Life of Luther by Julius Koestlin

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Luther himself, loud as was his call to battle in his theses, had
still no intention of engaging in a general contest about the
leading principles of the Church. He had not yet realised the whole
extent and bearings of the question about indulgences. Referring
afterwards to the rapid circulation of his theses through Germany,
and to the fame which his onslaught had earned him, he says, 'I did
not relish the fame, for I myself was not aware of what there was in
the indulgences, and the song was pitched too high for my voice.'
People far and wide were proud of the man who spoke out so boldly in
his theses, while the multitude of doctors and bishops kept silence;
but he still stood alone before the public, confronting the storm
which he had aroused against himself. He did not conceal the fact,
that now and then he felt strange and anxious about his position.
But he had learned to take his stand singly and firmly on the word
of Scripture, and on the truth which God therein revealed to him and
brought home to his conviction. He was only the more strengthened in
that conviction by the replies of his opponents; for he must well
have been amazed at their utter want of Scriptural reference to
disprove his conclusions, and at the blind subservience with which
they merely repeated the statements of their Scholastic authorities.
The arrogant reply of Prierias, his opponent of highest rank, seemed
to him particularly poor. In confident words Luther assures his
friends of his conviction that what he taught was the purest
theology, that what he upheld and his opponents attacked, was a
revelation direct from God. He knew too, that, in the words of St.
Paul, he had to preach what to the holiest of the Jews was a
stumbling-block, and to the wisest of the Greeks foolishness. He was
none the less ready to do so, that Jesus Christ, his Lord, might say
of him, as He said once of that Apostle, 'I will show him how great
things he must suffer for my name's sake.' Luther's enemies in the
Romish Church have thought to see in these words an instance of
boundless self-assertion on the part of an individual subject.

From henceforth Luther, while pursuing with unabated zeal his active
duties at the university and in the pulpit at Wittenberg, and taking
up his pen again and again to write short pamphlets of a simple and
edifying kind, occupied himself untiringly with controversial
writings, with the object partly of defending himself against
attacks, partly of establishing on a firm basis the principles he
had set forth, and of further investigating and making plain the way
of true Christian knowledge. He first addressed himself to German
Christendom, in German, in his 'Sermon on Indulgences and Grace.'
His inward excitement is shown by the vehemence and ruggedness of
expression which now and henceforth marked his polemical writings.
It recalls to mind the tone then commonly met with not only among
ordinary monks, but even in the controversies of theologians and
learned men, and in which Luther's own opponents, especially that
high Roman theologian, had set him the example. In Luther we see
now, throughout his whole method of polemics, as we shall see still
more later on, a mighty, Vulcanic, natural power breaking forth, but
always regulated by the humblest devotion to the lofty mission that
his conscience has imposed upon him. Even in his most vehement
outbursts we never fail to catch the tender expressions of a
Christian warmth and fervour of the heart, and a loftiness of
language corresponding to the sacredness of the subject.

In the midst of these labours and controversies, Luther had to
undertake a journey in the spring of 1518 (about the middle of
April) to a chapter general of his Order at Heidelberg, where,
according to the rules, a new Vicar was chosen after a triennial
term of office. His friends feared the snares that his enemies might
have prepared for him on the road. He himself did not hesitate for a
moment to obey the call of duty.

The Elector Frederick, who owed him at least a debt of gratitude for
having helped to keep his territory free from the rapacious Tetzel,
but who, both now and afterwards, conscientiously held aloof from
the contest, gave proof on this occasion of his undiminished
kindness and regard for him, in a letter he addressed to Staupitz.
He writes as follows:--'As you have required Martin Luder to attend
a Chapter at Heidelberg, it is his wish, although we grudge giving
him permission to leave our university, to go there and render due
obedience. And as we are indebted to your suggestion for this
excellent doctor of theology, in whom we are so well pleased, ... it
is our desire that you will further his safe return here, and not
allow him to be delayed.' He also gave Luther cordial letters of
introduction to Bishop Laurence of Wurzburg, through whose town his
road passed, and to the Count Palatine Wolfgang, at Heidelberg. From
both of these, though many had already declaimed against him as a
heretic, he met with a most friendly and obliging reception.

His relations, moreover, at Heidelberg with his fellow-members of
the Order, and, above all, with Staupitz, remained unclouded.
Staupitz was re-elected here as Vicar of the Order; the office of
provincial Vicar passed from Luther to John Lange, of Erfurt, his
intimate friend and fellow-thinker. The question about indulgences
had not entered at all into the business of the chapter. But at a
disputation held in the convent, according to custom, Luther
presided, and wrote for it some propositions embodying the
fundamental points of his doctrines concerning the sinfulness and
powerlessness of man, and righteousness, through God's grace, in
Christ, and against the philosophy and theology of Aristotelian
Scholasticism. He attracted the keen interest of several young
inmates of the convent who afterwards became his coadjutors, such as
John Brenz, Erhardt Schnepf, and Martin Butzer. They marvelled at
his power of drawing out the meaning from the Scriptures, and of
speaking not only with clearness and decision, but also with
refinement and grace. Thus his journey served to promote at once his
reputation and his influence.

On his return to Wittenberg on May 15, after an absence of five
weeks, he hastened to complete a detailed explanation in Latin of
the contents of his theses, under the title of 'Solutions,' the
greatest and most important work that he published at this period of
the contest.

The most valuable fruit of the controversy so far as regards Luther
and his later work, and evidence of which is given in these
'Solutions,' was the advance he had made, and had been compelled to
make, in the course of his own self-reasoning and researches. New
questions presented themselves: the inward connection of the truth
became gradually manifest: new results forced themselves upon him:
his anxiety to solve his difficulties still continued.

Luther in his theses, when speaking of the call of Jesus to
repentance, had never indeed admitted that the sacrament of penance
enjoined by the Church, with auricular confession and the penances
and satisfactions imposed by the priest, was based on God's command
or the authority of the Bible. He now openly acknowledged and
declared that these ecclesiastical acts were not enjoined by Christ
at all, but solely by the Pope and the Church.

The contest about the indulgences granted by the Pope in respect of
these acts, opened up now the doctrine of the so-called treasures of
the Church, on which the Pope drew for his bounty. Luther, while
conceding to the Pope the right of dispensing indulgences in the
sense understood by himself, guarded himself against admitting that
the merits of Christ constituted that treasure, and so should be
disposed of by the Pope in this manner: the dispensation of
indulgences rested simply on the Papal power of the keys. It was now
objected to him that herein he was going counter to an express and
duly recorded declaration of a pope, Clement VI., namely, that the
merits of Christ were undoubtedly to be dispensed in indulgences.
Luther, who in his theses against the abuse of indulgences had
abstained as yet from propounding anything which might be
inconsistent with the ascertained meaning of the Pope, now insisted
without hesitation on this contradiction. That Papal pronouncement,
he declared, did not bear the character of a dogmatic decree, and a
distinction was to be drawn between a decree of the Pope and its
acceptance by the Church through a Council.

How then, Luther proceeded to inquire, should the Christian obtain
forgiveness of sin, reconciliation with God, righteousness before
God, peace and holiness in God? And in answering this question he
reverted to the key-note of his doctrine of salvation, which he had
begun to preach before the contest about indulgences commenced. He
had already declared that salvation came through faith; in other
words, through heartfelt trust in God's mercy, as announced by the
Bible, and in the Saviour Christ. How was that consistent with the
acts of ecclesiastical penance, such as absolution in particular,
which must be obtained from the priest? Luther now declared that God
would assuredly allow his offer of forgiveness to be conveyed to
those who longed for it, by His commissioned servant of the Church,
the priest, but that the assurance of such forgiveness must lean
simply on the promise of God, by virtue and on behalf of Whom the
priest performed his office. And at the same time he declared that
this promise could be conveyed to a troubled Christian by any
brother-Christian, and that full forgiveness would be granted to him
if he had faith. No enumeration of particular sins was necessary for
that end; it was enough if the repentant and faithful yearning for
the word of mercy was made known to the priest or brother from whom
the message of comfort was sought. Hence it followed, on the one
hand, that priestly absolution and the sacrament availed nothing to
the receiver unless he turned with inward faith to his God and
Saviour, received with faith the word spoken to him, and through
that word let himself be raised to greater faith. It followed also,
on the other hand, that a penitent and faithful Christian, holding
fast to that word, to whom the priest should arbitrarily refuse the
absolution he looked for, could, in spite of such refusal,
participate in God's forgiveness to the full. Herewith was broken at
once the most powerful bond by which the dominant Church enslaved
the souls to the organs of her hierarchy. Luther has humbled man to
the lowest before God, through Whose grace alone the sinner, in meek
and believing trustfulness, can be saved. But in God and through
this grace he teaches him to be free and certain of salvation.
Christ, he says, has not willed that man's salvation should lie in
the hand or at the pleasure of a man.

As for the outward acts and punishments which the Church and the
Pope imposed, he did not seek to abolish them. In this external
province at least he recognised in the Pope a power originating
direct from God. Here, in his opinion, the Christian was bound to
put up with even an abuse of power and the infliction of unjust
punishment.

The whole contest turned ultimately on the question as to who
should determine disputes about the truth, and where to seek the
highest standard and the purest source of Christian verity.
Gradually at first, and manifestly with many inward struggles on the
part of Luther, his views and principles gained clearness and
consistency. Even within the Catholic Church the doctrine as to the
highest authority to be recognised in questions of belief and
conduct was by no means so firmly established as is frequently
represented by both Protestants and Roman Catholics. The doctrine of
the infallibility of the Pope, and of the absolute authority
attaching thereby to his decisions, however confidently asserted by
the admirers of Aquinas and accepted by the Popes, was not erected
into a dogma of the Roman Catholic Church until 1870. The other
theory, that even the Pope can err, and that the supreme decision
rests with a General Council, had been maintained by theologians
whom, at the same time, no Pope had ever ventured to treat as
heretics. It was on the ground of this latter theory that the
University of Paris, then the first university in Europe, had just
appealed from the Pope to a General Council. In Germany opinions
were on the whole divided between this and the theory of Papal
absolutism. Again, the view that neither the decisions of a Council
nor of a Pope were _ipso facto_ infallible, but that an appeal
therefrom lay to a council possibly better informed, had already
been advanced with impunity by writers of the fifteenth century. The
only point as to which no doubt was expressed, was that the
decisions of previous General Councils, acknowledged also by the
Pope, contained absolutely pure Divine truth, and that the Christian
Universal Church could never fall into error; but even then, with
reference to this Church, the question still remained as to who or
what was her true and final representative.

Luther now followed what he found to be the teaching of the Bible,
so far as that teaching presented itself to his own independent and
conscientious research, and as, traced home in the New Testament and
especially in the Epistles of St. Paul, it shaped itself to his
perception. But for all this, he would not yet abandon his agreement
with the Church of which he was a member. The very man whom Eck had
branded as full of 'Bohemian poison,' complained of the Bohemian
Brethren or Moravians for exalting themselves in their ignorance
above the rest of Christendom. A Thomist indeed, who to him was only
a Scholastic among others, he fearlessly opposed; but still we find
no expression of a thought that the Church, assembled at a General
Council, had ever erred, nor even that any future Council could
pronounce an erroneous decision upon the present points in dispute.
Nay, he awaits the decision of such a Council against the charges of
heresy already brought against him, though without ever admitting
his readiness, if such a Council should assemble, to submit
beforehand and unconditionally to its decision, whatever it might
be. Above and before any such decision he held firm to the authority
of his own conviction: his conscience, he said, would not allow him
to yield from that resolve; he was not standing alone in this
contest, but with him stood the truth, together with all those who
shared his doubts as to the virtue of indulgences.

Still, while rejecting the doctrine of the infallibility of the
Popes, it was a hard matter for Luther to reproach them also with
actual error in their decisions. We have seen how necessity forced
him to do so in the case of Clement VI. Towards the existing Head of
the Church he desired to remain, as far as possible, in concord and
subjection. It was not for mere appearance' sake, that in his
ninety-five theses he represented his own view of indulgences as
being also that of the Pope. He hoped, at all events, and wished
with all his heart that it was so; and later on, towards the close
of his life, he tells us how confidently he had cherished the
expectation that the Pope would be his patron in the war against the
shameless vendors of indulgences. Even after those hopes had failed,
he spoke of Leo X. with respect as a man of good disposition and an
educated theologian, whose only misfortune was that he lived in an
atmosphere of corruption and in a vicious age. He was none the less
assured of his Divine credentials as the supreme earthly Shepherd of
Christendom, and the depositary of all canonical power. The duty of
humility and obedience, impressed on him to excess as a monk, must,
no less than the fear of the possible dangers and troubles in store
for himself and his Christian brethren, have made Luther shrink from
the thought of having actually to testify and fight against him. He
ventured to dedicate his 'Solutions' to the Pope himself. The letter
of May 30, 1518, in which he did this, shows the peculiar,
anomalous, and untenable position in which he now found himself
placed. He is horrified, he says, at the charges of heresy and
schism brought against himself. He who would much prefer to live in
peace, had no wish to set up any dogmas in his theses, provoked as
they were by a public scandal, but simply in Christian zeal, or, as
others might have it, in youthful ardour, to invite men to a
disputation, and his present desire was to publish his explanation
of them under the patronage and protection of the Pope himself. But
at the same time he declares that his conscience was innocent and
untroubled, and he adds with emphatic brevity, 'Retract I cannot.'
He concludes by humbly casting himself at the Pope's feet with the
words, 'Give me life or death, accept or reject me as you please.'
He will recognise the Papal voice as that of the Lord Jesus Himself.
He will, if worthy of death, not flinch from it. But that
declaration of his, which he could not retract, must stand.

CHAPTER III.

LUTHER AT AUGSBURG BEFORE CAIETAN. APPEAL TO A COUNCIL.

The task that Luther had now undertaken lay heavy upon his soul. He
was sincerely anxious, whilst fighting for the truth, to remain at
peace with his Church, and to serve her by the struggle. Pope Leo,
on the contrary, as was consistent with his whole character, treated
the matter at first very lightly, and when it threatened to become
dangerous, thought only how, by means of his Papal power, to make
the restless German monk harmless.

Two expressions of his in these early days of the contest are
recorded. 'Brother Martin,' he said, 'is a man of a very fine
genius, and this outbreak the mere squabble of envious monks;' and
again, 'It is a drunken German who has written the theses; he will
think differently about them when sober.' Three months after the
theses had appeared, he ordered the Vicar-General of the
Augustinians to 'quiet down the man,' hoping still to extinguish
easily the flame. The next step was to institute a tribunal for
heretics at Rome, for Luther's trial: what its judgment would be was
patent from the fact that the single theologian of learning among
the judges was Sylvester Prierias. Before this tribunal Luther was
cited on August 7; within sixty days he was to appear there at Rome.
Friend and foe could well feel certain that they would look in vain
for his return.

Papal influence, meanwhile, had been brought to bear on the Elector
Frederick, to induce him not to take the part of Luther, and the
chief agent chosen for working on the Elector and the Emperor
Maximilian was the Papal legate, Cardinal Thomas Vio of Gaeta,
called Caietan, who had made his appearance in Germany. The
University of Wittenberg, on the other hand, interposed on behalf of
their member, whose theology was popular there, and whose biblical
lectures attracted crowds of enthusiastic hearers. He had just been
joined at Wittenberg by his fellow-professor Philip Melancthon, then
only twenty-one years old, but already in the first rank of Greek
scholars, and the bond of friendship was now formed which lasted
through their lives. The university claimed that Luther should at
least be tried in Germany.

Luther expressed the same wish through Spalatin to his sovereign. He
now also answered publicly the attack of Prierias upon his theses,
and declared not only that a Council alone could represent the
Church, but that even a decree of Council might err, and that an Act
of the Church was no final evidence of the truth of a doctrine.
Being threatened with excommunication, he preached a sermon on the
subject, and showed how a Christian, even if under the ban of the
Church, or excluded from _outward_ communion with her, could
still remain in true _inward_ communion with Christ and His
believers, and might then see in his excommunication the noblest
merit of his own.

The Pope, meanwhile, had passed from his previous state of haughty
complacency to one of violent haste. Already, on August 23, thus
long before the sixty days had expired, he demanded the Elector to
deliver up this 'child of the devil,' who boasted of his protection,
to the legate, to bring away with him. This is clearly shown by two
private briefs from the Pope, of August 23 and 25, the one addressed
to the legate, the other to the head of all the Augustinian convents
in Saxony, as distinguished from the Vicar of those congregations,
Staupitz, who already was looked on with suspicion at Borne. These
briefs instructed both men to hasten the arrest of the heretic; his
adherents were to be secured with him, and every place where he was
tolerated laid under the interdict. So unheard of seemed this
conduct of the Pope, that Protestant historians would not believe in
the genuineness of the briefs; but we shall soon see how Caietan
himself refers to the one in his possession.

Other and general relations, interests, and movements of the
ecclesiastical and political life of the German nation now began to
exercise an influence, direct or indirect, upon the history of
Luther and the development of the struggles of the Reformation, and
even caused the Pope himself to moderate his conduct.

Whilst questions of the deepest kind about the means of salvation,
and the grounds and rules of Christian truth, had been opened up for
the first time by Luther during the contest about indulgences, the
abuses, encroachments, and acts of tyranny committed by the Pope on
the temporal domain of the Church, and closely affecting the
political and social life of the people, had long been the subject
of bitter complaints and vigorous remonstrances throughout Germany.
These complaints and remonstrances had been raised by princes and
states of the Empire, who would not be silenced by any theories or
dogmas about the Divine authority and infallibility of the Pope, nor
crushed by any mere sentence of excommunication. And in raising them
they had made no question of the Divine right of the Papacy. Was it
not natural that, in the indignation excited by their wrongs, they
should turn to the man who had laid the axe to the root of the tree
which bore such fruit, and at least consider the possibility of
profiting by his work? Luther, on his part, showed at first a
singularly small acquaintance with the circumstances of their
complaints, and seemed hardly aware of the loud protests raised so
long on this subject at the Diets. But with the question of
indulgences the field of his experience broadened in this respect.
The care he evinced in this matter for the care of souls and true
Christian morality made him the ally of all those who were alarmed
at the vast export of money to Rome, about which he had already said
in his theses that the Christian sheep were being regularly fleeced.

In another respect, also, the ecclesiastical policy of the Papal see
was closely interwoven with the political condition and history of
Germany. If in theory the Pope claimed to control and confirm the
decrees even of the civil power, in practice he at least attempted
to assert and maintain an omnipresent influence. And with regard to
Germany it was all-important to him that the Empire should not
become so powerful as to endanger his authority in general and his
territorial sovereignty in Italy. However loftily the Popes in their
briefs proclaimed their immutable rights, derived from God, and
their plenary power, and took care to let theologians and jurists
advance such pretensions, they understood clearly enough in their
practical conduct to adjust those relations to the rules of
political or diplomatic necessity.

In the summer of 1518 a Diet was held at Augsburg, at which the
Papal legate attended. The Pope was anxious to obtain its consent to
the imposition of a heavy tax throughout the Empire, to be applied
ostensibly for the war against the Turks, but alleged to be wanted
in reality for entirely other objects. The Emperor Maximilian, now
old and hastening to his end, was endeavouring to secure the
succession of his grandson Charles, and Caietan's chief task was to
exert his influence with Maximilian and the Elector Frederick to
bring Luther into their disfavour. The Archbishop Albert, who had
been hit so hard by Luther's attack on the traffic in indulgences,
was solemnly proclaimed Cardinal by order of the Pope.

Of Maximilian it might fairly have been expected that, after his
many experiences and contests with the Popes, he would at least
protect Luther from the worst, however unlikely it might be that he
should entertain the idea of effecting, by his help, a great reform
in the National Church. He did indeed express his wish to
Pfeffinger, a counsellor of the Elector, that his prince should take
care of the monk, as his services might some day be wanted. But he
supported the Pope in the matter of the tax, and hoped to gain him
for his own political ends. He opposed Luther also in his attack on
indulgences, on the ground that it endangered the Church, and that
he was resolved to uphold the action taken by the Pope.