Collected Works of Martin Luther

by Martin Luther

  Fifthly we must consider the fruits of our teaching. These are those mentioned by St. Paul (Gal. v. 22 f., Rom. viii. 13), viz: “charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, longanimity and mildness”; Paul also says, “that the deeds of the flesh must be mortified and the old Adam, together with all his works, crucified with Christ. In a word, the fruit of our spirit is the keeping of the ten commandments of God.” The Allstedt spirit, he adds, ought really to bring forth yet higher fruits since it purports to be a higher spirit. If fruits are lacking then surely we also may admit that, “alas, we do not as much as we ought.” — It is notorious enough that Luther might have made still greater admissions of this sort. Nevertheless, he is able to point to “abundant fruit of the spirit produced by God’s Grace among our followers,” and is ready, “if it comes to boasting,” to set his own person, “which is the meanest and most sinful of all, against all the fruits of the Allstedt spirit, however greatly the fanatics may blame my life.” In order, however, the better to safeguard himself on this point, he remarks that, “on account of the life, the doctrine” must not be condemned, as this spirit “takes offence at our feeble life.” It appears that Münzer had spoken very strongly against Luther and the goings on at Wittenberg.

  The one sentence in Luther’s writing which must have made the deepest impression on his princely readers, and on their courtiers, was that concerning the appropriation of the churches and convents, which had been surrendered in consequence of the innovations. “Let the Rulers of the land do what they please with them!” This invitation, in the mind of those in power, was quite sufficient to make up for the deficiencies of the other arguments and to be considered as an irrefragable proof of the justice of the cause.

  Luther’s higher mission being in his own opinion so firmly established that he had no cause to fear any man, he goes so far in his Circular as to propose that his Anabaptist foes should not be hindered. “Do not scruple to let them preach freely!” He for his part will gird himself for the fight, and we know of how much the force and violence of his eloquence was capable. Confident that no one could stand against his written or spoken word, he cries: “Let the spirits fall upon one another and fight it out.... Where there is a struggle and a battle some must fall and be wounded, but whoever fights manfully receives the crown.” As a matter of fact, however, he was speedily to withdraw this too-confident challenge; indeed, as we shall see, he later went so far as to demand the infliction of the death-penalty upon those who dared to differ in doctrine from himself, viz. the Anabaptists and fanatics, establishing the necessity of this on passages from the Old Testament which speak of the execution of false prophets.

  Münzer’s party too had appealed in defence of their violent work of destruction to the precepts of the Old Testament (Gen. xi. 2; Deut. vii. 12; xii. 2, 3: “Destroy the altars and break down the images,” etc.). Hence Luther deemed it necessary to point out in his Circular against them, that “a certain Divine command then existed for such acts of destruction which is not given to us at the present day.”

  It was no uncommon thing for the Bible to furnish such matters of dispute for the warring elements; in the question of the Divine commission it ever occupied the foreground.

  Luther solemnly raised the Bible on high and, to the Anabaptists and other teachers of the new faith who differed from him, protested that he and he alone had discovered the Word of God and was the appointed teacher. Yet all those whom he addressed said the selfsame thing and even maintained that they could show better proofs of their mission than Luther. How, then, was the question to be decided?

  The Catholic Church has never permitted individual doctors to set up their own as the authentic interpretation of the Bible; she declared herself to be the only divinely appointed supreme authority qualified to determine the true sense of the written Word of God, she herself having received the living Word of God, together with authorisation to guard the whole body of Divine teaching, the written inclusive, in its primitive purity, and to proclaim it with an infallible voice. She appeals to the words of Christ: “Teach all nations,” “He that hears you, hears me,” “You shall be witnesses for me to the ends of the earth,” “I am with you, even to the consummation of the world.”

  Outside this safe rule there is nothing but arbitrary judgment and confusion. Luther and those he called “heretics” accused each other of the most flagrant arbitrariness, and not without cause. They applied to each other in derision the phrase: “Bible, Bubble, Babble,” for indeed it was a confusion of tongues. It was not merely Luther who applied the phrase to Münzer’s party, for, according to Agricola, Münzer mocked the Lutherans with the same words when they ventured to attack him with biblical texts. The Anabaptist Conrad Grebel, of Zürich, writing to Münzer on September 5, 1524, says: “You have on your side the Bible, which Luther derides as ‘Bible, Bubble, Babble, etc.’”

  No one could prevent the fanatics from availing themselves of the freedom of private interpretation which Luther had set up as a principle. Münzer, no less than Luther, respected the Bible as such, and knew how to make use of it skilfully. He also, declared, exactly as Luther had done, that he taught the people “only according to Holy Scripture,” and, “please God, never preached his own conceits.” According to Luther’s own principles, Münzer’s faction had also a perfect right to make the “outward Word” (the Bible) agree with the “inward Word,” which they believed they heard. When Luther, at a later date, insists so strongly on the need of accepting the outward Word as well as the inner worth, this was really a retreat on his part (see vol. iv., xxviii. 1); moreover, by the outward Word he here means the Bible as he explained it.

  To force those who were unwilling to accept the new, purely personal and subjective interpretation, and to do so without the authority of the Church, whose claims had been definitively discarded, was to exercise an intolerable spiritual despotism. We can well understand how Münzer came to complain, in one of his letters, that Luther in his Circular-Letter “ramps in as ferociously and hideously as a mighty tyrant.” He could well complain in particular of Luther’s demand, that the spirit which spoke in Münzer should submit to an examination before the Lutheran tribunal at Wittenberg previous to being acknowledged as a spirit which had been duly called. This Luther required, assuring his followers that Münzer’s party was execrated even by the Papists, that it had no real commission and could show no miracles on its behalf. He was anxious to retain for himself the “first-fruits of the Spirit.” To this the retort of his foes was that the first-fruits of the Spirit were theirs, belonging to them by virtue of heavenly testimony. This fellow Luther wishes to ascribe the first-fruits of the Spirit to himself, wrote Grebel to Münzer, and yet he composes such a “wicked booklet.” I know his intentions; they are thoroughly tyrannical. “I see he means to give you up to the headsman’s axe and hand you over to the Princes.”

  And yet, in spite of other differences between himself and the Anabaptists, Luther found himself in agreement with them not merely on the principle of free interpretation of the Bible but also in the stress he lays on the inspiration from above supposed to be bestowed on all. Luther did not deny that individual inspiration, the “whisper” from on high, as he termed it, was one of the means by which faith might be arrived at; on the contrary, the only question for him was how far this might go.

  Luther was fond of insisting that only a heart tried by temptation was able to arrive at the understanding of the words of Scripture and of religious truths in general. Münzer, too, demands this preliminary on the part of the would-be theologian, though he does so in rather more fantastic language. Study of Tauler’s mysticism had filled his mind, even more than Luther’s, with confused notions. On the appearance of Luther’s Circular-Letter, he offered to submit to an examination of his spirit before the whole of Christendom. Those were to be summoned from all nations who had “endured overwhelming temptations in matters of faith and had arrived at despair of heart.” These words we find in a lette
r addressed to the Elector of Saxony, August 3, 1524. Luther, however, considered himself far better acquainted with the abyss of interior sufferings than any other; Münzer must not be allowed to interfere with him here. “We must not be bold in the Word of God,” but “treat Holy Scripture with reverence and great fear; this the rabble and the impudent spirits do not do.” Such things (what Christ says concerning the new birth) “cannot be understood, unless a man has experienced it, and himself undergone a spiritual regeneration.”

  Luther, in point of fact, met the Anabaptists half-way on that doctrine of baptism from which they took their name. Rebaptism he naturally rejected, but he nevertheless advocated the principle for which the Anabaptists stood, namely, that, for the reception of baptism, faith is necessary on the part of the catechumen. To overcome the difficulties which presented themselves in the case of children who had not yet reached the use of reason, he had recourse to some curious explanations. There was no help for it; they also must believe. Probably they are enlightened at the moment of baptism, which, in accordance with the Church’s ancient usage, must be administered to them, and, by some Almighty action, are penetrated with that perception of faith which is essential for the reception of this absolutely necessary sacrament, After all, he argues, why should reason be essential for faith? Is not reason really hostile to faith? Strange indeed were the subterfuges in which he took refuge in order to evade the consequences which Münzer and his party rightly drew from his theses.

  But in spite of all they might have in common, and notwithstanding his being the actual father of the detestable Anabaptist error, he felt himself removed far above the fanatics by a sense of superiority and Divine support which no words could adequately express.

  His conviction regarding his own supreme mission and his great gifts and achievements, which increased in strength as he advanced in years, derived further encouragement from the utter madness of the fanatics and his success in overthrowing them.

  No sooner had the unhappy Münzer been made prisoner and, after a contrite Catholic confession, been beheaded at Mühlhausen, together with Heinrich Pfeifer, a priest, and twenty-four rebels, than Luther proclaimed the event throughout Germany in a pamphlet as a plain judgment of God, which set a seal on his own Evangel and confirmed him as the teacher of the truth.

  In this work, entitled “A frightful story and Divine Judgment,” he says: Had God spoken through him “this [his fall] would not have occurred. For God does not lie but keeps His Word. Since then Thomas Münzer has fallen, it is plain that he spoke and acted through the devil while pretending to do so in the name of God.... More than five thousand,” he continues, “rushed headlong to destruction of body and soul. Alas! the pity of it all! This was what the devil wanted, and what he is seeking in the case of the seditious peasants.” He protests that, “he feels sorry that the people should thus have perished in body and soul,” but he cannot help endorsing their eternal reprobation, as far as in him lies; “to the end they remained hardened in infidelity, perjury and blasphemy,” therefore if God has so manifestly punished these “noxious, false prophets,” this must serve to teach us to have a great regard for the “true Word of God.”

  “I do not boast of an exalted spirit,” Luther says, comparing himself with the fanatics and their like, but “I do glory in the great gifts and graces of my God and of His Spirit, and I do so rightly, so I think, and not without cause.... Münzer is indeed dead, but his spirit is not yet exterminated.... The devil is not asleep, but continues to send out sparks.... These preachers cannot control themselves, the spirit has blinded them and taken them captive, therefore they are not to be trusted.... Beware and take heed, for Satan has come among the children of God!”

  His self-confidence makes it as clear as daylight to him that he is the true interpreter of the Word of God, whether against the survivors of Münzer’s party or against the fickle phantasies of Carlstadt; this we see particularly in the caustic, eloquent tracts he launched against the latter: “To the Christians of Strasburg against the fanatics” and “Against the heavenly Prophets.”

  In the latter, a famous book which will be dealt with later when we have to speak of Carlstadt (vol. iii., xix. 2), Luther attacks the fanatics along the whole line and unconditionally lays claim to a higher authority for his own personal illumination and his Evangel. Yet he does not omit to point out, in view of the fact that so many repudiated this Evangel, that its power can only be felt by those whose consciences have been “humbled and perturbed.”

  Never for a moment does he relinquish his claim, that his interpretation of the Bible is the only true one: —

  “What else was wanting in Münzer,” he says, “than that he did not rightly expound the Word?... He should have taught the pure Gospel!... It is a great art to be able to distinguish rightly between the Law and the Gospel.... God’s Word is not all of the same sort, but is diverse.... Whoever is able to distinguish rightly between the Law and the Gospel is given a high place and called a Doctor of Holy Scripture, for without the Holy Ghost it is impossible to make this distinction. This I have experienced myself.... No Pope, or false Christian, or fanatic, is able to separate these two [the Law and the Gospel] one from the other.” But because he had the “Holy Spirit,” Luther was able to make this supremely great discovery, and found thereby the key to the Scriptures, on which alone he builds.

  “I, for my part, have, by the grace of God, now effected so much that, thanks be to God, boys and girls of fifteen know more of Christian doctrine than all the Universities and Doctors previously did.” “I have set men’s consciences at rest concerning penance, baptism, prayer, crosses, life, death and the Sacrament of the Altar, and also ordered the question of marriage, of secular authority, of the relations of father and mother, wife and child, father and son, man and maid — in short, every condition of life, so that all know how to live and how to serve God according to one’s state.”

  Given his achievements, Luther was not going too far when he spoke of himself repeatedly as a “great doctor.” He also showed himself extremely sensitive, as we shall soon see, to the attempts of the sectarians and fanatics to deprive him of the honour of the first place, to discredit his discovery of the Gospel, and either to crown themselves with his laurels and possess themselves of the fruits of his struggles, or, at his expense, to invent novelties and launch them on the world. Seeing that Christ is “destroying the Papacy” through him and is bringing it to its “exspiravit,” i.e. to the last gasp, he is naturally annoyed to learn that there are other spokesmen of the new faith who refuse to follow him without question, and who cause “a great falling away from his preaching and much slanderous talk. There are some, who after having read a page or two or listened to a sermon, without further ado take it on themselves to be overbearing and to reproach others, telling them that their conduct is not that of the followers of the Gospel.” This, he declares, he himself had “never taught anyone,” rather, as St. Paul also had done, he had “strictly forbidden it. They merely act in this way because they are desirous of novelties.... They misapply Holy Scripture to their own conceits.”

  All this he says when actually declaring that he has no wish to set himself above anyone, or to be “any man’s master.”

  There was scarcely one among the many teachers of the innovations who dared to differ from him whom Luther did not liken to the devil. “I have had more than thirty doctors of the fanatics opposing me,” he said on one occasion, “all anxious to be my instructors”; all these he had driven before him like chaff and vanquished the “devil” in them.

  “Münzer, Carlstadt, Campanus and such fellows, together with the factious spirits and sects, are merely devils incarnate, for all their efforts are directed to doing harm and avenging themselves.”

  Himself he looks upon as the champion of God against the devil, raised, as it were, to the pinnacle of the temple. It is the devil whom by heavenly power he repels and shames in the fanatics who arise in his camp. “Satan,” he says to
them, “cannot conceal himself.” “Such fellows are beguiled by the devil.” Johann Agricola, a comrade of his, he delivers over to Satan, because he differed from him in some points of doctrine: “He goes on his way, all devoted to Satan as he is, sowing seeds of enmity against us.” Luther warns him that he may become a martyr, but like Arius and Satan, whom Christ punishes. “Good God, what utter malice! These heretics say of me what the Manichæans said of Christ, viz. that Christ had indeed the Holy Spirit but only in an imperfect degree, whereas they themselves possessed it in its perfection.”

  Caspar Schwenckfeld, like Agricola, he esteemed an heretical theologian desirous of innovations, “a mad fool possessed by the devil”; “it is the devil who spews and excretes his works.” Luther’s malediction on this heretical devil runs, “May God’s curse light on thee, Satan, thy spirit which called thee forth, be with thee to thy destruction.” Michael Stiefel, the Lutheran preacher and fanatic, is also no less possessed of the devil. “It is soon over with a man,” Luther laments over this old friend, “when the devil possesses him in this way.” Even Zwingli and the Zwinglians are also possessed through and through by the devil and are the servants of Satan. All who do not agree with him, but set up their own ideas, merely show that the devil is at work in the world. “This is how the work of the devil goes on. In twenty years I have met more than fifty sectarians desirous of teaching me, but God has preserved me, He Who said of St. Paul, ‘I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name’s sake’” (Acts ix. 16).

  It is these men whom the devil [of pride] carries high up “in the air and sets on the pinnacle of the temple.”

  We must cut short this string of Luther’s utterances and quote some of the words of his opponents. What Thomas Münzer said in reply is the reverse of feeble, but at least it gives us a good idea of the way in which controversies were conducted in those days. Thomas Münzer, in his printed reply to Luther referred to above, is manifestly angry that Luther should stamp all who contradict him as devils.