A History of the Reformation Volume I Part 12

The slightest breach of the most trifling conventual regulation was looked on as a sin, and had to be confessed at once and absolution for it received, until the perplexed lad was ordered to cease confession until he had committed some sin worth confessing. His brethren believed him to be a miracle of piety. They boasted about him in their monkish fas.h.i.+on, and in all the monasteries around, and as far away as Grimma, the monks and nuns talked about the young saint in the Erfurt convent. Meanwhile the "young saint" himself lived a life of mental anguish, whispering to himself that he was "gallows-ripe." Writing in 1518, years after the conflict was over, Luther tells us that no pen could describe the mental anguish he endured.(138) Gleams of comfort came to him, but they were transient. The Master of the Novices gave him salutary advice; an aged brother gave him momentary comfort. John Staupitz, the Vicar-General of the Congregation, during his visits to the convent was attracted by the traces of hidden conflicts and sincere endeavour of the young monk, with his high cheek-bones, emaciated frame, gleaming eyes, and looks of settled despair.

He tried to find out his difficulties. He revoked Nathin's order that Luther should not read the Scriptures. He encouraged him to read the Bible; he gave him a _Glossa Ordinaria_ or conventual ecclesiastical commentary, where pa.s.sages were explained by quotations from eminent Church Fathers, and difficulties were got over by much pious allegorising; above all, he urged him to become a good _localis_ and _textualis_ in the Bible, _i.e._ one who, when he met with difficulties, did not content himself with commentaries, but made collections of parallel pa.s.sages for himself, and found explanations of one in the others. Still this brought at first little help. At last Staupitz saw the young man's real difficulty, and gave him real and lasting a.s.sistance. He showed Luther that he had been rightly enough contrasting man's sin and G.o.d's holiness, and measuring the depth of the one by the height of the other; that he had been following the truest instincts of the deepest piety when he had set over-against each other the righteousness of G.o.d and the sin and helplessness of man; but that he had gone wrong when he kept these two thoughts in a _permanent_ opposition. He then explained that, according to G.o.d's promise, the righteousness of G.o.d might become man's own possession in and through Christ Jesus. G.o.d had promised that man could have fellows.h.i.+p with Him; all fellows.h.i.+p is founded on personal trust; and trust, the personal trust of the believing man on a personal G.o.d who has promised, gives man that fellows.h.i.+p with G.o.d through which all things that belong to G.o.d can become his. Without this personal trust or faith, all divine things, the Incarnation and Pa.s.sion of the Saviour, the Word and the Sacraments, however true as matters of fact, are outside man and cannot be truly possessed. But when man trusts G.o.d and His promises, and when the fellows.h.i.+p, which trust or faith always creates, is once established, then they can be truly possessed by the man who trusts. The just live by their faith. These thoughts, acted upon, helped Luther gradually to win his way to peace, and he told Staupitz long afterwards that it was he who had made him see the rays of light which dispelled the darkness of his soul.(139) In the end, the vision of the true relation of the believing man to G.o.d came to him suddenly with all the force of a personal revelation, and the storm-tossed soul was at rest. The sudden enlightenment, the personal revelation which was to change his whole life, came to him when he was reading the _Epistle to the Romans_ in his cell.

It came to Paul when he was riding on the road to Damascus; to Augustine as he was lying under a fig-tree in the Milan garden; to Francis as he paced anxiously the flag-stones of the Portiuncula chapel on the plain beneath a.s.sisi; to Suso as he sat at table in the morning. It spoke through different words:-to Paul, "Why persecutest thou Me?";(140) to Augustine, "Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh";(141) to Francis, "Get you no gold, nor silver, nor bra.s.s in your purses, no wallet for your journey, neither two coats, nor shoes, nor staff";(142) to Suso, "My son, if thou wilt hear My words."(143) But though the words were different, the personal revelation, which mastered the men, was the same: That trust in the All-merciful G.o.d, who has revealed Himself in Jesus Christ, creates companions.h.i.+p with G.o.d, and that all other things are nothing in comparison with this fellows.h.i.+p. It was this contact with the Unseen which fitted Luther for his task as the leader of men in an age which was longing for a revival of moral living inspired by a fresh religious impulse.(144)

It is not certain how long Luther's protracted struggle lasted. There are indications that it went on for two years, and that he did not attain to inward peace until shortly before he was sent to Wittenberg in 1508. The intensity and sincerity of the conflict marked him for life. The conviction that he, weak and sinful as he was, nevertheless lived in personal fellows.h.i.+p with the G.o.d whose love he was experiencing, became the one fundamental fact of life on which he, a human personality, could take his stand as on a foundation of rock; and standing on it, feeling his own strength, he could also be a source of strength to others. Everything else, however venerable and sacred it might once have seemed, might prove untrustworthy without hereafter disturbing Luther's religious life, provided only this one thing remained to him. For the moment, however, nothing seemed questionable. The inward change altered nothing external.

He still believed that the Church was the "Pope's House"; he accepted all its usages and inst.i.tutions-its Ma.s.ses and its relics, its indulgences and its pilgrimages, its hierarchy and its monastic life. He was still a monk and believed in his vocation.

Luther's theological studies were continued. He devoted himself especially to Bernard, in whose sermons on the _Song of Solomon_ he found the same thoughts of the relation of the believing soul to G.o.d which had given him comfort. He began to show himself a good man of business with an eye to the heart of things. Staupitz and his chiefs entrusted him with some delicate commissions on behalf of the Order, and made quiet preparations for his advancement. In 1508 he, with a few other monks, was sent from Erfurt to the smaller convent at Wittenberg, to a.s.sist the small University there.

-- 4. Luther's early Life in Wittenberg.

About the beginning of the century, Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony and head of the Ernestine branch of his family, had resolved to establish a University for his dominions. Frederick had maintained close relations with the Augustinian Eremites ever since he had made acquaintance with them when a schoolboy at Grimma, and the Vicar-General, John Staupitz, along with Dr. Pollich of Mellerstadt, were his chief advisers. It might almost be said that the new University was, from the beginning, an educational establishment belonging to the Order of monks which Luther had joined. Staupitz himself was one of the professors, and Dean of the Faculty of Theology; another Augustinian Eremite was Dean of the Faculty of Arts; the Patron Saints of the Order of the Blessed Virgin and St.

Augustine were the Patron Saints of the University; St. Paul was the Patron Saint of the Faculty of Theology, and on the day of his conversion there was a special celebration of the Ma.s.s with a sermon, at which the Rector (Dr. Pollich) and the whole teaching staff were present.

The University was poorly endowed. Electoral Saxony was not a rich princ.i.p.ality; some mining industry did exist in the south end, and Zwickau was the centre of a great weaving trade; but the great proportion of the inhabitants, whether of villages or towns, subsisted on agriculture of a poor kind. There was not much money at the Electoral court. A sum got from the sale of Indulgences some years before, which Frederick had not allowed to leave the country, served to make a beginning. The prebends attached to the Church of All Saints (the Castle Church) supplied the salaries of some professors; the others were Augustinian Eremites, who gave their services gratuitously.

The town of Wittenberg was more like a large village than the capital of a princ.i.p.ality. In 1513 it only contained 3000 inhabitants and 356 rateable houses. The houses were for the most part mean wooden dwellings, roughly plastered with clay. The town lay in the very centre of Germany, but it was far from any of the great trade routes; the inhabitants had a good deal of Wendish blood in their veins, and were inclined to be sluggish and intemperate. The environs were not picturesque, and the surrounding country had a poor soil. Altogether it was scarcely the place for a University. Imperial privileges were obtained from the Emperor Maximilian, and the University was opened on the 18th of October 1502.

One or two eminent teachers had been induced to come to the new University. Staupitz collected promising young monks from many convents of his Order and enrolled them as students, and the University entered 416 names on its books during its first year. This success seems to have been somewhat artificial, for the numbers gradually declined to 56 in the summer session of 1505. Staupitz, however, encouraged Frederick to persevere.

It was in the interests of the young University that Luther and a band of brother monks were sent from Erfurt to the Wittenberg convent. There he was set to teach the Dialectic and Physics of Aristotle,-a hateful task,-but whether to the monks in the convent or in the University it is impossible to say. All the while Staupitz urged him to study theology in order to teach it. It was then that Luther began his systematic study of Augustine. He also began to preach. His first sermons were delivered in an old chapel, 30 feet long and 20 feet wide, built of wood plastered over with clay. He preached to the monks. Dr. Pollich, the Rector, went sometimes to hear him, and spoke to the Elector of the young monk with piercing eyes and strange fancies in his head.

His work was interrupted by a command to go to Rome on business of his Order (autumn 1511). His selection was a great honour, and Luther felt it to be so; but it may be questioned whether he did not think more of the fact that he would visit the Holy City as a devout pilgrim, and be able to avail himself of the spiritual privileges which he believed were to be found there. When he got to the end of his journey and first caught a glimpse of the city, he raised his hands in an ecstasy, exclaiming, "I greet thee, thou Holy Rome, thrice holy from the blood of the martyrs."

When his official work was done he set about seeing the Holy City with the devotion of a pilgrim. He visited all the famous shrines, especially those to which Indulgences were attached. He listened reverently to all the accounts given of the relics which were exhibited to the pilgrims, and believed in all the tales told him. He thought that if his parents had been dead he could have a.s.sured them against Purgatory by saying Ma.s.ses in certain chapels. Only once, it is said, his soul showed revolt. He was slowly climbing on his knees the _Scala Santa_ (really a mediaeval staircase), said to have been the stone steps leading up to Pilate's house in Jerusalem, once trodden by the feet of our Lord; when half-way up the thought came into his mind, _The just shall live by his faith_; he stood upright and walked slowly down. He saw, as thousands of pious German pilgrims had done before his time, the moral corruptions which disgraced the Holy City-infidel priests who scoffed at the sacred mysteries they performed, and princes of the Church who lived in open sin. He saw and loathed the moral degradation, and the scenes imprinted themselves on his memory; but his home and cloister training enabled him, for the time being, in spite of the loathing, to revel in the memorials of the old heroic martyrs, and to look on their relics as storehouses of divine grace. In later days it was the memories of the vices of the Roman Court that helped him to harden his heart against the sentiment which surrounded the Holy City.

When Luther returned to Wittenberg in the early summer of 1512, his Vicar-General sent him to Erfurt to complete his training for the doctorate in theology. He graduated as Doctor of the Holy Scripture, took the Wittenberg Doctor's oath to defend the evangelical truth vigorously (_viriliter_), was made a member of the Wittenberg Senate, and three weeks later succeeded Staupitz as Professor of Theology.

Luther was still a genuine monk, with no doubt of his vocation. He became sub-prior of the Wittenberg convent in 1512, and was made the District Vicar over the eleven convents in Meissen and Thuringia in 1515. But that side of his life may be pa.s.sed over. It is his theological work as professor in Wittenberg University that is important for his career as a reformer.

-- 5. Luther's early Lectures in Theology.

From the beginning his lectures on theology differed from those ordinarily given, but not because he had any theological opinions at variance with those of his old teachers at Erfurt. No one attributed any sort of heretical views to the young Wittenberg professor. His mind was intensely practical, and he believed that theology might be made useful to guide men to find the grace of G.o.d and to tell them how, having acquired through trust a sense of fellows.h.i.+p with G.o.d, they could persevere in a life of joyous obedience to G.o.d and His commandments. The Scholastic theologians of Erfurt and elsewhere did not look on theology as a practical discipline of this kind. Luther thought that theology ought to discuss such matters, and he knew that his main interest in theology lay on this practical side.

Besides, as he has told us, he regarded himself as specially set apart to lecture on the Holy Scriptures. So, like John Colet, he began by expounding the Epistles of St. Paul and the Psalms.

Luther never knew much Hebrew, and he used the Vulgate in his prelections.

He had a huge widely printed volume on his desk, and wrote out the heads of his lectures between the printed lines. Some of the pages still survive in the Wolfenb.u.t.tel Library, and can be studied.(145)

He made some use of the commentaries of Nicholas de Lyra, but got most a.s.sistance from pa.s.sages in Augustine, Bernard, and Gerson,(146) which dealt with practical religion,(147) His lectures were experimental. He started with the fact of man's sin, the possibility of reaching a sense of pardon and of fellows.h.i.+p with G.o.d through trust in His promises. From the beginning we find in the germ what grew to be the main thoughts in the later Lutheran theology. Men are redeemed apart from any merits of their own; G.o.d's grace is really His mercy revealed in the mission and work of Christ; it has to do with the forgiveness of sins, and is the fulfilment of His promises; man's faith is trust in the historical work of Christ and in the verity of G.o.d. These thoughts were for the most part all expressed in the formal language of the Scholastic Theology of the day. They grew in clearness, and took shape in a series of propositions which formed the common basis of his teaching: man wins pardon through the free grace of G.o.d: when man lays hold on G.o.d's promise of pardon he becomes a new creature; this sense of pardon is the beginning of a new life of sanctification; the life of faith is Christianity on its inward side; the contrast between the law and the gospel is something fundamental: there is a real distinction between the outward and visible Church and the ideal Church, which latter is to be described by its spiritual and moral relations to G.o.d after the manner of Augustine. All these thoughts simply pushed aside the ordinary theology as taught in the schools without staying to criticise it.

In the years 1515 and 1516, which bear traces of a more thoroughgoing study of Augustine and of the German mediaeval Mystics, Luther began to find that he could not express the thoughts he desired to convey in the ordinary language of Scholastic Theology, and that its phrases suggested ideas other than those he wished to set forth. He tried to find another set of expressions. It is characteristic of Luther's conservatism, that in theological phraseology, as afterwards in ecclesiastical inst.i.tutions and ceremonies, he preferred to retain what had been in use provided only he could put his own evangelical meaning into it in a not too arbitrary way.(148) Having found that the Scholastic phraseology did not always suit his purpose, he turned to the popular mystical authors, and discovered there a rich store of phrases in which he could express his ideas of the imperfection of man towards what is good. Along with this change in language, and related to it, we find evidence that Luther was beginning to think less highly of the monastic life with its _external_ renunciations.

The thought of predestination, meaning by that not an abstract metaphysical category, but the conception that the whole believer's life, and what it involved, depended in the last resort on G.o.d and not on man, came more and more into the foreground. Still there does not seem any disposition to criticise or to repudiate the current theology of the day.

The earliest traces of _conscious_ opposition appeared about the middle of 1516, and characteristically on the practical and not on the speculative side of theology. They began in a sermon on Indulgences, preached in July 1516. Once begun, the breach widened until Luther could contrast "our theology"(149) (the theology taught by Luther and his colleagues at Wittenberg) with what was taught elsewhere, and notably at Erfurt. The former represented Augustine and the Holy Scriptures, and the latter was founded on Aristotle. In September 1517 he raised the standard of theological revolt, and wrote directly against the "Scholastic Theology"; he declared that it was Pelagian at heart, and buried out of sight the Augustinian doctrines of grace; he lamented the fact that it neglected to teach the supreme value of faith and of inward righteousness; that it encouraged men to seek escape from what was due for sin by means of Indulgences, instead of exhorting them to practise the inward repentance which belongs to every genuine Christian life.

It was at this interesting stage of his own religious development that Luther felt himself forced to oppose publicly the sale of Indulgences in Germany.

By the year 1517, Luther had become a power in Wittenberg both as a preacher and as a teacher. He had become the preacher in the town church, from whose pulpit he delivered many sermons every week, taking infinite pains to make himself understood by the "raw Saxons." He became a great preacher, and, like all great preachers, he denounced prevalent sins, and bewailed the low standard of morals set before the people by the higher ecclesiastical authorities; he said that religion was not an easy thing; that it did not consist in the decent performance of external ceremonies; that the sense of sin, the experience of the grace of G.o.d, and the fear of G.o.d and the overcoming of that fear through the love of G.o.d, were all continuous experiences.

His exegetical lectures seemed like a rediscovery of the Holy Scriptures.

Grave burghers of Wittenberg matriculated as students in order to hear them. The fame of the lecturer spread, and students from all parts of Germany crowded to the small remote University, until the Elector became proud of his seat of learning and of the man who had made it prosper.

Such a man could not keep silent when he saw what he believed to be a grave source of moral evil approaching the people whose souls G.o.d had given him in charge; and this is how Luther came to be a Reformer.

Up to this time he had been an obedient monk, doing diligently the work given him, highly esteemed by his superiors, fulfilling the expectations of his Vicar-General, and recognised by all as a quiet and eminently pious man. He had a strong, simple character, with nothing of the quixotic about him. Of course he saw the degradation of much of the religious life of the times, and had attended at least one meeting where those present discussed plans of reformation. He had then (at Leitzkau in 1512) declared that every true reformation must begin with individual men, that it must reveal itself in a regenerate heart aflame with faith kindled by the preaching of a pure gospel.

-- 6. The Indulgence-seller.

What drew Luther from his retirement was an Indulgence proclaimed by Pope Leo X., farmed by Albert of Brandenburg, the Archbishop of Mainz, and preached by John Tetzel, a Dominican monk, who had been commissioned by Albert to sell for him the _Papal Letters_, as the Indulgence tickets were called. It had been announced that the money raised by the sales would be used to build the Basilica of St. Peter to be a tomb worthy of the great Apostle, who rested, it was said, in a Roman grave.

The Indulgence-seller had usually a magnificent reception when he entered a German town. Frederick Mec.u.m (Myconius), who was an eye-witness, thus describes the entrance of Tetzel into the town of Annaberg in Ducal Saxony:

"When the Commissary or Indulgence-seller approached the town, the Bull (proclaiming the Indulgence) was carried before him on a cloth of velvet and gold, and all the priests and monks, the town council, the schoolmasters and their scholars, and all the men and women went out to meet him with banners and candles and songs, forming a great procession; then all the bells ringing and all the organs playing, they accompanied him to the princ.i.p.al church; a red cross was set up in the midst of the church, and the Pope's banner was displayed; in short, one might think they were receiving G.o.d Himself."

The Commissary then preached a sermon extolling the Indulgence, declaring that "the gate of heaven was open," and that the sales would begin.

Many German princes had no great love for the Indulgence-sellers, and Frederick, the Elector of Saxony, had prohibited Tetzel from entering his territories. But the lands of Ernestine (Electoral) and Albertine (Ducal) Saxony were so mixed up that it was easy for the Commissary to command the whole population of Electoral Saxony without actually crossing the frontier. The "Red Cross" had been set up in Zerbst in Ducal Saxony a few miles to the west, and at Juterbogk in the territory of Magdeburg a few miles to the east of Wittenberg, and people had gone from the town to buy the Indulgence. Luther believed that the sales were injurious to the moral and religious life of his townsmen; the reports of the sermons and addresses of the Indulgence-seller which reached him appeared to contain what he believed to be both lies and blasphemies. He secured a copy of the letter of recommendation given by the Archbishop to his Commissary, and his indignation grew stronger. Still it was only after much hesitation, after many of his friends had urged him to interfere, and in deep distress of mind, that he resolved to protest. When he had determined to do something he went about the matter with a mixture of caution and courage which were characteristic of the man.

The Church of All Saints (the Castle Church) in Wittenberg had always been intimately connected with the University; its prebendaries were professors; its doors were used as a board on which to publish important academic doc.u.ments; and notices of public academic "disputations," common enough at the time, had frequently appeared there. The day of the year which drew the largest concourse of townsmen and strangers to the church was All Saints' Day, the first of November. It was the anniversary of the consecration of the building, and was commemorated by a prolonged series of services. The Elector Frederick was a great collector of relics, and had stored his collection in the church.(150) He had also procured an Indulgence to benefit all who came to attend the anniversary services and look at the relics.

On All Saints' Day, Luther nailed his Ninety-five Theses to the door of the church. It was a strictly academic proceeding. The Professor of Theology in Wittenberg, wis.h.i.+ng to elucidate the truth, offered to discuss, either by speech or by writing, the matter of Indulgences.(151) He put forth ninety-five propositions or heads of discussion which he proposed to maintain. Academic etiquette was strictly preserved; the subject, judged by the numberless books which had been written on it, and the variety of opinions expressed, was eminently suitable for debate; the Theses were offered as subjects of debate; and the author, according to the usage of the time in such cases, was not supposed to be definitely committed to the opinions expressed.

The Theses, however, differed from most programmes of academic discussions in this, that everyone wanted to read them. A duplicate was made in German. Copies of the Latin original and the translation were sent to the University printing-house, and the presses could not throw them off fast enough to meet the demand which came from all parts of Germany.

Chapter II. From The Beginning of the Indulgence Controversy to the Diet of Worms.(152)

-- 1. The Theory and Practice of Indulgences in the Sixteenth Century.

The practice of _Indulgences_ pervaded the whole penitential system of the later mediaeval Church, and had done so from the beginning of the thirteenth century. Its beginnings go back a thousand years before Luther's time.

In the ancient Church, lapse into serious sin involved separation from the Christian fellows.h.i.+p, and readmission to communion was only to be had by public confession made in presence of the whole congregation, and by the manifestation of a true repentance in performing certain _satisfactions_,(153) such as the manumission of slaves, prolonged fasting, extensive almsgiving, etc. These _satisfactions_ were the open signs of heartfelt sorrow, and were regarded as at once well-pleasing to G.o.d and evidence to the Christian community that the penitent had true repentance, and might be received back again into their midst. The confession was made to the whole congregation; the amount of _satisfaction_ deemed necessary was estimated by the congregation, and readmission was also dependent on the will of the whole congregation. It often happened that these _satisfactions_ were mitigated or exchanged for others. The penitent might fall sick, and the fasting which had been prescribed could not be insisted upon without danger of death; in such a case the external sign of sorrow which had been demanded might be exchanged for another. Or it might happen that the community became convinced of the sincerity of the repentance without insisting that the whole of the prescribed _satisfaction_ need be performed.(154) These exchanges and mitigations of _satisfactions_ were the small beginnings of the later system of Indulgences.

In course of time the public confession of sins made to the whole congregation was exchanged for a private confession made to the priest, and instead of the public _satisfaction_ imposed by the whole congregation, it was left to the priest to enjoin a _satisfaction_ or external sign of sorrow which he believed was appropriate to the sin committed and confessed. The subst.i.tution of a private confession to the priest for a public confession made to the whole congregation, enlarged the circle of sins confessed. The _secret_ sins of the heart whose presence could be elicited by the questions of the confessor were added to the open sins seen of men. The circle of _satisfactions_ was also widened in a corresponding fas.h.i.+on.