THE DIVINE MISSION AND ITS MANIFESTATIONS
1. Growth of Luther’s Idea of his Divine Mission
WHEREAS the most zealous of Luther’s earliest pupils and followers
outvied one another in depicting their master as the messenger of God,
who had come before the world equipped with revelations from on high,
the tendency of later Protestantism has been, more and more, to reduce
Luther, so to speak, to a merely natural level, and to represent him as
a hero indeed, but as one inspired by merely human motives. An earlier
generation exalted him to mystical regions, and, being nearer him in
point of time and therefore knowing him better, grasped the fact that
he was dominated by a certain supernaturalism. Many later and more
recent writers, on the other hand, have preferred to square their
conception of his personality with their own liberal views on religion.
They hail Luther as the champion of free thought and therefore as
the founder of modern intellectual life. What he discovered in his
struggles with himself by reflection and pious meditation, that, they
say, he bequeathed to posterity without insisting upon the immutability
of his ideas or claiming for them any infallibility. His only permanent
work, his real legacy to posterity, was a negative one, viz. the breach
with Popery, which he consummated, thanks to his extraordinary powers.
This is, however, from the religious standpoint, to attenuate Luther’s
figure as it appears in history, notwithstanding the tribute paid to
his talents.
If he is not the “messenger of God,” whose doctrines, inspired from on
high, the world was bound to accept, then he ceases to be Luther, for
it was from his supernatural estimate of himself that he drew all his
strength and defiance. Force him to quit the dim, mystical heights
from which he fancies he exercises his sway, and his claim on the faith
of mankind becomes inexplicable and he himself an enigma.
It has been pointed out above, how Luther gradually reached the
conviction that he had received his doctrine by a special revelation,
with the Divine mission to communicate it to the world and to reform
the Church (vol. ii., p. 92 f.). The conviction, that, as he declares,
“the Holy Ghost had revealed the Scriptures” to him culminated in that
personal assurance of salvation which was suddenly vouchsafed to him in
the Tower.[284]
It will repay us to examine more closely the nature of this idea, and
its manifestations, now that we have the mature man before us.
The founder of the new Church has reached a period when he no longer
scruples to speak of the “revelations” which had been made to him,
and which he is compelled to proclaim. “By His Grace,” he says, “God
has revealed this doctrine to me.”[285]—“I have it by revelation ...
that will I not deny.”[286] Of his mission he assures us: “By God’s
revelation I am called to be a sort of antipope”;[287] of his chief
dogma, he will have it that “the Holy Ghost bestowed it upon me,”[288]
and declares that “under pain of the curse of eternal reprobation”
he had been “instructed (‘_interminatum_’) not to doubt of it in
any way.”[289] Of this he solemnly assured the Elector Frederick in
a letter written in 1522: “Concerning my cause I would say: Your
Electoral Highness is aware, or, if not aware, is hereby apprised of
the fact, that I received the Evangel, not from man, but from heaven
alone through our Lord Jesus Christ, so that I might well subscribe
myself and boast of being a minister and evangelist—as, indeed, I
shall do for the future.”[290]
It is because he has received the Word of God direct from on high that
he is so firm. “God’s Word,” he cries, “is above everything to me; I
have the Divine Majesty on my side, therefore I care not in the least
though a thousand Augustines, or a thousand Harry-Churches [Henry VIII.
of England was then still a Catholic] should be against me; I am quite
certain that the true Church holds fast with me to God’s Word, and
leaves it to the Harry-Churches to depend on the words of men.”[291]
There are many passages in which he merely claims to have been
enlightened in his ruminations and labours and thus led to embrace the
real, saving truth; less frequently do we hear of any actual, sudden
inspiration from above. Where he does claim this most distinctly is
in the matter of the discovery of his chief doctrine, viz. assurance
of salvation by justifying faith, vouchsafed to him in the Tower of
the Wittenberg monastery. The fact that his mode of expression varies
may be explained not merely by his own involuntary wavering, but by
the very difficulty of imparting his favourite doctrine to others. His
frame of mind, outward circumstances and the character of his hearers
or readers were the cause of his choice of words. With his friends,
for instance, more particularly the younger ones, and likewise in his
sermons at Wittenberg, he was fond of laying stress on what he had
once said to the lawyers when they molested him with Canon Law: “They
shall respect our teaching, which is the Word of God spoken by the
Holy Ghost through our lips.”[292] When speaking to larger audiences,
on the other hand, he does not as a rule claim more than a gradual,
inner enlightenment by God, which indeed partakes of the nature of a
revelation, but to which he was led by his work and study and inward
experience. In the presence of the fanatics he became, after 1524, more
cautious in his claims, owing to the similar ones made on their own
behalf by these sectarians.
Yet the idea of an assurance born of God lies at the bottom of all his
statements.
He worked himself into this belief until it became part of his
nature.[293] He had to face many doubts and scruples, but he overcame
them, and, in the latter years of his life, we hear little of any such.
His struggle with these doubts, which clearly betray the faulty basis
of his conviction, will be dealt with elsewhere.[294]
“I am certain and am determined to feel so.” Expressions such as this
are not seldom to be met with in Luther’s letters and writings.[295]
An almost appalling strength of will lurks behind such assurances.
Indeed, what impels him seems to savour more of self-suggestion than of
inward experience. To the objections brought forward by his adversaries
he frequently enough merely opposes his “certainty”; behind this he
endeavours to conceal the defects of his proofs from Scripture, and his
inability to reply to the reasons urged against him. His determination
to find conviction constitutes one of Luther’s salient psychological
characteristics; of the Titanic strength at his disposal he made proof
first and foremost in his own case.
* * * * *
Luther also succeeded in inducing in himself a pseudo-mystic mood
in which he fancied himself acting in everything conformably with a
Divine mission, everywhere specially guided and protected as beseemed a
messenger of God.
For instance, he says that he wrote the pamphlet against the seditious
peasants in obedience to a Divine command; “therefore my little book is
right and will always be so, though all the world should be incensed at
it.”[296]
“It is the Lord Who has done this,” he had declared of the Peasant
Rising when he recognised in it elements favourable to his cause;
“It is the Lord Who has done this and Who conceals these menaces and
dangers from the eyes of the Princes, and will even bring it about
Himself by means of their blindness and violence.” That the Princes
are threatened with destruction, that “I firmly believe the Spirit
proclaims through me.”[297]
Later on he was no less sure that he could foresee in the Spirit the
coming outbreak of a religious war in Germany; only the prayers which
he—who had the Divine interests so much at heart—offered, could avail
to stave off the war; at least the delay was mainly the result of this
prayer: “I am assured that God really hearkens to my prayer, and I know
that so long as I live there will be no war in Germany.”
Never does he tire of declaring that the misfortunes and deaths which
his foes have to deplore are the result of the intervention of heaven
on behalf of his cause.[298] He was convinced that he had repeatedly
been cured in sickness and saved from death by Christ, by Him, as he
says in 1534, “in Whose faith I commenced all this and carried it
through, to the admiration even of my opponents.”[299] He, “one of the
Apostles and Evangelists of Germany, is,” so he proclaims in 1526 in a
pamphlet, “a man delivered over to death and only preserved in life by
a wonder and in defiance of the wrath of the devil and his saints.”[300]
In February, 1520, he speaks of the intimation he has received of a
great storm impending, were God not to place some hindrance in the
way of Satan. “I have seen Satan’s cunning plans for my destruction
and that of many others. Doubtless the Divine Word can never be
administered without confusion, tumult and danger. It is a word of
boundless majesty, it works great things and is wonderful on high.”
This was to be his only guide in his undertaking. He was compelled, so
he declared on the same occasion, “to leave the whole matter to God, to
resign himself to His guidance and to look on while wind and waves make
the ship their plaything.”[301]
He frequently repeats later that his professorship at the University
had been bestowed upon him by a Divine dispensation and against his
will; whereas others were honoured for their academic labours, he
complains to Spalatin of being persecuted; “I teach against my will
and yet I have to endure evil things.” “What I now do and have done,
I was compelled to do.” “I have enough sins on my conscience without
incurring the unpardonable one of being unfaithful to my office, of
refraining from scourging evil and of neglecting the truth to the
detriment of so many thousand souls.”[302]—At the time when the
Disputation at Leipzig was preparing, he tells the same confidant that
the matter must be left to God: “I do not desire that it should happen
according to our designs, otherwise I would prefer to desist from it
altogether.” Spalatin must not desire to see the matter judged and
settled according to human wisdom, but should remember that we know
nothing of “God’s plans.”[303]
Everything had befallen him in accordance with God’s design. It was in
accordance therewith, nay, “at the command of God,” that he had become
a monk, so at least he says later. This, too, was his reason for giving
up the office in choir and the recitation of the Breviary. “Our Lord
God dragged me by force from the canonical hours, anno 1520.”[304]
His marriage likewise was the direct result of God’s plan. “The Lord
suddenly flung me into matrimony in a wonderful way while my thoughts
were set in quite another direction.”[305] At an earlier date he had,
so he said, defended the theses of his Resolutions only “because God
compelled him to advance all these propositions.”[306]
His first encounter with Dr. Eck took place, so he was persuaded,
“at God’s behest.”[307] “God takes good care that I should not be
idle.”[308] It is God Who “calls and compels him” to return to
Wittenberg after his stay at the Wartburg.[309]—It is not surprising,
then, that he also attributes to God’s doing the increase in the number
of his friends and followers.
The success of his efforts to bring about a great falling away from
the Catholic Church he regarded as a clear Divine confirmation of his
mission, so that “no higher proof or miracle was needed.”[310] Even the
disturbance and tumult which resulted bore witness in his favour, since
Christ says: “I am come to send a sword.” All around him prevailed
“discord, revolt and uproar,”[311] because, forsooth, the Gospel was
there at work; the calm, unquestioned sovereignty of Popery within its
own boundaries was a sure sign of its being the devil’s own.[312] “Did
I not meet with curses, I should not believe that my cause was from
God.”[313]
It is evident from these and other like statements how greatly his
fame, the increase of his followers and his unexpected success
engrossed and intoxicated him. In judging of him we must not
under-estimate the effect of the din of applause in encouraging him
in his self-suggestion. The cheers of so great a crowd, as Erasmus
remarked in a letter to Melanchthon, might well have turned the head
even of the humblest man. What anchor could have held the bark exposed
to such a storm? Outbursts such as the following, to which Luther
gave vent under the influence of the deafening ovation, were only to
be expected of such a man as he, when he had once cut himself adrift
from the Church: “God has now given judgment ... and, contrary to the
expectation of the whole world, has brought things to such a pass....
The position of the Pope grows daily worse, that we may extol the work
of God herein.”[314] Under the magic influence of the unhoped-for
growth of his movement of revolt, he declared it could only be due
to a higher power, “which so disposed things that even the gates of
hell were unable to prevent them.” Not he, but “another man, drives
the wheel.” It is as clear as day that no man could, single-handed,
have achieved so much, and, by “mere word of mouth,” done more harm
to the Pope, the bishops, priests and monks than all worldly powers
hitherto.[315] Christ was working for him so strenuously, so he
declares in all seriousness, that he might well calmly await His
complete victory over Antichrist; for this reason there was really
no need to trouble about the ecclesiastical organisation of the new
Church, or to think of all the things it would otherwise have been
necessary for him to remember.
His mere success was not the only Divine witness in his favour; Luther
was also of opinion that owing to God’s notable working, signs and
wonders had taken place in plenty in confirmation of the new teaching;
such Divine wonders, however, must not be “thrown to the winds.”[316]
He seems, nevertheless, to have had at one time the intention of
collecting and publishing these miracles.[317]
In short, “the first-fruits of the Grace of God,” he says, have come
upon us; in these he was unwilling that later teachers, who differed
from him, should be allowed to participate.[318]
Was not the guidance of Christ also plainly visible in the fact that
he, the proclaimer of His Word, had been delivered from so many
ambushes on the part of the enemies who lay in wait for him? Such a
thought lay at the root of his words to his pupil Mathesius: There was
no doubt that poison had frequently been administered to him, but “an
important personage had been heard to say, that none had any effect
on him.” On one occasion, however, when an attempt had been made to
poison him, He “Who said, ‘If they drink any deadly thing it shall not
hurt them,’ blessed him, and preserved him then and afterwards from
all mischief.”[319] “I also believe,” Luther once said, according to
Bindseil’s Latin “_Colloquia_,” that “my pulpit-chair and cushion were
frequently poisoned, yet God preserved me.”[320] Similar words are
recorded in the Diary of Cordatus.[321] This accounts for the strange
tales which grew up amongst his pupils and followers of how “God
Almighty had always preserved him in a wonderful manner,” of how He
“had affrighted the knaves” who sought his life, and so forth, of which
the early editions of Luther’s Works have so much to say.
Among the characteristics most highly extolled by his earliest
followers as exemplifying his mission must be instanced, first, his
inflexible courage, amounting frequently to foolhardiness, in the
accomplishment of his set task, viz. the establishing of the Evangel
and the destruction of Popery; secondly, his extraordinary capacity
for work and the perseverance of which he gave such signal proof in
his literary undertakings; thirdly, his entire disregard for temporal
advantages, which he himself held up as an example to those of the
evangelical preachers whose worldliness had become a reproach to the
Lutheran cause.
Very strange and remarkable is the connection between Luther’s
mysticism and the simple and homely view he took of life; the pleasure
with which he welcomed everything good which came in his way—so far
as it was free from any trace of Popery—the kindly, practical turn of
his manner of thinking and acting when among his own people, and that
love for humour and good cheer which so strikingly contrasts with the
puritanical behaviour of his opponents, the Anabaptists and fanatics.
To reconcile his mysticism with habits at first blush so divergent
would present quite a problem in itself were we not to take into
account the fact, that homeliness and humour had been his from the very
beginning, whereas his mysticism was a later growth, always to some
extent alien to his character. His mysticism he carefully confined to
what related to his supposed Divine mission, though at times he does
indeed seem to extend indefinitely the range of this mission. Yet, when
the duties of his office had cost him pain or tried his temper, he was
ever glad to return to the realities of life, and to seek relief in
social intercourse or in his family circle.
When it was a question of the working of miracles by the heaven-sent
messenger, he was of too practical a turn of mind to appeal to anything
but the ostensible tokens of the Divine favour worked around him and
on his behalf in proof of the truth of the new Evangel. He carefully
avoided attributing any miracles to his own powers, even when assisted
by Divine grace, though, occasionally, he seems to imply that, were the
need to arise, he might well work wonders by the power of God, were he
only to ask it of Him. With the question of miracles and predictions
as proofs of Luther’s Divine mission we shall deal later (p. 153 ff.).
While on the one hand Luther’s views of miracles and prophecies witness
to an error which was not without effect on his persuasion of his
Divine mission, on the other his pseudo-mystic notion of his special
calling led him superstitiously to see in chance events of history
either the extraordinary confirmation of his mission or the celestial
condemnation of Popery.
We know that Luther not only shared the superstitions of his
contemporaries, but also defended them with all the weight of his
great name and literary talents.[322] When at Vienna, in January,
1520, something unusual was perceived in the sky, he at once referred
it to “his tragedy,” as he had done even previously in similar cases.
He also expressed the wish that he himself might be favoured with
some such sign. The noisy spirits which had formerly disturbed people
had, he believed, been reduced in number throughout the world solely
owing to his Evangel. The omnipotence of the devil and the evil he
worked on men was, so he thought, to be restrained only by the power
of that Word which had again been made known to the world, thanks to
his preaching.[323] It was his intention to publish an account of
the demoniacal happenings which had taken place in his day and which
confirmed his mission; he was only prevented from doing this by want
of time.[324] To astrology, unlike Melanchthon, he ever showed himself
averse.
Another element which loomed large in his persuasion that he was a
prophet was his so-called “temptations,” i.e. the mental troubles,
which, so he thought, were caused by the devil and which, coinciding as
they often did with other sufferings, were sometimes the cause of long
fits of misery and dejection.[325]
These temptations in their most extreme form Luther compared with
the death-agony. His extraordinary experiences, of which he never
understood the pathological cause, were regarded by him as God’s own
testimony to his election. His conviction was that, by imposing on him
these pangs of hell, God was cleansing him for the grand task assigned
to him, even as He had done with other favoured souls in the past. When
plunged in the abyss of such sufferings he felt like St. Paul, the
Apostle of the Gentiles, who likewise was buffeted by Satan (vol. i.,
p. 381 f.), and whom he would fain have emulated in his “revelations”
of the Divine mysteries. Only in the sequel, however, will it be
possible to describe Luther’s pathology for the benefit of those to
whom it may be of interest.
All his troubles, whether due to doubt and sadness or to the fury of
foes stirred up by Satan against him, he utilised, so he tells us, as
an incentive to immerse himself ever more and more in the study of
Holy Scripture, to cultivate the understanding bestowed upon him, and
to seek its practical applications. “My theology was not all learnt
in a day; I was obliged to explore deeper and deeper to acquire it.
My temptations helped me, for it is impossible to understand Holy
Scripture without experience and temptations. This is what the fanatics
and unruly spirits lack, viz. that capital gainsayer the devil, who
alone can teach a man this. St. Paul had a devil, who beat him with
his fists and drove him by the way of temptation diligently to study
Holy Scripture. I have had the Pope, the Universities and all the
scholars, and, behind them all, the devil, hanging round my neck: they
drove me to the Bible and made me read it until at length I reached
the right understanding of it. Unless we have such a devil, we remain
mere speculative theologians, for whose precious imaginings the world
is not much better.”[326] This casual saying of Luther’s gives us a
good glimpse into his customary process of thought when in presence of
troubles and temptations, great or small.
The above passage, moreover, agrees with many similar statements
of his, inasmuch as, far from ascribing his doctrine to any actual
revelation, he makes its discovery to result from effort on his part,
under the guidance of a higher illumination. Luther, less than any
other, could scarcely have been unconscious of the gradual change in
his views, more particularly at the outset of his career as Evangelist
and prophet; at the very least it was clear that, in the earlier period
of his higher mission, he had taught much that was borrowed from Popery
and which he discarded only later; at that time, as he puts it, he was
still “besotted with Popery.”
_Periodic Upheaval of Luther’s Idea of his Divine Mission._
Luther’s consciousness of his Divine mission found expression with
varying degrees of intensity at different periods of his life.
At certain junctures, notably when historic events were impending,
it was apt to burst forth, producing in him effects of a character
almost terrifying. Such was the case, for instance, in the days which
immediately preceded and followed the proclamation of the Bull of
Excommunication. At that time it seemed as though every spirit of
revolt had entered into him to use him as a tool for defying the
authority of the Church. Such was the depth of his persuasion, that
he, the excommunicate, was carried away to proclaim his unassailable
prophetic rights in tones of the utmost conviction.
Towards the end of his stay at the Wartburg and during the first period
of his struggle with the Anabaptists at Wittenberg, we again hear him
insisting on his own exalted mission; owing, however, to the mystic
illumination of which the fanatics boasted, his claims are now based,
not so much on mystical considerations, as on the “outward Word,” whose
authentic representative he had, by his works, proved himself to be.
The loneliness and gloom of the Wartburg and his “diabolical”
experiences there doubtless helped to convince him yet more of the
reality of his mission. The ensuing struggle with those of the
innovators who differed from him and even threatened to oust him, acted
as a further stimulus and aroused his powers of resistance to the
utmost. Nor must we forget the threatening attitude of the Imperial
authorities at Nuremberg, whom he was resolved to oppose with the
greatest determination; only by impressing on his followers that he was
something more than human would it be possible for him successfully
to hold in check the hostility of Emperor and Princes. The supposed
world-wide success of his venture also dazed him at this critical
juncture, a fact which further elucidates the situation.
Triumphantly he cries: “The Lord has already begun to mock at Satan
and his slaves. Satan is in truth vanquished, and the Pope, too,
with all his abominations! Now our only concern is the soap-bubble
which has swelled to such alarming dimensions [the Nuremberg menace].
We believe in Christ, the Son of God, believe in His dominion over
life and death. Whom then shall we fear? The first-fruits of victory
have already fallen to us; we rejoice at the overthrow of the Papal
tyranny, whereas formerly Kings and Princes were content to submit to
its oppression; how much easier will it be to vanquish and despise the
Princes themselves!”
“If Christ assures us,” he continues in this same letter, one of
the first dispatched after his “Patmos” at the Wartburg, “that the
Father has placed all things under His feet, it is certain that He
lieth not; ‘all things’ must also comprise the mighty ones assembled
at Nuremberg, not to speak of that Dresden bubble [Duke George of
Saxony]. Let them therefore set about deposing Christ. We, however,
will calmly look on while the Father Almighty preserves His Son at His
right hand from the face and the tail of these smoking firebrands”
(Isa. vii. 4). Should a rising or a tumult among the people ensue
“which cannot be suppressed by force, then that will be the Lord’s
own work; He conceals the danger from the sight of the Princes; and,
owing to their blindness and rebellion, He will work such things
that methinks all Germany will be deluged with blood. We shall ‘set
ourselves like a hedge before God in favour of the land and the
people’ (Ezek. xxii. 30), in this day of His great wrath, wherefore do
you and your people pray for us.”
These words were addressed to an old Augustinian friend to whom he
showed himself undisguisedly and in his true colours. In the same
letter he has it that he considers it quite certain that Carlstadt,
Gabriel Zwilling and the fanatical Anabaptists were preaching without
any real call, in fact, against God’s will. To himself he applies the
words of our Redeemer: “He Whom God has sent speaketh the words of
God” (John iii. 34), and “He that seeketh the glory of Him that sent
Him is true” (John vii. 18). Fully convinced of the Divine inspiration
and compulsion he exclaims: “For this reason did I yield to necessity
and return [from the Wartburg], viz. that I might, if God wills, put
an end to this devils’ uproar” (of the fanatics).[327]
If Luther sought to show the fanatics that their fruits bore witness
against them and their doctrine, it is worthy of note that Staupitz,
his former Superior, about this very time, confronted Luther with the
disastrous fruits of his action, in order to dissuade him from the
course he was pursuing. Staupitz, who so far had been his patron, had
grown apprehensive of the character of the movement. His warning,
however, only acted as oil on the flame of the enthusiasm then surging
up in Luther. In his reply, dated in May, 1522, we find the real
Luther, the prophet full of his own great plans: “You write that my
undertaking is praised [by discreditable people], and by those who
frequent houses of ill-fame, and that much scandal has been given
by my latest writings. I am not surprised at this, neither am I
apprehensive. It is certain that we for our part have been careful
to proclaim the pure Word without causing any tumult; the good and
the bad alike make use of this Word, and this, as you know, we cannot
help.... For we do what Christ foretold when He commanded the angels
to collect and remove out of His Kingdom all scandals. Father, I
cannot do otherwise than destroy the Kingdom of the Pope, the Kingdom
of abomination and wickedness together with all its train. God is
already doing this without us, without any assistance from us, merely
by His Word. The end of this Kingdom is come before the Lord. The
matter far exceeds our powers of comprehension.... Great commotion
of minds, great scandals and great signs must follow, in view of
God’s greatness. But, dear father, I hope this will not trouble
you; God’s plan is visible in these things and His mighty hand. You
will remember that at the outset everybody thought my undertaking
suspicious, doubtful and altogether too bad, and yet it has held the
field and will hold its own in spite of your apprehensions; only have
patience. Satan feels the smart of his wound, and that is why he rages
so greatly and sets all at loggerheads. But Christ Who has begun the
work will trample him under foot; and the gates of hell will do their
worst, but all in vain.”
So perverted an application of the promise solemnly made by Christ to
the Church of Peter, that the gates of hell should not prevail against
it, had surely never before been heard. Words such as these would even
sound incredible did we not learn from the same letter into what a
state of nervous excitement the ban and excommunication had plunged
him. At Antwerp, Jacob Probst, one of his followers, was to be burned
with two of his comrades, and in various localities Luther’s writings,
by order of the authorities, were being consigned to the flames.
This it was which made him say in his letter: “My death by fire is
already under discussion; but I only defy Satan and his myrmidons
the more that the day of Christ may be hastened, when an end will be
put to Antichrist. Farewell, father, and pray for me.... The Evangel
is a scandal to the self-righteous and to all who think themselves
wise.”[328]
The later occasions on which this peculiar mystic idea asserted
itself most strongly and vividly were during the exciting events of
the Peasant War of 1525; in 1528, at the time his Evangel was in
danger from the Empire, while he was tormented within; his sojourn in
the fortress of Coburg during the much-dreaded Diet of Augsburg, in
1530, when he again endured profound mental agony; the period of the
Schmalkald negotiations, in 1537, when the Council of Trent had already
been summoned, while Luther was suffering much from disease; finally,
in the last years of his life, accompanied as they were by recurring
friction with the various Courts and hostile parties, when a growing
bitterness dominated his spirit.
In this last period of his career the sense of his Divine mission
revived in full force, never again to quit him. His statements
concerning his mission now bear a more pessimistic stamp, but he
nevertheless holds fast to it and allows nothing to disconcert him by
any suspicion of a mistake on his part, nor does he betray any trace of
his earlier doubts and misgivings.
“We know that it is God’s cause,” he says in 1541 to the Electoral
Chancellor Brück: “God has commenced it and carried it through, and He
too will finish it! Whoever does not wish to follow us, let him fall
to the rear, with the Emperor and the Turk; all the devils shall gain
nothing here, let what God wills befall us.”[329]
“It annoys me that they should esteem these things [of the Evangel]
as though they were secular, Imperial, Turkish or princely matters
to be decided and controlled, bestowed and accepted by reason alone.
It is a matter which God and the devil with their respective angels
must arrange. Whoever does not believe this will do no good in the
business.”[330]
When the negotiations at Ratisbon seemed to be exposing the
timorous Melanchthon to the “snares of Satan,” Luther in his wonted
presumptuous fashion wrote to him: “Our cause is not to be controlled
by our own action, but only by God’s Providence. The Word progresses,
prayer is ardent, hope endures, faith conquers, so that verily we
cannot but see it, and might even sleep calmly and feast were we not
so carnal; for the words of Moses are also addressed to us: ‘The Lord
will fight for you and you shall hold your peace’ (cp. Exod. xiv.
14). It is certain that the Lord is fighting, that He is slowly and
gradually descending from His Throne to the [Last] Judgment which we
so anxiously look for. The signs announcing the approaching Judgment
are all too numerous.... Hence put away all fear. Be strong and
glad and untroubled, for the Lord is near. Let them undertake what
they please, the Henrys [he is thinking of Henry of Brunswick, an
opponent], the bishops, and likewise the Turks and Satan himself.
We are children of the kingdom, and we await and honour Him as our
Saviour Whom these Henrys spit upon and crucify anew.”[331]
In what frame of mind he then was, and what strange judgments he could
pass, is seen even more plainly from what he adds concerning a tract
he had just published against Duke Henry of Brunswick.
This work, entitled “Wider Hans Worst,” is, in style and matter, an
attack of indescribable violence on this Catholic prince and Catholics
in general. Yet Luther writes of it to Melanchthon: “I have re-read my
book against this devil, and I cannot understand what has happened to
make me so restrained. I attribute it to my headache which prevented
my mind from being carried away on the wings of the storm.” The
“bloodhound and incendiary assassin,” as he calls the Duke, would
otherwise have had to listen to a very different song for having
compelled Luther to “waste his time on Henry’s devil’s excrement.”
That the Duke had been the originator of the appalling number of
fires which occurred in the Electorate of Hesse in 1540, both Luther
and Melanchthon were firmly convinced. Luther’s readiness to cherish
the blackest suspicions, his volcanic rage against Catholics, the
pessimism of his reiterated cry: “Let everything fall, stand or sink
into ruins, as it pleases; let things take their own course,”[332]
form a remarkable accompaniment to the thrilling tones in which he
again asserts his consciousness of the fulfilment of his Divine
mission.
We must here revert to some of Luther’s Statements concerning the
triumphant progress of the Evangel and the determined resistance to be
offered to all opposing forces—solemn declarations which attain their
full meaning only in the light of his idea of his own Divine mission.
We give the gist of the passages already quoted in detail elsewhere.
These passages, which reek of revolution, are altogether inspired by
the glowing idea of his heavenly mission apart from which they are
scarcely comprehensible.
“If war is to come of it, let it come,” etc. “Princely foes are
delivered up to us as a holocaust in order that they may be rewarded
according to their works”; God will “deliver His people even from the
fiery furnace of Babylon.”[333]
“Let things run on merrily and be prepared for the worst,” “whether it
be war or revolt, as God’s anger may decree.”[334]
“Let justice take its course even should the whole world fall into
ruins.”[335]
“It is said, ‘If the Pope fall, Germany will perish.’[336] But what has
this to do with me?”
“It is God’s Word. Let what cannot stand, fall, and what is not to
remain, pass away.” “It is a great thing,” he continues, “that for the
sake of the young man [the Divine Redeemer] this Jewish Kingdom and
the Divine Service which had been so gloriously instituted and ordered
should fall to the ground.” Not Christ alone, he says, had spoken of
His work in the same way that he (Luther) did of his own, but St.
Paul also, in spite of his grief over the Jews, had, like himself,
constantly declared: “The Word is true, else everything must fall
into ruins; for He Who sent me and commanded me to preach, will not
lie.”[337]
His followers recalled his words, that it were better “all churches,
convents and foundations throughout the world should be rooted
out” than that “even one soul should be seduced by such [Popish]
error.”[338] And again: “Are we to forswear the truth?” “Would it be
strange were the rulers, the nobles and laity to fall upon the Pope,
the bishops, priests and monks and drive them out of the land?” They
had brought it upon themselves and it was necessary “to pray for
them.”[339] But prayer might not suffice. If no improvement took place,
then “a general destruction of all the foundations and convents would
be the best reformation.”[340]
These outbursts date almost all from the time of the Diet of Augsburg,
or that immediately succeeding it. They might, however, be compared
with some earlier utterances not one whit less full of fanaticism;
for instance, where he says to the Elector, in 1522: “Not only the
spiritual but also the secular power must yield to the Evangel, whether
willingly or unwillingly”;[341] or the opening sentences of his “Bull
of the Evening Feed of our Most Holy Lord the Pope” (1522): “After
having had to put up with so many hawkers of bulls, cardinals ... and
the countless horde of extortioners and swindlers and knaves whom the
Rhine would hardly suffice to drown ...!”[342]
A flood of rage and passionate enthusiasm for his mission finds vent
in these words: “If they hope ever to exterminate the Turks they must
begin with the Pope.”[343] “The Pope drives the whole world from the
Christian faith to his devilish lies, so that the Pope’s rule is ten
times worse than that of the Turk for both body and soul.”[344]
Previous to this, in February, 1519, he reveals in the following words
the agitation and ferment going on within him: “I adjure you,” he says
to his friend Spalatin, “if you would think aright of the Evangel, not
to imagine that such a cause can be fought out without tumults, scandal
and rebellion. You cannot make a pen out of a sword, or peace of war.
The Word of God is a sword, war, ruin, scandal, destruction, poison
and, as we read in the Old Covenant, ‘Like to a bear in the road and a
lioness in the wood,’ so it withstands the sons of Ephraim.”[345]
No Apostle or Prophet ever laid claim to a Divine authorisation for
their preaching in language so violent. Indeed, mere phrases and
extracts from his writings scarcely suffice to give a true picture of
the intensity of his prepossession for his supposed Divine calling and
of his furious hatred of his opponents. It would, in fact, be necessary
to read in their entirety certain of his polemical works. That they
have not done so is the explanation why so many know only a polished
Luther and have scarcely an inkling of the fierceness of the struggle
which centred round his consciousness of a Divine mission, and of the
depth of his animosity against those who dared to gainsay him.
Nor was this consciousness of his without its effects on those around
him. During the long years of his public life, it kindled the passion
of thousands and contributed largely to the Peasant Revolt and the
unhappy religious wars which followed later. Indirectly it was also
productive of disaster for the Empire by forcing it to make terms with
the turbulent elements within, and by preventing it from displaying
a united front against the Turks and other enemies without. On the
other hand, in the case of very many who honestly looked on Luther as
a real reformer of the Church, it also served to infuse into them new
enthusiasm for what they deemed the Christian cause.
Its effect on Luther’s character in later life was such as to make
him, in his writings to the German people, rave like a maniac of the
different forms of death best suited for Pope and Cardinals, viz. being
hanged on the gallows with their tongues torn out, being drowned in the
Tyrrhenean Sea, or “flayed alive.”[346] “How my flesh creeps and how my
blood boils,” he cries, after one such outburst.[347]
If we remember the frenzy with which he carried out his religious
enterprise, the high tension at which he ever worked and his
inexhaustible source of eloquence, it is easy to fancy ourselves face
to face with something more than human. The real nature of the spirit
which, throughout Luther’s life, was ever so frantically at work
within him, must for ever remain a secret. One eye alone, that of the
All-seeing, can pierce these depths. Anxious Catholic contemporaries of
Luther’s strongly suspected that they had to deal with one possessed
by the evil spirit. This opinion was openly voiced, first by Johann
Nathin, Luther’s contemporary at the Erfurt monastery, by Emser,
Cochlæus, Dungersheim and certain other early opponents, and then by
several others whose testimony will be heard later (vol. iv., xxvii.,
1).
Catholic contemporaries also urged that his claim to a Divine mission
was mere impudence. A simple monk, hitherto quite unknown to the world,
so they said, breaks his vows and dares to set himself in opposition
to the universal Church. A man, whose repute was not of the best, and
who not only lacked any higher attestation, but actually exhibited in
his doctrine of evangelical freedom, in the disorderly lives of his
followers and in the dissensions promoted by his fanatical and stormy
rhetoric, those very signs which our Redeemer had warned His disciples
would follow false prophets—such a man, they argued, could surely not
be a reformer, but was rather a destroyer, of Christendom; he perceives
not that the Church, for all her present abuses and corruption, has
nevertheless all down the ages scattered throughout the world the
Divine blessings committed to her care by a promise which shall never
fail, and that she will soon rise again purer and more beautiful than
ever, for the lasting benefit of mankind.
Luther, on the contrary, sought to base his claim to a Divine mission
on the abuses rampant in Popery, which, he would have it, was
altogether under the dominion of the devil and quite beyond redemption.
2. His Mission Alleged against the Papists
Luther, subsequent to his apostasy, accustomed himself to speak of
Catholicism in a fashion scarcely credible. He did not shrink even from
the grossest and most impudent depreciation of the Church of the Popes.
His incessant indulgence in such abuse calls for some examination into
its nature and the mental state of which it was a product.
_The Pope and the Papacy._
The Roman Curia, Luther repeatedly declared, did not believe one
word of all the truths of religion; at the faithful who held fast
to Revelation they scoffed and called them good simpletons (“_buoni
cristiani_”); they knew nothing either of the Creed or of the Our
Father, and from all the ecclesiastical books put together not as much
could be learnt as from one page of Martin Luther’s Catechism.
“Mark this well,” he declared as early as 1520 in his work “Von dem
Bapstum tzu Rome,” of all that is ordered of God not one jot or tittle
is observed at Rome; indeed, they mock at it as folly when anyone pays
any attention to it. They don’t mind a bit that the Gospel and the
faith of Christ are perishing throughout the world, and would not
lift a finger to prevent it.[348] The Popes are simply “Epicureans,”
so that, naturally, almost all those who return from Rome bring back
home with them an “Epicurean faith.” “For this at least is certain,
viz. that the Pope and the Cardinals, together with their schools of
knaves, believe in nothing at all; in fact, they smile when they hear
faith mentioned.”[349]
“What cares the Pope about prayer and God’s Word? He has his own god
to serve, viz. the devil. But this is a mere trifle.... What is far
worse, and a real masterpiece of all the devils in hell, is, that
he usurps the authority to set up laws and articles of faith.... He
roars, as though chock-full of devils, that whosoever does not obey
him and his Romish Church cannot be saved.... Papistically, knavishly,
nay, in a truly devilish way, does the Pope, like the stupid scoundrel
he is, use the name of the holy Roman Church, when he really means
his school of knaves, his Church of harlots and hermaphrodites, the
devil’s own hotchpotch.... For such is the language of his Romish
Church, and whoever has to do with the Pope and the Roman See must
first learn this or else he fares badly. For the devil, who founded
the Papacy, speaks and works everything through the Pope and the Roman
See.”[350]
His “Heer-Predigt widder den Türcken,” in 1529, supplied him with
the occasion for the following aside: “The Pope’s doctrine is mere
spiritual murder and not one whit better than the teaching and
blasphemy of Mohammed or the Turks.... We have nothing but devils
on either side and everywhere.”[351] “They even try to force us
poor Christians at the point of the sword to worship the devil and
blaspheme Christ. Other tyrants have at least this in their favour,
that they crucify the Lord of Glory ignorantly, like the Turks, the
heathen and the Jews ... but they [the Papists], say: We know that
Christ’s words and acts testify against us, but nevertheless we shall
not endure His Word, or yield to it.”[352] “I believe the Pope is the
devil incarnate in disguise; for he is Antichrist. For, as Christ is
true God and man, so Antichrist is the incarnation of the devil.”[353]
“The superstition of the Pope exceeds that of the Jews.” Though
the Pope drags countless souls down to hell, yet we may not say
to him: “For shame! Why act you thus?” “Had not his prestige been
overthrown by the Word [i.e. by my preaching] even the devil would
have vomited him forth. But this deliverance [from the Pope] we esteem
a small matter and have become ungrateful. God, however, will send
other forms of darkness to avenge this ingratitude; we still have
this consolation, that the Last Day cannot be far distant; for the
prophecy of Daniel has been entirely fulfilled, where he describes
the Papacy as though he had actually seen its doings.”[354]
“At Rome,” so he assures his readers, “they pull the noses of us
German fools,” and then say, that “it is of Divine institution
that none can be made bishop without the authority of Rome. I can
only wonder that Germany ... has a farthing left for this horde of
unspeakable, intolerable Roman fools, scoundrels and robbers.”[355]
“Worse even than this rapacious seizing of the money of foreigners is
the Pope’s usurped right of deciding matters of faith. He acts just
as he pleases in accordance with the imaginary interior inspirations
which he believes he receives.” “He does just the same as Thomas
Münzer and the Anabaptists, for he treads under foot the outward Word
of God, trusts entirely to higher illumination and gives vent to his
own fond inventions against Holy Scripture; which is the reason why we
blame him. We care not for mere human thoughts; what we want is the
outward Word.”[356]
“In short, what shall I say? No error, superstition or idolatry is too
gross to be admitted and accepted; at Rome they even honour the Pope
as God. And the heathen also had a god, whose name it was not lawful
to utter.”[357]
_The Catholics._
If we turn from the Pope-God or Pope-devil to the Papists, from the
Roman Curia to the Catholics, we find them scourged in similar language.
Amidst a wealth of imagery quite bewildering to the mind, one idea
emerges clearly, viz. that he has been summoned by God for the purpose
of rebuilding Christianity from the very foundation. Nothing but such
a mission could justify him in forcing upon himself and others the
belief, that the existing Church had been utterly corrupted by the
devil and that everybody who dared to oppose him was inspired by Satan.
“No one can be a Papist unless he is at the very least a murderer,
robber or persecutor,” for “he must agree” that the “Pope and his crew
are right in burning and banishing people,”[358] etc. The worst thing
about the Papists is the Mass; he would rather he had “kept a brothel,
or been a robber, than have sacrificed and blasphemed Christ for
fifteen years by saying Mass.”[359]
Their bloodthirstiness is beyond belief. “They would not care a scrap
were no Prince or ruler left in Germany, and were the whole land
bathed in blood, so long as they were free to exercise their tyranny
and lead their godless and shameless life.”[360] So shameless is their
life that the morals of the Lutherans glitter like gold in comparison.
Yea, “our life even when it reeks most of sin is better than all their
[the Papists’] sanctity, though it should seem to smell as sweet as
balsam.”[361] The Catholics had destroyed the Baptism instituted by
Christ, and replaced it by a baptism of works, hence their doctrine is
as pernicious as that of the Anabaptists, nay, is exactly on a level
with that of the Jews.[362]
The Catholics profess “unbelief in God,” and “put to death those
guileless Christians who refuse to countenance such idolatry”; they
are “not fit to be compared with oxen or asses,” seeing that they
exalt “their self-chosen works,” “far above God’s commandment. For
in addition to the idolatry and ungodly teaching whereby they daily
outrage and blaspheme God, they do not perform any works of charity
towards their neighbour, nay, would rather leave anyone to perish in
want than stretch out a hand to help him. Again, they are as careful
not to deviate by a hair’s breadth from their man-made ordinances,
rules and commands as were the Jews with regard to the Sabbath....
They make no scruple of cheating their neighbour of his money and
goods in order to fill their own belly.... Such perverse and crazy
saints, more foolish than ever ox or ass, are all those, Mohammedans,
Turks or whatever else they be called, who refuse to listen to or
receive Christ.”[363]
It was Luther that Dr. Jonas had heard, on one occasion at table,
express the opinion concerning the Papists: “Young fellows, take note
of this definition: A Papist is a liar and murderer, nay, the devil
himself. Hence they are not to be trusted, for they thirst for our
blood.”[364]
Luther himself assures us that “the blindness of the Papists and the
anger of God against the Papacy was terrible.” “Christians, redeemed
by the Blood of Christ, put away this blood and worshipped the crib,
surely an awful fall! If this had happened amongst the heathen it
would have been regarded as monstrous.”[365]
The Catholics, Luther taught, never pray, in fact, they do not know
how to pray but only how to blaspheme. We find other almost incredible
allegations born of his fancy and voiced in a sermon in 1524, of which
we have a transcript. “They taught the Our Father, but warned us not
to use it [by instructing us to get others to pray for us in our
stead]. It is true that for many years I shouted [’bawled,’ he says
elsewhere] in the monastery [in choir], but never did I pray. They
mock the Lord God with their prayers. Never did they approach God
with their hearts so as to pray for anything in faith.”[366]
Had it been possible for a man to be saved in Popery? He, Luther,
replies that this might have happened because “some laymen” may have
“held the crucifix in front of the dying man and said: Look up to
Jesus, Who died on the cross for you. By this means many a dying man
had turned to Christ in spite of having previously believed in the
false, miraculous signs [which the devil performs in Popery] and
acted as an idolator. Such, however, were lucky.”[367] He admits
incidentally that “many of our forefathers” had been saved in this
exceptional way, though only such as “had been led astray into error,
but had not clung to it.”[368] In any case it was a miracle. “Those
pious souls,” “many of whom had by God’s grace been wonderfully
preserved in the true faith in the midst of Popery,” had been
saved, so he fancies, in much the same way as “Abraham in Ur of the
Chaldeans, and Lot in Sodom.”[369]
Now, however, matters stood differently; thanks to his mission light
had dawned again, and the unbelief of the Catholics was therefore all
the more reprehensible. In the heat of his polemic Luther goes so far
as to accuse the Papists who oppose him of the sin against the Holy
Ghost. At any rate they were acting against their conscience, as he
had pointed out before. He also hints that theirs is that worst sin,
of which Christ declares (Matt. xii. 31), that it can be forgiven
neither in this world nor in the next. The greater part of a sermon
on this text which he preached at Wittenberg, in 1528 or 1529, deals
with this criminal blindness on the part of Catholics, this deliberate
turning away from the truth of the Holy Ghost to which Matthew refers.
Here, as elsewhere, Luther’s presupposition is: I teach “the bright
Evangel with which even they can find no fault”; I preach “nothing
but what is plain to all and so clearly grounded on Scripture that
they themselves are forced to admit it”; “what is so plainly proved
by the Holy Ghost” that it stands out as a “truth known to all.” He
proceeds: “When I was a learned Doctor I did not believe there was
such a thing on earth as the sin against the Holy Ghost, for I never
imagined or believed it was possible to find a heart that could be
so wicked.” But “now the Papal horde” has descended to this, for
they “blaspheme and lie against their conscience”; they “are unable
to refute our Evangel or to advance anything against it,” “yet they
knowingly oppose our teaching out of waywardness and hatred of the
truth, so that no admonition, counsel, prayer or chastisement is
of any avail.” “Thus openly to smite the Holy Ghost on the mouth,”
nay, “to spit in His Face,” is to emulate the treachery of Judas in
the depth of their “obstinate and venomous hearts”; for such it was
“forbidden to pray,” according to 1 John v. 16, because this would be
to “insult the spirit of grace and tread under foot the Son of God.”
The Papists richly deserve that the “Holy Ghost should forsake them,”
and that they should go “wantonly to their destruction according to
their desire.” In short, “It is better for people to be sunk in sin,
to be prostitutes and utter scamps, for at least they may yet come to
a knowledge of the truth; but these devil’s saints who go to Divine
worship full of good works, when they hear the Holy Ghost openly
testifying against them, strike Him on the mouth and say: it is all
heresy and devilry.”[370]
The tone of hatred and of blind prejudice in favour of his cause which
here finds utterance may be explained to some extent by his experience
during the sharp struggles of conscience through which he was then
going, and which formed the worst crisis of his inner states of terror.
(See vol. v., xxxii., 4.) Nor must the connection be overlooked between
his apparent confidence here and the attempt which he makes in one
passage of the sermon to justify theologically his radical subversion
of olden doctrine. The brief argument runs as follows: “From St. Paul
everyone can infer that it cannot be achieved by works, otherwise the
Blood of Christ is made of no account.” Hence the holiness-by-works of
the Catholics was an abomination.[371]
On another occasion Luther, speaking of the wilful blindness of the
Catholics, declared that “God’s untold wrath must sooner or later fall
upon such Epicurean pigs and donkeys”; the devil must be a spirit of
tremendous power to incite them “deliberately to withstand God.” They
say and admit: “‘That is, I know, the Word of God, but even though it
is the Word of God I shall not suffer it, listen to it, nor regard it,
but shall reprove it and call it heretical, and whoever is determined
to obey God in this matter ... him I will put to death or banish.’ I
could never have believed there was such a sin.”[372]
As such declarations of the wilful obstinacy of the Catholics are quite
commonly made by him, we are tempted to assume that such was really his
opinion; if so, we are here face to face with a remarkable instance of
what his self-deception was capable.
Even at the Wartburg, however, he was already on the road to such an
idea, for, while still there, he had declared that the Papists were
unworthy to receive the truth which he preached: “Had they been worthy
of the truth, they would long ago have been converted by my many
writings.” “If I teach them they only revile me; I implore and they
merely mock at me; I scold them and they grow angry; I pray for them
and they reject my prayer; I forgive them their trespass and they will
have none of my forgiveness; I am ready to sacrifice myself for them
and yet they only curse me. What more can I do than Christ?”[373]
It is true that according to him the Papists were ignorant to the last
degree, and such ignorance had indeed always prevailed under Popery.
“I myself have been a learned Doctor of theology and yet I never
understood the Ten Commandments aright. Nay, there have been many
celebrated Doctors who were not sure whether there were nine or ten or
eleven Commandments; much less did they know anything of the Gospel or
of Christ.”[374]
Still, this appalling ignorance on the part of the Papists did not
afford any excuse or ground for charitable treatment. Their malice,
particularly that of the Popes, is too great. “The Popes are a pot-boil
of the very worst men on earth. They boast of the name of Christ, St.
Peter and the Churches and yet are full of the worst devils in hell,
full, absolutely full, so full that they drivel, spew and vomit nothing
but devils.”[375]
A passage in the “Table-Talk” collected by Mathesius and recently
published, shows that Luther considered his frenzied anti-popery as the
most suitable method of combating Popish errors; “Philip [Melanchthon]
isn’t as yet angry enough with the Pope,” he said some time in the
winter of 1542-43; “he is moderate by nature and always acts with
moderation, which may possibly be of some use, as he himself hopes.
But _my_ storming (_impetus_) knocks the bottom out of the cask; _my_
way is to fall upon them with clubs ... for the devil can only be
vanquished by contempt. Enough has been written and said to the weak,
as for the hardened, nothing is of any avail ... I rush in with all my
might, but against the devil.”[376]
His attitude towards scholarly Catholics was very apparent in the
later episodes of his controversy with Erasmus.[377]
After having charged Popes and Cardinals with lack of faith, it can be
no matter for surprise that he should have represented Erasmus as an
utter infidel and a preacher of Epicureanism. The pretexts upon which
Luther based this charge had been triumphantly demolished by Erasmus,
and only Luther’s prejudice in favour of his own mission to save
Christendom from destruction could have led him to describe Erasmus as
a depraved fellow, who personified all the infidelity and corruption
of the Papacy.
“This man learned his infidelity in Rome,” Luther ventured to say of
him; hence his wish “to have his Epicureanism praised.” “He is the
worst foe of Christ that has arisen for the last thousand years.”[378]
In 1519, before Erasmus took the field against him, Luther had written
to him, praising him, and, in the hope of securing his co-operation,
had said: “You are our ornament and our hope.... Who is there into
whose mind Erasmus has not penetrated, who does not see in him a
teacher, or over whom he has not established his sway? You are
displeasing to many, but therein I discern the gifts of our Gracious
God.... With these my words, barbarous as they are, I would fain pay
homage to the excellence of your mind to which we, all of us, are
indebted.... Please look on me as a little brother in Christ, who is
wholly devoted to you and loves you dearly.”[379]
On another occasion Luther abuses his opponent as follows: “The only
foundation of all his teaching is his desire to gain the applause of
the world; he weights the scale with ignorance and malice.” “What is
the good of reproaching him with being on the same road as Epicurus,
Lucian and the sceptics? By doing so I merely succeeded in rousing the
viper, and in its fury against me it gave birth to the _Viperaspides_
[i.e. the “_Hyperaspistes_”]. In Italy and at Rome he sucked in the
milk of the Lamiæ and Megæræ and now no medicine is of any avail.”
Even in what Erasmus says concerning the Creed, we see the “_os et
organum Satanæ_.” He may be compared with the enemy in the Gospel,
who, while men slept, sowed cockel in the field. We can understand now
how Sacramentarians, Donatists, Arians, Anabaptists, Epicureans and
so forth have again made their appearance. He sowed his seed and then
disappeared. And yet he stands in high honour with Pope and Prince.
“Who would have believed that the hatred of Luther was so strong? A
poor man is made great simply through Luther.”[380]
This letter Erasmus described in the title of his printed reply as
“_Epistola non sobria Martini Lutheri_.” Others, he says, might well
explain it as a mental aberration, or as due to the influence of some
evil demon.[381]
Luther, quite undismayed, continued to deny that Erasmus was in any
sense a believer: “He regards the Christian religion and doctrine
as a comedy or tragedy”; he is “a perfect counterfeit and image of
Epicurus”; to this “incarnate scoundrel, God—the Father, Son and
Holy Ghost—is merely ludicrous.” “Whereas I did not take the trouble
to read most of the other screeds published against me, but merely
put them to the basest use that paper can be put—which indeed was
all they were worth—I read through the whole of the ‘_Diatribe_’
of Erasmus, though I was often tempted to throw it aside.” He, like
Democritus, the cynical heathen philosopher, looks on our whole
theology as nothing better than a fairy tale.[382]