Collected Works of Martin Luther

by Martin Luther

  Yet in his attitude to the olden Church this same man, who otherwise shows himself so instable, knows how to display such defiant obstinacy that Protestants who look too exclusively at this side of his character have even been able to speak of his inflexible firmness. What steels him here is his ardent belief in his calling.

  The idea of his vocation ever serves to help him over his difficulties. An instance of that marvellous elasticity of mind with which he seizes on his calling to pacify both himself and his friends, is to be found in an intimate conversation held after the “greatest of his temptations” in 1527, and recorded by Bugenhagen. After Luther had declared that he saw nothing to regret in his severity towards his foes he went on to speak, with tears in his eyes, of the sects that would spring up and which his friends would not be able to withstand. He proceeded to admit that “he was sorry if he had given scandal by his buffoonery and by his vituperation, but that the cause could not be displeasing to the pious, for he loved mankind [this is Bugenhagen’s remark] too much and was an enemy to all hypocrisy.” “God had not ordained” that he, so Luther here declares, “should appear as a stern and austere figure. The world finds no sins (‘crimina’) wherewith to reproach me, but, because it follows its own judgment, it takes great offence at me, as I see. Possibly,” so he goes on, “God wishes to delude the blind and ungrateful world (‘mundum stultum facere’) so that it may perish in its contempt and never see what excellent gifts God has bestowed on me alone out of so many thousands, wherewith I am to minister unto those who are His friends. Thus the world, which refuses to acclaim the word of salvation which God sends through me, will find in me, according to the divine counsel, what offends it and is to it a stumbling-block. For this God is answerable; for I shall pray that I may never be to any a cause of scandal by my sins.”

  “This I learnt with wondrous joy from his own lips,” adds Bugenhagen. Others will, however, find Luther’s enigmatical train of thought more difficult to understand.

  The above are but a few instances of an abnormal turn of mind; of the like the present work contains others in abundance. Anyone desirous of penetrating further into the folds and windings of a mind so involved should study Luther’s letters, particularly those dating from 1517 to 1522 and from 1540 to 1546. He will there find much of the same sort, which can hardly be termed either sane or reasonable; but even the passages we have quoted suffice to reveal in him an uncanny power of self-deception such as few historic characters display. Many a great genius has betrayed psychological peculiarities, indeed it seems at times to be the fate of those endowed with eminent gifts to overstep the boundaries and to venture further than the reason and reflection of thinking men can follow. That Luther carried certain mental peculiarities to their utmost limit is plain from what we have seen, nor can it be right to close one’s eyes to the fact.

  Luther showed the defects of a “genius” not least in his vituperation and in the other far from commendable methods he used in his polemics. It was precisely these defects which led Erasmus to question whether he was quite in his right mind. “Had a man said this in the delirium of fever, could he have uttered anything more insane?” Thus Erasmus in his “Hyperaspistes.” He often speaks of his opponent’s feverish fancies. He denies that his spirit is a “sober” one, and maliciously supposes that he was drunk. In spite of his usual moderation and reticence, the scholar, when dealing with Luther’s assertions, constantly uses such words as “delirus,” “insanus,” “lymphatus,” “sine mente,” “mera insania.” On one occasion he says of the “devils, spectres, ‘lamiæ,’ ‘megæræ’ and other more than tragic words” which Luther was addicted to flinging at his foes, that such a habit was a “sign of coming madness” (“venturæ insaniæ præsagia”); elsewhere he views with misgiving the sort of compulsion (“non agere sed agi”) which urges Luther to abuse all who differ from him.

  In other circles, too, the opinion prevailed that Luther was suffering from some sort of mental disease. We may recall the remarks of Boniface Amerbach, who was not unkindly disposed to Luther, in sending the latter’s tract of 1534 against Erasmus, to his brother Basil (above, vol. iv., ).

  In Luther’s immediate surroundings we also find traces of a fear that the Master stood in some danger of losing his mind.

  A thoroughgoing investigation of the matter by some unbiassed expert in mental diseases would, however, be of immeasurably greater value than the mere opinions of contemporary admirers and opponents. But the difficulty is to find an impartial expert. Protestant theologians will not easily be found ready to agree with Catholic writers regarding the process which made of a quondam monk the founder of the Protestant faith, or to see Luther’s scruples in quite the same light. Entire agreement would seem for ever excluded, owing to differences of outlook so deep-seated. If, to some, Luther appears as a “new Paul,” and as one who removed every obstacle to free religious research, then the view they take of his inward change and later spiritual life must perforce be coloured to some extent by this idea.

  Nor must the fact be lost to sight that many of the apparently suspicious symptoms were, in Luther’s case, quite wilful. Thus his outbreaks of fury against Popery, the psychological origin of which we have already described (vol. iv., ff.), are largely an outcome of the feelings of hatred he deliberately encouraged, and a reaction against his earlier and better convictions. Again, self-deception and lack of self-control, i.e. moral elements, played a great part in him. Since, however, even at the outset of his career he already displayed these moral defects, they must be carefully distinguished from his morbid states and no less from his doubts and remorse of conscience.

  At the very least, however, we should give to the purely historical facts such unbiassed, broadminded recognition as that editor of the great Weimar Edition of Luther’s works (see above, ), who, as we heard, spoke of the “pathological” explanation of certain acts and statements of Luther’s as the only one possible. The word “pathological,” and other similar ones, had, however, been used even earlier, and, that, even by non-Catholics, as descriptive of certain of Luther’s states, nor was the remark entirely new, that in many a great genius we find something pathological.

  5. Luther’s Psychology according to Physicians and Historians

  It is not our intention in the following to criticise the opinions quoted; they have been collected chiefly with the object in view of providing those qualified to judge with matter on which to exercise their wits. Nevertheless, we have no intention of depriving ourselves of the right of making occasional observations. Thus Hausrath’s opinion, to be given immediately, calls for some revision, as will be clear even to the lay mind. No disturbance of Luther’s intellectual functions or mental malady amounting to actual “psychosis” can be assumed at any period of his life. This, however, is a quite different thing from admitting that his case was not entirely normal.

  “The psychology of men, who, like him, are engaged in such a struggle,” rightly remarks a Protestant theologian, “is exceedingly complicated. Discrepancies are to be met with side by side, and, according to the circumstances, now one element now another comes to the fore.” In Luther’s case the co-existence of bouts of illness with the unfettered use of his powers, of fundamental delusions with true though misapplied ideas, of frivolity, sensuality and temptations to despair, and, on the top of all this, the contradictory statements he himself makes about himself, i.e. — he, the only man who could have told us how the facts really stood — all these circumstances render any sure conclusion extremely difficult.

  No Protestant hitherto has used terms so strong to describe Luther’s overwrought nerves as his most recent biographer, Hausrath, the Heidelberg theologian, in his first edition of his “Life of Luther.” His assertions do undoubtedly err on the side of exaggeration. For instance, when he says, that, owing to his illness in the monastery Luther had more than once been in danger of sinking into “the abyss of religious melancholia.” Erroneously regarding the “temptations” — in re
ality mere remorse of conscience — from which Luther suffered, as the outcome of his morbid bodily and mental state, he even ventures to hint expressly at the nature of the malady: “The regularity with which the attacks return during all the years spent in the monastery and after he had commenced his public career, leads us to infer a recurrent psychosis, the attacks of which became less frequent after his marriage, but never altogether ceased.”

  In recent times, apart from Hausrath, two other writers, both of them non-Catholics, have looked more closely into Luther’s pathology. Dr. Berkhan in an article in the “Archiv für Psychiatrie” entitled “Die nervösen Beschwerden Luthers,” and Gustav Kawerau in the study “Etwas vom kranken Luther,” printed in the “Deutsch-evangelische Blätter.” The two Protestants, Küchenmeister and Ebstein, who also dealt with Luther’s maladies, failed to discuss the psychological phenomena here under consideration; what interested them was more Luther’s ordinary illnesses though, it is true, they bring forward various data which may prove of interest here; these, nevertheless, must be cautiously used, as the authors are somewhat deficient in historical criticism. Older writers who treated of Luther’s illnesses, e.g. the Protestant pastor Friedrich Siegmund Keil, Garmann, the Chemnitz physician and an anonymous writer in the “Neues Hannöversche Magazin” are even less satisfactory.

  Of the two first mentioned, Kawerau supplies a careful review of those statements of Luther’s which concern his nervous maladies, not, however, carrying them back to his earliest years. He gives us the picture “of a man occupying a most responsible position, ever in friction with his surroundings” and “in a state of nervous overstrain due to too much work of body and mind.” With these words he seeks to pave the way for a psychological appreciation of all that, as he says, “so often appears repulsive or regrettable in Luther, for instance, his waxing irritability, his unbridled anger, the excesses he commits by word and pen, and his sudden changes of mood.” He even opines that “the spiritual temptations may be accounted for by his all-too-great labours and anxieties, and their effect upon his constitution”; his conclusion is that a fuller knowledge of Luther’s ailments “helps us to understand him aright and better to appreciate his greatness.”

  The other writer, Dr. Berkhan, a Brunswick physician, had, previous to Kawerau, attempted to lift the veil which shrouds the “anomalies” presented by Luther; he did not, however, properly sift his materials, nor did he consider the various symptoms in their complexus. He comes to the conclusion that some of Luther’s troubles, for instance, his “hallucinations,” “must be ascribed to an affection of the nerve centres.” These “hallucinations” he attributes to “fluxions” due to overwork. Such hallucinations, according to him, were, in Luther’s case, of two kinds; some optical and some auditory. They were induced, so he thinks, not only by the permanent excitement of Luther’s life, but also by “his doubts and controversies.” What Luther terms temptations Berkhan also regards as, in the main, mere psychic depression bound up with nerve disturbance. In view of certain other symptoms he diagnoses a case of præcordial trouble.

  After Kawerau and Berkhan we must refer to P. J. Möbius, the Leipzig expert in mental ailments. He is known in connection with his highly original studies on Rousseau, Goethe, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche; on Luther he has not expressed his views at any great length, but, such as they are, they are drastic enough.

  Möbius points out that “in Luther’s case the pathological element is of the utmost significance.” “Even Luther’s recent biographer, Professor Hausrath,” he writes, “spoke of ‘recurrent psychosis.’ According to what Kraepelin now says, it would be better to term it a mild form of maniacal depression. The main point is that Luther, from his youth upwards, suffered at times from the dumps without any apparent cause, was oppressed with gloomy forebodings, sadness, fear and despair. The melancholic phases may easily be traced throughout Luther’s life; probably, too, the periods when he felt his power and gave vent to his boundless wrath should be regarded as morbid and maniacal. We may take it that, in Luther’s case, the morbid mood made the illness, and that his fantastic interpretation of certain incidents — combats with the devil, intercourse with spirits and Divine inspirations — are to be explained, not as delusions, but as the explanations he sought in the ideas then current.”

  “The present writer,” continues Möbius, “does not in the least believe that Luther suffered from hallucinations. It seems always to have been a case of placing a superstitious interpretation on real phenomena. The black pig in the garden and the black dog on his bed, were, most likely, of flesh and blood. In many instances (the wrestling with the demon, and so forth) the language is simply figurative. With Luther the pathological element made history. His morbid fear led him to brood over justification; the sense of his own utter weakness convinced him that man can do nothing of his own strength and by his own works, and that the only possible course is to stretch out yearning hands and seize on Grace. In his melancholic state he fell in with the doctrine of justification by faith alone of St. Paul (who himself suffered from the same ailment [!]), and, around this centre, his theological ideas grouped themselves, and, with ‘sola fides’ as his war-cry, he proceeded to do battle with the ancient Church. Thus, from the monk’s melancholia, sprang the Reformation.”

  Proceeding on similar lines, Professor Willy Hellpach, of Carlsruhe, observed in the Berlin “Tag” (“Psychologische Rundschau,” Jan. 18, 1912): “Several years ago the Jesuit scholar, Pater Grisar, published in the ‘Kölnische Volkszeitung’ an article entitled ‘Ein Grundproblem aus Luthers Seelenleben.’ Of this work Möbius said, and quite rightly, that it was the best account so far given of the pathology of Luther’s mind. That Luther’s mind was at times morbidly depressed without any reasonable cause has never been doubted by any who knew him, even when they happened to be Evangelicals. Hausrath, in his biography, had spoken of ‘recurrent psychosis’ a statement, which, it is true, he modified later on account of the storm of indignation which broke out among those queer folk who seem to look upon a gifted man’s malady as a worse blot than the greatest crime.” Hellpach points out that laymen are wrong when they imagine that “psychosis” involves “an absolute derangement of the power of thought.”

  Wilhelm Ebstein, a Professor of Medicine, recently, and not without reason, registered a protest against the view of those who maintain that Luther was actually out of his mind. Himself interested in the treatment of cases of gout and calculus, he comes to the conclusion that Luther’s chief sufferings were caused by uric acid and faulty digestion, the two together constituting the principal trouble, and being accompanied, as is so often the case with gout, by “neurasthenic symptoms which at times recall psychosis”; his “hypochondriacal depression which passed all bounds” was entirely due to these ailments. Not only these “nervous symptoms,” but also the other ailments of which Luther had to complain, his palpitations, headaches, dizziness, sore-throat, defective hearing, impaired digestion, fainting fits, and particularly his oppression in the region of the heart and the feelings of fear which accompanied it, all these were, according to Ebstein, due more or less to gout and the other troubles resulting from the presence of uric acid.

  There can be no doubt that this learned physician gives us many useful observations, but he has not himself selected his historical matter and carefully tested its source. Much of it comes from Küchenmeister, whereas, at the present stage of research, a medical opinion, to carry real weight, must necessarily enter at greater length into the facts more recently brought to light. Some of Küchenmeister’s opinions have, however, been revised by Ebstein, and not without good reason.

  Among those of Ebstein’s statements that must be characterised as historically untenable are the following, viz. that Luther’s hallucinations and visions occurred “almost without exception at a time when he was yet under the influence of the asceticism of the monastery, with its night-vigils, spiritual exercises and strenuous mental labours,” i.e. in his Cathol
ic days; likewise, that, in the monastery, he had striven “most diligently to outdo the other monks in the matter of fasting, watching,” etc.; that, in later days, he had “always been able to master his morbid states, and to bid defiance to his moods of depression,” and that these latter had “in no way detracted” from his mental labours; that his method of controversy had never been a morbid one, as Küchenmeister had asserted on insufficient grounds, and that, when even Luther referred to mental sufferings and temptations, his “bodily ailments” always occupied the first place and constituted the leading factor.

  His theory that Luther suffered from gout is also eminently doubtful.

  Of any symptoms of gout, for instance, of gouty swellings, we hear nothing from Luther though he was wont to expatiate on his complaints, and though, according to Ebstein, he possessed a “rare knowledge of medical matters.” Nor did Luther permanently suffer from sluggishness and constipation of the bowels; we hear of it only at Worms and at the Wartburg in 1521, and then again in 1525. To put down “his moodiness, melancholia and depression” as Ebstein terms the remorse of conscience experienced in 1528 at the time of his greatest “temptations” to an attack of piles, described by Luther in a letter to his friend Jonas on Jan. 6, 1528, is to misapprehend the facts of the case; for, actually, it was three years before this that Luther had for a while been troubled with hæmorrhoids, as is evident both from the text of the inquiry made by Jonas (“ante triennium”), and from Luther’s answer: “My illness was as follows,” etc.

  Moreover, Luther was not suffering from stone in 1521, and it is only in 1526 that we hear him speaking of it for the first time; after this the malady was for a long time in abeyance, until, between 1537 and 1539, it once more attacked him severely; it is again referred to in 1543.