your people’s deserts are not so great

that you should not rather have patiently allowed yourself to be

chastised by that rebel, who, though unrighteous, was the executor of

God’s righteous judgment. Calm yourself therefore and acknowledge the

Will of God.”[589]

He says something similar to his own bishop, Hieronymus Schulz

(Scultetus) of Brandenburg,[590] and to another bishop, probably

Wilhelm von Honstein, Bishop of Strasburg. The latter had put in force

the ecclesiastical statutes against the infringers of the sanctity

of the church. Luther says: “Why trouble a town with this wretched

matter? It is merely a question of human regulations; but if the

bishop desired to enforce God’s laws, he would not need to leave his

own house; he is not indeed acting wrongly, but he is swallowing a

camel and straining at gnats (Matt. xxiii. 24).... But the bishops

thirst for vengeance, they brand the criminals and themselves deserve

to be worse branded. Would to God that the time may come when rights

and privileges and all who worship them are consigned to perdition!

Ambition and unbelief should not be allowed to triumph over those

condemned for transgressing the statutes.”[591]

“I say this with pain, but I am obliged to because I have an Apostolic

commission to teach. My duty is to point out to all the wrong they are

committing, even to those in high places.”[592]

In accordance with this, the young Professor loudly blames Pope Julius

II. In his quarrel with the Republic of Venice “this advice should

have been given him: ‘Holy Father, Venice is doing you a wrong,

but the Roman Church deserves it on account of her faults, yea,

she deserves even worse. Therefore do nothing, such is the Will of

God.’ But the Pope replied: ‘No, no, let us vindicate our rights by

force.’”[593] “He chastised them [the Venetians] with great bloodshed

because they had sinned grievously and seized upon the possessions of

the Church; he brought them back to the Church and so gained great

merit. But the horrible corruption of the Papal Curia and the mountain

of the most terrible immorality, pomp, avarice, ambition and sacrilege

is accounted no sin.”[594]

On another occasion, after a no less forcible outburst against Rome,

he demands the abolition of “false piety”: This so-called piety must

no longer be permitted, as though it were merely a weakness; but in

Rome they do not trouble about doing away with it, there is there

nothing but the freedom of the flesh; “almost all are wanting in

charity.” “I fear that in these days we are all on the road to utter

destruction.”[595]

We must listen, he says—alluding to the formalism which he thinks is

apparent everywhere—to the “inward word,” which often speaks to us

quite differently from the injunctions to which we are accustomed.

“The wisdom of fools always looks more to the work than to the word;

it thinks itself able to gauge the meaning and value of the word from

the value or worthlessness of the deeds”; what we should do is the

contrary; the precious, inestimable word must always resound in our

hearts and direct all our outward actions.[596] The “spirit of the

believer is subject to no one,” “the spirit is free as regards all

things”; “all exterior things are free to those who are in the spirit.”

“The bondage [of charity] is the highest liberty.”[597]

Such words form a quite obvious preliminary to the “Evangelical

freedom” which he was afterwards to vindicate. He thus gives a much

wider application to the ideas he had met with in Tauler than was in

the mind of that pious mystic. Tauler writes: “I tell you that you

must not submit your inner man to anyone, but to God only. But your

exterior man you must submit in a true and real humility to God and

to all creatures.”[598] Luther says what on the surface seems quite

similar: the Christian is free and master of all things and is subject

to no one (by faith), and yet at the same time a willing servant of

all and subject to all (by charity).[599] Yet, both in the Commentary

on Romans and in the works which were soon to follow, “the willing

servant” is more and more ousted by false ideas of independence, so

that a danger arises of only the “free master of all things” remaining.

In the Commentary on Romans all exterior submission to the Church is,

in principle, menaced by a liberty which, appealing to the inward

experience of the Word and a deeper conception of religion, seeks to

overstep all barriers.

The confused ideas for which he was beholden to his pseudo-mysticism

were in great part the cause of this and of other errors.

9. The Mystic in the Commentary on Romans

Since the appearance in print of Luther’s Commentary on Romans it has

been possible to perceive more clearly the ominous power which false

mysticism had gained over the young author.

His misapprehension of some of the principal elements of Tauler’s

sermons and of the “Theologia Deutsch” stands out in sharp relief in

these lectures on the Pauline Epistle, and we see more plainly how the

obscure ideas he finds in the mystics at once amalgamate with his own.

The connection between the pseudo-mysticism which he has built up on

the basis of true mysticism, and the method of theology which he is

already pursuing, appears here so great, and he follows so closely the

rather elastic figures and thoughts provided by the mystical science

of the soul, that we are almost tempted, after reading his exposition

of the Epistle to the Romans, to ask whether all his intellectual

mistakes were not an outcome of his mysticism. The fact is, however,

that he began his study of mysticism only after having commenced

formulating the principles of his new world of thought. It was only

after the ferment had gone on working for a considerable time that he

chanced upon certain mystic works. Yet, strange to say, the mysticism

with which he then became acquainted was not that German variety which

had already been infected with the errors of Master Eckhart, but the

sounder mysticism which had avoided the pitfalls. It is a tragic

coincidence that mysticism, the most delicate blossom of the theology

of the Middle Ages and of true Catholicism, should have served to

confirm him in so many errors. True mysticism has in all ages been a

protest against all moral cowardice and inertia, against tepidity and

self-complacent mediocrity; false mysticism, on the other hand, debases

itself to Quietism and even to Antinomianism; the world has lived to

see pseudo-mysticism deny evil the better to permit it.[600] Even

true mysticism is constantly open to the danger not only of conscious

and intentional exaggeration of its theses, but of unintentional

misapprehension.

Misapprehension is a misfortune to which mysticism was ever exposed,

owing mainly to the inadequacy of human language to express the

mystic’s thoughts,[601] whereas Scholasticism, thanks to its clear-cut

terminology, has been spared such a fate, and for the same reason

has never been in favour with confused and cloudy minds. Tauler had

originally been trained in the Scholasticism of St. Thomas of Aquin,

and in the teaching of the Frankfort author of the “Theologia Deutsch”

the true principles of the old school still shine out. This, however,

did not save these writers from having formerly been considered, by

Protestants, precursors of Luther’s doctrines. Denifle, by his studies

on these and the later mystics, threw such valuable light on the

subject that the Protestant theologian Wilhelm Braun, in the work he

recently devoted to tracing the development of Luther, says: “it is

wrong for Protestants to claim mysticism as a pre-Reformation reforming

movement; this Denifle has proved in his epoch-making researches.”[602]

_False Passivity_

As regards the important new data furnished by the Commentary on

Romans on Luther’s mysticism, the editor himself admits in the preface

that “the ideal of resignation [preached by the Catholic mystics] was

raised by Luther to an unconditional passivity and to a real system

of Quietism, which he completely identified with the theme of the

Epistle to the Romans and with the piety of St. Augustine. In this he

found the bond of union combining all his experiences. Mysticism it

is which lends its deep and fiery hue to his thoughts; where Luther

is describing the most intimate processes and gives their highest

expression to the thoughts which inspire him, it is mysticism which is

speaking through him ... the complete and unconditional surrender of

man to God.”[603]

Luther gives in a peculiar fashion his reasons for taking such a

standpoint: “The Nature of God demands that He should first destroy

and annihilate everything there is in us before He imparts His gifts.

For it is written: ‘The Lord maketh poor and maketh rich, He bringeth

down to hell and bringeth back again.’ By this most gracious plan He

renders us fit for the reception of His gifts and His works. We are

then receptive to His works and plans when our own plans and our own

works have ceased, and we become quite passive towards God (‘_quando

nostra consilia cessant et opera quiescunt et efficimur pure passivi

respectu Dei_’) both as regards exterior and interior activity....

Then the ‘utterable sighs’ commence, then ‘the Spirit comes and helps

our infirmity.’”[604] It is in the description of this “suffering

and bearing of God” that he expressly quotes Tauler as the teacher

of the higher form of prayer, adding: “Yes, yes, ‘we know not how

we should pray,’ therefore the Spirit is necessary to assist us in

our weakness.” “As a woman remains passive in conception, so we must

remain passive to the first grace and eternal salvation. For our soul

is Christ’s bride. Before grace, it is true, we pray and implore, but

when grace comes and the soul is to be impregnated by the Spirit,

then it must neither pray nor act, but only endure. To the soul this

seems hard and it is downcast, for that the soul should be without

act of the understanding and the will, that is much like sinking

into darkness, destruction and annihilation (‘_in perditionem et

annihilationem_’); from this prospect she shrinks back in horror, but

in so doing she often deprives herself of the most precious gifts of

grace.”[605]

It was just on this point that Luther most completely misapprehended

Tauler. It is true that this mediæval mystic speaks strongly against

any too great esteem of human activity, and that he also recommends

the spiritual man, in certain circumstances, to “refuse all exterior

works the better to devote himself with the necessary submission and

in entire peace” to interior communication with his Maker and Highest

Good, and, as he says, “to suffer God.”[606] But he does not thereby

recommend man to long after a state without thought or will, or after

mere nothingness—in order to magnify God and His powers alone;

according to Tauler, grace does not work in the soul “without the

co-operation of the understanding and the will.”

_The Quenching of the “Good Spark in the Soul”_

Luther in the above recommendation to passivity falsely assumes that

the soul is entirely corrupted by original sin and only offends God

with its acts. This also appears clearly in the Commentary on Romans.

Protestants themselves now admit that Luther deviated from the

standpoint of the orthodox mystics, particularly from that of Tauler,

and that “in the view of the mystics of the Middle Ages there is no

doubt that the natural good in man outweighs the natural evil. The

central point in which all the lines of mystic theology converge is

this indestructible goodness.” So speaks a Protestant theologian.[607]

In Gerson, the mystic whom Luther had studied in his early days at

Erfurt, he must have met with the beautiful teaching, that the soul

had received from God a natural tendency towards what is good, that

this is “the virginal portion of the soul,” which is the “source and

seat of mystical theology.”[608] Tauler is fond of treating of this

“noble spark of fire in the soul,” of “this interior nobility which

lies hidden in the depths.”[609] The Scholastics, too, unanimously

teach this disposition to good which remains after original sin.

Luther, when opposing the good tendency, attacks only the Scholastics,

not the mystics; he declares that all the errors on grace and

nature which he has to withstand entered through the hole which the

Scholastics made with their “syntheresis.”[610] One thing is certain,

viz. that he was wrong in foisting his view of the absolute corruption

of the human race on the mystics; “he could not,” the Protestant

theologian above referred to admits, “quite truthfully invoke the

support of the mystics for his assertions.”[611] The doctrines

which Tauler advances in the very context in which his blame of the

self-righteous occurs, viz. that there is no righteousness without

personal acts, that even the sinner can do what is good, that he, more

especially, must prepare himself for the grace of justification, pass

unheeded in Luther’s exposition of the Epistle to the Romans. “Luther

overlooked this series [of testimonies given by Tauler]; only the

statements regarding the righteous by works made any impression on

him; his polemics are directed against those who serve two masters,

who wish to please God and the world and to do great things for

God’s sake; these are the people who are at heart satisfied with

themselves.”[612]

Tauler repeatedly uses the word “spirit” for man’s native good

tendency and activity. This expression Luther simply takes to mean

the Divine Spirit, which must be infused into man on account of his

natural helplessness. The theologian mentioned above hero also admits:

“Much that Tauler intended to refer to the human syntheresis, or the

created spirit, Luther has ascribed to the uncreated Divine Spirit,

who imparts grace and faith”;[613] on the other hand we may allow with

the same author that Luther was probably misled by the “hermaphrodism

of Tauler’s teaching, according to which the spirit longs for a

metamorphosis”; Tauler’s lively description of the supernatural

being and life of the soul sometimes throws into the background

the independence of its action in the natural sphere, though the

outcome is not really an “hermaphrodite” in the strict sense of

the word. It is also true that “Luther overlooked the other side,

namely, the Divine immanence which all those mystics teach with equal

distinctness,[614] or at least he did not make sufficient account of

it.

_Selfishness and the “Theology of the Cross”_

Another important point on which Luther deviated from true mysticism

has now been brought to light by the Commentary on Romans. According

to the Strasburg mystic, and according to all good mystics generally,

selfishness must be looked on as the greatest interior enemy of man. It

is a leaven which readily infects the actions, even of the best, and

therefore must be expelled by struggling against it and by prayer.

Selfishness, says the “Theologia Deutsch,” “makes the creature turn

away from the unchangeable good to that which is changeable.” Even in

the case of the devil, it tells us, the reason of his fall was “his I

and my, his mine and me”; he fancied he was something, that something

belonged to him and that he had a right to something.[615]

In the Commentary on Romans Luther also speaks in impressive words

against selfishness and its malice.[616] He makes use of every

note at his command in order to warn us against this serpent. In

these passages we might fancy we hear the voices of the mystic

leaders of the faithful in the Middle Ages, even of a Bernard of

Clairvaux. Nor is practical advice wanting; we are exhorted to

earnest, humble prayer, to a watchful resistance—to be strengthened

by practice—against the desires of self-love, even in small things,

to mortify and to tame our flesh. We must go out of ourselves even

in spiritual matters; everything, he says, depends in the spiritual

life on self-abnegation: “God’s righteousness fills those only who

seek to empty themselves of their own righteousness, He fills the

hungry and the thirsty ... let us then tell God, so he says with all

the enthusiasm his idea of grace gives him: “how glad are we to be

empty, that Thou mayest be our fulness; how glad to be weak, that

Thy strength may dwell within us; how glad to be sinners, that Thou

mayest be justified in us; how glad to be fools, that Thou mayest

be our wisdom; how glad to be unrighteous, that Thou mayest be our

righteousness.”[617] Suffering sent by God, so the author frequently

repeats almost in Tauler’s words, is to be accepted as a remedy

against the disease of self-love not only with patience, but with joy.

Pain, particularly inward pain, should be honoured like the cross of

Christ (“_tribulatio velut crux Christi adoranda_”);[618] we must bear

it bravely like true children of God and not take to flight like the

servant, or the hireling.[619]

In connection with selfishness Luther exposes his so-called “_theologia

crucis_,” which, with the adjuncts he gives it, is quite in keeping

with his ideas. He was also to advocate the theology of the cross in

his disputations, endeavouring to show that it alone teaches us how to

make a right use of earthly things.

“He is not a Christian, but a Turk, and an enemy of Christ, who does

not desire afflictions.” “Our theologians and popes are in fact

enemies of the cross of Christ ... for no one hates pain and trouble

more than the popes and the lawyers [i.e. those who insist upon laws

and observances]. No one is more greedy than they for riches, comfort,

idleness, honour and pomp.” “They honour the relics of the Holy Cross

and yet abhor and fly from what they dislike.” “We consider Christ

our helper and our support in time of trouble, but whoever does not

suffer gladly, cheats Him of these titles; to such a one God even is

no longer the Creator because he will not return to the nothingness

from which God created all. Whoever will not suffer God in weakness,

foolishness and punishment, for him God is not powerful, not wise,

not merciful.”[620] “The cross puts to death everything that is in

us. Nature, it is true, desires to make itself and everything alive,

but God in His love takes care, by the infliction of crosses and

suffering, that even spiritual gifts shall not taste too sweet to the

righteous; he must not throw himself upon them in a natural, godless

impetuosity in order to enjoy them, even though they be attractive

and tempt him to savour them ... he may not even love God on account

of His grace and His gifts, but only for His own sake, otherwise

this would be a forbidden [!] indulgence in the grace received, and

he would insult the Father even more than he did before [i.e. when

as yet unrighteous!]. In the Commentary on Romans Luther refuses to

recognise any love save that which springs from the most perfect

motive. He stigmatises the love which arises from the joy in the

benefits bestowed by a gracious God,—and which the orthodox mystics

allowed,—as presumption, and as an enjoyment of the creature rather

than of the Creator, and goes so far as to say that if a man were to

remain in this love “he would be lost eternally.”[621]

To these assertions we may add the following theses, defended under

Luther’s auspices in 1518, which explain the new “_theologia crucis_.”

“Whoever is not destroyed (‘_destructus_’) and brought back by the

cross and suffering to the state of nothingness, attributes to

himself works and wisdom, but not to his God, and so he abuses and

dishonours the gifts of God. But whoever is annihilated by suffering

(‘_exinanitus_’) ceases to do anything, knowing that God is working

in him and doing all. Therefore, whether he himself does anything

or not, he remains the same, and neither vaunts himself for doing

something nor is ashamed of doing nothing, because God works in him.

For himself, this he knows, it is enough that he should suffer and be

destroyed by the cross, so that he may advance more and more towards

annihilation. This is what Christ teaches in John iii. 3: ‘Ye must

be born again.’ If we are to be born again, we must first die and be

raised with the Son of God [on the cross]; I say die, i.e. taste death

as though it were present.”[622] “We may not fly from human wisdom and

the law, but whoever is without the theology of the cross is making

the worst use of the best things. The true theologian is not he who

understands the ‘invisible things of God by the things that are made,’

but he who by suffering and the cross recognises in God the visible

and the obscure.”[623]

_The Night of the Soul and Resignation to Hell_

The better to fight against selfishness Tauler had proposed that

everyone should look upon himself and his own works as evil, imitating

a certain holy brother who used to say: “Know that I am the basest

of sinners.”[624] In this innocent recommendation nothing is implied

of the complete corruption of nature, of a desire for hell, or of

resignation to eternal separation from God. It was only as an exercise

in humility and penitent love that Tauler and the other mystics

wished the devout man to cultivate the habit of looking on himself

as absolutely unworthy of heaven and as better fitted for a place in

hell. He is urged to descend in spirit to the place of torment and

acknowledge, against his egotism and arrogance, that, on account of his

sins, he has deserved a place there among the damned, and not in the

happy vicinity of God.

They also depict in gloomy, mystical colours the condition of the

unhappy soul who, by the consent of God and in order to try it, sees

itself deprived of all comfort, and, as it were, torn away from its

highest good and relegated to hell. Such pains, they teach, are

intended as a way of purgation for the soul, which, after such a night,

can raise itself again with all the more confidence and love to God,

who has, so far, preserved it from so great a misfortune.

The doctrine of the dark, mystical night appealed very strongly to

Luther’s mind. In his theology he is fond of picturing the soul as

utterly sinful and deserving of hell, meaning by this something very

different from what orthodox mystics taught. He also suffered greatly

at times from inward commotion and darkening of the soul, due to

fears regarding predestination, to a troubled conscience or to morbid

depression, of which the cause was perhaps bodily rather than mental.

These, however, bore no resemblance to the pains—“mystical exercises”

as they have been called by Protestants—of which the mystics speak. In

his “temptations in the monastery” he did not experience what Tauler

and the “Theologia Deutsch” narrate of the consuming inner fire of

Purgatory. Luther, however, erroneously applied their descriptions to

his own condition.[625] Thus his idea of the night of the soul is

quite different from that of the mystics, though he describes it in

almost the same words, and, thanks to his imagination and eloquence,

possibly in even more striking colours.

Several times in his Commentary on Romans he represents resignation

to, indeed even an actual desire for, damnation—should that be the

will of God—as something grand and sublime. Thereby he thinks he is

teaching the highest degree of resignation to God’s inscrutable will;

thereby the highest step on the ladder of self-abnegation has been

attained. In reality it is an ideal of a frightful character, far worse

even than a return to nothingness. He lets us see here, as he does so

often in other matters, how greatly his turbulent spirit inclined to

extremes.[626]

“If men willed what God wills,” he writes, “even though He should

will to damn and reject them, they would see no evil in that [in the

predestination to hell which he teaches]; for, as they will what

God wills, they have, owing to their resignation, the will of God

in them.” Does he mean by this that they should resign themselves

to hating God for all eternity? Luther does not seem to notice that

hatred of God is an essential part of the condition of those who are

damned (“_damnari et reprobari ad infernum_”). Has he perhaps come to

conceive of a hatred of God proceeding from love? He seems almost to

credit those who think of hell, with a resolve to bear everything,

even hatred of God, with loving submission to the will of Him Who by

His predestination has willed it.

He even dares to say to those who are affrighted by predestination to

hell, that resignation to eternal punishment is, for the truly wise,

a source of “ineffable joy” (“_ineffabili iucunditate in ista materia

delectantur_”);[627] for the perfect this is “the best purgation from

their own will,” i.e. the way of the greatest bitterness, “because

under charity the cross and suffering is always understood.” But all,

he says, even the half-imperfect, see that here we have a splendid

remedy for destroying “the presumptuous building upon merit; let

everyone rejoice in his fear and thank God,”[628] the more so that

those who are so much afraid will certainly not go to hell; “as

they make themselves entirely conformable to the will of God it is

impossible that they should be delivered over to eternal punishment,

as he who resigns himself entirely to God’s holy Will cannot remain

separated from Him.”[629]

This doctrine of a wholesome fear of hell, of a saving, heroic

abandonment to God, and of an exalted and pure love to be exercised

by all as a “remedy” against damnation, invalidates Luther’s doctrine

of absolute and undeserved predestination to hell; salvation is again

made to depend upon both God and man, whose co-operation becomes

necessary; it is only because “man will not will what God wills”

that he is damned. Yet, according to Luther, the saving fear and

resignation is only possible to the elect, and these must in the end

be in doubt as to whether they are pleasing to God, just as they must

be uncertain regarding all their actions.

In confirmation of his theory of readiness for hell Luther even

refers to St. Paul, who says in his Epistle to the Romans, that

he had offered himself to the everlasting pains of hell for the

salvation of the Jews; that, in order to save them, he had been

ready to be “an anathema from Christ.”[630] But the example does

not apply. According to a more correct explanation, the Apostle,

who was always in spiritual communion with Christ, speaks only of

an outward separation.[631] Luther himself says in this connection:

Paul did not desire to hate Christ, but was ready to be separated

from Him; in this he displayed the “most sublime degree of charity,

a truly apostolic love”; “this seems, of course, incomprehensible

and foolish to those who think themselves holy and love God with the

‘_amor concupiscentiæ_,’ i.e. on account of their salvation and for

the sake of eternal rest, or in order to escape from hell, in other

words, not for God’s sake but their own.... What they really desire

is salvation according to their own fancy, instead of desiring their

own nothingness both here and hereafter (‘_suum nihil optare_’), and

only the will and glory of God,” whereas “all perfect saints, out of

their overflowing affection, are ready to accept everything, even hell

itself. By reason of this readiness, it is true, they at once escape

all punishment.”

According to Luther, even Christ offered Himself for hell whole and

entire. Luther does not make the slightest distinction in the agony

in the Garden between mere exterior and real interior separation

from God. Christ was ever united hypostatically with God, and His

human nature never ceased to enjoy the vision of God. Luther,

however, merely says: “He found Himself in a state of condemnation

and abandonment which was greater than that of all the saints. His

sufferings were not easy to Him, as some have imagined, because He

actually and in truth offered Himself to the eternal Father to be

consigned to eternal damnation for us (‘_quod realiter et vere se

in æternam damnationem obtulit Deo patri pro nobis_’). His human

nature did not behave differently from that of a man who is to be

condemned eternally to hell. On account of this love of God, God at

once raised Him from death and hell, and so He overcame hell (‘_eum

suscitavit a morte et inferno et sic momordit infernum_’; cp. Osee

xiii. 14). All His saints must follow this example, some more, some

less; and according to the degree of their perfection in love they

find this harder or easier. But Christ bore the most severe form of

it (‘_durissime hoc fecit_’), and for this reason He laments in many

passages (in the Messianic Psalms) the pains of hell.”[632]

In the light of passages such as these we can understand to some extent

the lurid, fanciful, mystic description which he gives early in 1518,

clearly on the strength of his own states of mind. He tells how a man

fancies himself at certain moments plunged into hell, and feels his

breast pierced by all the pangs of everlasting despair, because he

apprehends God’s “frightful ire” and the impossibility of ever being

delivered. This grotesque picture of a soul, with which we shall deal

more fully later, although it is partly taken almost word for word from

the earlier descriptions of the mystics, reveals its morbid character

more especially by the fact, that the hope, which, in the case of

the devout, remains in the depths of the soul even throughout the

most severe interior trials, seems entirely absent. God is seen as He

appeared to Luther, i.e. as an inexorable, arbitrary punisher of His

creature.[633]

Luther’s mysticism is veritably a mysticism of despair and the

“_humilitas_,” with its love ready even for hell, which he belauds

as the anchor of safety, is a forced expedient really excluded by

his system, and which he himself discarded as soon as he was able

to replace it by the (God-given) _fides_, in the shape of faith in

personal justification and salvation.

10. The Commentary on Romans as a Work of Religion and Learning

The Commentary purports to be as much a religious as a learned work.

Its religious value can be shortly summed up from the above.

The author is as much occupied in putting forth religious ideas which

appeal to him as in expounding exegetically St. Paul’s Epistle, and

these ideas he supports on the text of the Epistle to the Romans or on

other passages from Holy Scripture which he incessantly adduces. His

intention also was to make the considerations of practical use from the

religious point of view to his hearers, who were probably most of them

Augustinians. He wished to give them a practical introduction to the

doctrines of St. Paul, as he understood them, and at the same time to

his own mysticism.

We must, if we wish to do justice to the Commentary on Romans, admit

without reserve that it does not show us the picture of a man who is

morally bankrupt. The author does not make the impression of one bent

on sensuality, and seeking the means of gratifying it. The work, on the

contrary, breathes a spiritual tendency, even to the point of excess,

though not, indeed, without a strong admixture of the earthly element.

The author is, however, far from having arrived at any clear religious

views; after wrestling with the secrets of the Pauline Epistle with

feeling and eloquence, he is unable even at the end to extricate

himself from a condition of spiritual restlessness. The work testifies

to an enduring state of religious ferment.

The vivacity and fertility of thought which the author displays is

noteworthy; the personal colouring in which he depicts his religious

ideas, and, frequently, too, rabidly defends them against scholars and

religious who think differently, is unique, and of priceless value to

the biographer. Such a strong personal tone is not, it is true, quite

in place in a learned work.

The religious “experience,” so often supposed to stand in the forefront

of his development, is not to be found there.

If the so-called spiritual “experience” had actually taken place

Luther would certainly have alluded to it, for he has much to say of

his own state and observations. Why does he say nothing here of the

experiences he afterwards relates in such detail? Of the excessive,

almost suicidal, monastic practices to which, as a Catholic-minded

monk, he surrendered himself, seeking God’s grace, until through Divine

intervention he recognised that the path of works and strictness of

life, in fact the Catholic road generally, was incapable of leading one

to peace with God here below and to union with God in eternity? There

is nothing here of that sudden leap from weary, self-righteous seeking

after God—ostensibly a delusion cherished by all Catholics—to the

joyous consciousness of a gracious God, based on the recognition of

justification. Luther, on the other hand, gives a seemingly accurate

description of his own spiritual development, though without mentioning

himself, at the end of his exposition of Romans iii., a passage to

which we shall return later.

The author frequently allows his fancied religious interests to spoil

his exegesis.

Often enough he does not even make an attempt to follow up the

thoughts of the Apostle and arrive at their sense. His character is

too impatient of restraint and too predisposed to rhetoric. Thus he

descends to the religious and political questions then being debated

at Wittenberg and says by way of excuse: “I will explain the meaning

of the Apostle to you in its practical sense, in order that you may

understand the matter better by the help of some comparisons.”[634]

These words occur in the passage in which he admonishes Duke George

of Saxony regarding his quarrels with Edgard, Count of East Frisia

(1514-15), telling him he ought to have recognised the Will of God in

the Count’s “malicious revolt” and have patiently suffered himself to

be vanquished by his foe—as though it were the duty of princes to

become mystics like himself.[635]

If we now examine the actual value of the Commentary, we find much that

is excellent and calculated to elucidate the Pauline text.

It is especially praiseworthy in Luther that he should have made

the Greek text edited by Erasmus the basis of his work as soon as

it was published during the course of his lectures. He also makes

frequent, diligent and intelligent use of the “exegetical ability” of

Nicholas of Lyra,[636] following him for the text as well as for the

interpretation and division of the subject; this was the author whose

assistance he had formerly declined with far too much contempt. Other

authorities whom he also consults are Paul of Burgos, Peter Lombard,

for his explanations of the Epistle to the Romans, and, for the

division of the matter, particularly the Schemata of Faber Stapulensis.

His own linguistic training and his knowledge of ancient literature

were of great service to him, as also was his natural quickness of

judgment combined with sagacity. He frequently quotes passages from

St. Augustine, and through him, i.e. at secondhand, from Cyprian and

Chrysostom; in his interpretations the mediæval authorities of whom he

makes most use are the Master of the Sentences and St. Bernard.[637]

The way in which Aristotle and the Scholastics are handled is already

plain from what we have said. Reminiscences of the works of his own

professors, Paltz, Trutfetter and Usingen, are merely general, and

he freely differs from them. As an Occamist he feels himself in

contradiction to the Thomists and to some extent also to the Scotists;

in addition to Occam, d’Ailly, Gerson and Biel have a great influence

on him, even in his interpretation of the Bible. Tauler, who has so

frequently been mentioned, also left deep traces of his influence not

only in the matter of the Commentary, but also in the language, which

is often obscure, rich in imagery and full of feeling, while here and

there we seem to find reminiscences of the “Theologia Deutsch” which

Luther was to publish at the close of his lectures. The latter was, “to

his thinking, the most exact expression of the great thoughts of the

Epistle to the Romans.”[638]

From a learned point of view his exegesis would probably have been

different and far more reliable had he consulted the famous Commentary

of St. Thomas Aquinas on the Epistle to the Romans, not merely for

the division of his subject, but also for the matter. This Commentary

held the first place, as regards clearness and depth of thought, among

previous expositions, yet not once does Luther quote it, and, probably,

he had never opened the work for the purpose of study. “It is most

remarkable,” Wilhelm Braun says, speaking of Luther’s Commentary and

of his whole development, “that Luther never came to understand Thomas

of Aquin. We meet with some disparaging remarks [elsewhere than in

the Commentary on Romans]; he is doubtful as to whether St. Thomas

was really saved, because he wrote some heretical stuff and brought

Aristotle, the corrupter of pious doctrine, into prominence in the

Church; but he never understood him from the theological point of

view.”[639] We might well go further and say, that he did not even do

what must certainly precede any “understanding”—study his writings

with the intention of carefully examining them.[640]

How greatly does Luther in his method, his manner of delivery and his

spirit differ from St. Thomas, from the latter’s quiet precision and

trustworthiness in following the great traditions of learning and

theology. Luther so often speaks without due thought, so often in his

impetuosity sees but one side of things, he contradicts himself without

remarking it, falls into grotesque exaggeration, and, in many passages,

is not merely impulsive in his manner of speech, but even destructive.

The rashness with which he lays hands on the generally accepted

teaching of the best tried minds, his assumption of supremacy in the

intellectual domain, the boundless self-confidence which peeps out of

so many of his assertions, gave cause for fearing the worst from this

professor, to whose words the University was even then attentive.

He knew well how to hold his listeners by the versatility of his spirit

and his ability to handle words. His language comprises, now weighty

sentences, now popular and taking comparisons. He speaks, when he is

so inclined, in the popular and forcible style he employs at a later

date; he borrows from the lips of the populace sayings of unexampled

coarseness with which he spices his harangues, more especially with a

view to emphasising his attitude to his opponents. We may be permitted

to quote one such passage in which he is speaking against those who

hold themselves to be pure: “I look on them as the biggest fools, who

want to forget how deeply they stick in the mire.... Did you never

... in your mother’s lap, and was not the smell evil? Is your perfume

always so sweet? Is there nothing about your whole person which has

an unpleasant odour? If you are so clean, I am surprised that the

apothecaries have not long ago got hold of you to use you in making

their balsams, for surely you must reek of balm. Yet had your mother

left you as you are and were, you would have perished in your own

filth.”[641]

Immediately after this he proceeds with a more pleasing thought: “Truly

to please oneself, one must be utterly displeased with self. No one can

please himself and others at the same time.”

He is fond of startling antitheses and frequently loses himself in

paradoxes. “God has concealed righteousness under sin, goodness

under severity, mercy under anger.”[642] “He who does not think

he is righteous, is for that very reason righteous before God.”

“To be sinners does not harm us, if we only strive earnestly for

justification.”[643]

It may serve to give a better idea of the exegetical value of the whole

work, and thereby increase our knowledge of its author, if we consider

some of the other peculiarities which permeate it.

Luther frequently engages with great zest in philosophical argument

and has skirmishes in dialectics with his adversaries, after the

custom of the school of Occam. In such cases he often becomes scarcely

intelligible owing to his utter neglect of the rules of logic. The

answer he gives to the proofs alleged by “modern philosophers” for

the possibility of a natural love of God is very characteristic. They

had urged: The will is able to grasp all that reason proposes to it

as right and necessary; but reason proposes that we must love God,

the cause of all things, and the Highest Good above all. Against this

Luther philosophises as follows: “That is decidedly a bad conclusion.

The conclusion should be: If the will is able to will everything that

reason prescribes shall be willed and performed, then the will may will

that God is to be loved above all, as reason says. But it does not

follow that the will can love God above all, but merely that it can

feebly will that this be done, i.e. the will has just that tiny little

bit of will (‘_voluntatulam voluntatis habere_’) which reason orders

it to have.” To this Luther adds: “Were that proof correct, then the

common teaching would be erroneous that the law [of God in Revelation]

has been given in order to humble the proud who presumptuously build

on their own powers.” And immediately, with supposedly scriptural

proofs, he proceeds to show that no power for doing what is good can be

ascribed to the will.[644]

In what he says of the position of philosophy to saving grace—a point

we mentioned above—we have another example of his faulty method.

It is well known that the old Scholastics, far from drawing their

profound teaching concerning sanctifying grace from the “mouldy” stores

of Aristotle, advocated, with regard to justification, regeneration and

bestowal of sanctifying grace (“_gratia sanctificans_”) by the infusion

of the Holy Spirit, simply the views contained in Holy Scripture and

in the Fathers; but, in order to make her teaching more comprehensible

and to insure it against aberrations, the Church clothed it as far as

necessary in the language of the generally accepted philosophy. The

element which Scholasticism therewith borrowed from Aristotle—or to

be accurate not from him only, but, through the Fathers, from ancient

philosophy generally—was of service for the comprehension of revealed

truth. Luther, however, was opposed to anything which tended to greater

definition because he was more successful in expressing his diverging

opinions in vague and misapprehended biblical language than in the

stricter and more exact language of the philosophical schools.

The Church, on the other hand, has given Scholasticism its due. In the

definitions of the Council of Trent on the points of faith which had

been called into question, the Church to a certain degree made her

own the old traditional expressions of the schools on the doctrine

of grace, teaching, for instance, that the “only formal cause of our

righteousness lies in the righteousness of God, not in that by which

He Himself is just, but that by which He makes us just.” She declared

that, with justifying grace, the “love of God becomes inherent in

us,” and that with this grace man “receives the infusion (‘_infusa

accipit_’) of faith, hope and charity”; she also speaks of the various

causes of justification, of the final, efficient, meritorious,

instrumental and formal cause.[645] All these learned terms were

admirably fitted to express the ancient views vouched for by the Bible

or tradition, and the same may be said, for instance, of the formula

sanctioned by the Council of Trent, that “by the sacraments grace is

bestowed ‘_ex opere operato_,’” and that the sacraments of Baptism,

Confirmation and Order impart “a ‘character,’ i.e. a spiritual and

ineradicable mark on account of which they cannot be repeated.”[646]

When the Church expresses herself in such terms with regard to

sanctifying grace, she implies thereby no more than what is stated in

the various biblical excerpts quoted in detail by the Council of Trent

to which Luther had paid too little heed. Her teaching is that man is

signed and anointed with the spirit of promise which is the pledge of

our inheritance; that he is renewed through the Spirit, and that by the

Spirit the love of God is poured forth in his heart; that he becomes a

living member of Christ; that because he is made the heir and child of

God he has a right to heaven; that he is born again by the Holy Ghost

to a new life, and thus is translated into the Kingdom of the Love of

His Son where he has redemption and forgiveness of sins; as such he is

a friend and companion of God; yet he must go on from virtue to virtue

and, as the Apostle says, be renewed from day to day by constantly

mortifying the members of his flesh and offering them as the weapons of

righteousness for sanctification.

In his Commentary on Romans Luther already breaks away from tradition,

i.e. from the whole growth of the past, even on matters of the utmost

moment, and this not at all to the advantage of theology; not merely

the method and mode of expression does he oppose, but even the very

substance of doctrine.

Protestant theology, following in his footsteps, went further. Many

of its representatives, as we shall see, honestly expressed their

serious doubts as to whether the Bible teaching of sanctification by

grace—that process which, according to the scriptural descriptions

just quoted, takes place in the very innermost being of man—is really

expressed correctly by the Lutheran doctrine of the imputation of a

purely extraneous righteousness. But even to-day there are others who

still support Luther’s views in a slightly modified form, and who

will have it that the scholastic and later teaching of the Church

is a doctrine of mere “magic,” as though she made of saving grace a

magical power, of which the agency is baptism or absolution. It is

true that the process of sanctification as apprehended by faith is to

a large extent involved in impenetrable mystery, but in Christianity

there is much else which is mysterious. It is perhaps this mysterious

element which gives offence and accounts for Catholic doctrine being

described by so opprobrious a word as “magic.” Some Protestants of

the same school are also given to praising Luther—in terms which are

also, though in another sense, mysterious and obscure—for having

from the very outset arrived at the great idea of grace peculiar to

the Reformed theology, viz. at the “exaltation of religion above

morality.” He was the first to ask: “How do I stand with regard to my

God?” and who made the discovery, of which his Commentary on Romans

is a forcible proof, that it is “man’s relation to God through faith

which creates the purer atmosphere in which alone it is possible for

morality to thrive.” He arrived, so we are told, at an apprehension of

grace as “a merciful consideration of the abiding sinner,” and a true

“consolation of conscience”; he at the same time recognised grace as

an “educative and moulding energy,” which, as such, imparts “strength

for sanctification.”[647]

* * * * *

To return to the exegetical side of the Commentary on Romans, the

confusion in which the ideas are presented lends to much of it a stamp

of great imperfection. There is a general lack of cautious, intelligent

comprehension of the material, which sometimes is concerned with the

tenderest questions of faith, sometimes with vital points of morals.

The impartial observer sees so many traces of passion, irritation,

storm and stress that he begins to ask himself whether the work has any

real theological value.

The passage, Romans vii. 17, regarding the indwelling of sin in man

(“_habitat in me peccatum_”) Luther, in the interests of his system,

makes use of for an attack upon the Scholastics (“_nostri theologi_”).

He attributes to them an interpretation of the passage which was

certainly not theirs, and, from his own interpretation, draws strange

and quite unfounded inferences. According to the interpretation

commonly admitted by almost all exegetists, whether Catholic or

Protestant, St. Paul is here speaking of the unregenerate man in

whom sin dwells, preventing him from fulfilling the law. Luther, on

the contrary, asserts that the Apostle is alluding to himself and

to the regenerate generally, and he quotes from the context no less

than twelve proofs that this is the correct interpretation.[648]

Scholastics either referred the passage, like St. Augustine, to the

righteous—in whom on account of the survival of the “_fomes peccati_”

sin in some sense dwells, even the righteous being easily led away by

the same to sin—or they left the question open and allowed the verse

to refer to those who are not justified.

Luther, delighted by his discovery of the survival of original sin

in man after baptism, could not allow the opportunity to slip of

dealing a blow at the older theologians: “Is it not a fact that the

fallacious metaphysics of Aristotle—the philosophy which is built up

on human tradition—has blinded our theologians? They fancy that sin

is destroyed in Baptism and in the sacrament of Penance, and they

declare it absurd that the Apostle should speak of sin dwelling within

him [as a matter of fact the Schoolmen did nothing of the sort]. The

words ‘_habitat in me peccatum_’ were a fearful scandal to them. They

fled to the false and pernicious assertion that Paul is speaking

merely in the person of the carnal man [unregenerate], whereas he is,

in truth, speaking of his own person [and of the righteous]. They

say foolishly that in the righteous there is no sin, and yet the

Apostle obviously teaches the contrary in the plainest and most open

fashion.”[649]

Of this passionate reversal of the old exegesis, Denifle, after

having pointed out the real state of the question by quoting the

commentators, says: “Luther merely exhibits his ignorance, prejudice

and prepossession ... he was not acting in the interests of learning

at all.”[650] Of Luther’s twelve arguments in favour of his

interpretation he remarks: “in order to convince oneself that the

[opposite] view, now almost universally held, is the correct one,

it is only necessary to glance at Luther’s twelve proofs. They are

utterly fallacious, beg the question and take for granted what is not

conceded.”[651] This judgment is amply justified. Yet Luther, at the

end of his long demonstration, exclaims: “It is really surprising

that anyone could have imagined that the Apostle was speaking in the

person of the old and carnal man.” “No, the Apostle teaches regarding

the justified that they are at the same time righteous and sinners,

righteous because Christ’s righteousness covers them and is imputed

to them, sinners because they do not fulfil the law and are not

without concupiscence.”[652] We can only say of Luther’s remarks on

the Scholastics that, without really being acquainted with them, he

here again blindly abuses them because they were opposed to his new

theological views.

It was merely his prejudice against the Scholastics which led him to

continue: “Their stupid doctrine has deceived the world and caused

untold mischief, for the consequence was, that whoever was baptised

and absolved at once looked upon himself as free from sin, became sure

of his righteousness, folded his arms, and, because he was unconscious

of any sin, considered it superfluous to trouble to struggle or to

purify himself by sighs and tears, by sorrow for sin and efforts

to conquer it. No, sin remains even in the spiritual man,” etc. He

appeals to St. Augustine, indeed to the very passage to which the

Scholastics were indebted for their interpretation of St. Paul’s words

concerning the righteous. As remarked before (p. 98), Augustine is,

however, very far from teaching that there is in the righteous real

guilt and sin, when, following St. Paul, he speaks of the sinful

concupiscence which dwells in the regenerate.

Luther would have avoided a great number of mistakes in his

interpretation of the Epistle to the Romans had he conscientiously

studied the older expositors instead of blindly opposing them.

The passage in Hebrews xi. 1, which was of the greatest importance

for his views (“_Est fides sperandarum substantia rerum, argumentum

non apparentium_”), he interprets in a false sense, whereas St.

Thomas takes it correctly. He takes “_substantia_,” etc. (ἑλπιζομένων

ὑπόστασις πραγμάτων) as “_possessio et facultas futurarum rerum_,”

and the word “_argumentum_” (ἔλεγχος) as “_signum_.”[653] It was only

in 1519 that he learnt from Melanchthon that this interpretation

could not be made to agree with the Greek text. Even when making

known his mistake he gives a side hit at the _Sententiarii_, i.e. the

Scholastics. And yet he would have found the correct interpretation

in St. Thomas’s “_Summa Theologica_,” and also in his Commentary on

Romans, viz. that “_substantia_” here means foundation, or first

beginning (“_fides est prima pars iustitiæ_”), while “_argumentum_”

has the sense of firm assent, i.e. to the truth that “is not

seen.”[654]

To sum up briefly here some of the fundamental theological confusions

of which the author of the Commentary on Romans is guilty, either

from carelessness or in the excitement of controversy, we may mention

that he confuses freedom with willingness or joyousness, the works

of the Mosaic law with the works of natural or Christian morality,

true humility with self-annihilation and despair, confidence with

presumption; to him true contrition is grief sensibly manifested, all

charity other than perfect is mere perverse self-seeking, and holy fear

of the Divine judgment and penalties is a slavish, selfish service.

The freedom of the Christian spirit, bestowed by the gospel

in contradistinction to Judaism, Luther, owing to persistent

misapprehension, makes out to be freedom regarding outward things of

the law. Appealing to St. Paul’s teaching concerning the liberty of the

gospel, he says: “we must not be subject to the burden of any law to

such an extent as to consider the outward works of the law necessary

for salvation.”[655] Those who do so are, according to him, attached

to “a spiritual, but exceedingly reprehensible” view, which we must

oppose with all our might. Away with those whose aim it is to “fulfil

the law by means of many observances.” “The law is to be observed not

because we must keep it, but because we choose to do so, not because

it is necessary, but because it is permitted.” Instead of this, he

continues, we bow to-day under the yoke of servitude, fancy it is

necessary and yet wish secretly that it did not exist (“_Hæc servitus

hodie late grassatur_,” etc.). The effect of such distorted principles

on his views regarding the commandments of the Church is very obvious.

“Concerning the outward service of God,” as Denifle has already pointed

out, “Luther went to great lengths in his defence of ‘_libertas_....’

The believer is free as regards all things; ‘_sufficit charitas de

corde puro_’ he frequently repeated at the very time when he was

vindicating himself against the errors of the Picards.”[656] Though as

yet still far from the revulsion which was to come later he was already

cherishing the principles which were to lead up to it.

What he says on obedience and personality in dealing with Romans x. and

the word of faith which calls for submission, exhibits a strange medley

of excessive mystical severity combined with a free handling of his

own views, and also some good examples of his stormy dialectics. It is

worth our while to dwell a little on these passages because the train

of thought furnishes a curious picture of the direction of the young

Monk’s mind.

“The faith [which justifies] allows itself to be led in any

direction,”[657] he says, “and is ready to hear and to yield; for God

does not require great works, but the putting to death of the old man,

but to this we cannot attain without submitting our own ideas and

judgment to the authority of another....” He then continues, vaguely

confusing faith and humility: “The old man is to be put to death by

faith in the Word of God. But God’s Word is not only that which sounds

from heaven, but everything that comes from the mouth of a good man,

more particularly from our ecclesiastical superiors. That is why the

quarrelsome will hear nothing of this faith and take offence at the

word of faith. Instead of believing they demand proofs and always

think their own ideas right, and those of others false. But whoever

does not know how to submit himself and always fancies he is not in

the wrong, exhibits the plainest signs that the old Adam still lives

in him and that Christ has not yet risen in him.”[658] Then follows a

long and tedious description of how “man must surrender his mind to

the bondage of the word of the Cross and renounce himself and all that

is his until he dies to self.”[659]

It is surprising to find in the mouth of Luther such an utterance

as that we must receive with submission every word of a godly man in

order to possess “faith” in its true meaning, but it reappears on

another occasion in the Commentary under quite peculiar circumstances.

The passage is a still more glaring instance of confusion and is worth

quoting in its entirety on account of its mistaken train of thought

and of its self-contradiction and jumping from one point to another,

so characteristic of Luther.

The explanation of Romans iii.[660] begins with a general assault

on the “proud ‘spirituals’ in the Church, with their great and many

works,” the heading chosen being that “Justification does not require

works of the law, but true faith which performs works of faith.” The

works of these “spirituals” are not works of faith, but works of the

law, for as they are proud and stiff-necked they “do not believe in

the precepts and counsels of those who speak to them of salvation.”

Christ Himself speaks in the latter, and to refuse to believe them

in any one particular is to deny faith in Him altogether (“_fides

consistit in indivisibili_”); for the same reason the heretics, if

they deny only one article of the faith, really deny the faith as

a whole. In a word, these proud folk “lose the whole faith, thanks

merely to their stiffness” (“_periit tota fides propter unius sensus

pertinaciam_”); so important is it to give way to truth whenever it

approaches us in humility! Justification must therefore necessarily

take place without the works which those people have in their mind. If

a man cannot readily bear contradiction “he certainly cannot be saved;

for there is no surer sign that our ideas, words and works are of God

than contradiction [!]; everything that is of God must be rejected by

man, as we see from the example of our Saviour, and, even if it be not

of God, contradiction brings us still greater profit and preserves us

from shipwreck.”

In support of this perplexing doctrine there follow examples and

quotations from the Bible, and finally this conclusion: “it is a safe

path when we are reproved, cursed and blamed.” He does not seem to

notice that this assertion provides a ground of excuse and defence for

the so-called “proud ‘spirituals,’” for they, too, might argue that

his contradiction gave a sanction to their conduct.

Luther seems to have had only himself and his own interests in view

when he brought forward these ideas, beginning with the extreme

assertion that we must believe every word that a good man speaks;

he apparently wished to insist on himself and his followers being

given credence, and on their views—which were the views of faithful

counsellors—being approved by the defenders of works, whether in

his Order or outside of it. As he encountered contradiction, he

immediately applied to his own case the very elastic principle, that

opposition in religious matters is a guarantee of truth. This was a

principle, we may mention, which he had made his own ever since his

mystical days, and which at a later date and indeed till the end of

his life, he repeatedly employed in the service of his cause during

his struggle with the Church.

Continuing his harangue against the “spirituals” and the heretics with

whom he classes them he goes on to say: “they buoy themselves up in

their idle self-complacency on account of their faith in Christ, but

in vain, as they will not believe in that which is Christ’s. The faith

of Christ by which we are justified is not merely faith in Christ,

or in the person of Christ, but in all that is Christ’s.” “Christ is

not divided” (1 Cor. i. 13). Faith is something indivisible, Christ

and whatever is Christ’s is one and the same.[661] Therefore we must

believe both in Christ and in the Church, and in “every word that

comes from the mouth of an ecclesiastical superior, or of a good,

pious man.” “But those who withdraw themselves from their superiors

will not listen to their words, but follow their own ideas,” he again

repeats: “how do these, I ask, believe in Christ? They believe in His

birth and His sufferings, but not in His whole word, consequently

they deny Him altogether. See how necessary is the very greatest

humility, as we who believe in Christ can never be sure whether we

believe in all that is His, and therefore must remain uncertain as

to whether we believe in Him Himself! Justification can only proceed

from such a fear and humility. But the proud “do not understand the

exalted subtilties of this faith; they think they are in possession

of the whole of faith, yet cannot hear the Lord’s voice, but rather

resist it as though it were false; why? because it is opposed to

their own ideas.”[662] After a dialectical digression of doubtful

character the hot-blooded exegetist continues: All the Prophets rise

up against such men, for they always commence their holy message with

the words: “Thus saith the Lord” and, “whosoever it be whom the Lord

chooses as His mouthpiece, the demand is for faith, resignation,

humble subjection of our own ideas; for it is only thus that we

are justified, and not otherwise.” With incredible tenacity he is

ever harping on the assertion that the “self-righteous” only deck

themselves out with works of the law, but find no grace with God. And

finally, as though he had not yet said a word against those rebels

against faith and the Word of God, he cries: “Let those open their

ears who believe indeed in Christ, but not in the word of Christ, who

do not listen to their superiors and who wish to be justified without

this obedience, i.e. without this faith in God and merely by their

works.” In another outburst he shows them—this time adopting a more

mystical tone—that Christ speaks “almost always when, where and as we

do not expect.”[663] “Who can discover all the wily attacks of Satan

by which he deceives us?” Some wish to be justified by a “slavish

fear,” in spite of their disinclination and “by their own strength

alone”;[664] those whom he deceives more artfully feel a desire for

what is good, “but in their self-complacency they affect superstitious

singularity (‘_singularitatis et superstitionis affectatores_’),

they become rebels [like the Observantines, see p. 69], and under a

show of obedience and love of God they throw off their submission to

the men of God, i.e. to the Vicars and messengers of Christ.”[665]

“It is presumption and pride which changes works of grace into works

of the law, and the righteousness of God into human righteousness;

for,” etc.[666] “How then can you be proud as though you were more

righteous than another, how can you despise him who sins, when you

yourself [at least, by your evil inclinations] are sunk in the same

mire?”[667] etc. “But they receive honour of men on account of their

righteousness,”[668] a subject on which Luther proceeds to enlarge.

We have said enough. The torrent of words flows on aimlessly in this

way, ever labouring the same subject; all this is given us in lieu

of real exegesis as corollaries to two verses of the Epistle to the

Romans.

In order to gauge the real value of the Commentary on Romans we must

now consider the treatment, abounding in inconsistencies, accorded by

Luther to man’s efforts for obtaining salvation.

In Luther’s mind the idea of that God does all, stands side by side

with the traditional view of the Church, that man must prepare

himself; he has, indeed, a curious knack of remaining quite

unconscious of his inconsistencies. On the one hand, according to what

he says, we must seek for justification by the exertion of the fullest

human effort, and this labour must be so strenuous as to render God

propitious to us (“_Deum sibi propitium faciunt_”).[669] That is,

at least, what we are told at the end of the Commentary, but at the

beginning we read: “The faith which is to justify must manifest its

works, works of the law are not sufficient, it must be ‘a living faith

which performs its own works.’”[670] “When James and Paul say that man

is justified by works, they are opposing the false opinion that faith

without its works is sufficient, whereas such a faith is not faith at

all.”[671] According to this, it is plain, that, at that time, the

idea of man’s co-operation in the work of salvation by the use of his

liberty still hovered in Luther’s mind. But any idea of this kind is

elsewhere confronted and peremptorily dismissed by another chain of

ideas. How are we to make efforts by our own free will when we do not

possess free will for doing what is good? “As though,” he says, “we

had free will at our disposal whenever we want! Such an idea of free

will can only serve to lull us into a false security.” (“_Securi

stertimus, freti libero arbitrio quod ad manum habentes, quando

volumus, possumus pie intendere._”)[672]

Here he will only admit that man has freedom to pray for the right

use of his freedom. But, as a matter of fact, even this liberty

which might incite us to prayer, is non-existent. For in respect of

anything that is good [whether natural or supernatural, he makes no

distinction] we are only like raw metal or a wooden stick. Because

God’s grace is the hand which works in us for good and which performs

our vital acts within us, while we ourselves are quiescent and

absolutely powerless, Luther says in Romans iii.: “I have frequently

insisted before upon the fact, that it is impossible for us to have

of ourselves the will or the heart to fulfil the law.” Why? “Because

the law is spiritual.” Meditation on man’s enslaved condition as the

result of concupiscence, he declares in another passage, proves my

contention, no less than the terrible truth of predestination.

“Luther felt in himself that belief in the eternal predestination by

God [absolute election to grace] was the most powerful support of his

experience of the complete inadequacy of human works and the efficacy

of grace alone.” The Protestant theologian[673] who says this, to

instance Luther’s faith in the action of grace, here quotes from the

passages from the Commentary on Romans, according to which God on the

one hand bestows His grace only on those He chooses, but on the other

hand infallibly saves those He elects to save. “The Spirit,” Luther

has it, “supports the latter by His presence in all their weaknesses,

so that they prevail in circumstances where they would otherwise

despair a thousand times.”[674] It is, however, remarkable that just

after this explanation the cry bursts from Luther’s lips: “Where

are now the good works, where the freedom of the will?” Here the

irresistible “action of grace alone” appears as a direct consequence

of Luther’s then views, though he refrains from expressing himself

more clearly as to the nature of actual grace.

Thus in his mind are combined two widely divergent ideas, viz. that God

does everything in man who is devoid of freedom—and that man must draw

nigh to God by prayer and works of faith. It is a strange psychological

phenomenon to see how, instead of endeavouring to solve the

contradiction and examine the question in the light of calm reason, he

gives free play to feeling and imagination, now passionately proving to

the infamous Observants that man is absolutely unable to do anything,

now insisting on the need of preparation for grace, i.e. unconsciously

becoming the defender of the Church’s doctrine of free will and human

co-operation. The fact is, he still, to some extent, thinks with the

Church. It was no easy task for him to break away from a view, which is

so natural to man and so much in accordance with faith, viz. that there

must be some preparation on man’s part for justification, in which

however, actual grace, which comes to the assistance of his will and

becomes part of it, also has its share.

Luther’s peculiar mysticism with its preponderance of feeling was, in

part, the cause of his overlooking his task, which was to propound

from his professorial chair the teaching of the Church in definite and

exact terms—so far as this was possible to him with his insufficient

theological training. To this may be added the fact that the wealth of

biblical quotations, whether to the point or not, which he is wont to

adduce, tends to distract and confuse him as soon as he attempts to

draw any clear inferences.

* * * * *

According to Denifle a certain progress is apparent in the Commentary

on Romans inasmuch as the first three chapters show Luther’s new

doctrines still in an inchoate form. Luther, there, is seeking for

something he has not yet fully grasped, and the confusion of his

language is a proof that he has not as yet made up his mind. There

is, however, one point, according to Denifle, on which he is quite

definite, viz. concupiscence, though he does not yet know how to

combine it with his other ideas; but, by the end of chapter iii.,

this doubt has been set aside, he has identified concupiscence with

original sin and reached other conclusions besides. Still he avoids the

principal question as to how far human co-operation is necessary in the

act of justification.[675]

It is difficult to determine exactly this progress owing to Luther’s

want of clearness and precision of expression, and to his contradictory

treatment of certain capital points. The Commentary on Romans as

it proceeds hardly shows any improvement in this respect. With

extraordinary elasticity of mind, if we may so speak, the author

without the slightest compunction advocates concerning the most

profound theological questions, especially grace, ideas which differ

from and contradict each other. As at the very commencement we meet

some of the most incisive new theses of Lutheranism—the imputation of

the righteousness of Christ, the sinfulness of the natural man and

his inability to do what is good, and likewise predestination to hell

in its most outrageous form—it is natural to infer that Luther had

already forsaken the Catholic doctrine on these points at the time he

was preparing his lectures on the Epistle to the Romans, i.e. about the

summer of 1515. His misapprehension of this Epistle must have had its

influence on his whole trend, and the elements already at work in his

mind helped to decide him to commit to writing in his Commentary his

supposed new and important doctrinal discoveries.

We might expect to find in the Commentary the most noticeable progress

where he deals with preparation for grace, for this was surely the

point on which he was bound to come into conflict with other doctrines.

It is, however, hard to tell whether he realised the difficulty. It is

true that much less stress is laid upon preparation for justification

as the work proceeds, whereas at the commencement the author speaks

unhesitatingly of the cultivation of the will which must be undertaken

in order to bring down grace. (See above, p. 214.) This, however, might

merely be accidental and due to the fact that, in the last chapters,

St. Paul is dealing mainly with the virtues of the justified. Towards

the end of the Epistle, in connection with what the Apostle says on

charity and faith in the righteous, the nature of that “_humilitas_”

which Luther so eulogises as a preliminary and accompaniment of the

appropriation of the righteousness of Christ undergoes a change and

appears more as faith with charity, or charity with faith. Luther’s

manner of speaking thus varies according to the subject with which Paul

is dealing.

If we take the middle of the year 1515 as the starting-point of

Luther’s new theology, then many of the statements in his Commentary on

the Psalms, especially in its latter part, become more significant as

precursors of Luther’s errors. The favourable view we expressed above

of his work on the Psalms, as regards its agreement with the theology

of the Church, was only meant to convey that a Catholic interpretation

of the questionable passages was possible; this, however, cannot be

said of the theses in the Commentary on Romans which we have just

been considering. We now understand why unwillingness to allow any

ability in man to do what is good is the point in which Luther’s work

on the Psalms goes furthest. There the doctrine of his “_profundior

theologia_” is: “We must account ourselves as nothing, as sinful,

liars, as dead in God’s sight; we must not trust in any merits of our

own.” There, too, we find paradoxes such as the following: “God is

wonderful in His saints, the most beautiful is to Him the most hideous,

the most infamous the most excellent; whoever thinks himself upright,

with him God is not pleased.... In the recognition of this lie the

pith of the Scripture and the kernel of the heavenly grain.”[676] Such

expressions are, it is true, not unlike what we sometimes hear from the

Church’s theologians and saints, but in the light of the Commentary on

Romans they become more important as signs of transition.

* * * * *

We must not forget, in view of the numerous enigmas which the

boldness of the Commentary on Romans presents, that it bears merely

a semi-public character and was not intended for publication. In

this work, destined only for the lecture-room, Luther did not stop

to weigh or fine down his words, but gave the reins to his impulse,

thus offering us a so much the more interesting picture of his inmost

thoughts.

Some important particulars, in which this work differs from other

public utterances made by Luther about the same time, are to be

explained by the familiarity with which he is speaking to his pupils.

In the sermons on the Ten Commandments, published in 1518 but

preached in the two preceding years and consequently intended for

general consumption, he speaks differently of concupiscence than in

the Commentary. In the sermons he declares that desires so long as

they are involuntary are certainly not sinful. He even says to a man

who is troubled on account of his involuntary temptations against

purity: “No, no, you have not lost your chastity by such thoughts; on

the contrary, you have never been more chaste if you are only sure

they came to you against your will.... It is a true sign of a lively

sense of chastity when a man feels displeasure, and it need not even

be absolute displeasure, otherwise there would be no attraction; he

is in an uncertain state, now willing, now unwilling.... In the

struggle for chastity the little bark is tossed hither and thither on

the waters, while [according to the gospel] Christ is asleep within.

Rouse Christ so that He may command the sea, i.e. the flesh, and the

wind, i.e. the devil.”[677] In the public Indulgence theses of 1517,

he is also careful not to express his erroneous views on grace and

the nature of man. It is characteristic of him how he changes even

the form of expression when repeating an assertion which is also made

in the Commentary on Romans. In the Commentary he had written, that

too great esteem of outward works led to a too frequent granting of

Indulgences, and that the Pope and the Bishops were more cruel than

cruelty itself if they did not freely grant the same, or even greater

Indulgences, for God’s sake and the good of souls, seeing that they

themselves had received all they had for nothing.[678] This violent

utterance here appears as the expression of his own opinion. In the

theses, however, he presents the same view to the public with much

greater caution; he says, these and similar objections brought forward

by scrupulous laymen, were caused, contrary to the wishes of the

Pope, by dissolute Indulgence preachers; one might hear “such-like

calumnious charges and subtle questions from seculars,” and they must

“be taken into account and answered.”[679]

The ideas contained in the Commentary on Romans are also to be met

with in the other lectures which followed. Of this the present

writer convinced himself by glancing through the Vatican copies. The

approaching publication of the copies in the “Anfänge reformatorischer

Bibelauslegung,” of Johann Ficker, a work which commenced with the

Commentary on Romans, will supply further details. The character of

the Wittenberg Professor is, however, such that we may expect some

surprising revelations. Generally speaking, a movement in the direction

of the doctrine of “faith alone” is noticeable throughout his work.

In view of Ficker’s forthcoming edition it will suffice to quote a few

excerpts from the Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews of 1517,

according to the Vatican MS. (Pal. lat. 1825).[680] They show that

the author in his exegesis of this Epistle is imbued with the same

idea as in the Commentary on Romans, namely, that Paul exalts (in

Luther’s sense) the redemption in Christ, and Grace, in opposition

to righteousness by works. They also betray how he becomes gradually

familiar with the doctrine that faith alone justifies, without any

longer placing humility in the foreground as the intermediary of

justification as he once had done.

On folio 46 of the MS. he says: “We should notice how Paul in this

Epistle extols grace as against the pride of the law and of human

righteousness (‘_extollit adversus superbiam_’ etc.). He proves that

without Christ neither the law, nor the priesthood, nor prophecy, nor

the service of angels sufficed, but that all these were established

with a view to the coming Christ. It is therefore his intention to

teach Christ only.”

On folio 117 Luther sets forth the difference between “purity in the

New and in the Old Testament.” In the New Law the Blood of Christ

brings inward purification. “As conscience cannot alter sin that has

been committed and is utterly unable to escape the future wrath, it

is necessarily terrified and oppressed wherever it turns. From this

state of distress it can be released only by the Blood of Christ. If

it looks in faith upon this Blood, it believes and knows that by the

same its sins are washed away and removed. Thus it is purified by

faith and at the same time quieted, so that, in joy over the remission

of its sins, it no longer fears punishment. No law can assist in this

purification, no works, in fact nothing but the Blood of Christ alone

(‘_ad hanc munditiam ... nihil nisi unicus hic sanguis Christi facere

potest_’), and even this cannot accomplish it unless man believes in

his heart that it has been shed for the remission of sin. For it is

necessary to believe the testator when He says: ‘This Blood which

shall be shed for you and for many unto the remission of sins.’”

From Paul’s words he goes on to infer that “good works done outside

of grace are sins, in the sense that they may be called dead works.

For if, without the Blood of Christ, conscience is morally impure, it

can only perform what corresponds with its nature, namely, what is

impure....” Folio 117´: “It follows that a good, pure, quiet, happy

conscience can only be the result of faith in the forgiveness of sins.

But this is founded only on the Word of God, which assures us that

Christ’s Blood was shed unto the remission of sins.”

Folio 118: “It follows that those who contemplate the sufferings

of Christ only from compassion, or from some other reason than in

order to attain to faith, contemplate them to little purpose, and in

a heathenish manner.... The more frequently we look upon the Blood

of Christ the more firmly must we believe that it was shed for our

own sins; for this is ‘to drink and eat spiritually,’ to grow strong

through this faith in Christ and to become incorporated in Him.”