Chapter I: Course of Studies and First Years in the Monastery (2)

When Luther in his later years speaks of the “sins of his youth,” this, in his grotesquely anti-catholic vocabulary, means the good works of his monastic life, even the celebration of Holy Mass. Once, however, at the end of his tract on the Last Supper (1528),[63] speaking of the sins of his youth, he seems to distinguish between the Catholic works above referred to and other faults of which he accuses himself in the same general terms.

In the young Augustinian’s Erfurt days he was prevented by the Rule from cultivating any intimate and distracting friendship with persons in the world. We only know that he, and likewise his brother monk Johann Lang, had some friendly intercourse with the Humanist Petreius (Peter Eberbach), who not long after, in a letter dated May 8, 1512, greets Lang—then already with Luther at Wittenberg—in these words: “_Sancte Lange et Sancte Martine orate pro me_.” Mutianus, the Gotha canon and chief of the Humanists, who was very unorthodox in his views, in a letter to Lang of the beginning of May, 1515, seems to remember Luther, for he sends greetings to the “pious Dr. Martin.”

His intercourse with the Humanists led Luther to make use of philology in the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures. He thus entered upon a useful, we may even say indispensable, course, in which he might have done great service. At Erfurt he continued constantly to study his copy of the Bible, which had become an inseparable companion. “As no one in the monastery read the Bible” (at any rate not with his zeal) he was able to flatter himself with being first in the house in the matter of biblical knowledge; indeed in this field he was probably the greatest expert in the whole Congregation.

In addition to this, he began to turn his busy mind to the study of Hebrew, and contrived to provide himself with a dictionary, which at that time was considered a treasure. Lang, with his humanistic culture, was able to assist him with the Greek.

Meanwhile the dispute in the Order with regard to the observance had reached a point when it seemed right to the party to which Luther belonged to seek the intervention of Rome in their favour, or to anticipate an appeal on the part of their opponents. The choice of seven houses “of the observance” resulted in Luther being chosen as the delegate to represent them in Rome. So little opposed to the Church was Luther’s theology and Bible interpretation in his Erfurt days, and so considerable was the number of brethren, even in other Observantine houses who held him to be a faithful monk, that they deemed him best suited for so difficult a mission. What Cochlæus, according to information drawn from Augustinian sources, relates later sounds, however, quite reasonable, viz. that he was selected on account of his “cleverness and his forceful spirit of contradiction,” which promised a complete victory over the other faction.[64]

Luther’s journey to Rome, according to Oldecop, was undertaken from Erfurt.

3. The Journey to Rome

The Saxon, or more correctly German, Congregation of Augustinians, at the time of Luther’s journey to Rome, had reached a crisis in its history.

Founded on the old Order of Hermits of St. Augustine, by the pious and zealous Andreas Proles (1503), and provided by him with excellent statutes intended to promote a reform of discipline, the Congregation had, since its foundation, been withdrawn from the control of the Provincial of the unreformed Augustinian Province of Saxony in order the better to preserve its stricter observance.[65] It stood directly under the General of the Order at Rome, whose German representative was a Vicar-General—in Luther’s time, Staupitz. He was simply styled Vicar, or sometimes Provincial. The monasteries under him numbered about thirty, and were distributed throughout several so-called districts, each headed by a Rural Vicar.

Staupitz’s aim was to bring about a reunion of the German Congregation with the numerous non-observant monasteries in Germany, an amalgamation which would probably have led indirectly to his becoming the head of all these communities. He had already, September 30, 1510, after sounding the Pope, published a papal Bull approving such a union, and, by virtue of the same, begun to style himself Provincial of Thuringia and Saxony. His efforts were, however, met by decided opposition within the Congregation. Certain houses which were in favour of the old state of things and feared that union would lead to a relaxation of discipline, vehemently opposed Staupitz and his plans. To this party belonged also the Erfurt monastery, and Luther himself took an active part in the position assumed by his house. The object of his visit to Halle with Dr. Nathin to see Prince Adolf of Anhalt, the Cathedral Provost, had been to obtain a “petition” in favour of the “observance.” The opposition became acute when the Bull above referred to was published by Staupitz, and we may consider the protest of the seven Observantine monasteries against the Bull as the direct cause of Luther’s despatch to Rome.

The monk, then seven-and-twenty years of age, with his written authority to act as procurator in the case (“_litis procurator_” is what Cochlæus, who was well informed on these matters, styles him), set out forthwith on his journey. It was in the autumn 1510,[66] and Luther was then lecturing on the third book of the Sentences. His absence lasted four or five months, i.e. until the spring 1511, when we again find him at Erfurt. Luther, and those who felt with him, found no difficulty in reconciling their efforts for the preservation of the observance against the will of Staupitz, with due submission to him as their Superior.

Another monk of the Order accompanied Luther to the capital of Christendom as the Rule enjoined in the case of journeys. The joy at such an opportunity of seeing the Eternal City, of quenching his ardent thirst for knowledge by the acquisition of new experiences and of gaining the graces attached to so holy a pilgrimage, may well have hurried his steps during the wearisome journey, which in those days had to be undertaken on foot. He had even, according to a later statement, made the resolution to cleanse his conscience—so frequently tortured by fears—by a general confession, indeed he once says that this was his main object, passing over the real reason.

With regard to the effect of the journey on the question concerning the Order, according to Cochlæus a certain compromise was reached, the details of which are, however, not told us. At any rate Staupitz was unable to carry out his plan and eventually gave it up. The dispute between “Observants” and “non-Observants” thus started, as we may gather from statements made by Luther to which we refer later, far from being at an end became more and more acute. It appears to have done untold harm to the Congregation and to have largely contributed to its fall.

What effect had the visit to Italy and Rome upon the development of the young monk?

Thousands have been cheered in spirit by the visit to the tombs of the Apostles; prayer at the holy places of Rome, the immediate proximity of the Vicar of Christ and of the world-embracing government of the Church made them feel what they had never felt before, the pulse-beat of the heart of Christendom, and they returned full of enthusiasm, strengthened and inspirited, and with the desire of working for souls in accordance with the mind of the Church.

With Luther this was not the case.

He was much less impressed by the Rome of the Saints than by the corruption then rampant in ecclesiastical circles.

On first perceiving Rome from the heights of Monte Mario, he devoutly greeted the city, as all pilgrims were wont to do, overjoyed at having reached the goal of their long pilgrimage.[67] After that, he untiringly occupied himself, so far as his chief business permitted, in seeing all that Rome had to show. He assures us that he believed everything that was told him of the real or legendary reminiscences of the holy places both above and under ground. He does not, however, appear to have been very careful in his choice of guides and acquaintances, for the anecdotes concerning the condition of things at Rome which he brought back with him to his own country were, if not untrue, at least exceedingly spiteful. The Augustinians whom he there met had not the spirit of the reform inaugurated by Proles. Their southern freedom and lack of restraint found all too strong an echo in Luther’s character. The general confession he had projected was probably never made,[68] for, as he asserts later, he had not found among the clergy a single suitable, worthy man. During his distracting stay in the Eternal City he said Mass, so he tells us, perhaps once, perhaps ten times, i.e. occasionally, not regularly.[69] He was greatly scandalised at much he heard and saw, partly owing to his looking at things with the critical eye of a northerner, partly owing to the really existing moral disorders.

The Rome of that day was the Rome of Julius II, the then Pope, and of his predecessor Alexander VI; it was the Rome of the Popes of the height of the Renaissance, glorified by art, but inwardly deeply debased. The capital of Christendom, under the influence of the frivolity which had seized the occupants of the Papal throne and invaded the ranks of the higher clergy, had proved false to her dignity and forgetful of the fact that the eyes of the Faithful who visited Rome from every quarter of the globe were jealously fixed upon her in their anxiety lest the godless spirit of the world should poison the very heart of the Church.

Instead of being edified by the good which he undoubtedly encountered and by the great ideal of the Church which no shadow can ever darken, Luther, with his critically disposed mind, proved all too receptive to the contrary impressions and allowed himself to be unduly influenced by the dark side of things, i.e. the corruption of morals. Subsequently, in his public controversies and private Table-Talk, he tells quite a number of disreputable tales,[70] which, whether based on fact or not, were all too favourable to his anti-Roman tendencies. He was in the habit of saying, in his usual tone, that whoever looked about him a little in Rome, would find abominations compared to which those of Sodom were mere child’s play. He declares that he heard from the mouth of Papal courtiers the statement: “It cannot go on much longer, it must break up.” In the company in which he mixed he heard these words let fall: “If there be a Hell, then Rome is built over it.” He says that he had heard it said of one, who expressed his grief at such a state of things, that he was a “_buon cristiano_” which meant much the same as a good-natured simpleton. In his proneness to accept evil tales he believed, at least so he asserts later, the statement made in his presence, that many priests were in the habit of repeating jokes at Mass in place of the words of consecration. He relates that he even questioned whether the bishops and priests at Rome, the prelates of the Curia, aye, the Pope himself, had any Christian belief left. It is not worth while to go into the details of the scandals he records, because, as Hausrath justly remarks, “it is questionable how much weight is due to statements which, in part, date from the later years of his life, when he had so completely altered.”[71]

In his accounts the share which he himself actually took in the pious pilgrim-exercises of the time is kept very much in the background.

He came to the so-called Scala Santa at the Lateran, and saw the Faithful, from motives of penance, ascending the holy steps on their knees. He turned away from this touching popular veneration of the sufferings of the Redeemer, and preferred not to follow the example of the other pilgrims. An account given by his son Paul in 1582 says that he then quoted the Bible verse: “The just man liveth by faith.” If it be a fact that he made use of these words which were to assume so great importance and to be so sadly misinterpreted in his subsequent theology, it was certainly not in their later sense. In reality we have here in all probability an instance of a later opinion being gratuitously anticipated, for Luther himself declares that he discovered his gospel only after he had taken his Doctor’s degree, and this we shall show abundantly further on. Older Protestant writers have frequently represented the scene at the steps of the Lateran in unhistorical colours owing to their desire to furnish a graphic historical beginning of the change in Luther’s mind. Mylius of Jena was one of the first to do this.[72] Mylius, in 1595, quite falsely asserts that Luther had already commented on the Epistle to the Romans previous to his journey to Rome, and adds that he had already then noted the later interpretation of the Bible text in question. It is true that his son Paul, where he speaks of Luther’s exclamation as having been communicated to him by his father, expressly states that “he had _then_, through the spirit of Jesus, come to the knowledge of the truth of the holy gospel.” But Köstlin’s Biography of Luther rightly denies this, and describes it as an “exaggeration”[73]—“error” would have been better—for the assumption to which Luther’s friends still cling with such affection, namely, that from the very commencement of his journey to Rome he had been “haunted by the Bible text concerning justification by faith,” at a time “when he still was striving to serve God by his own works,” must be struck out of history as a mere fiction.[74]

At Rome Luther’s conviction of the authority of the Holy See was in no wise shaken, in spite of what some people have thought. All the scandals had not been able to achieve this. As late as 1516 he was still preaching in entire accordance with the traditional doctrine of the Church on the power of the Papacy, and it is worth while to quote his words in order to show the Catholic thoughts which engaged him while wandering through the streets of Rome. “If Christ had not entrusted all power to one man, the Church would not have been perfect because there would have been no order and each one would have been able to say he was led by the Holy Spirit. This is what the heretics did, each one setting up his own principle. In this way as many Churches arose as there were heads. Christ therefore wills, in order that all may be assembled in one unity, that His Power be exercised by one man to whom also He commits it. He has, however, made this Power so strong that He looses all the powers of Hell (without injury) against it. He says: ‘The gates of Hell shall not prevail against it,’ as though He said: ‘They will fight against it but never overcome it,’ so that in this way it is made manifest that this power is in reality from God and not from man. Wherefore whoever breaks away from this unity and order of the Power, let him not boast of great enlightenment and wonderful works, as our Picards and other heretics do, ‘for much better is obedience than the victims of fools who know not what evil they do’ (Eccles. iv. 17).”[75] That, when in Rome, he was still full of reverence for the Pope, Luther shows in his Table-Talk, though his language on this occasion can only be described as filthy.[76]

His ideas with regard to the Church’s means of Grace, the Mass, Indulgences and Prayer had not, at the time of his return to Germany, undergone any theoretical change, though it is highly probable that his practical observance of the Church’s law suffered considerably. The fact is, his character was not yet sufficiently formed when he started on his journey; he was, as Oldecop says, “a wild young fellow.”[77]

Luther later on relates it as a joke, that, when at Rome, he had been so zealous in gaining Indulgences that he had wished his parents were already dead so that he might apply to their souls the great Indulgences obtainable there.[78] Of the Masses which he celebrated in the Holy City he assures us—again more by way of a joke than as an exact statement of fact—that he said them so piously and slowly that three, or even six, Italian priests or monks had finished all their Masses in succession before he had come to the end of one. He even declares that in Rome Mass is said so rapidly that ten, one after another, occupied only one hour, and that he himself had been urged on with the cry: “Hurry up, Brother, hurry up.” Whoever is familiar with the older Luther’s manner of speech, will be on his guard against taking such jests seriously or as proof of scrupulosity; he is, in reality, merely laying stress on the blatant contrast between his own habit and the precipitation of the Italians.

In 1519, i.e. not yet ten years after Luther’s visit, his pupil Oldecop came to Rome and set to work to make diligent enquiries concerning the stay there of his already famous master, with whose teaching, however, he did not agree. As he says in his “Chronik,” published not long since, he learned that Luther had taken lessons in Hebrew from a Jew called Jakob, who gave himself out to be a physician. He sought out the Jew, probably a German, and heard from him that “Martinus had begged the Pope to be allowed to study in Italy for ten years in secular dress,” but that, owing to the absence of any authorisation from his Superiors, his request had been refused, and Martinus, instead of being privileged to dress as a secular priest, had been obliged to retain his “cowl,” i.e. the habit of his Order. Oldecop then betook himself to the official who, as he learnt, had drafted the monk’s petition, and who fully confirmed the Jew’s statement. There is no reason for doubting these new tales,[79] notwithstanding the fact that in some of the other statements made by Oldecop, especially those in which he had no personal concern, some unintentional errors occur. According to the character given him by his editor Carl Euling, he was “an educated and honourable man, with good judgment.”[80] Notice deserves to be taken of a minor detail of the incident which confirms the truth of this account, namely, that the official, affrighted at the mention of Luther’s name, was at first unwilling to speak, and then begged that the fact of his having had dealings with him should not be betrayed. The man, who is here portrayed to the life, after he became more loquacious, also expressed the opinion that had Luther been allowed to take off the cowl he would never have put it on again; a view, of course, merely based on the later course of events. Luther’s desire for learning was so great, and his impulsive character so marked, that it is quite possible that he cherished such a project. Nor was there anything so very singular in the plan, for about that time other monks had been secularised at their own request. In a Brief dated January 26, 1517, Erasmus, who was an Augustinian canon, received permission to wear the dress of a secular priest, a fact to which Luther, on occasion, makes allusion. As such a privilege, even though restricted as to duration, would without doubt have appealed to the freedom of thought which at that time Luther was beginning to cultivate, the fact that it was refused owing to the lack of authorisation by his German Superiors assuredly cannot have sweetened his recollection of the Roman Curia; its only effect was probably to wound his vanity. He himself never speaks of this petition; he had no cause to do so, and indeed it ill agreed with the legend which, with advancing years, he began to weave about his life in the monastery. On the other hand, we have probably a distorted version of the incident in an assertion, circulated later by his opponents, viz. that during his stay at Rome he had sought secularisation in order to be able to marry.[81]

Regarding the morals of the Italians and not the Romans only, he makes many unfavourable and even unfair statements in his later reminiscences of his wanderings through their country. The only things which found favour in his eyes were, in fact, their charity and benevolence as displayed in some of the hospitals, particularly in Florence, the sobriety of the people and, at Rome, the careful carrying out of ecclesiastical business. An evil breath of moral laxity was passing over the whole country, more especially, however, over the rich and opulent towns and the higher classes, infected as they were with the indifferentism of the Humanists. Those travelling alone found themselves exposed in the inns to the worst moral dangers. We must also call to mind that, in those very years the Neapolitan, or French disease, as syphilis was then called, infested a wide area of this otherwise delightful country, having been introduced by the troops who came to southern Italy. The places where strangers from other lands were obliged to spend the night on their travels were hotbeds of infection for both body and soul.

Luther returned to Germany towards the month of February, 1511, though he was no longer the same man as when he set out. He said, after his apostasy: “I, like a fool, carried onions to Italy and brought garlic (i.e. worse stuff) back with me.” As a controversialist he declared that he would not take 100,000 gulden to have missed seeing Rome, as otherwise he would feel that he was doing the Papacy an injustice; he only wished that everyone who was about to become a priest would visit Rome.

A notable result of his stay in Italy was, that Luther, after his return to the monastery, immediately changed his standpoint regarding the “observance.” Sent to Rome for the defence of the “observance,” he now unexpectedly veered round and became its opponent. “He deserted to Staupitz” as Cochlæus puts it, evidently using the very words of the Observantines, and soon Luther was seen passionately assailing the Observantines, whose spokesman he had been shortly before. In all likelihood his changed view stood in some connection with a change in his domicile. No sooner had he returned to the Observantine monastery of Erfurt, than he left it for Wittenberg, where he was to take his degree of Doctor of Divinity and then ascend the professorial chair. Doubtless under Staupitz’s influence the fulfilment of those great hopes which he had formerly cherished now arose on the horizon of his mind. To continue to withstand Staupitz in the matter of the observance could but prove a hindrance to his advance, especially as the Wittenberg community was for the most part opposed to the observance. Nothing further is, however, known with regard to this strange change of front. It was of the greatest importance for his future development, as will appear in the sequel; the history of his warfare against the Observantines, to which as yet little attention has been paid, may also be considered as a new and determining factor in his mental career.

4. The Little World of Wittenberg and the Great World in Church and State

Since the spring 1511, Luther had been qualifying, by diligent study in his cell in the great Augustinian monastery at Wittenberg, to take his degree of Doctor in Divinity in the University of that city.

In his later statements he says that he had small hopes of success in his new career on account of his weak health; that he had in vain opposed Staupitz’s invitation to take his doctorate, and that he had been compelled by obedience to comply with his Superior’s orders. After passing brilliantly the requisite tests, the University bestowed upon him the theological degree on October 1, 1512. Luther at once commenced his lectures on Holy Scripture, the subject of this, his first course, being the Psalms (1513-16). His audience consisted mainly of young Augustinians, to whom a correct understanding of the Psalms was a practical need for their services in choir.

He displayed already in these early lectures, no less than in those of the later period, the whole force of his fancy and eloquence, his great ability in the choice of quotations from the Bible, his extraordinary subjectivity, and, however out of place in such a quarter, the vehemence of his passion; in our own day the sustained rhetorical tone of his lectures would scarcely appeal to the hearer.

The fiery and stimulating teacher was in his true element at Wittenberg. The animation that pervaded students and teachers, the distinction which he enjoyed amongst his friends, his unlimited influence over the numerous young men gathered there, more especially over the students of his own Order, no less than the favour of the Elector of Saxony for the University, the Order, and, subsequently, for his own person, all this, in spite of his alleged unwillingness to embrace the profession, made his stay at Wittenberg, and his work there, very agreeable to him. He himself admits that his Superiors had done well in placing him there. Wittenberg became in the sequel the citadel of his teaching. There he remained until the evening of his days as Professor of Holy Scripture, and quitted the town only when forced by urgent reasons to do so.

As with all men of great gifts, who make a deep impression on their day, but are, all the same, children of their time, so was it with Luther. In his case, however, the influence from without was all the deeper because his lively and receptive temperament lent itself to a stronger external stimulus, and also because the position of so young a man in a professorial chair in the very heart of Germany did much to foster such influences.

Martin Pollich of Mellerstadt, formerly Professor at Leipzig, a physician, a jurist and a man of humanistic tendencies who had helped Staupitz to organise the new University, enjoyed a great reputation in the Wittenberg schools. Alongside him were the theologians Amsdorf, Carlstadt, Link, Lang and Staupitz. Nicholas von Amsdorf, who was subsequently said to be “more Luther than Luther himself,” had been since 1511 licentiate of theology, and had at the same time filled, as a secular priest, the office of Canon at the Castle Church. Andreas Bodenstein von Carlstadt, usually known as Carlstadt, occupied a position amongst the Augustinians engaged in teaching. He had taken his degree at Wittenberg in 1510, and was at the outset a zealous representative of Scholasticism, though he speedily attached himself to Luther’s new teaching. He was the first to proclaim the solubility of religious vows. Wenceslaus Link worked at the University from 1509 to about 1516, eventually succeeding Staupitz as Augustinian Vicar-General, and, later, by his marriage in 1523, gave the last Augustinians of the unfortunate Congregation the signal for forsaking the Order. Another Augustinian, Johann Lang, who had been Luther’s friend since the days of his first studies at Erfurt, had come to Wittenberg about 1512 as teacher at the “Studium” of the Order, though he soon left it to return to Erfurt. Johann Staupitz, the Superior of the Congregation, resigned in 1512 his Professorship of Holy Scripture at Wittenberg, being unable to attend to it sufficiently owing to his frequent absence, and made over the post to Luther, whom, as he says in his eulogistic speech to the Elector of Saxony, he had been at pains to form into a “very special Doctor of Holy Scripture.”

The teaching in the University at that time was, of course, from the religious standpoint, Catholic. Its scholarship was, however, infected with the humanistic views of the Italian naturalism, and this new school had already stamped some of the professors with its freethinking spirit.[82]

The influence of Humanism on Luther’s development must be admitted, though it is frequently overrated, the subsequent open alliance of the German Humanists with the new gospel being set back, without due cause, to Luther’s early days. As a student he had plunged into the study of the ancient classics which he loved, but there was a great difference between this and the being in complete intellectual communion with the later Humanists, whose aims were in many respects opposed to the Church’s. Thanks to the practical turn of his mind, the study of the classics, which he occasionally continued later, never engaged his attention or fascinated him to the extent it did certain Humanists of the Renaissance, who saw in the revival of classic Paganism the salvation of mankind. As a young professor at the University he was not, however, able to escape entirely the influence of the liberalism of the age, with its one-sided and ill-considered opposition to so many of the older elements of culture, an opposition which might easily prove as detrimental as a blind and biassed defence of the older order.

It is not necessary to demonstrate here how dangerous a spirit of change and libertinism was being imported in the books of the Italian Humanists, or by the German students who had attended their lectures.

With regard to Luther personally, we know that he not only had some connection with Mutian, the leader of a movement which at that time was still chiefly literary, but also that Johann Lang at once forwarded to Mutian a lecture against the morals of the “little Saints” of his Order delivered by Luther at Gotha in 1515.[83] Luther also excused himself in a very respectful letter to this leader of the Humanists for not having called on him when passing through Gotha in 1516.[84] Luther’s most intimate friend, Lang, through whom he seems to have entered into a certain exchange of ideas with Humanism, was an enthusiastic Humanist and possessed of great literary connections. Lang, for his part, speaks highly to Mutian of the assistance rendered him in his studies by Luther.[85] There can therefore be no doubt that Luther was no stranger to the efforts of the Humanists, to their bold and incisive criticism of the traditional methods, to their new idealism and their spirit of independence. Many of the ideas which filled the air in those days had doubtless an attraction for and exerted an influence on the open-hearted, receptive disposition of the talented monk.

Luther’s friendship with Spalatin, which dated from his Erfurt days, must also be taken into account in this regard. For Spalatin, who came as tutor and preacher in 1508 to the Court of the Elector of Saxony, was very closely allied in spirit with the Humanists of Erfurt and Gotha. It was he who asked Luther for his opinion respecting the famous dispute of the Cologne Faculty with the Humanist Reuchlin, a quarrel which engaged the sympathy of scholars and men of education throughout the length and breadth of Germany. Luther, in his reply, which dates from January or February, 1514, had at that time no hesitation in emphatically taking the side of Reuchlin, who, he declared, possessed his love and esteem. God, he says, would carry on His work in spite of the determined opposition of one thousand times one thousand Cologne burghers, and he adds meaningly that there were much more important matters with the Church which needed reform; they were “straining at gnats and swallowing camels.”[86] The conservative attitude of the authorities at Cologne was at that time not at all to his taste. Not long after Luther writes very strongly to Spalatin, again in favour of Reuchlin, against Ortwin de Graes of Cologne, and says among other things that he had hitherto thought the latter an ass, but that he must now call him a dog, a wolf and a crocodile, in spite of his wanting to play the lion,[87] expressions which are quite characteristic of Luther’s style.

On the appearance of the “Letters of Obscure Men,” and a similar satirical writing which followed them, and which also found its way into Luther’s hands, the young Wittenberg professor, instead of taking the field against the evil tendency of these attacks of the Humanist party on the “bigots of Scholasticism and the cloister” as such diatribes deserved, and as he in his character of monk and theologian should have done, sought to take a middle course: he approved of the purpose of the attacks, but not of the satire itself, which mended nothing and contained too much invective. Both productions, he says, must have come out of the same pot; they had as their author, if not the same, at least a very similar comedian. It is now known that the real author of the letters which caused such an uproar was his former University friend, Crotus Rubeanus.[88]

On what terms did Luther stand with respect to Erasmus, the leader of the Humanists, before their great and final estrangement? As he speaks of Erasmus in a letter of 1517 to Lang as “our Erasmus,” we may infer that until then he was, to a certain extent, favourably disposed towards him. He rejoiced on reading his humanistic writings to find that “he belaboured the monks and clergy so manfully and so learnedly and had torn the veil off their out-of-date rubbish.”[89] Yet, on the same occasion, he confesses that his liking for Erasmus is becoming weaker. It was not the attitude of Erasmus to the Church in general which even then separated Luther from him, but his new teaching on Grace, the origin of which will be treated of later. It is true Luther conveyed to him through Spalatin his good wishes for his renown and progress, but in the same message he admonished him not to follow the example of nearly every commentator in interpreting certain passages where Paul condemns “righteousness by works” as referring only to the Mosaic ceremonial law, and not rather to all the works of the Decalogue. If such are performed “outside the Faith in Christ,” then though they should make of a man a Fabricius, a Regulus, or a paragon of perfection, yet they have as little in common with righteousness as blackberries have with figs”; it is not the works which justify a man, but rather our righteousness which sanctifies the works. Abel was more pleasing to God than his works.[90] The exclusive sense in which Luther interprets these words, according to which he does not even admit that works of righteousness are of any value for the increase of righteousness, is a consequence of his new standpoint, to which he is anxious to convert Erasmus and all the Humanists.

He had the Humanists in his mind when he wrote as follows to Johann Lang: “The times are perilous, and a man may be a great Greek, or Hebrew [scholar] without being a wise Christian.... He who makes concessions to human freewill judges differently from him who knows nothing save Grace alone.”[91] But this is to forestall a development of his error, which will be described later. At the time that his new doctrine originated he was far more in sympathy with the theories of certain groups of late mediæval mystics than with the views of the Humanists, because, as will appear later, he found in them the expression of that annihilation of the human by means of Grace, of which the idea was floating before his mind, and because he also discovered in them an “inwardness” which agreed with his own feelings at that time.

From Erasmus and his compeers he undoubtedly borrowed, in addition to a spirit of justifiable criticism, an exaggerated sentiment of independence towards ecclesiastical antiquity. The contact with their humanistic views assuredly strengthened in him the modern tendency to individualism. Not long after a change in the nature of his friendship necessarily took place. His antagonism to Erasmus in the matter of his doctrine of Grace led to a bitter dispute between the two, to which Luther’s contribution was his work on “The Servitude of the Will” (_De servo arbitrio_); at the same time his alliance with the Humanists remained of value to him in the subversive movement which he had inaugurated.

Mighty indeed were the forces, heralds of a spiritual upheaval, which, since the fifteenth century, had streamed through the Western world in closer or more distant connection with the great revival of the study of classical antiquity. They proclaimed the advent of a new cycle in the history of mankind. This excited world could not fail to impart its impulse to the youthful Luther.

The recently discovered art of printing had, as it were at one blow, created a world-wide community of intellectual productions and literary ideas such as the Middle Ages had never dreamed of. The nations were drawn closer together at that period by the interchange of the most varied and far-reaching discoveries. The spirit of worldly enterprise awoke as from a long slumber as a result of the astonishing discovery of great and wealthy countries overseas.

With the greater facilities for intellectual intercourse and the increase of means of study, criticism set to work on all branches of learning with greater results than ever before. The greater States now did what they had been willing but unable to do before; they freed themselves more and more from the former tutelage of the Church; they aimed at securing freedom and shaking off that priestly influence to which, in part at least, they owed their stability and their growth; nor was this movement confined to the greater States, for, in Germany, at any rate, the wealthy cities, the great landed proprietors and princes were all alike intent on ridding themselves of the oppression under which they had hitherto laboured and on securing for themselves an increase of power. In brief, everywhere the old restraints were breaking down, everywhere a forward movement of individualism was in progress at the expense of the commonweal and the traditional order of the Middle Ages; but, above all, at the expense of the Church’s religious authority, which, alone till then, had kept individualism in check to the profit of humanity.

It would indeed have been well had at least the Catholic Church at that critical period been free from weakness and abuse. Her Divine power of blessing the nations, it is true, still survived, her preaching of the truth, her treasure of the Sacraments, in short, her soul, was unchanged; but, because she was suffering from many lamentable imperfections, the disruptive forces were able to come into play with fatal results. The complaints of eloquent men full of zeal for souls, both at that time and during the preceding decades, particularly in Germany, over the decline of religious life among the Faithful and the corruption in the clergy, were only too well founded, and deserved to have met with a much more effectual reception than they did. What the monk of Wittenberg, with unbridled passion and glaring exaggeration, was about to thunder forth over the world in his mighty call for reform, had already for the most part been urged by others, yea, by great Saints of the Church who attacked the abuses with the high-minded zeal of ripe experience. Strict, earnest and experienced men had set to work on a Catholic reform in many parts of the Church, not excepting Germany, in the only profitable way, viz. not by doctrinal innovation, but by raising the standard of morality among both people and clergy. But progress was slow, very slow, for reasons which cannot be dealt with here. The life-work of the pious founder of his own Congregation might well have served Luther as an admirable example of moral regeneration and efficiency; for the aim of Andreas Proles was, as a Protestant writer remarks: “A strong and mighty Reformation”; he lived in hopes that God would shortly raise up a hero capable of bringing it about with strength and determination, though the Reformation he had in his mind, as our historian allows, could only have been a Reformation in the Catholic sense.[92] Another attractive example of reforming zeal was also given under Luther’s very eyes by the Windesheim Congregation of the Brethren of the Common Life, with whom he had been in friendly intercourse from his boyish days.

The disorders in Germany had an all too powerful stronghold in the higher ranks of ecclesiastical authority. Not until after the Council of Trent did it become apparent how much the breaking down of this bulwark of corruption would cost. The bishops were for the most part incapable or worldly. Abbots, provosts, wealthy canons and dignitaries vied with and even excelled the episcopate in their neglect of the duties of their clerical state. In the filling of Church offices worldly influence was paramount, and in its wake followed forced nominations, selfishness, incompetence and a general retrograde movement; the moral disorders among the clergy and the people accumulated under lazy and incompetent superiors. The system of indulgences, pilgrimages, sodalities and numerous practices connected with the veneration of the Saints, as well as many other details of worship, showed lamentable excesses.

Of the above-mentioned evils within the German Church, two will be examined more closely: the interference of the Government and the worldly-minded nobility in Church matters, and the evil ways of the higher and lower grades of the clergy.

Not merely were the clerical dues frequently seized by the princes and lesser authorities, but positions in the Cathedral chapters and episcopal sees were, in many cases, handed over arbitrarily to members of the nobility or ruling houses, so that in many places the most important posts were held by men without a vocation and utterly unworthy of the office. “When the ecclesiastical storm broke out at the end of the second decade of the sixteenth century the following archbishoprics and bishoprics were filled by the sons of princes: Bremen, Freising, Halberstadt, Hildesheim, Magdeburg, Mayence, Merseburg, Metz, Minden, Münster, Naumburg, Osnabrück, Paderborn, Passau, Ratisbon, Spires, Verden and Verdun.”[93] The bishops drawn from the princely houses were, as a rule, involved in worldly business or in Court intrigues, even where, as was the case, for instance, with the powerful Archbishop of Mayence, Albrecht of Brandenburg, their early education had not been entirely anti-ecclesiastical.

Another evil was the uniting of several important bishoprics in the hands of one individual. “The Archbishop of Bremen was at the same time Bishop of Verden, the Bishop of Osnabrück also Bishop of Paderborn, the Archbishop of Mayence also Archbishop of Magdeburg and Bishop of Halberstadt. George, Palsgrave of the Rhine and Duke of Bavaria, had already in his thirteenth year been made Cathedral Provost of Mayence and afterwards became a Canon of Cologne and Treves, Provost of St. Donatian’s at Bruges, patron of the livings of Hochheim and Lorch on the Rhine and finally, in 1513, Bishop of Spires. By special privilege of Pope Leo X, granted June 22, 1513, he, an otherwise earnest and pious man, was permitted to hold all these benefices in addition to his bishopric of Spires.”[94] A contemporary, reviewing the condition of the worldly-minded bishops, complains “that the higher clergy are chiefly to blame for the careless way in which the cure of souls is exercised. They place unsuitable shepherds over the people, while they themselves draw the tithes. Many seek to unite in their grasp the greatest possible number of livings without fulfilling the duties they entail and waste the revenues of the Church in luxury, on servants, pages, dogs and horses. One seeks to outvie the other in ostentation and luxury.”[95] One of the most important explanations of the fact, that, at the very outset of the religious innovation, the falling away from the Church took place with such astonishing celerity, is to be found in the corruption and apathy of the episcopate.[96]

Bertold Pirstinger, Bishop of Chiemsee and author of the lament “_Onus ecclesiæ_,” wrote sadly in 1519: “Where does the choice fall upon a good, capable and learned bishop, where on one who is not inexperienced, sensual and ignorant of spiritual things?... I know of some bishops who prefer to wear a sword and armour rather than their clerical garb. It has come to this, that the episcopate is now given up to worldly possessions, sordid cares, stormy wars, worldly sovereignty.... The prescribed provincial and diocesan synods are not held. Hence many Church matters which ought to be reformed are neglected. Besides this, the bishops do not visit their parishes at fixed times, and yet they exact from them heavy taxes. Thus the lives of the clergy and laity have sunk to a low level and the churches are unadorned and falling to pieces.” The zealous bishop closes his gloomy description, in which perhaps he is too inclined to generalise, with a touching prayer to God for a true reformation from within: “Therefore grant that the Church may be reformed, which has been redeemed by Thy Blood and is now, through our fault, near to destruction.”[97] He considers, however, that a reform of the Church undertaken from within and preserving her faith and institutions is what is needed. The deterioration was in his eyes, and in those of the best men of the day, undoubtedly very great, but not irreparable.

A glance at the work of many excellent men, such as Trithemius, Wimpfeling, Geiler of Kaysersberg and others, may serve as a warning against an excessive generalisation with regard to the deterioration in the ranks of the higher and lower clergy. Weaknesses, disorders and morbid growths are far more apparent to the eyes of contemporaries than goodness, which usually fails to attract attention. Even Johann Nider, the Dominican, who, as a rule, is unsparing in lashing the weaknesses of the clergy of his day, is compelled to speak a word of warning: “Take heed never to pass a universal judgment when speaking only of many, otherwise you will never, or hardly ever, escape passing an unjust one.”[98]

That there was, however, the most pressing need of a reform in the lives of both higher and lower clergy is proved by a glance at the state of the priesthood. The position of the lower clergy, in comparison with that of their betters “who rolled in riches and luxury,” was one not in keeping with the dignity of their state. “Apart from the often very precarious tithes and stole-fees they had no stipend, so that their poverty, and sometimes also their avarice, obliged them to turn to other means of livelihood, which ... necessarily exposed them to the contempt of the people. There can be no doubt that ‘a very large portion of the lower clergy had fallen so far from the ideal of their calling, that one may speak of the priestly proletariat of that day, using the word in both its ordinary and its literal sense.’ This clerical proletariat was ready to join any movement which promised to promote its own low aims.”[99]

The number of clergy, largely owing to the excessive multiplication of small foundations without any cure of souls, had increased to such an extent that among so many there must necessarily have been a very large number who had no real vocation, while their lack of employment must have spelt a real danger to their morals. Attached to two churches at Breslau at the end of the fifteenth century were 236 clerics, all of them mere Mass-priests, i.e. ordained simply to say Mass in the chantry chapels founded with very small endowments. Besides the daily celebration, these Mass-priests had as their only obligation the recital of the Breviary. In the Cathedral at Meissen there were, in 1480, besides 14 canons, 14 Mass-priests and 60 curates. In Strasburg the Cathedral foundation comprised 36 canonries, that of St. Thomas 20, Old St. Peter’s 17, New St. Peter’s 15 and All Saints’ 12. In addition to these were also numerous deputies who were prepared to officiate at High Mass in place of the actual beneficiaries. Of such deputies there were no fewer than 63 attached to the Cathedral, where there were also 38 chaplaincies. In Cologne Johann Agricola gives the number of “priests and monks” (though he adds “so it is said”) as 5000; on another occasion he estimates the number of monks and nuns only, at 5000. What is certain is that the “German Rome” on the Rhine numbered at that time 11 collegiate foundations, 19 parish churches, over 100 chapels, 22 monasteries, 12 hospitals and 76 religious houses.[100]

The above-mentioned Bishop of Chiemsee attributes the corruption of the priesthood principally to the misuse by clergy and laity of their right of patronage both in nominations and by arbitrary interference. Geiler of Kaysersberg is of the same opinion; he attributes to the laity, more particularly to the patrons among the nobility, the sad condition of the parishes. Uneducated, bad, immoral men were now presented, he says, not the good and virtuous.[101] Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, who did so much service to Germany, had declared quite openly the cause of the deformation of the clerical system to be the admission to Holy Orders of unworthy candidates, the concubinage of the clergy, plurality of benefices, and simony. Towards the end of the fifteenth century the complaints increased, more especially with regard to the immorality of the clergy. “The numerous regulations of bishops and synods leave no doubt about the fact that a large portion of the German clergy transgressed the law of celibacy in the most flagrant manner.”[102] A statement which was presented to the Dukes of Bavaria in 1477 declared that in the opinion of many friends and advocates of a healthy reform, an improvement in the morals of the clergy, where the real cause of all the Church’s evils lay, must be taken in hand. It is true there were districts where a blameless and praiseworthy clergy worked, as, for example, the Rhine-Lands, Schleswig-Holstein and the Algäu. On the other hand, in Saxony, Luther’s home, and in Franconia and Bavaria great disorders were reported in this respect. The “_De ruina ecclesiæ_,” an earlier work, attributed to Nicholas of Clémanges, tells us of bishops in the commencement of the fifteenth century who, in consideration of a money payment, permitted concubinage to their clergy, and Hefele’s “History of the Councils” gives numerous synodical decrees of that date forbidding the bishops to accept money or presents in return for permitting or conniving at concubinage.[103]

Along with concubinage many of the higher clergy displayed a luxury and a spirit of haughty pride which repelled the people, especially the more independent burghers. Members of the less fortunate clergy gave themselves up to striving after gain by pressing for their tithes and fees and rents, a tendency which was encouraged both in high and low by the excessive demands made by Rome. Worthless so-called courtisans, i.e. clerks furnished with briefs from the Papal Court (_corte_), seized upon the best benefices and gave an infectious example of greed, while at the same time their action helped to add fuel to the prejudice and hatred already existing for the Curia.[104]

Innumerable were the causes of friction in the domain of worldly interests which gave rise to strife and enmity between laity and clergy. Laymen saw with displeasure how the most influential and laborious posts were filled, not by the beneficiaries themselves, but by incapable representatives, while the actual incumbents resided elsewhere in comfortable ease and leisure at the expense of the old foundations endowed by the laity. On the other hand, the churches and monasteries complained of the rights appropriated or misused by the princes and nobility, an abuse which often led to the monasteries serving as homes for worn-out officials, or to the vexatious seizure and retention of the estates of deceased priests or abbots. It is clear that such a self-seeking policy on the part of the powerful naturally resulted in the most serious evils and abuses in Church matters, quite apart from the bad feeling thus aroused between the clerical and lay elements of the State.

The richer monasteries in particular had to submit to becoming the preserves of the nobles, who made it their practice to provide in this way for the younger scions of their family, and for that reason sought to prevent members of the middle classes being admitted to profession. The efforts to reform lax monasteries, which are often met with about the close of the Middle Ages, were frequently stifled by these and similar worldly influences.

In the disintegration of ecclesiastical order, the power and influence of the rulers of the land with regard to Church matters was, as might be expected, constantly on the increase.