LUTHER AT AUGSBURG BEFORE CAIETAN. APPEAL TO A COUNCIL.
The task that Luther had now undertaken lay heavy upon his soul. He
was sincerely anxious, whilst fighting for the truth, to remain at
peace with his Church, and to serve her by the struggle. Pope Leo,
on the contrary, as was consistent with his whole character, treated
the matter at first very lightly, and when it threatened to become
dangerous, thought only how, by means of his Papal power, to make
the restless German monk harmless.
Two expressions of his in these early days of the contest are
recorded. 'Brother Martin,' he said, 'is a man of a very fine
genius, and this outbreak the mere squabble of envious monks;' and
again, 'It is a drunken German who has written the theses; he will
think differently about them when sober.' Three months after the
theses had appeared, he ordered the Vicar-General of the
Augustinians to 'quiet down the man,' hoping still to extinguish
easily the flame. The next step was to institute a tribunal for
heretics at Rome, for Luther's trial: what its judgment would be was
patent from the fact that the single theologian of learning among
the judges was Sylvester Prierias. Before this tribunal Luther was
cited on August 7; within sixty days he was to appear there at Rome.
Friend and foe could well feel certain that they would look in vain
for his return.
Papal influence, meanwhile, had been brought to bear on the Elector
Frederick, to induce him not to take the part of Luther, and the
chief agent chosen for working on the Elector and the Emperor
Maximilian was the Papal legate, Cardinal Thomas Vio of Gäeta,
called Caietan, who had made his appearance in Germany. The
University of Wittenberg, on the other hand, interposed on behalf of
their member, whose theology was popular there, and whose biblical
lectures attracted crowds of enthusiastic hearers. He had just been
joined at Wittenberg by his fellow-professor Philip Melancthon, then
only twenty-one years old, but already in the first rank of Greek
scholars, and the bond of friendship was now formed which lasted
through their lives. The university claimed that Luther should at
least be tried in Germany.
Luther expressed the same wish through Spalatin to his sovereign. He
now also answered publicly the attack of Prierias upon his theses,
and declared not only that a Council alone could represent the
Church, but that even a decree of Council might err, and that an Act
of the Church was no final evidence of the truth of a doctrine.
Being threatened with excommunication, he preached a sermon on the
subject, and showed how a Christian, even if under the ban of the
Church, or excluded from _outward_ communion with her, could
still remain in true _inward_ communion with Christ and His
believers, and might then see in his excommunication the noblest
merit of his own.
The Pope, meanwhile, had passed from his previous state of haughty
complacency to one of violent haste. Already, on August 23, thus
long before the sixty days had expired, he demanded the Elector to
deliver up this 'child of the devil,' who boasted of his protection,
to the legate, to bring away with him. This is clearly shown by two
private briefs from the Pope, of August 23 and 25, the one addressed
to the legate, the other to the head of all the Augustinian convents
in Saxony, as distinguished from the Vicar of those congregations,
Staupitz, who already was looked on with suspicion at Borne. These
briefs instructed both men to hasten the arrest of the heretic; his
adherents were to be secured with him, and every place where he was
tolerated laid under the interdict. So unheard of seemed this
conduct of the Pope, that Protestant historians would not believe in
the genuineness of the briefs; but we shall soon see how Caietan
himself refers to the one in his possession.
Other and general relations, interests, and movements of the
ecclesiastical and political life of the German nation now began to
exercise an influence, direct or indirect, upon the history of
Luther and the development of the struggles of the Reformation, and
even caused the Pope himself to moderate his conduct.
Whilst questions of the deepest kind about the means of salvation,
and the grounds and rules of Christian truth, had been opened up for
the first time by Luther during the contest about indulgences, the
abuses, encroachments, and acts of tyranny committed by the Pope on
the temporal domain of the Church, and closely affecting the
political and social life of the people, had long been the subject
of bitter complaints and vigorous remonstrances throughout Germany.
These complaints and remonstrances had been raised by princes and
states of the Empire, who would not be silenced by any theories or
dogmas about the Divine authority and infallibility of the Pope, nor
crushed by any mere sentence of excommunication. And in raising them
they had made no question of the Divine right of the Papacy. Was it
not natural that, in the indignation excited by their wrongs, they
should turn to the man who had laid the axe to the root of the tree
which bore such fruit, and at least consider the possibility of
profiting by his work? Luther, on his part, showed at first a
singularly small acquaintance with the circumstances of their
complaints, and seemed hardly aware of the loud protests raised so
long on this subject at the Diets. But with the question of
indulgences the field of his experience broadened in this respect.
The care he evinced in this matter for the care of souls and true
Christian morality made him the ally of all those who were alarmed
at the vast export of money to Rome, about which he had already said
in his theses that the Christian sheep were being regularly fleeced.
In another respect, also, the ecclesiastical policy of the Papal see
was closely interwoven with the political condition and history of
Germany. If in theory the Pope claimed to control and confirm the
decrees even of the civil power, in practice he at least attempted
to assert and maintain an omnipresent influence. And with regard to
Germany it was all-important to him that the Empire should not
become so powerful as to endanger his authority in general and his
territorial sovereignty in Italy. However loftily the Popes in their
briefs proclaimed their immutable rights, derived from God, and
their plenary power, and took care to let theologians and jurists
advance such pretensions, they understood clearly enough in their
practical conduct to adjust those relations to the rules of
political or diplomatic necessity.
In the summer of 1518 a Diet was held at Augsburg, at which the
Papal legate attended. The Pope was anxious to obtain its consent to
the imposition of a heavy tax throughout the Empire, to be applied
ostensibly for the war against the Turks, but alleged to be wanted
in reality for entirely other objects. The Emperor Maximilian, now
old and hastening to his end, was endeavouring to secure the
succession of his grandson Charles, and Caietan's chief task was to
exert his influence with Maximilian and the Elector Frederick to
bring Luther into their disfavour. The Archbishop Albert, who had
been hit so hard by Luther's attack on the traffic in indulgences,
was solemnly proclaimed Cardinal by order of the Pope.
Of Maximilian it might fairly have been expected that, after his
many experiences and contests with the Popes, he would at least
protect Luther from the worst, however unlikely it might be that he
should entertain the idea of effecting, by his help, a great reform
in the National Church. He did indeed express his wish to
Pfeffinger, a counsellor of the Elector, that his prince should take
care of the monk, as his services might some day be wanted. But he
supported the Pope in the matter of the tax, and hoped to gain him
for his own political ends. He opposed Luther also in his attack on
indulgences, on the ground that it endangered the Church, and that
he was resolved to uphold the action taken by the Pope.
This demand for a tax, however, was received with the utmost
disfavour both by the Diet and the Empire; and a long-cherished
bitterness of feeling now found expression. An anonymous pamphlet
was circulated, from the pen of one Fischer, a prebendary of
Wiirzburg, which bluntly declared that the avaricious lords of Rome
only wished to cheat the 'drunken Germans,' and that the real Turks
were to be looked for in Italy. This pamphlet reached Wittenberg and
fell into the hands of Luther, whom now for the first time we hear
denouncing 'Roman cunning,' though he only charged the Pope himself
with allowing his grasping Florentine relations to deceive him. The
Diet seized the opportunity offered by this demand for a tax, to
bring up a whole list of old grievances; the large sums drawn from
German benefices by the Pope under the name of annates, or extorted
under other pretexts; the illegal usurpation of ecclesiastical
patronage in Germany, the constant infringement of concordats, and
so on. The demand itself was refused, and in addition to this, an
address was presented to the Diet from the bishop and clergy of
Liege, inveighing against the lying, thieving, avaricious conduct of
the Romish minions, in such sharp and violent tones that Luther, on
reading it afterwards when printed, thought it only a hoax, and not
really an episcopal remonstrance.
This was reason enough why Caietan, to avoid increasing the
excitement, should not attempt to lay hands on the Wittenberg
opponent of indulgences. The Elector Frederick, from whose hands
Caietan would have to demand Luther, was one of the most powerful
and personally respected princes of the Empire, and his influence
was especially important in view of the election of a new Emperor.
This prince went now in person to Caietan on Luther's behalf, and
Caietan promised him, at the very time that the brief was on its way
to him from Rome, that he would hear Luther at Augsburg, treat him
with fatherly kindness, and let him depart in safety.
Luther accordingly was sent to Augsburg. It was an anxious time for
himself and his friends when he had to leave for that distant place,
where the Elector, with all his care, could not employ any physical
means for his protection, and to stand accused as a heretic before
that Papal legate who, from his own theological principles, was
bound to condemn him, Caietan being a zealous Thomist like Prierias,
and already notorious as a champion of indulgences and Papal
absolutism. 'My thoughts on the way,' said Luther afterwards, 'were
now I must die; and I often lamented the disgrace I should be to my
dear parents.'
He went thither in humble garb and manner. He made his way on foot
till within a short distance of Augsburg, when illness and weakness
overcame him, and he was forced to proceed by carriage. Another
younger monk of Wittenberg accompanied him, his pupil Leonard Baier.
At Nüremberg he was joined by his friend Link, who held an
appointment there as preacher. From him he borrowed a monk's frock,
his own being too bad for Augsburg. He arrived here on October 7.
The surroundings he now entered, and the proceedings impending over
him, were wholly novel and unaccustomed. But he met with men who
received him with kindness and consideration; several of them were
gentlemen of Augsburg favourable to him, especially the respected
patrician, Dr. Conrad Peutinger, and two counsellors of the Elector.
They advised him to behave with prudence, and to observe carefully
all the necessary forms, to which as yet he was a stranger.
Luther at once announced his arrival to Caietan, who was anxious to
receive him without delay. His friends, however, kept him back until
they had obtained a written safe-conduct from the Emperor, who was
then hunting in the environs. In the meantime, a distinguished
friend of Caietan, one Urbanus of Serralonga, tried to persuade him,
in a flippant, and, as Luther thought, a downright Italian manner,
to come forward and simply pronounce six letters,--_Revoco_--I
retract. Urbanus asked him with a smile if he thought his sovereign
would risk his country for his sake. 'God forbid!' answered Luther.
'Where then do you mean to take refuge?' he went on to ask him.
'Under Heaven,' was Luther's reply.
To Melancthon Luther wrote as follows: 'There is no news here,
except that the town is full of talk about me, and everybody wants
to see the man who, like a second Herostratus, has kindled such a
flame. Remain a man as you are, and instruct the youth aright. I go
to be sacrificed for them and for you, if God so will. For I will
rather die, and, what is the hardest fate, lose for ever the sweet
intercourse with you, than revoke anything that it was right for me
to say.'
On October 11 Luther received the letter of safe-conduct, and the
next day he appeared before Caietan. Humbly, as he had been advised,
he prostrated himself before the representative of the Pope, who
received him graciously and bade him rise.
The Cardinal addressed him civilly, and with a courtesy Luther was
not accustomed to meet with from his opponents; but he immediately
demanded him, in the name and by command of the Pope, to retract his
errors, and promise in future to abstain from them and from
everything that might disturb the peace of the Church. He pointed
out, in particular, two errors in his theses; namely, that the
Church's treasure of indulgences did not consist of the merits of
Christ, and that faith on the part of the recipient was necessary
for the efficacy of the sacrament. With respect to the second point,
the religious principles upon which Luther based his doctrine were
altogether strange and unintelligible to the Scholastic standpoint
of Caietan; mere tittering and laughter followed Luther's
observations, and he was required to retract this thesis
unconditionally. The first point settled the question of Papal
authority. On this, the Cardinal-legate took his chief stand on the
express declaration of Pope Clement: he could not believe that
Luther would venture to resist a Papal bull, and thought he had
probably not read it. He read him a vigorous lecture of his own on
the paramount authority of the Pope over Council, Church, and
Scripture. As to any argument, however, about the theses to be
retracted, Caietan refused from the first to engage in it, and
undoubtedly he went further in that direction than he originally
desired or intended. His sole wish was, as he said, to give fatherly
correction, and with fatherly friendliness to arrange the matter.
But in reality, says Luther, it was a blunt, naked, unyielding
display of power. Luther could only beg from him further time for
consideration.
Luther's friends at Augsburg, and Staupitz, who had just arrived
there, now attempted to divert the course of these proceedings, to
collect other decisions of importance bearing on the subject, and to
give him the opportunity of a public vindication. Accompanied
therefore by several jurists friendly to his cause, and by a notary
and Staupitz, he laid before the legate next day a short and formal
statement of defence. He could not retract unless convicted of
error, and to all that he had said he must hold as being Catholic
truth. Nevertheless he was only human, and therefore fallible, and
he was willing to submit to a legitimate decision of the Church. He
offered, at the same time, publicly to justify his theses, and he
was ready to hear the judgment of the learned doctors of Basle,
Freiburg, Louvain, and even Paris upon them. Caietan with a smile
dismissed Luther and his proposals, but consented to receive a more
detailed reply in writing to the principal points discussed on the
previous day.
On the morrow, October 14, Luther brought his reply to the legate.
But in this document also he insisted clearly and resolutely from
the commencement on those very principles which his opponents
regarded as destructive of all ecclesiastical authority and of the
foundations of Christian belief. He spoke with crucial emphasis of
the trouble he had taken to interpret the words of Pope Clement in a
Scriptural sense. The Papal decrees might err, and be at variance
with Holy Writ. Even the Apostle Peter himself had once to be
reproved (Galat. ii. 11 sqq.) for 'walking not uprightly according
to the truth of the gospel;' surely then his successor was not
infallible. Every faithful believer in Christ was superior to the
Pope, if he could show better proofs and grounds of his belief.
Still he entreated Caietan to intercede with Leo X., that the latter
might not harshly thrust out into darkness his soul, which was
seeking for the light. But he repeated that he could do nothing
against his conscience: one must obey God rather than man, and he
had the fullest confidence that he had Scripture on his side.
Caietan, to whom he delivered this reply in person, once more tried
to persuade him. They fell into a lively and vehement argument; but
Caietan cut it short with the exclamation 'Revoke.' In the event of
Luther not revoking or submitting to judgment at Rome, he threatened
him and all his friends with excommunication, and whatever place he
might go to with an interdict; he had a mandate from the Pope to
that effect already in his hands. He then dismissed him with the
words, 'Revoke, or do not come again into my presence.'
Nevertheless he spoke in quite a friendly manner after this to
Staupitz, urging him to try his best to convert Luther, whom he
wished well. Luther, however, wrote the same day to his friend
Spalatin, who was with the Elector, and to his friends at
Wittenberg, telling them that he had refused to yield. The legate,
he said, had behaved with all friendliness of manner to Staupitz in
his affair, but neither Staupitz nor himself trusted the Italian
when out of sight. If Caietan should use force against him, he would
publish the written reply he gave him. Caietan might call himself a
Thomist, but he was a muddle-headed, ignorant theologian and
Christian, and as clumsy in giving judgment in the matter as a
donkey with a harp. Luther added further that an appeal would be
drawn up for him in the form best fitted to the occasion. He further
hinted to his Wittenberg friends at the possibility of his having to
go elsewhere in exile; indeed, his friends already thought of taking
him to Paris, where the university still rejected the doctrine of
Papal absolutism. He concluded this letter by saying that he refused
to become a heretic by denying that which had made him a Christian;
sooner than do that, he would be burned, exiled, or cursed.
The appeal of which Luther here spoke, was 'from the Pope ill-informed
to the same when better informed.' On October 16 he submitted it,
formally prepared, to a public notary. While Staupitz and Link, warned
to consult their personal safety, and despairing of any good result,
left Augsburg, Luther still remained there. He even addressed on
October 17 a letter to Caietan, conceding to him the utmost he thought
possible. Moved, as he said, by the persuasions of his dear father
Staupitz and his brother Link, he offered to let the whole question of
indulgences rest, if only that which drove him to this tragedy were
put a stop to; he confessed also to having been too violent and
disrespectful in dispute. In after years he said to his friends, when
referring to this concession, that God had never allowed him to sink
deeper than when he had yielded so much. The next day, however, he
gave notice of his appeal to the legate, and told him he did not wish
longer to waste his time in Augsburg. To this letter he received no
answer.
Luther waited, however, till the 20th. He and his Augsburg patrons
began to suspect whether measures had not already been taken to detain
him. They therefore had a small gate in the city wall opened in the
night, and sent with him an escort well acquainted with the road. Thus
he hastened away, as he himself described it, on a hard-trotting hack,
in a simple monk's frock, with only knee-breeches, without boots or
spurs, and unarmed. On the first day he rode eight miles, as far as
the little town of Monheim. As he entered in the evening an inn and
dismounted in the stable, he was unable to stand from fatigue, and
fell down instantly among the straw. He travelled thus on horseback
to Wittenberg, where he arrived well and joyful, on the anniversary of
his ninety-five theses. He had heard on the way of the Pope's brief to
Caietan, but he refused to think it could be genuine. His appeal,
meanwhile, was delivered to the Cardinal at Augsburg, who had it
posted by his notary on the doors of the cathedral.
From Augsburg Luther was followed by a letter from Caietan to the
Elector, full of bitter complaints against him. He had formed, he
said, the highest hopes of his spiritual recovery, and had been
grievously disappointed in him; the Elector, for his own honour and
conscience' sake, must now either send him to Rome or, at least,
expel him from his territory, since measures of fatherly kindness
had failed to make him acknowledge his error. Frederick, after
waiting four weeks, returned a quiet answer, showing how the conduct
of Luther quite agreed with his own view of the matter. He would
have expected that no recantation would have been required of Luther
till the matter in dispute had been satisfactorily examined and
explained. There were a number of learned men, also, at foreign
universities, from whom he could not yet have learned with certainty
that Luther's doctrine was unchristian; while, to say the least, it
was chiefly those whose personal and financial interests were
affected by it that had become his opponents. He would propose
therefore that the judgment of several universities should be
obtained, and have the matter disputed at a safe place. Luther,
however, to whom the Elector showed this letter, at once declared
himself ready to go into exile, but would not be deterred from
publishing new declarations or taking further steps.
He had a report of his conference with Caietan printed, with a
justification of himself to the readers. And in this he advanced
propositions against the Papacy which entirely shook its whole
foundation. Already, in the solutions to his theses, he had
incidentally, and without attracting further notice by the remark,
spoken of a time when the Papacy had not yet acquired supremacy over
the Universal Church, thereby contradicting what the Romish Church
maintained and had made into a dogma, namely, that the Papal see
possessed this primacy by original institution through Christ, and
by means of immutable Divine right. He now expressed this opinion as
a positive proposition. The Papal monarchy, he declared, was only a
Divine institution in the sense in which every temporal power,
advanced by the progress of historical development, might be called
so also. 'The kingdom of God cometh not with observation.'
Without waiting for an answer direct from Rome, Luther now abandoned
all thoughts of success with Leo X. On November 28 he formally and
solemnly appealed from the Pope to a General Christian Council. By
so doing he anticipated the sentence of excommunication which he was
daily expecting. With Rome he had broken for ever, unless she were
to surrender her claims and acquisitions of more than a thousand
years.
After once the first restraints of awe were removed with which
Luther had regarded the Papacy, behind and beyond the matter of the
indulgences, and he had learned to know the Papal representative at
Augsburg, and made a stand against his demands and menaces, and
escaped from his dangerous clutches, he enjoyed for the first time
the fearless consciousness of freedom. He took a wider survey around
him, and saw plainly the deep corruption and ungodliness of the
powers arrayed against him. His mind was impelled forward with more
energy as his spirit for the fight was stirred within him. Even the
prospect that he might have to fly, and the uncertainty whither his
flight could be, did not daunt or deter him. His thought was how he
could throw himself with more freedom into the struggle, if no
longer hampered by any obligations to his prince and his university.
Writing at that time to his friend Link, to inform him of his new
publications and his appeal, he invited his opinion as to whether he
was not right in saying that the Antichrist of whom St. Paul speaks
(2 Thess. ii.), ruled at the Papal court. 'My pen,' he went on to
say, 'is already giving birth to something much greater. I know not
whence these thoughts come. The work, as far as I can see, has
hardly yet begun, so little reason have the great men at Rome for
hoping it is finished.' Again, while informing Spalatin, through
whom the Elector always urged him to moderation, of new Papal edicts
and regulations aimed against him, he declared, 'The more those
Romish grandees rage and meditate the use of force, the less do I
fear them. All the more free shall I become to fight against the
serpents of Rome. I am prepared for all, and await the judgment of
God.'
He was really prepared for exile or flight at any moment. At
Wittenberg his friends were alarmed by rumours of designs on the
part of the Pope against his life and liberty, and insisted on his
being placed in safety. Flight to France was continually talked of;
had he not followed in his appeal a precedent set by the university
of Paris? We certainly cannot see how he could safely have been
conveyed thither, or where, indeed, any other and safer place could
have been found for him. Some urged that the Elector himself should
take him into custody and keep him in a place of safety, and then
write to the legate that he held him securely in confinement and was
in future responsible for him. Luther proposed this to Spalatin, and
added, 'I leave the decision of this matter to your discretion; I am
in the hands of God and of my friends.' The Elector himself, anxious
also in this respect, arranged early in December a confidential
interview between Luther and Spalatin at the Castle of Lichtenberg.
He also, as Luther reported to Staupitz, wished that Luther had some
other place to be in, but he advised him against going away so
hastily to France. His own wish and counsel, however, he refrained
as yet from making known. Luther declared that at all events, if a
ban of excommunication were to come from Rome, he would not remain
longer at Wittenberg. On this point also the prince kept secret his
resolve.