Note 428 — Chapter V

“Werke,” Weim. ed., 1, p. 123 f., quoted by Hunzinger, “Luther und die deutsche Mystik” [”Neue kirchl. Zeitschr.,” 19 (1908), Heft 11, pp. 972-88], p. 984, who remarks: the passage shows “how great the danger was at that time of Luther becoming lost in these speculations”; this is the “most extreme mystical utterance to be found in his writings.” When he says: “What is here described as a via crucis is genuinely Neo-Platonic,” all will not agree with him. Hunzinger, p. 975, also considers it a proof of Neo-Platonism when, in his Commentary on the Psalms, Luther follows St. Augustine and urges man “avertere se a visibilibus et convertere se ad invisibilia et intelligibilia.” One is more inclined to agree with his concluding sentence: “No one will wish to assert, after taking note of this proposition, that Luther in his mystical period never left the path of the ethical.”