Luther 9783111375977, 9783111018041

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Luther

LUTHER by FRANZ LAU

Translated by Robert H . Fischer

THE WESTMINSTER PRESS Philadelphia

COPYRIGHT © MCMLXIII W. L. JENKINS

All rights reserved, — no part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review in magazine or newspaper. Translation of Luther. Walter de Gruyter 8c Co., Berlin, 1959

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD N O .

62-17812

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Contents INTRODUCTION:

EVOLUTION OF T H E

OF LUTHER I.

PORTRAIT 9

LUTHER'S WORLD

17

LUTHER'S DEVELOPMENT

33

III.

LUTHER'S BREAKTHROUGH

68

IV.

LUTHER'S REFORMATION

94

II.

V.

LUTHER'S CHURCH

138

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY IN E N G L I S H

167

INDEX

173

Translator's

Preface

A man who actually " lifted a world off its hinges and shaped something new " — not, indeed, in order to claim the allegiance of his fellowmen for himself but to direct their allegiance to Another — will forever remain fascinating and instructive. T o those who want a brief but incisive, colorful, soberly reliable portrayal of Martin Luther, Franz Lau's popular monograph is here offered in English translation. I should like to record my thanks to Malte Haupt, candidate of theology at the University of Miinster and exchange student at Chicago Lutheran Theological Seminary, who examined the entire manuscript and doctored my translation at many points. ROBERT H .

FISCHER

Introduction

Evolution

of the Portrait of Luther

Martin Luther is one o£ the figures of the past about whom we are extraordinarily well informed. What he wrote for the public and put into print has been preserved virtually in its entirety. Letters are not intended for the public and therefore not to be saved and passed on to posterity. Many a letter of Luther that we know about and wish we possessed has up to now eluded our search. We have, however, an enormous number of Luther's letters to others and of others' letters to him. The lectures that Luther gave as professor, and the sermons that he delivered in the monastery, in the pulpit of the town church at Wittenberg as a frequent substitute for the town pastor, or elsewhere, were not written down; but others took down notes of them. Not all the reporters of sermons and of lectures were equally adept. There were even some who slipped material from other lectures that they had heard, into their Luther notes. Luther's last great lecture, on Genesis, stands under the suspicion that among the copyists to whom we owe its preservation were enthusiastic pupils of Melanchthon who were in greater measure saturated with humanistic ideas than was Luther. Nevertheless, there are few professors and preachers of that time or of other times, whose addresses have found so rich a literary expression. 9

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LUTHER

W e have yet another interesting source. Luther was a person who liked to talk. A t the table, in the circle of his family and the numerous student boarders, he did a lot of talking. Not only were theological problems discussed, but ordinary current events also were topics of conversation, and Luther offered his opinions freely and candidly. T h e students at Luther's table took notes, as in the lecture room, and a fund of so-called table talk (in reality very simple remarks at the table) was recorded. T h e various collections of table talk that were brought into print and became popular reading during the sixteenth century have their own history. Not every one is comprised exclusively of original material. T h e copyists, John Aurifaber, Anton Lauterbach, Conrad Cordatus, John Schlaginhaufen, and several others, compared their collections and filled in their material by swapping, and occasionally also inserted other interesting anecdotes about Luther which have nothing at all to do with the table conversations. When the exact wording of a specific table saying of Luther is under dispute, scholarship occasionally runs into real difficulties; however, for many conversations we have several records that we can compare. On the whole, the table talk gives us a magnificent, unique insight into Luther's outer and inner life. For what other historical figure have we a source that brings us even remotely so near to the inmost recesses of the personality? Finally, of course, there are also old Luther biographies. T h e autobiography that Luther wrote a year before his death is only a few pages long, and in any case presents a difficult problem of its own. But two men who stood quite close to Luther, John Mathesius in Joachimsthal and Cyriacus Spangenberg in Mansfeld, narrated Luther's life in copious detail in sermons before their congregations.

EVOLUTION OF THE PORTRAIT OF LUTHER

11

T h e elector's personal physician, Ratzeberger, wrote a life of Luther, and even Melanchthon expressed himself on Luther's life story. Not even the Catholic Luther portrayals, which begin with John Cochlaeus' Luther commentaries (1549), are completely worthless, cautious though one naturally must be in using them. It might be assumed, therefore, that Luther's personality, his activity, and his thought present no difficult problems. T h e portrait of a man about whom we are splendidly informed should surely be unambiguous and uncomplicated! In reality there exists no unanimity on the question how Luther is to be judged, indeed, not even on how he is to be interpreted. T h e judgments about Luther are radically divergent. Some see in him the destroyer of the unity of the church, the hopeless subjectivist, the uncouth blusterer. Others regard him as the unique renewer of the church. His theological ideas have never been declared infallible, it is true, but practically they have been considered by not a few as almost infallible. In yet another camp, Luther is regarded as the great German who, at a time when the political unity of the empire was crumbling more and more, gave to his people an inner cultural unity, a German consciousness, a German spirituality. Innumerable men celebrate in resounding tones Luther's creative linguistic achievement, the finest testimony of which is his German Bible. On the other hand, he is represented by some as a most dangerous and fateful enemy of German liberty. T h e catchword that Luther was a " pawn of princes" runs through the Marxist world; Thomas Miintzer was greater than he! T h e question whether Luther was a revolutionary or a reactionary character is earnestly discussed, and completely antithetical answers are given. It is discussed from a political point of view, but

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also under that of the history of ideas. From what has been said it is clear that the confessional antithesis is not the only influence that determines and shapes the contrasting evaluations of Luther. The attitudes toward Luther are more numerous, and the pattern of problems is quite complex. In the matter of judgments about Luther, questions of value naturally are involved which by no means yield an answer simply through careful research into the records that we have from Luther. But even to the simple question, How should one understand Luther? there is no generally acceptable answer. The era immediately after Luther, viz., the period of Lutheran orthodoxy, issued the watchword that Luther was a prophet, the German prophet. In reality, however, it thought less in terms of the spirit-filled herald of divine truth, who spoke from immediate inspiration, than of the renewer of pure doctrine. The Luther who sternly and stubbornly defended the words " This is my body " against the whole Reformation in German Switzerland, and who refused fellowship at the Lord's Supper to all the brethren of the faith in Switzerland because he was not at one with them concerning the words of institution — this is the true Luther. Luther's historical greatness consists in his refusal to waver one finger's breadth from God's Word, that is, from the true doctrine. Pietism had an entirely different understanding of Luther. It is the merit of the Pietists to have perceived and emphasized the paradoxical element in Luther's nature. The Luther of the passionate struggle for pure doctrine they also knew. But the true Luther for them is the young Luther who discovered faith as a trust in God's gracious mercy. In an astonishing number of cases the conversion of

EVOLUTION OF THE PORTRAIT OF LUTHER

13

Pietists was influenced by a word from Luther's Preface to Romans. In that word it is said that faith is a living and busy thing in the heart, and that it cannot help doing good incessantly. In the era of the Enlightenment and still in the period of German Idealism, Luther was celebrated as the liberator from narrow-mindedness, thus precisely as the man who boldly threw the ballast of authoritarian dogmas out of the ship of the church and thereby set Christianity afloat once more and made it seaworthy. Especially during the nineteenth century there were portrayals of Luther which conveyed scarcely a hint of the fact that what Luther was concerned about was religion, but which extolled instead his significance for modern culture. Even twenty years ago it was asserted in a widely read, though to be sure frequently criticized, book, Arno Deutelmoser's Luther, Staat und Glaube, 1937, that Luther's true achievement was to have repudiated all ethical norms for political life and to have proclaimed that only might is right! The history of Luther interpretation is so richly complex, so full of tensions, so interesting — indeed, often even a bit amusing — that again and again scholars have retold it, most recently the late Leipzig professor of theology, Horst Stephan and the Freiburg Catholic historian Ernst Walter Zeeden. The four-hundred-year-old effort to achieve an understanding of Luther has manifestly led to no clear result, even if there is also a kind of Luther portrait of the twentieth century that certainly is not accepted by all, but is nonetheless widely represented. It is tempting to keep one's distance from the Luther portrait and all Luther interpretations of our day and to say with resignation: in some future time, possibly very

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soon, people will develop a sharp eye for the conditioned character of our Luther understanding. The influences of existential philosophy upon many portrayals of Luther, in which Luther sees man tossed about among the powers of corruption, the devil, sin, law, and the wrath of God, and then has him saved from the abyss by Christ, are already recognizable today. It may be, however, that something of the Luther research of our days will nevertheless remain. Naturally, in the past the history of Luther-portrayal has also been at the same time a history of Luther research. Every century has produced its complete edition or editions of Luther, according to its own concepts, and each one has been more complete than its predecessors. Various ages have had Luther scholars who found and made accessible entirely new sources, the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries an Ernst Salomo Cyprian and a Valentin Ernst Löscher, the past and present centuries — to mention only one name — Georg Buchwald. Our age, nevertheless, and by this is meant the period from about the beginning of the great Weimar Edition of Luther, which up to now has reached about a hundred volumes and yet is unfinished, viz., since 1883, has advanced exact Luther research in a unique way. The new Luther research, for which the designation " Luther Renaissance " has been customarily applied, and for which Karl Holl exercised a decisive influence, may be said to be in large measure an interpretation of individual themes from the theology of Luther. His Christology, his doctrine of Holy Scripture, his social ethics, and many other themes have found their specialists, and at times more than one. Abiding insights are already being taken over in the works of systematic theologians. That the spiritual assaults

EVOLUTION OF THE PORTRAIT OF LUTHER

15

(Anfechtungen) of Luther are extremely important for the understanding of his whole personality, his will and his thought, is not only a passing opinion but an unassailable fact. Even into American Luther research, which is becoming ever more intensive, this fact has penetrated (Roland H. Bainton) . But apart from this, the actual state of affairs can banish resignation and inspire confidence. One fruit of the new Luther research is the discovery of his great early lectures. It must not be forgotten that for the first series of lectures on T h e Psalms, the so-called Dictata super Psalterium of 15IB—1515, the most important basic source, the so-called Dresden Psalter, was discovered only in 1874; and the nineteenth century came to an end with the discovery of the Lectures on Romans of 1515-1516 (1899). T h e tendency to interpret Luther entirely on the basis of these early witnesses has long since been replaced by an opposite movement that considers the theology of the early lectures " pre-Reformation" (to mention only one example, compare the Luther article by Ernst Wolf in the Evangelisches Kirchenlexikon). That the discovery of these witnesses of the " pre-Reformation " Luther has been infinitely advantageous for the understanding of Luther, of course no judicious person will dispute. Only now are the Dictata super Psalterium receiving their first reliable edition in the new Vols. 3 and 4 of the Weimar series. That the restoration of these lectures requires immense labor is conditioned by another discovery: research must inquire precisely into the materials that Luther used. In other words, it must be made clear what Luther simply took over from late medieval expositors and what was his own. Which one is the genuine Luther — the one who stands in continuity with the church of the Middle Ages and thereby with the church in general

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LUTHER

or the one who burst the medieval chains — is indeed the question around which discussion revolves just now. But it is a fact of great significance that the whole field of Luther research has become to a great extent an inquiry into Luther's hermeneutic (Heinrich Bornkamm has written extensively on this subject in Luther und das Alte Testament [" Luther and the Old Testament"], and Gerhard Ebeling in Luthers evangelische Evangelienauslegung [" Luther's Evangelical Interpretation of the Gospels "], both books originating during the Second World War). All in all, a deepened penetration into Luther and a lively discussion with him today is not without promise. In the realm of higher learning, Luther scholarship has achieved a certain independence from Reformation research in general. This, however, in no wise alters the fact that if Luther is to be understood, he must be understood within the framework of his time. Luther dare not be construed in the first instance as a creator of a thought structure that has validity independent of Luther's concrete historical intentions for the church of all times. What is of lasting importance in Luther's message must be made clear in the course of these chapters. First of all, however, Luther is a man of his century, who in a concrete, historical moment lifted a world off its hinges and shaped something new. His historic work becomes meaningful only in the context of contemporary events, and if a portrayal of Luther is not to present an unhistorical and ultimately worthless abstraction, it must begin with Luther's world.

I Luther's World 1. T H E

POLITICAL

WORLD

Luther lived in an era filled with military events and fulfilled his mission in an atmosphere of perennial high tension in international politics. At about the same time that he became the man to whom the whole world turned its eyes, through the Ninety-five Theses and the indulgence controversy, the election of a new German emperor became an acute question and the series of " world wars " of the sixteenth century began, the so-called Italian Wars; and he died just at the moment when the military struggle between Germany and France had come to an end and the great adversary of Luther's reformation, Charles V, was in a position to put German affairs " into order." The most exciting affair of the Luther era, and certainly the one that most strongly determined the consciousness of men throughout Europe, was the swift and critical advance of the Turks under Sultan Suleiman II from east to west. All the Balkans were already occupied by the Turks. Throughout the entire Reformation Era, Hungary was bitterly fought over. At the battle at MoMcs in 1526 the independent Hungarian kingdom was wiped out and Hapsburg in the person of Ferdinand I came into a very qualified possession of Hungary. In 1529 the Turks stood before 17

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Vienna. Alongside the struggle with the Turks on the land went a struggle in the Mediterranean with alternating victories (Tunis, 1535) and defeats (Algiers, 1541). That the Turk might penetrate into the very heart of Germany was a serious possibility. One had to face soberly an altogether brutal military subjugation of Christendom by the " infidel." That Luther again and again spoke of the Last Day and expected it, that others too lived in expectation of doomsday, and even made calculations about it, has its explanation in the fearful danger from the east which everyone felt, which was discussed at all imperial diets yet which the European powers were unable to dispel. That they were unable to do so had its very clear and painful reasons. Opposite the Turk stood no united Europe. Precisely in the time of Luther's career, instead, a bitter power struggle was being fought out between two great powers in Europe. One of these two powers was the Hapsburgs. T h e Hapsburg Maximilian had married the most sought after woman of Europe, the famous Mary. Through this marriage, already almost woven round with legend, he had gained the so-called Neo-Burgundian kingdom, a buffer state between Germany and France, whose center of gravity and source of wealth was the Netherlands. Maximilian's children, Philip and Margaret, contracted double marriages with the heirs of the great Iberian kingdoms. A grandson, Charles of Ghent, became the master of a gigantic dominion that embraced the old Hapsburg lands in the southwestern corner of Germany and in Austria, Burgundy, the new Spain, and the New World. T h e kingdom of Sicily-Naples he possessed, not unchallenged, but holding it fairly firmly in his hands. If he had also succeeded in bringing the great territory in northern Italy, Milan, into his secure possession, his mastery of the world

LUTHER'S

WORLD

19

would have been complete and he would have dominated all the remaining powers, even France. The German electors in 1519 had elected him German Emperor. Over Italy, the Pyrenees, and the territories bordering the Netherlands and France, however, raged the bitter struggle between Charles V and Francis I, king of France, who wanted to break the Hapsburg sway and establish the sovereignty of France. T o this fight much had to be sacrificed, including many principles. The Frenchman made alliances with the German Protestant princes and with the enemy of Christendom, the Turk. Almost every single event in the course of the German Reformation introduced by Luther was connected with an event on the military scene of Europe. The political situation was considerably more complicated. In Germany one of the two partners in the struggle for Europe, Emperor Charles V, was involved in a power struggle with the German estates. The shift from centralized power to territorial powers in the German Empire goes back to the period of the interregnum in the thirteenth century, if not still farther. The century before Luther is one in which a reform movement developed among the estates. The estates, which consisted of territorial princes, ecclesiastical authorities, and the free cities, wanted ever greater influence in the government of the empire. Meanwhile there occurred dissensions and shifts of power among themselves. Numerous territories, namely in the eastern part of the empire, aggrandized themselves, rounded out their boundaries, developed an excellent administration, and assimilated various dominions hitherto subject to the emperor alone, particularly ecclesiastical domains such as the eastern bishoprics. Their ascent would have been still more sensational if divisions of inheritance

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had not weakened their power time and again. The second progressive element in the realm of the German estates was the towns, insufficiently represented in the imperial diets, but economically the strongest and culturally the leading influence of the whole empire. In distress was the lesser nobility, because in the conduct of war the knights had been replaced by mercenary soldiers, and had therefore lost their function. The aim of a German emperor had to be to establish his control of the empire as widely as possible. The estates sought with all their might to escape a " bovine servitude." The international struggles, which embroiled both the emperor and his brother and representative Ferdinand of Austria with France and the Turk, gave the German estates, especially the territorial princes, unheard-of possibilities to assert themselves against the central authority and to enhance their power. In particular the effects were felt in the ecclesiastical sphere. With things already moving rapidly in the direction of a territorial church system, they all had a chance now to take into their own hands any ecclesiastical reformation that might take place. Of course the German estates themselves were harassed from below by social revolutionary forces that were building up among people who stood in a certain sense outside the estates system. The peasants, who in only a very few places had representation among the territorial estates (Landstube in the Tyrol), had been in a ferment for decades, and the lower strata in the towns were constantly restless. Both the artisans of the guilds and the so-called commoners [Gemeinheiten, the masses: cf. page 35] sought to gain a greater influence than they had previously enjoyed in the town administration, and urban " revolutions " were virtually the order of the day. Religious move-

LUTHER'S WORLD

21

ments of the late Middle Ages penetrated deeply not only into the peasantry but also into these restless urban circles, and the slogans that were coined there, such as " divine justice " and " Christian liberty," were verbally identical with those which Luther issued, for he was one of the heirs of previous religious movements. In the most diverse ways the Catholic Church was involved in the political power game. Its supreme leaders, the pope and the Curia in Rome, were actively engaged in large-scale international politics. T h e pope regarded himself in the first instance as ruler of the States of the Church, and his interests were most sensitively touched by the struggle between the emperor and the French king over Italy. Against his will he had, by his support of Francis I, lent the greatest possible help to Luther's cause. By its financial system the Curia long ago had made itself thoroughly unpopular, and the protest, in which Luther concurred, had been announced already in the " Grievances of the German Nation," which since 1456 had been presented again and again at imperial diets. Innumerable enemies of Roman practices must have applauded Luther, at least in his early phase. T h e German bishops were German princes, some (in the east) now only in name, some in reality. Their attitude also was defined by political interests, and Luther was able to count considerably on their negligence, greed, or downright unfaithfulness to their church. One must be fairly well acquainted with this situation in order to understand and evaluate Luther. What he actually accomplished probably was possible only within the stormy quarter century between the Diet at Worms and the Smalcald War. Indeed, why historians speak of a Thirty Years' War and of a Seven Years' War, and yet have coined

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no corresponding name for this twenty-five-year war, is hard to explain. Actually, the enormous work of breaking up the intellectual and spiritual totalitarianism of the medieval church was possible only during this great war. On the course of political history, naturally, Luther had no influence. He had a vivid feeling that he himself could do absolutely nothing for the advancement of his cause, but that this cause was being handled for him from above. From this came his assurance, which never left him in the most difficult situations, even when his very nearest friends, above all Melanchthon, faltered and became depressed. If it were still customary today to write history as a work of divine providence, the history of Luther from beginning to end would be a challenge to such an effort. Naturally an adroit and farsighted person could grasp an opportunity when it presented itself. Contemporaries of Luther understood this brilliantly. Landgrave Philip of Hesse saw exactly what advantages alliances with France would offer the cause of the Protestants in Germany. Zwingli in Zurich entered with enthusiasm into Philip's political plans, and set high hopes on an evangelical political program. Martin Bucer, the former Dominican and later Strassburg pastor, saw his task in life as that of harmonizing the differences in the evangelical camp, in order to create the broadest and most promising front. Luther was surprisingly cautious here. He regarded "trust in men " only as a great temptation. In a manner that would have to be regarded as naïveté and a proof of incompetence in a politician, but which in Luther was an expression of strong faith and humility, he consciously refrained from taking advantages of this sort. Not even for the fact that the politicians were reserved in supporting the Turkish war, and always first demanded at least some

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23

concessions in the religious question, did he show any understanding. An alliance with the peasants in order to give his cause impetus and penetrating power, he not only rejected out of a certain political instinct that he possessed even though he was no politician, but sensed as a dangerous temptation on entirely inward grounds, for the sake of the gospel. Though he knew already that the outcome of his cause depended upon the result of all this political tumult, the latter served him only as a compulsion to do what was right and leave everything to God.

2. T H E

W O R L D OF

THOUGHT

From the standpoint of the history of ideas, the Reformation belongs in the period of the Renaissance, which then is followed by the Baroque period. The Reformation itself by no means fits cleanly into the systematic pattern of the history of ideas, despite the obvious fact that it exercised its strongest influence upon the history of the European spirit. In the presence of the vital force of the giant Luther the portrait of the great Erasmus in Germany virtually fades out. The Renaissance is much older than the Reformation. Even the so-called German humanism, in many respects its original German form, is older than the Reformation movement. Moreover, the Renaissance involved all of Europe. It reached lands that Luther's voice was unable to penetrate, even though that voice was heard in those lands as well as everywhere else, for example, England and France. That the Renaissance was a this-worldly culture is a familiar fact. It discovered man and nature. It is the mother of the modern mood. It has extraordinary significance for the development of natural science and historical science.

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Here the human individuality fully achieved artistic expression. A sensuous, power-conscious spirit characterized it. Much as it consisted in a return to antiquity and to the national past of the peoples, through which it also discovered the individuality and the inner life of the language of antiquity and of the living peoples, it nevertheless clearly looked toward the future. Its atheism appears very contradictory and problematical, because a renewal of original Christianity in the sense of a simple Jesus-religion was also a part of the humanists' program, that of the Florentines as well as of Erasmus. As a religious movement it discovered man in his dignity and grandeur. It not only made Scholasticism ridiculous, reviled, and all but forgotten, but also struck decisive blows at medieval man's sense of dependence upon God, the otherworldliness of his sense of life, and the fear of the judgment that characterized his faith. As a pan-European cultural movement the Renaissance is virtually without interest and significance for the understanding of Luther. Luther's trip to Rome will show how the German mendicant monk walked through the Rome and the Italy of the Renaissance with blindfolded eyes. For the understanding of Luther it is illuminating almost exclusively in its German form, with the scholarly trait that German humanism displayed and with the character that it found in an Erasmus. Above all, however, one must visualize its dissemination in Germany in order to understand Luther rightly in the context of his time. It struck root in the great cities of the Reformation Era that had grown wealthy through foreign trade. In Nuremberg and Augsburg, in Basel and Strassburg, it found a home. Here, even today after the Second World War, are to be seen architectural monuments and art

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25

treasures of the Renaissance. Here lived the humanist patricians, the Pirckheimers and the Peutingers, and the great artists and scholars who were devoted to the spirit and the ideals of the Renaissance. Exactly as the Renaissance in Italy had found at the Curia an especially impressive form, with its artistic achievements but also with its frivolity, profligacy, and its art of enjoyment, so also its influences became strong at the courts of German ecclesiastics. T h e court of an Albert of Brandenburg at Halle on the Saale, only a short distance from Wittenberg, was a kind of little German Rome. Through the restive ranks of the unsettled German humanist scholars humanism penetrated the German universities, although since these people did not often remain long in one place, it achieved only a short-lived influence here and there. W h e n Luther studied in Erfurt, he heard a lecture by Jerome Emser on Reuchlin's drama Sergius. Men like Helius Eobanus Hessus (Eoban of Hesse), and John Jäger of Dornheim, called Crotus Rubeanus, for a time were close to Luther, and again had a connection with Conrad Mutianus Rufus (Conrad Mut) in Gotha, who kept inwardly aloof from Luther. Among the German knights the Renaissance had its men. Ulrich von Hutten finally attached himself to Luther and made Luther's cause his own. Influences of the Renaissance perhaps can be indicated throughout Germany. T h e counselors whose help in the administration of the lands was used by the German princes, both a Frederick the Wise and a George the Bearded — to name only two courts, one of which stood entirely on Luther's side, while the other was a center of opposition to Luther — were humanists. T h e excessive " eating and drinking " at the tables of German princes — even in Torgau in Lutheran Saxony there was a tremendous amount of carousing — is a facet of the

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Renaissance. And are not the gluttonous peasants whom we know from the cartoons of the Reformation period also caricatures of the Renaissance movement? Indeed, in the boorishness, within whose history Luther also belongs, we behold perhaps a curious precipitate of the quest of fame and the megalomania of the Renaissance — to say nothing of the peculiar pendants of obscene Renaissance literature in the satirical books of the Reformation Era printed by firms that occasionally also published Lutheran hymnals (Valentine Schumann in Leipzig). Nevertheless, one can hardly speak of a uniform and enduring influence of the Renaissance upon Germany. If one attempted to explain Luther simply in terms of the Renaissance, grave and dangerous distortions of the picture, and in the end a great error, would be the result. On Luther and humanism we shall have to speak again in detail. What is sure is that the Reformation originated and developed in an environment strongly affected by the Renaissance. A man such as Zwingli drank deeply from the sources of the new spirit. For Calvin also the mighty influence of humanism is quite evident. The evangelical, Lutheran humanist Melanchthon to a large degree gave Lutheranism its peculiar stamp; and after the death of Luther and Melanchthon a revival of humanistic influences upon Lutheranism took place through the persistence of the latter's teaching. When the mendicant monk Luther became a name on everyone's lips through the indulgence controversy, the early tracts with which he conquered the hearts of faithful Christians were very quickly reprinted in the important centers of the German Renaissance, in Augsburg, Basel, and Strassburg. At a time when under humanist influence the mendicant monk had already become a satirical figure, printeries much more famous than

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27

those which Luther employed in Wittenberg (indeed, the latter owed their founding in part to the business that suddenly flourished in the miserable country town) stooped to issuing reprints of the writings of a mendicant monk who surprisingly attracted serious attention, and to retailing the German tracts of a professor from a smalltown university of (as yet) very questionable reputation. All this, however, by no means changes the fact that Luther grew up and his personality was shaped apart from the great Renaissance influences in Germany. One could hardly become a prophet of the Renaissance spirit by growing up in the mountain village of Mansfeld, going to school in Eisenach, studying in Erfurt, living in the monastery, and finally in monastic obedience going to Wittenberg. 3. T H E

ECCLESIASTICAL

WORLD

Opinions of scholars differ widely on the religious situation in Germany or in Europe immediately before the Reformation. It is a Protestant tradition that the church of the waning Middle Ages offered only a picture of ruin and decay, a sink of corruption. Where " piety " was still to be found, men were only paying allegiance to the crudest superstition, to a ridiculously exaggerated cult of relics, to a pilgrimage system with all sorts of questionable attendant practices, to a superstitious sacramentalism, an external merit-piety that dulled the conscience and rent a chasm between religion and morality. Johannes Janssen's History of the German People, which appeared in eight volumes between 1876 and 1894, the work of a Catholic scholar, asserts on the contrary that at the end of the Middle Ages there existed a spiritual springtime of a glorious kind. With the Reformation came the frost to the bloom, and the

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springtime splendor precipitated toward an undeserved end. T h e already famous portrayal of the Reformation in Germany which the Catholic church historian Joseph Lortz was able to publish even at the beginning of the Second World War called into serious question Janssen's view of the situation and conceded much of what Protestant research has asserted concerning the decay of piety and morality prior to the Reformation. O n the other hand, scholars on the Protestant side are becoming much more cautious regarding the judgment of the late Middle Ages as a period of religious decay. Innumerable German altarpieces, in part still extant, originated immediately before the Reformation, not only through the artist's delight in creating them but at the instigation of pious men who wished to bow before them as witnesses of the miracle of transubstantiation. It is doubtful whether a final judgment can yet be delivered upon the church of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. For an understanding of Luther it is important for the present only to sketch a picture of the world of piety in which he grew up. T o the religious world in the simplest sense must be added the theological thought and work current where Luther received his theological training. T h a t the monastic world also was affected by the spirit of the Renaissance, indeed was infected by the poison of the Renaissance, we know from Jacob Burckhardt's famous book, The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy. Undoubtedly, however, there were both in Germany and elsewhere, for example in Italy, monks who did not simply profess the rule of the order in a merely external way. T h e medicant orders were generally split into lax (Conventual) and very strict rule-observing (Observant) parties. It is

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far from unimportant for Luther, indeed it is of the highest significance, that for nearly two decades he was a monk of the Observance. Even the Observant Augustinians and Franciscans and Dominicans no longer lived simply by begging. But the monastic vows, including the vow of chastity, were taken with utmost seriousness. The " hours," i.e., the daily worship services in the monastery, were scrupulously observed. Asceticism on the whole was strict. When Luther finally pronounced his passionately severe judgments upon the monastic life, for example in his treatise On Monastic Vows (1522), with which he emancipated monks to return to the world, this does not mean that the monks had forgotten their ideals. He chided himself and all his brothers because they had walked the monastic way of " perfection " with all earnestness, and he himself more thoroughly than all the rest. There was a monasticism in Germany that followed the Catholic way to its end with utter consistency. Out of this perfected Catholicism, not out of the rotted and decayed Catholicism, the German Reformation of Luther originated, humanly speaking. That Luther as a mendicant monk became a professor of theology and of the interpretation of Holy Scripture is not only the result of special guidance that he had received. It also corresponded to the spirit of the order in the Observance and to Observant ideals. Among the monks of Observant monasteries theology professors had a special rank. Certain decisions could not be made without an explicit hearing of the professors' opinions. Theological zeal was alive in the Observance. Not only was study cultivated with great diligence and devotion by individuals, but the order and its Observant branches maintained formal professorships. Observant monks were appointed professors in

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universities, moreover, not only because they were the cheapest talent available, but above all because they were the most learned scholars. Naturally, the theological study in the monasteries and in the university lecture rooms where mendicants presided was primarily the study of Scholastic theology. The theological situation, however, was not so clear as it had been a hundred years earlier. At that time nominalism, the school of Occam, the so-called Via Moderna, which separated reason and revelation quite sharply, had completed a decisive victory over the older schools of Scholastic theology, Thomism and Scotism. In the fourteenth century the Via Moderna was truly modern. By the fifteenth century the pendulum had swung back; the old schools, such as that of Thomas Aquinas, had acquired new representatives and adherents. In Luther's time there were once more famous Thomists. The most famous, Jacob or Thomas de Vio of Gaeta, called Cajetan, conducted the hearing of Luther in Augsburg, 1518. Meanwhile, nominalism also asserted itself alongside the old and rejuvenated schools. Gabriel Biel in Tübingen, whose books Luther studied eagerly, was a theological power in his day and an Occamist. However, that Luther received so strong and fruitful a stimulation from Occamism is conditioned by the special situation in Erfurt and not simply by the theological situation as a whole. One further factor of the theological situation in Luther's environment requires mention. The early period of the Reformation is also characterized by an intensive study of Augustine. Whether in Luther's order, that of the Augustinian Hermits, which by a naive distortion of history revered Augustine as its founder, there existed a special theological Augustinian tradition, is a difficult question

LUTHER'S WORLD

31

that ought not to be hastily affirmed. Certainly an Augustine cult was promoted in Luther's order. Whether a special theological Augustinianism existed in Luther's order, however, is another question. One fact must be reckoned with, namely, that Augustine was read with nominalist spectacles by the nominalists in the order. The understanding o£ Augustine thus is yet another question o£ its own. T o the total theological picture of the times, at any rate, belongs a rising interest in Augustine. Finally, the monks of the German Augustinian Observance were obligated to a diligent study of the Holy Scriptures. That the monk Luther did not read the Holy Scriptures for a long time belongs to the realm of Luther legends. He had to study them. One can say with some justification that all of this does not affect the piety of the masses, but is characteristic of only a part of monasticism in Germany. In one respect the piety of the Observance exercised a definite influence also beyond its own circles. The monks preached, and not only in the monastery. That Luther preached before a congregation only after he became a doctor of theology permits no deductions regarding the exclusiveness of monastic preaching. The consciousness that God's Word was to be studied and proclaimed to the congregation is a monastic heritage that Luther incorporated into his work of evangelical reform. The portrayal of Luther's career will demonstrate it in detail, but let it be said at the outset that Luther must be understood first and foremost on the basis of his training in the monastery and his theological study. Of course, altogether different influences also figure in his case, perhaps as early as his childhood and his school days, from particular religious movements of the day, and then also from the

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humanistic influences, even though these were to be found least of all in the monastery and in the theological faculties. But it was in the monastery that Luther became the man he was to be. Even as a reformer he wore the cowl; that is true even if one is not inclined to see the evangelical Luther at far too early a date. The questions he asked were those with which he had already tortured himself in the monastery, even if he later acquired and gave entirely different answers from those he had received in the monastery and in the Erfurt lecture halls. T h e famous theory that Luther still belongs in the Middle Ages is certainly not correct in the form in which Ernst Troeltsch proclaimed, but it does contain a core of truth. Luther was in very strong measure under obligation to medieval theology. Much as he could concur with the critique that the humanists leveled at Scholasticism, still he preserved for the church of a new era much from Scholasticism that retains an abiding validity — its questions about sin and grace and about salvation. What he rejected in the Scholastic heritage, he actually overcame within himself. He was receptive to much that the monastery and the traditional theology could not give. But, as we can only reiterate with emphasis, he must be understood primarily on the basis of his theological and spiritual training and from the great spiritual concerns that were stamped upon his character.

II Luther's

Development 4.

HOME

AND

SCHOOL

Luther, as is well known, was born on November 10, 1483. Whether the family's recollection of the year is reliable has been subjected to doubt again and again, since there are also statements from which it was thought that another year had to be deduced. The question no longer arouses much discussion today, and is of no essential consequence. Luther's parents, Hans Luther and Margarete née Lindemann (not Ziegler), had left Möhra, south of Eisenach, because the father was not the eldest son of a peasant, entitled to an inheritance, and the obvious choice for him was to seek his livelihood in mining. Eisleben was only a temporary residence of the family. When Martin, the oldest of the children who survived, was a half year old, the father settled in Mansfeld, where he remained. He had a number of other children, who occasionally emerge in Luther's life without affording us a precise picture of the relationships of them all. At a very early age little Martin entered the town school in Mansfeld. When he was fourteen years old, in 1497, he was sent to Magdeburg to attend the Latin school, but soon thereafter, for reasons that are hardly clear, he transferred to Eisenach and spent his school years there as a pupil in St. George's School. In 1501 he became a student in Erfurt. 33

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Naturally, a whole mass of details are known about Luther's youth. T o deal with them in detail is hardly rewarding. One question seems important to us today: From what level of society did Luther come? His grandparents were peasants, and his parents had not long outgrown the peasant status. Anyone who grew up in Mansfeld, moreover, found peasant life and customs in the immediate vicinity. Is Luther therefore really a peasant? He has frequently been regarded so, and many of his characteristics, his stubbornness, his coarseness, his conservatism which often broke through the passionate revolutionary in a strange way, have been explained from this standpoint. But was the peasant world actually that which surrounded and shaped Luther? Did Luther retain a lasting bond with peasant life and thought? In Wittenberg he would have had to speak Plattdeutsch — Low German — or even Sorbian [Wendish], if he had felt particularly bound to the peasantry. What is quite certain is that his family's past had not acquainted him with the peasant's problems that were pressing in southwestern and western Germany and that ultimately precipitated the Peasants' War. The Luthers in Möhra were so-called Erbzinser [hereditary tenant farmers] — the charge levied on their property was scarcely anything other than a kind of land tax, which was not felt to be too oppressive —• and they were personally free. Luther's bond with the peasantry did not extend very much farther than an awareness of the peasants' toilsome work and of the scant honor and prestige to be achieved by it. Neither was Luther a child of the town life of Germany, however, if one considers town life in terms of the famous German cultural centers such as Nuremberg, Augsburg, and many others. Neither his birthplace nor any of his places of schooling is even remotely comparable to the

LUTHER'S

DEVELOPMENT

35

town centers of cultural life in Germany. Nevertheless, Luther grew up in a town environment, and his family even had its place among the major influences of town life. Luther's father, independent lessee of a smelting furnace, became a ward representative (Viertelsmeister). German towns were divided either into parishes or into quarters (Viertel [wards], occasionally also designated according to streets). The ward representative was the spokesman of the community over against the town council, or at times only of the so-called commoners, in other words, those who neither belonged to the patriciate nor were organized into guilds. It is questionable whether we must reckon with excessively sharp cleavages between classes in Mansfeld such as were found in the great cities, particularly the imperial cities. At any rate, Luther's family was rooted in the stratum of the common townsmen. The ambition to climb economically and educationally was nothing unusual among the leading personalities of these circles, and a certain openness to the new can be expected from them as a matter of course. It can hardly be claimed that Luther received a special heritage of an ecclesiastical and religious nature from his home. We know of no relatives of Luther who were priests or monks. It was quite otherwise with Zwingli. Of course, Father and Mother Luther were regular attendants at Mass, and there is not the slightest evidence in the Luther family of a sectarian opposition against the predominant patterns of church life. Indeed, true and genuine piety surely prevailed in the Luther home, tinged with the superstition that was a matter of course in the miners' world. The religious atmosphere of Luther's parental home, however, had absolutely nothing extraordinary about it. All we know is that the elder Luther wanted his son neither sent to the

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monastery nor ordained a secular priest. The possibility must be reckoned with that in the circles to which he belonged there generally existed such an attitude. But that this spirit of the parental home, which according to the notions of the day might be called " progressive," essentially determined the development of the son Luther can hardly be presumed. The course of Luther's schooling presents a picture similar in every respect to that of his religious inheritance. Apart from the fact that his father was especially anxious to help at least his eldest son to get ahead, and to procure for him a position of esteem, and apart from the period of schooling, which lasted only a very short time and which remains very obscure to us, Luther's career in school has absolutely nothing unusual about it. That Luther earned his support as a choirboy, a poor scholar who sang before people's homes, both in Magdeburg and in Eisenach, is likewise nothing out of the ordinary, and by no means a sign of special poverty. That Latin grammar was taught according to Donatus and syntax according to Alexander of Villedieu, and that scholars were made to read certain authors of classical antiquity such as Pseudo-Cato, Aesop, and Terence, had nothing to do with humanism and the revival of classical studies, but corresponded to late medieval practice. In general, unlike other reformers, Luther did not stand under humanistic influences during his school days. The Latin that he learned and that he wrote and spoke effortlessly in the monastery and in the professorial chair was the medieval Latin of the monks, and no humanistic Latin trained in Cicero or similar models. Luther later expressed himself critically from time to time on the harshness and unreasonableness of the pedagogy of the rod. There is no evidence that the practice which he

LUTHER'S

DEVELOPMENT

37

himself experienced in this respect had exceeded the customary bounds in any direction. Only in Magdeburg did Luther live under influences that were noteworthy. His teachers were so-called Nullbriider [literally, Zero Brothers], that is, members of the Brethren of the Common Life. They belonged to a late medieval pious movement, the Devotio Moderna, which had taken hold in monastic circles (Augustinian Canons, Windesheim Congregation) and in circles of townsmen. It cultivated a warm, heartfelt piety and a personal familiarity with the Holy Scriptures. T h e Brethren took a special interest in the education of the young. Between this late form of German mysticism, which practiced a " simple Christianity " — as is the case with the Devotio Moderna — and humanism, which also paid allegiance to the ideal of a simplicitas Christianismi, existed a certain affinity. We know of humanists who had connections with the Devotio; Alexander Hegius and no less a person than Erasmus belonged to it. T h u s when one views the Magdeburg period, one can indeed speak of a point at which the humanistic and mystical spirit may have influenced Luther. But this dare not be exaggerated, and even the simple personal influence of the Brethren must not be appraised too highly. Luther developed a certain liking for the warm, inward piety of the Brethren, and kept it throughout his life. But the influences of German mysticism upon Luther do not originate as early as this period, and in later days he radically turned his back upon the pious ideal of the " imitation of Christ," which was also the title of the famous book of the Devotio Moderna by Thomas a Kempis. A sympathetic investigation of the particulars that have come down to us from Luther's youth would help, of course, to bring out many a detail that indeed would give

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us a hint of the later Luther. It can hardly be claimed, however, that Luther's early education exercised a basic influence upon the future Reformer. 5 . UNIVERSITY, MONASTERY, AND PRIESTHOOD

In the year 1501, Luther began his study in Erfurt. His father might have selected Erfurt because the law faculty there had a good reputation. That the son must follow a secular vocation was a settled question for the father, and the most distinguished profession at the time, and one attainable by a townsman, was that of a law-trained administrative official in a town council or in a princely court. Without advanced study, including some time at an Italian university, however, no great eminence was to be attained. T o study the two laws immediately was, to be sure, entirely out of the question for Luther as a neophyte at the university. First he must study for three years in the faculty of arts. The seven disciplines treated there are in our present-day concepts secondary-school subjects. T h e faculty of arts offered not much more than the material presented in the advanced classes of a German secondary school. It dealt with grammar, dialectics, and rhetoric (the trivium), and geometry, arithmetic, music, and astronomy (the quadrivium). In certain circumstances it was possible to hear a lecture on one of the ancient classical authors by a humanist who happened to be at the university (see above, page 25). There was no possibility that Luther could systematically have learned Greek or Hebrew in the Erfurt of that time. T h e humanistic reform of the universities, on the whole, was first carried through by Melanchthon from Wittenberg. Can one speak of a definite spirit prevailing in the

LUTHER'S DEVELOPMENT

39

faculty of arts in which Luther studied and can one accordingly assume a decisive influence of philosophical studies upon Luther? The question, we believe, must be answered affirmatively. The teaching in the faculty of arts was done by instructors who were at the same time studying in a higher faculty, mostly the theological, or who had studied there earlier, and occasionally were later promoted to become theology professors. A theological position that gave its stamp to the theological studies of a university must inevitably have exercised an influence in the general studies. We also know even Luther's philosophical teachers — Bartholomew Arnoldi, of Usingen in Nassau, who was known as Usingen, and Jodocus Trutvetter, of Eisenach. Both were nominalists, Occamists, and we must already take Occamism into account for the Luther of the school of arts. The event in Luther's life that above all calls for an explanation is his apparently sudden entry into the monastery of the Augustinian Hermits in Erfurt on July 17, 1505, a step that Luther took soon after he had completed his study of the arts with a promotion to the rank of master. It was occasioned by a vow that Luther had made in mortal terror fifteen days earlier, on the second of July, during a thunderstorm while he was walking on the way from Mansfeld to Erfurt in the vicinity of the village of Stotternheim. The details as such are clear, but to explain the event means to explain what went before, and that is extraordinarily difficult. The explanation that a learned Roman Catholic Franciscan of our times, Dr. Reinold Weijenborg, has seriously advanced — that Luther had a school debt with his father which he was trying to settle cheaply and therefore fled to the monastery, his flight thus having a realistic background similar to the flight of Jacob before

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Laban, according to Gen., ch. 31 (evidence of this allegedly in Luther's exposition of Genesis of 1535-1545) — i s absurd and devoid of any support. But what was the actual motive for Luther's entry into a mendicant monastery? Do the reasons lie entirely in the realm of the personal? A friend of Luther's is said to have died suddenly, perhaps from tuberculosis. Only a short time before, Luther himself apparently had suffered a dangerous dagger wound, which made it clear to him how suddenly he might have to answer before the eternal Judge. From the traditions concerning these matters it is exceedingly difficult to draw the boundary between reliable tradition and Lutherlegend. Luther's entry into the monastery is hardly to be explained from his parental home. It is well known that the father reacted quite negatively to Luther's step, which ruined all the plans he had for his son. At best one can look for connections between the entry into the monastery and the somewhat somber atmosphere of the parental home, characterized by harsh rearing. But are we not in danger of exaggeration here? Did Luther have a vague feeling that jurisprudence was not his line? That Luther, who now would have to study the two laws, was not cut out to be a jurist is certain. But it could not have involved more than a vague feeling. Did Luther have a pathological predisposition to melancholy? The enormous spiritual assaults that he experienced in the monastry, and which remain to be discussed, have for a long time attracted the attention of psychologists and physicians. In a ponderous study more than twenty years ago, a Danish physician, Paul Reiter, significantly a Catholic convert, has given Luther a thoroughly psychiatric appraisal and out of the history of Luther's ill-

LUTHER'S DEVELOPMENT

41

nesses constructed an endogenous psychosis. Or do the grounds for Luther's sudden entry into the monastery lie rather in the theological realm? It is hard to avoid asking, even concerning the moment of his entry into the monastery, what the Occamism of Erfurt could have meant for the young student. The Erfurt Occamists were pupils of the last great Occamist, Gabriel Biel, of Tübingen, who, however, had his own special brand of theology. Hence, they stood at any rate indirectly within the Occamist tradition. And Occam, an English Franciscan of the first half of the fourteenth century, in turn stands with his entire line of thought within the tradition of the Franciscan school in general. For the Franciscans, at least after Duns Scotus, God is not, as for Thomas Aquinas and his school, the supreme invisible Being, but the almighty Will. His absolute omnipotence, freedom, and majesty constitute God's divine nature, and the entire Franciscan theology is a theology of the sovereignty of God. Even its theory of knowledge is determined from this standpoint. God is knowable, not through reason, with which we seek to comprehend him, but by revelation, through which in freedom he gives himself to be known by us. Salvation comes to him whom God has elected for it by an " acceptation " of God. True, the Franciscans see perfect freedom not only in God himself: Man too is a free being. He has the full capacity to do good and to make himself worthy of acceptation. T h e Franciscan doctrine of salvation, especially the Occamist view, also reckons with human freedom and results in a dramatic contest between God's freedom and men's. There is more than one way in which the man who finds himself oppressed by Occamist theological principles may react toward them inwardly. Occamism also was often felt to be a very sure way to God's acceptance.

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LUTHER

Precisely this sure way Luther now apparently wanted to tread, with distress on account of his present condition but with hope in the good works through which he might now become perfect and make himself worthy of God's acceptance. In any case, Occamist theology, so far as it had already influenced the philosophy student, must have been translated by him in uncommon fashion into a personal concern, and thus we come once again into the personal realm. Little as we can see plainly in details, or ever will see with perfect clarity, there must have taken place in Luther an inward religious struggle, hidden beneath the student gaiety that he had shared and with which once more he took leave of his friends before he actually went into the monastery. If Luther wished to remain in Erfurt, which was manifestly the case — he apparently did not need to fear any accessory in some ugly secret — he had a choice among six monasteries. He selected the strictest, an Observant monastery of the Augustinian Hermits (see above, pages 28f.). There he was received as a novice, and turned over to the novice-master for monastic training. He could have withdrawn at any time during the year of his novitiate. Had he not stood the test and shown sufficient ascetic earnestness, he would have been dismissed. But he was retained, and at the end of his novice year he made his profession in 1506. The order now assumed full control over Luther's future. Naturally he was required, especially during the novitiate, to perform menial services and occasionally go out begging. But this aspect has not infrequently been sharply exaggerated by the storytellers. That Luther was marked for ordination to the priesthood and for theological study was nothing uncommon or singular. The order

LUTHER'S DEVELOPMENT

43

wanted to produce earnest priests and learned theologians, and obviously Luther's capacities were fully recognized. That the priestly duty of " changing the body of the Lord " on the altar greatly oppressed Luther within, that it was of prodigious significance to hold this body in his hands and to take it and distribute it, and that he feared he would commit a mortal sin by making an error in reciting the Mass, for example, even in his first celebration, is understandable. But one easily reads too much into the records of an extraordinary expression of fear. The inner bliss of having become a priest, of being deemed worthy of this holy service, Luther not only expressed to his father, who had come to the first Mass, but also actually felt. With the greatest conscientiousness from the time of his ordination by the Erfurt suffragan bishop, John of Laasphe, in the Erfurt cathedral on the fourth of April, 1507, and of his first Mass in the monastery church on the second of May, 1507, Luther offered the sacrifice of the Mass day by day and participated in the daily hours of prayer. The haggard figure of Luther and the bony face with which the pictures from the Wittenberg monastery period still portray him are expressions of the mortifications to which he devoted himself unreservedly. Many a week he made confession more than once. As an Observant monk, who had to keep his eyes always downcast, Luther dared not even look at a woman, and retained for a long time a reluctance to receive women at all for confession. Naturally a priest of the order had to prepare theologically for his ordination. Above all, Luther had to study thoroughly Gabriel Biel's work on the canon of the Mass, that is, the prayers preceding the completion of the sacrifice of the Mass. A particular theological curriculum, however, was not a prerequisite for ordination, but could fol-

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low the ordination. So it was for Luther: to study theology meant to work through a prescribed list of theological works. We know fairly accurately into what works Luther delved for the purpose, and we may assume that to a great extent he actually memorized them. Luther had a splendid memory, and in a time when the number of books to be read was considerably smaller than today, we may reckon quite generally on a word-for-word assimilation to a degree such as we no longer know. Luther certainly studied the following theological works thoroughly: the Sentences of Peter Lombard, several commentaries thereon, namely, the so-called Collectorium of Gabriel Biel and the Quaestiones of William of Occam, and those of a theologian from the time of the Council of Constance, Pierre d'Ailly; then, for the exposition of Scripture, the Glossa ordinaria, ascribed to Walahfrid Strabo of the ninth century. All of these, as Catholic scholarship has strongly emphasized, are works of late nominalistic Scholasticism, apart from the last-named Biblical commentary, of course, and apart from the Sentences of the Bishop of Paris, Peter, called the Lombard, which were composed in the twelfth century before the rise of the great Scholastic school systems. But the Sentences, which were used everywhere for centuries as the dogmatic textbook, were known and thoroughly appropriated by Luther quite manifestly in a nominalist interpretation. Nevertheless, the Catholic thesis — that Luther had no familiarity at all with the classical Catholicism of high Scholasticism but only with a caricature that is scarcely genuinely Catholic, namely, nominalism — will hardly do. On the one hand, nominalism to this day has not been condemned, however great a position of preeminence has been accorded to Thomas Aquinas; on the other hand, al-

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though it is indeed uncertain whether Luther at that time could already have worked through the Summa Theologiae of Aquinas, he did become familiar with Thomas and Duns Scotus and Alexander of Hales. His knowledge of Scholasticism was not and did not remain one-sidedly narrow. With the study of books was connected the requirement that he hear lectures at the university and in the general school of the order in the monastery. In the lectures, however, books again were read aloud and occasionally interpolated with explanations. One more task did, or at least could, come into the picture for the theology student. If he had properly completed his study of the arts, he was graduated and became first a bachelor and then a master of arts. Thereby, however, he had the right to teach in the realm of the arts. He was an instructor in the one faculty and a student in the other. Luther made use of his teaching privilege during his years in the monastery. Indeed, as it worked out for him, the order abruptly transferred him to Wittenberg. Located there was a quite recently founded university in which the order had to supply several professorships. T h e young Luther at the age of twentyfive had to occupy a chair of moral philosophy in 1508, though only for a relatively short time. There he had to lecture on the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle. 6.

D U T I E S IN T H E O R D E R AND T R I P

TO

ROME

It will be proper now to narrate the life of the monk Luther down to the decisive break constituted by the indulgence controversy. It is quite possible, indeed probable, that the so-called " monastery struggles " that have so great an importance for Luther's inner development

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LUTHER

were already long in progress when Luther moved from Erfurt to Wittenberg for the first time. One must soberly realize, however, that the almost innumerable attempts somehow to fix the time sequence of these monastery struggles, so that we can to our satisfaction identify with certainty the moment of Luther's conversion experience, are nothing but more or less ingenious hypotheses. Under the circumstances it is more sensible to elucidate the external events first and then examine Luther's inner development. The University of Wittenberg, so important for Luther, may be discussed when we come to his final transfer to that place. A monk, even when he was engaged in advanced studies, had to discharge duties within the monastery or even duties of the order, and as a member of the cloister he also participated in its government. The duties could be of a minor nature, but also very extensive. At a time when Luther was especially burdened by his academic work, namely, when he was delivering his first great Biblical lectures in Wittenberg, he was very heavily weighed down with duties of the order, as subprior of the monastery, then as director of monastery studies and in addition as district vicar, which meant that he had oversight over eleven monasteries. In the time after 1508, Luther had to carry out a special commission of the order, to which he was assigned perhaps not altogether by chance: he had to travel to Rome on a matter of dispute within the order and submit it to the general prior of the order for decision. The details of this dispute are exceedingly obscure. How deeply Luther himself was involved in it, whether he was sent to Rome as the one responsible for settling the matter or only as traveling companion, what Luther's relation in this case was with his most important superior, Staupitz,

LUTHER'S DEVELOPMENT

47

and other questions cannot be answered with certainty. Not even the time of the journey is established. Did it take place in the winter of 1510-1511 or not until the winter of 1511-1512? Certainly, Luther set out from Erfurt, whither he had been transferred again, and where now as a sententiarius he was lecturing in the theological faculty, namely expounding Lombard's Sentences (see above, page 44). T h e situation in the order out of which the dispute had been conjured u p was the following: There were four provinces of the Augustinian Hermits in Germany — the provinces of Rhineland-Swabia, Cologne, Saxony, and Bavaria. This division of the order was of a geographical nature. At the head of each province stood a provincial. T h e provincial was elected for a term of office, and could be reelected or replaced by another at the end of the term. For the Saxon province a certain Gerhard Hecker is known to have been the provincial for many years in Luther's time. A rather considerable number of the German Augustinian Hermit monasteries were Observant. T h e Observant cloisters, understandably, did not wish to stand under Conventual provincials, in which case their strict discipline might have been endangered. They had even succeeded in being placed under an Observant vicar of their own, so that they were entirely exempted from the provincial administration. T h e vicar of the Observance from 1503 to 1520 was a learned Saxon nobleman, John von Staupitz. T h e Observant monasteries were scattered all over Germany, and thus the Observance permeated all the German provinces of the order. Presumably in none of the provinces were men happy with the Observant monasteries. But the Observance was especially widespread in the Saxon province, so that the province had to regard itself

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as a sort of emergency area. The idea of drawing the entire province of Saxony into the Observance was not altogether remote, and seemed realizable. In any case the thought occurred to Hecker to combine the office of Saxon provincial with that of Observant vicar. Staupitz was the ideal man for the double office, and a ruling to that effect was duly issued from Rome. The matter was not without danger, for the Observants were mission-minded and wished to pursue their mission not only among the erstwhile Conventual monasteries in the Saxon province. Efforts to introduce the Observance into Swabia and Cologne were already in progress. What a grotesque situation would have developed if no longer simply the Observance itself but a geographically delineated province had currently attempted to extend itself into the other provinces? Town councils had gladly aided Observant cloisters, because their monks were not only beggars but learned theologians. They had encouraged and even demanded the exemption of their monasteries from the provincial administration. Would they now be prepared suddenly to submit their monasteries to the rule of an alien provincial? From the Nuremberg cloister arose resistance to Staupitz's union plans, and behind the resistance stood the Nuremberg town council. It was indeed a strange demand that the latter should suddenly be expected to deal with the Saxon provincial instead of the (properly responsible) Bavarian provincial to whom it belonged, but with whom it had so far had nothing to do. The plans could not be carried out. Staupitz eventually came to realize this too, and renounced them in 1512. Previously, however, the standpoint of the opponents was presented in Rome, by none other than Luther and his traveling companion (or vice versa). The opponents were

LUTHER'S

DEVELOPMENT

49

officially turned down in Rome, but Staupitz, as we have said, had to abandon his plan nonetheless. In the last analysis, the practically useless journey to Rome had been undertaken primarily to enhance Staupitz's prestige. T o be sure, he was then unable to take advantage of it. The journey, nevertheless, had a significance for Luther, even if not that which we might suppose. Luther did not become a fanatical adversary of the pope in Rome, and Luther's fight against the Antichrist in Rome does not stem from this journey. At least the trip to Rome did not help Luther to make the famous discovery of " righteousness by faith," even though his son Paul Luther told this story in 1582. Just as little, certainly, did Luther go to Rome or use his trip to Rome for the purpose of obtaining a dispensation from his monastic vows and permission to study in Rome for ten years in secular garb. This fantastic tale of the Hildesheim dean and former student of Luther, John Oldecop, has been warmed up once more in recent years by the aforementioned Romanist Franciscan scholar without producing even the slightest proofs for its authenticity. Luther had made general confession at a holy place; a desire of many faithful of that day was now fulfilled for Luther. He sought out the places of grace as much as possible, and acquired all the indulgences to be gained there. He also saw and heard unpleasant things, such as frivolous haste and cynical speech on the part of the priests celebrating Mass. On the journey in Italy, in south Germany, and in Switzerland his excellent gift of observation proved itself. Again and again in later times he came back to this or that detail which he had experienced on his trip to Rome. Then, when he stood in conflict with the papacy, many of these experiences in Rome came alive for him and helped to give color to his polemi-

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cal speech. That he had acquired no genuinely positive impressions gave him assurance in his struggle against the corrupter of Christendom. To such an extent did his experiences in Rome, which he visited as a still faithful Catholic, and where he had made use of all the opportunities available to a faithful Catholic, prove serviceable and helpful. But the trip to Rome had no further importance for Luther's development as a reformer. 7. T H E

D O C T O R AND PROFESSOR OF

BIBLE

The controversy in the order was not ended with the delegation's return from Rome. The conflict seems to have had a double effect on Luther. On the one hand, there is much evidence that it did not seem expedient to leave him in Erfurt, because he apparently had gone to Rome to represent the interests of the refractory cloisters against Staupitz but then had gone over to Staupitz's side. On the other hand, it is clear that at this time he came closer to Staupitz, and Staupitz won from him the inner willingness — though from an outward point of view he had no choice but to obey — to go to Wittenberg and take over Staupitz's professorship of Bible. This means also that he had to obtain promotion to the rank of doctor of theology. The preparatory requirements were met, and Luther naturally was equal to the necessary theological disputation. Elector Frederick the Wise assumed the costs. The University of Wittenberg, a creation of Frederick the Wise, was situated in a place that even according to current opinions, it seems, was scarcely altogether suitable and worthy. The town was dirty and small. The population probably did not number more than two thousand. A university had been needed in Electoral Saxony, because

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in the partition of Saxony in 1485 the University of Leipzig had fallen to the Albertine line. Wittenberg offered the great advantage that a university could be erected cheaply there. There existed a collegiate foundation, All Saints, where Frederick's famous collection of relics was kept, the visiting of which brought much indulgence. The ten-year-old Wittenberg university did not yet, of course, have a tradition. Elector Frederick had brought scholars of rank and renown to Wittenberg, such as Valentine Polich of Mellerstadt, the jurist and physician, and Staupitz. The professorial chairs were established by making the incumbents canons of the foundation, which was richly endowed, for example, through the " incorporation " of wealthy church livings, a system whereby the canon received all the income except for a part that went to a meagerly paid vicar who actually administered the parish. Some of the professorships also were simply placed in the hands of the monastic orders represented in Wittenberg, and these included the position that Luther held in 1508-1509 in the faculty of arts, and the professorship in the theological faculty that Staupitz had occupied until 1512 and that now Luther took over. T o a university that had yet to make a name for itself and could not offer outward attractions it would have been impractical to give an unduly uniform theological complexion. The diversity o£ the theological situation came to expression more strongly in Wittenberg than in the one-sidedly nominalist Erfurt. Luther's colleague Karlstadt was a Thomist, and so apparently was Staupitz, who was strongly influenced by German mysticism. In Wittenberg, Luther delivered the early lectures that have lately become so renowned. We possess transcripts or manuscripts for lectures on The Psalms (Dictata super

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Psalterium, 1513-1515), on the Epistle to the Romans (1515-1516), on Galatians (1516), and on Hebrews (1517). T h e next lectures fall into the period following the controversy over Luther's theses. Outwardly, Luther followed the customary pattern. Providing the students with texts having wide spaces between the lines, he dictated glosses, i.e., definitions, for the interlinear space and the margins, and then he offered substantial comments on larger passages, called scholia. During his lectures Luther matured into a theologian of great repute within the order. One may well assume that his Augustinian brothers in Germany looked to him with a certain pride and expectation. One hardly needed to fancy him a dangerous critic of the church, although he frequently uttered frank comments about ecclesiastical abuses in the presence of the students. Thereby, however, he did not pass beyond customary bounds. Upon the students Luther seems to have exercised a strong drawing power. That Professor Luther of the young and rather obscure University of Wittenberg was already a German or European celebrity is simply out of the question. More cannot be said at this point about Luther's early lectures. After their discovery they were at first regarded as the great testimonies of evangelical theology. T h e new Luther research, as we have said above, was kindled by them. Chiefly to the thorough study of Luther's early lectures do we owe our complete certainty today that the essence of the Lutheran Reformation lies not in the fight of Luther against the indulgence scandal and against the encroachments of Rome, but in the discovery of the new righteousness. Today, however, there has reappeared a strong inclination to see in the Luther of the early lectures no longer, indeed, the Catholic Luther — Karl August

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Meissinger alone has maintained this in books appearing only a few years ago — but a Luther who had not yet altogether penetrated to the gospel, in other words, a developing reformer, and to assume that Luther made his great evangelical discovery only in 1518 or 1519. Under the circumstances it is most expedient to speak at this point about the inner development of Luther in the monastery, about his so-called " monastery struggles." 8.

STRUGGLES IN T H E AND T H E T O W E R

MONASTERY EXPERIENCE

Through the years of Luther's life in the monastery and his academic activity as a generally unknown professor — through all these years or beyond them as well? — stretched an oppressive experience that convulsed him to his inmost being. Roughly speaking, it is relatively easy to say what it was all about. T h e experience had both a destructive and a constructive side. Luther experienced a genuine inner breakdown; then he was helped to rise out of his inner catastrophe. What was the nature of the breakdown? T o be a monk meant to walk the way of perfection, that is, to do more than simply fulfill the commandments binding upon all men, and to observe the " evangelical counsels." T h e three monastic vows — poverty, chastity, and obedience to superiors — are a formal expression of the way by which it was believed one could more surely attain to salvation, through bodily renunciation and intensified piety, than the ordinary believer. T h e monk could expect even to feel perfection, insofar as it bestowed peace of conscience, inward repose, and assurance. No monk was without sin, for according to the age-old monastic tradition, it is precisely

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the monk who not only avoids the sins of action but conscientiously examines the sins of his inner impulses. But he had the means of salvation in the sacraments, penance, and the Eucharistic sacrifice, and their regular use would necessarily bring peace to his conscience and inward assurance. Luther did not attain to this experience of a pacified conscience. There is no evidence that he committed gross actual sins or fell prey to torturing sensual desire, but rather the reverse, even though such charges were often insinuated against Luther later by his adversaries. He felt that he was not perfect inwardly, because that which he regarded as the fundamental sin before God — namely, the desire to claim a status in the presence of God, arrogance and presumption, " incurvedness into himself " — Luther sensed within himself, indeed he saw it augmented by the monastic life. Out of this discovery about himself grew terrible anxieties for Luther. The thought tortured him that with this inner disposition he would never be able to stand before God. Still more was involved in Luther's inner breakdown. The doctrine of predestination strongly influenced Luther's tribulations in the monastery. Luther was aware that there were some persons who by virtue of God's unfathomable counsel are destined for salvation and the others for reprobation. Tormented by an anxiety that at times positively crushed him, Luther felt that he might be among the rejected. Luther's anxiety was concerned with predestination. What he observed and perceived in himself seemed to him necessarily a sign that he was rejected. " My fears increased till sheer despair left naught but death to be my share; the pangs of hell I suffered " — these words from a hymn he composed much later, presumably in

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1523, " Dear Christians, one and all, rejoice," refer to his fearful experience in his monastery period. It is impossible to give a succinct, conclusive, all-clarifying explanation of this inner catastrophe of Luther. One has the easiest time of it if one views Luther as a medical, psychiatric case and Luther's monastic anxieties as the expression of a psychic abnormality. Those who would explain Luther in medical terms naturally lay great weight on the fact that Luther's Anfechtungen [his spiritual assaults] were not continuous; rather, as he clearly testifies, they overtook him from time to time and for very brief periods, but then mounted to horrible intensity. It should be clear, however, that the psychiatric interpreters and critics of Luther advance a religious prejudgment when they regard Luther's afflictions as an expression of psychical aberration. They presuppose that there is no judgment and no sentence passed upon men, pronouncing blessedness or damnation. But these notions concerning faith Luther shared with his times. It is only a question why in his case the thought of death and judgment led to this inner catastrophe. We may search for factors that had some influence upon Luther's breakdown. More we cannot claim. That Luther underwent these experiences is a unique, historical fact, which eludes final explanation. The explanation of God's personal guidance, which naturally is no " scientific" interpretation, remains for a Christian still the most illuminating and most natural explanation. Of decisive importance, naturally, was Luther's monastic training. The monk was obliged through fulfilling the law, including that which was only counseled but which was undertaken by the monk as a duty, to seek perfection, to make use of the sacramental means of grace, and thereby

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to attain at least to a relative assurance of his state o£ grace. It was a question, of course, how strictly one selected the moral standard with which to measure oneself. For an understanding of Luther's highly intensified conscientiousness Occamism offers an explanation. If one maintains the Occamist conception of God, and not only does so theoretically but makes it a part of one's personal life and feeling, namely, the conception of the majestic God, the God who requires perfect " righteousness," one can or must fall into this terrible despair. Of course, Occamism also possessed a faith in the moral powers of man. Man must " do his best," or " d o what is in him " {facere quod in se est), in order to become worthy of acceptance, and he can do much by his own powers — he can bring himself to perfect contrition over his sin and thereby prepare himself for grace and make himself worthy of acceptance. But what if experience testified against the success of this self-perfecting? Luther's occupation with the theology of Augustine might also serve as an explanation. T h e keynote of the piety that Augustine taught was perfect love toward H i m who is the supreme good. True, it was not customary to interpret Augustinian love to God in such a way that the entire life of the Christian must be a single unbroken chain of acts of love to God. Self-love was acknowledged as the presupposition of all existence, even of all Christian existence, and the occasional or perhaps the frequent eliciting of acts of love to God was regarded as sufficient. But who could stop a person with inner independence from thinking through the demand of perfect love to God all the way to its ultimate consequences? From Augustine the church had received the doctrine of predestination by the God who by a sovereign divine decree bestows irresistible

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grace on some and destines them for salvation, while he leaves others to themselves and allows them to fall into destruction. Anxiety over predestination from the outset calls to mind Augustinian influences. It is difficult, even with explanations that by no means explain everything but only succeed in clarifying certain relationships, to arrive at fully lucid conclusions, since we cannot learn clearly when Luther began to be so tormented and just as little when he began to become absorbed in Augustine. Marginal notes on works of Augustine in Luther's handwriting are extant from the year 1509. But this hardly advances our quest. One must be satisfied simply to state that Occamism and Augustine together played a part in Luther's breakdown. Not only Luther the Christian and monk but precisely also Luther the theologian fell into an inner catastrophe. T h e salutary, saving experience of Luther consisted in his experiencing the grace of God, indeed, one might say, the awareness of being elected by God. He actually found the peace of a comforted conscience; he found the gracious God for whom he had struggled. It is indeed difficult to describe Luther's saving experience more clearly than this. It has been correctly seen, for example by Karl Holl, that Luther's experience of salvation cannot simply be reduced to the formula that he found Christ. Already in his spiritual tribulations Luther was very much engrossed with Christ. Just this was the terrifying thing, that in his tribulation even Christ suddenly meant nothing to him. Christ indeed was the judge, no matter how much every faithful man knew of Christ's mercy and kindness. So it became a torturing question for Luther whether Christ was gracious to him, and whether he would ultimately receive the benefit of Christ's atoning work, and whether he would be

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able to stand before Christ in the judgment. Luther's experience can hardly be reduced even to the simple formula of God's righteousness or the bestowed righteousness of God. It is well known that Luther himself used this formula from the time of his treatise on the Bondage of the Will (1525). In particular, he asserted in his memoir of his life in 1545 (see above, page 10) that at the decisive turning point of his life, when his wild and confused conscience was tamed and he felt himself reborn, entering through the opened gates into paradise, it came to him that the apostle meant by the " righteousness of G o d " in Rom. 1:17 the righteousness that God bestows. All earlier expositors except Augustine, Luther says at one place, interpreted it otherwise. That the latter assertion is not accurate has been proved by Luther's Catholic critics. Above all, indeed, Luther struggled unsuccessfully not only to produce evidence in himself, through a perfect life, of the required righteousness as God himself possesses it, but also to find in himself, in a sanctified life, the righteousness that God bestows. One must first interpret correctly how Luther understands this bestowed righteousness if one attempts to use this formula to explain his discovery. T h e correct procedure will now be to ask first about the midwives who assisted at the new birth that Luther underwent. T h e expression " midwives " is used here intentionally. A birth does not take place by the cooperation of midwives, but is an event whose essential causes do not lie in the assistance given to the mother. W e are not dealing with more than " midwifery " in what can be said in explanation of the change that took place in Luther. T o give an account regarding the midwives, however, can elucidate the proceedings.

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T o begin with, Luther received human help. In every monastery, foresight was exercised that so-called " scrupulants " might receive aid. Scrupulants are persons suffering spiritual assaults, and Luther naturally was regarded and treated at first as a scrupulant. No doubt, the assaults experienced by scrupulants arose as a rule from anxiety at having forgotten a mortal sin in confession, and consequently having received no genuine forgiveness. It is quite understandable that Luther's preceptor in the monastery, or a good old man among the monks, as Melanchthon relates, impressed upon him the commandment to believe in the forgiveness promised to him. Since Luther's scruples, however, went much deeper, these counsels did not essentially help him advance on his way. Additional commandments, such as that he must believe in the forgiveness of sins, only increased still further the burden of a person who wanted to become perfect by the way of the law. What concerned him, on the other hand, was by no means that he had neglected something in relation to God, but that God had not elected him. There even existed a special literature for scrupulants. Jean Charlier, known as Gerson, had written at the beginning of the fifteenth century a counselor's handbook for monks who despaired of themselves. Luther, who despaired not of himself but of God, could not be decisively helped by it. Much more effective and enduring than the help Luther received from any brother monks must have been the help given him by his superior in the order, John Staupitz. Throughout his life Luther acknowledged this help and retained a warm sense of gratitude, although Staupitz finally declined to follow Luther's way but died as Benedictine abbot of St. Peter's in Salzburg. Staupitz brought Luther to see that he must stop worrying further whether or

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not he was predestined, but must simply look upon the wounds of Christ who died for us. Whether Staupitz maintained that predestination then would vanish, i.e., his preoccupation with the idea and his worry about being predestined, or whether he actually taught that in meditation on the wounds of Christ it is disclosed to the assailed soul that his assaults are signs of election, can no longer be positively ascertained from the various versions of a passage of the table talk that gives us an account of the help that Staupitz rendered to Luther. It was hardly a single conversation with Staupitz that brought Luther to recovery. T h e entire influence of Staupitz must have turned out helpfully for Luther. But much more is involved here. In Staupitz, Luther encountered the world of German mysticism, the mysticism of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Luther's connection with Staupitz of itself raised the question whether the theology and piety of German mysticism helped Luther to escape his hideous feeling of spiritual torment. But altogether different circumstances also suggest inquiry into the influences of German mysticism upon Luther. Luther discovered a mystical treatise written by a Frankfurt priest of the Teutonic Order, the so-called Deutsche Theologie [German Theology]; having studied it thoroughly and almost swallowed it completely, he published it in abridged form in 1516 and complete in 1518. He also read Tauler's sermons, was strongly affected by them, and lauded Tauler as one of the greatest theologians who ever lived. Moreover, in Luther's early lectures, especially in the first one on The Psalms (.Dictata, 1513-1515), the influence of mysticism is quite palpable. In any case it is difficult to give a clear and satisfactory answer to the question of Luther's connections with Ger-

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man mysticism. Between monastic piety and German mysticism there exists an affinity, and in the case of very specific concepts, for example, humiliation, annihilation, mortification, one can hardly be sure whether one is dealing simply with the monastic terminology or with the influence of mysticism. Besides, Luther's reading of Tauler is not definitely attested until 1516. And finally, mysticism, even the so-called German mysticism, which comes from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, has features that lead so far astray from evangelical thinking that it is scarcely comprehensible how Luther could be so deeply influenced by it. He must have been simply blind to certain features of German mysticism such as its descents into pantheism. However, the views that the way of works does not lead to God but into vanity and self-complacency, and hence as far away from God as possible, but that the humility and abasement, the reduction to sheer insignificance before God, and thus the acknowledgment that to God alone belongs glory, indeed, the experience of God even to the pangs of hell, bring one in truth to heaven — these are the stock of mystical ideas which helped to shape Luther, became a part of him, and may have assisted at the new birth which he experienced. All this becomes perfectly clear only when we observe the method of Scriptural interpretation that the young Luther used. What he read in the psalms he put into the mouth of Christ. All the sufferings of which the psalmists tell are Christ's sufferings. But these sufferings again are a model of the sufferings of the faithful. This exegesis is called tropological. Through the prayer of the psalmist and meditation upon the suffering of the praying poet the believer incorporates himself into the sufferings of Christ. And this faith in Jesus Christ, which can lead one even into

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hell, is nevertheless the power that leads one out of hell. In the same lectures on T h e Psalms in which we find these " mystical " ideas, Augustinian influences also are perceptible. Indeed, scholars have spoken of a Neoplatonism in the first Psalms lectures. Augustine, as is well known, was very strongly fructified by Neoplatonism, and his theology is one of the entrance gates whereby Neoplatonic ideas came into Christian thought. Thought patterns found in Luther, such as " the lower and the higher," " the earthly and the eternal world," etc., point to Augustine or even to Neoplatonism. However one may evaluate the thesis of a Neoplatonic-Augustinian element in the first Psalms lectures, at all events the question must be asked whether the theology of Augustine gave service as a midwife at Luther's rebirth. This was surely the case. As an Occamist, Luther grew up in a theological world that interpreted everything from the standpoint of God's will and judgment, both the sin of man and the grace that is granted him. Sin means essentially that God regards a man wrathfully, considers him a sinner, and grace means that God bestows on him His mercy which forgives him and despoils him of his good works. Good and evil are not attributes of man but judgments that God passes upon man. What man is, he is by virtue of God's judgment concerning him. For the sinful man this could be dangerous. T h e man who is rejected in God's sight can perhaps be very meritorious morally and very successful apart from this judgment of God, but what he cannot do is fully attain the actual approval of the enigmatic God. T o the same result came the Occamist view of man: if a man does what he can, " what is in him," i.e., develops all his good powers, if he makes use of grace, then God will surely change his judg-

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ment and bestow his mercy. In contrast to the Occamist conception of man under sin Luther developed an altogether different anthropology of his own. He has a completely unoccamist conception of sin. Sin is not only a judgment of God regarding man but a profound corruption, a frightful injury. That sin is so frightful a thing, fettering a man to selfishness, Luther experienced in his struggles in the monastery. But he could learn this also from Augustine, and certainly he understood it in this fashion as he wrestled with him. T o this extent did Augustine participate in Luther's new birth. In the strict sense, to be sure, Augustine participated in the destructive side of the process. The depth and the abyss of sin plunged Luther into despair, and did not actually help him at first. However, a recent interpreter of Augustine's predestination doctrine, Gotthard Nygren, has said very beautifully that its basic motif is the " omnipotence of grace." Luther too had sensed already that Augustine's doctrine of sin was related to the idea of omnipotent grace. The grace that God in Christ has prepared for the sinner then saved Luther from his anxieties. That Luther felt a great debt of gratitude to Augustine, he himself expressed with strong words. He claims to have learned, to his delight, that Augustine proclaims a " passive righteousness " of God, that is, a righteousness given by God, though, to be sure, he says that Augustine was not the first to teach him this. We must accept the fact that Luther regarded Augustine as one who assisted at his new birth. Of course, Luther must have understood and did understand Augustine differently from the manner in which we must understand him. The grace that Augustine taught is a miraculous power that works on a man and transforms him. If Luther had seen this with utter clarity, he would

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have been hurled into new terrors precisely by Augustine, for Luther did not feel any such miraculous power as this in himself! Luther's experience was altogether different from Augustine's: Augustine came to feel a total transformation in himself, and praised the grace that had transformed him. Luther comforted himself with the grace of God, even though sin, incurvedness upon himself, selfseeking, still remained in him. T h a t Luther experienced grace in the midst of his sinful existence is related again to the fact that he was an Occamist. One may express the matter thus: with the help of Augustine he overcame his Occamism; nevertheless, he also interpreted Augustine in turn occamistically as far as grace is concerned, but not so far as sin is concerned. We must now proceed a step farther and ask whether Luther also owed any gratitude to his Occamism for positive assistance at his new birth, namely, for the constructive side of his inner transformation. T h e Occamists found God's revelation in the Scriptures. Reason does not lead to God, but the positive revelation in the Word does. Occamism had already helped Luther to lay all emphasis on the Holy Scriptures. T h e chief aid in Luther's renewal was in point of fact the Holy Scriptures; mediately, however, there was also an assisting role that Luther's Occamism could fulfill for him. Indeed, the fact is that Luther's study of the Scriptures and especially his study of Paul powerfully stimulated him and led him decisively forward, and finally brought him to the crisis. In Luther's lectures on Romans, delivered in 1515-1516, we surely find the strongest evidence of Luther's great experience. For this experience quite certainly, the seventh chapter of Romans held a special importance in the manner in which he and many before him, as early

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as the ancient period, understood it. There Paul speaks, though recent expositors interpret the chapter altogether differently, of the " old man " within him who is subject to the law, wants to obey it, but cannot master it, and who still feels sin within, actually increased by the law. And he speaks of the " new man," on whom is bestowed the Spirit of God. Both the old and the new man are simultaneously present in him. In his struggle with Rom., ch. 7, Luther coined the remarkable, widely controversial, but for him uniquely significant formula, simul justus — simul peccator, " simultaneously righteous and sinner." The Christian is a sinner in reality and righteous in faith, through the grace of God, the favor Dei. The great consolation and the saving help for Luther, therefore, was the forgiveness of God, which already was working upon him and helping him to make progress, hence does not leave him completely caught in sin. But God's forgiveness does not alter the fact that sin still remains in him and still actually causes him to be condemned. The condemnation is removed, however, by God's act of forgiving the sinner and accepting him as righteous. Grace, if we may express it so, is still understood in an Occamist way, as a judgment that God in his gracious disposition pronounces upon a man. Faith humbly appropriates this promise of the grace of God. T o put it another way: the work of mercy that God has accomplished in Christ, outside the believer, has saved him, made him free and of good cheer, and assured him that he has a gracious God. But when did all this happen? When did the fearful anguish begin? Above all, when did the breakthrough take place and Luther find the gracious God? Luther himself made two explicit assertions: on the one hand, that the great discovery dawned upon him as he pondered the pas-

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sage Rom. 1:16-17 (according to his now famous translation: " I am not ashamed of the gospel concerning Christ, for it is the power of God which saves all who believe in it, the Jews first, and also the Greeks. For therein is revealed the righteousness which avails before God, which comes from faith to faith; as it is written: ' T h e righteous will live by his faith' "; reference to Hab. 2:4). On the other hand, he stated that the new understanding came to him when he lectured on T h e Psalms for the second time, i.e., in the year 1518 or 1519 (Operationes in Psalmos). Against the second assertion a loud objection has been raised: That is utterly impossible! T h e new understanding of grace must have been present much earlier. A t least as early as his lectures on Romans I Now, Luther has even specified the location of the great experience. According to his table talk, he had the experience in the tower of the monastery: accordingly it is commonly referred to as the " tower experience." It is strange, however, that an experience which made so lasting an impression left no trace in his lectures! At Rom. 1:16-17 in the Romans lectures there is no evidence of it. It has been asserted that already in the first course of lectures on T h e Psalms, five years before the second, Luther shows his new understanding of the righteousness of God, at Ps. 31 (Vulgate 30) or Ps. 71 (Vulgate 70). Older scholars have even shifted the experience to the period 1508 to 1511. If Staupitz played an important role, one might actually think of the time when Luther had come very close to Staupitz personally, and that would mean this period. Today, however, there is a tendency to credit Luther's identification of 1518 or 1519 as the time of the experience, although it is not even altogether certain whether Luther really intends this in the passage where he seems to say it,

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in his brief autobiography of 1545 (Preface to his Collected Latin Works). Meanwhile, the Hebrews lectures of 1517 must stand as a clear testimony of the fact that Luther had already attained a genuine assurance of salvation I We are reduced to the sober acknowledgment that we cannot set up a calendar of Luther's inner development. We must let the matter rest by pointing out the relationships as we sought to describe them. It must also remain clear that all references to midwives mean nothing more than just that. An actual explanation of the process is not possible, for the process after all was by no means a new theoretical understanding of God but an encounter with God, a transformation not in theological terminology but in his attitude toward God. Not even this description perfectly reproduces Luther's self-evaluation: it was not that he changed his attitude toward God, but God changed his toward him. T o put it most prosaically, the originality of Luther is not depreciated by all the evidence of influences upon Luther from the theology that he had absorbed and reworked in his own mind. But it is quite certain that Luther's development into a reformer came out of his monastery struggles and not out of the offense that he took at abuses in church practices. Not Luther the critic of the church but Luther the monk and exegete and preacher discovered the gospel; it was rather the new gospel that moved Luther to become a critic of the church. Luther's collision with the church came about because with this gospel he could break into this church, and in the end he had to burst it open. But he did not find the whole church willing to give it a hearing, and to this gospel he could not bring the whole church back.

Ill Luther's Breakthrough

9 . INDULGENCE CONTROVERSY AND PROCEEDINGS AGAINST T H E H E R E T I C

Everyone who arrives at a new understanding must inevitably wrestle with those who have not yet attained or never attain this understanding. And if the new understanding originates only out of a certain positive standpoint, in Luther's case ultimately out of his Biblical study, it must nevertheless be defended against those who with their principles stand in the way of this understanding and attempt to obscure it. Luther found many errors concerning grace and faith and justification in the theologians before him, especially those of the Middle Ages, that is, the Scholastics. T h e means by which a person ordinarily proclaimed his disagreement with erroneous opinions and at the same time formulated precisely his own new clear conceptions was still in Luther's time the academic disputation. One drew up a series of propositions or theses, some of which were stated positively and others negatively, and challenged all who wished to oppose these propositions, and then defended them in debate. On occasion the teacher drew up the propositions and had a student defend them. In the year 1517 Luther formulated, quite sharply and solidly, some Theses Against Scholastic Theology and 68

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directed a student, Francis Günther, to defend them. The affair looked almost dangerous. Conflicts with the church were altogether possible. Actually, nothing happened. A few weeks later Luther once again formulated theses for debate that were much more harmless. But they concerned a subject that was definitely no purely academic matter, namely, indulgences. Indulgences were being hawked in the churches or even in the marketplaces and the streets, and indulgence letters were being sold to the people, whereas Scholastic theology did not reach the people. However, if someone within the confines of the university wished to dispute about indulgences, it was from a theological point of view nothing particularly exciting. Popular though indulgences were, the questions concerning them were by no means theoretically clarified. It was the perfect right of every theologian still to hold his own opinion of them. But out of the controversy over the seemingly innocuous question of indulgences did Luther's reformation finally proceed. What was really involved in an indulgence? Not a sale of the forgiveness of sins for money. T o be sure, unbelievable things were said during the promotion by the " indulgence sellers," one of whom, the Dominican monk John Tetzel from the Leipzig monastery of St. Paul, operated in the vicinity of Wittenberg in Jüterbog, which still belonged to Brandenburg; he was not permitted to enter Electoral Saxony. Consequently, the common man may actually have thought that he could purchase the forgiveness of sins. As a matter of fact, Roman Catholic dogmatics distinguishes between the forgiveness of sins, through which eternal damnation naturally is excluded on account of the forgiven sins, and the remission of temporal penalties. T h e sin is forgiven in private confession, through absolution;

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temporal penalties must be expiated through penances, which the priest imposes in the confessional, and perhaps also through painful experiences of life and subsequently in purgatory. " Temporal " here means " of limited duration," not " earthly." T h a t God punishes at all after he has forgiven, however, has been widely declared by Protestant theologians and laymen of recent times to be preposterous. However, that a lascivious sinner who has contracted a serious bodily affliction through his licentiousness is not healed of his illness immediately upon receiving forgiveness is a fact of experience, and against the distinction between forgiveness of guilt and possible remission of penalty little objection can be made. T h a t God regards churchly punishments as his own punishments is quite another story. Indulgence in the proper sense has to do only with the remission of punishment, and is basically a commutation of one penalty by another. In the Middle Ages when a person committed manslaughter, he might be required to perform a lengthy penance of fasting for it. If he enlisted in a Crusade, this could substitute for the penance of fasting — thus a knightly penance in place of the ordinary, degrading penance 1 Monetary payments then arose as a substitute. Finally it became customary to attach indulgences to particular times and places. In the so-called jubilee years, which were instituted after the Crusades had come to an end, one could make a pilgrimage to Rome and acquire pardon there, and so forth. But even the journey to Rome soon could be commuted for money. When Luther published his Ninety-five Theses against indulgences, he by no means attacked the right of the church to convert the penalties that it had imposed into other ones. T o be sure, he expressed his surprise that so

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rich a person as the pope represented the matter as if he were remitting penalties and yet accepted payment for the pardon instead of giving it freely, and he also pilloried the scandal of the indulgence trade. The difficulty arose from the fact that in the last analysis indulgences still had something to do with the forgiveness of sins, and not solely with the remission of penalties. The indulgence letters at the same time gave one permission to choose any priest he pleased for making confession, even in the case of very grave sins that ordinarily could not be absolved simply by the local priest. Thus the indulgence letters promised remission " from guilt and penalty," and the required confession whereby one obtained the remission of guilt became practically a mere formality. Nevertheless, if these things were interpreted with a good will, they seemed clear. The second difficulty consisted in the fact that not only one's own penalties but even the penalties of purgatory could be redeemed by money. According to a bull of Pope Sixtus IV in 1477 one could pay money and thus benefit people long dead by shortening their time in purgatory or even releasing them from purgatory. Naturally, a confession in such a case was no longer possible, and one even had no assurance that the person concerned still remained in purgatory but had not, instead, gone straight to hell. In the end, Luther had simply declared in his theses that the church can remit or commute only penalties that it has itself imposed, but not those which God has imposed. Thus he left the indulgence as such unimpugned, and only limited it in its significance. Nevertheless, more was involved in Luther's theses than this narrowing of the indulgence and the fight against the conditions surrounding the indulgence trade in general and the terms of the par-

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ticular indulgence then current. T h e indulgence against which Luther fought had been published in 1506 and renewed in 1514 for the purpose of rebuilding St. Peter's Church in Rome. A percentage, however, went to Archbishop Albert of Hohenzollern, who needed help to raise an enormous sum for the Curia that he had to pay on account of his pluralism — the archbishopric of Mainz, bishopric of Magdeburg, and the administration of Halberstadt. A percentage went to the banking house of Fugger, which had advanced the money and acted as financial agent for the indulgence trade, and a percentage to Tetzel, and so forth. Luther was not even aware of these ramifications, and did not by any means investigate what lay behind the scene. Rather, instead of dealing only with the limitation of indulgences, Luther was calling into question the indulgence in its very essence: to seek indulgences means to evade one's punishment, whereas the truly penitent sinner precisely seeks it (Thesis 40). Luther assailed the assertion that the treasure of the church, upon which the pope can draw and make good the defective works of the faithful, consists of the merits of Christ and of the saints! Luther declared further that there were much greater and more essential gifts that the church distributes than indulgences. T h e famous Sixty-second Thesis reads: " T h e true treasure of the church is the holy gospel of the glory and grace of God." Thereby it became sufficiently clear that the Luther of the indulgence controversy could not disavow all that had engrossed his inmost thoughts through long years, namely, that the way to God and to peace with God and to salvation consists not in the performance of deeds, the doing of works, the presentation of merits, whether the merits are one's own or someone else's, but rather in the penitent sinner's believing and ac-

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cepting the gospel. Moreover, that repentance is something entirely different from that which takes place in the sacrament of penance, something which belongs to the entire Christian life, is already expressed in the First Thesis: " When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ' Repent,' he willed the entire life of the Christian to be one of repentance." In brief, the theses debate a theological question that still was under real discussion, and on the surface they contain no sensational new message. But through them clearly gleams a gospel such as the church had not been proclaiming before. Through these theses Luther became famous, and the day preceding All Saints' Day, 1517, on which considerable indulgence could be obtained in the All Saints' Church in Wittenberg itself, now is celebrated as the day of the German Reformation, the 31st of October, 1517. N o one answered the challenge for debate. Within two weeks, however, the theses were known throughout Germany, and they caused an enormous sensation. They gave the impetus that finally led to Luther's condemnation as a heretic, banned by the church and outlawed by the empire. First they led to the heresy proceedings against Luther, which were instituted twice. T h e first indictment, in June, 1518, spoke of the dissemination of suspect doctrines and the suspicion of heresy; and the second, the so-called " summary proceeding " in August, 1518, spoke of notorious heresy. T h e action naturally was instituted from Rome because denunciations against Luther had been received from Germany. Luther's bishop, Jerome Schultz, proceeded most cautiously. Albert of Brandenburg was not only the head of the ecclesiastical province to which Luther's diocese belonged but also the man most personally affected by the Luther affair, inasmuch as he profited

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considerably from the indulgence and he had composed the official instructions according to which the indulgence was being promoted. Albert acted much more energetically and submitted a formal complaint. But beyond looking out for his own reputation, he did virtually nothing. T h e real agitators were the Dominicans to whom Tetzel belonged. Throughout the indulgence controversy, which dragged out until Luther was excommunicated, i.e., to the beginning of 1521, more was involved than simply the Ninetyfive Theses. Although the disputation to which Luther aspired by posting the theses never took place, a literary controversy did ensue. The countertheses drawn up at Tetzel's request by a professor from Frankfurt on the Oder, Conrad Koch, known as Wimpina, and defended by Tetzel at the chapter of his order in Frankfurt, had no further result. They only gave Luther the occasion to discuss the subject of indulgences in detail once more, in a German

Treatise

on Indulgence

and

of the Disputation

on

Grace.

A

second

polemical pamphlet of Luther on the subject, the Latin Explanations

the

Value

of

In-

dulgences (Resolutiones), which appeared in August, 1518, was dedicated to Pope Leo X and sent to him as early as May; it already indicated resistance to the demanded recantation. A theologian who was not unknown to Luther, one with whom Luther had had friendly relations for some time, Dr. John Eck, of Ingolstadt, had started a personal controversy with Luther. The first exchange was circulated only in handwritten copies {Asterisks and Obelisks — meaning " notes " and " miscellanies " ) . Very quickly, as is well known, Eck became a vehement theological adversary of Luther. At the Curia an official document was pro-

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duced, actually by the pope's theological expert, the so-called Master of the Sacred Palace. This was always a Dominican, and the current incumbent of the office was Silvester Mazzolini Prierias. T h e essential feature about this literary controversy was that Luther was advancing more and more boldly beyond his original positions. Eck in particular became dangerous for Luther in that he was pursuing a definite plan to force Luther into ever more extreme " heretical " expressions. T h u s the controversy that began with Luther's theological critique of indulgences developed into a violent attack by Luther against the entire Roman ecclesiastical system and, as we shall explain, actually against Roman dogma.

10.

THE

B A T T L E WITH

ROME

When a person openly and stoutly infringes church discipline or violates church doctrine, and incurs the charge of " notorious heresy," Rome does not as a rule argue with him for four years and give him four years' time to disseminate his teaching, least of all when the person proceeds with so intense a human passion as we have seen Luther did. For the opportunity Luther received of nearly four years to make an assault on the church of his day and to kindle a movement that could only be interpreted as a revolution against the church, political events were responsible. These events in a unique way enabled Luther's seed to sprout and grow. T h e critical problem was the succession of Emperor Maximilian, which was under discussion even before his death on January 12, 1519. There were two leading candidates, Charles of Ghent, Archduke of Austria, sovereign of the Spanish lands, Duke of Burgundy, etc., and King

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Francis I of France. Both exerted themselves with every possible means, especially with money, to influence the electors who had to choose the next emperor. The Curia in Rome was most vitally interested in the imperial question; if Hapsburg possessed both northern and southern Italy in peace, the Curia could be squeezed and eliminated as a potential power in Europe. Therefore it worked on the electors as energetically as the aspirants themselves. It was not that Luther had to be spared; he was an insignificant mendicant monk and no factor in politics. But Frederick the Wise of Saxony had to be handled with extreme care. For reasons the complete elucidation of which belongs to the most difficult problems of Reformation history, he stubbornly refused to deliver his professor for execution, and although to his end he did not openly join Luther's side, in effect he actually shielded him. He succeeded in arranging for Luther to be heard in Germany, at the Diet at Augsburg in October, 1518, instead of being forced to make the demanded journey to Rome. Nothing came of the hearing. The great Thomist theologian Cajetan was unable to wring from Luther the recantation he demanded. By an almost unworthy method, the use of a diplomat of the lowest rank, Charles von Miltitz, the Curia brought Luther to a temporary silence, and at least for a time succeeded in halting not only the official proceedings in the Luther case but also their further advance. It was unable, and perhaps even unwilling, to prevent its most faithful champion in Germany — to such a station had Eck of Ingolstadt already risen — from prematurely reviving the controversy with Luther through the Leipzig Disputation, in June and July, 1519. Eck then succeeded also in having a threat of excommunication duly issued against Luther in the very year in which the

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newly elected Emperor Charles V made his first appearance in Germany (the famous "bull of excommunication," Exsurge Domine, of June 15, 1520, was really only a threat of excommunication), and succeeded in having the papal nuncio Jerome Aleander bring with him to the Diet at Worms the actual bull of excommunication, Decet pontificem Romanum, of January 3, 1521. Just what were the steps by which the dispute over the question of indulgences developed into a battle between Luther and the existing church, indeed, a violent assault upon the Roman Catholic system and its dogma? The affair is complicated by a plethora of problems and difficulties, as one might expect in advance. In the indulgence question, Luther can hardly be seriously charged with having violated a formulated dogma. An actual dogma of indulgences simply did not exist. Furthermore, not even in the controversy over faith and good works, grace and man's free will, justification and the Christian life, could Luther violate a dogma. The dogmas connected with men's salvation — salvation in general through the cross of Christ and in particular through the "justification" of individual Christians — were formulated by the Council of Trent, after Luther's death, under the influence of the Reformation. Apart from the so-called ancient dogma — the doctrines of the divine Trinity and of the two natures of Christ — which Luther in fact never assailed, only the teaching of the sacraments came in question for open assault upon the dogma of the church. The controversy, however, did not break out with an attack of Luther upon the doctrine of the sacraments. T h e conflict began over the doctrine of the power of the pope and that of the church in general. These doctrines had by no means been fully developed or even declared formal dogma by this time.

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Precisely in the realm of papal power, as is well known, the essential decisions were laid down only in 1870 by the Vatican Council. But just over this point the official church was extremely sensitive, and it did have a dogma here even if it had not yet duly formulated it. N o t as an independent theme had Luther raised the problems of the power of the pope. H e had broached it already in the theses on indulgences, without saying much about it explicitly. In the great conflict, literary and legal, that was set off by the indulgence theses, the question pushed more and more insistently into the foregound. Has the pope power over the treasure of the merits of Christ and the saints? This proposition was pursued further in the discussions and theses, for example, in the Explanations of the Ninety-five Theses. Whenever Luther touches it again, he also denies — in consequence of his recognition that there are no merits at all before God — that there are merits of the saints which can be applied to others. But then he is saying, above all, that the pope has absolutely no power over souls. Luther takes the liberty of going even farther. In doing so he seems to be totally unaware of what an enormous assertion he is making. There was a period, he declares, perhaps six hundred years, when the Roman Church by no means stood above other churches, in any case not above the churches of Greece. Luther attacks the doctrine of the " two swords," viz., that the dominion over the world and the dominion over souls belong to the pope, but in such a way that the pope normally confers the dominion over the world upon others, the temporal sovereigns, and allows it to be exercised by them. T h e pope is not infallible. Indeed, in the aforementioned Leipzig Disputation, June 27 to July 16, 1519, as is well known, Luther let himself be driven by

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Eck to assert even the fallibility of councils. Thereby Luther in a certain sense was espousing the position of Hus and the Bohemians, and thus taking the side of a condemned and proscribed heretic. The unsurpassable zenith of Luther's critique of the papacy and the dominant church was reached with the burning of the bull threatening excommunication, and of the books of canon law on December 10, 1520, outside the Elster gate in Wittenberg. The second question that inevitably aroused controversy was the question of the sacraments. It too broached with the Ninety-five Theses, for the focus of that document was repentance, and penance is one of the seven sacraments. The very first thesis signified a questioning and depreciation of sacramental repentance. He who formulated this thesis, once he thought the matter through, once his thought had developed clearly, had to end by deleting penance from the list of the sacraments. This very sacrament of penance also makes it clear that the question of the pope is inseparably bound up with the question of the sacraments. The sacraments in themselves are not dispensed by the pope as pope, but every priest administers four sacraments; two are reserved for the bishop, and only one do laymen administer to one another, i.e., marriage. In penance, however, the pope has certain cases reserved for his jurisdiction; from certain sins he alone can loose one (reservations), and in certain instances, he alone applies the key of binding (the banning of a notorious heretic). In penance it also becomes clear that the question of the sacraments in general is connected with the question concerning the church. What does the ban mean if the church imposes it unjustly? The true church, after all, is no " visible " community, whose members can be numbered or identified. The true church consists of the " invisible "

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community of all believers in Christ, and unbelief alone excludes one from it. In expectation of his excommunication Luther developed an altogether uncatholic doctrine of the church, for example, in the treatise against the Leipzig Franciscan Augustine Alveld, On the Papacy at Rome, Against the Celebrated Romanist at Leipzig, 1520. That the church has unjustly withdrawn the cup from the laity comes out almost as an incidental opinion of Luther, but it has an alarming effect that Luther appropriates a Hussite slogan. Duke George of Saxony, the grandson of the Hussite king, had already taken offense from a sermon illustration of Luther's that hinted of a Hussite tendency. Luther opened his great assault against the Catholic sacrament dogma with his Latin treatise, The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, 1520. That in it he rejected the Catholic view that there are seven sacraments was from his standpoint an external matter; for the church it was important, because the numbering of the sacraments as seven had actually been made a matter of dogma in 1439. That the Mass is no sacrifice was the chief blow to the Roman understanding of the sacraments. The learned theologians, all the way to King Henry VIII of England, who had once studied theology, saw clearly that the treatise on " the Babylonian Captivity of the Church " signified Luther's actual abandonment of Rome and was his most dangerous writing. Of almost negligible significance, on the other hand, seems to be the treatise that probably was the most widely read in subsequent days and that was often regarded as the most important of all, To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation, Concerning the Reform of the Christian Estate, 1520. The weighty attacks against the bloodsucking character of the Roman financial system and against a

LUTHER'S

81

BREAKTHROUGH

plethora of abominable church practices impress one again and again. But many persons in Luther's time could and did write just this kind o£ thing. The very stern " Grievances of the German Nation " had been submitted to many imperial diets (see above, page 21), and no other than Luther's enemy, George of Saxony, was one of their most energetic exponents. In any case, the address to the nobility also contains weighty statements on the questions of the church and the papacy. No pope and no ecclesiastical teaching office has a monopoly of interpreting the Holy Scriptures, but every man can interpret the Holy Scriptures; not only the pope can summon a council, but for instance, also the civil authority; it is not true that the spiritual power is superior to the civil. These are the celebrated " walls of the Romanists" which must be broken down, and the assault upon them is not only against ecclesiastical abuses but against the foundation of the church. Over and above this, the treatise contains a bluntly anti-Catholic program of church reform. Thus Luther came into a terrible and perhaps irreconcilable conflict with the church of his time, through assaults on the power of the pope and on the doctrine of the sacraments. Connected with papal power is the power of the priests; Luther declares that all so-called power in the church is service, and dare be nothing else. 11.

THE

CONQUEST OF

HEARTS

But then, was Luther's great discovery regarding sin and grace and justification not essentially involved in his assault upon Rome? Did the battle with Rome obscure the great experience of grace that he had had in his monastery struggles? Not so. If one closely examines Luther's

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new conception of the church and the sacraments, one observes that ultimately it is altogether and entirely a question of grace and faith and justification. Luther did not wage his fight against the Roman sacramental doctrine as a fight against a magical conception of the sacraments, to which he and his times had considered themselves superior. That would be an Enlightenment attitude, not a Lutheran one. The fight against priestly power was not a fight by which mankind was to be liberated from ecclesiastical control. This again would be an Enlightenment attitude, not a Lutheran one. T h e new doctrine of the sacraments makes it clear that the sacraments can be nothing else than the word and sign of the mercy of God bestowed in Christ. What is at stake in the new understanding of repentance is that only the gospel of the grace and glory of God frees us from sin. T h e new understanding of the church is founded entirely upon faith. One could continue this analysis still further. In a quite explicit way, moreover, Luther used his justification doctrine in the fight against Rome during the great period of controversy. A tiny document from the year 1518, the theses for the Heidelberg Disputation, prepared for the convention of Luther's order, which in April, 1518, had to take a stand on the Luther affair, has been justly regarded as one of the most precious testimonies of Luther from the period of the indulgence controversy. Here, for example, Luther's understanding of sin becomes clear: all the good works a man does, since they are testimonies of his self-seeking, are mortal sins. Thereby we are dealing with Luther's doctrine of justification. It comes to beautiful expression here also that Luther's justification theology is a theology of the self-sacrificial love of God, a love that man meets at the foot of the cross.

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BREAKTHROUGH

83

Hence, true theology is named " theology of the cross." Luther's treatise, The Freedom of a Christian Man, 1520, in its German and its Latin form, treats of the freedom that the justified man has through faith and that is at the same time service to his neighbor. Luther's doctrine of justification by the forgiving grace of God also provided the occasion for the papal polemic against Luther and his entire reformation. It has been interpreted as if Luther wished to make all good works superfluous and unnecessary. A storm and a full-scale drive against Luther were launched under the slogan that Luther demolishes all Christian morality with his doctrine of justification by faith alone in the grace of God in Christ. The rumor that Luther teaches a licentious, swinish life was spread in every street, and appears in the Edict of Worms with which Luther was condemned by the German Empire! One of the noblest writings of Luther, the Treatise on Good Works, also written and published in 1520, strikes back at this interpretation of his justification doctrine and at the propaganda being sent out to mobilize all moral instincts against Luther. There was an element of truth in the matter, inasmuch as immature persons could actually take Luther's teaching as an occasion for dissoluteness. But Luther was able to say clearly, if not sufficiently to convince all those who were hostile toward him, that (as he once expressed it later) faith is a living, busy thing that cannot help doing good without ceasing. While this very doctrine of justification formed the basis of Luther's fight against Rome and stimulated the church's counterattack against him, it was precisely this Luther of the gospel of justifying grace who gained popularity, won the hearts of countless Germans, and exerted an influence far beyond the boundaries of Germany. On the whole, it

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must be duly asserted that Luther found a response in a well-nigh unimaginable manner. His name was on every man's lips. His writings, at any rate from 1520 on, were known to the educated throughout the world, and Luther's adherents gathered everywhere. Preachers who preached " the gospel " arose in every city of consequence and even in villages. It was widely regarded as self-evident that what Luther had to proclaim was " the gospel" or " the Word of God." Where Luther's influence established itself it was declared that from now on " God's Word " was to be preached. The celebration of the Lord's Supper with both bread and wine, and the introduction of various other changes, took place in the course of time. As long as Luther was working without hindrance, practically no one thought of a methodical reorganization of the church. What Luther had released was an evangelical " Storm and Stress " that as yet could not be compressed into new forms, but shattered innumerable old ones. Many felt and said aloud that it was unheard of for a wretched mendicant monk to be cited to a German imperial diet and to be presented to a Roman cardinal, and an unprecedented audacity that the ridiculous monk, far from recanting without ado, dared to insist on an argument. That Frederick the Wise could risk all suggesting or demanding the appearance of his professor in the monk's cowl at Worms before emperor and empire, and that the imperial herald Caspar Sturm was assigned the ceremonial task of inducting a medicant monk into the presence of the German estates and the emperor, was from the viewpoint of the medieval world an incomparably grotesque situation. That Luther dared to make a speech before the assembled diet — indeed, that he not only needed but also succeeded in extorting, as it were, the right to do so by

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means of the well-known and so often misinterpreted request for time to ponder — sounds like a fairytale, and made just that impression on man's souls. It becomes comprehensible only if one realizes that actually the whole world was fascinated by this strange monk, and not only in a superficial way: his preaching and teaching had penetrated deep into men's hearts. The medicant professor from the shabby, fledgling, and on the whole completely insignificant, small-town university in one of the most miserable mudholes in Germany had become the focus of German thinking, not, to be sure, because he embodied the spirit of the times in a particularly concentrated way but because he gave a new answer to medieval questions about faith, and in general had something to say only to those who wished to believe the gospel.

12.

CONFESSION

BEFORE

EMPEROR AND

EMPIRE

Luther had been threatened with the ban in the middle of the year 1520. In the bull threatening excommunication forty-one statements had been gathered from Luther's writings. These can scarcely be said to misrepresent Luther's intention as if he had not so formulated them, or as if they had been torn out of context in such a way as to acquire an entirely different meaning. Nevertheless, out of Luther's writings had been one-sidedly collected material relating to papal power and to the understanding of the sacraments. A sacrament was so interpreted that it was connected with faith in the Word that assures us of God's forgiving grace; in other words, the effectiveness of the sacraments is not guaranteed through the performance of the act by the priest, but comes about only in faith. A genuine comprehension of that for which Luther was

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mainly concerned does not come to light in the forty-one statements of the bull threatening excommunication. A single one points to Luther's great doctrine of justification by faith: grave reproach is cast upon Luther for disavowing man's free will in the acquisition of salvation. Eck had negotiated the composition of the bull in Rome, and he along with the nuncio Aleander was commissioned to publish it in Germany — a task carried out only in the face of enormous resistance. Around the bull raged a literary war in which Luther more than once took up his pen. It now became clear that Luther would not offer the recantation required of him within sixty days. One could therefore have reckoned confidently on the excommunication even if Luther had not defiantly burned a printed copy of the bull. The ban was duly pronounced (see above, pages 76 f.). According to a three-hundred-year-old law of the empire, the imperial banishment had to follow without delay. It had to be pronounced at the next diet, which was summoned for the beginning of the year 1521 in Worms, and at which the new emperor was expected. Frederick the Wise, who was scarcely a convinced Lutheran yet, and who in any case by no means represented himself as such in public and who even to his death avoided all personal intercourse with Luther, unswervingly maintained the position that Luther had not been duly heard and overcome with reason. He demanded that until such a hearing was arranged Luther should not be condemned. A dreadful battle of intrigue ensued over the citation of Luther to Worms. Even after Luther had begun his journey, there were efforts to divert him from proceeding to Worms and to persuade him to clarify matters in a colloquy before a narrower circle at the Ebernburg castle under the protection of Sickingen. As every-

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one knows, however, Luther did appear in Worms, and he succeeded in speaking at length, contrary to the plan of the diet. Indeed, after Luther's public appearance at the diet there were exhaustive efforts to settle the affair with him in private conferences. Subjection to the decision of the empire was demanded. He was willing to pledge this, but only if the Holy Scriptures were the judge and norm. What took place at the Diet at Worms in April, 1521, has stamped itself deeply upon the memory of the German people. What has been fabricated around the actual events is almost as interesting as that which actually occurred. Whether Luther said, " Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise," is by no means certain. He did stand, however; he did acknowledge his books, he also begged pardon for unnecessary vehemence, but he refused to recant as long as he was not convinced of error by Holy Scripture and clear arguments of reason. The result of the hearing and of the whole treatment of the Luther affair at the diet was the Edict of Worms. Luther was placed under the banishment of the empire, along with all his adherents. No man dared offer him shelter, food, and drink. Over the question whether and how the Edict of Worms could be carried into effect, men disputed and argued inconclusively for a decade and even longer. Of special consequence was the fact that not only was the official decree of banishment issued (though its promulgation is not above criticism) but also that the emperor himself issued a special declaration that he would stake body and life, dominion, and everything on liberating Germany from the Lutheran heresy. That was a binding promise for an emperor. Charles V spared no efforts to make the promise good. That he did not succeed was due to the international political complications and conflicts described earlier. As a

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man of honor, Charles finally came to the conclusion that he was unable to fulfill his pledge. He laid down his crown in 1556, and spent his last two years in a monastery in continual devotion before the sacrament. But we are still at Worms in the year 1521. According to the traditional views the Worms Edict inevitably meant the end of the Luther affair. Luther was finished. It must have seemed completely senseless for anyone still to take Luther's part. IB.

QUIET

AND C O M P O S U R E A T T H E

WARTBURG

Luther's period in the Wartburg charms one like a sort of idyll and has moved many a heart. Luther's abduction and removal to the Wartburg was less dramatic than is often represented. The arrangement that Luther should be taken into a kind of protective custody and kept out of hostile reach had been made between Frederick the Wise and his counselors. The old fox did not want to be told where Luther was being kept in order that he might be able to avow with a clear conscience that he knew nothing of Luther's whereabouts. Luther himself was let in on the secret, and his friends received the news remarkably soon. It was less a question of keeping Luther absolutely hidden than of eliminating all possibilities of abruptly offering an occasion for proceedings against Frederick the Wise as Luther's protector. Appearances had to be maintained. The sojourn at the Wartburg was for Luther naturally a period of quiet and composure. He was in need of both. Considering Luther's temperament, it is not in the least surprising that he made fruitful use of the time. As everyone knows, the chief fruit of the Wartburg period, which lasted from April, 1521, to March, 1522, was

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the translation of the New Testament into German. The New Testament came out in September, 1522, on account of which the first edition has been called the September Testament, or even the September Bible. Further editions, somewhat revised again and again, followed. The New Testament translation was subsequently expanded into a translation of the whole Bible. It took until 1534 to translate the Old Testament. This work was done in Wittenberg, and in contrast to the translating activity accomplished at the Wartburg was virtually the work of a committee. Luther drew together all the available experts, especially linguists; to be sure, he kept the reins firmly in his own hands, and he further saw to it that the responsibility for the wording of the final draft did not slip away from him. The Wartburg translation was Luther's own achievement. It is also well known that Luther's New Testament translation was made from the original language, i.e., the everyday Greek known as Koine. This fact is connected with the influence of humanism upon Luther, which was indicated above (see pages 23 if.) and which we shall discuss more fully. In recent times many notions have been corrected which, overdrawn and overshooting the mark, had formerly enjoyed acceptance. The form of the Bible used in the Roman Catholic ChuTch and accepted as authoritative, the Vulgate, had no little importance for Luther. The Greek text in the edition of Erasmus, of which Luther had made use already in his preparation of the Romans lectures, obviously lay beside the Vulgate text and was compared with it at every point. But a further factor needs to be noticed also: there were older translations of the Bible already in existence. T o read them is not edifying. They cannot stand the remotest compari-

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son with Luther's achievement. It is not even probable that Luther particularly consulted them. Something else must be kept clearly in mind, however: there also must have been orally transmitted translations of Biblical passages into German, coming down from the older Bible translations or even from a still earlier time. Naturally, the Lord's Prayer existed in a German form, and would it not be surprising if familiar parables or other Biblical passages had no current German version? Interestingly, even Luther's own contemporaries observed that the widely controversial " by faith alone " already stood in the old German Bible and was obviously a familiar expression. All this is mentioned not for the purpose of belittling Luther's cultural achievement or of depreciating the significance of the fact that Luther made use of the original text. It is only that fantastic and anachronistic views of Luther's originality must be abandoned. In this context belongs also the necessary observation that the New High German language, of which Luther's Bible is the first great, celebrated example, was by no means devised by Luther. He started from the language of the Saxon chancellery, which in turn is related to the socalled Bohemian chancellery language. Nevertheless, what a matchless linguistic masterpiece did Luther's Bible prove to be! A mere comparison of individual texts with those of the Bible translations before Luther's convinces one strikingly that Luther's Bible was the only truly German Bible of the lot. The influence of the Luther Bible, moreover, is and remains enormous upon the language of the present day, even if one takes a conservative view of the philological significance of Luther's Bible translation. The German New Testament of Luther is not the only literary fruit of the quiet period at the Wartburg. Luther

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regarded still another task as of the highest urgency, namely, to provide model sermons for those preachers who had to and wanted to preach and yet were able to do so only in a very faulty manner. Collections of sermons existed already in the late Middle Ages. The indulgence preachers themselves made use of prepared material, which we today are inclined to regard disparagingly as " canned " literature; widely used was a book, The Heavenly Mine, written by one of Luther's Erfurt teachers, Jenser of Paltz. We ought not scoff about the type of help needed by the " simple ministers." It was inevitable and salutary that Luther should come to their aid, urged to the task, incidentally, by Frederick the Wise. The Church Postil was not completed at the Wartburg, but Luther worked on it there. It was the lectures and public sermons that Luther really could not carry on in the Wartburg. A marvelous devotional book, the exposition of the " Magnificat," Mary's song of praise from Luke 1:46-55, even came out during the exciting period before Worms. Luther had not lost his appetite at the Wartburg for polemical writing. An extremely sharp attack against Archbishop Albert, with a threat against new displaying of relics and dispensing of indulgences, was not published but did make an impression upon Albert. One of the basic controversial treatises, Luther's decisive attack on the whole monastic system and the double ethic of Catholicism, On Monastic Vows, was written at the Wartburg, but came off the press later. The chief significance of the Wartburg period, however, lies at a quite different point, and this at all events dare not be overlooked. While Luther sat in the Wartburg, immobilized, out of action, done for, the German Reformation broke into the open. Let this assertion not be mis-

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understood. It is not altogether incorrect, of course, to date the beginning of the German Reformation with 1517. T h a t Luther's Ninety-five Theses introduced a storm in Germany, a general attack upon the traditional church system, has been made clear above. T h a t the name of Luther had a fascination for the masses is characteristic of precisely the years 1517-1521. And already in the period before Luther's sojourn in the Wartburg many men had preached and written in a way different from that used previously. But for the period u p to 1521 we cannot speak about a reformation of the church, a change in public worship, an overthrow of church ordinances. Luther had abolished no Mass and issued no battle cry that the cup must be given to the laity, etc. All this took place while Luther was absent, when he was " dead." In important places it assumed violent forms. Zwickau and Wittenberg, both in Electoral Saxony, were particularly dangerous places. In Wittenberg the " reformers " were Luther's colleague Andrew Bodenstein of Karlstadt, usually named by his place of origin, and Luther's monastic brother Gabriel Zwilling. In Zwickau it was a student of Luther's, recommended by him to Zwickau, Thomas Muntzer, of Stolberg in the Harz region. All who engaged in reforming activity during Luther's stay at the Wartburg wished to demolish everything. In Wittenberg there ensued an actual smashing of images and dreadful excesses in the churches. In Zwickau bitter fights took place with the Franciscans. In questions of faith the leading figures among the " reformers," Karlstadt and Muntzer, later pursued altogether different courses from Luther's, and already in the Wartburg period they took a position basically different from his. For the handling of the whole Luther case the fact that

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this reformation had broken loose without Luther, as has been said, when he was " dead," took on an importance which it is altogether impossible to overestimate. During the ten months of Luther's disappearance it became as clear as day that an execution of the Worms Edict that would mean doing away with Luther, or pressing Frederick the Wise to extradite him, no longer could make much sense. The forces were released precisely by the disappearance of Luther. Everywhere the so-called preachers were preaching passionately, precisely because Luther was no longer present. Scarcely anything more was to be feared by an eventual return of Luther; at most something more could be hoped for. That Frederick the Wise allowed Luther to return, although under a whole host of precautionary measures and in such a way as to establish strictly that the initiative came from Luther, was rather good political thinking or at least rather politically opportune. That Luther " was alive " was clear after the reverberations of his writings throughout the world after 1520 and after the Wartburg period. An actual execution of the death sentence that had been decreed upon him in Worms no longer could be undertaken at all. Even if someone had been able to kill Luther, it would not have been possible to destroy him. Princely wisdom could simply pursue the goal of leaving it up to Luther to guide aright the forces released in his absence and to lead the turbulent movement to a genuine reformation.

IV Luther's

Reformation

14. T H E

NEW

FORM OF WORSHIP

W e should accustom ourselves to designate the years now following, 1522-1525, as those of the " wild growth " of the Reformation. Reform actually took place everywhere, primarily in the towns. In very large measure the reformers were so-called preachers (Prddikanten). These were not parish priests (Pfarrer) who had their benefices and administered them, and if they resided in them at all, read their Masses and perhaps even heard confession, but had scarcely ever mounted the stairs of a pulpit; nor, again, the so-called Mass priests ( M e s s p f a f f e n ) or " priests in a corner " ( W i n k e l p f a f f e n ) whose only task was to read endowed Masses at innumerable altars. T h e y were clerics who were appointed, mostly by the town councils, expressly to preach to the people. Many of the preachers were students of Luther or men who by some circumstance or other had become friends and adherents of Luther, such as Martin Bucer or Erhard Schnepf or John Brentz or Theobald Billican at the Heidelberg Disputation. W e scarcely know how it was that many preachers came to appropriate Luther's ideas and proclaim his evangelical gospel. Whether these men simply preached a Lutheran message or whether they already administered the Lord's 94

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Supper in both kinds depended on the circumstances or became a question of time. If the preachers succeeded in remaining at their posts, the drastic reform of the ordinances of worship generally followed after one or two years, in the form of the administration of the cup. The preaching of the new " Lutheran " preachers, meanwhile, was by no means standardized. No one could guarantee that they actually preached exactly as Luther did. Above all, it must be taken into account that not a few of them turned their attention to social questions in a way altogether different from that of Luther. A certain preacher, for example, Jacob Strauss in Eisenach, went his own way but then came back to Luther. Others we find emphatically aloof from Luther, as followers of Karlstadt or especially of Thomas Müntzer. This is precisely the " wild growth " of the Reformation. T h e Spirit was driving all to proclaim the gospel according to Holy Scriptures, and many appealed no longer to the Scriptures at all, or not to them alone, but to the Spirit. A picture similar to the sermons of the preachers is presented by the pamphlet literature of the same period. What one reads in it is Luther, or it is very reminiscent of Luther, or sometimes it sounds a little different from Luther. Zwingli in Zurich, for example, was one such new preacher and author, who was captivated by Luther, but appealed also to his own discoveries and actually was influenced very strongly by Erasmus. Indeed, he maintained his distance from Luther in an altogether remarkable way. Whether he was wholly correct in emphasizing his independence from Luther is not so certain. In any case his reformation in Zurich coincides with the time the reformation was unleashed in Germany. And for the so-called fanatics (Schwärmer), of whom we have yet to speak, the

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same thing is true. Luther had given all the people courage and impetus and had cleared the way for them. Inherent in the entire reforming movement, which was Lutheran and yet had got under way precisely without Luther, was an impulse to institute an altogether new kind of worship, to base the entire liturgical practice upon the Word and to make it understandable, in other words, to fashion a German liturgy. In this field it was not Luther but others who took the first steps, though Luther surely had it in mind. We know of German liturgies, a German Mass or German office from Nordlingen (Kantz), Wertheim, Wendelstein near Schwabach, Reutlingen, Reval, Zwickau, etc., and from Allstedt in Thuringia. At the latter place Thomas Miintzer, the former Zwickau preacher, who meanwhile had taken an adventurous excursion to Prague, composed and introduced a German office, a noteworthy achievement, with German psalms. A t the time when these German liturgical orders were coming into existence, Luther still had little intention of instituting a German liturgy. For to Luther, upon his return from the Wartburg to Wittenberg, fell the strange task of checking the impetuous trend toward a completely new system of worship and of restoring almost everything to the old situation. It is well known that Luther, having returned from the Wartburg, appeared in the Wittenberg town pulpit freshly shaved and newly tonsured and in his monk's cowl, delivered his famous Invocavit Sermons, and entered a protest against establishing a new law and against doing so in such a riotous way, without the orderly support of the government. This meant, however, that the innovations were set aside and the old liturgical order was restored. Not completely, to be sure! A kind of new law had been

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instituted to this extent, that against the elector's will German celebrations of the Lord's Supper had been held, with the distribution of bread and wine. This had taken place, indeed, not only for small circles of men who knew what was involved, but as public congregational celebrations of the Supper, in such a way that no possibility might remain any longer of receiving the Supper in the old way. Against this stark overthrow of the existing orders without consideration or forbearance, and above all without regard for the fact that church orders are an educative force and that their relentless destruction can have chaos as its result, Luther took an energetic stand. Nevertheless, the so-called private or secret Masses continued to be suppressed. These were Masses which a priest was obligated to celebrate every day of the week, in which no congregation took part; they were essentially prescribed as votive Masses for the dead. Here was clearly asserted what had been completely forgotten, that the Supper of the Lord is a table fellowship in which one receives a divine gift, and that out of the meal had been made a sacrifice offered by men with the intention of achieving something before God. So clear was this that Luther would have had to repudiate the central point of his message if he had agreed to reestablish the " private Masses." Even the prayers in the Mass preparatory to the " sacrifice," the socalled canon of the Mass, were left out. Above all it was made clear that conservatism now should not become a kind of basic principle. The new must come, but it must grow, and the new order must stand under the rule of Christian liberty. In this state of affairs, however, it was to be expected that Luther would soon set forth new ordinances by regular means. He made his beginning with the German order

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of Baptism. Here a number of ceremonies that had nothing whatever to do with baptism had to be removed: rubbing the infant with salt and spittle, etc. Luther retained the exorcism, i.e., the casting out of devils, and the renunciation of the devil, made by the person being baptized, or by the sponsors in the case of a child. Above all, baptism needed to be performed in the German language, because only so could it be celebrated at all as baptism in Luther's sense: Baptism is Word, word of forgiveness, by Christ's ordinance connected with a sign, and the Word demands and creates faith. How can a word be heard and awaken faith if those who in due time are to repeat and explain it to the baptized child do not even understand it? A German marriage booklet was added in 1529 to the baptism booklet of 1523 (new version, 1526). For the Sunday liturgy of the congregation, Luther for the time being issued a Latin order, the Formula missae et communionis (Form of Mass and Communion), 1523. Not until 1526 did Luther's German Mass come into existence and use. These liturgical creations of Luther have taken on the greatest importance for Luther's whole church, indeed, down to our own days. It is noteworthy, in the first place, that Luther by no means issued his ordinances as a kind of order for the " Lutheran church." He never expected that everywhere around Wittenberg the practice would be exactly like that in Wittenberg, and for Wittenberg itself Luther's German Mass did not immediately become the official order. If Luther had wished to create a uniform liturgy, he would have had to do it much earlier. But this was by no means his desire. Outward things should remain free, and the truth that the unity of the church consists in the one faith in the one gospel, not in the uniformity of outward forms in worship, should not be obscured.

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To be sure, a certain type of Lutheran liturgy did come into existence, which long held sway in central and northern Germany, then fell victim to (Pietism and) the Enlightenment, and then in the nineteenth century, with many concessions to the spirit and taste of the times, was taken up again and is defended today with special tenacity. It has been virtually claimed that the distinctively Lutheran liturgy has appeared in clear form and must remain normative for worship in the Lutheran Church for all time to come. Against this opinion, however, stands the fact that large and important parts of the church in Germany which became Lutheran — Württemberg, the Upper German cities, and in particular Strassburg — introduced a completely different type of liturgy. Here the Sunday worship was not at all based upon the Mass, but upon a special late-medieval liturgical form, the preaching service, consisting only of a sermon in a simple framework of prayers and hymns; meanwhile, the Lord's Supper was connected with still another model entirely different from the Roman Mass: an independent late-medieval Communion service. Differences between Luther and the aforementioned churches never arose from the fact that the congregational worship on Sundays was conducted in Württemberg or Strassburg in a completely different form from that used in Wittenberg. It is very dubious, therefore, to speak of " the Lutheran liturgy " in a fixed and normative sense. With the reference to the Upper German Lutheran liturgical type we have touched still another question. Luther's German Mass is a service with two high point», the sermon and the Lord's Supper. Every Sunday the sacramental service, for which the sermon was an integrating constituent, was held, and it became a fixed practice

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always to preach on the Gospel for the day. Today many people regard it as certain that the sacramental service, possibly even with the limitation to the Gospel lections of the ancient church as the sermon text, is the only proper Lutheran service. Even on historical grounds this is not correct. The worship life as it took shape under Luther's influence was very rich. Every Sunday several worship services took place, and in the cities also on several weekdays. These were preaching services! From Luther himself we have not only sermons on the Gospels from the sacramental service, but series of sermons on books of the Bible, and many others as well. Preaching was devoted to the catechism and to entire books of the Old and New Testaments. That the services under the influence of Luther and Wittenberg were in a majority of instances sacramental services is a historical fable and nothing more. The liturgical springtime of the German Reformation was a period of vigor and flourishing for the Word of God. This is not to deny that Luther was aware God has bound up his Word with signs and commanded the preaching of the message along with the sign in Baptism and Lord's Supper. What in any case alone has basic importance is the fact that Luther understood worship as a proclamation of the Word of God and viewed the command to baptize and to celebrate the Lord's Supper as unconditionally binding. From the beginning, the form of worship as Luther designed it had nothing final about it, but was to remain subject to change, and this holds true even of the coupling of sermon and celebration of the Lord's Supper. T o what degree Luther regarded the formal side of his liturgy as a relative thing becomes clear from remarks that he made in one of his liturgical writings, the German Mass of 1526, indicating that mature Christians could

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practice an entirely different kind of worship. Luther never went beyond mere reflection regarding this entirely different worship. He only shaped the public liturgy, which he understood in a strongly pedagogical sense as an incitement and inducement to faith, and in which he clung to the traditional out of regard and concern for the congregation. It remains only to say a word about the " evangelical chorale " that Luther introduced into the service. In any case he did so in the sense that through his impulse there developed a powerful movement of congregational singing in evangelical Germany. Luther at first tried to induce others to compose German hymns that could take the place of Latin singing. When his appeal did not find the response he had desired, he composed such hymns himself. T h e history of the beginnings of the evangelical hymn materializes at first in very small and then in somewhat more comprehensive collections of hymns, for which the designation " hymnbook" soon was adopted: the Book of Eight Hymns of 1524, the Erfurt Manual of 1524, John Walther's Choral Hymnbook of 1524, later the Leipzig Hymnbook, the Strassburg Hymnbook, etc. T h e hymns of Luther and his colleagues, however, were not songs to be sung from a book. They impressed themselves swiftly upon the memory of the people and became in this unequivocal sense a living possession of the congregation. T h e most important hymns of Luther are found even today in every evangelical hymnal. T h a t we cannot say precisely when and under what circumstances the socalled " Luther hymn," " A Mighty Fortress Is Our God," was written is an oddity about which there is virtually nothing we can do. It first appeared certainly in 1528 in the Wittenberg Hymnbook of Weiss. T h e suggestion has

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been made to regard it as having been called forth by a wretched military intrigue known as the Pack affair. It would be a pity if that were correct, for the Pack affair is a truly dark spot in the history of the young evangelical movement. As we have said, however, the situation will perhaps never be fully clarified. Luther did not write poetry because he considered himself a poet. That he was in fact a creative artist with words, however, is discernible even from his hymns. He was much less a musician, though he loved to make music, and yet he evidently composed the melody of " A Mighty Fortress." 15. T H E

CONTROVERSY WITH

HUMANISM

When we described the world of thought into which Luther entered and within which he developed and accomplished his mission, it was inevitable to speak at first and in general about the Renaissance or humanism. The late fifteenth and the early sixteenth century is the period of humanism in Germany. It powerfully reshaped all cultural life and all education there. In the portrayal of Luther's inner development, which led to the great evangelical discovery of the gospel of the glory and grace of God, humanism played no role whatever. The torturing questions with which the monk Luther had to grapple were set for him by the Catholic past, by monasticism, and by his Scholastic theological training. The answer he then found is unmedieval and unscholastic, but neither is it humanistic. We saw that Luther did not absolutely bypass humanism. But that the great intellectual movement of the times contributed nothing essential toward making a reformer of Luther remains unmistakable. Gradually, however, Luther came into closer touch with

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humanism. Of unique and decisive importance for this development was the calling to Wittenberg of a great humanist scholar who became as famous as Luther — Philip Schwarzert, known as Melanchthon. Melanchthon, it is well known, was the grandnephew of John Reuchlin, the king of the German humanist scholars. He was only twentyone years old when he became professor of Greek at Wittenberg in 1518, thus almost a decade and a half younger than Luther. Already from this fact it is understandable— though naturally not only from this fact — that strong influences went out from Luther to Melanchthon. Under Luther's influence Melanchthon became an evangelical Christian in Luther's sense and by 1521 was already the dogmatician of the Reformation. Melanchthon's brilliant youthful achievement — the Loci communes theologici [Theological Commonplaces] — later frequently revised, became the dogmatics of the Reformation, which Luther himself was unwilling or perhaps even unable to write. In addition to this influence of Luther on Melanchthon, that of Melanchthon on Luther must not be forgotten. Luther already knew and used the Greek New Testament when he lectured on the epistle to the Romans, before Melanchthon had come to Wittenberg. Melanchthon, however, caused him to familiarize himself with Greek in a much deeper way. Luther had already learned Hebrew too, during his student days in Erfurt. It is known that he procured a Hebrew dictionary there, undoubtedly that of Reuchlin. In his further zeal for Hebrew studies Melanchthon likewise had a share. Luther's enthusiasm for languages is a fruit of his friendship with Melanchthon and of the humanism that through the younger colleague influenced Luther. Still other influences besides that of Melanchthon con-

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tributed to Luther's ever-growing affinity with the humanist movement. A whole series of humanists joined Luther. Crotus Rubeanus, Eoban of Hesse, and Ulrich von Hutten have already been mentioned. Such a man as the Nuremberg patrician Willibald Pirckheimer was in intimate contact with Luther for a time. Again, other humanists are so well known as Luther's colleagues that we hardly recognize them as outspoken humanists who were in personal touch with Erasmus: George Spalatin, the mediator between Luther and Frederick the Wise, or Justus Jonas. Through a profusion of personal contacts Luther inevitably entered into the world of humanism and inevitably this world became to a certain extent his own. T h e connection appears most clearly in the fact that Luther introduced the " languages " — the study of ancient languages — into the evangelical movement. T h i s penetrates more deeply into Luther's thinking than might at first appear. Luther's principle, sola scriptura — " Scripture alone," or " b y Scripture alone " — is intimately related to the humanistic ad fontes! (" Back to the sources! " ) . Repudiation of tradition as the second source of the faith is not the necessary consequence of humanistic thought. Many humanists were students of patristics, and in their dogmatics maintained that the testimonies of the fathers are also, indeed preeminently, the testimonies of the faith, and that the faith of the first centuries is the faith of the church. But where the repudiation of tradition was accomplished, humanism played a role. Humanism is not only the discoverer of the ancient languages but also of the vernaculars. T h e Renaissance in Italy had devoted great attention to the common tongue. If Luther observed how the man on the street spoke and what expressions he used, and if Luther exerted himself

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to speak in idiomatic German and not a Latin translated into German words, this testifies not only to his innate solidarity with his people but also to the fact that the humanist movement had not passed him by unaffected. It is a special mark of German humanism that it involved a national pathos. The chivalrous humanist in Germany, for example, fought for German liberty against Roman oppression and extortion. Luther's fight against the Antichrist in Rome is doubtless not the impassioned resistance of the German against a foreign power that had Germany under its sway and wished to keep it so. Luther's battle against the papacy was nourished from altogether different sources; it was the fight for the sovereign rights of Jesus Christ over against men who had usurped them, and therefore the fight for God's rights over against human righteousness. But Luther did not hesitate to insert into his polemics against Rome the tones of mourning over Germany. It is no accident, moreover, that in his address to the nobility Luther candidly supported himself with the " Grievances of the German Nation " (see above, page 21). If along with his vehement critique of German vices Luther so candidly and so proudly identified himself as a German, humanism had a share in his action. In royal freedom the man who in faith and obedience had cast off the monastic vow opened himself to the new world, although the center of his concern was not this new world but once again faith and obedience. At a very critical moment Luther's receptivity for the world of humanism played a practical role. After the evangelical movement had broken forth, there suddenly set in an exceedingly dangerous cultural decline. As the monasteries waned and their inmates were scattered, so the schools declined. Whether the many higher spiritual

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offices for which education was advantageous would survive in the future was already questionable. T h e existing educational institutions — Latin schools and universities — all at once suffered a shortage of pupils and students. Men such as Karlstadt, moreover, propagated an actually antieducational system of " simplicity in Christ." At that moment Luther set forth a cultural and educational program. T h e reformation of the universities he turned over to Melanchthon. He himself took charge of secondary education and summoned the German cities to create schools for boys and girls, in order that new generations might be trained for the ministry and also for the learned secular vocations. The treatise To the Councilmen of All Cities in Germany that They Establish and Maintain Christian Schools, 1524, is full of humanism, manifests a comprehension of history and its detail that is humanistic, and converts the whole humanistic cultural ideal of the time into reality. On the strength of Luther's personal impetus an excellent evangelical school system began to flourish. And yet at almost the same time Luther broke with humanism. He issued to the humanistic cultural movement no petty and narrow-minded repudiation, but opened himself to it with all the breadth of a great heart and rich spirit, and did not conceal his interest. In a historic controversy, however, he separated himself from the spirit and faith of humanism and made it clear that evangelical faith was something different from humanistic piety. T h e two men whose names at that time were held in highest esteem were the monk Luther and the international emperor of the cultural world, Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam. These two suddenly rose up against each other and crossed swords. They disputed over a basic prob-

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lem of theology — the free will; it was actually through Luther that this problem had acquired such central importance. Already in his writings at the time of the indulgence controversy Luther had flatly denied the existence of a free will in man on his way to salvation. The human will is an instrument either of the grace of God or of the power of evil. God alone has a free will. The renewal of the will to genuine righteousness and holiness is always a matter of grace. Erasmus accommodated himself to Luther as much as he could in the writing with which he started the controversy, his Diatribe on Free Will, which appeared in 1524, a year before Luther's Bondage of the Will. It was a part of his tactics that he never once discussed with Luther the question of the ecclesiastical upheaval, for which the whole world regarded him as sharing the responsibility — that he who in the minds of many bore the blame of being the spiritual father of Luther sought to approach Luther theologically as near as possible, in order then to be able to say triumphantly: As much as I exert myself to understand him, I cannot accept his impossible, extreme conclusions; Luther and I stand worlds apart! Erasmus asserted and tried to prove nothing else than that salvation is effected almost entirely by grace, but that a cooperation by man must be acknowledged, at least in the sense that a man freely allows or does not allow the work of grace to take place in him. Luther and Erasmus did not come to an agreement. Erasmus did not understand that Luther's point of departure was always the creative will of God, and that Luther simply could not ascribe to man this predicate, which was proper to the Creator alone. T o this day the fight between Luther and Erasmus has not been settled. The Lutheran Church has not officially appropriated

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Luther's doctrine of predestination — that salvation is purely and completely the work and decision of God — and still less the intimations of philosophical determinism that are present in Luther. In the last analysis, however, the problem between Erasmus and Luther was by no means only the special theological problem, whether the human will is entirely an instrument of grace or whether it stands in a reciprocal relation to grace. Luther attacked Erasmus with vehemence because the latter regarded religion as something human, as a human striving, a human obedience, a fulfillment of the love commandment, however it may be expressed; Luther, on the contrary, wished to proclaim not a religion of which Christianity is only a special form, but God's work in man. Whether religion is to be seen as the highest and purest form of human existence or whether its central concern is with the grace that is God's saving work in man — a work that I can only allow to be completed in me and which I must accept in faith with humble thankfulness — this was the basic antithesis. In other words, this struggle also centered upon the theme of the righteousness of men and the righteousness of God. The Luther who could show himself so perfectly open to everything great and important that humanism had produced shut himself off from the humanist world at the point where he saw the gospel of the glory and grace of God impugned by it. At the crucial point neither a capitulation to humanism nor a compromise with it was possible for him. 16.

REPUDIATION

OF

REVOLUTION

The reformation that people like Karlstadt, Zwilling, and Miintzer had set into operation during Luther's

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absence at the Wartburg was a kind of revolution. What had taken place in Wittenberg or Zwickau was a sheer disregard of governmental order. T h e smashing of altars in the churches, the Communion " in both kinds " that Karlstadt held on Christmas because the elector had prohibited the New Year's Day Communion that Karlstadt had planned, were revolutionary acts. T h e exodus of monks and nuns from the cloisters and the marriages of these " religious " and of priests likewise were offenses of the gravest seriousness against imperial law. T h e breaking of images and such things had taken place contrary to Luther's will, and Luther had dissociated himself from such actions. With his moderation and steadying influence and the restoration of the old order that he undertook upon his return from the Wartburg, he assumed the posture of legality. In principle, however, he was unable to dissociate himself from all illegal proceedings. T h e release of the monks from monastic vows had occupied him already in the Wartburg, and after his return from it he published the famous revolutionary treatise already mentioned, On Monastic Vows. T h a t he thereby was breaking the law of the church and of the empire he saw clearly. Nor was Luther meek as a lamb toward all authority and governmental order even at the moment in which he issued the summons to order and discipline and obedience to the state. T o the entirely unambiguous readiness of Luther to disobey even the law of the German Empire, when it was a question of God's Word and clear commandment, such as the monastic vow, must be added another consideration. T h e conservative tendencies in the Luther of the Invocavit Sermons, etc., which to some extent compensate for this revolutionary attitude, relate only to the limited territory

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of Electoral Saxony. Rebellion there could only produce endless havoc. God's Word was free. With Frederick's attitude there was nothing to fear for Lutheran preaching in Electoral Saxony. Excessive revolutionary zeal would surely have made it impossible for Frederick the Wise to protect Luther's cause any longer in the manner that he had followed in the past. Quite different was the situation in all the other territories of the empire. There too " God's Word " continued to flourish because it possessed a power that made it difficult to hinder and because there were a number of influential officials, even town authorities, who by no means wished to hinder its course, since they themselves were caught up in it. Nevertheless, in the years 1522 and 1523 we can speak of a freedom of God's Word in no other German territory in the same sense as we find it in Electoral Saxony. In the situation within Electoral Saxony it could appear politically shrewd and expedient to put the movement as much as possible under the protection of legality. For all the rest of Germany this was out of the question. That thoughtful people or even fanatics of the new faith saw no other possibility than to fight for the freedom of God's Word in revolutionary ways is very understandable. T h e ferocity with which Thomas Miintzer, the man who proclaimed himself the prophet of the revolution, acted is explained by his Taborite eschatology: If the Kingdom of God is near, then all the ungodly must be extirpated and the way must be prepared for the reign of God. Even a very sober consideration could lead to the practical conclusion that one must prepare for resistance to the governmental forces that mobilized to enforce the Edict of Worms. How things would work out, no one could know. Many authorities, even ecclesiastical princes, were reluctant to enforce the

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Edict of Worms because they feared revolution; on the other hand, the influence of the new message among the people was great. But was there in principle another possibility than a test of force? Luther's treatise On Secular Authority, to What Extent It Should Be Obeyed, written at the end of 1522, is very difficult to interpret. The historian will have to reach a different conclusion from the man who, from the standpoint of an altogether different situation in the present, wrestles theoretically with Luther's writing which originated in its own special situation. Many critics in our day see in Luther the servant of the princes who rendered obeisance to the territorial powers or even promoted their cause; and they are accustomed to hear this Luther speaking also in the treatise we are considering. Is this historically correct? The treatise consists of two main sections. In the first section Luther demands of the Christian acknowledgment of the government as an ordinance of God. It is a command of God to obey it, even when it acts quite unjustly and when obedience leads to the endurance of injustice. This section is the point of departure for all present-day critics. What Luther exhorts sounds like blind, dull-witted obedience to authority. In the second section Luther demands of the Christian, on the contrary, that he resist the government if it requires disobedience to the Word of God and denial of the gospel. He does not mean thereby to say that one dare deprive the land of its government and cause a bloody rebellion against it. Quite the contrary, it may become necessary for the Christian to leave the land or suffer martyrdom. But to yield and to deny the gospel is forbidden the Christian. Contemporaries such as Duke George of Saxony read Luther's treatise on the basis of its second section and saw in it an

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ungodly insurrection of Luther against all secular order. But again, we would do an injustice to Luther to accept this judgment. Rebellion was something Luther did not want under any circumstances. But that he nourished a psychological resistance and summoned men to it is obvious; and apparently Luther's treatise on secular authority exerted a considerable influence in this sense. T h e gospel and obedience to God's command take priority over every earthly duty of obedience! Now, if we compare the position of Luther with that of Thomas Miintzer and all those who stood more or less close to him, we are not dealing with a contrast of blind obedience to princes versus revolutionary action against authorities hostile to the gospel. At best this would be plausible if we could believe that Luther had stupidly and narrow-mindedly restricted his attention to Electoral Saxony, where his cause was in some degree safe and where obedience to princes might be useful. But dare one ascribe such narrowness to Luther at a time when the Lutheran gospel had been kindled all over Germany and far beyond the boundaries of Germany, but when virtually all the governmental authorities were still Luther's adversaries? T h e question between Luther and a man like Miintzer was whether revolution dare be incited in the sense of withholding obedience from governmental authorities because they opposed the gospel or insofar as they did so — assuming recognition of their authority in general. All the viewpoints on the evangelical side moved between these two " extreme " opinions. T o agree with Luther and in principle to maintain secular obedience to the secular authorities was possible only on the basis of a great and strong faith in the power of God's Word which will accomplish its purpose by itself

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in spite of all opposing powers. This faith Luther had, and it guided him also when the principle he had laid down in his important little tract of 1522 had to be put to a practical test, and that was in the Peasants' War. In the Peasants' War the same Luther who paid heed to no imperial law, nor any other law if conscience commanded disobedience, drew the practical consequences of his conviction that the evangelical Christian has no right to " rebel" against a Roman Catholic government simply because it suppresses the gospel or otherwise oppresses its subjects, or whatever the reason, but that the Christian is only commanded to resist it with the gospel, that is, with the Word. Indeed, if Luther's hotly debated attitude in the Peasants' War is to become understandable, another set of relations must be considered. Luther did not regard the Peasants' War simply as a problem of obedience to authority.

17.

R E P U D I A T I O N OF THE A N D THE

FANATICS

PEASANTS

When the historian of our day studies the famous German Peasants' War of 1524-1525, he regards it not in isolation but in the context of the whole German peasant movement that had already been in process for nearly a hundred years. The rebellion of Hans Bohm, called the piper of Niklashausen, 1477, the Bundschuh movement (the lowly " tied shoe " was a peasants' symbol), and the " Poor Conrad " movement are its best-known episodes. The German peasant movement in turn stands within the context of an all-European peasant movement. From the Netherlands, from England, and from France we know of peasant uprisings at a much earlier period: in Bruges, 1323, the so-called Jacquerie in France, 1356, and the

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English peasants' uprising of 1381 under Wat Tyler. The peasant movement did not come to an end even with the Peasants' War of 1525, but continues down to the most recent times. Depending on the historian's special interest, he either concentrates upon the history of the German social classes, of which the peasant movement naturally forms only one side, or he fastens upon the " ideological " side of the peasant movement, which to a considerable degree is a theological matter. In part, the peasant movement and the Peasants' War involved simply the longing for the restoration of ancient rights. In the second place, actual plans for an imperial reform were drawn up, but to put them into operation of course was a serious problem. The proposals could be very sober; influential in shaping them, however, were also ideals that spring from the recesses of man's inmost convictions and principles of faith, the ideal of divine justice or that of Christian freedom, the realization of which was demanded and sought in the order of society. With these ideals we come upon certain cultural and religious currents, certainly in particular the movement of Wycliffe, and of Hussitism, which is closely related to it. The knowledge of these connections is important for understanding Luther's attitude toward the peasants' revolution, and accordingly for the collision that took place between Luther and the peasants. The struggle between Luther and the peasants was a battle between two kinds of gospel. That the modern historian views the Peasants' War in this briefly sketched context is far from meaning that Luther actually analyzed it in exactly the same terms and that his perspective coincided with that of the historian of today. Luther placed the " rebellion " of the peasants into the context of fanaticism. Whether he did so justly or un-

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justly is of course a very important, but also a rather difficult, question. T o put it frankly, for Luther the peasants' uprising was a work of the " murdering prophets," and by this expression he meant principally Thomas Müntzer of Allstedt and then of Mühlhausen, and his followers. A very influential viewpoint today [that of Marxism], according to which Luther is regarded altogether negatively as the enemy of the peasants and of all the oppressed, in a curiously uncritical fashion takes Luther's side in judging the situation. That the Peasants' War was the work of Thomas Müntzer is either regarded as self-evident or proved with a great flourish, and it seems, also convincingly. Actually there is little evidence to prove that Müntzer exerted an influence worthy of mention upon the peasants. But that Luther viewed and judged the situation so is surely incontestable, and his fight against the peasants was at the same time a fight against the " murdering prophets " who had turned the peasants — according to Luther's opinion — into a robbing and murdering horde. What was the point of this whole movement called " the fanatics " or " fanatical spirits "? It has been said already that Luther's assault against the Roman Church and thereby against the whole prevailing order of things summoned into action all the spirits who were dissatisfied with Rome and the inherited order. The preaching of those who had set themselves to work while Luther sat in the Wartburg or even earlier was submitted to no fixed standards, and quite generally passed for Lutheran. Among those who came into action were some who manifestly had altogether different intentions from Luther's. Through connections that bound Thomas Müntzer, then preacher and minister in Zwickau, with the so-called

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journeymen weavers, textile workers whose ideas were Hussite-Taborite, there developed a peculiar reforming version of Christianity that aimed at a new apostolic church, whether indeed an earthly thing at all or already the beginning of heavenly glory, it is difficult to say. Everything that the men around Müntzer had to say about the new apostolic church they had learned through inner illuminations, they had received from the Spirit. They appealed to dreams and visions. Through Müntzer's writing and in the development of the personal relationship between Müntzer and Luther emerged a sharp antithesis: You, Luther, stand upon the dead letter, and we stand upon the living Spirit; your gospel is the law of the letter, ours is the new, free gospel of the Spirit. Everything merely written and externally ordered was repulsive to Müntzer and his people; they even rejected the sacraments of the church. Child baptism was sheer nonsense, like the transubstantiation in the Mass. Müntzer's ideal was hardly late baptism — hence in certain circumstances rebaptism — and a simple celebration of the Mass; he was obviously a despiser of sacraments as a matter of principle. T h e situation was quite different among the groups which appeared in Switzerland and in southwestern Germany near the Swiss border. Their thought was similar to that of the Zwickau prophets, and apparently arose out of the same presuppositions, viz., medieval sectarianism, but they made " believer's baptism" their watchword and observed the sacrament of the Lord's Supper in a very unsacramental sense. These authentic Anabaptists entered Luther's field of vision rather late, although they are perhaps more important for Reformation history as a whole than the central German radicals. Luther had to deal first with the fanatics of his own terri-

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tory, who even while he sat at the Wartburg sent messengers to Wittenberg and tried to promote their viewpoint there. They went around, as Luther says, crying: " Spirit! Spirit! Spiritl " and Müntzer then wrote against " the sensual and soft-living hulk in Wittenberg " and "Brother Fatted Pig," meaning Luther. In an interesting contrast to the fanatics' principles of Spirit and inwardness stands their strong tie to the Bible, primarily to the Old Testament, in moral questions. T h e social program of the fanatical movement is rooted in the Old Testament. Above all, the Old Testament was pressed into service to justify the bellicose spirit of Müntzer and his sedition. Müntzer renewed the wars of Yahweh and his people against the heathen; he finally came to sign himself " Thomas Müntzer with the sword of Gideon." T h e people of God are the believers in the sense of the Zwickau prophets. All others are unbelievers and enemies of God, and they and most particularly their leaders, namely, the secular princes, must be slain like dogs. Thus Müntzer's war sermon has an astonishingly rich Old Testament coloration, and this program of Müntzer might even be regarded as Biblical if it is viewed in its real intention. In reality, however, it is again the Spirit who drives Christians to fight against the godless and to cut down everything that opposes the approaching Kingdom of God. Müntzer's revolutionary program is a prophetic program. When Luther fought Müntzer he was contending against Müntzer the false prophet, and false prophets are always most dangerous when they incite to sedition and destruction. Then the evil spirit who speaks out of them calls together all the spirits of the lower world. Only so can we understand Luther's " No," which he uncompromisingly hurled at the peasant movement of the

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years 1524 and 1525. Of course, it may be said that Luther had a conservative mind, and perhaps a professor at an electoral university had to have a conservative mind at that time. But that explanation would be too cheap. Certain it is that when Luther felt himself bound in conscience and forced to a certain action, he disregarded all bonds except those of the conscience, and heedless of consequences translated command into act. If Luther could have regarded Müntzer as a true prophet, everything would have been different for him. As it was, with his deep emotion, which was seldom so unbridled as in the controversy with the peasants, Luther went far beyond the currently prevailing rule among pious, civilly dutiful Christians. Friends of Luther were shocked at his harshness and pitilessness. Luther spoke out three times against the peasants. H e did so first when the very moderate Twelve Articles of the Peasantry in Swabia came to his attention about the middle of April, 1525. In his tract Admonition to Peace-. A Reply

to the Twelve

Articles

of the Peasants

in Swabia,

he

appealed to the conscience of the princes and lords and earnestly begged them to respond to the judgment of God •— for this is what they would have to regard a peasant uprising in any case — with humility, penitence, and accommodation toward the peasants. T o the peasants he declared that sedition was in all cases unjust and contrary to God's commandment. This principle Luther always maintained; he left it directly in suspension, however, in the circumstance that a true prophet or special charismatic agent ( Wundermann) of God overturned the usual order in the plenary power of God. Luther then passionately resisted the peasants' attempt to base their demands upon the gospel. It now came to light that the peasants'

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gospel had to do with a Christian love and Christian freedom whose goal was the abolition of serfdom, burdens on the land, the tithe in its current form, and many such things. This kind of Christian justice and Christian freedom they had not learned from Luther. It cannot be summarily denied that here or there, and even widely, " Lutheran " preachers had so proclaimed the new gospel. In this way, but only in this way, can it be explained that the peasants again and again appealed to Luther, and that Luther's adversaries declared him responsible for the peasants' rebellion. Luther asserted that his gospel, that the gospel, was quite another thing: it teaches men to be devout and God-fearing, to accept misery from God's hand, to suffer injustice, and to trust in the grace of God in all distress and need. The justice or righteousness of God proclaimed in the gospel is the forgiveness of sins (see above, page 66), and hence is something altogether different from the " divine justice " found again and again on the lips of the peasants. One can say that from a political point of view, Luther's decision not to ally himself with the peasants was a stroke of genius. T o a superficial glance the popular peasant movement offered Luther a great opportunity to win Germany for his cause, but much more obvious to a more penetrating observer, in view of the peasants' instability, was the certainty that if he joined the peasants, he would be hitching his cause to a wagon that was hurtling into the abyss and would then irresistibly drag his cause along with it. Luther at most sensed these connections, by no means reasoned them out. His concern was only to remain true to the gospel, which needed to be proclaimed, but not put into effect by blood and sword. It should not be denied that in his second peasant

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tract, Against the Robbing and Murdering Hordes of Peasants, which he wrote as an appendix to a new edition of his first tract, Luther issued a summons to strike back, in tones that testify of fearful human passion and an absence of pastoral kindness. One misses the pastoral note most painfully in the last tract, the Open Letter Concerning the Hard Book Against the Peasants. But it cannot be disproved that if Luther had allied himself with the peasants, he would have betrayed his gospel of the glory and grace of God whose desire is to make man righteous in His presence and make him a new creature. The demand that Luther should have gone along with the peasants for the sake of the German people or out of sympathy with the oppressed amounts to an expectation that Luther would abandon his reformation. It is not customary for the historian so to write history as to lay down such unreasonable demands. Anyone for whom the gospel had become truth through Luther's teaching would inevitably have to regard Luther as a traitor if he had gone over to the peasants. In regard to the pastoral heart and the proper word, however, we must certainly ask questions of Luther. Naturally the Peasants' War signified a crisis for Luther's reputation. He was severely reproached that during the very time of the Peasants' War he married, and then became the father of a family: who could do such a thing when the devils were loose and events were taking place that could deeply endanger the great cause? It was just by his marriage with Katherine von Bora, a descendant from the Saxon provincial nobility, that Luther " spited all devils." With this marriage he also manifested his complete assurance, not in the sense that he was altogether sure of a " happy " issue of all these events — his

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thoughts were far too much directed toward the Last Day — but in the other sense, that he knew assuredly that he was on the right path. Luther's cause did not suffer serious damage through the Peasants' War. His reformation continued, and indeed not, as is often asserted, as an enterprise of the princes, a reformation produced and regulated by the government, but as a spontaneous movement. After the Peasants' War the Reformation was introduced and carried through in many north German cities, indeed as a spontaneous popular movement from below — clear proof against a historic legend that has not become true just because it has eaten its way firmly into people's minds. It may be remarked parenthetically that in another situation Luther had already renounced the claim to human, political forces for his cause. Against the imperial knights who revolted in 1522 (the Sickingen War), who wished to use Luther, but whom he in turn would also have been able to use, he was just as distrustful as against the peasants. Space does not permit a detailed analysis of Luther's position regarding the problem of a war against the Turk. Luther wrote on the subject several times. He infused courage in the rulers to mobilize all possible military power against the enemy. Against a crusade in the name of the gospel, however, he warned urgently. And exactly as in the case of the seditious peasants, he necessarily saw in the Turk a chastening rod of God, which can be wrested from God's hand only with faith and prayer, penitence and humility.

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1 8 . SEPARATION FROM THE SWISS

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REFORMATION

According to Luther's view of things we are dealing here with no new theme; the separation from the Swiss belongs rather to the theme of Luther's separation from fanaticism. Luther regarded Zwingli and all his followers, including such a man as Oecolampadius, who indeed had for a long time stood very close to Melanchthon, as fanatical spirits, or at best as a special variety of them. From this viewpoint are to be understood all the unjust judgments that Luther profusely leveled at Zwingli. From it is fully clarified why Luther never reached an understanding with the Swiss, although with the upper German cities, whose convictions were very closely related to those of the Zwinglians, he came to an understanding after the catastrophe of the Swiss in the battle of Kappel in 1531, even though the settlement took over five years to achieve. The conversation between Luther and the Swiss was not ended even by the Wittenberg Concord of 1536, through which Luther had united with the upper Germans. Further negotiations took place, yet reconciliation was not achieved. We should not be blind to the fact that Luther's whole relation to the Swiss was saddled with a prejudice that at least in essential points rested on erroneous presuppositions. On the other hand, it dare not be overlooked that reasons and motives were not lacking to cause Luther to take this position toward the Swiss. The controversy over the Lord's Supper began as a dispute between Luther and Karlstadt and changed into a dispute between Luther and Zwingli, and Karlstadt belonged in the ranks of fanaticism. T o be sure, he had nothing in common with Thomas

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Müntzer, especially in respect to the question of the bloody establishment of a new order. Karlstadt did not take u p the " sword of Gideon." Therefore, to whatever degree responsibility for the Peasants' War can be assigned at all to men of the Protestant movement, he should be exonerated. Karlstadt, however, developed in the direction of an inward type of Christianity, with a new ascetic stamp and aloofness from political powers. This we find again in the fanatical movement, primarily among upper German Baptists (called Anabaptists by their adversaries), the peaceful Baptists who wished to live as a quiet fellowship of God, separated from the rest of the world, and separated particularly from the territorial church system without, however, rebelling against the political rulers. At the same time that Karlstadt propounded his rather primitive Eucharistie doctrine that " This is my body " refers to Jesus' actual body at the Supper Table, not to the bread of the Supper, a Silesian nobleman named Caspar Schwenekfeld of Ossig, attempted to make plausible to Luther his Eucharistie doctrine, which amounted to a spiritualization of the process. Schwenckfeld is one of the great spiritualists of the Reformation Era. For these men the life of faith was grounded in inwardness, in an inner illumination, without assuming prophetic-apocalyptic forms and without leading to the principle of believer's baptism. Zwingli's Eucharistie doctrine rests upon that of a Dutchman, Cornelius Hendrix Hoen, and asserts in brief that in the Eucharistie words a figure of speech is used, an alloeosis. It may be said, nevertheless, that in the doctrine of the Eucharist, Zwingli was not too far from the fanatics and Baptists: the Supper is a memorial meal by which the church reminds itself that its Lord died for it.

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It must be indicated further that Zwingli at the beginning doubted the propriety of child baptism. This doubt later played no role for him, but once one suspects Zwingli of fanaticism, this recollection can return again and again. Luther's tract of December, 1524, Letter to the Christians at Strassburg, and his vehement treatise Against the Heavenly Prophets in the Matter of Images and the Sacrament at the turn of 1524-1525, were still directed against Karlstadt. In the actual controversy with Zwingli belong That These Words, " This Is My Body," Still Stand Firm Against the Fanatics, April, 1527, a reply to Zwingli's Friendly Exposition of February, 1527, and the so-called " Great " Confession Concerning the Supper, March, 1528. Luther does not alter his conception of the Supper, for he Tetracts nothing of his contention that the Word is bound with a sign in the sacrament and that this Word is directed to faith. But Luther feels himself bound by the word is in the Eucharistic words, " This is my body," and he resists substituting a " signifies " (bedeutet) for this " is." In the bread and wine Christ's body and blood are present, though not in a carnal, " capernaitic " manner (to use the technical expression; cf. John 6:17, 51 f.). If this is so, however, unbelievers also receive the body of Christ, but naturally to their own condemnation. For this opinion Luther again cites a Bible passage from which he cannot depart, I Cor. 11:29. The contest was waged as an exegetical controversy. Besides this antithesis on the interpretation of the words of the Supper, however, another factor must be taken into account. The fact that Christ's body in the Lord's Supper is offered simultaneously at many places requires an explanation. Did not the whole Christ ascend to heaven, with spirit andflesh,according to his divine and his human

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natures? This was Zwingli's opinion. In Zwingli's circle there soon emerged an inclination to acknowledge a kind of spiritual presence of Christ. Martin Bucer, who with Philip of Hesse was anxious at all costs to effect an alliance between the upper German cities, the Swiss, and the central Germans, did everything he could to produce a compromise formula. This was the purpose of the Marburg Colloquy, which took place October 2-4, 1529. Zwingli was of the opinion that the human nature of Christ is in heaven, and hence inaccessible. Luther interpreted the clause of the creed, that Christ sits on the right hand of God, to mean that God's right hand is everywhere and that Christ is therefore to be found everywhere even according to his humanity. In the Supper he reveals himself to us and becomes savingly present for us. For this " illocal" conception of heaven, with the presence of Christ everywhere, even according to his humanity, the designation " u b i q u i t y " came into use. Zwingli and Oecolampadius and the Swiss in general, later also some Lutherans, rejected the ubiquity concept; Luther and other theologians such as John Brentz of Swabisch-Hall, did not deviate from it. At Marburg, too, this antithesis could not be settled. Regarding the Marburg Colloquy it only remains to be said for the present that it had a background of high politics and accordingly was fraught with quite another pattern of problems as well. T h e emperor was just about to terminate his rivalry with Francis I of France and Pope Clement VII, and then come to Germany to settle the religious question there. This yielded so threatening a prospect that Philip considered it advisable to form an elaborate political alliance. In its way stood the dogmatic antagonism between Luther and the Swiss, into which also

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the important upper German cities, primarily Strassburg, had been drawn. There arose at least the appearance that questions of belief might have to be subordinated to " higher" political necessities. This sharply aggravated Luther's suspicions and sensitivities, especially because he was altogether disinclined to make way for the gospel or even merely defend it by means of political force. The idea of a war against the emperor was to him and to his prince not only shocking but something closely resembling the peasants' principles. Luther and Melanchthon traveled to Marburg, as did Zwingli and Oecolampadius, not to mention the other participants in the colloquy. The participants in the proceedings actually agreed on fourteen articles. On the fifteenth, concerning the Lord's Supper, they differed. In other words, Luther separated permanently from the Swiss Reformation. The history of further negotiations contains no flashes of light that permit the supposition that a closer approach to a final settlement has ever been made. 19. LUTHER'S APPROVAL OF T H E EVANGELICAL TERRITORIAL CHURCHES

The Peasants' War had the most important consequences for Luther's reform movement. What might have been expected, and what actually was expected by anxious souls like Philip Melanchthon, did not happen, namely, that after the suppression of the peasants the territorial princes who in the majority still supported the old faith would now fall upon the Lutheran movement and enforce the Worms Edict with blind zeal. Not that Luther had earned the thanks of the princes by his peasant treatises! Had that been the case, no doubt more acknowledgments of the new

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faith would have been made than actually were forthcoming. One of the youngest but most capable and promising lords, Philip of Hesse, who had cooperated vigorously in suppressing the peasants, openly professed the gospel of the Reformation and adhered to Luther, though he was far from tying himself down one-sidedly to Luther's line against the men of the Swiss Reformation, who already were clearly deviating from it. Important cities turned to the Reformation. At the Diet of Speyer in 1529 fourteen cities joined the protest. Among the evangelical cities, Nuremberg was a complete small territory, so far as domain is concerned. The princes of Ansbach and Kulmbach turned evangelical. So did one of the Ascanian line, Wolfgang of Anhalt, and a Lower Saxon prince, Ernst of Lüneburg. We may mention also a special case, still to be discussed, namely, the transition to the evangelical faith of a larger but very remote province, Prussia. In terms of the whole German Empire, this is not much. Toward the " princes' flunky," Luther, the majority of German princes were still antagonistic. Nevertheless, no attack was launched against Luther after the Peasants' War. It must have been rather obvious that the Lutheran movement was not the same as the peasant movement. Another factor entered the picture, however. It became fully clear that the " wild growth " of the Reformation, as it had developed in the period between 1521 and 1525, had to be brought to an end. The necessity of breaking with it came to be recognized as unavoidable by all the governments favoring the evangelical faith. The first move to establish an evangelical church system, curiously enough, was made by the Master of the Teutonic Order, a Brandenburger with the same given name, Albert, as that of his relative, the archbishop and cardinal whose in-

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dulgence affair had kindled the Reformation. It took place in Prussia, i.e., approximately the same region as the later East Prussia. Luther, with whom he had been in touch, encouraged him to make the move. Prussia (in the ancient, more restricted sense of the name) became the first German evangelical state, Hesse and Electoral Saxony joined the ranks, and everywhere that the gospel penetrated the same path was followed. The establishment of an evangelical territorial church proceeded in this way: the ruler appointed a visitation commission, fairly equally composed of theologians and jurists, and a visitation or, at appropriate intervals, visitations were conducted. The father of the visitation idea is presumably the Zwickau pastor, Nicolas Hausmann, a friend of Luther's. Others, such as the Eisenach preacher, Jacob Strauss, also had the idea. After all, it was by no means new. Visitation belonged to the duties of the bishops, indeed was their central duty. Some bishops even tried to attack the Lutheran movement by conducting visitations themselves. Electoral Saxony, where John the Steadfast had succeeded his brother Frederick the Wise, actually prohibited the regular bishops of the territory from going into the congregations. The new and essential feature of the evangelical visitations is that they became an affair of the territorial princes, and in this way the whole church system came under the general control of the princes. The old-believing princes would have liked very much to imitate the evangelical princes in this respect, for the trend of the times had long been in the direction of placing ecclesiastical affairs under princely control. One of the greatest proponents of this idea was Luther's great adversary, George, duke of Albertine Saxony. The procedure of evangelical visitors was to travel to

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the chief towns and summon the pastors and leading laymen. The jurists inquired concerning church property, and it was their duty to see to it that these possessions were not estranged, for the nobility had a strong inclination to usurp church property and the town councils simply to confiscate the monastic property left ownerless by the departure of the monks. Care had to be taken, however, to assure incomes for the pastors. The theologians examined the pastors on whether their moral life was orderly, that is, whether they frequented the public houses, had quarrels with their church members, led a dissolute life with questionable women, or whether they lived respectably, treated their housekeepers honorably, reared decently any children they might have, and so forth. The picture that emerged must have been rather dark. Family life in the rectory was fairly common. This hypocrisy was corrected by forcing the pastors to publish the banns with their housekeepers and marry them. When he consecrated an evangelical " bishop" in Merseburg in 1544, Prince George III of Anhalt, Luther did not hesitate to use the opportunity quite personally to announce the marriage banns of the willing dean of the cathedral, and thus to take care that the dean's children might be freed from the taint of illegitimacy in a natural way and not by papal dispensation. Not without interest for social history is the fact that in principle this way was offered even to the higher clergy; it could not be questioned, of course, whether the marriage was " socially proper." A further concern in the visitations was the educational status of the pastor, and finally and foremost of all, his willingness or unwillingness henceforth to preach the gospel. Naturally, a visitation could be repeated, even frequently, if it was necessary. This became precisely the

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rule. But it was impossible to make the visitation commissions a permanent institution. T h e function of spiritual supervision then was taken over by the pastors of the chief towns as " superattendents " or superintendents. Of course the superintendents are not the successors of the bishops in the canonical sense of episcopal jurisdiction; in the Biblical sense Luther saw in the pastors the true bishops. This is one of the reasons why no evangelical office of bishop developed, even though there were bishops who espoused the gospel, as in Prussia or later in Brandenburg. But in the sense that spiritual supervision was taken up by the superintendents, they became, so to speak, the new bishops in the evangelical church system. Later, the so-called consistories were established, e.g., in Wittenberg, 1539, the office for ecclesiastical affairs in regard to administration and adjudication; the distinction between these two functions is a development of the nineteenth century. They were set up because there was a legal complex here which the bishops had formerly managed and for which a new form of management was needed, viz., the whole complex of marriage law. It appears as if the old consistories were simply matrimonial courts. However, they became official territorial offices for ecclesiastical affairs. In all this it becomes clear that the influence of Lutheran preaching and theology became decisive for the new church system, but that ultimately the entire ecclesiastical system came under the direction of the territorial princes and of the town governments. Through the patronage system the lower nobles were to a considerable degree interposed between the territorial church administration and the congregations, and their importance for the new evangelical church life dare not be underestimated. W e must not regard the territorial visitation system and

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the entire territorial church administration simply as a creation of Luther. Luther helped to shape it insofar as his spirit and his gospel left its impress on the new church life; he took part in the visitations, and he composed the preface to the " Instruction for the Visitors," which Melanchthon had written for the famous church and school visitation of 1526-1530 in Electoral Saxony and which also was used widely outside Saxony. Actually, however, he had not wanted things to proceed in this fashion. He was unable to prevent the territorial princes from taking their churches under their jurisdiction, and he came to terms with the actuality. He could see absolutely no possibility of changing the situation. In this he was correct. H e gave the settlement an orderly theological foundation by treating the princes as baptized Christians and as the " leading members of the church," who alone had the power to institute a new ecclesiastical order. It must not be concluded, however, that the territorial princes also regarded what they did as subject to this limitation. In taking over the management of the church they quickly came to see a princely right or a princely duty, and Melanchthon provided them a good conscience in it through his doctrine of the prince's duty to care for both tables of the law (cura utriusque tabulae). It is striking that no self-government of congregations came into existence, especially that no congregational church councils or boards of elders were established for church discipline. At the Synod at Homberg on the Efze in Hesse, October, 1526, something like this was considered under the influence of a French Franciscan, Francis Lambert of Avignon, and an attempt was made to form core congregations of earnest Christians. Luther, who had once entertained such a thought himself (see above,

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pp. 100 f.), advised against the plan. Under the influence of Martin Bucer, however, through the Ziegenhain Order of Church and Discipline, 1539, the congregations in Hesse were finally granted an activity of their own and rights in the matter of ecclesiastical discipline were assigned to them. Luther considered the congregations still too immature. A very essential element for an evangelical church system was still lacking. How can the evangelical doctrine be fixed in such a way that a test can easily be made whether a pastor or a community confesses the true gospel? When pastors were dismissed and new ones appointed, as became frequently necessary in the visitations, a norm of evangelical doctrine to which the pastors were bound was needed; Wittenberg had to train pastors for the towns, and in the villages some more or less capable persons had to be accepted, often artisans or former monks. Luther lent assistance during the period of the visitation by composing his two famous catechisms. First the Small Catechism was published in the form of a broadside, then the Large Catechism, which of course was a book, and finally also the Small Catechism in book form. Whether a pastor was able to understand and to teach the catechism could serve as a standard for his examination (though the Small Catechism itself was prescribed for heads of families!). But the catechisms could not be regarded as sufficient. It became necessary to standardize the doctrine of the young evangelical church in an altogether different, clearer, and more comprehensive manner. It became the rule that a church order, as it might be drawn up, for example, in a visitation, contained primarily doctrinal articles. This we find very frequently at a later time. A t first, however, the theological controversies with the

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Swiss and the south Germans came to the aid o£ the evangelical princes and theologians. Whether one should enter political alliances with people with whom one was not united in faith was greatly disputed, quite apart from the fact that an alliance against the emperor on the part of the Saxon Elector, the south Brandenburgers, and the imperial city of Nuremberg — which as an imperial city of course was a city of the emperor and would have been rebelling against its own lord — ran up against most serious scruples. Whether men were one in faith, however, remained to be proved. In the course of the great examination whether unity could be reached with the Swiss, the so-called Schwabach Articles first were produced in the circle of the evangelicals from Electoral Saxony. They were set forth by the Wittenberg theologians in the summer of 1529 for the political negotiations pending with those who earlier in the same year had issued the " Protestation " in Speyer. In the Marburg Articles the point of departure was the Schwabach document. Even if the Schwabach Articles may not be acknowledged, strictly speaking, as Luther's work, Luther's share in them at any rate is very great. With the failure of Marburg the process of evangelical confessional formation came to a standstill. Through entirely new and dangerous developments, however, it got moving again. The emperor actually came to Germany in 1530 to hold an imperial diet and to dispose of religious errors. The Roman Catholic theologians had prepared themselves brilliantly for the debate with the Protestants or, rather, for their silencing. Luther's adversary Eck had produced (with others) four hundred and four articles on questions of faith. The evangelical side had the Schwabach Articles. Now it remained to be seen who would stand by

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them. T h e Swiss could not be counted on, of course, nor could the upper German cities. Melanchthon had sketched out some articles of faith, the so-called Torgau Articles, which dealt primarily with abuses in the church and not with the actual fundamental questions of the faith. Very late, then, during the diet itself, the Schwabach and Torgau Articles were combined and reworked by Melanchthon, and out of these emerged the Augsburg Confession, which as is well known has become for all times the doctrinal basis of the churches called by Luther's name. T h e whole Diet of Augsburg in 1530, with its dramatic struggle between the emperor and the evangelical estates, with the various documents that arose in this context — the Augsburg Confession (Augustana), the Roman Confutation, the Apology, Zwingli's Reckoning of Faith (Fidei ratio), and the so-called Tetrapolitana, the confession of four southwestern German cities — belongs to the history of the German Reformation, not properly to the history of Luther. Even from the purely external standpoint, the Diet of Augsburg cannot be woven into the history of Luther: still an outlaw, Luther could not be taken along to Augsburg, but could participate in the affairs of the diet only from a distance, residing at the Coburg castle. Luther's letters from the Coburg written to Augsburg and to his home stand among the most renowned Luther testimonies of all, e.g., the good-humored letter that displays Luther's great inner strength, written to his table companions at Wittenberg about the diet of crows and jackdaws outside his window, and the second letter in which he writes to the Saxon chancellor Briick of the great vault of heaven that has no pillars and yet does not fall, though so many men may writhe and tremble. T h e noblest fruit of the period at the Coburg is Luther's

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REFORMATION

of the 118th Psalm,

the b e a u t i f u l

Confitemini.

Meanwhile, Luther was forced to recognize, precisely while he was at the Coburg, that he was a man plagued by many kinds of bodily ills. In view of the serious situation of the evangelicals in Augsburg, however, he remained firm and cheerful and assured in faith. From a human standpoint the position of the evangelical cause seemed virtually hopeless. Charles V had come to terms with the French by the " Ladies' Peace " of Cambrai, 1529, and with the pope by the Peace of Barcelona, 1529. T h e Protestants, so called since the previous diet held at Speyer in 1529, succeeded in having their confession, the Augustana, read aloud. It was only received as information, however, and was regarded as confuted by the Roman Catholic counterconfession, the Confutation. T h e result of the diet was the resolution that the Edict of Worms should now be carried out. T h e Protestants had until April 15, 1531, to submit voluntarily. Melanchthon's anxious efforts to arrive at a peaceful agreement through the most extreme concessions were humanly understandable but substantially futile. Luther stiffened Melanchthon and placed the issue of the cause entirely in the hands of his Lord Christ. Apart from this, the Augsburg Diet of 1530 had further importance for Luther. Of course Luther saw that even in the Augsburg Confession Melanchthon's caution and circumspection were expressed. Knotty subjects such as the doctrine of transubstantiation in the Mass and the doctrine of purgatory had not been treated at all in the articles of the Augustana, and the question of papal power was not broached. T h e whole tenor of the Augustana was such as to lay all emphasis on proving the agreement of " our churches " with the ancient church, even with the Roman Church in its original form. Certain corruptions

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alone had been removed, it was alleged, in order to recover and realize the true image of the church. Luther later sought the opportunity, and found it in the Smalcald Articles (see below, pages 149 f.), to supplement what was lacking in the Augustana. He placed himself on the foundation of the Augsburg Confession, however, and thereby expressed his approval of the new evangelical church order. For such an order was now in operation, no matter how emphatically and repeatedly the evangelical side claimed to belong to the ancient church and to comprise no separation. The new churches even united externally in a political defensive organization, the Smalcald League, projected already before Augsburg, founded at the end of December, 1530, officially ratified on February 27, 1531. It was burdened with all sorts of problems. It could never form a kind of empire-wide evangelical church, for who could prevent an estate from becoming evangelical without entering the Smalcald League? These problems cannot be discussed here. For Luther there was one difficult problem to solve before he could give his approval. He had always previously denied a right of armed resistance against the emperor. If the emperor suppresses the gospel, it is the gospel that must defend itself against him by its inner power; men, even if they are princes, dare not take up weapons in defense of the gospel. Luther ultimately allowed the jurists to convince him that according to the structure of the German Empire the princes are not simply subjects of the emperor, but rulers who share in the government of the empire and in responsibility for the empire. A necessary resistance to the emperor by the princes then would be no rebellion. With this outlook Luther could agree that the league should be established. In reality the Augsburg Recess was made fu-

LUTHER'S

REFORMATION

1S7

tile by the foundation of the league. The league became so powerful a factor in the German Empire that after its establishment one German territory after the other came over to the new church order and the Reformation entered upon an unprecedented growth. Luther took his place within the new church system that to this day bears his name. In an altogether direct sense it is no longer his work. An authority within the evangelical world Luther remained, however, until the end of his life.

V Luther's Church 20.

LUTHER'S PERSONAL IN H i s

POSITION

CHURCH

Luther took over no leading position in his church in an outward sense. He became no ecclesiastical prince to whom the new church was to be subject. He was frequently reviled as a second pope. But this concerned the influence of his opinions, not any legal position and legal powers. Viewed altogether externally, he remained in Wittenberg as a Bible professor. There was no serious question of his leaving Wittenberg, although he could occasionally give rather sharp expression to his weariness with the vexations resulting from a town and university life that corresponded only too little with the gospel. But the thought of his going to another university, such as played a serious role with Melanchthon, was not even considered. The man banned and outlawed by name was bound to Wittenberg, while his adherents, however much the ban and banishment also involved them, were freer. Occasionally Luther traveled, e.g., to the famous meeting of the league at Smalcald at the beginning of 1537, where he became very seriously ill; with the violent treatment he experienced on the return journey, jolting over rough cobblestones, he recovered — the kidney stones went away. In 138

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general, however, his freedom of movement was rather limited by the fact that he stood under the imperial ban and also suffered from his bodily illnesses. Luther led no contemplative and humdrum life in Wittenberg, and much less did he rest on the laurels of his fighting days. We have already seen that very late, years after the marriage of priests and monks had begun, Luther himself took a wife. He had six children of the former nun, Katherine von Bora, two of whom died early. That he strongly sensed the happiness of an intimate family life is well known from many expressions in letters or table talk. That the lean monk, as we recognize him in earlier pictures and descriptions, eventually became corpulent is only too well known and was frequently interpreted on his adversaries' side as evidence that he partook very copiously of the pleasures of the table. But that is mere legend. The often-quoted rhyme, " Who loves not wine and women and song remains a fool his whole life long," comes from the eighteenth century. Beer was something Luther regularly enjoyed. It was brewed at home — the burghers' houses in Wittenberg all had the " privilege of brewing " — or sometimes Einbecker or some other famous beer. In jest he occasionally pretended that he drank a great deal, and now and then referred to himself as a tipsy Luther. From Luther's bantering expressions his opponents then drew absurd conclusions. Luther's capacity for work was such as to make alcoholism absolutely unthinkable. Protracted sitting at a writing desk is also the chief reason, as Goethe expressed it, that he " filled his paunch and portly sides." In this way too are to be explained many of Luther's physical illnesses, his frequent heart attacks, which led to dizziness and ultimately caused his death, and his

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excruciating kidney-stone ailment, which tormented him again and again. Luther undoubtedly suffered from depressions and spoke of spiritual assaults even in his later period. The frequent insomnia caused by work and care must bear primary responsibility for them. An inherited predisposition is possible. That the depressions were of a psychotic nature is excluded by the fact that Luther's capacity for work was not crippled by them. One thing that can be explained from Luther's insomnia and his ailments, perhaps also from an inherited predisposition, is his coarseness. Luther was coarse. His polemic, particularly against Rome, could become filthy. Evidence is to be found especially in his treatise Against Jack Sausage, 1541, and in his last anti-Roman polemical tract, Against the Papacy at Rome, Founded

by the Devil,

1545, also in the illustrations he could supply for prints such as the monstrous representations of the pope, the Pope-Ass and the Pope-Sow. Luther lived in an era of coarseness; his opponents and other contemporaries rivaled Luther so far as the use of strong expressions was concerned. Unlike so many of his contemporaries, Luther never became shameless or base. The coarseness of the times, however, cannot fully excuse Luther's rude language. There were men in the Reformation Era, such as Duke George of Saxony, Luther's sworn enemy, and Prince George of Anhalt, who was a warm friend of Luther and shared with him a deep mutual affection, who had an avowed abhorrence of all coarseness and filthiness. Luther indeed had a unique temperament, even in comparison with his contemporaries. This simply shows that Luther was no " saint." He duly insisted that men should not so

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regard him, the " miserable bag o£ worms," as he liked to call himself. It is not possible to go into the notorious bigamy of Philip of Hesse, for the realization of which Luther gave an equally notorious " confessional counsel," in 1539. So much in this circumstance must be taken into account in order to understand Luther: the entire problem of the seal of the confessional and the related lie of convenience that can scarcely be called a lie — even Luther's attitude in the question of the landgrave's bigamy may be taken as another proof that it is not expedient to place Luther in the ranks of the " saints." Luther did not play the role of the exemplary householder in Wittenberg. Indeed, one may rather rebuke him for a liberality and openhandedness in economic matters wherein he lived beyond his means. Poor students and other petitioners, even unworthy ones, he was accustomed to assist in a fashion that as the head of a family he could scarcely justify by ordinary standards. Altogether alien to him was the kind of solicitude for the family that lays aside savings to provide for an imminent demise, which Luther always expected. The feeding of the many table guests in the house was no easy matter for Mrs. Luther. No, Luther was not the " good family man " and careful householder in Wittenberg, but the tireless worker and professor. Preaching was a duty that resulted from the doctorate. Luther took this doctorate of his as a matter of utmost seriousness and importance. Again and again in his fight against the papacy and all the spiritual and secular powers he appealed to the fact that he was a doctor of Holy Scripture. He regarded preaching as the foremost duty of a doc-

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tor. And he preached with a frequency that virtually n o one approaches today. Although he was not a pastor of a congregation, he regularly mounted the pulpit several times a week, not only on Sunday b u t also in weekday worship services. T h a t his sermons are preserved for us to a very great measure in notebooks is a precious gift. Luther did not actually prepare his sermons in such a fashion that we could have sermon manuscripts from him. His chief activity was his academic lectures. In contrast to other scholars like Melanchthon who lectured on all kinds of subjects, including natural science and philosophy, Luther limited himself to his specialty and expounded books of the Old and New Testaments. W e have from him, to mention only a few items, great commentaries on the epistle to the Galatians, 1531 (published in 1535 — cf. the earlier exposition of 1519), the Old Testament prophets such as Jonah, 1526, Zechariah, 1527, Isaiah 1527/1529 (published 1532 and 1534), and many others, and finally his great Commentary on Genesis, the first book of the Bible, on which he lectured for ten years, 1535-1545. T h e present-day rule to complete a Biblical book in one semester or two was then unknown. T h e most surprising thing is that Luther, who created n o less than an entirely new theology, never lectured on dogmatic theology. One may say that this was not his line; b u t above all it is rooted deeply in the nature of his doctrine. T h e church in which he believed was the church of God's Word, and the church's doctrine was ever and again to be drawn from God's Word. For Luther's lectures also we are directed principally to notebooks of students, and we do not possess his own manuscripts as, for example, we have them from his early period. T h e series of sermons that Luther delivered on

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such passages as the Sermon on the Mount or chapters from the Gospel of John did not differ from the lectures in the same way as we today distinguish academic exegetical lectures from parish sermons. T h e lectures especially — probably the clearest example is his last course, on Genesis — are saturated with a profusion of personal experiences and nature observations. There is hardly a lecture course of Luther's that could not be used also as a kind of devotional book. Beside these evidences of Luther's professorial industry stand individual writings of a devotional or polemical character. In many instances these are only brochures, to use a modern concept. The theological contents of not a few of these writings, however, e.g., of On the Councils and the Church, 1539, or even of so coarse a tract as Against Jack Sausage, 1541, a filthy polemic against Henry the Younger of Brunswick-Wolfenbiittel, are so great that they took the place of dogmatic treatises. Finally, the correspondence of Luther needs special mention once more. Luther's productivity as a letter-writer was tremendous, as was that of several of his contemporaries and brothers-in-arms. T h e special section on correspondence in the Weimar Edition of Luther now embraces eleven volumes. How, then, could Luther be decried as a sort of new pope? A similarly rich harvest, even of an entirely similar type, could likewise have been yielded by other men of the age of the Reformation. That Luther's writings stand so much in the foreground for us is conditioned by the effectiveness of Luther and by his towering influence, and not by the fact that others did not produce in similar fashion. What is the explanation for Luther's great influence, which meant ultimately that he gave to his church its

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characteristic impress, in spite of the fact that outwardly he did not occupy a leading position in it? Luther became the adviser of the evangelicals in all sorts of matters. His counsel was brought to bear on the most minute and the most personal matters. If a preacher was needed somewhere, or if a dispute needed to be settled between a town council and the town clergy, Luther was consulted. Moreover, Luther intruded into affairs on his own initiative. If high political decisions had to be made, the evangelical princes turned to Luther. To be sure, they also consulted other personalities, such as Melanchthon. This man in particular was seldom bypassed. But in the last analysis Luther carried his viewpoint in an overwhelming degree. Thus it was he who set the course, whether the matter under consideration was amity with the Swiss or the upper Germans, or politics in relation to Rome and the pope's plans for a council, or in relation to the emperor. This situation had the result that until Luther's death German Protestantism on the whole could act as a unit. After Luther's death, indeed immediately after it, the great antagonisms among Luther's pupils broke out and instituted the doctrinal controversies that shaped the character of the period following Luther. This does not mean that while Luther still lived no tensions existed between Luther and other men. Even dogmatic controversies took place. Again and again the so-called antinomian controversies flared up. But Luther settled them. Melanchthon above all felt Luther's towering influence as a burden and occasionally sighed over him. But he ultimately had to bow to the stronger man. How Luther finally set the course, even though many other persons expressed themselves also, must now be clarified in detail.

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2 1 . EXPANSION AND OF THE

CONFINEMENT

MOVEMENT

Notable limitations were drawn upon Luther's immediate influence by the events of 1529 and 1530. Not only had it become clear that the Swiss Reformation intended to follow its own course. The upper German cities had not by any means thrown in their lot with the Swiss. The fact that a special " Four Cities' Confession " was formulated and presented at the Diet of Augsburg, however, made it manifest to the whole world that there were three forms of evangelical Christianity. This reckoning does not include the Baptist groups from which Luther and all the rest of the Reformation had separated themselves, and expected to remain separate from the future. Luther had originally held the opinion that minds should be allowed to compete freely. Later he had come to distinguish between seditious Baptists and merely heterodox Baptists. The seditious, in his opinion, had to be handled by the government in exactly the same way as other insurrectionists. But the errorists also, including those who did not share the common Christian convictions — namely, the ancient Christian dogma of the Trinity and of the two natures of Christ — were not permitted to remain in the land; the government, which in general had to see to it that one faith prevailed in a territory — a principle that Luther was unable to divest himself of — could and should banish them. Luther did not call for the " baptism," i.e., the drowning of the Baptists. In this he differed from others in Germany who were more brutal. To acknowledge some sort of affinity with the Baptists, meanwhile, was of course not Luther's intention.

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Apart from the Baptists and other sects, moreover, the Lutheran Reformation was hemmed in by the fact that the Zwinglians and the upper Germans followed their own courses. A change in the situation came about through the formation of the Smalcald League and through the Second Peace of Kappel. Zwingli's death in the battle of Kappel and the Peace of Kappel, 1531, signified for the evangelical Swiss cantons a complete isolation, both within Switzerland where further expansion of the Reformation was halted, and in general. This had the consequence that the upper Germans also found themselves in a certain isolation. No more could they count on the Swiss, with whom they sympathized. When the Smalcald League was formed, many upper German cities joined it. The antagonism over beliefs was not settled. But the formation of the Smalcald League stood so much under the sign of the recess of the Diet of Augsburg and of the resulting acute danger for the Protestants that collaboration with the upper Germans could not well be refused. So much more urgent now was the question whether the doctrinal antagonism also could not and must not be resolved. This cordial adjustment between " Wittenberg " and " Strassburg " is essentially the work of Martin Bucer. It was not Luther who took the initiative. Among the Wittenbergers it was Melanchthon who most strongly promoted the work of reconciliation with the upper Germans. Progress and finally success were facilitated by the fact that when Württemberg was restored to its hereditary Duke Ulrich by the battle of Lauffen and the Peace of Cadan, 1534, after having long been under the administration or in the possession of Ferdinand of Austria, the reformation of the duchy made it possible to relieve a tension. Ulrich

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147

had set such antagonistic persons to the work of reformation as the Lutherans Erhard Schnepf and John Brentz and the Swiss Ambrose Blaurer. Bitter clashes were feared. As it turned out, the men succeeded in creating a Württemberg Confession or Concord in August, 1534, in which the Eucharistie problem was solved. It was based on a formula that had been discussed at Marburg but had not been accepted at that time. T h e fundamental idea is that a union of Christ's body and blood with the bread and wine takes place, not an earthly or fleshly union, however, but a sacramental one. On this basis progress was made also in the negotiations between the upper Germans and the Wittenbergers, and the goal was achieved. T h e final document, which signifies the union of the Wittenbergers and the upper Germans and thus the uniting of German Protestantism (exclusive of the Swiss), is known as the Wittenberg Concord. From the fact that it was not accepted until 1536 one may see that half a decade was needed to reach the goal. T h e proceedings, which of course cannot be described here in detail, show how much everything depended on the one person, Luther. Luther, as we have said, was not the initiator of the proceedings. He did not particularly worry about these things, and a difficult burden lay on the shoulders of Bucer and Melanchthon. T h a t the final proceedings could not take place in Eisenach, according to plan, but that the Upper Germans had to journey to Wittenberg, was conditioned, to be sure, by the state of Luther's health. It is significant, however, that a " Wittenberg " Concord came into existence. Luther had to make up his mind to extend the hand of fellowship to the representatives of the cities. T h e other side of this achievement of peace between

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Wittenberg and the upper German cities was that the Swiss became more and more isolated. Many writings still appeared and many negotiations took place. But no possibility for a reconciliation was discovered. Little details give us once again the hint that Luther negotiated with the Swiss with deep aversion because his whole controversy with them had begun as a controversy with the fanatics. Concerning the " difference spirit" that Luther thought he saw in the Swiss, a further word will have to be said at the end.

22.

F I N A L SEPARATION FROM

ROME

At Augsburg in 1518 Luther had appealed (to the pope and) to a general council, and on November 17, 1520, he had done the same once again. This had been long forbidden on the papal side, by the bull Execrabilis o£ Pius II, 1460. In the Address to the Nobility of 1520 Luther had spoken of a free German council. In the negotiations over the execution of the Edict of Worms in the years after 1521 the thought of a German national council emerged repeatedly. The whole history of the German Reformation, if it may be expressed so sharply, is a history of negotiations for the council. The Protestants wanted a council, but one according to their own ideas. The German princes wanted a council, but conceived of it in a different way; a reform of the church in the Erasmian sense may have been in the minds of many. The emperor worked very earnestly for a council and negotiated with the pope over it; he was too much a Roman Catholic to aspire to an uncanonical council, and too much an emperor to renounce a concern for the influence which as emperor he had to exert upon the council. The French king deliber-

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ately worked to prevent the council; nothing would have upset his plans so acutely as a settlement of the antagonism between Charles V and the Protestant estates. For the papal Curia a council was an extremely ticklish matter: it could not predict how it would go. It might come too strongly under the emperor's influence; the possibility even had to be reckoned with that the council would declare itself superior to the pope, might unearth and proclaim anew old theories of this kind from the fifteenth century. T o the death of Clement VII in 1534, therefore, all efforts to obtain a council remained fruitless and vain. It is the merit of Pope Paul III (Alexander Farnese), 1534-1549, that he saw the inevitability of a council and earnestly took steps to prepare for it. He actually brought it about at Trent. He went to work energetically and established communication with all persons without whom the council could not be carried through, especially the secular princes; if they did not send their bishops to the council or allow their attendance, a council could not take place. In the course of this action the grotesque thing happened, that a papal nuncio, Peter Paul Vergerio, came to Saxony, appeared in Wittenberg, and got into personal touch with Luther. T h e great significance of these procedures for the Protestants consists in the fact that they now had to prepare themselves seriously for participation in a prospective council, or else furnish reasons for refusing to send delegates to the council. It is unmistakable that u p to that time the calls for a council had been frequent because there was no possibility one could be summoned, but then everyone had an easy time shifting the blame onto his opponents for obstructing the council. When the matter became serious, Luther was commissioned to prepare a statement for the

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discussion of the council question by the partners of the Smalcald League, which took place in February, 1537. Luther's Smalcald Articles were not adopted at Smalcald but tabled, because Melanchthon sabotaged them while Luther lay sick in bed. Only a moderate number of theologians subcribed them. The Smalcald Articles attained confessional status later in the tiny Ernestine Saxon state that remained after the Smalcald War, and finally in many Lutheran churches. The Smalcald Articles have been justly characterized as Luther's " Testament against Rome " — testament because Luther was sick to the point of death at Smalcald. They consist of three parts. The first part embraces the articles which the Evangelicals confess in common with the Romanists, " the sublime articles of the divine majesty." The third part touches a collection of individual doctrinal points over which a debate with reasonable opponents seemed possible, even if there were many, such as the point regarding original sin, over which an agreement might be considered absolutely impossible. The most important part is the middle one. Here four articles are listed from which no deviation dare be allowed. The first and chief article is that of righteousness without works, law, and merit, through faith alone. " Nothing in this article can be given up or compromised, even if heaven and earth and things temporal should be destroyed." The second article is that of the Mass in the papal religion, which is a sacrifice and a work and a " dragon's tail " that has brought forth " a brood of vermin and the poison of manifold idolatries." In third place, the chapters and monasteries are mentioned, i.e., the double morality of precepts and evangelical counsels (see above, pages 53, 91). The fourth and very detailed article is concerned with the pope. Here we

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read: " Accordingly, just as we cannot adore the devil himself as our Lord or God, so we cannot suffer his apostle, the pope or Antichrist, to govern us as our head or lord." By this the repudiation of Rome was brought to a sharp formula that could not be surpassed. T h e question whether and to what degree Luther's antipapal polemic is still justified today will not be discussed here. Luther retracted nothing of what he had said at the beginning against papal sovereignty. After writing the Smalcald Articles, Luther still continued an exceedingly coarse polemic against the papacy (see pages 140 and 154). T h e clearest expression of his repudiation of Rome, however, he gave in the Smalcald Articles. T h a t Luther expressed his position unambiguously here is not changed by the fact that Luther acquiesced to the religious colloquies of the period around 1540/1541, at Hagenau, Worms, and Regensburg (Ratisbon). He could do so because he expected nothing from them and knew that even if an ambiguous formula were produced, the adversaries would never make the formula unambiguous by confessing that they had formerly taught differently. 23.

THE

FOUNDATION

OF T H E

CHURCH

Have two churches now emerged, one antichurch with a monstrosity at its head, consisting only of ungodly persons, and with its center located in Rome, and a true, evangelical church, consisting purely of believers, with Luther at its head, and with its center located in Wittenberg? Luther never regarded the situation so, either in his early period or at the end of his life. In the beginning, it was primarily his preparation for excommunication that induced him to ponder the nature of the church. If Luther

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proclaims the true righteousness of Christ, can the pope and his followers authoritatively and effectually exclude him from the church? In the context of discussion over this question Luther set forth a sharp distinction between two kinds of Christianity, between a visible Christianity and an invisible Christianity, indeed, it may be calmly said, between a visible and an invisible church. T o belong to the invisible church of all believers is the truly important thing, and was the great consolation for Luther. Nothing can separate one from it but unbelief. Luther never retracted this distinction and his acknowledgment of the invisibility of the true church. But is this all he has to say about the church? The first thing to be asserted is that with this idea Luther was very far from making the church into an abstraction, a church invisible and thus intangible and unobjective, " a Platonic republic," as it was once expressed during the Reformation — and repudiated. In the years of the imperial election, when the legal proceedings against Luther came to a standstill, consequently when Luther had, to speak in human terms, a breathing space and yet had to count on the excommunication, i.e., 1519 and 1520, he wrote a series of marvelous little devotional tracts: Meditation on the Holy Passion of Christ, On Preparation for Death, On the Holy and Blessed Sacrament of Baptism, On the Blessed Sacrament of the Holy Body of Christ and on the Brotherhoods, etc.

Here also the theme of the church is approached, and here the church is no visible structure in the material sense. The pope plays no role here, and this group of writings contains no antipapal polemic, with the single exception of the Treatise on the Ban, 1520. However, the church there is the communion of saints, and it is palpable and perceptible, and bestows rich consolation and great peace.

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T o it belong the angels and saints and all believers on earth. An invisible entity in the abstract sense, about which therefore one can assert nothing at all but merely hint in the preamble of an article on the church, is not what is meant by the true church. Alongside the designation " communion of saints" (icommunio sanctorum) later appeared another, " assembly of saints " (congregatio sanctorum) . This designation has become known primarily from the famous seventh article of the Augsburg Confession. Luther himself, however, also used this very expression. It makes everything still more concrete. One might think precisely of the worshiping assembly, and indeed may properly do so. Where the saints are assembled for worship, there is the church. It has become customary to speak of " marks " or signs of the church. The church is not to be found in every fanatical group, but only where God's Word is purely preached and the sacraments administered as they were instituted. T o refer to the Augustana once more, one finds two marks of the church. Apparently the meaning of this expression, " marks " of the church, is not only that a criterion is needed to discern which group is to be regarded as church and which not, but it must be said according to Isa. 55:11: where the Word is proclaimed purely and the sacraments administered according to Christ's sense, believers are also present — the Word is never without effect. One cannot fully count which persons have been reached by the Word and which remain obdurate. But it can be said with certainty and must be believed that through the working of the Word faith is created. This is good Lutheran thinking, and the expression about the two signs of the church likewise is not un-Lutheran; Luther merely did not allow himself to be forced to limit himself to the

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two signs but was able with a liberal spirit to enumerate further signs. We have clearest evidence of this in one of his few larger treatises, On the Councils and the Church, 1539. There he speaks of nine holy possessions by which the people of God is to be recognized. These are God's Word, Baptism, the Supper, the keys, the setting apart of servants of the church, the public praise of God, the cross, sanctification according to the second Table of the Law, and finally all kinds of outward, free usages. One question was brought squarely to Luther's attention by the polemic. One of the sharpest weapons against Luther and his church was the claim that the Roman Church is the old church that existed from the beginning, while Luther's church is an innovation. This is already a decisive judgment against it; it cannot therefore be the true church. Luther wrote his impassioned tract of 1541, Against Jack Sausage, in order to refute this reproach and to clarify this question. The old church is that which has the Word and the sacrament, pure and unadulterated. The medieval church does not have this, and therefore can only pretend to be the old and genuine church. In the fact that Luther's church has discovered and proclaimed afresh the pure Word of God, it has its spiritual legitimation as the original and ancient church. Moreover, a new church is an absurdity. The church exists from the beginning. Precisely for this reason can Luther's church claim for itself the predicate " church." Of course, one more problem now emerges. Was there, then, no church for a couple of centuries? Did the church of Jesus Christ cease to exist during the Middle Ages? — how long a span of time one alleges is beside the point. This would be unthinkable and above all contrary to the Biblical promises. Christ promised his church that it

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would abide and that the gates of hell would not prevail against it. Thus Luther must acknowledge that even under the pope — and we may add, in principle, in any other ecclesiastical system in which the Word and the sacraments have not entirely disappeared — there can be and always have been true believers. Luther almost shows an inclination to list by name and emphasize these genuine believers and witnesses of the truth from the ranks of the great figures of the medieval church. Well known is his special predilection for Bernard of Clairvaux and John Tauler. But most strongly Luther has in mind the simple Christians and the children. These are the true church where the church is outwardly deformed most woefully. Thereby, however, Luther's conception of the church finally acquires an ecumenical motif. The church is not limited to one " confession." A confessional church can speak for the church and represent the church only for the sake of the purity and clarity of the proclamation — if and insofar as it proclaims the Word and administers the sacraments aright. 24.

LUTHER'S DESTINY

OF

DEATH HIS

AND

THE

CHURCH

On account of his many illnesses Luther almost continually expected an early death, and at times faced death imminently. At home and during his travels in certain situations he had a premonition of impending death. Hence the thought did not escape Luther that he might die away from Wittenberg, even that he might find his grave in some strange place. His last journey to Eisleben had very personal grounds and associations. A quarrel of a very worldly character had to be settled between the Counts of Mansfeld who, along with their fathers, had been Lu-

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ther's first civil rulers. Luther undertook the task. One might almost say: he had had practice. Belligerent as he was against the enemies of the gospel, yet in many cases he alone was in a position to reconcile differences in his own camp. This had become manifest in the settlement of relations with the upper Germans. It had become very clear in disputes directly within his own camp concerning the significance of the law and the relation of law and gospel, concerning true repentance. These are referred to as the antinomian controversies, and they took place in 1527 and again in 1537 (see above, page 144); Melanchthon regularly participated in them, and on the other side a pupil of Luther, John Agricola. As it was said, however, the last quarrel in which Luther had to take a hand had nothing at all to do with questions of faith. Luther felt weak when he made the journey. Still he preached several times along the way, lastly in the St. Andrew Church in Eisleben. On the eighteenth of February, 1546, he died after a few hours of great bodily weakness, in the presence of his traveling companions. Around him were Justus Jonas, the Mansfeld court preacher Michael Coelius, John Aurifaber, Luther's sons, and their tutor, Rudtfeld. The immediate cause of death was surely not a stroke but his old heart trouble; Luther died in full possession of his senses. The widely circulated legend about Luther's suicide has been abandoned today even by the Roman Catholics. On his deathbed Luther made use of a medieval counsel to the dying. When he was asked, " Reverend father, will you remain steadfast by Christ and the doctrine you have preached? " he answered with a distinct, " Yes." Luther found his grave in the Castle Church at Wittenberg, on the door of which he had posted his celebrated

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Ninety-five Theses. When after the battle at Muhlberg in April, 1547, Charles V came to Wittenberg for the Wittenberg Capitulation, he also inspected Luther's grave and left it unopened. To this day Luther has retained his resting place where he did his work. In his church's most dangerous moment of history Luther departed from his people. In the same year Charles V overran the Smalcald forces. With this war, which extended into the next year, Charles intended to annihilate the legacy of Luther and demolish Luther's church. This church indeed did face a few dangerous and menacing years between 1548 and 1552, after the " armored " Diet of Augsburg and during the so-called Interim, which was designed to recatholicize Germany, and which conceded to the former evangelical estates until the next church council — hence " Interim " — merely clerical marriage and the cup to the laity. Traditionally recognized as savior of the Lutheran Church is a German prince of the empire who in the Smalcald War had fought on the side of the emperor and actually had helped decisively in winning the victory, Maurice of Saxony, an evangelical but no Smalcald ally. In reality he crippled the emperor by the so-called surprise attack of Innsbruck, demolishing his entire lifework. It would be shortsighted, however, to see in Maurice truly the savior of Protestantism. Luther's church endured because it was inwardly stable. It was evangelical faith that withstood the Interim. Luther's pupils, however, did not stay together, and Luther's church did not remain an unbroken unity. The person of Luther had been the clasp that was able and needed to hold together the deeply hostile factions. The history of Luther's church after the Reformer's death be-

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came a history of bitter disputes over the " pure doctrine " of the Lutheran Reformation. Finally, about thirty years after Luther's death, a tenuous unity was restored. The spirit of Luther, still influential, had the power once more to overcome the antagonisms. Many questions remained open, however, and today the question still arises from time to time: What is the true teaching of Luther and the Lutheran Church? 25. A N

ESTIMATE OF L U T H E R AND H I S

WORK

In the evaluation of Luther it has long been customary for Germans to place in the foreground his significance for the German nation or his significance for German culture. That Luther has such a significance is certain. The fact and the extent of his formative influence upon the German language have been discussed above (pages 89 f.). The fact that we use his German Bible today, even though it has had to be altered and polished from time to time, speaks for itself. There are plenty of modern German translations, and good ones. None even comes near to attaining the linguistic force and the immediacy of Luther's. What is at stake is not only the German language and the German Bible, although there is something altogether grand about the fact that in a time when there was less and less prospect of erecting and establishing a genuine central power in the empire the various German peoples had a united literary language as a living expression of their solidarity. Luther also is said to have bestowed freedom of the mind and freedom of conscience upon Germany. This assertion must be very carefully interpreted. The Reformation did not know and did not introduce freedom of conscience in the sense that the public practice of dif-

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ferent kinds of religion was possible in the same place, or even that a person might openly advocate his own world view and outlook on life if they clashed with the prevailing ecclesiastical views. At this point Luther himself was a man of his time. Not even for the church did freedom in the exposition of the Word of God develop unambiguously and speedily. It became evident that God's Word in the Bible was not as clear as Luther had thought, so that the meaning of the Bible or of a single passage was obvious to every man of good intentions. Luther called this the " external clarity " of the Biblical word. The various evangelical confessions, sects, and theologies came into existence through their differing interpretations of the Word. But in a church, especially in Luther's church, it was for a long time legally fixed what was to be believed and taught, and the circle of questions in which freedom of opinion and discussion was permissible was clearly and closely drawn. And yet, never again was that which is to be believed decreed in such a measure as in the church before Luther. The right to search the Scriptures freely and in general to think and form opinions freely came to prevail nonetheless. Freedom of the spirit, the costly gift of recent centuries, was not indeed won by Luther but it was made possible by him. Much more could be said about the significance of Luther for the German nation and German culture and about his general significance for civilization and cultural life. Actually, even with all that could yet be discussed, Luther still would not be properly appraised. On the contrary, Luther would then be placed in a very distorted light. Luther is understood when first of all his significance for the church is brought into sharp focus. Everything else is peripheral. It is necessary and wholesome to say this to-

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day. Germany was not won directly by Luther nor was it at any later time completely won for Luther's church. T h e confessional split since the Reformation has run right through Germany, and from the standpoint of Germany's interest this, of course, is a calamity. In any case, therefore, one would also have to speak of the limits of Luther's significance for the German nation and perhaps even of his negative significance. On the other hand, Luther's church today is spread far beyond Germany. There are Lutheran churches everywhere, indeed, on other continents, whose inner strength is greater than that of the old German Lutheran churches. Even though they may be of German origin, they are to a great extent no longer German. They simply indicate that Luther is significant for Christianity in general. Luther's unique significance for Christianity lies first of all in his sharpening of a man's conscience in regard to truth. This is the true meaning of the well-known and currently somewhat controversial saying, that Luther's religion was " conscience religion." What does that mean? Luther taught the individual simply to let the truth prevail in all his believing, his convictions, his actions, his entire life. He charged the church with the same responsibility. It is the truth that we must confess; for it we are commanded to contend; for the truth's sake we must die if necessary, and for the truth's sake a church must be prepared to perish. What is truth? Truth is the great objective reality of God. For Luther, however, it pertains to the truth that it becomes certain to me. Luther was far from sending each individual on his own way and letting him without warning and counsel shut himself up within his own fantasies. He received the truth gratefully as a gift of grace that had

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been bestowed upon his church as a community. But unless we are personally grasped by the truth there is no truth for us. And if Luther had done no more than demonstrate in his own person the extreme case where one must stand alone for the truth, he would nevertheless have impressed this fact deeply upon the consciousness of all men who have experienced and understood his struggle, that truth as personal conviction becomes reality. And if truth is recognized, then only truth is valid — not expediency, not the possibility of becoming rich and happy by some other means than that of the confession of truth, not the ideal of an all-domineering and maternal church for whose unity one would be required under certain circumstances to sacrifice the truth or a part of it, but the truth alone and obedience to it. The acceptance of this principle brought the churches that related themselves to Luther into grave perils. The confessional antagonism within the evangelical world has its ultimate ground in the conscience concerning the truth, sharpened by Luther. Is there such a thing as an oversharpened conscience concerning the truth, which can turn into orthodox bigotry? Is there a fanaticism for the truth that denies love? It would not be good a priori and without very exact testing to place a stamp of approval upon all of Luther's decisions, for example, in the controversy with the Swiss. That Luther on account of his sensitive conscience for the truth could become very harsh against all his opponents, and did become so harsh in the last analysis for that Teason only, obliges us to take his harshness with utter seriousness, but cannot mean that he was infallible in his concrete decisions, let alone that all such decisions should be accepted uncritically in the future history of Luther's churchl What is actually binding and obligatory

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is Luther's categorical conscience in regard to the truth. All of Luther's intention and action can be summarized in another way, that he was willing to recognize as the source of truth the Holy Scriptures alone. To be sure, this is a very abrupt and not altogether proper abridgment of the actual state of affairs. Luther knew himself bound to the Word of God, and this furnished the norm of his conscience in regard to the truth. Luther never carried through a mechanical identification between God's Word and the letters of Scripture. In a manner that his theological descendants soon found extravagant he could exalt certain books of the Holy Scriptures, for example, those of Paul, John, and Peter, far above others, such as the " strawy epistle" of James. Even in the early days of Lutheran orthodoxy the distinction was still made among " canonical Scriptures," " antilegomena " (books of disputed status), and " apocrypha " (uncanonical books) in the New Testament. Not that Luther wished to riddle the canon with criticism, much less to overthrow it! But the Holy Scriptures are the vessel of the Word of God, not less and not more, and the fact that the various parts are transparent for the living Word of God in various ways does not alter the fact that the entire Holy Scriptures are valid. The Word of God is in its original significance a living, oral proclamation, and even today the living Word must ever again come alive out of the Scriptures and go into action. Many of Luther's theological descendants were utterly unable to follow him here, and made out of his theology of the Word of God a theology of the letter of the Bible. Luther's own manner of interpreting the Bible raises questions for us and even produces difficulties occasionally. So much has happened in Scriptural research since Luther that it is out of the question simply to take our point of de-

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parture from Luther's interpretation. Our problems, posed for us by Scriptural research, we must solve ourselves. This does not mean that we cannot learn from Luther in many respects. Above all, the task that we have is in principle the same that Luther had. It is for us to listen to the Holy Scriptures in order to hear the living Word of God. In this situation after a long history of philosophical and historical research on the Scriptures we have surely a more difficult task than Luther. So much the more urgent then is it not to allow the task that Luther set for us to vanish from our sight, but to exert ourselves forthrightly to go through with it. While basing all truth on the Word of God, Luther bound the truth to the Bible, to an objective entity; and the sacrament, which is closely related to the Word of God, is also an objective datum. Luther regarded Word of God and sacrament as the church's means of grace, even if he may not have formulated that expression. Luther established all of Christendom upon the objective means of grace. T h i s must not be interpreted as if Word and sacrament were not ordained for a living faith and as if they produced their salutary effect anywhere else than in the believer. Luther's whole sense of Christendom is so firmly based upon living, immediate faith that such a misunderstanding ought never arise. But faith lives from the proclaimed Word and from the signs that God himself has bound to the Word. This is why it was necessary to deal with Luther's struggle with the fanatics. Schwärmer — " fanatics " — is a rather unfortunate name to embrace all possible " spirits," Müntzer and his followers, Karlstadt and his pupils, the Swiss Baptist circles, the so-called Spiritualists, et al. One can continue and include Paracelsus and Agrippa of Nettesheim. In the prevailing representa-

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tions these people appear as the stepchildren, and frequently the badly mistreated stepchildren, of the Reformation. Indeed, so they were. But the attacks and atrocities committed against the Baptists, and the grotesque forms in which the Baptist movement manifested itself, such as the Kingdom of Zion in the town of Minister, which helped to provoke the cruelties and atrocities, only too easily hide the actually enormous importance of the Baptist and " fanatical " movements in the history of thought. The faith of the fanatics comes out of the inmost ground of the " immediate life " or life in God or life in Christ. Their religion is a religion of the pious consciousness. They feel themselves quite immediately related to God or to Christ, and hence Christ is a name for the presence of God. Their faith is bound neither to a sacred history nor to a written word and sacramental signs, but it is immediate. From a historical standpoint the fanatical circles are connected with medieval mysticism, and again the mysticism of the modem era inherits the thought patterns of the fanatics. Luther's reformation stands in basic opposition to that of the fanatical spirits. Luther's faith is faith in the revelation of God in history and in the Word and in the visible sign. From the standpoint of the history of thought Luther is closer to the Middle Ages than to the modern era, however much he overcame the Middle Ages. He does not really prepare for the modern age, still less does he already embody it in himself, but he breaks through nascent modernity with the ancient and eternal divine truth, with his faith in the historical and Biblical revelation. Apparently there is hardly a figure in Christian thought and life whose thinking and believing are not oriented to Jesus Christ. To be a Christian is always to confess Christ.

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Yet one confession of Christ may stand worlds apart from another. If one ultimately says, as one must, that Luther's deepest concern was Jesus Christ alone and his righteousness, one must clarify how one means this, that is, what Christ was for Luther and how Luther confessed his Lord Christ. Luther made extensive use of an expression that is not easy for us to understand: extra nos — " outside us." By this Luther means that Christ is he who outside us has suffered for us, in the sense that this suffering and the redemption effected by the suffering have taken place without any cooperation on our part. It is not we who had to suffer for our sins, nor have we presented any suffering to atone for our sins, but he suffered in loneliness on the cross in order that we might have peace and joy. The righteousness of Jesus Christ is a righteousness which he displays before God, and we become righteous because God for Christ's sake regards us as righteous. The great work of divine mercy has been accomplished outside us in Christ. The mercy of God is event, and not automatically experience. The extra nos, the " outside us," becomes a pro nobis, a " for us." " All this he did to show his grace to our poor and sinful race," says a Christmas hymn of Luther. One influential party in the field of Luther research today lays extreme emphasis on the extra nos, to which of course the pro nobis belongs; but only in a very cautious fashion and with due care not to confuse this with what belongs to us dare the latter element properly be confessed. T o Luther's real faith in Christ, however, belongs also the other side: This Christ, who has accomplished his work of mercy upon us " outside us," becomes altogether ours, our brother, our possession, our salvation. Christ is also a Christ in nobis, in us. This is the meaning of Luther's Eucharist doctrine which is so difficult for many to under-

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stand today. That Luther so obstinately insisted upon the words of institution, " This is my body," especially at Marburg, came about only because he wished to confess and had to confess that Christ gives himself entirely to his followers in the Lord's Supper. The same Christ who in loneliness died a saving death for us on Golgotha in a time that is different from ours, comes near to us, makes his time our time, becomes contemporary with us and binds himself inwardly with us. In this sense Luther's faith is a faith in Christ, and Luther's confession a confession of Christ. In this sense we find the real Luther in a word that stands in one of his sermons: " Nothing can help but Christ alone." The story of Luther's life might be expanded in many a detail. Beyond what has just been said, however, there is nothing to add to the theme, " Luther."

Selected Bibliography in English LUTHER'S

WORKS

Luther's Works, American Edition, Pelikan, Jaroslav, and Lehmann, Helmut T., editors. T o be completed in 55 vols. Concordia Publishing House and Muhlenberg Press, 1955-. (Cited in index as LW.) Works of Martin Luther, Philadelphia Edition, Jacobs, Henry E., editor. 6 vols. Muhlenberg Press, 1915-1932. (Cited as PE.) The Reformation Writings of Martin Luther, Woolf, Bertram Lee, editor. 2 vols. Lutterworth Press, London, 1952-1956. Chiefly early writings. The Precious and Sacred Writings of Martin Luther, Lenker, J . N., editor. 13 vols. The Luther Press, 1903-1909. Chiefly sermons and commentaries. The Library of Christian Classics series, Baillie, John; McNeill, John T . ; and Van Dusen, Henry P., editors. The Westminster Press, Philadelphia, and S.C.M. Press, Ltd., London. Volumes on Luther: Luther: Letters of Spiritual Counsel, Vol. XVIII, Tappert, Theodore G., editor. 1955. Luther: Lectures on Romans, XV, Pauck, Wilhelm, editor. 1961. Luther: Early Theological Works, Vol. XVI, Atkinson, James, editor. 1962. (An additional volume, Luther and Erasmus on Free Will, is in preparation.) Luther's Correspondence, Smith, Preserved, and Jacobs, Charles M., editors. 2 vols. Muhlenberg Press, 1913-1918. Letters, to 1530. Catechisms and Smalcald Articles in The Book of Concord, 167

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Tappert, Theodore G., editor. Muhlenberg Press, 1959. Bondage of the Will, Packer, J. I., and Johnston, O. R., editors. Fleming H. Revell Company, U.S.A., and James Clarke & Company, Ltd., London, 1957. A Commentary on St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, Watson, Philip S., editor. Fleming H. Revell Company, U.S.A., and James Clarke 8c Company, Ltd., London, 1953. Sixteenthcentury translation retouched. Conversations with Luther, Smith, Preserved, and Gallinger, Herbert P., editors. The Pilgrim Press, 1915. Selections from the table talk. The Table-Talk of Martin Luther, Hazlitt, William, editor. London, 1848. An older selection. Three Treatises. Muhlenberg Press, 1960. Paperback issue of " Address to the Nobility," " Babylonian Captivity," and " Freedom of a Christian Man." The " Reformation Manifestoes " of 1520. EXCERPTS AND OTHER

FROM LUTHER'S CONTEMPORARY

WORKS WRITINGS

Bainton, Roland H., translator and arranger, Luther's Meditations on the Gospels. The Westminster Press, 1962. Selections from Luther's sermons, telling the life of Christ. , translator and arranger, The Martin Luther Christmas Book. The Westminster Press, 1948. Paraphrase of the Christmas story. , editor, The Age of the Reformation. D. Van Nostrand Company, Inc., 1956. Brief paperback (Anvil Book), with useful essay and excellent selections. Fosdick, Harry Emerson, editor, Great Voices of the Reformation. Modern Library, Inc., 1952. Wide selection. Hyma, Albert, Luther's Theological Development from Erfurt to Augsburg. F. S. Crofts & Co., 1928. Jacobs, Henry Eyster, editor, The Book of Concord, 2 vols. Muhlenberg Press, 1882-1883. Vol. I I contains a wealth of related documents. Kidd, Beresford James, Documents Illustrative of the Continental Reformation. Oxford University Press, 1911. A

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY IN ENGLISH

169

rich collection, but only partially translated. Manschreck, Clyde, Prayers of the Reformers. Muhlenberg Press, 1958. Plass, Ewald M., What Luther Says, 3 vols. Concordia Publishing House, 1959. Five thousand excerpts, topically arranged and indexed. Hagiographical interpretation. Reu, J. M., Appendix of Luther's German Bible. Lutheran Book Concern, 1934. Lengthy excerpts from Luther's early works. , editor and translator, The Augsburg Confession. Wartburg Publishing House, 1930. Contains an excellent collection of documents, historical and theological, Roman Catholic and Protestant. Schaff, Philip, Creeds of Christendom, 3 vols. Harper 8c Brothers, 1877. Recently reprinted in Grand Rapids. Vol. 2 contains Orthodox and Roman confessions, Vol. 3, Evangelical confessions. Steiner, Margaret, and Scott, Percy, compilers and translators, Day by Day We Magnify Thee. Muhlenberg Press, 1950. Selected devotional thoughts. GENERAL INTERPRETATIONS OF THE REFORMATION Bainton, Roland H., The Reformation of the 16th Century. T h e Beacon Press, Inc., 1952. Mayflower Books, Ltd., London. Brief, readable, but also scholarly. Grimm, Harold J., The Reformation Era, 1500-1650. T h e Macmillan Company, New York, 1954. Detailed, scholarly. Hughes, Philip, A Popular History of the Reformation. Doubleday 8c Co., Inc., New York, and Hollis 8c Carter, Ltd., London, 1957. A Roman Catholic interpretation. Smith, Preserved, The Age of the Reformation. Henry Holt 8c Company, 1920. Jonathan Cape, Ltd., London. A standard. LUTHER BIOGRAPHIES Bainton, Roland H., Here I Stand. Abingdon Press (Apex Book), 1950. Hodder Sc Stoughton, Ltd., London; paperback ed., Frederick Muller, Ltd. Scholarly and very readable.

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Boehmer, Heinrich, Road to Reformation: Martin Luther to the Year 1521. Muhlenberg Press, 1946. Translation of an older, standard German work on the young Luther. Clayton, J., Luther and His Work. Bruce Publishing Company, 1937. A mild Roman Catholic interpretation. Erikson, Erik, Young Man Luther. W. W. Norton 8c Company, Inc., 1958. Faber & Faber, Ltd., London. A psychiatric interpretation. Fife, R. H., The Revolt of Martin Luther. Columbia University Press, 1957. Oxford University Press, London. A comprehensive, dispassionate study of Luther to 1521. Grisar, H., Martin Luther. Herder Book Company, 1930. Still widely used, disparaging interpretation by an older German Jesuit. A condensation of a much larger work. Jacobs, Henry Eyster, Martin Luther. New York, 1902. A competent, conservative biography. Kooiman, Willem Jan, By Faith Alone. Lutterworth Press, London, 1954. A popular interpretation by a competent Dutch scholar. Kostlin, Julius Theodor, Life of Luther. London, 1898. An old standard, by a German specialist. Mackinnon, James, Luther and the Reformation, 4 vols. Longmans, Green & Co., Ltd., London, 1925-1930. Detailed biography from a liberal Protestant viewpoint; wooden in style. Rupp, E. Gordon, Luther's Progress to the Diet of Worms, 1521. S.C.M. Press, Ltd., London, and Wilcox & Follett (Cloister Press Book), 1951. A brief masterpiece on Luther's development. Schwiebert, E. G., Luther and His Times. Concordia Publishing House, 1950. Encyclopedic. Conservative interpretation. Smith, Preserved, Life and Letters of Martin Luther. Houghton Mifflin Company, 1911. A liberal standard, especially valuable for its many letters. Thiel, Rudolf, Luther. Muhlenberg Press, 1955. By a German layman; readable but over-Germanized.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY IN ENGLISH

SPECIAL

171

STUDIES

Bornkamm, Heinrich, Luther's World of Thought. Concordia Publishing House, 1958. Translation of a well-knit collection of essays by the great German Luther scholar. Carlson, Edgar M., The Reinterpretation of Luther. T h e Westminster Press, 1948. Contributions of Swedish Luther research. Cranz, Ferdinand Edward, An Essay on the Development of Luther's Thought on Justice, Law and Society. Harvard University Press, 1959. Luther's social ethic and its theological roots; includes summaries of relevant writings. Dillenberger, John, God Hidden and Revealed. Muhlenberg Press, 1953. , reviews of recent literature on Luther in Church History, Vol. XXV, 1956, and Vol. X X X , 1961. Forell, George W., Faith Active in Love. The American Press, 1954. An introduction to Luther's social ethic. Holl, Karl, The Cultural Significance of the Reformation. T h e World Publishing Company (Meridian Books), 1959. A masterful essay by the " father " of the modern Luther Renaissance. Paperback. Lazareth, William Henry, Luther on the Christian Home. Muhlenberg Press, 1960. Nettl, Paul, Luther and Music. Muhlenberg Press, 1948. Nygren, Anders, editor, This Is the Church. Muhlenberg Press, 1952. A Swedish symposium, with several valuable chapters for Luther study. Pauck, Wilhelm, The Heritage of the Reformation. Free Press of Glencoe, Inc., 1961 (a new edition). Contains several masterful chapters on Luther. Pelikan, Jaroslav, From Luther to Kierkegaard. Concordia Publishing House, 1950. A history of philosophical thinking within Lutheranism. , Luther the Expositor. Concordia Publishing House, 1959. Best on Luther's approach to Scripture, with a case study of his interpretation of the Lord's Supper.

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Plass, Ewald M., This Is Luther. Concordia Publishing House, 1948. A strenuous apologetic. Prenter, Regin, Spiritus Creator. Muhlenberg Press, 1953. Luther's doctrine of the Holy Spirit, in a broad context. Reu, J. M., Luther's German Bible. Lutheran Book Concern, 1934. A learned piece of research. , Dr. Martin Luther's Small Catechism. Wartburg Publishing House, 1929. An excellent historical study by the authority on this topic. Rupp, E. Gordon, The Righteousness of God. Hodder & Stoughton, Ltd., London, 1953. Excellent on the early Luther and on several areas of his thought. Saarnivaara, Uuras, Luther Discovers the Gospel. Concordia Publishing House, 1951. Interprets Luther's " tower experience " in terms of the Orthodox distinction between justification and sanctification. Sasse, Hermann, This Is My Body. Augsburg Publishing House, 1959. The Lord's Supper controversy with Zwingli. Vajta, Vilmos, editor, Luther and Melanchthon. Muhlenberg Press, 1961. Papers of the 1960 International Luther Congress, including a few important studies in English. , Luther on Worship. Muhlenberg Press, 1958. A theological study. Watson, Philip S. Let God Be God! The Epworth Press, London, and Muhlenberg Press, 1948. Best introduction to Luther's theology in English. Wingren, Gustav, Luther on Vocation. Muhlenberg Press, 1957. British ed.: The Christian's Calling. Oliver & Boyd, Ltd., London. Zeeden, Ernst W., Legacy of Luther. The Newman Press, 1954. Astute study by a German Roman Catholic on Luther's influence through the ages.

Index Agrícola, John, 156 Agrippa of Nettesheim, 163 Albert of Brandenburg, Archbishop, 25, 72, 73, 91 Albert of Brandenburg, Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, 127f. Aleander, Jerome, 86 Alexander of Hales, 45 Alexander of Villedieu, 36 Alveld, Augustine von, 80 Anabaptists. See Baptists Antichrist, 49, 105, 151 Antinomian controversies, 144, 156 Aristotle, 45 Augsburg Confession, 134 ff. Augsburg Diets: of 1518, 30, 76; of 1530, 134 ff.; of 1547-48, 157 Augustine, 30, 56 ff., 62ff. Augustinian Order, 29 ff., 39, 42, 47 Aurifaber, John, 10, 156

Cadan, Peace of, 146 Cajetan, Thomas, 30, 76 Calvin, John, 26 Cambrai, Peace of, 135 Charles V, 17, 18, 19, 20, 75, 87, 88, 125, 126, 133, 135, 149, 157 Chorale, 101 f. Clement VII, 125, 149 Coburg, 134f. Cochlaeus, John, 11 Coelius, Michael, 156 Colloquies, religious, 151 Confutation, Roman, 135 (Jacobs, Concord, II, 209ff.; Reu, Augsburg Confession, *348ff.) Consistories, church, 130 Conventuals, 28 Cordatus, Conrad, 10 Council, church, 81, 148 Curia, papal, 21 f. Cyprian, Ernst Salomo, 14

Bainton, Roland, 15 Baptists, Anabaptists, 116, 123, 145, 164 Barcelona, Peace of, 135 Bernard of Clairvaux, 155 Biel, Gabriel, 30, 41, 44 Billican, Theobald, 94 Blaurer, Ambrose, 147 Böhm, Hans, 113 Bornkamm, Heinrich, 16 Brentz, John, 94, 125, 147 Brethren of the Common Life, 37 Brück, Gregory, 134 Bucer, Martin, 22, 94,125,132,146, 147 Buchwald, Georg, 14 Bundschuh, 113 Burckhardt, Jacob, 28 Burning of the papal bull, 79

d'Ailly, Peter, 44 Deutelmoser, Arno, 13 Devotio Moderna, 37. Set "Modern Devotion " Doctrines Baptism, 98, 100, 116 Christ, 105, 164ff. Church, 80ff., 151 ff. free will, 86, 107 f. freedom of conscience, right of resistance, 158f. justification, 57 ff., 81 ff., 86, 150 f., 165 Lord's Supper, 97, 99 f., 122 ff., 165 f. obedience to civil authorities, 109 ff. predestination, 56 f., 108 repentance, 70 ff., 79

INDEX

174 sacraments, 79 f., 82, 85 Scripture, 87, 162 f. sin, 82 Word of God, 84, 159, 162 f. Donatus, 36 Duns Scotus, 41, 45 Ebeling, Gerhard, 16 Eck, John, 76, 79, 86, 133 Emser, Jerome, 25 Enlightenment, 13, 82, 99 Eoban of Hesse, 25, 104 Erasmus, Desiderius, 23, 24 Ernst of Lüneburg, 127 Estates of the Empire, 19 ff. Excommunication, ban, 73, 76 f., 80, 86, 152 Exsurgt Domine, 11 Fanatics (Schwärmer), 95 f., 113 ff., 115, 122 ff., 148, 153, 163 Ferdinand I of Austria, 17, 20, 146 Francis I of France, 19, 21, 75 f., 125, 148 f. Frederick the Wise, of Saxony, 25, 50, 76, 84, 86, 88, 93, 104, 110, 128

Fugger banking house, 72 George III of Anhalt, 129, 140 George the Bearded, of Saxony, 25, 80, 81, 111, 128, 140 Gerson, John, 59 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 139 " Grievances of the German Nation," 2 1 , 81

Günther, Francis, 69 Hausmann, Nicholas, 128 Hecker, Gerhard, 47 Hegius, Alexander, 37 Heidelberg Disputation, 82 Henry of Brunswick, 143 Henry V I I I of England, 80 Hoen (Honius), Cornelius, 123 Holl, Karl, 57 Humanism, 23 ff., 32, 102 ff.

Hungary, 17 Hus, John, 79 Hussitism, 80, 114 Hutten, Ulrich von, 25 Idealism, German, 13 Indulgence, 68 ff., 77 f. Interim, Augsburg, 157 Italian Wars, 17 Janssen, Johannes, 27 f. Jenser von Paltz, 91 John the Steadfast, of Saxony, 128 Jonas, Justus, 104 Kappel, Batde of, 122 Kappel, Peace of, 146 Karlstadt, Andrew Bodenstein of, 51, 92, 95, 106, 109, 122 f., 163 Katherine von Bora, 120 Laasphe, John von, 43 Lambert, Francis, of Avignon, 131 Lauterbach, Anton, 10 Leipzig Disputation, 76 Leo X , 74 Lortz, Joseph, 28 Löscher, Valentin Ernst, 14 Luther, Martin, biographies, lOf. family and parents, 3 ff. health, 40 f., 138 ff., 147, 155 marriage and home life, 139 f. portrayal, 9ff. spiritual assaults ( A n f e c h t u n g e n ) , 14, 53 ff., 59, 140 works, editions of Luther's, 14 f. writings (for full identification of sources abbreviated below, see the Selected Bibliography, pp. 167 ff.) Admonition to Peace: A Reply to the Twelve Articles of the Peasants in Swabia, 118 (PE 4, 219 ff.) Against the Heavenly Prophets in the Matter of Images and the Sacrament, 124 {LW 40, 79 ff.)

INDEX Against Jack Sausage, 140, 143, 154 Against the Papacy at Rome, Founded by the Devil, 140 Against the Robbing and Murdering Hordes of Peasants, 120 (PE 4, 248 ff.) To Archbishop Albert, 91 Asterisks and Obelisks, 74 Autobiography (Preface to t h e Collected Latin Works), 10, 58 (LW 34, 327 ff.) The Babylonian Captivity of the Church, 80 (LW 36, 11 ff.) Baptism Booklet, 98 (PE 6, 197ff., 207 ff.) On the Blessed Sacrament of the Holy Body of Christ and on the Brotherhoods, 152 (LW 35, 49 ff.) Bondage of the Will, 58, 107 (Packer-Johnston) To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation, 80, 105 (PE 2, 61 ff.) Church Postil, 91 (several vols, in Lenker) Confession Concerning the Supper, 124 (LW 11, 161 ff.) correspondence, 134, 143 (Smith-Jacobs; Tappert, Luther: Letters; Smith, Life and Letters) To the Councilmen of All Cities in Germany that They Establish and Maintain Christian Schools, 106 (PE 4, 135 ff.) On the Councils and the Church, 143, 154 (PE 5, 131 ff.) Explanations of the Disputation on the Value of Indulgences (Resolutiones), 74 (LW 31, 83ff.) Exposition of (several chapters o f ) John, 143 (LW 22-24) Exposition of the " Magnificat," 91 (LW 21, 297ff.) Exposition of the 118th Psalm (the

175 beautiful Confitemini), 135 (LW 14, 43 ff.) Exposition of the Sermon on the Mount, 143 (LW 21, 3ff.) Form of Mass and Communion (Formula missae et communioms), 98 (PE 6, 83 ff.) The Freedom of a Christian Man (Treatise on Christian Liberty), 83 (LW 31, 333ff.) German Bible, 11, 89 ff. German Mass (Deutsche Messe), 98f., 100 (PEG, 170ff.) German New Testament, 89 Heidelberg Disputation, 82 (LW 31, 39 ff.) On the Holy and Blessed Sacrament of Baptism, 152 (LW 35, 29 ff.) hymns " A l l Praise to Jesus' H a l lowed N a m e , " 165 (Plass, What Luther Says, I, 155 f.) " A Mighty Fortress Is O u r G o d , " 101 f. (Plass, I I I , 1201) " D e a r Christians, O n e a n d All, Rejoice," 55 (Plass, I I , 719) Large Catechism, 132 (Tappert, Concord, 358 ff.) lectures, 9, 142. See also expositions early lectures, 15, 51 f., 60 Galatians lectures, 1516, 52 Galatians lectures, 1531, 142 (Watson) Genesis lectures, 9, 40, 142 (LW 1 - 8 ; 2 vols. publ. thus far) Hebrews lectures, 52, 67 Isaiah lectures, 142 J o n a h lectures, 142 Psalms lectures, 1513-1515 (Dictata), 15, 51 f., 60, 66 Psalms lectures, 1519-1521 (Operationes), 66 (Lenker)

176 Romans lectures, 15, 52, 64 f. (Pauck, Lectures) Zechariah lectures, 142 Letter to the Christians at Strassburg, 124 (LW AO, 65 ff.) Marriage Booklet, 98 (PE 6, 225 ff.) Meditation on the Holy Passion of Christ, 152 On Monastic Vows, 29, 91, 109 95 Theses on Indulgences, 69 ff., 78, 157 {LW 31, 25 ff.) 97 Theses Against Scholastic Theology, 68 f. (LW 31, 9ff.) Open Letter Concerning the Hard Book Against the Peasants, 120 (PE 4, 259 ff.) On the Papacy at Rome, Against the Celebrated Romanist at Leipzig, 80 (PE 1, 337 ff.) Preface to " A German Theology," 60 (LW 31, 75 f., 1518 ed.) Preface to "Instructions for the Visitors," 131 (LW40, 269 ff.) On Preparation for Death, 152 Schwabach Articles, 133 f. (Jacobs, Concord, I I , 69 ff.; Reu, Augsburg Confession, 40 ff.) On Secular Authority, to What Extent It Should Be Obeyed, 111 (PE 3, 228 ff.) Sermons, 9, 141 f. See also expositions. Invocavit Sermons (eight Wittenberg sermons), 96, 109 (LW 51, 70ff.) Smalcald Articles, 136, 150 f. (Tappert, Concord, 288 ff.) Small Catechism, 132 (Tappert, Concord, 288 ff.) Table Talk, 10 (Smith-Gallinger; Hazlitt) That These Words, " This Is My Body," Still Stand Firm Against the Fanatics, 124 (LW 37, 13 ff.) Treatise on the Ban, 152 (PE 2, 37 ff.)

INDEX Treatise on Good Works, 83 (PE 1, 184 ff.) Treatise on Indulgence and Grace, 74 War Against the Turk, 121 (PE 5, 79 ff.) Luther, Paul, 49 Luther Renaissance, 14f. Luther research, 12ff. Magdeburg, 37 Mansfeld, 35 Mansfeld, Counts of, 155 f. M a r b u r g Articles, 133 (Jacobs, Concord, I I , 69 ff.; Reu, Augsburg Confession, *44ff.) M a r b u r g Colloquy, 125 f., 147, 166 (Sasse, This Is My Body, 223 ff.) Margaret of Austria, 18 M a r y of Burgundy, 18 Mass, 150 Mathesius, J o h n , 10 Maurice of Saxony, 157 Maximilian I, 18, 75 Medieval church, 27 ff. Meissinger, Karl August, 53 Melanchthon, Philip, 9, 11, 22, 26, 3 8 , 1 0 3 , 1 2 2 , 1 2 6 , 1 3 1 , 134, 135, 138, 142, 144, 146 Miltitz, Charles von, 76 " M o d e r n Devotion," 37 Monasticism, 28 f., 102 Mühlberg, Battle of, 157 Müntzer, Thomas, 11, 92, 95, 108 f., 110, 112, 115 ff, 123, 163 Mutianus Rufus (Conrad M u t ) , 25 Mysticism, 37, 60 f. Neoplatonism, 62 New High German, 90 Nominalism, 31, 44 f. Nygren, Gotthard, 63 Observants, 28ff., 47 f. Occam, William of, 30, 41 Occamism, 30, 41 f., 56, 62 f., 64 Oecolampadius, J o h n , 122, 125, 126 Oldecop, J o h n , 49

177

INDEX Pack (Otto von) affair, 102 Pamphlet literature, 95 Papacy, 21, 77 f., 79, 81, 85, 151 Paracelsus, 163 Paul, St., 64 Paul I I I , 149 Peasants' War, 113ff. Peter Lombard, 44 Peutinger family, 25 Philip of Hesse, 22, 125, 127, 141 Philip the Fair, son of Maximilian, 18 Pietism, 12, 99 Pirckheimer family, 25, 104 Pius II, 148 Pölich, Valentine, of Melierstadt, 51 Preachers, pastors, 31, 94 ff., 115, 119, 129, 132 Prierias, Silvester, 75 Protestation of 1529, 133 Prussia, 128 Ratzeberger, Matthew, 11 Reiter, Paul, 40 Renaissance, 23ff., 28 Reuchlin, John, 25, 103 Rubeanus, Crotus, 25, 104 Rudtfeld, Ambrose, 156 Schlaginhaufen, John, 10 Schnepf, Erhard, 94, 147 Scholasticism, 30, 32, 68 Schultz, Jerome, 73 Schumann, Valentine, 26 Schwenckfeld, Caspar, 123 Scotism, 30 Sickingen, Franz von, 86 Sixtus IV, 71 Smalcald League, 157 Smalcald War, 21 Social revolution, 20 Spalatin, George, 104 Spangenberg, Cyriacus, 10 Speyer, Diet at, 127 Staupitz, J o h n von, 46 f., 48 ff., 59 f. Stephan, Horst, 13 Strabo, Walahfrid, 44

Strassburg, 146 Strauss, Jacob, preacher in Eisenach, 95, 128 Sturm, Caspar, 84 Suleiman II, 17 Swiss Reformation, 122 ff., 133, 145 ff. Tauler, John, 61, 155 Territorial powers, 19 Tetrapolitan (Four Cities') Confession, 134 145 (Jacobs, Concord, I I , 180ff.) Tetzel, John, 69, 72, 74 Teutonic Order, 127 Thomas ä Kempis, 37 Thomas Aquinas, 30, 41, 45 Thomism, 30 Torgau Articles, 134 (Jacobs, Concord, I I , 75 ff.; Reu, Augsburg Confession, *79ff.) "Tower Experience," 53 Towns, cities, 20, 24, 34 f., 121, 126, 128 ff., 133, 145 Troeltsch, Ernst, 32 Tropological exegesis, 61 Trutvetter, Jodocus, 39 Turks, 17 f., 121 Tyler, Wat, 114 Ulrich of Württemberg, 146 Usingen, Bartholomew of, 39 Vergerio, Peter Paul, 149 Visitation, church, 128f. Walther, John, 101 Wartburg, 88 ff, 115 Weijenborg, Reinold, 39, 49 Weiss, Michael, 101 Wimpina (Conrad Koch), 74 Wittenberg, 50 f. Wittenberg Concord, 122, 147 (Jacobs, Concord, I I , 254 ff.; Tappert, Concord, 571 f.) Wolf, Ernst, 15 Wolfgang of Anhalt, 127

178 Worms, Diet at, 84 ff. Worms, Edict of, 83, 87 f., 93, 111, 126, 148 Worship, 94 ff. Württemberg Confession, 147 Wycliffe, John, 114

INDEX Zeeden, Ernst Walter, 13 Ziegenhain Order, 132 Zwilling, Gabriel, 92, 108 f. Zwingli, Ulrich, 22, 26, 95, 122, 124 f., 126; Reckoning of Faith, 134 (Jacobs, Concord, II, 159 ff.)