Life of Luther by Julius Koestlin

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Meanwhile, such Humanists as wished to enjoy the utmost possible
freedom for their own learned pursuits flocked around Reuchlin
against his literary enemies, and cared very little about the
authorities of the Church. The bold monk and his party excited
neither their interest nor their concern. Many of them thought of
him, no doubt, when he was engaged in the heat of the contest about
indulgences, as did Ulrich von Hutten, who wrote to a friend: 'A
quarrel has broken out at Wittenberg between two hot-headed monks,
who are screaming and shouting against each other. It is to be hoped
that they will eat one another up.' To such men the theological
questions at issue seemed not worth consideration. At the same time
they took care to pay all necessary respect to the princes of the
Church, who had shown favour to them personally and to their
learning, and did homage to them, notwithstanding much that must
have shocked them in their conduct as ecclesiastics. Thus Hutten did
not scruple to enter the service of the same Archbishop Albert who
had opened the great traffic in indulgences in Germany, but who was
also a patron of literature and art, and was only too glad to be
recognised publicly by an Erasmus. We hear nothing of any
remonstrances made to him by Erasmus himself. In the same spirit
that dictated the above remark of Hutten, Mosellanus, who opened
with a speech the disputation at Leipzig, wrote to Erasmus during
the preparations for that event. There will be a rare battle, he
said, and a bloody one, coming off between two Scholastics; ten such
men as Democritus would find enough to laugh over till they were
tired. Moreover, Luther's fundamental conception of religion, with
his doctrine of man's sinfulness and need of salvation, so far from
corresponding, was in direct antagonism with that Humanistic view of
life which seemed to have originated from the devotion to classical
antiquity, and to revive the proud, self-satisfied, independent
spirit of heathendom. Even in an Erasmus Luther had thought he
perceived an inability to appreciate his new doctrine.

Melancthon's arrival at Wittenberg was, in this respect, an event of
the first importance. This highly-gifted young man, who had united
in his person all the learning and culture of his time, whose mind
had unfolded in such beauty and richness, and whose personal
urbanity had so endeared him to men of culture wherever he went, now
found his true happiness in that gospel and in that path of grace
which Luther had been the first to make known. And whilst offering
the right hand of fellowship to Luther, he continued working with
energy in his own particular sphere, kept up his intimacy with his
fellow-labourers therein, and won their respect and admiration.
Humanists at a distance, meanwhile, must have noticed the fact, that
the most violent attacks against Luther proceeded from those very
quarters, as for instance, from Hoogstraten, and afterwards from the
theological faculty at Cologne, where Reuchlin had been the most
bitterly persecuted. At length the actual details of the disputation
between Luther and Eck opened men's eyes to the magnitude of the
contest there waged for the highest interests of Christian life and
true Christian knowledge, and to the greatness of the man who had
ventured single-handed to wage it.

At Erfurt Luther had found already in the spring of 1518, on his
return from the meeting of his Order at Heidelberg, in pleasing
contrast to the displeasure he had aroused among his old teachers
there, a spirit prevailing among the students of the university,
which gave him hope that true theology would pass from the old to
the young, just as once Christianity, rejected by the Jews, passed
from them to the heathen. Those well-wishers and advisers who took
his part at Augsburg, when he had to go thither to meet Caietan,
were friends of Humanistic learning. Among the earliest of those,
outside Wittenberg, who united that learning with the new tendency
of religious teaching, we find some prominent citizens of the
flourishing town of Nuremberg, where, as we have seen, Luther's old
friend Link was also actively engaged. Already before the contest
about indulgences broke out, the learned jurist Scheuerl of that
place had made friends with Luther, whom the next year he speaks of
as the most celebrated man in Germany. The most important of the
Humanists there, Willibald Pirkheimer, a patrician of high esteem
and an influential counsellor, and who had once held local military
command, corresponded with Luther, and after learning from him the
progress of his views and studies concerning the Papal power, made
his Leipzig opponent the object of a bitter anonymous satire, 'The
Polished Corner' (Eck). Another learned Nuremberger, the Secretary
of the Senate, Lazarus Spengler, was on terms of close Christian
fellowship with Luther: he published in 1519 a 'Defence and
Christian Answer,' which contained a powerful and worthy vindication
of Luther's popular tracts. Albert Durer also, the famous painter,
took a deep interest in Luther's evangelical doctrine, and revered
him as a man inspired by the Holy Ghost. Among the number of
theologians who ranked next to Erasmus, the well-known John
Oecolampadius, then a preacher at Augsburg, and almost of the same
age as Luther, came forward in his support, towards the end of 1519,
with a pamphlet directed against Eck. Erasmus himself in 1518, at
least in a private letter to Luther's friend Lange at Erfurt, of
which the latter we may be sure did not leave Luther in ignorance,
declared that Luther's theses were bound to commend themselves to
all good men, almost without exception; that the present Papal
domination was a plague to Christendom; the only question was
whether tearing open the wound would do any good, and whether it was
not conceivable that the matter could be carried through without an
actual rupture.

Luther, on his part, approached Reuchlin and Erasmus by letter. To
the former he wrote, at the urgent entreaty of Melancthon, in
December 1518, to the latter in the following March. Both letters
are couched in the refined language befitting these learned men, and
particularly Erasmus, and contain warm expressions of respect and
deference, though in a tone of perfect dignity, and free from the
hyperboles to which Erasmus was usually treated by his common
admirers. At the same time Luther was careful indeed to conceal the
other and less favourable side of his estimate of Erasmus, which he
had already formed in his own mind and expressed to his friends. We
can see how bent he was, notwithstanding, upon a closer intimacy
with that distinguished man.

Reuchlin, then an old man, would have nothing to do with Luther and
the questions he had raised. He even sought to alienate his nephew
Melancthon from him, by bidding him abstain from so perilous an
enterprise.

[Illustration: Fig. l9.--W. PIRKHEIMER. (From a Portrait by Albert
Durer.)]

Erasmus replied with characteristic evasion. He had not yet read
Luther's writings, but he advised everyone to read them before
crying them down to the people. He himself believed that more was to
be gained by quietness and moderation than by violence, and he felt
bound to warn him in the spirit of Christ against all intemperate
and passionate language; but he did not wish to admonish Luther what
to do, but only to continue steadfastly what he was doing already.
The chief thought to which he gives expression is the earnest hope
that the movement kindled by Luther's writings would not give
occasion to opponents to accuse and suppress the 'noble arts and
letters.' A regard for these, which indeed were the object of his
own high calling, was always of paramount importance in his eyes.
Not content with attacking by means of ridicule the abuses in the
Church, Erasmus took a genuine interest in the improvement of its
general condition, and in the elevation and refinement of moral and
religious life, as well as of theological science; and the high
esteem he enjoyed made him an influential man among even the
superior clergy and the princes of the Church. But from the first he
recognised, as he says in his letter to Lange, and possibly better
than Luther himself, the difficulties and dangers of attacking the
Church system on the points selected by Luther. And when Luther
boldly anticipated the disturbances which the Word must cause in the
world, and dwelt on Christ's saying that He had come to bring a
sword, Erasmus shrank back in terror at the thought of tumult and
destruction. Conformably with the whole bent of his natural
disposition and character, he adhered anxiously to the peaceful
course of his work and the pursuit of his intellectual pleasures.
Questions involving deep principles, such as those of the Divine
right of the Papacy, the absolute character of Church authority, or
the freedom of Christian judgment, as founded on the Bible, he
regarded from aloof; notwithstanding that silence or concealment
towards either party, when once these principles were publicly put
in question, was bound to be construed as a denial of the truth.

We shall see how this same standpoint, from which this learned man
still retained his inward sympathy with Church matters, dictated
further his attitude towards Luther and the Reformation. For the
present, Luther had to thank the good opinion of Erasmus, cautiously
expressed though it was, for a great advancement of his cause. It
was valuable to Luther in regard to those who had no personal
knowledge of him, as giving them conclusive proof that his character
and conduct were irreproachable. His influence is apparent in the
answer of the Archbishop Albert to Luther, in its tone of gracious
reticence, and its remarks about needless contention. Erasmus had
written some time before to the Archbishop, contrasting the excesses
charged against Luther with those of the Papal party, and denouncing
the corruptions of the Church, and particularly the lack of
preachers of the gospel. Much to the annoyance of Erasmus, this
letter was published, and it worked more in Luther's favour than he
wished.

Those hopes which Luther had placed in the young students at Erfurt
were shortly fulfilled by the so-called 'poets' beginning now to
read and expound the New Testament. The theology, which, in its
Scholastic and monastic form, they regarded with contempt, attracted
them as knowledge of the Divine Word. Justus Jonas, Luther's junior
by ten years, a friend of Eoban Hess, and one of the most talented
of the circle of young 'poets,' now exchanged for theology the study
of the law, which he had already begun to teach. To his respect for
Erasmus was now added an enthusiastic admiration for Luther, the
courageous Erfurt champion of this new evangelical doctrine. A close
intimacy sprang up between Jonas and Luther, as also between Jonas
and Luther's friend Lange. Erasmus had persuaded him to take up
theology; Luther, on hearing of it in 1520, congratulated him on
taking refuge from the stormy sea of law in the asylum of the
Scriptures.

None of the old Erfurt students, however, had cultivated Luther's
friendship more zealously than Crotus, his former companion at that
university; and this even from Italy, where his sympathies with
Luther had been stirred by the news from Germany, and where he had
learned to realise, from the evidence of his eyes, the full extent
of the scandals and evils against which Luther was waging war. He,
who in the 'Epistolae Virorum Obscurorum,' had failed to exhibit in
his satire the solemn earnestness which recommended itself to
Luther's taste and judgment, now openly declared his concurrence
with Luther's fundamental ideas of religion and theology, and his
high appreciation of Scripture and of the Scriptural doctrine of
salvation. He wrote repeatedly to him, reminding him of their days
together at Erfurt, telling him about the 'Plague-chair' at Rome,
and the intrigues carried on there by Eck, and encouraging him to
persevere in his work. Expressions common to the 'poets' of his
university days were curiously mingled in his letters with others of
a religious kind. He would like to glorify, as a father of their
fatherland, worthy of a golden statue and an annual festival, his
friend Martin, who had been the first to venture to liberate the
people of God, and show them the way to true piety. Not only from
Italy, but also after his return, he employed his characteristic
literary activity, by means of anonymous pamphlets, in the service
of Luther. It was he who, towards the end of 1519, sent from Italy
to Luther and Melancthon at Wittenberg, the Humanist theologian,
John Hess, afterwards the reformer of the Church at Breslau. Crotus
himself returned in the spring of 1520 to Germany.

[Illustration: Fig. 20.--ULRICH VON HUTTEN. (From an old woodcut.)]

Here these Humanist friends of the Lutheran movement had already
been joined by Crotus' personal friend, Ulrich von Hutten, who not
only could wield his pen with more vigour and acuteness than almost
all his associates, but who declared himself ready to take up the
sword for the cause he defended, and to call in powerful allies of
his own class to the fight. He sprang from an old Franconian family,
the heirs, not indeed of much wealth or property, but of an old
knightly spirit of independence. Hatred of monasticism and all that
belonged to it, must have been nursed by him from youth; for having
been placed, when a boy, in a convent, he ran away with the aid of
Crotus, when only sixteen. Sharing the literary tastes of his
friend, he learned to write with proficiency the poetical and
rhetorical Latin of the Humanists of that time. In spite of all his
irregularities, adventures, and unsettlement of habits, he had
preserved an elastic and elevated turn of mind, desirous of serving
the interests of a 'free and noble learning,' and a knightly
courage, which urged him to the fight with a frankness and
straightforwardness not often found among his fellow-Humanists.
Whilst laughing at Luther's controversy as a petty monkish quarrel,
he himself dealt a heavy blow to the traditional pretensions of the
Papacy by the republication of a work by the famous Italian Humanist
Laurentius Valla, long since dead, on the pretended donation of
Constantine, in which the writer exposed the forgery of the edict
purporting to grant the possession of Rome, Italy, and indeed the
entire Western world to the Roman see. This work Hutten actually
dedicated to Pope Leo himself. But what distinguished this knight
and Humanist above all the others who were contending on behalf of
learning and against the oppressions and usurpations of the Church
and monasticism, were his thoroughly German sympathies, and his zeal
for the honour and independence of his nation. He saw her enslaved
in ecclesiastical bondage to the Papal see, and at the mercy of the
avarice and caprice of Rome. He heard with indignation how scornfully
the 'rough and simple Germans' were spoken of in Italy, how even on
German soil the Roman emissaries openly paraded their arrogance, how
some Germans, unworthy of the name, pandered to such scorn and
contempt by a cringing servility which made them crouch before the
Papal chair and sue for favour and office. He warned them to prepare
for a mighty outburst of German liberty, already well-nigh strangled
by Rome. At the same time he denounced the vices of his own countrymen,
particularly that of drunkenness, and the proneness to luxury and
usurious dealing in trade and commerce, all of which, as we have
seen, had been complained of by Luther. Nor less than of the honour
of Germany herself, was he jealous of the honour and power of the
Empire. In all that he did he was guided, perhaps involuntarily, but
in a special degree, by the principles and interests of knighthood.
His order was indebted to the Empire for its chief support, although
the imperial authority no less than that of his own class, had sunk
in a great measure through the increasing power of the different
princes. In the prosperous middle class of Germany he saw the spirit
of trade prevailing to an excess, with its attendant evils. In the
firmly-settled regulations of law and order, which had been established
in Germany with great trouble at the end of the middle ages, he felt
most out of his element: he longed rather to resort to the old method
of force whenever he saw justice trampled on. And in this respect also
Hutten proved true to the traditions of knighthood.

But in the material power required to give effect to his ideas of
reform in the kindred spheres of politics and of the Church in her
external aspect, Hutten was entirely wanting. More than this, we
fail to find in him any clear and positive plans or projects of
reform, nor any such calm and searching insight into the relations
and problems before him as was indispensable for that object. His
call, however rousing and stirring it was, died away in the distance
of time and the dimness of uncertainty.

Hutten found, however, an active and powerful friend, and one versed
in war and politics, in Francis von Sickingen, the 'knight of manly,
noble, and courageous spirit,' as an old chronicler describes him.
He was the owner of fine estates, among them the strong castles of
Landstuhl near Kaiserslautern, and Ebernburg near Kreuznach, and had
already, in a number of battles conducted on his own account and to
redress the wrongs of others, given ample proof of his energy and
skill in raising hosts of rustic soldiery, and leading them with
reckless valour, in pursuit of his objects, to the fray. Hutten won
him over to support the cause of Reuchlin, still entangled in a
prosecution by his old accusers of heresy, Hoogstraten and the
Dominicans at Cologne. A sentence of the Bishop of Spires, rejecting
the charges of his opponents, and mulcting them in the costs of the
suit, had been annulled, at their instance, by the Pope. Against
them and against the Dominican Order in particular, Sickingen now
declared his open enmity, and his sympathy with the 'good old doctor
Reuchlin.' In spite of delay and resistance, they were forced to pay
the sum demanded. Meanwhile, no doubt under the influence of his
friend Crotus, Hutten's eyes were opened about the monk Luther.
During a visit in January 1520 to Sickingen at his castle of
Landstuhl, he consulted with him as to the help to be given to the
man now threatened with excommunication, and Sickingen offered him
his protection. Hutten at the same time proceeded to launch the most
violent controversial diatribes and satires against Rome; one in
particular, called 'The Roman Trinity,' wherein he detailed in
striking triplets the long series of Romish pretensions, trickeries,
and vexatious abuses. At Easter he held a personal interview at
Bamberg with Crotus, on his return from Italy.

For the furtherance of their objects and desires, in respect to the
affairs of Germany and the Church these two knights placed high
hopes in the new young Emperor, who had left Spain, and on the 1st
of July landed on the coast of the Netherlands. Sickingen had earned
merit in his election. He had hoped to find in him a truly German
Emperor, in contrast to King Francis of France, who was a competitor
for the imperial crown. The Pope, as we have seen, had opposed his
election; his chief advocate, on the contrary, was Luther's friend,
the Elector Frederick. Support was also looked for from Charles'
brother Ferdinand, as being a friend of arts and letters. Hutten
even hoped to obtain a place at his court.

[Illustration: Fig. 2l.--FRANCIS VON SICKINGEN. (From an old
engraving.)]

On this side, therefore, and from these quarters, Luther was offered
a friendly hand.

We hear Hutten first mentioned by Luther in February 1520, in
connection with his edition of the work of Valla. This work, though
published two years before, had been made known to Luther then, for
the first time, by a friend. It had awakened his keenest interest;
the falsehoods exposed in its pages confirmed him in his opinion
that the Pope was the real Antichrist.

Shortly after, a letter from Hutten reached Melancthon, containing
Sickingen's offer of assistance; a similar communication forwarded
to him some weeks before, had never reached its destination.
Sickingen had charged Hutten to write to Luther, but Hutten was
cautious enough to make Melancthon the medium, in order not to let
his dealings with Luther be known. Sickingen, he wrote, invited
Luther, if menaced with danger, to stay with him, and was willing to
do what he could for him. Hutten added that Sickingen might be able
to do as much for Luther as he had done for Reuchlin; but Melancthon
would see for himself what Sickingen had then written to the monks.
He spoke, with an air of mystery, of negotiations of the highest
importance between Sickingen and himself; he hoped it would fare
badly with the Barbarians, that is, the enemies of learning,--and
all those who sought to bring them under the Romish yoke. With such
objects in view, he had hopes even of Ferdinand's support. Crotus,
meanwhile, after his interview with Hutten at Bamberg, advised
Luther not to despise the kindness of Sickingen, the great leader of
the German nobility. It was rumoured that Luther, if driven from
Wittenberg, would take refuge among the Bohemians. Crotus earnestly
warned him against doing so. His enemies, he said, might force him
to do so, knowing, as they did, how hateful the name of Bohemian was
in Germany. Hutten himself wrote also to Luther, encouraging him, in
pious Scriptural language, to stand firm and persevere in working
with him for the liberation of their fatherland. He repeated to him
the invitation of N., (he did not mention his name,) and assured him
that the latter would defend him with vigour against his enemies of
every kind.

Another invitation, at the same time, and of the same purport, came
to Luther from the knight Silvester von Schauenburg. He too had
heard that Luther was going to the Bohemians. He was willing,
however, to protect him from his enemies, as were also a hundred
other nobles whom with God's help he would bring with him, until his
cause was decided in a right and Christian manner.

Whether Luther really entertained the thought of flying to Bohemia,
we cannot determine with certainty. But we know with what
seriousness, as early as the autumn of 1518, after he had refused to
retract to the Papal legate, he anticipated the duty and necessity
of leaving Wittenberg. How much more forcibly must the thoughts have
recurred to him, when the news arrived of the impending decision at
Rome, of the warning received from there by the Elector, and of the
protest uttered even in Germany, and by such a prince as Duke George
of Saxony, against any further toleration of his proceedings. The
refuge which Luther had previously looked for at Paris was no longer
to be hoped for. Since the Leipzig disputation he had advanced in
his doctrines, and especially in his avowed support of Huss, far
beyond what the university of Paris either liked or would endure.

Such then was Luther's position when he received these invitations.
They must have stirred him as distinct messages from above. The
letters in which he replied to them have not been preserved to us.
We hear, however, that he wrote to Hutten, saying that he placed
greater hopes in Sickingen than in any prince under heaven.
Schauenburg and Sickingen, he says, had freed him from the fear of
man; he would now have to withstand the rage of demons. He wished
that even the Pope would note the fact that he could now find
protection from all his thunderbolts, not indeed in Bohemia, but in
the very heart of Germany; and that, under this protection, he could
break loose against the Romanists in a very different fashion to
what he could now do in his official position.

As he reviewed, in the course of the contest, the proceedings of his
enemies, and was further informed of the conduct of the Papal see,
the picture of corruption and utter worthlessness, nay the
antichristian character of the Church system at Rome, unfolded
itself more and more painfully and fully before his eyes. The
richest materials for this conclusion he found in the pamphlets of
the writers already referred to, and in the descriptions sent from
Italy by men like Hess and others, who shared his own convictions.

All this time, moreover, Luther's feelings as a German were more and
more stirred within him, while thinking of what German Christianity
in particular was compelled to suffer at the hands of Rome. A lively
consciousness of this had been awakened in his mind since the Diet
of Augsburg in 1518, with its protest against the claims of the
Papacy, its statement of the grievances of the German nation, and
the vigorous writings on that subject which were circulated at that
time. He referred in 1519 to that Diet, as having drawn a
distinction between the Romish Church and the Romish Curia, and
repudiated the latter with its demands. As for the Romanists, who
made the two identical, they looked on a German as a simple fool, a
lubberhead, a dolt, a barbarian, a beast, and yet they laughed at
him for letting himself be fleeced and pulled by the nose. Luther's
words were now re-echoed in louder tones by Hutten, whose own wish,
moreover, was to incite his fellow-countrymen, as such, to rise and
betake themselves to battle.