in his later years concerning the Catholics more as the result of a
delusion than as deliberate falsehoods. It may be that Luther gradually
persuaded himself that such was really the case. If this be so, we
must, however, admit with Döllinger “the unparalleled perversion and
darkening of Luther’s judgment”; this, adds Döllinger, would explain
“much in his statements which must otherwise appear enigmatical.”[383]
Considerations such as those we have seen him (p. 121 ff.) allege
concerning the truth of his cause being proved by its success, could
scarcely have impressed any save an unsettled mind such as his. He
seems to have accustomed himself to explaining the complex and highly
questionable movement at the head of which he stood in a light other
than the true one, so much so that he could declare: “God knows all
this is not my doing, a fact of which the whole world should have been
aware long ago.”[384] Brimful of the enthusiasm he had imbibed at the
Wartburg he wrote, from Wittenberg, on June 27, 1522, in a similar
tone to Staupitz, who was then Benedictine Abbot at Salzburg: “God has
undertaken it [the destruction of the abomination of the kingdom of
the Pope] without our help and without human aid, merely by the Word.
Its end has come before the Lord. The matter is beyond our reason or
understanding, hence it is useless to expect all to grasp it. For the
sake of God’s power it is meet and just that people’s minds be deeply
stirred and that there should be great scandals and great signs. Dear
father, do not let this disturb you; I am hopeful. You see God’s plan
in these matters and His Mighty Hand. Remember how my cause from
the outset seemed to the world doubtful and intolerable, and how,
notwithstanding, from day to day it has gained the upper hand more and
more. It will also gain the upper hand in what you now anticipate with
misplaced apprehension; just you wait and see. Satan feels the smart
of the wound inflicted on him, that is why he rages so furiously and
throws everything into confusion. But Christ Who began the work will
tread him under foot in defiance of all the gates of hell.”[385]
* * * * *
From the very outset of his career Luther had been paving the way for
this delusion as to the true character of his Catholic opponents, his
own higher mission and God’s overthrow of all gainsayers.
In 1518 he declared, as a sort of prelude to the idea of his Divine
mission, that the Catholic Doctors who opposed him were sunk in
“chaotic darkness,” and that he preached “the one true light, Jesus
Christ.”[386] Even in 1517, in publishing his Resolutions, he had said
of the setting up of his Indulgence Theses, that the Lord Himself had
compelled him to advance all this. “Let Christ see to it whether it be
His cause or mine.”[387]
His pupils and Wittenberg adherents treasured up such assurances of
his extraordinary mission in order to excite their own enthusiasm.
Even Albert Dürer, who was further removed from the sphere of his
influence, spoke of him in the third decade of the century as “a man
enlightened by the Holy Ghost and one who has the Spirit of God.”[388]
Long after his death the chord which he had struck continued to
vibrate among those who were devoted to him. On his tomb at Wittenberg
might be read: “Taught by the Divine inspiration and called by
God’s Word, he disseminated throughout the world the new light of
the Evangel.” Old, orthodox Lutheranism honoured him as God’s own
messenger; the Protestant Pietists, at the turn of the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries, attributed to Luther, to quote the words
of Gottfried Arnold, a truly “apostolic call,” received by means of
a “direct inspiration, impulse or Divine apprehension”; this Divine
mission, Arnold says, was “generally” admitted, although he himself,
as a staunch Pietist, was willing to allow to Luther “the power and
illumination of the Spirit” only during the period previous to the
dispute with Carlstadt, who was equally enlightened from above. “For a
while,” says Arnold, i.e. for about seven years, Luther was “in very
truth mightily guided by God and employed as His instrument.”[389]
Other Lutheran theologians, Gerhard and Calovius, for instance,
refused to see in Luther’s case anything more than an indirect call;
about the middle of the eighteenth century the editor of Luther’s
Works, Consistorialrat Prof. J. G. Walch, of Jena, asserted openly of
Luther’s mission that he “was not called directly by God as had been
the case with the Prophets and Apostles”; his call had only in so far
been beyond the ordinary in that “God, after decreeing in His Divine
plans the Reformation, had chosen Luther as His tool”; hence Luther’s
providential mission was only to be inferred from the “divinity of
the Reformation,” which, however, was apparent to all who “did not
wantonly and maliciously shut their eyes to facts.” Extraordinary gifts
had not indeed been bestowed upon him by God, though he had all the
“gifts pertaining to his office” in rich measure, and likewise the
“sanctifying gifts” and the “spiritual graces”; the latter Walch then
proceeds to dissect with painstaking exactitude.[390]
Such a view marks the transition to the modern conception of Luther
so widely prevalent among Protestants to-day, which, while extolling
him as the powerful instrument of the Reformation, naturalises him, so
to speak, and takes him down from the pedestal of the God-illumined
teacher and prophet, who proclaims a Divine interpretation of Scripture
binding upon all.[391]
_Apocalyptico-Mystic Vesture._
Against Catholics Luther also used certain pseudo-mystic elements drawn
from his consciousness of a higher mission and based principally on
Holy Scripture.
In this respect his one-sided study of the Bible explains much, and
should avail to mitigate our judgment on him. Stories and scenes from
the Old Testament, incidents from the heroic times of the prophets, the
lives of the patriarchs, to which he had devoted special Commentaries,
so engrossed his mind, that, unwittingly, he came to clothe all in
the garb of the prominent figures of Bible history. He was fond of
imagining himself as one of those privileged heroes living in the same
world of miracles as of yore.
If a she-ass could speak to Balaam then how much more can he, Luther,
proclaim the truth by the power from on high, even though the whole
world should be astonished at the solitary figure who dares to
stand up against it. He calls to mind, that the prophet Elias was
almost alone in refusing to bow the knee to Baal. Discouraged by the
opposition he met with from the Catholic party he was ready to liken
himself to Jeremias the prophet, and like him to say: “We would have
cured Babylon, but she is not healed, let us forsake her.”[392]
In the New Testament Christ Himself and the Apostles were Luther’s
favourite types, because, like himself, they were against a whole
world whose views were different. The fact that they were alone did
not, he says, diminish their reputation, and their success proved
their mission. Like Paul and Athanasius and Augustine it is his duty
to withstand the stream of false opinions: “My rock, that on which I
build, stands firm and will not totter or fall in spite of all the
gates of hell; of this I am certain.... Who knows what God wills to
work by our means?”[393]
When, at different periods of his public career, and in preparing
his various works for the press, he had occasion to ruminate on the
biblical questions connected with Antichrist, he was wont also to
consider the prophecies of Daniel on the end of the world. By dint of
a diligent comparison of all the passages on the abominations of the
latter days he came to find therein the corruption of the Papacy fully
described, even down to the smallest details, with an account of its
overthrow, and, consequently, also of his own mission. In the same way
that he saw the impending fall of the Turkish Empire predicted, so also
he recognised that the German Empire must shortly perish, since, as he
had learnt from Daniel, it was to receive no other constitution. As
for the Papacy, at least according to one of the most forcible of his
pronouncements, within two years “it would vanish like smoke, together
with all its swarm of parasites.”
In Daniel viii. we read that a king will come, “of a shameless face,
and understanding dark sentences.” He will lay all things waste and
destroy the mighty and the people of the saints according to his
will. “Craft shall be successful in his hands and his heart shall be
puffed up. He shall rise up against the prince of princes, and shall
be broken without a hand.” His coming will be “after many days.”[394]
The king thus prophesied is generally admitted to have been Antiochus
Epiphanes, while the words “after many days” do not refer to the Last
Day or to the End of the World, but to the latter end of the Jewish
people. Luther, however, took these words and the whole prophecy in
an erroneous, apocalyptic sense. He brought the description of the
king into connection with the passages on Antichrist, and the great
apostasy, in the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, the Second
Epistle to Timothy and the Second Epistle of Peter, etc.[395] There
seemed to him not the slightest doubt that the Papacy, with its
pernicious arrogance and revolt against God, was here described in
minutest detail.
This idea he finally elaborated while writing his violent work “On
the Babylonish Captivity.” He therein promised to tell the Papists
things such as they had never heard before. This promise he fulfilled
soon after in the detailed reply to Ambrosius Catharinus, which he
hastily wrote in the month of March, 1521. In this Latin work he
proved in detail to the satisfaction of learned readers, whether in
Germany or abroad, that the Papacy was plainly depicted in the Bible as
Antichrist, and likewise its approaching great fall.[396]
“I think that, through my exposition of the Prophet Daniel, I have
carried out excellently what I promised the Papists to do.” Thus to
his friend Link, on the completion of the work.[397]
Daniel’s Antichrist, according to Luther’s interpretation, assumes
various shapes. These, Luther assures us, are the different forms
and masks of Romish superstition and Romish hypocrisy. Amongst these
he reckons, as the last, the Universities, because they had made use
of the Divine Word in order to deceive the world; here he introduces
the prophecy in Apocalypse ix., where a star falls from heaven,
the fountains of the deep are opened, locusts with the strength of
scorpions rise up out of a thick smoke, and a King reigns over them
whose name is Apollyon, or destroyer. The star Luther takes to be
Thomas Aquinas, the smoke is the empty words and opinions of Aristotle
and the philosophers, the destructive locusts are the Universities,
and Apollyon is their master, viz. Aristotle. As for Antichrist
himself, i.e. the Papacy, Jesus will destroy him with the breath of
His mouth, according to the word of St. Paul, which agrees with the
“destruction without hands” prophesied by Daniel. “Thus the Pope and
his kingdom are not to be destroyed by laymen, although they greatly
dread this [at Rome]; they are not worthy of so mild a chastisement,
but are being reserved for the Second Coming of Christ because they
have been, and still remain, His most furious enemies. Such is the
end of Antichrist, who exalts himself above all things and does not
fight with hands, but by the breath and spirit of Satan. Breath shall
destroy breath, truth unmask deceit, for the unmasking of a lie means
bringing it to nought.”[398]
Apocalyptic fancies such as the above were to dog Luther’s footsteps
for the rest of his life. Both in his writings and in his “Table-Talk”
he was never backward in putting forth his views on this abstruse
subject.
Of the ideas concerning the Papal Antichrist which, since Hus’s time
were current among the classes hostile to Rome,[399] Luther selected
and absorbed whatever was worst. Hus’s work on the Church he read in
February, 1520. The birth and growth of the theory in his mind even
previous to this can, however, be traced step by step, and the process
affords us a valuable insight into his mentality by revealing so well
its pseudo-mystical element.
We may distinguish between the earliest private and the earliest
public appearance of Luther’s idea of the Papal Antichrist. Its first
unmistakable private trace is to be met with in a letter of December
11, 1518, to his brother-monk and sympathiser Wenceslaus Link.
Luther was at that time labouring under the emotion incident on his
interrogation at Augsburg, of which he had just published the “_Acta_.”
Sending a copy to his friend he declares, that his pen is already at
work at much greater things, that he knew not whence the ideas that
filled his mind came, but that he would send Link whatever writings
he published, that he might see “whether I am right in my surmise
that the real Antichrist, according to Paul [2 Thess. ii., 3 ff.],
rules at the Roman Curia.”[400] The first public expression of this
idea is, however, to be found in the pronouncement he made subsequent
to the Leipzig Disputation in the summer of 1519, viz. that if the
Pope arrogated to himself alone the power of interpreting Scripture,
then he was exalting himself above God’s Word and was worse than
Antichrist.[401]
Not long after Luther showed how deeply he had drunk in the ideas of
Hus; in February, 1520, he confessed to being a Husite, since both he
and Staupitz too had hitherto taught precisely Hus’s doctrine, though
without having recognised him as their leader; the plain, evangelical
truth had been burnt a hundred years before in the person of Hus. “I
am so astonished I know not what to think when I contemplate these
terrible judgments of God upon men.”[402] On March 19 he sent to
Spalatin a copy of Hus’s writing, which had just been printed for
the first time, praising the author as a “marvel of intellect and
learning.”[403]
In his conception of Antichrist Luther differed from antiquity in
that he applied the term not so much to a person as to a system, or a
condition of things: the ecclesiastical government of Rome, with its
“pretensions” and its “corruption,” appears to him in his apocalyptic
dreams as the real Antichrist. That he finally came to see in the
person of the Pope more and more an embodiment of Antichrist was,
however, only to be expected; when one wearer of the Papal tiara
died, the mask of Antichrist passed to his successor, a matter of no
difficulty since, as the end of the world was nigh, the number of the
Popes was in any case complete.
As early as February 24, 1520, having previously found new fuel
for his ire in the perusal of Hutten’s edition of Lorenzo Valla’s
dissertation against the Donation of Constantine, he wrote to
Spalatin:[404] “Nothing is too utterly monstrous not to be acceptable
at Rome;[405] of the impudent forgery of the Donation they have made
a dogma[!]. I have come to such a pass that I can scarcely doubt that
the Pope is the real Antichrist whom the world, according to the
accepted view, awaits. His life, behaviour, words and laws all fit the
character too well. But more of this when we meet.” The allusion to
the “accepted view” may refer to a work, reprinted at Erfurt in 1516,
and which Luther must certainly have known, viz. the “Booklet on the
Life and Rule of End-Christ as Divinely decreed, how he corrupteth the
world through his false teaching and devilish counsel, and how, after
this, the two prophets Enoch and ‘Helyas’ shall win back Christendom by
preaching the Christian faith.”
Greater even than the influence of such writings, in confirming him in
his persuasion that the Pope was Antichrist, was that of the excitement
caused by his polemics. We have already had occasion to speak of
his stormy replies to the “_Epitome_” of Silvester Prierias and the
controversial pamphlet of Augustine Alveld the Franciscan friar. In the
latter rejoinder he promises to handle the Papacy “mercilessly” and to
belabour Antichrist as he deserves. “Circumstances demand imperatively
that the veil be torn from the mysteries of Antichrist; indeed, in
their effrontery they themselves refuse to be any longer shrouded
in darkness.” Speaking of Prierias, who was a Roman, he says: “I
believe that at Rome they have all gone stark, staring mad, and become
senseless fools, stocks, stones, devils and a very hell”; “what now can
we expect from Rome where such a monster is permitted to take his place
in the Church?”[406] In his replies to Prierias and Alveld he depicts
Antichrist in the worst colours to be supplied by a vivid imagination
and an over-mastering fury: If such things are taught in Rome, then
“the veritable Antichrist is indeed seated in the Temple of God, and
rules in the purple-clad Babylon at Rome, while the Roman Curia is the
synagogue of Satan.... Who can Antichrist be, if not such a Pope? O
Satan, Satan, how greatly dost thou abuse the patience of thy Creator
to thine own destruction!”[407]
The anger of the sensitive and excitable Wittenberg professor had been
roused by contradiction, particularly by the tract which hailed from
Rome, but the arrival of the Bull of Excommunication moved him to the
very depths of his soul and led him to commit to writing the most
hateful travesties of the Roman Papacy.
In the storm and stress of the struggle, which in the latter half of
1520 produced the so-called great Reformation works, the Antichrist
theory, in its final form, was made to serve as a bulwark against
the Papal excommunication and its consequences. Luther drops all
qualifications and henceforth his assertions are positive. The wider
becomes the breach separating him from Rome, the blacker must he paint
his opponents in order to justify himself before the world and to his
own satisfaction. Previous to its publication he summed up the contents
of his “An den christlichen Adel” as follows: “There the Pope is
severely mauled and treated as Antichrist.”[408] As a matter of fact,
the comparison is so startling that he could well speak of the booklet
as “a trumpet-blast against the world-destroying tyranny of the Roman
Antichrist.”[409] In the writing “On the Babylonish Captivity,” a few
weeks later, he exclaims: “Now I know and am certain that the Papacy
is the empire of Babylon.” “The Popes are Antichrists and desire to
be honoured in the stead of Christ.... The Papacy is nothing but the
empire of Babylon and of the veritable Antichrist, because with its
doctrines and laws it merely makes sin more plentiful; hence the Pope
is the ‘man of sin’ and the ‘son of destruction.’”[410]
Hereby he had prepared the way for his attack upon Leo the Tenth’s Bull
of Excommunication, which he published in German and Latin at the end
of October, 1520, under the title, “Widder die Bullen des Endchrists”
and “_Adversus execrabilem Antichristi bullam_.”[411] Such a name was
well calculated to strike the fancy of the masses, and there cannot be
the slightest doubt that Luther welcomed it as a taking, popular cry.
It is easy to meet the objection that the Papal Antichrist was nothing
more to Luther than a serviceable catchword, and that he never meant
it seriously. That such was not the case we have abundantly proved
already; on the contrary, we have here a clear outgrowth of his
pseudo-mysticism. He ever preserved it as a sacred possession, and
it found its way in due season into the Schmalkald Articles[412] and
into the Notes Luther appended to his German Bible.[413] The idea,
which never left him, of the world’s approaching end—with this we
shall deal at greater length in vol. v., xxxi. 2—is without a doubt
closely linked with his cherished theory of his being the revealer of
Antichrist and the chosen instrument of God for averting His malice in
the latter days.
The Bible assures us, according to Luther, that, “after the downfall
of the Pope and the delivery of the poor, no one on earth would be
feared as a tyrant” (Psalm x. 18); now, he continues, “this would not
be possible were the world to continue after the Pope’s fall, for the
world cannot exist without tyrants. And thus the prophet agrees with
the Apostle that Christ at His coming [i.e. His second coming, for the
Last Judgment] will upset the holy Roman Chair. God grant this happen
speedily. Amen.”[414]
In 1541, Luther wrote a Latin essay on the Chronology of the World,
which, in 1550, was published in German by Johann Aurifaber under
the title of “Luthers Chronica.” This work, which witnesses both to
Luther’s industry and to his interest in history, is also made to
serve its author’s views on Antichrist. Towards the end, alluding
to what he had already said concerning the several periods of the
world’s history, he adds, that it was “to be hoped that the end of
the world was drawing near, for the sixth millenary of its history
would not be completed, any more than the three days between Christ’s
death and resurrection.” Besides, “at no other time had greater and
more numerous signs taken place, which gives us a certain hope that
the Last Day is at the very door.”[415] Of the year A.D. 1000 we here
read: “The Roman Bishop becometh Antichrist, thanks to the power of
the sword.”[416]
In the same year his tireless pen, amongst other writings, produced
a Commentary on Daniel xii. concerning the “end of the days,” the
abomination of desolation and the general retribution. The Papal
Antichrist here again supplies him with abundant exemplifications
of the fulfilment of the prophecy; the signs foretold to herald the
destruction of this Empire, so hostile to God, had almost all been
accomplished, and the great day was at hand.
Other people, and, among them some of the great lights of Catholicism,
both before and after Luther’s day, have erred in their exegesis of
Antichrist and been led to expect prematurely the end of the world.
Yet only in Luther do we find united a fanatical expectation of the
end with a minute acquaintance with its every detail, scriptural
demonstrations with anxious observation of the events of the times,
all steeped in the deadliest hatred of that mortal enemy the Papacy.
His conviction that God was proving his mission by signs and
wonders sometimes assumed unfortunate forms, for instance, when he
superstitiously seeks its attestation in incidents of his own day.
We see an example of this in the meaning he attached to the huge
whale driven ashore near Haarlem, in which he saw a sign of God’s
wrath against the Papists. “The Lord has given them an ominous sign,”
he writes, on June 13, 1522, to Speratus, “if so be they enter into
themselves and do penance. For He has cast a sea monster called a
whale, 70 feet in length and 35 feet in girth, on the shore near
Haarlem. Such a monster it is usual to regard as a certain sign of
wrath. May God have mercy on them and on us.”[417] Other natural
phenomena, amongst them an earthquake in Spain, led him to write as
follows to Spalatin at the beginning of the following year: “Don’t
think that I shall creep back into a corner however much Behemoth and
his crew may rage. New and awful portents occur day by day, and you
have doubtless heard of the earthquake in Spain.”[418]
When, in 1536, extraordinary deeds were narrated of a girl at
Frankfurt-on-the-Oder, and attributed to demoniacal possession (she
could, for instance, produce coins from all sorts of impossible
places, even out of men’s beards), Luther, we are told, utilised
in the pulpit these terrible signs and portents, “as a warning to
abandoned persons who deem themselves secure, in order that now, at
last, they may begin to fear God and to put their trust in Him.”[419]
At Freiberg in Saxony, towards the end of 1522, a cow was delivered
of a deformed calf. On this becoming known, people, as was then the
vogue, set about discovering the meaning of the portent. An astrologer
of Prague first took the extraordinary phenomenon to refer to Luther,
whose hateful and wicked behaviour was portrayed in the miscarriage.
Luther, on the other hand, discovered that the monstrosity really
represented a naked calf clothed in a cowl (the skin was drawn up into
strange creases on the back), and that it therefore indicated the
monkish state, of the worthlessness of which it was a true picture, and
God’s wrath against monasticism. In a tract published in the spring,
1523, he compared in such detail and with such wealth of fancy the
creature to the monks that the work itself was termed monstrous.[420]
The cowl represented the monkish worship, “with prayers, Masses,
chanting and fasting,” which they perform to the calf, i.e. “to the
false idol in their lying hearts”; just as the calf eats nothing but
grass, so “they fatten on sensual enjoyments here on earth.” “The
cowl over the hind-quarters of the calf is torn,” this signifies the
monks’ “impurity”; the calf’s legs are “their impudent Doctors” and
pillars; the calf assumes the attitude of a preacher, which means
that their preaching is despicable; it is also blind because they are
blind; it has ears, and these signify the abuse of the confessional;
with the horns with which it is provided it shall break down their
power; the tightening of the cowl around its neck signifies their
obstinacy, etc. A woodcut of the calf helped the reader to understand
the mysteries better. To show that he meant it all in deadly earnest,
he adduced texts from Scripture which might prove how “well-grounded”
was his interpretation. He declares, that he only speaks of what he
is quite sure, and that he refrains from a further, i.e. a prophetic,
interpretation of the “Monk-Calf” because it was not sufficiently
certain, although “God gives us to understand by these portents that
some great misfortune and change is imminent.” His hope is that this
change might be the coming of the Last Day, “since many signs have so
far coincided.” Hence his strange delusion concerning the calf goes
hand in hand with his habitual one concerning the approaching end of
the world.
It would be to misapprehend the whole character of the writing to
assert, as has recently been done by an historian of Luther, that the
author was merely joking, and that what he says of the Monk-Calf was
simply a jest at the expense of the Pope and the monks. As a matter of
fact, every line of the work protests against such a misrepresentation
of the author and his prophetic mysticism, and no one can read the
pamphlet without being struck by the entire seriousness which it
breathes.
The tragic earnestness of the whole is evident in the very first
pages, where Luther allows a friend to give his own interpretation of
a similar abortion (the Pope-Ass) born in Italy. Here the writer is no
other than the learned Humanist Melanchthon, who, like Luther, with the
help of a woodcut, describes and explains the portent. Pope-Ass and
Monk-Calf made the round of Germany together, in successive editions.
Melanchthon, scholar though he was, is not one whit less earnest in the
significance he attaches to the “Pope-Ass found dead in 1496 in the
Tiber at Rome.”
After this double work, so little to the credit of German literature,
had frequently been reprinted, Luther, in 1535, added two additional
pages to Melanchthon’s text with a corroboration entitled: “Dr.
Martin Luther’s Amen to the interpretation of the Pope-Ass.” He here
accepts entirely Melanchthon’s exposition, which was more than the
latter was willing to do for Luther’s interpretation of the Monk-Calf.
Melanchthon’s opinion, for which perhaps more might be said, was that
the misshapen calf stood for the corruption of the Lutheran teaching by
sensuality and perverse doctrine, iconoclast violence and revolutionary
peasant movements.[421]
In his “Amen” to Melanchthon’s Pope-Ass, Luther writes: “The Sublime,
Divine Wisdom Itself” “created this hideous, shocking and horrible
image.” “Well may the whole world be affrighted and tremble.” “People
are terrified if a spirit or devil appears, or makes a clatter in a
corner, though this is but mere child’s play compared with such an
abomination, wherein God manifests Himself openly and shows Himself
so cruel. Great indeed is the wrath which must be impending over the
Papacy.”[422]
In his Church-postils Luther spoke of the “Pope-Ass” with an
earnestness calculated to make a profound impression upon the
susceptible. He referred to the “dreadful beast which the Tiber had
cast up at Rome some years before, with an ass’s head, a body like
a woman’s, an elephant’s foot for a right hand, with fish scales on
its legs, and a dragon’s head at its rear, etc. All this signified
the Papacy and the great wrath and chastisement of God. Signs in such
number portend something greater than our reason can conceive.”[423]
As Luther makes such frequent use of the Pope-Ass, which he was
instrumental in immortalising, for instance, in the frightful abuse of
the Pope contained in “Das Bapstum zu Rom vom Teuffel gestifft,”[424]
and also circulated a woodcut of it in his book of caricatures of the
Papacy, adding some derisive verses,[425] which woodcut was afterwards
reproduced from this or the earlier publication by other opponents
of the Papacy, both in Germany and abroad,[426] some particulars
concerning the previous history of the Pope-Ass may here not be out of
place.
The dead beast was said to have been left stranded on the banks of the
Tiber in January, 1496, under the pontificate of Pope Alexander VI.,
when Italy was in a state of great distress. The find made a profound
impression, as was only to be expected in those days of excitement
and superstition; it was greatly exaggerated, and, at an early date,
interpreted in various ways. The oldest description is to be met
with in the Venetian Annals of Malipiero, where the account is that
given by the ambassador of the Republic at Rome.[427] The monster
was also portrayed in stone in the Cathedral of Como, as an omen, so
it would seem, of the misfortunes of the day, and of those yet to
be expected.[428] At Rome itself political opponents of Alexander
VI. made use of it in their campaign against a Pope they hated, by
circulating a lampoon—the oldest extant—containing a caricature
of the event. A facsimile of this cut has come down to us in the
shape of a copper plate made in 1498 by Wenzel of Olmütz.[429] In
all likelihood a copy of this very plate was sent to Luther at the
beginning of 1523 by the Bohemian Brethren.
Melanchthon and Luther diverged in their use of this picture from
the older and more harmless interpretation, i.e. that which saw in
it a reference to earthly trials, or a judgment on the politics
of the Pope. They, on the contrary, regarded it as a denunciation
by heaven of the Papacy itself and of the Roman Church with all
its “abominations.” Quite possibly the transition had been quietly
effected by the Bohemian Brethren. Luther, however, says Lange,
“was the first to make it public property.” “The Pope-Ass is for
this reason the most interesting example of the whole teratological
literature, because in it we can see the transition visibly effected.”
The same author detects in the joint work of the two Wittenbergers “a
polemical tone hitherto unheard of”; of Melanchthon’s Pope-Ass, he
says: “It is probably the most unworthy work we have of Melanchthon’s.
He himself naturally believed implicitly in what he wrote.... That
Melanchthon acquitted himself of his task with particular skill cannot
be affirmed.”[430]
Just as the Monk-Calf had been applied to Luther himself previous
to his own polemical interpretation of it, so, after the appearance
of his and Melanchthon’s joint publication, both the Calf and the
Ass were repeatedly taken by the Catholic controversialists to
represent Luther and his innovations. The sixteenth century, as
already hinted, loved to dwell upon and expound such freaks of nature.
Authors of repute had done so before Luther, at least to the extent
of making such the subject of indifferent compositions, as the poet
J. Franciscus Vitalis of Palermo had done (“_De monstro nato_”) in
the case of a monstrosity said to have been born at Ravenna in 1511
or 1512; the Humanist Jacob Locher, at the turn of the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries, dealt with a similar case in his “_Carmen
heroicum_.” Conrad Lycosthenes published at Basle, in 1557, a
compendium of the prodigies of nature (“_Prodigiorum ac ostentorum
chronicon_”), in which he instances a large number of such freaks
famous even before Luther’s day. Of the earlier Humanists Sebastian
Brant composed some Elegies on the Marvels of Nature. The Wittenberg
work on the Calf and Ass must be put in its proper setting, and
judged according to the standard of its age; although, owing to its
religious bias, it far exceeds in extravagance anything that had
appeared so far, it nevertheless was an outgrowth of its time.
3. Proofs of the Divine Mission. Miracles and Prophecies
How was Luther to give actual proof of the reality of his call and of
his mission to introduce such far-reaching ecclesiastical innovations?
Luther himself, indirectly, invited his hearers to ask this question
concerning his calling. “Whoever teaches anything new or strange”
must be “called to the office of preacher” he frequently declares
of those new doctrines which differed from his own; no one who has
not a legitimate mission will be able to withstand the devil, but on
the contrary will be cast down to hell.[431] Even in the case of the
ordinary and regular office, Luther demands a legitimate mission; for
the office of extraordinary messenger of God, he is still more severe.
For here it is a question of the extraordinary preaching of truths
previously unknown or universally forgotten or questioned, and of the
reintroduction of doctrine. Here he rightly requires that whoever
wishes to introduce anything new or to teach something different from
the common, must be able to appeal to miracles in support of his
vocation. If he is unable to do this, let him pack up and depart.[432]
Elsewhere, as he correctly puts it: “Where God wills to alter the
ordinary ways, He ever performs miracles.”[433] (Cp. vol. i., p. 225 f.)
His teaching is, “There are two sorts of vocations to the office of
preacher”; one takes place without any human means by God alone [the
extraordinary call], the other [the ordinary] is effected by man as
well as by God. The first is not to be credited unless attested by
miracles such as were performed by Christ and His Apostles. Hence, if
they come and say God has called them, that the Holy Ghost urges them,
and they are forced to preach, let us ask them boldly: “What signs do
you perform that we may believe you?”[434] (Mark xvi. 20). Logically
enough Luther also demanded miracles of Carlstadt, Münzer and the
Anabaptists.
Which of the two kinds of vocation must we see in Luther’s case?
Was his the ordinary one, which keeps to the well-trodden path, or
the extraordinary one, which “strikes out a new way”? Simple as the
question appears, it is nevertheless difficult to give a straight
answer in Luther’s own words.
As has been proved by Döllinger in his work on the Reformation, and as
was well seen even by earlier polemical writers, Luther’s statements
concerning his own mission were not remarkable for consistency. No less
than fourteen variations have been counted, though, naturally, they do
not involve as many changes of opinion.[435] We shall be nearest to
the truth if we assume his mission to have been an extraordinary and
unusual one. As an ordinary one it certainly could not be regarded,
seeing the novelty of his teaching, and that he himself, as “Evangelist
by God’s Grace” (see vol. iv., xxvi., 4), professed to be introducing
a doctrine long misunderstood and forgotten. Besides, an ordinary call
could only have emanated from the actually existing ecclesiastical
authorities, with whom Luther had altogether broken. In this connection
Luther himself, on one occasion, comes surprisingly near the Catholic
view concerning the right of call invested in the bishops as the
successors of the Apostles, and declares that “not for a hundred
thousand worlds would he interfere with the office of a bishop without
a special command.”[436]
The assumption of an extraordinary call offers, however, an insuperable
difficulty which cannot fail to present itself after what has
been said. No extraordinary attestation on the part of heaven is
forthcoming, nor any miracle which might have confirmed Luther’s
doctrine; God’s witness on behalf of His messenger by signs or
prophecies, such as those of Christ, of the Apostles and of many of the
Saints, was lacking in Luther’s case, and so was that sanctity of life
to be expected of a divinely commissioned teacher whose mission it is
to bring men to the truth.
No one now believes in the existence of any actual and authentic
miracle performed by Luther, or in any real prophecy, whether about
or by him. With the tales of miracles which once found favour among
credulous Pietists, history has no concern. Though here and there
some credence still attaches to the alleged prediction of Hus, which
Luther himself appealed to,[437] viz. that after the goose (Hus=goose)
would come a swan, yet historical criticism has already dealt quite
sufficiently with it. We should run the risk of exposing Luther to
ridicule were we to enumerate and reduce to their real value the
alleged miracles by which, for instance, he was convinced his life
was preserved in the poisoned pulpits of the Papists, or the various
“_monstra_” and “_portenta_” which accompanied his preaching. Of such
prodigies the Pope-Ass and the Monk-Calf are fair samples (above, p.
148 ff.).[438]
In reply to the attempts made, more particularly in the days of
Protestant orthodoxy in the sixteenth century, to compare the rapid
spread of Protestantism with the miracle of the rapid propagation of
Christianity in early days, it has rightly been pointed out, that the
comparison is a lame one; the Church of Christ spread because her moral
power enabled her to impose on a proud world mysteries which transcend
all human reason; on a world sunk in every lust and vice a moral law
demanding a continual struggle against all the passions and desires
of the heart; her conquest of the world was achieved without secular
aid or support, in fact, in the very teeth of the great ones of the
earth who for ages persecuted her; yet during this struggle she laid
her foundations in the unity of the one faith and one hierarchy; her
spread, then, was truly miraculous.
Luther, on the other hand, so his opponents urged, by his opposition to
ecclesiastical authority and his principle of the free interpretation
of Scripture, was casting humility to the winds and setting up
the individual as the highest authority in matters of religion;
thanks to his “evangelical freedom” he felt justified in deriding
as holiness-by-works much that in Christianity was a burden or
troublesome; on the other hand, by his doctrine of imputation, he
cast the mantle of Christ’s righteousness over all the doings and
omissions of believers; from the very birth of his movement he had
sought his principal support in the favour of the Princes, whom, in
due course, he invested with supreme authority in the Church; the
spread of Lutheranism was not the spread of a united Church, but, on
the contrary, such was the diversity of opinions that Jacob Andreæ,
a Protestant preacher, could say, in 1576, in a public address, that
it would be difficult to find a pastor who held the same faith as his
sexton.[439] From all this the Church’s sixteenth-century apologists
concluded that the spread of Luther’s teaching was not at all
miraculous.
Concerning the miracle spoken of above, and miracles in general as
proofs of the truth, Luther expresses himself in the third sermon
on the Ascension, embodied in his Church-postils. The occasion was
furnished by the words of Our Lord: “These signs shall follow those
who believe” (Mark xvi. 17), and by the pertinent question addressed
to him by the fanatics and other opponents: Where are your miracles?
With remarkable assurance he will have it, that to put such a
question to him was quite “idle”; miracles enough had taken place
when Christianity was first preached to make good the words spoken by
Our Lord; at the present day the Gospel had no further need of them;
such outward signs had been suitable “for the heathen,” whereas, now,
the Gospel had been “proclaimed everywhere.”—He does not see that
though the Gospel had certainly been proclaimed everywhere this was
was not his own particular Gospel or Evangel, and that he is therefore
begging the question. He continues quite undismayed: Miracles may
nevertheless take place, and do, as a matter of fact, occur under
the Evangel, for instance, the driving out of devils and the healing
of sicknesses. “The best and greatest miracle” is, however, the
spread and preservation of my doctrine in spite of the assaults of
devils, tyrants and fanatics, in spite of flesh and blood, of the
“Pope, the Turk and his myrmidons.” Is it no miracle, that “so many
die cheerfully in Christ” in this faith? Compared with this miracle,
declares the orator, those miracles which appeal to the senses are
mere child’s play; this is a “miracle beyond all miracles”; well might
people be astonished at the survival of his doctrine “when a hundred
thousand devils were striving against it.” It was only to be expected
that this miracle should be blasphemed by an unbelieving world, but
“were we to perform the most palpable miracles, they would still
despise them.” This is why God does not work them through us, just as
Christ Himself, although able to perform miracles with the greatest
ease, once refused to give the Jews “any other sign than that of
the Prophet Jonas,” i.e. the resurrection. Luther concludes with an
explanation of Christ’s refusal and of the miracle of Jonas.[440]
Hence he is willing to allow the absence of “palpable miracles” in
support of his Evangel, in default of which, however, he instances the
miracle of his great success. And yet, according to his own showing,
such an attestation by palpable miracles would have been eminently
desirable. Germany, he says, from the early days of her conversion down
to his own time, had never been in possession of Christianity, because
the real Gospel, i.e. the doctrine of Justification, had remained
unknown. Only now for the first time had the Gospel been revealed in
all its purity, thanks to his study of Scripture.[441] At the Council
of Nicæa he declares, “there was not one who had even tasted of the
Divine Spirit”; even the Council of the Apostles at Jerusalem was not
above suspicion, seeing that it had seen fit to discuss works and
traditions rather than faith.[442]
Thus he requires that his unheard-of claims, albeit not attested by any
display of miracles, should be accepted simply on his own assurance
that his teaching was based on Holy Scripture. “There is no need for
us to work wonders, for our teaching is already confirmed [by Holy
Scripture] and is no new thing.”[443]
Owing to the lack of any Divine attestation, Luther often preferred
to describe his mission as an ordinary one. In this case he derives
his vocation to teach from his degree of Doctor of Theology and
from the authority given him by the authorities to preach. “I, Dr.
Martin,” he says, for instance, speaking of his doctorate, “was called
and compelled thereto; for I was forced to become a Doctor [of
Holy Scripture] against my will and simply out of obedience.”[444]
Elsewhere, however, he declares that the doctorate was by no means
sufficient to enable one to bid defiance to the devil, or to equip a
man in conscience for the task of preaching.[445] He was still further
confirmed in this belief when he realised that he owed his doctorate
to that very Church which he represented as the Kingdom of Antichrist
and a mere Babylon. He himself stigmatised his degree as the “mark of
the Beast,” and rejoiced that the excommunication had cancelled this
papistical title.
Neither could the want of a call be supplied by the authorisation of
the Wittenberg Council, upon which at times Luther was wont to lay
stress. He himself hesitated to allow that magistrates or Princes could
give a call, particularly where the teaching of any of those thus
appointed by the magistrates ran counter to his own. Even though their
teaching agreed entirely with the views of the secular authorities,
their mission was in his eyes quite invalid. He even had frequent cause
to complain, that the Evangel was greatly hampered by the interference
of the secular authorities and by their sending out as preachers those
who had no real call, and were utterly unfitted for the office.
After what has gone before, we can readily understand how Luther came
to pass over in silence the question of his mission and to appeal
directly to his preaching of the truth as the sign of his vocation; he
does not seem to have perceived that the main point was to establish a
criterion for the recognition of the truth, short of which anyone would
be at liberty to set up his pet error as the “truth.” “The first,”
though not the only condition, was, he declared, “that the preacher
should have an office, be convinced that he was called and sent, and
that what he did was done for the sake of his office”; seeing, however,
that even the Papists fulfilled these conditions, Luther usually
required in addition that the preachers “be certain they have God’s
Word on their side.”[446]
In 1522 he declared any questioning of his vocation to be mere
perversity, for, of his call, no creature had a right to judge. We
cannot but quote again this assurance, “My doctrine is not to be judged
by any man, nor even by the angels; because I am certain of it, I will
judge you and the angels likewise, as St. Paul says (Gal. i. 8), and
whosoever does not accept my teaching will not arrive at blessedness.
For it is God’s and not mine, therefore my judgment is God’s and not
mine.”[447]
Such statements are aids to the understanding of his mode of thought,
but there are other traits in his mental history relating to the
confirmation of his Divine calling.
Such, for instance, is his account of the miracles by which the flight
of certain nuns from their convents was happily accomplished.
The miracle which was wrought on behalf of the nun Florentina, and
in confirmation of the new Evangel, is famous. Luther himself, in
March, 1524, published the story according to the account given by
the nun herself, and dedicated it to Count Mansfeld.[448] As this
circumstance, and also the Preface, shows, he took the matter very
seriously, and was entirely persuaded that it was a visible “sign from
heaven.” Yet it is perfectly plain, even from his own pamphlet, that
the occurrence was quite simple and natural.
Florentina of Upper-Weimar had been confided in early childhood to
the convent of Neu-Helfta, at Eisleben, to be educated; later, after
the regulation “year of probation,” she took the vows, probably
without any real vocation. Having become acquainted with some of
the writings of the Reformers, she entered into correspondence with
Luther, and, one happy day in February, 1524, thanks to “visible,
Divine assistance,” escaped from her fellow-nuns—who, so she alleged,
had treated her cruelly—because, as she very naively remarks,[449]
“the person who should have locked me in left the cells open.” She
betook herself to Luther at Wittenberg. Luther adds nothing to the
bare facts; he has no wish to deceive the reader by false statements.
Yet, speaking of the incident, he says in the Introduction: “God’s
Word and Work must be acknowledged with fear, nor ... may His signs
and wonders be cast to the winds.” Godless people despised God’s works
and said: This the devil must have done. They did not “perceive God’s
action, or recognise the work of His Hands. So is it ever with God’s
miracles.” Just as the Pharisees disregarded Christ’s driving out of
devils and raising of the dead, and only admitted those things to be
miracles which they chose to regard as such, so it is still to-day.
Hence no heed would be paid to this work of God by which Florentina
“had been so miraculously rescued from the jaws of the devil.” If
noisy spirits, or Papists with their holy water, performed something
extraordinary, then, of course, that was a real miracle. He proceeds:
“But we who, by God’s Grace, have come to the knowledge of the
Evangel and the truth, are not at liberty to allow such signs, which
take place for the corroboration of the Evangel, to pass unnoticed.
What matters it that those who neither know, nor desire to know, the
Evangel do not recognise it as a sign, or even take it for the devil’s
work?”[450]
The use of an argument so puerile, and Luther’s confident assumption
of an extraordinary interference of Divine Omnipotence suspending the
laws of nature (which is what a miracle amounts to), all this could
only arouse painful surprise in the minds of those of his readers who
were faithful to the Church. Luther was here the victim of a mystical
delusion only to be accounted for by his dominant idea of his relation
to God and the Church.
When, in the same work, he goes on to tell his readers that: “God has
certainly wrought many similar signs during the last three years,
which shall be described in due season”; or that he merely recounted
Florentina’s escape to Count Mansfeld as “a special warning from
God” against the nunneries, which “God had made manifest in their
own country,” we see still more plainly the extent and depth of his
pseudo-mystical views concerning the miracles wrought on behalf of his
Evangel.
Concerning his own ability to work miracles, he is reticent and
cautious. It is true that, to those who are ready to believe in him,
he confidently promises God’s wonderful intervention should the
need arise; the miraculous power, so far as it concerns himself, he
represents, however, as bound by a wise economy, and, also, by his own
desire of working merely through the Word.
It should be noted of the statements to be quoted that they betray no
trace of having been made in a jesting or rhetorical mood, but are, on
the contrary, in the nature of theological arguments.
In 1537, he declared: “I have frequently said that I never desired
God to grant me the grace of working miracles, but rejoice that it
is given to me to hold fast to the Word of God and to work with it;
otherwise they would soon be saying: ‘The devil works through him.’”
For, as the Jews behaved towards Christ, “so also do our adversaries,
the Papists, behave towards us. Whatever we do is wrong in their
eyes; they are annoyed at us and scandalised and say: The devil made
this people. But they shall have no sign from us.” All that Christ
said to the Jews was: “Destroy this temple,” that is, Me and My
teaching; I shall nevertheless rise again. “What else can we reply to
our foes, the Papists?... Destroy the temple if you will, it shall
nevertheless be raised up again in order that the Gospel may remain in
the Christian Church.”[451]—The great miracle required of Christ was
merely deferred, He performed it by His actual resurrection from the
dead. What sign such as this was it in Luther’s power to promise?
Luther is even anxious not to have any signs. “I have besought the
contrary of God,” i.e. that there should be no revelations or signs,
so he writes in 1534, in the enlarged Commentary on Isaias, “in order
that I may not be lifted up, or drawn away from the spoken Word, by
the deceit of Satan.”[452]—“Now that the Gospel has been spread
abroad and proclaimed to the whole world it is not necessary to work
wonders as in the time of the Apostles. But should necessity arise
and the Gospel be threatened and suffer violence, we should then have
to set about it and work signs rather than leave the Gospel to be
abused and oppressed. But I hope it will not be necessary, and that
things will not come to such a pass as to compel me to speak with new
tongues, for this is not really necessary.” Here he is thinking of
believers generally, though at the close he refers more particularly
to himself. Speaking of all, he continues prudently: “Let no one take
it upon himself to work wonders without urgent necessity.” “For the
disciples did not perform them on every occasion, but only in order to
bear witness to the Word and to confirm it by miraculous signs.”[453]
That he believed the power to work miracles might be obtained of God
may be inferred from many of his declarations against the fanatics,
where he challenges them to prove themselves the messengers of God by
signs and wonders; for whosoever is desirous of teaching something new
or uncommon, he had said, must be “called by God and able to confirm
his calling by real miracles,” otherwise let him pack up and go his
way.[454] But his own doctrines were an entirely new thing in the
Church, and, in spite of every subterfuge, when thus inviting others
to perform miracles, he cannot always have been unmindful of the fact.
Hence it has been said that he claimed a certain latent ability to
work miracles. It should, however, be noted that he always insists
here that his teaching, unlike that of the fanatics and other sects,
Catholics included, was not new, but was the original teaching of
Christ, and that therefore it stood in no need of miracles.
Still, his confident tone brings him within measurable distance of
volunteering to work miracles in support of his cause. “Although
I have wrought no such sign such as perhaps we might work, should
necessity arise,” etc.[455] These words are quite in keeping with the
above: “We should have to set about it,” etc.
It is strange how Luther repeatedly falls back on Melanchthon’s
recovery at Weimar in 1540. This eventually followed a visit of Luther
to his friend, to encourage and pray for the sick man, whose health
had completely broken down under the influence of melancholy.[456]
It is possible Luther saw in this a miraculous answer to his prayer;
owing to the manner in which he recounted the incident it became a
tradition, that the power of his prayer was stronger than the toils of
death. Walch, in his Life of Luther, wrote, that people had then seen
“how much Luther’s prayer was capable of.”[457]
The same scholar adds, as another “remarkable example,” that that
godly and upright man, Frederick Myconius, the first evangelical
Superintendent at Gotha, had assured him before his death, that only
thanks to Luther’s prayers had he been able to drag on his existence,
notwithstanding his consumption, for six years, though in a state of
“great weakness.”[458] In cheering up Myconius, and promising him his
prayers, Luther had said: As to your recovery, “I demand it, I will
it, and my will be done. Amen.”[459] “In the same way,” Walch tells
us, “he also prayed for his wife Catharine when she was very ill; he
was likewise reported to have said on one occasion: ‘I rescued our
Philip, my Katey and Mr. Myconius from death by my prayers.’”[460]
How does the case stand as regards the gift of prophecy, seeing
that Luther apparently claims to have repeatedly made use of higher
prophetic powers?
On more than one occasion Luther declares that what he predicted
usually came to pass, even adding, “This is no joke.” In the same way
he often says quite seriously, that he would refrain from predicting
this or that misfortune lest his words should be fulfilled. We see an
instance of this sort in his circular-letter addressed, in February,
1539, to the preachers on the anticipated religious war.[461]
“I am a prophet of evil and do not willingly prophesy anything, for it
generally comes to pass.” This he says in conversation when speaking
of the wickedness of Duke George of Saxony.[462] In the Preface to
John Sutel’s work on “The Gospel of the Destruction of Jerusalem,”
Luther says, in 1539, speaking of the disasters which were about to
befall Germany: “I do not like prophesying and have no intention of
doing so, for what I prophesy, more particularly the evil, is as
a rule fulfilled, even beyond my expectations, so that, like St.
Micheas, I often wish I were a liar and false prophet; for since it is
the Word of God that I speak it must needs come to pass.”[463] In his
Church-postils he commences a gloomy prophecy on the impending fate
of Germany with the words: “From the bottom of my heart I am loath to
prophesy, for I have frequently experienced that what I predict comes
only too true,” the circumstances, however, compelled him, etc.[464]
No wonder then that his enthusiastic disciples had many instances to
relate of his “prophecies.”
A casual reference of Luther’s to a seditious rising to be expected
among the German nobility, is labelled in the MS. copy of Lauterbach’s
“Tagebuch,” “Luther’s Prophecy concerning the rising of the German
nobles.”[465] Bucer in his Eulogies on Luther in the old Strasburg
Agenda, after mentioning his great gifts, says: “Add also the gift
of prophecy, for everything happens just as he foretold it.” This
we read in a Leipzig publication,[466] in which, as an echo of the
Reformation Festivities of 1717, a Lutheran, referring to the General
Superintendent of Altenburg, Eckhard, protests, “that Luther both
claimed and really possessed the gift of prophecy.” Mathesius, in
his 15th Sermon on Luther, speaks enthusiastically of the latter’s
prophecy against those of the new faith who were sapping the
foundations of the Wittenberg teaching: “In our own day Dr. Martin’s
prayers and prophecies against the troublesome and unruly spirits
have, alas, grown very powerful ... they were to perish miserably, a
prophecy which I heard from his own lips: ‘Mathesius, you will see
what wanton attacks will be made upon this Church and University
of Wittenberg, and how the people will turn heretics and come to a
frightful end.’”[467]
Even J. G. Walch,[468] in 1753, at least in the Contents and Indices
to his edition of Luther’s Works, quotes as “Luther’s Prophecies
on the destruction of Germany,” the passage from the German
“Table-Talk”[469] which foretells God’s judgments on Germany where
His Evangel was everywhere despised. Yet this “prophecy” is nothing
more than a natural inference from the confusion which Luther saw
was the result of his work. In the same Indices, under the name
“Luther,”[470] we again find given as a “prophecy” this prediction
concerning Germany, under the various forms in which Luther repeated
it. Lastly, under the heading “Prophecy,” further reference is made to
his predictions on the future lamentable fate of his own Evangel; on
the distressing revival by his preachers of the doctrine of good works
which he had overthrown; on the apostasy of the most eminent Doctors
of the Church; on the abuse of his books by friends of the Evangel;
on the Saxon nobles after the death of Frederick the Elector,[471]
and, finally, on the fate of Wittenberg.[472]—In all this there is,
however, nothing which might not have been confidently predicted
from the existing state of affairs. Walch prefaces his summary with
the words: “For Luther’s teaching is verily that faith and doctrine
proclaimed by the prophets from the beginning of the world,” just as
Luther himself had once said in a sermon, that his doctrine had “been
proclaimed by the patriarchs and prophets five thousand years before,”
but had been “cast aside.”[473]
We can understand his followers, in their enthusiasm, crediting him
with a true gift of prophecy, but it is somewhat difficult to believe
that he himself shared their conviction. Although the belief of his
disciples can be traced as clearly to Luther’s own assurances, as to
the fulfilment of what he predicted, yet it is uncertain whether at
any time his self-confidence went to this length. Whoever is familiar
with Luther’s mode of speech and his habit of talking half in earnest
half in jest, will have some difficulty in persuading himself that the
disciples always distinguished the shade of their master’s meaning.
The disasters imminent in Germany, and the religious wars, might quite
well have been foreseen by Luther from natural signs, and yet this is
just the prophecy on which most stress is laid. Melanchthon, who was
more sober in his judgments in this respect, speaks of Luther as a
prophet merely in the general sense, as for instance when he says in
his Postils: “Prophets under the New Law are those who restore again
the ancient doctrine; such a one was Dr. Martin Luther.”[474]
“What Luther, the new Elias and Paul, has prophesied cannot but come
true,” writes a preacher in 1562, “and those who would doubt this are
unbelieving and godless, Papists, Epicureans, Sodomites or fanatics.
Everything has become so frightful and bestial, what with blasphemy,
swearing, cursing, unchastity and adultery, usury, oppression of
the poor and every other vice, that one might fancy the last trump
was sounding for the Judgment. What else do the countless, hitherto
unheard-of signs, wonders and visions indicate, but that Christ is
about to come to judge and punish?”[475]
Luther was most diligent in collecting and making use of any
prophetical utterances which might go to prove the exalted character of
his mission.
The supposed prophecy of Hus, that from his ashes would arise a swan
whose voice it would be impossible to stifle, he coolly applied to
himself.[476] He was fond of referring to what a Franciscan visionary
at Rome had said of the time of Leo X.: “A hermit shall arise and lay
waste the Papacy.” Staupitz, he says, had heard this prophecy from the
mouths of many at the time of his stay in Rome (1510). He himself had
not heard it there, but later he, like Staupitz, had come to see that
he “was the hermit meant, for Augustinian monks are commonly called
hermits.”[477]
Luther had also learnt that a German Franciscan named Hilten, who died
at Eisenach about the end of the fifteenth century, had predicted much
concerning the destruction of monasticism, the shattering of Papal
authority and the end of all things. So highly were Hilten’s alleged
sayings esteemed in Luther’s immediate circle that Melanchthon placed
one of them at the head of the Article (27) “On monastic vows,” in his
theological defence of the Confession of Augsburg; “In 1516 a monk
shall come, who will exterminate you monks; ... him will you not be
able to resist.”[478] Luther, before this, on October 17, 1529, by
letter, had urged his friend Frederick Myconius of Gotha to let him
know everything he could about Hilten, “fully, entirely and at length,
without forgetting anything”; “you are aware how much depends upon
this.... I am very anxious for the information, nay, consumed with
longing for it.”[479] His friend’s report, however, did not bring him
all he wanted.[480] The Franciscan had predicted the fall of Rome
about 1514, i.e. too early, and the end of the world for 1651, i.e.
too late. Hence we do not hear of Luther’s having brought forward the
name of this prophet in support of his cause. Only on one occasion does
he mention Hilten as amongst those, who “were to be consigned to the
flames or otherwise condemned.” The fact is that this monk of Eisenach,
once an esteemed preacher, was never “condemned” or even tried by the
Church, although Luther in the above letter to Myconius says that he
“died excommunicate.” Hilten died in his friary, fortified with the
Sacraments, and at peace with the Church and his brother monks, after
beseeching pardon for the scandal he had given them. The Franciscans
had kept in custody the unfortunate man, who had gone off his head
under the influence of astrology and apocalyptic dreams, in order
that his prophecies might not do harm in the Church or the Order. He
was not, however, imprisoned for life, still less was he immured, as
some have said; he was simply kept under fatherly control (“_paterne
custoditum_”), that those of his brethren who believed in him might not
take any unfair advantage of the old man.[481]
In the widely read new edition of the book of Prophecies by Johann
Lichtenberger, astrologer to the Emperor Frederick III. (1488),
republished by Luther in 1527 with a new Preface, the latter’s ideas
play a certain part. Luther did not regard these Prophecies as a
“spiritual revelation”; they were merely astrological predictions,
as he says in the Preface,[482] views which might often prove to be
questionable and faulty; nevertheless, his “belief” is “that God
does actually make use of heavenly signs, such as comets, eclipses
of the sun and the moon, etc., to announce impending misfortune and
to warn and affright the ungodly.”[483] “I myself do not scorn this
Lichtenberger in everything he says, for he has come right in some
things.”[484] Luther is principally concerned with the chastisements
predicted by Lichtenberger, but not yet accomplished—as the
“priestlings” rejoiced to think—but, still to overtake them owing
to their hostility to the Lutheran teaching. “Because they refuse to
amend their impious life and doctrine, but on the contrary persevere
in it and grow worse, I also will prophesy that in a short time their
joy shall be turned to shame, and will ask them kindly to remember
me then.”[485] Later he speaks incidentally of Lichtenberger as a
“fanatic, but still one who had foretold many things, for this the
devil is well able to do.”[486]
During his stay at the Wartburg he had occasion to reflect on the
ancient prophecy concerning an Emperor Frederick, who should redeem the
Holy Sepulchre. He was inclined to see in this Frederick, his Elector,
whose right hand he himself was. The difficulty that the Elector was
not Emperor did not appear to him insuperable, since at Frankfurt the
votes of the other electors had been given to Frederick, so that he
might have been “a real emperor had he so desired.” Still, he was loath
to insist upon such an artifice; this solution of the difficulty might,
he says, be termed mere child’s play. What is much clearer to him is,
that the Holy Sepulchre of the prophecy is “the Holy Scripture wherein
the truth of Christ lies buried, after having been put to death by the
Papists.... As for the actual tomb in which the Lord lay and which
is now in the hands of the Saracens, God cares no more about it than
about the Swiss cows. But no one can deny that amongst you, under Duke
Frederick, Elector of Saxony, the living truth of the Gospel has shone
forth.”[487]