YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

Bought with the income
of the
ANN S. FARNAM FUND

Xutber in %iqht of
IRecent IResearcb

BY
HEINRICH BOHMER
Marburg University
TRANSLATED BY
CARL F. HUTH, Jr.
University of Chicago

1916
THE CHRISTIAN HERALD
NEW YORK

Copyright 1916
By The Christian Herald

FOREWORD.
By Prof. James Harvey Robinson,
Columbia University.
TT is a great pleasure to introduce this book to the
intelligent American reader. Everyone who has
even a modicum of historical interest finds his curiosity
aroused by Luther, and welcomes more information.
in regard to this German national hero whose influ
ence has spread so far beyond the bounds of his own
land. We may be attracted or repelled by what we
know of his teachings and personality, but he can
hardly leave anyone indifferent and neutral. The.
volume of which this is a translation appears in one of
those excellent series designed for the cultivated Ger
man public, similar to our "Home University
Library." The author seems to me particularly well
qualified by knowledge, temperament and style to
give us a fresh and stimulating conception of Luther.
He is broadly sympathetic but no hero worshiper.
There is no trace of religious partisanship in him. He
feels that he can afford to tell all the varied truth
without suppression or distortion. He is well aware
of the widely divergent judgments that have been
passed upon Luther by Protestant, Catholic and so-
called "rationalistic" writers during the four cen
turies which have elapsed since Luther began to criti-
i

cize the existing order, and no small part of the in
terest of his book lies in the dexterous manner in which
he gives the reader an idea of the conflicting interpre
tations which have been placed upon the Reformer's
deeds and sayings. His consistent aim is to place
himself in the milieu in which Luther lived and
worked. He judges him not from the standpoint of
to-day but from that of the first half of the sixteenth
century. He is critical without any tendency to lapse
into mere negativity. To him and his readers Luther
is always the livest man possible. His style is clear
and cogent, with a certain familiar homeliness, sug
gesting that of Luther himself. No matter how wide
or how narrow has been one's reading in regard to
Luther, Professor Bohmer will give the reader new
facts, new judgments and new points of view. He is
able to take the beginner in hand and at the same time
to instruct the historical student who may think that
he already knows as much about Luther as he cares to.
Professor Huth's translation seems to me not only
correct and intelligent, but it reproduces with skill
the spirit of the original style. If he now and then
permits the German idiom to show through, that will
not disturb the reader but will serve rather to
strengthen his confidence in the fidelity of the ren-
derin£* James Harvey Robinson.

u

CHAPTER I.
The Old Portrait of Luther and the Development of
Research on Luther.
Open your eyes and see me as I am. — Dante.
TV/f ARTIN LUTHER voluntarily sat for a por-
trait perhaps only once in his life — at the time
of his wedding. Nevertheless, even to-day every half
way educated person is quite familiar with his fea
tures. In Germany the school children know his face
so well that they can point to it without difficulty in,
paintings representing many characters. Indeed,
little girls need sometimes only to determine with a
rapid glance "what the man in the picture is wearing"
to know: that is Doctor Luther. This knowledge and
acuteness, especially on the part of the female portion
of our offspring, certainly is quite pleasing, though
it surely is partially due to the fact that the pictures of
the Reformer which they see in school and at home
are all so much alike. Almost every one of them
shows a man in the portliness of advanced years, with
a broad peasant countenance, unusually well devel
oped jaws, peculiarly full brown, curly hair, small
gentle eyes and on the whole rather pudgy features.
But is the Luther of these pictures really the
Reformer Luther? Without doubt it is the Luther
one expects to see in approaching a monument or
portrait of him, the Luther whom Rietschel after some
hesitation chose as model when he created his famous
statue, though he knew very well that the real Luther
1

2 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
in 1521 looked very different. It is the Luther whom
even the most extravagantly modern artists with
astonishing consistency ever again portray, and from
whose skull formation physiognomists and race theo
rists readily and unconcernedly, as is the custom in
their blythe science, have so often proven that the
Reformer had Slavic blood in his veins. For did not
this Luther have a round skull, and whoever has a
round skull is at least one half Slav, even though, as
in this case, German peasants were his ancestors,
and the Reformer hailed from a region in which
hitherto no trace of Slavic settlements or admixture
of Slavic blood has been found.
This Luther therefore undoubtedly is a type,
namely, a figure, the features of which have become
as fixed to the artists and their public as for instance
those of the "Germania," the "Helvetia" and other
allegoric females. However, though this Luther is
a type, he certainly is not a freely invented wholly
unhistoric one like the Apostle Peter or the Charle
magne of mediaeval art, but the idealized reproduc
tion of an historical portrait like the "Old Fritz" of
Menzel and the "Queen Louise" of Rauch. Every
body knows that in the last analysis this conventional
representation is based on the well-nigh innumerable
portraits of the Reformer by the great master Lucas
Cranach, and that it is found in a truly classic example
in the most famous painting by this artist, the altar
picture in the city church at Weimar. Who has not
repeatedly even in quite modern "highly scientific
works" about Cranach and about Luther read this in

DEVELOPMENT OF RESEARCH 3
black and white? In fact this still is the prevailing
opinion of to-day.
However, what "everybody" believes to be true
usually is not true. If under an expert guidance we
submit the artistic legacy of the elder Cranach to an
unprejudiced investigation we experience one sur
prise after the other and meet with disappointment
upon disappointment. We note in the first place with
considerable misgiving that despite decades of study
of the history of art this legacy has not yet been care
fully sifted. In the second place, we notice that so
far only four portraits of Luther, two paintings in oil
and two copper etchings, have been proven to be indu
bitably genuine works of Cranach. Lastly, we find
that the classic representation of the type, the picture
in the altar at Weimar, was not created by the elder
Cranach, but evidently was made two years after
Cranach's and fully nine years after Luther's death
by Lucas Cranach the Younger.*
*The four genuine portraits are: Luther as monk, front view,
copper etching of 1520; Luther as monk, in profile, copper etching
of 1621. Luther as Squire George, oil painting, done in December,
1521, poorly preserved, now in the City Library at Leipzig; oil
painting, front view, of 1526, in the Eaufmann Gallery at Berlin.
To these possibly may be added the small, very poorly preserved
round portrait in the Luther Hall at Wittenberg, and an oil painting
discovered only this year (1913) by Hans von Cranach, Head Cas
tellan of the Wartburg, about which discussion is not closed as yet.
This latter painting represents the aged, gray-haired Luther,
though minus the big wart which is visible in the Epitaphium. It
is the prototype of many modern portraits. Excellent reproduc
tions may be had directly from Herr von Cranach. Compare also
Eduard Flechsig: Cranachstudien, vol. 1, 1897, pp. 257 ff; Cranach-
werk of the Saxon Historical Commission, plates 74, 84, 85; Hans
Preuss: Lutherbildnisse, pp. 27, 30, 32, 34, 35, and ibid., a tracing
very probably executed by Hans Cranach after which portraits of
Luther were manufactured in the atelier of the Cranachs. On page
40 is a reproduction of the Epitaphium; on page 42 the Weimar
altar painting.

4. LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
Now, if we examine the few admittedly genuine
Cranachs we notice further that the typical Luther
head certainly does not go back to these, but rather to
some later works from the workshop of the Cranachs
about the origin of which the final word has not yet
been spoken. The most important of these are the
so-called Epitaphium, a woodcut with a lament on
Luther's death, and a recently discovered beautifully
preserved oil painting. The "type" in the former
still makes quite a different impression from that in
the altar painting at Weimar, or even in the well-
known likenesses by Schwerdgeburth, Gustav Koenig,
Ludwig Richter and Spangenberg. The features are
much sharper and more energetic, the mouth is firmly
closed. On the forehead the hair forms a loose curl
(cowlick), a furrow of anger appears between the
brows and above the right eye a tremendous wart
glowers. It is impossible for us now to determine whether
this really is the true face of Doctor Martin. On the
other hand, we can say with assurance that not one of
the undoubtedly genuine portraits by the elder Cran
ach wholly agrees with the descriptions of Luther's
face and figure which have been handed down to us
by Mosellan, Kessler, Melanchthon and other contem
poraries. None shows the peculiar erect bearing,
bordering on stiffness — "so that he seemed rather
to be bending backward than forward" — none even
remotely conveys an idea of the expression in the
dark demoniac eyes, "which sparkle and twinkle
like a star, so that one cannot well bear their

DEVELOPMENT OF RESEARCH 5
gaze." These falcon's eyes, lion's eyes, basilisk's
eyes, which immediately drew the attention of
everyone, and this highly characteristic and impos
ing heroic presence are left to the imagination
even in these portraits. Unfortunately imagination
never quite makes up for the missing concrete repre
sentation. No matter, therefore, how well drawn even
these genuine Cranachs may be, they are certainly not
successful portraits. Nevertheless, the elder Cranach
was by far the ablest of the few artists who personally
met Luther. The younger Lucas possessed much less
ability, though after all a good deal more than the
painter of the well-known picture representing
"Luther on the Deathbed," now in the Dresden gal
lery, the false perspective and bungling execution of
which immediately disturbs even a layman, or the
anonymous artist in wax who created the famous
death mask in the Library of St. Mary in Halle.*
The really great German portrait artists of the
sixteenth century, Diirer, Holbein and Amberger,
to whom we owe so many portraits of famous contem
poraries, unhappily never had an opportunity to see
the most renowned of all, Doctor Martin. True,
Diirer had the sincere intention "in everlasting mem
ory to portray and make an etching in copper of the
God-inspired man who had helped him out of great
*This mask is frequently regarded as the most faithful repre
sentation of Luther's features. It was, however, taken four days
after Luther's death, at a time when decomposition had al
ready set in. Luther succumbed to a stroke of paralysis, and in
such cases deterioration is very rapid. Besides, the mask was
damaged in the course of time and has evidently been patched con
siderably about the mouth and nose.

6 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
tribulations," but unfortunately he also never came
to Saxony. The extent of our loss, owing to the fact
that these great artists did not have a chance to por
tray Luther, may in a measure be judged from a com
parison of the portraits of Melanchthon from the
atelier of the Cranachs with the well-known copper
etching by Diirer and the red pencil drawing by
Holbein in Windsor. In the former Magister Philipp
always appears so starved, miserable and wretched
that one's heart almost aches at the sight. Even in
the best picture, that at the Wartburg, he utterly fails
to impress us as a great man. Diirer and Holbein,
on the contrary, make it immediately evident that the
Preceptor Germanise was an unusually learned and
bright person, so much better were these great artists
able to reproduce the spiritual expression in a face.
Hence we must familiarize ourselves with the idea
that we possess not many but very few portraits of
Luther from the hand of the elder Cranach and that
among these few, though they are mostly excellent in
technique, there is not a single good likeness. In other
words, we must confess that we do not any more ex
actly know how Luther looked. Nevertheless, we will
do well henceforth to picture him to ourselves only
as he is depicted in those few unquestionably genuine
Cranachs from the second decade of the sixteenth
century. If, besides, we desire to have before our eyes
also the aging Luther we may add to these the recently
discovered oil painting and the Epitaphium of 1546.
But we will for all time strike from our memory the
affable and corpulent gentleman of fifty with immacu-

DEVELOPMENT OF RESEARCH 7
lately groomed hair who was gradually made up by
idealization from the type furnished by artists who
were more well-meaning than expert. We will
also consign to oblivion the new, so-called historic
Luther whom Hans Fechner produced in 1905 by
combining several portraits by Cranach. (Helio
gravure published by Stalling in Oldenburg.)
After all, what difference does it make if we no
more know and probably never will know exactly
how Luther looked, if only we know precisely
what he did, was, thought and wished to achieve?
This indeed is vastly more important. However,
it is not by any chance an easy matter to give a
rapid and correct report of what he did, was,
thought and wished to achieve. The literature
about Luther has grown to such proportions that
with its two thousand volumes, large and small,
it forms a complete moderately sized library. Withal
it is so many-tongued, so multiform and varied that
one is struck with fear after a mere cursory glance
through the endless list of titles, or upon attempting
merely to remember the names of the authors of the
more than two hundred biographies of Luther in
Latin, German, French, English, Danish, Swedish,
Italian, Spanish, Russian, Polish and Lithuanian.
Stranger sensations still take hold of one when dip
ping into a few dozen of these biographies in addition
to half a dozen novels on Luther and dramas about
him. The most immediate impression derived from
this process is that there are as many Luthers as books
about him; so widely divergent are the views of the

8 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
writers about the essence and worth of Luther's per
son and work. To the one he appears as a prophet of
God, to the other as a changeling of Satan; for one he
is a model citizen, excellent father, and affectionate
husband, for the other a criminal of the deepest moral
depravity; for some a productive genius of the fore
most order, for others an intellectually inferior, or at
least anormal individual; to some he is one of the
foremost enlighteners of all times, to others an Obscur
antist, a henchman of the princes and a firebrand of
the worst type.
Was Luther in reality such a complicated and ill-
defined character, or is the tradition about his life so
scant, open to so many different interpretations and so
vague that historians of necessity arrived at such
radically varying conclusions? By no means. Our
sources are in this instance as ample, clear and con
nected as we could wish them to be, and the character
of Luther in the genuine documents in no way conveys
the impression of being complicated. Hence the fault
this time lies with the historians. Some would not,
others could not see the real character of Luther, i
And why? Because they approached the records with
concrete, preconceived opinions, and therefore natur
ally saw only what seemed to suit their view. This
failing, however, must not be laid at their door alone.
Most of them worked under the influence of a psycho
logical force from which they found it difficult to
emancipate themselves. They allowed their judg
ments to be guided by the ideas and ideals of their
religious belief and their age and involuntarily inter-

DEVELOPMENT OF RESEARCH 9
preted the sources accordingly. If this fact be taken
into account the grotesque differences of conception
become psychologically quite intelligible, then this
chaos presents a measure of order, sequence and devel
opment, and the reader learns to value even the most
peculiar products of this literature, if not as scientific
achievements, at least as historical documents, as
records for the history of the religious, philosophical,
political and social ideas since the days of the Refor
mation. In the early years of the movement the Evangelical
faction generally looked upon Luther as a prophet of
God. Indeed sober men like Albrecht Diirer spoke
of him outright as an inspired personality. Less well-
balanced natures sought and found in the Bible and
the utterances of mediaeval prophets predictions
pointing to him and his work. Enthusiastic artists
went so far as to represent him with the dove of
the Holy Ghost or with a halo about his head.
In the two earliest evangelical biographies of
Luther, the Luther Sermons by Cyriacus Spangen
berg and John Mathesius, this view still prevails,
though it did not cloud the authors' perception of the
faults and weaknesses of the Reformer, nor prejudice
their judgment with regard to them.
But already Mathesius occasionally emphasizes as
the most noteworthy service of his hero the fact "that
he again scoured the doctrine clean." Herein a new
view of Luther's person and work makes its appear
ance, one which by this time had become prevalent in
wide circles and was destined to maintain itself in the

10 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
Lutheran Church down to the last decades of the
seventeenth century. It is the dogmatic conception of
Lutheran Orthodoxy. This view clung to the behef
that the Reformer was the prophet of Germany. The
chief proof of his prophetic mission for these orthodox
groups was the agreement of his doctrines with the
teachings of God's Word. Involuntarily the picture
of the Reformer was modeled on the outlines of the
traditional Catholic conception of a church father.
The Lutheran people, however, at the same time
revered this father of the church as a veritable saint.
They told wonderful tales about his prophecies, his
miracles and his pictures, and diligently cut splinters
from the wooden columns in the house of Luther at
Wittenberg ; for as in Catholic lands the relics of Saint
Apollonia, so in Lutheran territory these slivers were
accounted wonderfully efficacious as remedies for
toothache. Pietism broke away from the habits and
point of view of Orthodoxy in these matters also. It
discovered the difference between Luther and Luther
anism and occasionally played off the former effec
tively against contemporary manifestations of the
latter. Besides, it distinguished a young, middle-
aged and old Luther, and very freely criticized the last
two by calling the early Luther to witness against
them. With the Luther of the middle period, of the
Marburg Colloquy, almost no Pietist would have any
dealings. To the old Luther most of them, with
Albrecht Bengel, the mild patriarch of the Swabian
Hour Men (Stundenleute) , gave the grade Good.
They all were truly enthusiastic only about the young

DEVELOPMENT OF RESEARCH 11
Luther. Him they extolled not alone as a father of
the faith, a man of spiritual power in prayer, a second
Samson, a victor over parsons and Philistines, but
as the true originator of the pietistic community
ideal of "the little churches within the Church."
Indeed the greatest and most highly gifted among
these pietistic venerators of Luther, Ludwig
Zinzendorf, saw salvation for theology only in a
return to the theological method of Doctor Luther,
and himself made several efforts to bring about such
a reform. The Rationalists stood so far removed from Luther
in their religious views that they were wholly unable
to understand his religious personality. The strug
gles of his soul were to them a disease, his doctrines of
sin and justification were at best looked upon as a
"perversion," or as "the dangerous dogmatic extrav
agance of a great and courageous, but at times one
sided spirit." Even sincere Protestants with Sender
placed "the learned and righteous Erasmus" above
him. Men who were wholly apathetic to religion, as,
for instance, Frederick the Great, judged him to be "a
raving monk and barbarous writer," or taking their
cue from Voltaire spoke of him as a man who had
missed his calling. These radicals, however, found
one phase in the character of the "regenerator of the
church," which appealed to them: his hatred of the
priests and his ardor in the cause of the "freedom of
conscience." Milder advocates of the faith of reason, though
chiefly admiring the Reformer as an enemy of par-

12 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
sons and a restorer of liberty of thought, besides
delighted in praising the great man as an "affectionate
husband, honest father, magnanimous friend, excel
lent citizen and as a scholar useful to the public. As
late as the Jubilee of 1817 the addresses and poems
in honor of the occasion were uniformly pitched in this
key. A proof of this is the beautiful "Nightwatch-
man's Hymn for the Year 1817":
List, ye men, and be advised,
No more in shackles the spirit lies.
Remember Luther, the faithful one,
Who hath this freedom for you won.
Guard well the light, the light of truth,
Guard well the fire, profane it not.
More characteristically perhaps than in these laud
atory utterances the spirit of the times is revealed in
the critical remarks we encounter occasionally. The
German Rationalists highly praised what had been so
discomforting to the Pietists, Luther's love of song,
the pleasure he found in a game of chess or a drink of
good wine, his mild judgment on dancing and the
theatre. What disturbed them most, however, was the
disrespectful manner in which the Reformer frequent
ly referred to the princes and bigwigs. Their censure
of his public burning of the bull of excommunication
also was most lively. It above all others was the one
act of the Reformer which ran counter to their concep
tion of gentility and civic virtue.
Now and then, however, even in the heyday of

DEVELOPMENT OF RESEARCH 13
Rationalism, we meet with instances of a deeper un
derstanding of Luther's peculiarities. Hamann even
in those days endeavored to grasp the prophetic ele
ment in the Reformer and also attempted to evaluate
psychologically the harshnesses and paradoxes of his
personality. Young Herder is found trying to cut
loose from all the artificial criteria of Enlightenment,
Pietism and Orthodoxy in forming a judgment about
Luther. He endeavors to appreciate the "patriotic
and great man" from out of the depth of his own per
sonal being as an independent phenomenon. Never
theless, for some time no progress was made beyond
these imperfect efforts. Herder himself in his later
years returned to the method and historical point of
view of Rationalism, and even Schiller, who among
the intellectual leaders in the Germany of that day
was most interested in history, finds no higher epithet
of honor for Luther in his "Secular Hymn on the
Year 1800" than that of "a champion of the freedom
of reason against error and the Vatican."
The Romanticists finally showed signs of adopt
ing a new conception of personality which was likely
to benefit Luther also. They viewed individual
life from the point of view of the aesthetic
ideal. According to this the worth of a human
being lies not in the usefulness of his existence
for the world of his own and later times, nor
even in his moral perfection, but solely in the
originality, fullness and force of his nature; briefly, in
his genius. The wholly unromantic genius of Luther,
however, kept them from ever really coming into

14 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
closer touch with him. Schelling saw in the Reforma
tion only decline and retrogression, and even Schleier
macher was so little clear about Luther's religious
"peculiarity" that in his lectures on church history he
still ventured to assert: "the Hussite movement and
the Lutheran reform started from the same basic
principles." Instead, therefore, of giving a vivid por
trayal of Luther to his hearers he warned them not to
overestimate the reformers on the very modern
grounds that "in them as in projecting points were
concentrated the general forces."
The romantic valuation of personality appears
wholly without qualification in the utterances of the
aged Goethe about the Reformer, when in 1817 he
declares that Luther's character is the only factor in
that "confused nonsense," i. e., the account of the
Reformation, which is of interest to him. And again
when in 1826 he testifies to a lively admiration for the
unity and wholeness manifested in Luther's attitude,
word and action, this is altogether in keeping with the
aesthetic historical point of view of the early Roman
ticists. However, the great poet was no longer com
pletely under the magic influence of the aesthetic
view of the world. "Genius" to him connoted not
merely a sense for the harmonious development of
one's individual existence, but "creative force, of
which deeds are born fit to stand before the judgment
of God and nature, and which for this very reason
brings results and lives on." Pursuant to this defini
tion Goethe in 1827 rates Luther as "an extraordinary
genius" who had not then and probably would not

DEVELOPMENT OF RESEARCH 15
within a measurable space of time cease to make his
influence felt.
While thus aesthetic minds, untroubled by the brutal
misery of the present, were constructing their Cloud-
cucoovilles, the ignominious yoke of foreign domina
tion fell heavily on Northern Germany. This immedi
ately caused a revulsion of feeling both in the North
and in the South. National enthusiasm replaced the
complacent aesthetic philosophical culture, spiritual
revelling was supplanted by suspicion, indeed hatred,
of the cult of the beautiful and by the harsh pathos ofr
pohtical passions. As a result we find an inevitable
change in the judgment of the nation about its own
past. While people almost contemptuously turned
from Frederick the Great they began under the
leadership of Arndt and Jahn to passionately revere
Luther as a national hero, as the archetype of German
piety, manly courage, and love of liberty. Indeed,
they naively placed the Reformer by the side of the
old Bliicher and requisitioned him even in support
of the purely political ideals of the time.
In the ranks of rising Liberalism this new nation
alistic conception of Luther was still somewhat tinged
with the old rationalistic valuation of the Reformer.
Leberecht Uhlich, Baltzer and other Friends of Light
praised the Wittenberg hero not as the great German
only, but also as the supreme enlightener. However,
in these strata of the population the interest in Luther,
especially after Herwegh's triumphal progress
through Germany, had been materially weakened by
the enthusiasm for the newly discovered "Saviour,"

16 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
Ulrich von Hutten, whose resounding catch phrases
were indeed much better suited to these political poets
and journalists than the absolutely non-pathetic utter
ances of "Father Luther."
After all, though, Liberalism never quite dominated
public opinion to the extent of Rationahsm. On the
contrary, intellectual development ever since the
days of Romanticism shows a tendency to ever greater
cleavage and disintegration. Most characteristically
this is brought out in the verdicts about the person and
work of Luther. All the manifold views of earlier
stages of evolution experienced a sort of resurrection
in the course of the nineteenth century. Only the
naivete and assurance with which older scholars had
asserted their attitude was lacking. It was impossible
now for any party to wholly escape the influences of
historical criticism, and each group was therefore
forced to defend its standpoint against differing con
ceptions. In the historical point of view of the strict New
Lutheran school the Reformer again appeared as
church father. For that reason they as far as possible
caused him to approach Lutheran Orthodoxy and
summarily disavowed the younger Luther as "a per
sonality still quite unclarified and wallowing in sub
jective extravagances." (Kliefoth.) They accepted
Luther as master and model only in the middle and
later period of his career. Radical Protestants of the
Tubingen school, as whose characteristic representa
tive we may regard Heinrich Lang, on the contrary
would have no dealings with this later Luther. They

DEVELOPMENT OF RESEARCH 17
venerated only the young Luther, and him only in so
far as he was "a genius and national hero." As a
reformer Luther was to them merely a representative
of the Catholic view of life and in no way the equal of
such men as Zwingli, Karlstadt and the leaders of the
Anabaptists and rebellious peasants.
Albrecht Ritschl made another attempt to compre
hend Luther as a religious prophet. To make this
possible he removed him from Lutheran Orthodoxy
as far as he could and extolled particularly the young
Luther. In his mind the really great achievement of#
the prophet Luther was the setting up of "the new ideal
of perfection." Upon closer inspection, however, this
ideal was found not to be a genuine Lutheran prod
uct, but a hybrid of purely Lutheran ideas and cer
tain basic religious and ethical principles of the old
Rationalism. Therefore it is hardly surprising that
for instance the disciples of Ritschl in their appraise
ment of Luther should also have returned to the views
of the radical Rationalists. Harnack's History of
Dogma marked the first step in this direction. In it
Luther was once again brought closer to Orthodoxy,
criticized severely on particular points, and "the great
epoch of his hfe, the years from 1519 to 1521" esti
mated merely as an episode in which Luther in reality
"had not been himself, but had been lifted up out of
the limits of his being."
This rationalistic standpoint, though with consid
erable modification in detail due to points of view of
romantic philosophy and modern religious criticism,
is again reached in the recent writings of E. Troeltsch.

18 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
Herein, as previously in Sender's attempt at a free
theological method, Erasmus of Rotterdam is placed
above Luther and the Reformer's religious attitude,, as
H. Lang had done before in his "Luther," is in its
essential phases merely rated as a recasting of the
"mediaeval ideal."
While thus theology is once more approaching the
ideas and methods of Rationalism the broader strata
of the cultured world are again being strongly influ
enced by the aesthetic point of view of Romanticism,
particularly through the writings of Friedrich Nietz
sche.* As a rule, however, the "genius" Luther is
even less sympathetic to this new school of Romanti
cists than it had been to the old. "Luther the plebeian,
the great rustic whose mental horizon is bounded by
the space taken up by his hobnailed shoes," "the bar
barian," "the demagogue," "the originator of the
peasant rebellion of the North against the Southern
ecclesiastical organism of government which assured
supremacy to the more intellectual man," the "Ger
man monk who, filled with all the vindictive instincts
of a priest, cheated Europe out of its last great
cultural harvest, the Renaissance, and who ruined
the prospect resplendent in all the horrors of exquisite
beauty of seeing Caesar Borgia (he died March 12,
15071) as Pope abolish Christianity" — this Luther
appears pitiably small to some of these newer Roman
ticists, over against such vaunted supermen as that
savage son of a pope in whose person "life itself, the
*Who, by the way, was wholly under the spell of Janssen. See
his Letters, Inselverlag, Leipzig, 1911, p. 222.

DEVELOPMENT OF RESEARCH 19
triumph of life, the great Aye to all that is grand,
beautiful and audacious" reached out for mastery
in the church.
Whenever these advocates of New Romanticism
prove accessible to religious sentiment (and such in
stances are not rare), they mostly turn to pantheism,
as older romanticists had done, and in that case nat
urally they looked and still look upon the Reformer as
a representative of a backward piety, a " Judaist" who,
though he learned a great deal from the German
Mystics of the fourteenth century, is nevertheless
inferior to these godly men "of the last period of
originality in Germanic rehgion."
Popular writing of the more recent past is aston
ishingly little affected by all these changes of opinion
on the person and achievement of the Reformer. It
is still dominated chiefly by the narrow conceptions
of vulgar Rationalism. To them Luther stands forth
as "the affectionate husband, honest father, true
friend, the scholar useful to the community, the model
citizen, great patriot and undaunted champion against
Rome." The austere and sturdy, rough and powerful,
popular and original features have magically dis
appeared from the portrait of the Reformer, the lion
has become a tame pussy, the terror of all the Philis
tines of his day has become a typical German domestic
Philistine who, though he after the true manner of
German domestic tyrants often growls mightily and
makes a scene, is in reality quite harmless and would
not injure a fly. However, this trite historical point of
view and hero worship have long ago been called to a

20 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
halt and relegated to where they will not be able to put
on airs any further.
A noted jurist once said: "The German people have
thrice loved: Karl the Great, Luther and Bismarck."
With equal justice one might say: "The^ Germans
have three times hated: Karl the Great, Luther and
Bismarck." No man, however, did they love more
strongly and hate more violently, no man is even now
more candidly loved and hated by them than Luther.
Indeed, hatred and aversion toward the Reformer are
to-day perhaps more widespread, certainly more
active, than love for him, for those very men who now
control the masses will have nothing of him.
Already during the lifetime of Luther this antago
nism and enmity brought together two powerful
parties which otherwise fought one another bitterly:
revolutionary radicalism and Catholicism. In order
to discredit the Reformer's doctrines both attacked
also his person and in their efforts drew a picture of
him which differed from the idealistic portraits of the
Evangehcal faction as day from night. The concep
tion of Luther among the revolutionary radicals in its
general outlines harks back to Karlstadt and Thomas
Miinzer. The detailed execution of it and the
retouching is the work of the nineteenth century and
was done by such men as Zimmermarm, Kautsky and
Bios, the historians of the radical burgher parties and
of social democracy. In less striking colors and
altered to suit the tastes of the national socialists it was
very recently embodied in Barge's bulky book on
"Karlstadt."

DEVELOPMENT OF RESEARCH 21
Slightly different in shading and argument we now
find this picture also in the historical works of the
radical Pietists, Darlyists, Adventists, Pentecostmen
and whatever else their names may be. The sole cri
terion of the historical opinion set forth in these trea
tises is the aversion Luther felt for Karlstadt,
Miinzer, Schwenckfeld and their associates, and his
attitude during the peasant revolt. The former brings
him the honorary title, "the dull, self-indulgent beast
of Wittenberg," the latter such pleasant names as
bloodthirsty firebrand and venal henchman of the
princes, also causing the accusation that he is a reac
tionary parson and hostile to the interests of the
people, etc. But Radicalism never was wont to pay
very much attention to historical facts. All the more
zealously the Catholic party has ever tried to forge
from the history of the past weapons for the conflicts
of the present.
Before the Lutherans had found time to write a
detailed biography of Luther, the first Catholic
account of his life appeared (1549) . Its author was
an old foe of the Evangehcal party, the Breslau canon
John Cochlaeus from Wendelstein, who ever since the
days of Worms had been tirelessly crossing swords
with the Reformer. The portrait he paints in his book
is the complete antithesis of the ideal conception of
the Protestants. While in the latter Luther stands
forth as "a divinely inspired man," Cochlaeus
depicts him with even greater emphasis as a child
of the devil whom Satan himself begot in adulterous
union with Margaret Luther. Hence as a mere

22 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
infant the unfortunate offspring manifested such
a strange and savage nature that his own mother
later felt sorry that she had not immediately
murdered the changeling in the cradle. In the
monastery also discerning brothers soon saw what
manner of man he was, and later on indeed no sensible
person could harbor any doubts on this point. At
Luther's death, of course, this mysterious "father"
is also brought into play. He appears just in time
and carries his loyal evangelist off to hell.
This conception of the Reformer as the son of Satan
was very popular in the Catholic world down to the
eighteenth century.
But even in the sixteenth century it was not always
believed necessary to conjure up the devil in order to
help elucidate the problem Luther. Occasionally
Luther was permitted to count as a human being, but
in that case he was, as, for instance, by Thomas Miin
zer as early as 1520, portrayed as the German Cati
line, i. e., as a great criminal. Others, with Pallavi-
cini, called him a savage Cyclops whose fertile and
powerful mind had brought forth only colossal mon
strosities and whose vaunted courage was but the
courage of a despairing beast. This view of Luther
likewise found many adherents. In Bavaria, for
instance, at the opening of the nineteenth century,
peasants were wont still to parade Doctor Luther
and his Katie side by side with the Bavarian Hiesel
and the notorious Schinderhannes in their Shrove
Tuesday processions.
In the days of enlightenment, however, educated

DEVELOPMENT OF RESEARCH 23
Catholics, who were convinced of the necessity and
value of "Church reform" very closely approximated
the view of enlightened Protestants. Even Catholic
theologians began now to judge the Reformer as "a
precious instrument of the Lord," "a great bringer of
light," "an honest character" and "the greatest bene
factor of humanity." On the other hand, certain
among these theologians emphasized even more
strongly than Sender that Erasmus had been greater
than Luther. One of their number, Franz Berg,
Professor of Church History at Wurzburg (he died
1821), risked a highly modern assertion: the doctrine
of justification in the hand of Luther was just as much
a product of superstition as in that of Paul, the Refor
mation in the same measure a hindrance to enlighten
ment as the Counter-Reformation. On the whole,
however, a tone of joyous recognition, a feeling of
spiritual kinship dominates. Individual Catholic
Romanticists, as for example, Eichendorf , and roman
ticizing converts like Leopold von Stolberg still evince
a lively sympathy for "Luther's heroic, thoroughly
popular personality."
After the July Revolution there is a complete
change of sentiment. Old opinions were once more
brought to honor though they now wear modern attire
and are much more delicately substantiated. Very
learned professors like Adam Mohler again know
of very intimate relations between Luther and Satan.
But they avoid calling the child by its right name,
they are content to delicately hint at the hideous
secret. Nevertheless, people have come to feel that it

24 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
has ceased to be modern to cite Satan for the solution
of a psychological problem. Therefore they prefer
to explain Luther's "possession" as a sort of insanity.
This, for example, is done by Friederich van Kerp in
1810. Others, with Bruno Schon, the Austrian monk
and alienist, sympathetically affirm that the so-called
greatest offspring of the German nation at least tem
porarily suffered from persecutory mania, megalo
mania, hallucinations, illusions, sexual hyperaesthesia
and "transitory dementia."
When the Reformer is not directly regarded as
insane he is looked upon, for example recently by
Hartmann Grisar, S. J., as a monomaniac burdened
with hereditary nervousness and with a tendency to
autochthonous and "exaggerated" ideas. Others again,
like the jurist Jarcke, in their judgment of his theo-
logoumena kindly take account of his unusually per
sistent digestive disturbances by which unfortunately
Luther was troubled. While writers thus treated the
heretic as a sick man, they robbed themselves of the
possibility of dragging him before the judgment seat
of morality. For that reason, whenever a case of
doubt arose, they reverted to the view which Thomas
Miinzer had championed as early as 1520 ; that is, they
regarded the accused as the German Catiline, though
their method is much more prudent and cautious than
that of the old mendicant. They do not any more
bluntly and rudely call Luther a great criminal;
rather he is in the objective tone of the seasoned crimi
nologist depicted as a wholly impure, deeply immoral
individual. (Dollinger, Janssen, Audin, Maraval,

DEVELOPMENT OF RESEARCH 25
Grisar.) Others are content with Denifle to brand
him officially as a "superman," though this in reality
is only a euphemism for criminal monster, "knave,"
degenerate, type of the deepest moral decline and
decay. Taken as a whole the tone of these polemics which
masquerade as history has in the course of centuries
become materially refined. Its early representatives
as it were painted with dirt so that Lutherans justly
spoke of their rooting in eoccrementis Lutheri. To
day they not infrequently show an admirable skill in
concealing their inbred loathing of the archheretic
behind the cold mask of the impartial judge. Their
method, however, is still that of the approved masters
and models of the wild days of religious warfare. As
far as possible the sources themselves are made to give
testimony, but only those sources which favor the
writer's point of view. In a sense Luther is made
his own judge in that authors carefully cull from his
works and speeches all utterances which seem to place
his character in a bad light. Even these statements,
however, are not always reported in full, or they are
torn from their natural context and misinterpreted at
every point. Grisar furnishes a recent example of
this method.
This ingenious process, which has found in Dol
linger and Janssen its expert exponents, is now more
than three hundred years old, for its real inventor is
the Hessian physician John Pistorius, who died in
1608. He had already issued numerous polemics
when he hit upon the idea — a very natural one, to be

26 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
sure, for a medical man — of dissecting the dead
Luther. To this end he read the works of that "hellish
person" three times from cover to cover and prepared
a prodigious collection of quotations from which
incontrovertible proof was to be furnished that the
so-called Reformer had been possessed by no less than
seven evil spirits, namely, the sensuous spirit, the
blasphemous spirit, the sloven spirit, the spirits of
error, of insolence and of pride, the spirit of fraud
and the turncoat spirit. This truly spirited collec
tion nourished the whole Catholic controversial lit
erature for the next two hundred years, though the
successors of the wrathful doctor mostly excelled him
in ability to strike the popular note.
The Jesuit, Conrad Vetter, for instance, assumed
in his "Helle Prob" (Clear Test), the innocent guise
of an arch-Lutheran theologian and then brought
together from the inexhaustible stock of Swabian
vulgar obloquy such a superb collection of epithets
that students of German may still use his work with
profit. He was outdone by the Strassburg ecclesi
astic, Nicholas Weisslinger. The very title of his
book, "Root Hog or Die," which appeared in the first
edition in 1723, gives promise of much pleasant enter
tainment to the reader. This hope is not betrayed, for
in his treatise the sacrce theologies polemicce studiosus
so soundly berates the gospelless heretic, the stinking
blasphemer, dirty fellow, scamp, boor of boors,
mucker, backbiter, blackguard Luther, and all the
Lutheran lousiness, the Lutheran vermin, mudlarks
and tinker's rabble that it well-nigh takes the reader's

DEVELOPMENT OF RESEARCH 27
breath away. Such geniuses of rudeness, however,
have always been able to count on a grateful audience
in Germany. We are not surprised, therefore, to find
that Weisslinger and his older and younger fellow
controversialists are still much read, used and even
imitated. The former Jesuit Berlichingen very
recently sat in judgment over Luther altogether in
the style of Weisslinger. The learned Father Denifle
himself has not found it beneath his dignity to draw
upon the rich treasury of these ancient and coarse po
lemics and occasionally to copy their fresh and pithy
style. An old adage has it that love is blind while the eye
of hatred is keen. With equal justice it might be
affirmed that hatred makes people blind and that the
eye of love sees sharply. But this again would be only
half the truth. There is a blind love and a blind
hatred. Nothing is better proof of this fact than the
history of Luther after his death both in polite and
learned literature. Whoever seeks the real Luther
in these sources will never find him and will always
remain uncertain as to who and what the oft-men
tioned man really was, whether he was a prophet of
God or a son of the devil, a father of the church or a
gospelless heretic, the prototype of a true evangelical
teacher and man of prayer or a great criminal, an en-
lightener and mighty liberator of the spirit or a de
stroyer of the last cultural harvest of Europe, a "gen
ius of the first rank" or an intellectually inferior de
generate, even a poor maniac, the greatest child of
the German people or the Catiline of Germany who

28 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
was responsible for the moral and intellectual decline
of his country in the sixteenth and seventeenth cen
turies, the type of a savage revolutionary or a blood
thirsty firebrand and venal henchman of the princes,
"an affectionate husband, honest father, faithful
friend, a scholar useful to the commumty, a good citi
zen" or "a frantic beast, filthy hog, a vacillating turn
coat, frivolous liar, shameless sensualist, wrathy
brawler, hyperbolic Thrason (braggart), insolent Go-
hath, Markolfian ribald, public seducer of nuns."
Whoever desires to acquaint himself with the true
Reformer must cast aside all these wild caricatures,
these portraits ofttimes too fulsome in their praise of
him, and must seek Luther where alone he can be
found: in the genuine tradition. Unhappily these
genuine sources, hke precious metals, are rarely found
pure and unalloyed and so readily accessible that one
needs only to grasp them. In most cases they must be
hunted up and unearthed from libraries and archives
and freed from impurities. Even then the product,
like gold, is of value only to him who appreciates and
knows how to use it.
The age of Orthodoxy and of the Counter-Refor
mation believed that it knew who Luther was without
knowing the sources about him. For that reason it
took little trouble to collect the works of the Reformer
and the documents relating to his life. Also it solely
used them to prove either that he had been a man of
God and a saint or that he was an archheretic and
great criminal. In the Lutheran camp this purely
dogmatic view of history ceased in the days of Pietism.

DEVELOPMENT OF RESEARCH 29
Criticism then awakened, and with it a scholarly
interest in the life and deeds of Luther. Veit Ludwig
von Seckendorff furnished the first history of the
Reformation based on a study of the documents. In
it, despite the apologetic character of the title, a
scholar's love of evidence dominates. Thereupon
Valentin Ernst Loscher, J. C. Kapp and S. Cyprian
began to assemble the documents on the history of the
Reformation from the libraries and archives, and the
untiring Johann Georg Walch from 1740 on under
took the publication of a new complete edition of
Luther's writings. He also was the first to write
a strictly scholarly, indeed, in some respects mon
strously erudite, biography of Luther.
In the age of Rationalism this scientific enthu
siasm for investigation gradually subsided. The gen
eration of antiquarians became extinct. Very little
research on Luther was done and what little there was
well illustrates the spirit of the age. Men busied
themselves with very inadequate means, to be sure, in
collecting the sources in which the Luther whom they
understood, the "father, educator, friend and citizen,"
most unconstrainedly revealed himself: the letters of
Luther. As for the rest, they were content following
the advice of Semler to make excerpts from his best-
known works. They were of the opinion that only in
such selections could Luther still "be of any service."
Plebeian as this persistent emphasis on usefulness
even in scientific work may appear to us to-day, we yet
must for this reason not overlook the progress which
Rationalism marks in the writing of history. It was

30 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
the first time that complete intellectual mastery of his
material was demanded of the historian. A psycho
logical interpretation of events and an accurate
ascertaining of their connection, strong emphasis on
essentials and suppression of all mere antiquarian
side issues was required. Certainly, the psychology of
the Rationalists was still indescribably crude, and their
appreciation of the inner connection of events very
superficial, but the narrowness and clumsiness of the
antiquarians at least had been overcome.
Romanticism and the idealistic philosophy spring
ing from it put an end to this purely atomistic view
of history. But it was a case of driving out Baal with
the aid of Beelzebub. The exponents of the new
method realized that conscious influence is of small
importance in history. They discovered the "un
conscious factor" and conceived the idea of develop
ment, they placed historical accident under ban and
excommunication. As a result they dropped into
a new mythology in that they thought of history
as being the strictly regular thought-process of an
all-pervading intelligence, so that the philosopher,
as the organ of this supreme intelligence, was in
the happy position of being able to predict the history
of the unknown past and of the equally unknown
future with the same assurance as the historical de
velopment in ages much better authenticated by docu
mentary evidence. Since these men viewed person
ality merely as an organ of the dominant intelligence
and regarded reason as its really distinguishing char
acteristic, they were wholly unable to appreciate,

DEVELOPMENT OF RESEARCH 31
much less understand, a man like Luther, whose hfe
seemed to be swayed by an intimately personal ex
perience which could not be conceived at all as a proc
ess of reasoning.
At this time Leopold von Ranke came to the fore.
He recognized that it was not the business of the his
torian to pass judgment on the past, nor even to
instruct his contemporaries for the benefit of pos
terity. He pointed out to the historians their modest
task of "showing how things in reality had been," that
is, to determine from the sources the actual facts and •
then to record the result simply and plainly, unde
terred by the forward interference of their own
enlightened reason. Thus he not only ended the old
subservience of History to Philosophy and Theology,
but above all showed a clear path to an objective
appreciation even of personalities so much under
debate as Luther and Loyola. In his "German
History in the Age of the Reformation" this pos
sibility was realized. Only since then have we a truly
scientific method for the investigation of the history
of the Reformation and of Luther. The old dogma
tizing brand has been loath to go into well-merited
retirement, but it cannot since then do as much harm
as formerly. In the circles of the initiated at least
it has lost all influence.
Ranke's German History, published in 1839, is one
of the few historical works which have outlived their
author. Investigation, however, has self -evidently not
remained stationary. On the contrary, it has pursued
its path assiduously and by dint of new forms of or-

32 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
ganization and constant improvement of its methods
has experienced a tremendous increase in capacity.
Supremely important for the judgment about Luther
was the coming into being of the modern wholesale
methods of historical research, the so-called historical
commissions and institutes, for only with their help
has a systematic examination of the libraries and
archives been rendered possible. This new method
permitted the first successful attempt at a critical
edition of Luther's works, the so-called Weimar Edi
tion, which is in progress since 1883 and now contains
fifty-two volumes. So immense is the mass of the
documentary material for the history of the Refor
mation which the search in libraries and archives has
from year to year brought to light that the scholar
must needs have the digestive faculty of an ostrich to
be able to take in all this fresh matter and to separate
the historically valuable portion without feehng too
much oppressed by the indigestible residuum.
More important still, perhaps, is the fact that in the
course of the last generation investigators have set
for themselves new aims and are drawing into the
scope of historical perception phenomena which
hitherto had been hardly thought worthy of notice.
Ranke and his pupils had in the main been content
to portray the religious movement and the political
events of the age of the Reformation. In their treat
ments princes, diplomats and theologians hold the
stage. The condition of the people, their actions and
feelings one learns to know only incidentally.
This deficiency Johannes Janssen was the first to

DEVELOPMENT OF RESEARCH 33
clearly recognize. In his History of the German
People since the End of the Middle Ages, he con
sciously chose the masses as his hero and made it his
object to determine with minute care the economic,
social, pohtical, religious and moral conditions of the
day and to show the changes wrought in these by the
Reformation. It was a significant step forward, but
at first only in the putting of the problem. Janssen's
solution of the new task was not successful. The
reason for his failure lies in the fact that he did not
strictly adhere to his purpose, but allowed himself
constantly to be driven off the main track by the
apologetic argument: the fifteenth century is essen
tially an age of the highest bloom for the whole of
German cultural life, and it is Luther alone who
prevented the harvest.
While older investigators easily succumbed to the
danger of isolating the leaders from their surround
ings and raising them too high above the masses, they
also rarely had an eye for the relations existing
between Luther and the theologians of the late
Middle Ages. Indeed, since A. Ritschl's sharp crit
icism of the exaggerated estimates of the services
rendered by the so-called precursors of the Reforma
tion it had become customary to look upon Luther's
theology as an entirely new creation, and to deny any
deeper influence of the Middle Ages upon his devel
opment. It was Denifle who saw that no such formal break
existed in the history of intellectual life, and in his
"Luther" (1904) he endeavored to set forth how the

34 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
Reformer was connected with the so-called "Modern
Theologian" of the late Middle Ages. However, in
this instance also, progress lay merely in the putting
of the problem. The question itself was not solved,
because Denifle as httle as Janssen, could make up
his mind to treat it in a purely historical fashion. On
the contrary, in his capacity as a Catholic apologist
he always wished at the same time to demonstrate
that Luther was a typical example of decadence and
his theology the degenerate product of declining
scholasticism. Side by side with these most influen
tial Catholic scholars, others were busily engaged in
bringing back from the dead the almost forgotten
Catholic opponents of Luther: Tetzel, Usingen, Eck,
Cochlaeus, Emser, Schatzgeyer, Sylvius, Kilian, Leib,
and whatever their names may be.
Meanwhile Protestants preferably paid attention
to those antagonists of the Reformer who had unde
servedly been neglected by all. parties, because they
had been unwilling to follow either the Pope, the
Wittenberg School, or the Zurich reformers : men like
Karlstadt and Schwenckfeld, Sebastian Frank and
Erasmus of Rotterdam, Thomas Miinzer, Hans
Denck and other Anabaptists. In competition with
a great number of local historians they furthermore
tried to ascertain more closely the progress of reform
in the several German territories. This resulted in
the discovery of a large number of stars of second,
third, fourth and fifth magnitude besides the great
star Luther. Also it furnished a much clearer and

DEVELOPMENT OF RESEARCH 35
more forceful and realistic conception of the devel
opment of the Evangelical movement as a whole.
Naturally the verdict on certain groups and phe
nomena of the Reformation was thus materially
changed. To Ranke and other older students Eras
mus of Rotterdam and those who shared his point of
view appeared noteworthy almost solely as critics of
the Catholic system. Now the positive side of their
efforts was stressed. Indeed some writers professed
to see in them the direct ancestors of the religious
enlightenment of the seventeenth and eighteenth cen
turies. Forty years ago the Anabaptists were still
regarded as blood-red, fanatical revolutionaries, be
sides as narrow and small-minded reactionaries, that
is, they were held to be merely stragglers of the re
ligious movement in the late Middle Ages. People
are now agreed that the majority of these severely
persecuted pious men were not revolutionaries at all,
but rather passive and recluse ascetics like the later
Quakers, not merely stragglers of mediaeval Wal-
densianism, Apocalypticism and Mysticism, but in
part also late exponents of the Humanistic move
ment of reform and above all opponents of the
crude literal faith and moral laxity of vulgar
Lutheranism. Some scholars in fact are now
prone to see in these men, as in Erasmus and his
school, the precursors of new and powerful religious
currents. They exalt them as the direct progenitors
of the Independents and Pietists above Luther and
his associates. Since the Anabaptists were being
given their due it was obvious that those men ought

36

LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH

no longer be made to stand back who, as true step
children of Dame Fortune, had also been treated as
such by the investigators, men like Caspar von
Schwenckf eld and that greatly misunderstood person,
Sebastian Frank of Donauwoerth. After long mis
representation these were now at once rated so highly
that the revised opinion on them amounted almost to
misunderstanding. Schwenckf eld was venerated as
the spiritual father of the Pietistic community ideal
and Frank even as the prophet and forerunner of the
religious views of Schleiermacher.
In the first place, therefore, the clarification and
correction of the general picture of the age which
resulted from the new focusing of the problem and
from special studies demands a revision of the tradi
tional view of Luther in many particulars. But aside
from these considerations the wealth of finds in the
last decades which bear directly on Luther, and the
many monographs caused by them call for a recon
sideration. Naturally these discoveries are often
mere minutiae ti j knowledge of which makes us
neither wiser nor happier. The fact that Luther was
very probably baptized by Father Bartholomew Ren-
nebecher on November 11, 1483, in the tower room of
the church of St. Peter and St. Paul at Eisleben; that
he was not the firstborn son as so far has been gener
ally believed, but that he had an older brother; that in
Eisenach he used to bring young Schalbe to school
with him, and that as a student at Erfurt he lived in
the Hall of St. George on Lehmann's Bridge; that
the maternal uncle to whom the narents looked for

DEVELOPMENT OF RESEARCH 37
aid when they sent the boy to school at Eisenach was
named Conrad Hutter and was sacristan at the church
of St. Nicholas there; that in May, 1512, Luther par
ticipated in the chapter of his order in Cologne and
even viewed the rehcs of the Holy Three Kings there ;
that when still a young professor he once gave a course
of lectures on Genesis, and that on the Koburg in 1530
he wore spectacles and a long beard — all these facts
are certainly not without interest to the student of
Luther, but they in no wise compel us to revise our
opinion about him and his work.
More important are the lively discussions about the
genuineness of the famous Worms utterance: "Here
I stand, I cannot hold otherwise, God help me,
Amen," or about the time when the hymn "A Mighty
Fortress Is Our God" was written, and lastly about
the cause and detailed circumstances of his death.
Even these points, however, are not as weighty as they
seem to the participants in the discussion. Whether
"A Mighty Fortress" was composed in 1521 or 1528 is
essentially quite immaterial. The^Jaggling over this
question is interesting only in as far as it shows
Eow audacious, imaginative and naive some Luther
scholars are even at the present time. All the writers
who now with so much assurance give 1521 as the
year in which the hymn was produced, and who some
times beheve that they can precisely indicate the day,
the hour and even the exact spot which gave Luther
the inspiration for the immortal poem, innocently cite
as their sole valid proof "The Prayer of Martin
Luther at Worms," a very doubtful document, which

38 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
does not appear until 1564 and then in the possession
of John Aurifaber, a very untrustworthy authority.
As for the supposed closing words of Luther at
Worms there are perhaps very few students at present
who accept them as authentic in the form in which
school text-books have transmitted them from gener
ation to generation. We have good evidence only for
the words : "God help me/' It is true that the words :
"I cannot hold otherwise, here I stand," occur as
early as 1521 in a Wittenberg print. With this, how
ever, we know Luther had nothing to do. In the
conventional form and sequence this dictum does not
appear until the complete Wittenberg edition of 1545.
It seems advisable, therefore, not to cite this famous
sentence henceforth as an utterance of Luther. That
will be difTkult for many, but for the appreciation of
Luther's attitude in Worms one neither gains nor
loses by this omission. The important point is not that
the Reformer specifically assured the assembly that
there he stood and that he could not hold otherwise,
but that actually he did stand firm and could not
decide otherwise.
The same is true of the recent discussions about
Luther's death. The proof given by Tschermack that
the Reformer succumbed on the eighteenth of Febru
ary, 1546, to a stroke of paralysis, and the discovery
of Paulus that the report on Luther's death which is
most interesting to the medical man, is by a Catholic,
the apothecary John Landau of Eisleben, are both
significant inasmuch as they once again prove the
Catholic legend about the Reformer's suicide to have

DEVELOPMENT OF RESEARCH 39
been a crude falsehood. Earnest students, however,
never did believe this untruth which did not appear in
Catholic controversial literature until 1591, while the
lower type of controversialists are not moved to dis
card it even by thorough refutations published by
scholars of their own faith.*
I shall leave aside all such details, interesting
though they may be, and shall select from the mass of
new discoveries and investigations only those through
which the general picture of Luther's life, personality
and opinions seems to have been modified, enriched or
made clearer. If I see aright such a change took place
in the main in four directions. We know more than
our fathers about Luther's inner development from a
"fanatic papist" into a reformer. Furthermore, his
*Luther"s death did not occur early in the morning of the
eighteenth of February (2:45 A.M.) in his sleeping room but in
the living room, not in bed but on a bench upholstered in leather.
The report by Landau was published as early as 1548 by Cochlaeus
as a piece of news from the letter of a citizen of Mansfeld, and
since 1565 was regularly reprinted in the appendix of this author's
biography of Luther. Despite this fact Paulus was the first stu
dent to notice it. In the Catholic camp the fable at first was spread
that Luther had been carried off by the devil. In 1568 another
legend, to the effect that the Reformer hanged himself from one of
his bedposts, can be traced. See Hondorf: Promptuarium Exem-
plorum, p. 138 b. It was, however, at first found advisable to
spread this tale only by word of mouth. In 1691 the Italian Ora-
torian Bozio had the courage to champion it in writing. See
Bozius: De Signis Ecclesiae, 2, p. 154. He cited as proof the pre
tended testimony of a supposed valet of Luther. This deposition
the Franciscan Sedulius published verbatim in 1606. See Sedulius :
Prsescriptiones Adversus Haereses, Antwerp, p. 208 ff. The author
asserts that he got the "document" from an anonymous trust
worthy person from Freiburg in the Breisgau. This anonymous
citizen of Freiburg is said to have acquired it from a second anony
mous, "a pious man," and this second anonymous brings into play
still another, the supposed valet. The legend therefore operates
boldly with three anonymous guarantors. See Nicholas Paulus:
Luther's Lebensende, Freiburg, 1898. In spite of this controver
sialists like Majunke did not find it necessary to drop the tale.

40 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
personality in some respects appears to us in a new
light. Also the mediaeval background and the medi
aeval elements in his thinking have become clearer to
us. Lastly, we have come to reahze that only then can
we correctly estimate the net results of this great life,
if we endeavor to determine its effect upon cultural
development in its whole breadth and depth, not upon
religion and theology alone but also upon custom and
morality, law and government, economic and social
life, art and science, literature and language.
This realization, to be sure, has not yet brought
forth the desired fruit. So far only one biographer of
Luther, Arnold Berger, has tried to portray the
Reformer as "Hero of Civilization." And yet, the
clear recognition and concrete setting forth of prob
lems is always more important than their solution.
The latter requires only diligence, circumspection and
learning, in this case, to be sure, probably the industry
of whole generations of future investigators. For
in some fields of the cultural development of that
period, for instance, on the history of theology, moral
ity and language, we are at present only vafcy super
ficially informed. The task, however, has been clearly
recognized, the preliminary work has at many points
been done, therefore we may hope" that the twentieth
century will finally solve also this great and difficult
problem.

CHAPTER II.
The Stages in Luther's Conversion to the Year 151 3.
\ MAN who compels his fellow citizens to take
¦*""*¦ sides for or against a cause championed by him
must rest content henceforth to lead his hfe under the
control and criticism of "public opinion." Whatever
he may be doing he can never be sure that a good
friend or crafty foe will not secretly denounce him to
contemporaries and posterity by publishing broadcast
his most intimate private affairs and most innocent
casual remarks, even though it be merely from a de
sire for personal notoriety.
This curiosity on the part of his contemporaries,
Luther himself, since the Disputation at Leipzig in
July, 1519, so amply experienced that finally he reg
istered furious complaints.* His enemies observed
with suspicion even the ring he wore, for might not the
devil be hidden in it? They watched closely his every
word and gesture and devoutly noted every draught
of Malvasie and beer which he was careless enough to
drink in the presence of others. His friends very
early began to save every note and scrap of paper
from his study, they busily transcribed not only his
sermons and lectures, but since 1531 even his conver-

*ln order to illustrate Luther's deep resentment over this dis
concerting curiosity of his contemporaries, Professor Bohmer
quotes an angry remark by the Reformer. It has not been trans
lated because it is not in accordance with modern literary taste.
41

42 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
sation at the supper table, indeed, they minutely
recorded whenever he was troubled with headache or
pains in the chest or was bothered by mosquitoes.
They wrote down when he was cheerful or serious,
angry or in a joking mood.
All this watching and spying, however, would have
helped the curious very little had Luther been as
close-mouthed as Calvin, as reserved and careful and
so completely master of all his gestures and moods as
Loyola. But the Reformer was a true Thuringian
and hence by nature not silent, nor a "step-easy," nor
given to grand manners and smooth civilities. With
out anxious concern about his dignity, he spoke
before his friends and those who shared his home on
absolutely everything that moved and occupied his
mind. He freely talked even on matters which the
cultured European of to-day only discusses privately
with his physician. Ever since 1515 he stated his
opinions without any consideration or precaution
even about persons in high and exalted positions and
felt no compunction after he had begun to feel at
home in pulpit and cathedra, in sermons and lectures,
if he saw fit, to speak very frankly of his own experi
ences, struggles, errors and faults.
Luther did not drop this unaffected communica
tiveness even when writing. For he never wrote
"books" in the sense in which professors nowadays
are wont to do. In reality he was always merely
"contributing to questions at issue and to problems of,
the day," writing theses, pamphlets, polemics, edifi-
catory tracts and sermons the brevity of which was

STAGES IN LUTHER'S CONVERSION 43
very early ridiculed by his opponents. In these
"booklets" he was in the habit of freely easing his
mind without the least worry over ill report or mis
understanding about everything which at the moment
engrossed his attention. From these products we can
therefore at any time determine what at a given
period he thought, felt, hated, loved, desired and
wanted. Even his apparently purely learned writ
ings are for this reason "fragments of a great con
fession" and the sum total of his works a single con
tinuous self-revelation, a collection of confidences
such as we hardly possess from any other important
man. However, valuable though this collection of "con
fessions" may be, it suffers from certain defects which
are sorely felt again and again. In the first place,
it does not begin until relatively late in his career,
and secondly, it is very uneven as regards the num
ber and value of the documents contained therein.
For the time from 1505 to 1513 it consists of only
three rather meaningless letters, a receipt and a few
accidentally preserved marginal notes. During the
ensuing six years it is still quite fragmentary. Im
mediately after that it suddenly grows so voluminous
that a novice almost despairs of knowing what to do
with this tremendous amount of material.
In the course of the last generation, however, so
many hitherto wholly or partially unknown writings
by the Reformer and documents relating to the his
tory of his hfe from the twice seven lean years before
the Disputation at Leipzig have come to light again

44 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
that students now may bless these meager years as
the period of their most abundant harvests. In the
shop of an antiquary at Cologne in 1877 a student's
notes on Luther's lectures of the year 1516 on the
Epistle to the Galatians reappeared. A decade later
Buchwald discovered in the school hbrary of the
Zwickau city council seven old books which the
Reformer had evidently studied as a monk and had
in accordance with his habit industriously annotated.
In the same place were found in 1885 a few unknown
early sermons, among them the oldest relic of this
kind, the sketch for a pentecostal address from the
year 1514. Shortly before Luther's preparations for
the first lectures on the Psalter (1513-15) came to
light again in Dresden, and simultaneously his own
careful notes for these lectures were for the first time
published completely.
New surprises were furnished by the last years of
the past century. Hermann Vopel in 1899 discovered
in the Vatican Library a copy of Luther's lectures on
Romans (1515-16) and also lecture notes of a stu
dent on the Epistle to the Hebrews taken in 1518.
Hardly had the excitement in the learned world sub
sided somewhat, when it heard, to its greatest aston
ishment, that Luther's own manuscript of these re
nowned lectures on Romans was reposing safely
though unnoticed in the show cases of the Berlin
library. This surprise, at first rather more painful
than pleasing to the learned librarians, justifies our
hope that the era of unexpected finds is not yet over,
that somewhere in Germany or in Rome, the remain-

STAGES IN LUTHER'S CONVERSION 45
ing "lost manuscripts" from the youthful period of
the Reformer are also awaiting discovery. These
are: his class notes on the Nichomachian Ethics and
Dialectics of Aristotle, on the Epistle to Titus, the
unfinished commentary on the Physics of Aristotle
and the sorely missed correspondence with Staupitz
between 1505 and 1517. Pleasant as it may be to
indulge in such dreams it would be ungrateful to for
get meanwhile how rich we have already become and
how much new material those finds offer which have
now ceased to be altogether new.
What we possess enables us to observe the young
monk and professor Luther at close range for weeks,
months and years while he is at work in the quiet of
his cell. This is the first and perhaps most gratifying
advance we owe to this new material. For it is most
edifying, merely to watch this worker, he is always so
engrossed in his task, so painstakingly conscientious
and accurate even in seemingly non-essential matters.
He writes out in full beforehand not only every ser
mon but also every lecture, and, as though this were
not enough of virtue he later on prepares a very neat
and faithful' copy of some of the lectures. At times,
therefore, his notes have the faultless appearance of
well-written books. A professional calligraphist
could hardly have done better.
* Much less charming is the outward aspect of the
books of his library which have come down to us.
They fairly swarm with markings, notabenes and
marginal glosses of all kinds. Sometimes he has
filled every available blank space. However, what un-

46 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
der other circumstances would be offensive is here an
agreeable sight. For what do these blemishes prove?
That Luther did not merely page through the books
which he took in hand, but really read them, and while
reading criticized, indeed, criticized very severely.
Thus the mere outward appearance of his academic
tools betrays to us the fact that already the young
professor possessed characteristics very valuable to a
man of his calling, namely, thoroughness and dili
gence, accuracy and independence of judgment.
If then we examine more closely his lecture notes
and preparations we are struck at the outset by the
prodigious progress made by the young professor as
instructor and scholar in the space of a few years. In
his first theological lectures on the Sentences of Peter
Lombard, 1509-10, he still moves in the beaten path,
as far as we can judge from the available notices.
Also in his lectures on the Psalms he still altogether
follows mediaeval pedagogical custom both in ar
rangement and method. Nevertheless, he is begin
ning to make considerable use of the Humanists
Faber and Reuchlin; he already feels it necessary to
learn Hebrew and occasionally, as far as his scant
scientific apparatus permits, he refers to the Hebrew
original of which a printed edition lay before him.
The lectures on Romans also still in their external
appearance look typically mediaeval.
However, though he faithfully continues to em
ploy the mediaeval exegetical apparatus and always
in accordance with mediaeval practice expounds the
text two, and even three times, he has in this case

STAGES IN LUTHER'S CONVERSION 47
almost entirely overcome the exegetical methods of
the Middle Ages. He is now much more impressed
by the Humanists than by Lyra and Paul of Burgos.
Therefore, as soon as the edition of the New Testa
ment by Erasmus is available he follows the Greek
original as a matter of principle and with the aid of
his poor dictionaries endeavors in the manner of
Erasmus, also to explain the text linguistically.
He is, however, not minded to follow Erasmus and
the Humanists through thick and thin. He perceives
clearly that they are wanting in just that phase which
to him is the main one, that though they translate
Paul correctly they do not properly understand him.
Hence he guards his independence even over against
Erasmus and thus by drawing upon the depths of his
own experience for the first time he solves the great
problem with which so many scholars of the primitive
and the mediaeval church, and since Marsilio Ficino
also the Humanists, had again and again wrestled
in vain.
Luther shows what Paul really felt, thought and
taught. Thereby he rediscovers for humanity the
great Apostle who so long had been unsuccessfully
courted. Viewed purely as a scientific achievement,
therefore, this course of lectures is an event which in
the history of exegesis has scarcely been equalled. In
these lectures the wishes of the Humanists are met as
well as the aims of the older expounders who looked
more toward an appreciation of the content. But the
limitations of both groups have been recognized and
as a result overcome and overtaken scientifically.

48 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
While advancing in scholarship the young monk
in these first years of his instructorial activity also
made great strides as a teacher. In the lectures on
Peter Lombard, Luther seems even on the teaching
platform to have employed altogether the cumber
some chancery style of Scholasticism. In lecturing on
the Psalms he occasionally attempts to facilitate the
understanding of the text for his hearers by means of
similes, comparisons, examples and applications to
the present. Not until the lectures on Romans,
however, does this tendency so dominate his entire
exposition that from his notes one can determine not
only the educational level, but to a certain degree also
the interests of the better class among the students at
Wittenberg. In ever-recurring digressions Luther expounds
the words of the Apostle through striking examples
from contemporary life, apt similes, fables and anec
dotes. Besides, not infrequently we find him also
adducing German proverbs in order to render the
textual meaning clearer. Above all, he takes care by
means of "able translations" of difficult Greek and
Latin expressions that also the less gifted can follow
him. In order that no one may spend his time in the
lectures altogether without profit to himself Luther
regularly summarizes the essentials in a brief dicta
tion. SmaU wonder, therefore, that so relatively
large a number of transcripts of his course by stu
dents have been preserved, and that students even at
this early date "gladly," indeed enthusiastically,

STAGES IN LUTHER'S CONVERSION 49
entered his classes. For once they enjoyed the rare
good luck of learning something really new in a
course of lectures. At the same time this new mate
rial was presented to them in such a comprehensible
and clear, and in so captivating and interesting a
manner that even a dull person needed only to stretch
forth his hand in order to make it his lasting posses
sion. It is more noteworthy still for us to-day to observe
how early the temperament and critical vein of his
later fighting years becomes evident in the Reformer.
In the earhest manuscript notes from his hand which
we possess, in a marginal gloss of the years 1508-09
to the works of St. Augustine, he manifests his
enthusiasm for this author quite in the passionate
manner of his later life, while at the same time he
shows his aversion for the prince of mediaeval philoso
phy, Aristotle. Simultaneously he begins to look
upon tradition with critical eyes. For example, he
closely compares the content and style of the writings
in the Basel edition of Augustine and with happy
penetration stamps two of them as spurious.
Soon after in his studies on the Psalms he began to
risk strictures on conditions in the church of his time.
His sympathy for such matters is, however, not yet
very active. His interests remain chiefly centered
in scholarly investigation and on practical questions
of edification. Only in his lectures on Romans does
his participation in the happenings of the world out
side of the monastery walls become visible. He refers
with increasing frequency to events of the day.

50 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
With growing energy he points out evils in the
Church and in secular society, ever more briskly,
openly and audaciously he expresses his displeasure,
sorrow and indignation. Though he does not cen
sure indulgences as such, he yet finds fault with their
excessive number and with the greedy and cruel
methods of the givers of indulgences. He does not
object to fasting in itself but condemns compulsory
fasts, nor does he oppose the cult of the saints as
such but he rejects the superstitious out-growths of
saint worship. He openly asserts that canon law
needs a thorough cleansing, that public worship
requires a decided purging of superfluous ceremonies
and tenets and that the number of festal days ought
to be materially reduced. He states that for money
dispensation from all obligations is granted at Rome
and that the new Rome is worse than the old. He
loudly complains about the hardness and violence,
effeminacy and unspiritual attitude of the ecclesiasti
cal princes, the crudeness and inadequate education
of the parish priests, the arrogance of the monks, the
imprudence of the indulgence preachers, the super
stitious regard paid to foundations for masses, the
laziness of the craftsmen, the selfishness, dogmatism
and cruelty of the secular princes, the perverse stu
pidity, superficiality and irreligion of the jurists.
Indeed, he is well-nigh as opposed to this latter group
as he is in later years. Greater, however, is his aver
sion for the "hog theologians," i. e., the Scholastics
and Scholastic philosophers. He has so completely
done with both of these that he openly advises his stu-

STAGES IN LUTHER'S CONVERSION 51
dents to absolve the required courses in philosophy as
quickly as possible and then promptly to begin the
attack upon philosophy, that is, upon Scholasti
cism. Luther is by no means always content with such
covert and general judgments. He is not afraid to
mention by name, or at least clearly to specify indi
vidual sinners in high position so that every attentive
auditor knew at once who was meant. Thus, for
instance,, he speaks of Pope Julius IL, Duke George
of Saxony, the Bishop of Strassburg and even his*
own ruler, the Elector Frederick the Wise whom
otherwise he held in sincere regard. His criticisms
always spring from disappointed love, never from a
mere habit of fault-finding. Full of honest loyalty
to his Elector he also clings to the Church with his
whole soul. He still loves and honors it as his mother,
still deems it self-evident that priests ought to be
reverenced, in spite of the many bad elements among
the clergy, and ardently pleads that people ought for
love of the Church punctually to observe also those
external ceremonies and ordinances which it had im
posed on the faithful. Monasticism remains so high
in his regard that he endeavors to prove to his audi
ence that now when the orders were so despised it is
more than ever a duty to become a monk.
Nevertheless, in the last chapters of these lectures
one always has the feeling that he himself is already
at the point of discarding the cowl. For no matter
how monkish his utterances occasionally still sound,
he has ceased to solely turn his gaze inward and up-

52 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
ward as a true monk, he has begun to look about
himself freely and with clear eyes. His strictures
are no more after the manner of a monk directed
alone upon himself, he criticizes the whole world.
He is no more desirous in the true monastic spirit to
reform merely himself, he has a complete programme
of regeneration both for the Church and for Chris
tian society as a whole.
This broadening of his intellectual horizon, this
change of sentiment, indeed of his whole point of
view in life, is so striking as to elicit the involuntary
question : What has made the young monk so clear
sighted, fresh, courageous, in fact audacious in the
course of a few years? Was this change due merely
to a growing familiarity with the dual calling of pro
fessor and preacher which had been forced upon him
and the greater inner confidence on cathedra and pul
pit resulting therefrom? Were this true, it would be
impossible to understand why this natural develop
ment expressed itself in a growing opposition to
precisely those authorities which as professor and
preacher he was officially held to respect. The causes
of this change must therefore lie deeper. Somehow
a transformation in his convictions must have oc
curred in his first years as instructor, a change which
gradually evinced itself in his speech and actions, so
that more and more he appeared a different person
even to those who knew him less intimately.
If we address our request for enlightenment to the
latest biographer of Luther, Hartmann Grisar, S. J.
we are given what seems a very simple "psychological"

STAGES IN LUTHER'S CONVERSION 53
explanation of the above-mentioned facts. He tells
us that at the beginning Luther professed the views
of the strict, indeed the strictest group among the
Augustinian Eremites. For this reason Grisar fur
ther contends Luther was sent to Rome as their advo
cate when Staupitz got into a quarrel with seven mon
asteries who were zealous for the maintenance of the
rules of the order. And how does Luther in reality
make use of this trip to Rome? In the first place he
learns Hebrew from the Jew Jacob, secondly, he
hands in a supphcation to the Curia asking leave to
remain away from the monastery for ten years so
that he might don secular dress and study in Italy.
The Curia, however, refused him this permission.
Brother Martin willy-nilly had to return to Ger
many, and there he then tried indirectly to gain his
desired object. As a first step to this end "he
deserted to his friend Staupitz," that is, he now sud
denly opposed the seven Observantist monasteries
whose cause he had up to this time championed with
such vehemence. Thereupon with increasing open
ness and regardlessness he attacked the Observantists
in pulpit and platform and after 1515 as district-
vicar endeavored with all means in his power to gain
control for "the liberal party within the order
which was devoted to him," in the ten or eleven
monasteries under his jurisdiction. In the Black
Cloister at Wittenberg where he held full sway no
true monastic discipline obtained as early as the
beginning of the year 1517 according to his own words,
and he himself had long ago become a monk "of liberal

54 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
views and practice." Therefore these critical state
ments in the lectures on Romans merely reflect the
progressive desertion of the young professor from the
old faith for which he had had no real inner sympathy
ever since 1510, in fact really not since the celebration
of his first mass on the second of May, 1507, as his
aversion to the reading of masses shows.
This is a rather surprising psychological explana
tion. We therefore justly inquire: How does the
learned father know all this? His chief witness is a
chronicler from lower Saxony, Jan Oldekop of Hil-
desheim, who in 1515-16 had heard Luther, but did
not find time to put his thoughts and reminiscences to
paper until the last years of his life beginning 1561.
This man who hates Doctor Martin so bitterly that
he flatly holds him responsible for all the mischief
and disorder of the time, even for the custom of wear
ing trunk breeches and the rise in the price of bread,
butter, cheese and eggs is the only one of the innu
merable opponents and enemies of Luther who relates
the neat little yarn about the Jew Jacob and about
the petition to the Holy See. Unfortunately, he is not
an unobjectionable authority. We can prove, that
especially in Rome, Oldekop permitted himself to be
duped outrageously. More serious still is the fact
that he occasionally slights the truth with great uncon
cern. Displaying the greatest honesty and without
batting an eye, in the style of an honest old tar he
relates events as personal experiences which he never
can have experienced, because they never took place.
Consequently, he must be given credence only as far

STAGES IN LUTHER'S CONVERSION 55
as other witnesses confirm his testimony. Where this
is not the case, where, in fact, he conflicts with trust
worthy authorities of his own party like John Coch
laeus, we must always count with the possibility that
he is indulging a httle in fibbery or is lying outright.
This witness is therefore worthless. With his
other proofs the learned father also cannot make a
great showing. His method of dealing with the
monk Luther reminds one of the manner of an am
bitious young lawyer who is preparing to be state's
attorney and of his treatment of the accused who are
brought before him. He does not listen carefully to
what his defendant is saying, very important deposi
tions he fails to hear at all, while step by step he
cross-examines into his victim just those things he
wishes to hear from him. If we try to avoid this httle
blunder and to determine what the Reformer and the
other credible witnesses actually say, what picture
do we get of Luther's development?
In the first place it is true that a conflict occurred in
the German Congregation of the Augustinians to
which Luther belonged. The cause of the trouble
was an attempt by Staupitz, the Vicar General, to
unite with the Congregation twenty-five non-re
formed Augustinian houses. The purpose of Staupitz,
of course, was to thus gradually reform these monas
teries also. Since the General of the Augustinians
in the Spring of 1510 consented to the plan, every
thing seemed to be in the best of order when, just at
the crucial moment, seven of the thirty-one members
of the Congregation protested against the proposed

56 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
union. Among the protestants were the two large
and influential convents at Erfurt and Niirnberg.
Whether this opposition was very wise may be hon
estly doubted. However this may be, the seven feared
for the continuance of trc observances and therefore
sent two brothers to Rome before the end of 1510
there to register their protest before the constituted
authorities, in accordance with the explicit permis
sion in the statutes of the order. One of the envoys
was the Erfurt monk Martin Luther, though mani
festly he was not chosen as spokesman. He was alto
gether too young for that task ; besides, and this was
the most important prerequisite, he did not know how
to pull the wires at Rome. As was to be expected,
the embassy met with a rebuff. The procurator of the
order, acting wholly within his rights, refused even to
allow an appeal to the Curia.
Nevertheless, the stay of four weeks in the Eternal
City did not remain without fruit and blessing for the
monk Luther. In the first place he made a general
confession, though he had twice done so before in
Erfurt. Thereupon he undertook the difficult pil
grimage to the seven principal churches which con
sumed a whole day, but was rewarded with abundant
indulgences. Finally, he in accordance with the direc
tions prayerfully ascended the Scala Santa of the
Lateran on his knees, and like a "mad saint" visited
all churches and catacombs in which a miracle-work
ing picture or relic was to be seen, or any indulgence,
great or small, to be obtained. All this he did in com
mon with other pilgrims to Rome. Otherwise he un-

STAGES IN LUTHER'S CONVERSION 57
dertook or experienced nothing peculiar. He saw
and heard, as all pilgrims did, a number of things
about the unholy Rome of his day, but these impres
sions in his case also were not strong enough to eradi
cate the reminiscence of the sacred Rome of the apos
tles and martyrs and to shake his faith in the grandeur
of the Catholic Church.
Meanwhile the General of the Order had taken
steps to settle the conflict within the German Congre
gation. Staupitz entered into his plans without op
position. About the middle of June, 1511, in a con-#
ference with the priors of the seven protesting mon
asteries at Jena he declared his willingness to recede
from the main point of his project, the union into one
chapter of the thirty-one old Observantist monasteries
with the twenty-five newly added convents. But the
success which had been hoped for did not materialize.
Only a few of the protesting monks, among them
Luther, were satisfied and joined his side. What now
was the next move of Staupitz? At the meeting of
the chapter at Cologne, in May, 1512, he simply
dropped his whole plan of union, while in return it
seems the Nurnberg convent assumed the very con
siderable expenses of the conflict.
Thereby the difference was ended and forgotten.
It is clear from the foregoing that the whole contro
versy was not one about principles of monastic dis
cipline, but about purely practical, almost political
questions over which divided opinions, in spite of com
plete agreement on monastic principles, were quite
possible. But did not Luther probably later on make

58 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
out of a squabble over matters of organization one
about principial issues? By no means. True, the nego
tiations of the summer of 1511 had for him personally
a very important consequence. Because at Erfurt he
had championed the cause of peace and probably for
this reason, as a black sheep, was treated badly by
his brothers in the convent he was, possibly in the late
summer of 1511, recalled to Wittenberg by Staupitz,
and in October, 1512, through the influence of his
patron, given the professorship for Old and New Tes
tament Theology vacated by Staupitz. This un
doubtedly for Luther and for mankind constituted
the most important result of the whole controversy.
That Wittenberg became the forum, and Electoral
Saxony the outpost, of the Reformation, and what
ever else resulted therefrom for Saxony as well as for
the Reformation, is indirectly connected with this
event which to none of those implicated seemed to be
of sufficient importance to even once mention it in
passing. Indeed, the Reformer Luther did not exist
at this time, only Luther the Professor. As such
Luther for the present did only what all professors
of theology have always done, he gave lectures and
occasionally besides preached sermons distinctly pro
fessorial in tone.
In the course of these lectures, which were heard
also by many young Augustinians he twice, in passing,
criticizes the attitude of the opposing monasteries
toward Staupitz in the recent fight on unification.
Also on occasion he attacks certain excrescences of
monastic hfe which showed themselves not only among

STAGES IN LUTHER'S CONVERSION 59
the Augustinians but in all orders. Finally, exactly
as the Itahan and Spanish bishops at the Lateran
Council of the same time, he once discusses the scru
ples which had arisen among Catholics about the ex
cessive privileges of the mendicant orders, doubts
which were fully justified. In all these utterances,
however, we have to deal with mere doubts and criti
cisms of actual conditions, never with opposition in
principle to the organization of which he himself was
a member. His fellow Augustinians fully recognized
this fact. They saw in this occasional criticism no
more than "a holy zeal for the house of the Lord," and '
therefore, in May, 1515, elected him district vicar at
the chapter convened at Gotha, right after one of these
criticizing speeches.
Did he as vicar subsequently endeavor to place in
control in the monasteries subject to him "the liberal
party in the order which was devoted to him?" The
answer to this is simply that there was no such party.
What we know about his activity as vicar, and it is not
so very little, merely proves that he was attempting
on the basis of the statutes to maintain or re-establish
order in the convents. But why did he not make a
beginning in Wittenberg itself, where by his own ad
mission at the opening of 1517 a true monastic order
of life had ceased to exist ? Does he really admit this ?
No. What modern inquirers call disorder was the
normal order of things in all the monasteries of the
province with the exception of Erfurt, namely, the
monks did not chant high mass, did not sing the mo
nastic hours, but merely recited them recto tono. As

60 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
far as possible they concentrated the hours, etc., that
they might have the necessary time for other matters
which seemed of more importance to them, namely,
pastoral care, preaching and study — these being "the
rites and regulations" mentioned in the now almost
famous confession.
Thus nothing is left of "the monk of liberal views
and practice" except a complaint made by the Re
former in October, 1516: "Seldom do I get the requi
site time to pray the hours and to celebrate the mass."
Upon these words people immediately but wrongly,
"with calculated tactics" — to use a favorite phrase of
modern "Luther psychologists" — based the accusa
tion: therefore he even neglected to perform his hours
and read a daily mass in obedience to the rules. Fur
thermore, there remains the fact that the Reformer
after the opening of the public conflict, that is, after
the thirty-first of October, 1517, frequently was un
able for two, even three weeks to read the prayers
of the breviary, and that he therefore occasionally on
Saturday locked himself in for three days without
partaking of food or drink in order that he might
make up at one sitting what he had missed.
The psychological exposition of Father Grisar
therefore unfortunately does not lead us to the goal.
Hence let us turn to another interpreter of the soul
of Luther who is perchance better acquainted with
its depths and shallows than the learned Jesuit, since,
to use an adage, "he was next to it," namely, Doctor
Luther himself. It is well known that he ever wore
his heart upon his sleeve. We therefore do not expect

STAGES IN LUTHER'S CONVERSION 61
him to carefully conceal what agitated his soul dur
ing his sojourn in the Babylonian Captivity of the
"Papacy." Quite to the contrary! He often and gladly told
why once upon a time he had entered the monastery
and what brought him out again. Indeed, once at
the end of his life, in the historical introduction to the
first volume of his complete works on the fifth of
March, 1545, he made an attempt at a formal auto
biography. This effort can hardly be termed a suc
cess from the point of view of form. Like so many
old people — even aged professors — he continually
goes off at a tangent while narrating his story ; one
incident always suggests to him another which he has
passed over.
Luther begins with the publication of the Theses
on the thirty-first of October, 1517, as present-day
writers are still doing and thereupon deinceps secun
dum ordinem reports on the events up to the debate
at Leipzig in July, 1519. Having arrived at this
point without accident he suddenly remembers that he
has not said a word about the famous golden rose and
the even more significant affair with Miltitz. Directly
he sets about making up thoroughly for this neglect,
and then continues in a languid narrative strain: "In
the same year, 1519, 1 had for the second time under
taken the commentary on the Psalms, confident that
I now possessed greater practice after having mean
while in lectures dealt with the Epistles of Paul to
the Romans, Galatians and Hebrews." Barely had
he written the word "Romans" when suddenly and

62 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
powerfully there stood Defore his soul all that he
owed to this epistle. Forthwith he turns back a few
years in the course of events and writes a whole page
about his initial and decisive encounter with the Epis
tle to the Romans. After ten sentences he then again
resumes the narrative with the words: "Better pre
pared by such thoughts I began for the second time
to expound the Psalms," whereupon he quickly con
cludes the whole with a single statement about the
Diet of Worms.
Anyone who has associated much with old people
will not be surprised at this somewhat disorderly ac
count by the aged Reformer. Much less will such a
person be amazed about the fact that the old man says
the most important and interesting things in a digres
sion. That occurs frequently, especially with old pro
fessors. The most significant and interesting parts of
his story are naturally the ten sentences about his
first meeting with the Apostle Paul. Luther says in
his narrative that he had felt a strange longing to
know the Apostle, but one thing had always made
him shrink back again, "the righteousness of God,"
in the seventeenth verse of the very first chapter of
the Epistle to the Romans. Luther says that he had
been in the habit of explaining this concept in the man- ,
ner of the philosophers, that is, to understand it as hav
ing reference to the punishing and rewarding right
eousness of God, and that he had concluded there
from that God in the gospel also revealed himself only
as a merciless and angry judge. For this God of ven
geance and judgment who already by the law of the

STAGES IN LUTHER'S CONVERSION 63
Old Covenant had entangled mankind in all manner
of misery he had felt a downright hatred. After days
and nights of meditation he claims that the idea once
struck him to compare these words with the following
sentence: "The just shall live by faith." And sud
denly the meaning of the words of the Apostle had
become clear to him. Not the punishing and reward
ing righteousness of God was meant, but the right
eousness which absolves through grace. Directly he
had felt as though the gates of paradise had opened
wide before him. The Reformer relates how a short
while later he read the treatise by Augustine "About
the Spirit and the Letter," and how he there found, if
not exactly the same, at least a very similar exposition
of the words which to him now had become the door
to paradise.
The very same story is told by Luther repeatedly in
earlier years. Indeed, he adds a few interesting sup
plementary details in these other mentions of the fact.
In a sermon he once says: "When I was made a Doc
tor (18-19 of October, 1512) I did not yet know the
light." (Weimar edition, vol. 45, p. 86.) Substan
tially in agreement with this statement he says on
another occasion during conversation at supper: "In
this tower — that is, in the Black Cloister at Witten
berg — the Holy Spirit gave me this understanding."
Can we without further inquiry accept this testi
mony on faith? From a marginal note which the young
monk in the year 1509-10, at Erfurt, made in his copy
of Peter Lombard, we perceive that even then he was
at one time engaged upon Romans 1:17, and had in-

64 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
deed referred to a commentary in which the words
"the righteousness of God" are, if not correctly, cer
tainly not wrongly and "philosophically" interpreted,
as Luther himself according to his own words still un
derstands them in 1512. It is true, he did not consult
the commentary for the sake of these words but with
an eye to the following phrase: "from faith to faith."
We must, therefore, grant that at this time he over
looked this first passage, as is likely to happen when
one seeks for a definite expression in a bulky volume
in the nature of a dictionary.
Another observation is more suspicious at least
upon first impression. In the introduction just
quoted he seems to claim that all expounders with the
exception of Augustine had explained the righteous
ness of God in this passage of the first chapter of
Romans "philosophically." In fact, in his lectures on
Genesis of the year 1511-12 this charge is literally
made. (Weimar edition, vol. 43, p. 537.) These lec
tures, however, he did not personaUy write down and
publish. The part in question was not made pubhc
until long after his death and is based upon the not
always legible notes of one of his students. Besides,
the, publishers showed no scruples in making all sorts
of additions upon their own responsibility even in the
sections published during his lifetime. (See Weimar
edition, vol. 42, pp. 213 and 357.) Nevertheless,
Luther must have made a similar statement at some
time. How otherwise could Melanchthon in his fa
mous "Life of Luther" of the first of June, 1546, di
rectly assert the identical thing? Let us therefore

STAGES IN LUTHER'S CONVERSION 65
calmly assume that this assertion goes back to an ut
terance made by Luther himself. What would be the
result? That he made a mistake in this introduction.
For what he says in it about the exegesis of the Epistle
to the Romans has been proven to be false.
However, is the designation "mistake" perhaps not
too mild? If we read the later reports and verdicts
of the Reformer about his life in the monastery we
might easily be led to the belief that not for one hour
did he feel happy and content in the cowl. On the
other hand, he relates that when celebrating his first1
mass on the second of May, 1507, he praised the hfe
in the monastery to his father as fine, peaceful and
godly, and also that during his stay in the convent he
had experienced hours of mystic exaltation like a
proud saint, during which he imagined himself among
choirs of angels. Is not this an intolerable contradic
tion? Not in the least. Indeed, it is but another
proof for the old psychological truth that with men of
hypochondriac temperament the remembrance of
struggles, anxiety, distress and disappointments
through which they have passed impresses itself much
more vividly upon the soul than the remembrance of
happy hours, which after all are not lacking even in
the most miserable and sorrowful existence.
Even so, however, the details of the stories, espe
cially such as he personally told some of his compan
ions as a sort of relish or dessert at the supper-table
in the Black Cloister, are not always wholly correct.
Occasionally he is mistaken in the matter of dates, at
times he errs also in points of fact. On the other hand,

66 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
we must guard against drawing too far-reaching con
clusions from minor contradictions. If, for example,
he at one time says : I was born in 1483, and at another
time gives the date 1484 ; if once he refers to Eisleben
as the place of his birth, and then again says that it
was Mansfeld, this only proves that he, as so many
people of his day, did not know the facts exactly. Even
the person who could most readily have given infor
mation on this subject, his good mother, had, as we
are in a position to prove, entirely forgotten the year
though not the place of birth of her son Martin. Nev
ertheless, these little contradictions, uncertainties and
errors make it our duty in every case closely to ex
amine his reminiscences and communications, and
never to let them pass without scrutiny or investiga
tion. Is this sufficient? Some scholars say no. Who errs
once is not worthy of credence, even if he speak the
truth. All these stories about his life in the convent
and under the Papacy, they aver, are legends and
originated in the third decade of the sixteenth century.
Moreover, they claim that they are "hes" (Legende:
Luegende), intentional falsehoods calculated to glo
rify his own person, a romance gotten up later in order
to defame the religious orders of the Catholic Church.
Undoubtedly this is but another instance of a very
simple "psychological" explanation of the facts. Is
such an interpretation on the other hand necessary,
likely, or even possible ? It would be had Luther else
where also been in the habit of lying without any
sense or object, hke an hysterical woman. For it is

STAGES IN LUTHER'S CONVERSION 67
absolutely impossible to see what "advantage" or pur
pose these utility lies which are so often told in com
plete agreement with one another and are in the com
mon sense of the word altogether uninteresting should
have served. Again, this view would be possible if
the Reformer had really not begun to tell of the strug
gles of his soul, his doubts and pangs of conscience
until 1530, as Denifle claims. This, however, is not
the case. As early as 1515, years before his breach
with the old Church, the monk Luther tells his pupils
about conflicts, doubts and troubles of conscience now
happily overcome. Early in 1516 he declares that
once he knew nothing of the "righteousness of God,"
but that now, though not without internal conflicts,
he had come to understand clearly the meaning of this
term in Scriptures. Almost at the same time he fur
ther confesses that he actually felt "seasick" whenever
he heard anyone use the word "righteousness" in the
strict sense of the law.
It follows from this that the aged Luther's sup
posed "romance of the convent" is in its essential fea
tures quite firmly fixed in the mind of the Reformer as
early as 1515 and 1516, though at that time he does
not yet mention self-castigation, freezing, wakeful
nights and fasts. But of these things his cell at Erfurt
and his oldest portrait speak all the more eloquently.
His room in the monastery had no arrangement for
heating, so he really did suffer from cold as he later
asserts. His oldest hkeness dates from the year 1520.
On it his features are still those described by Mosellan
in July of the previous year. He looks morbidly tired,

68 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
with sunken eyes and hollow cheeks and seems mere
skin and bones. Hence it is also true that he starved
himself and otherwise lived like an assiduous ascetic
"in waking, praying and other labors." For it is
quite unlikely that a healthy and robust man of thirty-
six — this was his age then — should look so cadaverous
if he be in the least careful about his physical well-
being. As soon as Luther took the trouble to pay at
tention to his health his outward appearance began
visibly to improve. Evidence of this is his next pic
ture from the spring of 1521. In it the hollow cheeks
and eyes have become filled out, the bony neck is round
and firm, indeed, the first signs of a double chin are
to be seen, so that one is almost led to believe that
meanwhile the ascetic hermit had become a comfort
ably situated prelate.
While thus we have no reason whatsoever to im
pugn the veracity of the Reformer in this respect, are
not on the other hand the blunders, errors and exag
gerations in his statement so incriminating that we
would do well wholly to dispense with information
given by him in his later years? If this were the case
we would be forced radically to discard as mere idle
prattle well-nigh all memoirs and autobiographies
and absolutely all biographical reminiscences of older
people. For Luther had the same experience as all
famous writers of memoirs who were not in a position
to use contemporary documents and notes.
Goethe in his "Dichtung und Wahrheit" not only
very frequently combines facts in an arbitrary way,
but is besides guilty of the gravest errors in chronol-

STAGES IN LUTHER'S CONVERSION 69
ogy, especially when he deals with the date of origin
of his works. There is no doubt, however, that on
these questions particularly the great poet wishes to
present truth and not poetry. It is well known that
Bismarck in his "Gedanken und Erinnerungen"
often sets down mistaken reminiscences and wrong
thoughts. Yet no one would for a minute think of
branding him a liar because of this or refuse to accept
his memoirs as an historical source. The same is true
of all such works in modern times, no matter who the
author may be. None of them is free from blunders*
and errors, yet without a doubt they are sources which
no historian dare leave unread. Consequently, no
psychologist will be surprised about these errors and
contradictions in chronology and fact in the remi
niscences of the aging Luther. At most he will wonder
that the old man did not err more often. For Luther
did not have access to diaries and journals like Goethe,
he had no well-ordered collection of materials and no
expert collaborator like Bismarck. Above all, his
stories are always told incidentally and mostly by
word of mouth only, without long previous prepara
tion and careful testing of his remembrance — alto
gether on the promptings of the moment.
Is it possible in this way to explain all mistakes,
all exaggerated and unjust verdicts which the Re
former in later years renders about the "Papacy,"
that is, the Catholic Church in all its phases? He
makes the well-known declaration that as a child he
knew nothing about the mercy of God and of his
grace, and that he became acquainted with Christ

70 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
only in the capacity of an angry judge of the world
enthroned upon a rainbow. He says that even in the
monastery he still hated Christ, so that he was fright
ened whenever he saw a painting or likeness of him,
or heard his name mentioned in passing. Indeed,
here especially Luther claims to have suffered the
keenest doubts about God's mercy. This was due,
he asserts, not merely to the frailty of human nature
but to the Pope's theology. Is this true?
Upon reading the beautiful prayers and hymns
which Denifle cites from the breviary and missal used
by the Augustinian hermits one is tempted at the first
blush to join him in his negative answer. For in these
prayers and hymns we everywhere meet not the angry
judge but the merciful and gracious God of whom
Luther at the time claims to have been ignorant. Since
then it can be proven that he knew these books thor
oughly, in fact, had committed a goodly portion of
their contents to memory, the conclusion seems una
voidable that all his later stories about his doubting
the mercy of God are pure invention. Luther never
sincerely doubted and struggled. It was impossible
for him ever to fall into such inner conflicts and trou
bles, for almost hourly and daily he heard that very
grace praised in hymns and talked about in the most
impressive manner.
True, if in the monastery he had never done any
thing but sing and pray, hear and read mass, then this
conclusion would not only be permissible but impera
tive, then we would always need only to open the
missal and breviary of the Augustinians in order to

STAGES IN LUTHER'S CONVERSION 71
determine what at the time were Luther's beliefs,
hopes and fears. However, we know very distinctly
that he did and had to do many other things besides.
Even as a novice he read and became acquainted with
the Bible and a few mystic and theological authors in
addition to the missal and breviary. Above all, it was
his duty to memorize the rules and constitutions of
the order, and to accustom himself to the tremendous
task set for the monk, and ever new from day to day
for the novice: the problem of subduing his old self
and of becoming a superman after the monastic ideal,.
that is, a man who, free and rid of all selfishness, loves
and desires God alone. This task demanded his whole
force of will and action. It not only compelled him
to submit his whole outer and inner life completely
to the control and training of the master of novices,
to chastize himself and to take upon himself all sorts
of external exercises of humility and obedience, but
also constrained him to continually observe himself,
to register faithfully every sinful thought and with
all his might to "torment and torture," to discipline
and train his soul, so that gradually it might be cap
able of the high art of loving nothing and desiring
nothing but God alone.
After taking the vows in September, 1506, a new
task immediately confronted him which deeply stirred
his soul : the duty of preparing for his consecration to
the priesthood. Hardly had he with this end in view
thoroughly and with a "bleeding" heart studied the
prescribed book by Gabriel Biel on the canon of the
mass and received holy orders (February, 1507) when

72 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
his superiors again imposed upon him an altogether
new duty. Once more he was forced to become a pupil
and as "cursor" to study the masters of "modern the
ology," Okkam, d'Ailly, Gerson, Biel under the
teachers of the order, Paltz and Nathin. This he ac
cordingly did with such zeal and success that after
autumn, 1508, he was employed as instructor. From
that time on naturally his days were more than ever
given to study, for in order that he might teach well
Luther also was at first compelled to study harder
than ever before.
All these facts sufficiently show that in these de
cisive years his soul was occupied much more with
numerous other matters than with singing and pray
ing in the choir. From his very first day in the monas
tery he was naturally more vitally concerned in the
great life question of his new state: how will I gain
complete freedom from the natural instincts of self-
love and arrive at a perfect love of God? Also his
attention was deeply centered upon all those problems
which he met again and again in the course of his
studies. For they were most intimately connected
with this practical question and ever again forced him
to the closest and most earnest meditation. Mean
while he on the other hand increasingly felt the daily
hours and readings of the breviary to be "ass's work,"
indeed mere sound, drawl, murmur and bleating at
the walls, which made one feel dull in the head.
If therefore we wish to find out what it was that
engaged his inner self during the first years of his
sojourn in the monastery, we must not have recourse

STAGES IN LUTHER'S CONVERSION 73
to the prayers and hymns which year in year out he
read and recited together with all his fellow monks ex
actly in accordance with the rule, but we must re
member also the high and strict ideal after which he
then endeavored to mould his outer and inner life.
We must besides study the great theologians and
edificatory writers whom he so completely followed
at the time that he read even the Bible through their
eyes, men hke Okkam and d'Ailly, Gerson and Biel,
Bernard of Clairvaux and Bonaventura, John Mau-
burnus and Gerard of Zuetphen. Only thus will we
be able to determine whether he really struggled and
fought as mightily in the monastery as after 1515 he
declares that he did.
The young monk had heard lectures at the univer
sity only with the Okkamists or philosophers of the
"modern" school, and thus when he entered into the
monastery he had the firm conviction: man can do
all that he wills. He can, for instance, fulfill the Ten
Commandments to the last letter, if only he wants to ;
he can love God with his whole heart, with his whole
soul and with all his powers, if only he wants to; he
can even force his reason to beheve that black is white,
in fact, he can create in himself every imaginable con
cept, sensation and feehng, moral and immoral pas
sion, and do this at any time, unhampered and com
pletely, if only he uses his will. For, because the will
is the all-determining psychic force it is itself deter
mined by nothing, never weakened or strengthened,
increased or decreased at any time by any good or
evil deed. On the contrary, it remains ever un-

74 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
changed, the same in quantity and quahty; hke the
needle of a compass it always returns to its charac
teristic stabile balance, no matter how often it is di
verted in the direction of "good" or in the direction of
"evil." This well-nigh mythological conception of the es
sence and force of the will was strengthened in the
young monk during the first part of his stay in the
monastery. In the first place, here also he heard only
Okkamists and very soon studied the great masters
of the school, Okkam, d'Ailly, Gerson and Biel them
selves. Furthermore, all that these philosophers de
clared theoretically possible, the perfect fulfillment
of all commandments, even of the command to love
God, in the monastery immediately confronted him
as a practical requirement. Lastly, he found this
point of view confirmed time and again also in the
ascetic writers with whom he had already become
familiar as a novice. For no matter how much these
latter authors spoke of "grace," not one of them
doubted that man through ascetic practices, prayer
and meditation could himself prepare his soul for be
coming one with God. And none of them omitted
most earnestly to encourage his readers to the highest
exertion of the will. Indeed, the greatest of them all,
Bernard of Clairvaux, ventures to affirm that it were
possible through a careful control and regulation of
the process of perception gradually to convert the im
pulse of natural egotism into the noble passion of the
true love of God. In his book on the love of God he
minutely describes the methods to be used for that
purpose.

STAGES IN LUTHER'S CONVERSION 75
The deepest impression along these lines was un
doubtedly made upon the young monk in the con
fessional where again and again his attention was
drawn to these conceptions. For wholly in keeping
with Master Gabriel Biel who, though he was not a
strict Okkamist, was nevertheless in the monastery,
and everywhere among the "moderns," accounted a
model theologian, the Augustinians of Erfurt taught:
Man achieves absolution from the eternal punishment
for sin or from the guilt of sin only if he sincerely
hates and loathes evil. Whoever, therefore, thinks
that he needs only to confess and in so doing evinces
a measure of fear of hell and purgatory in order to
receive absolution from the father confessor is seri
ously mistaken. The so-caUed "contrition of the gal
lows," or the sorrow over the evil external conse
quences of sin alone never brings about a change in the
attitude of God, and even confession and priestly
absolution make no difference in this. For, though
these latter are useful and necessary, one must not
forget that the priest in the confessional remits only
the penances imposed by the Church and a part of the
temporal penalties of sin, never the eternal punish
ment of wrong-doing. But is it not expecting the
impossible of man to demand that out of his own
power he must be completely repentant? By no
means. AU he needs to do is to sub j ect his inner hfe to
the psychological process of ennobhng suggested by
Bernard of Clairvaux, and thereby gradually trans
form the natural self-love which manifests itseff in
fear of punishment and the contrition of the gallows

76 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
into perfect love of God. This love by its very nature
always includes sincere hatred of all evil, and thus the
prerequisite of perfect repentance is attained by the
sinner's own efforts. In this way the young monk
by all that he did and heard was most energetically
encouraged to torment, torture and train his soul in
a manner in which otherwise only the body is trained,
to the end that he might wrest from it the perfect love
of God. If he desired to be saved from purgatory and
heU, to be free from all pangs of conscience, if he
wished to be a true monk, the initial stipulation was
always the same: love God above everything. And
ever again the alluring inducement was added to this
condition: you can, if only you want to.
But then, was man really able to do everything he
wanted to do, in fact, could he even in this case will
earnestly and with all his power what he himself
wished and desired ? Since his university days Luther
knew no other attitude, and now under his Okkamist
teachers he read and heard the same tenet repeated
over and over : God in his innermost being is Will, ex
actly like man, but absolute, eternal and almighty
Will. If therefore mere human will can be deter
mined by nothing and yet completely dominate the
life of the soul, God is in the highest sense of the word
the aU-determining Will, determined and limited
solely by itself, that is, in the last analysis he is eternal
and almighty arbitrariness. This is clearly shown in
his actions as Creator. Out of pure arbitrariness he
called this particular world, and no other, into being,
and altogether like a despot he now disposes and gov-

STAGES IN LUTHER'S CONVERSION 77
erns in it, bound only by the "constitution" he himself
gave it, to be in force as long as he wished and sub
ject to the condition of good behavior. It is secondly
manifest in his actions as a Lawgiver. Arbitrarily he
declared one deed to be good and worthy of reward,
another as bad and meriting punishment, for nothing
is in itself either good or bad. Hence he could at any
time to-day declare good what only yesterday was ac
counted evil, and to-morrow punish as a vice what to
day was rewarded as a. virtue.
Most flagrantly God reveals himself as personified
arbitrariness in the third place in his actions as Sav
iour. No rational consideration, but simple arbitrari
ness led him to bring about salvation through a god-
man, and not through a god-stone, or a god-animal —
to predestine a portion of humanity for salvation and
the others for damnation, while nevertheless he makes
eternal bliss depend upon the fulfillment of certain
conditions. Indeed, it was arbitrariness and nothing
else which made him feel that salvation was at all
necessary, and above all that he made it depend upon
the sacramental practices of the Church. For if any
thing is certain, it is surely this that man by dint of
his own reason and strength can do everything that
God asks of him. Even the greatest and most severe
task, the pure and disinterested love of God, is not too
difficult for man. In spite of this, every human being
is in need of salvation, though not for inner reasons
but rather for a very external one.
It has pleased God in his absolutism to look only
upon those actions as worthy of reward which he in a

78 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
sense has stamped with tne "spiritual ornament' of
"grace" and thereby transformed from mere good
deeds (merita de congruo) into merits (merita de
condigno) . Also it further pleased him to closely link
this stamping process to the sacraments of the Church.
Not in the sense that the Church has the power to di
rectly bring about this stamping or application of
"grace" through its sacraments; that is always done
by God himself. But he has so arranged it that the
stamping always occurs simultaneously with the sac
ramental acts of the Church. In this way man, though
he can do everything that God asks of him out of his
own power, nevertheless is always in need of the
Church and of "grace" — not in order to become a
changed man internally, but merely to gain the recog
nition of the despot "God." This is not very difficult
to attain if man does what he can. God unfailingly
gives his works the character of merits and thereby
makes them legal tender in heaven. Not that man
could force God to do this, — but the Lord of the
Universe has contractually bound himself on this
point, and since he is unchangeable and truthful man
may count on it that God wiU always scrupulously
observe this pact.
This was the God whom the young Luther had
before his eyes, whom he wanted to love and was told
to love, indeed, as he believed, had to love if he wished
to gain forgiveness for his sins, salvation and eternal
happiness. If we consider these facts we will step by
step be able to realize with him what he felt and what
since 1515 he tells of the struggles of his soul. Only

STAGES IN LUTHER'S CONVERSION 79
then wiU we be able whoUy to comprehend that he
feared, indeed, hated God, and was so terribly worried
over the problem of predestination. For at all times
he had before his mind's eye the God of Okkam, the
God of absolute omnipotence and arbitrariness who
damned and saved as it pleased him. Further, we will
then understand that he tortured himself incessantly
"to do sufficient good works to win a merciful God,"
and that at times, like a mad and haughty saint, he
believed to have "done his part." For he knew no
other view than this that man was able and obliged
to earn "grace" by his own power. Furthermore, we
then see that the promises of grace in Scriptures and
in the liturgy could make no impression upon him, no
matter how tempting and consolatory they might
sound. The word "grace" necessarUy always called
to his mind first of all the spiritual "ornament" by
which God was said to give to good works the char
acter of merit, and he was firmly convinced that this
"spiritual ornament" also must first be deserved.
Such considerations enable us to understand why
Luther never could or would cease worrying over
his sin, for upon conscientious self-examination he
never found in himself as much humility and love of
God as Biel and Bernard and other monkish saints
demanded. Lastly, we understand in view of these
facts why the priestly absolution dispensed in the sac
rament of penance was to him an altogether insuffi
cient consolation. He had learned from Biel that
it is not absolution which brings about forgiveness of
sins, but alone true contrition springing from the

80 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
perfect love of God. It is, therefore, not an exaggera
tion to assert that it is the "modern" theology, Biel's
doctrine on penance and the monastic teaching about
the royal road of humility and love which first plunged
Luther into the terrible doubts and troubles of con
science, about which later on he speaks so frequently,
and always so vividly and impressively.
Granting that this is true, how came it that just
Luther was so strongly and pecuharly affected by
this modern theology, that he particularly was so
powerfully shaken by Biel's teaching on penance and
the old monastic doctrine of humility, and that espe
cially he was so sorely troubled by the fear of sin?
Other monks who studied exactly the same things
and undertook the very same exercises were not so
affected. Does this observation not make the suppo
sition very probable that his nerves were not quite
in order, especially since not even so experienced a
mentor of souls as John von Staupitz understood his
"temptations" and evidently regarded Luther's fear
of sin as abnormal? Certainly his condition was not
"normal," and it is very probable that his nervous
system suffered severely under the strain of hard
study, fasting, waking and living in an unheated ceU.
But does this justify us to forthwith conclude that
his fear of sin was nothing more than a symptom of
psychic derangement caused by the unaccustomed
physical and emotional exertions of monastery hfe?
That would be overshooting the mark altogether. The
psychic abnormahty which was at bottom of all this
worry was not acquired by Luther after his entrance

STAGES IN LUTHER'S CONVERSION 81
into the monastery. It can be shown that he suffered
from it already as a student and never again got rid
of it as long as he lived though otherwise he was a
person of robust health of body and soul.
What was the character of this abnormality? It
consisted simply in a particularly delicate and sensi
tive conscience, and an unusually keen and live sense
of truth. In this tender conscience and this inexorably
rigid truthfulness in the judgment of himself we must
see the real cause of these internal tribulations. On
the other hand, the old monastic teaching of humility,
Biel's doctrine of penance, the hard and cruel picture
of God and the fantastic conception of man found
in "modern" theology must be looked upon merely as
the occasion and external impetus which set in motion
this strongest and most sensitive chord of his inner
self and for a long time kept it in a state of quivering
excitement and susceptibility.
Had Luther not been so unusually sensitive, Biel,
Okkam and the old monkish teachers would certainly
have been as httle able to touch him as his more coarse
grained comrades in the monastery. He would then,
however, have turned out to be only a good average
person like these, and every trace of his sojourn on
earth would like his ashes have long since disappeared.
This very conscience with its sensitive organism which
now caused him so much unrest, on the other hand,
like the restless mechanism of a watch was also the
live-force which drove him on. As time wore on it
pushed him ever farther from the beaten path of the
old faith, and with increasing energy urged him to

82 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
give to the religious problem that altogether personal
formulation by which unbeknown to himself, he al
ready stepped outside of the limits of the Cathohc sys
tem. The problem as he put it was: How will I, the
single individual, become absolutely certain of for
giveness of sin and thereby of the grace of God?
What Luther tells us of the conflicts of his soul is
thus indirectly confirmed by the books which he studied
in the monastery. It is merely necessary for us to give
serious heed to the demand made by Denifle and
Grisar, and to peruse these books with the eyes of a
psychologist, that is, always attempt while reading to
feel what impression they must necessarUy make upon
a thoughtful, serious young monk with a tendency to
"scruples" who in his anguish of heart thrice made the
great confession, and for a time daily went to be
shriven. But naturally this method does not yet prove
that the statements of the Reformer about the time
and turning point of his severe inner crisis, the expe
rience in the tower of the Black Cloister, are aU cor
rect. At any rate, it is advisable for us here also to
adopt the method of getting down to the documents
themselves, that is, that for once we make a close study
of the manuscripts of the period in which he himself
places this event, the late autumn of 1512 (Weimar
edition, vol. 45, p. 86) to March, 1515. Period of his
becoming acquainted with Augustine's treatise on
the Letter and the Spirit.
A study of this kind must above all deal with the
preparations and notes for his first course of lectures
on the Psalms delivered between July or August,

STAGES IN LUTHER'S CONVERSION 83
1513, and March, 1515. What do these teach us? In
the first place, they indicate that Luther must have
been quite closely conversant with the Epistle to the
Romans as early as the summer of 1513, for he cites
it on every occasion, even in his marginal notes to the
commentary by Faber which he used for the Psalms.
Secondly, they prove that even at this time he under
stood the Epistle, and thirdly, that the decisive turn in
his inner development must have been passed some
time before, since all those views which pre-eminently
stamp him a heretic are already found in these docu
ments though often still in a clouded and conflicting
form. Thus, for instance, we meet the conviction: the
greatest evil is guilt, the greatest good the cancellation
of this guilt, in other words, the possession of a "secure
conscience." Furthermore, we_^nd_th5,reco^nitiQii
thjitno man can force this security of conscience fjrqm
. himself or earn it by his own efforts. It is obtained
solely through the aid of God who instiUs into the soul
the trust in his mercy. Further we note the firm con
viction: in and with this trust or faith God gives to
man also the power to do good. Lastly these old note
books show beyond a doubt that the passage Romans
1 :17 must have had a very special importance for the
young instructor, so often is he busy with the concept
of the righteousness of God, so emphatically does he
ever anew develop the religious ideas previously de
rived from a correct understanding of it. In short,
these notes furnish us the documentary proof for the
fact that Romans 1 ;17 really had for Luther become

84 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
the gate of paradise, and that the enlightening of
which he speaks in later years in reality took place in
the period which he himself indicates, that is, in the
end of the year 1512 or the opening of 1513, in the
first months, therefore, after his promotion to a pro
fessorship in the theological faculty at Wittenberg.
But we must guard against misinterpreting this
result. The young professor who in his cramped
study is bothering his head about the concept of the
righteousness of God, and the Reformer Luther who
in the same small room writes against the Papacy are
two entirely different persons. The former still re
mained a true monk and Scholastic for years to come.
He grows into his new religious point of view only
very gradually, and the old ideals and authorities lose
their power over his soul by slow degrees only. It is
not until some time in 1515 that he completely suc
ceeds in shaking off the last remnant of the network
of the Okkamistic doctrine on salvation which he had
torn long before. Thereafter, in the course of the
year 1516 he overcomes the monkish views on hu
mility and learns that humble submission to the will
of God is not sufficient, but that there must be added
thereto the glad trust in his mercy. Not until the
turning of the year 1516-17, however, does he dare to
discard altogether his pastoral doubts about the doc
trine of the certainty of salvation, and his monkish
aversion to the thought that a pious person may con
fidently count on the mercy of God without seeming
to infringe on humility. Only after all this does he
frankly and freely assert : It is impossible to trust in

STAGES IN LUTHER'S CONVERSION 85
God without at the same time being absolutely certain
of salvation and eternal bliss.
Because this forward movement was so slow and so
gradual Luther himself never fuUy realized how dia
metrically opposite to the basic views of Catholic piety
his attitude had become and was destined increasingly
to become. "In error and ignorance," "as a horse
whose eyes had been bhnded, God led him onward
and upward," until finally he had been so far matured
and steadied internaUy that he was able, though again
not "knowingly and with foresight," but without the
least presentiment whither his course would lead him
to challenge publicly the "misguided seducers of the
people" whom he had previously so sharply attacked
in his lectures on Romans.

CHAPTER III.
Luther's Helpers and Guides During the Conversion.
DID this development, as it has just been sketched,
take place without external influences, or did the
young monk find helpers and guides upon the lonely
path which he was treading almost hke a somnambu
list, securely, but without clearly realizing his fate?
Did Luther have mentors and guides who pointed out
to him the right way, accompanied him, or even pre
ceded him?
This question has also been much discussed of late
but very differently answered. According to Denifle
we ought to look upon Wilham of Okkam as his fore
most teacher and master ; Albert Maria Weiss, O. P.,
holds that John Wiclif must be given this place;
Braun and John Ficker believe that the mediaeval
Mystics and John von Staupitz were responsible for
his views ; Loof s names St. Augustine and Bernard of
Clairvaux; Biittner, Stange and Mandel mention
John Tauler and the anonymous author of the "Ger
man Theology"; H. Barge claims that Karlstadt,
though not acting as his forerunner exactly, at least
preceded him in the battle, while Kampschulte, Jans
sen, Pastor and other Catholic investigators assert
that even after the beginning of the public conflict the
Humanists Crotus Rubeanus and Ulrich von Hutten
decisively influenced his actions and convictions, in-
86

LUTHER'S HELPERS AND GUIDES 87
deed, really trained him up and induced him to assume
the role of leader of the nation against Rome.
Attempts to solve this interesting educational prob
lem are therefore not lacking. NaturaUy not all of
these solutions are real solutions. Barge's statement,
for example, about the influence of Karlstadt on the
Reformer is disproven by a mere glance into the lec
tures on Romans of the years 1515-16. Here we find
the whole ensemble of opinions which Karlstadt on the
twenty-sixth of April, 1517, proposed in his 152
theses. But not always is it possible so quickly to sift
truth and error. For that reason we will have to tarry
a moment over some of these attempted explanations.
Early in the summer of 1515 the Reformer sum-
marUy refers to the Okkamists as "hog theologians."
One might conclude from this that he had even then
severed connections for all time with Okkam and his
fellows. But such a conclusion would be overhasty.
Luther never quite got through with the hog theo
logians. In a measure he remained ah Okkamist dur
ing his whole hfe, in fact, in some of his doctrines he
must, as Denifle declares, actually be regarded as a
disciple of Okkam, who carried on and developed his
work. Luther's teachings about the eucharist and
about the omnipresence of the body of Christ, and all
that he puts forth in concepts, proofs and analogies in
the conflict over these doctrines goes back directly to
this source and to d'Ailly and Biel. Indeed, it seems
almost as though Luther had had the feeling that he
could bring this controversy to a successful issue only
if he fought as an Okkamist, so abruptly and without

88 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
reservation does he at the time in his polemics use for
his purpose the Okkamist view on revelation as a sum
of non-rational teachings, so unconditionally does he
after the manner of this authority demand in the name
of faith, the sacrifice of intellect, the captivity of rea
son and a blind submission to the non-rational "tenets"
of Christian doctrine.
But not only on this point, and not exclusively in
those dogmas which were later on so frequently re
garded as arch-Lutheran does the Reformer appear as
a true pupil of Okkam. He foUowed the Invincible
Doctor elsewhere also more often than is commonly
suspected both in his ideas and methods of thought.
Classic examples are his much-discussed doctrines on
the inviolability of the confessional and on the permis
sibility of the white lie. Other instances substantiat
ing his dependence are his teachings on the law of
nature and natural right, on the position of the secular
government over against natural and written law, on
the right of the civil power to reform the Church, and
furthermore his deprecatory judgment on jurispru
dence and the jurists, his gruff verdict on the "blind
and mad heathen Aristotle," and aU the philosophers,
who like the Stagyrite give themselves up to meta
physics, his views on the relation of reason to revela
tion, and his highly characteristic utterances on the
hopeless inadequacy of reason in an inquiry into the
ultimate causes of all existence which lie altogether be
yond the realm of experience.
It is therefore downright impossible to comprehend
Luther's theology, in fact his whole point of view in

LUTHER'S HELPERS AND GUIDES 89
life, without continually bearing in mind that he
passed through the school of the "moderns," the
"Modernists" of those days. However, dare we for
this reason like Denifle summarily dispose of him as
an "ossified Okkamist"? That would mean doing
plain violence to the truth. For if we center our at
tention upon the religious basis of his message, his
concept of evil and sin, of forgiveness and of grace, of
law and gospel, of piety as a religious and as a moral
attitude, we recognize without difficulty that these
fundamental ideas were arrived at in a struggle with •
the theology of Okkam.
Luther's Christianity, therefore, is everything but
ossified or softened Okkamism. Quite to the contrary,
it is in all its essential features the most complete con
trast to the teachings of this theologian that can be
imagined. This does not preclude the fact that Ok
kam, even if he did not directly aid Luther, at least
materiaUy eased his task of overcoming mediaeval re
hgion. For Okkam was not only the Antichrist but
also the anti-Catholic among the great thinkers of
the Middle Ages, not merely the confessed antipode
of mediaeval Christianity but also the sharpest critic
of the mediceval features in this Christianity.
The classical Middle Ages were as yet incapable
of comprehending the spiritual in a purely spiritual
sense. Just as they always conceived God in some
manner as a substance so they also viewed sin, if not
directly as a substance, at least as a lack of substance,
and looked upon grace as the heavenly material which
compensates for this lack; whUe justification to them

90 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
was the process by which this deficiency is equahzed
and man in a trice converted from a sinner into a
righteous person.
Duns Skotus was the first to attack these "massive"
concepts, and he was soon followed with greater au-
thoritativeness by Okkam. While the latter conceived
God strictly as will, he also saw in sin only a function
ing of the will and in grace actually only a "spiritual
ornament" or a sort of stamp by which God recognizes
as acceptable the performances of man. Accordingly,
he understood forgiveness of sin no more to mean the
infusion of the substance of righteousness into man,
but held that it signified merely the non-imputation of
sin to man. Augustine's "justification" he allows to
stand as an independent process following the non-
imputation of sin, but for practical purposes this
dogma seemed to him perfectly meaningless and su
perfluous. He was altogether at a loss what to do
with it. Meanwhile he evidently desired to destroy
to the very root the old Christian idea of salvation by
grace. In reality, however, he killed only the behef
in the old imperfect massive formulation of this doc
trine. Thus Luther had only to throw overboard entirely
the now wholly sterile and empty concepts of grace
and justification which the great Englishman had re
tained and to give a new content to the very hoUow
idea of "non-imputation of sin" in accordance with
his own rehgious point of view, and he had done with
the Catholic system in this particular. This was self-
evidently not as easily or quickly done as it would

LUTHER'S HELPERS AND GUIDES 91
seem to us to-day. On the contrary, it cost Luther
hard struggles and weary labor. Nevertheless, there
remains no doubt that Okkam made this task easier
for him and furnished him in the concept of "non-
imputation of sin" with a formula which he could
readUy employ for the presentation of his own views.
The critical work of Okkam and his school was
equaUy important for Luther in another matter. As
in the doctrine of salvation, so these wise "advocates
of the cause of man versus Augustine" tried also in
the dogma and the sacrament of penance to show that «
man could by his own power do aU God required of
him, and that hence for internal reasons he really in
penance needed "grace" just as little as the Church.
Therefore Biel, for example, regards non-sacramental
penance as much more important than the sacrament
of penance. What are the elements of this non-sacra
mental penance according to Biel? They consist in
a "change of attitude" in man which necessarily in
turn brings about a change in the attitude of God,
that is, it causes God to cancel the threatened sentence
and to again regard the sinner as fit for eternal sal
vation. On the face of it this theory reminds one so strik
ingly of Luther's later point of view that one would
feign believe that he had learned directly from Biel
on this point. Upon closer inspection, however, this
impression vanishes. In the case of Luther the
"change of attitude" on the part of God comes first,
while Biel always conceived it as the result of the
"change of attitude" in man. Luther believes that

92 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
God alone can bring this change in man about, while
Biel contends that man can and must effect it himself.
With Luther, therefore, the whole emphasis lies upon
the act of God, with Biel it rests upon the act of man.
This alone shows that Bid's doctrine of penance at
first necessarily precipitated Luther into ever new
doubts and fears. Only after he had gained the mas
tery over the in his opinion deadly fundamental idea
of Biel was he able to draw honey even from this
poisonous flower. Not until then did Biel's criticism
of the Church's doctrine of penance become important
and valuable to him as a means by which he might
break and throw aside the hollow sheUs of the old
dogma which had been left over in this process of
criticism. However, Okkam was not only the most acute
critic of the Catholic dogma of salvation whom the
Middle Ages had seen, he was likewise one of the
sharpest critics and antagonists of the hierarchical
system. He already asserted tersely and without
equivocation : Popes and councils can err ; he declared
it an open question whether the monarchical form of
government were beneficial to the Church ; he denied
that the Pope and the clergy had any right whatso
ever to mix in secular affairs, and would at most per
mit the former to count as a cult official who in secular
matters was quite as much subject to the Emperor as
aU other men.
We do not know how far the Reformer before 1517
became acquainted with these radical opinions. In
any case it was not immaterial for his development

LUTHER'S HELPERS AND GUIDES 93
that he grew up amidst the views of a theological
school whose founders and most influential spokes
men were pronounced enemies of the Papal system.
He certainly never was a "Papist" in the strict sense
of the word, not even when he still held very high
notions of the sanctity of the Roman Churcn. At
most he may be called an Episcopahst. Therefore,
when Prierias and Eck forced him to take a stand
over against the curiahstic point of view he was able
to do so in a relatively short time and without experi
encing serious inner conflicts.
Did the Okkamists thus give him only negative aid
through their critical work? Did they not also imme
diately, by means of positive suggestion and hints, as
sist him out of the labyrinth of doubt and terrors of
conscience into which they themselves among others
had plunged him? If we read what the "Invincible
Doctor" himself says about the Bible in his renowned
Dialogue and elsewhere, it would indeed seem that
though he did not directly show the young monk the
way out of his inner disturbances he nevertheless em
phatically pointed out to him the source where alone
he would find right advice. Among other things, for
instance, Okkam says : Holy Writ alone is inf allible,
therefore a Christian is in duty bound to believe only
what is found in the Bible or what can with logical
consistency be deduced from its words. Could this
suggestion be of much help to Luther? Only if Okkam
at the same time opened up to him an understanding
of Scriptures. For the mere study of the Bible Luther
practised diligently enough in accordance with the

94 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
precepts of his order and from his own vohtion. Was
Okkam fitted to teach Luther the understanding of
Holy Writ? In reply it is sufficient to note the fact-
that in Okkam's eyes the Bible was merely a hap
hazard collection of non-rational divine oracles; that
he always saw in the teaching of the Church the cor
rect interpretation of these, and that he believed his
own doctrine of salvation in turn to be an accurate
rendering of the dogmas of the Church. He was thus
in reality not a biblicist, and consequently could never
have made one out of Luther. Indeed, had Luther
foUowed him, the Bible would ever have remained to
him a book with seven seals, and he would never even
have thought of seriously and with an unbiased mind
determining the true content of the sacred book.
Not until after the Reformer comprehended the
Bible and was quite certain of his new convictions did
the teaching of the moderns relative to the Bible as
sume a certain significance also for him. But again
this was due not to the positive content of this teaching
but merely on account of its negative conclusions,
that is, because of its polemics against the inf alhbility
of the Pope and the councils. It is therefore hardly
possible to rate too highly the influence of Okkamist
criticism upon the development of Luther. It offered
him a whole arsenal of weapons for the fight against
the Catholic dogma, and against the Cathohc consti
tutional and legal system. Furthermore, step by
step it rendered his internal conflict wTrh?the old faith
less difficult, and in fact furnished him in the clearly
worked out formula of the "non-imputation of guilt

LUTHER'S HELPERS AND GUIDES 95
by the grace of God" a scaffolding of concepts admir
ably suited to the presentation of his new convictions.
But for these convictions themselves the Okkamists
must in no way be held responsible, these he did not
receive from them. On the contrary, he attained and
was forced to attain them by dint of steady batthng
against this theological school.
Perhaps the young monk was most aided in his
troubles by Biel and not by Okkam himself, in that
this "leading publicist of Okkamist orthodoxy" who,
of course, is no longer an altogether sound representa
tive of the system, emphaticaUy pointed Augustine
out to Luther again and again as the greatest of aU
theologians. Luther began to study Augustine no later than
1508. The very first impression of the Church Father
upon him was so profound that the monk continued to
read him "until he had read and made his own almost
the entire writings of the great teacher." What was it
that so captivated Luther? If we may place faith in
the marginal notes by his own hand in his desk copy
it was at first especiaUy the mystic philosophical spec
ulation of Augustine about God, the world, the soul,
the valuelessness of all earthly things and the eternal
happiness in God.
These thoughts of course were hardly new to
Luther. He had met them before in Bernard of
Clairvaux and other mystics and was soon after con
fronted by them in a still more pronounced form in
Dionysius Areopagita. But now seemingly for the
first time was he so powerfully gripped by them that

96 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
he endeavored quite in the manner of the young Au
gustine and the Neoplatonists to raise himself up to
the level of God through mystic speculation, "to climb
up into the Majesty," to "behold the pure Majesty,"
to become immediately conscious of and one with God
through visions and ecstasies. And actually there
were hours when he believed himself to be "amidst
the choirs of angels." But sober reaction never failed
to set in. The terrors of conscience returned, and a
real confidence in the method of the Mystics would
never appear. It was impossible for him thus rapidly
to completely transform his nature by speculation,
or to forget entirely what he had learned in the school
of Okkam about the absolute incapacity of human
reason to fathom God's nature, will and work. There
fore he never could — as his marginal glosses show —
really assimilate completely the fundamental dogma
of the Mystics about the divine ideas. Instead of
moving freely and unhampered in the rare ether of
speculation, he always dropped back again into the old
"method of authority," which Augustine himself had
never scorned, and which directed him to seek God in
the historical revelation.
The unrest and motion which hereby entered into
his thinking is stiU f aithfuUy mirrored in the lectures
on the Psalms given in 1513-15. Here we find, first,
the fundamental ideas of his new rehgious point of
view, however secondly, side by side with them,
also occasional genuinely Okkamistic reflections, and
thirdly, a number of passages that sound almost
Neoplatonic and Mystic. A closer study reveals

LUTHER'S HELPERS AND GUIDES 97
the fact that the basic dogmas of Neoplatonic
metaphysics had remained strange to Luther. He
neither believes that the general concepts of
human reason accurately correspond to the "ideas,"
nor the invisible and eternal original forces which
supposedly condition and determine the nature
and essence of individual phenomena, nor does
he see in the world of being a system of graduated
forces and existences which all spring from the orig
inal being, God, and are continually connected with
him as with their living focus. Likewise he knows of
no methodical and gradual upward trend of the proc
ess of thinking from the lower to the highest forms
of being, nor does he with the Neoplatonists regard
that which is carnal, perceptible and visible as merely
an illusion or as non-existing, much though he occa
sionally stresses the absolute value of the transcen
dental, spiritual and invisible, and emphasizes the
worthlessness of that which is visible. If we ask what,
so to speak, immunized Luther against these doctrines
the answer can only be : Okkam's criticism of the pure
speculative intelligence, which had accustomed Luther
to regard general concepts merely as symbols or signs
for a wholly unknown and unknowable thing in itself,
and to see in the divine ideas only the concepts of God
about an individual phenomenon. That is, Okkam
after all in this point retained the victory over Au
gustine. However, was Luther's association with Neopla
tonic Mysticism for this reason without value for his
development? By no means. Though he did not find

98 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
in it the solution of his doubts and internal troubles
it acted as an antidote to the hypnotic influence which
the Okkamist doctrine of salvation had up to this time
exerted upon his thinking. He recognized that it was
possible to judge quite differently about God, man,
sin and grace than the "Invincible Doctor" and was
thereby not a little encouraged to throw overboard
the old theories of his school.
Is this the only service which Augustine and Mys
ticism rendered Luther at this juncture ? The answer
to this question is found in the fact that at the time
(1508-14) he learned to know not only Augustine's
Mystic philosophy, but also his teachings about sin
and grace, and further, in the circumstance that the
Mystics who most deeply affected him were two of a
pronounced Christian type: Bernard of Clairvaux
and John von Staupitz.
Though Luther did not himself become clearly con
scious of it, Augustine, after 1509, became ever more
the standard of his views on salvation. In 1513,
therefore, at the beginning of his lectures on the
Psalms he stood much closer to Augustine than to
Okkam on this point. But not until some time in 1515
after he had read Augustine's treatise on the Letter
and the Spirit did he succeed in overcoming the last
vestige of Okkam's doctrine on salvation which re
mained in his thinking, and thus finally vanquish ut
terly the "Invincible Doctor."
Augustine, however, was by no means the only ally
of Luther in the long and desperate struggle with
Okkam and his school. As early as 1505-07 two other

LUTHER'S HELPERS AND GUIDES 99
advisers, Bernard of Clairvaux and John von Stau
pitz, stood by him. The former (he died in 1153)
though by conviction an adherent of Mystic specula
tion and especially in his theological writings a zeal
ous advocate of the common Catholic views on good
works, the law, the meritorious value of ascetic prac
tices by the monks, nevertheless manifested certain
Evangelical elements in his religious attitude. Oc
casionally he looked upon forgiveness of sin as the
supreme blessing. At times he praised justification
through faith alone and in so doing clearly conceived
justification as the foundation of a new relationship
between God and man on the strength of which God
no longer charged sin to the account of man, though
the sinner might not yet have overcome his sin. On
occasion, Bernard, also therefore like Luther, re
garded penance in the celebrated opening thesis in the
Ninety-five as a moral process of purification which
continued through the whole life of the converted
person. Once, in fact, he insisted quite in the manner
of the later Luther : It is not sufficient merely to be
lieve in a general way that God pardons sin, you must
also beheve that he forgives you personaUy. Above
aU Bernard continually pointed to the cross of Christ
as the incontrovertible proof of the compassionate
love of God for sinful mankind and over and over
emphaticaUy designated humility which is conscious
of no merit and constant sorrow over sin as the fitting
attitude and sentiment of man in his intercourse with
God. In view of these facts it is easy to understand why

100 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
Bernard very early made an impression upon Luther.
The words: you must also believe that God has for
given you personally, were forcibly called to the at:
tention of the perturbed young monk by the master
of novices of the Augustinians at Erfurt in 1505-06
and directly lodged in his soul to remain there un-
f orgotten throughout his life as the first bit of consola
tion which had comforted him in his misery. With
equal force he was influenced by Bernard's continual
reference to the cross of Christ, for the more he fol
lowed this direction, the more the bleeding head and
wounded side dislodged from his religious conscious
ness the terrible picture of the Judge of the world
seated upon a rainbow, the more certain he grew of the
incomprehensible fact of the compassionate love of
God for the sinner, the more firm also, on the other
hand, waxed in him the knowledge that sin is the direst
of evils and that it were blasphemy to persist in speak
ing of merits and good works in the face of the cruci
fied Saviour.
These new convictions, however, came to be his
permanent property only during the intimate personal
association with a genuine disciple of Bernard, John
von Staupitz, Vicar of the order. Staupitz himself,
in his last letter to Luther, explicitly confessed that
"alone Brother Martin had led him from the husks of
the swine to the pasture of life." Nevertheless, there
was a time when conversely the Vicar was the guide of
Brother Martin. He led Luther along exactly the
same paths as Bernard, however. Ever again he
pointed the young monk to the wounds of Christ as

LUTHER'S HELPERS AND GUIDES 101
the great proof of the love of God; he encouraged
him to cling with his whole soul to this overpowering
revelation of the true sentiment of God and urged
him to stop the useless speculations about predestina
tion. On the other hand he admonished him to accus
tom himself to the thought that he was in truth and
reality a sinner, and above all convinced Luther that
he must cease torturing and tormenting himself in
accordance with the prescription of Biel in the en
deavor to graduaUy transform his natural self-love
into the pure love of God by a systematic training of
his ideas and feelings. He did this by calling to the
attention of the young monk the words "which re
mained fixed in his soul as the arrow of a mighty one" :
the love of God and of righteousness is not the end
but the beginning of true penance. In this wise the
desperate young man in his associations with Staupitz
learned to know God from an entirely different angle
from that which had been presented to him in the
school of Okkam. Simultaneously he was freed from
the futUe self-torture which he had so far assiduously
practised in order that he might wrest from himself
true love of God and true penitence.
Despite all, however, Staupitz was unable to en
tirely free Luther from his tribulations. Brother
Martin's fear of sin appeared quite unintelhgible,
indeed absurd, also to his patron, for the Vicar himself
did not regard sin in such a serious hght, and the mys
terious striving of the young monk for personal as
surance of forgiveness he failed utterly to compre
hend, because his own convictions on this point were

102 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
the orthodox Catholic ones. In full agreement with
St. Bernard he deemed it impious even to pray for
such assurance. But, though he did not understand
Brother Martin, Staupitz, nevertheless, without
coddling, always made Luther feel his high personal
regard for him, and his willingness to assist him. The
lonesome young man who still associated with the
word father the idea of unbending severity and strict
ness which life in the paternal home had taught him
thus for the first time came to know a father's love,
and that was perhaps of even greater moment for his
psychic condition than all the comforting directions
and knowledge which he owed to the pious Vicar.
Staupitz and Bernard stood by the Reformer in the
hardest years of his development. Later on a number
of other Mystics crossed his path, among them Bona-
ventura and Gerson, and besides the two Dutchmen,
John Mauburnus and Gerard Zerbolt von Zuetphen
who so profoundly impressed also his great antipode
Inigo Loyola. A short time only before Luther en
tered the lists, at the end of 1515 or the beginning of
1516, he further made the close acquaintance of two of
the great German Mystics of the fourteenth century,
John Tauler and the so-called Frankfurt Anonymous,
the author of the "German Theology." He forthwith
recommended the former to his students as an excel
lent German rehgious writer. The latter he himself
edited, in an incomplete form in 1516 and completely
in 1518, confessing that outside of the Bible and St.
Augustine he had found no other book which had
taught him more about the nature of God, Christ,
man and all things.

LUTHER'S HELPERS AND GUIDES 103
This enthusiastic verdict is responsible for a whole
literature. Even to-day a considerable group of
scholars on the basis of it assert: "Not until he met
the Frankfurt Mystic did Luther develop from a
despairing struggler in a dark sea into a Reformer."
(H. Buttner) Mandel says: "As a reforming theo
logian Luther is a pupil of Tauler and the Frankfurt
Anonymous," hence his conversion occurred in the
period when he came to know these two old seekers
after God. "German Mysticism is the cradle of the
Reformation" and similar statements abound. The
proof for this weighty assertion these students have
always magnanimously left to the common hod car
riers of the historical profession. Are the historians
in the happy position of being able to provide the nec
essary confirmatory evidence for these rather large
contentions? Unfortunately not. Luther had at the
end of 1515 long ago ceased to be "a despairing strug
gler in a dark sea." His new religious point of view
was at that time already fixed. This is shown by the
seven first chapters of his lectures on Romans at every
point. He had by this time also begun his reforma
tory criticism of conditions in the Church. Only one
thing he still lacked, the clear recognition that the
faithful Christian not alone dared be sure of his sal
vation, but that he must be certain of it.
What then was it that so strongly attracted him to
Tauler and the Frankfurt Anonymous? Was it the
pantheistic speculation which he found there? No,
that was not new to him any more. These specula
tions were neither a pecuhar feature of German Mys-

104 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
ticism, let alone the last forceful "manifestation of the
ancient Germanic religion over against the "domi
ciled Hebraizing worship of foreign gods." This trait
the German Mystics held in common with all other
Mystics of Germanic, Romanic, Slavic, Semitic, Per
sian, Hindoo, Greek and Chinese origin. What at
tracted Luther were naturally those phases which are
peculiar to these two seekers after God, the things
that were new to him. What was the character of
these captivating novelties ? He answers this question
himself as plainly as possible in the passage of the
lectures on Romans where he first mentions and lauds
Tauler, furthermore, in the resolution of the fifteenth
of the Ninety-five Theses where in part he almost
verbally uses the eleventh chapter of the German The
ology, and indirectly besides in the marginals to his
personal copy of the sermons of Tauler. No other
sermon in this volume is so heavily underscored and
so profusely glossed as the one which he had in mind
during the lectures on Romans and which in its whole
content shows close relationship to the eleventh chap
ter of the German Theology.
What do Tauler and the Frankfurt Anonymous dis
cuss in these passages which were so important for
Luther? They treat exhaustively of internal tribula
tion, the sense of oppression, the distress, fear and
unrest, the despair and complete inner collapse which
normally precede the rebirth or the regeneration in
God. For, as the soul of Christ first descended into
hell and only after that ascended to heaven, so man
also must first experience the torments of one who

LUTHER'S HELPERS AND GUIDES 105
feels himself completely forsaken before he can taste
of the peace, happiness, delight and pleasure of the
eternal God. In this hell nothing pains man more than
his own sin and wickedness, and nothing can console
him on that score. One thing only will avail, to let the
wound fester out, to bear patiently the visitation of
God. Man gets into this state of torment without
knowing why and without having given cause for it
by his own deeds or omissions. His desperate condi
tion is God's visitation upon him. From this in itself
follows that all is not well with man until he feels
disconsolate and desperate, or until he feels happy
and joyful in God. For even in these sore tribula
tions he is not forsaken by God as he imagines. He
is that only if he himself abandons God, busies him
self with created things and flits hither and thither
in doubt without knowing to whom he belongs. But
why does God lead especially his chosen people such
wondrous ways? Because he wants to drive out of
man pride and arrogance, the wish to be somebody,
and wants to show him that he must give himself up
to God in unrestricted humility whether it be for sal
vation or damnation.
This was the new doctrine which Luther found in
Tauler and the Frankfurtian. Why did it mean so
much to him? In the first place, because it gave him
the firm conviction that every man whom God saves
must pass through the hell of pangs of conscience;
secondly, because in it he again found the knowledge
confirmed that man has no other alternative than to
give himself up unconditionally to God for life and

106 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
death and to wholly rehnquish all idea of personal
choice ; thirdly, because he clearly saw from this doc
trine that the path he had himself trodden was not a
false one, nor a roundabout way, but that it was the
direct road to salvation, and that he himself had al
ready been "safe" in God while he was experiencing
his hours of greatest inner tribulation. From this
necessarily followed also the conviction with reference
to the future that he need not and dare not allow new
temptations to rob him of the blessed feeling of "se
curity in God."
It is, therefore, not accidental that only after his
acquaintance with Tauler and the Frankfurtian Lu
ther ventured freely and openly to confess that the
believer must feel certain of his salvation, for only
after this had the doubts which so far had held him
back from this assurance been set at naught. Now
he was unable further to feel that it was a precept of
humility to doubt God's everlasting gracious provi
dence, now he no more needed to fear that ignorance
and frivolity would abuse this knowledge, for now he
could always sober a frivolous person by asking
whether he had already passed through the hell of
despair. This all enables us to comprehend why in
the next years he places Tauler and the Frankfurt
Anonymous as the best theologians right after Paul
and Augustine. Though they were not the first to
teach him what God, Christ, man and all things were,
he yet owed to them the clear insight into the apparent
tangle of his own development and thereby liberation
from the last scruples and doubts about the blessed

LUTHER'S HELPERS AND GUIDES 107
knowledge that he could and must feel absolutely
certain of his God. He did not by any means find
this knowledge in a ready and complete form in these
two old men of God. He had to arrive at and win it
independently, but they indirectly helped him to suc
ceed by making the unfolding of his own rehgious life
clear to him.
Luther's growth, therefore, also confirms the old
truth that the human spirit like a plant absorbs from
its environment only the nourishment which agrees
with its nature: "modern" theology and philosophy
the old monastic teaching on humility and of the per
fect love of God, the Neoplatonic speculations of Au
gustine and the Pseudo-Dionysius, the doctrines of
Augustine about sin and grace, the edificatory reflec
tions of Bernard of Clairvaux, Tauler and the Frank
furt Anonymous, the personal counsel and encourage
ment of John von Staupitz — all these had to serve his
growth without, however, at any time enslaving him,
or forcing him from the path upon which undeterred
he advanced toward a goal unknown to himself.
At first, to be sure, it did seem as though Luther
were entirely under the domination of modern philoso
phy and theology, as though his whole feehng and
thinking were governed by the old ideal of the monas
tery and by the desire to transform natural self-love
by a radical cure after the prescription of Biel into
pure love of God. Gradually, however, with the aid of
Neoplatonic speculation, Augustine's doctrine of
grace, the religious convictions of Bernard and of
Staupitz, he mastered the Okkamistic notions about

108 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
God, man and salvation, and at the same time Biel's
teaching of the amenability of natural self-love to the
process of ennobilization. Simultaneously, however,
with the aid of the critical work of Okkam and his
school on the dogma, he escaped the pernicious grasp
of fantastic mystical speculations and the massive
concepts of the Augustinian doctrine of salvation.
Furthermore, he made Okkam furnish him the formu
las and concepts for his new views on sin, grace, justi
fication and penance. Barely had he completed this
long and silent struggle in which his opponents and
allies continually changed, when once more Mysticism,
as represented by Tauler and the Frankfurtian, was
made to assist him in severing the last ties which stiU
connected his new attitude toward religion with the
old faith. And contrary to their own convictions as
well to the tenets of ancient find mediaeval theology,
they had to aid him in arriving at the conclusion that
the faithful Christian can and must be certain of his
salvation. The ideal which Luther thus acquired in the main
still corresponds to the ideal with which he in 1505 had
entered into this inner conflict. It still was an answer
to the old question: How will I attain complete de
votion to God? But his opinions about the way to
this goal, and his ideas on the relationship between
God and man had in the mean time undergone a revo
lution which in its kind was as momentous and fuU of
consequences as that wrought by the discoveries of
Copernicus in the views about the sun, moon and stars.
While in 1505 his own ego still had seemed to him an

LUTHER'S HELPERS AND GUIDES 109
independent center of inexhaustible energy which ever
moved freely in its own orbit without at any time re
quiring an external impetus, it now was to him only a
small dependent star which without proper motion cir
cles about the immense sun, God, and must receive
from this sovereign luminary all energy and all hght
in order that it might illumine itself and others. Thus,
while formerly he had expected everything from his
own personal wiU and effort, he now hoped for all
from the power and mercy of God.
It is evident that in this revolution of his thoughts, '
next to Paul and Augustine the greatest influence was
exercised by Mysticism. But is it permissible for
this reason to regard his religious point of view merely
as a development from Mystic piety ? No. The Mys
tic is content with the consciousness of his dependence
on God, with the duty of patiently bearing the visita
tions of God, and with the enjoyment of God. What
ever activity Mysticism contains is completely used up
By the task of bringing about this condition in which
the will is as it were switched off. With Luther it is
not merely a question of passive suffering, but a ques
tion of experiencing God in a manner which requires
of aU forces of the soul a passionate tension. It is
with the Reformer not a mere matter of an apathetic
attitude, but of an active and joyous feeling of trust
and faith which in its nature is not rest, but "a live,
busy, active, mighty thing," a continual driving im
pulse to do what is good. Therefore any attempts to
derive his views from any specific earlier doctrine or
form of piety have always failed. For no matter how

110 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
much his whole course of development seems to be con
ditioned by late mediaeval theology and philosophy,
by Augustine and Mysticism, the final product is in no
way the logical result of these several educational fac
tors, but is something new and original, something
that had never existed before, for the explanation of
which one must always again point to a whoUy un-
commensurable quantity: the personal peculiarity of
the Reformer.
Luther's whole course of development is just as
original as the result, if measured by the career of
other heroes of Christian piety. He does not attain
calmness and clarity as August Hermann Franke in
the space of a few hours, or like Loyola after a few
hard weeks — it takes him about eight years. Also he
never has a peculiar experience during this period hke
other pious individuals, he hears no voices like George
Fox, has no "photisma" (visions of hght) and visions
like Loyola, he does not experience a moral coUapse
like Augustine or John Wesley, he does nothing more
than other monks do, he prays, meditates and studies.
Even his "conversion," therefore, has not in the least
an air of romance about it, for it consists in nothing
more than the sudden comprehension of a concept of
Pauline theology which hundreds before him had al
ready correctly understood.
Like his conversion the clarification of his new
knowledge also proceeds altogether in the quiet of his
cell, without convulsing external or moral catastro
phes, without any change in his mode of life or form of
activity. Luther goes right on praying, meditating

LUTHER'S HELPERS AND GUIDES 111
and studying, only he perhaps studies even harder
than before. For it was impossible for him to get a
firm grasp on the new knowledge unless he gained
freedom from the old Okkamistic doctrine of salvation
which was stamped upon his whole inner life, and un
less in addition he gradually acquired an altogether
new theology.
How much industry, what a tremendous amount of
inteUectual energy was necessary for the attainment
of this end can in a measure be gauged only if follow
ing his footsteps one personally studies all the folios
and quartos which he read in these years and allows
the truly confounding variety of views they contain
to act upon oneself, and if one at the same time en
deavors to understand all the highly complicated con
cepts and subtle arguments with which the Okkamists,
for example, operate. Only one of the great repre
sentatives of Christianity before Luther was similarly
forced to perform and did perform so tremendous a
task, the Christian whose development can most read
ily be compared with his own, the Apostle Paul.
However, Luther was not alone a religious thinker
and character, he was also a Reformer. The question
arises, is he as original and independent in this ca
pacity as in that of religious thinker? Is the Luther
who casts the bull of excommunication into the flames,
who as spokesman of the nation places himself at the
head of the national movement away from Rome, and
who with incomparable audacity and openness pro
nounces on all the great and smaU issues of the time
like a prophet, is that Luther only the more mature

112 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
brother of the monk, who like a true fighting theo
logian fights only with theologians, or did this young
champion develop into a reformer only under the
educative influence of freer and stronger spirits, into
the sphere of whose power he came since about the
end of 1519?
This question also has engrossed the attention of
scholars and has called forth very different answers.
Some see no problem here at all; to others the Re
former Luther is but the docile pupil of Ulrich von
Hutten* and of his friend Crotus Rubeanus, the chief
author of the Letters of the Obscure Men. Even to
day it is still claimed that not until after his associa
tion with these revolutionary patriots did the young
monk who knew nothing of the world discover his
German heart, that their example alone encouraged
him to appeal to the whole nation? They say, the
spirit of Hutten and his challenging boldness speaks
in the lines of the great reformatory writings of 1520.
Indeed, they claim that the most powerful of all of
these, the Address to the Nobility, is nothing more
than an extract from Hutten's great satire Vadiscus,
or "Trias Romana," and that it is at the same time the
documentary proof for Luther's connection with the
"Hutten-Sickingen Revolutionary Party." Evi
dences for this contention are seemingly not lacking,
but the question is : Are the methods of proof flawless,
and are the facts which are cited always correctly in
terpreted?

*Ulrich von Hutten was notorious for his loose morals. The
detractors of Luther group him here with von Hutten and apply to
the latter an epithet which is perfectly correct, but which m the
translation we have omitted.

LUTHER'S HELPERS AND GUIDES 113
A cursory glance into the lectures on Romans and
into the sermons of the monk Luther from the period
of 1513-17 suffices to show that the monk "who knew
nothing of the world" even then knew the world quite
weU, and that Luther the Reformer was already in the
field, though for the present he was content to use the
lecture platform and the pulpit as his rostrum. In
these sermons he undismayed attacks the excres
cences of saint-worship and the indulgences. In the
lectures, as we have seen above, he very frankly states
his opinion on all sorts of evils in Church and society,
indeed, he is no longer satisfied with mere criticism,
he sets up quite a list of definite demands for reform.
Simultaneously he begins to take a stand over against
the problem of nationality. He keenly deplores the
fact that so often the peoples in their disputes and
jealousies forget that they are Christians. Mean
while he notes with a certain satisfaction that the
Greeks had been even greater gluttons than were the
Germans of his day. He further shows the warmest
admiration and sympathy for his ruler Frederick the
Wise. Three years later, in June, 1518, he assails the
supercilious and overbearing attitude of the foreign
ers toward the German theologians, and with refer
ence to the "German Theology" he expresses the hope
that his countrymen might some day still be recog
nized generaUy as the foremost theologians.
For the present, however, he was destined to expe
rience personally how far the Italians dared to go in
their presumption over against a German. The
Itahan Dominican, Sylvester da Prierio, attacked

114 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
him as a leper and a dog in an unspeakably superfi
cial and arrogant treatise. From the moment when
this "typically Italian product" came to his hands
(August, 1518) he feels the contrast between Italian
and German just as strongly and gives it just as un
disguised expression as Ulrich von Hutten. In Oc
tober, 1518, he publicly chastizes the Roman Church's
insatiable thirst for gold. In December he voices the
suspicion that Antichrist is ruling at the Curia. In
February, 1519, he even calls Rome a Babylon and
declares angrily: "We Germans alone have helped
the popes to the hmit of our power. As a punishment
we have had to endure them as masters in anathema
tization and flaying and now also in the exploitation
of archdioceses and bishoprics." At the same time he
gives in the prologue to his commentary on Galatians
a veritable prelude for his Address to the Nobility:
"These ungodly windbags, Prierias, Cajetan and their
fellows, abuse us as German blockheads, beasts and
barbarians, and deride the unbehevable patience with
which we permit ourselves to be deceived and plun
dered. Praise be therefore to the German princes
who recently at Augsburg (1518) refused the Roman
Curia the tenth, the twentieth and the fiftieth, though
they were aware that the most accursed Roman coun
cil had sanctioned these taxes. They recognized that
pope and council had erred, . . . that the legates of
the Curia are only looking for money and nothing but
money. The example of these lay-theologians, there
fore, is most worthy of emulation ... it is evidence
of a greater piety if princes, and whoever else it may

LUTHER'S HELPERS AND GUIDES 115
be, opposed the Curia than if they took the field
against the Turks." Surely, one who dared to write
publicly in this strain a whole year before Hutten
sounded the trumpet of battle does not first need to
borrow national anger and pathos from Hutten, or be
inspired with courage by a writer of the caliber of
Crotus Rubeanus who at bottom of his soul was cow
ardly and without conviction.
However, if accordingly the patriot Luther had
been long in the field when Hutten declared war upon
Rome, and though the challenging boldness and re-
gardlessness of this German beast was offensive to the
Italians and a joy to the Germans when the people
stUl knew nothing of Hutten, this does not exclude the
possibility that the patriotic monk in later years
learned from Hutten and Crotus Rubeanus. The lat
ter, in fact, since October, 1519, wrote long letters to
Luther. The Reformer, however, nowhere refers to
their contents. Manifestly they made no deep im
pression on him. Hutten did not approach Luther
until February, 1520. At this early date he already
offered him, through the mediation of Melanchthon,
the protection of Franz von Sickingen. In April he
renewed this proposal, and finally in July he for the
first time addressed himself to Luther in person, and
forthwith proposed to him a regular alliance. Even
this enthusiastic missive, however, did not result in a
more hvely intercourse between the two men. We
know only four letters of Hutten to the Reformer and
only four letters of Luther to Hutten. The latter,
therefore, was quite right when, in the spring of 1523,

116 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
he asserted that Luther had never been his confeder
ate. But he neglected to mention that he himself had
very earnestly though always whoUy in vain sought for
Luther's aUiance. The ostensible confederacy of the
Reformer with the "Hutten-Sickingen Reform
Party" is, therefore, nothing more than a legend, or —
to use a favorite term of Luther's — a lie-gend, a tra
dition which is not rendered more trustworthy by the
fact that it was current in the camp of Luther's ad
versaries as early as 1521. This venerable age it
shares with many other legends about Luther.
Even so the contact with Hutten did not remain
without abiding results either for Luther or for Hut
ten. On the contrary, both men doubtless learned
from each other. As soon as Luther enters Hutten's
horizon the Frankish knight suddenly strikes a dif
ferent note in his writings. The Humanist becomes
. a national publicist, the celebrated Latinist learns to
write German and to compose poetry in the language
of his country, the frivolous poet suddenly places the
full extent of his wild passion and extraordinary tal
ent into the service of the national movement away
from Rome and the pagan scoffer condescends to read
the Bible and talks like a pious Lutheran.
The Reformer is indebted to Hutten above all for
the publication of Lorenzo di VaUa's treatise on the
forged Donation of Constantine. The reading of
this work made an immense impression on him. Since
then he felt quite convinced that the Pope was the
Antichrist. He was much less able to profit from
Hutten's other writings against Rome, dated Febru-

LUTHER'S HELPERS AND GUIDES 117
ary and March, 1520. He certainly read them before
he undertook to write his Address to the Christian
Nobility. A comparison shows, however, that he had
at his command much better and more accurate data
about the "Roman greed, love of display and arro
gance" than Hutten was able to offer him. There
fore he did not at all need to excerpt the Vadiscus as
Hutten could teU him nothing new, the enthusiastic
applause of the Frankish knight was as little a matter
of indifference to him as the proposal of protection
and alhance made by Franz von Sickingen and Sil
vester von Schauenberg, the favorable opinion of
Erasmus and other Humanists, the encouraging mes
sages of the Bohemian Utraquists, the growing sym
pathy of the German clergy and monks, the mighty
stir among the student youth and the news of the in
creasing excitement of the masses.
From all these storm signals he saw with increasing
clearness that he was not standing alone but that his
cause had become the concern of the whole nation.
Ever more strongly he was overcome in view of these
events with the mighty sensation that the people as a
whole were preparing to rally around him. In view
of these facts, since he had vainly addressed himself
to Pope and council, the impulse grew stronger within
him to appeal to his people, the people who as it
seemed were only waiting for him to issue the caU to
arms. In such a frame of mind he after June, 1520,
wrote his powerful manifesto of war against Rome,
the Address to the Christian Nobility. In it he by
no means addresses solely the knights, he speaks to

118 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
his "dear Germans" generally. Also he does not by
any chance expect the reform of the Christian estate
from the knights, but in the first place from "the noble
blood, Charles" and the secular princes, from those
lay-theologians, therefore, whose actions he had ear
lier, in September, 1519, praised so highly. For to
him "nobility" signifies not only the knights, barons
and counts, but the whole noble class. Only in the
one well-known passage of his treatise where he ex
pressly sanctions the claims of the younger sons of
noblemen to the benefices of the great religious f oun-
dations of the Empire is it permissible to see a refer
ence to the wishes of the lesser non-princely nobles
and a sort of thanks for the magnanimous promises
of Sickingen and Schauenberg. Truly, he did not
need to make use of the "hundred faithful knights"
whose help the latter had held out to him, and he was
able to decline the protection of Sickingen. Never
theless, the mere fact that so many members of a class
which just then was once more beginning to show en
ergetic signs of life, and which was stUl quite a power,
were wilhng to answer for his security, fiUed him
with j oyous faith in the victory of his cause. Further
more, it freed him from the uncomfortable duty of so
closely considering the timid disposition of his ruler,
the Elector Frederick the Wise, as he had up to this
time been forced to do.
For these reasons, therefore, it is gross exaggera
tion to ascribe the transformation of Luther from a
reforming theologian into a national and religious
reformer purely to the influence of Hutten. The ob-

LUTHER'S HELPERS AND GUIDES 119
servation which serves as the basis of this contention
is undoubtedly correct. The Luther of 1520 is indeed
a different person from the Luther of the Ninety-five
Theses. His aims are grander, his view much broader
and clearer, his self-confidence vastly mightier. But
this progress is not the work of Hutten, it is the result
of all those struggles which the Reformer had had to
endure since 1517 and likewise the reaction to the ever
more powerfully growing movement which had al
ready begun before he appeared in the open. Luther
himself, without realizing it, was in its service since
1517, and Hutten also after the last months of 1519
had given himself up to it with passionate enthusiasm.
Naturally the Reformer did not become clearly aware
of the ungaugeable influence of pubhc opinion upon
his development. He felt the current carry him ever
farther on, but he did not know from whence the flood
of waters came. With all the greater zeal he gave
credit to his opponents especially since 1519 for be
ing his teachers. Indeed, under their "paternal and
kindly guidance" he had been led onward step by
step, had ever more clearly come to know himself, un
til finally he was absolutely certain of his caU and
ceased to doubt against whom he would have to battle :
against the Antichrist and his apostles.

CHAPTER IV.
The Beginning of the Open Conflict With the
Old Church.
HP HE Protestant world celebrates the thirty-first
-*- of October, 1517, as the birthday of the Reforma
tion. This is quite justifiable, but easily leads to the
erroneous idea that Luther's opposition to the authori
ties and conditions in the Church of his time did not
commence until then, and that it was John Tetzel and
the Mayence Indulgence which caused him to issue the
battle cry. In reality he had entered the lists long
before. Ever since 1515 both in the pulpit and in his
lectures he continually criticized with steadily increas
ing frankness the abuses and evils in all fields of the
religious activity of the Church. However, nothing
was heard of this outside of Wittenberg. Besides,
Luther personaUy was for the present more interested
in another question than in the betterment of the
Church, his attention was centered upon the reform
of the theological curriculum.
In Wittenberg Luther had already in the middle of
the year 1517 succeeded in breaking the sole rule of
Scholasticism and in making the study of the Bible the
central point of theological instruction. Now he
wished to smooth the way for this reform also outside
of Wittenberg. Thus for the first time he came to
issue a public declaration of war, the Ninety-seven
120

BEGINNING OF THE CONFLICT 121
Theses, against Scholasticism of the fourth of Sep
tember, 1517. He had them printed and sent copies
to his friends in Erfurt and Nurnberg, he even dis
patched them to the learned and clever Dr. Eck. Then
in extraordinary suspense he awaited the opinion of
the academic world. But the expected echo failed to
materialize. These Ninety-seven Theses, which Lu
ther himself valued so highly, are to-day known only
to the specialist. Of the Ninety-five Theses, however,
which he tacked to the door of the castle church at
noon on the thirty-first of October, every child knows,
though he did not submit them to his friends until
after they had spread through almost the whole of
Germany. Thus strangely in this case also the words
proved true : a good work must be wrought in error
and ignorance.
WeU-known though the Ninety-five Theses are, we,
nevertheless, have only in the last few years learned
positively what it is of which this renowned document
treats. Although even children at school spoke so
glibly about indulgences as though they had seen them
sprout, green and flower, the indulgence was never
theless in fact a great unknown quantity in the search
for which the scholar ever again with a sigh asked him
self the question : From where does it hail? This lack
of knowledge was in the last analysis due to a wrong
method of approach. People had become accustomed
to look at indulgences from below, from the angle of
the purchaser. They felt justified in seeing in the
motives which manifestly or supposedly governed
people in their purchase of indulgences the causes for

122 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
the origin of the whole enigmatical institution. This
method, however, will never result in a clear view of
the matter. For that reason Adolf Gottlob in 1906
for a change tried the opposite manner of approach.
As a matter of principle he for once studied the indul
gences from above, from the point of view of the
grantor. He inquired: What moved the popes and
bishops to issue indulgences? And lo and behold, the
riddle solved itself and the confused picture became
clear. The family tree, origin and development of
the great unknown suddenly came clearly to light and
the doubts about its original significance were ended.
The indulgence stood forth as a genuine offspring of
the period of the great struggle between Christianity
and Mohammedanism and at the same time as a
most characteristic product of the so-caUed Germanic
Christianity. At this point it will suffice to prove this for the com
plete or plenary indulgence of the Papacy only. In
religious wars between Christians and Mohammedans
the questions arose very early: How about the salva
tion of the warriors who faU in these battles? For
the faithful Moslem Mohammed had solved this prob
lem. The worshiper of Allah entered the holy war
with the firm conviction that in case of death the gates
of paradise would forthwith be opened to him. Not so
in the case of the Christian fighter for the faith. He
asked himself: WiU paradise open to me also if I have
not duly performed penance for my sins ? Such doubts
might easily induce him to rather remain at home.
Very early, therefore, the popes who especially had

BEGINNING OF THE CONFLICT 123
at heart the struggle against Islam attempted to dis
pel misgivings of this nature. With this end in view
Pope Leo IV, when in 853 he summoned the Franks
to the holy war, very confidently held out to the sol
diers of faith a heavenly reward should they fall in
battle. Indeed one of his next successors, Pope John
VIII, as early as 877 granted to such warriors absolu
tion for their transgressions.
These promises of salvation were as yet no indul
gence. They had reference not to hving penitents
but to dead soldiers of the faith. However, they(
prove that the idea which became the mother earth and
the nourishing soU of indulgences existed as early as
the ninth century, namely, the idea that participation
in a war against the unbeliever or other enemies of
rehgion is an achievement of religious value, in fact,
that death in a religious war is a sort of martyrdom.
Who suffers this fate is immediately laid to rest
among the flowers of paradise by St. Gabriel and St.
Michael, as the Song of Roland later has it.
Once this high estimate of fighting in the cause of
religion had gained ground it was but a short step to
look upon participation in such warfare as an equiv
alent for the penitential acts, the incomplete fulfill
ment of which might prompt many a warrior to keep
his charger in the stable. It was an easy matter to
promise remission of these penitential punishments
in return for military expeditions against the foes of
the faith, that is, to use the remission of penances as a
means of recruiting. Thereby the Crusading Indul
gence, that is, the complete remission of the penitential

124 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
punishment as reward for taking part in a religious
war was complete. When this kind of indulgence
originated is not certain. Very probably, however,
it is a German pope, Leo IX, who first ventured to
use this type of remission as a means of getting sol
diers when in 1052 he made ready for a campaign
against the Normans. It is certain that such indul
gences were granted by Alexander II in 1063 to the
warriors who went to Spain to fight the Moors, also
by Gregory VII in 1080 to the faithful who were
willing to fight for the anti-king Rudolf of Swabia
against the Emperor Henry the Fourth. In 1087
Victor II issued them for participation in the struggle
against the Arabs in Africa and Urban II in 1095 for
the crusade to Jerusalem. Since then the Crusadmg
Indulgence is a firmly established instrument of Pa
pal world politics. If now we remember the incon
veniences, the ecclesiastical and civil disadvantages
involved in the penances of the Church, we can under
stand why the penitents eagerly sought this indul
gence. However, another motive acted even more strongly.
The ecclesiastical penance was regarded as a substi
tute punishment for the purificatory penalties in pur
gatory. Whoever acquired indulgence, therefore,
gained not only liberation from the acts of penance
but at the same time also from the corresponding pun
ishments in purgatory. Thus from the very outset a
transcendental effect was ascribed to the institution,
an influence upon purgatory, and this is what made
it seem so desirable to everyone.

BEGINNING OF THE CONFLICT 125
Indulgences, however, did not for very long remain
a recruiting measure. Already Pope Urban II ab
solved old and decrepit persons from the duty of per
sonal service in war on the condition that they furnish
and equip a substitute at their own expense. There
upon Pope Eugene III, as early as 1145 or 1146,
promised to persons who supported the crusading
order of the Templars with a donation of money the
remission of a seventh part of their penance. Finally,
Innocent III in 1199 formally recognized the giving
of alms as sufficient for the sharing in the graces oi»
the Crusading Indulgences. Thus, early in the
twelfth century we find in place of a personal per
formance a material one, a money payment. There
by a momentous change was wrought in the whole
character of the indulgence. From a means of re
cruiting soldiers it grew into a method of making
money, into an expedient of taxing the faithful which
was ever more frequently and rigidly employed in the
interest of the papal finances.
Meanwhile, in the course of the thirteenth century
the crusading ideal more and more lost its power over
the minds of the people. If, therefore, the popes de
sired to retain the important source of income pro
vided by indulgences, they would have to invent new
and efficient stimuli for the purchase of these favors.
It is the merit of Pope Boniface VIII to have clearly
recognized this. By creating the Jubilee Indulgence
in 1300 he assured the institution a long further de
velopment highly beneficial to the papal finances.
OriginaUy the Jubilee demanded of the purchaser as

126 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
his share of the bargain a pilgrimage to Rome. But
very soon this later form experienced identically the
development of the earlier Crusading Indulgence.
The personal was supplanted by the material service,
the making of a payment in money. And just as once
upon a time Innocent III had finally made the Cru
sading Indulgence possible in return for alms in
every parish, so now Pope Boniface IX saw to it that
the Jubilee could also be purchased everywhere by
offering it for sale after 1393 through agents in all
the territories of the Church. Thus the indulgence
became a movable ware, the sale of these favors a
"sacred business."
In order to f acUitate this sacred business stiU more
the purchase of the sacred commodity was now re
ceipted for by means of ecclesiastical documents, the
so-called indulgence letters. At the same time the
priests to whom the undertaking was entrusted were
equipped with the most extensive confessional pow
ers, so that the believer was now in the convenient
position of being able most expeditiously to acquire,
in the first place, remission from the pains of hell by
confessing to the indulgence priest, and secondly, to
gain freedom from the penalties of purgatory and the
penances imposed by the Church by buying an indul
gence letter. As a result of these innovations by
Boniface IX confession and purchasing of indul
gences had therefore become a connected act. For this
reason among others the wise popes could refer to
this new form of granting indulgence in brief, also
as "remission of guilt and punishment." For through

BEGINNING OF THE CONFLICT 127
it the successor of Peter in reality made it possible
for the faithful first by confession to rid themselves
of guUt, and then by the indulgence at the same time
to gain freedom from all the temporal penalties of
sin. However, this did not complete the development
of the sacred commodity. Long ago the question had
arisen whether the Pope were in the position to free
also the dead from purgatory in case a surviving de
scendant, relative or friend bought indulgences for
them. Since the canon lawyers mostly answered this
question in the negative it remained open until the
middle of the fifteenth century. Pope Calixtus III
in 1457 seems to have been the first who dared assert
the right and not until Sixtus IV were indulgences
for the dead completely established. This pope on
the twenty-seventh of November, 1477, issued a dog
matic declaration about the force of indulgences which
set at rest aU doubts about their usefulness for the
poor souls in purgatory, and which at the same time
though only indirectly claimed for the pope jurisdic
tion also over purgatory.
In the Middle Ages, however, many things were
actually practised which rigid theologians and canon
lawyers did not approve and would not recognize as
"Catholic truth." This is partly true also of indul
gences. They were centuries old before the theo
logians found it expedient to seriously consider them.
But the first one who did take them up, Alexander of
Hales, then performed the task so thoroughly that
little was left for later ages to add. Above all, he

128 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
succeeded in discovering the transcendental capital
on the basis of which the Church as its usufructuary
could dispense indulgences: the treasury of good
works, of the merits of Christ and the saints. This
discovery was generally hailed with approval and was
generally accepted. As early as 1343 it was given
dogmatic sanction by Clement VI when he expressly
recognized it in his supplement to the canon law. To
gether with the doctrine of the treasure the same pope
approved the view that indulgence was the remission
of all or part of the temporal penalties for sin, though
he expressly refrained from including the punish
ments of purgatory. Thus he still left the teaching
on indulgence undetermined in some essential points.
And this condition also prevailed in the future, for the
declaration of Sixtus IV recognizing indulgences for
the dead was not incorporated in the canon law. As
far as the ecclesiastical courts were concerned it did
not exist. As a dogma it was received only b)^ the
strict papalists, but these were not very numerous at
the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the six
teenth centuries. The theologians who regarded the
council as the highest tribunal in matters of faith
were decidedly in the majority in France, Spain and
England, and also in Germany.
There was therefore not a complete dogma about
indulgences when, forty years after Sixtus IV, Lu
ther submitted to the learned world his declaration
about the force of indulgences. In particular, an
official doctrine regarding the effect of indulgences on
purgatory was still lacking. Consequently, the Re-

BEGINNING OF THE CONFLICT 129
former was not guilty of heresy, but at most of
having made "an assertion which was insulting to
pious ears" when he refused to accept the institution
as vahd beyond the remission of the ecclesiastical
penances. Hence also Cardinal Cajetan found it im
possible to proceed against him for heresy on account
of the Ninety-five Theses, though he certainly did not
lack wUlingness to do so.
In spite of this unsettled status of its legal aspect
the popes promulgated one plenary indulgence and
JubUee after the other, not only for the living but also*
for the dead. Indeed they saw no harm in especially
commending to their indulgence agents the sale of the
latter variety. It was the most lucrative of the two.
It is therefore not difficult to understand why efficient
agents hke the well-known John Tetzel spent their
best energies on this branch of the business. "Do
you not hear your deceased parents wail and cry out:
Have mercy on us ! We are suffering grievous pun
ishment and pain from which you can save us with a
trifling alms." Thus did the eloquent and bold but
also quite dignified and corpulent monk preach. And
to strengthen his plea he added, either in prose or
verse, the old saying which as early as 1482 had been
condemned by the theological faculty of Paris:
"As soon as the money does clink in the chest,
The soul it will flit into heavenly rest."
If in the period from 1515-20, in spite of Luther's
preaching, the papal indulgence still netted such a

130 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
large profit in the territory of the German Empire
doubtless a big portion, if not the biggest part, was
derived from the sale of indulgence letters for the poor
souls in purgatory.
This was the indulgence as Luther found it. Even
to-day there are plenty of apologists who feel that
they can justify the "sacred business" by comparing
it to the modern popular missions and evangeliza
tions. But the comparison limps. Peoples' missions
are true missions, while the traffic in indulgences was
a real "business." The popular missionary aims at
the saving of souls, the indulgence seUer was purely
and simply after the money. Pastoral motives never
played a roll in the granting of these documents, es
pecially not in the indulgences which were given out
by the popes in an almost unbroken sequence since
the Jubilee of 1300. In these the sole and only object
was the filling of the papal coffers.
For that reason among others from the time of
Alexander VI a banking house, the renowned Fug-
ger of Augsburg, played the most important role in
negotiating the "sacred business." This firm gradu
ally gained control over well-nigh aU the business
of the Curia with Germany, Poland and the Scan
dinavian states. It was consequently in the interest
of this house to stimulate the intercourse between these
countries and Rome as much as possible, thereby
at the same time increasing the flow of moneys to the
Eternal City. For this very natural reason its Ro
man representatives were especially active among
other things in bringing about the issuance of new

BEGINNING OF THE CONFLICT 131
indulgences, because ever since 1507 by virtue of a
private agreement of which, however, the purchaser
never had any knowledge one-third of the total in
come from aU indulgences whether or not they were
officially designated as intended for the restoration
of churches, the building of dikes or for pious pur
poses otherwise, flowed into the papal treasury. In
deed, in the beginning of 1514 this firm formally
appears as an indulgence agency. At that time it ob
tained from the Curia the right to offer papal indul
gences for sale everywhere in Germany to those in- «
terested, with the secret proviso that fifty per cent, of
the net gain be turned over to the Curia. The Fuggers
were immediately successful in disposing of quite a
number of such indulgences in Germany. Outwardly
they were not alike, however. In one at least the
Papacy was named as the recipient of the proceeds,
while privately one-half was promised to a person to
whom the Curia felt under obligations. This one, the
Mayence Indulgence of the thirty-first of March, 1515,
is the indulgence which called Luther into the hsts.
On the thirtieth of August, 1513, the Margrave Al
brecht of Brandenburg had been postulated as Arch
bishop of Magdeburg and shortly after as adminis
trator of the episcopate of Halberstadt. The holding
of two bishoprics by one person was illegal. Besides,
the twice chosen candidate was only twenty-three
years old. He was therefore in need of a double papal
dispensation. Pope Leo X, however, made no objec
tions. On the sixteenth of December, 1513, he con
firmed the young Hohenzollern prince as adminis-

132 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
trator of Magdeburg and Halberstadt. As legal fee
for this confirmation Albrecht paid 1079 ducats.
One ducat has a value of about $2.25 in gold, or is
worth at present money rates between $6.25 and
$7.50.) Hardly had the Fuggers closed this deal when the
prospect of a third bishopric opened up to the fortu
nate prince. On the ninth of March, 1514, "evidently
through divine inspiration," as the Berlin court forth
with claimed, he was also elected Archbishop of May
ence. Now, the Curia had occasionally granted to
one of its cardinals three or more episcopal sees, but
it was an altogether unprecedented situation that a
German prince who had not even reached the canoni
cal age should demand for himself three large bishop
rics. Albrecht himself at first did not press the mat
ter. With all the more vigor therefore his brother,
the Elector Joachim, began to work upon the Curia
through Dr. Blankenfeld from Berlin. The increase
of power which the luck of Albrecht promised for the
house of Brandenburg was so great that even the
Elector was interested in seeing the affair terminate
favorably. As a result Brandenburg would at one
stroke gain the ascendency in Northern Germany
over its old rival, Electoral Saxony. At the same
time this increase of territory would effectively block
further extension of the latter's power in Thuringia.
The Curia long fought the plans and wishes of the
two Hohenzollerns tenaciously. But finally it was
in this case also persuaded to change its mind by a
splendid bargain. Upon advice from an unknown

BEGINNING OF THE CONFLICT 133
person Albrecht offered the Pope in addition to the
legal fees for the confirmation as Archbishop of
Mayence, amounting to 12,300 ducats, a composition
of 10,000 ducats on the condition that he be con
firmed and recognized in all three bishoprics. In prin
ciple the Pope immediately entered upon this sug
gestion. But for a long time still the two parties
haggled about the size of the composition. The Curia
first demanded 15,000 ducats, thereupon it asked 12,-
000 on the plea that twelve was the number of the
apostles. One of Albrecht's agents retorted to this
that there were, however, only seven deadly sins. Fi
nally the parties agreed to the original sum.
In order, however, to strengthen the somewhat du
bious solvency of the young ecclesiastical prince Leo at
the same time proffered to him a Jubilee Indulgence
for the Archbishopric of Mayence on condition that
he deliver fifty per-cent. of the proceeds to the Curia.
Albrecht naturally made no objections to this plan.
Whereupon he was on the eighteenth of August, 1514,
finaUy confirmed as Archbishop of Mayence, Arch
bishop of Magdeburg and Bishop of Halberstadt.
A few months later on the thirty-first of March, 1515,
the Pope announced the promised plenary indulgence
to run for eight years in the Archdioceses of Mayence
and Magdeburg, as well as in all the Brandenburg ter
ritories. The income from it, according to the official
announcement, was to be used solely for the building
of St. Peter's, but one-half had already, in accordance
with the contract of August, 1514, been secretly writ
ten over to the young Hohenzollern.

134 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
The Curia could well afford to feel satisfied with
the deal. It gained directly about $120,000 in cash.
Besides, it had once more assured itself of one-half
of the proceeds of an indulgence which promised to
be very lucrative, inasmuch as the Pope had in the
territories in question suspended in its favor all other
indulgences, with the exception of some of those
placed by the house of Fugger. Such a thing had
never been done before. The young Hohenzollern
was not so fortunate. He had from the first become
heavily indebted to the Fuggers. These obligations,
however, might be borne considering the tremendous
success which his house had gained over the house of
Wettin. This was the indulgence against which Luther di
rected his Theses of the thirty-first of October, 1517.
He did not even surmise then the sordid means by
which the sacred business this time particularly had
been concluded. Had he done so his criticism of the
abuse of indulgences would very likely have been
much more severe. But it must not be forgotten that
in the Theses he merely criticized. He did not wish
to destroy the institution. He only desired to make
it again what in his opinion it had originally been, a
mere remission of the canonical penance. His stric
tures, therefore, stiU move altogether within the limits
of the mediaeval system. He was not attacking a
"formal dogma" of the Church. Furthermore, and
this also is of the utmost importance, Luther chose for
his criticism the most modest and unobtrusive form.
He merely invited academic discussion on the value

BEGINNING OF THE CONFLICT 135
of indulgences and thus distinctly addressed himself
to the narrow circle of specialists. Nevertheless, the
Church forthwith adopted most decisive measures by
opening without delay that renowned heresy trial
which, after lasting for more than three years, finaUy
ended with the outlawing of the Wittenberg professor
by the Church and the Empire.
In November, 1517, the Elector Albrecht of May
ence in aU haste denounced the stubborn monk to the
Holy See for seducing the common people and pro
mulgating new doctrines. At the same time he turned
over to his counciUors at HaUe the task of bringing
suit against the poisonous heretic "through Master
John Tetzel." In doing this Albrecht had merely
fulfilled his duties as bishop. Personally he had no
interest in the matter. Hence the suit which had been
left in the hands of the electoral councillors came to
naught. On the other hand, Albrecht's denunciation
to which had been added as documentary evidence a
copy of the Ninety-five Theses, the treatise against
Scholastic theology and the Reformer's writing on
the penitential Psalms made a deep impression at
Rome, not on the Pope but on Tetzel's powerful
friends and fellow Dominicans at the Curia. The
General of the Dominicans, Cardinal Cajetan, seem
ingly under the impression of the Theses, on the eighth
of December wrote a treatise on indulgences in which
he attempted with much learning to defend the opin
ions attacked by Luther.
However, the Pope was careful not to proceed too
vigorously at the outset. At first on the fifth of Feb-

136 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
ruary, 1518, through the medium of the head of the
Augustinian order, Gabriel della Volta, he tried in a
concihatory manner to bring the disturbing monk to
his senses. Thereupon Volta not only transmitted
a warning to Luther, but at the same time he prevailed
upon the chapter general of the Augustinians which
met at the end of April, 1518, in Heidelberg to take
up the affair. This induced the presumptuous brother
in May, 1518, to make a detailed justification of his
teachings on indulgences before the Pope by submit
ting his Resolutions to the Ninety-five Theses. On
the main point, however, Volta suffered complete de
feat. Luther refused to recant and to obey the behests
of the government of the order, which found itself
powerless to force him to obedience, inasmuch as not
only the Vicar-general Staupitz but also the Elector
of Saxony supported the monk in his opposition.
Meanwhile the Dominicans had not remained idle.
Possibly as early as the end of January, at their meet
ing in Frankfurt on the Oder upon the occasion of
Tetzel's promotion to the doctorate in theology, they
seem to have decided to denounce Luther not only for
spreading new doctrines but for heresy. This accusa
tion also, however, was not immediately acted upon
by the Curia. It waited to see whether Volta would
succeed in forcing Luther to recant. Only after this
attempt seemed to be a complete failure did the Fiscal
Procurator Perusco upon renewed pressure by the
Dominicans in June, 1518, induce the Pope to em
power him to open the trial of Luther in the usual
form under the indictment of "suspicion of heresy."

BEGINNING OF THE CONFLICT 137
At the suggestion of Perusco the Pope entrusted the
conduct of the preliminary investigation to the highest
judge of the Curia, the Auditor-general, Jerome Ghi-
nucci. Simultaneously the official expert of the Curia
on matters of faith, the Magister Sacri Palatii, Prie
rias was commissioned to furnish a theological opinion
en the Theses of Luther. On the basis of this opinion,
should there be need of it, the proceedings against the
Augustinian were to be further set in motion. Prierias
was a Dominican, a strict adherent of St. Thomas
Aquinas and a curialist. He therefore fulfilled his
task with youthful fire. Inside of three days he wrote
an opinion in which he dispatched the new heretic with
extreme rudeness and tactlessness. Personally he was
so proud of his performance that he immediately pub
hshed it. It made the desired impression at least on
Ghinucci, the judge delegated for the case. In the
beginning of June, 1518, then, Prierias and Ghinucci
jointly issued the citation to Luther in the customary
form asking him to appear in Rome for the hearing.
He was ordered to justify himself at latest within
sixty days after the receipt of the citation before
Perusco, Ghinucci and Prierias at Rome on the score
of suspected heresy and revolt against the papal au
thority. In support of these charges the papal chan
cery had enclosed the opinion of Prierias. Thus the
trial of Luther for heresy had been opened in due
form. The summons reached Wittenberg on the seventh
of August. It seemed therefore that until the begin
ning of October, Luther would have time to decide

138 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
on his attitude in the matter. But things proceeded
differently from what he and his friends expected. Al
ready on the twenty-third of August the Pope or
dered Cardinal Cajetan, who at the time was attend
ing the Diet at Augsburg, to examine the Wittenberg
monk without delay and in case he did not recant to
immediately arrest him and have him brought to
Rome. Should Luther escape apprehension the car
dinal was directly and without further ado to excom
municate him and all his adherents and patrons. Only
two days later the General of the Augustinians, Volta,
commissioned the Provincial of the order in Saxony,
Gerhard Hecker, to forthwith apprehend and bind
the heretic.
What had happened meanwhile? Cajetan had in
the course of the summer in Augsburg succeeded in
taking advantage of the dissension between the Em
peror and the Elector of Saxony and had induced the
former to send a letter to the Pope which, whUe very
unfavorable to Luther, was very flattering for the
Pope. At the same time he had busily collected in
formation on Luther's teachings and opinions and
made a detailed report on them to the Curia. From
these the powers at Rome derived the impression that
the presumptuous Augustinian, as the Dominicans
kept on insisting, was in reality a notorious heretic,
and further that it would be possible with the aid of
the imperial power to bag him immediately. There
fore Rome adopted the method prescribed by the
canon law for the treatment of notorious heretics.
The Papacy had thus in keeping with the wishes of

BEGINNING OF THE CONFLICT 139
the Dominicans decided to conclude the trial as
quickly as possible.
But the plan, which had been so well prepared from
the juridical and political point of view, failed be
cause of the opposition of the Elector of Saxony.
Though Luther appeared before Cajetan in Augs
burg he did not do so before his Elector had insured
him against arrest. At the same time the cardinal
convinced himself in his conference with the "German
beast" that the necessary dogmatic basis for a con
demnation of the heretic was lacking. Instead, there
fore, of directly proceeding against Luther and his
adherents with ban and interdict he for the present
wholly laid aside his instructions and the buU of ex
communication which Miltiz in the interval had
brought from Rome all complete in order that he
might first clear away these hindrances.
The Curia wiUingly entered upon his proposals.
On the ninth of November the Pope issued a decretal
on indulgences in which Luther's teachings were con-/
demned as heretical, though their author was not men
tioned by name. At the same time Karl von Miltiz
was sent to the court of Saxony to persuade the old
Elector by amicable means to deliver up the heretic.
The cheerful chamberlain soon forgot his very pre
cisely worded instructions. On his own responsibihty
he exchanged the office of bailiff with which he had
been charged for the more congenial one of mediator.
Why did the Curia tranquilly tolerate this arbitrary
act? Undoubtedly even the Pope allowed himself to
be deceived by the clever talker. He also seriously be-

140 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
lieved that Luther was ready to recant. Therefore,
he still, on the twenty-ninth of March, 1519, addressed
a very friendly letter to the declared heretic inviting
him to come to Rome. Indeed, he even promised him
to refund his traveling expenses.
The deciding motive, however, was another. Em
peror Maximilian had died in January, 1519. His
grandson, the later Charles V, and Francis I of
France, were candidates for the succession in the Em
pire. But the prospects of Francis, the aUy of the
Pope, were so slim that already at the end of January
Leo X, who wished to hinder the succession of Charles
at all hazards, began to consider the candidacy of the
Elector of Saxony. Miltiz's arbitrary policy of medi
ation was therefore at the moment very welcome to the
Curia. Indeed, it is quite possible that in order to
win over the Elector the Pope held out the promise
of elevating Luther to the cardinalate. The conse
quence was that the trial rested for fuUy fourteen
months. However, by the summer of 1519 all the hopes of
the Papacy had been shattered. On the twenty-eighth
of June Charles of Spain was elected Emperor and
in July at the Disputation at Leipzig Luther formally
declared war on the Papacy. After this even Rome
could have no further delusions about the planless
and vacillating humbug-policy of Miltiz. It decided
to reopen the heresy trial. Before doing so one more
attempt was made through Miltiz to intimidate the
Elector of Saxony by summarily threatening him with
the interdict if he did not drop Luther. This threat,

BEGINNING OF THE CONFLICT 141
however, did not have the desired effect. The other
wise very timid old gentleman in a very voluminous
memoir very courteously but very firmly set forth
that the Curia had no power to excommunicate his
professor or place his lands under the inderdict as long
as the attempt at mediation to be made by the Arch
bishop of Treves and ordered by Miltiz had not taken
place. This document had the effect of a declaration of war
at Rome. On the ninth of January, 1520, an Italian
official of the Curia replied to it in the papal consis
tory with a thundering oration which proved that
Rome also knew very well how to use the abusive style
of the day. In this answer the old Elector, who was
so ready to be pliant and yielding and who suffered
so much for the sake of peace, was depicted in the
blackest colors as a raging, cruel tyrant, as the exe
cutioner of the clergy, the Apostolic See, indeed, the
whole Christian religion, and finally even set down
as the twin head of the horrible hydra, Luther. The
oratorical masterpiece culminated in the proposal to
immediately reopen the proceedings against Luther
in due form.
The Pope acted upon the suggestion without delay.
On the first of February he formed a committee of
several mendicant monks and two cardinals to pre
pare a bull of excommunication. The overhasty work
of this body proved unacceptable and its place was
taken by a new commission, on the eleventh of Febru
ary, consisting of the cardinals Cajetan and Accolti,
and the most eminent theologians of Rome. About

142 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
the middle of March this board proposed to the Pope
the condemnation of a part only of Luther's Theses as
directly heretical, while it advised that the rest merely
be branded as "offensive to pious ears." Further, it
suggested that this decision be published for the pres
ent in the form of a decretal without the mention of
Luther's name, and finally that the accused be once
more in a papal breve asked to recant.
At first the Pope entered upon this proposition. On
the fifteenth of March the general of the Augus
tinians, Volta, at his command requested Staupitz to
induce Luther to retract. But upon the instigation
of Eck who had come to Rome at the Pope's summons
the proposal of the committee was after all declined
by the head of the Church. In April he commanded
the cardinals Accolti and Cajetan, Dr. Eck and Dr.
John Hispanus to forthwith prepare a bull of excom
munication. Eck thereupon on the second of May
submitted to the Pope in his hunting lodge Magliana
where Leo loved to pursue the princely sport of boar
baiting the completed draft. Wholly in keeping with
the genius of the locality the document opened with
the noble words: "Rise up, O Lord, a wild boar has
invaded your vineyard." In the sessions on the
twenty-first, twenty-third, twenty-fifth of May and
on the first of June the bull was submitted to the col
lege of cardinals. On the latter date they also ac
cepted it without alteration. The objection of Car
dinal Carvajal against condemning the appeal to a
general council as Luther's worst heresy was disre
garded by the body which simply proceeded with the

BEGINNING OF THE CONFLICT 143
order of business for the day. Thereupon the draft
was forwarded to the chancery and was finally issued
by it officially in the customary form on the fifteenth
of June.
The bull is a very voluminous document. The text
for it was furnished by the jurist Accolti, the theo
logical evidence by Eck and the Dominicans of Lou
vain. It orders the burning of all books written by
Luther and anathematizes forty-one of his Theses.
Luther himself, however, is for the present merely
threatened with the great ban. He was to remain free
to retract within sixty days after the publication of
the document in Rome and in the dioceses of Bran
denburg, Meissen and Merseburg. Is not this last
clause strange, a proof of truly apostolic patience and
clemency? Not at all. In accordance with the canon
law every heretic had to be given such an "evangelic
warning" before he could be personally condemned.
There is nothing striking or unusual whatsoever in
this renowned trial for heresy, not even the peculiar
intermingling of ecclesiastical and purely secular po
litical interests which in its course becomes so manifest
in the attitude of the Curia. This combination is a
common characteristic of the papal ecclesiastical re
gime of those days. At most the share which the
Dominicans bore in the whole trial is noteworthy. In
the first place, they are responsible for the fact that it
came about at all. They furnished the theological
reporter as a result of whose expert opinion the cita
tion was issued to Luther in June, 1518. By untiring
machinations they further carried the point of open-

144 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
ing the trial for notorious heresy on the twenty-third
of August of the same year. They also are to blame
for the fact that the charges were later taken up again
after the interlude of the political campaign insti
gated by the Medici — who in matters of theology was
quite innocent — in connection with the scramble for
the imperial crown. They also predominated in the
commission which prepared the verdict and lastly fur
nished the greater part of the incriminatory evidence
used in the bull. It is therefore just to say that Tet
zel's order omitted nothing to avenge him. Perhaps
the most interesting fact in connection with the action
of the order is this that next to the General of the
order, Cajetan, the lion's share in the proceedings
was borne by a countryman of Tetzel, the Meissonian
nobleman, Nicholas von Schoenberg. Of him it is said
that once upon a time he was won over to the order
by the preaching of Savonarola. But by this time he
had long since gone over into the camp of this great
Dominican's mortal enemies, the Medici. As the con
fidant of Cardinal Giulio Medici (Clement VII) he
played the most important role at the Curia in these
fateful days.
Since the bull was not published in Germany by
Eck until the end of September the period of grace
vouchsafed therein to Luther did not expire until the
twenty-eighth of November. What use the Reformer
made of it is well known. On the tenth of December
he publicly and solemnly renounced the Antichrist by
consigning the bull to the flames with the words: "Be
cause thou hast condemned the truth of God may God

BEGINNING OF THE CONFLICT 145
condemn thee to this fire." Thereupon the Antichrist
at last spoke his final word. On the third of January
the bull Decet Romanum Pontificem placed Luther
under the major ban. This second and actual bull
of excommunication, however, contained "so many
errors detrimental to the cause of the Church" that
Aleander, the papal legate, from the Diet of Worms
sent it back directly to Rome to be rewritten. The
improved form of the "sacred curse" was not returned
to Worms until the sixth of May. By that time, how
ever, it was no longer needed at the Diet. The "Holy
Empire" had already arrived at a decision on the
basis of the sentence of June, 1520, and two days be
fore the great heretic had disappeared without leaving
a trace. He abode in full security "in the hiUs, the
region of the birds and the air," and from his home in
the clouds ridiculed the plots of the Antichrist which
to him seemed merely "an imposing cloud of smoke"
like unto the vapors he so frequently saw rising sky
ward in thick swaths from the charcoal kilns in the
green wUds about his Patmos.

CHAPTER V.
The First Practical Attempts at Reform.
TS it true that the aforementioned plots against
Luther and the imperial statute which permitted
them, the Edict of Worms of the twenty-fifth (28)
of May, 1521, were really so harmless, in reality noth
ing more than a large "imposing cloud of smoke which
acts as though it meant to storm the sun, but is quickly
scattered by a hght breeze so that no one knows
whither it has gone" ? If we look only upon Luther
and the external progress of the Evangehcal move
ment it is indeed hardly possible to judge otherwise.
The Reformer himself suffered no harm from the
edict, and the movement went forward unchecked,
even though in certain localities, as, for instance, in
the Netherlands, it met with energetic opposition.
According to the traditional point of view, however,
it is thought that after all the edict had one disagree
able indeed ominous result. At the very moment
when the time seemed ripe for the change from words
to deeds, from mere criticism to the practical work
of reform, it robbed the Evangelical party of the life-
giving presence and aid of its born leader. Thus it
came about that radical spirits got the upper hand in
Wittenberg who by their fanaticism severely com
promised the cause, and further that at the turning
of the year, 1521, a dangerous crisis developed in the
146

FIRST ATTEMPT AT REFORM 147
capital and forum of the movement which the young
party was not able to overcome without loss of
strength and prestige.
Is this customary view of the so-called Wittenberg
Unrest of 1521-22 stiU in agreement with the present
status of our knowledge? Heinrich Barge emphati
caUy denies it. He claims that not the sudden disap
pearance but the unexpected return of Luther to
Wittenberg was fraught with danger for the Evan
gelical cause. Luther's sudden vanishing from the
scene rather benefited than harmed it, he says. Ac- ,
cording to him it cleared the path for a new religious
tendency which through its moral power and practical
energy distinguished itself favorably from that cham
pioned by Luther. This new tendency was the lay-
Christian Puritanism of Karlstadt who was successful
in reforming divine service, the care of the poor and
the morals police in Wittenberg in accordance with
the ideas of this group. Barge believes, furthermore,
that it was not Karlstadt's fault that the students
committed a few innocent excesses in November and
December, 1521, and that out of this movement grew
the iconoclasm of 1522. This leader he holds, would,
in spite of the transgressions of individual followers,
undoubtedly have maintained his supremacy had not
the Cathohc Duke George of Saxony succeeded in
intimidating his cousin, the aged Elector, by the threat
that the Catholic imperial administration would at
the next opportunity take steps against the Witten-
bergers. Barge thinks that the Elector thereupon in
fear dropped the reforms at his capital, but at the

148 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
same time recalled Luther from the Wartburg that
he might calm the spirit of unrest in Wittenberg.
Thus in Barge's opinion Luther in March, 1522, un
wittingly came to Wittenberg as the executor of the
Catholic imperial administration, made an end of the
promising efforts of the lay-Christian Puritanism and
formally reintroduced the Cathohc ritual.
This interpretation of the facts is absolutely new
but for that very reason was much applauded. Does
it do justice to the attitude and motives of Luther,
and does it rest on a correct judgment of Luther's
and Karlstadt's importance and endowments? Be
fore answering this question it is necessary first to
fix the principles which then and later determined the
practical conduct of the Reformer. They are very
simple and in part generaUy known. The first one
was : No forcible subversion of the existing ecclesias
tical order of things with the help of the rude fists of
"Mr. Everyman," that is the mob, in revolutionary ex
citement. Such an overturning of things by force is
in the first place unnecessary, for the gospel wiU clear
a path for itself. Every honest person who hears it
must and will sooner or later side with it, even though
the Papists try every means to hinder its progress.
This opinion the Reformer himself later on charac
terized as a pious dream. Secondly, however, he be
lieved that rebellion was never justified, no matter
how just the cause might be. It is always a work of
the devil, it always merely aggravates the evil which
it means to curb.
In the third place, Luther held that persons who

FIRST ATTEMPT AT REFORM 149
take recourse to revolution assume an office which does
not rightfuUy belong to them but alone to the Chris
tian nobility (governing class) or the Christian gov
ernments. As Christians the nobles are in duty bound
to care for the common good, but as lords they also
have the sole right to forciby put an end to existing
abuses if there be no other remedy. These evils, he
claims, are all of them in some way connected with the
ordering of material existence and as such are subject
to the coercive power of the government. This power,
however, as Okkam already taught, has but one limi
tation: the natural law, or the law of reason, that is,
it is neither bound by ecclesiastical law, for that is
purely fictitious, nor by the written secular law: the
imperial law or law of the land. For all written law
has sprung from the natural law or from reason, its
heart and fountain, consequently it must also be re
formed from out of reason, that is, in accordance with
natural law ; indeed, if necessary, it must be supplanted
by the law of reason. Is it then not possible for people
who have no governmental authority to do anything
at all for the gospel ? They can do very much, in fact,
they can do that which is most important, they can
speak, preach and write and thus practice the gospel
and assist in carrying it on so that the Papists will
find their sphere of influence growing ever smaller and
more restricted. Further they can by exhortation and
counsel induce the government to interfere. In short,
they can by word and writing in zealous propaganda
serve the cause of the gospel in exactly the same man
ner as the Reformer himself.

150 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
However, if the government neglects to perform
its functions, what is then to become of the many
evangelical-minded who, for instance, look upon the
mass as blasphemy or who like the Evangelical parish
priests, for example, are forced by virtue of their
office to keep on celebrating the mass ? The Reformer
answered this question as early as 1520 tersely and
without equivocation. They must quietly continue
to attend and celebrate mass until also the simple folk
have been so far instructed that it becomes everywhere
possible to institute a celebration of the eucharist in
the German language and in accordance with the sac
ramental words of Christ. They can in his opinion
afford to wait until then because they may for the
present spiritually re-interpret the prayers of offering
and the ceremonies of the mass and thus do away with
all those features in the practice which are offensive
to their personal feelings. Besides, it is their duty to
be patient, for everyone who through faith in the gos
pel has been freed from the false belief that salvation
depends on any kind of ceremony, must, shall and can
tolerate these practices for love of those among his
brethren who for the present are not able to do without
them, as long as he always frankly and openly, in
speech and writing, insists that only for love of his
weak brethren he still obeys these tyrannical ordi
nances. This patient waiting is directly a duty for the priest
whose office it is to perform the public ceremonies of
worship. No matter how difficult it may be for him
to say the sacrificial prayers and to perform the cere-

FIRST ATTEMPT AT REFORM 151
monies, he is not privileged on his own responsibility
to change one word in the liturgy or omit a single one
of the prescribed cultual acts. In fact, this intolerable
constraint with which, as one who is spiritually free,
he can after all always come to terms, is for him to be a
spur to preach the gospel as energetically as possible.
Thereby he can enlighten and educate up to Evan
gelical freedom the weak and simple members of his
flock who still with fettered spirit cling to the old
system. However, is it also the duty of a priest to
take such consideration in case he celebrates the mass
only for himself or for like-minded people? By no
means. On the contrary, it is praiseworthy if an
Evangelical priest refuses further to read private
masses, or if a convent of monks by common action
abohshes the ceremony of the mass in its own church.
For in this case an injury of the weak and simple is
not to be feared directly.
These are the principles which determined Luther's
practical conduct as early as 1520-21. Obviously they
are whoUy in keeping with the status of the Evangeli
cal movement of the time and also do not expect any
thing impossible from those having Evangelical con
victions. But it is possible for a man to have very
clear principles and yet be wholly unable to create
new forms and organizations through which they may
become of practical value. It is customary to affirm
that the Reformer absolutely lacked this latter gift.
Is such a position justified? Not at all! While Lu
ther cannot be ranked with the great organizers of
the type of Paul, Calvin or Laski, he yet possessed

152 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
sufficient knowledge of men and the world to solve
the problems of organization which confronted him.
It will suffice to point to two renowned documents
which play an important role in the work of Barge,
because that author believes he can ascribe them to his
hero Karlstadt. The one is the so-called Treasury
Ordinance (Beutelordnung) for Wittenberg of No
vember, 1521, which regulates the care of the poor in
accordance with altogether new principles. In all
likelihood it was drawn up by Luther himself,
certainly its passage was due to his urging and co
operation. The other document is the well-known
charter of the city of Wittenberg dated January 24,
1522. It is an established fact that Karlstadt had a
share in its shaping. But that portion of it which
owed its origin to him, the regulations about church
service and about the destruction of pictures and al
tars had no permanence. Everything else contained
in the document, the articles on the care of the poor,
against beggary, prostitution and brothels, is merely
a repetition or further elaboration of older ideas of
Luther. Nevertheless, though Karlstadt is not the author of
the two renowned ordinances, he may yet, as Barge
claims, be the originator of a new type of piety which
distinguishes itself favorably from the Lutheran type.
The fact is that he did "enrich" Lutheranism by a few
new ideas of his own. But how curious are these
ideas? No priest may be given a charge unless he i§
married and is the father of one or two children; who
ever in communion partakes only of the host and not
also of the cup commits sin; the recipient in the eu-

FIRST ATTEMPT AT REFORM 153
charist must take the host and chalice with his own
hands, for Christ says: Take, eat! To have pictures
in the churches is contrary to the first commandment ;
it is even more harmful to place them on altars, and
to paint likenesses is worse than adultery and theft.
Fasting and confession is not commanded in Scrip
tures and must therefore be abolished. The govern
ment is in duty bound to prohibit priests under heavy
penalty from preaching anything but what is con
tained in and taught by Holy Writ. Should the gov
ernment prove neglectful in this matter and not clear
the houses of God of pictures and altars the congrega
tion "is empowered to assume control of affairs itself"
and to forcibly inaugurate those reforms which it
deems necessary.
These sentences certainly breathe a spirit quite at
variance with that of Luther's book on "the Freedom
of a Christian." The old system of law has again
come to honor therein, "the lowest has been placed up
permost, the least important substituted for the best,
the last has been given the place of the first" and all
manner of external practices have been "so dressed
and puffed up as though the salvation of the world
depended more on them than on Christ." The fanati
cal strain always associated with legalistic piety is
also not absent. That such fanatical legalism is not
Evangelical is hardly a matter of contention among
Evangehcal Christians, and it is not likely that Barge
himself would support that view. In the heat of the
controversy he merely overlooked the harsh, narrow
and stupid features in the attitude of his hero.

154 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
All this, however, still does not prove that Karl
stadt during the Wittenberg Unrest was guilty also
of fanatical acts, that we have to deal in this turbulent
period with really revolutionary deeds and not only,
as Barge thinks, with quite harmless excesses in which
outside students played the chief part. Let us there
fore for once present the course of this "commotion"
whoUy on the basis of the genuine documents and then
in conclusion ask ourselves whether Luther and the
electoral government of Saxony did Karlstadt and his
associates an injustice.
A person arriving at Wittenberg m the summer of
1521 might at the first moment well believe that the
Reformer was still present in person and performing
the work of his office at the customary place. So
strongly did his influence manifest itself in the whole
life of the town even in external affairs. The shop
keepers and brewers who belonged to the esteemed
sodalities of the "Sharp-shooters of St. Sebastian and
St. Anne" were just then abolishing the fraternal
drinking bouts which Luther had so severely censured.
Instigated and aided by him the city council made
efforts to create an entirely new system of poor re
lief, while the professors, students, canons and monks
busily kept on debating and considering the problems
which he had formulated for them. Three of these
were at the time being discussed with especial liveli
ness : Should priests marry in spite of the vow of celi
bacy ? May the monks also throw aside their monastic
oath? What is to become of the mass? The first ques
tion the Reformer himself had roundly answered in

FIRST ATTEMPT AT REFORM 155
the affirmative. Consequently, there was not much
further dispute about it. It was merely a question
now of drawing the practical conclusions from that
which he held to be good and right. The first person
who mustered the necessary courage to do this was
significantly a personal pupil of Luther and a re
spected member of the university, the provost Bar
tholomew Bernhardi of Kemberg. On the thirtieth of
May he married his housekeeper. This act practically
settles the question. The other two points were not as
quickly and clearly decided, for with regard to these
no distinct declaration of the Reformer was as yet
available. Only when he had stated his views on the
mass in a letter of the first of August, and made clear
his standpoint on the monastic vows in the themes
of the ninth of September, did the discussion about
these become intense and the wish grow active to pro
ceed in these matters also from mere cogitation to
resolute action.
But did his adherents herein always strictly foUow
the principles and direction of the distant master?
On the twenty-ninth of September Melanchthon with
a few of his pupils for the first time privately cele
brated communion in both kinds at the parish church.
This was wholly in accordance with Luther's opinions.
Thereupon, in the afternoon of the sixth of October,
the Augustinian Gabriel Zwilhng in the chapel of the
order preached a great sermon against the mass in
which he declared that he would henceforth not cele
brate any. On the same day his brothers in the mon
astery decided to cease holding private masses in their

156 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
chapel and henceforth not to raise or exhibit the host
for adoration. This also was whoUy in keeping with
Luther's wishes. However, Zwilling immediately
went one step further. He asserted that whoever in
the future hears mass commits idolatry and that it is
a sin to take only the bread in holy communion. Had
Luther ever said this? No. This stand was alto
gether contrary to his principles and opinions.
In the very same month Zwilling in his sermons also
took up the matter of the monastic vows. Herein
again he was not content to state with Luther that
the vows were contrary to the gospel and that the
monks were therefore at liberty to cast aside the cowl.
He went so far as to say: the monks must give up
their status and if they are unwilling to do so, why,
use force, insult them in public, starve them and de
stroy their cloisters until they give in. Clearly, ZwiU-
ing is beginning to sound a fanatical note. The result
was quickly apparent. After the fourth of November
successively fifteen Augustinians left the monastery.
This in itself could only please Luther for he saw in
it only a voluntary step of his old brethren. He was
not aware that Zwilling was demanding the forcible
unfrocking of all those living under the vow. This
attitude he would have fought most energeticaUy had
he been advised of it. For Luther was absolutely
averse to the use of force in such matters.
How was the bold proceeding of the Augustinians
received by the authoritative circles at Wittenberg,
in the university and in the cathedral chapter? At
first they were not at all in full agreement with it. A

FIRST ATTEMPT AT REFORM 157
committee of six members of the faculties which the
professors and the chapter appointed right after
Zwilling's first sermon (October 8) on the twelfth of
October requested the Augustinians "to cease their
innovations for the present." But on the twentieth
of that month they approached the Elector with the
petition that as a Christian prince he abolish the abuse
of the mass within his territories as soon and as speed
ily as possible so that disorder and unrest in any form
might be avoided. This was a rather naive demand,
naive especially when addressed to so careful a man as
Frederick the Wise. Frederick therefore answered
them very quickly (October 25) with the command
not to be too hasty in anything and not to do aught
which might cause dissension, turbulence and com
plaint. Further, he requested the chapter and the
university to first officially state their view in the mat
ter. However, the movement was now in progress and
could not any more be made to turn back by a simple
order. On the first of November a second communion
in both kinds took place in the parish church and on
this occasion not only members of the university but
citizens also participated. This shows that the new
ideas had by this time penetrated also the burgher
class. In these same days the city council proposed
to the cathedral chapter that Melanchthon be made
pastor of the city, and that the twenty-one sodalities
connected with the parish church be disbanded. The
chapter refused both propositions and recognized only
the new poor law which, as has been stated, placed the

158 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
care of the paupers in the hands of the council. Nev
ertheless, these events show that this latter body was
now also beginning energeticaUy to take a hand in the
Evangelic cause. In the course of November quite
a number of other ecclesiastics discontinued their pri
vate masses. In short, the old cultual forms were be
ginning to dissolve themselves.
There was among the students and burghers, how
ever, no dearth of people for whom this gradual de
velopment was too slow altogether. As a result a
number of bad riots occurred in the otherwise quiet
town on the third and fourth of December. On the
morning of the third of this month the altar clergy
of the parish Church were driven from their post with
stones, as they were about to chant the offices of Mary,
so that the first mass had to be omitted. The scene
was repeated when the first regular mass of the day
was to be celebrated. A few students and citizens
simply took the missal away from the priest and drove
him from the altar. The bailiffs of the council and
the beadles of the university immediately interfered
and arrested all the black sheep whom they could ap
prehend. However, the students were not so readUy
brought to their senses again. On the foUowing day
they affixed a revolutionary placard to the door of the
Franciscan Church. Fourteen of them appeared be
fore the monastery and there intimidated the poor
monks so that they dared to read only one mass in the
choir and lived in fear of seeing their monastery
stormed during the night. However, the council was
on its guard. They stationed watches and thus in
duced the wild fellows to abandon their project.

FIRST ATTEMPT AT REFORM 159
On the same day a handsomely dressed horseman
with a dark beard stopped off at the house of Pro
fessor Amsdorf. None of the inmates at first rec
ognized him. It was Luther. Five whole days he
secretly remained in town and on the ninth of Decem
ber he again disappeared as mysteriously as he had
come. The treatise which he wrote immediately after
his arrival at the Wartburg shows with what kind of
impressions and misgivings he rode away. It bore the
title: A True Warning to All Christians to Guard
Against Sedition and Revolt. Already in the middle
of December he sent the manuscript to Spalatin with
the request that it be published as quickly as possible.
However, Spalatin did not possess the courage to
place upon the market a book written by the outlaw.
Thus the splendid treatise literaUy appeared post
festum, not until March, 1522, after the spirit it was
designed to check had already perpetrated its mis
chievous deeds.
Ever since the riot on the third of December the
burghers of Wittenberg were in a state of latent fer
ment. AU who were closely allied with those who had
been arrested and who shared their hostility toward
the idolatry of the mass were highly dissatisfied with
the attitude of the councU. Finally, the malcontents
f ormaUy organized, drew up a series of articles and on
about the ninth of December suddenly stormed the
sessions of the council. There they defiantly de
manded the immediate release of their imprisoned
associates and the acceptance of their articles. These
are quite creditable to the good-wiU of their authors.
They demand free preaching of God's Word, aboh-

160 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
tion of all compulsory masses, the cessation of aU
votive and nuptial masses, allmasses for the soul and
all other cultual ceremonies for the benefit of the
dead. Further, they requested the admission of all
citizens to the Evangelical communions, the closing
of aU taverns in which excessive drinking was in
vogue, abolition of the brothels and strict punishment
of all forms of adultery.
To the people who year after year had heard the
preaching of Luther this all was not new. However,
the manner in which the framers of these articles pre
sented their demands could not but rouse certain mis
givings. The council in the first moment was so help
less that it actually liberated the prisoners, but
thereafter it wisely turned to the Elector for help.
He immediately dispatched two of his officials, and
these on the seventeenth of the month in a large con
gregational meeting at the castle, thoroughly laid
down the law to the Wittenbergers in the matter at
hand. They forbade any further insult to the priest
hood under dire penalty and disfavor, had the rioters
of the third of December as far as they could lay hold
of them arrested again, directed the punishment of the
ringleaders among the framers of the articles and com
manded the congregation to desist from any further
innovation until the Elector himself should propose
new regulations to them. This, however, did not re
establish peace in the city. The malcontents now
grumbled more than ever, indeed, they sent letters of
complaint directly to the Elector. Worst of all, now,
one of the best-known teachers at the university placed
himself at the head of the citizen movement.

FIRST ATTEMPT AT REFORM 161
The professors (of the university) had in these very
days, from the tenth to the twelfth of December,
finally answered the questions regarding the mass
which had been submitted to them by the Elector. As
was to be expected they had been utterly unable to
"come to an agreement of doctrine." Eight, among
them Melanchthon and Karlstadt, recommended that
all soul and votive masses be abolished and that the
mass be reformed after the manner and form of the
apostles. Seven decided that all was to remain as of
old, and one even handed in a separate opinion. It is •
therefore easy to conceive why on the nineteenth of
December the aged Elector fromLochau sent the reso
lution: If you few Doctors have not been able to agree
in this affair, how much less will that be the case if the
thing be brought before the mass of the people.
Therefore the old system must remain in force until
others also take up the matter. This was very clearly
spoken. But the professors did not accede to this very posi
tive order. Despite all, Karlstadt on the twenty-
second publicly announced in the castle church that
on the first of January he would celebrate an Evan
gelical communion service minus all the customary
"froth." When news of this reached Lochau the old
Elector forthwith (December 23-24) repeated the de
liberate command once more to the recalcitrant pro
fessor personally instructing him not to make any
changes in the mass. Karlstadt had undoubtedly ex
pected this. In order to forestall his ruler he there
fore held his Evangelical eucharist a week earlier.

162 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
His example was on the same day f oUowed by the al-
tarist Ambrose Wilken in the neighboring vUlage
Dobien, on the first of January, by Nicasius Claij in
Schmiedeberg, by Franz Guenther in Lochau, ZwUl-
ing in Eilenburg and somewhat later by the parish
priests at Jessen and Herzberg. This shows suffi
ciently that Karlstadt's step was not improvised, but
was a weU-prepared and pre-arranged move by him
self and his closest confederates.
The time for this action had, however, been most
inauspiciously chosen. In the period from Christmas
to the New Year the ancient ecclesiastical fools' feasts
were celebrated during which aU manner of mum
mery and nonsense was practised and tolerated in the
churches. We must therefore not judge too tragi
cally the excesses which occurred in Wittenberg on
Christmas eve. But it certainly was rather question
able that the same wild fellows who had raged and
caroused through the night, thereupon, their heads
heavy with beer, attend the communion service of
Karlstadt, and that otherwise also in the course of
the reform the crude instincts of Mr. Everyman oc
casionally revealed themselves in a very ugly manner.
At Eilenburg, for instance, ZwiUing's adherents be
came so enthusiastic as a result of the ceremony that
they immediately afterward plundered the parsonage
and got into a terrible brawl with the adherents of the
old faith.
Even worse things, however, were in store. On the
twenty-seventh of December three strangers arrived
in the city who were much talked of in the future: the

FIRST ATTEMPT AT REFORM 163
famous Zwickau prophets. They had come to Wit
tenberg with an eye especially to the professors for
whom they made considerable trouble. They did not
much concern themselves about the people. Their
chief, Nickel Storch, soon left again.
Much deeper was the impression made upon the
citizens by the events which soon after transpired in
the Black Cloister. There the chapter of the German
Augustinian Congregation had been in session since
the sixth of January. In the meeting the Evangelical
faction was in the majority. Therefore the assembly*
actually decided to disestablish the Congregation.
Whoever wished to sever connection with it was to do
so, while those who for the present had no such desire
were quietly to remain in their monastery. No com
pulsion was desired and earnest endeavors were made
to proceed with moderation. But the assembly did
not lack men who failed to comprehend such a course
of action. ZwUhng, for example, who had hastened
to the meeting from Eilenburg, though he had long
ago ceased to wear the cowl, now announced: It is
wrong henceforth to go to confession, to fast or to do
any so-caUed good work. He asserted that every fes
tival, with the exception of Sunday, must be dropped,
that likewise the pictures and altars in the churches
must be done away with. Only what is commanded
by the law of God must be allowed to remain.
These utterances made such an impression on the
Wittenberg brethren that after the close of the meet
ing of the chapter they determined upon a new step
which created an immense stir. On the eleventh of

164 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
January they burned every picture and statue in their
chapel and on the next day they leveled the altars with
the floor. Thus ZwiUing had again raised a new ques
tion which was forthwith discussed most assiduously:
Are pictures and altars henceforth to be tolerated?
Melanchthon and other respected professors would
not hear of Zwilling's radicalism, whereupon they
were immediately called to task from the pubhc pulpit
by this person. Karlstadt, on the other hand, entered
with fiery zeal upon the fanatical ideas of the ex-monk
and in spite of some opposition brought it about that
a regulation to that effect was on the twenty-fourth
of January incorporated into the new "Statutes of
the City of Wittenberg."
What are the facts about this famous ordinance,
the passing of which may well be called the apex of
the Wittenberg movement? In the first place, who
is the author? The council, the clergy, Karlstadt,
Melanchthon and other professors. Did the council
and the professors possess any authority to pass such
an instrument? By no means. They acted wholly
in self -arrogated authority and in open violation of
repeated unmistakable commands of the Elector.
That the latter could not afford to tolerate such
disobedience seems not to have been quite clear either
to the professors or to the council. With the best of
intentions they cheerfully went on reforming, without
considering that they had neither the right nor the
power, nor were capable of putting into effect their
new regulations against even the wiU of the Elector,
should that become necessary.

FIRST ATTEMPT AT REFORM 165
What were these reforms? The customary masses
were now abolished also in the parish church, and the
church building was henceforth closed during the
week. Only on Sundays and on the holidays were
divine services and coinmunion after the method of
Karlstadt to be celebrated in the future. Priests who
so far had had no other duty than the reading of
masses were put out of office. The older ones among
them were given an annual pension of six gulden, the
younger were told to learn a trade. From the income
of endowed masses, prebends, the twenty-one sodali-*
ties and the chapels connected with the parish church
a "common chest" was formed. Out of this fund, to
which were added also the alms collected in the church,
not only the salaries of the clergymen, but in addition
the expenses of the municipal poor relief were to be
paidv Begging is strictly forbidden also to monks,
pupils and students. Since the monks were leaving
the monasteries — there were really only five or six
left in the Black Cloister — the council directed them
to vacate their convents by the thirtieth of March
and decided to make an inventory of their goods and
income so that disorder might be avoided. The
houses of ill-fame were closed, the municipal brothel
was converted into a hospital. The inmates were
asked either to marry or leave the city. The pictures
were removed from the churches by the council and
all but three altars taken down.
The authors of the previous set of articles might
well feel satisfied with this ordinance since all their
demands were granted in the same. Even Luther,

166 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
however, would on the whole have been able to make
friends with this statute, for it contained a great deal
that he had himself since 1520 preached unceasingly.
Only those portions which are directly traceable to
Karlstadt, the regulations about pictures and altars
and the new order of service he would not have been
in a position to accept. The direct introduction of
the new apostohc mass by force of law at this early
date, the fact that the council following Karlstadt
flatly decreed that in the eucharist the communicants
must henceforth take the bread and the cup with their
own hands, this all ran counter to the principles which
so far he had strictly foUowed in such matters.
The worst defect of the "ordinance," however, was
that it had come into being in direct contravention of
the commands of the Elector. This mistake from the
very outset jeopardized the success of the whole weU-
intentioned work of reform which contained so much
that was excellent. For the present, however, pros
pects seemed bright. The prostitutes and. beggars
disappeared from the city. The students who had so
far lived by begging or had studied in th* hope of
being well cared for through prebends, left the. uni
versity in large numbers. Monks and priests "per
mitted their hair to grow over their tonsures, they
married and courageously endeavored to make their
hving as shoemakers, carpenters, bakers and salt car
ters. Several members of the electoral court also
voluntarily gave up their benefices, and the eighteen
new municipal wardens of tft$»«J6r were able to jenter
upon their duties without hindrance.

FIRST ATTEMPT AT REFORM 167
One point only brought on trouble and dissension.
The council had assumed the burdensome task of re
moving the pictures and altars from the parish
church. But it hesitated to fulfill its obligation.
Karlstadt felt that he could not tolerate this remiss
ness any longer, for him the matter of images was
now the foremost question of faith. Not only did he
write about it in a most fanatical manner, he also in
his sermons thundered passionately against this
abomination in the house of the Lord and added the
threatening words : If the government is negligent the m
congregation has the authority to assume powers of
self-government and from out of commiseration and
love to undertake necessary changes itself. It is
therefore not surprising that the congregation now in
reality usurped governmental authority on the ques
tion of the images. On about the sixth of February
an enraged mob broke into the parish church, took
possession of the pictures, crosses and crucifixes and
broke, chopped up and burned them. The council in
terfered on the spot, imprisoned the evil-doers and
hastily dispatched a courier to the Elector. However,
the mischief was done and the news of it soon pene
trated all the German lands.
Involuntarily we ask ourselves : Why did the Elec
tor calmly tolerate all that had happened in Witten
berg against his wishes and command since the twenty-
fifth of December? Partly because in January he had
moved his court to Allstedt in Thuringia. Not until
the fifth or sixth of February did he learn about the
occurrences in the city from a complaint of the canons

168 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
who adhered to the old faith and from reports of the
burgomaster of Wittenberg and his own private sec
retary Einsiedel who had once before, on his own re
sponsibility, unsuccessfully tried to silence Karlstadt.
Frederick instantly ordered Einsiedel to interfere.
When the latter received this order the iconoclastic
outbreak had meanwhile also taken place. The mea
sures of the agent of the Elector were correspondingly
more energetic. On the thirteenth of February he
cited the professors Karlstadt, Jonas, Melanchthon,
Amsdorf and Eisermann into his presence at Eilen
burg and pressed them so closely that aU of them, in-
eluding Karlstadt, immediately "toppled over" as the
saying goes. Karlstadt admitted that he had caused
the iconoclasm by his addresses. He declared himself
ready to avoid making such sermons in the future and
to suffer punishment willingly should he fail to keep
his promise. Zwilling, who alarmed over the effect of
his own words, had already left Wittenberg at the time
of the iconoclastic outbreak, made the same promise.
The chief point, however, was that the professors
accepted a new "order of mass" in which they relin
quished all their reforms with the exception of conse
cration in the German language and communion in
both kinds. What was the significance of this? The
Wittenbergers, Karlstadt himself leading, themselves
gave up their "apostolic mass" in its essential features
after it had existed barely three weeks.
Worse things, however, were in store for them. On
the eighteenth or nineteenth of February an electoral
order arrived at Wittenberg from Lochau to the effect

FIRST ATTEMPT AT REFORM 169
that the whole Catholic mass was to be re-established,
that is, even the German consecration and com
munion in both kinds were again to be set aside. The
Wittenbergers could do nothing against this. They
were completely done for. There was only one man
who might possibly stiU be able to save them from the
entanglement into which they had fallen by their own
fault, one man who might perchance be able to conjure
the spirit of revolt which had taken possession of the
simple man and the student alike and to re-establish
the good relations with the electoral court. This man
was Luther. We do not know who first pointed this
out to them, we do know, however, that seemingly as
early as the twentieth of February the council without
saying a word about it to the Elector sent a mounted
messenger to the Wartburg urgently inviting the Re
former to return to Wittenberg without delay.
Luther had had no news from Wittenberg for
weeks. The greater now was his indignation. At
first he believed that it would be sufficient if he repri
manded the authors of the mischief by letter. But the
longer he wrote, the more clearly he saw that he would
have to go personally to see to things. He, therefore,
in all haste informed the Elector, very probably on
the same day, that he would arrive directly. The old
gentleman was frightened. He at once commanded
his bailiff Oswald at Eisenach to make the most ear
nest representations to the Doctor that he must "for
the present by no means betake himself to Witten
berg." But Luther was not to be held back any longer.

170 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
Early on the first of March he departed. His state
of mind is well iUustrated by the famous letter which
on the fifth he sent to the Elector from Borna. He
says that he knows he is again venturing into the field
of battle and that in so doing he is acting in defiance
of the wishes of his master. He is also aware that the
Elector will be absolutely unable to protect him should
the imperial government feel inclined to execute the
sentence of outlawry against him. But Luther
wanted no protection or help from man. In glorious
words he summarily requests the Elector not to give
him any further aid, but to do his duty toward the
Emperor and the Empire, even if he were commanded
to "apprehend and kill him."
Some time on the sixth of March the Reformer ar
rived in Wittenberg. On the next day already the
Elector requested from him through Professor
Schurpff a written declaration that he had returned
to Wittenberg "without Our leave." This statement
was to serve as a measure of defense should the ene
mies of the Elector raise their voice. Luther imme
diately complied. Indeed, in reference to the wishes
of the old gentleman he even struck out a number of
sentences that were not exactly flattering to the im
perial government, and besides, had the courtier Spala
tin tone down his vigorous style somewhat to the level
of the courtly manner. He could do this without
being in the least untruthful. The situation was ex
actly as he declared it to be in the improved version:
"without the knowledge, will, aid, permission or pleas
ure" of his lord he had come back to Wittenberg.

FIRST ATTEMPT AT REFORM 171
On the ninth of March, Luther then again for the
first time appeared in the pulpit of the parish church.
As though he wished by his dress to evidence how
httle such externals mattered to him he again wore
the black robe of the Augustinians. He began his dis
course as though he were merely going to expound the
prescribed scriptural lesson. Then, however, he
dropped the text and took up " the present business."
He avoided all direct polemics and mentioned no
names. He always spoke purely as the advo
cate of the weak in faith to whom so much of-»
fense had been given by the uncharitableness of
those who deemed themselves strong. That they
had proceeded blindly and in a disorderly man
ner, and that they ought first to have consulted
the government, i. e., the Elector, he only mentioned
in passing. In this same strain he continued to preach
daUy for a whole week. The effect was tremendous.
In the whole town "there was great gladness and jubi
lation among the learned and simple over his arrival
and preaching." Even Zwilling confessed that "he
had erred and gone too far." Only one person, Karl
stadt, held himself sullenly aloof. Thus the spirit of
unrest and the disorder in the city and the university
was subdued.
Did not Luther, however, go a step further? Did he
not at once "formally reinstitute the Catholic ritual"?
In reply it will suffice to point to two documents al
ready familiar to us. The one is the "Order of Mass
for the City of Wittenberg," presented on the thir
teenth of February at Eilenburg by Karlstadt and his

172 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
associates. It reintroduces essentiaUy the Cathohc
forms. The other is the letter of the Elector, of the
seventeenth of February, which demanded outright
the abohtion of all innovations, that is, also the Ger
man consecration and communion in both kinds. It
follows from this that the "apostolic mass" had al
ready been abolished by consent of Karlstadt when
Luther appeared in Wittenberg.
But the Catholic ritual had by no means herewith
been "formally reinstituted." Private masses and
the canon of the mass, compulsory confession, and
fasting remained undone, and communion in both
kinds quietly remained in force. Only at communion
services for large numbers at Easter the participants
now again received only the host. These wholesale
communions were, however, so distasteful to Luther
that even now he began to take steps for their aboh
tion. Much less did anyone contemplate doing away with
the rest of the innovations of the last months. The
new poor law and morals police remained in force un
changed. The monasteries were not restored. The
assertion that the Wittenberg movement was replaced
by a blind reaction is therefore simply a mistake.
Only in the matter of cult was there a backward step,
but what did this retrogression signify over against the
progressive reforms which had been achieved along
these same lines, the permanence of which was now
definitely assured through the influence of Luther!
For we must not give way to any doubt on the point
that Luther's presence alone induced the Elector and

FIRST ATTEMPT AT REFORM 173
his councillors to again let affairs take their own
course in Wittenberg and thus to clear the path for
further reforms.
That, according to the sources, is the history of the
"Wittenberg Unrest" of 1521-22. Evidently it was
not merely a question of disturbances in Wittenberg,
but of a movement which took hold also of quite a
number of smaUer places in the neighborhood, such as
Dobien, Lochau, EUenburg, Schmiedeberg, Dueben,
Herzberg and Jessen. Furthermore, it was not a rev
olutionary rising in which everything was turned
topsy-turvy but an earnest attempt to reform the cult,
the ecclesiastical law and the care of the poor in ac
cordance with Luther's principles. In the course of
this endeavor, it is true, dangerous excesses and dis
orders resulted in Wittenberg and Eilenburg for a
time. That this attempt was only half -successful is
the fault neither of Luther nor of the principles he
represented. It was solely due to the incapacity and
stubborn narrowness of the men who set themselves
up as leaders of the movement without even recog
nizing that a reform without Luther's knowledge and
against the will and wish of the Elector was impos
sible. That this was clearly established, that there
could be no further doubt about how little could in
these matters be done without the aid of the "govern
ment," as Luther says, this was unquestionably also a
success of the "movement."
Is this not giving too little credit to Karlstadt?
Was he really no more than a blind zealot? Can he
on good grounds be designated as the "Calvmist"

174 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
among the Wittenberg group and as the real father
of Puritanism? No. Of the foremost characteristic
of Calvinistic and Puritan piety, the zeal for the puri
fication and sanctification of morals, neither he nor
ZwiUing afford any trace. The energy of both is
rather absorbed altogether by the struggle against
idolatry in the forms of worship. That which consti
tutes the greatness of Puritan piety they lack en
tirely, only its weakness, the legahstic and fanatic
strain, we already find clearly expressed in them.
One might rather be tempted to call the framers of
the Articles of December 9, 1521, Puritans. For
they were earnestly concerned about the purification
and sanctifying of morals. But, after all, they ask
only what Luther had long ago demanded, they were
merely zealous Lutherans. The fact that they were
laymen is by no means a sufficient reason to charac
terize their proceeding with the weighty appellation
of lay-Christian Puritanism. There have been such
zealous Lutherans at all times among the laity and
the fact that a number of them are found also among
the laymen of Wittenberg after Luther had preached
there so long is hardly cause for wonderment. At
most one ought to feel surprised that the Wittenberg
laity began to show signs of awakening so late and
that they so quickly sank back into their accustomed
lethargy after they had used up their enthusiasm in a
few riots. However, anyone who knows this land and
its people will not feel surprised at this but always be
amazed again over the fact that Luther was able at
this place and from out of this center, in whose cool

FIRST ATTEMPT AT REFORM 175
temperature the germs of a higher life thrive with so
much difficulty, to exert such a mighty influence.
This he himself felt very strongly and stated very
frankly. For Luther never took part in the catering
to the "small man" which was so in vogue at the time.
He justly shook his head over the affected rusticizing
with which Karlstadt as the "new layman," after
the fashion of Tolstoi, tried to ingratiate himself with
peasants and craftsmen. Even before the Peasant
Revolt he told this "small man" the plain and unvar
nished truth. The fact that he is to-day still criticized*
for this does not prove that he was wrong, but only
that in place of the "small man" as he really is people
are wont to exhibit for public reverence an abstract
personification of all citizen and peasant virtues, such
as one never encounters in real hfe.

CHAPTER VI.
Luther as a Scholar and Author.
OINCE the appearance of Janssen's "History of
^ the German People" no historical work has caused
such a stir in Germany as Heinrich Denifle's "Luther
and Lutheranism in its Earliest Development Pre
sented on the Basis of the Sources," of which the first
volume appeared in Mayence in 1904. Both Catho
lics and Protestants were at first equaUy astonished
over the book. Then there followed on the Protestant
side ,a veritable storm of indignation, a flood of coun
ter-treatises, a lively debate in the scientific journals,
in the weekly and daily press. However, in Cathohc
circles also the work met almost nowhere with undi
vided approval. Individual scholars unqualifiedly
repudiated it, others let it pass only after sharp criti
cism. No reader who was able to judge for himself
was wholly in accord with it.
When we pick up the book, which meanwhile has
been continued in a loftier strain by Grisar in his
"Luther" we are at first somewhat surprised at the
excitement caused by its publication. Like Grisar's
work it is not at all a sensational piece of writing after
the common understanding of that term. Indeed,
it is not really a book at all but a collection of very
learned and ofttimes very poorly arranged essays on
various problems of research concerning Luther. The
176

LUTHER AS SCHOLAR AND AUTHOR 177
specialist can learn a great deal from these papers.
However, the opinion of the specialist never decides
the success of such books but rather the manner of
presentation and the tendency they serve. With
Denifle this leaning is sufficiently evident from the
emphatic closing words: "Away from Luther, and
back to the Church." In Grisar 's work it appears
more from the grouping and treatment of the facts,
from the interpretation and the at times incomplete
use of the documents. Both authors, nevertheless,
have the honest conviction that they have proceeded,
in their work in a strictly historical and psychological
manner, and that at last they are able to place before
the eyes of the long misguided public the "true
Luther." The portrait of their true Luther, however, espe
cially in Denifle, differs decidedly from that hitherto
presented by the "unscientific" old-Catholic investiga
tors. Before the judgment-seat of "science" Luther
in the first place reveals himself as a crass ignoramus,
further, he also appears as a glutton and inebriate of
the lowest type, as a bestial profligate, ribald and buf
foon of the worst sort, as a literary dirt slinger worse
than Zola, as an audacious forger, liar and cheat, in
short, as an individual dangerous to society, un
equalled for "moral degeneracy."
To the specialist this portrait is in its main features
not very new. He is quite familiar with it from the
Catholic polemics of the sixteenth to the eighteenth
centuries whose preliminary labors the learned Father
has thoroughly and thankfuUy used. Only the crass

178 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
ignoramus is a new discovery made by Denifle. For
the rest the learned father has been content merely
to put on the colors a trifle more heavily and coarsely,
to bring out the detail somewhat more fully, and in
this wise to freshen up the old picture so as to make it
look as imposing as possible. Grisar evinces much
less temperament. He endeavors to do justice also
to the "good sides" of his subject, and he discards a
number of the exaggerated verdicts of the old con
troversialists. For this very reason, however, his book
fell short of making an impression commensurate to
that of Denifle's work. At any rate, the latter's crude
woodcut in the style of Murner has so far not been
supplanted by Grisar's much fainter pencil drawing
which in spite of its more than a thousand pages fails
after all to make up a clear picture. Hence it is still
advisable to cite the Luther of Denifle who fives in
so many minds before the "judge's bench" and to de
termine which features have been correctly or falsely
observed. In most cases the result furnishes an esti
mate also on those points in which Grisar has further
developed Denifle's materials.
We fittingly begin with Luther, the crass igno
ramus whose unmasking cost the learned Dominican
so much effort and time and over the discovery of
whom he is so extraordinarily proud. We therefore
inquire directly: Did the Reformer really pass so
unsatisfactorily the many tests to which he was sub
sequently subjected? O. G. Schmidt has quizzed him
on the classical literature of the Greeks and Romans.
In this examination the Reformer stood well. Truly,

LUTHER AS SCHOLAR AND AUTHOR 179
he is not familiar with the Greek poets and prose
writers though he procured an edition of Homer as
late as 1523 "that he might become a Greek." In
stead, he was very well Versed in the favorite Latin
authors of the day: Vergil, Terence, Ovid, JEsop,
Cicero, Livy, Seneca, Horace, Catullus, Juvenal,
Silius, Statius, Lucan, Suetonius, Sallust, Quintilian,
Varro, Pomponius Mela, the two Plinies and the
Germania of Tacitus. In addition he, of course,
knew the very popular Neo-Latinists Baptista Man-
tuanus, Filelfo and others. In a similar manner
Schaefer and W. Koehler investigated his knowledge
of General History and Church History. This test
also he passed creditably, for it appears that he was
very much interested in history and at times pursued
very serious historical studies.
FinaUy, Father Denifle examined him in Scholastic
Philosophy and Theology. The result : Failure ! The
candidate knows only the pseudo-philosophers and
theologians of the declining Middle Ages. The
Prince of Scholastics, St. Thomas of Aquinas, he
did not study at all at the university and later on
for controversial purposes only. To make the situa
tion worse the accused has the front to assert: "I have
been brought up on Scholasticism, I know Scholas
ticism," and boasts shamelessly: "I have read thousand
and aU doctors." This indeed sounds very badly.
But is the severe examiner right? Not at all. As
regards the bragging statement — made in a marginal
note — Denifle for once (inter dum dormit Homerus)
has permitted himself to be misled by a misprint. In

180 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
the original manuscript we read not legi, "I have read,"
but lege, "read thousand and all doctors, no one will
solve the question better."
Also it has been proven that Luther as a student
did read the "Prince of Scholastics," and not only his
commentary on the Sentences but also the large and
small edition of the Summa. ( See Veit Dietrich, No.
280.) Furthermore, he studied Peter Lombard,
Bernard of Clairvaux, Duns Skotus, Okkam, Greg
ory of Rimini, Pierre d'Ailly, Gerson and Biel so
assiduously that he knew, for instance, d'Ailly and
Biel almost by heart. Therefore he really knew Scho
lasticism, whereby we do not mean to say that he al
ways correctly understood, for example, Thomas
Aquinas. However, occasional errors in interpreta
tion by an author are certainly not a sufficient basis
for the verdict "crass ignorance." If that were the
case we would also have to caU the learned Father
Denifle a crass ignoramus because he so often misin
terpreted Luther.
But the Reformer is not only familiar with Scho
lasticism, he also "had read most everything" by Au
gustine; furthermore, if not all, at least considerable
portions of Irenaeus, Cyprian, Eusebius, Athanasius,
Hilary, Ambrose, Gregory of Nazianza, Jerome,
Cassiodorus, Gregory the Great and Anselm of Can
terbury. In addition he had made quite a close study
of Tauler and the Frankfurt Anonymous and among
Humamstic theologians of Lefevre, Erasmus and Pico
della Mirandola. He was also quite at home in the
exegetical literature of the Middle Ages, in the Canon

LUTHER AS SCHOLAR AND AUTHOR 181
Law, in Aristotle and Porphyry. FinaUy, he was one
of the first German professors who learned Greek and
Hebrew and zealously and successfully, as his last lec
tures still prove, endeavored to gather information
about rabbinical hterature and exegesis from Jews
and Proselytes. All this Denifle ignores because it
does not fit into his preconceived opinion. Indeed, he
is inclined rather to reproach the "crass ignoramus"
because he failed to use original manuscripts, and did
not think of correcting the misprints in the poor Basel
edition of the Church fathers to which alone he had
access. Upon close scrutiny the crass ignoramus, therefore,
reveals himself as a very sound and respectable scholar,
However, as is well known, mere learning alone does
not produce a good professor. A good professor re
sults only if to erudition be added something higher :
the faculty of plain, clear, correct and independent
thought, resourcefulness, acumen, in short, scientific
talent. Did the Reformer also possess these quali
ties? He himself would perhaps not have answered
this question in the affirmative. As a scholar and
teacher he appeared to himself always as weak, poor
and smaU, a mere "prattler" over against the remark
able little man, Melanchthon. However, he had no
cause for such a poor estimate of himself. True, he
was not a Humanist hke that "doctor above all doc
tors." Just as his hand in the "ductus" and in the
form of the letters never quite lost the stamp of the
monkish script of the fifteenth century, so also his
Latin, vivid and natural though it be, ever retained a

182 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
monkish tinge. He also never acquired in the same
measure as his younger friend that facility of ex
pressing an idea "neatly and tersely" and yet "clearly
and fuUy." But since 1513 he gradually learned from
the Humanists for his scientific labors on the Bible
aU that they could teach him. And as far as critical
acumen is concerned he was at least the equal of the
renowned Erasmus and considerably superior to
Magister Philippus.
Already as a young professor, Luther ventured for
linguistic and internal reasons to designate as spurious
five treatises which had been handed down under the
name of St. Augustine. Thereby he excited unpleas
ant notoriety in Wittenberg, in one case at least, in
fact, he made enemies for himself. Later investiga
tion, however, has completely confirmed his judg
ment. EquaUy apt and surprising are his famous re
marks about the style, provenance and historical value
of the biblical books. Though he in this respect fol
lowed in the main the verdict of the great scholars of
the ancient church, Eusebius of Caesarea and Jerome,
he yet added a mass of striking observations and acute
suppositions of his own. What is most important, he
at once without lengthy parley draws from the critical
results the correct conclusions. He hmits the canon of
the Old Testament to the writings of the Hebrew
Bible and in the New Testament allows the four old
"anti-legomena," James, Jude, Hebrews and the
Apocalypse henceforth to count only as an appendix.
Even as an interpreter of Scriptures, however, Lu
ther achieved a great deal more than is usuaUy sus-

LUTHER AS SCHOLAR AND AUTHOR 183
pected. He is, if not the first, at least one of the first
professors who in their work of expounding the Bible
as a matter of principle followed the original text.
Further he as early as 1520 from principle tabooed all
the ecclesiastical methods of interpretation and sup
planted these falsely famous arts by "natural, gram
matical and historical" exegesis. In his opinion it is
not the Church which ought to determine what Scrip
ture teaches, but the Word of God ought to fix the
doctrine of the Church. These are deeds which for aU
time assure him a place in the history of scholarship.
Even in the more minute interpretation, however,
one is again and again astonished at the amount he
was able to accomphsh with his poor auxiliaries. We
wonder also at his fine ear for the linguistic pecu
liarities of the text and marvel over the assurance
with which he not only knew how to develop the re
ligious ideas but also the theological concepts. If,
besides, we add to the picture the ease and dexterity
with which he moved amidst the most abstract philo
sophical and theological distinctions, the rapidity with
which he worked into not merely the theological but
also the political, legal, social and economic problems
with which he was brought face to face by the progress
of the Evangelical movement, and note how quickly
and without effort he always found for his ideas a
striking and original expression how easily, thanks
to his enormous memory, he retained in mind whatever
he had read, seen or heard, we wiU be forced to con
fess that even regarded purely as an intellectual char
acter he was a phenomenon without equal.

184 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
Only one gift had been vouchsafed him in a rela
tively small degree, the very talent which he so much
admired in Melanchthon and would have admired still
more in Calvin had he become more closely acquainted
with this greatest scientific force of early Protes
tantism. This was the faculty of mastering, syste
matically organizing and condensing into brief for
mulas the prodigious wealth of fertile ideas which
poured in upon him unbidden from all sides while he
was at work and even when engaged merely in light
conversation. These considerations alone raise some suspicion
against the modern attempts to set down the Re
former as a powerful but uncouth bit of primeval
nature which, suddenly rising up from out of the
depths of nationality, all at once broke in upon the
blooming fields of culture with destructive force. Nor
do we for the reasons given above take kindly to the
other suggestion that he was at the very least a "simple
soul," a "northerner" deficient in culture, "who had
thus far vegetated on in snow and fog and amidst
the inclemencies of nature without any great need for
scholarship and without a glimmer of art."
This primordial man, this simple soul was after aU
not quite so uncouth, one-sided and northern as it
seems to the outsider. To be sure, when Luther
wishes to state the value of science and art in life
he is unable to say more than that the former is in
dispensable for the secular and ecclesiastical govern
ment and that art inculcates valuable lessons in a
visual form. But utilitarian considerations like these

LUTHER AS SCHOLAR AND AUTHOR 185
are in the sixteenth century found even with really
scientific natures like Melanchthon and in very great
artists like Albrecht Diirer. They only go to prove
how naive and natural the relation of this age still was
to science and art, but not that people at this time did
not yet possess a true understanding of these branches
of culture. This is especially manifest also in the case
of Luther. Though he in other things tenaciously
holds to the Okkamist theory of knowledge he has
already quite overcome the view of Okkam that there
is but one science, logic, and has also thrown aside the
indifference of the Okkamists to the languages, his
tory and the exact sciences. Quite to the contrary, he
values and recommends these sciences as noble arts
and disciplines and himself works in the field of lan
guage as energeticaUy as he can.
While Luther thus manifests a distinct need for
scientific activity he also possesses more than a mere
ghmmering of art. Music he loves and practices with
great zeal, not because it is useful, but because it is
the greatest earthly pleasure and the finest gift with
which God has adorned this miserable life. Further,
he is also fond of the art of poetry and exercises it,
not alone because Poetry is an able preceptress, but
also because poems more profoundly move and dehght
him personally and remain more deeply impressed
upon his soul than aU common speech, be it even that
of a Demosthenes or Cicero. Therefore Luther not
only derived great pleasure from proverbs and the
fables of iEsop but also from poems not directly of a
didactic nature, as for instance, the songs about Diet-

186 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
rich of Bern and "other giants." For the same reason
he himself greatly loved to write httle verses even
while engaged in so prosaic an occupation as the keep
ing of his household accounts. And though as a com
poser of hymns he mainly followed pedagogical pur
poses he is at times, though but seldom, overcome by
the impulse for once to let his powerful emotions flow
forth freely in song. At such times he always sings
like a really great poet in strains the like of which had
never been heard before him in the German tongue.
Luther was less interested in the plastic arts and in
architecture, though he appreciated the beautiful also
if he met it in this form. In Rome he viewed with
wonderment the splendid palaces of the cardinals, the
Pantheon, the Colosseum and the Baths of Diocletian.
His interest was also aroused by the delicate manner
in which the Italian painters were able to reproduce
nature and expression, and by the beautiful coloring
employed by the Flemish artists. For plastic art
alone he seems to have had no sense, though he fre
quently enough praises the beauty of the human form,
and lauds the Italian tailors with great warmth be
cause they know how to fit the clothes to the human
body, whereas the Germans made all trousers after one
model so that their customers strut about like tum
bler pigeons. Considering all this one can certainly
not assert that he lacked "even a glimmer of art,"
though on the other hand it, of course, does not justify
the claim that he possessed a fine artistic appreciation.
Nevertheless, we can well say that the naive pleasure
in art which is so characteristic of the whole age is

LUTHER AS SCHOLAR AND AUTHOR 187
shared also by Luther, especiaUy the delight in pretty
pictures. Otherwise the busy man would hardly have
gone to the trouble of personally selecting the wood
cuts for the so-caUed September Bible.
While thus not devoid of a sense of artistic
appreciation, the Reformer also did not confront
nature with "clouded and fettered sensibilities."
Though in his belief devilish forces infested river
and forest, the regions above and below the earth,
this fact did not make nature as such seem un
canny to him, much less render it a waste gray
chaos of snow, fog, and formless northern night.
In spite of Satan it always remains in his eyes a green
garden of pleasure, full of sunshine, clear songs of
birds and thousands upon thousands of great and
smaU miracles of God, like his native land Thuringia,
where the timid boy first learned to look cheerfuUy
about himself and grew up to be a nimble and happy
young f eUow.
As in his conception of nature so also in his feeling
for nature we can detect the true Thuringian. The
song-birds, especially, have grown dear to his heart
as they are loved even now by all true children of the
forest. Ever again Luther watches with solemn de
light the playing of the "gentle" deer and roe, and as
frequently as possible he makes trips into the open,
or goes into the woods for the happy hunt, not to
murder innocent animals but quietly in the green soli
tude to observe God's wonders, or amidst the troatmg
of the deer to meditate upon the psalm: As the hart
panteth after the water brooks.

188 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
Whoever wishes rightly to understand Luther must
seek him not only in church, in the lecture-room or in his
study, must observe him not alone when speaking and
writing, he must watch him when chaffing with wife
and children, arguing with his companions at table, or
when in a quiet moment with his own hands he repairs
his trousers by sewing on patches from the jerkin of
his son "Haensichen" ;he must f oUow him also through
woods and fields and accompany him into the garden
and courtyard of the Black Cloister. There he wfil
see the mighty one who perhaps a moment ago, crude
"as with a peasant's ax," had struck vicious blows at
the Pope, very peacefully, like an old country parson,
sowing and weeding, grafting and inoculating, or
studying with solicitous eyes his giant radishes from
Erfurt and his "strange" mulberry and fig-trees. He
will further notice him in childlike innocence playing
with his little dog Toelpel or musingly regarding the
comfortable ease of the hogs in Frau Katie's stable-
yard. Again, he will see him at the hive attentively
watching the bees gather honey, or in the bushes ob
serving the birds building their nests ; or perchance he
wiU discover him wandering out into the green woods
singing and shouting like a student. One who has
thus seen him will henceforth not be in the least as
tonished at the fact that "the naive barbarian" under
stood so "clearly and roundly" in flowing description
and in fleeting banter to reproduce impressions of
nature. He will recognize rather that this "bar
barian" in his own way was a poet and an artist,
though he was far from being able in emulation of his

LUTHER AS SCHOLAR AND AUTHOR 189
critic Dilthey to give definite information on what
"the poet" and "the artist" may, can and should do.
Despite aU this, it would appear as though the un
couth "barbarian" Luther were not an arbitrary in
vention of polemic writers. As a writer and speaker
Luther even according to unbiased witnesses deserves
no other characterization. Indeed "uncouth barba
rian" is seemingly stiU an altogether too timid expres
sion. A whole army of passionate judges assures us
that we wiU strike a great deal closer to the mark if
we caU him: Champion boor, dirty fellow, pig, buf
foon, bawd, hterary dirt-shnger, lubber and pornog-
rapher. It is claimed that the literary legacy of Lu
ther sufficiently justifies these honorable epithets. It
is, however, hardly necessary to go to the trouble of
hunting up proofs in his writings and letters. A
widely known source, which is read a good deal even
in popular editions, offers them in lavish profusion, a
source which seems to present the Reformer to our
eyes in his every-day garments without pose or color
ing — the famous Table Talk. Modern research has
very thoroughly studied this source also and has solved
many, though unhappily not all of the riddles which
it offers to the historian. We are here interested in
the results obtained only in as far as they help us to
answer the question: Do we reaUy learn to know the
genuine Luther best in the Table Talk?
Ever since the end of the second decade of the six
teenth century a regular Round Table of companions
collected about the Reformer in the Black Cloister late
every afternoon at five o'clock for the evening meal.

190 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
Truly, the Knights of this Round Table bore no high-
sounding names. In the main they were poor, older
students, who had their board and rooms in the house.
Some belonged to the wider family circle as famuli
of the Doctor, others as teachers of the chUdren ; the
rest were boarders whom Luther's spouse had taken
into the house in order to help out the famUy ex
chequer. One of these latter, Conrad Cordatus from
Weisskirchen, in Austria, first hit upon the idea of
immediately noting down then and there the remarks
made by Luther at the table. That was in the summer
of 1531. Since Luther raised no objections his exam
ple was immediately followed by others.
The company at table consequently sometimes re
sembled a lecture, so assiduously were John Schlagin-
haufen, Veit Dietrich, Anton Lauterbach, Jerome
Weller, the melancholy private tutor of little Hans,
and since the early forties John Mathesius, Caspar
Heydenreich, Jerome Besold, John Aurifaber and
many others engaged in copying down into their mem
oranda the conversation of the Doctor and of other
table companions.
Very soon, however, these men ceased merely to
take notes. They carefully copied their jottings, sup
plemented the brief catchwords from memory and
converted their notes into well- written reports. These
copies they then frequently exchanged. Indeed, in
dividual collectors, who were especially zealous, as, for
example, Anton Lauterbach, began even during the
lifetime of the Doctor to arrange their collections top
ically. Nevertheless, none of the older table compan-

/ LUTHER AS SCHOLAR AND AUTHOR 191
ions thought of pubhshing these collectanea. They
were proud of their treasure and willingly furnished
information from it to admirers of Luther, but in the
correct feeling that the Reformer himself would not
have approved of it they made no attempt to give the
larger public access to it.
Only John Aurif aber, the last famulus of the Doc
tor, who otherwise also, trafficked in relics of Luther
did not regard it out of place to acquire glory and
money by means of these copies. His large edition of
the Table Talk, which appeared in 1566, was indeed
such an immediate success that soon other enterprising
hterati pubhshed similar and equaUy valuable coUec-
tions. Was this success merited? The answer can
only be in the negative. Aurifaber was able to use
his own notes only for the last two years of Luther's
life. Even these he did not reproduce accurately.
He transposed the mixture of German and Latin
which was spoken at Luther's table into his own broad
and wordy German, and since he was himself a very
crude person he did not neglect to emphasize the
strong terms occurring in the original. In the same
fashion he thereupon edited the notes of several older
associates. Where did he get these? Not from the
original manuscripts or from the first copies, but from
collections of the second and third hand, in which the
chronological sequence of the remarks had been alto
gether destroyed and the utterances themselves more
or less retouched. Besides, he was a very hasty and
wholly uncritical editor. His edition of the Table
Talk is therefore a rather turbid fountain from which

192 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
no one who is accustomed to the fresh water of genuine
tradition can drink without reluctance.
However, is access to the true tradition in these mat
ters at all open to us? In the last decades the coUec-
tions of a number of the older table companions have
been made accessible, the notes of Cordatus, Lauter
bach, Schlaginhauf en, Mathesius, Veit Dietrich, Wel-
ler and others. However, none of these, not even that
of Veit Dietrich, always faithfully offers the original
version. Even the three best are merely copies of
those modest little memoranda by means of which the
table companions rapidly fixed the utterances of the
Doctor. In addition, the ablest among the many in
dustrious fellows: Roerer, Dietrich, Lauterbach and
Mathesius were despite their facile pens at the very
first writing not insured against errors of hearing and
misunderstandings. Above all, they were frequently
unable to follow the rapid speech of the Reformer.
Under these circumstances they were wont, even when
the conversation had been in German, immediately to
translate into Latin what they heard, for a species of
shorthand was at the time known only for Latin.
The upshot of it all is that the chief witnesses can
not be accounted absolutely safe authorities. How
ever, though we must constantly apply criticism when
using them, it is certain by this time that they have
preserved for us an unusual amount of valuable infor
mation about the life, deeds and views of Luther.
They offer evidence in strict chronological sequence
which in its essentials is genuine, and indeed brings
the true Luther if not closer, at any rate as close to us
as his own letters and writings.

LUTHER AS SCHOLAR AND AUTHOR 193
If we join the Round Table in the Black Cloister in
the company of these good witnesses, we may indeed
sometimes be seized with the feeling of having blun
dered into a guard room, so rude, harsh, cynical, in fact,
coarse seems the tone of the conversation. If we are
not deterred thereby from further investigation, but
f oUow the Doctor also into his study and quietly watch
him while he is at work writing books, our astonish
ment is perhaps even changed into mild amazement.
It seems that the old man waxes cruder in proportion
to the ease with which he is able to work. He writes •
against the Papacy at Rome, founded by the devil,
in a strain which is a reproach to good manners. He
composes verses to go with satirical pictures against
the Papacy which to-day would certainly cause the
police to make him an object of their paternal solici
tude. If thereupon for the sake of recapitulation we page
through his treatise against "Jack Sausage (Hans
Wiirst, i. e., clown) of Brunswick, we perchance be
gin to feel more uncomfortable still. The aged Re
former employs vulgar expressions so frequently and
unconcernedly that it makes our head swim. Besides,
for purposes of controversy, he keeps a whole mena
gerie in which he mercilessly incarcerates his adversa
ries. He delights in unexpectedly transforming them
with the magic wand of Circe into hogs, donkeys,
wolves, bears, he-goats, dogs, monkeys, sheep, oxen,
cows, etc. Besides, he treats them quite like dumb ani
mals. He does not fight them like a gallant author of
the twentieth century, he stabs them like wild boars,

194 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
or mauls them with a flail hke an uncouth peasant,
without mercy and without tiring. In short, when
his ire is up Luther is, as it seems, a "smut" without
equal. But he behaves thus rudely and coarsely not
only within his own four waUs, in his hving room or
study. Even in the pulpit he uses very rude expres
sions and figures of speech. He talks very "medici-
naUy," in fact, "medicynically," about things of which
everyone knows but at present no one speaks pubhcly.
This is all the more striking when we note the sim
ple-hearted Mathesius asserting that the Doctor never
indulged in shameless speech, and observe the weU-
known Humanistic historian Sleidan, describing those
obscene pictures by Cranach which satirize the Pa
pacy so calmly and cheerfully, as though he were
dealing merely with one of the innocent satires on pro
fessors in the Fliegende Blaetter. It would seem
after all that in order to appreciate this tone we must
again take to heart the word about the spirit of the
times. If we do that, if we transport ourselves three
hundred and fifty years into the past, we wUl soon
clearly see that the tone at Luther's table and in his
writings is not at all at variance with pohte manners
in German, or in French, Enghsh, and even Italian
society of the day.
The well-known adage: "What is natural is not
shameful," was rarely if ever followed so verbaUy even
by persons of high and highest rank (see, for instance,
Pope Juhus II) as in these rude times. People evi
dently felt that what everyone knows, everyone may
openly discuss with anybody, even in the presence of

LUTHER AS SCHOLAR AND AUTHOR 195
the "delicate" ladies. This latter class at the time pos
sessed the delicacy of the Hamburg fish-mongress of
to-day. The Humanist Scheurl upon entering the
office of Rector at the university ventured an address
before the ladies of the court to which in our time the
coarsest woman would not listen without resentment.
The polished and pious Queen Margaret of Navarre
wrote novels which at present no respectable woman
can read without blushing. And the virgin Queen of
England in her day stUl relished immensely Shake
speare's very coarse comedy, The Merry Wives of
Windsor. In fact, she permitted her jacktars to hail
her with a not exactly incorrect but nevertheless very
impolite greeting.
As for the men! When the famous preacher
Geiler of Kaisersberg compares the perfect Chris
tian with a weU-contrived sausage, when he praises
Christ as our sumpter mule who bears away our sins
in a manure bucket, we can, if need be, even to-day
stomach such comparisons. But the nonchalance with
which that same Geiler and other noted preachers of
the time, as, for example, the Westphalian Gottschalk
Hollen, in the pulpit discussed intimacies of married
life, the very strange jokes and anecdotes with which
they spiced their sermons, after all strike us as rather
peculiar. And yet, these preachers seem almost prudes to the
reader if thereupon he turns to the so-called polite let
ters of the sixteenth century. The popular books,
the miracle plays, the satires of Thomas Murner, are
not merely coarse but filthy, the Humanistic belles-

196 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
lettres not only filthy but wanton. If we remember
this, we will not be surprised to find even the honorable
Master Diirer inserting such extremely coarse jests
in his letters to Pirckheimer, nor that a family chroni
cle with so fundamentally serious a purpose as theZim-
mern Chronicle positively swarms with indecent anec
dotes, nor, finally, that the main Latin school book of
the day, the Familiar CoUoquies of Erasmus of Rot
terdam, is tuned to this same pitch. Even the pohte
tone of the sixteenth century was therefore in our esti
mation not at all polite. Uncleanly as the people in
general were in their habits of eating and drinking —
forks and handkerchiefs had not yet come into com
mon use — indulgent as they were toward fleas, hee
and other vermin, toward the itch and other filthy dis
eases, so unclean according to our standards they stiU
were everywhere in their literary usages.
From a generation so rude and coarse Luther had
sprung, to such a generation he spoke, and against it
he was continually forced to do battle. His hteracy
antagonists — Prierias, Alveld, Eck, Emser, Coch
laeus, Usingen, Mensing, Sylphius, Conrad, Koellin,
Karlstadt, Zwingli and whatever else their names may
be — are not a shade more delicate than he. Indeed,
some of them, as, for instance, Cochlaeus, are down
right filthy and frivolous, while he, despite aU coarse
ness, never descends to frivolity.
There is, besides, another factor which must be
taken into account in the case at hand. As soon as
a violent fit of anger rouses Luther's blood the humor
ous poet in him begins to stir. It is quite impossible

LUTHER AS SCHOLAR AND AUTHOR 197
for him to show his fists to his opponent without con
tinually taunting him and making fun of him in
the most unrestrained fashion. At such moments
Dr. Emser, whose coat of arms exhibits a he-goat, di
rectly himself becomes Dr. Billygoat, the very learned
Cochlaeus (spooner) suddenly appears as Rotzloeff el
(snotnose), Dr. Eck becomes Dr. Geek (dude) or
even Dreck (dirt), the knight Schwenckf eld is trans
formed into Sir Stenchfield, Dr. Usingen becomes
Dr. Unsinn (nonsense), Dr. Crotus is Dr. Toad
(Kroete), the Franciscan Schatzgeier appears as,
Schatzfresser (devourer of treasures), while his
brother in the order, Alveld, is the gray miller's beast
which always brays ika! ika! Duke Henry of Braun
schweig- Wolfenbuettel is presented as Hans Wiirst
(clown), as a sausage devil, as a cow in the hickory
tree, as a pig jingling a harp. The jurists are intro
duced as Ignorists, Knownothings, Beamdoctors,
since they cure all with the beam of the gallows. Fi
naUy, the book of Dr. N. is presented as a poodle,
whose hide swarms with fleas, to wit, not errors of
print but errors of thought. However, the Doctor
was particularly fond of perennially introducing
"Her Serene Highness, the White Beast," the hog.
He has weU observed how the dear animal wallows in
the mud, smacks and routs, how it grunts and grum
bles, how it softly, securely and tranquilly snores and
upon its "bed of down" hves on without a thought of
the morrow, how through its snout it smiles pleasantly
at its litter of grunters. For controversial ends, how
ever, Luther seems sometimes almost to have trained

198 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
the beast. It appears as a clown, at times with a
lemon in its mouth, sometimes with a necklace of
pearls, once in armor, then again with a spinning-
wheel or a harp.
No person, therefore, who lacks a feeling for the
humor of the sixteenth century can comprehend Lu
ther as a contraversialist. This humor was not deli
cate. Luther frequently enough turns it very rudely
against his own person. He refers to it repeatedly as
"the fat Doctor," the "rotten, stinking wormbag," the
"bundle of diseased flesh." But despite aU such wUd
somersaults he never becomes indecent as Emser,
Cochlaeus and Lemnius, for instance. Indeed, he
may well be cited as a good proof of the fact that a
German may be rude and crude to the point of coarse
ness without ever becoming obscene and frivolous.
On the other hand, did not Luther on one occasion
request a melancholiac to cheer himself up with
smutty jokes? Does he not on the twenty-third
of May, 1534, write to Joachim of Anhalt: "Joy in
the company of good pious people, in the fear of God
and in all decency and honor, though there be a word
or jest (Zotlein) too many, is pleasing to God." In
deed, this is the literal reading of the letter. But the
very context permits the surmise that "Zotlein" here
is not equivalent to our modern "Zote," i. e., smutty
jest. If for purpose of information we open a German
dictionary, for instance, the well-known work by
Daniel Sanders, we not only see this surmise amply
confirmed, but find also a whole list of proof pas
sages showing that the term was used by Luther in

LUTHER AS SCHOLAR AND AUTHOR 199
the sense of joke, anecdote, droll story, idle excuse.
This single experience teaches us that we must oper
ate carefuUy with citations from Luther. His Ger
man must always first be translated into the German
of our day. For not only the meaning, also the timbre
of words has materially changed in the course of time.
Certain vulgar terms were in the sixteenth century
not regarded as indehcate and expressions hke, you
ass, you donkey, were not regarded as serious insults
even by polite society. Luther, for instance, calmly
pubhshes the words "I am a sheep and wiU remain
a sheep," "I am a goose as compared to the cardinal,
and a miserable sheep over against the jurists" ; while
he praises his Elector, the corpulent John Frederick,
before the whole company at dinner, by saying: "He
works hke a mule."
However, even after we have become quite accus
tomed to the literary taste and habit of the sixteenth
century and make due aUowance for the humor of Lu
ther, we can, nevertheless, not suppress an occasional
feeling of astonishment over the tone of his polemics.
And this sensation is not merely the result of modern
prudishness. We meet it here and there also with
Luther's contemporaries Not alone Melanchthon
who was not altogether free from the squeamishness
of the closet scholar, but also Catharine von Bora, who
certainly cannot be accused of being too finical, some
times thought the Doctor too crude.
Much more frequently we hear friend and foe com
plaining about his ungovernable violence. MoseUan
emphasizes this trait as early as 1519 in an otherwise

200 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
very kindly report on the Disputation at Leipzig.
Spalatin is, since the beginning of 1520, again and
again commissioned by the old Elector to take Luther
to task for this, and Wenzel Link in August, 1520,
induces the Reformer to confess personaUy that "al
most everybody criticizes my mordacity." This shows
that he was conscious of this failing. He at times com
plains about his vehement nature and his biting style.
In fact, he even went so far as to openly confess
before the Emperor and the assembled Estates at
Worms that in his writings against private persons he
had been more violent than was proper. However,
this self-knowledge did little good. In spite of all,
Luther ever remained a typical choleric. In fact, in
the tremendous excitement and tension of the endless
struggle, he finally even felt a good violent fit of anger
as a beneficial relief. "Then my blood is refreshed,
my intellect becomes clear and sharp and temptations
leave me," he once confessed.
Every highly temperamental person will be able
to sympathize with Luther on this point. However,
in this characteristic after all lurked an element of
danger. Every such period of excitement immedi
ately engendered an extraordinary desire for work
and conflict. As though he were rejuvenated even
the aged Luther would, while still fired by fresh re
sentment, pick up his pen in order to work off the
anger of his heart in one sitting. Besides, he mostly
did not await a more tranquil moment and once more
calmly revise what he had written, but as soon as he
began writing he also commenced printing, so that

LUTHER AS SCHOLAR AND AUTHOR 201
the new book was in most cases pretty nearly ready
by the time he had written the last letter and drained
to the dregs the cup of his wholesome anger.
This peculiar method of work to a considerable de
gree explains the incomparable freshness and the
ravishing temperament with which the Reformer,
even in the products of his last years full of suffering,
astonishes the reader. On the other hand, it is re
sponsible also for the exceeding violence of his po
lemics. Sentiments and opinions which a more even-
tempered writer at once suppresses Luther instantly
permits to gush forth without consideration or fore
thought. To be sure, he mostly also gives free rein to
his sparkling wit, and plays with his adversary in a
bearish humor like a wild and beUicose giant of the old
sagas, while at the same time he is dealing out blows
right and left with his peasant ax hke a rude wood
cutter. At other times, however, even he sees blood,
and words of fiery hatred crowd to his lips. "If the
fury of the Romanists continues in this wise," he
writes at the end of May, 1520 — though in Latin
and in a hasty preface to the epitome by Prierias —
"nothing will remain but that the Emperor, the
kings and princes attack the pest by force of arms.
... If thieves are punished with the gallows, rob
bers with the sword and heretics with fire, why do we
not with all our weapons assail these cardinals, popes
and the whole Roman Sodom and wash our hands in
their blood"? More savage still, perhaps, are the pic
tures in which he revels in the last treatise about the
Papacy, and in the verses accompanying the satirical

202 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
woodcuts of Cranach of 1545. These latter, by the
way, he himself regarded as too coarse. In them he
quite outdoes himself like a blustering lansquenet in
grotesque fancies and comparisons about His HeU-
ishness, St. Paul the Third, the little daughter
Pauline, the saintly virgin Paula and the "Epicurean
Hogs," the cardinals.
Naturally one is not justified in mterpreting into
this reveling in forcible expressions and grew^ome
images which follow and neutralize one another any
specific threats, as little as we directly take the scold
ing of an angry person as a menace. It must also not
be forgotten that an access of rage hke this, which
spends itself at the writing desk, but never permits
itself to be carried away to corresponding deeds must
not be placed on a par with the cold-blooded hatred
which slowly torments its victim to death.
In spite of aU, however, this hatred was genuine
and honest, just as real as the delicate affection,
friendliness and paternal mildness which the power
ful man otherwise exhibited toward so many worthy
and unworthy persons. For it was, in the last analy
sis, rooted in the notion derived from personal impres
sions and the reports of other pilgrims to Rome that
the Roman Curia was the breeding place of the most
criminal vices and of complete atheism, and that it
was at the same time an organized robber band against
which one ought to proceed with the same regard-
lessness as against the robbers, murderers, whores,
adulterers and Sodomites in one's own country. This
must always be kept in mind in the presence of these

LUTHER AS SCHOLAR AND AUTHOR 203
outbreaks of titanic anger, for otherwise it is impos
sible to appreciate the feelings of the old man in such
moments, or one will even consider the continual
storming against the Pope as merely the product of a
childish partisan hatred.
It is a weU-recognized fact that persons of such co
lossal temperament are never capable of judging their
opponents coolly, objectively and justly. But it is
contrary to aU experience that in the case of Luther,
passionateness should continually increase with his
years, so that his last polemics are also his rudest and #
most wrathful. As a rule, the vehemence of youth
subsides with advancing age in such a marked degree
that the effervescent youth can hardly be recognized
again in the quiet, mild and clarified old man. The
aged Luther, therefore, in this respect presents a
psychological problem which calls for an explanation.
This might perhaps in the first place be found in the
fact that from the end of 1517 to his death the Re
former stood in the midst of one of the most bitter,
spiteful and personal conflicts known to the history
of the world, a controversy in which the honor of his
wife, his children, his parents, his friends and his ruler
were as httle spared as his own person. Such cease
less warfare to the knife makes the tenderest soul
hard, irritable, rude and even coarse.
In this instance, however, where we have to deal
with a robust fighter a much more trivial explanation
has greater probability. From his fortieth year on
Luther was a sick man. After having suffered for
six months from severe digestive ailments, as early as

204 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
1521, he two years later became the victim of nervous
headaches which never again left him. In 1526 he
developed a serious attack of renal colic with all man
ner of complications, rheumatic fevers, sciatica and
furuncles. In addition he frequently suffered from
obstinate catarrhal and digestive disturbances, tem
porarily also from haemorrhoids (1525), dysentery
(1536), middle ear disease (1537), which robbed him
of hearing and sleep for weeks, with toothache and
frightful nervous pains in the chest (precordial
pains). Already, in 1530, Luther presents the typical pic
ture of a "completely nervous, prematurely aged man"
who despite ever more frequent and longer periods
of rest nevertheless continually subjects himself to
new hardships and excitement and thus makes him
self always more iU. It consequently seems almost
a miracle that he was able to keep himself up tolerably
well for fifteen years more until he succumbed to a
stroke of paralysis on the eighteenth of February,
1546. Evidently "God gave to him," as to his father,
"a firm and enduring body," otherwise he would cer
tainly have broken down earlier. His increasing illness
fully explains the growing irritability, violence and ill-
humor of the Reformer. However, it also shows how
advisable it is to first hear the opinion of a medical
expert before passing judgment on an accused person,
even though that person has long been resting in the
grave.

CHAPTER VII.
Personal Habits and Character of the Reformer.
TITE have just seen that during the larger portion
* * of his pubhc hfe Luther was a sick man, and
that a fair estimate of his person and character is im
possible unless the verdict of medical experts be taken
into account. Had this always been done, the current
talk about the glutton and toper, Luther, would also
have finally ceased. It is well-known that even
Goethe scoffs: "Acquiring a paunch by fasting, like
unto Doctor Luther." Is there good cause for such
mockery? At the time of the Leipzig Disputation
the Reformer was still so lean that every bone in his
body could be numbered. After returning from the
Wartburg, however, he already showed a "befitting
plumpness," and he gained somewhat more in weight
after his marriage to Catharine von Bora. Therefore
his "paunch" is an incontrovertible historical fact.
But this late acquisition was in his case as little a re
sult of overindulgence as with most of the poor elderly
men who are at present seen thus afflicted. It is
merely the result of an anomalous metabolism brought
on by a uric-acid diathesis, for it is an established fact
that Luther was in no way a gormandizer. Though
in the letters to his spouse and to his friends he oc
casionally praises facetiously the splendid hospitality
of the princes and great men, he himself preferred
205

206 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
"a wholesome, common home diet" to all delicacies.
Even game was for him too "melancholy" in its effect.
However, even this ordinary home diet was by no
means always partaken of plentifully. At times Lu
ther would for extended periods content himself with
a herring and a little bread for an entire day. In
fact, once, while in good health, he touched no food at
all for four whole days. Melanchthon, who during
almost twenty-eight years as neighbor and coUeague
was in intimate intercourse with him, therefore, often
marveled how little meat and drink Luther required
in spite of his ample physique.
However, even though the Reformer was no gas
tronomist and "glutton," did he not indulge more
than necessary in drink? Was he not an ever-thirsty
"hop-brother, wine-barrel, drunkard," or, to use the
milder terms of the present, an alcoholic and habitual
drinker of the most doubtful sort? One who knows
the people of the sixteenth century will indeed be
easily tempted to apply to him aU these honorary
designations, for at no time, perhaps, was hard drink
ing so much in vogue in Germany than in these days.
Charles the Fifth was not exactly regarded as a tip
pler for he took only "three draughts" with his meals.
But with every one of these he emptied, without draw
ing a breath, a crystal beaker containing probably one
and one-half pints, that is, about a bottle of wine.
The beautiful Philippina Welser was famous for her
delicate complexion, but, nevertheless, she was able
at Castle Amras to drain the "Welcome," a goblet
holding two full liters of wine. On the basis of these

PERSONAL HABITS AND CHARACTER 207
instances one can approximately compute the quan
tity of wine which notorious alcoholics hke the
Elector John Frederick of Saxony, or the Dukes
William IV and Albrecht V of Bavaria, were ca
pable of consuming. The bad habit of heating the
mouth with pepper, generaUy the excessive use of
pepper, cloves and sharp spices, as well as the im
moderate eating of meat, certainly increased con
siderably this astonishing craving for drink. But
it would scarcely have assumed such dimensions had
not, since 1520, excessive drinking become practically.
a sport, and drunkenness through ridiculously pedan
tic drinking regulations quite the fashion in high so
ciety. These facts also enable us to comprehend why
the contemporary verdict on this vice was so very
lenient. To us it seems an unheard of thing that the
Protestant Mathesius and the Catholic Eck, while in
the pulpit they energetically combat intoxication,
should nevertheless find an "honest drunk" excusable.
Their hearers were undoubtedly not offended by this
attitude, indeed, very probably they even regarded
such preachers as apostles of temperance.
Luther in speech and writing fought drunkenness
more vehemently than any German of that day. He
privately and publicly spoke his mind on this point
also to princes and even censured his own Elector
openly on this account, while he very drastically re
buked the members of the electoral court for the same
reason. Nevertheless, he also judges a "good drunk"
very mildly. He believed that people who grew vio
lent and vicious from the effects of alcohol ought by

208 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
all means to avoid drink like poison, but, on the other
hand, he held that men who are engaged in dangerous
work all week, as, for example, the miners, ought not
to be judged harshly if on Sunday they permitted
themselves a goodly quantity of hquor. Courtiers
also ought not to be grudged a "drunk" after hard
physical exertions, though he says that by no means
must it be tolerated that they appear every morning
as though their heads had been pickled in brine. This
indulgent attitude will scarcely meet with approba
tion to-day. But in the sixteenth century even such a
differentiation was looked upon as narrow-minded
ness, pedantry and philistinism.
Theory in such manners is almost always the result
of personal practice. Therefore, the question arises:
Did Luther himself at times allow himself a "good
drunk" like his father, the old Hans Luther? Indeed,
was the Reformer not perhaps a regular toper? It
seems advisable that we first consult the physician also
on this point. Medical experts teach us that alco
holics are wholly incapable of any fatiguing and con
tinuous mental work. How about Luther in this re
gard ? Let us pick out at random the one or the other
year from the various periods of his life in order to
determine exactly his working capacity. The year
1521 may be considered first, for it is in that year that,
according to Father Denifle, he began drinking. In
spite of this he wrote twenty larger or smaUer trea
tises in that period, which in the Weimar edition fiU
985 pages. In addition he translated a book by Me
lanchthon into German, and began the translation of

PERSONAL HABITS AND CHARACTER 209
the New Testament and the composition of his postil,
besides writing a great number of letters, of which
seventy-two are still available. And yet, he was in
this eventful year forced to be idle for five weeks ow
ing to travel and on many days was sorely hindered
by illness. In 1523 the first attacks of the above-
mentioned headaches began to impair his well-being;
also he traveled about two weeks. Nevertheless, in
this twelvemonth he wrote twenty-four treatises of
varying size, preached one hundred and fifty sermons,
gave a course of lectures on Deuteronomy which takes
up two hundred and forty-seven pages in the Weimar
edition, completed the German version of the Penta
teuch and began the translation of the remainder of
the Old Testament. Besides this, we still possess one
hundred and twelve letters of this year — "of course
only a fraction of his correspondence." During the
five and one-half months he spent at the Koburg in
1530 (April 25 to October 4), "he was so sick in his
head" that, as he himself says, he had to rest and re
main idle. Despite this fact he in this interval com
pleted twelve works of varying size, finished the trans
lation of Jeremiah, partially translated Ezekiel and
all the lesser prophets, edited a number of M sop's
Fables in German, and furthermore, wrote quite a
series of opinions and letters, some of which were of
considerable length and of which one hundred and
twenty-three are still preserved. Finally, we still
have the year 1545, of which he spent two months in
travel, and when he was already completely exhausted,
broken and tired of life, a number of long treatises

210 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
and a few short ones, also the concluding lectures on
Genesis and more than sixty letters and arbitraments.
AU told Luther published about three hundred and
fifty treatises, among them, it is true, a series of trans
lations and a great number of pamphlets. In literary
productivity at best the Jesuit Gretscher (two hun
dred and sixty-eight treatises), Augustine (two hun
dred and thirty-two) and Origen can vie with him.
And this fertility is with Luther not merely quanti
tative, as in the case of Gretscher. The Reformer ap
pears almost inexhaustible in expressions as weU as in
ideas. He certainly is the first great German man of
letters, and at the same time among the writers of all
ages one of the richest in form and thought. These
observations for the medical expert do away with the
"alcoholic" Luther. A drunkard would, alone from
the point of view of physical endurance, not have been
equal to such a tremendous burden of work, much less
would he have been able to bear the excitement of the
colossal battles which the Reformer had to fight.
Of course, this does not exclude the possibUity that
the great fighter occasionally indulged in a "good
drunk." We may say that whole generations of in
vestigators and inquisitors have been at pains to col
lect evidence to substantiate this charge. Their great
labors have, however, so far been futile, for aU their
proofs have later been shown to be invalid. If Lu
ther, for instance, writes: "I am now not drunk nor
indiscreet," this is only a forcible mode of assertion,
for in the same sense he writes: Christ was not drunk
when he spoke the sacramental words of the Holy

PERSONAL HABITS AND CHARACTER 211
Eucharist, God is not drunk, the Evangelists are not
drunk. When Wolfgang Musculus, in 1536, at the
time of the Wittenberg Concord reports: On May the
twenty-first we accompanied Luther home after the
meal, he was wonderfully hilarious (mire hilaris),
. . . during the evening potion in his home he again
was wonderfully hilarious and very amiable, and when
just prior he says of Melanchthon: Wonderfully ex
hilarated he discussed astrology at the table, this all
does not prove that the two Reformers were intoxi
cated but merely that they were cheerful. For
"hilaris" in this connection signifies only cheerful
happy and not hilarious. When in March, 1523, Lu
ther at Schweinitz vomited before the meal, this does
not prove that during the meal he had become intoxi
cated from Grueneberger wine, but that at the time he
suffered from digestive derangement. And if in this
period the vomiting recurred daily it does not show
that Luther every day drank until he became nau
seated but merely that he was ill.
However, did not Luther once sign a letter with the
significant words: Doctor plenus? (the "full" Doc
tor). Fortunately the missive has been preserved in
the original. The word we find is naturaUy not
"plenus" but "Johannes," the name of little Hans
Luther, who is sending greetings to his sponsor. The
situation is the same in the famous confession in the
letter of the second of July, 1540, to his "Gracious
Lady of Zuelsdorf at the New Hog Market," in which
he says: "I am guttling like a Bohemian and toping
like a German, thanks be to God, Amen." The tone

212 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
of the whole document, and one must, of course, read
it in f uU, shows that we have here a playful exaggera
tion. This is, besides, proven abundantly from a simi
lar letter of the sixteenth of July to the same address.
The message is also extant in the original and we read
there: "Thank God we are here cheerful and weU,
glutting like Bohemians, though not very — and guz
zling like Germans, ^though not much, but we are
happy." So these proofs, also, lead us nowhere. There re
mains the "notorious verse": "Who loves not wine,
woman and song, remains a fool his whole life long."
This is, indeed, perhaps the most frequently cited ut
terance of Luther. However, it is not by Luther but
very probably originated with Johann Heinrich Voss.
The latter first published it in 1777 in theWandsbecker
Bote, and when pressed for the exact source of his
citation was not able to give it. It is possible that he
merely translated a rhymed Italian saying: "Who
loves not wine, women and song (canto) is either a
fool or a saint (santo)," and as a sworn adherent of
Enlightenment suppressed the saint. It may also be
that he made use of one of the Table Talks of Luther
which, however, was meant in quite another way. It
runs: "One must bear with the weaknesses of every
country: The Bohemians gluttonize, the Wends steal,
the Germans drink immoderately. For how would
you now excel a German, except it be in drinking, es
pecially one who does not love music and women?"
These "proofs," therefore, all of them do not bear up
under criticism, and others which are adduced besides

PERSONAL HABITS AND CHARACTER 213
have about the same value, as, for instance, the evi
dence about the supposed illegitimate son of Luther,
Andrew, who in reality was his nephew.
Luther never says that he had been intoxicated, and
no one ever saw him drunk, otherwise we would
surely know about it, for if ever a man hved in a glass
house it was Luther. This again naturally does not
prove that the Reformer was an anti-alcoholic. In
fact, Luther, as an advocate of prohibition would be
as much an unhistorical fantasy as Luther the
drunkard. When in August, 1540, he says: "I drink.
also, but not every person ought to try and imitate
me," when he says that God ought to give him credit
for occasionally taking a good draught in his honor,
and when he writes to a melancholiac : "I frequently
drink more copiously in order to vex the devil," this
all proves sufficiently that Luther was by no means
averse to a good drink. Without doubt he was very
fond of good wine, either the Jueterbock, Grueneberg,
Franconian, Rhenish or Rinvoglio vintage. Fur
thermore, he liked Torgau and Naumburg beer very
much though he was given this pleasure very rarely,
ordinarily he had to be satisfied with the murky and
not very excellent home brew of his severe spouse.
However, there were times when in the Black Clois
ter there was a dearth not only of beer but also of
money. Under those circumstances the Reformer
was, wiUy-niUy, forced to forego his accustomed bev
erage for forty days or more. And it really seems as
though this privation was not an easy matter for him.
For Luther valued beer in the first place as a diuretic,

214 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
secondly, as a remedy for his bad digestion — he made
medical observations about it at times — and finaUy,
as a narcotic. In his last years he suffered greatly
from insomnia so that "he had to seek his pillow and
bolster in the tankard." This explains why some par
ticularly conscientious investigators assiduously en
deavored to determine the amount of alcohol he im
bibed daily, and the maximum quantity which he on
special occasions was capable of consuming. How
ever, all such investigations and computations have so
far brought no results. This problem of research on
Luther will hence perhaps always remain unsolved
and will vex many an inquisitor in much the same
manner as the devil vexed Doctor Luther.
Luther the drunkard and toper, therefore, never
existed, and no one ever saw him intoxicated. Of aU
these accusations only the one fact remains that Lu
ther regularly drank his beer and was fond of good
wine, that on special occasions he loved to have a good
drink, and that in his age he was wont to combat in
somnia by taking "a more copious draught" in the
evening. We may fittingly doubt, however, that this
by no means overdue indulgence in alcoholic bever
ages was always good for his health. According to
present-day opinion, at least, only the alcohol which
they do not drink is beneficial to people who are nerv
ous and suffer from the stone. But the medical art
of the sixteenth century was still in the stage of com
plete scientific innocence. It had not the least notion
as yet of the harmful effects of this poison. There
fore, it also did not make the slightest effort to curb

PERSONAL HABITS AND CHARACTER 215
the use and abuse of spirituous beverages. On the
contrary, it advised copious drinking, without dis
tinction as to materials as a remedy for the stone.
Intemperance is, as a rule, combined with unbridled
sexual passion. This observation again is confirmed by
the Germans of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
Adultery was at the time so common in Germany and
was judged so leniently that even at Luther's table a
companion dared to broach the question, whether for-
nicatio simplex were a sin at all. Venereal disease was
for that very reason not held to be a stigma, but was
looked upon as a thoroughly respectable ailment, in
deed, as the disease of prominent people. Popes and
kings, princes, cardinals and bishops were thus af
flicted without feeling ashamed. Humanistic literati
unhesitatingly called upon the protection of the Vir
gin Mary against the danger of infection. In fact,
Hutten unconcernedly dedicated his treatise on the
symptoms and the cure of the disease to the Cardinal
Archbishop Albrecht of Mayence ; while the physician
Fracastaro inscribed his famous poem of hke content
to the papal prelate Bembo, and neither of the two
high church officials made any objections.
It is generally known how much the priests, monks
and nuns contributed to this corruption. The fact
that Luther came up from monastic ranks is there
fore in itself no proof at all for his moral integrity.
But it is also not permissible to reckon him among the
great number of black sheep without documentary
evidence. And Father Denifle does not make this
mistake. He believes himself in possession of a suffi-

216 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
cient number of proofs for the contention that Luther
was a wanton and at the same time a "urist," that is,
a person chronically afflicted with lust.
One of these confirmatory documents is the letter of
Luther to Spalatin written on the sixteenth of AprU,
1525. In it he says: "As for your remarks about my
marriage, do not be surprised that I do not marry,
seeing that I am such an exceedingly skilful lover. It
is still more remarkable that I who write so much con
cerning marriage and in this way have so much to do
with woman (sic misceor feminis) have not become
a woman long since, not to mention the fact that I
have not married a long time ago. Still, if you want
my example, you have the very best reason. For I
have had three wives at one time and loved them so
desperately that I have lost two of them again who
wiU now get other bridegrooms. As for the third,
I am hardly keeping hold of her by the left arm, she
too wiU perhaps soon be snatched from me. But you,
you are a slothful lover, you do not even venture to
become the husband of one wife."
An unbiased reader of these lines wiU immediately
see that here again the humorist Luther is speaking.
We know that the Reformer at this time already har
bored thoughts of marrying. Several chances were
open to him but he cared to accept neither. In this
sense he speaks jestingly of his three wives, in much
the same manner as Uncle Braesig of his three brides.
Pater Denifle, however, does not appreciate the joke.
He pins Luther down to the words: tres uxores simul
habui, and concludes therefrom: The dissolute person

PERSONAL HABITS AND CHARACTER 217
prior to his marriage lived in concubinage with three
nuns at the same time. This interpretation, he feels,
is justified by the expression misceor feminis a few
lines above, for five years earlier Luther uses the same
words in the sense which would, taken literally, lend
color to Denifle's interpretation. However, the strict
critic in this case did not carefully scrutinize Luther's
words. The Reformer writes: I who write so much
concerning women, et sic misceor feminis. This "sic"
shows clearly what Luther means: "I write so much
concerning marriage and in this wise have to do with
women." This evidence therefore does not fulfill what
it promises. However, there is seemingly a better proof, the let
ter of Melanchthon to Camerarius of the sixteenth of
June, 1525, which is known to us in the original only
for about three decades. "Luther married Bora un
expectedly without informing any of his friends of his
purpose. In the evening he invited only Pomeranus
(Bugenhagen, the city pastor of Wittenberg), the
painter Lucas Cranach and Dr. Apel for supper and
celebrated the wedding with the customary formali
ties. You will, perhaps, be surprised that at this un
happy juncture, when upright and right-thinking men
are everywhere being oppressed he is not also suffer
ing, but to aU appearance leads an easy life and en
dangers his reputation, notwithstanding that just now
Germany stands in need of all his wisdom and au
thority. It appears, however, that the occurrence can
be explained as follows: The man is very easily led,
and so the nuns who pursued him with all manner of

218 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
cunning have ensnared him. Perhaps aU this close
association with them has rendered him effeminate or
influenced his passions, noble and high-minded though
he is. He seems in this fashion to have been drawn
into the untimely change in his mode of life. It is
obvious, however, that the gossip concerning his pre
vious criminal intercourse with her (Bora) was a
falsehood. Now that the thing is done it is useless
to take it amiss or to find fault with it, for if I see
the situation aright nature impeUed him to matri
mony. Even though this mode of life is low, yet it is
holy and more pleasing to God than the unmarried
state. And since I see that Luther is somewhat sad
and troubled about this change in his way of living,
I seek very earnestly to encourage him by represent
ing to him that he has done nothing which in my opin
ion can be made a subject of reproach to him or which
he could not j ustif y. Besides, I have no lack of proofs
of his piety, so that a derogatory judgment about him
is out of place. In reahty I had always hoped that he
would experience some humiliation rather than that
he should be granted advancement and honor. For
the latter are dangerous not only for priests but for
all men. Since weU-being gives opportunity for base
sentiments to crop out, not only, as the orator
(Demosthenes) has said, in the case of the unlearned
but also with the wise. Also I am in hopes that the
married state will make him more dignified and that
he now wiU lay aside the buffoonery which "we so often
have criticized. For, as the old saw is, a different life
brings about a change in the mode of living. I am

PERSONAL HABITS AND CHARACTER 219
writing you so much in detail about this that you will
not permit yourself to be too much disconcerted by the
unexpected event. I know, of course, that you have
Luther's good name at heart and that you will be
pained if it is in any way besmirched. I exhort you to
bear this matter with patience, seeing that Holy Writ
says that marriage is to be highly esteemed. Very
probably nature impelled him also to marriage. God
has shown us by the numerous mistakes committed by
the saints in earlier ages that he wishes us to prove his
Word and not rely upon the reputation of any man •
but only on his Word. He would indeed be a wholly
godless person who on account of a false step of the
teacher condemns his teachings."
This letter mirrors a peculiarly discordant frame of
mind. The married state is low, but it is holy, never
theless. Luther by marrying has abased himself, com
mitted a blunder, but, on the other hand, he has done
nothing worthy of censure and must not be con
demned. What foUows from this? The writer is in a
passionate state of excitement; Luther's marriage
completely surprised him. He was never favorably
disposed toward it, especially not now in these trying
times of the great German Revolution. Besides, he
feels deeply hurt personally, because Luther under
took this important step without first saying a word
to him about his intentions. In this condition of mind
he speaks in hostile terms of Luther, scornfuUy of
Catharine von Bora, and permits suppositions about
the earlier history of the union to escape him which
are equaUy insulting to Luther and to Catharine von
Bora.

220 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
Therein lies the verdict on the historical value of
the letter. It is of interest as documentary proof of
Melanchthon's excitable frame of mind in that event
ful month of June of the year 1525. It is further sig
nificant as a new piece of evidence on the high tension
existing at the time between Luther and Melanchthon
on account of the controversy with Erasmus. The
suppositions about the previous history of the mar
riage of Luther, which Melanchthon himself stamps
as mere suppositions, carry no more weight than con
jectures by impassioned and malevolent critics other
wise. Had Melanchthon himself taken them at face
value it would be difficult to understand why his atti
tude changed so soon that he not only himself took
part in Luther's public wedding festival on the twen
ty-seventh of June, but on his own responsibility in a
note of the twentieth or twenty-first of that month in
vited Wenzel Link to attend the ceremony, even in
serting a jest about Jerome Baumgaertner, Catha
rine's old suitor. Besides, we have very peculiar
proofs from other situations of what Melanchthon was
capable of in moments of excitement. They are his
letter to the papal legate Campeggio from the days of
the Diet at Augsburg, and his missive to the Saxon
Minister von Carlowitz from the period of the Augs
burg Interim. The letter cited above must be placed
on the same level with these, for it certainly is not
evidence of spiritual greatness.
Hence we wUl do weU not to employ Magister
Philippus but Luther himself as crown witness for the
earlier history of his marriage. He not infrequently

PERSONAL HABITS AND CHARACTER 221
spoke also about this episode of his hfe with his
characteristic frankness. He wished to marry, in the
first place, in order to fulfill a wish of his aged father,
secondly, that he might honor holy wedlock by personal
example on his part also, thirdly, in order to anger the
Papists. AU these ends he fully achieved. That he
was not "wood and stone" over against the fair sex
he openly confessed in a letter to Spalatin of the thir
tieth of November, 1524. However, this feeling was
not so strong that for this reason alone he felt a desire
to marry. This he directly declares to be out of the
question in that same letter. And since at the time he
was already forty-two years old there is no reason
whatever to doubt his testimony. It is more likely
that he was partly impelled to this decision by a "long
ing for a regulated home life," which at his age is a
much more natural feeling than youthful infatuation.
For his bachelor existence in the Black Cloister was
not exactly an enviable one. In the last year before
his marriage, for instance, he had no one to take care
of his bed. He therefore always slept in an unmade
bed so that finally, the bedclothes and the straw began
to decay. "I knew nothing of this, for I was tired,
having worked hard the whole day, and simply
dropped into bed," he himself tells his table compan
ions in 1540.
Luther also did not fail to answer the question why
he finally decided on Catharine von Bora. Catharine
had for nearly two years harbored a sincere affection
for a young Niirnberg patrician, Jerome Baumgaert
ner. But since she was desperately poor the practical

222 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
young man finally dissolved the relationship. Luther,
who had zealously furthered the match now tried with
his characteristic energy to persuade the deserted
young lady to marry Pastor Glatz of Orlamuende.
Catharine vigorously opposed the project, in fact, one
day she told Professor Amsdorf in so many words:
Him or Luther she would marry, but Glatz never.
This very frank declaration, as far as we know, first
gave Luther the idea of paying court to the not very
sympathetic Saxon noblewoman, and as he drasticaUy
enough says "to take pity on the deserted young
woman." There is, therefore, absolutely nothing romantic
about this marriage which has created more of a stir
than any other union of which we know. Hence it is
ridiculous when even to-day the forty-two-year-old
bridegroom is represented as an infatuated student
of twenty, and the bride who was twenty-seven and
had just overcome the effects of an unrequited love
is set down as an enthusiastic young girl of seventeen.
Romance ever remained absent from the wedded life
of this mature couple. The prematurely aging and
always ailing husband and the very active, energetic,
prudent and not uneducated wife were soon sincerely
attached to each other and lived in very harmonious
and faithful wedlock. But one seeks in vain in their
wedded life for the sickly sentimentality and extrava
gance of feeling which later ages regarded as the in
dispensable sign of a successful marriage. If the
"wholesome philistinism" of the German national
character, which strikes the foreigner as so strange and

PERSONAL HABITS AND CHARACTER 223
yet was always a source of strength for Germany,
becomes manif est anywhere it is in the wedlock of the
Reformer. That a monk hke Father Denifle should be shocked
by Luther's naive utterances about his wedded bliss,
and that he sees in the concubinage of the celibate
priests "a less serious transgression" than in this "sta
ble relationship" (haison) , which the Protestants call
Luther's "married hfe," is not surprising. A monk is
not quite competent to judge such matters ; he is likely
to be without the candor toward that which is natural •
and thus unable to give an objective opinion. Any
one who reads the naive confessions of the married
Luther with an unprejudiced mind discovers nowhere
the Luther whom Denifle has branded as a "urist"
and wUl detect in the annals of this marriage which
has been maligned in such an unutterably base and
vile manner absolutely nothing exceptional. Fur
thermore, he will be unable to regard the incredible
"jokes" of the priest Cochlaeus and of his fellow in
spirit, the writer Lemnius, as merely "crude realism"
but wiU look upon them only as the product of a hope
lessly degenerate imagination.
AU this, however, does not yet exhaust the catalogue
of the sins of Doctor Martinus. The urist, pornog-
rapher, ribald, drunkard, glutton and crass igno
ramus lastly reveals himself besides as a common for
ger and har. In this guise also the Reformer is not
now presented to the world for the first time. Even
during his hfetime he was frequently branded as a
falsifier of the Bible. He personally answered this

224 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
charge briefly in his telhng "Open Letter on the Art
of Translating" of the year 1530. Father Denifle
does not take up this accusation. From the point of
view of confessional polemics this point is so thor
oughly settled that it is hopeless to say any more about
it or bring about an understanding between the
parties. Denifle, however, believes that he has caught the
"rogue" at a considerable number of forgeries. He,
in fact, does prove that Luther occasionally cites ec
clesiastical writers incorrectly, and that he sometimes
draws far-reaching conclusions from wrong quota
tions. He might have considerably increased the
number of these proofs, so large is the list of incorrect
citations in the works of the Reformer. What fol
lows from this? In the first place only the fact that
Luther worked rapidly and ofttimes did not take the
trouble of verifying his references. At times also he
was forced to depend altogether on his memory, as,
for instance, in the treatise "On the Monastic Vows"
of 1521-22, which Denifle has particularly torn to
pieces by bis criticism. For this work was written at
the Wartburg where Luther had no library at his com
mand. That also his memory was not always ac
curate, that at times he erred greatly, that occasion
ally he altogether misunderstood the writers whom he
consulted is a weakness which he shares with very
famous scholars, for instance, with Father Denifle.
As httle, however, as anyone now would designate the
errors of Father Denifle as forgeries, so little is any
one justified in denying that the erring Luther pos-

PERSONAL HABITS AND CHARACTER 225
sessed the bona fides, especially since Luther had to
work much more rapidly and commanded a much
poorer scientific apparatus than a modern scholar.
If then the Reformer was not a forger, did he not
assume an equivocal attitude toward the behests of
truthfulness, and did he not himself flagrantly trans
gress this commandment ? Indeed, he did not hesitate
to declare that "white lies" were theoretically permis
sible, and in one famous case he directly demanded
such a white he. These are facts which are fixed be
yond a doubt. But let us in this instance also first hear •
the accused before we indulge in the supreme enjoy
ment of a sensation of moral indignation.
Luther terms those lies "white lies" which are told in
the interest and for the love of one's fellow man, as
for instance the false statement made by the Egyptian
midwives for the benefit of the Hebrew child which
Pharaoh had commanded them to throw into the Nile.
( Ex. 1 : 18, 19. ) Some of the theologians of the primi
tive church, as, for instance, Hilary, John Chrysostom
and Cassian, had in their day declared such falsehoods
to be unobjectionable. Augustine, however, followed
by Thomas Aquinas (Summa II, 2, 110) and his
school, asserted that they were sinful. However, these
latter teachers always regarded this type of falsehood
as a hght sin, and on the other hand held the prudent
conceahng of the truth, the act of dissimulation, to be
permissible. Other theologians believed that under certain cir
cumstances it was a greater sin to say the truth than
to tell a "white lie." For according to their view God

226 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
unconditionally forbids only the lie which works harm
(mendacium adversus proximum prohibet), while he
merely curbs the white lie. (Pro proximo cohibet.)
Luther joined this latter view but in so doing he went
his own way in some respects though he employed
almost the same examples to make his point clear.
He noted that the holy patriarchs in the Bible oc
casionally made use of this type of falsehood without
being censured by the sacred writers for their con
duct. In fact, it seemed to him as though even Paul,
Christ and God himself had at times not said exactly
what they meant. To Luther this proved the ad
missibility not of the common emergency he (Not-
luege), but of the utility lie (Nutzluege) , that is, the
falsehood which is told for the benefit and good of
one's fellow man.
No Protestant of to-day will further sanction this
method of proof. That, however, does not prove
that the Reformer was wrong in the matter itself. In
fact, most ethical writers even now think substan
tially as he did, if we except a few rigorists. These
latter, however, are, because of their principles, only
too often in the greater and lesser troubles of this hfe
placed in a dilemma. This is shown by the example
of their leader, Immanuel Kant, who in theory sol
emnly condemns every kind of falsehood as base, but
in practice was himself "base" enough to permit him
self such a "baseness" — namely, an amphiboly, a men
tal reservation, that is, a common, ordinary white lie.
What is more, he did this in a "most solemn" declara
tion to King Frederick William II of Prussia whom

PERSONAL HABITS AND CHARACTER 227
he greets "most devotedly." (The Conflict of the
Faculties, Introduction, ed. by Rosenkranz, vii., p.
257.) However, notwithstanding the fact that the Re
former exhibited a more correct judgment on this
point than the great sage of Koenigsberg, it is still
very much an open question whether in the one famous
case where Luther demanded a white lie he was mor-
aUy justified in so doing. For in this renowned in
stance it was not a question of averting, but of hush
ing up "a manifest crime," namely, the keeping secret
of the "Turkish marriage" which the Landgrave
Philip of Hesse had on the fourth of March, 1540, at
Rothenburg on the Fulda contracted with Margaret
von der Saale. The only question is, did Luther re
gard this Turkish marriage as a manif est crime, and
did he not perhaps even look upon its concealment as
necessary for moral reasons?
As far as the first part of this question is concerned
it has long ago been determined that for many years
prior to the affair of the Hessian marriage the Re
former held bigamy to be permissible. As early as
1520, in the treatise on the Babylonian Captivity,
Luther publicly avows that he would sooner give his
consent to a double marriage than to the severance of
a union legaUy existing before God. And in keeping
with this attitude he, since 1520, ever again confesses,
not only in confidential arbitraments but also in some
pronouncements intended for the public in general,
that polygamy is not forbidden to Christians by the
New Testament. He holds that in serious emergencies,

228 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
for instance, if the wife contracts leprosy or is in some
other way taken from her husband, he cannot be hin
dered from taking a second spouse. However, this
permission ought always remain confined to such seri
ous emergencies. The idea of legahzing polygamy
ever remained foreign to the Reformer. He always
considered monogamy as the regular form of wedlock,
though he did not until later emphatically state that
it alone was fully and completely in accordance with
the divine order of the universe. Only on one point
did Luther change his opinion in the course of time,
namely, on the question whether a husband in the
emergencies mentioned ought to enter upon a second
union publicly, or whether he ought to do so secretly.
In September, 1531, Luther still regarded it as per
missible that King Henry VIII of England should
marry Anne Boleyn as his second wife and queen.
Later he would have dispensation granted for such
a secondary union only if the same were kept a strict
secret. Luther never left his hearers or readers in doubt as
to how he arrived at these views, which to us seem so
strange. Abraham certainly was a true Christian and
a man filled with the Holy Spirit who, nevertheless,
lived a polygamous life. Hence this form of marriage
cannot be directly contrary to divine law. Further
more, the gospel, since it contains revelations of God
which have reference only to the inner life, has not
canceUed the permissions of the law of Moses in this
respect. Therefore, even to-day the Christian laity
cannot be prohibited from making use of this conces-

PERSONAL HABITS AND CHARACTER 229
sion but only, and Luther emphasizes this point, the
Christian laity. The clergy have, according to I Tim.
3:2, been expressly bidden to be content with one wife.
These statements of the Reformer roused attention
very soon. His old adversary Cochlaeus assailed him
on this account as early as 1528, and the authors of
the Cathohc Confutation intended to protest openly
against these views at the Diet of Augsburg in 1530.
However, did Luther stand alone in this matter? By
no means. Melanchthon, Butzer, Karlstadt and
Capito shared his opinion, while the Anabaptists even*
legaUy introduced polygamy in Muenster on the
twenty-third of July, 1534. In the Catholic camp
itself there was by no means a dearth of men who
held similar opinions on this question. Cardinal Ca
jetan, for instance, believed that the Pope could grant
dispensation for bigamy, and in the marriage negotia
tions of Henry VIII, he expressly advised Clement
VII to make use of this power in order to obviate
more- serious trouble. The Pope, accordingly, in the
consistory laid before the cardinals the question
whether a dispensation of this sort were permissible
or not. They replied in the negative. From aU this
it is evident that the discussion on the admissibility of
bigamy was not broached for the first time by the
double marriage of the Landgrave. Quite to the con
trary, it had been in progress for a long time when
PhUip entered upon his Turkish marriage. Indeed,
it was this very discussion which first gave him the
idea of seeking a remedy for moral and domestic
misery in this unusual manner.

230 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
Philip had married in 1523 when he was nineteen
years old. The wife selected for him was, however,
unable in the least to gain his affections. In fact, she
was so repugnant to him that he seems to have con
ceived the plan of a second marriage as early as 1526.
However, Luther's faithful admonition and advice
induced him to give up the idea for the present. But
his physical antipathy toward his unamiable spouse
rather increased with the years, and his hot blood again
and again seduced him. The results did not fail to
appear. At the beginning of 1539 he feU seriously iU.
In this condition he "meditated on many things." It
became clear to him that he would ruin his body and
soul if he continued his former mode of life. Also it
had become plain to him long ago that he lacked the
moral strength to remain continent, and that much
less could he again become interested in his wife. He
deemed it necessary, therefore, after all "to make use
of the permission in the law of Moses which neither
Christ nor the Apostles had abolished" and to take
unto himself another wife, and thus "before God and
his own conscience to improve his position."
However, he did not firmly make up his mind until
in September, 1539, in the "woman's apartments" of
his sister, the Duchess Elizabeth of Saxony, he made
the acquaintance of the seventeen-year-old Fraiilein
Margaret von der Saale from Schoenfeld in Masovia.
This young lady he chose as his second wife. Though
after the custom of the day he acquainted her with his
purpose, he in the beginning entered on serious nego
tiations in the matter only with her mother, the "Hof-

PERSONAL HABITS AND CHARACTER 231
meisterin" Anna von der Saale. After some hesita
tion she acceded to his wishes but imposed upon him
a number of rather inconvenient conditions. She
deemed it best that the new marriage be immediately
recognized publicly. If this were found to be impos
sible, the prince was at least to acquaint a number of
noblemen, a few "scholars," the Elector and the Duke
Maurice of Saxony with the fact, and to see to it that
the marriage ceremony was performed in the presence
of the electoral and ducal emissaries and of no less
than two theologians of note, be they Luther, Me- •
lanchthon or Butzer. Under all circumstances the
Landgrave was to procure for her a testimony from
several scholars to the effect that his project did not
conflict with divine ordinance. While the Duch
ess felt that Luther's consent would be desirable, she
did not regard it as absolutely necessary.
Philip might hope to reduce these demands some
what by further parley. But unless he wished at the
very outset to give up his plan, he would at least have
to try to comply with the wishes of the "Hofmeis-
terin." Therefore, all his actions in the next months
are dominated by the desire to fulfill the conditions
proposed by the prudent and ambitious woman. It
is possible that he never frankly confessed this to him
self. At any rate he maintained absolute silence about
the affair even toward his most confidential advisers,
and from the first, without any indication of his real
purpose, he endeavored in a roundabout way to win
over all those persons who had been named to him by
the "Hofmeisterin." First he addressed himself to

232 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
Butzer, then, while this theologian was on his way to
Saxony, he approached his wife, and finally, after she
had on the seventeenth of December, 1539, consented
and the reply from Saxony had arrived (after the
middle of this month) , he turned to his own theologians
and jurists.
What was the nature of the representations made
for him in Wittenberg by Butzer in order that he
might win over Luther and Melanchthon and what did
these two reformers reply? In the first place, Philip
gave an impressive account of the inner misery from
which he was suffering because of his unhappy union
with the Landgravine and because of the immoral life
which that union conditioned. Further, he asserted
that in order to free himself from this mire and the
toils of the devil "he would feign make use of the
means" which God had permitted and marry another
wife. In view of these premises he then requested
from the reformers, wholly in keeping with the wishes
of the Duchess von der Saale, a public testimony in
favor of bigamy. Should this be impossible, and
should the step he proposed to take for the present
have to remain a secret, he asked that he be at least
given a "testimony for his personal use" to the effect
that his project was not contrary to divine ordinance.
What of necessity were the Wittenberg theologians
led to conclude from this and from the affecting ac
count of his troubles of conscience in the first part of
his instructions? Certainly this, that he was in need
of such a certificate in order to definitely assure him
self whether his plan was contrary to God's will or

PERSONAL HABITS AND CHARACTER 233
not. But was this really the case? Not at all. Per
sonally he had thrown aside all scruples, and was so
firmly convinced that it was permissible for him to
wed the bride he had chosen that early in November,
even before he had consulted Butzer, he sent his own
physician to Wurttemberg to purchase wine for the
coming nuptials ! He was therefore in reality no more
in need of a "testimony for his personal use." He re
quired such a document only for the purpose of get
ting the final consent of his prospective mother-in-law.
Of this, however, he prudently said not a word nor
did he mention the fact that he had long ago chosen
his new wife, and that he had for months been nego
tiating about the terms of the marriage. Hence he^
consciously deceived Luther. He deluded him, be
cause he knew very weU that Doctor Martinus "was
difficult to lead and more difficult to drive, but that
he was set in motion automaticaUy whenever he was
told that the matter in question was one of danger to
God's Word, or dealt with troubles of conscience."
However, Philip practised deception on Luther not
only in this regard. He also withheld from him the
fact that he had once before kept a concubine, and
that consequently, according to Luther's opinion,
which he knew perfectly well, he was bound and not in
a position any more to make a free choice.
The answer of the Wittenberg theologians, given
the tenth of December, 1539, is entirely in accord with
the impression which they necessarily derived and
were meant to derive from the propositions of Philip.
They grant him no pubhc certificate, but merely "a

234 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
testimony and memorandum for himself," that is, a
confessional advice. Therein they set forth at great
length that, though the contracting of a second mar
riage was permissible according to God's Word, it
was possible only in serious emergencies and solely
under the confessional seal and upon dispensation by
the competent pastor. They leave it to the Landgrave
to decide whether he is in such an emergency. "They
do not at all mean to incite or urge him on." On the
contrary, they earnestly admonish him to be patient in
his present wedded life and to avoid giving offense.
Nevertheless, in order that he might occupy a better
position before God and his conscience they finally, in
very guarded terms, granted him dispensation under
the confessional seal to enter upon a second marriage.
This second marriage is, however, always to remain a
secret. The prince is merely to have the right under
the confessional seal of advising the bride and a few
intimates that the union is a regular marriage and not
mere concubinage.
We can readily understand why the Countess von
der Saale was "sorely troubled" over this confessional
counsel, and that the Landgrave was put to no little
pains in order to calm her. He was forced to send
emissaries to Saxony twice after this before she was
satisfied. The confessional advice therefore failed
of its purpose. Not this counsel, but Philip's assur
ance that "bigamy was to be permitted also to others,"
finaUy moved the valiant "Hofmeisterin" to give her
consent. Now for the first time, in February, 1540,
also Margaret von der Saale was told about the re
solve of her mother and the Landgrave.

PERSONAL HABITS AND CHARACTER 235
Phihp was even now still very solicitous of carrying
out the wishes of the "dear Hofmeisterin." In ac
cordance with his promise he under some pretext lured
the unsuspecting Melanchthon to Rothenburg on the
Fulda that he might be present at the wedding.
Thereupon on the fourth of March in direct violation
of the confessional advice he had his union with Mar
garet solemnly blessed by the Church. Lastly, in
order to ease the mind of his new mother-in-law he
handed over to her, together with other important
documents, also a copy of the confessional advice.
The ambitious lady, therefore, had due cause to be
satisfied with him.
Detailed information about all these occurrences
did not reach Luther before the end of May, 1540.
Not untU then, too, did he find out that the prince had
once before contracted an irregular union. This lat
ter fact enraged him so that he declared: "Had I
known this not even an angel from heaven could have
induced me to give such advice." He now saw clearly
that PhUip had gained the dispensation surrepti
tiously by a misrepresentation of the facts, and he was
quite wUling to admit his "error" publicly, that is,
to pronounce the confessional advice null and void.
But, despite all this, how could Luther consistently
assert that this counsel had in itself been correct, and
further, adhere to the conviction that every Evan
gelical pastor was empowered in case of emergency
under the confessional seal to permit a secret second
marriage? How in general did he hit upon the pe
culiar notion so downright intolerable for Protestant

236 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
feeling that a clergyman might secretly permit a
thing which in secular and ecclesiastical law is rightly
prohibited; that a pastor in the confessional had the
right of determining what a layman might or might
not do, and that in this wise he had the duty, as mentor
of consciences, to guide his parishioners? This atti
tude is indeed more than peculiar. At the first glance,
in fact, it is absolutely unintelligible, especiaUy in the
case of the father of Protestantism. He himself has,
in a measure, solved the riddle for us.
In July, 1540, Luther candidly acknowledged to
the Elector of Saxony that in his opinion this affair
was not the business of a public secular court, but per
tained purely to the confessional, and that for this
reason he had in his advice followed exactly the same
procedure which in similar questions of the confes
sional he had observed in use while he was stiU a mem
ber of the Papal Church. He contends, furthermore,
that bis preceptor in the monastery,- who had to deal
with many such cases, had also employed the same
methods. Luther, therefore, formaUy justifies himself by
pointing to mediaeval confessional practice and
would have his action judged according to the rules
and principles familiar to him from his monastic ca
reer. But was he, as he claims, really guided by these
rules and principles? In all his utterances on the
question of marriage he always presupposes the dif
ference between natural and divine law on the one
hand and positive law on the other. That is good
mediaeval doctrine. Further, he takes it for granted

PERSONAL HABITS AND CHARACTER 237
that there are certain "concessions of God" which are
contrary to natural law but which, because they are
testified to in Scripture, ought, as permissible actions,
still be respected in modern times. This again is truly
mediaeval. Thirdly, Luther concludes from this that
the father confessor has the right to secretly grant
dispensation for acts which are forbidden by secular
and ecclesiastical law. The sole condition is that such
actions must be "permissible" either according to nat
ural law or in the sight of God.
In substance this is nothing more than the mediae- '
val doctrine of the dispensatio in foro interno tantum.
And on the basis of this point of view Luther himself
grants to the Landgrave such a dispensatio in foro
interno tantum, thereby assuming the right of guiding
the conscience of the prince quite in the manner of a
Cathohc father confessor. That is, his confessional
advice is, in truth, a product of the mediaeval logic of
the confessional, or, putting it in other words, the
father confessor of former days in this grave affair
won out over the Reformer.
A single phase of his proceeding is noteworthy and
viewed from the angle of the present-day Cathohc at
titude objectionable, that is, that Luther felt empow
ered to grant such a dispensatio in foro interno tan
tum even in case of bigamy. However, we have seen
above that at the time also a cardinal of the Roman
Church, Cajetan, regarded such a dispensation as
permissible and that even a pope held this view to be
open for discussion. The confessional advice of the
tenth of December, 1539, is, therefore, nothing more

238 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
than a classical proof for the continuance of the medi
aeval Catholic confessional practice within the con
fines of Lutheranism. And it is by no means the first
evidence of this kind. Luther himself tells us that he
repeatedly gave such dispensations to others also.
Thus, for example, he says that he had advised several
clergymen in the Duchy of Saxony to secretly wed
their housekeepers in first marriage, a thing they had
no right to do according to the laws of the state. Lu
ther consequently strangely enough never deemed it
wrong to act as "father confessor," to counsel and
guide the consciences. Furthermore, in doing so he
unhesitatingly followed the rules which he had been
taught in the monastery as though such practice were
as self-evident for an Evangehcal pastor as for a
Catholic priest.
Small wonder, therefore, that throughout his life
he defended with equal unconcern also the mediaeval
Catholic teaching about the inviolabihty of the con
fessional, and regardlessly asserted its consequences
under all circumstances. Proof of this is again the
Hessian marriage.
The secret of Rothenburg did not long remain a
secret. The sister of the Landgrave, quite naturally
incensed over the hes her brother had told her, soon
revealed the affair in March, 1540. The court at
Dresden instantly and eagerly took up the matter,
seeing therein a chance to make a good bargain, and
on the second of June had the new mother-in-law of
Philip arrested forthwith. In the course of these pro
ceedings several of the incriminatory documents which

PERSONAL HABITS AND CHARACTER 239
the lady had received at Rothenburg came to light.
In these sore straits Philip requested permission from
his allies to announce his new marriage in due form,
and in order to render them amenable he plainly
threatened to publish the Wittenberg confessional ad
vice. Luther, however, was not for a moment intimi
dated by this threat. He opposed the wishes of the
Landgrave with all his might. At the Eisenach con
ference in July, 1540, he unconditionally demanded
from the Hessian mediators that the prince make a
public and straight denial of the existence of his new.
union. Indeed, he requested that in order to silence
the gossipers, Philip teU a straight untruth, or a
utility lie (white lie) . Should he, in spite of all, per
sist in making public the confessional advice, he would
write against him and confess openly that he, Luther,
had erred, that is, he would declare the counsel in
valid. Philip has often been praised for answering to this
demand which was made upon him also by Butzer
and by the electoral court of Saxony: "I will not lie,
for hes sound badly ; besides, no Apostle ever taught
a Christian to speak untruth, indeed, Christ has ex
plicitly forbidden it and said that one ought to abide
by Yes and No." However, the Landgrave certainly
did not deserve this commendation ; for how often and
brazenly had he not in this affair lied to his own sister!
Furthermore, was he in reality ready to abide by Yes
and No? "If some one should ask me about the mat
ter," he says in the same breath, "I wiU make him a
dark answer," that is, putting it in plain English, mis
lead the inquirer.

240 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
However, though we have no right to set up the
Landgrave as a model of virtue over against Doctor
Martinus the fact remains that Luther counseled him
to tell a falsehood. The only question is: How did
Luther come by this "criminal idea"? He personally
always replies briefly and laconically: Because we
have to deal here with a confessional advice. He holds
that just as it is not permitted the father confessor to
divulge any part of what he learns in the confessional
so also the penitent is in duty bound to observe sUence
about the advice obtained in the confession. Likewise,
as the father confessor may, under certain circum
stances, be forced to swear a false oath in order to
guard the sanctity of the confessional, so also the
confessing penitent is under certain conditions held
to protect this secrecy by a "straight white he."
Is this point of view after aU as unusual as it is
ordinarily represented to be? No. At present still
Catholic theologians teach: "Also the penitent is
obliged to observe natural secrecy on aU those mat
ters, which he cannot divulge without inflicting an
unjust injury upon the father confessor." At the
very time of Luther, in fact, the theologians in
whose views he had been brought up, the Moderns
or the Okkamists, claimed that whoever tells tales
out of confession commits a mortal sin. This, self-
evidently, for confessional practice, led to the con
clusion: Therefore one ought sooner advise the
confessing penitent to tell an untruth than to
break the sacredness of the confessional. For the
white lie is merely a vernal sin and consequently is

PERSONAL HABITS AND CHARACTER 241
directly advisable in such a case in order to avoid a
greater evil. What follows from this? Luther's de
mand for a white lie is merely a result of the doctrine
of the Okkamists about the inviolability of the con
fessional, to which he always adhered.
However, this does not yet fully clear up the situa
tion. We may ask : Had the Landgrave really confessed
to Luther, and was the latter therefore in reality em
powered over against him to call upon the old Catho
lic tenets about the confessional seal? Indeed, a "sac
ramental confession" had in this case not taken place. ,
But, according to Catholic doctrine, this was not and
is not now at all necessary in order to furnish a basis
for the plea of sacramental secrecy. "If any person,
merely for the purpose of securing confessional ad
vice, reveals to the father confessor the state of his
conscience the duty of sacramental secrecy is thereby
imposed." ( Gury : Moraltheologie II, 648, 3. )
All these facts help us to understand why the Re
former never felt any qualms of conscience about the
affair of the Hessian marriage. It was very hard for
Luther to grant dispensation for bigamy to the Land
grave, but he was convinced that he was empowered to
do so, since bigamy in case of necessity was allowed by
God. Furthermore, deceived by the false statements
of Philip, he believed that his case was one involving
such a necessity. Later on in order to guard the con
fessional seal he advised a white lie. Here again, how
ever, he felt that he had a moral right to do so. For
he looked upon breach of confessional secrecy as a
serious crime, to avert which he deemed a white lie

242 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
just as permissible as for the avoidance of murder or
homicide. Consequently, Luther did only what other
wise also he regarded as his right and duty as a con
fessor. Unfortunately, as the documents show, he never
took into account the political phase of the affair, and
as usual never even dreamed of the consequences
which his actions might have for his own reputation.
Unhappily, he judged the whole matter only from the
narrow perspective of the confessional, and from out
of an honest desire to assist a seemingly despairing
man to a better standing before God and his con
science. He utterly forgot, as so often, that he had
long ere this laid aside the cowl of the priest. If this
be taken into account one may still deplore the stand
Luther took in the Hessian marriage tangle, but one
cannot condemn it, much less use it to prove the moral
inferiority of his new religious principles. For with
these new tenets it has nothing whatever to do. On
the contrary, it is an after effect of the old mediaeval
Catholic teachings, and the classical proof how
strongly at times still his earlier habits of thought and
the pastoral methods of the old faith influenced Lu
ther's actions even after he had long broken away from
them in principle.
The Reformer himself often emphatically declared:
"My person anyone who wishes may attack, I do not
pose as a saint." Both his contemporaries and the
later world eagerly accepted this invitation, as though
humanity had no more urgent concern than to burn
this heretic in effigy after his death, at least, since un-

PERSONAL HABITS AND CHARACTER 243
fortunately neither Pope nor Emperor were able to
bring him to the rack or the stake during his life. And
what are the net results of the heresy trial which has
now been dragging on for three hundred and ninety-
five years? The proceedings must be quashed. For
most of the charges brought against the defendant
have turned out to be crude falsehoods, others cannot
be upheld because the accused manifestly acted in
good faith. This is above all true of the Hessian con
fessional advice and of his insulting remarks about
the Papacy. ,
Does this close the case of Luther? By no means.
So far it has only been proven that the advocate of the
devU has no claim upon this man even though he was
not a saint, and that the accused during his whole hfe
labored under the hindering influences which educa
tion and environment exert upon the thought and ac
tion even of the strongest, most mature and most
independent human beings. But by no means have
we thus gained a clear picture of the whole, the real
Luther. For the whole Luther one never learns
to know if one permits his accusers to prescribe
the course of observation. The complete Luther re
veals himself only to him who meets him face to face,
and undeterred by friend or enemy permits the per
sonality of the Reformer to act upon himself in aU its
fullness and strength. Therefore, the negative result
of almost four centuries of trial necessitates a positive
supplement. The supplying of this missing phase,
however, may be left to the reader. Only this must
stiU be pointed out that only if one makes an unbiased

244 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
study of the whole Luther do the failings and weak
nesses which his accusers play up so vividly appear in
the proper projections.
This is especially true if, for the sake of justice, all
the other members of that chosen race, among whose
number by his talent and historical effectiveness he
must be counted, are placed side by side with him,
those great prophets and heroes of Christian history
whose lot it also was in continuous struggle against a
world of hindrances to assist to victory new under
standing or a new order of things : Paul and Athana
sius, Bernard of Clairvaux and Savonarola, Calvin
and John Knox, Cromwell and Bismarck. AU these
men, exactly like Luther, inclined to explosions of
passion and to a certain intolerance of the opinion of
others, and with all of them this hyper-irritability is
explained by the tremendous tension of their emo
tional life resulting from the exclusive devotion to a
purpose which could only be achieved by dint of con
tinual wrestling with hostile powers.
Only one family characteristic of this august race
which was, for instance, particularly strongly devel
oped in Bismarck: The often rather brutal lack of
consideration toward persons about them, seems not
to have been so sharply expressed in Luther. But it
was present, nevertheless. This is sufficiently evi
denced by the energetic manner in which he tries to
compel Catharine von Bora against her will to marry
Pastor Glatz, and the tenacity with which he at
tempted to force Melanchthon into the theological
faculty. Luckily Catharine was herself a very forceful

PERSONAL HABITS AND CHARACTER 245
nature. She not only opposed him, she also under
stood later on so nobly and firmly to maintain her
ground as Doctoress in the Black Cloister that half
in jest, half in admiration Luther referred to her not
only as his "Kette" (=Chain — Katie) but also as his
"Master Katie."
Though Melanchthon also possessed the courage of
passive resistance when the imputations of Luther
became too exacting, he never once found the courage
to openly chaUenge the mighty Doctor. On the con
trary, he purposely avoided any discussion of the the
ological differences which separated him from the
aging "Pericles," kept his peace, was pliant and sub
missive hke a timid pupil who is at all times in fear
of a blow from the teacher's rod. No wonder, there
fore, that his life by the side of the master whom in
spite of aU he heartily revered, finally seemed to him
downright slavery, and that he breathed as one liber
ated when the powerful dark eyes which had made him
tremble had closed forever. But the blame for this mar
tyrdom rests not with Luther but with Melanchthon
himself. Magister Philippus himself confessed that
he was by nature somewhat subservient and behaved
hke a slave. One who has such tendencies, however,
must, if he is chosen as the helpmate of one greater
than he, either wholly give up any pretensions at in
dependence, or he must in time make his escape from
the oppressively rare atmosphere in the heights where
genius thrives to the plains where the great herd
grazes in comfort. It is truly tragic that the timid
Magister Philippus could not make up his mind to
either course.

246 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
Even more tragic after all is the fate of Luther.
Already many of those who had worked with him and
fought by his side since the opening of the year 1522
had turned away from Luther to become his most bit
ter enemies, first, Thomas Miinzer and Karlstadt,
then Balthasar Hubmaier, Zwingli, Oecolampadius,
Schwenckf eld and Sebastian Franck. Now at the end
of his days he also lost spiritual contact with the most
gifted and oldest of his personal pupils without find
ing a new friend who might supply what he now
lacked, namely, the truly fruitful intimate intercourse
with minds at least in a measure his equal. For the
greatest of his spiritual sons, who seemed more than
any other destined to supplement him, John Calvin,
in spite of a cordial admiration for him, ever remained
strange to Luther. And though among the loyal
group which swore by him there were many excellent
and learned men of strong character, there was not
one who had the gift of overcoming the one-sidedness
of the master, and thereby to regain for Lutheranism
the leadership of the Evangelical movement.

CHAPTER VIII.
The Background of Luther's Life and Religion.
T UTHER wrote several thousand books and book-
¦L' lets. All of them, however, more or less bear
the character of occasional pamphlets. Not one pro
vides a complete much less a systematic survey even
of his religious and theological ideas, let alone a clear
presentation of all the conclusions he derived from
these for the ordering of personal and communal hfe.
Not a single one furnishes a clear view of the premises
regarding the theory of knowledge with which he
starts out, nor of the fundamental tenets and prac
tical ideas which determine his judgments on eco
nomic, social, political and pedagogical problems.
It was not Luther but Melanchthon who first un
dertook the obvious task of briefly summarizing the
basic ideas of the Evangelical message. Considering
that it is the first attempt of its kind this survey is
unquestionably a splendid achievement. Neverthe
less, the systematist finds in it much, indeed very
much, that is faulty. To Luther, however, it seemed
whoUy adequate, indeed, it was in his eyes an unsur
passable classic, canonic achievement, transcending all
his own works in value and usefulness for the pubhc.
This is proof sufficient that his demands in this respect
were not very exacting. It also shows that he by no
means regarded "the fine coiffure of the system" as a
247

248 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
superfluous decoration, but quite to the contrary as an
indispensable requisite of theological thinking. It
further indicates that only because he felt unequal to
the task he refrained from personally shouldering this
useful and necessary burden.
In truth, Luther appeared to be much less fitted for
just such work than the httle Magister Philippus be
cause of the very peculiarity of his early training. As
a pupil of the "Moderns" he had learned to think and
criticize, but he had never been trained to pay atten
tion to the connection between religious and theo
logical concepts, to organize and bring them into rela
tion with one another, or even merely to coUate them.
Indeed, whatever inclination of this kind he may have
had had been driven out of him in his youth by the
purely critical methods of the Moderns, which dis
solved the dogmas of the Church into innumerable in
dividual problems.
To be sure, the claim has recently been made that
the traditional verdict on the unsystematic character
of his thinking does not comport with the facts. It
is said that though he did not start out with the inten
tion of formulating a system he, nevertheless, did pos
sess one, and at that a system "which in characteristic
doctrines is distinctly noteworthy for its strict logical
consistency." Furthermore, it is asserted that this
system is in closest relation to that of the Moderns,
for the idea, they say, which must be regarded as the
organizing principle of his theological thinking, the
idea of the veracity of God, is derived from Okkam.
To men holding this view the difference between Lu-

BACKGROUND OF LIFE AND RELIGION 249
ther and Okkam consists merely in this that the latter,!
standing on the veracity of God, demands absolute
submission to all utterances and teachings of Holy
Writ, while Luther, f oUowing Augustine, is content to |
designate the clear and distinct statements of the Bible
as the unquestionably trustworthy revelations of the
veracious God.
However, is it really possible to derive even the
fundamental concepts of Luther's theology in a clear-
cut manner from this idea? No ; at least not the basic
tenet upon which he himself always looked as his
fundamental article, the article on justification^ This
could never have assumed such a singular importance
for him had he always consistently followed in his the
ological speculation this purely formal principle be
fore which all clear and definite passages of the Old
and the New Testament are altogether equal in value
and importance, whether they treat merely of the
waters that were above the firmament of heaven, or of
salvation through Christ. Besides, he really did not
arrive at this article through this principle at all. On
the contrary, he did not gain his peculiar doctrine on
Scriptures until, through "divine inspiration," the sig
nificance of the texts about the righteousness of God
had become clear to him. This result is not nullified
by the fact that Luther personally at times termed/
"justification" an effect of the veracity of God, inas-|
much as in this connection the "veracity of God" re- \
fers to nothing more than the faithfulness and relia- j
bility with which God fulfills his promise.
The Reformer, therefore, did not conceive the

250 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
veracity of God with absolute clearness and singleness
of meaning, nor did it completely dominate his theo
logical speculation. Instead of continuaUy operating
with one principle or general concept Luther is actu
ally always using two. However, the determining one
for him was always the, idea of justification. Solely
in his writings on the eucharist, in which he defends an
old Scholastic view of the Okkamists, altogether in
the style of Okkam, does the concept of the veracity
of God stand in the foreground. However, important
though it may be for the understanding of these writ
ings to keep this in mind, it would nevertheless be a
hazardous undertaking to make just these treatises
the basis for a reconstruction of his theology. All
would be harmonious and in order, notwithstanding,
if Luther had carefuUy balanced these two concepts.
But he never even made an attempt to do that.
Consequently, we are, even with the best of inten
tions, unable to discover a strict consistency in his sys
tem, indeed, we can in no way forcibly bind his views
together into a logical structure. Despite all en
deavors of this kind the gulf remains between the two
circles of doctrine which he developed : The dogma of
justification in which his new religious thoughts are
presented, and the dogma of the sacraments in which
in many respects he is merely carrying on the Ok-
kamistic view. In fact, while other thinkers in later
years, as a rule, try to adjust the inconsistencies in
their system, Luther, as a result of the conflict about
the eucharist, was induced to bring out even more
sharply the contradiction between the two phases of

BACKGROUND OF LIFE AND RELIGION 251
his teaching, so that it is much more apparent in his
later writings than in the publications of the year
1520-21, or especially in the oldest classic presenta
tion of his doctrine, Melanchthon's Basic Theological
Truths of the year 1521.
Luther's matured point of view, therefore, even if
one pays attention only to the •"characteristic doc
trines," is like unto a building with a peculiar mixture
of architectural styles. Moreover, if one purposely
seeks out inconsistencies, a pleasure Sebastian Franck
allowed himself as early as 1531 in his "Geschicht--
bibel," it is an easy matter to run down a dozen or two
of them. This is due to the unconcerned manner in
which Luther both in polemics and sermons would
stress the one or the other point, and also to his tend
ency of occasionaUy giving free rein to his penchant
for paradoxes. By setting forth this fact one in no
way impairs his greatness nor the world-historical im
portance of his teachings ; on the contrary, only thus is
the path to a really fruitful appreciation of his genius
laid open. For only if we resolutely refuse to sys
tematize his individual utterances, if we permit them
to act upon ourselves whoUy without qualification or
dislocation, in the form in which he put them to paper,
while still hot and glowing from joy or anger, do we
gain a full impression of the inexhaustible power, f uU-
ness, audacity and originality of his intellect.
Undoubtedly this enormous facility in the produc
tion of ideas is most intimately related to his lack of
system. The energetic endeavor to construct a closely
knit organized whole naturally puts a decided check

252 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
on the inclination to give room to new ideas and hence
also on the ability of producing new ideas, in fact, it
gradually kiUs this faculty, while in the opposite case
the mind ever remains fresh for new concepts and
always can give itself up without restraint to the im
pulse of forming new ideas. We consequently do not
claim too much when we assert that the Reformer's
lack of system is a necessary outgrowth of his tremen
dous intellectual fertility and to that extent also a
necessary prerequisite of his world-historical activity.
The genuine systematists, one need only to think
of Calvin, are mostly not creative thinkers, and vice
versa creative minds, as a rule, lack the capacity for
organization. And though this latter type is not very
frequent, creative thinkers are even rarer, especiaUy
in the field of religion and ethics, though for that very
reason they always exert a more powerful and abiding
influence than the systematic minds. They alone
really bring forth something new, release new forces
and found new institutions of historical life, while the
systematists have only the more modest task of or
ganizing and concentrating the new forces and ideas.
By this process, to be sure, as a rule their effect upon
contemporary and later civilization is materially in
creased, as the example of Calvin again shows.
Where the inclination and ability of concentrating
one's mind and shutting out new impressions is found
in so small a degree the development and change which
the content of knowledge undergoes in the course of
time naturally leaves more definite traces than in the
case of born organizers, who immediately test out

BACKGROUND OF LIFE AND RELIGION 253
every new idea critically according to the basic prin
ciples of their system. Hence childhood, youth and
maturity, the heritage of the parental home, of the
school and the acquisitions of later years are in the
case of such thinkers of ttimes still recognizable in the
completed "system" like the year rings of a tree. And
despite all changes which occurred meanwhile, in spite
of the natural dying off and the forcible elimination
of certain groups of ideas, one can, nevertheless, in the
final complete product still determine so accurately
the gradual growth of the inteUectual property that it
is possible to attempt a genetic analysis of the entire
system by pointing out the several strata of which it
is composed. Such an analysis, however, is in this instance not
only useful but a downright duty. For, particularly
in the case of Luther, the question has ever again been
propounded: What did the Reformer derive from his
contemporaries, and what did he give them in return?
It is true, the sixteenth century did not yet set this
problem, it admired or hated, but it_didnot analyze.
All the more eagerly has the nineteenth century busied
itself with this question. It no longer sees in the great
individual a revelation either of divine or diabolic
powers, but merely a problem, and it is prone to solve
this problem like a mathematical proposition, that is,
the great individual is conceived as merely the sum or
product of already existing energies in which the law
on the conservation of energy is verified also in the
realm of intellect.
This attitude, of course, easily leads scholars astray

254 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
into a new mythology. Concepts, like heredity and
environment, which are perfectly justified in zoology
and botany, are employed for the solution of phe
nomena of historical life without further ado, while in
reality they frequently serve merely to obscure these
phenomena; and when these concepts prove inade
quate it may happen that scholars like Taine, in his
characterization of Napoleon, quickly affirm a case
of atavism. For all manner of hypotheses are per
mitted, only the words mystery, incomprehensible, rid
dle, dare not be mentioned aloud! However, this point
of view would not have found so many adherents if at
the bottom of it there were not a correct observation,
the observation that also the genius in a certain sense
is a part of the mass, and that the mass in a measure
participates in the achievements of the genius.
We have noticed how much Luther in his manner
of speech, in his literary customs and habits of hfe was
a child of his time. This recognition alone obliges us
to investigate also in how far he was a product of his
period with respect to his ideas. There is no lack of
introductory studies on this point, indeed, apparently
the investigation as such is already complete. When
Harnack asserts that Luther was on the periphery of
his existence an old-Catholic mediaeval phenomenon;
if Wundt declares: Luther did not give humanity a
new religion but a new ethical structure which, how
ever, is but a reflex of the powerful lebensgefuehl
"sense of life" (i. e., appreciation of hfe) of the Re
naissance ; if Wernle sets down the opinion that neither
Luther nor Lutheranism possessed a system of ethics,

BACKGROUND OF LIFE AND RELIGION 255
and Troeltsch adds: "Primitive Protestantism in its
essential features and expressions is merely the trans
mutation of the mediaeval idea," one needs apparently
only to combine and add these verdicts and the prob
lem is solved, solved very simply at that! The ex
traordinary, incomprehensible and original elements
in the personahty of the Reformer are thereby com
pletely done away with, the "prophet" has been de
graded to the rank of a very common human being.
Only one riddle is left over, but this in reality has
nothing to do with Luther's person, it concerns the
course of the general development, it is the question:
How comes it that certain individuals become as it
were the raUying point of the forces and ideas of their
age? However, this extraordinarily simple solution of the
problem Luther presupposes the solving of quite a
series of difficult individual propositions about which
so far an agreement has not been reached by any
means. Hence, to be on the safe side we will first
closely investigate these separate problems and en
deavor to answer the relatively easy question: What
does the Reformer owe to his parental home and to
the school, and in how far does he merely express
ideas and judgments which others championed before
him? Let us, therefore, in the first place, transport our
selves four hundred years into the past, into the home
of the miner Hans Luther at Mansfeld. Miners have
from of old always been very superstitious. How
ever, in Luther's home this superstition is denser and

256 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
stronger than to-day in the most out-of-the-way vil
lage in the Eifel. For here we find added to the su
perstition of the miner the equally strong superstition
of the Thuringian peasant. The good people,, there
fore, really lived in continual fear of all kinds of
monsters and goblins, sorcerers and witches, great and
small, wise and stupid devils. Even when a natural
explanation seems most obvious, as, for instance, when
her infant cried with especial lustiness, the greatly
distressed mother, Margaret Luther, forthwith sup
poses that the neighbor woman is a witch and Father
Hans does not doubt that she is right and that the
little son must die because he has been bewitched.
This firm belief in devils and witches was trans
mitted to Doctor Martinus in the same undiminished
degree as the inexhaustible stock of popular sayings
and stories, abuse and ridicule, which his father and
mother had at their disposal. In fact, it was mate
rially increased during his days at school and his stay
in the monastery. Hence as a mature man Luther
never merely postulates the possible instance: "If
devils all the world should fill," no, the world to him
is actually full of devils. These bad spirits are busy in
house and yard, wood and field, about man and in
man. In the shape of a he-goat they infest woods and
swamps, in the form of quivering flames or as dragons
they swish through the air, as water sprites they draw
bathers down into the depths of the rivers. Also their
supreme master, Satan, does not disdain occasionally
to appear in visible form. Men he preferably ap
proaches in the guise of a beautiful maiden, to women

BACKGROUND OF LIFE AND RELIGION 257
he reveals himself as a gay cavaher in a green hat with
a blue plume. For the more Satan's "Mother" hen-
pecks him in his "hostelry" below the bolder he acts
on earth. It is reported that he has been seen also
in the disguise of a gray monk, as hermit, parish priest,
dragon, calf, he-goat and as a horned gentleman. Be
sides, it is very probable that cats, apes and parrots
and the strange caterpiUars whose posterior is sus
piciously decked out with a httle horn also have a bit
of the devil in them.
As a rule, however, these evil spirits move and act.
about and inside of men unseen, ever ready to cause
harm and to murder his soul. At one time they scare
the good Christian by inundations, at another by ter
rible storms, then again they trouble him with deadly
epidemics among his flocks or by frightful plagues.
Worse stiU is the fact that they are not afraid to enter
into human beings themselves, and to rob them of
their reason or incite them to evil deeds. The lesser
devils lead man into adultery, avarice, vain ambition
and suchlike sins, the greater and more dangerous
ones seduce to melancholy, unbelief, despair and
heresy. The Pope and other enemies of the gospel
have in this wise become altogether the tools of the
evil one. Hence it is self-evident that human beings
can enter into a formal pact with Satan. In this way,
for example, Dr. Eck, Joachim I of Brandenburg and
the notorious Dr. Faust of Kundling, who toward the
end of the second decade of the sixteenth century was
active in Wittenberg until a warrant of arrest issued
by the Elector John forced him to leave, have given

258 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
themselves over to him. In fact, once even a student
at Wittenberg did this.
More frequently than men, however, women per
mit the devil to befool them. Then they become
witches, "make cruel weather," paralyze peoples'
limbs by sudden fits of rheumatic pain (Hexen-
schuss) , stop the milk of cows, steal the wool from the
hving sheep and commit other shameful deeds. Such
witches often pursued also Doctor Luther and his
Katie. SmaU wonder, therefore, that the Doctor oc-
casionaUy threatens these impudent instruments of
the Devil even from the pulpit, and that he shares
completely the common view that these women must
be punished by death, though only if they prove im
pervious to pastoral admonition, and not because of
the harm they inflict upon man but because of the per
sistent blasphemy of which they are guilty. For ac
cording to the prevailing laws blasphemy is a crime
worthy of capital punishment. (Cf. page 305 sq.)
Happily Luther knows exactly not only the works
and the tools of Satan but also his character and that
of his servants. He knows that the evil one is a proud
spirit, and that least of all he can bear contempt. Such
scorn of the devil Luther, therefore, exhibits again
and again, often with decidedly popular gestures.
Fear of the devil is altogether foreign to him. The
consciousness of having continuaUy to fight with the
master of this world, but of always being able to fell
him with a single word, only serves to increase the
Doctor's joyful feehng of strength. More than any
other person he confirms the statement of Goethe:

BACKGROUND OF LIFE AND RELIGION 259
"Superstition is the heritage of energetic and noble
natures." However, Luther believes that man does not stand
alone in this conflict with the evil spirits. The benefi
cent spirits, the angels whose commander is St. Ga
briel, come to his aid. For just as every human being,
so to speak, has a private devil so also everyone has his
guardian angel. And though Satan were closer to us
than our shirt, indeed closer than the body itself, the
angels are, nevertheless, stUl more powerful and wise.
They are consequently always able in case of need to
give man good counsel and sometimes in fact even to
teach him the secrets of the future.
This popular belief in devils and angels which he
had imbibed with his mother's milk the Reformer
tenaciously retained during his whole life. Besides,
he ever clung to the ancient faith in the evil omen of
comets, eclipses of the sun or moon, and was prone to
see in human or animal monsters a good or bad portent
hke aU other people of his time.
In spite of all this, peculiar though such a conten
tion may sound, Luther impaired the reign of super
stition more than any one of his contemporaries and
was personaUy more enlightened than the majority of
the educated class of that day, especially more so than
the Italian free thinkers who have so often been
praised as ideal enhghteners, for instance, Gemisthos
Plethon, Codro Urceo, MachiaveUi and Guicciar'dini.
All the confused pseudo-sciences which Humanism
had once more brought to honor and which were as
siduously cultivated even at the Curia, such as astrol-

260 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
ogy, alchemy, geomancy, chiromantics, etc., Luther
despised and ridiculed with all his heart, even though
the good Magister Philippus himself, as a true Hu
manist, could not abstain from dabbhng a bit in this
nonsense. He also would not hear of exorcising
devils, a custom which was very popular at the time,
and of a goodly number of other superstitious prac
tices and conceptions, such as, for example, the notion
that witches rode through the air on brooms and were
able to assume the forms of aU kinds of animals, the
illusion that the dead sometimes came to hfe again,
the belief in the magic wand, in the magic effect of
love potions, in teUing fortune from finger-nails and
in the magic mirror. Furthermore, Luther in his
earlier years actively fought and later on partly abol
ished or suppressed very nearly aU the either absurd
or revolting atropean customs which were stiU in
vogue at birth, baptism and burial, in times of
plague, floods and conflagrations.
But did Luther's belief in devils not grow increas
ingly gloomy, wild and crude with his advancing
years? No! This view of certain modern inquisitors
is as profoundly erroneous as the oft-mentioned as
sertion that the belief in witches, which at bottom is
nothing more than a survival of ancient Germanic
paganism, was first naturalized in the Protestant
world by Luther. We must in this case again beware
of ingeniously isolating Luther, that is, we must not
view him as a phenomenon standing by himself with
out reference to the behef of his era. Further, we
must guard against severing his thoughts and con-

BACKGROUND OF LIFE AND RELIGION 261
cepts from their natural context, as Grisar does when
he presents Luther's views about the devil and demons
altogether without regard for the strong and joyful
faith in God, for which after all these former views
are merely the foil, and who thus utterly fails to see
behind the superstitious Luther the believing Luther
who did such a great deal to diminish superstition.
With the same distinctness as the heritage of his pa
ternal home we can detect also the legacy of the school
in the system of the Reformer. A number of very
characteristic proofs for this have been cited above.
(Cf. page 62 sq.) It will be sufficient, therefore, to
note at this point the additional fact that the Re
former also, in his political, social and economic the
ories and proposals of reform, usually follows very
closelgctheO^kkamistic tradition or other mediaeval au^
thorities. For example, he follows Okkam when he
declares that the care of the poor is a task of the secu
lar communal and territorial administration, when he
points out that it is a duty and privilege of the secular
power to remedy abuses in the administration of pub
hc worship. Further, the Okkamists are his guide
when he makes the assertion, which sounds so heretical
to modern ears, namely, that the secular government
is unquestionably bound only by natural law or divine
law, and that it has a right, indeed has the duty, under
certain circumstances to simply disregard written law.
Not from Okkam himself, but, nevertheless, de
rived from the common mediaeval tradition is in this
connection the distinction, self-evident to Luther, be
tween written (positive) law on the one hand and

262 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
natural law on the other. The same source is responsi
ble for the view to which he consistently adhered and
which held that "Christendom" is the great interna
tional organization of Christian society, which in ma
terial things is ruled by the secular power, in spiritual
matters by the Word of God. Again, also, his pe
cuhar division of this Christian society into three sa
cred orders: the Teachers (pastors and teachers), the
Governors (secular lords and governmental bodies)
and the Breadwinners (peasants, craftsmen, mer
chants) has this same origin. To the identical source
we may assign his idea which conceives of the civic
calling as an office in the service of society, and partic
ularly the claim, which appears so strange to our mod
ern feehng in this matter, that the division of mankind
into governing and governed classes, and the whole
order of society which is based upon this principle, is
the result of the fall of man.
More mediaeval still, to the present-day German,
seem his judgments on questions of economics and
conditions of economic distress. The Middle Ages
are distinctly agrarian in tone. The craftsman is not
highly esteemed; industry and trade are regarded as
improper means of gaining a livelihood; all money
transactions pure and simple, especiaUy those in which
money plays the role of a productive factor, it utterly
condemns. Luther is at bottom of the same opinion.
He frankly adopts the mediaeval saying : A merchant
can scarcely obtain salvation. He stamps aU import
trade as a great evil, all money transactions, in as far
as they aim at gain, he holds to be unnecessary and

BACKGROUND OF LIFE AND RELIGION 263
objectionable, and he would fain damn every puny
httle money lender as an unchristian usurer.
Even where he f oUows no tradition or authority but
draws wholly upon his own ideas Luther is not al
ways as absolutely new as it would seem to the out
sider. In these instances also he often merely voices
doubts and thoughts which had long been discussed
publicly in the "heretical" communities and pro-re
form circles of the Middle Ages. Plenty of parallels
can be adduced both from the heretical and from the
Cathohc oppositionary literature of the Middle Ages
on what Luther has to say, for example, about the
abuses of the papal regime, also on the moral deteri
oration of monasticism, the worldliness of the higher
and lower clergy, the forced celibacy of the priests,
on indulgences, the worship of saints, rehcs and
images, the ecclesiastical system of enforced fasts, the
excessive number of festal days and similar out
growths of the Catholic system. Taken as a whole,
therefore, the treatise in which especially he criticizes
the external abuses in Catholicism, the "Address to
the Nobility," offers very httle that is entirely new.
Also in his strictures on Catholic dogma Luther
had in many particulars been preceded by the Lom
bard and German Waldenses, by the English and
Bohemian Wiclifites. It will suffice to call attention
merely to the doctrines on purgatory, transubstan-
tiation, confirmation and extreme unction. Even the
assertion that the Pope is the Antichrist and Rome
the Babylon of the Apocalypse of St. John we meet
earlier with the adherents of Peter Waldo in Lorn-

264 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
bardy. Hence, the truly new elements in Luther's
; criticisms of the Catholic system are apparently only
| three in number : The strictures on the Catholic view
l of sin and grace, the attack on the Church's concept of
! the sacraments and on its view of the rehgious value
\ of an ascetic life.
There is, however, no dearth of scholars who will
not concede even this much without reservation. In
deed, some would not even recognize him as the first
discoverer of the positive ideas and ideals which he
always uses as a starting point in his criticism. And
it does seem as though a number of facts justified
this view. The extraordinary rapidity with which
the burgher class joins the Evangelical movement,
the wholesale accession of the Humanists to the
Lutheran party, the erroneous opinion, at first shared
by so many of the educated and partially educated,
that Luther was merely the perfector, or simply the
fellow combatant of Erasmus of Rotterdam, all this
naturally leads to the question: Did not 'the new in the
Reformer, at bottom, consist only in the fact that he
expressed in an effective form the knowledge and the
demands which had long passed current among the
German burgher class and in the circles of the par
tisans of Humanistic reform?
It is claimed, for instance, that Luther was the first
to once more bring to honor the Apostle Paul and to
revive Paulinism. But previously the Humanist
Marsilio Ficino, of Florence, and his pupils John
Colet and Jacob Lefevre d'Etaples had given out the
watchword : Back to Paul ! Moreover, not Luther but

BACKGROUND OF LIFE AND RELIGION 265
Lefevre pubhshed the first commentary based upon
the original text, and first employed Pauline concepts
for the purpose of criticizing the piety of the day.
It is further asserted that before Luther no one
emphasized that there is but one religious authority
for a Christian: Christ, or the Bible as far as it teaches
Christ's views. But quite a while before Luther,
Erasmus of Rotterdam had expressed the same
opinion very vigorously and had earnestly demanded
the return to the simple doctrines of Christ, a reform
of theology, and, more significantly stiU, also the re
casting of practical piety after the model of Christ's
theology. The same Humanist further clearly recog
nized that a reform of this sort could be successful
only if the simple teachings of Christ, which like the
sun were intended to bring light to all, were made ac
cessible to mankind as a whole. Pursuant to this idea
Erasmus, as early as 1516, in the admonitory preface
to the first edition of the New Testament emphatically
developed the concept which sounds distinctly Lu
theran, namely, the tenet that the Bible ought to be
translated into all popular tongues and spread in
every language, so that man and woman, young and
old, nobles and commons, might read the gospels and
the Pauhne letters, and in the future the peasant in
the field, the workman in the shop, the traveler upon
the high road might pass the time with passages from
Scriptures and with hymns.
Lastly, some insist that Luther was the first person
to overcome the external, legalistic morality of the
Middle Ages, who denied monasticism the right of ex-

266 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
istence, who first pointed to the family and com
munity, the state and the civil occupation as the nor
mal sphere for the fulfillment of man's moral duty.
But apparently Erasmus had preceded him also in
these reforms. As early as 1502 in his famous edifica-
tory treatise, the Handbook of the Christian Soldier,
he ever again points from the good works of the
Church without expressly condemning them to that
most difficult part of the law, the purification and
sanctification of the mind. At the same time Erasmus
expressly repudiates the customary distinction be
tween the duties of monks and of lay Christians, and
further, presents Christ in an impressive manner as
the prototype and example for every human being.
However, Erasmus is by no means the sole witness
to the fact that at the very beginning of the sixteenth
century a change in the moral point of view is in prog
ress. In the numerous pamphlets, denunciatory
poems and apocalypses which preceded the Reforma
tion, is revealed not only an ofttimes terrible hatred
of the lazy priests and monks, but also occasionally
an exuberant valuation of the pious, faithful layman
and laborer, i. e., manual laborer. Indeed, "the
laborer" is essentiaUy the pet figure of this litera
ture, his doings are exphcitly praised as worship
of God, the sweat of his brow thought to be as
sacred and healing as the blood of the martyrs. Noth
ing characterizes the strength and the wide diffusion
of this sentiment so much as the fact that even mo
nastic preachers hke the Leipzig Dominican Marcus
von Weida made concessions to it.

BACKGROUND OF LIFE AND RELIGION 267
Linked with the high estimate of the laborer we oc-
casionaUy find an almost fanatical veneration of the
"pious married folk." Thus, for example, the author of
the Apocalypse of St. Michael declares that wedlock
is the sacrament of sacraments, and requests pious
married people to join in a fraternity of St. Michael in
order to reform Church and Empire, while, on the other
hand, he unquahfiedly condemns monastic life in all
its forms. Here and there we also begin to hear open
protests against the ascetic ideal. When about 1494
several distinguished citizens of Strassburg entered.
the Carthusian order, a number of "fools," as the pious
Sebastian Brant complains, did not hesitate to assert :
"God has not created us in order that we become
monks or priests and particularly not that we should
flee the world: ... It is not God's will that one
should renounce the world." Such opposition cer
tainly was not frequent, but the feehng revealed
therein already existed in wide strata of the popula
tion when Luther appeared before the public. And
even where the world-renouncing attitude still domi
nated the soul, people frequently had lost all sympa
thy for monastic asceticism. In fact, as the Anabap
tist movement later shows, they demanded the
formation of world-renouncing communities after the
pattern of the early Christians or the Taborites.
It would appear from aU this as though Luther's
message in truth contained no new or original ele
ments, as though Erasmus had not been mistaken
when he believed that the Wittenberg monk had
ruined his whole reformation by his rude interference.

268 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
The criticism and the literary propaganda of the
Christian Humanists, the mighty stirring up of the
spirits would, as it seems, have led automatically to a
reformation, indeed, would have brought on a reform
in keeping with the wishes of Erasmus without any
"tumult." There are, in fact, still Erasmians who faithfuUy
repeat this verdict of the old chieftain of the Hu
manists. Anyone, however, who does not view the
history of the world from out of the perspective of
his study certainly will find this assertion just as
clever as the claim that the Napoleonic Empire would
of necessity have come about even without Napoleon,
and the unity of Germany been achieved without Bis
marck. Critics and rhetoricians hke Erasmus, fa
natics hke his counterpart, the author of the Apoca
lypse of St. Michael, may call forth and strengthen a
world-historical movement, but they can never create
a new order of things. This can be done alone by an
heroic will which calmly and resolutely takes up the
struggle with the forces of the old order of things and,
by exerting to the full all the powers of intellect and
soul, carries it through to the final end. The posses
sion of such an heroic will, this most rare and most
mighty of the creative forces of history, therefore, can
certainly not be denied to Luther.
But is it true that besides this heroic wUl Luther
possessed no characteristics which place him ahead of
Erasmus and other similar partisans of reform? Is
he really as a thinker nothing more than a sharp-eared
and clever interpreter of the ideas of his time, only

BACKGROUND OF LIFE AND RELIGION 269
the speaking trumpet through which the soft murmur
coursing through the land now gathered into one
mighty wave of sound and finally made itself heard?
Is Luther merely the "prophet" who serves the spirit
of the day as Aaron of old aided the slow-tongued
Moses, in that he, so to speak, snatched the word from
the tongues of the millions?
A brief examination of Erasmus and his prede
cessors as well as of the spokesmen of the popular
opposition, for example, the author of the Apocalypse
of St. Michael, wiU suffice to elicit the correct answer.
It is true, Ficino, Colet, Lefevre, Erasmus and his
numerous sympathizers did enthuse over Paul in the
most extravagant terms. However, not even the most
Christian of these Christian Humanists, Lefevre,
rightly understood the great Apostle, as Luther cor
rectly remarked as early as the nineteenth of October,
1516. Much less did the wise Erasmus comprehend
him. The first reformatory declaration after all which
does Paul complete justice, if not in the letter at least
in the spirit, is Luther's lecture of Romans of the year
1515-16, which was long lost and forgotten.
Since these Humanists failed to understand Paul
they were likewise unable to appreciate the other rep
resentatives of the primitive Christian faith. What
Erasmus, for example, praises as the philosophy of
Christ with a great show of fine words, is not the
Christianity of the New Testament, much less the
"Christianity of Christ." It is merely a "Moralism"
trimmed with Christian elements after the manner of
Minucius Felix and other ancient Catholic apologists,

270 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
for the basic ideas of which the same authorities must
be held responsible which were f oUowed by Minucius,
namely, Cicero and Seneca.
What, according to Erasmus, were in the ultimate
analysis the constituent parts of the "philosophy" or
the "theology of Christ"? The new law, that is, as
cetic morality, the belief in Providence, and the behef
in a retribution in after life. Solely in this narrow
moralizing circle of ideas does the great writer move
with that calm assurance and confidence which per
sonal conviction imparts. As soon as he ventures be
yond these Erasmus begins to vaciUate between
skepticism and traditional faith, a striking proof of
how little all the ideas lying outside of this sphere
mean for his own inner hfe. If we keep this in mind
we can understand why Erasmians like Zwingli and
Capito, for example, later join the Evangelical move
ment, or why others like Erasmus himself, Julius
Pflug, Gropper and Witzel more or less definitely
offered their services to the Catholic Reformation.
The meager religious rations upon which they sub
sisted might be very profitably employed for the criti
cism of popular religion and of the then immensely
complicated theology of the Church; for a time also
they might serve the educated classes, who began to
feel more and more homeless in the Church, as a sub
stitute for the seriously felt want of simple and clear
religious ideas in the public worship of the declining
Middle Ages, but they were much too general and
feeble to permanently satisfy religious needs. They
would inevitably loose their influence over the spirits

BACKGROUND OF LIFE AND RELIGION 271
as soon as they were confronted with an inwardly
more powerful and richer conviction, be that Luther's
"philosophy of faith" or the mysticism of Loyola.
Less mature still than the religious ideas of Eras
mus appear his ethical concepts if we turn the light
on them. To be sure, he occasionally protested
against the differentiation between lay and monastic
morality, and emphatically urged that a teacher of
children is more highly esteemed before God than a
monk, but in spite of his truly fanatic hatred of mo-
nasticism, as it stood revealed before his eyes, he never
thought of striking at the root of the tree and denying
that the old ascetic ideal had any justification for its
existence. On the contrary, Erasmus during his
whole hfe remained in theory an ascetic because of his
dependence upon the eclectic Stoicism of Roman
philosophy. Consequently, he absolutely lacks all
understanding of the moral worth of the great moral
entities : marriage, the family, and the state, and has
no clear conception of the moral significance of voca
tional labors. . Instead, he loved to indulge in com
munistic ideas and fantasies. However, even here
one does not get the impression that he earnestly be
lieves his own communistic views.
GeneraUy speaking one must beware of taking
Erasmus too seriously. At times, certainly, he talks
in the style of the prophet, but even in that case he
again and again drops his solemn tone as soon as a
mahcious witticism pops into his mind, for at bottom
he is a skeptic, scoffer and rhetorician. With genuine
and abiding enthusiasm he labors alone for the fur-

272 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
therance of linguistic studies after the ideal of the
Humanists, for the reform of the Latin style and
of the learned curriculum. In reality the unadul
terated optimist, prudent man of the world and whoUy
unphilosophical scholar possesses no religious organ.
That despite aU this he felt himself specially called
upon to be a religious reformer, and that he was most
willingly recognized as such by his contemporaries can
be comprehended only if we make clear to ourselves
how strong and general was the discontent prevailing
especiaUy in the educated classes with the official re
ligious practice. Where such a feeling dominates
people are always ready to see in every critic a re
former and willing to venerate as a prophet every
teacher of morality who, while he does not do away
with the uninteUigible teachings of the Church, at
least pushes them aside.
Much more earnest than the great writer who
frankly confessed that there was in his veins not a
drop of martyr's blood, much more serious also than
the other Christian Humanists seem to have been,
appear the spokesmen of the popular opposition. As
their classic representatives we may regard the anony
mous author of the Apocalypse of St. Michael. Here
we meet a truly honest and laborious wresthng for a
new ethical point of view. But, how exceedingly con
fused, how indistinct, how wild and fanatical withal
are aU these well-meaning world uphfters. More or
less all of them pay homage to the most absurd so
cialistic dreams, refuse to recognize as real work any
thing but hard manual labor, and all are still in some

BACKGROUND OF LIFE AND RELIGION 273
manner or other held in the bondage of the ascetic
ideal of the Church. Thus, the author of the Apoca
lypse, for example, most energetically combats the
overestimation of fasting, while at the same time he
still persists in regarding fasting as such as a good
worK. He further looks upon celibacy as a serious
crime, but deems the unmarried life of the priests so
necessary that he recommends the most cruel measures
for safeguarding this institution. Among other
things he suggests that children of priests ought sim
ply to be starved to death. Even the Strassburg
"fools," who protested so vigorously against the flight
of Brant's friends into the Carthusian monastery,
must not be declared principal opponents of asceti
cism without further proof than the above-cited lines
of the old Humanist.
In short, the whole lay opposition to the ethical
views of the Church contents itself with the mere
expression of sentiment or stops halfway, as in the
case of Erasmus. Nowhere, not in Italy, either, does
it lead to a clear grasp, let alone a conscious active
assertion of a new ethical ideal. For, the few Hu
manists who, like Lorenzo Valla, ridiculed asceticism
as unnatural nonsense, or like Machiavelli both in
theory and practice overstepped all behests of moral
ity, can be looked upon as prophets of a new ethical
system only on condition that Caesar Borgia, Fer-
rante of Naples and other "moraline-free" tyrants of
the Italy of those days are also allowed to count as
such. Certainly the majority of the Italian Human
ists were far from harboring any conscious and prin-

274 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
cipal opposition to the ethics of the Church, even
though, in their personal life they paid absolutely no
attention to it whatsoever. Some of them, in fact, and
not the least famous, like the Neoplatonists of Flor
ence, Leon Battista Alberti, Mantovano, Vida and
Sannazaro were Catholics by conviction, and aU of
the great artists of Florence: Sandro Botticelli, Fra
Bartolommeo, the Robbia brothers and Michelan
gelo were avowed and unqualified adherents of the
piety of Savonarola.
Thus the assertion that Luther's ethics are no more
than a "reflex of the mighty life-consciousness of the
Renaissance," or a clever presentation of the lay
morality of the period, is but a striking proof of how
little known at bottom, even at present, are Luther,
the so-caUed Renaissance, and the temper of the Ger
man laity at the end of the Middle Ages. For Luther
never was as "world open" and alive to the world as
many scholars incessantly assume even in our day ; also
the "sense of life" is no general or exclusive character
istic of the Renaissance, but rather a phenomenon
which we meet at aU times, and hence also in the Mid
dle Ages, within circumscribed groups of the educated
and ruhng classes.
If, then, Luther is not to be credited with originality
no other course remains open to us than after the
recipe of any philosophical mythology to make the
"idea" or the spirit of the time, or the genius of the
German people, or the joint will, or whatever else
we choose to call that wholly unknown and invisible
idol, responsible for the new ethical ideals of the Re-

BACKGROUND OF LIFE AND RELIGION 275
former. However, that would mean conjuring up
ghosts for the purpose of solving an historical prob
lem, or would be tantamount to an interpretation of
historical facts on the basis of a mythological text.
We had, therefore, better leave spirits and ghosts,
even the much-admired genius of the German people,
alone and be content with simply setting forth the fact
that Luther's ideal was his own discovery, at the same
time, however, in a measure the fulfillment of a tend
ency and desire long present in the laity, though so
far it had manifested itself very indistinctly and con
fusedly.

CHAPTER IX.
Luther as the Prophet of a New Religious and
Ethical Ideal.
T^HE considerations just mentioned amply show
that the Reformer may with justice be caUed a
prophet of a new religious point of view and a creator
of a new ethical ideal, despite the fact that he ex
hibits traits of mediaevalism. Many things passed
current as rehgion at the time when Luther stepped
forth: The veneration of God in the spirit and the
worship of the host, reverential consideration of the
life of Christ and the cult of saints, relics and images,
the purification and sanctification of the soul and the
most superficial fulfillment of the ordinances of the
Church, humble self-sacrifice in the interest of the
poor and sick, and the wholly mechanical completion
of aU sorts of good works, such as fasting, saying the
rosary, pilgrimages, almsgiving, founding of masses,
donating pictures, candles, altars, soul-baths, entering
into an order or a religious fraternity, the purchase
and sale of indulgences, and untold others. Christian
and pagan, sublime and mean, holy and unholy, in
deed, altogether, abstruse elements are found thrown
together in an ofttimes exceedingly strange mixture.
Piety was attached to so many things — acts, places,
buildings, customs, formulas, doctrines and institu
tions — the religious point of view so varicolored and
276

PROPHET OF A NEW IDEAL 277
fuU of inconsistencies that the question as to the es
sence of Christianity can for this period scarcely be
answered otherwise than: Christianity is everything
the Church teaches, does, demands and tolerates. For
just this was the most characteristic feature of the
Christianity of the day that the Church suffered the
most divergent kinds of religion within its bosom:
The fact that it demanded the veneration of the sup
posed prceputium Christi as well as the veneration of
Christ himself ; that it erected altars in the same man
ner to saints, often only in name distinguished from
the ancient pagan gods, as to the true God; that it
granted a place in the devotion of the faithful to the
divinity of Plato and Plotinus as well as to the
"Father of our Lord Jesus Christ."
Then Luther appeared, and directly the picture be
gan to change, wherever he found a hearing. The
saints toppled from their thrones, purgatory sank into
the abyss, the god of Plato and Plotinus became
sUent. Thousands of altars vanished, divine service,
in the old sense stopped entirely. Offerings, masses,
priests and sacraments, the Church, all external
means and mediators of which, according to the old
faith, the divinity had need in order that it might im
part to man the forces of salvation were now to be
vahd no longer. Heaven and earth, present hfe and
future existence appeared altogether transformed.
However, if Luther thus recklessly with his peasant
ax assailed the simple polytheism of popular religion,
the sublime worship of many gods in the official cult
and dogma, and the naive pantheism of the Mystics

278 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
which had so long haunted also the theology of the
time, he did this solely with the purpose of giving hght
and air once more to religion which threatened to die
of suffocation under the weight of its ancient trap
pings. What did Luther himself understand the term re
ligion to mean? Nothing complex, but something
very simple, not a thing which is bound to external
means and mediators, but something wholly spiritual,
internal and personal, not a knowing either, but an
attitude of the heart which the individual first expe
riences as a solace of the conscience. This attitude of
the heart to begin with presupposes the recognition of
the truth: the greatest evil is guilt, the highest boon
abolition of guilt; secondly, the experience which can
always only be acquired personally by the individual:
that man is freed from guilt alone if he uncondition
ally trusts in the Holy God who reveals himself in
Christ as a merciful Father. This experience, how
ever, is not materialized until this trust in the form of
a divine gift takes possession of the soul, since it is
nothing more than the faith in God as the aU-govern-
ing and all-merciful Father.
Thus in Luther's opinion religion, the whole re
ligion, consists in seeking and finding God in Jesus
Christ, who is the mirror of his paternal heart, of lov
ing, fearing and trusting in him alone above aU things,
attaching one's heart solely to him and letting it repose
in him alone. But how does man come to Jesus
Christ? Luther replies: With the help of the Spirit
of God through whom God is ever present and active^

PROPHET OF A NEW IDEAL 279
in the world for the purpose of gathering for himself
a people or a church. The medium which the Spirit
employs for this end is none other than the Word of-
God, or the testimony of the benefactions of Christy
This in turn confronts man in a threefold form:
orally in Christian preaching, visibly in baptism and
the eucharist, and in written form in the Bible as far as
it teaches Christianity, or speaks of the blessing of
Christ. Thus Christianity as conceived by Luther is not'
only a spiritual and inward factor throughout, but is,
in addition, thought of as depending on a medium
which operates only in a spiritual manner — the Word.
Moreover, the Church is not merely viewed as an in
stitution working through purely spiritual means, but
also as an invisible realm governed by an unseen ruler,
Christ, through the invisible means of the Word. This
realm is only in so far connected with the visible
churches as they preach the Word of God and thus in
a sense serve as missionary institutions for the true
Church. For that which in the visible churches really
represents the Church is imperceptible, while the ele
ment which can be seen is not the Church but merely
an institution of human law determined in its char
acter by place, time and changing circumstances.
The recognition that religion is an attitude of the
soul which can be awakened and nourished only by
spiritual means is Luther's most significant disclosure^
For all his later discoveries, the abolition of the "extra-
worldly asceticism," the destruction of the Cathohc
conception of the mass, etc., are but logical conclu-

280 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
sions derived from this first fundamental tenet. Three
of these deductions came to be especiaUy important
for the future. First, the knowledge that there is but
one way of knowing God and of entering into the
fellowship of God, namely, the way of faith. This
principle invalidates the whole previous mechanism of
theology. At the same time Neoplatonic Mysticism
which until then had played such a large part also in
private edification lost its title to existence. Secondly,
the recognition that there is only one way of worship
ing God, the way of faith — faith, in the first place, in
the sense of trust in the merciful love of God for the
sinner; secondly, as a hving and bold confidence in
that gracious guidance and providence of God which
makes all things serve the best interests of man. As a
result of these tenets, the entire earher divine worship
with its immense sacramental and hierarchical appa
ratus is rendered worthless. The service of God which
remains is not, technically speaking, divine service any
longer, but only a sort of pedagogical contrivance for
the purpose of edifying and educating the congrega
tion. Thirdly, since religion is an attitude of the
heart, which must and can be proven by outward acts
at all times and in every condition of life, it is an U-
lusion to hold that man must fly this world and with
draw from it. Quite the contrary is true : God placed
man into the world for the explicit purpose that he
conquer the world in the world, in the position which
Providence allotted to him. Not the monastery,
therefore, but the secular vocation is the normal sphere
for proving one's faith and one's love for his fellow

PROPHET OF A NEW IDEAL 281
man. Self-evidently, however, mere vocational ldy-
alty alone does not constitute fulfillment of the ethical
ideal. This qualification is met only when this loyalty
springs from obedience to the will of God as revealed
in the natural order of society, and, viewing the calhng
as a means of salvation, if one serves his neighbor
in self-denying love. Thereby not alone an equaliza
tion of the secular vocations with the calling of the
monk is achieved, such as is occasionally already found
in the German Mystic, John Tauler, but world-re
nouncing asceticism, monasticism as such has been
overcome in prmciple and a new ideal of personal con
duct in life set up. For not even the word vocation
had been previously in use in the sense which Luther
attributed to it.
Thus, Luther, by the simple discovery that rehgion
is an attitude of the heart which is spiritual, and hence
cannot be aroused by any material means and must in
its operations not be bound to anything material or
external, came to be not merely a reformer of religion
but also a reformer of ethics, for both rehgion and
ethics belong together. To be pious means at the
same time to be rehgious and also to be good. Faith
does not only comfort the conscience, it also fills the
soul with a joyous readiness which is the mother of all
virtue. As a "living, active" thing it causes in man
the desire for moral activity and remains as a never-
ceasing stimulus constantly operative in aU moral
action. NaturaUy the value of these basic thoughts of Lu
theran preaching has been quite differently estimated

282 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
in the course of time and in accordance with the pre
vailing philosophical or religious point of view.
Hence, also, very diverging opinions have been voiced
about the relation of Luther to the Cathohc mediaeval
system. We have already learned to know quite a
number of these valuations which are in themselves
more characteristic for their originators than for Lu
ther. (Cf. Chap. I.) Consequently, it wiU at this
point suffice to discuss only the latest effort along this
line, the criticism of the Lutheran Reformation by E.
Troeltsch. Troeltsch asserts: "The central religious idea of
Protestantism, hence also that of Luther, is the aboli
tion of the Cathohc concept of the sacrament. This
idea, but this idea alone, is the undeniably modern ele
ment in Luther's message. For in its essential basic
principles and expressions early Protestantism is only
a recasting of the mediaeval idea." This thesis must
in the first place be called into question for reasons of
simple historical logic. Instead of starting out from
the positive fundamental ideas of Luther, Troeltsch
places an undoubtedly very noteworthy negative con
sequence of these positive tenets in the foreground and
labels it the central idea of Protestantism. Had he
immediately considered the obvious question how
"Luther came to break through the Cathohc system
just at this central point" he would scarcely have been
able to avoid recognizing that the so-called "central
idea" is a different one, namely, the new notion of
religion which was given doctrinal expression in the
phrase '^justification by faith alone," that is, the con-

PROPHET OF A NEW IDEAL 283
ception of "subjective religion" as an attitude of man,
of "objective rehgion" as a revelation of the sentiment
of God. From these premises the abolition of the
Catholic concept of the sacrament, namely, the belief
that salvation is a force which must be conceived ma
terially, and in the communication of which to man
God binds himself to specific material mediums, fol
lows automaticaUy.
Moreover, historically this view of the situation is
the only justifiable one. At first Luther in 1515-16
gained his new view of grace, faith and justification.
Only after this did he in the Address on the Baby-\
Ionian Captivity of the Church take the offensive
against the Catholic notion of the sacrament. It is
perfectly true that of all his writings this treatise
made the deepest impression on his contemporaries*
But why did it have such a powerful effect? Because
it struck the point at which the inner opposition of
Luther to the Catholic system appeared outwardly in
the most striking fashion.
Of greater moment, however, is the question: Must
we see in Luther's view on grace, faith and justifica
tion in reahty nothing more than a transformation of
the mediaeval idea, or, as Troeltsch expresses it, merely
new solutions of mediaeval Catholic problems? Judg
ing only from the first surface impressions this claim
does indeed not seem whoUy without j ustification. In
the Cathohc system the doctrine of justification occur
pies the central^position, in the Protestant body of
dogma the same is true; in Cathohcism the concepts
grace, faith, good works play an important role, in

284 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
Protestantism likewise, etc. But at the very outset
we are struck by the observation that Luther was not
at all in need of the concept of justification in order
to give clear and unabridged expression to his re
ligious ideas: it does not occur a single time either
in his large or small catechism. Furthermore, it is
certainly not a negligible circumstance that aU these
concepts have quite a different meaning in Luther's
message than in Catholicism. They have been com
pletely de-cathohcized, de-materiahzed, rendered
more inward, more personal by the new fundamental
view of rehgion. Grace ceases for Luther to be a
supernatural force or remedy which through the sacra
ments is poured into man, but is nevertheless meant to
bring about in him spiritual and ethical effects. It
has become a "sentiment of God," which is made
known in the "Word of God," and operates through
this medium as otherwise also an attitude is made
manifest and operates by means of the Word. Justi
fication is not thought of as a sort of physical miracle
by means of which the substance sin is suddenly driven
out by the supernatural substance grace, but as a spiri
tual psychologicalmiracle which is consummated in the
soul of man whoUy without material expedients and
which consists of nothing more than the acquisition of
a new point of view, namely, the unconditional faith
in the gracious disposition of God. Faith is not pic
tured as the external submission of man to the doc
trine of the Church which confronts him as a body of
external legal ordinances, but again as an attitude, an
attitude, however, which does not relate to something

PROPHET OF A NEW IDEAL 285
external, be it the Church or a dogma, but again to an
attitude, the sentiment of God.
Thus, though we find everywhere the same concepts
they have a totaUy different meaning. How anyone
can find in this fact merely a transformation of the
mediaeval idea is difficult to comprehend. To men
who employ the logic of this world the expression
transformation is certainly in this case meaningless,
unless we understand form to signify the essence of
the matter, or, to speak with Plato, the idea, and not
the form in the commonly accepted sense.
However, are we not at least justified in regarding
these teachings of the Reformer as new solutions of
mediaeval Catholic problems? Catholic theologians,
as we have repeatedly indicated, ever since the four
teenth century, manifest a desire to free religious
thought from the bonds of ancient naturalism and
substantialism. Duns Skotus, by conceiving God
strictly as will and person attempts to do away with
the vestiges of naturalistic pantheism in the concept
of God. Further, he endeavors to kill off naturalism
in the notion of sin and hereditary sin by viewing them
purely as manifestations of the wiU. Through his
doctrine of merit he is undermining also the old con
ception of rehgion as a private law relationship be
tween God and man, and to a certain degree even
endeavors to spiritualize the idea of grace by differ
entiating between sacramental grace and justificatory
grace. Okkam and his school faithfully foUow his
footsteps. They carry out the criticism of these fun
damental concepts of the Cathohc system even more

286 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
rigidly, and further, begin the attempt of uprooting
the hierarchical concept of the Church. At the same
time, however, the Mystics commence ever more and
more to push aside for purposes of private edification
the hierarchical-cultural apparatus of the Church in
order to make room for an inward and personal ac
quisition of rehgion such as the earlier Middle Ages,
at least among the laity, had not known.
While it is true that all these efforts did not lead
to an abolition but only to a disintegration of the
Catholic structure, it is, notwithstanding, incontesti-
ble that in and with these endeavors tendencies came
to light which point forward, but break through f uUy
only in the message of Luther. Does this prove that
early Protestantism is in its fundamental character
istics merely a new solution of mediaeval Cathohc
problems? By no means. It only goes to show that
already in this period which, ever since CeUarius, has
commonly been caUed by the unfortunate name Mid
dle Ages, tendencies made themselves felt which by
and by would necessarily have led to complete disin
tegration, and if consistently continued finaUy brought
about the utter coUapse of the mediaeval Catholic sys
tem. Such tendencies and new ideas, deadly for Ca
tholicism, are indeed noticeable at the turning of the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries almost simultane
ously in all fields of civihzed life, so that this period,
the era of Pope Boniface VIII, can with good cause
be designated as the real turning-point of the ages.
In this period for the first time, both in the pohtical
theories of the French publicists and in the pohtical

PROPHET OF A NEW IDEAL 287
practices of the French monarchy, the Augustinian-
Mediaeval conception of the universal association of
Christian humanity is opposed by the modern ideal
of the sovereign national state which laid claim not
only to complete autonomy but also to unrestricted
control over all the fields of the material and spiritual
life of its subjects. Simultaneously, with Duns Sko-
tus and Okkam, begins the criticism and dissolution of
the Scholastic system, with Mysticism the neutraliza
tion of the hierarchical-cultural apparatus of the
Church as far as practical piety is concerned. And
what is equally noteworthy, the landed and military
nobility more and more recedes before the municipal
burgher class which everywhere, also in the sphere of
inteUectual hfe, seizes the leadership.
All these factors, however, are customarily not re
garded as specificaUy mediaeval or Cathohc, but rather
as significant symptoms of the dissolution of medi
aeval culture and the forming of a new civihzation.
The Catholic Church professed this view of the mat
ter with especial energy and very early. It did not
dogmatize the "diseased" theology of Duns Skotus
and the Okkamists, but the "healthy" religious teach
ings of Thomas Aquinas. All Mysticism which tried
to emancipate itself from the Church it strictly dis
avowed, the modern idea of the state and the under
lying cultural ideal it condemned, Conciliarism, Epis-
copalism, Gallicanism, in short, aU the pohtical, ec
clesiastical and theological efforts at reform which in
any way seemed to threaten the continued existence
of its system it rebuffed. And there is no doubt that

288 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
the Church from its point of view could not have acted
otherwise. Had it given way only in a single point to
these tendencies it would have given up its very self.
Hence, though Luther in his development proves in
many ways to have been under the influence of Sko-
tian and Okkamistic criticism of the existing dogma
and of the edificatory ideas of Mysticism, this does
not by any chance justify the assertion that his mes
sage was only a new solution of mediaeval Cathohc
problems. In the first place, this criticism and these
edificatory thoughts lacked the specificaUy mediaeval
Catholic stamp. Secondly, Luther was under the ne
cessity of attaining the very most fundamental ideas
of his new religious point of view: the new concepts
about man, God, on the relation of man to God, in a
bitter conflict with Okkam and Mysticism.
Though it is, of course, true that in this combat
Mysticism materially aided him in overcoming Ok
kam, while the Invincible Doctor assisted him in clear
ing up his relations to Mysticism (page 107 sq.), yet
the net result at which he finally arrived is, neverthe
less, quite a good deal more than a mere crossbreeding
of Okkamism and Mysticism. For in the third place,
the problem which is uppermost in this struggle, the
question: How will I, the individual, gain assurance
of forgiveness? was propounded neither by Okkam
nor by the Mystics, nor can it be arrived at from the
premises of both by a process of deduction. On the
contrary, both tried with all their might to engender
and hold fast precisely that peculiar attitude of con
sciousness and frame of mind which Luther wished

PROPHET OF A NEW IDEAL 289
to overcome. In fact, theyjgndeavored as far as pos
sible to increase this disposition, this wavering 'twixt
hope and fear; the Okkamists because under such
conditions the pious person is more inclined to moral
effort, the Mystics because only thus can he persist in
that perfect humUity which accepts from God tran-
quiUy even eternal death and damnation. Neither
can any of the other varieties of Catholic piety attain
or grasp Luther's problem, in fact, it is to them even
as a mere problem an impiety and wickedness from
which the truly pious man turns away with disgust.
Consequently, if one wishes correctly to determine
the relationship of the Reformer to the religion Of the
Middle Ages there remains no other way than to di
rectly invert the formula of Troeltsch and to state
that: Luther's message is the solution of a new reh
gious problem on the basis of Okkamistic criticism of
the Catholic system and the practical edificatory
speculations of the late mediaeval Mystics.
However, Troeltsch did not at all reach his con
clusions by the usual historical method. He built up
his whole structure not from the front but from the
rear. Instead of first determining the content of the
mediaeval and the Lutheran systems and then com
paring the two, he endeavored before aU else to ascer
tain the difference existing between the culture of the
present and all preceding civihzations of Christian
history. Only after that did he pay closer atention to
the peculiarities of these older stages of civihzation.
This method is certainly a good one for the purpose
of clearly presenting certain characteristic features of

290 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
modern civilization. But these certain characteristics
are thereby easily overaccentuated and others of per
haps equal importance are overlooked. At best, as
remnants of older epochs of culture, they acquire the
taint of illegitimacy and are thus not sufficiently ap
preciated in their significance for the picture as a
whole. Above all, as is invariably the case in such
retrospective treatments of history, present and past,
are involuntarily placed over against one another from
the angle of contrast and not from that of develop
ment. In that way the differences of the several cul
tural stages stand out sharply, while on the other hand,
in viewing the steps of cultural growth in the past
these differences are unwittingly blurred and weak
ened and the firm contours as far as possible dissolved,
since in this wise the desired effect of contrast is more
easUy obtained. In short, right in the middle of the
process of historical consideration the method of pro
cedure is changed: First, the antitheses which have
been noted are heightened and then they are with hke
energy equalized. It is obvious that no faithful gen
eral picture of the period can be gained in this way.
The projections will, of necessity, always be somewhat
oblique, the perspectives too short, the lights sometimes
too glaring, sometimes too colorless even when the
portrayer takes pains to work from nature as much
as possible, that is, in this case, from the sources.
This peculiar "blunder," which is unavoidable if
one employs the method described above has happened
to Troeltsch precisely at the point where in his opin
ion the dependence of early Protestantism on mediae-

PROPHET OF A NEW IDEAL 291
val concepts is tangible, namely, in his estimate of the
reformatory concept of authority, of the ethics of the
Reformation, and of its view of the Church.
The author explains that in the manner of the Mid
dle Ages, Luther takes for granted that true religion
is known, that the content of the revelation can be as
certained exactly and must be respected by everyone
inasmuch as revelation is the self -understood authority
for everybody. The only difference, according to
Troeltsch, is that Luther refuses further to accept the
teaching Church as the organ and vehicle of revelation
and authority, and is wiUing to recognize as such only
"God's Word," the Bible. This is quite true. But, is
this concept of authority in fact characteristic only of
the mediaeval Church and early Protestantism? No!
It is weU known in primitive Christianity, because the
same significance which for Luther attaches to the
clear and distinct passages of Holy Writ, attaches
for the primitive Christians to the writings in the He
brew or Alexandrine Canon, the words of Christ and
the instructions of the early Christian prophets. They
are to both absolute revelation, absolute truth and
unconditionaUy binding authority.
We are, therefore, in this instance dealing not with
a specificaUy mediaeval concept but with a concept
common to all Christians. The distinctly mediaeval
and Catholic features, the behef in the revealing func
tion of the teaching Church, and the externahzation
and materiahzation of the notion of authority which
flows from it, Luther has overcome, and reaUy over
come, not merely transformed by simply substituting

292 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
for the teaching Church the external authority of the
letter of the Bible as is stiU so frequently asserted.
In Luther's opinion the Word of God can become
revelation and authority actually only for him in
whom it has impressively proved itself as a Word of
God through direct action of God upon his soul.
Whether this correction of the old doctrine of au
thority is sufficient may well be a matter of conten
tion. That the concept of authority itself, however,
is indispensable to Christianity and is also so regarded
by the "New Protestantism" is substantiated at every
step by the most recent Protestant theology. For,
what are the speculations about the idea of Chris
tianity and about the historical Christ as medium of
the revelation and as authority other than attempts
to spiritualize the ancient doctrine of authority and
thereby to securely fix it for modern thought?
As a student of ethics and sociology Troeltsch tends
to place even greater emphasis on the second point, the
inner relationship of Lutheran and mediaeval Cathohc
ethics. He asserts: Luther's Christianity also is at
bottom still entirely ascetic. In his mind the Re
former differs from the Middle Ages only in that he
demands not an ascetic attitude toward the external
world, but an internal asceticism, no more an outward
but an inward fleeing of the world, that is, an inner
independence of the heart, ever active in the midst of
the world, from the world and its pleasures and suf
ferings. This again is undoubtedly true. The spiri
tual dominion (imperium spirtuale) over the world
which the Reformer praises in such mighty tones has

PROPHET OF A NEW IDEAL 293
indeed no connection with the modern cultural idea.
It means nothing more than the inner freedom and in
dependence from the world. But it need hardly be
said that the striving for this inner independence is not
characteristic alone of the Middle Ages and the re
formers but of the Christianity of aU ages and places,
that consequently we have here again to deal with a
common Christian trait of Lutheran preaching, and
not with one that is peculiar to the Middle Ages. The
specifically mediaeval and Catholic phases Luther has
abohshed in this case also. Again, it is the "mate
rialization of the rehgious idea," the notion that man
can only then keep himself wholly undefiled by the
world if he also externally severs completely all con
nection with the world, its gifts and its tasks, and the
assertion that the ascetic's supernatural mode of hfe is
the straight road to salvation.
The same in every particular is true of Luther's re
lation to the Catholic idea of the Church. The com
mon Christian feature of this concept, the notion al
ready current in primitive Christianity, that Christ
through his Spirit is always present in the world in
order to lead man to faith and thereby to a share in
his kingdom, were retained by the Reformer. The
distinctly Catholic elements in this idea, however, the
conviction that the realm of Christ is visibly repre
sented in the hierarchically constituted institution of
the Church, and the behef that a fixed external organi
zation is essential for Christ's kingdom, these again he
whoUy set aside.
However, did Luther hereby abolish completely all

294 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
claims of the mediaeval ecclesiastical system, above all
the most important one that the Church was appointed
for the purpose of guiding, regulating and ruhng the
whole civilized hfe as supreme lawgiver, and that it
was privileged as God's appointed admimstratrix of
the doctrine and the sacraments, to permanently keep
the faithful under its tutelage? Indeed not; he did
not radically break with the Middle Ages in this re
spect either. He calmly retained the typicaUy medi
aeval institution of the national church. But in so
doing he not only recast it but reaUy made it into
something quite different. In the first place he at
tributed to it quite another significance for religious
hfe. Henceforth, as far as it is an externaUy visible
legal institution it does not count any longer as an
institution of divine but as one of human law. It is,
furthermore, not regarded as in itself a medium of sal
vation but only in as far as it teaches Christ. Above
all, it is not any more accounted the only and ex
clusive institution of salvation but must permit aU
churches, religious institutions and associations, which
in any way serve the cause of Christ to pass as such.
For wherever Christ is preached there is Christ's king
dom, or the Church in the ideal sense, while the king
dom of God is not infallibly present where the ex
ternal legal institution of the Church is found.
Pursuant to this view the Reformer also formu
lated in a different manner than the Middle Ages the
task of the national church. It has no other caU than
that of preaching Christ. It has, therefore, neither
the right nor the duty to order also the physical hfe

PROPHET OF A NEW IDEAL 295
of man, nor has it any occasion to hold mankind in
guardianship through laws and prescriptions as
though man were not able to attend to this himself
with the aid of reason. Further, the Church must con
tent itself with preaching Christ, that is, it is in sub
stance nothing more than a missionary institution, a
school for those who are not yet true Christians.
Therefore, it is neither competent nor authorized to
permanently lead, rule, or hold in tutelage the true
Christians, or those who believe in Christ and who
earnestly desire to be Christians.
Thus in the first place the mediaeval cultural idea
is done away with in principle. The Church is once
more limited to its immediate vocation, the saving of
souls. In fact, this most direct task has now become
its sole function, for the day of judgment is near at
hand, the number of those who must still be saved is
stiU so great that in the eyes of the Reformer all other
possible activities recede before this one.
For that reason also he never answered in principle
the old problem "Christiamty and Civilization," which
his Reformation had set up anew. He was content to
take a stand, in the affirmative, on the question
whether a Christian could with good conscience be an
official, soldier, prince or merchant, and, furthermore,
emphatically reiterated that it was impious and im
moral to lend money at usurious rates of interest.
That is aU! This much is certain, nevertheless, he did
not regard a complete adaptation of Christianity to
civihzation and of civilization to Christianity such as
the Middle Ages had striven to attain by subjecting

296 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
the whole cultural life to the dominion of the Church
either as possible or desirable.
The national church, however, had not only for
Luther ceased to be the lawgiver and leader of the
whole cultural hfe. It had also lost the right to per
manently patronize the faithful. Actually the Church
had nothing to say any more to the true Christians.
They had outgrown its discipline. For that very rea
son they are now in a position to reahze an ideal which
the national church as an external institution of law
never can realize by itself: the idea of a Christian
association. True Christians, namely, can combine in
so-called congregations and then in the first place in
free private religious exercises edify themselves ; sec
ondly, they can mutually educate one another after
the Christian ideal by means of strict discipline, and
thirdly, they can jointly practice all kinds of good
works of brotherly love. Only in this manner is the
"true type of Evangelical order" achieved, for thus
a form of religious organization is attained which
corresponds to the Evangelical view that all Christian
believers as priests are able and competent to decide
on questions of religious and moral life by themselves.
At the very moment when he reorganizes the na
tional church, in the Evangelical sense, the Reformer
also considers the foundation of an altogether new
kind of religious organization which is to take its place
side by side with the former. And he certainly was
quite serious in this plan, even though in view of the
moral immaturity of the masses he as early as 1527
gave up the hope that he himself would in his own life-

PROPHET OF A NEW IDEAL 297
time still be able to estabhsh such congregations, and
though he was not in the position to voice approval of
the Hessian attempt to forthwith put this project
into execution in connection with the reorganization
of the national church.
Therefore, Luther did not simply retain the mediae
val institution of the national church. On the con
trary, in this instance also he abolished what was spe-
cificaUy mediaeval and Cathohc. He gave an alto
gether new definition of the tasks of the national
church, and already planned the founding of a com
pletely new type of religious organization in which
for the first time the church ideal which corresponded
to the Evangelical conception of the priesthood of the
faithful — as far as this is possible on earth — was to
find expression. This plan, to be sure, remained a
mere plan for the present, but it is very noteworthy,
notwithstanding, that Luther's thoughts on the prac
tical shaping of religious worship already centered
about the two typical forms of religious organization,
the co-existence and relation of which is just as char
acteristic for Protestantism as for Catholicism: the
co-existence and relation of world church and monas-
ticism; national church and congregation. He also
fixed the relative value of these two types in such a
way that one can hardly say anything in criticism of
his scheme. Certainly the free' association, as far as
it does not degenerate into mere forming of gangs,
i. e., sectarianism, is the true type of Evangelical order
and the ideal calling, but the limits of the national
church also can hardly be characterized more accu-

298 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
rately than by the predicates, missionary institution
and school.
In view of these considerations, we may justly as
sert that the path to an historical appreciation of Lu
ther, but also of the mediaeval Cathohc system, is
closed to anyone who judges both after the formula:
"The message of Luther is in its essential character
istics only a recasting of the mediaeval idea," or
"merely a new solution of mediaeval Catholic prob
lems." Exactly the opposite is true. The essential
characteristics and the problems are new with Luther,
the forms have in many respects remained the old. To
be sure, new though the problems and essential char
acteristics of his preaching are, the poet is right, never
theless, when he says of him: His spirit is the battle
ground of two ages. The Middle Ages and modern
times, indeed, continually fought one another within
him, and Luther also like aU others, even the most
eminent thinkers, naturally did not at aU times suc
ceed in wholly escaping the influence of older habits
of thought, and of prejudices which in principle he
had long ago overcome.
Not infrequently old inherited views cross whoUy
new thoughts which Luther had worked out himself.
Besides, he is naturally, in the conflict with others,
prone to stress most sharply these vulnerable positions
in his system and to move them into the foreground
so energetically as though it were a matter of life and
salvation. The classic example for this is the contro
versy over the Lord's Supper. Perhaps more clearly
stiU, however, than in his doctrine of the Sacraments,

PROPHET OF A NEW IDEAL 299
this peculiar two-faced character of his thought comes
to light in his utterances on the nature and worth of
marriage, and in his expositions on the tasks and the
origin of the secular power, or the state.
There have been few men who thought so highly
of marriage and who so ardently recommended it as
Luther. He never tires of praising it as an institu
tion of God and as a school of the most perfect moral
ity, as the sweetest, loveliest and most chaste form of
life. To be sure, the physical communion of married
people is the basis for the normal conduct of married
life, but it is not the only, let alone the highest purpose
of wedlock. Its supreme end is the founding of a not
merely natural but also moral life companionship be
tween husband and wife which rests upon community
of moral duties, especiaUy in the education of the chil
dren, and upon community of religious conviction.
However, these considerations are ever again crossed
by an ascetic reflection of which the Reformer is never
able whoUy to divest himself. He, too, cannot help
seeing in the furor of the sexual impulse something
unclean, unholy, in fact, a manifestation of sin. Pur
suant to'this fact Luther always looks upon marriage
in the first place as a remedy prescribed by God
against the tyrannical power of sensuality, through
the wise use of which the unrest of passion is moder
ated and man and woman are enabled to enter a moral
life companionship.
The same observations hold good of his utterances
on the task, the purpose and the origin of the secular
power. People even to-day speak of Luther's view,

300 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
indeed of "Luther's Doctrine of the State and So
ciety." They would do weU to forego this formula
tion at the very outset, for it rouses altogether false
expectations. As httle as the Reformer knows the
expressions state and society, so little does he know
the thing itself. A state and a society in the modern
sense of these terms did not exist in the Central and
Northern Germany of his day. There were only a
great number of statelike formations which all, how
ever, furnished a very incomplete view of the state.
SmaU wonder, therefore, that the Reformer also in
speculating about the state always centers his atten
tion exclusively upon the strongest state-forming fac
tor in those territories — the government. Moreover,
in accordance with the pohtical development of his
surroundings he starts out from mediaeval concepts in
fixing the duties of the government. Like the classi
cal Middle Ages Luther uses as the point of departure
and presupposition of all pohtical speculation the
idea of the universal state of "Christendom," or of
"the common order of Christian love." The preser
vation and government of this body is to his mind
everywhere entrusted to the three sacred orders, or
the natural hierarchy: those who have the office of
providing, the laboring class; those whose duty it is
to defend, the noble and military class; those whose
function is instruction, the teaching class.
Like the classical Middle Ages he is furthermore
interested only in two problems of political science,
the question about the duties and purposes, and the
closely related one about the origin of the military

PROPHET OF A NEW IDEAL 301
order, or the government. And at least this last ques
tion he, too, answers quite in the manner of Augustine
when he claims that the institution of a government
had become necessary only as a result of sin, and that
the ideal Christian really needed no government. For
he says: "If all the world were composed of true
Christians, no king, prince, lord, sword or law were
needful or of any use. What would be the purpose
of these, since Christians have the Holy Spirit in their
heart, who teaches and persuades them not to do any
one harm, to love all mankind, to suffer wrong, even
death itself, from everyone cheerfully and willingly."
From the foregoing we can understand that his
thoughts about the duties of the government are in
general very much hke those of the Middle Ages.
The secular power must keep down the bad people
within its territories by a strict handling of the sword.
Further, should its subjects be attacked from without
it must defend them against external foes in neces
sary wars — for only this type of warfare is permitted.
The guarding of the external and internal peace,
therefore, is the true function of the government.
Notwithstanding, government, though it has come
about only as a result of sin, is still a divine institu
tion and foundation. This is not only expressly stated
in Holy Writ, it is also told to everyone by the natural
right or the natural law which God in creation in
scribed into the heart of man and which for that rea
son may also be caUed divine right or divine law. This
natural law is the aggregate of all those moral claims,
the validity of which every man recognizes without

302 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
question, because "his soul is fashioned and created
according to them." It includes aU those claims which
have in the Ten Commandments once more been ex
plicitly inculcated. At the same time, however, by
this law, all those institutions are sanctioned as di
vinely ordained which are safeguarded by the deca
logue: marriage, the family and government. For
the government "belongs to the paternal order,"
hence it may, on the strength of the natural law, lay
claim to the same rights as the parents, may by virtue
of natural law demand from all subjects honor, taxes,
tolls, all manner of services, and obedience even to the
point of sacrificing life itself. Further, it may on
these same grounds proceed against thieves, robbers,
murderers and rebels with the sword.
But the concept of natural law is even broader in
scope. Aheady Luther holds to the opinion that it
legitimatizes, as divinely appointed, the whole agra
rian and class organization of society in the era of the
Reformation, and he stamps every attempt at subver
sion of this order as a crime. This is a view which was
of the utmost significance for the whole future of
Lutheranism but which at bottom is very ancient.
The concept of natural law is a heritage of Greek
philosophy, the equahzation of this natural law with
the decalogue is aheady known to the ancient Cathohc
theologians, and the thought of basing the whole secu
lar legal and social order upon it is quite famihar to the
Middle Ages.
Luther's political and social points of view are,
therefore, in some very essential phases most anti-

PROPHET OF A NEW IDEAL 303
quated, mediaeval and un-modern. But here again
it becomes manifest that his spirit is the battleground
of two ages. Here also Luther victoriously broke
through the mediaeval attitude at the decisive points,
for the classical Middle Ages regard the holder of the
secular power merely as the bailiff of the Church, secu
lar law is held to be law only in as far as it does not
conflict with ecclesiastical law and is not protested by
the Church. To be sure, this idea is opposed by that
of the sovereign national state already in the writings
of the French publicists of the age of Boniface VIII^
But Luther is the first person who succeeds in de
stroying its rehgious roots in that he dissolves the
dogma of the divine call of the Church to the govern
ment of the world and of the religious sanctions be
hind the Church organization. Not until the appear
ance of Luther, therefore, is the sovereignty of the
secular power established beyond a doubt also for
the religious consciousness, not until then was every
attempt of the Church to interfere in the political and
social hfe as giver of moral standards and of laws
demonstrated to be irrehgious.
But Luther does not only declare the secular power
free from the guardianship of the Church, he also
destroys the view which had been made current by
Wichf, Huss and their followers and which attrib
uted to the Bible law-making authority for the po
litical and social life. Thus he also freed the secular
government and the secular law from the tutelage of
the letter of the Bible. He did this by asserting that
all legal prescriptions of Holy Writ have lost binding

304 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
force for the Christians, and that they are important
only as examples of traditional legislation.
At the same time Luther energetically champions
an extension of the duties of the state after the mod
ern theory of the state. Though he beheves that the
guarding of the external and internal peace is the
proper function of government, he nevertheless de
mands further that the government through the erec
tion of schools and libraries and by means of a certain
measure of compulsory education provide for the up
bringing of its subjects; further, that it promote
order and decency in its territories by strict use of the
police against idleness, beggary, drunkenness and
luxury of dress; that it curb all abuse in trade and
traffic by severe laws against usury and the large cor
porations; that it intercede with word and deed for
the poor, widows and orphans, and that otherwise also
it make the material welfare of the people its concern,
inasmuch as it is a further duty of the government to
instruct everyone how to manage his house and home
and how to win money and goods.
Even Luther, therefore, sees the ideal state in his
mind's eye as a "Kulturstaat." True, this ideal was
not altogether new. It asserts itself already in the
policies of the city states of the thirteenth and four
teenth centuries, and since the fifteenth is gaining in
fluence also on the pohcies of the territorial princes.
But no one before Luther conceived and portrayed
the "paternal vocation" of the state so broadly and
definitely. He also is responsible for the introduc
tion into political speculation of the so-caUed patri-

PROPHET OF A NEW IDEAL 305
archal theory, according to which the governmental
authority is considered as a developmental form of the
paternal power, and it is he who established the notion
that the prince is the father of his country and must
rule as such. Thus, he paved the way for a new con
cept of the state and of political hfe, which though
it is not identical with the modern view of the state,
nevertheless prepared the path for the modern "Kul
turstaat," at least in Lutheran Germany.
Is the view of the Reformer about the relation of
the secular power to rehgion and public worship also
part of those ideas which point beyond the Middle
Ages? This question has recently been much dis
cussed but answered very differently, depending en
tirely upon the degree of prominence given to the
opinions of the young or the old Luther. For Luther
in these two periods of his life holds somewhat di
verging views on this question. Throughout his life
the Reformer chngs firmly only to the one principle:
the government has no right to decide questions of
behef, and also to the conviction that "thoughts are
not dutiable." From this foUows further that the old
mediaeval law on heresy which under certain condi
tions made also the private opinions of people the sub
ject of an ecclesiastical criminal procedure must cease
operating. Did Luther always draw the same conclusions from
these fundamental considerations? We must in this
connection remember in the first place that the law of
the time besides heresy recognized also another crime
against religion: pubhc blasphemy. This was gen-

306 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
erally regarded as a serious offense which the govern
ment was in duty bound to punish. The German
imperial laws of 1495, 1512, 1530 and 1532, in agree
ment with the Roman law, provide for this crime
"depending upon the circumstance and form of the
person and the blasphemous act" in hfe and limb, at
least, in case of relapse. Did Luther ever judge dif
ferently on this point? As far as we know, never.
Only the question as to what was to be regarded as
blasphemy was apparently not clear to him at the be
ginning. (Enders V, 117.) Not until 1530 was he
moved to give this matter serious consideration, and
thereupon he came to the conclusion, blasphemy is all
public teaching and slander against a pubhc article
of faith, for instance, against an article of the Apos
tolic Creed. (Weimar Ed., XXXI, 1, 18.) Thus,
a person who openly teaches that Christ is not God.
but a mere man, that he has not atoned for our sins,
but that this must be done by everyone personaUy,
that there is no such thing as a resurrection, an eter
nal life, and a heU, cannot be tolerated by the gov
ernment and must be banished from the country.
Herewith no one is forced to believe, for privately
everybody may believe what he wishes, only pubhc
teaching and slander against the "common articles of
Christendom" is interdicted.
This shows sufficiently that the Reformer never
thought of unrestricted freedom of teaching and re
ligion. The mere possibility of such a thing was alto
gether foreign to the thought of this age. Neverthe
less, Luther's definition leaves a wide range for teach-

PROPHET OF A NEW IDEAL 307
ing and for blasphemy. Did he within this scope hold
unrestricted freedom of teaching to be lawful and
proper? For the first, yes ! As late as the summer of
1522, he says, in writing about Miinzer and his as
sociates : "There must be some sects." (Weimar Ed.,
XV, 218.) "Let the intellects clash and meet in con
troversy. If as a result some are led astray, let them
go, such is the fortune of war. Where there is con
flict and battle, there some must faU or be wounded."
This restricted freedom of teaching has only one
barrier : Rebellion must be preached under no circum
stance whatsoever. Where this is done there the gov
ernment must instantly interfere and straightway "in
terdict the soU" to such preachers, whether they be
Lutherans or adherents of Miinzer. However, under
the impression of the great disaster which Karlstadt,
Miinzer and their companions had occasioned "in par
ishes whither no one had sent them" his attitude on
this point is changed. "Oppositionary preaching,"
he writes in 1530 (Weimar Ed., XXXI, 1, 209),
"engenders not merely sectarianism, but also discord,
hatred and jealousy in secular affairs." In case,
therefore, anywhere Papists and Lutherans publicly
preach and swear against one another, and if the Lu
therans notice that their preaching is not meeting
with sympathetic ears, then they must observe
silence and recede. But if, for conscience' sake,
neither of the parties wants to give way, then
the government is to take a hand and to interrogate
the combatants. Whichever side then cannot prove
its stand from Scriptures the government must com
mand to remain silent.

308 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
More intolerable stUl, however, than such pubhc
dissension are the secret machinations of the hedge
priests. Anyone who without office or command
teaches secretly must certainly be planning rebelhon
or something worse. Such an one must not be per
mitted to go on, even though he were the Angel Ga
briel himself, but must be turned over to the proper
master, whose name is Hans, that is, to the execu
tioner. This same rule is applicable also to Lutheran
pastors if they dare to secretly preach and teach in
the congregation of a Catholic or heretical clergyman
without his knowledge or permission.
Of whom is the Reformer thinking when he speaks
these harsh words? In the first place of the apostles
of the Anabaptists who both secretly and openly
taught that no government ought to be tolerated,
that no Christian be permitted to hold an office, that
private property ought to be done away with, that
wife and child must be forsaken and all things ought
to be held in common. (Weimar Ed., XXXI, 1,
208.) But were these accusations against the Ana
baptists altogether justified? Were not many of
them peaceable, quiet and moderate people who were
very far from harboring any revolutionary tendencies
or intentions ? Certainly, fest by far the greater num
ber were not harmless by any means, they were dis
tinctly seditious in their opinions. That the existing
government was an irreligious institution was the
dominant opinion ever since the death of Hubmaier
even among the moderates, who never thought of tak
ing the sword themselves. Communistic ideas also

PROPHET OF A NEW IDEAL 309
were everywhere current in the congregations of the
"children of God," and furthermore, the conviction
that an adherent of Anabaptism might without fur
ther ceremony sever his marriage with a "heathen"
and forsake his chUdren in order to wed a "sister."
The most radical exponent of all these views was the
book-agent Haensel Hutt of Bibra, the most fanati
cal and bloodthirsty of aU the Anabaptist apostles.
And it was this wild Apocalyptic himself who gained
the largest number of adherents in the Franconian
and Thuringian possessions of the Saxon House.
It is therefore not surprising that the Wittenberg
theologians in October, 1531, in an arbitrament an
swer the question whether the government ought to
punish the Anabaptists with the sword in the affirma
tive and that also Luther adds his "placet" with the
characteristic motivation that "though it may seem
cruel to punish them with the sword, it is more cruel
stiU that they condemn the office of the Word and sup
press the true doctrine, and, besides, wish to destroy
the regna mundi (the secular government.) " (C. R.
IV, 740. ) A hke verdict Luther uttered in an opinion
rendered at the time of the Anabaptist horrors at
Minister on the twentieth of October, 1532 (DeWette
VI, 151), and a simUar one in a memorial addressed
to the Landgrave of Hesse on the fifth of June, 1536.
( Enders X, 346. ) In this latter document he declares
that the prince is empowered to punish the Anabap
tists with the sword if for no other reason because
they had, despite their oath, again secretly entered his
territories and were seducing the people. He ad-

310 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
vises, however, that at aU times, in accordance with
the circumstances in the individual cases, mercy ought
to go side by side with punishment. Finally, he once
more briefly summarizes his attitude on this question
in a Table Talk of September, 1540 (Mathesius, 378) :
"The Anabaptists who rebel against the government
the Elector lawfully punishes with death, the others,
who harbor fanatical opinions, are mostly banished
from the country." It is apparent, therefore, that in
the matter of freedom of teaching Luther gave up
his earlier attitude. Until 1525 he energetically cham
pions a restricted freedom of teaching, later on he
refuses to hear of it. Up to 1525 he merely pleads
banishment, even when notorious rebels like Miinzer
are concerned, later on he deems the death penalty
justified in such cases.
What were his views in earher years about blas
phemy is not clear. But later, in agreement with
Melanchthon and in harmony with the current law,
he evidently regards blasphemy, that is, every kind
of public teaching and slander against the doctrines of
the Apostolic Creed as a crime worthy of capital pun
ishment. (Enders VIII, 163.) This certainly is a
significant change in his opinions. But are we right
if, in view of this, we assert: In his age Luther re
turned again to the old law on heresy? No. He
neither knows nor desires an Inquisition, nor an ec
clesiastical heresy trial, he knows only a secular puni
tive procedure exercised in disturbance of the peace
of the Church through discordant teachings, in sedi
tious agitation against the established pohtical order

PROPHET OF A NEW IDEAL 311
and in pubhc blasphemy, and he regards the death
penalty as proper only in those cases where also the
laws of the state demand it, in rebellion and blas
phemy. Private religious opinion, however, is not
interfered with either before or after. Personal con
victions are never to become the subject of criminal
procedure. If we compare with these principles and
with the practice of the Lutheran governments based
upon them the principles and the practice of the Papal
Inquisition in Italy since 1542, we will not long re
main in doubt about the difference between Luther
anism and Cathohcism also with regard to freedom
of thought and of teaching.
Very similar to his position on freedom of teaching
is the Reformer's attitude on the freedom of worship.
In his younger years he did not busy himself with this
question at aU, later on he always answers it on the
basis of three principles which to him have the force
of axioms: public worship is part of the municipal
law, and is therefore part of the pubhc order; the
preaching of two divergent doctrines necessarily leads
to sedition ; true religion is known and it alone has any
claim to public toleration. From these premises he
draws the conclusion: The suppression of the public
Catholic worship is a duty of the government, the
suppression of Evangehcal preaching, however, on
the other hand is an unjustifiable tyranny over reli
gious behef.
Hence Luther not only approves of the prohibition
of Catholic worship but demands it, in fact, in his
opinion, it is not religious coercion if the government

312 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
forces gross slanderers into the Evangelical services
and makes them memorize the Evangehcal catechism,
so that they, at least, learn the "economy," that is,
learn how they ought to behave as citizens and heads
of f amines. For in Luther's eyes the national church
is not only a missionary institution for the kingdom
of Christ, but also a public educational institution in
which civic morality and decency is inculcated, and
hence it has claim not only upon protection but also
for material aid from the government. However, all
this does not in any way touch the freedom of private
worship: "In their chambers also those of other re
ligious convictions may adore and worship whomso
ever they wish and as many gods as they want to."
Hence, if it pleases the monks behind closed doors to
commit their blasphemous acts they must be hindered
just as little as the Jews in their synagogues.
But what if Catholic princes retaliate in kind upon
Evangelical believers and suppress the free preaching
of the gospel? They are in that case doubtless ty
rants, manifestly rebels against God's Word. How
ever, may they be treated as such, is it aUowable to
rise and plot against them and put an end to their
rule? By no means. If they do not wish to tolerate
Evangelical preaching, they may do so on their own
responsibility and at their own peril. But they are
held to at least grant to their Evangehcal subjects
the free permission to leave their lands. Only in a
single instance did the Reformer forsake this prin
ciple to which otherwise he adhered strictly. He con
ceded to the Evangelical princes, though not to the

PROPHET OF A NEW IDEAL 313
Evangelical subjects the right to proceed with the
sword against those who defend false doctrine and
worship and who try to coerce others into the same.
Does it not f oUow from all this that Luther granted
to the secular power the right to decide questions of
faith and to determine the public worship in their ter
ritories? Not at aU. The government has over
against rehgion only duties, no rights. After the
opinion of Luther it occupies toward the question of
worship much the same position as that which the
modern state in the opinion of the modern world oc
cupies over against the task of fostering science. Just
as it is generally demanded to-day that the state pro
tect science and furnish it with abundant means,
while, nevertheless, the state is denied any right to
prescribe to the devotees of science their methods or
the conclusions they must reach, so Luther also re
gards the relationship of the state to religion as one
of reverence, from which there result for the pohtical
power only duties, but no rights whatsoever. It is the
duty of the Emperor and the princes to check the
evils in the Church by calling a council (Address to
the Nobility, 1520) ; it is a duty of the territorial
lords to institute a system of church inspection, to
suppress Catholic worship, to prepare a free path for
God's Word by calhng Evangelical preachers. But
even by the most loyal fulfillment of these duties the
government never acquires the right to rule the
Church and to decide on questions of belief.
Nothing is further from the truth, therefore, than
the notion that the system in which the political sov-

314 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
ereign controls the Church is the form of church
regime which most closely corresponds to Luther's
ideals. On the contrary, we may assert that this form
of church government, as far as it is government at
all, as the very name shows, is in direct opposition to
Luther's principal concept of rehgion.
It is furthermore impossible to bring this form of
church government into direct connection historically
with the Reformation. For it is not a product of the
reformatory speculation at aU, but, as especiaUy the
development of the Church of England proves in a
classical example, an outcome of late mediaeval pubhc
law fertilized by ideas emanating from the ancient
Germanic "Eigenkirchentum." This latter fact, of
course, in no way decides its value for the present
time, for the question as to how a legal system or an
idea originated, is for the determination of its worth
just as indifferent as the question whether its author
was beautiful or homely.
Moreover, as httle as the idea of the state church, so
little can the modern natural law ideal of the self-
governing congregation, made up of the payers of the
church tax, be regarded as a legitimate development
from Lutheran principles. It is true, the Reformer,
in the first years of the Evangelical movement, fre
quently enough argued: Every Christian assembly or
congregation is capable and empowered to judge on
aU doctrine and to install or depose its teachers,
i. e., its pastors ; every Christian has the right to repri
mand the preacher in a respectful and modest manner
should he err. But on what fact is this competency

PROPHET OF A NEW IDEAL 315
based in the opinion of Luther? Self -evidently not
on mere external membership in a congregation but
on membership in the ideal community of the faithful.
And why? Because this right presupposes the ability
to "judge all doctrines," which, however, is found only
in those people to whom God has given faith, and to
whom he has thereby opened an understanding for his
promises and commands, or his revelation.
It foUows from this that all the utterances about
the congregation from the years 1520-23 must be
judged in accordance with the expositions about the
assembly or congregation of the year 1525-27 with
which we are farrhhar. Not until he gave these had
the Reformer finished the difficult task of finding an
organization which conformed to his rehgious ideals
and which did not abohsh or disturb the efficient oper
ation of the national church. In these latter pro
nouncements for the first time all that is made clearly
apparent after which Luther had always striven in
obscure longing. In them also for the first time is
distinctly shown that the ideal which he had before his
eyes was not the autonomous congregation, but the
self-governing community of the true believers.
From out of this ideal, it is quite evident, one may
possibly arrive at the autonomous congregation of the
Independents, but never at the modern natural-law
theory of the congregation.
Thus in the soul of the Reformer ancient and in
herited, whoUy new and novel, truly mediaeval and
unquestionably modern ideas and moods intertwine
and permeate one another. Hence it is not an easy

316 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
matter to characterize Luther as a thinker. One who
considers him from the standpoint of present-day civ
ilization wiU naturally always be struck especially by
the "Old-Franconian" and mediaeval elements of his
character, and he wUl, therefore, be in danger of over
looking its undoubtedly modern phases. A person
who approaches him from the Middle Ages, however,
will, on the contrary, be most impressed by the unde
niably modern features of his thought, so that he wUl
be tempted to disregard the Middle Ages and to
portray Luther as a modern man. In reality he is
neither the one nor the other. He is not a mediaeval
man, for he burst the iron ring of the mediaeval view
of the world at just the point where so far it had most
strongly bound even the most vigorous spirits. Nor
is the Reformer a modern man, for he retained many
genuinely mediaeval concepts.
However, Luther can likewise not well be conceived
as a so-called transitional type. For in the first place
the transition which is connected with his name is not
merely a transition, but a revolution, which attacked
the very foundations of the cultural system as it had
hitherto existed, a revolution through which cultural
life was led over into entirely new channels. He is,
secondly, not a transitional type because this revolu
tion was not merely automatically consummated in
his person, not merely experienced by him as an ex
terior occurrence, but because it was executed by him
and made an event for mankind through him alone.
Thus also as a thinker Luther is not a type, but a
"man by himself," who belongs to no age exclusively,

PROPHET OF A NEW IDEAL 317
and who for that very reason at the same time is a
"genius" in the classic sense of that term, i. e., a man
who, as a productive force, exerted a most powerful
influence on the contemporary and later world.
Who wishes to do full justice to the Reformer, there
fore, dare not attempt merely to portray him as a
product of already existing forces, but must depict
him also as a productive force by determining all those
manifold results which emanated from him. Only
in these does his tremendous productivity become
truly visible. Such a portrayal, however, would be
out of place at this juncture.
Only this one fact may stiU be emphasized: One
seriously underestimates Luther by considering him
solely as the founder of Lutheranism. That religious
group is only one of the world-historical consequences
of the powerful movement which he called forth.
Side by side with Lutheranism one must always name
also the other great and small church bodies which
owe their existence to this movement: the Reformed
Church, the Church of England, the Schwenkfeldians,
the Independents, and even the Anabaptists and
Quakers. His relation to these churches is much
hke that of Augustine to the Cathohc Church of the
Middle Ages. Just as Catholicism did not take up
the whole Augustine, so also none of these churches ex
pressed clearly and exhaustively the Christianity of
Luther. In all of them, in a manner of speaking, it
suffered a mediaevalization, in the first place already
in this wise that they allowed the remnants of mediae
val thought which Luther had not overcome to con-

318 LUTHER IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH
tinue on; secondly, in that they again accepted genu
ine mediaeval ideas, and thirdly, inasmuch as they
in the majority organized as compulsory rehgious
organizations after the type of the mediaeval national
church. As Augustine, therefore, did not cease operating
when the mediaeval ecclesiastical and cultural system
dissolved, so Luther also did not stop being effective
when those oldest organizations of Protestant Chris
tianity were dissolved. Rather, his influence on re
hgious development continued. It is even now in the
Protestant world more vigorous and powerful than
that of any other rehgious personality. But Luther
never restricted himself — and in this respect he is
again hke Augustine — merely to the field of rehgion.
He embraced the whole of cultural hfe. Mediaeval
civilization was altogether an ecclesiastical one, i. e.,
a civilization founded and dominated by the Church.
By attacking the Church, therefore, Luther, without
realizing it, at the same time provided the impetus for
the abolition of the civilization, created and directed
by it, and for the growth of a new civilization. To
what extent he himself participated in this, and how
far, in individual instances, the remoter effects of his
religious reform reach, that, to be sure, is far from
having been determined in detaU. Solely about this
there is no doubt: That he blazed a path for the new
age at just that point from out of which the recasting
of civilization, as things stood, could alone proceed,
and that for this reason if for none other he may well
be called and celebrated a hero of civUization.

a pictorial Cifo

of

Cutfyer

Being the First Publication of
the Collection of Rare Prints
in the Possession of
REV. WILLIAM KOEPCHEN
Who also contributes
the Descriptive Text and Titles

1916
THE CHRISTIAN HERALD
Bible House, New York

Copyright 1916
By The Christian Herald

THE PICTORIAL STORY OF LUTHER'S
LIFE AND WORK.
By Prof. W. H. T. Datj.
TVTO person engaged in the work of instructing
^ others or of conveying information to the gen
eral public will undervalue the aid derived from a
good iUustration. The pictorial art has a recognized
mission in every department of the education of our
race. In the study of historical subjects, in particu
lar, there will be manifested by every healthy mind
a keen desire to behold the likeness of the famous men
who achieved great things in this world, to obtain a
glimpse of the places where, and the physical condi
tions, under which, their work was performed ; to have
placed before one a suggestive representation of de
cisive moments in their lives, and to see the dramatic
scenes in which they were the actors.
We do not realize, as a rule, how much knowledge
is taken up by us unconsciously since our childhood
days by looking at pictures. And not only knowledge
is gathered in this way, but settled opinions are
formed, aspirations quickened, preferences and aver
sions fixed. A young boy is turning in a seemingly
listless way the pages in Dore's Bible Gallery, or sits
musing over the quaint drawings of Schnorr von
Carolsfeld, or over the Perry pictures, or the Tissot
Collection, or Mastroianni's sculptural reliefs, depict-

ing scenes from the life of Christ. In not a few in
stances what appeared to be a mere mechanical
perusal of a book of pictures has proven a remark
ably efficient medium of information and character-
formation. But why dilate on something that every
body concedes and no one disputes?
Those were stirring times four hundred years ago.
The world seemed out of joint. A battle was on, and
the din of the conflict was reverberating through Eu
rope, from the Grampian Hills to the Golden Horn,
and from Madrid to Riga. Yea, they were telling
in the streets of Jerusalem how a German friar had
defied the Bishop of Rome. They were noting, some
with plain satisfaction, some with amazement, some
with feelings still undefined, that serious-minded men
throughout Europe were siding with the monk against
the bishop, and not a few persons of consequence and
authority were either openly abetting the monk in his
endeavor or secretly shielding him from the fury of his
enemies. It was a war different from the one which is now
convulsing Europe. There was no clashing of arms,
no brandishing of swords, no crackle of musketry, no
endless columns of warriors marching to the beat of
the drum to take up their positions in the serried ranks
of battle. There was not heard the cannons' echoing
roar, that shatters men's nerves and then, after a
short shrift, sends them into the carnage of the bay
onet charge. At any rate, no battle of this kind was
fought in this war until a generation later. It was a
battle; of spirits. The war was in the hearts of men.
ii

Convictions clashed. Arguments grappled. Princi
ples were pitted against principles, declarations de
fied by counter-declarations. Superstitions were shat
tered, and beliefs sustained. It was as if the plan
of this battle had been formulated by the ancient
prophet who said: "Not by might, nor by power, but
by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts." (Zech. 4:6.)
The story of that mighty conflict has been told by
some of the ablest writers of the world. The his
torian, the novelist, the dramatist, the poet, have vied
with each other to immortalize the actors and the
scenes in that war. But the painter and the sculptor
have not been behind their brother artists and scholars
in zealous devotion to the stirring subject of this war:
with more than ordinary prodigality and eminent
skiU they have reproduced to the eye the leading
figures and the most notable events in that conflict.
Luther's face, in particular, as that of the master
mind of the reformatory movement, has become fa
miliar to most men of our day who lay claim to some
degree of culture. Artistic representations of scenes
from his life adorn some of the most famous galleries
of Europe.
We are on the eve of the four hundredth anni
versary of that event from which the beginning of the
Reformation is commonly reckoned — the publication
of Luther's Ninety-five Theses against the sale of in
dulgences on the thirty-first of October, 1517. Able
authors have in most recent times given us very cred
itable accounts of Luther's life-work. Some have en
livened the pages of their books with illustrations.
iii

Among these there have been reproduced some rare
prints. The volume which is here submitted to the reader
has separated the narrative of Luther's life from the
illustrations : it makes the pictures tell the story of
Luther. The views assembled in this volume are the
result of critical and painstaking research. Years
were spent in getting them together. Rev. William
Koepchen, himself an ardent and loyal Lutheran,
and the pastor of a large Lutheran Church in New
York City, has collected these views and written the
informing and stirring explanatory remarks that ac
company them. The patient labor which he has ex
pended in the . assembling of. the various parts that
make up this series has been ably seconded by the
publisher of this memorial volume. No expense has
been spared by The Christian Herald in the en
deavor to make these views historically accurate and
artistically adequate to the great subject which they
treat. May it achieve its silent mission of enlightenment
and encouragement in many a Christian home, placing
before the old at a glance many a scene that has dimly
formed in their minds during hours of laborious read
ing, and attracting the inquiring youths who may
draw an inspiration from the imperishable work of a
plain man of the people and a loyal son of the church
of Jesus Christ, who dared to obey God's Word
rather than men. W.H. T.Dau.
St. Louis, Mo., October 20, 1915.

iv

/

-, i ~5^

Martin Luther.

There are men of whom the world will never be tired, and
Martin Luther is one of them. It would be saying little to
state that he is a representative man. He is one of the vital
forces of modern civilization. Blot Luther from the sixteenth
century and the historical development of the last four hun
dred years would have been impossible. By him the seething
elements of progress were fused, forged into a thunderbolt,
: and hurled against that power which obstructed the march of
civilization, and led mankind captive at its will.
3

Luther's Father.
Hans Luther was a firm, straightforward, and pious man,
endowed with an unusual portion of sound sense. He knew
what he wanted and had no fear of saying what he meant in
unmistakable terms. His integrity and sturdy common sense
made him, in later life, a respected adviser of the princes at
Mansfeld and a trusted magistrate. 4

Luther's Mother.

Margaretha Ziegler of Eisenach had been known as a
virtuous and pious girl. She retained her modesty and fear
of God after her marriage to Hans Luther, and led such a
virtuous life that she could be made a model for her sex. On
her face, as preserved by Cranach 's brush, the struggles of
her early life are recorded. For many years, nearly every
waking hour was spent in exhausting manual labor.
5

The House Where Martin Luther Was Born.

It stands in Eisleben, Saxony, at the top of the street
which bears his name. The house was partly burned in 1689,
but was restored in 1817. The modern entrance is surmounted
by a poorly executed bust of Luther with the following in
scription : "In this house Dr. Martin Luther was born Novem
ber ID, 1483. God's Word and Luther's doctrine pure shall
to eternity endure."

Luther's Home in Mans
feld, Saxony.
For Luther 's parents
worldly success came slow
ly. But in time the days
of pinching poverty and
narrow circumstances
passed ; industry, frugal
ity and integrity ultimate
ly triumphed. Hans Lu
ther became the proprietor
of two furnaces and the
owner of this comfortable
two-story house in the main
street of Mansfeld. This
home went, in later years,
to Martin's brother James,
who paid the four remain
ing heirs for their share in
the estate. The illustration
shows the house in its pres
ent condition.

Mansfeld.

Mansfeld is to-day a small town, with a church in the
center and ruins of a castle on a high hill. In 1533 it had
three churches and the castle was in its splendor, with high-
roofed buildings, spires, and walls pierced by numerous win
dows. Here Martin grew up under the shadow of dark and
wooded cliifs, crowned by the castle of the Counts of Mansfeld
and pierced by the shafts of the mines.

Luther at the
Mansfeld Village
School.
Martin's education
began very early at
the village school in
Mansfeld. Latin was
the principal subject
taught. The boys
were required to
speak as well as read
it. Luther's recollec
tions of the ignorance
and brutality of his
first teacher were
very unhappy indeed.
He, no doubt, thought
of this cruel taskmas
ter when in later
years he complained
of those awkward
teachers who deal
with tender children
as if they were crim
inals, and who are
more fit to drive cat
tle than to educate
gentle children.

Cotta House in Eisenach.
In the congenial atmosphere of home and school in Eise
nach, Luther developed rapidly and made such progress in
his .studies that, at the age of eighteen years, he said farewell to
the generous Cotta family and their home to enter the old and
famous University at Erfurt, at that time, perhaps, the most
advanced of the higher institutions of learning in Germany.

10

Luther at the Cot
ta Home in
Eisenach.
The charity of this
Christian woman
worked a transforma
tion in Luther. He
could devote all his
time to his studies,
and was surrounded
by the refining influ
ence of a Christian
home. The influence
of Martin's new en
vironment was life
long. His intimate
friendship with this
family of culture dur
ing the formative pe
riod of his life served
to temper such rough
ness and uncouthness
as he brought from
the peasant's home
and mining town, and
fitted him for associa
tion with the world.

Luther Received into Cotta 's Home at Eisenach.

While attending school at Eisenach, Luther joined one of
the companies of singers who went from house to house singing
and accepting money. His beautiful voice brought him to the
attention of Ursula Cotta, the pious wife of a wealthy mer
chant. She took him into her home, spoke to him sympathet
ically and made him one of her family.
12

Old Erfurt.
It was the custom of the students who did not board
with one of the professors to live at the "Burse," a com
bination of dormitory and eating-club. Luther lived at the
Burse of St. George, which once stood on Lehmann's Bridge.
It was a building similar to the one seen on this Kramer-
briicke. 13

Erfurt University.

The University at Erfurt was one of the earliest on Ger
man soil. It was founded in 1392, and reached its high-water
mark in 1480, with an enrollment of 2,000. On the records, still
preserved, though the university ceased to exist in 1816, may
be read to-day the entry : "Martinus Luder ex Mansfeld."
14

Luther in the
Library of the Uni
versity at Erfurt.
With ardent zeal
Luther devoted him
self to classical litera
ture and philosophy,
including logic, rhet
oric and the elements
of the physical sci
ences. His retentive
memory and philo
sophical attainments
Mwere the admiration
01 of teachers and stu
dents alike. He at
tended as many of the
"Seminars" as possi
ble, conferred with
his teachers on the
more difficult ques
tions, participated in
the quizzes organized
by the most interested
students, and spent
many an hour in the
library of the uni
versity.

Luther as Student at Erfurt.

Luther was a sociable fellow, witty, talkative, fond of joke
and jest, and devoted to music, for which he had a natural
talent, and which he regarded as one of the most beautiful
gifts of God, ranking it next after theology in importance.
When he felt fatigued or otherwise indisposed with study and
writing, he took his flute or his guitar and played some agree
able air. He often praised the art of music to his friends, say
ing : ' ' Music is the best cordial to a person in sadness ; it soothes,
quickens and refreshes the heart. ' '

16

The Augustinian Mon
astery in Erfurt.
(As it was :n 1665.)
Of the twenty monas
teries in Erfurt in Lu
ther's time, the Augustin
ian bore the highest rep
utation for theological
learning and for public
service. This convent at
Erfurt was dissolved
after the Reformation
and converted into an
Orphans' Home, called
"Martinsstift," in honor
of the most illustrious in
mate the building ever
held.

Luther at the Augustinian Monastery at Erfurt.
No exemptions from the humiliating duties in the cloister
were made for this distinguished Master of Arts. He swept
the walks, scrubbed the floors, washed the filthiest vessels, and,
with a sack on his back, begged provisions in Erfurt and the
neighboring villages. But the spiritual peace for which his
heart craved did not come to his heart by this participation in
the duties, drudgeries and humiliations of convent life.
18

Luther in Rome.
Besides attending
to the business of his
mission to Rome, Lu
ther at once began to
gather all the ' ' spirit
ual blessings" which
his church had to of
fer in this city. In
this church, Santa
Maria del Popolo,
Luther read his first
S mass within the city
wall. The structure is
said to cover the place
where Pope Pascal
burned to ashes the
exhumed body of the
wicked Roman Em
peror Nero, who had
Peter crucified, Paul
beheaded, and many
Christians put to
death in the most bru
tal manner.

Johann von Staupitz, D.D.
In this Vicar General of the Augustinian Order the monk
Luther found a sincere friend and spiritual helper. Staupitz
was of noble birth, of high scholarly attainments and with a
spirit of simple, unaffected piety and wide sympathies. His
judgment was sober, and his great tact in dealing with cases
of conscience made him pre-eminently a true shepherd of souls.
The portrait represents Staupitz as Abbot of the Benedictine
Monastery of St. Peter at Salzburg. He died there in 1524.

20

Convent of the Augustin
ians in Rome.
During Luther's four
weeks' stay at this convent of
the Augustinians in Rome his
mind was filled with amaze
ment. He had come to Rome
as to the throne of God's High
Priest on earth, but found it
filled with degrading vices.
Under Pope Alexander VI,
the Papacy had reached its
very lowest degradation. He
is about the only pope that
has never found an apologist.
Conditions under his succes
sor, Julius II, were still un
speakable in their vileness.

Scala Sancta.
One of the many shrines visited by Luther during his
stay in Rome was the "Scala Sancta," or Pilate's Staircase,
supposed to be the very stairway upon which our Saviour
ascended to the palace of Pontius Pilate. Luther crawled up
these steps upon his knees but failed to experience any spiritual
satisfaction in this exercise. 22

Martin Luther, Doctor of Theology.
Staupitz, wishing to be relieved from his duties at the
university, had, with the consent of the Elector, selected Luther
as his successor. Luther urged his delicate health and begged
to be excused. But he finally consented, held the required dis
putation, October 18, 1512, and was with all due ceremony
created a Doctor of Divinity on the following day, pledging
himself to devote his whole life to the study, exposition, and
defense of the Scriptures. This pledge gave him privileges.
and rights which his enemies could not deny, and it laid on
him obligations and duties which he never forgot.
23

Leo X.

Reared amidst all the luxuries wealth could bring and en
joying the highest social rank, this pope recoiled from the
coarse sensuality of Alexander VI, but he was no less a devotee
of pleasure, according to the standards of his more cultivated
tastes. In furthering his plans for personal pleasure, as well
as in continuing the adornment of the Papal city in keeping
with the artistic ideals of his age, Leo was the most prodigal
of spendthrifts. Often in desperate straits for the ready cash, it
was only too convenient for him to realize the necessary money
by the sale of indulgences. 24

Friedrich, surnamed the Wise, Elector of Saxony, was a
judicious capable ruler and pious according to mediaeval stand
ards. He loved peace, order and justice. This moved him to
protect Luther, though he otherwise avoided all personal con
tact with the Reformer. The Elector was the most powerful
of the princes of the Empire, and it is due to his passive aid, his
guarding the inviolability of Luther's person, rather than to
any public assent to Luther's work, that the Reformation was
so successful in Germany. This noble-minded prince came at
the close of his life to a fuller insight of the Gospel.
25

Wittenberg. ' Mar
ketplace,
Castle Church and
Castle.
Wittenberg is situ
ated on the banks of
the Elbe, about half
way between Leipzig
and Berlin.. Towards
the end of the fif
teenth century ' Wit-
c§ tenberg had only 350
low, frame, straw-
thatched houses, an
old church and a town
hall. Friedrich, who
became Elector of
Saxony in 1486, chose
Wittenberg as his
residence and thus in
a way as the capital of his northern territory. He began immediately to ornament the town with public
buildings, including a castle and a church. In 1502 he founded the university, which was later made
world-renowned by Luther.

The
Black Cloister
Wittenberg.

in

This Augustinian
cloister, where Lu
ther had lived ever
since he came1 to
Wittenberg, is situ
ated at the extreme
southeast of the
town, near the El-
ster Gate, It is a
roomy building and
ha d accommodated
at one time as many
as forty monks.
Elector Friedrich
made Luther a wed
ding present of the
building with the
court in front and
the gardens behind. The gift was legally confirmed seven years later, when the Elector Johann
deeded this property to Luther and his wife jointly.

to00

Luther 's Room in
the Blaok Cloister.
Luther 's rooms are
now used as a muse
um, and are filled
with interesting relics
of the Reformer. In
this, his study-room,
the old writing table
where Luther worked
stands defiant of time,
though its splinters
and rough, edges are
beginning to tell the
secret of its great age.
The large iron stove
that warmed Luther 's
blood can yet hold the
flames of many 'fires ;
the same window-
panes with a broken
one here and there,
still let in the sun
light ;. the same planks
remain in the floor of
his study. •'

Luther's Lecture
Hall.
On the south side of
the second floor of the
Black Cloister, or Lu
ther Haus, was Lu
ther 's lecture hall, for
Luther held his lec
tures here, instead of
in 1 the university
building. The Uni
ts versity of Wittenberg
50 remained for many
decades a noble monu
ment to Luther's in
fluence. It was the
first' European insti
tution to teach the
three ancient lan
guages, Hebrew,
Greek and Latin. In
rfted witrL'uSversity of Halle. [ Luther gave his last lecture in this hall on November 17, 1545, com-
pleting his course on the Book of Genesis.

The University at Wittenberg.
Wittenberg, the electoral residence, was selected as the
site of the university, partly because the income of the Castle
Church could be used for its support, partly because there was
an Augustinian monastery there, which could be relied upon
for teachers of philosophy and theology. Martin Pollich, Doc
tor of Medicine, Philosophy and Theology, and physician to the
Elector, and Staupitz were the Elector's chief advisers. To
promote Friedrich 's plan, they called to Wittenberg competent
monks from other cities to aid in the work of instruction.
Among those drafted was Martin Luther.
30 T

" Stadtkirche " in Wittenberg.
By urgent request of the town council of Wittenberg,
Luther, in 1515, accepted the charge as pastor of the Town
Church, whose pastor, Simon Heintz, was sickly and unable
to fulfill his many duties. This edifice, surmounted by double
towers, is large and massive, externally plain and without
any architectural pretension. The interior is commodious and
well adapted to Protestant worship.

31

Interior of the Stadtkirche in Wittenberg.
Notwithstanding his other occupations, Luther found time
to preach constantly. Bugenhagen was pastor of this Stadt
kirche. When in 1528 and 1529, 1530 and 1532, and again
from 1537 to 1540 Bugenhagen was away on missionary and
other duties, Luther preached in his pulpit, Sunday after Sun
day, frequently also on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
32

Pulpit in the Stadtkirche, Wittenberg, in Luther 's Time.
From this pulpit Luther preached most of those eloquent
sermons that set the souls of his hearers aflame. His voice was
sonorous and far-reaching, his large and dark eyes seemed to
flash fire when under excitement, and when reaching a climax
he bore down with the full torrent of his oratory. While in
describably powerful his preaching was always reverent and
humble.

33

Castle Church at Wittenberg.
To the door of this Castle Church Luther affixed his ninety-
five theses, October 31, 1517. The wooden doors to which the
theses were nailed were burned in 1760, during the war with
Austria, but in 1858 Emperor Friedrich Wilhelm IV replaced
them by iron doors, bearing the original text of the theses.

34

Interior of the Castle Church in Wittenberg.
Monday, February 22d, the Counts of Mansfeld arrived
with Luther's corpse before Wittenberg. At the Elsterthor
they were received by the whole University, the town counselors
and citizens. The leaden coffin was carried into this Castle
Church, against which he had nailed the ninety-five theses.
Bugenhagen, as pastor of the town church, delivered a sermon
in German and Melanchthon followed with a funeral oration
in Latin on behalf of the University. The body was then
lowered into a prepared grave near the pulpit.
35

Philip Melanchthon.

Melanchthon had entered Heidelberg University at the
age of thirteen, had taken the degree of bachelor at fifteen and
of master one year later. At the age of twenty-one he was
called to the University of Wittenberg from Tubingen to be
come its first professor of Greek. One of the greatest scholars
and teachers of the century, he not only immensely enhanced
the fame of the university, but also proved himself a most effi
cient aide of Luther. 36

The Sale of Indul
gences. *
One of the commis
sioners appointed by
Albert, Archbishop of
Mainz, to conduct the
sale of indulgences
was the Dominican
monk, Johann Tetzel,
an experienced, ag
gressive and violent
haranguer, who had
been used very effi
ciently in similar en
terprises. He was
neither a model of
virtue nor a person
with particularly
high ideals or sensi
tive conscience, but
an arrogant and au
dacious salesman, who
mingled with truth
what was erroneous
and uncertain.

CO00

The Populace Read
ing the Ninety-
five Theses.
The immediate ef
fect of these theses
was startling. Their
boldness arid pointed-
ness paralyzed both
speech -and' action.
They did not immedi
ately call forth the en
thusiasm which might
have been expected at
the sudden appear
ance of a leader for a
cause for1 whose main
tenance there was a
crying need. Nor did
they at once meet a
storm of protest from
those not ready to
express their satisfac
tion. The statements
were too true to war
rant any indiscrimi
nate attack,

Nailing the Ninety-five Theses to the Church Door.
Instead of thundering against Tetzel from the pulpit, or
publishing a polemic pamphlet, or issuing an open letter to the
archbishop, calling him sharply to account, as Luther was
quite capable of doing, he invited the theologians in Wittenberg
and; the neighborhood to a discussion. Adopting the usual
method of announcing such a debate, he posted a notice on the
door of. the Castle Church stating time and place of the pro
posed disputation and the theses he intended to defend.
39

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Johann Eck, D.D., a professor of the University of Ingol-
stadt, was like Luther a peasant by extraction and a monk by
profession, a theologian of no mean ability, and a man of energy
and resource. He was, without doubt, the ablest and most per
sistent opponent Luther ever had. In Rome he painted Lu
ther s "heresy" in such black colors that Leo finally decided
that there was nothing left but to condemn Luther.
40

Luther Before Car
dinal Cajetan,
In his defense be
fore the Cardinal, Lu-
< ther declared that he
held to all he had said
as Catholic truth and
could not retract un
less convinced of er
ror. Since he was
but human and there
fore fallible, he de
clared himself willing
to submit his theses to
a legitimate judgment
of the Church, and to
the learned Doctors
of the Universities of
Basel, Louvain and
Paris. Cajetan, who
was not a match for
Luther in theology,
dismissed this proposal and again urged him to retract, threatening him and all his friends with
excommunication. Thus ended this formal effort to induce Luther to recant.

Disputation Between Luther and Eck in Leipzig.

The debate was opened with much pomp and solemnity on
the twenty-seventh of June, 1519. After Karlstadt had de
bated until the fourth of- July, Luther himself took the floor.
Though very careful and moderate in his utterances, he yet
maintained that the authority of the Pope was of human and
not of divine right, and that a Christian might therefore be
saved, even if he refused to submit to it. This the sneering Eck
at once declared sounded like the opinion of Johann Hus, who
had been condemned by the Council of Constance and burned
as a heretic a hundred vears before.

42

Burning of the
Papal Bull.
On December 10,
1520, Luther invit
ed all who adhered
to the truth of the
Gcspcl to be pres
ent at the solemn
burning of the pa
pal law books. At
9 A. M. he and a
large number of
students and teach
ers marched to a
place outside of the
Elster Gate, near
the Chapel of the
Holy Cross, where
the clothing of
those who had died
of contagious dis
eases was wont to
be burned. In the
presence of the
niultitude Luthe.r
placed upon the woodpile the books of the Canon Law and when the pile had been lighted, threw into
the flames the bull of excommunication issued against him by the Pope.

n

Luther Setting Out
for Worms.
The Imperial her
ald, Caspar Sturm,
arrived at Witten
berg with the official
summons, March 26,
1521. Granting the
herald a few days for
rest, Luther set forth
on April 2 so as to
afford ample time to
reach Worms within
the twenty-one days
granted. The town
council cf Wittenberg
provided the horses
and the covered wag
on for the journey,
and the University
voted twenty gulden
to cover the necessary
expenses. With Luther were Amsdorf, his life-long friend; Dr. Schurf, the canon lawyer; Johann Petz-
ensteiner, a fellow monk, and Peter Swaben, a Pomeranian nobleman.

Charles V.
The election of Charles of Spain, on June 28, 1519, had
been hailed with enthusiasm, but those who had expected much
were doomed to disappointment. He was by temperament and
training far more Spanish than German. Germany was hardly
more than a pawn in his political game. When he needed the
support of the Papacy he was quite willing to use his power to
suppress Lutheranism, and though a devout Catholic, he per
mitted it to flourish when he wished to bring the Pope to terms.

45

Luther Preaching
at Moehra.
The towns through
which Luther passed
on his return from the
Diet received him as
warmly as on his way
to Worms. On the
second of May he en
tered his dearold
Eisenach, where he
had spent the happi
est years of his boy
hood. The next day
he left the hospital
town to visit his rela
tives in the nearby
-village of Moehra,
about fifteen miles
south of Eisenach.
He spent the night
with his grandmother,
and preached a sermon to the village folks on the following morning, May 4, 1521, under a linden tree.
After dinner he left, accompanied by Amsdorf and Petzensteiner.

4^ ~1

Luther Entering
Worms.
The news that Luther
was approaching soon
filled the streets of Worms
with a surging mass of
people. A number of no
blemen had mounted their
horses and gone out to
meet him and now led the
bold Reformer in grand
procession into the city.
Luther was greeted with
prolonged cheers as he
proceeded toward his
lodgings at the inn of the
Knights of St. John. The
whole city seemed to have
turned out to see Luther
enter.

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The Bishop's Palace in Worms.
On April 17th, the day after his arrival in Worms, Luther
was cited to appear before the Diet that afternoon at 4 o'clock
in the Bishop's Palace, where the Emperor Charles and his
brother Ferdinand were staying." This Bishop's Palace was
destroyed .by the French in 1689 and, after being rebuilt, was
again destroyed by them in 1794.
48
CO

Luther Before the Diet
at Worms.
On the seventeenth of
April, at four o'clock, Lu
ther was led into the assem
bly hall in the Episcopal
Palace to stand before the
Emperor and the realm. It
was a brilliant spectacle
which his eyes beheld. Upon
a gorgeous throne sat the
Emperor Charles V, whose
dominions encircled the
globe, upon whose realms the
sun never set. Upon elevat
ed chairs were seated the
Electors of the Empire, and
with them were assembled
the chief princes of Ger
many, the representatives of
the free cities, and many
others of authority in Ger
man territory, in all 204 per
sons, including the seven am
bassadors of foreign powers.

Luther at the Entrance of the Council Hall.
When the hour had arrived in which this faithful witness
of Jesus Christ was to stand before the great arid mighty of
the earth to make a good profession, the valiant and -famous
general, Georg von Frundsberg, touched him on the shoulder
and said: "My dear monk, thou hast to-day a march and a
struggle to go through, such as neither I nor other great cap
tains have seen in our most bloody battles ; but if thy cause be
just, go forward in God's name; he will not forsake thee."

50

Luther Before the
Diet at Worms.
All parties must
unite in admiring and
venerating the man
who, undaunted and
alone, could stand be
fore such an assembly
and vindicate with
unshaken courage
what he conceived to
be the truth over
against the deliberate,
ancient and almost
universal opinion of
mankind, fearkss of
any reproach but that
of his own conscience,
or of any disapproval
but that of his God.
Luther knew of no au
thority in divine mat
ters outside of the in
spired Word of God.
He recognized no con
science as enlightened
except by this Word.

Luther Before the Diet at Worms.
' ' Since his Imperial Majesty requires a simple and straight
answer, I will give him one : I do not believe in either the
Pope or the councils alone, since it is certain that they have
often erred and contradicted themselves. Unless I am there
fore convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures, or by clear
and forcible reasons, I neither can nor will recant a single
word. ' ' This " No " may be said to have given back to the world
a Church without a Pope and a State without an Inquisition.
52

The "Cathedral at Worms.

Of all the buildings which existed at the period of the
Diet, the cathedral alone remains. It is built of red sandstone,
Romanesque in style. The interior, four hundred and seventy
feet in length, lighted through stained windows, is very im
pressive. Services were conducted in this spacious church
building during the session of the Diet. Here, on May 26,
1521, after divine service, Charles V signed the decree which
made Luther an outlaw.

53

I^Uij4^,W£jj

t

*s^

Ein Feste Burg 1st Unser Gott.
This hymn, "A Mighty Fortress is Our God," is Luther
in song. It is pitched in the very key of the man. Rugged
and majestic, trustful of God and confident, it was the defiant
trumpet-blast of the Reformation speaking out to the powers
of the earth and under the earth an all-conquering conviction
of divine vocation and empowerment. The world has many
songs of exquisite tenderness and uncommon trust, but this
one is matchless in its warlike tone, its rugged strength and
its inspiring challenge.

54

Erasmus of Rotterdam.

Erasmus of Rotterdam was a scholar of great talent, with
more friends, reputation and influence than any other private
person in Europe. Though once an inmate of a mou astery, he
abhorred the monks and exposed their stupidity and vices with
terrible severity. His opposition to the scandalous condition of
things in the Roman Church was sincere, and his place should
have been at Luther's side in his conflict with Rome. But the
waters were too deep and the storms too fierce for the waver
ing Erasmus.

55

Luther 's Arrival at
The Wartburg,
May 4, 1521.
Hans von Ber
lepsch, commander of
The Wartburg, had
been entrusted with
the securing and safe
keeping of Luther.
The removal of Lu
ther to a place of safe
st ty and retirement was
certainly a wise pre
caution, for on May
26, after the Saxon
Elector and other
supporters of Luther
had left Worms, the
Emperor signed the
bill which made Lu
ther an outlaw in the
Empire. Luther was to be seized wherever found. His books were ordered burned ¦ and to
buy or read any of his writings was strictly forbidden. '

publish, sell,

The Wartburg.

As the prophet of old was hid in a cave from the wrath
of Ahab, so Luther was conveyed to this grim fortress, crown
ing the wooded heights two miles to the south of the town of
Eisenach. The building is neither magnificent nor picturesque,,
but it exhibits Romanesque arcades which run back to the
twelfth century. In this stronghold of the Elector, Luther was
to enjoy a safe refuge from the storms that were now to break
over him.

57

00

The WartburO. Luther's
' Room.
After Luther's arrival at
The Wartburg he was led to
the room where he was to
spend months in retirement.
This room, with its bay-win
dow, is shown in the center
of our picture. In 1847 the
Grand Duke Karl Alexander
of Weimar resolved to re
store the castle as nearly as
possible to its former archi
tectural beauty, and the
work has been carried out
in excellent taste and skill,
and in full harmony with
the original designs of the
twelfth and thirteenth cen
turies.

Luther at The
Wartburg.
Though outlawed
by the Emperor, Lu-
ther was neither
crushed nor silenced.
From the height of
this, his lonely re
treat, from this, his
castle in the clouds,
he delivered blow af
ter blow against the
Papacy, and every
w blow meant progress.
Men listened and
wondered at the
change caused by the
thunder that crashed
from The Wartburg.
while at the sight of
these repeated blows
his friends and ene
mies with equal aston-
ishment exclaimed:
"He is still alive and
in touch with all that
is going on."

Luther as Knight George at The Wartburg.

The identity of Luther while at The Wartburg was care
fully concealed. He allowed his hair and beard to grow, put
on the costume of a knight, wore a gold chain, carried a sword,
and engaged occasionally in the sports and occupations of a
young nobleman. He went by the name of Junker Jorg, and
was supposed to be a knight living in temporary retirement.
This picture of Luther was painted by Cranach during
Luther 's secret visit to Wittenberg in the early part of Decem
ber, 1521.

60

' - -. ;•?

*

W4 $m

Kj4 "-*• ¦¦'' *fl
Katharina von Bora.
-Katharina von Bora, Luther's wife, was the daughter of
Hans von Bora and Katharina von Haugwitz, who died
shortly after the birth of her daughter. When but five years
of age her father married again, and therefore sent little
Katharina to the convent school of the Benedictine nuns near
Brehna, Saxony. When nine years old she was set apart for
the religious life and put into the convent at Nimbschen. She
was a pious woman, a vigorous and efficient housewife, and
deeply interested in her husband's work.
61
The Betrothal of Luther to Katharina von .bora.

On a certain day in May or early in June, 1525, Luther,
accompanied by his friend Lucas Cranach, wended his way to
the home of Philip Reichenbach and made to Katharina von
Bora the proposition of marriage, which was promptly and
joyfully accepted. It is this scene the artist Scheurenberg
seeks to present to us in the painting reproduced on this page.

62

CO

Luther ' s Marriage .
Luther 's courtship
was brief . Constant-
- ly under the eyes of
the world, with ene
mies; arid friends ob
serving his every
movement, he natu
rally wished the mat
ter conducted as
speedily as possible.
The marriage took
place June 13, 1525,
more than two years
after the nun had re:
nounced communion
with Rome." Luther
had invited the two
chief pastors of Wit
tenberg, Bugenhagen
and Jonas, Dr. Apel,
a colleague of the law
faculty, and Lucas
Cranach and his wife.
Pastor Bugenhagen
officiated at the mar
riage.

Public Celebration of Luther's Marriage.

June 27th was appointed as the day for the formal and
public celebration of Luther's marriage. On the appointed
day, a service was held in the Stadtkirche and a wedding feast
given at Luther's home. A large circle of guests were present
at that eventful ceremony; among these was Leonhard von
Koppe, who had assisted Katharina in her escape from the
convent. Wedding presents were sent by the University, the
Elector, Cranach, and also from the Archbishop Albrecht of
Mainz, who had been the frequent object of many of Luther's
most merciless attacks.

64

Elector Johann, Surnamed The Constant.
The Elector Friedrich was succeeded by his brother
Johann. Except on rare occasions the Elector Friedrich took
no active part in the work of the Reformation, but with the
accession of his brother the period of hesitation was over.
Johann was devoted heart and soul to Luther's cause and was
glad to let it be known. He died August 16, 1532, and was
buried in the Castle Church at Wittenberg, Luther officiating.

65

05

Luther's Family
Life.
Luther's greatest
happiness, next to
that of the Word of
God, was to be with
his family. The home
life of Luther was
touching and beauti
ful. Here we see him
in his truest self.
Luther's home was
his Bethany, where in
innocent joy, love and
peace he recuperated
for life's fierce bat
tles. Few of the
world's greatest men
have been privileged
to enjoy for many
years the solace and
comfort of home and
family as he did.

Luther and His Children.
• Besides his own children, Luther and his wife brought up
no less than eleven of his orphaned nephews and nieces. This
reprimander of Popes and Kings was loved by the children,
and the great champion was as playful among them as though
he were himself again a child. He could fight fiercely all day
for his cause and in the evening take his lute, gaze at the stars,
sing psalms and muse upon the clouds, the fields, the flowers,
the birds, dissolved in melody and devotion.

67

Magdalena Luther.
Magdalena Luther was a child of singular depth of char
acter, amiable, affectionate and deeply religious. Without the
ordinary failings of children, her father testifies that she had
never done an act requiring parental reproof. A profound
impression was made upon all of Luther's acquaintances as
they saw or heard of a man of such rugged strength overcome
with emotion by the side of his dying child. At the age of
thirteen she fell asleep in her father's arms.
68

The Peasants' War.
The most disastrous blow to Luther and his work was the
Peasants' War. Luther was neither responsible for it, nor
did it begin among his disciples. It was only a repetition, on a
larger scale, of many similar attempts of former years, and
the interests underlying all of them were not religious, but
economic. These and a misinterpretation of certain of Luther 's
utterances precipitated and gave impetus to the revolt. Never
found wanting in the hour of danger, Luther sought by every
means in his power to make the princes and lords see their
wrong policy toward these unfortunates, and when this was
of no avail he tried to persuade the peasants to peace. Had
Luther's advice been followed at the outset, much bloodshed
would have been avoided- and many of the demands of the
peasants would have been granted. 69

Luther Translating the Old Testament.
The warm reception given the translation of the New
Testament induced Luther to continue his translation of the
Old Testament. In this work he gladly availed himself of the
learning of Aurogallus, the Professor of Hebrew at Witten
berg, and of Melanchthon. Other Wittenberg professors and
pastors were called in for consultation, among whom were
Ziegler, Rorer, Jonas, Bugenhagen and Forster. For a time
a weekly "Collegium" was held, beginning a few hours before
supper, in which the various texts and translations were faith
fully compared.

70

ARRr/AL of Luther and His Colaborers at Marburg.
Luther expected little good from the conference which
Philip of Hesse had arranged between Zwingli and himself,
and frankly informed the Landgraf of his attitude. He finally
yielded, however, and promised to be present. Zwingli, with
GScolampadius, Bucer, Hedio and others, arrived September
27, 1529. Three days later came Luther, accompanied by
Melanchthon, Jonas, Cruciger, Myconius, Brenz, Osiander,
Stephan Agricola and others. The tireless Landgraf provided
accommodations for all in his castle and entertained them in
truly royal fashion.

71

a

Luther Arguing with
Zwingli at MaRburg.
Taking his stand upon
the literal interpretation
of the words: "This is
my body, etc.," Luther
refused to compromise
with the Zwinglian par
ty. As often as Zwingli
appealed to reason Lu
ther appealed to the im
mutable Word of God,
declaring that one word
of Scripture was more
to him than heaven and
earth. When he realized
that Zwingli would not
yield he. closed the col
loquy with the words,:
"You have a different
spirit than ours."

Luther and
Zwingli at Marburg.
It must have cost
Luther much heart
ache to say "No" at
Marburg. Philip was
urging him with
might and main to ac
knowledge the Zwing-
lians as brothers ;
Zwingli was begging
for brotherhood with
tears in his eyes ; Lu
ther 's own heart was
burning with desire
for union and frater
nal fellowship, and
yet he felt bound to
decline Zwingli 's
hand,

-a

The Castle of Coburg.
On the third of April,
1530, Luther, Melanch
thon, and other Witten
berg theologians set out
for Augsburg. On the fif
teenth of April, Coburg,
130 miles from "Augsburg,
was reached. As no safe-
conduct for Luther had
been furnished, the Elec
tor placed Luther, who
was still under the ban of
the Empire, in this ppwer-
ful castle of Coburg, be
hind walls that, in the
Thirty Years' War, were
to defy all the efforts of
Wallenstein. The Elector
Johann, to whom the
castle at that time be
longed, wished to have
Luther put of harm's way
during the Augsburg
Diet.

Martin Luther.

Looked at in the flesh, perhaps, no one would have thought
of Luther as the chosen instrument of God to grapple with the
magnitudinous tyranny by which Europe was enthralled.
Rome has never forgotten nor forgiven him. Profited by his
labors beyond what she ever could have been without him, she
still curses his name and everything that savors of him. Oft-
answered and exploded calumnies are revived afresh to throw
dishonor on his cause. 75

Schmalkalden.

During the Christmas season of 1530, the Protestant
princes and the representatives of a number of free cities met
in this building in the little town of Schmalkalden, to form a
defensive league for mutual protection against the Emperor
and the Catholic princes. This League of Schmalkalden laid
the political foundations of religious liberty for our modern
world. Luther was the first effectively to assert the principle
of the independence of the State from ecclesiastical control.

76

Johann Friedrich, Elector of Saxony.

Johann Friedrich, who succeeded his father, John the
Constant, had been brought up in a strongly Lutheran atmo
sphere by Spalatin. He was an even more ardent disciple of
the Reformer than his father, and for his unflinching courage
in confessing the faith in peril of his life deserves to be honored
as one of the greatest heroes of the Reformation. His wife,
Sybilla, also took an active interest in everything pertaining
to Luther's cause.

77

First Edition of Luther's Translation of the Complete
Bible, 1534.

The importance for the whole of Christendom of Luther's
translation of the Bible" can hardly be overestimated. The
German people received in it a treasure which enriched them
for all time. Their language, their literature, their thought.
their life, their schools, and above all, their souls were enriched
thereby. Luther's version has won the highest praise. Idio
matic, vital in every part, clothed in the racy language of
common life, it created, apart from its religious influence, an
epoch in the literary development of the German nation.
78

The Castle tn' Wittenberg.
Friedrich, surnamed the Wise, who became Elector of
Saxony in 1486, usually resided at Altenburg, in the southern
part of his territory, but built this castle at Wittenberg in
order to have a residence for his northern dominions also. At
this castle occurred the famous meeting of Luther and the
papal legate. Cardinal Vergerio, who had come to "that sink
of heresy" (Wittenberg) in November, 1535, and invited the
banned and outlawed heretic Luther to breakfast with him. He
referred to Luther as a "beast" in his report to Rome, but
later in life the study of the writings of the "beast" made him
a heretic in the eyes of his Church. He died in Tubingen, active
to. the last as a publicist against the Papacy..

79

Luther Bidding
Farewell
to His Family
The brother counts
of Mansfeld, Albert
and Gerhard, had
asked Luther's good
office in settling a dis
pute of long stand
ing. His first trip in
October, 1545, was
§ fruitless, as the
counts were sudden
ly called away. At
Christmas Luther was
again the guest of the
Count Albert, but
Melanchthon was tak
en ill, and Luther has
tened to Wittenberg
with him,, promising that- he would, return. On January 23d he started for the third time on his
errand of peace, taking with him his three sons. His wife, Kate, saw him depart with a sorrowful
presentiment that she should never see him again.

""-"^fe^l

Luther's Death.
Luther suffered an
apoplectic stroke on
February 18, 1546.
The physicians Wild
and Ludwig, the
Count of Schwarzen-
burg, Count Albrecht
and the Countess
were unwearied in
their efforts to relieve
him, but to no avail.
The' pastors Jonas
and Colius, who were
with him at the end,
inquired of him :
"Reverend father,
do you die in the
faith of your Lord
Jesus Christ and in
the doctrine which
you preached in His
name?" The answer
was a clear and dis
tinct "Yes." It was
his last word.

GOCO

Funeral Escort of
Luther.
The counts of Mansfeld
wished to have the Re
former buried in Eisle
ben, • but the Elector of
Saxony insisted on having
the body sent to Witten
berg. Clothed in a white
Suabian gown, the corpse
was placed in a leaden
coffin. Dr. Jonas deliv
ered a funeral sermon on
February 19th, and Pas
tor Colius preached a
farewell sermon on Feb
ruary 20th. Escorted by
the two Mansfeld counts
and a great number of
horsemen, and greeted en
route by mourning thousands, the body reached Wittenberg on Monday, the twenty-second of Febru
ary, where the largest crowd ever seen in the little town gathered to receive the dead hero.

COOS

The Epoch op the Reforma
tion.
Next to the Epoch of the
Gospel the Reformation peri
od certainly stands out in his
tory as an age of far-reaching
influence. The artist is here
endeavoring to represent this
brilliant age in all its mani
fold phases and meanings.
The revival of Christianity
holds the center of the stage.
By restoring to fallen Christ
endom the doctrine, and life of
apostolic times, Luther's Ref
ormation secured the future
development of humanity and
prepared for the nations who
receive it a reign of intellec
tual light, liberty, morality,
order and achievement.

INDEX

Absolution, 75. 163, 165, 180, 193, 213, 221,
Abuse of Luther, 21, 223. 244.
Address to the Nobility, 112, 114, Blasphemy, 258, 305, 310.

117, 263, 313.
Ailly, Pierre d', 71, 73, 87, 180.
A Mighty Fortress, 37.
Amsdorf, 159, 168, 222.
Anabaptists, 17, 34, 229, 267,
307, 318. (See Miinzer.)
Angels, 259.

Bonaventura, 73, 74, 102.
Brant, 267, 273.
Bull of Excommunication, 12,
141.
Cajetan, 114, 129, 135, 138, 144,
229, 237.

Apocalypse of St. John, 267, 268, Calvin, 42, 151, 184, 244, 252.
272.
Aristotle, 45, 49, 88, 181.
Asceticism, 279, 292. (See Mo-
nasticism.)
Augsburg, 114, 130, 138, 220.
Augsburg, Diet of, 229.
Augustine, 37, 49, 63, 82, 86, 90,

Canon Law, 50, 127, 181.
Catharine von Bora, 22, 188, 190,
199, 205, 211, 218, 244, 258.
Catholic Background of Luther,
236, 242, 253, 282, 298, 316.
Catholic Biographies of Luther,
21.

106, 110, 180, 210, 225, 249, Catholic Hierarchy, 92, 286.

315.
Augustinians, 53, 57, 70, 75, 100,
136, 142, 155, 163, 166, 171.
Aurifaber, 37, 190.
Autobiography of Luther, 59.
Babylonian Captivity, 227, 283.
Ban, 159, 170.
Barge, 20, 26, 147.
Bernard of Clairvaux, 73, 79, 86,
95, 107, 244.
Bible, Interpretation, 46, 182,
249, 265, 291, 303.

Catholic Piety, 276.
Catholic Reformation, 23, 270,
285.
Catholic Religion in Middle Ages,
89, 270, 276, 292.
Celibacy, 152, 166, 273.
Charles the Fifth, 118, 138, 140,
201, 206.
Church a Missionary Institution,
295.
Church and State, 88, 92, 167,
173, 261, 294, 305.
Church of England, 314, 317.

Bible, "Modern" Theologians of Cochlaeus, 21, 34, 39n, 55, 196,
the Middle Ages and, 93. 223,229.
Bible, Source of Doctrine, 93. Colet, 264, 269.
Biel, 71, 79, 91, 101, 107, 180. Confessional, 88, 153.
Bigamy in General, 227, 241. Confessional Advice, 235.
Bigamy of Philip of Hesse, 227. Confessional, Inviolability of,
Bismarck, 20, 69, 244, 268. 238.
Black Cloister, 53, 63, 65, 82, 156, Congregation, 296, 314.
85

86

INDEX

Councils, 58, 92, 94, 114, 117, 142.
Cranach, Lucas, 2-6, 194, 201,
217.
Crotus Rubeanus, 86, 112, 115,
197.
Denifle, 25, 27, 33, 67, 70, 82,
86, 176, 208, 215, 223.
Development of Luther, 253.
Doellinger, 24, 25.
Dominicans, 135, 143.
Duns Skotus, 90, 180, 285, 287.
Diirer, Albrecht, 5, 6, 9, 185, 196.
Eck, 34, 93, 121, 142, 197, 207,
257.
Education, 304, 312.
Eisenach, 36, 169, 239.
Eisleben, 36, 66.
Election of Emperor, 140.
Elector Frederick the Wise, 51,
113, 118, 136, 138, 147, 157,
200.
Elector John Frederick, 199,
207, 231, 236.
Emser, 34, 197.
Erasmus, 11, 17, 23, 34, 117, 180,
196, 264, 269.
Erfurt, 36, 58, 67, 121.
Eucharist. (See Mass.)
Faith, 83, 280.
Fasting, 50, 153.
Franck, 34, 36, 246, 251.
Frankfurt Anonymous, 86, 102.
Frederick the Great, 11, 15.
Freedom of Conscience, 11, 13,
310.
Freedom of Teaching, 306.
Fugger, 130.
Gerson, 71, 73, 102, 180.
Goethe, 14, 68, 69, 258.
Good Works, 77, 92, 99.
Grace, 74, 77, 89, 98, 109, 284.
Grisar, 24, 25, 52, 60, 82, 261.

Hans Luther, 65, 102, 204, 208,
255.
Harnack, 17, 254.
Hebrew, 46, 53, 181.
Heritage of the Home, 255.
History and Historical Method,
8, 9, 16, 21, 25, 29, 31, 179,
185, 274, 291.
Holbein, 5, 6. (See Portraits of
Luther.)
Humanists and Humanism, 18,
35, 46, 86, 112, 114, 180, 194,
229, 259, 264, 270.
Hussites, 14, 117, 263, 267, 303.
Hutten,^ 112, 114, 151.
Iconoclasm, 147, 152, 163, 168,
174. (See Wittenberg Un
rest.)
Illness of Luther, 24, 42, 65, 68,
80, 203, 209, 214.
Inconsistencies of Luther, 250.
Indulgences, 50, 56, 113, 120, 127,
139.
Inquisition, 305.
Italians, 113.
Janssen, 24, 31, 86, 176.
Joachim of Brandenburg, 132,
257.
Jubilee, 125, 126, 129.
Jurists, 50, 88, 197, 199.
Justification, 11, 90, 99, 249, 281.
Kant, 226.
Karlstadt, 17, 20, 21, 34, 86, 147,
152, 164, 171, 196, 246.
Kulturstaat, 304.
Lefevre, 180, 264, 269.
Leipzig Disputation, 41, 61, 140,
199, 205.
Letters of the Obscure Men, 112.
Liberalism, 15, 16.
Literature about Luther, 7-9, 27.
(See Writers on Luther.)

INDEX

87

Literary Habits of Luther's Age
141, 195, 201. (See Luther as '
an Author.)
Loyola, 31, 42, 102, 110, 271.
Lutheranism, 10, 13, 16, 28, 35,
276, 300.
Luther and Art, 185.
Luther the Author, 42, 177, 183,
189, 208, 251, 247. (See
Luther as Controversialist.)
Luther the Barbarian, 184.
Luther, Birth of, 65.
Luther, Books of, 44, 45, 63, 82,
95, 104.
Luther and the Catholic Church,
51, 53, 57.
Luther, Childhood of, 69.
Luther, Child of the Time, 254.
Luther the Choleric, 199, 201.
Luther and the Church Fathers,
180, 225.
Luther the Controversialist, 197,
251.
Luther the Critic, 49, 53, 58, 103,
113, 182.
Luther on Dancing, 12.
Luther, his Death, 5, 37-39.
Luther and the Devil, 256.
Luther and Drink Question, 12,
41, 154, 160, 162, 206, 304.
Luther, Evangelical View of, 9,
20, 31.
Luther, Finds Relative to, 36, 39,
43.
Luther and Forgery, 223.
Luther the Glutton, 205, 211.
Luther, Guides of, 86, 93, 107,
112.
Luther a Hypochondriac, 65.
Luther, Influence of, 318.
Luther, Insanity of, 24, 80.
Luther, Lectures of, 37, 44, 51,
54, 58, 61, 63, 82, 87, 96, 103.
Luther as a Liar, 65, 66, 82, 88,
177, 225.

Luther as a Linguist, 47, 118,
179, 181, 185.
Luther the Monk, 18, 44, 51, 58,
65, 67, 84.
Luther, Morality of, 223.
Luther and Music, 185.
Luther the Nationalist, 15, 87,
111, 117.
Luther and Nature, 187.
Luther, Open and Frank Char
acter of, 42, 50, 60, 67, 113.
Luther as an Organizer, 151,
184, 247.
Luther, Originality of, 254, 263,
274.
Luther the Peasant, 1, 2, 18,
(See Heritage of the Home.)
Luther, Personal Character of,
7-9, 11-13, 25, 177, 205, 242.
Luther the Poet, 185.
Luther, Political Activity of, 242.
Luther, Portraits of, 1-9, 18, 67.
Luther, Precursors of, 86. (See
Guides of Luther.)
Luther and Predestination, 78,
101.
Luther as Priest, 54, 65, 71.
Luther and Problems of the Day,
42, 49, 59, 113, 117, 120, 149,
183.
Luther the Professor and
Teacher, 181.
Luther the Prophet, 9, 10, 17,
111, 255.
Luther the Scholar, 44, 52, 58,
63, 72, 83, 111, 177, 182.
Luther, Sermons of, 44, 58.
Luther, Sources Relative to, 8,
25, 27, 32, 41, 69.
Luther on the Theater, 12.
Luther, Theology of, 89.
Luther as Translator, 213.
Luther, Trial of, 135, 142.
Luther, Views on Economic
Questions, 262.

88

INDEX

Manual Labor, Praise of, 266.
Margaret Luther, 21, 66, 256.
Marriage, 1, 205, 216, 220, 230,
267, 301.
Marsilio Ficino, 47, 264, 269.
Mass, 150, 160, 166, 168, 279,
298. (See also Sacraments.)
Mathesius, 9, 190, 192, 194, 207.
Mayence, Albrecht of, 131, 215.
Mayence Indulgence, 131.
Mediaeval Background of Luther,
18, 35, 39, 46, 87, 98, 107, 109.
Melanchthon, 4, 6, 64, 115, 155,
157, 161, 164, 168, 181, 184,
199, 206, 211, 217, 229, 235,
244, 249, 260, 310.
Miltiz, 61, 139k
Miners, 208, 255.
Modern Pro testantism and
Luther, 317.
"Modern" Theologians, 89, 93,
107, 240, 248.
Monasticism, 51, 58, 66, 80, 112,
266, 271, 280, 297. (See As
ceticism.)
Monastic Vows, 154, 163, 224.
Morality of Middle Ages, 215,
304.
Mosellan, 4, 199.
Miinzer, 20, 24, 34, 246, 307.
(See Anabaptists.)
Mysticism, 19, 35, 86, 95, 102,
109, 287.
Mythology, New, 30, 254, 274.
(See Personality in History.)
Natural Law, 88, 149, 261, 302.
Neoplatonism, 96, 107, 274, 277,
280.
Nietzsche, 18.
Okkam and Okkamism, 71, 73,
81, 84, 86, 94, 101, 107, 149,
180, 185, 240, 248, 259, 285.
Okkam's ConceDt of God. 76. 90.

Okkam on Revelation, 88.
Organization of the Church, 294,
314.
Peasant Revolt, 17, 21, 175.
Penance, 91, 99, 124.
Personality in History, 268, 316.
Peter Lombard, 46, 48, 63, 180.
Philip of Hesse, 227, 231.
Pietism, 10, 21, 28, 35.
Popes, 51, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128,
130, 140, 194, 202, 237, 294.
Precursors of Luther, 263, 273,
286, 303.
Prierias, 93, 113, 137, 193, 201.
Princes, 12, 50, 114, 201, 207.
Psychological Interpretation, 13,
30, 53, 60, 65, 82, 177, 203.
Purgatory, 75, 124.
Puritanism, 173.
Quakers, 35, 317.
Ranke, Leopold von, 31, 35.
Rationalism, 11-19, 23, 29, 30, 88,
96.
Rebellion, Right of, 148.
Reform Through Education, 149,
171.
Reform by Force, 149, 159, 171,
201.
Relics, 56.
Religion, Luther's Views on, 278,
291.
Renaissance, 281. (See Hu
manism.)
Revelation, 291.
Romanticists, 13-19. 23, 30.
Rome, 53, 56, 114, 186, 201.
Sacraments, 77, 87, 91, 282.
Saint Paul, 23, 38, 47, 61, 106,
109, 111, 244, 264.
Saint Worship, 50, 113.
Savonarola, 144, 244, 274.

INDEX

89

Saxony, 58, 132, 134, 174.
Schleiermacher, 14, 36.
Scholasticism, 34, 48, 50, 72, 84,
120, 135, 179, 250, 287.
Schwenckfeld, 21, 34, 36, 197,
246.
Secularization of Church Prop
erty, 165, 172.
Sickingen, Franz von, 112, 115.
Sin, 11, 75, 80, 89, 98, 101.
Social Democracy, 20, 21.
Spalatin, 159, 170, 200, 216, 221.
State, 88, 149, 153, 173, 299.
Staupitz, 45, 53, 80, 86, 99, 107,
136, 142.
Superstition, 255.
Table Talk, 42, 189.
Tauler, 86, 102, 281.
Tetzel, 34, 120, 129, 135, 144.
Theses, Ninety-five, 61, 99, 104,
119, 121, 129, 134, 143.
Theses, Ninety-seven, 120.
Thomas Aquinas, 137, 179, 287.
Treasury of Merits, 128. (See
Good Works.)
Troeltsch, 17, 255, 282.
Veracity of God, 248.
Views on Luther, 7-10, 16.
Vocation, Secular, 280.

Waldenses, 35, 263.
Wartburg, 6, 148, 159, 169, 205,
224.
White Lie, 88, 225, 240.
Wiclif, 86, 263, 303.
Will, 73, 83, 90, 109..
Witches, 256.
Wittenberg, 10, 34, 48, 58, 83,
120, 174.
Wittenberg, Charter of, 152.
Wittenberg, Morals Police, 172,
304.
Wittenberg, Poor Laws, 152, 154,
157, 165, 172, 304.
Wittenberg, University of, 156,
161, 166, 195, 309.
Wittenberg, Unrest in, 146, 152,
154, 164, 173.
Worms, 21, 37, 62, 145, 200.
Writers on Luther, 10, 12, 15,
17, 18, 23, 25, 33, 34, 39, 40,
44, 46, 82, 86, 103, 110, 122,
138, 144, 151, 155, 161, 168,
178, 179, 190, 192, 195, 200,
201.

Zwickau Prophets, 162. (See
Anabaptists.)
Zwilling, 155, 162, 168, 171, 174.
Zwingli, 17, 197, 246, 270.

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