Collected Works of Martin Luther

by Martin Luther

  Luther’s mental endowments were great and unique.

  Nature had bestowed on him such mental gifts as must astonish all, the more they study his personality. His extraordinary success was due in great part to these rare qualities, which were certainly calculated to make of him a man truly illustrious had he not abused them. His lively reason, quick grasp and ready tongue, his mind, so well stocked with ideas, and, particularly, the inexhaustible fertility of his imagination, allowing him to express himself with such ease and originality, enchanted all who came into contact with him.

  Pollich of Mellerstadt, one of the most highly respected Professors of the Wittenberg University, said of Luther, when as yet the latter was scarcely known: “Keep an eye on that young monk, Master Martin Luther, he has a reason so fine and keen as I have not come across in all my life; he will certainly become a man of eminence.” Jonas, his friend, assures us that others too, amongst them Lang and Staupitz, admitted they had never known a man of such extraordinary talent. Urban Rhegius, who visited him in 1534, in the report he gives shows himself quite overpowered by Luther’s mind and talent: “He is a theologian such as we rarely meet. I have always thought much of Luther, but now I think of him more highly than ever. For now I have seen and heard what cannot be explained in writing to anyone not present.... I will tell you how I feel. It is true we all of us write occasionally and expound the Scriptures, but, compared with Luther, we are children and mere schoolboys.”

  His friends generally stood in a certain awe of his greatness, though, in their case, we can account otherwise for their admiration. Later writers too, even amongst the Catholics, felt in the imposing language of his writings the working of a powerful mind, much as they regretted his abuse of his gifts. “His mind was both sharp and active,” such was the opinion of Sforza Pallavicini, the Jesuit author of a famous history of the Council of Trent; “he was made for learned studies and pursued them without fatigue to either mind or body. His learning seemed his greatest possession, and this he was wont to display in his discourse. In him felicity of expression was united with a stormy energy. Thereby he won the applause of those who trust more to appearance than to reality. His talents filled him with a self-reliance which the respect shown him by the masses only intensified.” “Luther’s mind was a fertile one,” he writes elsewhere, “but its fruits were more often sour than ripe, more often abortions of a giant than viable offspring.” His alert and too-prolific fancy even endangered his other gifts by putting in the shade his real intellectual endowments. “His imagination,” Albert Weiss truly says, “was, next to his will, the most strongly developed of his inner faculties, and as powerful as it was clear. Herein chiefly lies the secret of his power of language.”

  To his temperamental and intellectual qualities, which undoubtedly stamped his works with the impress of a “giant,” we must add his obstinate strength of will and his extraordinary tenacity of purpose.

  Were it possible to separate his will from his aims and means, and to appreciate it apart, then one could scarcely rate it high enough. Thousands, even of the bravest, would have quailed before the difficulties he had to face both without and within his camp. The secret of his success lay simply in his ability to rise superior to every difficulty, thanks to his defiance and power of will. Humanly it is hard to understand how all attacks and defeats only served to embolden him. Protestants have spoken of the “demoniacal greatness” manifest in Luther, have called him a man of “huge proportions and power” in whose “breast two worlds wrestled,” and, on account of his “heroic character,” have even claimed that history should overlook “the vices proper to heroes.”

  Among Catholic writers the earlier Döllinger, for all his aversion for Luther’s purpose and the weapons he employed, nevertheless says of him: “If such a one is justly to be styled a great man, who, thanks to his mighty gifts and powers, accomplishes great things and brings millions of minds under his sway — then the son of the peasant of Möhra must be reckoned among the great, yea, among the greatest of men.” Upon the disputed definition of “greatness” we cannot enter here. (See vol. vi., xl., 1.) Yet, in view of the intellectual gifts lavished on Luther, Döllinger’s words are undoubtedly not far away from the mark, particularly when we consider his gigantic capacity for work and the amazing extent of his literary labours, distracted though he was by other cares.

  We have already had occasion to give the long list of the works he penned in 1529 and 1530, and we may add some further examples. In 1521, in which year he lost over five weeks in travelling, not to speak of the correspondence and other business which claimed his attention in that exciting period of his life, he still found time to write more than twenty works of varying length which in the Weimar edition cover 985 large octavo pages; he also translated a book by Melanchthon into German, commenced his translation of the Bible and his church Postils. In 1523 he produced no less than twenty-four books and pamphlets, and, besides this, his lectures on Deuteronomy (247 pages in the Weimar edition) and a German translation of the whole Pentateuch. He also preached about 150 sermons, planned other works and wrote the usual flood of letters, of which only a few, viz. 112, have been preserved, amongst them being some practically treatises in themselves and which duly appeared in print. Even in 1545, when already quite broken down in health and when two months were spent in travelling, he managed with a last effort, inspired by his deadly hate, to compose even so considerable a book as his “Wider das Bapstum zu Rom vom Teuffel gestifft,” as well as other smaller writings and the usual number of private letters, circulars, and memoranda. At the very end he told his friend, the preacher Jacob Probst, that he meant to work without intermission though old and weary, with a failing eyesight and a body racked with pain.

  These labours, of which the simple enumeration of his books gives us an inkling, even the most fertile mind could have performed only by utilising every moment of his time and by renouncing all the allurements to distraction and repose. The early hours of the morning found Luther regularly in his study, and, in the evening, after his conversation with his friends, he was wont to betake himself early to bed so as to be able to enjoy that good sleep, without which, he declared, he could not meet the demands made upon him.

  That, however, behind all his fiery zeal for work, certain moral influences not of the highest also had a share is obvious from what has been said previously.

  3. Intercourse with Friends. The Interior of the former Augustinian Monastery

  Hitherto we have been considering the favourable traits in Luther’s character as a public man; turning to his quieter life at Wittenberg, we shall find no lack of similar evidences. We must begin by asking impartially whether the notorious Table-Talk does not reveal a better side of his character.

  The question must be answered in the affirmative by every unprejudiced reader of those notes. Luther’s gifts of mind and temperament, his versatility, liveliness of imagination, easy use of Scripture and insight even into worldly matters; further his rare talent of simple narration, and not seldom the very subjects he chooses give a real worth to Luther’s Table-Talk, notwithstanding all that may be urged against it. It is accordingly the historian’s duty faithfully to portray its better side.

  The more favourable side of the Table-Talk.

  Any comprehensive judgment on the Table-Talk as a whole is out of the question; with its changing forms and colours and its treatment of the subjects it is altogether too kaleidoscopic. Again, in conjunction with what is good and attractive, frivolous, nay, even offensive and objectionable subjects are dealt with, for which the reader is in no wise prepared.

  It is necessary to emphasise the fact — which may be new to some — that to regard the Table-Talk as a hotch-potch of foul sayings is to do it an injustice. Catholics, as a matter of course, are used to finding in anti-Lutheran polemics plentiful quotations from it not at all to Luther’s credit; of its better contents, a knowledge of which is of even greater importance in forming an opinion of his chara
cter, no hint is contained in this sort of literature. Some are even ignorant that Protestant writers have more than compensated for this undue stress on the unfavourable side of the Table-Talk by the attractive selection they give from its finer parts.

  In point of fact the subject of Luther’s conversations is, not infrequently, the attributes of God; for instance, His mercy and love; the duties of the faithful towards God and their moral obligations in whatever state of life they be placed; hints to the clergy on the best way to preach or to instruct the young; not to speak of other observations regarding neighbourly charity, the vices of the age and the virtues or faults of great personages of that day, or of the past. Luther was fond of discoursing on subjects which, in his opinion, would prove profitable to those present, though often his object was merely to enliven and amuse the company.

  The tone and the choice of his more serious discourses frequently show us that he was not unmindful of the fact, that his words would be heard by others beyond the narrow circle of his private guests; he was aware that what he said was noted down, and not unfrequently requested the reporters to commit this or that to writing, knowing very well that such notes would circulate. At times, however, he seemed to become forgetful of this, and allowed observations to escape him which caused many of his oldest admirers to regret the publication of the Table-Talk. A large number of statements made by him on the spur of the moment must, moreover, not be taken too seriously, for they are either in contradiction with other utterances or are practically explained away elsewhere.

  Thus, for instance, in a conversation in the winter of 1542-1543, occur the following words which really do him honour: “God has preserved the Church by means of the schools; they it is that keep the Church standing. Schools are not very imposing as to their exterior, yet they are of the greatest use. It was to the schools that the little boys owed their knowledge of the Paternoster and the Creed, and the Church has been wonderfully preserved by means of the small schools.” — Yet, at an earlier date, he had said just the contrary, viz. that before his day the young had been allowed to drift to wreck and ruin, owing to entire lack of instruction.

  On certain religious subjects he could speak with deep feeling. Compare, for instance, what he says of Christ’s intercourse with His disciples.

  “In what a friendly way,” Luther remarks, “did He behave towards His disciples! How charming were all His dealings with them! I quite believe what is related of Peter, viz. that, after Christ’s Ascension, he was always weeping and wiping his eyes with a handkerchief till they grew quite red; when asked the cause of his grief, he replied, he could not help shedding tears when he remembered the friendly intercourse they had had with Christ the Lord. Christ indeed treats us just as He did His disciples, if only we would but believe it; but our eyes are not open to the fact. It was a real wonder how they [the Apostles] were so altered in mind at Pentecost. Ah, the disciples must have been fine fellows to have been witnesses of such things and to have had such fellowship with Christ the Lord!”

  Immediately after this, however, we hear him inveighing against the Pope with statements incredibly false, whilst, just before, in another conversation, he had introduced his favourite error concerning Justification by Faith.

  It may suffice to keep to the dozen pages or so from which the above kindlier samples were extracted, to become acquainted with the wealth of good interspersed amongst so much that is worthless, and at the same time to appreciate how lively his mind and his powers of observation still remained even when increasing years and persistent bad health were becoming a burden to him.

  As to the way in which his then sayings were handed down, we may state, that, in the winter of 1542-1543, Caspar Heydenreich, who had already officiated as pastor of Joachimstal, was present at Luther’s table and wrote down these and other remarks as they dropped from the speaker’s lips; they were afterwards incorporated in Mathesius’ collection. In the original they are partly in Latin, partly in German, and betray not the slightest attempt at polish. The reason that we thus find Latin passages in reports of German conversations is that the reporter, in order to take down more rapidly what he heard, at times made use of shorthand, then only employed for Latin. Others who reported the Table-Talk had recourse to the same device. The consequence is, that, in the recent German editions of the Table-Talk, we find in one and the same conversation some sentences in the Old German Luther actually used, and others in present-day German, the latter being merely translations from the Latin.

  After discoursing at length on the fact that schools ought to be carefully cherished for the sake of the coming generation of Church teachers, he says: “The work of the schools is not brilliant in the eyes of the world, but it is of the greatest utility.” (No. 609; then follows the praise of the old schools already recorded.)— “Wealth is the most insignificant thing in the world, the meanest gift in God’s power to bestow on man. What is it compared with the Word of God? Indeed, what is it compared with bodily endowments, or with beauty, or with the gifts of the soul? and yet people fret so much for it. Material, formal, efficient and final causes here fare badly. For this reason the Almighty usually gives riches to rude donkeys upon whom He bestows nothing else” (611).

  Luther relates incidentally that his father Hans, who died at Mansfeld in 1530, when asked on his death-bed whether he believed in the Apostles’ Creed, replied: “He would indeed be a scoundrel who refused to believe that.” “That,” aptly remarked Luther, “is a voice from the old world”; whereupon Melanchthon chimed in: “Happy those who die in the knowledge of Christ as did your [daughter] Magdalene [† Se, 1542]; the older we grow the more foolish we become.... When we grow up we begin to dispute and want to be wise, and yet we are the biggest fools” (615).

  According to Luther, God’s most grievous wrath then rested on the Jews. They are blinded, pray fanatically and yet are not heard. “Oh, dear God, rather than remain silent do Thou punish us with pestilence, the French disease and whatever other dreadful maladies the soldiers curse. God says: I have stretched out My hands; come, give ear, draw nigh to Me! [The Jews reply]: We won’t. [God says]: You have Isaias; hear him. [They scream]: Yah, we will kill him! [God says]: Here is My Son! [They reply]: Out on Him! Hence Our Lord God now treats them as we see. That is how abandoned children fare, who refuse to obey their parents and are therefore deserted by them. No one has ever written concerning this wrath of God, nor is anyone able to do so; no eloquence can plumb the depths of this wrath. O Heavenly Father — [this he said with clasped hands] — allow us to enjoy the sunshine and permit us not to fall away from the Word! Just fancy, for fifteen hundred years the Jews have groaned under His Wrath! And what will be the end of it all? Alas, there will be a dreadful scene in hell!” (608).

  Against the Jews he was very bitter. It was related at table, that, in spite of the two books Luther had recently published, the Hebrews stood in favour with the Counts of Mansfeld, and, from their synagogue, had even dared to hurl at an Eisleben preacher the opprobrious epithet of Goim. Luther replied that if he were pastor and Court Chaplain there like Cœlius, or even a simple preacher, he would at once resign his post. When it was remarked that the Jews knew how to curry favour with the great, his comment was: “The devil can do much.” On being asked whether it would be right to box the ears of a Jew who uttered a blasphemy, he replied, “Certainly; I for one would smack him on the jaw. Were I able, I would knock him down and stab him in my anger. If it is lawful, according to both the human and the Divine law, to kill a robber, then it is surely even more permissible to slay a blasphemer.” To the observation of one of his guests that the Jews boasted, that, of the two, the Christians were the worse usurers, Luther said: “That is quite true. At Leipzigk there are greater usurers than the Jews. But a distinction must be drawn.” Among the Jews usury is made the rule, whereas amongst the Christians it is repressed. “We preach against it and are heartily opposed to it; with them this is not the case” (628).

  In a similar str
ain, in the dozen pages under consideration, he touches on many other instructive subjects, whether connected with questions of the day, or with religion, or the Bible. He portrays with a clear hand the dominant idea of the Book of Job, in comparison with which all the dramatic force of the Greek plays was as nothing (616); he expounds the narratives of Christ’s Prayer in the Garden of Olives, where He suffered indescribable pains for our sins (626); in answer to a query he speaks of the anointing of Our Lord’s feet by Magdalene, and observes, referring to the censure drawn from Judas by his avarice: “That is the way of the world and the devil; what should be blamed is praised, and what should be praised is blamed” (627). What he says of the vast number of the slain, alluded to so frequently in the Old Testament, was probably also called forth by some questioner (612). Amidst this recur new invectives against the Jews and their magic; never ought we to eat or drink with them (619); also against the Turks and their bigotry and unbelief; the latter resembled the fanatics in that, like them, they refused to doubt their revelations; this he proved by certain instances (620). He speaks of the strong faith of simple Christians with feeling and not without envy (614). He extols the power of prayer for others, and proves it not merely from Biblical texts and examples, but also from his own experience; “we, too, prayed Philip back to life. Verily prayer can do much.... God does not reward it with a certain, fixed measure, but with a measure pressed and running over, as He says.... A powerful thing is prayer, if only I could believe it, for God has bound and pledged Himself by it” (617).

  Dealing with astrology, he demonstrates its folly by a lengthy and very striking argument; when it was objected that the reformation he was carrying out had also been predicted by the stars at the time of his birth, he replied: “Oh no, that is another matter! That is purely the work of God. You will never persuade me otherwise!” (625).