Ulrich von Hutten wrote to him from the Ebernburg on April 17: “Keep a good heart ... I will stand by you to the last breath if you remain true to yourself.” He knows how those assembled at the Diet gnash their teeth at him; his fancy indeed paints things black, but his hope in God sustains him.[156]In a second letter of April 20, Hutten speaks to him of trusting not only in God and His Christ, but also in earthly weapons: “Isee that sword and bow, arrows and bolts are necessary in order to withstand the mad rage of the devil ... the wisdom of my friends hinders me from a venture, because they fear lest I go too far, otherwise I should already have prepared some kind of surprise for these gentlemen under the walls [of Worms]. In a short time, however, my hand will be free, and then you shall see that I will not be wanting in the spirit which God has roused up in me.”[157]In the same way as in his rhetorical language he ascribes his own mood to the illumination of the Spirit of God, so Hutten also sought to unearth a Divine inspiration in his friend Franz von Sickingen; all this was the outcome of Luther’s pseudo-mysticism, to which his friends were indebted for such figures of speech. Regarding Sickingen, Hutten wrote to Willibald Pirkheimer: “He has, so to speak, drunk in Luther completely; he has his little books read aloud at table, and I have heard him swear that he will never forsake the cause of truth in spite of every danger.” “You may well regard these words as a Divine Voice, so great is his constancy.”[158]Numerous threats of violence reached the ears of the timorous Estates assembled at Worms. A notice was affixed to the Rathaus in which 400(?) sworn noblemen with 8000(?) men challenged the “Princes and Messrs. the Romanists.” It concluded with the watchword of the insurgents: “Bundschuh, Bundschuh, Bundschuh.” Towards the close of the Diet several hundred knights assembled around Worms.[159]At the Diet the Elector of Saxony made no secret of his patronage of Luther.He it was who, on the evening before Luther’s departure, informed him in the presence of Spalatin and others, that he would be seized on the homeward journey and conducted to a place of safety which would not be told him beforehand.[160]After having received this assurance Luther left Worms.On the journey such was his boldness that he disregarded the Imperial prohibition to preach, though he feared that this violation of the conditions laid down would be taken advantage of by his opponents, and cause him to forfeit his safe-conduct. He himself says of the sermons which he delivered at Hersfeld and Eisenach, on May 1 and 2, that they would be regarded as a breach of the obligations he had undertaken when availing himself of the safe conduct; but that he had been unable to consent that the Word of God should be bound in chains. He is here playing on the words of the Bible: “Verbum Dei non est alligatum.” “This condition, even had I undertaken it, would not have been binding, as it would have been against God.”[161]After the journey had been resumed the well-known surprise took place, and Luther was carried off to the Wartburg on May 4.In his lonely abode, known to only a few of his friends, he awaited with concern the sentence of outlawry which was to be passed upon him by the Emperor and the Estates. The edict, in its final form of May 8, was not published until after the safe-conduct had expired. “To-morrow the Imperial safe conduct terminates,” Luther wrote on May 11 from the Wartburg to Spalatin; “ ... It grieves me that those deluded men should call down such a misfortune upon their own heads. How great a hatred will this inconsiderate act of violence arouse. But only wait, the time of their visitation is at hand.”[162]The proclamation of outlawry was couched in very stern language and enacted measures of the utmost severity, following in this the traditions of the Middle Ages; Luther’s writings were to be burnt, and he himself was adjudged worthy of death. Of Luther the document says, that, “like the enemy of souls disguised in a monk’s garb,” he had gathered together “heresies old and new.” The impression made by Luther on the Emperor and on other eminent members of the Diet, was that of one possessed.[163]There was, from the first, no prospect of the sentencebeing carried into effect. The hesitation of the German Princes of the Church to publish even the Bull of Excommunication had shown that they were not to be trusted to put the new measures into execution.The thoughts of retaliation which were aflame in Luther, i.e. his expectation of a “Divine judgment” on his adversaries, he committed to writing in a letter which he forwarded to Franz von Sickingen on June 1, 1521, together with a little work dedicated to him, “Concerning Confession, whether the Pope has the power to decree it.”[164]In it he reminds Sickingen that God had slain thirty-one Kings in the land of Chanaan together with the inhabitants of their cities. “It was ordained by God that they should fight against Israel bravely and defiantly, that they should be destroyed and no mercy shown them. This story looks to me like a warning to our Popes, bishops, men of learning and other spiritual tyrants.” He feared that it was God’s work that they should feel themselves secure in their pride, “so that, in the end, they would needs perish without mercy.” Unless they altered their ways one would be found who “would teach them, not like Luther by word and letter, but by deeds.” We cannot here go into the question of why the revolutionary party in the Empire did not at that time proceed to “deeds.”3. LegendsThe beginning of the legends concerning the Diet of Worms can be traced back to Luther himself. He declared, only a year after the event, shortly after his departure from the Wartburg, in a letter of July 15, 1522, intended for a few friends and not for German readers: “I repaired to Worms although I had already been apprised of the violation of the safe-conduct by the Emperor Charles.”He there says of himself, that, in spite of his timidity, he nevertheless ventured “within reach of the jaws of Behemoth [the monster mentioned in Job xl.]. And what did these terrible giants [my adversaries] do? During the last three years not one has been found brave enough to come forward against me here at Wittenberg, though assured of a safe-conduct and protection”; “rude and timorous at one and the same time” they would not venture “to confront him, though single-handed,” or to disputewith him. What would have happened had these weaklings been forced to face the Emperor and all-powerful foes as he had done at Worms? This he says to the Bohemian, Sebastian Schlick, Count of Passun, in the letter in which he dedicates to him his Latin work “Against Henry VIII of England.”[165]It is worth noting that Luther did not insert this dedication in the German edition, but only in the Latin one intended for Bohemia and foreign countries where the circumstances were not so well known.Luther always adhered obstinately to the idea, which ultimately passed into a standing tradition with many of his followers, that no one had been willing to dispute with him at Worms or elsewhere during the period of his outlawry; that he had, in fact, been condemned unheard; that his opponents had sought to vanquish him by force, not by confronting him with proofs, and had obstinately shut their ears to his arguments from Holy Scripture. He finally came to persuade himself, that they were in their hearts convinced that he was right, but out of consideration for their temporal interests had not been willing or able to give in.He expressly mentions Duke George of Saxony, as an opponent who had taken up the latter position, also the influential Archbishop Albrecht of Mayence, and, above all, Johann Eck. “Is it not obdurate wickedness,” he exclaims in one of his outbursts, “to be the enemy of, and withstand, what is known and recognised as true? It is a sin against the first Commandment and greater than any other. But because it is not their invention they look on it as nought! Yet their own conscience accuses them.”[166]In another passage, in 1528, he complains of the persecutors in Church and State who appealed to the edict of Worms; “they sought for an excuse to deceive the simple people, though they really knew better”; if they act thus, it must be right, “were we to do the same, it would be wrong.”[167]Yet,even from the vainglorious so-called “Minutes of the Worms Negotiations” (“Akten der Wormser Verhandlungen”), published immediately after at Wittenberg with Luther’s assistance,[168]it is clear that the case was fully argued in his presence at Worms, and that he had every opportunity of defending himself, though, from a legal point of view, the Bull of Excommunication having already been promulgated, the question was no longer open to theological discussion. In these “Minutes” the speeches he made in his defence at Worms are quoted. Catholic contemporarieseven reproached him with having allowed himself to be styled therein “Luther, the man of God”; his orations are introduced with such phrases as: “Martin replied to the rude and indiscreet questions with his usual incredible kindness and friendliness in the following benevolent words,” etc.[169]In order still further to magnify the bravery he displayed at Worms, Luther stated later on that the Pope had written to Worms, “that no account was to be made of the safe-conduct.”[170]As a matter of fact, however, the Papal Nuncios at Worms had received instructions to use every effort to prevent Luther being tried in public, because according to Canon Law the case was already settled; if he refused to retract, and came provided with a safe-conduct, nothing remained but to send him home, and then proceed against him with the utmost severity.[171]It was for this reason, according to his despatches, that Aleander took no part in the public sessions at which Luther was present. Only after Luther, on the return journey, had sent back the herald who accompanied him, and had openly infringed the conditions of the Imperial safe-conduct, did Aleander propose “that the Emperor should have Luther seized.”[172]Luther, from the very commencement, stigmatised the Diet of Worms as the “Sin of Wormbs, which rejected God’s truth so childishly and openly, wilfully and knowingly condemned it unheard”;[173]to him the members of the Diet were culpably hardened and obdurate “Pharaohs,” who thought Christ could not see them, who, out of “utterly sinful wilfulness,” were determined “to hate and blaspheme Christ at Wormbs,” and to “kill the prophets, till God forsook them”; he even says: “In me they condemned innocent blood at Wormbs; ... O thou unhappy nation, who beyond all others has become the lictor and executioner of End-Christ against God’s saints and prophets.”[174]An esteemed Protestant biographer of Luther is, however, at pains to point out, quite rightly, that the Diet could “not do otherwise than condemn Luther.” “By rejecting the sentence of the highest court he placed himself outside the pale of the law of the land. Even his very friends were unable to take exception to this.” It is, he says, “incorrect to make out, as so many do, that Luther’s opponents were merely impious men who obstinately withstood the revealed truth.” This author confines himself to remarking that, in his own view, it was a mistake to have “pronounced a formal sentence” upon such questions.[175]That Luther, at the Diet of Worms, bore away the palm as the heroic defender of entire freedom of research and of conscience, and as the champion of the modern spirit, is a view not in accordance with a fair historical consideration of the facts.He himself was then, and all through life, far removed from the idea of any freedom of conscience in the modern sense, and would have deemed all who dared to use it against Divine Revelation, as later opponents of religion did, as deserving of the worst penalties of the mediæval code. “It is an altogether one-sided view, one, indeed, which wilfully disregards the facts, to hail in Luther the man of the new age, the hero of enlightenment and the creator of the modern spirit.” Such is the opinion of Adolf Harnack.[176]At Worms, Luther spoke of himself as being bound by the Word of God. It is true he claimed the freedom of interpreting Holy Scripture according to his own mind, or, as he said, according to the understanding bestowed on him by God, and of amending all such dogmas as displeased him.But he would on no account cease to acknowledge that a revealed Word of God exists and claims submission from the human mind, whereas, from the standpoint of the modern free-thinker, there is no such thing as revelation. The liberty of interpreting revelation, which Luther proclaimed at Worms, or, to be more exact, calmly assumed, marked, it is true, a great stride forward in the road to the destruction of the Church.Luther failed to point out at Worms how such liberty, or rather licence, agreed with the institutions established by Christ for the preservation and perpetual preaching of His doctrine of salvation. He was confronted by a Church, still recognised throughout the whole public life of the nations, which claimed as her own a Divine authority and commission to interpret the written Word of God. She was to the Faithful the lighthouse by which souls struggling in the waves of conflicting opinions might safely steer their course. In submitting his own personal opinion to the solemn judgment of an institution which had stood the test of time since the days of Christ and the Apostles, the Wittenberg Professor had no reason to fear any affront to his dignity. Whoever submitted to the Church accepted her authority assupreme, but he did not thereby forfeit either his freedom or his dignity; he obeyed in order not to expose himself to doubt or error; he pledged himself to a higher, and better, wisdom than he was able to reach by his own strength, by the way of experience, error and uncertainty. The Church plainly intimated to the heresiarch the error of his way, pointing out that the freedom of interpretation which he arrogated to himself was the destruction of all sure doctrine, the death-blow to the truth handed down, the tearing asunder of religious union, and the harbinger of endless dissensions.—We here see where Luther’s path diverged from that followed by Catholics. He set up subjectivity as a principle, and preached, together with the freedom of interpreting Scripture, the most unfettered revolt against all ecclesiastical authority, which alone can guarantee the truth. The chasm which he cleft still yawns; hence the difference of opinion concerning the sentence pronounced at Worms. We are not at liberty to conceal this fact from ourselves, nor can we wonder at the conflicting judgments passed on the position then assumed by Luther.We may perhaps be permitted to quote a Protestant opinion which throws some light on Luther’s “championship of entire freedom of conscience.” It is that of an experienced observer of the struggles of those days, Friedrich Paulsen: “The principle of 1521, viz. to allow no authority on earth to dictate the terms of faith, is anarchical; with it no Church can exist.... The starting-point and the justification of the whole Reformation consisted in the complete rejection of all human authority in matters of faith.... If, however, a Church is to exist, then the individual must subordinate himself and his belief to the body as a whole. To do this is his duty, for religion can only exist in a body, i.e. in a Church.”[177]... “Revolution is the term by which the Reformation should be described ... Luther’s work was no Reformation, no ‘reforming’ of the existing Church by means of her own institutions, but the destruction of the old shape, in fact, the fundamental negation of any Church at all. He refused to admit any earthly authority in matters of faith, and regarding morals his position was practically the same; he left the matter entirely to the individual conscience.... Never has the possibility of the existence of any ecclesiastical authority whatsoever been more rudely denied.”[178]“It is true that this is not the whole Luther,” he continues. “The same Luther who here advocates ecclesiastical ‘anarchy’ at a later date was to oppose those whose conscience placed another interpretation on God’s Word than that discovered in it by the inhabitants of Wittenberg.” Paulsen quotes certain sentences in which Luther, shortly afterwards, denounced all deviations from his teaching: “My cause is God’s cause,” and “my judgment is God’s judgment,” and proceeds: “Nothing was left for the Reformers, if there was to be a Church at all, but to set up their own authority in place of the authority of the Popes and the Councils. Only on one tiresome point are they at a disadvantage, anyone being free to appeal from the later Luther to the Luther of Worms.” “Just as people are inclined to reject external authority, so they are ready to set up their own. This is one of the roots from which spring the desire for freedom and the thirst for power. It was not at all Luther’s way to consider the convictions of others as of equal importance with his own.” This he clearly demonstrated in the autocratic position which he claimed for the Wittenberg theology as soon as the “revolutionary era of the Reformation had passed.”“The argument which Luther had employed in 1521 against the Papists, i.e. that it was impossible to confute him from Scripture, he found used against himself in his struggle with the ‘fanatics’ who also urged that no one could prove them wrong by Scripture.... For the confuting of heretics a Rule of faith is necessary, a living one which can decide questions as they arise.... One who pins his faith to what Luther did in 1521 might well say: If heretics cannot be confuted from Scripture, this would seem to prove that God does not attach much importance to the confutation of heretics; otherwise He would have given us His Revelation in catechisms and duly balanced propositions instead of in Gospels and Epistles, in Prophets and Psalms.... On the one hand there can be no authority on earth in matters of faith, and on the other there must be such an authority, such is the antinomy which lies at the foundation of the Protestant Church.... A contradiction exists in the very essence of Protestantism. On the one hand the very idea of a Church postulates oneness of faith manifested by submission; on the other the conviction that if faith in the Protestant sense is to exist at all, then each person must answer for himself; ... it ismyfaith alone which helps me, and if my faith does not agree with the faith and doctrine of others, I cannot for that reason abandon it.... The fact is, there has never been a revolution conducted on entirely logical lines.”[179]That “authority in matters of faith” which Luther began to claim for himself, did not prevent him in the ensuing years from insisting on the right of private judgment, though all the while he was interpreting biblical Revelation in accordance with his own views. As time went on he became, however, much more severe towards the heretics who diverged from his own standpoint. But this was only when the “revolutionary era ofthe Reformation,” as Paulsen calls it, was over and gone. So long as it lasted he would not and could not openly refuse to others what he claimed for himself. Even in 1525 we find him declaring that “the authorities must not interfere with what each one wishes to teach and to believe, whether it be the Gospel or a lie.” He is here speaking of the authorities, but his own conduct in the matter of tolerating heretics was even then highly inconsistent, to say nothing of toleration of Catholics.From the above it is easy to see that the freedom which Luther advocated at Worms cannot serve as the type of our modern freedom of thought, research and conscience.To return to the historical consideration of the event at Worms, the words already mentioned, “God help me, Amen!” call for remark.The celebrated exclamation put into Luther’s mouth: “Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise. God help me, Amen!” usually quoted as the briefest and most characteristic expression of his “exalted, knightly act” at Worms, is a legend which has not even the credit of being incorporated in Luther’s Latin account of his speech.He himself gives the conclusion as simply: “God help me, Amen,” a formula which has nothing emphatic about it, was customary at the end of a discourse and is to be found elsewhere in Luther’s own writings. Its embellishment by the historic addition was produced at Wittenberg, where it was found desirable to render “the words rather more forcible and high-sounding.” “There is not the faintest proof that the amplification came from anyone who actually heard the words.”[180]The most that can be said is that it may have grown up elsewhere.[181]The enlarged form is first found in the two editions of the discourse printed by Grüneberg at Wittenberg in 1521, one in Latin and the other in German, which are based as to the remaining portion on notes on the subject emanating from Luther. Karl Müller, the last thoroughly to examine the question, opines that Luther’s concluding phrase may very easily have been amplified without the co-operation of Luther or of any actual witness. The proposal made in 1897 in Volume vii. of the Weimar edition of Luther’s works to accept as reliable Grüneberg’s edition which contains the altered form of the phrase, must, according to Karl Müller, be regarded as “a total failure,” nor does he think muchbetter of the Weimar edition in its account of the Worms Acts generally.How little the exclamation can pretend to any special importance is clear from a note of Conrad Peutinger’s, who was present during the address and committed his impression to writing the following day. When Luther had finished his explanation, so it runs, the “official” again exhorted him to retract, seeing he had already been condemned by higher councils. Thereupon Luther retorted that the Councils “had also erred and over and over again contradicted themselves and come into opposition with the Divine Law. This the ‘official’ denied. Luther insisted that it was so and offered to prove it. This brought the discussion suddenly to an end, and there was a great outcry as Luther left the place. In the midst of it he recommended himself submissively to His Imperial Mt. [Majesty]. Before concluding he uttered the words: May God come to my help.” According to this account the words were interjected as Luther was about to leave the assembly, in the midst of the tumult and “great outcry” which followed his recommending himself to the Imperial protection.In view of the circumstances just described, P. Kalkoff, years ago, admitted that Luther’s words as quoted above had “no claim to credibility,”[182]while, quite recently, H. Böhmer declared that “it would be well not to quote any more these most celebrated of Luther’s words as though they were his. Many will be sorry, yet the absence of these words need not affect our opinion of Luther’s behaviour at Worms.”[183]W. Friedensburg is also of opinion that “we must, at any rate, give up the emphatic conclusion of the speech—‘Here I stand,’ etc.—as unhistorical; the searching examinations made in connection with the Reichstagsakten have rendered it certain that Luther’s conclusion was simply: ‘God help me, Amen.’” Of this Karl Müller adduced conclusive proofs.[184]The immense success of the legend of the manly, decisive, closing words so solemnly uttered in the assembly is quite explicable when we come to consider the circumstances. The Diet, an event which stands out in such strong relief in Luther’s history, where his friends seemed to see his star rising on the horizon only to set again suddenly behind the mountain fortress, was itself of a nature to invite them to embellish it with fiction.Apart from the legends in circulation among Luther’s friends, there were others which went the rounds among his opponents and later polemics. Such is the statement to the effect that Luther played the coward at Worms, and that his assumed boldness and audacity was merely due to thepromises of material assistance, or, as Thomas Münzer asserts, to actual coercion on the part of his own followers.According to all we have seen, Luther’s chief motive-force was his passionate prepossession in favour of his own ideas. It is true that, especially previous to the Diet, this was alloyed with a certain amount of quite reasonable fear. He himself admits, that when summoned to Worms, he “fell into a tremble” till he determined to bid defiance to the devils there.[185]On his first appearance before the Diet on April 17, he spoke, according to those who heard him, “in an almost inaudible voice,” and gave the impression of being a timid man.[186]Later his enthusiasm and his boldness increased with the lively sense of the justice of his cause aided by the applause of sympathisers. There can be no doubt that he was stimulated to confidence not merely by the thought of the thousands who were giving him their moral support, but by the offers of material help he had received, and by his knowledge that the atmosphere of the Diet was charged with electricity. “Counts and Nobles,” he himself says later, “looked hard at me; as a result of my sermon, as people in the know think, they lodged in court a charge of 400 Articles [the ‘Gravamina’] against the clergy. They [the members of the Diet] had more cause to fear me than I to fear them, for they apprehended a tumult.”[187]It was his fiery conviction that he had rediscovered the Gospel and torn away the mask of Antichrist, combined with his assurance of outward support, that inspired him with that “mad courage” of which he was wont to talk even to the end of his life: “I was undismayed and feared nothing; God alone is able to make a man mad after this fashion; I hardly know whether I should be so cheery now.”[188]The unfavourable accounts, circulated from early days among Luther’s opponents concerning his mode of life at Worms, must not be allowed to pass unchallenged.Luther was said to have “distinguished himself by drunkenness,” and to have indulged in moral “excesses.” Incontrovertible proof would be necessary to allow of our accepting such statements of a time when he was actually under the very eyes of the highest authorities, clerical and lay, and a cynosure of thousands. We should have to ask ourselves how he came to prejudice his judges still further by intemperance and a vicious life. The accounts appealed to do not suffice to establish the charge, consisting as they do of general statements founded partly on the impression made by Luther’s appearance, partly on reports circulated by his enemies. That the friends of theChurch were all too ready to believe everything, even the worst, of the morals of so defiant and dangerous a heretic, was only to be expected. The reports were not treated with sufficient discernment even in the official papers, but accepted at their face-value when they suited the purposes of his foes. Luther seemed deficient in the recollection looked for in a religious, though he wore the Augustinian habit; the self-confidence, which he never lost an occasion of displaying, had the appearance of presumption and excessive self-sufficiency; it may also be that the manners which he had inherited from his low-born Saxon parents excited hostile comment among the cultured members of the Diet; if he indulged a little in the good Malvasian wine in which his friends pledged him, this would be regarded by strangers as betraying his German love of the bottle; at the same time it is true that, when starting for Worms, and likewise during the journey, it is reported how, with somewhat unseemly mirth, he had not scrupled to indulge in the juice of the grape, perhaps to dispel sad thoughts.Caspar Contarini, the Venetian ambassador, who was present at Worms, wrote to Venice: “Martin has scarcely fulfilled the expectations cherished of him here by all. He displays neither a blameless life nor any sort of cleverness. He is quite unversed in learning and has nothing to distinguish him but his impudence.”[189]Perhaps the remark concerning Luther’s want of culture and wit, on which alone the Venetian here lays stress, was an outcome of Luther’s behaviour at his first interrogation; we have already seen how another witness alludes to the nervousness then manifested by him, but over which he ultimately triumphed.[190]The second authority appealed to, viz. the Nuncio, Hieronymus Aleander, writes more strongly against Luther than does Contarini. It is not however certain that he was an “eye-witness,” as he has been termed, at least it is doubtful whether he ever saw Luther while he was in the town, though he describes his appearance, his demeanour and look, as though from personal observation.[191]Aleander speaks much from hearsay, collects impressions and tittle-tattle at haphazard, and enters into no detail, save that he sets on record the “many bowls of Malvasian” which Luther, “being very fond of that wine,” drank before his departure from Worms. It is he who wrote to Rome that the Emperor, so soon as he had seen Luther, exclaimed: “This man will never make a heretic of me.” Aleander merely adds, thatalmost everybody looked on Luther as a stupid, possessed fool; and that it was unnecessary to speak of “the drunkenness to which he was so much addicted, and the many other instances of coarseness in his looks, words, acts, demeanour and gait.” By his behaviour he had forfeited all the respect the world had had for him. He describes him as dissolute and a demoniac (“dissoluto, demoniaco”).[192]Yet Count Hoyer of Mansfeld, who will be referred to more particularly below, and who blames Luther’s moral conduct after his stay at the Wartburg, alleging it as his reason for forsaking his cause, admits that, while at Worms, he, the Count, had been quite Lutheran; hence nothing to the prejudice of Luther’s morals can have reached his ears there. In the absence of any further information we may safely assume that it was merely Luther’s general behaviour which was rather severely criticised at the great assembly of notables.A capital opportunity for a closer study of Luther’s mind is afforded by his life and doings in the Wartburg.4. Luther’s sojourn at the WartburgThe solitude of the Wartburg afforded Luther a refuge for almost ten months, to him a lengthy period.Whereas but a little while before he had been inspirited by the loud applause of his followers and roused by the opposition of those in high places to a struggle which made him utterly oblivious of self, here, in the quiet of the mountain stronghold, the thoughts born of his solitude assailed him in every conceivable form. He was altogether thrown upon himself and his studies. The croaking of the ravens and magpies about the towers in front of his windows sounded like the voices which spoke in the depths of his soul.Looking back upon his conduct at Worms, he now began to doubt; how, indeed, could an outlaw do otherwise, even had he not undertaken so subversive a venture as Luther? To this was added, in his case, the responsibility for the storm he had let loose on his beloved native land. His own confession runs: “How often did my heart faint for fear, and reproach me thus: You wanted to be wise beyond all others. Are then all others in their countless multitude mistaken? Have so many centuries all been in the wrong? Supposing you were mistaken, and, owing to your mistake,were to drag down with you to eternal damnation so many human creatures!”[193]He must often have asked himself such questions, especially at the beginning of the “hermit life,” as he calls it, which he led within those walls. But to these questionings he of set purpose refused to give the right answer; he had set out on the downward path and could not go back; of this he came to convince himself as the result of a lengthy struggle.This is the point which it is incumbent on the psychologist to study beyond all else. Luther’s everyday life and his studies at Worms have been discussed often enough already.It is unheard of, so he says in the accounts he gives of his interior struggles in those days, “to run counter to the custom of so many centuries and to oppose the convictions of innumerable men and such great authorities. How can anyone turn a deaf ear to these reproaches, insults and condemnations?” “How hard is it,” he exclaims from his own experience, “to come to terms with one’s own conscience when it has long been accustomed to a certain usage [like that of the Papists], which is nevertheless wrong and godless. Even with the plainest words from Holy Scripture I was scarcely able so to fortify my conscience as to venture to challenge the Pope, and to look on him as Antichrist, on the bishops as the Apostles of Antichrist and the Universities as his dens of iniquity!” He summoned all his spirit of defiance to his aid and came off victorious. “Christ at length strengthened me by His words, which are steadfast and true. No longer does my heart tremble and waver, but mocks at the Popish objections; I am in a haven of safety and laugh at the storms which rage without.”[194]From the Catholic point of view, what he had done was violently to suppress the higher voice which had spoken to him in his solitude. Yet this voice was again to make itself heard, and with greater force than ever.Luther had then succeeded so well in silencing it that he was able to write to his friends, as it seems, without the slightest scruple, that, as to Worms, he was only ashamed of not having spoken more bravely and emphatically before the whole Empire; were he compelled to appear there again, they would hear a very different tale of him. “I desire nothing more ardently than to bare my breast to the attacks of my adversaries.” He spent his whole time in picturing to himself “the empire of Antichrist,” a frightful vision of the wrath of God.[195]With such pictures hespurs himself on, and encourages Melanchthon, with whose assistance he was unable to dispense, to overcome his timidity and vacillation. In many of his letters from the Wartburg he exhorts his friends to courage and confidence, being anxious to counteract by every possible effort the ill-effects of his absence. In these letters his language is, as a rule, permeated by a fanatical and, at times, mystical tone, even more so than any of his previous utterances. He exhibits even less restraint than formerly in his polemics. “Unless a man scolds, bites and taunts, he achieves nothing. If we admonish the Popes respectfully, they take it for flattery and fancy they have a right to remain unreformed. But Jeremias exhorts me, and says to me: ‘Cursed be he who does the work of the Lord deceitfully’ (xlviii. 10), and calls for the use of the sword against the enemies of God.”[196]Two phenomena which accompanied this frenzy render it still graver in the eyes of an onlooker. These were, on the one hand, certain occurrences which bordered on hallucination, and, on the other, frightful assaults of the tempter.Concerning both, his letters of that time, and likewise his own accounts at a later date, supply us with definite information. It is, indeed, a dark page on which they direct our attention. All the circumstances must carefully be borne in mind. First, much must be attributed to the influence of his new and unaccustomed place of abode and the strange nature of his surroundings. His gloomy meditations and enforced leisure; a more generous diet, which, in comparison with his former circumstances, meant to the Monk, now metamorphosed into “Squire George,” an almost luxurious mode of living; finally, bodily discomfort, for instance, the constipation to which he frequently refers as troubling him,[197]all this tended to develop an abnormal condition of soul to which his former psychological states of terror may also have contributed. He fancied, and all his life maintained, that in the Wartburg he had suffered bodily assaults of the devil.Luther believed that he had not only heard the devil tormenting him by day, and more particularly by night, with divers dreadful noises, but that he had seen him in his room under the form of a huge black dog, and had chased him away by prayer. His statements, to which we shall return in detail in another connection (vol. vi., xxxvi. 3; cp. vol. v., xxxi. 4), are such as presuppose, at the veryleast, the strangest illusions. Some have even opined that he suffered from real hallucinations of hearing and sight, though they have adduced no definite proof of such. The disputes with the devil, of which he speaks, are certainly nothing more than a rhetorical version of his own self-communings.If Luther brought with him to the Wartburg a large stock of popular superstition, he increased it yet more within those dreary walls, thanks to the sensitiveness of his lively imagination, until he himself became the plaything of his fancy. “Because he was so lonely,” writes his friend the physician Ratzeberger, on the strength of Luther’s personal communication, “he was beset with ghosts and noisy spirits which gave him much concern.” And after quoting the tale of the dog he goes on: “Such-like and many other ghosts came to him at that time, all of which he drove away by prayer, and which he would not talk about, for he said he would never tell anyone by how many different kinds of ghosts he had been molested.”[198]The temptations of the flesh which he then experienced Luther also attributed, in the main, to the devil. They fell upon him with greater force than ever before. Their strength displeased him, according to his letters, and he sought to resist them, though it is plain from his words that he realised the utter futility of his desire to rid himself of them. In this state of darkness he directed his thoughts more vigorously than heretofore to the question of monastic vows and their binding power. He seems to be clanking the chains by which he had by his own vow freely pledged himself to the Almighty.In July, 1521, in a letter from the Wartburg to his friend Melanchthon, while repudiating, in the somewhat bombastic fashion of the Humanists, Melanchthon’s praise, he makes the following confession: “Your good opinion of me shames and tortures me. For I sit here [instead of working for God’s cause as you fondly imagine] hardened in immobility, praying, unhappily, too little instead of sighing over the Church of God; nay, I burn with the flames of my untamed flesh; in short, I ought to be glowing in the spirit, and instead I glow in the flesh, in lust, laziness, idleness and drowsiness, and know not whether God has not turned away His face from me because you have ceased to pray for me. You, who are more rich in the gifts of God than I, are now holding my place. For a whole week I have neither written, prayed nor studied, plagued partly by temptations of the flesh, partly by the other trouble.” The other trouble wasthe painful bodily ailment mentioned above, to which he returns here in greater detail. “Pray for me,” he concludes this letter—in which he seeks to confirm his friends in the course upon which they had set out,—“pray, for in this solitude I am sinking into sin.”[199]And in another letter, in December, we again have an allusion to his besetting temptations: “I am healthy in body and am well cared for, but I am also severely tried by sin and temptations. Pray for me, and fare you well.”[200]He here speaks of sinsandtemptations, but it may well be that under “sins” he here, as elsewhere, comprehends concupiscence, which he, in accordance with his teaching, looked upon as sin.“Believe me,” he says in a letter of that time to Nicholas Gerbel of Strasburg, “in the quiet of my hermitage I am exposed to the attacks of a thousand devils. It is far easier to fight against men, who are devils incarnate, than against the ‘spirits of wickedness dwelling in high places’ (Eph. vi. 12). I fall frequently, but the right hand of the Lord again raises me up.”[201]The distaste which was growing up within him for the vow of chastity which he had once esteemed so highly, did not appear to him to come from the devil, for he congratulates the same friend that he has forsaken the “unclean and in its nature damnable state of celibacy,” in order to enter the “married state ordained by God.” “I consider the married state a true Paradise, even though the married couple should live in the greatest indigence.” At the same time he privately informs Gerbel, that, with the co-operation of Melanchthon, he has already started “a powerful conspiracy with the object of setting aside the vows of the clergy and religious.” He is here alluding to the tract he was then writing “On Monastic Vows.” “The womb is fruitful, and is soon due to bring forth; if Christ wills it will give birth to a child [the tract in question], which shall break in pieces with a rod of iron (Apoc. xii. 5) the Papists, sophists, religiosists [defenders of religious Orders] and Herodians.” “O how criminal is Antichrist, seeing that Satan by his means has laid waste all the mysteries of Christian piety.... I daily see so much that is dreadful in the wretched celibacy of young men and women that nothing sounds more evil in my ears than the words nun, monk and priest.”[202]Hence, at the beginning of November, 1521, when he was engaged on the momentous work “On Monastic Vows,” he believed he had found decisive biblical arguments against the state of chastity and continence, recommended though it had been by Christ and His Apostles.Previously the case had been different, when Carlstadtand others first began to boggle at vows; Luther was then still undecided, seeking for ostensibly theological arguments with which to demolish the difficulty. At that time he had been troubled by such plain biblical words as those of the Psalmist, “Vow ye and pray to the Lord your God” (Ps. lxxv. 12). Even in August, 1521, he had confided his scruples to Spalatin from the Wartburg: “What can be more perilous than to invite so large a number of unmarried persons to enter into matrimony on the strength of a few passages of doubtful meaning? The consequence will only be that consciences will be still more troubled than they are at present. I, too, would fain see celibacy made optional, as the Gospel wills, but I do not yet see my way to proving this.”[203]We likewise find him criticising rather unkindly Melanchthon’s reasons, because they took a wrong way to a goal after which he was himself ardently striving, viz. the setting aside of the vow of celibacy. He was suffering, he admits, “grievous pain through being unable to find the right answer to the question.”[204]Such efforts were naturally crowned with success in the end.Five weeks later he was able to inform Melanchthon: “It seems to me that now I can say with confidence how our task is to be accomplished. The argument is briefly this: Whoever has taken a vow in a spirit opposed to evangelical freedom must be set free and his vow be anathema. Such, however, are all those who have taken the vow in the search for salvation, or justification. Since the greater number of those taking vows make them for this reason, it is clear that their vow is godless, sacrilegious, contrary to the Gospel and hence to be dissolved and laid under a curse.”[205]Thus it was the indefinite and elastic idea of “evangelical freedom” which was finally to settle the question. Concerning his own frame of mind while working out this idea in his tract, he says to Spalatin, on November 11, in a letter of complaint about other matters: “I am going to make waragainst religious vows.... I am suffering from temptations, and out of temper, so don’t be offended. There is more than one Satan contending with me; I am alone, and yet at times not alone.”[206]The book was finished in November and sent out under the title, “On Monastic Vows.”[207]The same strange argument, based on evangelical freedom, recurs therein again and again under all sorts of rhetorical forms; the tract is also noteworthy for its distortion of the Church’s teaching,[208]though we cannot here enter in detail into its theology and misstatements. The very origin of the book does not inspire confidence. Many great and monumental historical works and events have originated in conditions far from blameless, but few of Luther’s writings have sprung from so base a source as this one; yet its results were far-reaching, and it was a means of seducing countless wavering and careless religious, depicting the monasteries and furthering immensely the new evangelical teaching. While writing the book Luther had naturally in his mind the multitude he was so desirous of setting free, and chose his language accordingly.But what were his thoughts concerning himself at that period, when the idea of matrimony had not yet dawned upon him?
Ulrich von Hutten wrote to him from the Ebernburg on April 17: “Keep a good heart ... I will stand by you to the last breath if you remain true to yourself.” He knows how those assembled at the Diet gnash their teeth at him; his fancy indeed paints things black, but his hope in God sustains him.[156]In a second letter of April 20, Hutten speaks to him of trusting not only in God and His Christ, but also in earthly weapons: “Isee that sword and bow, arrows and bolts are necessary in order to withstand the mad rage of the devil ... the wisdom of my friends hinders me from a venture, because they fear lest I go too far, otherwise I should already have prepared some kind of surprise for these gentlemen under the walls [of Worms]. In a short time, however, my hand will be free, and then you shall see that I will not be wanting in the spirit which God has roused up in me.”[157]In the same way as in his rhetorical language he ascribes his own mood to the illumination of the Spirit of God, so Hutten also sought to unearth a Divine inspiration in his friend Franz von Sickingen; all this was the outcome of Luther’s pseudo-mysticism, to which his friends were indebted for such figures of speech. Regarding Sickingen, Hutten wrote to Willibald Pirkheimer: “He has, so to speak, drunk in Luther completely; he has his little books read aloud at table, and I have heard him swear that he will never forsake the cause of truth in spite of every danger.” “You may well regard these words as a Divine Voice, so great is his constancy.”[158]Numerous threats of violence reached the ears of the timorous Estates assembled at Worms. A notice was affixed to the Rathaus in which 400(?) sworn noblemen with 8000(?) men challenged the “Princes and Messrs. the Romanists.” It concluded with the watchword of the insurgents: “Bundschuh, Bundschuh, Bundschuh.” Towards the close of the Diet several hundred knights assembled around Worms.[159]At the Diet the Elector of Saxony made no secret of his patronage of Luther.He it was who, on the evening before Luther’s departure, informed him in the presence of Spalatin and others, that he would be seized on the homeward journey and conducted to a place of safety which would not be told him beforehand.[160]After having received this assurance Luther left Worms.On the journey such was his boldness that he disregarded the Imperial prohibition to preach, though he feared that this violation of the conditions laid down would be taken advantage of by his opponents, and cause him to forfeit his safe-conduct. He himself says of the sermons which he delivered at Hersfeld and Eisenach, on May 1 and 2, that they would be regarded as a breach of the obligations he had undertaken when availing himself of the safe conduct; but that he had been unable to consent that the Word of God should be bound in chains. He is here playing on the words of the Bible: “Verbum Dei non est alligatum.” “This condition, even had I undertaken it, would not have been binding, as it would have been against God.”[161]After the journey had been resumed the well-known surprise took place, and Luther was carried off to the Wartburg on May 4.In his lonely abode, known to only a few of his friends, he awaited with concern the sentence of outlawry which was to be passed upon him by the Emperor and the Estates. The edict, in its final form of May 8, was not published until after the safe-conduct had expired. “To-morrow the Imperial safe conduct terminates,” Luther wrote on May 11 from the Wartburg to Spalatin; “ ... It grieves me that those deluded men should call down such a misfortune upon their own heads. How great a hatred will this inconsiderate act of violence arouse. But only wait, the time of their visitation is at hand.”[162]The proclamation of outlawry was couched in very stern language and enacted measures of the utmost severity, following in this the traditions of the Middle Ages; Luther’s writings were to be burnt, and he himself was adjudged worthy of death. Of Luther the document says, that, “like the enemy of souls disguised in a monk’s garb,” he had gathered together “heresies old and new.” The impression made by Luther on the Emperor and on other eminent members of the Diet, was that of one possessed.[163]There was, from the first, no prospect of the sentencebeing carried into effect. The hesitation of the German Princes of the Church to publish even the Bull of Excommunication had shown that they were not to be trusted to put the new measures into execution.The thoughts of retaliation which were aflame in Luther, i.e. his expectation of a “Divine judgment” on his adversaries, he committed to writing in a letter which he forwarded to Franz von Sickingen on June 1, 1521, together with a little work dedicated to him, “Concerning Confession, whether the Pope has the power to decree it.”[164]In it he reminds Sickingen that God had slain thirty-one Kings in the land of Chanaan together with the inhabitants of their cities. “It was ordained by God that they should fight against Israel bravely and defiantly, that they should be destroyed and no mercy shown them. This story looks to me like a warning to our Popes, bishops, men of learning and other spiritual tyrants.” He feared that it was God’s work that they should feel themselves secure in their pride, “so that, in the end, they would needs perish without mercy.” Unless they altered their ways one would be found who “would teach them, not like Luther by word and letter, but by deeds.” We cannot here go into the question of why the revolutionary party in the Empire did not at that time proceed to “deeds.”3. LegendsThe beginning of the legends concerning the Diet of Worms can be traced back to Luther himself. He declared, only a year after the event, shortly after his departure from the Wartburg, in a letter of July 15, 1522, intended for a few friends and not for German readers: “I repaired to Worms although I had already been apprised of the violation of the safe-conduct by the Emperor Charles.”He there says of himself, that, in spite of his timidity, he nevertheless ventured “within reach of the jaws of Behemoth [the monster mentioned in Job xl.]. And what did these terrible giants [my adversaries] do? During the last three years not one has been found brave enough to come forward against me here at Wittenberg, though assured of a safe-conduct and protection”; “rude and timorous at one and the same time” they would not venture “to confront him, though single-handed,” or to disputewith him. What would have happened had these weaklings been forced to face the Emperor and all-powerful foes as he had done at Worms? This he says to the Bohemian, Sebastian Schlick, Count of Passun, in the letter in which he dedicates to him his Latin work “Against Henry VIII of England.”[165]It is worth noting that Luther did not insert this dedication in the German edition, but only in the Latin one intended for Bohemia and foreign countries where the circumstances were not so well known.Luther always adhered obstinately to the idea, which ultimately passed into a standing tradition with many of his followers, that no one had been willing to dispute with him at Worms or elsewhere during the period of his outlawry; that he had, in fact, been condemned unheard; that his opponents had sought to vanquish him by force, not by confronting him with proofs, and had obstinately shut their ears to his arguments from Holy Scripture. He finally came to persuade himself, that they were in their hearts convinced that he was right, but out of consideration for their temporal interests had not been willing or able to give in.He expressly mentions Duke George of Saxony, as an opponent who had taken up the latter position, also the influential Archbishop Albrecht of Mayence, and, above all, Johann Eck. “Is it not obdurate wickedness,” he exclaims in one of his outbursts, “to be the enemy of, and withstand, what is known and recognised as true? It is a sin against the first Commandment and greater than any other. But because it is not their invention they look on it as nought! Yet their own conscience accuses them.”[166]In another passage, in 1528, he complains of the persecutors in Church and State who appealed to the edict of Worms; “they sought for an excuse to deceive the simple people, though they really knew better”; if they act thus, it must be right, “were we to do the same, it would be wrong.”[167]Yet,even from the vainglorious so-called “Minutes of the Worms Negotiations” (“Akten der Wormser Verhandlungen”), published immediately after at Wittenberg with Luther’s assistance,[168]it is clear that the case was fully argued in his presence at Worms, and that he had every opportunity of defending himself, though, from a legal point of view, the Bull of Excommunication having already been promulgated, the question was no longer open to theological discussion. In these “Minutes” the speeches he made in his defence at Worms are quoted. Catholic contemporarieseven reproached him with having allowed himself to be styled therein “Luther, the man of God”; his orations are introduced with such phrases as: “Martin replied to the rude and indiscreet questions with his usual incredible kindness and friendliness in the following benevolent words,” etc.[169]In order still further to magnify the bravery he displayed at Worms, Luther stated later on that the Pope had written to Worms, “that no account was to be made of the safe-conduct.”[170]As a matter of fact, however, the Papal Nuncios at Worms had received instructions to use every effort to prevent Luther being tried in public, because according to Canon Law the case was already settled; if he refused to retract, and came provided with a safe-conduct, nothing remained but to send him home, and then proceed against him with the utmost severity.[171]It was for this reason, according to his despatches, that Aleander took no part in the public sessions at which Luther was present. Only after Luther, on the return journey, had sent back the herald who accompanied him, and had openly infringed the conditions of the Imperial safe-conduct, did Aleander propose “that the Emperor should have Luther seized.”[172]Luther, from the very commencement, stigmatised the Diet of Worms as the “Sin of Wormbs, which rejected God’s truth so childishly and openly, wilfully and knowingly condemned it unheard”;[173]to him the members of the Diet were culpably hardened and obdurate “Pharaohs,” who thought Christ could not see them, who, out of “utterly sinful wilfulness,” were determined “to hate and blaspheme Christ at Wormbs,” and to “kill the prophets, till God forsook them”; he even says: “In me they condemned innocent blood at Wormbs; ... O thou unhappy nation, who beyond all others has become the lictor and executioner of End-Christ against God’s saints and prophets.”[174]An esteemed Protestant biographer of Luther is, however, at pains to point out, quite rightly, that the Diet could “not do otherwise than condemn Luther.” “By rejecting the sentence of the highest court he placed himself outside the pale of the law of the land. Even his very friends were unable to take exception to this.” It is, he says, “incorrect to make out, as so many do, that Luther’s opponents were merely impious men who obstinately withstood the revealed truth.” This author confines himself to remarking that, in his own view, it was a mistake to have “pronounced a formal sentence” upon such questions.[175]That Luther, at the Diet of Worms, bore away the palm as the heroic defender of entire freedom of research and of conscience, and as the champion of the modern spirit, is a view not in accordance with a fair historical consideration of the facts.He himself was then, and all through life, far removed from the idea of any freedom of conscience in the modern sense, and would have deemed all who dared to use it against Divine Revelation, as later opponents of religion did, as deserving of the worst penalties of the mediæval code. “It is an altogether one-sided view, one, indeed, which wilfully disregards the facts, to hail in Luther the man of the new age, the hero of enlightenment and the creator of the modern spirit.” Such is the opinion of Adolf Harnack.[176]At Worms, Luther spoke of himself as being bound by the Word of God. It is true he claimed the freedom of interpreting Holy Scripture according to his own mind, or, as he said, according to the understanding bestowed on him by God, and of amending all such dogmas as displeased him.But he would on no account cease to acknowledge that a revealed Word of God exists and claims submission from the human mind, whereas, from the standpoint of the modern free-thinker, there is no such thing as revelation. The liberty of interpreting revelation, which Luther proclaimed at Worms, or, to be more exact, calmly assumed, marked, it is true, a great stride forward in the road to the destruction of the Church.Luther failed to point out at Worms how such liberty, or rather licence, agreed with the institutions established by Christ for the preservation and perpetual preaching of His doctrine of salvation. He was confronted by a Church, still recognised throughout the whole public life of the nations, which claimed as her own a Divine authority and commission to interpret the written Word of God. She was to the Faithful the lighthouse by which souls struggling in the waves of conflicting opinions might safely steer their course. In submitting his own personal opinion to the solemn judgment of an institution which had stood the test of time since the days of Christ and the Apostles, the Wittenberg Professor had no reason to fear any affront to his dignity. Whoever submitted to the Church accepted her authority assupreme, but he did not thereby forfeit either his freedom or his dignity; he obeyed in order not to expose himself to doubt or error; he pledged himself to a higher, and better, wisdom than he was able to reach by his own strength, by the way of experience, error and uncertainty. The Church plainly intimated to the heresiarch the error of his way, pointing out that the freedom of interpretation which he arrogated to himself was the destruction of all sure doctrine, the death-blow to the truth handed down, the tearing asunder of religious union, and the harbinger of endless dissensions.—We here see where Luther’s path diverged from that followed by Catholics. He set up subjectivity as a principle, and preached, together with the freedom of interpreting Scripture, the most unfettered revolt against all ecclesiastical authority, which alone can guarantee the truth. The chasm which he cleft still yawns; hence the difference of opinion concerning the sentence pronounced at Worms. We are not at liberty to conceal this fact from ourselves, nor can we wonder at the conflicting judgments passed on the position then assumed by Luther.We may perhaps be permitted to quote a Protestant opinion which throws some light on Luther’s “championship of entire freedom of conscience.” It is that of an experienced observer of the struggles of those days, Friedrich Paulsen: “The principle of 1521, viz. to allow no authority on earth to dictate the terms of faith, is anarchical; with it no Church can exist.... The starting-point and the justification of the whole Reformation consisted in the complete rejection of all human authority in matters of faith.... If, however, a Church is to exist, then the individual must subordinate himself and his belief to the body as a whole. To do this is his duty, for religion can only exist in a body, i.e. in a Church.”[177]... “Revolution is the term by which the Reformation should be described ... Luther’s work was no Reformation, no ‘reforming’ of the existing Church by means of her own institutions, but the destruction of the old shape, in fact, the fundamental negation of any Church at all. He refused to admit any earthly authority in matters of faith, and regarding morals his position was practically the same; he left the matter entirely to the individual conscience.... Never has the possibility of the existence of any ecclesiastical authority whatsoever been more rudely denied.”[178]“It is true that this is not the whole Luther,” he continues. “The same Luther who here advocates ecclesiastical ‘anarchy’ at a later date was to oppose those whose conscience placed another interpretation on God’s Word than that discovered in it by the inhabitants of Wittenberg.” Paulsen quotes certain sentences in which Luther, shortly afterwards, denounced all deviations from his teaching: “My cause is God’s cause,” and “my judgment is God’s judgment,” and proceeds: “Nothing was left for the Reformers, if there was to be a Church at all, but to set up their own authority in place of the authority of the Popes and the Councils. Only on one tiresome point are they at a disadvantage, anyone being free to appeal from the later Luther to the Luther of Worms.” “Just as people are inclined to reject external authority, so they are ready to set up their own. This is one of the roots from which spring the desire for freedom and the thirst for power. It was not at all Luther’s way to consider the convictions of others as of equal importance with his own.” This he clearly demonstrated in the autocratic position which he claimed for the Wittenberg theology as soon as the “revolutionary era of the Reformation had passed.”“The argument which Luther had employed in 1521 against the Papists, i.e. that it was impossible to confute him from Scripture, he found used against himself in his struggle with the ‘fanatics’ who also urged that no one could prove them wrong by Scripture.... For the confuting of heretics a Rule of faith is necessary, a living one which can decide questions as they arise.... One who pins his faith to what Luther did in 1521 might well say: If heretics cannot be confuted from Scripture, this would seem to prove that God does not attach much importance to the confutation of heretics; otherwise He would have given us His Revelation in catechisms and duly balanced propositions instead of in Gospels and Epistles, in Prophets and Psalms.... On the one hand there can be no authority on earth in matters of faith, and on the other there must be such an authority, such is the antinomy which lies at the foundation of the Protestant Church.... A contradiction exists in the very essence of Protestantism. On the one hand the very idea of a Church postulates oneness of faith manifested by submission; on the other the conviction that if faith in the Protestant sense is to exist at all, then each person must answer for himself; ... it ismyfaith alone which helps me, and if my faith does not agree with the faith and doctrine of others, I cannot for that reason abandon it.... The fact is, there has never been a revolution conducted on entirely logical lines.”[179]That “authority in matters of faith” which Luther began to claim for himself, did not prevent him in the ensuing years from insisting on the right of private judgment, though all the while he was interpreting biblical Revelation in accordance with his own views. As time went on he became, however, much more severe towards the heretics who diverged from his own standpoint. But this was only when the “revolutionary era ofthe Reformation,” as Paulsen calls it, was over and gone. So long as it lasted he would not and could not openly refuse to others what he claimed for himself. Even in 1525 we find him declaring that “the authorities must not interfere with what each one wishes to teach and to believe, whether it be the Gospel or a lie.” He is here speaking of the authorities, but his own conduct in the matter of tolerating heretics was even then highly inconsistent, to say nothing of toleration of Catholics.From the above it is easy to see that the freedom which Luther advocated at Worms cannot serve as the type of our modern freedom of thought, research and conscience.To return to the historical consideration of the event at Worms, the words already mentioned, “God help me, Amen!” call for remark.The celebrated exclamation put into Luther’s mouth: “Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise. God help me, Amen!” usually quoted as the briefest and most characteristic expression of his “exalted, knightly act” at Worms, is a legend which has not even the credit of being incorporated in Luther’s Latin account of his speech.He himself gives the conclusion as simply: “God help me, Amen,” a formula which has nothing emphatic about it, was customary at the end of a discourse and is to be found elsewhere in Luther’s own writings. Its embellishment by the historic addition was produced at Wittenberg, where it was found desirable to render “the words rather more forcible and high-sounding.” “There is not the faintest proof that the amplification came from anyone who actually heard the words.”[180]The most that can be said is that it may have grown up elsewhere.[181]The enlarged form is first found in the two editions of the discourse printed by Grüneberg at Wittenberg in 1521, one in Latin and the other in German, which are based as to the remaining portion on notes on the subject emanating from Luther. Karl Müller, the last thoroughly to examine the question, opines that Luther’s concluding phrase may very easily have been amplified without the co-operation of Luther or of any actual witness. The proposal made in 1897 in Volume vii. of the Weimar edition of Luther’s works to accept as reliable Grüneberg’s edition which contains the altered form of the phrase, must, according to Karl Müller, be regarded as “a total failure,” nor does he think muchbetter of the Weimar edition in its account of the Worms Acts generally.How little the exclamation can pretend to any special importance is clear from a note of Conrad Peutinger’s, who was present during the address and committed his impression to writing the following day. When Luther had finished his explanation, so it runs, the “official” again exhorted him to retract, seeing he had already been condemned by higher councils. Thereupon Luther retorted that the Councils “had also erred and over and over again contradicted themselves and come into opposition with the Divine Law. This the ‘official’ denied. Luther insisted that it was so and offered to prove it. This brought the discussion suddenly to an end, and there was a great outcry as Luther left the place. In the midst of it he recommended himself submissively to His Imperial Mt. [Majesty]. Before concluding he uttered the words: May God come to my help.” According to this account the words were interjected as Luther was about to leave the assembly, in the midst of the tumult and “great outcry” which followed his recommending himself to the Imperial protection.In view of the circumstances just described, P. Kalkoff, years ago, admitted that Luther’s words as quoted above had “no claim to credibility,”[182]while, quite recently, H. Böhmer declared that “it would be well not to quote any more these most celebrated of Luther’s words as though they were his. Many will be sorry, yet the absence of these words need not affect our opinion of Luther’s behaviour at Worms.”[183]W. Friedensburg is also of opinion that “we must, at any rate, give up the emphatic conclusion of the speech—‘Here I stand,’ etc.—as unhistorical; the searching examinations made in connection with the Reichstagsakten have rendered it certain that Luther’s conclusion was simply: ‘God help me, Amen.’” Of this Karl Müller adduced conclusive proofs.[184]The immense success of the legend of the manly, decisive, closing words so solemnly uttered in the assembly is quite explicable when we come to consider the circumstances. The Diet, an event which stands out in such strong relief in Luther’s history, where his friends seemed to see his star rising on the horizon only to set again suddenly behind the mountain fortress, was itself of a nature to invite them to embellish it with fiction.Apart from the legends in circulation among Luther’s friends, there were others which went the rounds among his opponents and later polemics. Such is the statement to the effect that Luther played the coward at Worms, and that his assumed boldness and audacity was merely due to thepromises of material assistance, or, as Thomas Münzer asserts, to actual coercion on the part of his own followers.According to all we have seen, Luther’s chief motive-force was his passionate prepossession in favour of his own ideas. It is true that, especially previous to the Diet, this was alloyed with a certain amount of quite reasonable fear. He himself admits, that when summoned to Worms, he “fell into a tremble” till he determined to bid defiance to the devils there.[185]On his first appearance before the Diet on April 17, he spoke, according to those who heard him, “in an almost inaudible voice,” and gave the impression of being a timid man.[186]Later his enthusiasm and his boldness increased with the lively sense of the justice of his cause aided by the applause of sympathisers. There can be no doubt that he was stimulated to confidence not merely by the thought of the thousands who were giving him their moral support, but by the offers of material help he had received, and by his knowledge that the atmosphere of the Diet was charged with electricity. “Counts and Nobles,” he himself says later, “looked hard at me; as a result of my sermon, as people in the know think, they lodged in court a charge of 400 Articles [the ‘Gravamina’] against the clergy. They [the members of the Diet] had more cause to fear me than I to fear them, for they apprehended a tumult.”[187]It was his fiery conviction that he had rediscovered the Gospel and torn away the mask of Antichrist, combined with his assurance of outward support, that inspired him with that “mad courage” of which he was wont to talk even to the end of his life: “I was undismayed and feared nothing; God alone is able to make a man mad after this fashion; I hardly know whether I should be so cheery now.”[188]The unfavourable accounts, circulated from early days among Luther’s opponents concerning his mode of life at Worms, must not be allowed to pass unchallenged.Luther was said to have “distinguished himself by drunkenness,” and to have indulged in moral “excesses.” Incontrovertible proof would be necessary to allow of our accepting such statements of a time when he was actually under the very eyes of the highest authorities, clerical and lay, and a cynosure of thousands. We should have to ask ourselves how he came to prejudice his judges still further by intemperance and a vicious life. The accounts appealed to do not suffice to establish the charge, consisting as they do of general statements founded partly on the impression made by Luther’s appearance, partly on reports circulated by his enemies. That the friends of theChurch were all too ready to believe everything, even the worst, of the morals of so defiant and dangerous a heretic, was only to be expected. The reports were not treated with sufficient discernment even in the official papers, but accepted at their face-value when they suited the purposes of his foes. Luther seemed deficient in the recollection looked for in a religious, though he wore the Augustinian habit; the self-confidence, which he never lost an occasion of displaying, had the appearance of presumption and excessive self-sufficiency; it may also be that the manners which he had inherited from his low-born Saxon parents excited hostile comment among the cultured members of the Diet; if he indulged a little in the good Malvasian wine in which his friends pledged him, this would be regarded by strangers as betraying his German love of the bottle; at the same time it is true that, when starting for Worms, and likewise during the journey, it is reported how, with somewhat unseemly mirth, he had not scrupled to indulge in the juice of the grape, perhaps to dispel sad thoughts.Caspar Contarini, the Venetian ambassador, who was present at Worms, wrote to Venice: “Martin has scarcely fulfilled the expectations cherished of him here by all. He displays neither a blameless life nor any sort of cleverness. He is quite unversed in learning and has nothing to distinguish him but his impudence.”[189]Perhaps the remark concerning Luther’s want of culture and wit, on which alone the Venetian here lays stress, was an outcome of Luther’s behaviour at his first interrogation; we have already seen how another witness alludes to the nervousness then manifested by him, but over which he ultimately triumphed.[190]The second authority appealed to, viz. the Nuncio, Hieronymus Aleander, writes more strongly against Luther than does Contarini. It is not however certain that he was an “eye-witness,” as he has been termed, at least it is doubtful whether he ever saw Luther while he was in the town, though he describes his appearance, his demeanour and look, as though from personal observation.[191]Aleander speaks much from hearsay, collects impressions and tittle-tattle at haphazard, and enters into no detail, save that he sets on record the “many bowls of Malvasian” which Luther, “being very fond of that wine,” drank before his departure from Worms. It is he who wrote to Rome that the Emperor, so soon as he had seen Luther, exclaimed: “This man will never make a heretic of me.” Aleander merely adds, thatalmost everybody looked on Luther as a stupid, possessed fool; and that it was unnecessary to speak of “the drunkenness to which he was so much addicted, and the many other instances of coarseness in his looks, words, acts, demeanour and gait.” By his behaviour he had forfeited all the respect the world had had for him. He describes him as dissolute and a demoniac (“dissoluto, demoniaco”).[192]Yet Count Hoyer of Mansfeld, who will be referred to more particularly below, and who blames Luther’s moral conduct after his stay at the Wartburg, alleging it as his reason for forsaking his cause, admits that, while at Worms, he, the Count, had been quite Lutheran; hence nothing to the prejudice of Luther’s morals can have reached his ears there. In the absence of any further information we may safely assume that it was merely Luther’s general behaviour which was rather severely criticised at the great assembly of notables.A capital opportunity for a closer study of Luther’s mind is afforded by his life and doings in the Wartburg.4. Luther’s sojourn at the WartburgThe solitude of the Wartburg afforded Luther a refuge for almost ten months, to him a lengthy period.Whereas but a little while before he had been inspirited by the loud applause of his followers and roused by the opposition of those in high places to a struggle which made him utterly oblivious of self, here, in the quiet of the mountain stronghold, the thoughts born of his solitude assailed him in every conceivable form. He was altogether thrown upon himself and his studies. The croaking of the ravens and magpies about the towers in front of his windows sounded like the voices which spoke in the depths of his soul.Looking back upon his conduct at Worms, he now began to doubt; how, indeed, could an outlaw do otherwise, even had he not undertaken so subversive a venture as Luther? To this was added, in his case, the responsibility for the storm he had let loose on his beloved native land. His own confession runs: “How often did my heart faint for fear, and reproach me thus: You wanted to be wise beyond all others. Are then all others in their countless multitude mistaken? Have so many centuries all been in the wrong? Supposing you were mistaken, and, owing to your mistake,were to drag down with you to eternal damnation so many human creatures!”[193]He must often have asked himself such questions, especially at the beginning of the “hermit life,” as he calls it, which he led within those walls. But to these questionings he of set purpose refused to give the right answer; he had set out on the downward path and could not go back; of this he came to convince himself as the result of a lengthy struggle.This is the point which it is incumbent on the psychologist to study beyond all else. Luther’s everyday life and his studies at Worms have been discussed often enough already.It is unheard of, so he says in the accounts he gives of his interior struggles in those days, “to run counter to the custom of so many centuries and to oppose the convictions of innumerable men and such great authorities. How can anyone turn a deaf ear to these reproaches, insults and condemnations?” “How hard is it,” he exclaims from his own experience, “to come to terms with one’s own conscience when it has long been accustomed to a certain usage [like that of the Papists], which is nevertheless wrong and godless. Even with the plainest words from Holy Scripture I was scarcely able so to fortify my conscience as to venture to challenge the Pope, and to look on him as Antichrist, on the bishops as the Apostles of Antichrist and the Universities as his dens of iniquity!” He summoned all his spirit of defiance to his aid and came off victorious. “Christ at length strengthened me by His words, which are steadfast and true. No longer does my heart tremble and waver, but mocks at the Popish objections; I am in a haven of safety and laugh at the storms which rage without.”[194]From the Catholic point of view, what he had done was violently to suppress the higher voice which had spoken to him in his solitude. Yet this voice was again to make itself heard, and with greater force than ever.Luther had then succeeded so well in silencing it that he was able to write to his friends, as it seems, without the slightest scruple, that, as to Worms, he was only ashamed of not having spoken more bravely and emphatically before the whole Empire; were he compelled to appear there again, they would hear a very different tale of him. “I desire nothing more ardently than to bare my breast to the attacks of my adversaries.” He spent his whole time in picturing to himself “the empire of Antichrist,” a frightful vision of the wrath of God.[195]With such pictures hespurs himself on, and encourages Melanchthon, with whose assistance he was unable to dispense, to overcome his timidity and vacillation. In many of his letters from the Wartburg he exhorts his friends to courage and confidence, being anxious to counteract by every possible effort the ill-effects of his absence. In these letters his language is, as a rule, permeated by a fanatical and, at times, mystical tone, even more so than any of his previous utterances. He exhibits even less restraint than formerly in his polemics. “Unless a man scolds, bites and taunts, he achieves nothing. If we admonish the Popes respectfully, they take it for flattery and fancy they have a right to remain unreformed. But Jeremias exhorts me, and says to me: ‘Cursed be he who does the work of the Lord deceitfully’ (xlviii. 10), and calls for the use of the sword against the enemies of God.”[196]Two phenomena which accompanied this frenzy render it still graver in the eyes of an onlooker. These were, on the one hand, certain occurrences which bordered on hallucination, and, on the other, frightful assaults of the tempter.Concerning both, his letters of that time, and likewise his own accounts at a later date, supply us with definite information. It is, indeed, a dark page on which they direct our attention. All the circumstances must carefully be borne in mind. First, much must be attributed to the influence of his new and unaccustomed place of abode and the strange nature of his surroundings. His gloomy meditations and enforced leisure; a more generous diet, which, in comparison with his former circumstances, meant to the Monk, now metamorphosed into “Squire George,” an almost luxurious mode of living; finally, bodily discomfort, for instance, the constipation to which he frequently refers as troubling him,[197]all this tended to develop an abnormal condition of soul to which his former psychological states of terror may also have contributed. He fancied, and all his life maintained, that in the Wartburg he had suffered bodily assaults of the devil.Luther believed that he had not only heard the devil tormenting him by day, and more particularly by night, with divers dreadful noises, but that he had seen him in his room under the form of a huge black dog, and had chased him away by prayer. His statements, to which we shall return in detail in another connection (vol. vi., xxxvi. 3; cp. vol. v., xxxi. 4), are such as presuppose, at the veryleast, the strangest illusions. Some have even opined that he suffered from real hallucinations of hearing and sight, though they have adduced no definite proof of such. The disputes with the devil, of which he speaks, are certainly nothing more than a rhetorical version of his own self-communings.If Luther brought with him to the Wartburg a large stock of popular superstition, he increased it yet more within those dreary walls, thanks to the sensitiveness of his lively imagination, until he himself became the plaything of his fancy. “Because he was so lonely,” writes his friend the physician Ratzeberger, on the strength of Luther’s personal communication, “he was beset with ghosts and noisy spirits which gave him much concern.” And after quoting the tale of the dog he goes on: “Such-like and many other ghosts came to him at that time, all of which he drove away by prayer, and which he would not talk about, for he said he would never tell anyone by how many different kinds of ghosts he had been molested.”[198]The temptations of the flesh which he then experienced Luther also attributed, in the main, to the devil. They fell upon him with greater force than ever before. Their strength displeased him, according to his letters, and he sought to resist them, though it is plain from his words that he realised the utter futility of his desire to rid himself of them. In this state of darkness he directed his thoughts more vigorously than heretofore to the question of monastic vows and their binding power. He seems to be clanking the chains by which he had by his own vow freely pledged himself to the Almighty.In July, 1521, in a letter from the Wartburg to his friend Melanchthon, while repudiating, in the somewhat bombastic fashion of the Humanists, Melanchthon’s praise, he makes the following confession: “Your good opinion of me shames and tortures me. For I sit here [instead of working for God’s cause as you fondly imagine] hardened in immobility, praying, unhappily, too little instead of sighing over the Church of God; nay, I burn with the flames of my untamed flesh; in short, I ought to be glowing in the spirit, and instead I glow in the flesh, in lust, laziness, idleness and drowsiness, and know not whether God has not turned away His face from me because you have ceased to pray for me. You, who are more rich in the gifts of God than I, are now holding my place. For a whole week I have neither written, prayed nor studied, plagued partly by temptations of the flesh, partly by the other trouble.” The other trouble wasthe painful bodily ailment mentioned above, to which he returns here in greater detail. “Pray for me,” he concludes this letter—in which he seeks to confirm his friends in the course upon which they had set out,—“pray, for in this solitude I am sinking into sin.”[199]And in another letter, in December, we again have an allusion to his besetting temptations: “I am healthy in body and am well cared for, but I am also severely tried by sin and temptations. Pray for me, and fare you well.”[200]He here speaks of sinsandtemptations, but it may well be that under “sins” he here, as elsewhere, comprehends concupiscence, which he, in accordance with his teaching, looked upon as sin.“Believe me,” he says in a letter of that time to Nicholas Gerbel of Strasburg, “in the quiet of my hermitage I am exposed to the attacks of a thousand devils. It is far easier to fight against men, who are devils incarnate, than against the ‘spirits of wickedness dwelling in high places’ (Eph. vi. 12). I fall frequently, but the right hand of the Lord again raises me up.”[201]The distaste which was growing up within him for the vow of chastity which he had once esteemed so highly, did not appear to him to come from the devil, for he congratulates the same friend that he has forsaken the “unclean and in its nature damnable state of celibacy,” in order to enter the “married state ordained by God.” “I consider the married state a true Paradise, even though the married couple should live in the greatest indigence.” At the same time he privately informs Gerbel, that, with the co-operation of Melanchthon, he has already started “a powerful conspiracy with the object of setting aside the vows of the clergy and religious.” He is here alluding to the tract he was then writing “On Monastic Vows.” “The womb is fruitful, and is soon due to bring forth; if Christ wills it will give birth to a child [the tract in question], which shall break in pieces with a rod of iron (Apoc. xii. 5) the Papists, sophists, religiosists [defenders of religious Orders] and Herodians.” “O how criminal is Antichrist, seeing that Satan by his means has laid waste all the mysteries of Christian piety.... I daily see so much that is dreadful in the wretched celibacy of young men and women that nothing sounds more evil in my ears than the words nun, monk and priest.”[202]Hence, at the beginning of November, 1521, when he was engaged on the momentous work “On Monastic Vows,” he believed he had found decisive biblical arguments against the state of chastity and continence, recommended though it had been by Christ and His Apostles.Previously the case had been different, when Carlstadtand others first began to boggle at vows; Luther was then still undecided, seeking for ostensibly theological arguments with which to demolish the difficulty. At that time he had been troubled by such plain biblical words as those of the Psalmist, “Vow ye and pray to the Lord your God” (Ps. lxxv. 12). Even in August, 1521, he had confided his scruples to Spalatin from the Wartburg: “What can be more perilous than to invite so large a number of unmarried persons to enter into matrimony on the strength of a few passages of doubtful meaning? The consequence will only be that consciences will be still more troubled than they are at present. I, too, would fain see celibacy made optional, as the Gospel wills, but I do not yet see my way to proving this.”[203]We likewise find him criticising rather unkindly Melanchthon’s reasons, because they took a wrong way to a goal after which he was himself ardently striving, viz. the setting aside of the vow of celibacy. He was suffering, he admits, “grievous pain through being unable to find the right answer to the question.”[204]Such efforts were naturally crowned with success in the end.Five weeks later he was able to inform Melanchthon: “It seems to me that now I can say with confidence how our task is to be accomplished. The argument is briefly this: Whoever has taken a vow in a spirit opposed to evangelical freedom must be set free and his vow be anathema. Such, however, are all those who have taken the vow in the search for salvation, or justification. Since the greater number of those taking vows make them for this reason, it is clear that their vow is godless, sacrilegious, contrary to the Gospel and hence to be dissolved and laid under a curse.”[205]Thus it was the indefinite and elastic idea of “evangelical freedom” which was finally to settle the question. Concerning his own frame of mind while working out this idea in his tract, he says to Spalatin, on November 11, in a letter of complaint about other matters: “I am going to make waragainst religious vows.... I am suffering from temptations, and out of temper, so don’t be offended. There is more than one Satan contending with me; I am alone, and yet at times not alone.”[206]The book was finished in November and sent out under the title, “On Monastic Vows.”[207]The same strange argument, based on evangelical freedom, recurs therein again and again under all sorts of rhetorical forms; the tract is also noteworthy for its distortion of the Church’s teaching,[208]though we cannot here enter in detail into its theology and misstatements. The very origin of the book does not inspire confidence. Many great and monumental historical works and events have originated in conditions far from blameless, but few of Luther’s writings have sprung from so base a source as this one; yet its results were far-reaching, and it was a means of seducing countless wavering and careless religious, depicting the monasteries and furthering immensely the new evangelical teaching. While writing the book Luther had naturally in his mind the multitude he was so desirous of setting free, and chose his language accordingly.But what were his thoughts concerning himself at that period, when the idea of matrimony had not yet dawned upon him?
Ulrich von Hutten wrote to him from the Ebernburg on April 17: “Keep a good heart ... I will stand by you to the last breath if you remain true to yourself.” He knows how those assembled at the Diet gnash their teeth at him; his fancy indeed paints things black, but his hope in God sustains him.[156]In a second letter of April 20, Hutten speaks to him of trusting not only in God and His Christ, but also in earthly weapons: “Isee that sword and bow, arrows and bolts are necessary in order to withstand the mad rage of the devil ... the wisdom of my friends hinders me from a venture, because they fear lest I go too far, otherwise I should already have prepared some kind of surprise for these gentlemen under the walls [of Worms]. In a short time, however, my hand will be free, and then you shall see that I will not be wanting in the spirit which God has roused up in me.”[157]In the same way as in his rhetorical language he ascribes his own mood to the illumination of the Spirit of God, so Hutten also sought to unearth a Divine inspiration in his friend Franz von Sickingen; all this was the outcome of Luther’s pseudo-mysticism, to which his friends were indebted for such figures of speech. Regarding Sickingen, Hutten wrote to Willibald Pirkheimer: “He has, so to speak, drunk in Luther completely; he has his little books read aloud at table, and I have heard him swear that he will never forsake the cause of truth in spite of every danger.” “You may well regard these words as a Divine Voice, so great is his constancy.”[158]Numerous threats of violence reached the ears of the timorous Estates assembled at Worms. A notice was affixed to the Rathaus in which 400(?) sworn noblemen with 8000(?) men challenged the “Princes and Messrs. the Romanists.” It concluded with the watchword of the insurgents: “Bundschuh, Bundschuh, Bundschuh.” Towards the close of the Diet several hundred knights assembled around Worms.[159]
Ulrich von Hutten wrote to him from the Ebernburg on April 17: “Keep a good heart ... I will stand by you to the last breath if you remain true to yourself.” He knows how those assembled at the Diet gnash their teeth at him; his fancy indeed paints things black, but his hope in God sustains him.[156]In a second letter of April 20, Hutten speaks to him of trusting not only in God and His Christ, but also in earthly weapons: “Isee that sword and bow, arrows and bolts are necessary in order to withstand the mad rage of the devil ... the wisdom of my friends hinders me from a venture, because they fear lest I go too far, otherwise I should already have prepared some kind of surprise for these gentlemen under the walls [of Worms]. In a short time, however, my hand will be free, and then you shall see that I will not be wanting in the spirit which God has roused up in me.”[157]In the same way as in his rhetorical language he ascribes his own mood to the illumination of the Spirit of God, so Hutten also sought to unearth a Divine inspiration in his friend Franz von Sickingen; all this was the outcome of Luther’s pseudo-mysticism, to which his friends were indebted for such figures of speech. Regarding Sickingen, Hutten wrote to Willibald Pirkheimer: “He has, so to speak, drunk in Luther completely; he has his little books read aloud at table, and I have heard him swear that he will never forsake the cause of truth in spite of every danger.” “You may well regard these words as a Divine Voice, so great is his constancy.”[158]
Numerous threats of violence reached the ears of the timorous Estates assembled at Worms. A notice was affixed to the Rathaus in which 400(?) sworn noblemen with 8000(?) men challenged the “Princes and Messrs. the Romanists.” It concluded with the watchword of the insurgents: “Bundschuh, Bundschuh, Bundschuh.” Towards the close of the Diet several hundred knights assembled around Worms.[159]
At the Diet the Elector of Saxony made no secret of his patronage of Luther.
He it was who, on the evening before Luther’s departure, informed him in the presence of Spalatin and others, that he would be seized on the homeward journey and conducted to a place of safety which would not be told him beforehand.[160]
After having received this assurance Luther left Worms.
On the journey such was his boldness that he disregarded the Imperial prohibition to preach, though he feared that this violation of the conditions laid down would be taken advantage of by his opponents, and cause him to forfeit his safe-conduct. He himself says of the sermons which he delivered at Hersfeld and Eisenach, on May 1 and 2, that they would be regarded as a breach of the obligations he had undertaken when availing himself of the safe conduct; but that he had been unable to consent that the Word of God should be bound in chains. He is here playing on the words of the Bible: “Verbum Dei non est alligatum.” “This condition, even had I undertaken it, would not have been binding, as it would have been against God.”[161]
After the journey had been resumed the well-known surprise took place, and Luther was carried off to the Wartburg on May 4.
In his lonely abode, known to only a few of his friends, he awaited with concern the sentence of outlawry which was to be passed upon him by the Emperor and the Estates. The edict, in its final form of May 8, was not published until after the safe-conduct had expired. “To-morrow the Imperial safe conduct terminates,” Luther wrote on May 11 from the Wartburg to Spalatin; “ ... It grieves me that those deluded men should call down such a misfortune upon their own heads. How great a hatred will this inconsiderate act of violence arouse. But only wait, the time of their visitation is at hand.”[162]The proclamation of outlawry was couched in very stern language and enacted measures of the utmost severity, following in this the traditions of the Middle Ages; Luther’s writings were to be burnt, and he himself was adjudged worthy of death. Of Luther the document says, that, “like the enemy of souls disguised in a monk’s garb,” he had gathered together “heresies old and new.” The impression made by Luther on the Emperor and on other eminent members of the Diet, was that of one possessed.[163]
There was, from the first, no prospect of the sentencebeing carried into effect. The hesitation of the German Princes of the Church to publish even the Bull of Excommunication had shown that they were not to be trusted to put the new measures into execution.
The thoughts of retaliation which were aflame in Luther, i.e. his expectation of a “Divine judgment” on his adversaries, he committed to writing in a letter which he forwarded to Franz von Sickingen on June 1, 1521, together with a little work dedicated to him, “Concerning Confession, whether the Pope has the power to decree it.”[164]In it he reminds Sickingen that God had slain thirty-one Kings in the land of Chanaan together with the inhabitants of their cities. “It was ordained by God that they should fight against Israel bravely and defiantly, that they should be destroyed and no mercy shown them. This story looks to me like a warning to our Popes, bishops, men of learning and other spiritual tyrants.” He feared that it was God’s work that they should feel themselves secure in their pride, “so that, in the end, they would needs perish without mercy.” Unless they altered their ways one would be found who “would teach them, not like Luther by word and letter, but by deeds.” We cannot here go into the question of why the revolutionary party in the Empire did not at that time proceed to “deeds.”
The beginning of the legends concerning the Diet of Worms can be traced back to Luther himself. He declared, only a year after the event, shortly after his departure from the Wartburg, in a letter of July 15, 1522, intended for a few friends and not for German readers: “I repaired to Worms although I had already been apprised of the violation of the safe-conduct by the Emperor Charles.”
He there says of himself, that, in spite of his timidity, he nevertheless ventured “within reach of the jaws of Behemoth [the monster mentioned in Job xl.]. And what did these terrible giants [my adversaries] do? During the last three years not one has been found brave enough to come forward against me here at Wittenberg, though assured of a safe-conduct and protection”; “rude and timorous at one and the same time” they would not venture “to confront him, though single-handed,” or to disputewith him. What would have happened had these weaklings been forced to face the Emperor and all-powerful foes as he had done at Worms? This he says to the Bohemian, Sebastian Schlick, Count of Passun, in the letter in which he dedicates to him his Latin work “Against Henry VIII of England.”[165]It is worth noting that Luther did not insert this dedication in the German edition, but only in the Latin one intended for Bohemia and foreign countries where the circumstances were not so well known.
He there says of himself, that, in spite of his timidity, he nevertheless ventured “within reach of the jaws of Behemoth [the monster mentioned in Job xl.]. And what did these terrible giants [my adversaries] do? During the last three years not one has been found brave enough to come forward against me here at Wittenberg, though assured of a safe-conduct and protection”; “rude and timorous at one and the same time” they would not venture “to confront him, though single-handed,” or to disputewith him. What would have happened had these weaklings been forced to face the Emperor and all-powerful foes as he had done at Worms? This he says to the Bohemian, Sebastian Schlick, Count of Passun, in the letter in which he dedicates to him his Latin work “Against Henry VIII of England.”[165]It is worth noting that Luther did not insert this dedication in the German edition, but only in the Latin one intended for Bohemia and foreign countries where the circumstances were not so well known.
Luther always adhered obstinately to the idea, which ultimately passed into a standing tradition with many of his followers, that no one had been willing to dispute with him at Worms or elsewhere during the period of his outlawry; that he had, in fact, been condemned unheard; that his opponents had sought to vanquish him by force, not by confronting him with proofs, and had obstinately shut their ears to his arguments from Holy Scripture. He finally came to persuade himself, that they were in their hearts convinced that he was right, but out of consideration for their temporal interests had not been willing or able to give in.
He expressly mentions Duke George of Saxony, as an opponent who had taken up the latter position, also the influential Archbishop Albrecht of Mayence, and, above all, Johann Eck. “Is it not obdurate wickedness,” he exclaims in one of his outbursts, “to be the enemy of, and withstand, what is known and recognised as true? It is a sin against the first Commandment and greater than any other. But because it is not their invention they look on it as nought! Yet their own conscience accuses them.”[166]In another passage, in 1528, he complains of the persecutors in Church and State who appealed to the edict of Worms; “they sought for an excuse to deceive the simple people, though they really knew better”; if they act thus, it must be right, “were we to do the same, it would be wrong.”[167]Yet,even from the vainglorious so-called “Minutes of the Worms Negotiations” (“Akten der Wormser Verhandlungen”), published immediately after at Wittenberg with Luther’s assistance,[168]it is clear that the case was fully argued in his presence at Worms, and that he had every opportunity of defending himself, though, from a legal point of view, the Bull of Excommunication having already been promulgated, the question was no longer open to theological discussion. In these “Minutes” the speeches he made in his defence at Worms are quoted. Catholic contemporarieseven reproached him with having allowed himself to be styled therein “Luther, the man of God”; his orations are introduced with such phrases as: “Martin replied to the rude and indiscreet questions with his usual incredible kindness and friendliness in the following benevolent words,” etc.[169]In order still further to magnify the bravery he displayed at Worms, Luther stated later on that the Pope had written to Worms, “that no account was to be made of the safe-conduct.”[170]As a matter of fact, however, the Papal Nuncios at Worms had received instructions to use every effort to prevent Luther being tried in public, because according to Canon Law the case was already settled; if he refused to retract, and came provided with a safe-conduct, nothing remained but to send him home, and then proceed against him with the utmost severity.[171]It was for this reason, according to his despatches, that Aleander took no part in the public sessions at which Luther was present. Only after Luther, on the return journey, had sent back the herald who accompanied him, and had openly infringed the conditions of the Imperial safe-conduct, did Aleander propose “that the Emperor should have Luther seized.”[172]Luther, from the very commencement, stigmatised the Diet of Worms as the “Sin of Wormbs, which rejected God’s truth so childishly and openly, wilfully and knowingly condemned it unheard”;[173]to him the members of the Diet were culpably hardened and obdurate “Pharaohs,” who thought Christ could not see them, who, out of “utterly sinful wilfulness,” were determined “to hate and blaspheme Christ at Wormbs,” and to “kill the prophets, till God forsook them”; he even says: “In me they condemned innocent blood at Wormbs; ... O thou unhappy nation, who beyond all others has become the lictor and executioner of End-Christ against God’s saints and prophets.”[174]An esteemed Protestant biographer of Luther is, however, at pains to point out, quite rightly, that the Diet could “not do otherwise than condemn Luther.” “By rejecting the sentence of the highest court he placed himself outside the pale of the law of the land. Even his very friends were unable to take exception to this.” It is, he says, “incorrect to make out, as so many do, that Luther’s opponents were merely impious men who obstinately withstood the revealed truth.” This author confines himself to remarking that, in his own view, it was a mistake to have “pronounced a formal sentence” upon such questions.[175]
He expressly mentions Duke George of Saxony, as an opponent who had taken up the latter position, also the influential Archbishop Albrecht of Mayence, and, above all, Johann Eck. “Is it not obdurate wickedness,” he exclaims in one of his outbursts, “to be the enemy of, and withstand, what is known and recognised as true? It is a sin against the first Commandment and greater than any other. But because it is not their invention they look on it as nought! Yet their own conscience accuses them.”[166]In another passage, in 1528, he complains of the persecutors in Church and State who appealed to the edict of Worms; “they sought for an excuse to deceive the simple people, though they really knew better”; if they act thus, it must be right, “were we to do the same, it would be wrong.”[167]
Yet,even from the vainglorious so-called “Minutes of the Worms Negotiations” (“Akten der Wormser Verhandlungen”), published immediately after at Wittenberg with Luther’s assistance,[168]it is clear that the case was fully argued in his presence at Worms, and that he had every opportunity of defending himself, though, from a legal point of view, the Bull of Excommunication having already been promulgated, the question was no longer open to theological discussion. In these “Minutes” the speeches he made in his defence at Worms are quoted. Catholic contemporarieseven reproached him with having allowed himself to be styled therein “Luther, the man of God”; his orations are introduced with such phrases as: “Martin replied to the rude and indiscreet questions with his usual incredible kindness and friendliness in the following benevolent words,” etc.[169]
In order still further to magnify the bravery he displayed at Worms, Luther stated later on that the Pope had written to Worms, “that no account was to be made of the safe-conduct.”[170]As a matter of fact, however, the Papal Nuncios at Worms had received instructions to use every effort to prevent Luther being tried in public, because according to Canon Law the case was already settled; if he refused to retract, and came provided with a safe-conduct, nothing remained but to send him home, and then proceed against him with the utmost severity.[171]It was for this reason, according to his despatches, that Aleander took no part in the public sessions at which Luther was present. Only after Luther, on the return journey, had sent back the herald who accompanied him, and had openly infringed the conditions of the Imperial safe-conduct, did Aleander propose “that the Emperor should have Luther seized.”[172]
Luther, from the very commencement, stigmatised the Diet of Worms as the “Sin of Wormbs, which rejected God’s truth so childishly and openly, wilfully and knowingly condemned it unheard”;[173]to him the members of the Diet were culpably hardened and obdurate “Pharaohs,” who thought Christ could not see them, who, out of “utterly sinful wilfulness,” were determined “to hate and blaspheme Christ at Wormbs,” and to “kill the prophets, till God forsook them”; he even says: “In me they condemned innocent blood at Wormbs; ... O thou unhappy nation, who beyond all others has become the lictor and executioner of End-Christ against God’s saints and prophets.”[174]An esteemed Protestant biographer of Luther is, however, at pains to point out, quite rightly, that the Diet could “not do otherwise than condemn Luther.” “By rejecting the sentence of the highest court he placed himself outside the pale of the law of the land. Even his very friends were unable to take exception to this.” It is, he says, “incorrect to make out, as so many do, that Luther’s opponents were merely impious men who obstinately withstood the revealed truth.” This author confines himself to remarking that, in his own view, it was a mistake to have “pronounced a formal sentence” upon such questions.[175]
That Luther, at the Diet of Worms, bore away the palm as the heroic defender of entire freedom of research and of conscience, and as the champion of the modern spirit, is a view not in accordance with a fair historical consideration of the facts.
He himself was then, and all through life, far removed from the idea of any freedom of conscience in the modern sense, and would have deemed all who dared to use it against Divine Revelation, as later opponents of religion did, as deserving of the worst penalties of the mediæval code. “It is an altogether one-sided view, one, indeed, which wilfully disregards the facts, to hail in Luther the man of the new age, the hero of enlightenment and the creator of the modern spirit.” Such is the opinion of Adolf Harnack.[176]
At Worms, Luther spoke of himself as being bound by the Word of God. It is true he claimed the freedom of interpreting Holy Scripture according to his own mind, or, as he said, according to the understanding bestowed on him by God, and of amending all such dogmas as displeased him.
But he would on no account cease to acknowledge that a revealed Word of God exists and claims submission from the human mind, whereas, from the standpoint of the modern free-thinker, there is no such thing as revelation. The liberty of interpreting revelation, which Luther proclaimed at Worms, or, to be more exact, calmly assumed, marked, it is true, a great stride forward in the road to the destruction of the Church.
Luther failed to point out at Worms how such liberty, or rather licence, agreed with the institutions established by Christ for the preservation and perpetual preaching of His doctrine of salvation. He was confronted by a Church, still recognised throughout the whole public life of the nations, which claimed as her own a Divine authority and commission to interpret the written Word of God. She was to the Faithful the lighthouse by which souls struggling in the waves of conflicting opinions might safely steer their course. In submitting his own personal opinion to the solemn judgment of an institution which had stood the test of time since the days of Christ and the Apostles, the Wittenberg Professor had no reason to fear any affront to his dignity. Whoever submitted to the Church accepted her authority assupreme, but he did not thereby forfeit either his freedom or his dignity; he obeyed in order not to expose himself to doubt or error; he pledged himself to a higher, and better, wisdom than he was able to reach by his own strength, by the way of experience, error and uncertainty. The Church plainly intimated to the heresiarch the error of his way, pointing out that the freedom of interpretation which he arrogated to himself was the destruction of all sure doctrine, the death-blow to the truth handed down, the tearing asunder of religious union, and the harbinger of endless dissensions.—We here see where Luther’s path diverged from that followed by Catholics. He set up subjectivity as a principle, and preached, together with the freedom of interpreting Scripture, the most unfettered revolt against all ecclesiastical authority, which alone can guarantee the truth. The chasm which he cleft still yawns; hence the difference of opinion concerning the sentence pronounced at Worms. We are not at liberty to conceal this fact from ourselves, nor can we wonder at the conflicting judgments passed on the position then assumed by Luther.
We may perhaps be permitted to quote a Protestant opinion which throws some light on Luther’s “championship of entire freedom of conscience.” It is that of an experienced observer of the struggles of those days, Friedrich Paulsen: “The principle of 1521, viz. to allow no authority on earth to dictate the terms of faith, is anarchical; with it no Church can exist.... The starting-point and the justification of the whole Reformation consisted in the complete rejection of all human authority in matters of faith.... If, however, a Church is to exist, then the individual must subordinate himself and his belief to the body as a whole. To do this is his duty, for religion can only exist in a body, i.e. in a Church.”[177]... “Revolution is the term by which the Reformation should be described ... Luther’s work was no Reformation, no ‘reforming’ of the existing Church by means of her own institutions, but the destruction of the old shape, in fact, the fundamental negation of any Church at all. He refused to admit any earthly authority in matters of faith, and regarding morals his position was practically the same; he left the matter entirely to the individual conscience.... Never has the possibility of the existence of any ecclesiastical authority whatsoever been more rudely denied.”[178]“It is true that this is not the whole Luther,” he continues. “The same Luther who here advocates ecclesiastical ‘anarchy’ at a later date was to oppose those whose conscience placed another interpretation on God’s Word than that discovered in it by the inhabitants of Wittenberg.” Paulsen quotes certain sentences in which Luther, shortly afterwards, denounced all deviations from his teaching: “My cause is God’s cause,” and “my judgment is God’s judgment,” and proceeds: “Nothing was left for the Reformers, if there was to be a Church at all, but to set up their own authority in place of the authority of the Popes and the Councils. Only on one tiresome point are they at a disadvantage, anyone being free to appeal from the later Luther to the Luther of Worms.” “Just as people are inclined to reject external authority, so they are ready to set up their own. This is one of the roots from which spring the desire for freedom and the thirst for power. It was not at all Luther’s way to consider the convictions of others as of equal importance with his own.” This he clearly demonstrated in the autocratic position which he claimed for the Wittenberg theology as soon as the “revolutionary era of the Reformation had passed.”“The argument which Luther had employed in 1521 against the Papists, i.e. that it was impossible to confute him from Scripture, he found used against himself in his struggle with the ‘fanatics’ who also urged that no one could prove them wrong by Scripture.... For the confuting of heretics a Rule of faith is necessary, a living one which can decide questions as they arise.... One who pins his faith to what Luther did in 1521 might well say: If heretics cannot be confuted from Scripture, this would seem to prove that God does not attach much importance to the confutation of heretics; otherwise He would have given us His Revelation in catechisms and duly balanced propositions instead of in Gospels and Epistles, in Prophets and Psalms.... On the one hand there can be no authority on earth in matters of faith, and on the other there must be such an authority, such is the antinomy which lies at the foundation of the Protestant Church.... A contradiction exists in the very essence of Protestantism. On the one hand the very idea of a Church postulates oneness of faith manifested by submission; on the other the conviction that if faith in the Protestant sense is to exist at all, then each person must answer for himself; ... it ismyfaith alone which helps me, and if my faith does not agree with the faith and doctrine of others, I cannot for that reason abandon it.... The fact is, there has never been a revolution conducted on entirely logical lines.”[179]That “authority in matters of faith” which Luther began to claim for himself, did not prevent him in the ensuing years from insisting on the right of private judgment, though all the while he was interpreting biblical Revelation in accordance with his own views. As time went on he became, however, much more severe towards the heretics who diverged from his own standpoint. But this was only when the “revolutionary era ofthe Reformation,” as Paulsen calls it, was over and gone. So long as it lasted he would not and could not openly refuse to others what he claimed for himself. Even in 1525 we find him declaring that “the authorities must not interfere with what each one wishes to teach and to believe, whether it be the Gospel or a lie.” He is here speaking of the authorities, but his own conduct in the matter of tolerating heretics was even then highly inconsistent, to say nothing of toleration of Catholics.From the above it is easy to see that the freedom which Luther advocated at Worms cannot serve as the type of our modern freedom of thought, research and conscience.
We may perhaps be permitted to quote a Protestant opinion which throws some light on Luther’s “championship of entire freedom of conscience.” It is that of an experienced observer of the struggles of those days, Friedrich Paulsen: “The principle of 1521, viz. to allow no authority on earth to dictate the terms of faith, is anarchical; with it no Church can exist.... The starting-point and the justification of the whole Reformation consisted in the complete rejection of all human authority in matters of faith.... If, however, a Church is to exist, then the individual must subordinate himself and his belief to the body as a whole. To do this is his duty, for religion can only exist in a body, i.e. in a Church.”[177]... “Revolution is the term by which the Reformation should be described ... Luther’s work was no Reformation, no ‘reforming’ of the existing Church by means of her own institutions, but the destruction of the old shape, in fact, the fundamental negation of any Church at all. He refused to admit any earthly authority in matters of faith, and regarding morals his position was practically the same; he left the matter entirely to the individual conscience.... Never has the possibility of the existence of any ecclesiastical authority whatsoever been more rudely denied.”[178]
“It is true that this is not the whole Luther,” he continues. “The same Luther who here advocates ecclesiastical ‘anarchy’ at a later date was to oppose those whose conscience placed another interpretation on God’s Word than that discovered in it by the inhabitants of Wittenberg.” Paulsen quotes certain sentences in which Luther, shortly afterwards, denounced all deviations from his teaching: “My cause is God’s cause,” and “my judgment is God’s judgment,” and proceeds: “Nothing was left for the Reformers, if there was to be a Church at all, but to set up their own authority in place of the authority of the Popes and the Councils. Only on one tiresome point are they at a disadvantage, anyone being free to appeal from the later Luther to the Luther of Worms.” “Just as people are inclined to reject external authority, so they are ready to set up their own. This is one of the roots from which spring the desire for freedom and the thirst for power. It was not at all Luther’s way to consider the convictions of others as of equal importance with his own.” This he clearly demonstrated in the autocratic position which he claimed for the Wittenberg theology as soon as the “revolutionary era of the Reformation had passed.”
“The argument which Luther had employed in 1521 against the Papists, i.e. that it was impossible to confute him from Scripture, he found used against himself in his struggle with the ‘fanatics’ who also urged that no one could prove them wrong by Scripture.... For the confuting of heretics a Rule of faith is necessary, a living one which can decide questions as they arise.... One who pins his faith to what Luther did in 1521 might well say: If heretics cannot be confuted from Scripture, this would seem to prove that God does not attach much importance to the confutation of heretics; otherwise He would have given us His Revelation in catechisms and duly balanced propositions instead of in Gospels and Epistles, in Prophets and Psalms.... On the one hand there can be no authority on earth in matters of faith, and on the other there must be such an authority, such is the antinomy which lies at the foundation of the Protestant Church.... A contradiction exists in the very essence of Protestantism. On the one hand the very idea of a Church postulates oneness of faith manifested by submission; on the other the conviction that if faith in the Protestant sense is to exist at all, then each person must answer for himself; ... it ismyfaith alone which helps me, and if my faith does not agree with the faith and doctrine of others, I cannot for that reason abandon it.... The fact is, there has never been a revolution conducted on entirely logical lines.”[179]
That “authority in matters of faith” which Luther began to claim for himself, did not prevent him in the ensuing years from insisting on the right of private judgment, though all the while he was interpreting biblical Revelation in accordance with his own views. As time went on he became, however, much more severe towards the heretics who diverged from his own standpoint. But this was only when the “revolutionary era ofthe Reformation,” as Paulsen calls it, was over and gone. So long as it lasted he would not and could not openly refuse to others what he claimed for himself. Even in 1525 we find him declaring that “the authorities must not interfere with what each one wishes to teach and to believe, whether it be the Gospel or a lie.” He is here speaking of the authorities, but his own conduct in the matter of tolerating heretics was even then highly inconsistent, to say nothing of toleration of Catholics.
From the above it is easy to see that the freedom which Luther advocated at Worms cannot serve as the type of our modern freedom of thought, research and conscience.
To return to the historical consideration of the event at Worms, the words already mentioned, “God help me, Amen!” call for remark.
The celebrated exclamation put into Luther’s mouth: “Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise. God help me, Amen!” usually quoted as the briefest and most characteristic expression of his “exalted, knightly act” at Worms, is a legend which has not even the credit of being incorporated in Luther’s Latin account of his speech.
He himself gives the conclusion as simply: “God help me, Amen,” a formula which has nothing emphatic about it, was customary at the end of a discourse and is to be found elsewhere in Luther’s own writings. Its embellishment by the historic addition was produced at Wittenberg, where it was found desirable to render “the words rather more forcible and high-sounding.” “There is not the faintest proof that the amplification came from anyone who actually heard the words.”[180]The most that can be said is that it may have grown up elsewhere.[181]The enlarged form is first found in the two editions of the discourse printed by Grüneberg at Wittenberg in 1521, one in Latin and the other in German, which are based as to the remaining portion on notes on the subject emanating from Luther. Karl Müller, the last thoroughly to examine the question, opines that Luther’s concluding phrase may very easily have been amplified without the co-operation of Luther or of any actual witness. The proposal made in 1897 in Volume vii. of the Weimar edition of Luther’s works to accept as reliable Grüneberg’s edition which contains the altered form of the phrase, must, according to Karl Müller, be regarded as “a total failure,” nor does he think muchbetter of the Weimar edition in its account of the Worms Acts generally.How little the exclamation can pretend to any special importance is clear from a note of Conrad Peutinger’s, who was present during the address and committed his impression to writing the following day. When Luther had finished his explanation, so it runs, the “official” again exhorted him to retract, seeing he had already been condemned by higher councils. Thereupon Luther retorted that the Councils “had also erred and over and over again contradicted themselves and come into opposition with the Divine Law. This the ‘official’ denied. Luther insisted that it was so and offered to prove it. This brought the discussion suddenly to an end, and there was a great outcry as Luther left the place. In the midst of it he recommended himself submissively to His Imperial Mt. [Majesty]. Before concluding he uttered the words: May God come to my help.” According to this account the words were interjected as Luther was about to leave the assembly, in the midst of the tumult and “great outcry” which followed his recommending himself to the Imperial protection.In view of the circumstances just described, P. Kalkoff, years ago, admitted that Luther’s words as quoted above had “no claim to credibility,”[182]while, quite recently, H. Böhmer declared that “it would be well not to quote any more these most celebrated of Luther’s words as though they were his. Many will be sorry, yet the absence of these words need not affect our opinion of Luther’s behaviour at Worms.”[183]W. Friedensburg is also of opinion that “we must, at any rate, give up the emphatic conclusion of the speech—‘Here I stand,’ etc.—as unhistorical; the searching examinations made in connection with the Reichstagsakten have rendered it certain that Luther’s conclusion was simply: ‘God help me, Amen.’” Of this Karl Müller adduced conclusive proofs.[184]The immense success of the legend of the manly, decisive, closing words so solemnly uttered in the assembly is quite explicable when we come to consider the circumstances. The Diet, an event which stands out in such strong relief in Luther’s history, where his friends seemed to see his star rising on the horizon only to set again suddenly behind the mountain fortress, was itself of a nature to invite them to embellish it with fiction.
He himself gives the conclusion as simply: “God help me, Amen,” a formula which has nothing emphatic about it, was customary at the end of a discourse and is to be found elsewhere in Luther’s own writings. Its embellishment by the historic addition was produced at Wittenberg, where it was found desirable to render “the words rather more forcible and high-sounding.” “There is not the faintest proof that the amplification came from anyone who actually heard the words.”[180]The most that can be said is that it may have grown up elsewhere.[181]The enlarged form is first found in the two editions of the discourse printed by Grüneberg at Wittenberg in 1521, one in Latin and the other in German, which are based as to the remaining portion on notes on the subject emanating from Luther. Karl Müller, the last thoroughly to examine the question, opines that Luther’s concluding phrase may very easily have been amplified without the co-operation of Luther or of any actual witness. The proposal made in 1897 in Volume vii. of the Weimar edition of Luther’s works to accept as reliable Grüneberg’s edition which contains the altered form of the phrase, must, according to Karl Müller, be regarded as “a total failure,” nor does he think muchbetter of the Weimar edition in its account of the Worms Acts generally.
How little the exclamation can pretend to any special importance is clear from a note of Conrad Peutinger’s, who was present during the address and committed his impression to writing the following day. When Luther had finished his explanation, so it runs, the “official” again exhorted him to retract, seeing he had already been condemned by higher councils. Thereupon Luther retorted that the Councils “had also erred and over and over again contradicted themselves and come into opposition with the Divine Law. This the ‘official’ denied. Luther insisted that it was so and offered to prove it. This brought the discussion suddenly to an end, and there was a great outcry as Luther left the place. In the midst of it he recommended himself submissively to His Imperial Mt. [Majesty]. Before concluding he uttered the words: May God come to my help.” According to this account the words were interjected as Luther was about to leave the assembly, in the midst of the tumult and “great outcry” which followed his recommending himself to the Imperial protection.
In view of the circumstances just described, P. Kalkoff, years ago, admitted that Luther’s words as quoted above had “no claim to credibility,”[182]while, quite recently, H. Böhmer declared that “it would be well not to quote any more these most celebrated of Luther’s words as though they were his. Many will be sorry, yet the absence of these words need not affect our opinion of Luther’s behaviour at Worms.”[183]W. Friedensburg is also of opinion that “we must, at any rate, give up the emphatic conclusion of the speech—‘Here I stand,’ etc.—as unhistorical; the searching examinations made in connection with the Reichstagsakten have rendered it certain that Luther’s conclusion was simply: ‘God help me, Amen.’” Of this Karl Müller adduced conclusive proofs.[184]
The immense success of the legend of the manly, decisive, closing words so solemnly uttered in the assembly is quite explicable when we come to consider the circumstances. The Diet, an event which stands out in such strong relief in Luther’s history, where his friends seemed to see his star rising on the horizon only to set again suddenly behind the mountain fortress, was itself of a nature to invite them to embellish it with fiction.
Apart from the legends in circulation among Luther’s friends, there were others which went the rounds among his opponents and later polemics. Such is the statement to the effect that Luther played the coward at Worms, and that his assumed boldness and audacity was merely due to thepromises of material assistance, or, as Thomas Münzer asserts, to actual coercion on the part of his own followers.
According to all we have seen, Luther’s chief motive-force was his passionate prepossession in favour of his own ideas. It is true that, especially previous to the Diet, this was alloyed with a certain amount of quite reasonable fear. He himself admits, that when summoned to Worms, he “fell into a tremble” till he determined to bid defiance to the devils there.[185]On his first appearance before the Diet on April 17, he spoke, according to those who heard him, “in an almost inaudible voice,” and gave the impression of being a timid man.[186]Later his enthusiasm and his boldness increased with the lively sense of the justice of his cause aided by the applause of sympathisers. There can be no doubt that he was stimulated to confidence not merely by the thought of the thousands who were giving him their moral support, but by the offers of material help he had received, and by his knowledge that the atmosphere of the Diet was charged with electricity. “Counts and Nobles,” he himself says later, “looked hard at me; as a result of my sermon, as people in the know think, they lodged in court a charge of 400 Articles [the ‘Gravamina’] against the clergy. They [the members of the Diet] had more cause to fear me than I to fear them, for they apprehended a tumult.”[187]It was his fiery conviction that he had rediscovered the Gospel and torn away the mask of Antichrist, combined with his assurance of outward support, that inspired him with that “mad courage” of which he was wont to talk even to the end of his life: “I was undismayed and feared nothing; God alone is able to make a man mad after this fashion; I hardly know whether I should be so cheery now.”[188]
According to all we have seen, Luther’s chief motive-force was his passionate prepossession in favour of his own ideas. It is true that, especially previous to the Diet, this was alloyed with a certain amount of quite reasonable fear. He himself admits, that when summoned to Worms, he “fell into a tremble” till he determined to bid defiance to the devils there.[185]On his first appearance before the Diet on April 17, he spoke, according to those who heard him, “in an almost inaudible voice,” and gave the impression of being a timid man.[186]Later his enthusiasm and his boldness increased with the lively sense of the justice of his cause aided by the applause of sympathisers. There can be no doubt that he was stimulated to confidence not merely by the thought of the thousands who were giving him their moral support, but by the offers of material help he had received, and by his knowledge that the atmosphere of the Diet was charged with electricity. “Counts and Nobles,” he himself says later, “looked hard at me; as a result of my sermon, as people in the know think, they lodged in court a charge of 400 Articles [the ‘Gravamina’] against the clergy. They [the members of the Diet] had more cause to fear me than I to fear them, for they apprehended a tumult.”[187]It was his fiery conviction that he had rediscovered the Gospel and torn away the mask of Antichrist, combined with his assurance of outward support, that inspired him with that “mad courage” of which he was wont to talk even to the end of his life: “I was undismayed and feared nothing; God alone is able to make a man mad after this fashion; I hardly know whether I should be so cheery now.”[188]
The unfavourable accounts, circulated from early days among Luther’s opponents concerning his mode of life at Worms, must not be allowed to pass unchallenged.
Luther was said to have “distinguished himself by drunkenness,” and to have indulged in moral “excesses.” Incontrovertible proof would be necessary to allow of our accepting such statements of a time when he was actually under the very eyes of the highest authorities, clerical and lay, and a cynosure of thousands. We should have to ask ourselves how he came to prejudice his judges still further by intemperance and a vicious life. The accounts appealed to do not suffice to establish the charge, consisting as they do of general statements founded partly on the impression made by Luther’s appearance, partly on reports circulated by his enemies. That the friends of theChurch were all too ready to believe everything, even the worst, of the morals of so defiant and dangerous a heretic, was only to be expected. The reports were not treated with sufficient discernment even in the official papers, but accepted at their face-value when they suited the purposes of his foes. Luther seemed deficient in the recollection looked for in a religious, though he wore the Augustinian habit; the self-confidence, which he never lost an occasion of displaying, had the appearance of presumption and excessive self-sufficiency; it may also be that the manners which he had inherited from his low-born Saxon parents excited hostile comment among the cultured members of the Diet; if he indulged a little in the good Malvasian wine in which his friends pledged him, this would be regarded by strangers as betraying his German love of the bottle; at the same time it is true that, when starting for Worms, and likewise during the journey, it is reported how, with somewhat unseemly mirth, he had not scrupled to indulge in the juice of the grape, perhaps to dispel sad thoughts.Caspar Contarini, the Venetian ambassador, who was present at Worms, wrote to Venice: “Martin has scarcely fulfilled the expectations cherished of him here by all. He displays neither a blameless life nor any sort of cleverness. He is quite unversed in learning and has nothing to distinguish him but his impudence.”[189]Perhaps the remark concerning Luther’s want of culture and wit, on which alone the Venetian here lays stress, was an outcome of Luther’s behaviour at his first interrogation; we have already seen how another witness alludes to the nervousness then manifested by him, but over which he ultimately triumphed.[190]The second authority appealed to, viz. the Nuncio, Hieronymus Aleander, writes more strongly against Luther than does Contarini. It is not however certain that he was an “eye-witness,” as he has been termed, at least it is doubtful whether he ever saw Luther while he was in the town, though he describes his appearance, his demeanour and look, as though from personal observation.[191]Aleander speaks much from hearsay, collects impressions and tittle-tattle at haphazard, and enters into no detail, save that he sets on record the “many bowls of Malvasian” which Luther, “being very fond of that wine,” drank before his departure from Worms. It is he who wrote to Rome that the Emperor, so soon as he had seen Luther, exclaimed: “This man will never make a heretic of me.” Aleander merely adds, thatalmost everybody looked on Luther as a stupid, possessed fool; and that it was unnecessary to speak of “the drunkenness to which he was so much addicted, and the many other instances of coarseness in his looks, words, acts, demeanour and gait.” By his behaviour he had forfeited all the respect the world had had for him. He describes him as dissolute and a demoniac (“dissoluto, demoniaco”).[192]Yet Count Hoyer of Mansfeld, who will be referred to more particularly below, and who blames Luther’s moral conduct after his stay at the Wartburg, alleging it as his reason for forsaking his cause, admits that, while at Worms, he, the Count, had been quite Lutheran; hence nothing to the prejudice of Luther’s morals can have reached his ears there. In the absence of any further information we may safely assume that it was merely Luther’s general behaviour which was rather severely criticised at the great assembly of notables.
Luther was said to have “distinguished himself by drunkenness,” and to have indulged in moral “excesses.” Incontrovertible proof would be necessary to allow of our accepting such statements of a time when he was actually under the very eyes of the highest authorities, clerical and lay, and a cynosure of thousands. We should have to ask ourselves how he came to prejudice his judges still further by intemperance and a vicious life. The accounts appealed to do not suffice to establish the charge, consisting as they do of general statements founded partly on the impression made by Luther’s appearance, partly on reports circulated by his enemies. That the friends of theChurch were all too ready to believe everything, even the worst, of the morals of so defiant and dangerous a heretic, was only to be expected. The reports were not treated with sufficient discernment even in the official papers, but accepted at their face-value when they suited the purposes of his foes. Luther seemed deficient in the recollection looked for in a religious, though he wore the Augustinian habit; the self-confidence, which he never lost an occasion of displaying, had the appearance of presumption and excessive self-sufficiency; it may also be that the manners which he had inherited from his low-born Saxon parents excited hostile comment among the cultured members of the Diet; if he indulged a little in the good Malvasian wine in which his friends pledged him, this would be regarded by strangers as betraying his German love of the bottle; at the same time it is true that, when starting for Worms, and likewise during the journey, it is reported how, with somewhat unseemly mirth, he had not scrupled to indulge in the juice of the grape, perhaps to dispel sad thoughts.
Caspar Contarini, the Venetian ambassador, who was present at Worms, wrote to Venice: “Martin has scarcely fulfilled the expectations cherished of him here by all. He displays neither a blameless life nor any sort of cleverness. He is quite unversed in learning and has nothing to distinguish him but his impudence.”[189]Perhaps the remark concerning Luther’s want of culture and wit, on which alone the Venetian here lays stress, was an outcome of Luther’s behaviour at his first interrogation; we have already seen how another witness alludes to the nervousness then manifested by him, but over which he ultimately triumphed.[190]
The second authority appealed to, viz. the Nuncio, Hieronymus Aleander, writes more strongly against Luther than does Contarini. It is not however certain that he was an “eye-witness,” as he has been termed, at least it is doubtful whether he ever saw Luther while he was in the town, though he describes his appearance, his demeanour and look, as though from personal observation.[191]Aleander speaks much from hearsay, collects impressions and tittle-tattle at haphazard, and enters into no detail, save that he sets on record the “many bowls of Malvasian” which Luther, “being very fond of that wine,” drank before his departure from Worms. It is he who wrote to Rome that the Emperor, so soon as he had seen Luther, exclaimed: “This man will never make a heretic of me.” Aleander merely adds, thatalmost everybody looked on Luther as a stupid, possessed fool; and that it was unnecessary to speak of “the drunkenness to which he was so much addicted, and the many other instances of coarseness in his looks, words, acts, demeanour and gait.” By his behaviour he had forfeited all the respect the world had had for him. He describes him as dissolute and a demoniac (“dissoluto, demoniaco”).[192]Yet Count Hoyer of Mansfeld, who will be referred to more particularly below, and who blames Luther’s moral conduct after his stay at the Wartburg, alleging it as his reason for forsaking his cause, admits that, while at Worms, he, the Count, had been quite Lutheran; hence nothing to the prejudice of Luther’s morals can have reached his ears there. In the absence of any further information we may safely assume that it was merely Luther’s general behaviour which was rather severely criticised at the great assembly of notables.
A capital opportunity for a closer study of Luther’s mind is afforded by his life and doings in the Wartburg.
The solitude of the Wartburg afforded Luther a refuge for almost ten months, to him a lengthy period.
Whereas but a little while before he had been inspirited by the loud applause of his followers and roused by the opposition of those in high places to a struggle which made him utterly oblivious of self, here, in the quiet of the mountain stronghold, the thoughts born of his solitude assailed him in every conceivable form. He was altogether thrown upon himself and his studies. The croaking of the ravens and magpies about the towers in front of his windows sounded like the voices which spoke in the depths of his soul.
Looking back upon his conduct at Worms, he now began to doubt; how, indeed, could an outlaw do otherwise, even had he not undertaken so subversive a venture as Luther? To this was added, in his case, the responsibility for the storm he had let loose on his beloved native land. His own confession runs: “How often did my heart faint for fear, and reproach me thus: You wanted to be wise beyond all others. Are then all others in their countless multitude mistaken? Have so many centuries all been in the wrong? Supposing you were mistaken, and, owing to your mistake,were to drag down with you to eternal damnation so many human creatures!”[193]
He must often have asked himself such questions, especially at the beginning of the “hermit life,” as he calls it, which he led within those walls. But to these questionings he of set purpose refused to give the right answer; he had set out on the downward path and could not go back; of this he came to convince himself as the result of a lengthy struggle.
This is the point which it is incumbent on the psychologist to study beyond all else. Luther’s everyday life and his studies at Worms have been discussed often enough already.
It is unheard of, so he says in the accounts he gives of his interior struggles in those days, “to run counter to the custom of so many centuries and to oppose the convictions of innumerable men and such great authorities. How can anyone turn a deaf ear to these reproaches, insults and condemnations?” “How hard is it,” he exclaims from his own experience, “to come to terms with one’s own conscience when it has long been accustomed to a certain usage [like that of the Papists], which is nevertheless wrong and godless. Even with the plainest words from Holy Scripture I was scarcely able so to fortify my conscience as to venture to challenge the Pope, and to look on him as Antichrist, on the bishops as the Apostles of Antichrist and the Universities as his dens of iniquity!” He summoned all his spirit of defiance to his aid and came off victorious. “Christ at length strengthened me by His words, which are steadfast and true. No longer does my heart tremble and waver, but mocks at the Popish objections; I am in a haven of safety and laugh at the storms which rage without.”[194]From the Catholic point of view, what he had done was violently to suppress the higher voice which had spoken to him in his solitude. Yet this voice was again to make itself heard, and with greater force than ever.Luther had then succeeded so well in silencing it that he was able to write to his friends, as it seems, without the slightest scruple, that, as to Worms, he was only ashamed of not having spoken more bravely and emphatically before the whole Empire; were he compelled to appear there again, they would hear a very different tale of him. “I desire nothing more ardently than to bare my breast to the attacks of my adversaries.” He spent his whole time in picturing to himself “the empire of Antichrist,” a frightful vision of the wrath of God.[195]With such pictures hespurs himself on, and encourages Melanchthon, with whose assistance he was unable to dispense, to overcome his timidity and vacillation. In many of his letters from the Wartburg he exhorts his friends to courage and confidence, being anxious to counteract by every possible effort the ill-effects of his absence. In these letters his language is, as a rule, permeated by a fanatical and, at times, mystical tone, even more so than any of his previous utterances. He exhibits even less restraint than formerly in his polemics. “Unless a man scolds, bites and taunts, he achieves nothing. If we admonish the Popes respectfully, they take it for flattery and fancy they have a right to remain unreformed. But Jeremias exhorts me, and says to me: ‘Cursed be he who does the work of the Lord deceitfully’ (xlviii. 10), and calls for the use of the sword against the enemies of God.”[196]
It is unheard of, so he says in the accounts he gives of his interior struggles in those days, “to run counter to the custom of so many centuries and to oppose the convictions of innumerable men and such great authorities. How can anyone turn a deaf ear to these reproaches, insults and condemnations?” “How hard is it,” he exclaims from his own experience, “to come to terms with one’s own conscience when it has long been accustomed to a certain usage [like that of the Papists], which is nevertheless wrong and godless. Even with the plainest words from Holy Scripture I was scarcely able so to fortify my conscience as to venture to challenge the Pope, and to look on him as Antichrist, on the bishops as the Apostles of Antichrist and the Universities as his dens of iniquity!” He summoned all his spirit of defiance to his aid and came off victorious. “Christ at length strengthened me by His words, which are steadfast and true. No longer does my heart tremble and waver, but mocks at the Popish objections; I am in a haven of safety and laugh at the storms which rage without.”[194]
From the Catholic point of view, what he had done was violently to suppress the higher voice which had spoken to him in his solitude. Yet this voice was again to make itself heard, and with greater force than ever.
Luther had then succeeded so well in silencing it that he was able to write to his friends, as it seems, without the slightest scruple, that, as to Worms, he was only ashamed of not having spoken more bravely and emphatically before the whole Empire; were he compelled to appear there again, they would hear a very different tale of him. “I desire nothing more ardently than to bare my breast to the attacks of my adversaries.” He spent his whole time in picturing to himself “the empire of Antichrist,” a frightful vision of the wrath of God.[195]With such pictures hespurs himself on, and encourages Melanchthon, with whose assistance he was unable to dispense, to overcome his timidity and vacillation. In many of his letters from the Wartburg he exhorts his friends to courage and confidence, being anxious to counteract by every possible effort the ill-effects of his absence. In these letters his language is, as a rule, permeated by a fanatical and, at times, mystical tone, even more so than any of his previous utterances. He exhibits even less restraint than formerly in his polemics. “Unless a man scolds, bites and taunts, he achieves nothing. If we admonish the Popes respectfully, they take it for flattery and fancy they have a right to remain unreformed. But Jeremias exhorts me, and says to me: ‘Cursed be he who does the work of the Lord deceitfully’ (xlviii. 10), and calls for the use of the sword against the enemies of God.”[196]
Two phenomena which accompanied this frenzy render it still graver in the eyes of an onlooker. These were, on the one hand, certain occurrences which bordered on hallucination, and, on the other, frightful assaults of the tempter.
Concerning both, his letters of that time, and likewise his own accounts at a later date, supply us with definite information. It is, indeed, a dark page on which they direct our attention. All the circumstances must carefully be borne in mind. First, much must be attributed to the influence of his new and unaccustomed place of abode and the strange nature of his surroundings. His gloomy meditations and enforced leisure; a more generous diet, which, in comparison with his former circumstances, meant to the Monk, now metamorphosed into “Squire George,” an almost luxurious mode of living; finally, bodily discomfort, for instance, the constipation to which he frequently refers as troubling him,[197]all this tended to develop an abnormal condition of soul to which his former psychological states of terror may also have contributed. He fancied, and all his life maintained, that in the Wartburg he had suffered bodily assaults of the devil.
Luther believed that he had not only heard the devil tormenting him by day, and more particularly by night, with divers dreadful noises, but that he had seen him in his room under the form of a huge black dog, and had chased him away by prayer. His statements, to which we shall return in detail in another connection (vol. vi., xxxvi. 3; cp. vol. v., xxxi. 4), are such as presuppose, at the veryleast, the strangest illusions. Some have even opined that he suffered from real hallucinations of hearing and sight, though they have adduced no definite proof of such. The disputes with the devil, of which he speaks, are certainly nothing more than a rhetorical version of his own self-communings.
If Luther brought with him to the Wartburg a large stock of popular superstition, he increased it yet more within those dreary walls, thanks to the sensitiveness of his lively imagination, until he himself became the plaything of his fancy. “Because he was so lonely,” writes his friend the physician Ratzeberger, on the strength of Luther’s personal communication, “he was beset with ghosts and noisy spirits which gave him much concern.” And after quoting the tale of the dog he goes on: “Such-like and many other ghosts came to him at that time, all of which he drove away by prayer, and which he would not talk about, for he said he would never tell anyone by how many different kinds of ghosts he had been molested.”[198]
The temptations of the flesh which he then experienced Luther also attributed, in the main, to the devil. They fell upon him with greater force than ever before. Their strength displeased him, according to his letters, and he sought to resist them, though it is plain from his words that he realised the utter futility of his desire to rid himself of them. In this state of darkness he directed his thoughts more vigorously than heretofore to the question of monastic vows and their binding power. He seems to be clanking the chains by which he had by his own vow freely pledged himself to the Almighty.
In July, 1521, in a letter from the Wartburg to his friend Melanchthon, while repudiating, in the somewhat bombastic fashion of the Humanists, Melanchthon’s praise, he makes the following confession: “Your good opinion of me shames and tortures me. For I sit here [instead of working for God’s cause as you fondly imagine] hardened in immobility, praying, unhappily, too little instead of sighing over the Church of God; nay, I burn with the flames of my untamed flesh; in short, I ought to be glowing in the spirit, and instead I glow in the flesh, in lust, laziness, idleness and drowsiness, and know not whether God has not turned away His face from me because you have ceased to pray for me. You, who are more rich in the gifts of God than I, are now holding my place. For a whole week I have neither written, prayed nor studied, plagued partly by temptations of the flesh, partly by the other trouble.” The other trouble wasthe painful bodily ailment mentioned above, to which he returns here in greater detail. “Pray for me,” he concludes this letter—in which he seeks to confirm his friends in the course upon which they had set out,—“pray, for in this solitude I am sinking into sin.”[199]And in another letter, in December, we again have an allusion to his besetting temptations: “I am healthy in body and am well cared for, but I am also severely tried by sin and temptations. Pray for me, and fare you well.”[200]He here speaks of sinsandtemptations, but it may well be that under “sins” he here, as elsewhere, comprehends concupiscence, which he, in accordance with his teaching, looked upon as sin.“Believe me,” he says in a letter of that time to Nicholas Gerbel of Strasburg, “in the quiet of my hermitage I am exposed to the attacks of a thousand devils. It is far easier to fight against men, who are devils incarnate, than against the ‘spirits of wickedness dwelling in high places’ (Eph. vi. 12). I fall frequently, but the right hand of the Lord again raises me up.”[201]The distaste which was growing up within him for the vow of chastity which he had once esteemed so highly, did not appear to him to come from the devil, for he congratulates the same friend that he has forsaken the “unclean and in its nature damnable state of celibacy,” in order to enter the “married state ordained by God.” “I consider the married state a true Paradise, even though the married couple should live in the greatest indigence.” At the same time he privately informs Gerbel, that, with the co-operation of Melanchthon, he has already started “a powerful conspiracy with the object of setting aside the vows of the clergy and religious.” He is here alluding to the tract he was then writing “On Monastic Vows.” “The womb is fruitful, and is soon due to bring forth; if Christ wills it will give birth to a child [the tract in question], which shall break in pieces with a rod of iron (Apoc. xii. 5) the Papists, sophists, religiosists [defenders of religious Orders] and Herodians.” “O how criminal is Antichrist, seeing that Satan by his means has laid waste all the mysteries of Christian piety.... I daily see so much that is dreadful in the wretched celibacy of young men and women that nothing sounds more evil in my ears than the words nun, monk and priest.”[202]
In July, 1521, in a letter from the Wartburg to his friend Melanchthon, while repudiating, in the somewhat bombastic fashion of the Humanists, Melanchthon’s praise, he makes the following confession: “Your good opinion of me shames and tortures me. For I sit here [instead of working for God’s cause as you fondly imagine] hardened in immobility, praying, unhappily, too little instead of sighing over the Church of God; nay, I burn with the flames of my untamed flesh; in short, I ought to be glowing in the spirit, and instead I glow in the flesh, in lust, laziness, idleness and drowsiness, and know not whether God has not turned away His face from me because you have ceased to pray for me. You, who are more rich in the gifts of God than I, are now holding my place. For a whole week I have neither written, prayed nor studied, plagued partly by temptations of the flesh, partly by the other trouble.” The other trouble wasthe painful bodily ailment mentioned above, to which he returns here in greater detail. “Pray for me,” he concludes this letter—in which he seeks to confirm his friends in the course upon which they had set out,—“pray, for in this solitude I am sinking into sin.”[199]And in another letter, in December, we again have an allusion to his besetting temptations: “I am healthy in body and am well cared for, but I am also severely tried by sin and temptations. Pray for me, and fare you well.”[200]He here speaks of sinsandtemptations, but it may well be that under “sins” he here, as elsewhere, comprehends concupiscence, which he, in accordance with his teaching, looked upon as sin.
“Believe me,” he says in a letter of that time to Nicholas Gerbel of Strasburg, “in the quiet of my hermitage I am exposed to the attacks of a thousand devils. It is far easier to fight against men, who are devils incarnate, than against the ‘spirits of wickedness dwelling in high places’ (Eph. vi. 12). I fall frequently, but the right hand of the Lord again raises me up.”[201]
The distaste which was growing up within him for the vow of chastity which he had once esteemed so highly, did not appear to him to come from the devil, for he congratulates the same friend that he has forsaken the “unclean and in its nature damnable state of celibacy,” in order to enter the “married state ordained by God.” “I consider the married state a true Paradise, even though the married couple should live in the greatest indigence.” At the same time he privately informs Gerbel, that, with the co-operation of Melanchthon, he has already started “a powerful conspiracy with the object of setting aside the vows of the clergy and religious.” He is here alluding to the tract he was then writing “On Monastic Vows.” “The womb is fruitful, and is soon due to bring forth; if Christ wills it will give birth to a child [the tract in question], which shall break in pieces with a rod of iron (Apoc. xii. 5) the Papists, sophists, religiosists [defenders of religious Orders] and Herodians.” “O how criminal is Antichrist, seeing that Satan by his means has laid waste all the mysteries of Christian piety.... I daily see so much that is dreadful in the wretched celibacy of young men and women that nothing sounds more evil in my ears than the words nun, monk and priest.”[202]
Hence, at the beginning of November, 1521, when he was engaged on the momentous work “On Monastic Vows,” he believed he had found decisive biblical arguments against the state of chastity and continence, recommended though it had been by Christ and His Apostles.
Previously the case had been different, when Carlstadtand others first began to boggle at vows; Luther was then still undecided, seeking for ostensibly theological arguments with which to demolish the difficulty. At that time he had been troubled by such plain biblical words as those of the Psalmist, “Vow ye and pray to the Lord your God” (Ps. lxxv. 12). Even in August, 1521, he had confided his scruples to Spalatin from the Wartburg: “What can be more perilous than to invite so large a number of unmarried persons to enter into matrimony on the strength of a few passages of doubtful meaning? The consequence will only be that consciences will be still more troubled than they are at present. I, too, would fain see celibacy made optional, as the Gospel wills, but I do not yet see my way to proving this.”[203]We likewise find him criticising rather unkindly Melanchthon’s reasons, because they took a wrong way to a goal after which he was himself ardently striving, viz. the setting aside of the vow of celibacy. He was suffering, he admits, “grievous pain through being unable to find the right answer to the question.”[204]
Such efforts were naturally crowned with success in the end.
Five weeks later he was able to inform Melanchthon: “It seems to me that now I can say with confidence how our task is to be accomplished. The argument is briefly this: Whoever has taken a vow in a spirit opposed to evangelical freedom must be set free and his vow be anathema. Such, however, are all those who have taken the vow in the search for salvation, or justification. Since the greater number of those taking vows make them for this reason, it is clear that their vow is godless, sacrilegious, contrary to the Gospel and hence to be dissolved and laid under a curse.”[205]
Thus it was the indefinite and elastic idea of “evangelical freedom” which was finally to settle the question. Concerning his own frame of mind while working out this idea in his tract, he says to Spalatin, on November 11, in a letter of complaint about other matters: “I am going to make waragainst religious vows.... I am suffering from temptations, and out of temper, so don’t be offended. There is more than one Satan contending with me; I am alone, and yet at times not alone.”[206]
The book was finished in November and sent out under the title, “On Monastic Vows.”[207]The same strange argument, based on evangelical freedom, recurs therein again and again under all sorts of rhetorical forms; the tract is also noteworthy for its distortion of the Church’s teaching,[208]though we cannot here enter in detail into its theology and misstatements. The very origin of the book does not inspire confidence. Many great and monumental historical works and events have originated in conditions far from blameless, but few of Luther’s writings have sprung from so base a source as this one; yet its results were far-reaching, and it was a means of seducing countless wavering and careless religious, depicting the monasteries and furthering immensely the new evangelical teaching. While writing the book Luther had naturally in his mind the multitude he was so desirous of setting free, and chose his language accordingly.
But what were his thoughts concerning himself at that period, when the idea of matrimony had not yet dawned upon him?