Fatal Discord

by Michael Massing

  In a show of obeisance, Luther prostrated himself before the cardinal. Only after Cajetan had ordered him three times to rise did Luther do so. Addressing him as “dear son,” Cajetan complimented him on his scholarship and his activities as a teacher and lecturer in Wittenberg. Once the pleasantries were over, the cardinal told Luther what was required of him—that he come to his senses and retract his errors, that he promise to refrain from committing such errors in the future, and that he avoid any activity that might disturb the Church. As he listened, Luther grew agitated, and when the cardinal finished he said that such demands could have been conveyed to him while he was still in Wittenberg and spared him the difficult journey to Augsburg. Furthermore, he said, if he were to retract anything, he would first have to be shown where he had erred.

  The papal breve had instructed Cajetan not to engage Luther in debate, but the learned cardinal could not resist. Luther, he said, had erred on two key points. The first was in his fifty-eighth thesis, where he had maintained that the merits of Christ and the saints were not the treasures of the Church and that those merits are always working grace in the inner man, with or without the pope’s say-so. This, Cajetan declared, contradicted the Extravagante Unigenitus, issued by Pope Clement VI in 1343, which plainly stated that the Church, through Christ’s suffering and sacrifice, had acquired an infinite treasure in heaven. Through the power of the keys, this treasure had been placed at the disposal of Peter and his successors to offer the faithful relief from temporal penalties (in part, through the issuing of indulgences). Luther had also erred in teaching that faith was essential to the sacrament of penance. This contradicted both Scripture and the teachings of the Church, for it placed the sinner in a position of such uncertainty that he could never be sure of the sacrament’s efficacy.

  Cajetan stated all this with the assurance of a senior prelate accustomed to making pronouncements without fear of being challenged. But it was not just his tone that upset Luther. Cajetan said nothing about indulgences—the central issue at hand. Instead, he had dredged up a papal decree so minor that it had not even been included in the Corpus Juris Canonici, the main body of canon law, but instead had been relegated to an appendix of decretals known as Extravagantes (meaning they had “wandered” outside canon law). Cajetan no doubt assumed that Luther would be unfamiliar with the decree, but during his long months of study, he had in fact come across it, and he felt it was completely unsupported by Scripture.

  Bristling at Cajetan’s manner and bursting with scriptural citations, Luther made clear that he found the cardinal’s assertions unsatisfactory and wanted an opportunity to reply. But Cajetan would not allow it. He had specifically shown Luther where he had erred according to Church law, and there was nothing for him to do but acknowledge his mistake. But Luther, while not wanting to disobey the Church, demanded to be heard. Here, in his first encounter with a senior cleric, the essential contours of the conflict emerged, pitting a hierarchical institution that, resting on centuries of tradition, demanded absolute obedience against a solitary individual who, answering to the dictates of his conscience, insisted on his right to speak.

  After that tense first session, Luther returned for a second day of interrogation. This time he was accompanied by Staupitz, who had come from Salzburg to be with him and whose presence provided much comfort. But the climate did not improve. Cajetan grew increasingly frustrated with the obstinate, Bible-quoting friar, and Luther became impatient with Cajetan’s habit, when confronted with citations he could not rebut, of retreating into grand assertions of papal authority. As the talk turned to the sacrament of penance and the place of grace in it, the exasperated cardinal pleaded with Luther not to persist in his obduracy. With the discussion deadlocked, Luther asked Cajetan for permission to prepare a written statement, and the cardinal reluctantly granted it.

  Back in his chamber, Luther wrote to his colleague Andreas von Karlstadt in Wittenberg that Cajetan was “a puzzle-headed, obscure, senseless theologian,” as fit to deal with his case “as an ass to play the harp.” By now, however, Luther had become aware of the many supporters he had in Augsburg, among them some of its leading citizens, and, thus buoyed, he wrote out his statement. Prone to rashness in speech, he would always be in greater command when writing. In fifty-six paragraphs filled with Bible passages, he explained how he was familiar with Unigenitus but had disregarded it because it seemed so contrary to the spirit of Scripture, which made clear that the merits of Christ could not be dispensed through men. “I did not possess,” he wrote, “the extraordinary indiscretion so as to discard so many important clear proofs of Scripture on account of a single ambiguous and obscure decretal of a pope who is a mere human being.” The words of the Bible are to be preferred to papal decrees and other human statements, “for the pope is not above, but under the word of God.” Citing the many places in which he said the Bible proved his theses, Luther asked that Cajetan deal leniently with him and show how he might understand these doctrines differently. “As long as these Scripture passages stand,” he wrote, “I cannot do otherwise, for I know that I must obey God rather than men. . . . I do not want to be compelled to affirm something contrary to my conscience, for I believe without the slightest doubt that this is the meaning of Scripture.”

  In declaring that Scripture took precedence over papal pronouncements, Luther was articulating a principle that would become one of his guiding ideas: sola scriptura—Scripture alone.

  The next day, Luther, accompanied by the two lawyers provided by Frederick, presented his statement to the cardinal. Cajetan disdainfully flung it back at him. He again demanded that Luther recant and admonished him in a long speech filled with quotations from Aquinas. Luther repeatedly tried to interrupt, but each time the cardinal silenced him and continued his harangue. In his frustration, Luther began to shout. “If it can be shown that the Extravagante Unigenitus teaches that Christ’s merits are the treasury of indulgences, then I will recant.” At this, the Italian courtiers snickered, and Cajetan, barely able to contain his glee, took hold of the great tome of canon law and, quickly seeking out the section in question, read aloud the passage that stated that Christ had by his merits acquired the treasury.

  Luther quickly objected. The passage stated that Christ “has acquired” the treasury of merit, he said. If he has acquired the treasury by his merits, then the merits themselves are not the treasury; rather, the treasury is that which the merits earned, namely the keys of the Church. Therefore his thesis was correct. Perplexed, Cajetan tried to move on, but Luther would not let him. “Most Reverend Father,” he said, “you should not believe that we Germans are ignorant even in philology. There is a difference between ‘there is’ a treasury and ‘to acquire’ a treasury.”

  At this outburst, Cajetan was understandably puzzled. Feeling cornered, Luther had retreated into a trivial point of grammar. Cajetan had in fact accurately summarized the sense of the decretal. But Luther had in a way been driven to his statement by Cajetan’s refusal to engage in a genuine discussion of the issues involved. Each man stood resolute in the certainty of his own correctness. As the strain between them grew, Cajetan, seeing Luther make a move to leave, shouted, “Go, and do not return to me again unless you want to recant.”

  Luther did leave. In one last bid to bring him around, Cajetan summoned Staupitz and implored him to use his influence to make Luther recant. Staupitz said that he had no such sway. Back at their quarters, Luther and Staupitz awaited further word from Cajetan, but none came. With each passing hour, their alarm grew. Augsburg was swept by rumors that the legate planned to have both men arrested. Staupitz—aware that Luther might have to act without the prior approval of his superiors—released him from his monastic vows. Staupitz further urged Luther to write Cajetan a conciliatory letter apologizing for having spoken irreverently in the heat of argument and asking to be forgiven. Finally, he imparted a valedictory word of advice that Luther would never forget: “Remember, Friar, you began this in the name of ou
r Lord Jesus Christ.”

  Along with Wenceslas Link, Staupitz quickly left Augsburg without informing Cajetan. Because of both his departure and his releasing of Luther’s vows, Luther felt that Staupitz had abandoned him. Left to face the cardinal alone, he somehow summoned the fortitude to draft the conciliatory letter. He also wrote a farewell note in which he stated that he feared any possible punishment far less than he did any errors he might make concerning faith. First one and then two days passed without any word from Cajetan, increasing Luther’s fear that the cardinal was preparing to seize him. On the night of October 20, 1518, in one of the many heart-pounding episodes that marked this phase of his career, Luther was suddenly wakened by an attendant. With the walls and gates of the city under close watch, he was led by some sympathetic citizens to a small gate that was opened for him. There, a groom waited with two horses. The situation was so urgent that Luther did not have time to dress properly, and without spurs or stirrups he mounted one of the horses and with the groom rode off.

  The horse was unmanageable and the ride wild and uncomfortable, but for eight straight hours he rode, and when he finally stopped, in Monheim, nearly forty miles to the north, he was so exhausted that he sank into the straw in the stable and fell asleep. The next day he rode on to Nuremberg, where, received by friends, he finally felt safe. While there, he saw for the first time the breve in which Leo had directed Cajetan to arrest him. He was shocked to see how serious the danger to him had been. Continuing on, Luther lost his way between Leipzig and Wittenberg, but finally, on the afternoon of October 31, 1518—the first anniversary of the posting of the Ninety-Five Theses—he was back at the Black Cloister.

  “I have come today to Wittenberg safe, by God’s grace,” he wrote with relief to Spalatin that evening, adding that he was “so full of joy and peace that I wonder that many strong men regard my trial as severe.” Of the breve he wrote that he could not believe that such a “monster” could have come from Leo, but that if the Curia had in fact produced it, “I will teach them their impudent rashness and wicked ignorance.” Luther had kept a record of the proceedings in Augsburg, and, deciding to bring his case before the bar of public opinion, he prepared a forceful account in which he assailed the cardinal, papal bulls, and the Church’s haughty refusal to engage him in a discussion of Scripture. “You are not a bad Christian because you do or do not know about the Extravagante,” he wrote, but “you are a heretic” if “you deny faith in Christ’s word.” Dismissing the Extravagante as false and erroneous, Luther declared, “I solemnly revoke it in this writing and pronounce it damned.” That, he added, “is my revocation.” Reiterating that no man is saved by indulgences, Luther wrote, “I do not care whether this statement is contrary to an Extravagante or an Intravagante. The truth of Scripture comes first.”

  Along with his Acta Augustana (as he titled his account), Luther included both the written statement he had submitted to Cajetan and the text of the papal breve, so that all the world could see “the clever tricks they used.” He denounced the “suave sycophants” who had composed the breve against him and who in Rome’s name “strive to erect a Babylon for us.” He sent the finished text to Rhau-Grunenberg to be printed.

  The printing was delayed, however, as Frederick dealt with the fallout from Luther’s meeting with the cardinal. Incensed by Luther’s unannounced departure, Cajetan had sent the elector an angry letter expressing his indignation at Luther’s bad faith and his failure to appreciate the cardinal’s fatherly interest in his case. Citing the many heretical assertions in Luther’s writings, Cajetan exhorted the elector to hand him over to Rome or, short of that, to banish him from his lands.

  Luther—distressed at putting the elector in such a position—made clear his readiness to depart from Wittenberg. Since he daily expected condemnation from Rome, he wrote to Spalatin, he was “setting things in order and arranging everything so that if it comes I am prepared and girded to go, as Abraham, not knowing where, yet most sure of my way, because God is everywhere.” He thought of seeking refuge in France, despite the obvious risks such a course would entail.

  In the last week of November 1518, Luther prepared his parishioners in Wittenberg for the possibility of his departure. There was much weeping and protest, and Luther urged them not to panic in the face of Rome’s threats. On November 28, a letter arrived from the electoral court informing Luther that he should leave Wittenberg at once. Three days later, Luther held a farewell dinner with his colleagues at the Black Cloister, during which he planned to slip away into the night. Before the meal was over, however, there arrived another letter from the electoral court asking him to delay his departure.

  Finally, on December 7, Frederick sent Cajetan his response. Despite the many charges made about Luther’s being a heretic, he wrote, he had not yet been judged one by an impartial panel. Until he was so examined, it would be appropriate neither to surrender nor to expel him. It was a critical moment: Frederick—forced to choose between the authority of the Church and his conscience as a Christian—had settled on the latter. He was no doubt motivated in part by a sense of fairness toward Luther and of pride in his university, but he may also have wanted to send the pope a message about Rome’s imperious policies toward the German people.

  With the elector having spoken, Rhau-Grunenberg began printing the Acta Augustana. Because of Wittenberg’s remoteness, information about what had occurred in Augsburg had remained scarce, and as the folio sheets came off the press, they were snapped up by townspeople eager for details about the dramatic encounter between the cardinal and the fratellino.

  19

  Uncommitted

  Having failed to silence Luther through admonition and persuasion, Rome would now try intimidation and coercion. Its main agent was Karl von Miltitz, a twenty-eight-year-old Saxon nobleman who had spent the past half-dozen years in Rome, working his way up the curial ladder to become papal chamberlain. Along the way, he had impressed Vatican officials with his knowledge of Saxon affairs, and it was hoped that he could apply it to secure Luther’s capitulation. Among the tools provided to him was the papal Golden Rose, which was the highest distinction the pope could confer and which Frederick had long coveted. By dangling this consecrated ornament before the elector, it was hoped, Miltitz could persuade him to hand over his stiff-necked subject.

  Miltitz first went to Augsburg, where many German officials remained after the close of the diet, but soon after arriving, in late November 1518, he realized that he could accomplish little there. With Frederick having returned to Altenburg, Saxony, he decided to seek him out. Leaving the Golden Rose in the safekeeping of the Fuggers, he embarked on the three-hundred-mile journey across Germany. Along the way, Miltitz gossiped about the Curia and boasted of his determination to arrest Luther. Word soon reached Luther, who realized that he could be killed at any moment. He remained defiant, however, writing to Spalatin that “the more they rage and seek my life, the less am I afraid.”

  As Miltitz traveled through the wintry German landscape, however, something unexpected happened. The whole region was aroused over Luther. In the inns where he stayed, Miltitz made a point of talking with other guests, and all seemed to have an opinion about the friar—usually highly favorable. Mention of Rome, by contrast, was met with anger and disgust.

  By the time Miltitz reached Altenburg, on December 28, 1518, he had concluded that threats would not work and so decided to use cajolery. Meeting with Frederick, he argued that the elector’s duties as a faithful Catholic demanded that he deliver Luther into the pope’s custody. Until he did so, Miltitz made clear, the Golden Rose would not be his. But Frederick held to his conviction that Luther should not be condemned until he first received a hearing before an impartial panel.

  In the face of Frederick’s intransigence, Miltitz decided he might have better luck with Luther himself, and he persuaded the prince to send for him. Despite all the negative things he had heard about Miltitz, Luther decided to go. They met in the first week i
n January in Spalatin’s quarters at Frederick’s castle. To his surprise, Miltitz was full of compliments, telling Luther that he was surprised to find that he was not the wrinkled old doctor he had expected but an energetic and engaging young man. The reason for his cordiality became clear when Miltitz described the meetings he had had on his travels through Germany. Of every five people he spoke with, he said, only two or three favored Rome. Luther, by contrast, had so much support that even if Miltitz had 25,000 Swiss soldiers at his command, he would not risk taking him out of Germany.

  Over two days, Luther and Miltitz sparred over indulgences, papal authority, and other disputed matters. To show his reasonableness, Miltitz blamed the whole affair on Johann Tetzel and his outlandish claims and said that he had summoned the Dominican to Altenburg to be reprimanded. (By this point, Tetzel had become so despised for his trafficking in indulgences that he had taken refuge in a Dominican monastery in Leipzig, refusing to leave for fear he would be assaulted.) Miltitz tried to impress on Luther the unrest he was causing and the responsibility he would bear if violence broke out. Luther—feeling vulnerable in the face of Rome’s unrelenting pursuit—expressed regret at how far the crisis had advanced. At Miltitz’s urging, he agreed to remain silent about indulgences and related matters as long as his enemies did the same. He also agreed to write a conciliatory letter to the pope. On the point that Rome deemed most critical, however—recantation—Luther held firm. Until he was shown where he had erred, he said, he would revoke nothing. In the end, the two agreed to refer the matter to the bishop of either Salzburg or Trier for arbitration. At a final dinner at the castle, the nuncio, growing emotional, embraced Luther and gave him a tearful kiss—a “kiss of Judas,” Luther would later call it. He had no illusions about Miltitz’s intentions.