Note 117 — Chapter II

Wilhelm Braun (“Die Bedeutung der Concupiscenz in Luthers Leben und Lehre,” Berlin, 1908) commences chapter ii. (“Luther’s Experience in the Monastery,” p. 19) as follows: “It is impossible to speak in the strict sense of any religious experience which Luther had in the monastery. It was no catastrophe which, with elemental force, brought about the Reformer’s change. Any dramatic element is entirely wanting. There was in his case no Damascus. It is a useless task to attempt, as has been done again and again, to determine the year and the day on which the actual reforming flame burnt up in Luther’s soul.” The author puts on one side Köstlin-Kawerau’s long descriptions of the gradual ripening of the Reformer, his early comprehension of the Pauline writings, due to his inward struggles, etc. He declares Luther’s life “cannot be written so long as the beginnings of the Reformer and the growth of his tenets have not yet been made clear. That we are here still in the dark is proved, with regard to Luther’s psychology, by his latest Biographies.” This Protestant theologian, who works more independently than others, is quite resigned, “in view of the multitude of open questions raised by Luther’s early development, to see the fruits and tangible results of Luther research ripen slowly. Our most pressing duty is,” he says rightly, “to supply the material while deprecating rash conclusions”; without an acquaintance with the theology of the Middle Ages there is no possibility of understanding Luther: “in this respect Denifle’s ‘Luther und Luthertum’ furnished a wholesome though painful lesson to Protestant theologians” (p. v. f.).