Life of Luther by Julius Koestlin

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Eck is described by Mosellanus as a man of a tall, square figure,
with a voice fit for a public crier, but more coarse than distinct,
and with nothing pleasant about it; with the mouth, the eyes, and
the whole appearance of a butcher or soldier, but with a most
remarkable memory. In power of memory and elocution he surpassed
even Luther; but in solidity and real breadth of learning, impartial
men like Pistoris gave the palm to Luther. Eck is said to have
imitated the Italians in his great animation of speech, his
declamation, and gesticulations with his arms and his whole body.
Melancthon even said in a letter after the disputation, 'Most of us
must admire Eck for his manifold and distinguished intellectual
gifts.' Later on he calls him, 'Eckeckeck, the daws'-voice.' At any
rate Eck displayed a rare power and endurance in those Leipzig days,
and understood above all how to pursue with cleverness the real
object he had in view in his contest with Luther.

The two began at once with that point which Eck had singled out as
the chief object of debate, and about which Luther had advanced his
boldest proposition, namely, the question of the Papal power.

[Illustration: Fig 16.--DR. JOHN ECK. (From an old woodcut.)]

After lengthy discussions on the evidence of texts of Scripture; on
the old Fathers of the Church, to whom the Papal supremacy was
unknown; on the Western Church of middle ages, by whom that
supremacy was acknowledged at an earlier period than Luther would
admit; on the non-subjection to Rome of Eastern Christendom, to whom
Luther referred, and whom Eck with a light heart put outside the
pale of salvation, Eck on the second day of the disputation passed,
after due premeditation, from the ecclesiastical authorities he had
quoted in favour of the Divine right of the Papal primacy, to the
statements of the English heretic Wicliffe, and the Bohemian Huss,
who had denied this right, and had therefore been justly condemned.
He was bound to notice them, he said, since, in his own frail and
humble judgment, Luther's thesis favoured in the highest degree the
errors of the Bohemians, who, it was reported, wished him well for
his opinions. Luther answered him as he had done in each case
before. He condemned the separation of the Bohemians from the
Catholic Church, on the ground that the highest right derived from
God was that of love and the Spirit, and he repudiated the reproach
which Eck sought to cast upon him. But he declared at the same time
that the Bohemians on that point had never yet been refuted. And
with perfect self-conviction and calm reflection he proceeded to
assert that among the articles of Huss some were fundamentally
Christian and Evangelical, such as, for example, his statements that
there was only one Universal Church (to which even Greek Christendom
had always and still belonged), and that the belief in the supremacy
of the Church of Rome was not necessary to salvation. No man, he
added, durst impose upon a Christian an article of belief which was
antiscriptural; the judgment of an individual Christian must be
worth more than that of the Pope or even of a Council, provided he
has a better ground for it.

That moment, when Luther spoke thus of the doctrines of Huss, a
heretic already condemned by a Council and proscribed in Germany,
was the most impressive and important in the whole disputation. An
eye-witness, who sat below Duke George and Barnim, relates that the
Duke, on hearing the words, shouted out in a voice heard by all the
assembly, 'A plague upon it!' and shook his head, and put both hands
to his sides. The whole audience, variously as they thought of the
assertion, must have been fairly astounded. Luther, it was true, had
already stated in writing that a Council could err. But now he
declared himself for principles which a Council, namely that of
Constance, solemnly appointed and unanimously recognised by the
whole of Western Christendom, had condemned, and thus openly accused
that Council of error in a decision of the most momentous
importance. Nay more, that decision had been concurred in by the
very men who, while recognising the Papal primacy, strenuously
defended against Papal despotism the rights of General Councils, and
of the nations and states which they represented. The Western
Catholic Church entertained, as we have seen, a diversity of views
as to the relative authority of the Popedom, as an institution of
Christ, and that which appertained to Councils. Luther now, by
denying the Divine institution and authority of the Papacy, seemed
to have broken with all authority whatsoever existing in the Church,
and with every possible exercise of the same.

Luther himself does not appear to have considered at the moment this
extent of his acknowledgment of the 'Christian' character of some of
Huss's articles, nor to have adequately reflected on the attitude of
direct opposition in which it placed him to the Council of
Constance. When Eck declared it 'horrible' that the 'reverend
father' had not shrunk from contradicting that holy Council,
assembled by consent of all Christendom, Luther interrupted him with
the words, 'It is not true that I have spoken against the Council of
Constance.' He then went on to draw the inference that the authority
of the Council, if it erred in respect of those articles, was
consequently fallible altogether.

Some days later, and after further consideration, Luther produced
four propositions of Huss, which were perfectly Christian, although
they had been formally rejected by the Council. He sought means,
nevertheless, to preserve for the Council its dignity. As for these
rejected articles, he said, it had declared only some to be
heretical, and others to be simply mistaken, and the latter, at all
events, must not be counted as heresies--nay, he took the liberty of
supposing that the former were interpolations in the text of the
Council's resolutions. He would grant, further, that the decisions
of a Council in matters of faith must at all times be accepted. And
in order to guard himself against any misunderstanding and
misconstruction, he once broke off from the Latin, in which the
whole disputation had been conducted, and declared in German that he
in no way desired to see allegiance renounced to the Romish Church,
but that the only question in dispute was whether its supremacy
rested on Divine right--that is to say, on direct Divine institution
in the New Testament, or whether its origin and character were
simply such as the Imperial Crown, for example, possessed in
relation to the German nation. He was well aware how charges of
heresy and apostasy were raised against him, and how industriously
Eck had promoted them. It was only with pain and inward struggles
that he stood out, Bible in hand, against the Council of Constance
and such a general gathering of Western Christendom. But not a step
would he go towards any recognition of the Papacy as an institution
resting on Scripture. He insisted that even a Council could not
compel him to do this, or make an essential article of Christian
belief out of anything not found in the Bible. Again and again he
declared that even a Council could err.

For five whole days they contested this main point of the
disputation, without arriving at any further result.

The other subjects of discussion, relating to purgatory,
indulgences, and penance, were after this of very little importance.
With regard to indulgences even Eck now displayed striking
moderation. The dispute on the correct conception of purgatory led
to a new and important declaration by Luther as to the power of the
Church in relation to Scripture. Eck quoted as Biblical proof a
passage from the Apocryphal Books of the Old Testament, which
although not originally included in the records of the Old Covenant,
had been accepted by the middle ages as of equal authority with the
other Biblical writings. For the first time Luther now protested
against the equal value thus assigned to them, and especially
against the Church conferring upon them an authority they did not
possess.

The disputation between Eck and Luther lasted till July 13. Luther
concluded his argument with the words: 'I am sorry that the learned
doctor only dips into Scripture as deep as the water-spider into the
water--nay, that he seems to fly from it as the devil from the
Cross. I prefer, with all deference to the Fathers, the authority of
Scripture, which I herewith recommend to the arbiters of our cause.'

After this Carlstadt and Eck had only a short passage of arms. The
disputation was to be concluded on the 15th, as Duke George wished
to receive the Elector of Brandenburg on a visit to the
Pleissenburg. With regard to the universities, to whom the report
of the disputation was to be submitted, those agreed upon were Paris
and Erfurt, but neither of the two would undertake so responsible a
task.

Eck left the disputation with triumph, applauded by his friends and
rewarded by Duke George with favours and honours. He followed up his
fancied victory by further exciting the people against Luther, and
pointing out to them in particular the sympathy between him and
Huss. He wrote even to the Elector Frederick from Leipzig, proposing
that he should have Luther's books burnt. The two men henceforth and
for ever were mutual enemies, with no dealings together but those of
heated controversy in writing. Eck's chief efforts were directed to
securing Luther's formal and public condemnation.

At Leipzig Luther had been watched with the utmost suspicion. The
common people had actually been told that there was something
mysterious in the little silver ring he wore on his finger, very
likely a small charm with the devil inside. It was even remarked on
and wondered at that he carried a bunch of flowers in his hand,
which he would look at and smell. From that time probably originated
the saying of a devout old dame at Leipzig, as published by one of
his theological opponents, the old woman having once lived at
Eisleben with Luther's mother, that her son Martin was the fruit of
an embrace by the devil.

For real information, however, about Luther at Leipzig, and the
impression he produced by his arguments, more is to be gathered from
the effect of his public appearance there during this disputation,
than from a whole heap of printed matter. We allude not only to the
educated laity and men of learning, but to the mass of the people
who shared in the excitement caused by this controversy. A few
months later we hear an opponent complain that Luther's teaching had
given rise to so much squabbling, discord, and rebellion among the
people, that 'there was absolutely not a town, village, or house,
where men were not ready to tear each other to pieces on his
account.'

Luther returned to Wittenberg full of dejection. The time at Leipzig
had only been wasted; the disputation had been unworthy of the name;
Eck and his friends there had cared nothing whatever about the
truth. Eck, he said, had made more clamour in an hour than he or
Carlstadt could have done in a couple of years, and yet all the time
the question at issue was one of peaceful and abstruse theology. His
disappointment, however, did not refer, as people perhaps might have
imagined, to the treatment his thesis on the Papal primacy had met
with, or to any embarrassment occasioned him on that account. On the
contrary, while complaining of the unworthy character of the
disputation, he excepted that particular thesis. He alluded rather
to the superficiality and want of interest with which such important
questions as justification by faith, and the sinfulness attaching
even to the best works of man, were passed over or evaded. On all
the points which he had wished to contend for and expound at
Leipzig, he now published further explanations. And with regard to
the Councils, he declared in still stronger terms than at Leipzig,
that they certainly might err and had erred even in the most
important matters; one had no right to identify either them or the
Pope with the Church.

From this he proceeded to explain his true relations with the
Bohemians. The theologian Jerome Emser, a friend of Eck, and a
favourite of Duke George, contributed in his own way to this end. He
had had a hot discussion with Luther before the disputation at
Leipzig, in which he reproached him with causing trouble in the
Church. He now prepared a remarkable public letter to a high
Catholic ecclesiastic at Prague, of the name of Zack. Whilst
asserting in it that the Bohemian schismatics appealed to Luther and
had actually offered prayers and held services for him during the
disputation, he announced, with feigned kindness to Luther, that the
latter, on the contrary, had eagerly repudiated at Leipzig any
fellowship with them, and had denounced their apostasy from Rome.
Luther detected in all this, mere trickery and malice, and we also
can only recognise in it a crafty attempt to ruin Luther's position
all round. If, says Luther, he were to accept in silence the praise
here meted out to him, he would seem to have retracted his whole
teaching, and laid down his arms before Eck; if, on the other hand,
he were to disclaim it, he would be cried down at once as a patron
of the Bohemians, and charged with base ingratitude to Emser.
Accordingly, in a small pamphlet, he broke out, full of wrath and
bitterness, against Emser, who replied to him in a similar tone. But
he represented the case with great clearness. If his doctrines had
pleased the Bohemians, he would not retract them on that account. He
had no desire to screen their errors, but he found on their side
Christ, the Scriptures, and the sacraments of the Church, and
therewith a Christian hatred of the worldliness, immorality, and
arrogance of the Romish clergy. Nay, he rejoiced to think that his
doctrines pleased them, and would be glad if they pleased Jews and
Turks, and Emser, who was enthralled in godless error, and even Eck
himself.

Letters were now already on the way to Luther from two ecclesiastics
of Prague, Paduschka and Rossdalovicky, members of the Utraquist
Hussite Church, which in opposition to Rome insisted on the
sacramental cup being given to the laity. They assured Luther of
their joyful and prayerful sympathy with him in his struggle. One of
them sent him a present of knives of Bohemian workmanship, the other
a writing of Huss upon the Church. Luther accepted the presents with
cordiality, and sent them his own writings in return. With regard to
separation from the Romish Church, the experience of Huss plainly
showed him how impossible that Church made it, even to one whose
heart was heavy at the thought of leaving her, to remain in her
communion.

Thus the contest at Leipzig was now over, whilst in the meantime at
Frankfort-on-the-Main, after the election of the new Emperor, the
Elector Frederick and the Archbishop of Treves consulted together
about an examination of Luther before the Archbishop, as proposed by
Miltitz. Both wished to postpone it till the Diet, then about to be
held. Miltitz, however, notwithstanding the result of the
disputation and the further declarations of Luther, still clung to
his plan of mediation. He arranged once more an interview with
Luther on October 9 at Liebenwerda, when the latter renewed his
promise to appear before the Archbishop, but he failed to induce the
Elector to let Luther travel with him to the Archbishop. For the
delivery of the golden rose, when it at last took place, he was
richly rewarded with money. But the fruitlessness of his
negotiations with Luther had become apparent.

CHAPTER V.

LUTHER'S FURTHER WORK, WRITINGS, AND INWARD PROGRESS, UNTIL 1520.

Luther looked upon his disputation at Leipzig as an idle waste of
time. He longed to get back to his work at Wittenberg. He remained,
in fact, devoted with his whole soul to his official duties there,
though to the historian, of course, his work and struggles in the
broader and general arena of the Church engage the most attention.
He might well quarrel with the occasions that constantly called him
out to it, as so many interruptions to his proper calling.

His energy there in the pulpit was as constant as his energy in the
professor's chair. He glowed with zeal to unfold the one truth of
salvation from its original source, the Scriptures, and to declare
it and impress it on the hearts of his young pupils and his
Wittenberg congregation, of educated and uneducated, of great and
small. But he also wished to lay it before his students as a truth
for life. With this object, he continued active with his pen, both
in the Latin and the German languages. He was glad to turn to this
from the questions of ecclesiastical controversy, which had formed
the subject of his disputation, and of the writings referring to it.
It was enough for him to show forth simply the merciful love of God
and of the Saviour Christ, to point out the simple road of faith,
and to destroy all trust in mere outward works, in one's own merit
and virtue. Only to this extent, and because the authority pretended
by the Church was opposed to this truth and this road to salvation,
he was forced here also, and in face of his congregation, to wield
the sword of his eloquence against that authority, and this he did
with a zeal regardless of consequences. In all that he did, in his
lectures as well as in his sermons, in his exposition of God's word
in particular, as in his own polemics, he always threw his whole
personality into the subject. We see him inwardly moved and often
elated by the joyful message which he himself had learned, and had
to announce to others, inspired by love to his fellow-Christians,
whom he would wish to help save, and zealous even to anger for the
cause of his Lord. At the same time, it cannot be denied that he was
often carried away by the vehemence of his views, which saw at once
in every opponent an uncompromising enemy to the truth; and that his
naturally passionate temperament was often powerfully stirred,
though even then his whole tone and demeanour was blended with
outbursts of the noblest and the purest zeal.

In his academical lectures Luther still remained faithful to that
path which he had struck out on entering the theological faculty. He
wished simply to propound the revealed word of God, by explaining
the books of the Old and New Testaments; though he took pains in
these lectures, in which he devoted several terms to the study of a
single book, to explain thoroughly and impressively the most
important doctrines of Christian faith and conduct. Thus he occupied
himself during the time of the contest about indulgences, and after
the autumn of 1516, with the Epistle to the Galatians, wherein he
found comprised clearly and briefly the fundamental truth of
salvation, the doctrine of the way of faith, of God's laws of
requirements and punishments, and of gospel grace. He then turned
anew to the Psalms, dissatisfied with his own earlier exposition of
them. His exposition of St. Paul's Epistle he had sent to the press
whilst engaged in his preparations for the Leipzig disputation. His
opponents, he says here, might busy themselves with their much
larger affairs, with their indulgences, their Papal bulls, and the
power of the Church, and so on; he would retire to smaller matters,
to the Holy Scriptures and to the Apostle, who called himself not a
prince of Apostles, but the least of the Apostles. He also now began
the printing of his work on the Psalms.

Crowds of listeners gathered around him; his audience at times
numbered upwards of four hundred. During the three years following
the outbreak of the quarrel about indulgences, the number of those
who matriculated annually at the university increased threefold.
Luther wrote to Spalatin that the number of students increased
mightily, like an overflowing river; the town could no longer
contain them, many had to leave again for want of dwellings.

To this prosperity of the university Melancthon especially
contributed. He had been appointed, as we have already mentioned,
first professor of Greek by the Elector, and in addition to the
young theologians, he attracted a number of other students to his
lectures. Of still greater importance for Luther and his work, was
the personal friendship and community of ideas, convictions, and
aspirations which had bound the two men together in close intimacy
from their first acquaintance. Their paths in life had hitherto been
very different. Philip Schwarzerd, surnamed Melancthon, born in 1497
of a burgher's family of the little town of Bretten in the
Palatinate, had passed a happy youth, and harmoniously and
peacefully developed into manhood. He had had from early life
capable teachers for his education, and was under the protection of
the great philologist Reuchlin, who was a brother of his
grandmother. He then showed gifts of mind wonderfully rich and early
ripening. Besides the classics, he learnt mathematics, astronomy,
and law. He also studied the Scriptures, grew to love them, and even
when a youth had made himself familiar with their contents, without
having had first to learn to know their worth by a heavy sense of
inward need, by inward struggles or a long unsatisfied hunger of the
soul. Thus, at seventeen he was already master of arts, and at
twenty-one was appointed professor at Wittenberg. The young man,
with an insignificant, delicate frame, and a shy, awkward demeanour,
yet with a handsome, powerful forehead, an intellectual eye, and
refined, thoughtful features, effaced at once, by his inaugural
address, any doubts arising from his youthful appearance.

[Illustration: FIG. 17.--MELANCTHON. (From a Portrait by Durer.)]

In this speech, however, he already declared that the chief object
of classical studies was to teach theologians to draw from the
original fount of Holy Scripture. He himself delivered a lecture on
the New Testament immediately after one on Homer. And it was the
Lutheran conception of the doctrine of salvation which he adopted in
his own continued study of the Bible.

The year of his arrival at Wittenberg he celebrated Luther in a
poem. He accompanied him to Leipzig. During the disputation there he
is said to have assisted his friend with occasional suggestions or
notes of argument, and thereby to have roused the anger of Eck. He
now took the lowest theological degree of bachelor, to qualify
himself for giving theological lectures on Scripture. He who from
early youth had enjoyed so abundantly the treasures of Humanistic
learning, and had won for himself the admiration of an Erasmus, now
found in this study of Scripture a 'heavenly ambrosia' for his soul,
and something much higher than all human wisdom. And already, in
independent judgment on the traditional doctrines of the Church, he
not only kept pace with Luther but even outwent him. It was he who
attacked the dogma of transubstantiation, according to which in the
mass the bread and wine of the sacrament are so changed by the
consecration of the priest into the body and blood of our Lord, that
nothing really remains of their original substance, but they only
appear to the senses to retain it.

Luther at once recognised with joy the marvellous wealth of talent
and knowledge in his new colleague, whose senior he was by fourteen
years, besides being far ahead of him in theological study and
experience. We have seen, during Luther's stay at Augsburg, how
closely his heart clung to Melancthon and to the 'sweet intercourse'
with him; we know of no other instance where Luther formed a
friendship so rapidly. The more intimately he knew him, the more
highly he esteemed him. When Eck spoke slightingly of him as a mere
paltry grammarian, Luther exclaimed, 'I, the doctor of philosophy
and theology, am not ashamed to yield the point, if this
grammarian's mind thinks differently to myself; I have done so often
already, and do the same daily, because of the gifts with which God
has so richly filled this fragile vessel; I honour the work of my
God in him.' 'Philip,' he said at another time, 'is a wonder to us
all; if the Lord will, he will beat many Martins as the mightiest
enemy to the devil and Scholasticism;' and again, 'This little Greek
is even my master in theology.' Such were Luther's words, not
uttered to particular friends of Melancthon, in order to please
them, nor in public speeches or poetry, in which at that time
friends showered fulsome flattery on friends, but in confidential
letters to his own most intimate friends, to Spalatin, Staupitz, and
others. So willing and ready was he, whilst himself on the road to
the loftiest work and successes, to give precedence to this new
companion whom God had given him. Luther also interested himself
with Spalatin to obtain a higher salary for Melancthon, and thus
keep him at Wittenberg. In common with other friends, he endeavoured
to induce him to marry; for he needed a wife who would care for his
health and household better than he did himself. His marriage
actually took place in 1520, after he had at first resisted, in
order to allow no interruption to his highest enjoyment, his learned
studies.