This sentence has repeatedly been taken as a testimony against himself on Luther’s part, as though by it he had intended to say: My new opinions and the desire to change the ecclesiastical order of things were the cause of my coming forward, the Indulgence was only an idle pretext. Luther’s defenders, on the other hand, took it to mean: “The child has, it is true, another father, viz. God Himself Who took pity on His Church, and forced Luther to come forward.” Both interpretations are wrong, and the following is the meaning as determined by the context: The attack which Luther made upon Tetzel was really directed against the authorities of the Church, against the Pope and Archbishop Albert of Brandenburg; these, not Tetzel, were the “father of the child,” and responsible for what afterwards happened.[898]
Tetzel died August 11, 1519, broken down by the weight of the accusations brought against him and by the sight of the mischief which had been wrought, and was buried before the High Altar of the Dominican Church at Leipzig.
To describe the unfortunate monk as the “cause” of the whole movement which began 1517 is, in view of what has been stated in the preceding chapters, the merest legend. Notwithstanding the efforts which Luther made to represent the matter in this or a similar light, it has been clearly[899] proved that his own spiritual development was the “cause,” or at least the principal cause, though other factors may have co-operated more or less.
If we turn our attention to the external circumstances and the reasons which led to Tetzel’s Indulgence-preaching, we shall find that recent research has brought to light numerous facts to supplement those already known, and also various elements which dispose of the legends hitherto current.
The scholarly, well-documented work of Aloysius Schulte has thrown a clearer light upon the question of the St. Peter’s Indulgence and the part which the Archbishop of Mayence and Magdeburg played in the same (cp. above, p. 327).[900]
In his later days Luther spread the following version of the origin of Tetzel’s Indulgence-preaching: Albert of Mayence selected the “great clamourer” Tetzel as preacher of the Indulgence in order, with one half of the proceeds of the business, which was the part of the spoils to be allotted to the Archbishop, to pay for the pallium which Rome had sent him; the cost of the pallium was said to have amounted to 26,000 or even 30,000 gulden; the Fuggers advanced this money to Archbishop Albert and then he, with Tetzel, “sent forth the Fugger cut-purses throughout the land.” “The Pope, too, had his finger in the pie, and had seen that the [other] half went towards the building of St. Peter’s in Rome.”[901]
At a later date some of the Protestants even averred that Tetzel “collected in the first and only year [of his preaching] one hundred thousand gulden.”
In the above statements there is a mixture of truth and falsehood. Various particulars, discreditable to both Rome and Mayence, had reached Luther by a sure hand; for others he drew on his own imagination.[902]
As early as 1519 he says in his memoranda for the negotiations with Miltitz: “The Pope, as his office required, should either have forbidden and hindered the Bishop of Magdeburg [Albert] from seeking so many bishoprics for himself, or have bestowed them upon him freely as he had himself received them from the Lord. But as the Pope encouraged the Bishop’s ambition and gratified his own greed for gold by taking so many thousand gulden for the palliums, i.e. for the Bishops’ mantles, and for the dispensation, he had, I said [this is Luther], forced and instigated the Bishop of Magdeburg to coin money out of the Indulgence.... Then I became impatient with such a lamentable business, and also, more especially, with the greed of the Florentines, who persuaded the good, simple Pope to do as they wished, and drove him into the greatest danger and misfortune.”[903] Luther was well-informed regarding what was going on in Rome, probably owing to his having friends at the Court of Albert. He refers in 1518 to an “epistola satis erudita” from Rome which had come into his hands, and which inveighed in the strongest terms against the Florentines who surrounded the Pope, as the “most avaricious of men”; “they abuse,” so he writes, “the Pope’s good nature in order to fill the bottomless pit of their passionate love of money.”[904]
With regard to the statement, that Archbishop Albert had petitioned the Pope for the Indulgence in order to pay off the debt he had incurred by receiving the See of Mayence in addition to that of Magdeburg and also the expenses of the pallium, it has now been ascertained (the fact is certainly no less to Rome’s discredit) that, in reality, it was the Roman authorities, who, for financial reasons, offered the Indulgence to the Archbishop; Albert was to receive from the proceeds a compensation of 10,000 ducats, which sum, in addition to the ordinary fees, had been demanded of him on the occasion of his confirmation as Archbishop of Mayence on account of the dispensation necessary for combining the two Archiepiscopal Sees; one half of the proceeds of the Indulgence was to be made over to him for the needs of the Archdiocese of Mayence, the other half was to go towards the rebuilding of St. Peter’s, for which object a collection had already commenced in other countries and was being promoted by the preaching of the Indulgence.
Regarding the whole matter we learn the following details.
When Bishop Albert of Brandenburg, the brother of the Brandenburg Elector, Joachim I, was chosen Archbishop in 1514 by the Cathedral Chapter of Mayence he was faced by great difficulties, financial as well as ecclesiastical. Was it likely that he would obtain from Rome his confirmation as Archbishop of Mayence, seeing that he was already Archbishop of Magdeburg and at the same time administrator of the diocese of Halberstadt? Would it be possible for him to raise the customary large sum to be paid for his confirmation and for the pallium, seeing that the Archdiocese of Mayence, owing to two previous vacancies in rapid succession, had already been obliged to pay this sum twice within ten years, and was thus practically bankrupt? The sum necessary, which was the same in the case of Treves and Cologne, amounted on each occasion to about 14,000 ducats. With regard to the confirmation-fees for the See of Mayence and the expenses of the pallium, the Elector Joachim, who, for political reasons, was extremely anxious to see his brother in possession of the electoral dignity of Mayence, promised to defray the same, and thus the Mayence election took place on March 9. The Archbishop-elect borrowed, on May 15 of the same year, 21,000 ducats from the Fuggers, the great Augsburg bankers—no doubt with his brother’s concurrence—in order to be able to meet at Rome the necessary outlay for his confirmation and pallium.
Grave doubts, however, were entertained in the Papal Curia as to whether, according to canon law, the above bishoprics might be held by the same person. Two of the offices in question were archbishoprics, and, hitherto, in spite of the prevalence of the abuse of placing several croziers in one hand, two archbishoprics had never been held by one man. Besides, the candidate was only in his twenty-fourth year.
An undesirable way out of the difficulty of obtaining the necessary dispensation for holding the three ecclesiastical dignities presented itself. An official of the Papal Dataria informed the ambassador from Brandenburg, that if Albert could be induced to pay 10,000 ducats beyond the customary fees “this should not be looked upon as a composition [tax], as His Holiness, in return for the same, would grant a ten-year Plenary Indulgence in the shape of a Jubilee in the diocese of Mayence.”[905] This proposal emanated from the Papal officials, Leo X himself as yet refusing to hear anything about the money question. After lengthy negotiations the proposed plan was accepted by the principals on both sides in the following amended shape: The Indulgence, one half of the proceeds of which was to be devoted to the building of St. Peter’s, and the other to the Archbishop of Mayence, was to be proclaimed for eight years, not only in the diocese of Mayence, but throughout the ecclesiastical provinces of Mayence and Magdeburg as well as in the domains of the house of Brandenburg (i.e. throughout almost the half of Germany, owing to the vastness of the province of Mayence); the proceeds were to be divided into two parts in the manner mentioned above, as alms for the erection of St. Peter’s and as an income for the Archbishop of Mayence. The Pope, in his simple goodness of heart, was gradually induced, by political considerations, to agree to the proposal. On July 19 the matter was finally decided in Consistory. Thus no actual indemnity was paid for the dispensation (as Luther asserted) beyond the Indulgence money and the alms for building. Pope Leo X confirmed the supplica in question on August 1, 1514. The public Indulgence Bull, however, Sacrosancti Salvatoris, is dated March 31, 1515.
The branch house of the Fuggers at Rome at once paid the sum of 10,000 ducats to the Pope. As the other fees for confirmation and the pallium had already been paid, the induction of Albert as Archbishop of Mayence took place on August 18, 1514, no difficulty being raised as to his retaining the two other Sees.
Every Catholic at the present day will agree with H. Schrörs that “this manner of acquiring benefices with the assistance of an Indulgence was unworthy and reprehensible.”[906] It brings before our eyes an instance of the ecclesiastical abuses prevalent just before the Reformation, and which cannot be sufficiently deplored. “Although Albert’s confirmation may not have been, strictly speaking, simoniacal,” says a learned Catholic reviewer of Schulte’s works,[907] “yet there is a strong suspicion of simony about it; at any rate, it was an extremely discreditable business, and we may well look upon it as a Divine Judgment that the Mayence Indulgence should have been the immediate occasion of the great religious upheaval for which many other factors had been paving the way.” “The greater part of the blame rests with the Hohenzollern brothers, who approached the Curia with such an exorbitant demand for the cumulation of benefices.”[908]
“Looked at in itself, the allocation of Indulgences, like that for St. Peter’s, is to some extent justified by the fact, that it was customary in the Middle Ages to make the granting of privileges an opportunity for the giving of special alms, and that the position of the Papacy, as head of the Church, gave it the right to share in the privileges of its members. On this was based the whole system of taxes levied by the Curia on the bestowal of any office, inasmuch as the tax was really a part of the income of the Curial officials; whereas, however, Rome had hitherto been content with one-third of the proceeds of an Indulgence, this was now increased to one-half.”[909] “Nor was it right if, as was probably the case, the Indulgence-preachers did not explain to the people how one part of their alms was to be disposed of, but left them in the belief that it was all to be devoted to the object announced [i.e. the rebuilding of St. Peter’s].”[910]
Finally, the too frequent tendering of Indulgences towards the close of the Middle Ages must be noted as a regrettable abuse. The collections made for Indulgences granted for all sorts of ecclesiastical purposes were so numerous, that loud complaints were raised by the Rulers about the heavy burden thus imposed upon their people.
The Indulgence for St. Peter’s followed many others and was first started under Pope Julius II. In this case the importance to the whole of Christendom of the erection of a new church over the tomb of the Prince of the Apostles may have afforded some justification. Originally intended to last only for twelve months, the Indulgence was extended from year to year.
As regards its administration, Papal commissaries had been appointed for the proclamation of the Indulgence and for making the collections. Thus the Franciscan Observantines under the Vicar-General of the Order were entrusted with the so-called Cismontane provinces, comprising Italy and the Slavonian regions to the east of Europe, including Hungary, the German portions of Moravia, Bohemia, Silesia and Prussia and likewise Switzerland. In Switzerland the preacher was the celebrated Franciscan Bernardin Samson. Other special commissaries were distributed throughout the west of Europe, according to the political divisions; thus we find them established by Papal appointment in Spain, Brittany, the British Isles, Savoy, Burgundy, Scandinavia, and in the Spanish colonies in America.
There had been some delay in introducing this arrangement into Germany as the country was already exhausted by large collections made for the Teutonic Order and the armies which it had been compelled to raise for the defence of the Catholic countries and Christian civilisation, and also by other taxes. In 1514 the time seemed, however, to have arrived. In this year, the same in which the bargain was struck with Albert of Brandenburg, a Chief Commissary, in the person of a cleric at the Papal Court, Gianangelo Arcimboldi, was appointed for the provinces of Cologne, Treves, Salzburg, Bremen, Besançon and other dioceses; Mayence, on the other hand, with the other portions of Germany before mentioned, was reserved for Albert as Commissary-General.
The Chief Commissary appointed sub-commissaries and preachers. Tetzel was chosen by Albert of Mayence as sub-Commissary. He had, before this, acted as sub-Commissary (1505-6) for the preaching of the Indulgence on behalf of the Teutonic Order in the dioceses of Merseburg and Naumburg, and later had worked in many other parts of Germany for the same Indulgence. In 1516 he had been appointed by Arcimboldi as sub-Commissary and preacher in the diocese of Meissen. It was in the beginning of 1517 that Archbishop Albert took him into his service as sub-Commissary and preacher for the dioceses of Halberstadt and Magdeburg.[911] In this capacity he came in the spring, 1517, to Jüterbog, in the neighbourhood of Wittenberg. While subordinate to Archbishop Albert he was at the same time, like his employer, under the orders of a Roman Commission; all the Chief Commissaries, Albert as well as Arcimboldi, were subordinate to a Papal Commission, at the head of which was the Pope’s Master of the Treasury.
The appointment of Albert as Chief Commissary had been made under the impression that the standing of this powerful German Prince of the Church would contribute to the success of the undertaking, and influence even those who were not in favour of the scheme. Yet Albert’s own envoys, when the handing over the Indulgence was first mooted, openly declared that they were not inclined to agree to accepting the Indulgence as “discontent, and perhaps something worse, might be the result,”[912] a fear which events were sadly to justify.
In the end the yield did not reach expectations; this is plain from the accounts now available. The “hundred thousand gulden” which Tetzel was said to have collected in one year are a mere fiction. This tale was spread abroad in 1721 by J. E. Kapp, and before that by J. Wolfius (1600), and would appear to date from a chance word let fall by Paul Lang, the Benedictine (1520).[913] We are, however, in possession of more authentic details since an exact account was kept.
This account of the collections was made in the following manner: the money-boxes were opened and the contents counted in the presence of witnesses, and the statement of the amount certified by a notary. Representatives of both parties—Archbishop Albert and the Fugger bank—were present, and kept an account, half of the proceeds being paid by the Fuggers to the Curia at Rome for St. Peter’s, and the other half to the Archbishop of Mayence. It was a good thing and a guarantee against mismanagement, that, at any rate in the case of the Mayence Indulgence and that for St. Peter’s, a reliable banking-house of world-wide fame and conducted on business principles (even though Luther styles the Fuggers cut-purses), should have thus undertaken the supervision of the accounts, however distasteful it may seem to have left to bank officials the distribution of the Indulgence-letters from the very commencement of the preaching.
How much did the proceeds amount to? The Mayence Indulgence was preached only from the beginning of 1517 to 1518, the rise of the religious conflict interfering with its continuance. Schulte has, however, put us in possession of two considerable statements of accounts concerning this period, taken from the archives of the Vatican. That of May 5, 1519, deals with the Papal half of the Indulgence money which flowed in from the various dioceses of the ecclesiastical province of Mayence during 1517 and 1518, and was handed over by the house of Fugger. This half amounted to 1643 gulden 45 kreuzer. A like sum was handed over to Albert, as has been proved by Schulte from a document in the State archives at Magdeburg. The other statement of account is dated June 16 of the same year and places the sum total of the money received from the ecclesiastical province of Magdeburg at 5149 gulden, according to which each half amounted to 2574½ gulden. If we assume these sums, viz. 8436 gulden, to have been the gross proceeds of the Indulgence enterprise, and if we take into consideration the charges, comparatively high, for those engaged in the work, then the amount cannot be described as large. Nor would the Archbishop of Mayence have received entire the 4218 gulden constituting his share, as, according to an arrangement made with the Emperor, he had been obliged to make him a yearly payment of 1000 gulden from the net profits. Thus only 3218 gulden would have remained to him. This would have compensated him but poorly for the enormous payments he had made to Rome. As regards the sums mentioned we must bear in mind the vast difference between the value of money then and now; the buying value of money, at a moderate estimate, was then three times greater than to-day. Since the researches undertaken by Schulte, other accounts, not included in the above, concerning the revenues produced by the Indulgence have been discovered, “a proof that an exact estimate of the whole proceeds of the Mayence-Magdeburg Indulgence is as yet out of the question.”[914]
Another fable which owes its origin to the anti-Catholic inventions of the sixteenth century has it that Leo X did not devote the results of the Mayence Indulgence to the building of St. Peter’s, but poured them into the already well-filled coffers of his sister Maddalena, who had married a Cibo. There is no proof for this assertion. Felice Cortelori, the well-known keeper of the Vatican archives, declared, even in his day, that he was unable to find any confirmation of this story, which should therefore be rejected as fabulous, and Schulte, as a result of his own investigations, agrees with him.[915]
Owing to the abuses and the change in public opinion, the amalgamation of spiritual and temporal interests, as it appeared in the Indulgence collections, became untenable in the course of the sixteenth century. The Council of Trent did well, though rather late in the day, in relegating, as far as possible, the system of Indulgences to the spiritual domain, its original and special sphere, that of benefiting souls. But one who knows how to view the movement of the times and the development of the Church’s life from the standpoint of history, will be able to put its true value upon this apparently strange union of the temporal and spiritual in the Indulgence system of the Late Middle Ages, and will give due consideration to the fact, that in those days the spiritual and temporal domains were more closely connected than at any other period. They were thrown into mutual dependence, each supporting the other; that disadvantages as well as benefits resulted, was of course inevitable.
The preaching of Indulgences in accordance with the spirit of the Church, when rightly carried out, might be compared with popular missions of the present day. Besides the less desirable preachers many able and zealous men came forward wherever the cross, or the so-called Vesper-Bild, was erected as a sign of the preaching of the Indulgence. The crowds who streamed together, listened to the admonitions of speakers previously unknown to them and usually belonging to some Order, with more attention than at the ordinary religious services; many were led to a sense of their sins and to amend their life, as they could not receive the Indulgence without an inward change of heart; they were also glad to take advantage of the presence of strange confessors provided with ample faculties, to unburden their consciences by a good confession. The alms seemed little to them in comparison with the spiritual gain. And as hundreds came and experienced a similar spiritual renewal, their very multitude fired them with a common impulse to persevere in what was good. The researches of historians have hitherto been directed too much towards the abuses and outward disorders which accompanied these popular practices, which were for so long a great help to religion. It would be no loss if in future, so far as the special accounts which have been handed down admit, historians were to dwell more on the ordinary and little-noticed good results effected by Indulgences since they were first started.[916]
In the course of September, 1518, Luther received the citation to appear before Cardinal Cajetan at Augsburg, as had been agreed with the Elector Frederick; already, on August 25, the General of the Augustinians had, in accordance with the earlier and more stringent instructions from Rome to Cajetan, forwarded an order to the Saxon Provincial Gerard Hecker, to seize Luther and keep him in custody. At the end of September Luther set out for Augsburg, where he arrived, with a recommendation from the Elector and an Imperial safe conduct, on October 7.
He had started on the journey with great inward tremors and was a prey to the same violent agitation at Augsburg. At a later date he attributes the evil thoughts which plagued him to the influence of a demon.[917] He seems from the first to have been determined to carry his cause with a high hand, as ostensibly that of Jesus Christ. He becomes more and more convinced of his mission from above, a persuasion which takes possession of his soul with suggestive force.
In the fragment of a lost letter from Nuremberg we find him writing of his journey on October 3-4, 1518, to his Wittenberg friends whom he wishes to encourage to remain steadfast. Faint-hearted people, so he says, had tried to dissuade him from continuing his journey, “but I stand fast; let the Will of the Lord be done; even at Augsburg, even in the midst of His enemies, Christ still reigns ... Christ shall live though Martin and every other sinner perish; the God of my Salvation shall be exalted. Farewell and be steadfast, stand upright because it is necessary either to be rejected by man or by God, but God is true and every man a liar.”[918] He certainly did not treat the matter lightly. To attribute hypocrisy to him, as though he merely played a part, would be to do him an injustice. It is true there are recent writers who look upon him as a mere comedian, but it would be nearer the mark to compare him to John Hus on his journey to the Council of Constance. Like him, he looked forward to death without any inclination to recant. The thought passed through him, he once said later: “Now I must die,” and he pictured to himself “what a shame that would be for his parents.”[919]
The two letters he addressed to Spalatin and Melanchthon a few days after his arrival in Augsburg and before his first examination, gave proof of the strange mystical tendency which also appears in the fragment mentioned above; they show how he overcomes the inward voice which urges him to submit, and also the importunities of his anxious friends; they also show how, even then, he was prepared to take a certain step, should the demands appear to him too great: “I shall assuredly appeal to a General Council.”[920] He admits that he was “wavering between hope and fear” and, in order to stimulate his own courage, he draws a picture in these letters of two of the terrifying qualities of these “Italians” before whose representative (i.e. Cajetan) he is to defend himself.
We must try to place ourselves in his position and to appreciate his prejudices.
In the first place, he relentlessly accuses his adversaries of avarice and greed in everything; unfortunately his knowledge of the Indulgence business had furnished sufficient cause for reproaches and complaints against the Church authorities in that respect.[921] Secondly, he finds fault with the “ignorance” of his opponents, and here he undoubtedly excites himself quite wrongly and unnecessarily over their supposed senseless and one-sided Scholasticism. In his letter to Melanchthon he exclaims, as though to reassure himself: “Italy lies in Egyptian darkness, her animosity to learning and culture is unbounded. So greatly do they misapprehend Christ and all that is Christ’s. And yet these are our teachers and masters in faith and morals. The anger of God is thus fulfilled in us where He says: ‘I will give children to be their princes, and the effeminate shall rule over them.’ Good-bye, my Philip, and turn aside God’s anger by holy prayers.” The supposed want of sympathy with learning and culture of which Luther accuses the Italians in this letter to Philip Melanchthon is surely most untrue, and was no doubt intended to strengthen Melanchthon, the weak and wavering Humanist, in his allegiance to Luther’s party, for Luther, notwithstanding his anxieties, had not lost his cunning. The reproach against Italy and Rome, where at that time Humanism was flourishing as nowhere else, can at most only apply to the stiffness of the old debased Scholasticism, and perhaps to a certain backwardness in biblical studies. Such blemishes afforded him a welcome handle. “I will rather perish,” he assures Melanchthon, the enthusiastic scholar, “than withdraw my true theses and help to destroy learning.” “I go, should it please the Lord, to be sacrificed for you and your young men.”
He still clings to the idea of being one with the Church in his theological views. “If they can prove to me that I have spoken differently from what the Holy Roman Church teaches, I will at once pronounce sentence against myself and beat a retreat, but,” he adds, “there lies the knot.”[922] A knot tied by himself. Strange, indeed, is the method he proposes for cutting it: “If that Cardinal [Cajetan] insists on the private opinions of St. Thomas more strongly than is compatible with the doctrine and authority of the Church, I shall not yield to him until the Church withdraws from her earlier standpoint upon which I have taken up my position.”
How greatly the applause with which he was meeting everywhere worked upon him psychologically, confirming him in his resistance, came out clearly at Augsburg.
It was only on this journey and at Augsburg itself that he became aware what a celebrity his action had made him. He alludes to this in the above-mentioned letter to Melanchthon, where he also reveals a flattering self-complacency: “The only thing that is new and wonderful here is, that the town rings with my name. All want to see the man who, like a new Herostratus, has kindled such a big blaze.”
Cardinal Cajetan, after making vain representations to Luther, finally demanded the withdrawal of two propositions which he had plainly taught and acknowledged as his. The first was his denial that the treasure of the merits of Christ and the saints was the foundation of Indulgences; the second was the statement which appeared in the “Resolutions,” that the sacraments of the Church owed their efficacy only to faith. These were points in which he had manifestly deviated from the Catholic teaching and, to boot, matters of supreme doctrinal importance; as a professor of theology Luther, moreover, had bound himself to submit to the teaching authority of the Church.
His final answer to the Papal legate was, that he could not recant unless he were convinced that he had said something against Holy Scripture, the Fathers of the Church, the Papal definitions, or sound reason.
Then followed his famous secret flight from Augsburg to Wittenberg. Staupitz, who had stood by him at Augsburg, dispensed him for the journey from any part of the Rule which might have proved to his disadvantage, even from the wearing of the Augustinian habit. This Superior had again shown himself at Augsburg as a man of half-measures who allowed his prejudice for Luther to outweigh the demands of the Church and of his Order.
Luther caused his Appeal to the Pope “better instructed” to be presented to the Cardinal at Augsburg. He intended, as almost at the same time he confided to Spalatin, to make an appeal to the future Council only after the Pope, “in the plenitude of his power, or rather of his tyranny,” had rejected his first appeal.[923] Meanwhile he does not know, and this makes him waver between hope and fear, whether he will be able to remain at the University of Wittenberg. Will the Elector have power to retain him in his office? Will it be possible for him to continue to lead a safe existence under his sovereign, and, above all, find protection in the present danger from imprisonment and the violent measures threatened? At this, the turning-point of his life, these were the most pressing questions.
The duty of providing for his safety and furthering his cause devolved principally on the Court Chaplain, Spalatin. Luther, in his letters to Spalatin, which duly reached the Elector either as they were written or in extracts, wisely avoids any unseasonable demands which could only have been prejudicial to his interests; on the contrary, he declares in well-chosen language, which was certain to please the Elector, that he is ready to take up the pilgrim’s staff should it be necessary for the good of the cause; the verbal commentary on his letters was undertaken at Court by his able clerical friend.
“I am filled with joy and peace,” he writes to the courtier in the letter above mentioned, “so that I can only wonder how my skirmish [the trial at Augsburg] appears as something great to many esteemed men.” If, however, joy and contentment reigned in him at that time, this was principally owing to his natural relief at his escape from the dreaded town of Augsburg.
In feverish haste, without awaiting the result of his first appeal, he published, November 28, 1518, a new appeal to a future General Council.
An appeal to an Œcumenical Council was prohibited by old laws of the Church, because, at the commencement of any movement directed against the authority of the Church, it appeared likely to render all efforts for the composing of differences illusory. It was rightly felt that whoever came in conflict with the Church would make every effort to reserve the decision of his cause to some future Council, more especially when he is able meanwhile to devote himself freely to the furtherance of his ideas, and when the speedy summoning of a Council is very doubtful. The claim that an Œcumenical Council should be called to pronounce upon every new opinion was so extravagant that the prohibition found general approval.
At the time of Luther’s advent on the scene the prospect of a General Council, owing to the dissensions among the Christian Powers, had retreated into the far distance, and even though it had been possible for the bishops throughout the whole world to assemble, the meeting, according to ancient custom and the regulations of canon law, would have taken place under the Pope’s presidency. Even in this event Luther can, accordingly, have cherished but small hope of winning the day.
His deep distrust of Rome we find expressed in the letter, written almost simultaneously, to his trusted friend Wencelaus Link, the Nuremberg Augustinian, to whom he was forwarding his account of what had taken place at Augsburg (Acta Augustana): “My pen is giving birth to much greater things than these Acta. I know not whence these thoughts come to me; the cause [i.e. the conflict], to my thinking, has not yet commenced in earnest and much less can these gentlemen from Rome look to see the end. I shall send my little works to you so that you may see if I am right in surmising that the real Anti-Christ whom Paul describes (2 Thess. ii. 3 ff.) rules at the Roman Court. I think I can prove that to-day he is worse than the Turks.”[924] Whoever could speak in this way had already cut himself adrift or was on the point of so doing.
The powerful forces within the fiery and vivacious Monk seethed like the crater of a volcano. The Lecture-hall at Wittenberg again resounded with his eloquent and vehement outbursts. The number of students at the University increased to an unexpected extent. “They surround my desk like busy ants,” Luther declares in a letter.[925]
He does not know whence the ideas he pours forth come to him, but he sees daily more clearly that they are from Christ. “I see,” so he wrote to Staupitz, his Superior, “they are determined [at Rome] to condemn me; but Christ on His part is resolved not to yield in me. May His holy and blessed will be done, yea, may it be done. Pray for me.”[926] In the same way, though in stronger terms, he informs his friend Johann Lang soon afterwards: “Our Eck is again preparing to assail me; it will come to this, that, with the help of Christ, I shall carry out what I have long since planned, namely, to strike a deadly blow at the Roman vipers by means of a powerful book. Hitherto I have merely played and jested with Rome, albeit she has smarted as keenly under it as though it had been meant in deadly earnest.”[927] “So God carries me away,” we shall soon after hear him say. “God draws me. I cannot control myself.” “God must see to it, what He is working through me.... Why has He not instructed me otherwise?” He fancies he feels “the mighty breathing of the Spirit,” and little by little he is carried away by the conviction that he is God’s messenger and the leader of a cause which “is not of man’s invention.”[928]
During the exciting years of 1517 and 1518 Luther, in addition to his polemical works, published several popular, practical handbooks on religion. They consisted chiefly of collections and enlargements of the sermons which he still continued to preach from time to time. Their publication strengthened in many the impression, that the man whom some denounced as a theological rebel was, on the contrary, simply zealous for the salvation of souls and only seeking the spiritual profit of his neighbour.
In the spring of 1517 he published, for instance, the German exposition of the Seven Penitential Psalms, already referred to, a book which, as he wrote to Christopher Scheurl, was intended for the rough Saxon “to whom the Christian teaching cannot be presented too fully.”[929] If the work pleases no one, he says, then it will please him all the more.[930] In this work he speaks in heartfelt tones, especially when enlarging upon the “Word of Grace” and describing the riches of Christ.[931] Another book, his: “Exposition of the Our Father for the simple laity,”[932] first appeared in 1517 through Agricola, then again in 1518 after having been amended by the author. In the preface he says amicably: “I should like, if it were possible, to render a service even to my adversaries; for my desire is to be profitable to all men and harmful to none.” The object of such assurances is, however, too evident, and they are, moreover, flatly contradicted by his actual behaviour towards his opponents.
To pass over other pious instructions which his amazing power for work created, he also published in 1518 the detailed Latin notes of the sermons on the Ten Commandments, which he had delivered in 1516-17.[933] Many portions of this book are really useful and hardly to be distinguished from what a true spiritual guide of souls would write, but they also contain other matter which necessarily challenged dispute. In most of his explanations he gives a very clever, popular and perfectly correct presentment of the contents of the commandments and the motives for keeping them; he goes, however, too far, for instance, in his ruthless, and occasionally even contemptuous opposition to the abuses connected with the veneration of the saints. The tone which he here adopts in his strictures could not have favourable results, and he would have done better had he devoted himself to the criticism of the superstitious practices to which he had alluded shortly before in connection with the errors of the Middle Ages.[934] Oldecop, who was not unkindly disposed, complains that “in the matter of the veneration of the saints, Luther was not in agreement with the Catholic Church.”[935]
In the book in question, where he treats of the Sixth Commandment, he is very severe and exact, indeed, rather too exact and detailed in his enumeration and denunciation of the various kinds of sins of the flesh. He speaks with rhetorical emphasis and, it must be admitted, with a wealth of earnest thought, against the habit of filthy talking which was gaining ground at that time.[936] Here, for example, after the most solemn warnings against giving scandal to the little ones, he lets fall these golden words with regard to reform: “If the Church is to blossom again, the beginning must be made by a careful training of the young.”[937] Among other things, Luther treats of the temptations which the devout man abhors and must abhor, although he can never escape them, and gives vent to the paradox: “True chastity is therefore to be found in sensuality, and the more filthy the sensuality, the more beautiful the chastity,”[938] surely a delightful instance of our author’s propensity to unusual language. Somewhat obscurely, indeed, he also speaks against the freedom of the will to do what is good; Paul invokes the mercy of God against the temptation “in the body of this death” (Rom. vii. 24 f.), and he, Luther, would lament over the “poison of death within him.” “Where then are those who vaunt their free will? Why do they not set themselves free from concupiscence as soon as they please? Why will they not, yea, why are they unable even to will?... Because their will is already elsewhere, dragged away as a captive.”[939]
The Leipzig Disputation, which commenced on June 27, 1519, and the origin and theological course of which has been often enough depicted, as was to be expected, merely induced Luther to proceed yet further with his revolutionary theology.
The Pleissenburg of Leipzig has become since the Disputation between Luther and Carlstadt on the one side and Eck on the other, a memorable monument of German history. The great hall of this castle belonging to Duke George was hung with splendid tapestries; a guard of the citizens kept watch before the walls of the castle, for the Court, as well as the city, wished to insure the safety of those conducting the wordy tournament which was to be held in the public name. In addition to the professors of the University of Leipzig and the guests from Wittenberg, students as well as masters, many others were present, brought together partly by curiosity, partly by interest in one or other of the religious parties. The Duke, the guests of distinction, and the sworn stenographers had special places assigned to them. Two professorial chairs stood facing each other. On that belonging to the Wittenberg party Carlstadt, who had arranged the affair, took his seat and disputed with Eck for four whole days on man’s free will and its efficacy with, and under, grace.
Then, on July 4, Luther succeeded him and at once launched into the theological controversy on the question of the Primacy of the Pope. As in the case of Carlstadt, Eck stood his ground without assistance until the Disputation closed on July 14.
The Acts of the debate were to have been submitted to the Universities of Erfurt and Paris for decision as to the winner, but this was never done. The final impression made on the minds of the audience was that Eck had borne away the palm. He had repelled the often virulent attacks of two adversaries with untiring mental and physical energy, and had displayed throughout a more extensive and ready acquaintance with the theologians, the decisions of the Church, the Fathers and the Bible than either of the representatives of the new opinions. Of a powerful and imposing exterior, with a strong sonorous voice, he dominated the course of the Disputation by his clear-headedness, his composure and deliberation, whereas Carlstadt was too hurried and confused and unable to produce the necessary positive proofs, and Luther, by his over-confidence, his rhetoric and the habitual violence of his attacks on his enemies gave umbrage to many. The greatest stumbling-block to Luther’s success lay in the fact that the principal point, which was to be decisive for his standpoint towards the Church, was still, even to himself, as Protestant writers express it, “in process of inward development,” whereas “Eck could take his stand on a sound and solid basis.”[940]
This principal point was the question of the recognition of the Church and her teaching office. Eck succeeded in forcing public statements from his opponent which he would perhaps have still preferred to keep in the background, but which were, as a matter of fact, the outcome of his position. On the second day of the controversy between Luther and Eck, on July 5, the question of the exercise of the Church’s power and doctrinal authority in the condemnation of Hus’s erroneous teaching came under discussion. Luther was now obliged to express his views on the condemnation of the “Bohemian heretics.” Driven into a corner he declared, that among the Husite doctrines condemned by the Council of Constance there were some very Christian and evangelical propositions; that the Council was wrong in asserting that everyone who wished to be a member of the Church must believe in the Primacy of the Papacy; that we must learn for ourselves from Holy Scripture what is of Divine Right; that the opinion of an individual Christian must carry greater weight than that of either Pope or Council if established on better grounds; that Councils not only might err in matters of faith, but that they actually had erred, as in the case of that of Constance.
Such unheard-of admissions caused the greatest sensation. Bluff Duke George, on hearing Luther’s assertion that the Christian doctrines of Hus had been unfairly condemned, exclaimed in a voice loud enough to be heard throughout the great hall: “A plague on it!” shaking his head at the same time and planting his hands on his hips.
It was an easy task for Eck to disprove on theological grounds the statements of Luther.
The Disputation had at least the effect of clearing up the position, and arousing misgivings in many of those who hitherto had been partisans of the Wittenberg Doctor.
Luther himself wrote in a very discontented frame of mind to Spalatin regarding the Disputation, saying that time had been wasted in the useless affair, and that Eck and the theologians of Leipzig only sought worldly honour and on this everything had suffered shipwreck. Only the discussion on the Primacy (i.e. that very one at which the momentous admissions were made) had been fruitful and productive. This is his own impudent way of describing his position as the only right one. “Hardly anything else,” he continues, “was treated worthily. Eck was applauded, he triumphs and reigns, but an end shall be put to this by my publication; for as the Disputation was badly conducted I shall have the Resolutions to the Disputation theses reprinted. These people of Leipzig neither greeted us nor visited us, but treated us as deadly enemies [and yet every consideration had been shown him that circumstances permitted]. Eck they supplied with an escort, they surrounded him constantly, honoured him with feasts and invitations, presented him with a coat and a costly mantle, rode out with him on pleasant excursions, in fact did everything imaginable—to disgrace us.” “There you have the whole tragedy ... it began ill and ended worse.... As a rule, I control my ill-humour, but here I cannot help pouring out my grudge, because after all I am human and see how the shamelessness of our adversaries and their poisonous hatred of so holy a cause have grown beyond measure.”[941]
Obstinately adhering to his standpoint and embittered as he was by the Leipzig “tragedy,” Luther would lend no ear to the proposals for reconciliation and settlement suggested by the Papal Chamberlain Carl von Miltitz.
His attempts in this direction had commenced even before the Disputation. Their continuance revealed on the one hand Luther’s obstinacy, and on the other the inability of this lay Papal official—whose motives were merely political—to see the real seriousness of the matter. The latter, in order to secure apparent victories, went beyond his instructions and the intentions of those who had entrusted him with his mission. Luther on his part did not shrink from diplomatic concessions which could not injure him, but which anyone conversant with the conditions must have seen to be impracticable. The easy triumphs of which Miltitz’s shortsighted love of peace was productive were thus of very doubtful value.[942]
Luther’s edition of the Latin Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians, which appeared in September, 1519, assumed all the more importance in his eyes. In this work, written in the language of the learned (above, p. 306), he undertook to defend on the widest basis and before cultured men of every clime his doctrines concerning grace and salvation, faith and righteousness.
Here we have a public manifestation not merely of the doctrines which lay at the back of the schism he had stirred up by his controversy with Tetzel, but also of his wrong new view concerning Holy Scripture.
In the matter of style, Luther was more successful in his shorter works, particularly in his German controversial pamphlets. Writers who opposed him, such as Eck, Emser, Dungersheim, Alveld, Hoogstraaten, Prierias he readily withstood in words full of fire and imagination, although his arguments, as a rule, left much to be desired and were not atoned for by his passionate invective. His main contention, voiced in a more or less coarse form, is, however, always the following: the proofs which you adduce from the teaching of the Church and the Fathers do not move me because Holy Scripture, upon which I take my stand, is above both Church and Fathers.
By the Holy Scripture he, moreover, persists in understanding his own interpretation of the Bible. By a tragic mistake he has come to confound his own personal and altogether subjective interpretation with the objective “Word of God” in the Bible. In the same way he makes not the slightest distinction between the meaning of the “gospel,” which he fancies he has discovered, and the actual Gospel itself.