Volume 1 — CHAPTER XIV (continued 6)

The apparition of the phantom monks of Spires was one of the manifestations of diabolical animosity towards his teaching which troubled Luther greatly at that time, in his lonely retreat of Coburg. We here see the curious spirit-world in which he lived. A whole troop of fiends disguised as monks, so he had been reliably informed, had come to the Rhine at Spires at the beginning of the Diet of Augsburg and had been ferried across the river on the pretext that “they were from Cologne and wished to attend the Diet at Augsburg. But,” so the story ran, “when they had crossed over, they all suddenly vanished, so that they are believed to have been nothing but a band of evil spirits.”[1124] Melanchthon looked upon the apparition of the “monks of Spires” as the presage of a “terrible revolt.”[1125] His son-in-law, George Sabinus, wrote a description of the incident in verse. Luther himself was probably more inclined to look upon these spectres as devils, because he had personally seen an apparition of the devil at Coburg, where Satan had appeared in the garden below his window under the form of a serpentine streak of light (cp. vol. vi., xxxvi. 3).

He was at that time dominated by fear and dread, partly owing to the proceedings at the Reichstag, partly on account of the unfortunate termination of the religious conference with Zwingli at Marburg,[1126] where no understanding had been reached regarding the chief point under dispute, and partly also because in his solitude his old inward “temptations” and mental depression were again tormenting him. He was also suffering much from the result of overwork. A malady due to nervous exhaustion had, in 1527, so enfeebled him as to bring him to the verge of the grave. The malady now returned with similar, though less severe, symptoms. The spiritual desolation and fear, which were the consequence of his doubts, now again assailed him as they had done after his previous illness in 1527. Of this condition, Melanchthon, to whom it was familiar enough, wrote to Dietrich, that one could not hope to dispel it by human means, but only by recourse to prayer.[1127]

“Satan has sent me his emissaries,” Luther himself says of his sufferings; “I was alone, Veit and Cyriacus were absent, and Satan was so far successful as to drive me out of the room and force me to go amongst the people.” He compares his mental state to a land dried up by heat and wind and thirsting for water.[1128]

He observed to Melanchthon that as a rule he was weaker in such personal combats than when it was a question of the common weal, or of his public work.[1129] This may serve to correct those historians who have nothing but “praise for Luther’s assurance and cheerfulness” during the time when at Augsburg his cause stood in such imminent danger.

Luther’s letters, previous to the breaking off of his followers’ pretended negotiations at Augsburg, certainly do not breathe a spirit of interior peace. He says, for instance, to Jonas: “I am actually bursting with anger and indignation (‘pæne rumpor ira et indignatione’). I beseech you to cut the matter short and come back home. They have our Confession and the Gospel. If they wish they can accept them, if not let them depart.” Then there follows in the Latin epistle a characteristic exclamation in German: “If war is to come, let it come, we have prayed and done enough. The Lord has given them over to us as a holocaust in order ‘to reward them according to their works’ [2 Tim. iv. 14]; us, His people,” Luther concludes, “He will save even from the fiery furnace of Babylon. Forgive me, I pray, my Jonas, for spewing out all this annoyance of mine into your lap; but what I have written for you is meant for all.”[1130]

That it was indeed meant for all he showed by publishing, in 1531, in anticipation of the “war” and in order that his party might not become a “holocaust,” the “Warnunge Doctoris Martini Luther an seine lieben Deudschen.”[1131] In this work, while indulging in the most virulent abuse of the Reichstag, he declares, that in the event of a war or tumult no assistance was to be rendered to the Papists; legitimate self-defence demanded that such attacks should be met by resistance. The determination shown by Luther after the Diet of Augsburg to withstand the whole authority of the Empire is plainly manifest even now in the vehemence of the tracts which he proceeded to throw broadcast among the people. His purpose was to foster among the masses a spirit of opposition which should be a constant menace to peace.

Losing no time, he at once attacked the Imperial Abschied in a special pamphlet, “Auff das vermeint keiserlich Edict,”[1132] which immediately followed the “Warnunge” and was soon being read throughout the German lands.

It is true that at the beginning he here affirms that it is not his wish to “write against his Imperial Majesty or any of the authorities, temporal or spiritual.” Yet the whole work is nothing but a piece of frightful abuse against the decision arrived at by Charles V and against those Estates of the realm which had confirmed it. It is a mere artifice when he declares that he is merely inveighing against “traitors and other miscreants,” whether “Princes or Bishops, who work their deeds of wickedness in the name of the Emperor,” “particularly against that arch-knave, Pope Clement [VII] and his servant Campegius,” for all the while, now with satire, now in deadly earnest, he is really attacking the Reichstag and the authority of the Empire. Incidentally we may mention that, quite oblivious of the Imperial command, he had launched this pamphlet amongst the people without submitting it to the censorship, and that in the very title he speaks of the “supposed Edict,” though it was a question of an Edict issued in due form and signed and sealed by the Emperor. His distortions and misrepresentations, both of historical truth and of the Catholic doctrine as put forward at the Reichstag, are so gross that they deserve to be chronicled here.

Some of his misstatements were at once pointed out to him, in 1531, by Franz Arnoldi, parish-priest at Cöllen, near Meissen, in the “Antwort auf das Büchlein,” printed at Dresden, probably at the instance of Duke George of Saxony.[1133] “As many lies as words,” exclaims Arnoldi;[1134] “the devil, the father of lies and murderer of the human race,” was anxious to support Luther by means of the “dissensions, disagreements and revolts” which had already been stirred up, and, for this purpose, had sent this shocking booklet among the people through the agency of his “familiar and customary instrument and tool, Martin Luther, that barrel brimful of abuse and slander.” Over and over again Arnoldi expresses his conviction in the strongest and coarsest language, that “the apostate undoubtedly worked under the devil’s own direction.”[1135] Luther’s proceedings do not, however, stand out with sufficient clearness in Arnoldi’s tract; indeed, the author was not competent to grapple with the task he undertook. For instance, he fails to show by examples how Luther, all through his pamphlet, makes use of dishonest devices. Thus Luther represents the Imperial Recess as laying it down that everything which the Lutherans opposed was certain on the strength of the Gospel, or of a special inspiration received by the Pope, and that this applied even to real ecclesiastical abuses, to say nothing of certain pious customs not affecting the faith. Hoping to mislead the people, Luther tells them that whoever refuses to take Holy Water has, according to the Reichstag, fallen under sentence of death; that, according to the same source, “befoulment with holy things, pilgrimages and such-like” is a true revelation; that festivals and fasts, cowls and tonsure, payments to Rome and pious brotherhoods, come, according to the Papists, from the Gospel, in fact, constitute their only Gospel. By his “inspirations” the Pope sets himself above Holy Scripture, just as he makes himself Emperor and sets himself above the Emperor, particularly in “secular government.” In support of this last statement he cites the Decretals, though his references prove nothing of the sort but rather the reverse.[1136]

It will be worth our while to examine rather more closely Luther’s system of polemics as it appears in his work “Auff das vermeint keiserlich Edict.” Its utter unfairness was, indeed, calculated to rouse the masses to a pitch in which deeds of violence were to be expected.

Seeing that the Edict promulgated by the Reichstag merely leads people to “blaspheme God day and night,” it were better to be a Turk than a Christian under such a banner. The Edict “abuses and slanders the married state”—because it does not tolerate those priests who “live a dishonourable life or with dishonourable women.” It brings to nought the Word of God because it will not allow those to preach who teach, like himself, “that which is in accordance with faith in Christ.” It entirely degrades the authorities by inciting them only to “murder, burn, drown, hang and expel” the people. “Let no one,” he says, “be apprehensive of this Edict which they have so shamefully invented and promulgated” in the name of the pious Emperor, for in real truth it is the veriest devil’s dung.

Many other almost incredible misrepresentations accompany his stream of eloquence. Bishops, cardinals and popes were merely squandering Church property “on women of easy virtue, on feasting and debauchery,” whereas Luther and his followers employed for good purposes such possessions of the Church as they had appropriated. If they did not hold them in very high esteem this was because so much “blasphemy” still adhered to them. The monks were stifled in their holiness-by-works; they were convinced, for instance, that they had infallibly won heaven by merely donning the religious habit. The clergy were a mere herd of “hogs and debauchees.” Many of his statements were made expressly to excite the contempt and laughter of the masses. The clerical doctrine of good works, for instance, consisted in believing that whoever inadvertently swallowed a drop of water or a gnat before communion, was not permitted to approach the sacrament. According to him the clergy declared that “whoever had a smudge on his rochet was guilty of a mortal sin.” Of himself and his preaching on faith he has it, that “he insisted more upon good works than Popery had ever done”; nevertheless, he would not have men seek salvation in their works without Christ, as the Pope taught, and as the sophistical authors of the Edict, “those imperial clerks and poets,” believed.

Incidentally he seeks to lead the misguided people, who had no opinions of their own, to believe that the Catholic spokesmen who had rejected his doctrine of the slavery of the will, did not even know what the question at issue really was. They do not know “what free-will is; the Universities still disagree on the subject.... These great, rude, blockheads condemn what they themselves admit they do not understand”—as though, forsooth, a difference regarding the exact definition and meaning involved a doubt as to the existence of freedom.

In their Edict they condemn my doctrine of justification, he cries, though they themselves clearly recognise the contrary and, in the secret of their hearts, are on my side, knowing well that their boasts are but idle lies. In confident tones he asserts that he has been defamed by sophistical charges of supporting doctrines which were altogether strange to him and which he had never defended;—in point of fact, these charges were not levelled at him at all, but against the Anabaptists and others; he makes out the Edict to contain contradictions,—of which in reality not the slightest trace is to be found. The Catholic declaration that to receive communion under both kinds is in itself allowable, he distorts into a general permission. Because the giving of the chalice was no longer part of the discipline of the Church, he calls the Popes spiritual robbers of the faithful and overt enemies of their salvation. Add to this his misinterpretation of Bible passages, the pious tone artfully assumed here and there, his deliberate passing over in silence of certain questionable points, and his pretence of awaiting the decision of a general Council.

What has been quoted is sufficient to show the stratagems to which the author has recourse at the expense of truth, and the doubtful methods employed by him in his popular controversial writings. Yet this work is by a long way not the most violent and malicious specimen of Luther’s literary output.

We may wonder whether Luther, in the stress of his controversial struggle, was fully aware of the glaring dishonesty of his utterances. Certain it is that he was frequently carried away by anger and excitement. Some daring misrepresentations and inventions he reiterated so often that he may at last have come to believe them. Without some inward obsession playing upon his imagination such a phenomenon is almost inexplicable.

Although the contents of Luther’s “Warnunge an die Deudschen” and “Auff das vermeint keiserlich Edict” incited people to resist the Emperor,[1137] and thus far agreed with the demands of the revolutionary party, as made, for instance, by the Landgrave of Hesse, yet Luther was most careful to guard himself against any accusation of having preached revolt against the authority of the Empire. Previous to the publication of the “Warnunge” he had assured the Landgrave that the greatest caution would be exercised in the work, “so that it may not be stigmatised as seditious.”[1138] Later, too, he declared, quite at variance with the actual facts of the case, and notwithstanding the well-founded complaints of Duke George of Saxony and his own Elector’s disapproval of the inflammatory character of his work: “In it I have not treated of anything in a seditious manner and no one will be able to convict me of stirring up revolt thereby.”[1139] He informs the Elector, that the two pamphlets were really not “sufficiently severe” considering the tone of his literary opponents; he was “only sorry that he had not used stronger and more violent language,” whereas—the allegation is untrue, but was calculated to produce a powerful effect on the Elector—“unheard-of threats are contained in this horrible statute and sentence levelled against Your Electoral Highness and the members of your house, so that the sword and wrath of the whole Empire menaces Your Electoral Highness in life and limb, drenching Germany with innocent blood, making widows and orphans, and bringing destruction and devastation on the Empire.”[1140] He concludes: “May Our Merciful Father in Heaven comfort and strengthen Your Electoral Highness in His Word.”

The Catholic Duke George of Saxony, a clear-headed man and good politician, owing to the attack made upon him by Luther, descended into the literary arena at the time when the struggle was at its height, after the Edict of Augsburg, writing an anonymous “Gegenwarnung” against Luther’s “Warnunge” and against his “Vermeint Edict.” This was published by Arnoldi, who added an epilogue of his own.[1141] The work is written in powerful language and abounds with good arguments. The Duke commences with the plain statement, that the innovator is after nothing else than making “us Germans disloyal to the Emperor and opposed to all authority.” He points out with how great cunning and malice Luther had gone to work, telling countless lies, making a loud clamour and using endless artifices; this should be taken to heart by those who called him a living Saint and vaunted the spirit of God which spoke through him.

Having learnt the name of the author, Luther replied immediately in a booklet steeped in hate, entitled, “Widder den Meuchler zu Dresen gedrückt.”[1142] He fell upon the Duke with such insults, misrepresentations and calumnies that many Catholics, to whom Luther’s conduct appeared ever stranger, shared the opinion expressed in George’s reply, viz. that “Luther is certainly possessed by the devil, with the whole legion which Christ drove out of the man who was possessed”; if Paul was right in saying that the spirit was known by its fruits (Gal. v. 22), then Luther’s spirit was “the spirit of lies, which spoke fond inventions and untruths through him.”[1143]

Luther, in his pamphlet “Widder den Meuchler, etc.” abuses the author of the “Gegenwarnung” as an “arch-villain,” a “horrid, impudent miscreant,” a fellow who tried to deck out and conceal the “traitorous, murderous tyranny” of the Papists under the mantle of the charges of “revolt and disobedience” directed against him, Luther. He stigmatises all his opponents, more particularly the Catholic rulers, as “bloodthirsty tyrants and priests,” as “bloodhounds” who have gone raving mad from malice, as “murderers who have shed so much innocent blood and are still desirous of shedding more.” They were “worthy offshoots, who believe our teaching to be true and nevertheless condemn it, and are therefore anxious for war and slaughter.” He also declares he had never seen a “bigger and more stupid fool” than the author. “Now then, squire assassin! Speak up and let us hear your opinion. Shame upon your book, shame upon your brazen effrontery and malicious heart; how is it that you do not blush to lay bare your murderous and shameful lies before all the world, to deceive such pious folk and to praise and vaunt such obstinate bloodhounds? But you are a Papist, hence the infamies of the Papacy cling to you so that you have gone mad and spit out such shameful words.”[1144]

To describe the Catholic party at the Diet of Augsburg he makes use of the word “bloodhounds” six times within a few lines.[1145]

The haste with which he dashed off the pamphlet was only equalled by his terrible excitement. He says at the end: “I have been forced to hurry for the Leipzig Fair [the book Fair], but soon I shall lick his gentle booklet into better shape for him.... I don’t care if he complains that it contains nothing but evil words and devils, for that redounds to my honour and glory; I wish it to be said of me in the future, that I was full of evil words, vituperation and curses on the Papists. I have humbled myself frequently for more than ten years and given them nothing but good words.”[1146]

What he really should have done would have been to defend himself against the charge brought forward by George of stirring up revolt against the authority of the Empire. He not only failed to vindicate himself, but assumed a still more threatening and defiant attitude.

After contemplating these far from pleasing pictures we may be allowed to conclude by referring to one of Luther’s more favourable traits. While, on the one hand, his soul was filled with deep anger against the Papists, on the other he was also zealous in inveighing against those who were threatening the foundations of those articles of the Christian faith which he still held in common with Catholics, and which he was ever ready to defend with the fullest conviction.

He foresaw that the freethinking spirit, which was involved in his own religious movement, would not spare the dogma of the Trinity. He was painfully alive to the fact that the arbitrariness of the Anabaptists presaged the ruin of the most fundamental of Christian tenets.

In a sermon preached in 1526, speaking of the doctrine of the Trinity, he had said: “The devil will not rest until he has managed to do the same with this dogma as with the Sacrament; because we have snatched it out of the jaws of the Pope and re-established its right use, turbulent spirits now want to tread it under foot. The same will happen in the matter of this article, so that we shall relapse into Judaism.”[1147]

A dangerous example of anti-Trinitarian tendencies had shown itself in Luther’s immediate circle in the person of Johann Campanus, a native of the diocese of Liege, who had been a student at Wittenberg since 1528. This man boasted that he was the first since the days of the Apostles to rediscover the Gospel concerning the true unity or dualism of God.[1148]

The doctrines of Campanus, which the latter submitted to the Elector of Saxony, made Luther very angry; he described them as “wretched doctrinal monstrosities” (“misera monstra dogmatum”).[1149] Their author he termed an enemy of the Son of God, a blasphemer, a child of Satan.[1150] Against Campanus Bugenhagen published certain writings of St. Athanasius, with Luther’s approval, and the latter also wrote a powerful preface to the edition. He wished, as he says, to strike a blow at those Italian or German-Italian Humanists, who denied the Trinity or were alienated from Christianity. In his exaggeration and bitterness he counted Erasmus, the author of “Hyperaspistes,” among the “Viperaspides” pointing him out as one of the anti-Trinitarians who must be fought against.[1151] In the preface he vents his indignation in his usual language: The doctrine of the Trinity, like the other fundamental dogmas, was now being attacked by the “slaves of Satan”; the example of St. Athanasius, the champion of faith in the Trinity, demonstrated, how, in order to defend it, we must be ready to stand against “all the fury let loose in hell, on earth and in the whole realm”; in our “altogether distracted age” it is necessary to “set up against these devils, these Epicureans, sceptics, Italian and German monsters, Him [God the Father], Who had said to Jesus, our Servant, ‘Thou art My Son,’ and again, ‘Sit Thou on My right hand.’ Thus we will wait and see if these giants come off victorious in their titanic struggle against God.”

He recalls how, as a young monk, he had read these very writings of St. Athanasius “with great zeal in the faith,” and informs us that he had received a copy to read from his pedagogue or Novice-master, written out in his own writing. He trusts that Bugenhagen’s work will contribute to the glory of our Lord Jesus, Who, “through His boundless love for us has chosen to become the servant of us poor sinners,” and that “the Lord will soon destroy all those giants, which is what we await and pray for day by day.”

END OF VOL. II

PRINTED BY WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON LTD. PLYMOUTH