“Because you call yourself an evangelist and proclaimer of the Gospel,” so Duke George of Saxony wrote in his reply to Luther, “it would have better beseemed you to punish with mildness whatever abuses existed therein, and to instruct the people kindly.” On the contrary, so the Duke urges, his behaviour is anything but that of an “evangelist,” what with his passionate abuse and vituperation, and his criminal breach of the public peace and religious unity: “Where peace and unity are not, there there is neither the true faith, which indeed is not to be found in you.”
It is worth while to consider what response would have been awakened in the minds of serious Catholic visitors to Luther’s grave by his startling success.
Those who to-day claim unqualified “greatness” for Luther are usually thinking of the astonishing success of his undertaking, and of his influence and that of his labours on posterity. They boast: “He tore his age from its moorings,” “he reduced to ruins what for a thousand years had been held in honour”; “he gave a new trend to civilisation.”
A man of insight could, however, explain otherwise many of these effects.
The result of Luther’s preaching was undoubtedly very great. But, in the first place, this result was not solely due to the efforts of one man but was rather the outcome of the circumstances in which that man lived, the product of divers factors in the history of the times.
His contemporaries saw full well that Luther, with his fiery temperament, had merely assumed the direction of a spirit that had long began to pervade the clergy, regular and the secular, leading them to cast aside the duties of their calling and to seek merely honours and emoluments. They were also aware of the oppressive burden of abuses the Church had to carry and of the far-reaching disorders in public life. Society was now anxious to liberate itself from the Church’s tutelage which had grown irksome. Everyone was conscious of the trend of the day towards freedom, individuality and new outlooks. Both the Empire and the olden idea of the Christian nations united as in one family were in process of dissolution owing to political and social trends quite independent of Luther’s work. His contemporaries saw with deep misgiving how Luther’s new doctrine and his innovations generally were strengthening all these elements, and setting free others of a similar nature which could not fail to help on his work. Nevertheless the elements of unrest, without which he would have been unable to achieve anything, were not of his making.
We can still judge to-day, from the writings of those who lived at that time, of the feelings, in some cases enthusiastic in others full of fear, with which they listened to the Wittenberger as he proclaimed war on all that was obsolete, or demanded in fiery language the reform of the Church, for which all were anxious. The more alluring and seductive the very word “reformation,” the more effective was the help proffered for the overthrow of the Church under the cloak of this watchword. In the field of learning there were the humanists who had fallen foul of Catholic authority and the spirit of the past; in the lower strata of society there were the peasants who aimed at bettering their position; among the burghers and in official circles hopes were entertained of an increase of authority at the expense of the bishops, now regarded with ever-increasing jealousy; finally the nobles and knights were allured by the prospect of the success of a revolt under the banner of the Evangel which would redound to the advantage of their caste. What chiefly brought Luther’s star into the ascendant was, however, the protection he obtained from the princes. Without his Elector, without the Landgrave of Hesse, without the allies of Schmalkalden, in a word, without political authority on his side, all the force of his words would have availed nothing, or at least would never have sufficed to enable him to found a new Church. The Princes who helped to spread his teaching and reformation saw the lands and privileges of the Church falling into their lap, and what was even more, the extension of their sphere of influence to the spiritual domain where, so far, the Pope and the bishops had reigned supreme.
Thus in his success those well versed in the conditions of the times recognised for the most part only the working of natural causes.
Luther, as all were aware, shortly after having been put under the Ban was wont to say that the movement he had begun was something so great and wonderful that it could not but owe its success to the manifest intervention of God. “It cannot be,” he exclaimed in 1521, “that a man should of himself be able to start such a work and carry it through.” He was fond of saying he wished no earthly means to be used for arriving at the goal. Yet, in this very statement of 1521, for instance, he refers “to the sermons and writings” by which he had “begun” to disclose the Papists’ “knavery and trickery.” His burning words indeed acted as a spark flung on the inflammable material accumulating for so long. Anyone aware of the condition of Germany and of the artifices by which the author of the gigantic apostasy sought to consolidate his position at Wittenberg by means of the Court, and at the same time to excite the fanaticism of the masses, would feel but little impressed by Luther’s appeal to the apparent simplicity of his writings and sermons, as being out of all proportion to the unexampled success he attained.
He was indeed heard to say that he attributed everything to the words and the divine power of Christ: “Look what it has done in the few years that we have taught and written such truths. How has the Papists’ cloak shrunk and become so short!… What will it be when these words of Christ have threshed with His Spirit for another two years?” These words were, however, spoken the year after the publication of those fearfully violent writings: “On the Popedom at Rome” (against Alveld), “To the German Nobility,” “On the Babylonish Captivity,” “On the Freedom of a Christian Man” and “Against the Bulls of End-Christ.” When uttered, his seductive writing “On the Monastic Vows” was already there to unbar the gates through which crowds of doubtful helpers would flock to join him.
Catholic polemics of that day, in order to demolish the objection arising from the marvellous spread of Lutheranism, set themselves to examine the relation between the new dogmas and their dissemination. Luther’s doctrine, as they frequently pointed out, was bound to secure him a large following.
In this particular it was easy enough to prove that it was not merely the “greatness” of the man which drew such crowds to him. The persistent vaunting of the universal priesthood, the right bestowed on all of judging of Scripture, the abandoning of the outward and inward Word to the feelings of the individual, the sweet preaching of a faith which “no sin could harm,” the denial of the merit of good works, the assertion that, not they, but only faith was required for salvation, and, not to speak of many other points, his contemptuous and unjust strictures on the Church and her doings, all this — human nature being what it is — could not fail for a time to help the cause of the New Evangel of freedom, and, under the conditions then prevailing, to assure it a real triumph.
This Evangel came upon Germany at a time when the Church’s life was in a state of decay, when the adequate religious instruction of the young was neglected by the Church, and when the dioceses were for the most part governed by younger sons of princely or noble houses, who were quite unfitted for their spiritual work. It is noteworthy that the defenders of the Church had very little good to say of the bishops.
Of the new preachers and promoters of Luther’s Reformation a large number was composed of apostate clergy and escaped monks and nuns whom Luther had won over. It was plain enough that it was no such “great and immortal” work as he claimed, to have attracted such people to his party thanks to theories which, while seeming to calm the conscience, really flattered the senses, for instance, by what he said on celibacy, vows and priestly ordination. “Do not seek to deny that you are a man, with flesh and blood; hence leave God to judge between the valiant angel-like heroes [those religious who were faithful to the Church] and the sickly, despised sinners [whom they upbraided as apostates].… Chastity is beyond healthy nature, let alone sinful nature.… There is no enticement so bad as these comman
ds [of celibacy] and vows, forged by the devil himself.” Youthful religious were to be dragged out of their monasteries as quickly as possible, and priests were to learn that theirs was but a “Carnival ordination.” “Holy Orders are all jugglery and in God’s sight they have no value.”
Hence contemporaries, considering events from the standpoint just described, must needs have told themselves that Luther’s success, unexpected and astounding as it was, could not after all be laid down to the “greatness” of any one single man.
What, moreover, must have been the thoughts of the observer regarding the permanence of Luther’s work who lived to see the master’s own Lutheranism falling to pieces, according to the statements of his most zealous admirers, as soon as he was dead? Luther himself almost seemed ready to ring down the curtain on the premature termination of the great tragedy of which he could not but despair.
In the very year of Luther’s death Cochlæus passed in review the havoc wrought in the Church, embodying his observations in the work he had just finished and was to publish three years later, viz. his “De Actis et Scriptis Lutheri.”
These pages seem still to tremble with the excitement of the terrible period they describe. It is impressive to hear this voice of the Catholic spokesman coming as it were from Luther’s tomb and telling of the devastation of the storm raised by the Wittenberg professor. As Kawerau says, Cochlæus himself could point to a life “which, year after year, ever since 1521 had been devoted feverishly to the ecclesiastical debates of the day in which he was so keenly concerned and consumed in ceaseless controversy [with Lutheranism].” The grey-headed scholar, “illuminated and inspired as he was by the truest spirit of Christianity,” had once in 1533 declared: “Whatever I write now or at any time against Luther, I write for the glory of God, the service of the truth and the good of my neighbour. For I believe firmly that Luther is a malicious liar, heretic and rebel and I can find nothing but this in his books and in my own conscience.… I am not, however, bitter or hostile to Luther personally, but merely to his wickedness and vices. Were he to desist I would gladly go and fetch back so learned a man from Rome or Compostella and give him my love and my service.”
Cochlæus calls to mind first of all the course of public events in Germany. At Ratisbon, where he was staying, the Diet of 1546 was opened with great pomp by Charles V at the very time Cochlæus was penning the Preface to his work. He relates how the same Kaiser had declared at the Diet of Worms in 1521 in the edict against Luther that “his writings contain hardly anything but food for dissensions, schism, war, murder, robbery, conflagrations, and a great apostasy of the Christians.” “The times are grave and perilous,” so his warning had run: “Oh, that they may not mean the disgrace of our country!” Now, however, Cochlæus sees with grief that “Luther has brought nearly all Germany into shame and confusion.” “Our fatherland has lost all its former beauty,” he exclaims, “and its Imperial power is shattered.” He trembles at the sight of the dangers within and without.
“The mischief caused by Luther’s revolt is so great that it is out of comparison worse than the effects of even the most unhappy war. Never indeed in the whole of history have the miseries of war caused such injury to Christendom as the blows dealt us by this heresy.” In its consequences it was worse than the triumphal progress of Arianism in early Christian times. He instances the Peasant Rebellion and the frightful destruction that followed in its wake; also the machinations of political alliances, hostile alike to the Church and the State, the loosening of the common bonds that unite the Christian peoples, and the decline of the authority of the rulers, which was “attacked and dragged in the mire by Luther and thus rendered contemptible in the eyes of the masses.”
Even more loudly does he bewail the ruin of so many immortal souls; owing to Luther, countless numbers have been torn from the bosom of the Mother Church, founded by Christ, and set on the road to eternal damnation. No tears could suffice to bewail this the greatest of all misfortunes. Piety has declined everywhere and the new preaching of faith alone has lamed the practice of good works. “From every class and calling the former zeal for good works has fled.” He also ruthlessly describes the effect of Luther’s doctrines and example on Catholics. “The clergy no longer do their duty in celebrating the Sacrifice of the Mass and reciting the Church’s office and Hours; to the monks and nuns their Rule is no longer as sacred as it used to be. The charity of the rich, the rulers, and the great has dried up, the people no longer flock to divine worship, their respect for the priesthood, their benevolence and pity for the poor are coming to an end. Discipline and decorum are tottering everywhere and have fared worst of all in our family life. We see about us a dissolute younger generation, which, owing to Luther’s suggestions and his constant attacks on all authority ecclesiastical and secular, has cast off all shame and restraint. On anyone admonishing them they retort with a falsely interpreted Bible text, an invention of pure wantonness, such as ‘increase and multiply,’ etc. So far have things already gone that virginity and continence have become a matter of disgrace and suspicion.” In even darker colours does he paint the sad picture of the moral decline among the Protestants: Morals are trampled under foot, reverence and fear of God have been extinguished, obedience has become a byword, boldness in sinning gains the upper hand and “freedom” of the worst kind reigns supreme.
Full of grief he comes at last to speak of the man who was responsible for all this misery. Bugenhagen had boasted of Luther’s prophecy that, if in life he had been the Papacy’s plague, in death he would be its death. But the Papacy still lives and will continue to live because Christ’s promise stands. “Luther, however, was the plague of our Germany during his lifetime … and, alive or dead, he was his own plague and destruction.”
“Woe,” so he concludes, “to his godless panegyrists who call evil good and good evil, and confuse darkness with light, and light with darkness!”
3. Luther’s Fate in the First Struggles for his Spiritual Heritage
Luther’s reputation was to suffer a sudden and tragic blow owing to the success of the Imperial arms in the War of Schmalkalden.
Hardly had the grave closed over him than, in the following year, after the battle of Mühlheim on April 24, 1547, won with the assistance of Duke Maurice of Saxony, the Kaiser’s troops entered Wittenberg. A notable change took place in the public position of Lutheranism when the vanquished Elector, Johann Frederick, was forced to resign his electoral dignity in favour of Maurice and to follow the Emperor as a captive. His abdication and the surrender of his fortresses to the Emperor was signed by him on May 19 in Luther’s own city of Wittenberg. The Landgrave of Hesse too found himself forced at Halle to submit unconditionally to the overlords of the Empire and to see Duke Henry of Brunswick released from captivity and honoured by the Emperor in the same city.
The dreaded Schmalkalden League, Luther’s shield and protection for so many years, was, so to speak, annihilated over night.
Luther’s theological friends were also made to feel the consequences. Flacius, after the taking of Wittenberg, fled for a time to Brunswick. George Major, Luther’s intimate friend and associate, also escaped, but returned later. Amsdorf was obliged to give up the bishopric of Naumburg of which he had assumed possession, hand it over to the lawful Bishop Julius von Pflug, and hasten to Magdeburg, the new stronghold of the Lutheran spirit.
It is true that Luther’s cause soon recovered, at least politically speaking, from the defeat it had suffered in the War of Schmalkalden; the wounds inflicted on it in the theological quarrels among themselves of its own representatives were, however, more deep and lasting. Here Luther’s prediction was indeed fulfilled to the letter, viz. that his pupils would be the ruin of his doctrines.
The Osiandric, Majorite, Adiaphoristic and Synergistic Controversies
The theological warfare which followed on Luther’s decease opened with the Osiandric controversy which arose from the modifications of Luther’s idea of justification intr
oduced subsequent to 1549 by Andreas Osiander, pastor and professor of theology at Königsberg. After Osiander’s death in 1552 the struggle was carried on by the Court preacher Johann Funk who held like views. Johann Brenz also defended Osiander’s opinion, whereas Melanchthon, Flacius Illyricus, Johann Æpinus, Joachim Westphal, Joachim Mörlin and others were opposed to it. Duke Albert of Prussia was for a long time a patron of Osiander’s doctrine, but was persuaded later to alter his views, and his Court preacher Funk did likewise. The old Lutherans, however, continued the struggle against Funk and, in 1566, owing to the charges brought against him by the Estates of abusing his position and of having violently championed “heretical doctrines,” he was beheaded. Osiander, however, the author of this new “heresy,” had himself been by no means wanting in Lutheran zeal where Catholics were concerned. Already in 1549 he wrote a tract against the Interim entitled: “On the new Idol and Antichrist at Babel,” in which he lashed those who “were sneaking back to Antichrist under cover of the Interim.”
Collected Works of Martin Luther Page 890
