For even at that time he felt himself secure and strong in his faith.
As early as 1516 he wrote to Spalatin, who was the link of intercourse between him and the Elector, Frederick the Wise, that the Elector was the most prudent of men in the things of this world, but was afflicted with sevenfold blindness in matters concerning G.o.d and the salvation of the soul. And Luther had reason for this expression, for the provident spirit of that moderate prince appeared in his careful efforts, among other things, to gather in for domestic use the means of grace recommended by the Church. For instance, he had a special hobby for sacred relics, and just at this time Staupitz, the vicar of the Augustinian order for Saxony, was occupied in the Rhine region and elsewhere in collecting them for the Elector. For Luther the absence of his superior was important, for he had to fill his place. He was already a respected man in his order. Although professor (of theology since 1512), he still lived in his monastery in Wittenberg and generally wore his monk"s habit; and now he visited the thirty monasteries in his charge, deposed priors, uttered severe censure of bad discipline, and urged severity against fallen monks. But something of the simple faith of the brother of the monastery still clung to him.
It was in this spirit of confidence and German sincerity that he wrote, October 31, 1517, after he had posted the theses against Tetzel on the church door, to Archbishop Albert of Mainz, the protector of the seller of indulgences. Full of the popular belief in the wisdom and the goodwill of the highest rulers, Luther thought (he often said so later) that it was only necessary to present honestly to the princes of the Church the disadvantage and immorality of such abuses.
But how childish this zeal of the monk appeared to the polished and worldly prince of the Church! What so deeply offended the honest man was, from the point of view of the Archbishop, a matter long settled.
The sale of indulgences was an evil in the Church a hundred times deplored, but as unavoidable as many inst.i.tutions seem to the politician; while not good in themselves, they must be kept for the sake of a greater interest. The greatest interest of the Archbishop and the curia was their supremacy, which was acquired and maintained by such commercial dealings. The great interest of Luther and the people was truth. This was the parting of the ways.
And so Luther entered upon the struggle, a poor and faithful son of the Church, full of German devotion to authority; but yet he had in his character something which gave him strength against too extreme exercise of this authority--a close relation to his G.o.d. He was then thirty-four years old, in the fulness of his strength, of medium stature, his body vigorous and without the corpulency of his later years, appearing tall beside the small, delicate, boyish form of Melanchthon. In the face which showed the effects of vigils and inward struggles, shone two fiery eyes whose keen brilliancy was hard to meet. He was a respected man, not only in his order, but at the University; not a great scholar--he learned Greek from Melanchthon in the first year of his professorship, and Hebrew soon after. He had no extensive book learning, and never had the ambition to shine as a writer of Latin verse; but he was astonishingly well-read in the Scriptures and some of the Fathers of the Church, and what he had once learned he a.s.similated with German thoroughness. He was the untiring shepherd of his flock, a zealous preacher, a warm friend, once more full of a decorous cheerfulness; he was of an a.s.sured bearing, polite and skilful in social intercourse, with a confidence of spirit which often lighted up his face in a smile. The small events of the day might indeed affect him and annoy him. He was excitable, and easily moved to tears, but on any great emergency, after he had overcome his early nervous excitement, such as, for instance, embarra.s.sed him when he first appeared before the Diet at Worms--then he showed wonderful calmness and self-command. He knew no fear. Indeed, his lion"s nature found satisfaction in the most dangerous situations. The danger of death into which he sometimes fell, the malicious ambushes of his enemies, seemed to him at that time hardly worthy of mention. The reason for this superhuman heroism, as one may call it, was again his close personal relation to his G.o.d. He had long periods in which he wished, with a cheerful smile, for martyrdom in the service of truth and of his G.o.d. Terrible struggles were still before him, but those in which men opposed him did not seem to deserve this name. He had defeated the devil himself again and again for years. He even overcame the fear and torment of h.e.l.l, which did its utmost to cloud his reason. Such a man might perhaps be killed, but he could hardly be conquered.
The period of the struggle which now follows, from the beginning of the indulgences controversy until his departure from the Wartburg--the time of his greatest victories and of his tremendous popularity--is perhaps best known; but it seems to us that even here his nature has never yet been correctly judged.
Nothing is more remarkable at this period than the manner in which Luther became gradually estranged from the Church of Rome. His life was modest and without ambition. He clung with the deepest reverence to the lofty idea of the Church, for fifteen hundred years the communion of saints; and yet in four short years he was destined to be cut off from the faith of his fathers, torn from the soil in which he had been so firmly rooted. And during all this time he was destined to stand alone in the struggle, or at best with a few faithful companions--after 1518 together with Melanchthon. He was to be exposed to all the perils of the fiercest war, not only against innumerable enemies, but also in defiance of the anxious warnings of sincere friends and patrons. Three times the Roman party tried to silence him--through the official activity of Cajetan, through the persuasive arts of Milt.i.tz, and the untimely persistence of the contentious Eck.
Three times he spoke to the Pope himself in letters which are among the most valuable doc.u.ments of those years. Then came the parting. He was anathematized and outlawed. According to the old university custom, he burned the enemy"s declaration of war, and with it the possibility of return. With cheerful confidence he went to Worms in order that the princes of his nation might decide whether he should die or thenceforth live among them without pope or church, according to the Bible alone.
[Ill.u.s.tration: _Permission F Pruelmann A G Munich_ FREDERICK WILLIAM I INSPECTING A SCHOOL Adolph von Menzel.]
At first, when he had printed his theses against Tetzel, he was astonished at the enormous excitement which they caused in Germany, at the venomous hatred of his enemies, and at the signs of joyful recognition which he received from many sides. Had he, then, done such an unheard-of thing? What he had expressed was, he knew, the belief of all the best men of the Church. When the Bishop of Brandenburg had sent the Abbot of Lehnin to him, with the request that Luther would suppress the printed edition of his German sermon on indulgences and grace, however near the truth he might be, the brother of the poor Augustinian monastery was deeply moved that such great men should speak to him in so friendly and cordial a manner, and he was ready to give up the printing rather than make himself a monster that disturbed the Church. Eagerly he sought to refute the report that the Elector had instigated his quarrel with Tetzel--"they wish to involve the innocent prince in the enmity that falls on me." He was ready to do anything to keep the peace before Cajetan and with Milt.i.tz. One thing he would not do--recant what he had said against the unchristian extension of the system of indulgences; but recantation was the only thing the hierarchy wanted of him. For a long time he still wished for peace, reconciliation, and return to the peaceful activity of his cell; and again and again a false a.s.sertion of his opponents set his blood on fire, and every opposition was followed by a new and sharper blow from his weapon.
Even in the first letter to Leo X, May 30, 1518, Luther"s heroic a.s.surance is remarkable. He is still entirely the faithful son of the Church. He still concludes by falling at the Pope"s feet, offers him his whole life and being, and promises to honor his voice as the voice of Christ, whose representative the head of the Church is; but even from this devotion befitting the monk, the vigorous words flash out: "If I have merited death, I refuse not to die." In the body of the letter, how strong are the expressions in which he sets forth the coa.r.s.eness of the sellers of indulgences! Here, too, his surprise is honest that his theses are making so much stir with their unintelligible sentences, involved, according to the old custom, to the point of riddles. And good humor sounds in the manly words: "What shall I do? I cannot recant. In our century full of intellect and beauty, which might put Cicero into a corner, I am only an unlearned, limited, poorly educated man! But the goose must needs cackle among the swans."
The following year almost all who honored Luther united in the endeavor to bring about a reconciliation. Staupitz and Palatin, and the Elector through them, scolded, besought, and urged; the papal chamberlain, Milt.i.tz himself, praised Luther"s att.i.tude, and whispered to him that he was entirely right, implored him, drank with him, and kissed him. Luther, to be sure, thought he knew that the courtier had a secret mission to make him a captive, if possible, and bring him to Rome. But the peacemakers successfully hit upon the point in which the stubborn man heartily agreed with them--that respect for the Church must be maintained, and its unity must not be destroyed. Luther promised to keep quiet and to submit the decision of the contested points to three worthy bishops. While in this position he was urged to write a letter of apology to the Pope. But even this letter of March 3, 1519, though approved by the mediators and written under compulsion, is characteristic as showing the advance Luther had made.
Humility, such as our theologians see in it, is hardly present, but a cautious diplomatic att.i.tude throughout. Luther regrets that what he has done to defend the honor of the Roman Church should have been interpreted as lack of respect in him. He promises henceforth to say nothing more about indulgences--if, that is, his opponents will do the same; he offers to address a manifesto to the people in which he will advise them to give proper obedience to the Church and not to be estranged from her because his adversaries have been insolent and he himself harsh. But all these submissive words do not conceal the rift which already separates his mind from the essential basis of the Church of Rome. It sounds like cold irony when he writes: "What shall I do, Most Holy Father? I am at a complete loss. I cannot endure the weight of your anger, and yet I do not know how to escape it. They demand a recantation from me. If it could accomplish what they propose by it, I would recant without hesitation, but the opposition of my adversaries has spread my writings farther than I had ever hoped; they have taken hold too deeply on the souls of men. In Germany today talent, learning, freedom of judgment are flourishing. If I should recant, I should cover the Church, in the judgment of my Germans, with still greater disgrace. It is they--my adversaries--who have brought the Church of Rome into disrepute with us in Germany." He finally closes politely: "If I should be able to do more, I shall without doubt be very ready. May Christ preserve your Holiness! Martin Luther."
Much is to be read between the lines of this studied reserve. Even if the vain Eck had not immediately set all Wittenberg University by the ears, this letter could hardly have been considered at Rome as a token of repentant submission.
The thunderbolt of excommunication had been hurled; Rome had spoken.
Now Luther, again completely his old self, wrote once more to the Pope that great and famous letter which, at the request of the untiring Milt.i.tz, he dated back to September 6, 1520, that he might be able to ignore the bull of excommunication. It is a beautiful reflection of a resolute mind which from a lofty standpoint calmly surveys its opponent, and at the same time is magnificent in its sincerity, and of the n.o.blest spirit. With sincere sympathy he speaks of the personality and of the difficult position of the Pope; but it is the sympathy of a stranger. He still laments with melancholy the condition of the Church, but it is plain that he himself has already outgrown it. It is a farewell letter. With the keenest severity there is still a firm att.i.tude and silent sorrow. Such is the way a man parts from what he has once loved and found unworthy. This letter was to be the last bridge for the peacemakers. For Luther it was the liberation of his soul.
In these years Luther had become a different man. In the first place he had acquired prudence and self-reliance in his intercourse with the most exalted personages, and at heavy cost had won insight into the policies and the private character of the rulers. Nothing was at heart more painful to the peaceable nature of his sovereign than this bitter theological controversy, which sometimes furthered his political ends but always disturbed his peace of mind. Constant efforts were made by his court to keep the Wittenberg people within bounds, and Luther always saw to it that they were made too late. Whenever the faithful Spalatin dissuaded him from the publication of a new polemic, he received the answer that there was no help for it, that the sheets were printed and already in the hands of many and could not be suppressed. And in his dealings with his adversaries Luther had acquired the a.s.surance of a seasoned warrior. He was bitterly hurt when Hieronymus Emser, in the spring of 1518, craftily took him to a banquet in Dresden where he was forced to argue with angry enemies, especially when he learned that a Dominican friar had listened at the door and the next day had spread it in the town that Luther had been completely silenced, and that the listener had had difficulty to restrain himself from rushing into the room and spitting in Luther"s face. At that first meeting with Cajetan Luther still prostrated himself humbly at the feet of the prince of the Church; after the second he allowed himself to express the view that the cardinal was as fit for his office as an a.s.s to play the harp. He treated the polite Milt.i.tz with fitting politeness. The Roman had hoped to tame the German bear, but soon the courtier came of his own accord into the position which was appropriate for him--he was used by Luther. And in the Leipzig disputation against Eck the favorable impression which the self-possessed, honest, and st.u.r.dy nature of Luther produced was the best counterpoise to the self-satisfied a.s.surance of his clever opponent.
But Luther"s inward life calls for greater sympathy. It was after all a terrible period for him. Close to exaltation and victory lay for him deathly anxiety, torturing doubt, and horrible apparitions. He, almost alone, was in arms against all Christendom, and was becoming more and more irreconcilably hostile to the mightiest power, which still included everything that had been sacred to him since his youth. What if, after all, he were wrong in this or that! He was responsible for every soul that he led away with him--and whither? What was there outside the Church but destruction and perdition for time and for eternity? If his adversaries and anxious friends cut him to the heart with reproaches and warnings, the pain, the secret remorse, the uncertainty which he must not acknowledge to any one, were greater beyond comparison. He found peace, to be sure, in prayer. Whenever his fervid soul, seeking its G.o.d, rose in mighty flights, he was filled with strength, peace, and cheerfulness. But in hours of less tense exaltation, when his sensitive spirit quivered under unpleasant impressions, then he felt himself embarra.s.sed, divided, under the spell of another power which was hostile to his G.o.d. He knew from childhood how actively evil spirits ensnare mankind; he had learned from the Scripture that the Devil works against the purest to ruin them. On his path the busy devils were lurking to weaken him, to mislead him, to make innumerable others wretched through him. He saw their work in the angry bearing of the cardinal, in the scornful face of Eck, even in the thoughts of his own soul. He knew how powerful they had been in Rome. Even in his youth apparitions had tormented him; now they reappeared. From the dark shadows of his study the spectre of the tempter lifted its claw-like hand against his reason.
Even while he was praying the Devil approached him in the form of the Redeemer, radiant as King of Heaven with the five wounds, as the ancient Church represented Him. But Luther knew that Christ appears to poor humanity only in His words, or in humble form, as He hung upon the cross; and he roused himself vigorously and cried to the apparition: "Avaunt, foul fiend!"--and the vision disappeared.
Thus the strong heart of the man worked for years in savage indignation--always renewed. It was a sad struggle between reason and insanity, but Luther always came out victorious; the native strength of his sound nature prevailed. In long prayer, often lasting for hours, the stormy waves of his emotion became calm, and his ma.s.sive intelligence and his conscience brought him every time out of doubt to certainty. He considered this process of liberation as a gracious inspiration of his G.o.d, and after such moments he who had once been in such anxious doubt was as firm as steel, indifferent to the opinion of men, not to be moved, inexorable. Quite a different picture is that of his personality in contest with earthly foes. Here he retains almost everywhere the superiority of conviction, particularly in his literary feuds.
The literary activity which he developed at this time was gigantic. Up to 1517 he had printed little. From that time on he was not only the most productive but the greatest popular writer of Germany. The energy of his style, the vigor of his argumentation, the ardor and pa.s.sion of his conviction, carried away his readers. No one had ever spoken thus to the people. His language lent itself to every mood, to all keys; now brief, forcible, sharp as steel, now in majestic breadth, the words poured in among the people like a mighty stream. A figurative expression, a striking simile, made the most difficult thoughts intelligible. His was a wonderfully creative power. He used language with sovereign ease. As soon as he touched a pen his mind worked with the greatest freedom; his sentences show the cheerful warmth which filled him, the perfect charm of sympathetic creation is poured out upon them. And such power is by no means least apparent in the attacks which he makes upon individual opponents, and it is closely connected with a fault which caused misgivings even to his admiring contemporaries. He liked to play with his opponents. His imagination clothed the form of an enemy with a grotesque mask, and he teased, scorned, and stabbed this picture of his imagination with turns of speech which had not always the grace of moderation, or even of decency; but in the midst of vituperation, his good humor generally had a conciliatory effect--although, to be sure, not upon his victims.
Petty spite was rarely visible; not seldom the most imperturbable good-nature. Sometimes he fell into a true artistic zeal, forgot the dignity of the reformer, and pinched like a German peasant boy, even like a malicious goblin. What blows he gave to all his opponents, now with a club, wielded by an angry giant, now with a jester"s bauble! He liked to twist their names into ridiculous forms, and thus they lived in Wittenberg circles as beasts, or as fools. Eck became Dr. Geck; Murner was adorned with the head and claws of a cat; Emser, who had printed at the head of most of his pamphlets his coat-of-arms the head of a horned goat, was abused as a goat. The Latin name of the renegade humanist Cochlaus, was retranslated, and Luther greeted him as a snail with impenetrable armor, and--sad to say--sometimes also as a dirty boy whose nose needed wiping. Still worse, terrible even to his contemporaries, was the reckless violence with which he declaimed against hostile princes. It is true that he sometimes bestowed upon his sovereign"s cousin, Duke George of Saxony, a consideration hardly to be avoided. Each considered the other the prey of the devil, but in secret each esteemed in the other a manly worth. Again and again they fell into dissension, even in writing, but again and again Luther prayed warmly for his neighbor"s soul. The reckless wilfulness of Henry VIII. of England, on the other hand, offended the German reformer to the depths of his soul; he reviled him horribly and without cessation; and even in his last years he treated the hot-headed Henry of Brunswick like a naughty school-boy. "Clown" was the mildest of many dramatic characters in which he represented him.
When, later, such outpourings of excessive zeal stared at him from the printed page, and his friends complained, he would be vexed at his rudeness, upbraid himself, and honestly repent. But repentance availed little, for on the next occasion he would commit the same fault; and Spalatin had some reason to look distrustfully upon a projected publication even when Luther proposed to write very gently and tamely.
His opponents could not equal him in his field. They called names with equal vigor, but they lacked his inward freedom. Unfortunately it cannot be denied that this little appendage to the moral dignity of his nature was sometimes the spice which made his writings so irresistible to the honest Germans of the sixteenth century.
In the autumn of 1517 he had got into a quarrel with a reprobate Dominican friar; in the winter of 1520 he burned the Pope"s bull. In the spring of 1518 he had prostrated himself at the feet of the Vicar of Christ; in the spring of 1521 he declared at the Diet of Worms, before the emperor and the princes and the papal legates, that he believed neither the Pope nor the Councils alone, only the testimony of the Holy Scripture and the interpretation of reason. Now he was free, but excommunication and outlawry hovered over his head. He was inwardly free, but he was free as the beast of the forest is free, and behind him bayed the blood-thirsty pack. He had reached the culminating point of his life, and the powers against which he had revolted, even the thoughts which he himself had aroused among the people, were working from now on against his life and doctrine.
Even at Worms, so it appears, it had been made clear to Luther that he must disappear for a while. The customs of the Franconian Knights, among whom he had faithful followers, suggested the idea of having him spirited away by armed men. Elector Frederick, with his faithful friends, discussed the abduction, and it was quite after the manner of this prince that he himself did not wish to know the place of retreat, in order to be able, in case of need, to swear to his ignorance. Nor was it easy to win Luther over to the plan, for his bold heart had long ago overcome earthly fear; and with an enthusiastic joy, in which there was much fanaticism and some humor, he watched the attempts of the Romanists to put out of the way a man of whom Another must dispose, He who spoke through his lips.
Unwillingly he submitted. The secret was not easy to keep, however skilfully the abduction had been planned. At first none of the Wittenbergers but Melanchthon knew where he was. But Luther was the last man to submit to even the best-intentioned intrigue. Very soon an active communication arose between the Wartburg and Wittenberg. No matter how much caution was used in delivering the letters, it was difficult to avoid suspicion. In his fortified retreat, Luther found out earlier than the Wittenbergers what was going on in the world outside. He was informed of everything that happened at his university, and tried to keep up the courage of his friends and direct their policy. It is touching to see how he tried to strengthen Melanchthon, whose unpractical nature made him feel painfully the absence of his st.u.r.dy friend. "Things will get on without me," he writes to him; "only have courage. I am no longer necessary to you. If I get out, and I cannot return to Wittenberg, I shall go into the wide world. You are men enough to hold the fortress of the Lord against the Devil, without me." He dated his letters from the air, from Patmos, from the desert, from "among the birds that sing merrily on the branches and praise G.o.d with all their might from morning to night."
Once he tried to be crafty. He inclosed in a letter to Spalatin a letter intended to deceive: "It was believed without reason that he was at the Wartburg. He was living among faithful brethren. It was surprising that no one had thought of Bohemia;" and then came a thrust--not ill-tempered--at Duke George of Saxony, his most active enemy. This letter Spalatin was to lose with well-planned carelessness so that it should come into the hands of the enemy. But in this kind of diplomacy he was certainly not logical, for as soon as his leonine nature was aroused by some piece of news, he would determine impulsively to start for Erfurt or Wittenberg. It was hard for him to bear the inactivity of his life. He was treated with the greatest attention by the governor of the castle, and this attention expressed itself, as was the custom at that time, primarily in the shape of the best care in the matter of food and drink. The rich living, the lack of activity, and the fresh mountain air into which the theologian was transported, had their effect upon soul and body. He had already brought from Worms a physical infirmity, now there were added hours of gloomy melancholy which made him unfit for work.
On two successive days he joined hunting parties, but his heart was with the few hares and partridges which were driven into the net by the troop of men and dogs. "Innocent creatures! The papists persecute in the same way!" To save the life of a little hare he had wrapped him in the sleeve of his coat. The dogs came and crushed the animal"s bones within the protecting coat. "Thus Satan rages against the souls that I seek to save." Luther had reason for protecting himself and his friends from Satan. He had rejected all the authority of the Church; now he stood terribly alone; nothing was left to him but his last resort--the Scriptures. The ancient Church had represented Christianity in continual development. The faith had been kept in a fluid state by a living tradition which ran parallel with the Scriptures, by the Councils, by the Papal decrees; and they had adapted themselves, like a facile stream, to the sharp corners of national character, to the urgent needs of each age. It is true that this n.o.ble idea of a perpetually living organism had not been preserved in its original purity. The best part of its life had vanished; empty coc.o.o.ns were being preserved. The old democratic church had been transformed into the irresponsible sovereignty of a few, had been stained with all the vices of an unconscientious aristocracy, and was already in striking opposition to reason and popular feeling. What Luther, however, could put in its place--the word of the Scriptures--although it gave freedom from a hopeless ma.s.s of soulless excrescences, threatened on the other hand new dangers.
What was the Bible? Between the earliest and latest writings of the sacred book lay perhaps two thousand years. Even the New Testament was not written by Christ himself, not even entirely by those who had received the sacred doctrine from his lips. It was compiled after his death. Portions of it might have been transmitted inexactly.
Everything was written in a foreign tongue, which it was difficult for the Germans to understand. Even the keenest penetration was in danger of interpreting falsely unless the grace of G.o.d enlightened the interpreter as it had the apostles. The ancient Church had settled the matter summarily; in it the sacrament of holy orders gave such enlightenment. Indeed, the Holy Father even laid claim to divine authority to decide arbitrarily what should be right, even when his will was contrary to the Scriptures. The reformer had nothing but his feeble human knowledge, and prayer.
The first unavoidable step was that he must use his reason, for a certain critical treatment even of the Holy Bible was necessary. Nor did Luther fail to see that the books of the New Testament were of varying worth. It is well known that he did not highly esteem the Apocalypse, and that the Epistle of James was regarded by him as "an epistle of straw." But his objection to particular portions never shook his faith in the whole. His belief was inflexible that the Holy Scriptures, excepting a few books, contained a divine revelation in every word and letter. It was for him the dearest thing on earth, the foundation of all his learning. He had put himself so in sympathy with it that he lived among its figures as in the present. The more urgent his feeling of responsibility, the warmer the pa.s.sion with which he clung to Scripture; and a strong instinct for the sensible and the fitting really helped him over many dangers. His discrimination had none of the hair-splitting sophistry of the ancient teachers. He despised useless subtleties, and, with admirable tact, let go what seemed to him unessential; but, if he was not to lose his faith or his reason, he could do nothing, after all, but found the new doctrine on words and conditions of life fifteen hundred years old, and in some cases he became the victim of what his adversary Eck called "the black letter."
Under the urgency of these conditions his method took form. If he had a question to settle, he collected all the pa.s.sages of Holy Scripture which seemed to offer him an answer. He sought earnestly to understand all pa.s.sages in their context, and then he struck a balance, giving the greatest weight to those which agreed with each other, and for those which were at variance patiently striving to find a solution which might reconcile the seeming contradiction. The resulting conviction he firmly established in his heart, regardless of temptations, by fervent prayer. With this procedure he was sometimes bound to reach conclusions which seemed, even to ordinary human understanding, vulnerable. When, for instance, in the year 1522, he undertook, from the Scriptures, to put matrimony on a new moral basis, reason and the needs of the people were certainly on his side when he subjected to severe criticism the eighteen grounds of the Ecclesiastical Law for forbidding and annulling marriages and condemned the unworthy favoring of the rich over the poor. But it was, after all, strange when Luther tried to prove from the Bible alone what degrees of relationship were permitted and what were forbidden, especially as he also took into consideration the Old Testament, in which various queer marriages were contracted without any opposition from the ancient Jehovah. G.o.d undoubtedly had sometimes allowed his elect to have two wives.
And it was this method which, in 1529, during the discussions with the Calvinists, made him so obstinate, when he wrote on the table in front of him, "This _is_ my body," and sternly disregarded the tears and outstretched hand of Zwingli. He had never been narrower and yet never mightier--the fear-inspiring man who had won his conviction in the most violent inward struggles against doubt and the Devil. It was an imperfect method, and his opponents attacked it, not without success.
With it his doctrine became subject to the fate of all human wisdom.
But in this method there was also a vivid emotional process in which his own reason and the culture and the inward needs of his time found better expression than he himself knew. And it became the starting-point from which a conscientious spirit of investigation has wrought for the German people the highest intellectual freedom.
With such tremendous trials there came also to the outcast monk at the Wartburg other minor temptations. He had long ago, by almost superhuman intellectual activity, overcome what were then regarded with great distrust as fleshly impulses; now nature a.s.serted herself vigorously, and he several times asked his friend Melanchthon to pray for him on this account. Then Fate would have it that during these very weeks the restless mind of Carlstadt in Wittenberg fell upon the question of the marriage of priests, and reached the conclusion, in a pamphlet on celibacy, that the vow of chast.i.ty was not binding on priests and monks. The Wittenbergers in general agreed--first of all, Melanchthon, whose position in this matter was freest from prejudice, since he had never received ordination and had been married for two years.
So at this point a tangle of thoughts and moral questions was caused from without in Luther"s soul, the threads of which were destined to involve his whole later life. Whatever heartfelt joy and worldly happiness was granted him from this time on depended on the answer which he found to this question. It was the happiness of his home-life which made it possible for him to endure the later years. Only in it did the flower of his abundant affection develop. So Fate graciously sent the lonely man the message which was to unite him anew and more firmly than ever with his people; and the way in which Luther dealt with this question is again characteristic. His pious disposition and the conservative strain in his nature revolted against the hasty and superficial manner in which Carlstadt reasoned.
It may be a.s.sumed that much in his own feelings, at that particular time, made him suspicious that the Devil might be using this dubious question to tempt the children of G.o.d, and yet at this very moment, in his confinement, he had special sympathy for the poor monks behind monastery walls. He searched the Scriptures. He had soon disposed of the marriage of priests, but there was nothing in the Bible about monks. "The Scripture is silent; man is uncertain." And then he was struck by the ridiculous idea that even his nearest friends might marry. He writes to the cautious Spalatin, "Good Lord! Our Wittenbergers want to give wives to the monks too. Well, they are not going to hang one on my neck;" and he gives the ironical warning, "Look out that you do not marry too." But the problem still occupied him incessantly. Life is lived rapidly in such great times. Gradually, through Melanchthon"s reasoning, and, we may a.s.sume, after fervent prayer, he found certainty. What settled the matter, unknown to himself, must have been the recognition that the opening of the monasteries had become reasonable and necessary for a more moral foundation of civil life. For almost three months he had struggled over the question. On the first of November, 1521, he wrote the letter to his father already cited.
The effect of his words upon the people was incalculable. Everywhere there was a stir in the cloisters. From the doors of almost all the monasteries and convents monks and nuns stole out--at first singly and in secret flight; then whole convents broke up. When Luther with greater cares weighing upon him returned the next spring to Wittenberg, the runaway monks and nuns gave him much to do. Secret letters were sent to him from all quarters, often from excited nuns who, the children of stern parents, had been put into convents, and now, without money and without protection, sought aid from the great reformer. It was not unnatural that they should throng to Wittenberg.
Once nine nuns came in a carriage from the aristocratic establishment at Nimpfschen--among them a Staupitz, two Zeschaus, and Catherine von Bora. At another time sixteen nuns were to be provided for, and so on.
He felt deep sympathy for these poor souls. He wrote in their behalf and traveled to find them shelter in respectable families. Sometimes indeed he felt it too much of a good thing, and the hordes of runaway monks were an especial burden to him. He complains that "they wish to marry immediately and are the most incompetent people for any kind of work." Through his bold solution of a difficult question he gave great offense. He himself had painful experiences; for among those who now returned in tumult to civil life there were, to be sure, high-minded men, but also those who were rude and worthless. Yet all this never made him hesitate for a moment. As usual with him, he was made the more determined by the opposition he met. When, in 1524, he published the story of the sufferings of a novice, Florentina of Oberweimar, he repeated on the t.i.tle page what he had already so often preached: "G.o.d often gives testimony in the Scriptures that He will have no compulsory service, and no one shall become His except with pleasure and love. G.o.d help us! Is there no reasoning with us? Have we no sense and no hearing? I say it again, G.o.d will have no compulsory service. I say it a third time, I say it a hundred thousand times, G.o.d will have no compulsory service."
So Luther entered upon the last period of his life. His disappearance in the Thuringian forest had caused an enormous stir. His adversaries trembled before the anger which arose in town and country against those who were called murderers. But the interruption of his public activity became fateful for him. So long as in Wittenberg he was the central point of the struggle, his word, his pen, had held sovereign control over the great intellectual movement in north and south; now it worked without method in different directions, in many minds. One of the oldest of Luther"s allies began the confusion. Wittenberg itself became the scene of a strange commotion. Then Luther could endure the Wartburg no longer. Once before he had been secretly in Wittenberg; now, against the Elector"s will, he returned there publicly. And there began a heroic struggle against old friends, and against the conclusions drawn from his own doctrine. His activity was superhuman. He thundered without cessation from the pulpit, in the cell his pen flew fast; but he could not reclaim every dissenting mind. Even he could not prevent the rabble of the towns from breaking out in savage fury against the inst.i.tutions of the ancient Church and against hated individuals, nor the excitement of the people from brewing political storms, nor the knights from rising against the princes, and the peasants against the knights. What was more, he could not prevent the intellectual liberty which he had won for the Germans from producing, even in pious and learned men, an independent judgment about creed and life, a judgment which was contrary to his own convictions. There came the gloomy years of the Iconoclasts, the Anabaptists, the Peasant Wars, the regrettable dissensions over the sacrament. How often at this time did Luther"s form rise sombre and mighty over the contestants! How often did the perversion of mankind and his own secret doubts fill him with anxious care for the future of Germany!
For in a savage age which was accustomed to slay with fire and sword, this German had a high, pure conception of the battles of the intellect such as no other man attained. Even in the times of his own greatest danger he mortally hated any use of violence. He himself did not wish to be sheltered by his prince--indeed he desired no human protection for his doctrine. He fought with a sharp quill against his foes, but he burnt only a paper at the stake. He hated the Pope as he did the Devil, but he always preached a love of peace and Christian tolerance of the Papists. He suspected many of being in secret league with the Devil, but he never burned a witch. In all Catholic countries the pyres flamed high for the adherents of the new creed; even Hutten was under strong suspicion of having cut off the ears of a few monks.
So humane was Luther"s disposition that he entertained cordial sympathy with the humiliated Tetzel and wrote him a consolatory letter. To obey the authorities whom G.o.d has established was his highest political principle. Only when the service of his G.o.d demanded it did his opposition flame up. When he left Worms he had been ordered not to preach--he who was just on the point of being declared an outlaw. He did not submit to the prohibition, but his honest conscience was fearful that this might be interpreted as disobedience.
His conception of the position of the Emperor was still quite the antiquated and popular one. As subjects obey the powers that be, so the princes and electors had to obey the Emperor according to the law of the land.
With the personality of Charles V. he had human sympathy all his life--not only at that first period when he greeted him as "Dear Youngster," but also later, when he well knew that the Spanish Burgundian was granting nothing more than political tolerance to the German Reformation. "He is pious and quiet," Luther said of him; "he talks in a year less than I do in a day. He is a child of fortune." He liked to praise the Emperor"s moderation, modesty, and forbearance.
Long after he had condemned Charles" policy, and in secret distrusted his character, he insisted upon it among his table companions that the master of Germany should be spoken of with reverence, and said apologetically to the younger ones, "A politician cannot be so frank as we of the clergy."
Even as late as 1530 it was his view that it was wrong for the Elector to take arms against his Emperor. Not until 1537 did he fall in reluctantly with the freer views of his circle, but he thought then that the endangered prince had no right to make the first attack. The venerable tradition of a firm, well articulated federal State was still thus active in this man of the people at a time when the proud structure of the old Saxon and Franconian empires was already crumbling away. Yet in such loyalty there was no trace of a slavish spirit. When his prince once urged him to write an open letter, his sense of truth rose against the t.i.tle of the Emperor, "Most Gracious Lord," for he said the Emperor was not graciously disposed toward him.
And in his frequent intercourse with those of rank, he showed a reckless frankness which more than once alarmed the courtiers. In all reverence he spoke truths to his own prince such as only a great character may express and only a good-hearted one can listen to. On the whole he cared little for the German princes, much as he esteemed a few. Frequent and just were his complaints about their incapacity, their lawlessness, and their vices. He also liked to treat the n.o.bility with irony; the coa.r.s.eness of most of them was highly distasteful to him. He felt a democratic displeasure toward the hard and selfish jurists who managed the affairs of the princes, worked for favor, and hara.s.sed the poor; for the best of them he admitted only a very doubtful prospect of the mercy of G.o.d. His whole heart, on the other hand, was with the oppressed. He sometimes blamed the peasants for their stolidity, and their extortions in selling their grain, but he often praised their cla.s.s, looked with cordial sympathy upon their hardships, and never forgot that by birth he belonged among them.
But all this belonged to the temporal order; he served the spiritual.
The popular conception was also firmly fixed in his mind that two controlling powers ought to rule the German nation in common--the Church and the princes; and he was entirely right in proudly contrasting the sphere where lay his rights and duties with that of the temporal powers. In his spiritual field there were solidarity, a spirit of sacrifice, and a wealth of ideals, while in secular affairs narrow selfishness, robbery, fraud, and weakness were to be found everywhere. He fought vigorously lest the authorities should a.s.sume to control matters which concerned the pastor and the independence of the congregations. He judged all policies according to what would benefit his faith, and according to the dictates of his Bible. Where the Scriptures seemed endangered by worldly politics, he protested, caring little who was. .h.i.t. It was not his fault that he was strong and the princes were weak, and no blame attaches to him, the monk, the professor, the pastor, if the league of Protestant princes was weak as a herd of deer against the crafty policy of the Emperor. He himself was well aware that Italian diplomacy was not his strong point. If the active Landgrave of Hesse happened not to follow the advice of the clergy, Luther, in his heart, respected him all the more: "He knows what he wants and succeeds, he has a fine sense of this world"s affairs."
Now, after Luther"s return to Wittenberg, the flood of democracy was rising among the people. He had opened the monasteries; now the people called for redress against many other social evils, such as the misery of the peasants, the t.i.thes, the traffic in benefices, the bad administration of justice. Luther"s honest heart sympathized with this movement. He warned and rebuked the landed gentry and the princes. But when the wild waves of the Peasant War flooded his own spiritual fields, and b.l.o.o.d.y deeds of violence wounded his sensibilities; when he felt that the fanatics and demagogues were exerting upon the hordes of peasants an influence which threatened destruction to his doctrine; then, in the greatest anger, he threw himself into opposition to the uncouth mob. His call to the princes sounded out, wild and warlike; the most horrible thing had fallen upon him--the gospel of love had been disgraced by the wilful insolence of those who called themselves its followers. His policy here was again the right one; there was, unfortunately, no better power in Germany than that of the princes, and the future of the Fatherland depended upon them after all, for neither the serfs, the robber barons, nor the isolated free cities which stood like islands in the rising flood, gave any a.s.surance.
Luther was entirely right in the essential point, but the same obstinate, unyielding manner which previously had made his struggle against the hierarchy so popular, turned now against the people themselves. A cry of amazement and horror shot through the ma.s.ses. He was a traitor! He who for eight years had been the favorite and hero of the people suddenly became most unpopular. His safety and his life were again threatened; even five years later it was dangerous for him, on account of the peasants, to travel to Mansfeld to visit his sick father. The indignation of the people also worked against his doctrine. The itinerant preachers and the new apostles treated him as a lost, corrupted man.
[Ill.u.s.tration: _Permission F. Bruckmann, A.-G., Munich_ COURT BALL AT RHEINSBERG Adolph von Menzel]
He was outlawed, banned, and cursed by the populace. Many well-meaning men, too, had not approved of his attack on celibacy and monastic life. The country gentry threatened to seize the outlaw on the highways because he had destroyed the nunneries into which, as into foundling asylums, the legitimate daughters of the poverty-stricken gentry used to be cast in earliest childhood. The Roman party was triumphant; the new heresy had lost what so far had made it powerful.
Luther"s life and his doctrine seemed alike near their end.
Then Luther determined to marry. For two years Catherine von Bora had lived in the house of Reichenbach, the city clerk, afterward mayor of Wittenberg. A healthy, good looking girl, she was, like many others, the abandoned daughter of a family of the country gentry of Meissen.
Twice Luther had tried to find her a husband, as in fatherly care he had done for several of her companions. Finally Catherine declared that she would marry no one but Luther himself, or his friend Amsdorf.
Luther was surprised, but he reached a decision quickly. Accompanied by Lucas Kranach, he asked for her hand and married her on the spot.
Then he invited his friends to the wedding feast, asked at Court for the venison which the Prince was accustomed to present to his professors when they married, and received the table wine as a present from the city of Wittenberg. How things stood in Luther"s soul at that time we should be glad to know. His whole being was under the highest tension. The savage vigor of his nature struck out in all directions.
He was deeply shocked at the misery which arose about him from burned villages and murdered men. If he had been a fanatic in his ideas, he would probably have perished now in despair; but above the stormy restlessness which could be perceived in him up to his marriage, there shone now, like a clear light, the conviction that he was the guardian of divine right among the Germans, and that to protect civil order and morality, he must lead public opinion, not follow it. However violent his utterances are in particular cases, he appears just at this time preeminently conservative, and more self-possessed than ever. He also believed, it is true, that he was not destined to live much longer, and often and with longing awaited his martyrdom. He entered wedlock, perfectly at peace with himself on this point, for he had fully convinced himself of the necessity and the scriptural sanction of the married state. In recent years he had urged all his acquaintances to marry--finally even his old adversary, the Archbishop of Mainz. He himself gave two reasons for his decision. For many years he had deprived his father of his son; and it would be like an atonement if he should leave to old Hans a grandson in case of his own death. There was also some defiance in it. His adversaries were saying in triumph that Luther was humiliated, and since all the world now took offense at him, he proposed to give them still greater offense in his good cause. He was of vigorous nature, but there was no trace of coa.r.s.e sensuality in him, and we may a.s.sume that the best reason, which he confessed to no friend, was, after all, the decisive one: Gossip had known for a long time more than he did, but now he also knew that Catherine was dear to him. "I am no pa.s.sionate lover, but I am fond of her," he wrote to one of his closest friends.
And this marriage, performed in opposition to the judgment of his contemporaries, and amid the shouts of scorn of his adversaries, became the bond to which we Germans owe as much as to the years in which he, a priest of the ancient Church, bore arms in behalf of his theology. For henceforth the husband, the father, and the citizen, became the reformer also of the domestic life of his nation; and the very blessing of their earthly life which Protestants and Catholics share alike today is due to the marriage of an excommunicated monk with a runaway nun.