Collected Works of Martin Luther

by Martin Luther

  Vergerio also fancied he saw in him something devilish. The longer he observed the piercing, uncanny glance of Luther’s eyes, so he writes, the more he was put in mind of certain persons who were regarded by many as possessed; the heat, the restlessness, the fury and frenzy expressed in his eyes were quite similar to theirs. He even casually refers to circumstances (which, however, he does not describe) of Luther’s birth and earlier years, which he had learnt from friends of Luther’s who had been intimate with him before he became a monk; they confirmed him in his belief that the devil had entered into Luther. Although Vergerio immediately after admits his doubt (“whether he be possessed or not”), yet in what he had written Contarini discovered sufficient to justify him in saying that Vergerio “found that Martin was begotten of the devil.” Contarini here is really building on a stupid fable, which, as will be shown later (vol. iv., xxvii. 1), is first met with in the writings of Petrus Sylvius, a Catholic author. What the Legate says concerning the circumstances of Luther’s parents is not of a nature to excite any confidence in the reliability of his information about Luther’s youth. In Rome people were already perfectly acquainted with Luther’s antecedents, as information had been obtained from reliable witnesses even before his final excommunication. The tittle-tattle of this new informant could accordingly have no influence on the opinion concerning him already prevailing there.

  After Vergerio the Nuncio had returned to Rome in the beginning of 1536, full of extravagant hopes, he took part in the drafting of the Bull already mentioned, summoning the Council to meet at Mantua in 1537. In the same year he was consecrated bishop. He was not, however, employed in diplomacy as frequently as he wished. In 1541 unfavourable reports began to circulate concerning his attitude towards the Church; he was charged with Protestant leanings, though some of the witnesses in the trial which he had to stand at Venice protested his entire innocence. At any rate, towards the close of 1548 he openly apostatised and fled to the Grisons, where he placed his services at the disposal of the Swiss Reformers. His desire to distinguish himself next caused him to abandon the Swiss Zwinglians and to settle at Tübingen. After many journeys, undertaken with the object of thwarting the Church of Rome, this pushful and unrestrained man died at Tübingen in 1565, still at enmity with Catholicism.

  3. The Schmalkalden Assembly of 1537. Luther’s Illness

  The Schmalkalden League, established in 1531 (see above, ff.), was in the main directed against the Emperor and the Empire. It had grown stronger by the accession of other Princes and States who bound themselves to render mutual assistance in the interests of the innovations. In the very year Vergerio started on his mission of peace in December, 1535, the warlike alliance, headed by Hesse and the Saxon Electorate, had been renewed at Schmalkalden for ten years. It undertook to raise 10,000 foot soldiers and 2000 horse for the defence of the Evangel, and, in case of need, to double the number.

  To oppose this a more united and better organised league of the Catholics was imperatively called for; the alliance already entered into by some of the Princes who remained true to the older Church, required to be strengthened and enlarged. In 1538 the new leaguers met at Nuremberg; at their head were Charles V. and Ferdinand the German King, while amongst the most prominent members were the Dukes Wilhelm and Ludwig of Bavaria and the Archbishops of Mayence and Salzburg, whose secular principalities were very considerable.

  Arming of troops, threats of war, and petty broils aroused apprehension again and again, but, on the whole, peace was maintained till Luther’s death.

  The protesting Estates were desirous of deciding, at a convention to be held at Schmalkalden on Candlemas Day, 1537, upon the attitude to be assumed towards the Council convened by the Pope to Mantua. Hence, on August 30, 1536, Johann Frederick, Elector of Saxony, instructed Luther to draw up a preliminary writing; he was to state on Scriptural grounds what he felt it his duty to advance concerning all the Articles of his teaching as though he were in the presence of a Council or before the Judgment-Seat of God, and also to point out those Articles regarding which some concessions might be made “without injury to God or His Word.”

  Luther therefore set to work on his “Artickel so da hetten sollen auffs Concilion zu Mantua,” etc., duly printed in 1538, with some slight alterations.

  Here, whilst expounding theologically the various Lutheran doctrines, he gives his opinion on the Pope; this opinion is all the more remarkable because incorporated in a document intended to be entirely dispassionate and to furnish the Council with a clear statement of the new faith. The Pope, so Luther declares, is “merely bishop or parish-priest of the churches of Rome”; the universal spiritual authority he had arrogated to himself was “nothing but devilish fable and invention”; he roared like the dragon in the Apocalypse, who led the whole world astray (Apoc. xii. 9); he told people: “All you do is done in vain unless you take me for your God.” “This point plainly proves that he is the real Endchrist and Antichrist, who sets himself up against and above Christ, because he will not allow Christians to be saved without his authority.... This even the Turks and ‘Tatters’ do not dare to attempt, great enemies of Christians though they be.” “Hence, as little as we can adore the devil himself, as Lord and God, so little can we suffer his apostle, the Pope, or Endchrist, to rule as our Head and Lord. For his real work is lying and murder, and the eternal destruction of body and soul, as I have proved at length in many books.”

  Luther concludes this memorable theological essay (at least in the printed version) with an application to the projected Council: “If those who obey the Evangel attend it, our party will be standing before the Pope and the devil himself.” At the Diet of Augsburg they stood before the Empire, “before the Emperor and secular authorities,” who had been gracious enough to give the cause a hearing; now, however, we must say to the Pope, as in the book of Zacharias [iii. 2] the angel said to the devil: ‘May God rebuke thee, Satan.’

  When engaged on this work, and whilst the Schmalkalden meeting was in progress, Luther appears to have been the prey of a perfect paroxysm of fury. Hate, as a positive mental disorder, then attained in him an acute crisis. Later on, his anger abated for a while, as though exhausted, until, just before his death, the spirit of the storm broke out afresh with hurricane violence in his “Wider das Bapstum zu Rom vom Teuffel gestifft.”

  At the time he wrote his work in preparation for the Schmalkalden meeting he was already ailing. His nervous system was strained beyond all limit. Hence we can more readily understand the passion which seems to possess him against that Church of Rome, which, instead of collapsing, as he had fondly hoped she would, was daily growing stronger in spite of all her losses.

  The “Artickel,” which were submitted to Johann Frederick the Elector, on January 6, 1537, were signed likewise by Jonas, Bugenhagen, Cruciger, and Melanchthon. Melanchthon, however, because the abuse of the Pope did not meet with his approval and was scarcely to be squared with his previous temporising assurances, added that, he, for his part, was ready, “in the interests of peace and the common unity of those Christians who are now subject to him and may be so in the future,” to admit the Pope’s supremacy over the bishops; but the Pope was to hold his office only by “human right” and “in as far as he was willing to admit the Evangel.” Johann Frederick was sufficiently clear-sighted to see through this proposal — so typical of Melanchthon — and to recognise in it a vain attempt to square the circle. He expressed his disapproval of the addition, pointing out that any recognition of the Papacy would involve a return to the old bondage. The Pope “and his successors would leave no stone unturned to destroy and root out us and our successors.”

  The opinion of the Elector prevailed in the Council of the Princes and among the preachers assembled at Schmalkalden.

  For all their exasperation against the Pope, Luther, and the Wittenberg theologians, were not averse to taking part in the Council. Luther, for instance, opined, that they ought not to give the Papists an excuse for saying they
had made impossible the holding of a Council. In a memorandum of December 6, 1536, the theologians, with Luther and Amsdorf, advised that the Council should be promoted, so as to render possible a protest. The proposal of the Elector to hold an opposition Council they rejected, urging that such a Council would “look terribly like establishing a schism”; moreover, the lack of agreement among themselves would permit of no such thing, for they would be exposing themselves to the contempt of their opponents, and holding back foreign countries from joining the Evangel. On the other hand, it was the duty of the authorities to offer resistance in the interests of their subjects and Divine worship, should the Council prove unjust; open violence and notorious injustice were to be met by violence. In this memorandum Melanchthon’s influence is clear enough in the apprehension of any appearance of setting up a “schism.” Luther signed it with the words: “I, Martin Luther, will do my best by prayer, and if needs be, with the fist.” The Schmalkalden delegates, however, as we shall see below, strode rough-shod over this memorandum and declined to have anything to do with the Council.

  On January 31, 1537, Luther, with Melanchthon and Bugenhagen, set out for Schmalkalden where a Papal envoy, the Bishop of Acqui, was also expected. On the journey he said in the presence of several gentlemen of the Nuncio’s retinue: “So the devil is sending the Papal emissary as his ambassador to Schmalkalden to see if, perchance, he can destroy God’s work.” Besides the secular delegates, some forty Protestant theologians had gathered at Schmalkalden, and Melanchthon was in the greatest apprehension lest quarrels should break out amongst them. His fears were not altogether groundless, for it was not long before the usual want of unanimity became apparent amongst the Lutheran preachers. The “Artickel,” drawn up by Luther, aroused dissension. They were not equally acceptable to all, some, for instance, taking offence at his teaching on the Supper, so that a controversy on this point between such men as Amsdorf and Osiander on the one side and Blaurer on the other, was to be feared. Melanchthon, however, was more cautious and avoided insisting on his own divergent view regarding the Eucharist. He and Cruciger were sternly charged by Cordatus, the minister, with not preaching aright Luther’s doctrine of Justification by Faith, and the charge was supported also by Amsdorf. Osiander, the Nuremberg theologian, finally set against a sermon of Luther’s on the divine sonship conferred on the Christian by faith in Christ (1 John iv. 1 ff.), a sermon of his own, embodying quite other views.

  Luther could think of no better plan than to lay before the Elector his fears lest internal strife should prove the undoing of his whole enterprise, and to implore him, as father of the country, to take some steps to prevent this.

  Owing to the disunion rife among the preachers, Luther’s “Artickel” were never officially discussed by the delegates. This was primarily Melanchthon’s doing; by means of an intrigue which he started at the very outset of the Conference, and thanks to the assistance of the Landgrave of Hesse, he had caused it to be settled behind Luther’s back, that no explicit acceptance of Luther’s exposition of faith was called for, seeing that the Estates had already taken their stand on the basis of the Augsburg Confession and the Wittenberg Concord. “The device was characteristic enough of Melanchthon, but his procedure as a whole can scarcely be acquitted of insincerity.” (Ellinger.)

  Melanchthon was now entrusted with the preparation of a fresh work on the Papal Primacy, to be described more fully later. Although it far exceeds in malice any other work of Melanchthon’s, or perhaps for that very reason, it was accepted by the Princes and the theologians.

  The truth is, that, in their hostility to Popery all were at one. Opposition to the Church was the bond which united them.

  Meanwhile, whilst at Schmalkalden, Luther had been visited by a severe attack of stone, an old trouble which now seemed to put his life in danger. During this illness his hatred of the Pope broke out afresh, yet, later, he felt justified in boasting of the moderation he had displayed during the convention, because, forsooth, of his advice regarding attendance at the Council. He prides himself on the consideration which at Schmalkalden he had shown the Papists: “Had I died there, it would probably have been the ruin of the Papists, for only after I am dead will they see what a friend they have had in me; for other preachers will prove incapable of the same moderation and ‘epieikeia.’”

  Luther’s illness increased to such an extent that fears were entertained for his life. He himself thought seriously of death, though never for an instant did he think of reconciliation.

  His prayer, as he related later, was as follows: “O God, Thou knowest that I have taught Thy Word faithfully and zealously.... O Lord Jesus Christ, how grand a thing is it for a man to die by the sword for Thy Word.... I die as an enemy of Thine enemies, I die under the ban of the Pope, but he dies under Thy ban.... I die in hatred of the Pope (‘ego morior in odio papæ’).” “Thou, Lord Christ,” he said, “take vengeance upon Thine enemy; I have done well in tearing the Pope to pieces.” On February 25, when racked with pain, he said to Herr von Ponikau, one of the Elector’s chamberlains: “I have to be stoned like Stephen, and the Pope will rejoice. But I hope he will not laugh long; my epitaph shall be verified: ‘In life, O Pope, I was thy plague, in dying I shall be thy death (‘Pestis eram vivus, moriens ero mors tua, Papa’).’”

  On February 26 the sick man was brought away from Schmalkalden in a carriage, the intention being to convey him to Wittenberg. Luther was anxious not to rejoice the Papists by breathing his last in a locality where the Bishop of Acqui, the Papal envoy, was stopping. “At least not in the presence of the monster, the Pope’s ambassador,” as he said. “I would die willingly enough were not the devil’s Legate at Schmalkalden, for he would cry aloud to the whole world that I had died of fright.” This he said before his departure. Seated in the carriage as the horses were being got ready, he received the greetings of those present and made the sign of the cross over them, saying: “May the Lord fill you with His blessing and with hatred of the Pope.” Mathesius, his pupil, adds in his 11th Sermon on Luther: “Then and there, in the carriage, he made his last will and testament, willing and bequeathing to his friends the preachers, ‘odium in papam,’ viz. that they should not allow themselves to be deceived by the Pope’s doctrine but remain constant to the end in their hostility to his idolatry.” According to Ericeus he also said on leaving: “Take heed to this when I am dead: If the Pope lays aside his crown, renounces his throne and primacy, and admits that he has erred and destroyed the Church, then and only then will we receive him into our communion, otherwise he will always remain in our eyes the real Antichrist.”

  After Luther’s departure the assembly considered the question of the Council. Any share in it was refused point-blank. Even the letters on the subject which the Legate had brought with him were returned unopened. In the final resolution the proposed [Œcumenical Council — although it was to be held in complete accordance with ancient ecclesiastical rules — was described as a partisan, unreliable and unlawful assembly because it would consist exclusively of bishops, would be presided over by the Pope and would not be free to decide according to the Word of God.

  In its outspoken rejection of the Council the Conference was more logical than Luther and his theological counsellors. The warlike company brushed aside all the considerations of prudence and policy alleged by the more timid theologians.

  They further declared, that they would maintain the Wittenberg Concord of 1536; it was also stated in the resolutions that their theologians were agreed upon all the points of the Augsburg Confession and “Apologia”; one article only, viz. that concerning the authority of the Pope, had they altered; in other words, they had accepted the recently drafted document of Melanchthon’s, which, however, repudiated the Papacy far more firmly than the Augsburg Confession had done. (See below, .)

  Luther, though absent, had every reason to be satisfied with what had been achieved.

  Luther’s condition had meanwhile improved, and he had already returned
to Wittenberg. On the very first day of his journey he had felt some relief, and on the following day he wrote to Melanchthon to inform him of it, crowning the joyful tidings with his blessing:

  “May God preserve you all and cast down Satan under your feet with all his crew, viz. the monsters of the Roman Curia.”

  On his arrival at Gotha, the journey having proved toilsome and exhausting, and the malady again threatening to grow worse, he made his so-called “First Will.” It commences with the words: “I know, God be praised, that I have done rightly in storming the Papacy with the Word of God, for Popery spells blasphemy against God, Christ and the Gospel.” In his name they were to tell the Elector, our sovereign, and also the Landgrave, that “they were not to allow themselves to be disturbed at the howls of their opponents, who charged them with stealing the possessions of the Church; they do not rob like some others do; indeed, I see [such at least was his hope] how, with these goods, they provide for the welfare of religion. If a little of it falls to their share, who has a better right to it than they? Such possessions belong to the Princes rather than to the rascally Papists. Both sovereigns were to do confidently on behalf of the Evangel whatever the Holy Ghost inspired them to do.... If they are not pure in all things, but in some respects sinners, as our foes allege, yet they must trust in God’s mercy.... I am now ready to die if the Lord so will, but I should like to live at least till Whitsun, in order, before all the world, to write against the Roman beast and its Kingdom with a heavier fist.... If I recover I intend to do far worse than ever before. And now I commend my soul into the hands of the Father and my Lord Jesus Christ, Whom I have preached and confessed upon earth.”