Life of Luther by Julius Koestlin

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And the trial thus offered for his endurance was not yet over. On
the morning of the 19th, the Emperor sent word to the Estates, that
he would now send Luther back hi safety to Wittenberg, but treat him
as a heretic. The majority insisted on attempting further
negotiations with him through a Committee specially appointed. These
were conducted accordingly by the Elector of Treves, to whom
Frederick the Wise and Miltitz had once been anxious to submit
Luther's affair. The friendliness, and the visible interest in his
cause, with which Luther now was urged, was more calculated to move
him than Eck's behaviour at the Diet. He himself bore witness
afterwards how the Archbishop had shown himself more than gracious
to him, and would willingly have arranged matters peaceably. Instead
of being urged simply to retract all his propositions condemned by
the Pope, or his writings directed against the Papacy, he was
referred in particular to those articles in which he rejected the
decisions of the Council of Constance. He was desired to submit in
confidence to a verdict of the Emperor and the Empire, when his
books should be submitted to judges beyond suspicion. After that he
should at least accept the decision of a future Council, unfettered
by any acknowledgment of the previous sentence of the Pope. So
freely and independently of the Pope did this Committee of the
German Diet, including several bishops and Duke George of Saxony,
proceed in negotiating with a Papal heretic. But everything was
shipwrecked on Luther's firm reservation that the decision must not
be contrary to the Word of God; and on that question his conscience
would not allow him to renounce the right of judging for himself.
After two days' negotiations, he thus, on April 25, according to
Spalatin, declared himself to the Archbishop: 'Most gracious Lord, I
cannot yield; it must happen with me as God wills;' and continued:
'I beg of your Grace that you will obtain for me the gracious
permission of His Imperial Majesty that I may go home again, for I
have now been here for ten days and nothing yet has been effected.'
Three hours later the Emperor sent word to Luther that he might
return to the place he came from, and should be given a safe-conduct
for twenty-one days, but would not be allowed to preach on the way.

Free residence, however, and protection at Wittenberg, in case
Luther were condemned by the Empire, was more than even Frederick
the Wise would be able to assure him. But he had already laid his
plan for the emergency. Spalatin refers to it in these words: 'Now
was my most gracious, Lord somewhat disheartened; he was certainly
fond of Dr. Martin, and was also most unwilling to act against the
Word of God, or to bring upon himself the displeasure of the
Emperor. Accordingly, he devised means how to get Dr. Martin out of
the way for a time, until matters might be quietly settled, and
caused Luther also to be informed, the evening before he left Worms,
of his scheme for getting him out of the way. At this Dr. Martin,
out of deference to his Elector, was submissively content, though,
certainly, then and at all times he would much rather have gone
courageously to the attack.'

The very next morning, Friday the 26th, Luther departed. The imperial
herald went behind him, so as not to attract notice. They took the
usual road to Eisenach. At Friedberg Luther dismissed the herald,
giving him a letter to the Emperor and the Estates, in which he
defended his conduct at Worms, and his refusal to trust in the
decision of men, by saying that when God's Word and things eternal
were at stake, one's trust and dependence should be placed, not on
one man or many men, but on God alone. At Hersfeld, where Abbot Crato,
in spite of the ban, received him with all marks of honour, and again
at Eisenach, he preached, notwithstanding the Emperor's prohibition,
not daring to let the Word of God be bound. From Eisenach, whilst
Swaven, Schurf, and several other of his companions went straight
on, he struck southward, together with Amsdorf and Brother Pezensteiner,
in order to go and see his relations at Mohra. Here, after spending
the night at the house of his uncle Heinz, he preached the next
morning, Saturday, May 4. Then, accompanied by some of his relations,
he took the road through Schweina, past the Castle of Altenstein, and
then across the back of the Thuringian Forest to Waltershausen and Gotha.
Towards evening, when near Altenstein, he bade leave of his relations.
About half an hour farther on, at a spot where the road enters the
wooded heights, and ascending between hills along a brook, leads to an
old chapel, which even then was in ruins, and has now quite disappeared,
armed horsemen attacked the carriage, ordered it to stop with threats
and curses, pulled Luther out of it, and then hurried him away at full
speed. Pezensteiner had run away as soon as he saw them approach.
Amsdorf and the coachman were allowed to pass on; the former was in the
secret, and pretended to be terrified, to avoid any suspicion on the
part of his companion. The Wartburg lay to the north, about eight miles
distant, and had been the starting-point of the horsemen, as it now was
their goal; but precaution made them ride first in an eastern direction
with Luther. The coachman afterwards related how Luther in the haste of
the flight dropped a grey hat he had worn. And now Luther 'was given a
horse to ride. The night was dark, and about eleven o'clock they arrived
at the stately castle, situated above Eisenach. Here he was to be kept
as a knight-prisoner. The secret was kept as strictly as possible
towards friend and foe. For many weeks afterwards even Frederick's
brother John had no idea of it, on the contrary, he wrote to Frederick
that Luther, he had heard, was residing at one of Sickingen's castles.
Among his friends and followers the terrible news had spread,
immediately upon his capture, that he had been made away with by his
enemies.

At Worms, however, while the Pope was concluding an alliance with
Charles against France, the Papal legate Aleander, by commission of
the Emperor, prepared the edict against Luther on the 8th of May. It
was not, however, until the 25th, after Frederick, the Elector of
the Palatinate, and a great part of the other members of the Diet
had already left, that it was deemed advisable to have it
communicated to the rest of the Estates; nevertheless it was
antedated the 8th, and issued 'by the unanimous advice of the
Electors and Estates.' It pronounced upon Luther, applying the
customary strong expressions of Papal bulls, the ban and re-ban; no
one was to receive him any longer, or feed him &c., but wherever he
was found, he was to be seized and handed over to the Emperor.

PART IV.

_FROM THE DIET OF WORMS TO THE PEASANTS' WAR AND LUTHER'S
MARRIAGE_.

CHAPTER I.

LUTHER AT THE WARTBURG, TO HIS VISIT TO WITTENBERG IN 1521.

Luther, after being brought to the fortress, had to live there as a
knight-prisoner. He was called Squire George, he grew a stately
beard, and doffed his monk's cowl for the dress of a knight, with a
sword at his side. The governor of the castle, Herr von Berlepsch,
entertained him with all honour, and he was liberally supplied with
food and drink. He was free to go about as he pleased in the
apartments of the castle, and was permitted, in the company of a
trusty servant, to take rides and walks out of doors. Thus, as he
writes to a friend, he sat up aloft, in the region of the birds, as
a curious prisoner, _nolens volens_, whether he willed or no;
willing, because God would have it so, not willing, because he would
far rather have stood up for the Word of God in public, but of such
an honour God had not yet found him worthy.

[Illustration: Fig 26--LUTHER as "Squire George." (From a woodcut by
Cranach.)]

Care was also taken at once that he should be able to correspond at
least by letter with his friends, and especially with those at
Wittenberg. These letters were sent by messengers of the Elector
through the hands of Spalatin. When Luther afterwards heard that a
rumour had got abroad as to his place of residence, he sent a letter
to Spalatin, in which he said: 'A report, so I hear, is spread that
Luther is staying at the Wartburg near Eisenach; the people suppose
this to be the case, because I was taken prisoner in the wood below;
but while they believe that, I sit here safely hidden. If the books
that I publish betray me, then I shall change my abode; it is very
strange that nobody thinks of Bohemia.' This letter, so Luther
thought, Spalatin might let fall into the hands of some of his
spying opponents, so as to lead them astray in their conjecture.
Spalatin made no use of this naive attempt at trickery. He could
hardly have done much in the matter, and would probably have
directed those who saw through the meaning of the letter straight to
the Wartburg. He succeeded, however, remarkably well in keeping the
spot a secret, even after it was generally guessed and known that
Luther was to be found somewhere in Saxony. As late as 1528,
Luther's friend Agricola remarks that he had hitherto remained
concealed, whilst some even sought to hear of him by questioning of
the devil; and more than twenty years later Luther's opponent
Cochlaeus declares that he was hidden at Alstedt in Thuringia.

There was no imperial power at that time which might have deemed it
necessary or expedient to track out the man who had been condemned
by the Edict of Worms. The Emperor had left Germany again, and was
engaged in a war with France.

In his quiet solitude Luther threw himself again without delay into
the work of his calling, so far as he could here perform it. This
was the study of Scripture and the active exercise of his own pen in
the service of God's Word. He had now more time than before to
investigate the meaning of the Bible in its original languages. 'I
sit here,' he writes to Spalatin ten days after his arrival, 'the
whole day at leisure, and read the Greek and Hebrew Bible.'

His sojourn at the castle began in the festival time between Easter
and Whitsuntide. He wrote at once an exposition of the sixty-eighth
Psalm, with particular reference to the events of Ascension and
Whitsuntide.

For the liberation of the laity from the Papal yoke, he set at once
further to work by composing a treatise 'On Confession, whether the
Pope has power to order it.' He commends confession, when a man
humbles himself and, receives forgiveness of God through the lips of
a Christian brother, but he denounces any compulsion in the matter,
and warns men against priests who pervert it into a means of
increasing their own power. He now expressed his public thanks to
Sickingen, and dedicated the book to him--'To the just and firm
Francis von Sickingen, my especial lord and patron.' In this
dedication he repeats the fears he had long expressed of the
judgment that the clergy would bring upon themselves by their hatred
of improvement and their obstinacy. 'I have,' he says, 'often
offered peace, I have offered them an answer, I have disputed, but
all has been of no avail: I have met with no justice, but only with
vain malice and violence, nothing more. I have been simply called on
to retract, and threatened with every evil if I refused.' Then
speaking of the critical moment at which he was obliged to withdraw,
'I can do no more,' he says, 'I am now out of the game. They have
now time to change that which cannot, and should not, and will not
be tolerated from them any longer. If they refuse to make the
change, another will make it for them, without their thanks, one who
will not teach like Luther with letters and words, but with deeds.
Thank God, the fear and awe of those rogues at Borne is now less
than it was.' And again, speaking of Roman insolence: 'They push on
blindly ahead--there is no listening or reasoning. Well, I have
seen; more water-bubbles than even theirs, and once such an
outrageous smoke that it managed to blot out the sun, but the smoke
never lasted, and the sun still shines. I shall continue to keep the
truth bright and expose it, and am as far from fearing my ungracious
masters as they are ready to despise me.'

Luther now finished his exposition of the _Magnificat_, which,
with loving devotion to the subject, he had intended for Prince John
Frederick. He resumed also his work on the Sunday Gospels and
Epistles. The first part of it he had already published in Latin.
But he gave it now a new, and for the Christian people of Germany, a
most important character, by writing in German his comments on these
passages of Scripture, including those already dealt with in Latin,
which formed the text of the sermon for the day. Thus arose his
first collection of sermons, the 'Church-Postills.' By November he
had already sent the first part to the press, though the work
progressed but slowly. In a simple exposition of the words of the
Bible, without any artificial and rhetorical additions or ornament,
but with a constant and cheerful regard to practical life, with an
unceasing attention to the primary questions of salvation, and in
pithy, clear, and thoroughly popular language, he began to lay
before his readers the sum total of Christian truth, and impress it
on their hearts. The work served as much for the instruction and
support of other preachers of the gospel now newly proclaimed, as
for the direct teaching and edifying of the members of their flocks.
It advanced, however, only by degrees, and Luther after many years
was obliged to have it finished by friends, who collected together
printed or written copies of his various sermons.

For the special comfort and advice of his Wittenberg congregation
Luther wrote an exposition of the thirty-seventh Psalm. Nor with
less energy and force did he wield his pen during June, in a
vigorous and learned polemical reply in Latin to the Louvain
theologian, Latomus.

And yet Luther all this while continued to lament that he had to sit
there so idly in his Patmos: he would rather be burnt in the service
of God's Word than stagnate there alone. The bodily rest which took
the place of his former unwearied activity in the pulpit and the
lecturer's chair, together with the sumptuous fare now substituted
for the simple diet of the convent, were no doubt the cause of the
physical suffering which for a long time had grievously distressed
him and put his patience to the test, and which must have weighed
upon his spirits. In his distress he once thought of going to Erfurt
to consult physicians. Some strong remedies, however, which Spalatin
got for him, gave him temporary relief.

He took exercise in the beautiful woods around the castle, and
there, as he related afterwards, he used to look for strawberries.
In August he had news to give Spalatin of a hunt, at which he had
been present two days. He wished to look on at 'this bitter-sweet
pleasure of heroes.' 'We have,' he says, 'hunted two hares and a few
poor little partridges; truly a worthy occupation for idle people!'
But among the nets and hounds he managed, as he says, to pursue
theology. He saw in it all a picture of the devil, who by cunning
and godless doctrines ensnares poor innocent creatures. Graver
thoughts still were suggested to his mind by the fate of a little
hare, which he had helped to save, and had rolled up in the long
sleeve of his cloak, but which, on his putting it down afterwards
and going away, the dogs caught and killed. 'Thus,' he says, 'do the
Pope and Satan rage together, to destroy, despite my efforts, souls
already saved.'

At that time too he fancied he heard and saw all kinds of devil's
noises and sights, which long afterwards he frequently described to
his friends, but which he took at the time with great calmness.
Such, for instance, were a strange continual rumbling in a chest in
which he kept hazel nuts, nightly noises of falling on the stairs,
and the unaccountable appearance of a black dog in his bed.

Of the well-known ink-stain at the Wartburg we hear nothing either
from those or after-times; and a similar spot was shown in the last
century at the Castle of Coburg, where Luther stayed in 1530.

In the outer world, meanwhile, the great movement that emanated from
Luther continued to advance and grow, in spite of his disappearance.
It was apparent how powerless was his enforced absence to suppress
it. Soon too it was to be seen how much on the other hand it
depended on him that the movement should not bring real danger and
destruction.

At Wittenberg his friends continued labouring faithfully and
undisturbed. Much as Melancthon troubled himself about Luther and
longed for his return, Luther relied with confidence upon him and
his efforts, as rendering his own presence unnecessary. With joyful
congratulations to his friend he acknowledged his receipt at the
Wartburg of the sheets of his work--the _Loci Communes_--wherein
Melancthon, whilst intending at first only to proclaim the
fundamental principles and doctrines of the Bible, and especially of
the Epistle to the Romans, actually laid the foundation for the
dogma of the Evangelical Church.

Just at this time new forces had stepped in to further the work and the
battle. Shortly before Luther's departure to Worms, John Bugenhagen of
Pomerania had appeared at Wittenberg,--a man only two years younger
than Luther, well trained in theology and humanistic learning, and
already won over to Luther's doctrines by his writings, and more
especially by his work on the Babylonish Captivity. He had made friends
with Luther and Melancthon, and soon began to teach with them at the
university. John Agricola from Eisleben had already taken part in the
biblical lectures at the university, which was then the chief place for
the exposition of evangelical doctrine. This man, born in 1494, had
lived at Wittenberg since 1516. He had from the first been an adherent
of Luther, and had won his confidence, as also that of Melancthon. He
was now their fellow-lecturer at the university, and since the spring
of 1521 had been appointed by the town as catechist at the parish
church, charged with the duty of teaching children religion. Wittenberg
had also gained the services of the learned Justus Jonas, so conspicuous
for his high culture, and a staunch and open friend of Luther. Shortly
after his journey with Luther from Erfurt to the Diet of Worms, he
obtained, by grant of the Elector, the office of provost to the church
of All Saints at Wittenberg, and became a member also of the theological
faculty at the university. The excommunication under which Melancthon
had fallen with Luther did not deter the mass of students from their
cause. The academical youth who had assembled here from the whole of
Germany, and from Switzerland, Poland, and other countries, were
renowned for the exemplary unity in which, unlike their brethren in
most of the universities in those days, they lived together and
devoted themselves to the purest and most elevating studies.
Everywhere students might be seen with Bibles in their hands; the
young nobles and sons of burghers applied themselves diligently to
self-discipline; and the drinking-bouts practised elsewhere, and so
destructive to the muses, were unknown among them.

Luther, by his behaviour at Worms in particular, had fastened upon
himself the eyes of all Germany. The proceedings before the Diet,
made known, as they would be nowadays, by the newspapers, were then
published abroad by means of fugitive pamphlets of a longer or
shorter kind. Luther's speech in particular was circulated from
notes made partly by himself, partly by others. Day after day, and
especially during the sittings of the Diet, a number of other short
tracts and fly-sheets set forth, mainly in the form of a dialogue, a
popular discussion and explanation of his cause. His fate at Worms
was immediately proclaimed in a book called 'The Passion of Dr.
Martin Luther,' the title of which sufficiently indicated the
analogy suggested. Then came the stirring and disquieting news of
his sudden kidnapping by the powers of darkness; rumours which only
served to stimulate him further in his concealment to speak out and
march forwards with undaunted courage and assurance.

As writers who now began to labour for the cause in a similar spirit
to Luther's and in a similarly popular style and manner, we must not
omit to name the following. First and foremost was Eberlin of
Gunzburg, formerly a Franciscan at Tubingen; next, the Augustine
monk Michael Stifel of Esslingen, who came himself to Wittenberg and
joined there the circle of friends; and lastly, the Franciscan Henry
von Kettenbach at Ulm. The authors of some other influential works,
such as the dialogue 'Neu Karsthans' (Karsthans being a name for
peasants), are not known with certainty. In these men and their
writings, ideas and thoughts already made their appearance, going
beyond the intentions of Luther, and into a territory which, from
his standpoint of religion, he would rather have seen more exactly
defined, and taking up weapons which he had rejected. Thus
'Karsthans' contains the advice to break off, after the example of
the Hussites in Bohemia, from most of the Churches, as being tainted
with avarice and superstition; and a rising against the clergy is
contemplated, in which the nobles and peasants should combine.
Eberlin, with his extraordinary energy, not content with the most
comprehensive and far-reaching schemes of ecclesiastical reform,
plunged into questions affecting the wants of municipal, social, and
political life, which Luther, in his Address to the German Nobility,
had only briefly alluded to, and had carefully distinguished from
his own particular work in hand. To the dealings of the great
merchants he showed himself more hostile even than Luther; and put
forward such proposals as the establishment by the civil authorities
of a cheaper tariff of prices for provisions, the appointment to
magisterial offices by election, for which peasants also should be
qualified, and free rights of hunting and fishing.

The Edict of Worms, intended to proscribe and suppress throughout
Germany the heretic and his writings, was published in the different
states and towns by the princes and magistrates; but the power, and
partly also the will, was wanting to enforce its execution. At
Erfurt, shortly after Luther's passage through the town upon his way
to Worms, the interference of the clergy against a member of a
religious institution which had taken part in the ovation accorded
to the Reformer, gave the first occasion to violent and repeated
tumults. Students and townspeople attacked upwards of sixty houses
of the priests, and demolished them. Luther told his friends at
once, that he saw in this the work of Satan, who sought by this
means to bring contempt and legitimate reproach upon the gospel.

Elsewhere, and above all at Wittenberg, his followers busied
themselves in his absence with putting into practice what he had
defended with his words. Calmly and with mature deliberation and
courage, Luther took part in their labours from the solitude of his
watch-tower. He had a very lively and, as he himself confesses,
often painful consciousness of his own responsibility, as the one
who had put the first match to the great fire, and whose first
duties lay with his Wittenberg brethren, as their teacher and
pastor.

Shortly after his arrival at the Wartburg, he received the news that
Bartholomew Bernhardi of Feldkirchen, provost in the little town of
Kemberg near Wittenberg, had publicly, and with the consent of his
congregation, taken a wife. He was not the first priest who had
ventured to break the unchristian prohibition of marriage by the
Romish Church. But he was the most distinguished of such offenders
hitherto, besides being a particular disciple of Luther and a man of
unimpeachable integrity. Luther wrote about it to Melancthon,
saying: 'I admire the newly married man, who in these stormy times
has no fears, and has lost no time about it. May God guide him.'

At Wittenberg it was now demanded, not without violence, that
monasticism should be abolished, and that the mass and the Lord's
Supper should be changed in conformity with the institution of
Christ. It seemed as if here, in the place of Luther, who had gone
before with the simple testimony of the Word and doctrine, two other
men were now to step in as practical and energetic Reformers. One of
them was Luther's old colleague, Carlstadt, who had returned in July
from a short visit to Copenhagen, whither the King of Denmark had
invited him to promote the new evangelical theology at the
university, but had soon again dismissed him, and who now assumed
the lead at Wittenberg with a passionate and ambitious, but
undeterminate zeal. The other was the Augustine monk, Gabriel
Zwilling, who had introduced himself to notice as a fiery preacher
in the convent church, and in spite of his unattractive appearance
and weak voice had drawn together a large congregation from the town
and university, and fascinated them with his eloquence. A young
Silesian wrote home from the university of Wittenberg about him,
saying: 'God has raised up for us another prophet; many call him a
second Luther. Melancthon is never absent when he preaches.'