Collected Works of Martin Luther

by Martin Luther

  On his return to Wittenberg he devoted himself to finishing the Resolutions on the Indulgence theses. On August 21 he sent the first printed copy to Spalatin.

  These Latin Resolutiones disputationis de virtute indulgentiarum, which dealt exclusively with the defence of the 95 theses, were more hostile in tone towards the whole system of Indulgences than any of his previous utterances. They show Luther’s fiery temper and his state of irritation even more plainly than the theses themselves. In them his new teaching on faith and grace was for the first time launched on the public in unmistakable outline. Even abroad the learned were drawn into the movement by the Latin publication which brought the matter within their range.

  Together with his Resolutions, Luther published two letters, very submissive in tone, addressed, one to the Bishop of Brandenburg, as Ordinary of Wittenberg, and the other to Pope Leo X. To the Pope he said that he had ventured to address himself to him because he had learned that some persons at Rome were attempting to blacken his reputation, as though he were infringing the power of the Keys of the successor of St. Peter. He explained the reason of the controversy from his own point of view and declared: “I cannot recant.” In the same letter, however, he asserts his readiness to listen to Leo’s voice “as to the Voice of Christ, who presides in him and speaks through him”; one thing only he asks, viz. that the Pope will deal with him just as he pleases. “Enliven me, kill me, call me back, confirm me, reject me, just as it pleases you!” In the Resolutions, on the other hand, we read: “It makes no impression on me what pleases or does not please the Pope. He is a man like other men. There have been many Popes to whom not only errors and vices, but even enormities (monstra) were pleasing. I attend to the Pope as Pope, i.e. as he speaks in the laws of the Church, or when he decides in accordance with them, or with a Council, but not when he speaks out of his own head.”

  At a later date he did not make any secret of the weakness of so ambiguous a position. On one occasion in later years when looking back upon the commencement of the struggle, he said he had begun the controversy “as an unreflecting and stupid Papist,” that he had been drawn into the business by “his own foolishness,” that his “weakness and inconsequence” had been deplorably exhibited, seeing that he then still worshipped the Pope; before this Lord of Heaven and Earth, he writes, everything still trembled, and he, the little monk, more like a corpse than a man, had only dared to advance with lamentable uncertainty and fear.

  In the same passage, he says: “I was certainly not glad and confident at the outset.” “What my heart suffered in the first and second years, how I lay on the ground, yea, almost despaired, of that they [my rivals, the fanatics] know nothing, though they were happy to fall upon the Pope after he had been severely wounded [by me]. They have sought to take this honour to themselves, and, for all I care, they are welcome to it.” “They are ignorant of the Cross and of Satan”; but I only attained “to strength and wisdom through death agonies and combats.”

  While Luther was superintending the printing of the Resolutions at Wittenberg he was at the same time engaged on other works.

  Johann Eck had replied to his Indulgence theses by the so-called “Obelisci,” which Luther met with the “Asterisci,” and as Tetzel, for his part, had issued a refutation of the sermon on Indulgence and Grace, Luther brought out a work in reply, entitled “Freedom of the Sermon on Indulgence and Grace.”

  Fearing that the Pope would excommunicate him, Luther preached a sermon to the inhabitants of Wittenberg in the early summer of 1518, possibly on May 16, on the power of excommunication; what he there put forth excited widespread comment and irritation. This sermon he issued in print in August, but in an amended form. In it he says excommunication is invalid in the case of one who honestly asserts the truth; nevertheless, it must be obeyed. He blames the all too frequent use of excommunication, as many good Churchmen had done before him. It had been recognised and taught from Patristic times that unjust excommunication did not deprive the excommunicate of a part in the inward life of the Church (anima ecclesiæ). This Luther emphasises for his own party purposes, but without as yet setting up “a new view of the nature of the Church.”

  He says, in a letter to his elderly friend Staupitz, that, owing to the action of his adversaries, “a new flame” would surely be kindled by this sermon, though he had extolled the power of the Pope in it, as was fitting; he declares that he is the persecuted party; “but Christ still lives and reigns yesterday, to-day and for ever. My conscience tells me I have taught the truth; but it is just this which is hated whenever its name is mentioned. Pray for me that I may not rejoice overmuch nor be over-confident in myself in this trouble.” He trusts to triumph, by printing the sermon referred to, over all those who had listened to it with jealousy, and maliciously misrepresented it. Yet his mood is by no means one of unmixed joy; he hints in the same letter to Staupitz at mysterious interior sufferings which weigh upon him “incomparably more heavily,” so he says, than the fear of any measures Rome may take. At the same time he is quite carried away by the idea that he must, at any cost, fight against the contempt which the Romanists are heaping upon the Kingdom of Christ.

  Meanwhile, in March, 1518, complaints had again been carried to Rome by some Dominicans. Towards the middle of June fresh official steps were taken by Rome against Luther’s person, this time without the intervention of the Order. The course of these proceedings has been made plain by recent research. The Papal Procurator Fiscal, Mario de Perusco, raised a formal charge against the monk on the suspicion of spreading heresy. By order of the Pope, the preliminary examination was conducted by the Bishop of Ascoli, Girolamo Ghinucci, as Auditor-General for suits in the Apostolic Camera, while Silvester Mazzolini of Prierio (Prierias), the Magister S. Palatii, who, like all Mayors of the Apostolic Palace, belonged to the Dominican Order, was entrusted with the task of penning a learned opinion on the questions involved.

  As Prierias had already made a study of the Indulgence theses, he, as he himself says, took only three days to draw up the opinion, which, moreover, he did not intend to stand as an actual theological refutation. It was at once printed, being entitled “In præsumptuosas M. Lutheri conclusiones de potestate papæ dialogus.” The work was not free from exaggerations and gratuitous insults.

  At the beginning of July, 1518, Luther was summoned to appear within sixty days at Rome to stand his trial. Ghinucci and Prierias sent the summons to Cardinal Cajetan, who was then stopping at Augsburg, in order that he might forward it to the Wittenberg Professor. Prierias’s pamphlet accompanied it, and Luther received both together on August 7. He said at a later date in his Table-Talk, alluding to the work of the Mayor of the Apostolic Palace, that the despatch from Rome had stirred his blood to the utmost, as he had then realised that the matter was deadly earnest, since Rome was inexorable.

  The very next day, with many contemptuous and disaffected remarks on the citation, he set about inducing the Elector to use his influence with the Holy See in order that judges might be appointed to try the case in Germany; he hoped to be thereby spared the dreaded journey to Rome. It was at that time that he published the sermon on excommunication referred to above. On the day following the receipt of the summons he set to work on a pamphlet in reply to the Dialogus of Prierias, which appeared at the end of August. This Latin Responsio he finished in two days, thus beating Prierias, as he triumphantly informs him. It is arrogant and insulting in tone, vindicates all the theses one by one, and asserts some of the errors contained in them in still stronger terms than before. He does not as yet deny the infallibility of the Councils, on the contrary, he explicitly admits it; neither does he in set words state that the Pope may emit false opinions when teaching on faith and morals, although in recent times both these errors have been said to be embodied in his reply.

  The obscure passage regarding the possibility of the Councils and Popes erring refers to their action in ecclesiastico-political matters, as the cases instanced by Luther show more clea
rly, e.g. the wars of Pope Julius II and the “tyrannical acts” which he attributes to Boniface VIII.

  It is true that the want of any clear admission in his reply of the doctrinal authority of the Church, his violent insistence on the Bible as interpreted by himself, and his arbitrary handling of the older theology and practice, gave cause for apprehending the worst.

  Against Prierias he defends the opinion, that our Saviour commanded what was impossible because we are always subject to concupiscence; that the sons of God are forced to do what is good rather than left to perform it of their own accord, and, for this reason, the higher theology teaches that those actions are the best which Christ works in us without our co-operation, and those the worst “which — according to the absolutely false teaching of Aristotle — we perform by our own so-called free will.”

  From the latter circumstance the pseudo-mystic infers that fasting, for instance, is excellent when the person who fasts is absolutely unconscious of what he is doing and thinking of something higher; at such a moment he is furthest removed from any craving for food. Sacramental Penance, he says, is merely the commencement of penance, and zeal in its use could only be maintained by a miracle.

  All these ideas, which, as we know from what has gone before, give a true picture of the direction of his mind, are to be found at the beginning of the work, of which the confusion is matched only by its pretensions.

  Because Prierias was a Dominican and Thomist, Luther here displays the bitterest animosity against the Thomistic school, an animosity which was henceforth never to cease, and likewise summons his national feeling as a German to help him against the Italian. In one of his letters Luther declared that he would let him see there were men in Germany well versed in the arts and wily tricks of the Romans; if he continued to incense him, he would make free use of his wit and pen against him.

  In his reply to Prierias, Luther had referred his opponent to the Resolutions to his Indulgence theses, which were then already in print. Staupitz forwarded to Rome the copy destined for the Pope. The letters to Staupitz and Leo X, which were incorporated in the work, were dated May 30, 1518, though the printing was not finished before August 21. As the Resolutions, Luther’s most important work on the question of Indulgences, obstinately confirmed the errors already expressed, more severe measures were anticipated on the part of the Curia.

  In his efforts to procure the appointment of judges to try his cause in Germany, Luther sought, through the Elector, to make use of the mediation of the Emperor Maximilian. But the Emperor, who was earnestly solicitous for the welfare of religion, and at the same time was anxious to secure the Pope’s favour on behalf of the election of his grandson Charles as King of Rome, wrote to Leo X, August 5, 1518, from Augsburg, that out of love for the unity of the faith he would support any measures the Pope might take against Luther.

  More severe proceedings against Luther were accordingly set on foot in Rome, even before the sixty days were over. These measures are outlined in the Brief of August 23, 1518, sent to Cardinal Cajetan, the Papal Legate at the Diet of Augsburg.

  In view of the notoriety of Luther’s acts and teaching, with the assistance of the spiritual and secular power, Cajetan was to have him brought to Augsburg; should force have to be used, or should Luther not recant, then Cajetan was to hand him over to Rome for trial and punishment; he himself therefore was not to be the actual judge, but only to receive Luther’s recantation. In the event of his presenting himself voluntarily at Augsburg and recanting, so ran the instructions, Luther was to find pardon and mercy. Should it be impossible to procure his appearance at Augsburg, then the measures provided by law and custom for such cases were to be enforced; he and his followers were to be publicly excommunicated, and the authorities in Church and State were to be forced, if necessary under pain of interdict, to seize and deliver up the excommunicate.

  The Elector, Frederick the Wise, however, demanded a trial before Cardinal Cajetan at Augsburg; this was to be carried out with “paternal gentleness.” He would not consent to sanction any other measures. Cajetan met his wishes without being untrue either to the Pope or to himself. “A man entirely devoted to study, without much practical knowledge of the world, he was no match for such an expert politician as Frederick of Saxony.” On September 11 he obtained from Leo X a Brief placing in his own hands the trial and decision on Luther’s case.

  Thus the way was paved for Luther’s historic trial at Augsburg.

  Fables regarding Luther and Tetzel

  Before passing on to the trial at Augsburg, we must first deal with the legends which cluster round the name of Tetzel and which were mostly started by Luther and the Papal Chamberlain, Carl von Miltitz.

  We have a detailed critical monograph on Tetzel by Dr. N. Paulus: “Johann Tetzel, der Ablassprediger,” Mayence, 1899, which the same author has since supplemented by other publications. Paulus by his impartial research has sealed the fate of the principal legends connected with Tetzel’s name.

  A statement made by Luther in 1541, i.e. at the time of his most bitter polemics, has been repeated countless times since, viz. that, in 1512, at Innsbruck, Tetzel the monk was condemned by the Emperor Maximilian to be drowned in the River Inn for the crime of adultery, and that only the intervention of the Elector, Frederick the Wise, had saved him from this fate. This is an untruth which Luther first made use of in his violent pamphlet “Wider Hans Worst.” Before that time he had never mentioned anything of the kind. A. Berger says of the supposed condemnation at Innsbruck: “Paulus has finally disposed of the infamous tale of adultery and no one will ever venture to bring it forward again.” Before this Th. Brieger had declared: “It is high time that this story which has been questioned even by Protestants should disappear.” No authority whatever can be quoted for representing in an unfavourable light the private life of this man, who stood so prominently before the public. Concerning the supposed Innsbruck incident, Fr. Dibelius, Superintendent at Dresden, says: “among the imperfections and crimes alleged against Tetzel by his enemies the charge of immorality cannot be sustained.”

  The shortsighted Papal Chamberlain Miltitz, in his eagerness to secure peace on any terms, in the first years of the Indulgence controversy made common cause with those opponents of Tetzel who brought forward baseless charges of immorality against him after he had withdrawn, at the end of 1518, to the pious seclusion of his Dominican priory at Leipzig. In mid-January, 1519, Tetzel had to endure the most bitter reproaches from the ill-informed Papal agent. But, as Oscar Michael remarks, “all attempts to set up Miltitz as a reliable witness will be in vain.” “What Miltitz relates of Tetzel is altogether unworthy of credence.” Another Protestant writer had already before that expressed himself likewise.

  With regard to the matter of Tetzel’s sermons above referred to, it is chiefly to Luther that we owe the charge of flagrant errors and gross abuses in his proclamation of the Indulgence. “He wrote,” so Luther explained to his friends, “that an Indulgence is a reconciliation between God and man and takes effect even though a man performs no penance, and manifests neither contrition nor sorrow.” “Tetzel put it so crudely that no one could fail to understand his meaning.”

  In his pamphlet of 1541 Luther says: “He sold grace for money at the highest price he could.” He then instances six “horrible, dreadful articles” which the avaricious monk had preached.

  One of these which extols his Indulgence contains an offensive statement respecting Our Lady; another declares that, according to Tetzel, “it was not necessary to feel sorrow or pain or contrition for sin, but whoever bought the Indulgence, or the Indulgence-letters,” had also bought an Indulgence for “future sins”; three of the articles say he had magnified the effects of the Indulgence by the use of unseemly comparisons, and finally, one states that his teaching was that embodied in the ribald rhyme: “As soon as money in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory’s fire springs.”

  As a matter of fact, the accusations brought against Tetzel,
of having sold forgiveness of sins for money without requiring contrition, and of having even been ready to absolve from future sins in return for a money payment, are, as N. Paulus, and others before him, pointed out, utterly unjust. Even Carlstadt, after he had gone over to the hostile camp of the new teaching, admitted that the Indulgence sermons, including those of Tetzel, were in agreement with the generally accepted teaching of the Church; of the enormities just referred to he knows nothing. Above all, Tetzel’s own writings, likewise his instructions and also the testimony of strangers, all speak in his favour. “The Indulgence,” Tetzel says in his “Vorlegung,” “remits only the pain [i.e. the penalty] of sins which have been repented of and confessed.” “No one merits an Indulgence unless he is in a truly contrite state.” Those who procured a Confession-letter received, according to an ancient usage, with the same letter permission to select a suitable confessor; for this an alms was given. The confessor was able to absolve, after a good confession, from all sins, even in reserved cases, and to impart a Plenary Indulgence by virtue of the Papal authorisation.

  Tetzel was able with the help of official witnesses to refute the calumny with regard to Mary in his eulogy of the Indulgence. There can, however, be no doubt that he brought the pecuniary side of the Indulgence too much into the foreground. Another Dominican, a contemporary of his, Johann Lindner, criticises his behaviour as follows: Dr. Johann Tetzel of Pirna, of the Order of Preachers, from the Leipzig priory, a world-renowned preacher, proclaimed the Jubilee Year [Jubilee Indulgence] at Naumburg, Leipzig, Magdeburg, Zwickau, Bautzen, Görlitz, Cologne, Halle and many other places.... His teaching found favour with many; but he devised unheard-of ways of raising money, was far too liberal in conferring offices, put up far too many public crosses [as a sign of the Indulgence-preaching] in towns and villages, which caused scandal and bred complaints among the people and brought the spiritual treasury into disrepute.”