Collected Works of Martin Luther

by Martin Luther

  In feverish haste, without awaiting the result of his first appeal, he published, November 28, 1518, a new appeal to a future General Council.

  An appeal to an Œcumenical Council was prohibited by old laws of the Church, because, at the commencement of any movement directed against the authority of the Church, it appeared likely to render all efforts for the composing of differences illusory. It was rightly felt that whoever came in conflict with the Church would make every effort to reserve the decision of his cause to some future Council, more especially when he is able meanwhile to devote himself freely to the furtherance of his ideas, and when the speedy summoning of a Council is very doubtful. The claim that an Œcumenical Council should be called to pronounce upon every new opinion was so extravagant that the prohibition found general approval.

  At the time of Luther’s advent on the scene the prospect of a General Council, owing to the dissensions among the Christian Powers, had retreated into the far distance, and even though it had been possible for the bishops throughout the whole world to assemble, the meeting, according to ancient custom and the regulations of canon law, would have taken place under the Pope’s presidency. Even in this event Luther can, accordingly, have cherished but small hope of winning the day.

  His deep distrust of Rome we find expressed in the letter, written almost simultaneously, to his trusted friend Wencelaus Link, the Nuremberg Augustinian, to whom he was forwarding his account of what had taken place at Augsburg (Acta Augustana): “My pen is giving birth to much greater things than these Acta. I know not whence these thoughts come to me; the cause [i.e. the conflict], to my thinking, has not yet commenced in earnest and much less can these gentlemen from Rome look to see the end. I shall send my little works to you so that you may see if I am right in surmising that the real Anti-Christ whom Paul describes (2 Thess. ii. 3 ff.) rules at the Roman Court. I think I can prove that to-day he is worse than the Turks.” Whoever could speak in this way had already cut himself adrift or was on the point of so doing.

  The powerful forces within the fiery and vivacious Monk seethed like the crater of a volcano. The Lecture-hall at Wittenberg again resounded with his eloquent and vehement outbursts. The number of students at the University increased to an unexpected extent. “They surround my desk like busy ants,” Luther declares in a letter.

  He does not know whence the ideas he pours forth come to him, but he sees daily more clearly that they are from Christ. “I see,” so he wrote to Staupitz, his Superior, “they are determined [at Rome] to condemn me; but Christ on His part is resolved not to yield in me. May His holy and blessed will be done, yea, may it be done. Pray for me.” In the same way, though in stronger terms, he informs his friend Johann Lang soon afterwards: “Our Eck is again preparing to assail me; it will come to this, that, with the help of Christ, I shall carry out what I have long since planned, namely, to strike a deadly blow at the Roman vipers by means of a powerful book. Hitherto I have merely played and jested with Rome, albeit she has smarted as keenly under it as though it had been meant in deadly earnest.” “So God carries me away,” we shall soon after hear him say. “God draws me. I cannot control myself.” “God must see to it, what He is working through me.... Why has He not instructed me otherwise?” He fancies he feels “the mighty breathing of the Spirit,” and little by little he is carried away by the conviction that he is God’s messenger and the leader of a cause which “is not of man’s invention.”

  During the exciting years of 1517 and 1518 Luther, in addition to his polemical works, published several popular, practical handbooks on religion. They consisted chiefly of collections and enlargements of the sermons which he still continued to preach from time to time. Their publication strengthened in many the impression, that the man whom some denounced as a theological rebel was, on the contrary, simply zealous for the salvation of souls and only seeking the spiritual profit of his neighbour.

  In the spring of 1517 he published, for instance, the German exposition of the Seven Penitential Psalms, already referred to, a book which, as he wrote to Christopher Scheurl, was intended for the rough Saxon “to whom the Christian teaching cannot be presented too fully.” If the work pleases no one, he says, then it will please him all the more. In this work he speaks in heartfelt tones, especially when enlarging upon the “Word of Grace” and describing the riches of Christ. Another book, his: “Exposition of the Our Father for the simple laity,” first appeared in 1517 through Agricola, then again in 1518 after having been amended by the author. In the preface he says amicably: “I should like, if it were possible, to render a service even to my adversaries; for my desire is to be profitable to all men and harmful to none.” The object of such assurances is, however, too evident, and they are, moreover, flatly contradicted by his actual behaviour towards his opponents.

  To pass over other pious instructions which his amazing power for work created, he also published in 1518 the detailed Latin notes of the sermons on the Ten Commandments, which he had delivered in 1516-17. Many portions of this book are really useful and hardly to be distinguished from what a true spiritual guide of souls would write, but they also contain other matter which necessarily challenged dispute. In most of his explanations he gives a very clever, popular and perfectly correct presentment of the contents of the commandments and the motives for keeping them; he goes, however, too far, for instance, in his ruthless, and occasionally even contemptuous opposition to the abuses connected with the veneration of the saints. The tone which he here adopts in his strictures could not have favourable results, and he would have done better had he devoted himself to the criticism of the superstitious practices to which he had alluded shortly before in connection with the errors of the Middle Ages. Oldecop, who was not unkindly disposed, complains that “in the matter of the veneration of the saints, Luther was not in agreement with the Catholic Church.”

  In the book in question, where he treats of the Sixth Commandment, he is very severe and exact, indeed, rather too exact and detailed in his enumeration and denunciation of the various kinds of sins of the flesh. He speaks with rhetorical emphasis and, it must be admitted, with a wealth of earnest thought, against the habit of filthy talking which was gaining ground at that time. Here, for example, after the most solemn warnings against giving scandal to the little ones, he lets fall these golden words with regard to reform: “If the Church is to blossom again, the beginning must be made by a careful training of the young.” Among other things, Luther treats of the temptations which the devout man abhors and must abhor, although he can never escape them, and gives vent to the paradox: “True chastity is therefore to be found in sensuality, and the more filthy the sensuality, the more beautiful the chastity,” surely a delightful instance of our author’s propensity to unusual language. Somewhat obscurely, indeed, he also speaks against the freedom of the will to do what is good; Paul invokes the mercy of God against the temptation “in the body of this death” (Rom. vii. 24 f.), and he, Luther, would lament over the “poison of death within him.” “Where then are those who vaunt their free will? Why do they not set themselves free from concupiscence as soon as they please? Why will they not, yea, why are they unable even to will?... Because their will is already elsewhere, dragged away as a captive.”

  4. The Disputation of Leipzig (1519). Miltitz. Questionable Reports

  The Leipzig Disputation, which commenced on June 27, 1519, and the origin and theological course of which has been often enough depicted, as was to be expected, merely induced Luther to proceed yet further with his revolutionary theology.

  The Pleissenburg of Leipzig has become since the Disputation between Luther and Carlstadt on the one side and Eck on the other, a memorable monument of German history. The great hall of this castle belonging to Duke George was hung with splendid tapestries; a guard of the citizens kept watch before the walls of the castle, for the Court, as well as the city, wished to insure the safety of those conducting the wordy tournament which was to be held in the public name. In
addition to the professors of the University of Leipzig and the guests from Wittenberg, students as well as masters, many others were present, brought together partly by curiosity, partly by interest in one or other of the religious parties. The Duke, the guests of distinction, and the sworn stenographers had special places assigned to them. Two professorial chairs stood facing each other. On that belonging to the Wittenberg party Carlstadt, who had arranged the affair, took his seat and disputed with Eck for four whole days on man’s free will and its efficacy with, and under, grace.

  Then, on July 4, Luther succeeded him and at once launched into the theological controversy on the question of the Primacy of the Pope. As in the case of Carlstadt, Eck stood his ground without assistance until the Disputation closed on July 14.

  The Acts of the debate were to have been submitted to the Universities of Erfurt and Paris for decision as to the winner, but this was never done. The final impression made on the minds of the audience was that Eck had borne away the palm. He had repelled the often virulent attacks of two adversaries with untiring mental and physical energy, and had displayed throughout a more extensive and ready acquaintance with the theologians, the decisions of the Church, the Fathers and the Bible than either of the representatives of the new opinions. Of a powerful and imposing exterior, with a strong sonorous voice, he dominated the course of the Disputation by his clear-headedness, his composure and deliberation, whereas Carlstadt was too hurried and confused and unable to produce the necessary positive proofs, and Luther, by his over-confidence, his rhetoric and the habitual violence of his attacks on his enemies gave umbrage to many. The greatest stumbling-block to Luther’s success lay in the fact that the principal point, which was to be decisive for his standpoint towards the Church, was still, even to himself, as Protestant writers express it, “in process of inward development,” whereas “Eck could take his stand on a sound and solid basis.”

  This principal point was the question of the recognition of the Church and her teaching office. Eck succeeded in forcing public statements from his opponent which he would perhaps have still preferred to keep in the background, but which were, as a matter of fact, the outcome of his position. On the second day of the controversy between Luther and Eck, on July 5, the question of the exercise of the Church’s power and doctrinal authority in the condemnation of Hus’s erroneous teaching came under discussion. Luther was now obliged to express his views on the condemnation of the “Bohemian heretics.” Driven into a corner he declared, that among the Husite doctrines condemned by the Council of Constance there were some very Christian and evangelical propositions; that the Council was wrong in asserting that everyone who wished to be a member of the Church must believe in the Primacy of the Papacy; that we must learn for ourselves from Holy Scripture what is of Divine Right; that the opinion of an individual Christian must carry greater weight than that of either Pope or Council if established on better grounds; that Councils not only might err in matters of faith, but that they actually had erred, as in the case of that of Constance.

  Such unheard-of admissions caused the greatest sensation. Bluff Duke George, on hearing Luther’s assertion that the Christian doctrines of Hus had been unfairly condemned, exclaimed in a voice loud enough to be heard throughout the great hall: “A plague on it!” shaking his head at the same time and planting his hands on his hips.

  It was an easy task for Eck to disprove on theological grounds the statements of Luther.

  The Disputation had at least the effect of clearing up the position, and arousing misgivings in many of those who hitherto had been partisans of the Wittenberg Doctor.

  Luther himself wrote in a very discontented frame of mind to Spalatin regarding the Disputation, saying that time had been wasted in the useless affair, and that Eck and the theologians of Leipzig only sought worldly honour and on this everything had suffered shipwreck. Only the discussion on the Primacy (i.e. that very one at which the momentous admissions were made) had been fruitful and productive. This is his own impudent way of describing his position as the only right one. “Hardly anything else,” he continues, “was treated worthily. Eck was applauded, he triumphs and reigns, but an end shall be put to this by my publication; for as the Disputation was badly conducted I shall have the Resolutions to the Disputation theses reprinted. These people of Leipzig neither greeted us nor visited us, but treated us as deadly enemies [and yet every consideration had been shown him that circumstances permitted]. Eck they supplied with an escort, they surrounded him constantly, honoured him with feasts and invitations, presented him with a coat and a costly mantle, rode out with him on pleasant excursions, in fact did everything imaginable — to disgrace us.” “There you have the whole tragedy ... it began ill and ended worse.... As a rule, I control my ill-humour, but here I cannot help pouring out my grudge, because after all I am human and see how the shamelessness of our adversaries and their poisonous hatred of so holy a cause have grown beyond measure.”

  Obstinately adhering to his standpoint and embittered as he was by the Leipzig “tragedy,” Luther would lend no ear to the proposals for reconciliation and settlement suggested by the Papal Chamberlain Carl von Miltitz.

  His attempts in this direction had commenced even before the Disputation. Their continuance revealed on the one hand Luther’s obstinacy, and on the other the inability of this lay Papal official — whose motives were merely political — to see the real seriousness of the matter. The latter, in order to secure apparent victories, went beyond his instructions and the intentions of those who had entrusted him with his mission. Luther on his part did not shrink from diplomatic concessions which could not injure him, but which anyone conversant with the conditions must have seen to be impracticable. The easy triumphs of which Miltitz’s shortsighted love of peace was productive were thus of very doubtful value.

  Luther’s edition of the Latin Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians, which appeared in September, 1519, assumed all the more importance in his eyes. In this work, written in the language of the learned (above, ), he undertook to defend on the widest basis and before cultured men of every clime his doctrines concerning grace and salvation, faith and righteousness.

  Here we have a public manifestation not merely of the doctrines which lay at the back of the schism he had stirred up by his controversy with Tetzel, but also of his wrong new view concerning Holy Scripture.

  In the matter of style, Luther was more successful in his shorter works, particularly in his German controversial pamphlets. Writers who opposed him, such as Eck, Emser, Dungersheim, Alveld, Hoogstraaten, Prierias he readily withstood in words full of fire and imagination, although his arguments, as a rule, left much to be desired and were not atoned for by his passionate invective. His main contention, voiced in a more or less coarse form, is, however, always the following: the proofs which you adduce from the teaching of the Church and the Fathers do not move me because Holy Scripture, upon which I take my stand, is above both Church and Fathers.

  By the Holy Scripture he, moreover, persists in understanding his own interpretation of the Bible. By a tragic mistake he has come to confound his own personal and altogether subjective interpretation with the objective “Word of God” in the Bible. In the same way he makes not the slightest distinction between the meaning of the “gospel,” which he fancies he has discovered, and the actual Gospel itself.

  Catholics urged against Luther that the Church had been entrusted with the safeguarding of the Holy Books, with the handing down of the canon of Scripture and the correct interpretation of the same, and that, from the earliest Christian times, the Faithful had always left to the living Tradition, the General Councils and the Supreme Teacher of the Church — the Vicar of Christ and inheritor of the powers of Peter — the final decision in doctrinal questions and the correct and binding interpretation of Holy Scripture.

  What Luther asserted, for instance, in his final letter to Dungersheim, brought the central dogma, namely, that of the teaching office of the Church
, into still clearer light: “You have nothing else on your lips,” he says to Dungersheim and to all Catholics generally, “but the words Church, Church, heretic, heretic, and you will not admit that the injunction: ‘Prove all things, hold fast that which is good’ (1 Thess. v. 21), applies to any. But when we ask for the Church, you show us one man, the Pope, to whom you entrust everything [i.e. all decisions on matters of faith], and yet you do not prove by one word that his faith is unchangeable. Yet we have discovered in the Pope’s Decretals more heresies than any heretic ever invented. You ought to prove your standpoint and instead of this you always start from the same premiss.” Theologians, as a matter of fact, had never claimed for all the contents of the Decretals a rank among the solemn pronouncements on faith. What is, however, more important is that Luther places the individual above the Church and the Primacy appointed by God; he puts the Scriptures in his hand, to interpret as he will. He continues as follows: “You ought to prove that the Church of God is with you and nowhere else in the world. We want the Scriptures for our judge, but you wish to be judges of the Scriptures.”

  In this connection, seeking to justify the bitterness of his polemics, he unwittingly gives an excellent portrait of himself: “You misinterpret the words I speak, just as the ass in your midst [Alveld] is doing at the present moment. This seems to be the way with you people of Leipzig, you read without attention, judge presumptuously, and are too stupid to understand the writings of others. Maybe my patience will come to an end and make room for anger, for I am after all as human as you; you sit there calmly and nag at me while I am oppressed with work and everyone shows me his teeth, and, forsooth, humility is expected of me while I am being attacked by ravening wolves. The weight of the globe presses upon me (‘orbis me premit’), and if I do so much as nod, you cannot endure it; if at last I turn round upon you, I am accused and found fault with on all sides. I write this to show my zeal for peace and concord; why, in God’s name, am I not allowed to enjoy them?”