Chapter VI: The Change of 1515 in the Light of the Commentary on Romans (1515-16) (3)

Luther, when opposing the good tendency, attacks only the Scholastics, not the mystics; he declares that all the errors on grace and nature which he has to withstand entered through the hole which the Scholastics made with their “syntheresis.”[610] One thing is certain, viz. that he was wrong in foisting his view of the absolute corruption of the human race on the mystics; “he could not,” the Protestant theologian above referred to admits, “quite truthfully invoke the support of the mystics for his assertions.”[611] The doctrines which Tauler advances in the very context in which his blame of the self-righteous occurs, viz. that there is no righteousness without personal acts, that even the sinner can do what is good, that he, more especially, must prepare himself for the grace of justification, pass unheeded in Luther’s exposition of the Epistle to the Romans. “Luther overlooked this series [of testimonies given by Tauler]; only the statements regarding the righteous by works made any impression on him; his polemics are directed against those who serve two masters, who wish to please God and the world and to do great things for God’s sake; these are the people who are at heart satisfied with themselves.”[612]

Tauler repeatedly uses the word “spirit” for man’s native good tendency and activity. This expression Luther simply takes to mean the Divine Spirit, which must be infused into man on account of his natural helplessness. The theologian mentioned above hero also admits: “Much that Tauler intended to refer to the human syntheresis, or the created spirit, Luther has ascribed to the uncreated Divine Spirit, who imparts grace and faith”;[613] on the other hand we may allow with the same author that Luther was probably misled by the “hermaphrodism of Tauler’s teaching, according to which the spirit longs for a metamorphosis”; Tauler’s lively description of the supernatural being and life of the soul sometimes throws into the background the independence of its action in the natural sphere, though the outcome is not really an “hermaphrodite” in the strict sense of the word. It is also true that “Luther overlooked the other side, namely, the Divine immanence which all those mystics teach with equal distinctness,[614] or at least he did not make sufficient account of it.

_Selfishness and the “Theology of the Cross”_

Another important point on which Luther deviated from true mysticism has now been brought to light by the Commentary on Romans. According to the Strasburg mystic, and according to all good mystics generally, selfishness must be looked on as the greatest interior enemy of man. It is a leaven which readily infects the actions, even of the best, and therefore must be expelled by struggling against it and by prayer.

Selfishness, says the “Theologia Deutsch,” “makes the creature turn away from the unchangeable good to that which is changeable.” Even in the case of the devil, it tells us, the reason of his fall was “his I and my, his mine and me”; he fancied he was something, that something belonged to him and that he had a right to something.[615]

In the Commentary on Romans Luther also speaks in impressive words against selfishness and its malice.[616] He makes use of every note at his command in order to warn us against this serpent. In these passages we might fancy we hear the voices of the mystic leaders of the faithful in the Middle Ages, even of a Bernard of Clairvaux. Nor is practical advice wanting; we are exhorted to earnest, humble prayer, to a watchful resistance—to be strengthened by practice—against the desires of self-love, even in small things, to mortify and to tame our flesh. We must go out of ourselves even in spiritual matters; everything, he says, depends in the spiritual life on self-abnegation: “God’s righteousness fills those only who seek to empty themselves of their own righteousness, He fills the hungry and the thirsty ... let us then tell God, so he says with all the enthusiasm his idea of grace gives him: “how glad are we to be empty, that Thou mayest be our fulness; how glad to be weak, that Thy strength may dwell within us; how glad to be sinners, that Thou mayest be justified in us; how glad to be fools, that Thou mayest be our wisdom; how glad to be unrighteous, that Thou mayest be our righteousness.”[617] Suffering sent by God, so the author frequently repeats almost in Tauler’s words, is to be accepted as a remedy against the disease of self-love not only with patience, but with joy. Pain, particularly inward pain, should be honoured like the cross of Christ (“_tribulatio velut crux Christi adoranda_”);[618] we must bear it bravely like true children of God and not take to flight like the servant, or the hireling.[619]

In connection with selfishness Luther exposes his so-called “_theologia crucis_,” which, with the adjuncts he gives it, is quite in keeping with his ideas. He was also to advocate the theology of the cross in his disputations, endeavouring to show that it alone teaches us how to make a right use of earthly things.

“He is not a Christian, but a Turk, and an enemy of Christ, who does not desire afflictions.” “Our theologians and popes are in fact enemies of the cross of Christ ... for no one hates pain and trouble more than the popes and the lawyers [i.e. those who insist upon laws and observances]. No one is more greedy than they for riches, comfort, idleness, honour and pomp.” “They honour the relics of the Holy Cross and yet abhor and fly from what they dislike.” “We consider Christ our helper and our support in time of trouble, but whoever does not suffer gladly, cheats Him of these titles; to such a one God even is no longer the Creator because he will not return to the nothingness from which God created all. Whoever will not suffer God in weakness, foolishness and punishment, for him God is not powerful, not wise, not merciful.”[620] “The cross puts to death everything that is in us. Nature, it is true, desires to make itself and everything alive, but God in His love takes care, by the infliction of crosses and suffering, that even spiritual gifts shall not taste too sweet to the righteous; he must not throw himself upon them in a natural, godless impetuosity in order to enjoy them, even though they be attractive and tempt him to savour them ... he may not even love God on account of His grace and His gifts, but only for His own sake, otherwise this would be a forbidden [!] indulgence in the grace received, and he would insult the Father even more than he did before [i.e. when as yet unrighteous!]. In the Commentary on Romans Luther refuses to recognise any love save that which springs from the most perfect motive. He stigmatises the love which arises from the joy in the benefits bestowed by a gracious God,—and which the orthodox mystics allowed,—as presumption, and as an enjoyment of the creature rather than of the Creator, and goes so far as to say that if a man were to remain in this love “he would be lost eternally.”[621]

To these assertions we may add the following theses, defended under Luther’s auspices in 1518, which explain the new “_theologia crucis_.” “Whoever is not destroyed (‘_destructus_’) and brought back by the cross and suffering to the state of nothingness, attributes to himself works and wisdom, but not to his God, and so he abuses and dishonours the gifts of God. But whoever is annihilated by suffering (‘_exinanitus_’) ceases to do anything, knowing that God is working in him and doing all. Therefore, whether he himself does anything or not, he remains the same, and neither vaunts himself for doing something nor is ashamed of doing nothing, because God works in him. For himself, this he knows, it is enough that he should suffer and be destroyed by the cross, so that he may advance more and more towards annihilation. This is what Christ teaches in John iii. 3: ‘Ye must be born again.’ If we are to be born again, we must first die and be raised with the Son of God [on the cross]; I say die, i.e. taste death as though it were present.”[622] “We may not fly from human wisdom and the law, but whoever is without the theology of the cross is making the worst use of the best things. The true theologian is not he who understands the ‘invisible things of God by the things that are made,’ but he who by suffering and the cross recognises in God the visible and the obscure.”[623]

_The Night of the Soul and Resignation to Hell_

The better to fight against selfishness Tauler had proposed that everyone should look upon himself and his own works as evil, imitating a certain holy brother who used to say: “Know that I am the basest of sinners.”[624] In this innocent recommendation nothing is implied of the complete corruption of nature, of a desire for hell, or of resignation to eternal separation from God. It was only as an exercise in humility and penitent love that Tauler and the other mystics wished the devout man to cultivate the habit of looking on himself as absolutely unworthy of heaven and as better fitted for a place in hell. He is urged to descend in spirit to the place of torment and acknowledge, against his egotism and arrogance, that, on account of his sins, he has deserved a place there among the damned, and not in the happy vicinity of God.

They also depict in gloomy, mystical colours the condition of the unhappy soul who, by the consent of God and in order to try it, sees itself deprived of all comfort, and, as it were, torn away from its highest good and relegated to hell. Such pains, they teach, are intended as a way of purgation for the soul, which, after such a night, can raise itself again with all the more confidence and love to God, who has, so far, preserved it from so great a misfortune.

The doctrine of the dark, mystical night appealed very strongly to Luther’s mind. In his theology he is fond of picturing the soul as utterly sinful and deserving of hell, meaning by this something very different from what orthodox mystics taught. He also suffered greatly at times from inward commotion and darkening of the soul, due to fears regarding predestination, to a troubled conscience or to morbid depression, of which the cause was perhaps bodily rather than mental. These, however, bore no resemblance to the pains—“mystical exercises” as they have been called by Protestants—of which the mystics speak. In his “temptations in the monastery” he did not experience what Tauler and the “Theologia Deutsch” narrate of the consuming inner fire of Purgatory. Luther, however, erroneously applied their descriptions to his own condition.[625] Thus his idea of the night of the soul is quite different from that of the mystics, though he describes it in almost the same words, and, thanks to his imagination and eloquence, possibly in even more striking colours.

Several times in his Commentary on Romans he represents resignation to, indeed even an actual desire for, damnation—should that be the will of God—as something grand and sublime. Thereby he thinks he is teaching the highest degree of resignation to God’s inscrutable will; thereby the highest step on the ladder of self-abnegation has been attained. In reality it is an ideal of a frightful character, far worse even than a return to nothingness. He lets us see here, as he does so often in other matters, how greatly his turbulent spirit inclined to extremes.[626]

“If men willed what God wills,” he writes, “even though He should will to damn and reject them, they would see no evil in that [in the predestination to hell which he teaches]; for, as they will what God wills, they have, owing to their resignation, the will of God in them.” Does he mean by this that they should resign themselves to hating God for all eternity? Luther does not seem to notice that hatred of God is an essential part of the condition of those who are damned (“_damnari et reprobari ad infernum_”). Has he perhaps come to conceive of a hatred of God proceeding from love? He seems almost to credit those who think of hell, with a resolve to bear everything, even hatred of God, with loving submission to the will of Him Who by His predestination has willed it.

He even dares to say to those who are affrighted by predestination to hell, that resignation to eternal punishment is, for the truly wise, a source of “ineffable joy” (“_ineffabili iucunditate in ista materia delectantur_”);[627] for the perfect this is “the best purgation from their own will,” i.e. the way of the greatest bitterness, “because under charity the cross and suffering is always understood.” But all, he says, even the half-imperfect, see that here we have a splendid remedy for destroying “the presumptuous building upon merit; let everyone rejoice in his fear and thank God,”[628] the more so that those who are so much afraid will certainly not go to hell; “as they make themselves entirely conformable to the will of God it is impossible that they should be delivered over to eternal punishment, as he who resigns himself entirely to God’s holy Will cannot remain separated from Him.”[629]

This doctrine of a wholesome fear of hell, of a saving, heroic abandonment to God, and of an exalted and pure love to be exercised by all as a “remedy” against damnation, invalidates Luther’s doctrine of absolute and undeserved predestination to hell; salvation is again made to depend upon both God and man, whose co-operation becomes necessary; it is only because “man will not will what God wills” that he is damned. Yet, according to Luther, the saving fear and resignation is only possible to the elect, and these must in the end be in doubt as to whether they are pleasing to God, just as they must be uncertain regarding all their actions.

In confirmation of his theory of readiness for hell Luther even refers to St. Paul, who says in his Epistle to the Romans, that he had offered himself to the everlasting pains of hell for the salvation of the Jews; that, in order to save them, he had been ready to be “an anathema from Christ.”[630] But the example does not apply. According to a more correct explanation, the Apostle, who was always in spiritual communion with Christ, speaks only of an outward separation.[631] Luther himself says in this connection: Paul did not desire to hate Christ, but was ready to be separated from Him; in this he displayed the “most sublime degree of charity, a truly apostolic love”; “this seems, of course, incomprehensible and foolish to those who think themselves holy and love God with the ‘_amor concupiscentiæ_,’ i.e. on account of their salvation and for the sake of eternal rest, or in order to escape from hell, in other words, not for God’s sake but their own.... What they really desire is salvation according to their own fancy, instead of desiring their own nothingness both here and hereafter (‘_suum nihil optare_’), and only the will and glory of God,” whereas “all perfect saints, out of their overflowing affection, are ready to accept everything, even hell itself. By reason of this readiness, it is true, they at once escape all punishment.”

According to Luther, even Christ offered Himself for hell whole and entire. Luther does not make the slightest distinction in the agony in the Garden between mere exterior and real interior separation from God. Christ was ever united hypostatically with God, and His human nature never ceased to enjoy the vision of God. Luther, however, merely says: “He found Himself in a state of condemnation and abandonment which was greater than that of all the saints. His sufferings were not easy to Him, as some have imagined, because He actually and in truth offered Himself to the eternal Father to be consigned to eternal damnation for us (‘_quod realiter et vere se in æternam damnationem obtulit Deo patri pro nobis_’). His human nature did not behave differently from that of a man who is to be condemned eternally to hell. On account of this love of God, God at once raised Him from death and hell, and so He overcame hell (‘_eum suscitavit a morte et inferno et sic momordit infernum_’; cp. Osee xiii. 14). All His saints must follow this example, some more, some less; and according to the degree of their perfection in love they find this harder or easier. But Christ bore the most severe form of it (‘_durissime hoc fecit_’), and for this reason He laments in many passages (in the Messianic Psalms) the pains of hell.”[632]

In the light of passages such as these we can understand to some extent the lurid, fanciful, mystic description which he gives early in 1518, clearly on the strength of his own states of mind. He tells how a man fancies himself at certain moments plunged into hell, and feels his breast pierced by all the pangs of everlasting despair, because he apprehends God’s “frightful ire” and the impossibility of ever being delivered. This grotesque picture of a soul, with which we shall deal more fully later, although it is partly taken almost word for word from the earlier descriptions of the mystics, reveals its morbid character more especially by the fact, that the hope, which, in the case of the devout, remains in the depths of the soul even throughout the most severe interior trials, seems entirely absent. God is seen as He appeared to Luther, i.e. as an inexorable, arbitrary punisher of His creature.[633]

Luther’s mysticism is veritably a mysticism of despair and the “_humilitas_,” with its love ready even for hell, which he belauds as the anchor of safety, is a forced expedient really excluded by his system, and which he himself discarded as soon as he was able to replace it by the (God-given) _fides_, in the shape of faith in personal justification and salvation.

10. The Commentary on Romans as a Work of Religion and Learning

The Commentary purports to be as much a religious as a learned work. Its religious value can be shortly summed up from the above.

The author is as much occupied in putting forth religious ideas which appeal to him as in expounding exegetically St. Paul’s Epistle, and these ideas he supports on the text of the Epistle to the Romans or on other passages from Holy Scripture which he incessantly adduces. His intention also was to make the considerations of practical use from the religious point of view to his hearers, who were probably most of them Augustinians. He wished to give them a practical introduction to the doctrines of St. Paul, as he understood them, and at the same time to his own mysticism.

We must, if we wish to do justice to the Commentary on Romans, admit without reserve that it does not show us the picture of a man who is morally bankrupt. The author does not make the impression of one bent on sensuality, and seeking the means of gratifying it. The work, on the contrary, breathes a spiritual tendency, even to the point of excess, though not, indeed, without a strong admixture of the earthly element.

The author is, however, far from having arrived at any clear religious views; after wrestling with the secrets of the Pauline Epistle with feeling and eloquence, he is unable even at the end to extricate himself from a condition of spiritual restlessness. The work testifies to an enduring state of religious ferment.

The vivacity and fertility of thought which the author displays is noteworthy; the personal colouring in which he depicts his religious ideas, and, frequently, too, rabidly defends them against scholars and religious who think differently, is unique, and of priceless value to the biographer. Such a strong personal tone is not, it is true, quite in place in a learned work.

The religious “experience,” so often supposed to stand in the forefront of his development, is not to be found there.

If the so-called spiritual “experience” had actually taken place Luther would certainly have alluded to it, for he has much to say of his own state and observations. Why does he say nothing here of the experiences he afterwards relates in such detail? Of the excessive, almost suicidal, monastic practices to which, as a Catholic-minded monk, he surrendered himself, seeking God’s grace, until through Divine intervention he recognised that the path of works and strictness of life, in fact the Catholic road generally, was incapable of leading one to peace with God here below and to union with God in eternity? There is nothing here of that sudden leap from weary, self-righteous seeking after God—ostensibly a delusion cherished by all Catholics—to the joyous consciousness of a gracious God, based on the recognition of justification. Luther, on the other hand, gives a seemingly accurate description of his own spiritual development, though without mentioning himself, at the end of his exposition of Romans iii., a passage to which we shall return later.

The author frequently allows his fancied religious interests to spoil his exegesis.

Often enough he does not even make an attempt to follow up the thoughts of the Apostle and arrive at their sense. His character is too impatient of restraint and too predisposed to rhetoric. Thus he descends to the religious and political questions then being debated at Wittenberg and says by way of excuse: “I will explain the meaning of the Apostle to you in its practical sense, in order that you may understand the matter better by the help of some comparisons.”[634] These words occur in the passage in which he admonishes Duke George of Saxony regarding his quarrels with Edgard, Count of East Frisia (1514-15), telling him he ought to have recognised the Will of God in the Count’s “malicious revolt” and have patiently suffered himself to be vanquished by his foe—as though it were the duty of princes to become mystics like himself.[635]

If we now examine the actual value of the Commentary, we find much that is excellent and calculated to elucidate the Pauline text.

It is especially praiseworthy in Luther that he should have made the Greek text edited by Erasmus the basis of his work as soon as it was published during the course of his lectures. He also makes frequent, diligent and intelligent use of the “exegetical ability” of Nicholas of Lyra,[636] following him for the text as well as for the interpretation and division of the subject; this was the author whose assistance he had formerly declined with far too much contempt. Other authorities whom he also consults are Paul of Burgos, Peter Lombard, for his explanations of the Epistle to the Romans, and, for the division of the matter, particularly the Schemata of Faber Stapulensis. His own linguistic training and his knowledge of ancient literature were of great service to him, as also was his natural quickness of judgment combined with sagacity. He frequently quotes passages from St. Augustine, and through him, i.e. at secondhand, from Cyprian and Chrysostom; in his interpretations the mediæval authorities of whom he makes most use are the Master of the Sentences and St. Bernard.[637] The way in which Aristotle and the Scholastics are handled is already plain from what we have said. Reminiscences of the works of his own professors, Paltz, Trutfetter and Usingen, are merely general, and he freely differs from them. As an Occamist he feels himself in contradiction to the Thomists and to some extent also to the Scotists; in addition to Occam, d’Ailly, Gerson and Biel have a great influence on him, even in his interpretation of the Bible. Tauler, who has so frequently been mentioned, also left deep traces of his influence not only in the matter of the Commentary, but also in the language, which is often obscure, rich in imagery and full of feeling, while here and there we seem to find reminiscences of the “Theologia Deutsch” which Luther was to publish at the close of his lectures. The latter was, “to his thinking, the most exact expression of the great thoughts of the Epistle to the Romans.”[638]

From a learned point of view his exegesis would probably have been different and far more reliable had he consulted the famous Commentary of St. Thomas Aquinas on the Epistle to the Romans, not merely for the division of his subject, but also for the matter. This Commentary held the first place, as regards clearness and depth of thought, among previous expositions, yet not once does Luther quote it, and, probably, he had never opened the work for the purpose of study. “It is most remarkable,” Wilhelm Braun says, speaking of Luther’s Commentary and of his whole development, “that Luther never came to understand Thomas of Aquin. We meet with some disparaging remarks [elsewhere than in the Commentary on Romans]; he is doubtful as to whether St. Thomas was really saved, because he wrote some heretical stuff and brought Aristotle, the corrupter of pious doctrine, into prominence in the Church; but he never understood him from the theological point of view.”[639] We might well go further and say, that he did not even do what must certainly precede any “understanding”—study his writings with the intention of carefully examining them.[640]

How greatly does Luther in his method, his manner of delivery and his spirit differ from St. Thomas, from the latter’s quiet precision and trustworthiness in following the great traditions of learning and theology. Luther so often speaks without due thought, so often in his impetuosity sees but one side of things, he contradicts himself without remarking it, falls into grotesque exaggeration, and, in many passages, is not merely impulsive in his manner of speech, but even destructive. The rashness with which he lays hands on the generally accepted teaching of the best tried minds, his assumption of supremacy in the intellectual domain, the boundless self-confidence which peeps out of so many of his assertions, gave cause for fearing the worst from this professor, to whose words the University was even then attentive.

He knew well how to hold his listeners by the versatility of his spirit and his ability to handle words. His language comprises, now weighty sentences, now popular and taking comparisons. He speaks, when he is so inclined, in the popular and forcible style he employs at a later date; he borrows from the lips of the populace sayings of unexampled coarseness with which he spices his harangues, more especially with a view to emphasising his attitude to his opponents. We may be permitted to quote one such passage in which he is speaking against those who hold themselves to be pure: “I look on them as the biggest fools, who want to forget how deeply they stick in the mire.... Did you never ... in your mother’s lap, and was not the smell evil? Is your perfume always so sweet? Is there nothing about your whole person which has an unpleasant odour? If you are so clean, I am surprised that the apothecaries have not long ago got hold of you to use you in making their balsams, for surely you must reek of balm. Yet had your mother left you as you are and were, you would have perished in your own filth.”[641]

Immediately after this he proceeds with a more pleasing thought: “Truly to please oneself, one must be utterly displeased with self. No one can please himself and others at the same time.”

He is fond of startling antitheses and frequently loses himself in paradoxes. “God has concealed righteousness under sin, goodness under severity, mercy under anger.”[642] “He who does not think he is righteous, is for that very reason righteous before God.” “To be sinners does not harm us, if we only strive earnestly for justification.”[643]

It may serve to give a better idea of the exegetical value of the whole work, and thereby increase our knowledge of its author, if we consider some of the other peculiarities which permeate it.

Luther frequently engages with great zest in philosophical argument and has skirmishes in dialectics with his adversaries, after the custom of the school of Occam. In such cases he often becomes scarcely intelligible owing to his utter neglect of the rules of logic. The answer he gives to the proofs alleged by “modern philosophers” for the possibility of a natural love of God is very characteristic. They had urged: The will is able to grasp all that reason proposes to it as right and necessary; but reason proposes that we must love God, the cause of all things, and the Highest Good above all. Against this Luther philosophises as follows: “That is decidedly a bad conclusion. The conclusion should be: If the will is able to will everything that reason prescribes shall be willed and performed, then the will may will that God is to be loved above all, as reason says. But it does not follow that the will can love God above all, but merely that it can feebly will that this be done, i.e. the will has just that tiny little bit of will (‘_voluntatulam voluntatis habere_’) which reason orders it to have.” To this Luther adds: “Were that proof correct, then the common teaching would be erroneous that the law [of God in Revelation] has been given in order to humble the proud who presumptuously build on their own powers.” And immediately, with supposedly scriptural proofs, he proceeds to show that no power for doing what is good can be ascribed to the will.[644]

In what he says of the position of philosophy to saving grace—a point we mentioned above—we have another example of his faulty method.

It is well known that the old Scholastics, far from drawing their profound teaching concerning sanctifying grace from the “mouldy” stores of Aristotle, advocated, with regard to justification, regeneration and bestowal of sanctifying grace (“_gratia sanctificans_”) by the infusion of the Holy Spirit, simply the views contained in Holy Scripture and in the Fathers; but, in order to make her teaching more comprehensible and to insure it against aberrations, the Church clothed it as far as necessary in the language of the generally accepted philosophy. The element which Scholasticism therewith borrowed from Aristotle—or to be accurate not from him only, but, through the Fathers, from ancient philosophy generally—was of service for the comprehension of revealed truth. Luther, however, was opposed to anything which tended to greater definition because he was more successful in expressing his diverging opinions in vague and misapprehended biblical language than in the stricter and more exact language of the philosophical schools.

The Church, on the other hand, has given Scholasticism its due. In the definitions of the Council of Trent on the points of faith which had been called into question, the Church to a certain degree made her own the old traditional expressions of the schools on the doctrine of grace, teaching, for instance, that the “only formal cause of our righteousness lies in the righteousness of God, not in that by which He Himself is just, but that by which He makes us just.” She declared that, with justifying grace, the “love of God becomes inherent in us,” and that with this grace man “receives the infusion (‘_infusa accipit_’) of faith, hope and charity”; she also speaks of the various causes of justification, of the final, efficient, meritorious, instrumental and formal cause.[645] All these learned terms were admirably fitted to express the ancient views vouched for by the Bible or tradition, and the same may be said, for instance, of the formula sanctioned by the Council of Trent, that “by the sacraments grace is bestowed ‘_ex opere operato_,’” and that the sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation and Order impart “a ‘character,’ i.e. a spiritual and ineradicable mark on account of which they cannot be repeated.”[646] When the Church expresses herself in such terms with regard to sanctifying grace, she implies thereby no more than what is stated in the various biblical excerpts quoted in detail by the Council of Trent to which Luther had paid too little heed. Her teaching is that man is signed and anointed with the spirit of promise which is the pledge of our inheritance; that he is renewed through the Spirit, and that by the Spirit the love of God is poured forth in his heart; that he becomes a living member of Christ; that because he is made the heir and child of God he has a right to heaven; that he is born again by the Holy Ghost to a new life, and thus is translated into the Kingdom of the Love of His Son where he has redemption and forgiveness of sins; as such he is a friend and companion of God; yet he must go on from virtue to virtue and, as the Apostle says, be renewed from day to day by constantly mortifying the members of his flesh and offering them as the weapons of righteousness for sanctification.

In his Commentary on Romans Luther already breaks away from tradition, i.e. from the whole growth of the past, even on matters of the utmost moment, and this not at all to the advantage of theology; not merely the method and mode of expression does he oppose, but even the very substance of doctrine.

Protestant theology, following in his footsteps, went further. Many of its representatives, as we shall see, honestly expressed their serious doubts as to whether the Bible teaching of sanctification by grace—that process which, according to the scriptural descriptions just quoted, takes place in the very innermost being of man—is really expressed correctly by the Lutheran doctrine of the imputation of a purely extraneous righteousness. But even to-day there are others who still support Luther’s views in a slightly modified form, and who will have it that the scholastic and later teaching of the Church is a doctrine of mere “magic,” as though she made of saving grace a magical power, of which the agency is baptism or absolution. It is true that the process of sanctification as apprehended by faith is to a large extent involved in impenetrable mystery, but in Christianity there is much else which is mysterious. It is perhaps this mysterious element which gives offence and accounts for Catholic doctrine being described by so opprobrious a word as “magic.” Some Protestants of the same school are also given to praising Luther—in terms which are also, though in another sense, mysterious and obscure—for having from the very outset arrived at the great idea of grace peculiar to the Reformed theology, viz. at the “exaltation of religion above morality.” He was the first to ask: “How do I stand with regard to my God?” and who made the discovery, of which his Commentary on Romans is a forcible proof, that it is “man’s relation to God through faith which creates the purer atmosphere in which alone it is possible for morality to thrive.” He arrived, so we are told, at an apprehension of grace as “a merciful consideration of the abiding sinner,” and a true “consolation of conscience”; he at the same time recognised grace as an “educative and moulding energy,” which, as such, imparts “strength for sanctification.”[647]

* * * * *

To return to the exegetical side of the Commentary on Romans, the confusion in which the ideas are presented lends to much of it a stamp of great imperfection. There is a general lack of cautious, intelligent comprehension of the material, which sometimes is concerned with the tenderest questions of faith, sometimes with vital points of morals. The impartial observer sees so many traces of passion, irritation, storm and stress that he begins to ask himself whether the work has any real theological value.

The passage, Romans vii. 17, regarding the indwelling of sin in man (“_habitat in me peccatum_”) Luther, in the interests of his system, makes use of for an attack upon the Scholastics (“_nostri theologi_”). He attributes to them an interpretation of the passage which was certainly not theirs, and, from his own interpretation, draws strange and quite unfounded inferences. According to the interpretation commonly admitted by almost all exegetists, whether Catholic or Protestant, St. Paul is here speaking of the unregenerate man in whom sin dwells, preventing him from fulfilling the law. Luther, on the contrary, asserts that the Apostle is alluding to himself and to the regenerate generally, and he quotes from the context no less than twelve proofs that this is the correct interpretation.[648] Scholastics either referred the passage, like St. Augustine, to the righteous—in whom on account of the survival of the “_fomes peccati_” sin in some sense dwells, even the righteous being easily led away by the same to sin—or they left the question open and allowed the verse to refer to those who are not justified.

Luther, delighted by his discovery of the survival of original sin in man after baptism, could not allow the opportunity to slip of dealing a blow at the older theologians: “Is it not a fact that the fallacious metaphysics of Aristotle—the philosophy which is built up on human tradition—has blinded our theologians? They fancy that sin is destroyed in Baptism and in the sacrament of Penance, and they declare it absurd that the Apostle should speak of sin dwelling within him [as a matter of fact the Schoolmen did nothing of the sort]. The words ‘_habitat in me peccatum_’ were a fearful scandal to them. They fled to the false and pernicious assertion that Paul is speaking merely in the person of the carnal man [unregenerate], whereas he is, in truth, speaking of his own person [and of the righteous]. They say foolishly that in the righteous there is no sin, and yet the Apostle obviously teaches the contrary in the plainest and most open fashion.”[649]

Of this passionate reversal of the old exegesis, Denifle, after having pointed out the real state of the question by quoting the commentators, says: “Luther merely exhibits his ignorance, prejudice and prepossession ... he was not acting in the interests of learning at all.”[650] Of Luther’s twelve arguments in favour of his interpretation he remarks: “in order to convince oneself that the [opposite] view, now almost universally held, is the correct one, it is only necessary to glance at Luther’s twelve proofs. They are utterly fallacious, beg the question and take for granted what is not conceded.”[651] This judgment is amply justified. Yet Luther, at the end of his long demonstration, exclaims: “It is really surprising that anyone could have imagined that the Apostle was speaking in the person of the old and carnal man.” “No, the Apostle teaches regarding the justified that they are at the same time righteous and sinners, righteous because Christ’s righteousness covers them and is imputed to them, sinners because they do not fulfil the law and are not without concupiscence.”[652] We can only say of Luther’s remarks on the Scholastics that, without really being acquainted with them, he here again blindly abuses them because they were opposed to his new theological views.

It was merely his prejudice against the Scholastics which led him to continue: “Their stupid doctrine has deceived the world and caused untold mischief, for the consequence was, that whoever was baptised and absolved at once looked upon himself as free from sin, became sure of his righteousness, folded his arms, and, because he was unconscious of any sin, considered it superfluous to trouble to struggle or to purify himself by sighs and tears, by sorrow for sin and efforts to conquer it. No, sin remains even in the spiritual man,” etc. He appeals to St. Augustine, indeed to the very passage to which the Scholastics were indebted for their interpretation of St. Paul’s words concerning the righteous. As remarked before (p. 98), Augustine is, however, very far from teaching that there is in the righteous real guilt and sin, when, following St. Paul, he speaks of the sinful concupiscence which dwells in the regenerate.

Luther would have avoided a great number of mistakes in his interpretation of the Epistle to the Romans had he conscientiously studied the older expositors instead of blindly opposing them.

The passage in Hebrews xi. 1, which was of the greatest importance for his views (“_Est fides sperandarum substantia rerum, argumentum non apparentium_”), he interprets in a false sense, whereas St. Thomas takes it correctly. He takes “_substantia_,” etc. (ἑλπιζομένων ὑπόστασις πραγμάτων) as “_possessio et facultas futurarum rerum_,” and the word “_argumentum_” (ἔλεγχος) as “_signum_.”[653] It was only in 1519 that he learnt from Melanchthon that this interpretation could not be made to agree with the Greek text. Even when making known his mistake he gives a side hit at the _Sententiarii_, i.e. the Scholastics. And yet he would have found the correct interpretation in St. Thomas’s “_Summa Theologica_,” and also in his Commentary on Romans, viz. that “_substantia_” here means foundation, or first beginning (“_fides est prima pars iustitiæ_”), while “_argumentum_” has the sense of firm assent, i.e. to the truth that “is not seen.”[654]

To sum up briefly here some of the fundamental theological confusions of which the author of the Commentary on Romans is guilty, either from carelessness or in the excitement of controversy, we may mention that he confuses freedom with willingness or joyousness, the works of the Mosaic law with the works of natural or Christian morality, true humility with self-annihilation and despair, confidence with presumption; to him true contrition is grief sensibly manifested, all charity other than perfect is mere perverse self-seeking, and holy fear of the Divine judgment and penalties is a slavish, selfish service.

The freedom of the Christian spirit, bestowed by the gospel in contradistinction to Judaism, Luther, owing to persistent misapprehension, makes out to be freedom regarding outward things of the law. Appealing to St. Paul’s teaching concerning the liberty of the gospel, he says: “we must not be subject to the burden of any law to such an extent as to consider the outward works of the law necessary for salvation.”[655] Those who do so are, according to him, attached to “a spiritual, but exceedingly reprehensible” view, which we must oppose with all our might. Away with those whose aim it is to “fulfil the law by means of many observances.” “The law is to be observed not because we must keep it, but because we choose to do so, not because it is necessary, but because it is permitted.” Instead of this, he continues, we bow to-day under the yoke of servitude, fancy it is necessary and yet wish secretly that it did not exist (“_Hæc servitus hodie late grassatur_,” etc.). The effect of such distorted principles on his views regarding the commandments of the Church is very obvious. “Concerning the outward service of God,” as Denifle has already pointed out, “Luther went to great lengths in his defence of ‘_libertas_....’ The believer is free as regards all things; ‘_sufficit charitas de corde puro_’ he frequently repeated at the very time when he was vindicating himself against the errors of the Picards.”[656] Though as yet still far from the revulsion which was to come later he was already cherishing the principles which were to lead up to it.

What he says on obedience and personality in dealing with Romans x. and the word of faith which calls for submission, exhibits a strange medley of excessive mystical severity combined with a free handling of his own views, and also some good examples of his stormy dialectics. It is worth our while to dwell a little on these passages because the train of thought furnishes a curious picture of the direction of the young Monk’s mind.

“The faith [which justifies] allows itself to be led in any direction,”[657] he says, “and is ready to hear and to yield; for God does not require great works, but the putting to death of the old man, but to this we cannot attain without submitting our own ideas and judgment to the authority of another....” He then continues, vaguely confusing faith and humility: “The old man is to be put to death by faith in the Word of God. But God’s Word is not only that which sounds from heaven, but everything that comes from the mouth of a good man, more particularly from our ecclesiastical superiors. That is why the quarrelsome will hear nothing of this faith and take offence at the word of faith. Instead of believing they demand proofs and always think their own ideas right, and those of others false. But whoever does not know how to submit himself and always fancies he is not in the wrong, exhibits the plainest signs that the old Adam still lives in him and that Christ has not yet risen in him.”[658] Then follows a long and tedious description of how “man must surrender his mind to the bondage of the word of the Cross and renounce himself and all that is his until he dies to self.”[659]

It is surprising to find in the mouth of Luther such an utterance as that we must receive with submission every word of a godly man in order to possess “faith” in its true meaning, but it reappears on another occasion in the Commentary under quite peculiar circumstances. The passage is a still more glaring instance of confusion and is worth quoting in its entirety on account of its mistaken train of thought and of its self-contradiction and jumping from one point to another, so characteristic of Luther.

The explanation of Romans iii.[660] begins with a general assault on the “proud ‘spirituals’ in the Church, with their great and many works,” the heading chosen being that “Justification does not require works of the law, but true faith which performs works of faith.” The works of these “spirituals” are not works of faith, but works of the law, for as they are proud and stiff-necked they “do not believe in the precepts and counsels of those who speak to them of salvation.” Christ Himself speaks in the latter, and to refuse to believe them in any one particular is to deny faith in Him altogether (“_fides consistit in indivisibili_”); for the same reason the heretics, if they deny only one article of the faith, really deny the faith as a whole. In a word, these proud folk “lose the whole faith, thanks merely to their stiffness” (“_periit tota fides propter unius sensus pertinaciam_”); so important is it to give way to truth whenever it approaches us in humility! Justification must therefore necessarily take place without the works which those people have in their mind. If a man cannot readily bear contradiction “he certainly cannot be saved; for there is no surer sign that our ideas, words and works are of God than contradiction [!]; everything that is of God must be rejected by man, as we see from the example of our Saviour, and, even if it be not of God, contradiction brings us still greater profit and preserves us from shipwreck.”

In support of this perplexing doctrine there follow examples and quotations from the Bible, and finally this conclusion: “it is a safe path when we are reproved, cursed and blamed.” He does not seem to notice that this assertion provides a ground of excuse and defence for the so-called “proud ‘spirituals,’” for they, too, might argue that his contradiction gave a sanction to their conduct.

Luther seems to have had only himself and his own interests in view when he brought forward these ideas, beginning with the extreme assertion that we must believe every word that a good man speaks; he apparently wished to insist on himself and his followers being given credence, and on their views—which were the views of faithful counsellors—being approved by the defenders of works, whether in his Order or outside of it. As he encountered contradiction, he immediately applied to his own case the very elastic principle, that opposition in religious matters is a guarantee of truth. This was a principle, we may mention, which he had made his own ever since his mystical days, and which at a later date and indeed till the end of his life, he repeatedly employed in the service of his cause during his struggle with the Church.

Continuing his harangue against the “spirituals” and the heretics with whom he classes them he goes on to say: “they buoy themselves up in their idle self-complacency on account of their faith in Christ, but in vain, as they will not believe in that which is Christ’s. The faith of Christ by which we are justified is not merely faith in Christ, or in the person of Christ, but in all that is Christ’s.” “Christ is not divided” (1 Cor. i. 13). Faith is something indivisible, Christ and whatever is Christ’s is one and the same.[661] Therefore we must believe both in Christ and in the Church, and in “every word that comes from the mouth of an ecclesiastical superior, or of a good, pious man.” “But those who withdraw themselves from their superiors will not listen to their words, but follow their own ideas,” he again repeats: “how do these, I ask, believe in Christ? They believe in His birth and His sufferings, but not in His whole word, consequently they deny Him altogether. See how necessary is the very greatest humility, as we who believe in Christ can never be sure whether we believe in all that is His, and therefore must remain uncertain as to whether we believe in Him Himself! Justification can only proceed from such a fear and humility. But the proud “do not understand the exalted subtilties of this faith; they think they are in possession of the whole of faith, yet cannot hear the Lord’s voice, but rather resist it as though it were false; why? because it is opposed to their own ideas.”[662] After a dialectical digression of doubtful character the hot-blooded exegetist continues: All the Prophets rise up against such men, for they always commence their holy message with the words: “Thus saith the Lord” and, “whosoever it be whom the Lord chooses as His mouthpiece, the demand is for faith, resignation, humble subjection of our own ideas; for it is only thus that we are justified, and not otherwise.” With incredible tenacity he is ever harping on the assertion that the “self-righteous” only deck themselves out with works of the law, but find no grace with God. And finally, as though he had not yet said a word against those rebels against faith and the Word of God, he cries: “Let those open their ears who believe indeed in Christ, but not in the word of Christ, who do not listen to their superiors and who wish to be justified without this obedience, i.e. without this faith in God and merely by their works.” In another outburst he shows them—this time adopting a more mystical tone—that Christ speaks “almost always when, where and as we do not expect.”[663] “Who can discover all the wily attacks of Satan by which he deceives us?” Some wish to be justified by a “slavish fear,” in spite of their disinclination and “by their own strength alone”;[664] those whom he deceives more artfully feel a desire for what is good, “but in their self-complacency they affect superstitious singularity (‘_singularitatis et superstitionis affectatores_’), they become rebels [like the Observantines, see p. 69], and under a show of obedience and love of God they throw off their submission to the men of God, i.e. to the Vicars and messengers of Christ.”[665] “It is presumption and pride which changes works of grace into works of the law, and the righteousness of God into human righteousness; for,” etc.[666] “How then can you be proud as though you were more righteous than another, how can you despise him who sins, when you yourself [at least, by your evil inclinations] are sunk in the same mire?”[667] etc. “But they receive honour of men on account of their righteousness,”[668] a subject on which Luther proceeds to enlarge.

We have said enough. The torrent of words flows on aimlessly in this way, ever labouring the same subject; all this is given us in lieu of real exegesis as corollaries to two verses of the Epistle to the Romans.

In order to gauge the real value of the Commentary on Romans we must now consider the treatment, abounding in inconsistencies, accorded by Luther to man’s efforts for obtaining salvation.