Collected Works of Martin Luther

by Martin Luther

  He himself gives the conclusion as simply: “God help me, Amen,” a formula which has nothing emphatic about it, was customary at the end of a discourse and is to be found elsewhere in Luther’s own writings. Its embellishment by the historic addition was produced at Wittenberg, where it was found desirable to render “the words rather more forcible and high-sounding.” “There is not the faintest proof that the amplification came from anyone who actually heard the words.” The most that can be said is that it may have grown up elsewhere. The enlarged form is first found in the two editions of the discourse printed by Grüneberg at Wittenberg in 1521, one in Latin and the other in German, which are based as to the remaining portion on notes on the subject emanating from Luther. Karl Müller, the last thoroughly to examine the question, opines that Luther’s concluding phrase may very easily have been amplified without the co-operation of Luther or of any actual witness. The proposal made in 1897 in Volume vii. of the Weimar edition of Luther’s works to accept as reliable Grüneberg’s edition which contains the altered form of the phrase, must, according to Karl Müller, be regarded as “a total failure,” nor does he think much better of the Weimar edition in its account of the Worms Acts generally.

  How little the exclamation can pretend to any special importance is clear from a note of Conrad Peutinger’s, who was present during the address and committed his impression to writing the following day. When Luther had finished his explanation, so it runs, the “official” again exhorted him to retract, seeing he had already been condemned by higher councils. Thereupon Luther retorted that the Councils “had also erred and over and over again contradicted themselves and come into opposition with the Divine Law. This the ‘official’ denied. Luther insisted that it was so and offered to prove it. This brought the discussion suddenly to an end, and there was a great outcry as Luther left the place. In the midst of it he recommended himself submissively to His Imperial Mt. [Majesty]. Before concluding he uttered the words: May God come to my help.” According to this account the words were interjected as Luther was about to leave the assembly, in the midst of the tumult and “great outcry” which followed his recommending himself to the Imperial protection.

  In view of the circumstances just described, P. Kalkoff, years ago, admitted that Luther’s words as quoted above had “no claim to credibility,” while, quite recently, H. Böhmer declared that “it would be well not to quote any more these most celebrated of Luther’s words as though they were his. Many will be sorry, yet the absence of these words need not affect our opinion of Luther’s behaviour at Worms.” W. Friedensburg is also of opinion that “we must, at any rate, give up the emphatic conclusion of the speech— ‘Here I stand,’ etc. — as unhistorical; the searching examinations made in connection with the Reichstagsakten have rendered it certain that Luther’s conclusion was simply: ‘God help me, Amen.’” Of this Karl Müller adduced conclusive proofs.

  The immense success of the legend of the manly, decisive, closing words so solemnly uttered in the assembly is quite explicable when we come to consider the circumstances. The Diet, an event which stands out in such strong relief in Luther’s history, where his friends seemed to see his star rising on the horizon only to set again suddenly behind the mountain fortress, was itself of a nature to invite them to embellish it with fiction.

  Apart from the legends in circulation among Luther’s friends, there were others which went the rounds among his opponents and later polemics. Such is the statement to the effect that Luther played the coward at Worms, and that his assumed boldness and audacity was merely due to the promises of material assistance, or, as Thomas Münzer asserts, to actual coercion on the part of his own followers.

  According to all we have seen, Luther’s chief motive-force was his passionate prepossession in favour of his own ideas. It is true that, especially previous to the Diet, this was alloyed with a certain amount of quite reasonable fear. He himself admits, that when summoned to Worms, he “fell into a tremble” till he determined to bid defiance to the devils there. On his first appearance before the Diet on April 17, he spoke, according to those who heard him, “in an almost inaudible voice,” and gave the impression of being a timid man. Later his enthusiasm and his boldness increased with the lively sense of the justice of his cause aided by the applause of sympathisers. There can be no doubt that he was stimulated to confidence not merely by the thought of the thousands who were giving him their moral support, but by the offers of material help he had received, and by his knowledge that the atmosphere of the Diet was charged with electricity. “Counts and Nobles,” he himself says later, “looked hard at me; as a result of my sermon, as people in the know think, they lodged in court a charge of 400 Articles [the ‘Gravamina’] against the clergy. They [the members of the Diet] had more cause to fear me than I to fear them, for they apprehended a tumult.” It was his fiery conviction that he had rediscovered the Gospel and torn away the mask of Antichrist, combined with his assurance of outward support, that inspired him with that “mad courage” of which he was wont to talk even to the end of his life: “I was undismayed and feared nothing; God alone is able to make a man mad after this fashion; I hardly know whether I should be so cheery now.”

  The unfavourable accounts, circulated from early days among Luther’s opponents concerning his mode of life at Worms, must not be allowed to pass unchallenged.

  Luther was said to have “distinguished himself by drunkenness,” and to have indulged in moral “excesses.” Incontrovertible proof would be necessary to allow of our accepting such statements of a time when he was actually under the very eyes of the highest authorities, clerical and lay, and a cynosure of thousands. We should have to ask ourselves how he came to prejudice his judges still further by intemperance and a vicious life. The accounts appealed to do not suffice to establish the charge, consisting as they do of general statements founded partly on the impression made by Luther’s appearance, partly on reports circulated by his enemies. That the friends of the Church were all too ready to believe everything, even the worst, of the morals of so defiant and dangerous a heretic, was only to be expected. The reports were not treated with sufficient discernment even in the official papers, but accepted at their face-value when they suited the purposes of his foes. Luther seemed deficient in the recollection looked for in a religious, though he wore the Augustinian habit; the self-confidence, which he never lost an occasion of displaying, had the appearance of presumption and excessive self-sufficiency; it may also be that the manners which he had inherited from his low-born Saxon parents excited hostile comment among the cultured members of the Diet; if he indulged a little in the good Malvasian wine in which his friends pledged him, this would be regarded by strangers as betraying his German love of the bottle; at the same time it is true that, when starting for Worms, and likewise during the journey, it is reported how, with somewhat unseemly mirth, he had not scrupled to indulge in the juice of the grape, perhaps to dispel sad thoughts.

  Caspar Contarini, the Venetian ambassador, who was present at Worms, wrote to Venice: “Martin has scarcely fulfilled the expectations cherished of him here by all. He displays neither a blameless life nor any sort of cleverness. He is quite unversed in learning and has nothing to distinguish him but his impudence.” Perhaps the remark concerning Luther’s want of culture and wit, on which alone the Venetian here lays stress, was an outcome of Luther’s behaviour at his first interrogation; we have already seen how another witness alludes to the nervousness then manifested by him, but over which he ultimately triumphed.

  The second authority appealed to, viz. the Nuncio, Hieronymus Aleander, writes more strongly against Luther than does Contarini. It is not however certain that he was an “eye-witness,” as he has been termed, at least it is doubtful whether he ever saw Luther while he was in the town, though he describes his appearance, his demeanour and look, as though from personal observation. Aleander speaks much from hearsay, collects impressions and tittle-tattle at haphazard, and enters into no
detail, save that he sets on record the “many bowls of Malvasian” which Luther, “being very fond of that wine,” drank before his departure from Worms. It is he who wrote to Rome that the Emperor, so soon as he had seen Luther, exclaimed: “This man will never make a heretic of me.” Aleander merely adds, that almost everybody looked on Luther as a stupid, possessed fool; and that it was unnecessary to speak of “the drunkenness to which he was so much addicted, and the many other instances of coarseness in his looks, words, acts, demeanour and gait.” By his behaviour he had forfeited all the respect the world had had for him. He describes him as dissolute and a demoniac (“dissoluto, demoniaco”). Yet Count Hoyer of Mansfeld, who will be referred to more particularly below, and who blames Luther’s moral conduct after his stay at the Wartburg, alleging it as his reason for forsaking his cause, admits that, while at Worms, he, the Count, had been quite Lutheran; hence nothing to the prejudice of Luther’s morals can have reached his ears there. In the absence of any further information we may safely assume that it was merely Luther’s general behaviour which was rather severely criticised at the great assembly of notables.

  A capital opportunity for a closer study of Luther’s mind is afforded by his life and doings in the Wartburg.

  4. Luther’s sojourn at the Wartburg

  The solitude of the Wartburg afforded Luther a refuge for almost ten months, to him a lengthy period.

  Whereas but a little while before he had been inspirited by the loud applause of his followers and roused by the opposition of those in high places to a struggle which made him utterly oblivious of self, here, in the quiet of the mountain stronghold, the thoughts born of his solitude assailed him in every conceivable form. He was altogether thrown upon himself and his studies. The croaking of the ravens and magpies about the towers in front of his windows sounded like the voices which spoke in the depths of his soul.

  Looking back upon his conduct at Worms, he now began to doubt; how, indeed, could an outlaw do otherwise, even had he not undertaken so subversive a venture as Luther? To this was added, in his case, the responsibility for the storm he had let loose on his beloved native land. His own confession runs: “How often did my heart faint for fear, and reproach me thus: You wanted to be wise beyond all others. Are then all others in their countless multitude mistaken? Have so many centuries all been in the wrong? Supposing you were mistaken, and, owing to your mistake, were to drag down with you to eternal damnation so many human creatures!”

  He must often have asked himself such questions, especially at the beginning of the “hermit life,” as he calls it, which he led within those walls. But to these questionings he of set purpose refused to give the right answer; he had set out on the downward path and could not go back; of this he came to convince himself as the result of a lengthy struggle.

  This is the point which it is incumbent on the psychologist to study beyond all else. Luther’s everyday life and his studies at Worms have been discussed often enough already.

  It is unheard of, so he says in the accounts he gives of his interior struggles in those days, “to run counter to the custom of so many centuries and to oppose the convictions of innumerable men and such great authorities. How can anyone turn a deaf ear to these reproaches, insults and condemnations?” “How hard is it,” he exclaims from his own experience, “to come to terms with one’s own conscience when it has long been accustomed to a certain usage [like that of the Papists], which is nevertheless wrong and godless. Even with the plainest words from Holy Scripture I was scarcely able so to fortify my conscience as to venture to challenge the Pope, and to look on him as Antichrist, on the bishops as the Apostles of Antichrist and the Universities as his dens of iniquity!” He summoned all his spirit of defiance to his aid and came off victorious. “Christ at length strengthened me by His words, which are steadfast and true. No longer does my heart tremble and waver, but mocks at the Popish objections; I am in a haven of safety and laugh at the storms which rage without.”

  From the Catholic point of view, what he had done was violently to suppress the higher voice which had spoken to him in his solitude. Yet this voice was again to make itself heard, and with greater force than ever.

  Luther had then succeeded so well in silencing it that he was able to write to his friends, as it seems, without the slightest scruple, that, as to Worms, he was only ashamed of not having spoken more bravely and emphatically before the whole Empire; were he compelled to appear there again, they would hear a very different tale of him. “I desire nothing more ardently than to bare my breast to the attacks of my adversaries.” He spent his whole time in picturing to himself “the empire of Antichrist,” a frightful vision of the wrath of God. With such pictures he spurs himself on, and encourages Melanchthon, with whose assistance he was unable to dispense, to overcome his timidity and vacillation. In many of his letters from the Wartburg he exhorts his friends to courage and confidence, being anxious to counteract by every possible effort the ill-effects of his absence. In these letters his language is, as a rule, permeated by a fanatical and, at times, mystical tone, even more so than any of his previous utterances. He exhibits even less restraint than formerly in his polemics. “Unless a man scolds, bites and taunts, he achieves nothing. If we admonish the Popes respectfully, they take it for flattery and fancy they have a right to remain unreformed. But Jeremias exhorts me, and says to me: ‘Cursed be he who does the work of the Lord deceitfully’ (xlviii. 10), and calls for the use of the sword against the enemies of God.”

  Two phenomena which accompanied this frenzy render it still graver in the eyes of an onlooker. These were, on the one hand, certain occurrences which bordered on hallucination, and, on the other, frightful assaults of the tempter.

  Concerning both, his letters of that time, and likewise his own accounts at a later date, supply us with definite information. It is, indeed, a dark page on which they direct our attention. All the circumstances must carefully be borne in mind. First, much must be attributed to the influence of his new and unaccustomed place of abode and the strange nature of his surroundings. His gloomy meditations and enforced leisure; a more generous diet, which, in comparison with his former circumstances, meant to the Monk, now metamorphosed into “Squire George,” an almost luxurious mode of living; finally, bodily discomfort, for instance, the constipation to which he frequently refers as troubling him, all this tended to develop an abnormal condition of soul to which his former psychological states of terror may also have contributed. He fancied, and all his life maintained, that in the Wartburg he had suffered bodily assaults of the devil.

  Luther believed that he had not only heard the devil tormenting him by day, and more particularly by night, with divers dreadful noises, but that he had seen him in his room under the form of a huge black dog, and had chased him away by prayer. His statements, to which we shall return in detail in another connection (vol. vi., xxxvi. 3; cp. vol. v., xxxi. 4), are such as presuppose, at the very least, the strangest illusions. Some have even opined that he suffered from real hallucinations of hearing and sight, though they have adduced no definite proof of such. The disputes with the devil, of which he speaks, are certainly nothing more than a rhetorical version of his own self-communings.

  If Luther brought with him to the Wartburg a large stock of popular superstition, he increased it yet more within those dreary walls, thanks to the sensitiveness of his lively imagination, until he himself became the plaything of his fancy. “Because he was so lonely,” writes his friend the physician Ratzeberger, on the strength of Luther’s personal communication, “he was beset with ghosts and noisy spirits which gave him much concern.” And after quoting the tale of the dog he goes on: “Such-like and many other ghosts came to him at that time, all of which he drove away by prayer, and which he would not talk about, for he said he would never tell anyone by how many different kinds of ghosts he had been molested.”

  The temptations of the flesh which he then experienced Luther also attributed, in the main, to the de
vil. They fell upon him with greater force than ever before. Their strength displeased him, according to his letters, and he sought to resist them, though it is plain from his words that he realised the utter futility of his desire to rid himself of them. In this state of darkness he directed his thoughts more vigorously than heretofore to the question of monastic vows and their binding power. He seems to be clanking the chains by which he had by his own vow freely pledged himself to the Almighty.

  In July, 1521, in a letter from the Wartburg to his friend Melanchthon, while repudiating, in the somewhat bombastic fashion of the Humanists, Melanchthon’s praise, he makes the following confession: “Your good opinion of me shames and tortures me. For I sit here [instead of working for God’s cause as you fondly imagine] hardened in immobility, praying, unhappily, too little instead of sighing over the Church of God; nay, I burn with the flames of my untamed flesh; in short, I ought to be glowing in the spirit, and instead I glow in the flesh, in lust, laziness, idleness and drowsiness, and know not whether God has not turned away His face from me because you have ceased to pray for me. You, who are more rich in the gifts of God than I, are now holding my place. For a whole week I have neither written, prayed nor studied, plagued partly by temptations of the flesh, partly by the other trouble.” The other trouble was the painful bodily ailment mentioned above, to which he returns here in greater detail. “Pray for me,” he concludes this letter — in which he seeks to confirm his friends in the course upon which they had set out,— “pray, for in this solitude I am sinking into sin.” And in another letter, in December, we again have an allusion to his besetting temptations: “I am healthy in body and am well cared for, but I am also severely tried by sin and temptations. Pray for me, and fare you well.” He here speaks of sins and temptations, but it may well be that under “sins” he here, as elsewhere, comprehends concupiscence, which he, in accordance with his teaching, looked upon as sin.