Collected Works of Martin Luther

by Martin Luther

  It could not be but regarded as strange that Luther himself, forgetful of his former regard, went so far as to egg on his pupils and friends at Erfurt against his old professor. Usingen certainly had never anticipated such treatment at his hands. “He has, as you know,” Luther wrote to Lang, on June 26, “become hard-headed and full of ingrained obstinacy and conceit. Therefore, in your preaching, you must draw down upon his folly the contempt that such coarse and inflated blindness deserves.” As from his early years he had never been known to yield to anyone, Luther gave up the hope of seeing the stubborn sophist “yield to Christ”; he sees here the confirmation of the proverb: “No fool like an old fool.”

  Carried away by his success at Erfurt, Luther urged the preachers not to allow their energies to flag.

  It is true that in an official Circular-Letter to the Erfurt Congregation, despatched on July 10, 1522, and intended for publication, his tone is comparatively calm; the superscription is: “Martin Luther, Ecclesiastes of Wittenberg, to all the Christians at Erfurt together with the preachers and ministers, Grace and Peace in Christ Jesus, Our Lord.” Therein, at Lang’s request, dealing with the controversy which had arisen at Erfurt regarding the veneration of the Saints, he declares that whilst there was certainly no warrant of Scripture for Saint-worship, it ought not to be assailed with violence (i.e. not after the fashion of the fanatics whose doings were a public danger). He trusts “we shall be the occasion of no rising” and points to his own example as showing with what moderation he had ever proceeded against the Papists: “As yet I have not moved a finger against them, and Christ has destroyed them with the sword of His mouth” (2 Thess. ii. 8). “Leave Christ to act” in true faith — such is the gist of his exhortation in this letter so admirably padded with Pauline phrases — but despise and avoid the “stiff-necked sophists”; “Whoever stinks, let him go on stinking.” He concludes, quite in the Pauline manner: “May Our Lord Jesus Christ strengthen you together with us in all the fulness of the knowledge of Himself to the honour of His Father, Who is also ours, to Whom be Glory for ever and ever, Amen. Greet Johann Lang [and the other preachers]: George Forchheim, Johann Culhamer, Antony Musam, Ægidius Mechler and Peter Bamberger. Philip, Jonas and all our people greet you. The Grace of God be with you all, Amen.”

  But when Luther, at the instance of Duke Johann of Saxony and his son Johann Frederick, came to Erfurt, in October, 1522, accompanied by Melanchthon, Agricola and Jacob Probst, and proceeded to address the multitude who flocked to hear him (October 21 and 22), he was unable to restrain his passion, and, by his words of fire, fanned the hatred and blind fanaticism of the mob to the highest pitch.

  He scolded the clergy as “fat and lazy priestlings and monks,” who “hitherto had carried on their deceitful trade throughout the whole world,” and upon whom “everything had been bestowed.” “So far they have mightily fattened their great paunches.” “Of what use were their brotherhoods, indulgence-letters and all their countless trickeries?” “Ah, it must have cost the devil much labour to establish the ecclesiastical Estate.... Alas for these oil-pots who can do nothing but anoint people, wash walls and baptise bells!” But the believer is “Lord over Pope and devil and all such powers, and is also a judge of this delusion.”

  And yet in remarkable contrast to all this, in his closing words, spoken with greater ponderance, he exhorts the people “not to despise their enemies even though they know not Christ, but to have patience with them.” Yet before this he had declared: “We must crush the fiendish head of this brood with the Evangel. Then the Pope will lose his crown.” He had also preached against the secular authority exercised at Erfurt by the Archbishop of Mayence: “Our Holy Fathers and reverend lords, who have the spiritual sword as well as the temporal, want to be our rulers and masters. It is plain they have not got even the spiritual sword, and certainly God never gave them the temporal. Therefore it is only right, that, as they have exalted their government so greatly, it should be greatly humbled.”

  Amidst all this he has not a single word of actual blame for the former acts of violence, but merely a few futile platitudes on peaceableness, such as: “We do not wish to preserve the Evangel by our own efforts,” for it is sufficiently strong to see to itself. He assures his hearers that, “he was not concerned how to defend it.” Yet he sets up each of his followers as “king” and “yoke-fellow of Christ,” having the Royal Priesthood so that they may defy the Hierarchy, “who have stolen the sword out of our hands.” All this while expressly professing to proclaim the great and popular doctrine of faith and Bible only.

  “You have been baptised and endowed with the true faith, therefore you are spiritual and able to judge of all things by the word of the Evangel, and are not to be judged of any man.... Say: My faith is founded on Christ alone and His Word, not on the Pope or on any Councils.... My faith is here a judge and may say: This doctrine is true, but that is false and evil. And the Pope and all his crew, nay, all men on earth, must submit to that decision.... Therefore I say: Whoever has faith is a spiritual man and judge of all things, and is himself judged of no man ... the Pope owes him obedience, and, were he a true Christian, would prostrate himself at his feet, and so too would every University, learned man or sophist.”

  All depends on one thing, namely, whether this believer “judges according to the Evangel,” i.e. according to the new interpretation of Scripture which Luther has disclosed.

  We naturally think of Usingen and those Erfurt professors who remained faithful to the Church when Luther, in the course of his sermon, in sarcastic language, pits his new interpretation of Scripture against the “sophists, birettas and skull-caps.” “Bang the mouths of the sophists to [when they cry]: ‘Papa, Papa, Concilium, Concilium, Patres, Patres, Universities, Universities.’ What on earth do we care about that? one word of God is more than all this.” “Let them go on with all their sermons and their dreams!” “Let us see what such bats will do with their feather-brooms!”

  The commanding tone in which he spoke and the persuasive force of his personality were apt to make his hearers forgetful of the fact, that, after all, his great pretensions rested on his own testimony alone. In the general excitement the objections, which he himself had the courage to bring forward, seemed futile: “Were not Christ and the Gospel preached before? Do you fancy,” he replies, “that we are not aware of what is meant by Gospel, Christ and Faith?”

  It was of the utmost importance to him that, on this occasion of his appearance at Erfurt, he should make the whole weight of his personal authority felt so as to stem betimes the flood let loose by others who taught differently; he was determined to impress the seal of his own spirit upon the new religious system at this important outpost.

  Even before this he had let fall some words in confidence to Lang expressive of his concern that, at Erfurt, as it seemed to him, they wished to outstrip him in the knowledge of the Word, so that he felt himself decreasing while others increased (John iii. 30), and in the Circular-Letter above mentioned, he had anxiously warned the Erfurt believers against those who, confiding in their “peculiar wisdom,” were desirous of teaching “something besides Christ and beyond our preaching.” Now, personally present at the place where danger threatened, he insists from the pulpit with great emphasis on his mission: “It was not I who put myself forward.... Christ Our Master when sending His apostles out into the world to preach gave them no other directions than to preach the Gospel ... when He makes a man a preacher and apostle He also in His gracious condescension gives him instructions how to speak and what to speak, even down to the present day.” Those who heard him were therefore to believe for certain “that he was not preaching what was his, but, like the apostles, the Word of God.”

  Many of his hearers were all the more likely to overlook the strange pretensions herein embodied, seeing that a large portion of his discourse proclaimed the sweet doctrine of evangelical freedom and denounced good works.

  For the latter purpose he very effectively
introduces the Catholic preachers, putting into their mouths the assertion, falsely credited to them, that “only works and man’s justice” availed anything, not “Christ and His Justice”; for they say, “faith is not sufficient, it is also necessary to fast, to pray, to build churches, to found monasteries, monkeries and nunneries, and so forth.” But “they will be knocked on the head and recoil, and be convicted of the fact, that they know nothing whatever of what concerns Christ, the Gospel and good works.” “We cannot become pious and righteous by our own works, if we could we should be striking Paul a blow on the mouth.” These “dream-preachers” speak in vain of “Works, fasting and prayer,” but you are a Christian if you believe that Christ is for you wisdom and righteousness. “The doctrine of those who are called Christians must not come from man, or proceed from man’s efforts.... Therefore a Christian life is not promoted by our fasting, prayers, cowls or anything that we may undertake.”

  He returns again and again to the belief, so deeply rooted in the heart, of the efficacy of good works in order that he may uproot it completely. The whole Christian system demands, he thinks, the condemnation of the importance attached hitherto to good works. “Thus the whole of Christianity consists in your holding fast to the Evangel, which Christ alone ordains and teaches, not to human words or works.” It is a “devil” who speaks to you of the meritorious power of works, “not indeed a black or painted devil, but a white devil, who, under a beautiful semblance of life, infuses into you the poison of eternal death.” Of the Christian who relies only on faith, he says, “Christ’s innocence becomes his innocence, and in the same way Christ’s piety, holiness and salvation become his, and all that is in Christ is contained in the believing heart together with Christ.” “But such faith is awakened in us by God. From it spring the works by which we assist and serve our neighbour.”

  He speaks at considerable length in the last part of his sermons of the particular works which he considers allowable and commendable. How much he wished to imply may, however, be inferred from what has gone before.

  Shall we not do good works? Shall we not pray any more, fast, found monasteries, become monks or nuns, or do similar works? The answer is: “There are two kinds of good works, some which are looked upon as good,” i.e. “our own self-chosen works,” such as “special fasting, special prayers, wearing a special dress or joining an Order.” “None of this is ordained by God,” and “Christian faith looks to nothing save Christ only,” therefore these works we must leave severely alone. There are, on the other hand, works which are better than these. “When once we have laid hold upon Christ, then good Christian works follow, such as God has commanded and which man performs not for his own advantage but in the service of his neighbour.” But even of these works Luther is careful to add that they should be performed “without placing any trust in them for justification.” “Fasting is a good work,” but then, “the devil himself does not eat too much,” and sometimes even “a Jew” fasts; “prayer is also a good work,” but it does not consist in “much mumbling or shouting,” and even “the Turk prays much with his lips.” “No one may or can bear the name of Christian except by the work of Christ.”

  Thus, even where he is forced to admit good works, he must needs add a warning.

  Finally, where he is exhorting to the patient bearing of crosses, he immediately, and most strangely, restricts this exercise of virtue to the limits of his own experience: One bears the cross when he is unjustly proclaimed “a heretic and evil-doer,” not “when he is sick in bed”; to bear the cross is to be “deprived of interior consolation,” and to be severely tried by “God’s hand and by His anger.”

  In the new congregation at Erfurt it was a question of the very foundations of the moral life. Yet in Luther’s addresses we miss the necessary exhortations to a change of heart, to struggle against the passions and overcome sensuality. Neither is the sinner exhorted to repentance, penance, contrition, fear of God and a firm purpose of amendment, nor are the more zealous encouraged to the active exercise of the love of God, to self-denial according to the virtues of their state, or to sanctification by the use of those means which Luther still continued to recognise, at least to a certain extent, such as the Eucharist. All his exhortations merge into this one thing, trust in Christ. He preached, indeed, one part of the sermon of the Precursor, viz. “The Kingdom of God is at hand”; with the other: “Bring forth therefore fruit worthy of penance,” he would have nothing to do.

  As far as the change at Erfurt went, the moral condition of the town was to serve more than ever as a refutation of Luther’s expectation that “the works will follow.”

  On January 24, 1524, Eobanus Hessus wrote to Lang: “Immorality, corruption of youth, contempt of learning and dissensions, such are the fruits of your Evangel.” “I dislike being here very much,” he says, in the same year, to his friend Sturz, “since all is lost, for there is now no hope of a revival of learning or of a recovery in public life. Everything is on the road to destruction, and we ourselves are rendered odious to all classes by reason of some unlearned deserters. “Oh, unhappy Erfurt,” he cries, in view of the “outrageous behaviour of these godless men of God”; one seeks to oppress the other; already the battlefield of passion is tinged with “blood.”

  “You have by your preaching called forth a diabolical life in the town,” Usingen wrote in 1524 of the preachers at Erfurt, “although this is now displeasing to you, and you encourage it even up to the present day; you set the people free from the obedience which, according to the Divine command, they owe to the authorities of the Church, you deprive the people of the fear both of God and of man, hence the corruption of morals, which increases from day to day.”

  Usingen, who continued courageously to vindicate the faith of his fathers, was depicted by the preachers as a “crazy old man,” just as they had been advised to do by Luther. “I am quite pleased to hear,” Luther wrote to Lang some considerable time after his return, “that this ‘Unsingen’ is still carrying on his fooleries; as the Apostle Paul says, their folly must be made manifest (2 Tim. iii. 9).”

  The champion of the Church, the alleged fool, was sufficiently clear-sighted and frank to predict the Peasant-War as the end of all the godless commotion, and to prophesy that the result of the general religious subversion would be the ruin of his German Fatherland. A fanatical preacher in the town had appealed to the mattocks of the peasants. Him the Augustinian asks: “If the Word of God suffices in the Church, why have you in your sermons appealed for help to the pickaxes, mattocks and spades of the peasants?” “Why do you tell the people that the peasant must come from the field with these weapons to assist the Evangel, if your own and your comrades’ words prove of no avail? Do you not know with what audacity the peasants are already rising against their lords?” “The new preaching,” he complains, even where it is not directly inflammatory, “renders the people, who are already desirous of innovations and dearly love the freedom of the flesh, only too much inclined for tumults, and this daily foments the spirit of unrest.” “Do you not know that the mob is a hydra-headed monster, a monster that thirsts for blood? Are you anxious to promote your cause with the help of cut-throats?” Owing to the iconoclasts, the ancient greatness of Constantinople fell, and the Roman Empire of the East faded away; in like manner, so gloomily he predicts, the religious struggle now being waged in Germany will bring about the ruin of the Western Empire and the loss of its ancient greatness.

  The help which the innovators received from the Erfurt magistrates induced the leaders of the party to pin their trust on the support of the secular authorities. Even this was justified by appeals to Scripture.

  Lang, on presenting to Hermann von Hoff, the president of the Erfurt town-council, a translation which he had made of the Gospel of St. Matthew, stated in the accompanying letter, that he had done so “in order that all may know and take heed to the fact, that whatever they undertake against the Gospel is also directed against you. It is necessary, unfortunate
ly, to defend the Gospel by means of the sword.”

  In July, 1521, an agreement had, it is true, been entered into which brought some guarantee of safety to the clergy, more particularly the Canons of St. Mary’s and St. Severus, yet in the ensuing years the Chapters were forced to make endless protests against the preachers’ interference in their services and the encroachments of the magistrates on their personal liberty, all in direct contravention of the agreement.

  The council demanded that the oath of obedience should be taken to itself and not to the Archbishop of Mayence, as heretofore. Priests were arrested on charges which did not concern the council at all, and were taken to the Rathaus. The clergy were obliged to pay taxes like other citizens on all farms and property which belonged to them or to their churches — which had been exempt from time immemorial — and likewise on any treasure or cash they might possess. When the peasants threatened Erfurt, the clergy were advised to bring all the valuables belonging to their churches to the Rathaus where the council, in view of the danger of the times, would receive them into safe custody, giving in return formal receipts. Since the council, as guardians of several monasteries, including St. Peter’s, had already appointed laymen who hindered the lawful Superiors from coming to any independent decision in matters of any moment, and as all the chalices and other vessels of gold and silver, together with the more valuable Church vestments, had already been seized at the Servites, the Brothers of the Rule and the Carthusians, the Canons saw how futile it would be to reject the “advice” given, and they accordingly decided to deliver up the more valuable objects belonging to the two principal churches, St. Mary’s and St. Severus, their decision being accepted by the council with “hearty thanks.” At the formal surrender of the vessels the magistrates protested that the Canons were really not fully aware how well disposed they, the magistrates, were towards them; that they had no wish to drive away the clergy, “but rather to show them all charity so that they might return thanks to God.” Yet we learn also that: Many persons belonging to the council whispered that it was their intention to make the position of the clergy unbearable by means of this and other like acts of despoliation.