Collected Works of Martin Luther

by Martin Luther

  In the very first pages Luther endeavours to show how imputed righteousness is the principal doctrine advocated by St. Paul in the Epistle to the Romans. Justification by faith alone and the new appreciation of works is expressed quite openly.

  “God has willed to save us,” this he represents as the sum total of the Epistle, “not by our own but by extraneous righteousness and wisdom, not by such as is in us or produced by our inner self, but by that which comes to us from elsewhere.” “We must rest altogether on an extraneous and foreign righteousness,” he repeats, “and therefore destroy our own, i.e. our homely righteousness” (“non per domesticam sed per extraneam iustitiam,” etc.). So fascinated is he by the terrifying picture of self-righteousness and holiness by works, that he is more than inclined to weaken the inclination for good works, though he indeed declares them necessary: according to him they produce in man a self-consciousness which prevents him regarding himself as unrighteous and as needing the justification of Christ. The truly righteous, such are his actual words, always believe “that they are sinners ... they sigh until they are completely cured of concupiscence, a release which takes place at death.” Everyone must be distrustful even of his good intentions, he tells his adversaries, i.e. “those who trust in themselves, who, thinking they are in possession of God’s grace, cease to prove themselves, and sink daily into greater lukewarmness.” He asks ironically whether “they acted from the pure love of God,” for now, erroneously, he will allow only the purest love of God as a motive. He writes: “he who thinks, that the greater his works, the more sure he is of salvation shows himself to be an unbeliever, a proud man and a contemner of the word. It does not depend at all on the multitude of works [in the right sense this was admitted by the old theologians]; it is nothing but temptation to pay any attention to this.” It is mere “wisdom of the flesh,” he thinks, for anyone to pay attention to the “difference of works” rather than to the word, particularly the inward word and its impulses.

  Here in his mystical language he states the following paradoxical thesis: “the wisdom of the spiritually minded knows neither good nor evil (“prudentia spiritualium neque bonum neque malum scit”); it keeps its eyes fixed always on the word, not on the work.” He concludes: “let us only close our eyes, listen in simplicity to the word, and do what it commands whether it be foolish or evil or great or small” (“sive stultum sive malum, sive magnum sive parvum præcipiat, hoc faciamus”). As righteousness does not proceed from works we must so much the more cling to imputation. “Our works are nothing, we find in ourselves nothing but thoughts which accuse us ... where shall we find defenders? Nowhere but in Christ ... the heart, it is true, reproves a man for his evil works, it accuses him and witnesses against him. But he who believes in Christ turns at once [from himself] to Christ and says: He has done enough, He is righteous, He is my defence, He died for me, He has made His righteousness mine and my sin His. But if He has made my sin His, then it is no longer mine and I am free. If He has made His righteousness mine, then I am righteous through the same righteousness as He.”

  Here then the sinner, as Luther teaches in his letter to Spenlein (see above, ff.), simply casts himself upon Christ and hides himself just as he is “under the wings of the hen” (), comforting himself with the doctrine of imputation. The old Church, on the contrary, not only pointed to the merits of Christ (see above, p, 18) but also to the exhortations of St. Paul where he calls for zealous, active co-operation with the Divine grace, for inward conversion in the spirit, for works of penance and for purification from sin by contrition in order that our reconciliation with God and real pardon may become possible. Hence, while the Catholic doctrine conceives of justification as an interior, organic process, Luther is beginning to take it as something exterior and mechanical, as a process which results from the pushing forward of a foreign righteousness, as if it were a curtain. He turns away from the Catholic doctrine according to which a man justified by a living and active faith is really incorporated in Christ as the shoot is grafted into the olive tree, or the branch on the vine, i.e. to a new life, to an interior ennobling through sanctifying grace and the infused supernatural virtues of faith, hope and charity.

  Nevertheless Luther himself was affrighted at the theory of faith alone, and imputation. He feared lest he should be reproached with setting good works aside with his doctrine of imputed merit. He therefore explains in self-defence that he did not desire a bare faith; “the hypocrites and the lawyers” thought they would be saved by such a faith, but according to Paul’s words a faith was requisite by which we “approach Christ” (“per quem habemus accessum per fidem,” Rom. v. 2). Those are therefore in error who go forward in Christ with over-great certainty, but not by faith; as though they would be saved by Christ, for not doing anything themselves and giving no sign of faith. These possess too much faith, or, better still, none at all. Both must exist: “by faith” and “by Christ”; we must do and suffer gladly all that we can in the faith of Christ, and yet account ourselves in all things unprofitable servants, and only through Christ alone think ourselves able to go to God. For the object of works of faith is to make us worthy of Christ and of the refuge and protection of His righteousness.” With this is connected Luther’s insistence on the necessity of invoking God’s grace in order that we may be able to fight against our passions and to bring forth good works, and in order that the passions, which in themselves are sin, may not be imputed by God. Thus can “the body of sin be destroyed” and the “old man overcome.” Luther admits, though with hesitation and in contradiction with himself, works which prepare us for justification.

  In spite of everything, in this first stage of his development, justification appears to him uncertain. He declares in so many words: “We cannot know whether we are justified and whether we believe”; and he can only add rather lamely: “we must look upon our works as works of the Law and be, in humility, sinners, hoping only to be justified through the mercy of Christ.” He has no “joyful assurance of salvation” — which, in fact, had no place whatever in the new teaching as expounded by Luther himself — and its name is always drowned by the loud cry of sin. Even saints, on account of the sin which still clings to them, do not know whether they are pleasing to God. If they are well advised, they beg solely for the forgiveness of their sin which lies like lead on their conscience. “That is,” the mystic explains, “the wisdom which is hidden in secret” (“abscondita in mysterio”), because our righteousness “being entirely dependent on God’s decree remains unknown to us.”

  Luther cannot assure us sufficiently often that man is nothing but sin, and sins in everything. His reason is that concupiscence remains in man after baptism. This concupiscence he looks upon as real sin, in fact it is the original sin, enduring original sin, so that original sin is not removed by baptism, remains obdurate to all subsequent justifying grace, and, until death, can, at the utmost, only be diminished. He says expressly, quite against the Church’s teaching, that original sin is only covered over in baptism, and he tries to support this by a misunderstood text from Augustine and by misrepresenting Scholasticism.

  Augustine teaches with clearness and precision in many passages that original sin is blotted out by baptism and entirely remitted; Luther, however, quotes him to the opposite effect. The passage in question occurs in De nuptiis et concupiscentia (l., c. xxv., n. 28) where Luther makes this Father say: sin (peccatum) is forgiven in baptism, not so that it no longer remains, but that it is no longer imputed. Whereas what Augustine actually says is: the concupiscence of the flesh is forgiven, etc. (“dimitti concupiscentiam carnis non ut non sit, sed ut in peccatum non imputetur”). And yet Luther was acquainted with the true reading of the passage — which is really opposed to his view — as he had annotated it in the margin of the Sentences of Peter Lombard, where it is correctly given. Luther, after having thus twisted the passage as above, employs it frequently later. In the original lecture on the Epistle to the Romans he has, it is true, added to the tex
t, after the word “peccatum,” the word “concupiscentia,” as the new editor points out, in excuse of Luther. But on the preceding page Luther adds in exactly the same way in two passages of his own text where he speaks of “peccatum,” the word “concupiscentia,” so that his addition to Augustine cannot be regarded as a mere correction of a false citation, all the less since the incorrect form is found unaltered elsewhere in his writings.

  As regards Scholasticism, Luther holds that its teaching on original sin was very faulty, because it “dreamt” that original sin, like actual sin, was entirely removed (by baptism). This is one of his first attacks on a particular doctrine of Scholasticism, his earlier opposition having been to Scholasticism in general. The blame he here administers presupposes the truth of his view that concupiscence and original sin come under the same category, and that the former is culpable. Almost all the Scholastics had made the essence of original sin to consist in the loss of original justice, whilst allowing that its “materiale,” as they called it, lay in concupiscence, so that without any “dream” it was quite easy to conceive of original sin as blotted out, while the “materiale” or “fomes peccati” or concupiscence remained. Other examples of how Luther, partly owing to his ignorance of true Scholasticism, came to bring the most glaring charges against that school, will be given later.

  Actual sins remain, according to Luther, even after forgiveness, for they too are only covered over. Formerly, it is true, he admits having believed that repentance and the sacrament of penance removed everything (“omnia ablata putabam et evacuata, etiam intrinsece”), and therefore in his madness he had thought himself better after confession than those who had not confessed. “Thus I struggled with myself, not knowing that whilst forgiveness is certainly true, yet there is no removal of sin.”

  Not only does real sin continue to dwell in man through concupiscence, but, according to a further statement of Luther, the keeping of God’s law is impossible to man. “As we cannot keep God’s commandments we are really always in unrighteousness, and therefore there remains nothing for us but to fear and to beg for remission of the unrighteousness, or rather that it may not be imputed, for it is never altogether remitted, but remains and requires the act of non-imputation.

  But how, then, he must have asked himself in following out the train of thought of his new system, if, owing to the depravity of human nature as the result of original sin there remains in man no freedom in the choice of good? “Where does the freedom of the will come in?” he asks, as it follows from the Apostle’s teaching that “the keeping of the law is simply impossible” (“sæpius dixi, simpliciter esse impossibile legem implere?”). He hesitates, it is true, to deny free will, but only for a moment, and then tells us boldly that the will has been robbed of its freedom (of choosing) good. “Had I said this, people would curse me,” but, according to him, it is St. Paul who advocates the doctrine that without grace there is no freedom of the will in the choice of good which can please God. Here we have a foretaste of the doctrine Luther was to express at the Leipzig disputation and elsewhere, viz. that the freedom of the will for good is merely a name (“res de solo titulo”), and of that later terrible thesis of his that free will in general is dead (“liberum arbitrium est mortuum”), a thesis he defended more particularly against Erasmus.

  The young Monk was thus prepared to admit all the consequences of his new ideas, whereas the Apostle Paul, more particularly in his Epistle to the Romans, recognises the ability of man for natural goodness, and speaks of the law of nature in the heathen world and the possibility and actuality of its observance. “They do by nature the things of the law” (Rom. ii. 14). Luther will only allow that they do such things by means of grace, and the word grace again he uses merely for the grace of justification. His opinion with regard to the virtues of the heathen sages is noteworthy. He says that the philosophers of olden time had to be damned, although they may have been virtuous from their very inmost soul (“ex animo et medullis”), because they had at least experienced some self-satisfaction in their virtue, and, in consequence of the sinfulness of nature, must necessarily have succumbed to sinful love of self. Not long after, i.e. as early as 1517, he declares in his MS. Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews their virtues to be merely vices (“revera sunt vitia”).

  But what place is given to the virtues of the righteous in Christianity? “As even the righteous man is depraved by sin he cannot be inwardly righteous without the mercy of God.... In the believers and in those who sigh unrighteousness is absent only because Christ comes to their assistance with the fulness of His sinlessness, and covers over their imperfections.” Even when we “do good, we sin” (“bene operando peccamus”), so runs his paradoxical thesis; “but Christ covers over what is wanting and does not impute it.” And why do we always sin in doing good? “Because owing to concupiscence and sensuality we do not perform the good with the intensity and purity of intention which the law demands, i.e. not with all our might (‘ex omnibus viribus,’ Luke x. 27), the desires of the flesh being too strong.” The Church, on the other hand, teaches that good works done in the state of sanctifying grace are pleasing to God in spite of concupiscence, which, it is true, remains after baptism and after the blotting out of original sin which ensued, but which is not sinful so long as there is no consent to its enticements.

  As regards the distinction between mortal and venial sin, we find Luther’s doctrine has already reached its later standpoint, according to which there is no difference between them. In the same way he already denies the merit of good works. “It is clear,” he writes, “that according to substance and nature venial sin does not exist, and that there is no such thing as merit.” All sins, in his opinion, are mortal, because even the smallest contains the deadly poison of concupiscence. With regard to merit, according to him, even “the saints have no merit of their own, but only Christ’s merits.” Even in their actions the motive of perfect love was not sufficiently lively. “If it might be done unpunished and there were no expectation of reward, then even the good man would omit the good and do evil like the bad.”

  With this pessimistic view of Luther’s we conclude our preliminary glance at the theological goal to which his development had led him. We will not at present pursue further the theme of pessimism which might be brought out more clearly in the light of the doctrine contained in his Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans regarding absolute predestination to hell, and resignation to hell as the highest act of virtue. All the new doctrines we have passed in review may be regarded as forerunners of the great revolution soon to come; we see here in these questions of doctrine the utter lack of respect and the boldness which the originator of this revolutionary theology will, later on, manifest against the Church, when it became clear that, without being untrue to herself, she could not approve his teaching. Meanwhile the connection of these doctrines among themselves and with the coming world-historic movement calls for further elucidation. We need offer no excuse for attempting this in detail in the following pages. The history of Luther’s development has passed into the foreground of literary interest by reason of the works which have appeared within the last few years, and, owing to the numerous sources and particular studies recently published, the historian is now in the fortunate position of being able to offer a sure solution of much that has hitherto been doubtful on a subject which has always exercised, and doubtless will continue to exercise, people’s minds.

  CHAPTER III

  THE STARTING-POINT

  1. Former Inaccurate Views

  The views formerly current with regard to the origin of Luther’s struggle against the old Church were due to an insufficient knowledge of history, and might be ignored were it not that their after effects still remain in literature.

  It will be sufficient to mention three of these views. It was said that the Church’s teaching on Indulgences, and the practices of the Quæstors or Indulgence-preachers, first brought Luther into antagonism with the Church authorities and then gradu
ally entangled him more and more in the great struggle regarding other erroneous teachings and usages. As a matter of fact, the question of Indulgences was raised only subsequent to Luther’s first great departures from the Church’s doctrine.

  Then it was said that the far-seeing teacher of Wittenberg had from the very first directed his attention to the reformation of the whole Church, which he found sunk in abuses, and had therefore commenced with a doctrinal reform as a necessary preliminary. As though Luther — this is what this childish view presupposes — had before him from the beginning the plan of his whole momentous work, or sat down to draw up a general programme for the reformation of doctrine, commencing with the fall of Adam. We are to believe that the Monk at once severed all connecting ties with the whole of the past, in faith as well as in the practical conception of the Church’s life; that he went through no previous long inward process, attended for him by a weary conflict of soul; that, in fact, such a world-stirring revolution had been dependent on the will of one man, and was not the result of the simultaneous action of many factors which had, at the outset, been ignored and not taken into consideration. The whole struggle for the “betterment of the Church” was a gradual development, and the co-operating elements led their originator, both in his teaching and his practical changes, far beyond what he had originally aimed at. When Luther, brooding over original sin, grace and justification, first began to set up his new ideas against the so-called self-righteous and “little Saints” of his immediate surroundings, he did, it is true, now and again speak excitedly of the reforms necessary to meet certain phases of the great decline in the public life of the Church; but the Doctor of Holy Scripture was, as a matter of fact, far more preoccupied with the question of the theology of Paul and Augustine than with the abuses in the Church and outer world, which were, to tell the truth, very remote from the Monk’s cell and lecture-room.