LUTHER AND, THE REFORMATION

LUTHER AND THE
REFORMATION

BY

JAMES MACKINNON, Ph.D., D.D.

Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History, University of Edinburgh

VOL. III.

PROGRESS OF THE MOVEMENT (1521-29)

NEW TORK
RUSSELL & RUSSELL INC

1962

FIRST PUBLISHED IN ig2Q

PUBLISHED, 1962, BY RUSSELL & RUSSELL, INC
L C CATALOG CARD NO 6210691

PRINTED IN THE UMTED STATES Or \MfcRICA

PREFACE

THIS volume traces the history of Luther as a Reformer
from the Diet of Worms to the Conference of Marburg.
These years constitute the second act of the Reformation
drama. In the opening scene we see the recluse of the
Wartburg directing the movement by his correspondence
and continuing and widening the attack on his opponents
in a series of controversial writings, dealing with ecclesiastical
institutions and usages Auricular Confession, the Mass,
religious Vows, and Monastitism. With his activity as
propagandist he combines that of the scholar and the
teacher, the chief fruits of which are his translation of the
New Testament from the original Greek and his series of
sermons in the vernacular for the instruction of the people
in the Gospel.

In his absence at the Wartburg his colleagues at
Wittenberg attempt to initiate a thoroughgoing reform of
religious usages. This reform arouses the opposition of
the Elector of Saxony and eventuates in a deadlock and
the demand for Luther's return. His reappearance as
active leader and his moderating influence mark a
victory for the policy of gradual change in virtue
of expediency, to which his colleagues, with the exception
of Carlstadt, defer. He himself, however, erelong deems
the time ripe for more incisive measures and takes in hand
the reform of worship, usages, and organisation at Wittenberg
and elsewhere.

Meantime the evangelical movement has been taking an
ever firmer and wider grip of Germany through the co-
operation of a large band of recruits from the secular and

vi Preface

regular clergy with the Reformer, who renews from
Wittenberg his polemic against the Roman Curia and its
literary champions in Germany and elsewhere. The growing
strength of the movement is reflected in the refusal of the
first Diet of Niirnberg to suppress it and its demand for the
convocation of a free General Council in Germany to consider
the question of reform. Though the second Diet held in the
same city is less recalcitrant, it only undertakes to execute
the Edict of Worms " as far as possible/' and repeats the
demand for a General Council.

Throughout these three years of conflict and expansion,
Luther, though an outlaw, has become the dominating force
in the empire, and the Reformation, both as a destructive
and constructive movement, is bidding fair to eventuate in
a revolution of the old order in Church and State. Truly a
marvellous tribute to the religious genius, the courage, the
daring of the monk who, in his appeal to Scripture and
conscience at Worms, had seemed to play the part of a
second Hus and invite the doom of the martyr of Constance.

By the year 1524 the movement has quickened the
aspiration for political and social as well as religious reform,
and though Luther has striven to keep it within the strictly
religious sphere, as he conceived it, and has denounced
revolutionary violence, the drama widens with the abortive
risings of the lesser nobility under Hutten and Sickingen
to achieve a political revolution, and of the masses to
efiect a social as well as a religious Reformation.

As the result, in part, of this complication, the evangelical
movement, whilst continuing to gain recruits among the
princes and the people in northern Germany, loses something
of its initial grandeur as an emancipation from the old
religious and social order and ceases to be a national move-
ment. The empire is divided into two antagonistic religious
parties which league themselves for or against it. The
influence of this antagonism appears in the two Diets of

Preface vii

Spires. In the first Diet the balance of advantage leans in
favour of the adherents of Luther, who begin to organise
separate territorial churches. In the second it falls heavily
against them, whilst the evangelical cause is further weakened
by the breach between Luther and Erasmus and the out-
break of dissension in the evangelical ranks over the sacra-
mental question. At this point the curtain falls on the
second act of the Reformation drama. In the fourth and
concluding volume the sequel, which constitutes the final
act and closes with Luther's death in 1546, will be
unfolded.

The author expresses his thanks to the Carnegie
Universities* Trust for a guarantee against loss up to a
certain amount for the publication of this volume.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

PAGES

LUTHER AT THE WARTBURG (i) - - - - 1-46

I. BEHIND THE VEIL - - - - - -

Knight George Conflicting rumours Popular excitement
Letters to his colleagues His studies and literary work
Expounds Psalms 37 and 68 for the encouragement of his
Wittenberg friends The Bible his grand resource Serious
attack of illness Rambles and adventures His encounters
with the devil.

II. RENEWAL OF THE BATTLE FOR REFORM - - - 11-22

Encourages Melanchthon to take his- place as preacher
His compromising utterance on sin Reorganisation of the
University-^-Wntes on Auricular Confession Its unscriptural
and tyrannical character In what sense he accepts the practice
Ridicules and denounces theSorbonne theologians Prosecution
of married priestsThe question of the celibacy of the clergy
Approves the marriage of priests, but questions Carlstadt's plea
in favour of the marriage of monks.

III. THE ATTACK ON MONASTICISM - 22-34

Theses on monastic vows The monastic life based on the
pernicious principle of meriting salvation by works The
New Testament is the reign of liberty and faith Unwarranted
distinction between the precepts and the counsels of the Gospel
Impression produced by the Theses Elaborates them in his
work on " Monastic Vows " Motive and importance of the
work Current views of the monastic life Reversion to Jewish
legahsm The common Christian life the true Christian life
Vindicates the right to renounce these vows The profession
of them largely hypocritical Arguments in support of this
contention Evil physical and moral effects of the vow of
chastity A landmark of the evangelical movement Luther's
impatience with Spalatin over the attempt to frustrate its
publication The Chapter of the Augustinian Order concedes
liberty to renounce the monastic life

x Contents

PACES

IV. COMMUNION IN BOTH KINDS AND THE ABUSE OF THE MASS 34-46

Carlstadt and Zwilling agitate for full communion Inter-
vention of the Elector A Commission supports the demand
for reform of the Mass The Elector's opposition Luther on
the Abrogation of Private Mass Attacks the priestly power
and the sacrificial Mass Contrasts the original institution
with its mediaeval development A terrific indictment Theo-
logical bias and moral indignation Wittenberg another
Jerusalem.

CHAPTER II

LUTHER AT THE WARTBURG (2) - - - - 47-79

I. THE HALLE " IDOL . . . . * 47-54

The Indulgence at Halle Luther writes " Against the Idol
at Halle " The Elector forbids its publication Luther's
spirited reply to Spalatin His ultimatum to the Archbishop

of Maintz The Archbishop's abject capitulation Plain

speaking to Capito, the Archbishop's secretary Secret visit to
Wittenberg Student demonstrations against the Mass
Angry with Spalatin and will not subordinate the Gospel to
political expediency.

II. THE WARNING AGAINST REVOLT - 54-60

Signs of popular unrest Madness of the Romanists in
ignoring these signs and striving to repress the Gospel-
Attempts in the "Exhortation to all Christians 1 ' to forestall
a violent upheaval Reformation to be undertaken by the
civil authority, not by the people Popular revolt inadmissible
He has not preached revolt, but only proclaimed the Gospel
The " Exhortation " the expression of personal conviction, not
of political expediency Criticism of Luther's attitude.

III. THE NEW EVANGELISM AND THE TRANSLATION OF THE

NEW TESTAMENT - - - - - - 61-68

Sardonic New Year's Greeting to the Pope Sermons m the
Vernacular (fostillc) Luther as preacher Experimental,
Chnsto-centric theology High evaluation of Paul's Epistles
The ethic of faith At work on his translation of the New
Testament Moulding the vernacular into a worthy medium
of the original A monument of his linguistic ability.

IV. THE RADICAL MOVEMENT AT WITTENBERG - - 68-79

Carlstadt dispenses communion in both kinds, Christmas
1521 Zwilling at Eilenburg The attack on images-
Reformation ordinance Its character Melanchthon and the
Zwickau prophets Elector's attitude towards the innovations
Condemns precipitate measures and demands the restoration
of the old order Luther's colleagues urge his return to
Wittenberg.

Contents xi

CHAPTER III
LUTHER'S RETURN FROM THE WARTBURG - 80-101

I. LUTHER AND THE ELECTOR .... 80-90

Luther's initial attitude towards the innovations His
opinion of the prophets Effect of the letter from Wittenberg-
Resolution to returnHis bluff letter to the Elector The
Elector's evasive reply Luther's spirited answer For political
reasons agrees to write a diplomatic statement in exoneration
of the Elector Equivocal character Luther in the inn at Jena.

II. SERMONS IN BEHALF OF MODERATION - - 90-101

Eight successive sermons Condemns precipitate reform
Consideration for the scruples of weak brethren Reform must
come gradually through the preaching of the Word
Conditioned liberty Views on images, etc. Communion in
both kinds not to be forced and confession not to be neglected
Advocate of tolerance in regard to usages Criticism of his
policy Modification of the ordinance Estrangement from
Carlstadt Heated interview with the prophets.

CHAPTER IV
LUTHER AT WITTENBERG - 102-137

I. PROGRESS AS PRACTICAL REFORMER - - 102-117

Letters on toleration Toleration does not mean indifference
to the Gospel or infidelity to religious conviction Undertakes
an evangelical mission in Saxony His aggressive action at
Altenburg Religious dissension at Erfurt The Epistle to
the Church at Erfurt Visit to Erfurt Becomes more militant
in his controversy with the Elector and the Chapter of All
Saints at Wittenberg Enforces the suppression of the old
usages Approximates the position of the advanced reformers
The " Order of Worship " for the Church at Leisnig The
" Formula Missae " Adopts communion in both kinds
Vernacular hymns The Baptismal ServiceVindicates the
democratic Constitution of the Church at Leisnig The "De
Instituendis Ministris Ecclesiae " The right to appropriate
ecclesiastical revenues for the common good.

II. RENEWED POLEMIC FROM WITTENBERG - - 117-137

Confidence in the triumph of his cause The " Caveat
Against Human Teaching " The philippic " Against the
Falsely Called Estate of the Pope and the Bishops "No com-
promise with the secularised and feudalised hierarchy Violence
and lack of reasoned restraint His Bull of Reformation
Henry VIIL's " Defence of the Seven Sacraments against
Luther n Luther refutes his book and drubs the king His
bouts with Cochlaeus and Faber The exodus of monks and
nuns Luther and the escaped nuns of Nimbschen The story

xii Contents

of the fugitive nun of Neu Helfta His attack on the celibate
state and vindication of marriage as a divine and natural
institution The sex question and his realistic treatment of it
Marriage not incompatible with the higher spiritual life
Evil effects of the celibate state Would reform the laws relative
to marriage.

CHAPTER V
THE EMPIRE AND LUTHER - - - 138-158

I. THE SPREAD OF THE MOVEMENT - - - 138-148

Elemental power of Luther's writings Marked increase of
literary output, largely pro-Lutheran The popular pamuhlet,
" Neukarsthans " Luther's propagandist activity
Melanchthon's " Loci Communes " Recruits from the
secular and regular clergy Questionable character of some
of them The process of expansion Converts among the
princes and the nobility.

II. THE Two DIETS OF NURNBERG (1522-24) - - 149-158

Reform policy of Pope Hadrian VI. No compromise with
heresy The first Diet of Nurnberg declines to enforce the
Edict of Worms or silence the Lutheran preachers Demands
the convocation of a free Council in Germany Forbids contro-
versial preaching and authorises the punishment of married
priests Luther gratified, but will not desist from preaching and
defending the Gospel His reply to Pope Hadrian The
" Pope-Ass at Rome and the Monk's Calf at Freiberg "
The second Diet at Nurnberg renews the demand for a Council
in Germany, whilst undertaking to enforce the Worms Edict * * as
far as possible " The Emperor enjoins the execution of the
Edict of Worms Luther angrily attacks the Emperor and the
Diet God will deal with them as He did with Pharaoh-
Conference of Romanist princes and bishops at Regensburg
and the outbreak of persecution in Austria and Bavaria.

CHAPTER VI

LUTHER AND THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT 159-210
I. LUTHER, HUTTEN, AND SICKINGEN - - .159-174

German national sentiment Estrangement from Rome on
national and economic grounds The anti-papal and anti-
clerical spirit Ulrich von Hutten its literary exponent

~f ----- > v A^ubblMM, AltJ J.4 bVJLO,.Ljr GJfcpVfilGUI. ~*

Hutten attempts to incite a revolt against Rome and the terri-
torial princes for the reformation of the Church and the State
Appeals to the nobility and the towns Luther refuses to
identify his cause with political revolt Frans von Sickingen
as Luther's protector Luther's relations with him His
Caveat against revolutionary violence "The Sickingen

Contents xiii

FAGB6

rising and its failure Luther in spirit anti-revolutionary in
spite of the inflammatory language of some of his philippics
His tractate "On the Secular Power "Recognises its divine
right within its own sphere But denies its jurisdiction in the
spiritual sphere Thought and faith are duty free Passive
resistance Denunciation of princely tyranny His view of
an unjust war.

II. LUTHER AND SOCIAL REFORM - - - 174-180

The pre-Reformarion movement in behalf of social reform
Its anti-ecclesiastical spirit and the expectation of a deliverer
from social wrong Luther's interest in social and economic
reform His " Sermon on Usury " Condemns the new
commercialismDemocratic implications of hia religious
teaching.

III. THE RADICAL PARTY AND SOCIAL REFORM 180-188

The more advanced preachers as champions of social reform
Thomas Munzer and the extreme left wing of the evangelical
party Munzer at Zwickau His doctrine of the living Word
as against Luther's doctrine of the written Word His activity
at A Istedt Explains his teaching in a letter to Luther Luther
pronounces him either mad or drunk The Lutheran test of
revelation Radical divergence between their respective teach-
ing Munzer's violent sermon before the Elector Luther
intervenes with a missive to the princes on the revolutionary
spirit Ready to tolerate difference of opinion, but not revolu-
tionary methods Banishment of Miinzer and Pfeiffer.

IV. THE RISING OF THE PEASANTS - - - 188-197

Its outbreak Rapid extension of the movement The
Twelve Articles of the peasants of Upper Swabia Un-
mistakable influence of the religious Reformation The
demands of the peasants Ready to arbitrate Wider scope and
more aggressive spirit of other reform programmes Munzer's
theocratic revolution How far the movement influenced by
Luther's teaching The peasant attack directed against ecclesi-
astical as well as secular lords Comparatively little wanton
bloodshed The Weinsberg outrage.

V. LUTHER AND THE RISING . - - - 198-210

Carlstadt takes the side of the peasants His feud with
Luther In response to the appeal of the peasants Luther
gives his judgment on the movement His " Exhortation to
Peace " and its underlying motives Denounces the oppressors
of the people who are also the enemies of the Gospel Condemns
the use of force for the redress of grievances and the more
advanced preachers concerned in the movement His gospel
of suffering and patience Serfdom compatible with
Christianity Advises an accommodation Criticism of his
attitude The "Exhortation " fails to stop the movement His
violent appeal to the princes against the insurgents It excites
protests, but he refuses to apologise for his violence Suppres-

xiv Contents

PACES

sion followed by a terrible retribution Effect on the evangelical
movement The German Reformation tended to strengthen the
regime of the absolute ruler and ceased to be a democratic
movement.

CHAPTER VII

THE CONFLICT WITH ERASMUS - - - 211-273

I. LUTHER AND EDUCATION - - - 211-224

Obscurantist attitude of the extremists towards culture-
Growing lack of interest in the higher education Economic as
well as religious factors Luther opposes this tendency
Realises and emphasises the value of a humanist education
His "Appeal to the German Municipalities" in behalf of
educational reform Urgency of the question in view of
its practical importance Arguments in support of a
classical, Christian education Essential for a right knowledge
of the Scriptures Equally essential in the interest of the State
as well as the Church Compulsory elementary education and
higher education for those fitted to receive it The appeal a
remarkable and highly creditable performance.

II. LUTHER AND ERASMUS .... 224-242

Luther the magnet of an increasing circle of young scholars
Alienation of the older humanists Erasmus's early attitude
sympathetic, though non-committal By his critical labours
prepares the way for Luther His work as critic and reformer
What Luther and Erasmus had in common and wherein they
differed Erasmus and the " Devotio Moderna "Conflicting
views of his real position Compared with Luther lacking in
passionate religious conviction Why Luther failed to appreciate
him Why he failed to appreciate Luther His nervous dread of
revolution In this early period Luther courts his friendship
and Erasmus actively befriends him against his obscurantist
opponents Denounces the heresy hunters and the policy of
persecution He himself not made to be a martyr Wishes to
maintain neutrality Effect of Hutten's violent polemic in
driving him into the anti-Lutheran camp Luther's letters to
Spalatin and Oecolampadius and to Erasmus himself Reply
of Erasmus Mutual embitterment Erasmus at last resolves
to enter the arena against Luther.

III. ERASMUS AGAINST LUTHER- - - - 242-251

The " De Libero Arbitrio "The question of free will
Undogmatic method of examining the subject Examines it in
the light of Scripture, though the opinion of the Fathers and
doctors of the Church ought to have weight Scriptural passages
which imply free will Passages which seem to invalidate it
The case of Pharaoh Opposes unconditional determinism
What he approves in Luther's teaching Criticises his dogmas
of original sin and the total impotence of the will to do the good
His mediate position Good features of the work Lack of
understanding of Luther and his teaching Influence of
scholastic theology on his thought.

Contents xv

PAGES

IV LUTHER AGAINST ERASMUS - - - - 251-273

The " De Servo Arbitrio "Luther's estimate of the " De
Libero Arbitrio " Dislikes the scepticism of Erasmus The
question of authority in religion Fundamental religious im-
portance of the problem of free will All that happens depends
on the eternal and immutable will of God Rules out contin-
gencyRejects Erasmus's contention that this doctrine should
not be indiscriminately preached to the people for opportunist
reasons Answers the practical objections of Erasmus and
criticises his conception of free will Scripture, he maintains,
teaches the unfree will God is omnipotent will and man is
absolutely incapable, in virtue of original sin, of doing the
divine will Will not admit the distinction between fore-
knowledge and fore-ordmation The divine determinism is a
necessary and salutary though hard doctrine The testimony
of Paul and John The doctrine in the light of the Pauline
teaching on sin and justification It is an essential of Luther's
religious experience The " De Servo Arbitrio " a sustained
piece of reasoning of a high order Luther's exalted conception
of God as the absolute good conditions his view of the impotency
of the will Criticism of his extreme detennimst teaching His
undue insistence on the antithesis between faith and reason
Flaws in his reasoning Nevertheless the " De Servo Arbitrio "
is a great performance Its service to the Reformation
Resentment of Erasmus and complete estrangement between
him and Luther.

CHAPTER VIII

CONSOLIDATION OF THE EVANGELICAL MOVE-
MENT ------ 274-305

I. THE FIRST DIET OF SPIRES - - - 274-280

How the suppression of the Peasant Rising was detrimental
to the Lutheran cause Extension of the anti-Lutheran League
Counter-League initiated by the Elector John of Saxony and
the Landgrave Philip of Hesse The Lutheran princes and
cities combine with the moderate Catholics against the imperial
demand for the execution of the Edict of Worms Change of the
Emperor's attitude for political reasons The majority of the
first Diet of Spires leaves the members free to act on their
own responsibility in the matter of the Edict Foreshadows the
solution of the religious question on the territorial principle
Its accordance with the dominant political tendency in the
empire Notable recruits to the reformed cause and its rapid
spread in the northern German principalities Its causes.

II. THE ORGANISATION OF THE EVANGELICAL CHURCH 280-297

Luther's conception of the Church as the communion of
believers It does not differentiate between the invisible and
the visible Church How it differs from the Zwinglian and the
Romanist conception Theoretically it involves an organisation

xvi Contents

PACBS

free from State control Sohm's view Rieker's version of
Luther's early conception of the interdependence of Church and
State Recent discussions of German theologians and jurists
on the subject In consequence of his experience at the Diet of
Worms, Luther modifies his attitude towards the State In the
tract on the Secular Power sharply differentiates between the
temporal and the spiritual spheres The Christian community
entitled to organise and govern itself, whilst accepting the
co-operation of the secular authority The Christian-democratic
principle Missives to the Church at Leisnig and to Hausmann
and the Senate of Prague in 1523 Effect of the Peasant Rising
in shaking his faith in a religious democracy Disapproval of
Lambert's sketch of a constitution for the Church of Hesse-
Fain to seek the aid of the territorial prince in the organisation
of the Church Luther lacking in ecclesiastical statesmanship
His application to the Elector John The Elector's " Instruction
and Command " The Kirchenordnung or Church ordinance
Luther's Preface The Ordinance is a confession of faith, a
directory of public worship, and a scheme of educational
reformFirst step towards the establishment of consistorial
Church government.

III. THE SECOND DIET OF SPIRES AND THE PROTESTATION 297-305

The Landgrave Philip's policy of an extension of the evan-
gelical league His tactical blunder in consequence of the
Pack forgery The Emperor's success against the League of
Cognac enables him to attempt to reverse the Recess of the first
Diet of Spires Weakness of the evangelical party in the second
Diet of Spires Reactionary decision of the Romanist majority
Appellation and Protestation of the evangelical princes and
cities Luther's attitude on the question of its active defence
Weakness of the Protestation from the constitutional point of
view Strength of the plea of fidelity to conscience Imperfect
apprehension of the principle professed.

CHAPTER IX

THE DISRUPTION OF THE EVANGELICAL PARTY 306-328
I. THE SACRAMENTARIAN CONTROVERSY - - 306-319

Luther's theory of consubstantiation Hoen's figurative,
symbolic interpretation of the words of institution Luther
rejects it Carlstadt champions a spiritual interpretation His
peculiar exegesis Luther confesses his natural proneness to
accept the symbolic view, but cannot depart from the literal
meaning of the words of institution His violent philippic
against Carlstadt " Against the Heavenly Prophets " In
spite of his dialectic resource, his vehemence defeats itself-
Fails to convince the Swiss and Strassburg theologians
Zwingh's early view of the Sacrament the Erasmian one-
Believes at first in the real presence Ultimately adopts Hoen's
interpretation Diffeience between the respective theological
standpoints of Luther and Zwingli For Zwingli salvation is

Contents xvii

PACES

attainable by faith in the atoning death of Christ on the Cross,
of which the Sacrament is the memorial For Luther Christ
offers Himself bodily to the believer in the Sacrament A fierce
pamphlet warfare between them and their respective partisans, in
which the two principals develop their views on the ubiquity
of Christ's body and the relation of the divine and human
natures in Him Luther's irreconcilable dogmatism.

II. THE MARBURG CONFERENCE - - - 320-328

The Landgrave proposes a conference and Luther reluctantly
agrees Preceded by private discussion The public discussion
The figurative versus the literal interpretation of the words
'* This is my body " The questions of the ubiquity of Chiist's
body and the two natures A complete deadlock Luther refuses
fellowship At the request of the Landgrave he draws up a
formula of agreement which Zwingh and Bucer refuse to accept
The Marburg doctrinal Articles which both parties sign The
conference not a complete failure Luther's growing tendency
to intolerance.

INDEX ------- 329-338

LUTHER
AND THE REFORMATION

CHAPTER I

LUTHER AT THE WARTBURG (i)
I. BEHIND THE VEIL

LATE in the evening of the 4th of May, after a wearisome ride
through the Thuringian Forest, Luther arrived in the
darkness at the old burg overlooking Eisenach. 1 He was
lodged in an isolated apartment which commanded a view
of the forest-clad hills from which he had emerged, and his
identity was known only to the Warden, Hans von Berlepsch,
and the trusty troopers who had been concerned in his
capture. To others he was known as Knight George, and
in order to fill the part assigned him he was arrayed in a
costume befitting his supposed rank, with a gold chain
encircling his neck. He grew a beard on his shaven face
and a crop of hair on his tonsured crown, was waited on by
a couple of pages, 2 and was instructed in knightly deportment
by a trusty trooper (Reitknecht). " You would with difficulty
recognise me," he wrote to Spalatin ten days after his
arrival; "in fact, I scarcely know my former self/' 3 The
Warden was so anxious to preserve the secret of his identity

1 Enders, iii. 150. Ego die, qua a te avulsus fui, longo itinere novus
eques fessus, hora ferme undecima, ad mansionem noctis perveni m
tenebris; cf. " Tischreden," v. 82 (Weimar ed.).

3 " Tischreden," iii. 37, ed Forstemann.

8 Enders, in. 155; cf. iii. 164, letter to Melanchthon, 26th May,
equitem videres ac ipse vix agnobceres.

2 Luther and the Reformation

and his whereabouts that he would not at first permit him
to write to his friends at Wittenberg, and he was fain, in
obedience to his remonstrances, to tear up the letters he
had penned to Melanchthon, Amsdorf, Agricola, Schurf,
and others, " for fear of revealing where I am." 4 A week
elapsed before the embargo was removed, and he was allowed
to assure his colleagues by letters, conveyed to them
apparently through Spalatin, that he had been taken to
a place of safety where he did not inform them. 5 These
early letters are indefinitely addressed " from the region of
the birds," or " the region of the air," or " the hilltop,""
or " the island of Patmos."

The secret was so well kept that the most conflicting
rumours as to his fate flew from mouth to mouth. That
he had been seized and carried off somewhere in the
Thuringian Forest was known at Worms within a week
after the event. But where he had disappeared to, whether
he had been captured by friend or enemy, whether he was
dead or alive was a mystery, and the mystery naturally
gave rise at Worms and elsewhere to the most divergent
surmisings. Some suspected that he had been seized at the
instigation of Aleander or the Archbishop of Maintz. 6
Aleander saw in this inference a Lutheran device to stir
up the people with the cry that the Romanists had violated
the imperial safe conduct, and instinctively divined that the
Elector " had his hand in the game " in spite of his dis-
claimer at a sitting of the princes. 7 Others thought of
Sickingen or Hector Beheim, a robber knight of Franconia,
with whom the Elector was at feud. 8 Luther himself
mentions in his letter to Spalatin a prevailing report, which

4 Enders, iii.- 146, 150.

6 Ibid., iii. 148 f. ; cf. 154. Luther himself sought to put his enemies
off the scent by writing a letter to Spalatin which he should contrive to
bring to the notice of Duke George, and which contradicted the rumour
that his place of concealment was the Wartburg. Ibid., ni. 201-202.

8 Kalkoff, " Depeschen," 235-237.

Ibid,, 235 ; cf. 2ii. As late as the 6th of July, Aleander was still
in ignorance as to his whereabouts, though he continued to suspect
"that Saxon wolf" of concealing him Brieger, "Aleander und
Luther," 245.

8 " Dcpeschen," 237, 240-41.

Behind the Veil 3

had reached the Wartburg a few days after his arrival, that
he had been captured by a party of friendly Franconian
nobles. 9 Another tale purported that he had entered
Leipzig, the day after his supposed capture, amid the plaudits
of the people. 10 An anti-climax to this tale was provided
in the story, equally circumstantial and, happily, equally
false, that he had been found dead in a silver mine with a
dagger through his body. u This story raised a storm of
anger at Worms where the mob swore vengeance on Aleander
and Caracciolo, who were warned by their friends that their
lives would not be safe even in the Emperor's arms. " The
will of the Lord be done/' piously ejaculated Aleander ;
" it is His cause that we defend/' 12 It evoked a passionate
response from many a pious heart all over Germany.
Albrecht Diirer, who heard the tragic news in the Netherlands,
bewailed in his Diary the untimely fate of " the God-inspired
man/' " O God, if Luther is dead who will henceforth
expound the holy Gospel so clearly to us ? " u The same
note of passionate anxiety appears in the letter which the
jurist and humanist, Gerbellins of Strassburg, addressed to
Luther at Wittenberg, telling him of these sinister reports,
and of the intense longing of himself and all good and
learned men to hear if he was alive and at liberty to write
to his friends. 14 This widespread anxiety was erelong dis-
sipated by the assurance indirectly conveyed to his friends
far and near that his disappearance was a prearranged
device to foil the persecuting policy of his enemies. Already,
on the 23rd May, Bucer, writing from Worms, sent a hint
of the real facts of the case to Zwingli. " You may take it
from me that Luther has indeed been taken captive, but
unless I am very much deceived, not at all by his enemies.
The thing has been admirably concealed and very prudently
carried out/' 15

In view of the popular passion excited by these flying

Enders, ni. 153 u /&<*., 238-

10 " Depeschen," 238. 12 Ibid , 238.

13 Leibschuh, " Albrecht Diirer 'sTagebuch/' 82-84 (1884) ; Thausing,
" Diirer J s Briefe, Tagebucher und Reime," 122.

14 Enders, iii. 159-160, i8th May.

18 Zwmgh, " Opera," vh. 174, ed, Schuler und Schulthess.

4 Luther and the Reformation

rumours, many of Meander's co-religionists were more than
doubtful of the wisdom of the policy of persecution. " Who
knows/' wrote Luther to Melanchthon, shortly after his
arrival in his hiding-place, " what God will effect in His high
purpose through this plan of concealment ? The priests
and monks who waxed furious against me as a free man
have now such fear of me as a captive that they are fain to
regret and relax their former foolish zeal. They tremble
at the growing menace of the popular hatred, which they
know not how to escape. ... A certain Romanist has
written to the Archbishop of Maintz, ' You have got Luther
out of the way as you wanted. But the people are so incensed
against us that we shall scarcely ransom our lives unless
with lighted candles we search for him and invite him to
return/ This may have been written in jest. But what
if the jest turn out to be serious ? " 16

Luther was not too happy in his enforced retirement.
He feared, he wrote to Melanchthon, lest his disappearance
should be regarded as a desertion of the battle. 17 He had
only yielded perforce to the advice and will of others and
had no greater wish than to expose his throat to the fury of
the adversary. He had heard from Spalatin of the prepara-
tion of the savage Edict against him and his books. But it
will not prove the terrible thing they imagine, except in
the hands of blind and boastful men like that Rehoboam of
Dresden (Duke George) and his compeer, the Elector Joachim
of Brandenburg. " God lives for ever and ever/' of whose
anger the abominable kingdom of the Roman Antichrist
is the horrible spectre. Meanwhile, let Philip realise his
vocation as a minister of the Word and man the walls and
towers of Jerusalem. 18 The difficulty of adapting himself
to the situation, coupled with an invincible confidence in
God, also finds expression in the letters to Amsdorf and
John Agricola. " Here I sit a strange captive, willing and
yet unwilling willing because God so wills it, unwilling
because I should prefer to stand forth in behalf of the Word,
but have not yet been found worthy. Wittenberg is hateful

16 Enders, in. 147

17 Ibid., in. 148. Verebtir ego ne aciern deserere viderer.

18 Ibid , ni. 148-149.

Behind the Veil 5

to its neighbours (Duke George and the Elector Joachim).
But the Lord will see to it that His time will come when He
will laugh them to scorn. Only let us have faith in Him.
Write how it stands with the sermons what part each
takes in order that my hope or fear concerning the Word
may increase." 19 " I sit here inactive and out of sorts the
whole day long," we read in a letter to Spalatin on the I4th
May. He was, however, not so idle as he professed, for
he proceeds to tell him that he is reading the Bible in
Hebrew and Greek and that he is contemplating writing a
work in the vernacular on auricular confession, continuing
his commentary on the Psalms and the Postille, or popular
expositions of the stated lessons from the Gospels and
Epistles, and completing the exposition of the Magnificat
when he shall have received the books about which he
had written to Wittenberg 20 A month later he tells him
that he is at once the most inactive (otiosissimtis,i.e., free from
official duty) and the busiest (negotiosissimus) of men. " I
am studying Hebrew and Greek and write without inter-
mission." He had written expositions oi several of the
Psalms ; had finished the Magnificat, which he had begun
before the journey to Worms, and the promised work on
auricular confession ; had elaborated his Postille on the
Nativity, and was hard at work on his Confutation of
Latomus. 21

The exposition of the 68th Psalm, the first fruit of this
literary production at the Wartburg, was penned for the
purpose of encouraging his friends at Wittenberg and else-
where. The disconsolate Melanchthon had written in doleful
strain bewailing his absence and describing the Wittenberg
circle as sheep without a shepherd. 22 In reply, Luther sent
a spirited message on the 26th May, reminding him how they
had often conversed together of faith and hope in the
things not seen, bidding him take upon him the mantle of
Elijah, sing the song of the Lord in the night, in which he
too will join, and not provoke Him to anger by lamentation
and faint-heartedness. " For the honour of the Word, and

l * Knders, lii. 151-152. 2l Ibid , iii 162, 171.

* Ibid., hi. 154; cf, 150. Ibid,, iii. 164

6 Luther and the Reformation

for the confirmation of myself and others, I would rather
burn on live coals than, half living and not able to die, rot
away here alone. . . . Even if I perish, the Gospel will not
perish, in which you now excel me and, like Elisha, succeed
Elijah, imbued with a double spirit, which may the Lord
impart to you." 23 Passages from the 68th Psalm formed
part of the service of the Mass in the chapel of the Wartburg
on Ascension Day and Whitsunday (gth and igth May),
and the words, " Let God arise and let his enemies be
scattered. Thou hast ascended on high and hast led
captivity captive/' suggested the exposition as an appropriate
message to his friends. The opening verse had formed the
exordium of the papal Bull of condemnation, and Luther in
turn adapted it to the situation. With a rather facile
exegesis, though with increasing evidence of Hebrew scholar-
ship, he sees in these words a prophecy of Christ and the
resurrection and the triumph of the Gospel, in spite of its
enemies and the difficulties and dangers of the way to
heaven. " When Christ died, God did as if He were asleep
and saw not the raging Jews who, as the disciples fled and
scattered, thought that they had won the day. But God
arose and woke Christ from the dead and rallied the disciples,
thereby turning the tables on the Jews and putting an end
to the glorying of His enemies." 24

He followed it up with an exposition of Psalm 37 for the
benefit of "the poor little flock at Wittenberg/' Like
St Paul, who from his prison at Rome wrote epistles to
comfort and strengthen his converts, he was anxious to
guard them from " these wolves, the papists," who malign
them as heretics and would fain tear them in pieces. He
is absolutely certain that what he has taught them is the
true and pure Gospel, for which he has borne testimony at
Augsburg, Leipzig, and Worms, and from which his enemies
flee as the bats and owls around the Wartburg do the light.
They fear discussion and think that they have settled the
matter by declaring him and his adherents Widifites,

28 Enders, iii. 163. In this reply he enclosed the exposition of the
68th Psalm. Mitto Psalmum istis ferns cantatum (162), with instructions
to have it printed or circulated in manuscript.

** " Werke," viii 4-5

Behind the Veil 7

Hussites, heretics. Let them rage and fulminate as they
will. He has the Scripture on his side which his opponents
handle as skilfully as an ass which would play the harp. 25
With blockheads and sophists like Emser, who wrest the
Scriptures to maintain their ecclesiastical nostrums, it is
useless to argue. The Scripture, say they, is obscure and
not fit for the people to read. On the contrary, no clearer
book than the Bible has ever been written, and their distinc-
tion between implicit and explicit faith the faith of the
people and the faith of the expert is a mere subterfuge
to keep the people in ignorance and submission to their
tyranny. True, there are obscure passages. But these are
to be read in the clear light of the Scripture as a whole,
which enables every one who will to believe firmly in its
teaching. Even the Fathers Jerome, Augustine, Hilary,
for instance whom they parade as infallible authorities
when it suits them, did not lay claim to such authority
and recognised the Scripture as the supreme and sole rule
of faith. Let the little Wittenberg flock cleave, therefore,
to the Word and defy the sophists of Rome, Louvain, Paris,
and Leipzig. Grounding on it they will no more esteem
and fear the f eliminations of the Pope and his satellites than
the rock does the raging billows of the sea. 26

It is thus that Luther himself, firmly grounded in the
Scripture as his real Wartburg, breasts the rising storm of
persecution and strives to inspire his adherents with his
own invincible spirit. The Bible, and the Bible alone, is his
battle-cry, and the conviction that he stands for God and
His Word is the real secret of the marvellous spiritual resource
and power that radiate, in the form of those clandestine
communications, all over Germany from the old burg on the
height above Eisenach. His claim to a monopoly of correct
interpretation sounds rather naive, inasmuch as his own
exegesis is at times artlessly subjective, though here again
his growing familiarity with the Hebrew text is very notice-
able. He is prone to read into Holy Writ what is in his
own mind rather than what was in the mind of the Hebrew
seer and singer. He does not make due allowance for

u i< \\Vrke," viii. 210-212* ' Ibid** vih. 234-239,

8 Luther and the Reformation

honest conviction in others, though the instances he gives of
the ridiculous exegesis of an Emser and others in support of
their ecclesiastical contentions certainly merit the scorn
and contempt which he heaps upon them. But then Luther,
with his back to the wall, is fighting for his life and his cause,
and without this supreme belief in himself as well as in the
Word he would have lost both. " Pray for me/' he begs
in conclusion, " that I may become truly pious, for, that I
must be separated from you, I would on no account do the
papists a service and Christ a disservice by allowing myself
to be in the least depressed by them. I am by God's grace
still as mettlesome and defiant as I have ever been In
body I suffer a little infirmity. But this is of no
consequence." 27

His infirmity was, however, more serious than he cared
to let be generally known. He had suffered at Worms
from an attack of indigestion. The strain had told on his
emaciated body and the malady increased with the change
to the Wartburg. The lack of exercise and the rich diet
which his host insisted on providing resulted in persistent
constipation, with bleeding from the bowels and sleeplessness
the worst he had hitherto experienced. 28 It was accom-
panied by fits of dejection to which he was temperamentally
subject. 29 Whilst he was penning these courageous messages
to his absent friends and flock, he was himself in danger of
being engulfed in the deep waters of physical and spiritual
misery, and was battling with the old temptation to doubt
and despair (Anfechtung). The malady reached a crisis in
the beginning of July when, for more than a week, his bodily
and mental suffering became unendurable and he thought
of going to Erfurt for medical advice. " For the last eight
days," he wrote to Melanchthon on the 13th July, " I have
written nothing. I neither pray nor study, partly on
account of the trials of the flesh, partly because I am tor-
mented with another malady. If my condition does not
improve, I shall throw off this disguise and go to Erfurt to

37 " Werke," vni. 240.

28 Enders, iii. 171.

29 Ibid., in. 163. Animi molestia nondum cessit et prior spiritus ac
fidei infirmitas perseverat.

Behind the Veil 9

consult the doctors, and you will see me there. For I can
bear this wretchedness no longer. Nay, I would suffer ten
serious wounds more easily than this one seemingly slight
lesion. Perchance the Lord thus torments me that He may
force me out of this hermitage into the public arena." 30 He
got relief from the prescription which Spalatin sent him, 81
though he only gradually recovered and suffered from recur-
ring attacks during the next three months. 32 It was only
in the beginning of October that he was able to assure
Spalatin that the disorder had yielded to the prescribed
treatment. 33

His recovery was facilitated by the rambles and rides
in the neighbourhood with which, at the Warden's instiga-
tion, he interrupted his solitary life. He sallied forth to
gather wild strawberries on the Schlossberg and joined in
the chase. In a letter to Spalatin on the I5th August,
he tells of one of these parties and how, amid the snares and
the dogs worrying the harmless hares and partridges, he was
reminded ol the bishops and theologians who, under their
master the devil, hunt the innocent souls of men which he
was striving to save. He had no pleasure in this sanguinary
business and tried to rescue a wretched hare by wrapping
it in the fold of his mantle. Even then the dogs would not
be denied their prey and worried it through the mantle.
" So rage the Pope and Satan in order to destroy the souls
I have saved, caring nothing for my efforts to rescue them." **
In his rides in the neighbourhood he was accompanied by
his trusty attendant who, as Mathesius tells, was ever on the
alert to prevent him spoiling his part as Knight George by
relapsing into his old habits as monk and professor. He
could not, for instance, refrain at first from laying aside his
sword and picking up a book in the inns which they visited,
and had to be reminded that the reading of books did not
consort with the profession of knighthood. On one occasion
in the inn at Reinhardtsbrunn he was actually recognised,
and the ready-witted attendant only saved the situation

30 Enders, Hi. 189. 33 Ibid , ni. 236.

31 Ibid., iii. 199. 3 * Ibid., hi. 219-220.

32 Ibid., iii. 204, 214, 216.

io Luther and the Reformation

by adducing a pressing engagement and hurriedly riding
off with him M

During these months of physical and mental suffering
the devil was an ever present reality. Despite his emancipa-
tion from the mediaeval religious standpoint, he retained to
the full the mediaeval belief in magic and satanic apparitions.
Behind the Pope, the Emperor, Duke George, Aleander,
Eck, and other enemies lurks the devil, whose agents they
are and who is ever lying in wait for Luther himself. In
the eerie solitude of his apartment in the haunted old burg,
as in his cell at Wittenberg, he occasionally makes his
presence known in the nocturnal visitations of which he
later discoursed in his " Table Talk." He hears him rattling
the hazel nuts in the sack which his house attendants had
brought him and which he kept in a closed box. When he
put out the light and went to bed the nuts would rattle
against the beams and his bed would shake. It did not
occur to him that the rats might be playing hide-and-seek
in the roof. It could only be the devil trying to disturb his
sleep. He did not take the visitation very seriously and
erelong fell asleep again. Suddenly he was awakened by a
terrible racket as if a whole cartload of casks were rumbling
down the stair outside his door. This was really very
serious. He started up and opened the door. Nothing
was to be seen or heard in the stairway. "Is it you, so
be it you," he ejaculated according to the formula usual
on such occasions, commending himself to Christ and recal-
ling the words of the Psalmist, " Thou hast placed all things
under his feet." 36 Again it did not occur to him that he
had been dozing over just as the rats had reached the climax
of their antics above the rafters or the wind had roared
up the stairway. On another occasion Satan takes the
form of a black dog which he dreamed or imagined he had
found lying in his bed and had thrown out of the
window in Christ's name, with the aforementioned formula

36 T.R.," v. 103; Walch, xv. 2330-2331. In the " Tischreden "
the incident occurs in a monastery at Erfurt.

86 " Tischreden," iii. 37 (ed. Forstemann), and Weimar ed.,

v. 87.

Renewal of the Battle for Reform 1 1

on his lips. 37 The story of his having thrown the ink-bottle
on the occasion of one of these satanic apparitions does not
seem to be authentic. But on his own testimony such
apparitions were by no means infrequent. " Believe me,"
he wrote to Gerbellius on the ist November, " that Satan
throws himself in my way again and again in this easeful
solitude. It is much easier to fight against the incarnate
devil, that is against men, than against the spiritual hosts of
wickedness in heavenly places. Too often I fall. But the
right hand of the Most High sustains me." * " There are
many wicked and cunning demons about me here who, as
they say, pass the time for me and cause me trouble,"
we read in a letter to Spalatin of the same date. 89 His great
talisman, he , tells us, when these experiences came to him,
was the Word, and when the Word threatened to fail him he
had recourse to ridicule. The devil could not stand this
kind of counter-attack, and the coarser the ridicule the
better. 40

II. RENEWAL OF THE BATTLE FOR REFORM

Despite the enforced cessation of his public activity,
he followed with an alert interest the trend of events and
strove to foster and direct the movement at Wittenberg
and elsewhere. In his eagerness to resume the part of active
reformer, he thought of leaving his solitude and establishing
himself at Erfurt, in spite of the papal ban and the imperial
Edict, and was only restrained from carrying out his purpose
by the remonstrance of Spalatin and an outbreak of the pest. 41
What he was prevented from doing in person he sought to do
by means of a voluminous correspondence with Spalatin,
Melanchthon, Amsdorf, and others at Wittenberg and
elsewhere. He notes with delight every indication of
progress from whatever quarter it came. As the prospect
of his return recedes he urges Spalatin and Amsdorf to prevail

S7 "T.R.," v. 87-88; Myconius, " Geschichte," 37; Kostlin-
Kawerau, " Luther," i. 439-440.

^ Enders, iii. 240. 40 " Tischreden," hi. 37-38.

89 Ibid., in. 243. 4l Enders, iii. 203.

12 Luther and the Reformation

on Melanchthon to take his place as a preacher of the Gospel.
He suggests that he should address the people in the vernac-
ular on feast days and thus restore the custom of the ancient
Church and, at the same time, wean them from the drinking
habits and amusements usual on these occasions. He sees
no force in the objection that he was not in priest's orders.
In expounding the Greek New Testament to his students he
is de facto performing the office of a priest. In any case
he is amply entitled to follow the example of Christ Himself
who preached in the synagogues, in boats, on the seashore,
on the mountain. If the people call him to this work it is
of no consequence that he has not been ordained by the
bishop. The people need the Word of God above all things,
and their need makes it incumbent that he should undertake
this vocation. What is there to hinder him from expounding
the Word to the citizens in the common tongue as well as to
the students in Latin ? ^ He exhorts Melanchthon himself,
who felt that his vocation lay more in the professor's chair
and the study than in the pulpit, boldly to preach the
grace of God and the fact of sin as the great realities. God,
he tells him, does not save fictitious, but real sinners. In
striving to impress on him this fact he unfortunately makes
use of language which, if read apart from the context, is
rather equivocal and has often been quoted by the enemy
in discredit of his doctrine of justification. " Be a sinner
and sin vigorously. But at the same time confide and
rejoice still more boldly in Christ, who is the conqueror of
sin and death and the world. As long as we live we must
needs sin. For this life is not the habitation of righteousness,
but, as Peter says, we look for new heavens and a new earth
wherein dwelleth righteousness. It suffices that, through
the riches of His glory, we acknowledge the Lamb of God
who taketh away the sin of the world. From Him sin will
never wrench us away even if we commit fornication or
murddr a thousand times in one day. Think you that so
small a price and redemption have been given for our sins
by such and so great a Lamb ? " xi ie case j s no do^t
hypothetical, and in his insistence on the power of God's

42 Enders, iii. 230-231 ; cf. 233. Ibid., iii. 208-209,

Renewal of the Battle for Reform 13

grace to prevail against the fact of man's sin he forgets
for the moment his distinctive doctrine that justification
necessarily involves the moral regeneration of the believer.
This is one of those extreme utterances to which he was at
times prone, and one can only regret that in putting the case
in this way he did not take time to weigh his words, even in
a private letter to one who was not likely to misunderstand
them. In his propensity to utter things on the spur of the
moment Luther, it must be admitted, was at times his
own worst enemy.

He took a keen interest in the reorganisation of the
University, which the Elector and Spalatin carried out
during a midsummer visit to Wittenberg. The theological
faculty was strengthened by the accession of Aurogallus to
the chair of Hebrew, and of Justin Jonas to that of Canon
Law, which he shortly after exchanged for one of Theology,
and which Luther wished to banish from the curriculum. 44
He thanked God that He has raised up others to fill his place.
His colleagues had now no need of him, and his only concern
is lest Melanchthon should overtax his strength, in spite of
his repeated warnings, and suffer penury for lack of a
sufficient stipend. 45

He warmly welcomed the work of Oecolampadius on
" Auricular Confession," the appearance of which in the
previous April had stirred the wrath of Aleander, 46 and
expressed his desire to have it translated into German. 47
The perusal did not, however, render superfluous his own
work on the same subject, which he dispatched to Spalatin
on the loth June with the request to have it forthwith
printed. 48 This work is the first of the attacks on the
institutions of the Church launched from the Wartburg, in
continuation of the polemic which the journey to Worms
had interrupted. It is not directed against the practice

44 Melanchthon, ' ' Opera, ' ' i . 390 f . On the Reform of the University,
see Fnedensburg, " Geschichte der Universitat Wittenberg " (191?).

46 Enders, iii. 190, 199, 203-204.

46 " Depeschen," 209-210. 47 Enders, iii. 162, 180.

48 Enders, iii. 171. Von der Beicht, ob der Papst macht habe zu
gepieten. " Werke," viii. 140 f. The printing proceeded so slowly that
it did not appear till the end of September.

14 Luther and the Reformation

of confession as far as it is enjoined by Scripture, but against
the abuse of it as practised and enforced in the mediaeval
Church. The actual practice, he contends, is based on a
perversion of Scripture and is merely an ecclesiastical
device to enslave the penitent to the tyranny of Pope and
priest, which he denounces in his most violent mood.
Hence the attempt, in the first part, to prove from numerous
passages in the Old and New Testaments that it is not per-
missible to go beyond the clear testimony of Scripture in a
matter of this kind and introduce and enforce a usage that
rests only on human authority. To do so is to depart from
and distort the truth, as did the false prophets against whom
the true prophets, Christ, and the Apostles warned. It is
of no avail to cite the ordinances of General Councils in
support of such usages. The ordinances of Councils like
that of Nicaea, which, he assumes, limited themselves to the
elucidation of the truth from the Scriptures, are indeed
valid, inasmuch as they are in accord with God's Word.
But in as far as Councils have legislated a multitude of
observances merely out of their own heads, their laws
have no authority as against that of the Word. " Therefore
Councils here or Councils there, if what they ordain is only
human doctrine, it is of no validity. ... I believe in Christ
and Paul His Apostle more than in all Councils, even if they
were more in number than the sands of the sea and the
stars in the heavens. They are to be condemned if they do
not base their decisions on the Word of God." 49

He proceeds, in the second part, to examine the few scrip-
tural passages adduced in support of the existing practice.
He makes sport of the far-fetched and forced exegesis which
finds in Matt. viii. 4, " Go show thyself to the priest/' and
Proverbs xxvii. 23, " Be thou diligent to know the state
of thy flocks and look well to thy herds/' an argument
for auricular confession to a priest. Such silly glosses are
more worthy of ridicule than refutation. No wonder that
the Romanists strive to keep the people from reading the
Bible and thus prevent them from finding out for themselves
the lies and crass deception with which they seek to bolster

49 " Werke," viii. 150.

Renewal of the Battle for Reform 15

up their unfounded pretensions. James v. 16 enjoins
confession not to a priestly confessor, but to one another.
John xx 22-23 only confers the power of absolution on the
disciples and leaves confession, which it does not in fact
mention, to the discretion of the individual Christian.
But, says the priest, in order to absolve from sin it is
necessary that the penitent should make known his sins.
This, retorts Luther, is to demand the impossible, since
no one is able to reckon up his sins. Does not the Psalmist
say, " Who can understand his errors/' and " Mine iniquities
are more than the hairs of my head " ? Such a demand tends
only to misery of conscience, inasmuch as the priestly
absolution must needs leave the penitent in doubt and
perturbation. Moreover, the system makes him the victim
of a priestly tyranny, which serves to enslave the soul as
well as fill the priest's pocket and enhance his power.
Therefore they are not to be damned who make confession
to God alone or to a fellow-Christian as long as they do so
with true repentance and faith. 50

The third part is a plea for freedom from the mechanical
and enforced observance of the ecclesiastical canon of the
Fourth Lateran Council, which requires all Christians to
confess once a year at least. This observance does not
make for real reformation of life, but only fosters formalism
and hypocrisy. The people should be drawn to confession
and communion by the preaching of the Gospel of faith
and repentance, and not driven by ecclesiastical enactment.
The soul cannot be saved by mere laws and ordinances,
but only by influencing the heart and the will. Confession
should, therefore, be voluntary. God's grace seeks and
requires the longing heart, not mere ecclesiastical obedience,
and only in reliance on His grace, not on prescribed works,
can peace of conscience be found. Moreover, the power of
loosing and binding was given by Christ to the whole
Christian community, not to Pope or priesthood, and it
pertains to the community to exercise this power, as in
the time of the Apostles and long after. He would fain
revive the ancient practice and would rather reform than

50 " Werke," viii, 152 f.

1 6 Luther and the Reformation

abolish confession, to which he attaches a high religious
value for two reasons. It fosters self-humiliation before
God and our neighbour, leads to the Cross by which alone
we can find a gracious God, and it enables us to participate
with full assurance in the promise, " What things soever
ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." Here
we have a true echo of Luther's own experience in his search
for a gracious God which began in self-condemnation and
ended in the full assurance of the forgiveness of sins in simple
trust in God's mercy and love in Christ. " O, if we knew
how gracious it makes God that a man should thus abase
and humble himself in His honour, we would dig up confession
from the earth and fetch it a thousand times over. For the
whole Scripture testifies how gracious and loving God is
to those who thus abase and condemn themselves." 51
" How grand and sure a thing it is to take God at His own
word and feel that we have so strong a support and confidence
in His truth that we may freely and boldly urge God Himself
with His own word/' 52

He was immensely gratified by Melanchthon's confutation
of the fulmination against his teaching which the Theological
Faculty of the University of Paris had at last issued on the
I5th April. 63 " I have seen the Decree of the Parisian
sophists with Philip's Apology," he wrote to Spalatin on the
I5th July, " and I rejoice with all my heart." 5 * He forth-
with determined to translate both into the vernacular, with
a characteristic preface and conclusion, 55 and dispatched
the translation to Wittenberg. 56 The doctors of the Sorbonne
had discovered no less than 104 heresies in his writings and
they expressed their opinion of their author in the current

51 " Werke," vih. 176.

62 Ibid., viii. 178. Luther elaborated his exegesis of Matt. vih. 4
in the " Evangelium von den Zehn Aussatzigen " at the request of
Duke John, the brother of the Elector, which was issued from the press
in the beginning of Nov. 1521. " Werke," viii. 340 f.

" Melanchthon, "Opera," i. 398 f. ("Corp. Ref."). Adversus
Furiosum Parisiensium Theologastrorum Decretum pro Luthero
Apologia, June 1521.

5 * Enders, iii. 200.

55 Ibid., iii. 190.

64 It was finished in the beginning of Aug. Ibid., iii. 215.

Renewal of the Battle for Reform 17

vituperative style. Luther, it is evident from this document,
was not singular in claiming a monopoly of the truth against
opponents and imputing to them the worst of motives. In
this respect he is no better and no worse than the Sorbonne
divines who described him as one of those vipers who devour
their own mother, the Church. He is a presumptuous
blasphemer who claims to know better than all the Fathers,
theologians, and Councils of the Church, as if God had
reserved to him alone a knowledge of the things necessary
to salvation. Such audacity and impiety can only be
overcome by prison, ban, and fire, rather than by reason,
and this conviction appears to explain why, in condemning
him, they do not condescend to argue with him. They
simply declare him an arch-heretic and blasphemer like
Arms, Manicheus, Wiclif, Hus, and many more agents of
the devil. Like all heretics he wrests the Scriptures to
please himself, and in so doing has simply renewed the
heresies of these diabolic perturbers of the Church. In
particular, his book on the " Babylonic Captivity " is as
bad as the Koran and can only have been written by an
accursed enemy of the Church. They accordingly condemn
in virulent terms the long list of articles bearing on faith
and morals, drawn from this and his other writings, though
significantly enough they pass over his views on the papal
power in silence. 57 Their own reputation in this matter was
gravely suspect in papal eyes, and the omission of this
cardinal heresy from the list rather qualified the approval
with which Aleander reported the deliverance to Rome. 58

Though the Sorbonne doctors were experts in the current
art of theological vituperation, they were greatly inferior to
Luther in ironic retort and rough humour. " Now we see
what our Parisian Masters are capable of when they get
thoroughly angry. If I say that the Dean of the Paris
Faculty of Theology and his fellow-sophists are unmitigated
asses, I shall only give them occasion to draw up another
article and say, ' This article is false, foolish, sacrilegious,
unchristian, presumptuous, erroneous, heretical, and

* 7 " Werke," viii. 268 f.

* 8 Bneger, " Aleander und Luther,*' 237, uno solo hanno fatto male,
che de primatu pontificis non hanno fatto mentione alcuna.

20 Luther and the Reformation

unwarranted oppression of conscience and an infringement
of individual liberty, in deference to mere human tradition.
Even the Canon Law only made its observance binding " in
as far as human frailty would permit." 64 The accused
was besides not conscious that he had explicitly sworn to
observe celibacy, and had found by expenence that it was
impossible to do so owing to the infirmity of the flesh.
It was a matter of conscience, and with Scripture and the
practice of the early Church to guide him, he had determined
to free his conscience from the yoke of human tradition
and enter into the estate of wedlock, in accordance with the
divine sanction and ordinance.

Carlstadt improved on Melanchthon's contention in this
document by demanding, in an academic disputation on
the 2ist June and in his work " Super Coelibatu," in
amplification of his thesis on the subject, the abolition of
celibacy for monks and nuns as well as for priests. He
even went the length, by a forced interpretation of Scripture
texts like i Tim. iii. 2, " The bishop must be the husband
of one wife," of maintaining that only married men should
be ordained as priests and demanding that those who live
in concubinage should be compelled by the bishop to marry.
From i Tim. v. 9, " Let none be enrolled as a widow under
threescore years old," he not only condemned the admission
of young persons of both sexes to the monastic life, but
accorded monks and nuns below this age freedom to marry
and live in wedlock in the religious houses. They indeed
commit sin in breaking the vow of chastity. But they sin
still more heinously in transgressing in secret this vow by
their sexual excesses. 65 "Good God," wrote Luther to
Spalatin on the 6th August on receiving the sheets of
Carlstadt 's work, " our Wittenbergers will give wives even
to the monks ! But they will not thrust a wife on me." 66
He had himself advocated the marriage of priests in the
" Address to the German Nobility " and was prepared
to approve of that of his old student Bernhardi, though he
could not help marvelling at his boldness. 67 Priestly celibacy

84 " Opera, 1 ' i. 435. * Enders, iii. 215.

" Barge, " Karlstadt," i. 265 f. Ibid., iii. 163, 165, 206.

Renewal of the Battle for Reform 21

is, he writes to Melanchthon (ist August), a mere human
ordinance and is, therefore, not binding on Christian men.
It is contrary to the clear testimony of i Tim. iv. 3, in
which Paul condemns the false teachers of his time who
forbid marriage and whom he denounces as agents of the
devil. He would, therefore, on the ground of this explicit
testimony, allow priests to exercise liberty in this matter. 68
But he questioned Carlstadt's view, which Melanchthon
shared, that monks might also exercise this liberty and was
not satisfied with the fanciful and arbitrary exegesis of
passages like I Tim. hi. 2 and v. 9, with which Carlstadt
attempted to justify the marriage of monks as well as
priests. He fears that it will expose them and their cause
to the calumny and ridicule of the enemy. 69 Moreover, he
doubts whether monks and nuns who have voluntarily
chosen the celibate state and offered themselves to God
have the right equally with priests to break an obligation
deliberately taken, except in the case of those who have
taken this vow before the age of puberty and without a
due sense of what it implies. 70 In thus differentiating
between priests and monks in this matter, he does not seem
to realise that the former as subdeacons had come under
the obligation henceforth to maintain chastity and explicitly
renounced their freedom to marry. 71 From the point of
view of ecclesiastical law, the distinction was, therefore,
really one without a difference, and from the scriptural
point of view the argument based on i Tim iv. 3, in favour
of the marriage of priests, might also be used in favour of
that of monks. At this stage, however, Luther was not
prepared to draw this conclusion. He was, indeed, con-
vinced that, if Christ were to return, He would break these
chains and abolish all burdensome restrictions tending to
hinder the salvation of souls. 72 But he has not yet dis-
covered the explicit testimony of Scripture for which he is

68 Enders, ni. 206-207.

89 Ibtd.yiii 210-211; cf. 218.

70 Ibid., 111. 206-207.

71 See the condition of ordination as ^ubdeacon given by Kawerau,
" Werke," vni. 314.

78 Enders, iii. 212.

22 Luther and the Reformation

searching and which would enable him to give a definite
decision on the point, though he would fain succour the
miserable victims of the monastic system, who are tormented
with temptations of the flesh. 73 He fears, too, the scandal
to which the wholesale renunciation of vows will give rise
without such a manifest warrant of Scripture. 74 In
particular, he is very dubious as to the effects on both
morality and social order of the argument used by
Melanchthon, 75 that the vow of celibacy is not binding,
simply because it is not possible for human frailty to keep
it. Might not this argument, he asked, be used as an excuse
for dissolving marriage and breaking all God's command-
ments at will ? The question was so important and caused
him such anxiety that he suggested that he and Melanchthon
should secretly meet in some place to discuss it. 76 It
looks, he jocularly adds, as if Melanchthon in troubling
him with the subject were determined to have his revenge
for his having inflicted a wife on him by forcing him also
to enter the married state. " But/' he adds, " I will take
good care that you shall not succeed." 77

III. THE ATTACK ON MONASTICISM

/

Meanwhile he sent him a long series of theses on the
subject, inscribed to "the bishops and deacons of the
Church at Wittenberg," with the promise to add an elucida-
tion of them later. 78 He envisages it from the standpoint
of his cardinal doctrine of justification by faith. He starts
by quoting Paul, " Whatsoever is not of faith is sin "
(Romans xiv. 23). This, he holds, is to be understood

"Enders, iii. 207. Scripturam qusesimus et testimonium divinae
voluntatis.

td., hi. 206-207. Scandala etiam vitanda sunt, ubi non est
manifesta scriptura pro nobis, quantumvis hcita sunt,

75 In some supplementary sheets of his " Loci Communes " which,
along with a letter on the subject, he sent him in the beginning of
Sept. Enders, iii. 222.

" Ibid., iii. 222-223 77 Rid., iii. 227.

78 Ibid., iii. 226, 9th Sept. "Themata de Votis," " Werke," viii
323 f.

The Attack on Monasticism 23

of the faith that alone justifies in virtue solely of God's
grace and not of man's works. Those who have vowed
themselves to the religious life in order by monastic works
to merit salvation have totally misapprehended this funda-
mental principle of the spiritual life. By relying on such
works instead of on faith in God's mercy, they have grossly
erred from the divine way of salvation and are guilty of
infidelity and impiety towards God. There is scarcely one
in a thousand in these days who has not taken the monastic
vows with the object of earning thereby salvation, and it is
probable that they would not have done so if they had known
that they could not attain saving righteousness by this
means. Such vows are, therefore, not binding and should
be discarded without regard to ecclesiastical authority or
the opprobrium of common opinion. 79 He does not, indeed,
condemn the monastic life if adopted freely and in the right
religious spirit. The New Testament is the reign of liberty
and faith 80 and leaves the believer free to exercise his liberty
in this matter. Those who, like St Bernard, have taken the
monastic vows in a truly religious spirit may do so as long
as they do not confide in monastic works for salvation.
But this manner of life is liable to lead to the perversion of
the Gospel and the perdition of souls, 81 and as practised at
the present time it is almost universally pernicious. It
is based not only on ignorance of true faith, but on an
unwarranted distinction between the precepts and the
counsels of the Gospel, which falsely exalts the monastic
life as the state of perfection in depreciation of the ordinary
Christian life. Moreover, it assumes a distinction between
the ordinary Christian and the ecclesiastical orders which,
as far as Christian life and duty are concerned, does not
exist, and is nothing but an ecclesiastical mask. 82 The great
test of Christian living is, next to faith, the love of one's
neighbour and active well doing, and to bury oneself in a
monastery and shun the ordinary duties of life, on the
pretext of obedience to the monastic rule, is to obey Satan

" " Themata," 43-53-

80 Novum enim Testamenlum regnum est liberlatis et fidei, 73

81 '* Themata, "71-102.

82 Ibzd., 103-115,

24 Luther and the Reformation

rather than God and neglect the Christian law of service for
others. The chains of monastic vows and rules, which
stand in the way of common service, ought to be broken,
as Samson broke the withes of the Philistines.

In a second series specifically dealing with the question,
whether it is permissible to vow a perpetual vow, which he
sent a few days later, 83 he emphatically maintains the
negative on the ground of the essential liberty of the
Gospel. 84 All vows, he insists, must be such as are not
incompatible with this liberty, which is by divine right and
gift, and no vow such as virginity ought to be taken except
on the understanding that one is free in accordance with
the Gospel to relinquish it. 85 It is of the essence of the
Gospel that the principle of liberty be maintained, " Nothing
may be done against liberty, but only in behalf of liberty/' 86
Moreover, such vows are merely of human ordinance, and
institution, and whatever is not prescribed in Scripture is to
be avoided. In view of the danger of the monastic life
from the evangelical standpoint, it is far safer for those who
have entered it to renounce it. 87

These theses made a profound impression on his colleagues
at Wittenberg. When the first series arrived, Melanchthon
was sitting at dinner with Peter Suaven, Luther's companion
on the journey to Worms, and John Bugenhagen. " These
theses," said Bugenhagen, after reading them several times
with wrapt attention, " will effect a revolution of the existing
order." " They mean/' added Melanchthon, " the beginning
of the liberation of the monks." 88 They sent both series to
the press, from which they issued on the 8th October. The
impression which, in book form, they produced far beyond
Wittenberg, was deepened by the work on "Monastic
Vows/' 89 in which he elaborated them and which he
finished on the 2ist November. In the course of writing it
he was, as he tells Gerbel, bringing forth " a son who should
smite the papists, sophists, monks, and Herodists with a
rod of iron." " So many evils does this most wretched

83 Enders, in. 232. 8 Ibid., 34.

84 " Werke," viii. 330 f. 8 ' Ibid., 125-128.

85 " Themata," 1-18 8 Werke/' vni. 317,

8 " De Votis Monasticis," " Werke," viii. 573 f.

The Attack on Monasticism 25

celibacy daily produce in the case of young men and women
that nothing more hateful sounds in my ears than the
name of nun, monk, priest, and I account the most careworn
married life a paradise in comparison/' 90 In the dedication
to his father he joyfully announces that his conscience has
been liberated from the teaching and superstition of men
in this matter. " Christ has absolved me from the monastic
vow and has given me such liberty that, while He has made
me the servant of all, I am nevertheless subject to Him
alone. . . . What if the Pope shall kill me and condemn
me to the lowest hell ? I desire nothing better than to be
damned and never to be absolved by him/ 1 91

This does not mean that he had determined to disregard
his vow. It only means that he had ceased to regard it as
an essential or even a desirable element of piety. Nor does
it mean that he was desirous to escape from the burden of
celibacy in order to be free to indulge the sexual appetite.
The book was certainly not written from any such motive.
He had resolved to remain in his present state, he wrote to
Link after its completion. 92 Nor is his purpose merely to
engage in an aggressive polemic against his enemies, but
to guide those who were tormented with scruples of conscience
and the sense of sin, under the bondage of their vows, and
needed enlightenment and counsel. 93 He had, in fact, as he
informed Spalatin on the 22nd November, heard that a
number of the monks at Wittenberg had renounced their
vows and abandoned the monastery 94 a tribute to the
influence of his theses as well as to the preaching of the
Augustinian monk, Zwilling. He was afraid lest they had
done so without sufficient knowledge or reflection, and his
anxiety had led him to pen this work in order to regulate
and moderate the movement. 95 He regarded it as the most

Enders, Hi. 241, ist Nov.

91 " Werke," vni. 576.

92 Enders, rii. 258, nam et ego in habitu et ritu isto manebo nisi
mundus alius fiat.

93 " Werke," viii. 577 ; cf. 666 and 668.

94 Enders, iii. 250, and see the letter of the Prior Kelt to the Elector,
" Opera Melanchthoni," i. 484, *2th Nov.; Nik. Muller, "Die
Wittenberger Bewegung," 68 (1911).

95 Ibid., iii. 250.

26 Luther and the Reformation

powerful and irrefutable of all his writings. 96 It is certainly
remarkable for the skill and force, the lucidity and fertility
of thought with which he brings his evangelical teaching
to bear on the subject, though it should not be forgotten
that it had been to a certain extent anticipated by that of
Carlstadt. 97

To this end he gives a clear and concise exposition of
his doctrine of justifying faith versus works in the monastic
sense, 98 and this doctrine is the touchstone of his attitude
on the question. Monasticism, he repeats, is based on a
complete misapprehension of the Gospel by which God in His
grace grants the remission of sin through faith alone, and
not through works of any kind. The notion that salvation
can be most surely attained by taking the monastic vows
and living in accordance with the rule of the Order is, he
maintains, current in all the monasteries, though it is
contrary to the views of the better representatives of the
monastic life such as St Bernard and St Francis. 99 " Ask
all the votaries of the monastic life why they have taken
these vows and you will find them possessed by this impious
notion. They conceive that the grace of baptism (by which
the remission of sin is given through faith) is ineffectual
and that they must take refuge from shipwreck in the life
of penance and strive by this means not only to attain the
good and frustrate the effects of sin, but even by a more
abundant penance become better than other Christians.
That this is their striving is proved by their own testimony.
If, say they, I should not find salvation in this way of life,
why should I subject myself to it ? " 10 So inveterate is
this current belief that the monks even go the length of
regarding their entrance on the monastic life as a second
baptism, and believe that the merits arising from it are
so great that they assure an immediate entrance into
heaven after death and are available for the salvation of
others. 1

From the evangelical point of view, on the other hand,

6 " Werke," viii. 569. " Ibid., viii. 590.

97 Barge, i. 300. 10 Ibid., viii. 595.

98 " Werke," viii. 593-594. 1 Ibid., viii. 598-600.

The Attack on Monasticism 27

this is a reversion to Jewish legalism from which Paul
delivered Christianity. 2 In this sense the votaries of the
monastic system are apostates from the Gospel. To become
a monk is to deny Christ and become a Jew. 3 He applies
to them the words of i Tim. iv. 1-2, " In later times men
shall fall away from the faith, giving heed to seducing
spirits and doctrines of devils." 4 He even goes the length
of equating monasticism not only with Judaism, but with
Manichaeism. 5 It avails not that they seek to justify their
legalism by distinguishing between the evangelical counsels
and precepts. This distinction is mere quibbling for the
purpose of justifying their stupid superstition. It has no
basis in the Gospel. The Sermon on the Mount, for instance,
is not a series of counsels for the exercise of this so-called
higher life, but a series of instructions for all Christians.
The common Christian life is the only true Christian life. 8
Moreover, this so-called higher Christian life is a sham
and a pretence. No class is more influenced by the common
passions of human nature than the monks and nuns who
neither are nor can be without concupiscence. 7 Paul,
indeed, praises celibacy on the ground that it enables those
who practise it to devote themselves to God's service by
freeing them from the cares and tribulations of the married
state, and in this sense he will not quarrel with it. But
Paul leaves it to the free choice of the individual, and only
in as far as it is in accord with evangelical liberty is it
permissible, 8 This liberty specifically consists in the
emancipation of conscience from the tyranny of works
in the legalist sense, from the monastic penitential system,
not from works which faith brings forth and which Christ
operates in the believer. 9 All vows assumed in this legalist
spirit, which thus perverts the Gospel of God's grace and
infringes the principle of evangelical liberty, are utterly
reprehensible and ought straightway to be renounced.
He has now no hesitation in demanding this renunciation
in the case of monks as well as priests, and the fact that

8 " Werke," vih. 600-601. s Ibid., viii. 580-583.

3 Ibid., viii. 600. 7 Ibid., viii. 585.

4 Ibid., viii. 595. 8 Ibid., vin. 585.

6 Ibid., viii. 597-598. * Ibid., viii. 606-607.

28 Luther and the Reformation

the latter have voluntarily come under the obligation of
celibacy no longer avails as an argument in favour of its
observance. " I would dare to absolve all monks from
their vows and confidently pronounce that these vows are
reprehensible and null in God's sight. Formerly, indeed,
I was prepared to absolve only priests from the vow of
celibacy. But on a closer study of the words of Paul in
i Tim. iv. 1-2, I have come to see that they apply generally
to all celibates, monks as well as priests/' 10

He has discarded, too, the fear that the renunciation
of such vows will prove a danger to social order and morality,
inasmuch as evangelical liberty in this matter is concerned
solely with the relation between God and the individual,
not with the relation between the individual and his
neighbour. 11 On the other hand, the monastic system,
under the false pretext of what is called " freedom in
spiritual things," i.e., the right of children to embrace the
monastic life without the consent of parents of which he
himself had wrongly made use when he became a monk
virtually assumes the right to abrogate all social and civil
ties and obligations. 12

His argumentation is largely of a theological character.
The decisive test in judging the monastic system is the
testimony of Scripture, especially his doctrine of justification
by faith. Hence the intensely dogmatic note of the treatise,
the marked tendency which, however, he shares with his
age, to see nothing but error and perversity on the other
side. One feels here, as in many of his other works, that,
cogent as many of his arguments are, he would have made
out a stronger case if he had been content to eschew the
imputation to his opponents of unworthy motives and
wholesale wickedness on purely theological grounds. Here,
as elsewhere, he is too prone to be the man of one idea.
At the same time he by no means neglects to envisage the
subject from the practical point of view, and his arguments
from this point of view are very forcible. One of the
strongest of them is the contention that the monastic

10 " Werke," viii. 597 ; </. 598. " Ibid., vih. 627.

11 Ibid., vhL 615.

The Attack on Monasticism 29

profession does not square with the monastic practice in
regard to the vow of poverty, for instance. The monks
stress the obligation of their vows and magnify their virtues
above those of the ordinary life of men. But they do not
really observe them and their profession is largely hypo-
critical. Evangelical poverty consists in not being covetous
and ministering of our substance freely for the benefit of
others. But this vow is, in practice, largely an illusion
and a mockery, since no class is more tenacious of its
property and its rights and more grasping than the monks. 13
The vow of poverty is thus really a sham Monastic poverty
might more truly be termed abundance. 14 The monasteries
are endowed with large possessions and offer an easy means
of subsistence. In those monasteries where poverty truly
reigns the applications for admission are few enough. 15
Real poverty does not mean the possession of things in
common, as the monks pretend, but the lack of subsistence.
They fleece the people in order to live in ease and plenty
and so hinder the people from succouring the truly poor
in their midst. 16 Like locusts this multitude of lazy and use-
less persons devour the substance of others, whilst rendering
service and benefit to none.

Equally objectionable from the practical point of view
is the vow of obedience which enjoins obedience only to the
superior of the Order, and even so only in the things enjoined
by the rule, whereas the Gospel commands obedience to all
in the common service of the community. 17 This separation
from the Christian community, which leads to the neglect
of the practical duties of life under the plea that obedience
is better than sacrifice (i Sam. xv. 22), is not merely a
perversion of the words of the prophet, but a travesty
of the higher form of religious life which they profess to
exemplify. This life consists in active well-doing for the
service of others, not in donning a cowl, shaving the head,
sleeping in a common dormitory, eating in a common
refectory, giving oneself to the formal routine of religious
exercises, whilst neglecting the active service commanded

18 " Werke," viii. 587. l Ibid , viii. 642-645.

14 Ibid., viii. 643. 1? Ibid., via. 586.

16 Ibid., viii. 642.

30 Luther and the Reformation

by God. It is of no avail to adduce the plea of this so-called
higher devotion to the things of the spirit. The best worship
of God is the keeping of His commandments, 18 whereas
the rendering of a partial obedience tinder the monastic
rule results only in the maintenance of a multitude of lazy
and useless people, who, like locusts, devour the substance
of others, whilst rendering service to none and making
the commandments of God of no effect. 19 The obedience
of wives to husbands, children to parents, servants to
masters, subjects to rulers is far more in accordance with
the Gospel, which teaches us to serve all freely without
regulation or limitation. Monastic obedience is, in the
words of 2 Tim. iii. 5, merely " a form of godliness, whilst
denying the power thereof." 20

For Luther the vow of chastity is now equally invalid,
not merely because it is contrary to evangelical liberty,
but because his experience of the monastic life, though not
necessarily his own personal experience, has proved that it is
impossible to preserve it. He has from his own observation
found the most glaring contradiction between profession and
practice. He evidently speaks with knowledge when he
says that many who, in immature years, have taken this
vow have discovered that they are really incapable, by their
temperament and the natural disposition to do the evil
rather than the good, of keeping it, and he contends that
in view of this indisputable fact it should only be taken
conditionally. 21 On grounds of common sense as well as
Scripture, celibacy, he now maintains, is a matter which
ought to be left to the judgment of the individual, and not
formally prescribed and maintained apart from temperament
and experience. The law of God and nature alike is to
increase and multiply, and it is a mistake to attempt
mechanically to reverse this law by a rigid rule. 22 In
deciding to abandon this vow, immaturely imposed, one is
not breaking a divine command, for God has not imposed
celibacy as a condition of the spiritual and moral life. 23
His observation has convinced him that the life of solitude

18 " Werke," viii. 625-626. Ibid., vrii. 630632.

19 Ibid*, viii. 623-629. 2J Ibid., viii. 630-631 .
80 Ibid., viii. 645 f. S3 Ibid., viii. 632.

The Attack on Monasticism 31

and mechanical religious observance is not generally favour-
able to a chaste habit of mind. It tends, in fact, to intensify
the passions which assert themselves with all the greater
force as the result of artificial repression. It generally
produces a morbid state of sexual desire, with evil physical
and moral effects which render this so-called monastic
chastity an impossibility. Monks and nuns, he says, are
usually the victims of the flames of lust and self-pollution. 24
He and many others with him had found by experience
that the early stage of the monastic life was peaceful and
happy. But this early experience during the year of proba-
tion is no guarantee of future immunity from the temptations
of the flesh and of the maintenance of the truly chaste
mind. 25 For such, marriage is the only remedy. It is a
natural and honourable state, and it is a lying invention that
one cannot serve God in the married state, as they pretend.
Celibacy, on the other hand, leads to a miserable torment of
conscience far more than the cares of married life. 23 It
is verily a false notion that the true Christian life is only to
be found in a monastery. For him monasticisin has become
in theory and practice largely a pseudo-Christian institution.
It is not surprising that Sylvanus in a vision discovered that
hell was full of monks ! 27 He would turn the monasteries
into schools for the instruction of youth in faith and religious
discipline until they reach mature age. 28 Whilst leaving the
individual free to decide for himself and not condemning
the monastic life, if the principle of evangelical faith and
liberty is maintained, 29 he concludes that, confiding in the
Gospel, these vows may safely be renounced and a return
made to the liberty of the Christian faith. " Let us do the
right through good report and ill. The Lord judges the
peoples of the earth with equity. Let every man be a
liar ; let God alone be true." 30

With these words he sends out this manifesto in which
he sets forth with such argumentative force the evangelical,
in opposition to the mediaeval conception of the Christian

" "Werke," viii. 649. 28 Ibid., viii. 641.

25 Ibid., viii. 660-661. 2 Ibid., viii. 616.

a Ibid., viii. 665. 30 Ibid., viii. 54, 666-668.

37 Ibid., viii. 657.

32 Luther and the Reformation

life. It is a challenge all along the line to the dominant
but effete monastic system and a trumpet call in behalf of
emancipation from this system in accordance with the
teaching of Christ and Paul, and to a certain extent the
dictates of reason and natural law. Luther's Christianity
and his humanity alike have become too large for the limits
of the cloister with its concentration on self, its legalist
conception of God and religion, and its narrow outlook on
life and the world. In spite of its pronouncedly theological
standpoint, the work is a truly human document It
consecrates the whole of human life as a service of God,
inspired by faith and love of one's neighbour, in opposition
to monastic supernaturalism and formalism. In view of the
far-reaching effects of this principle in the sphere of the
practical life, the attack on monasticism is as much a land-
mark of the evangelical movement as was the attack on
the scholastic theology, the papal absolutism, and the
sacramental system of the Church in the sphere of doctrine.
In the development of Luther's thought the " De Votis
Monasticis " deserves to take rank with the " Commentary
on Romans " and the " Babylonic Captivity."

It is hardly surprising that the cautious Elector hesitated
to launch this new bombshell against the old system by
sending it to the printer at Wittenberg, in accordance with
Luther's directions to Spalatin 31 Spalatin kept back the
manuscript, instead of forwarding it to Wittenberg, and it
was only in deference to Luther's energetic insistence, coupled
with the threat to write an even more violent philippic, 32
that he gave way, and the work at length appeared in
February 1522. w He was clearly becoming impatient of
these gagging tactics, which only intensified his sense of
the impotence which his exile at the Wartburg imposed on
him. If he could not act, he was determined that neither
the Elector nor Spalatin should assume the right to dictate
what he should write or print. He had, he wrote to Spalatin
on the gth September, too often practised self-restraint
towards his opponents at their instigation. The Erasmic

31 Enders, iiL 250; cf. 252. 3 " Werke," viii. 565-566.

38 Ibid , hi. 252-253.

The Attack on Monasticism 33

style of controversy effected nothing and only confirmed
the Romanists in their incorrigibility. The prophet Jeremiah
was a better guide in this matter than Erasmus. If he had
followed his own inclination at Worms, instead of the advice
of Spalatin and other friends, he would have spoken very
differently. " I very much fear and am troubled in my
conscience that, yielding to your advice and that of other
friends, I repressed my spirit at Worms and did not show
myself an Elijah in the presence of these idols. They
would hear a very different tone if I should once more stand
in their presence/' 34

Meanwhile the ideas on the subject to which he had
given expression in his theses, and of which the work was
the elaboration, had already borne fruit in the monasteries.
" If," he had written, " the monks knew that only by
faith is salvation attainable, would they not forthwith
conclude, what necessity is there for taking these vows and
becoming a monk ? " 35 The sequel speedily brought the
answer. At a Chapter of the Augustinian Order convened
at Wittenberg by Link in the beginning of January 1522
and attended by those favourable to Luther's side of the
question the decision was a foregone conclusion. He had
taken care to prompt both Link and Lang beforehand as
to the policy to be adopted. 36 He did not approve of the
precipitate and tumultuous secession from the Wittenberg
monastery, and would rather that renunciation should take
place with mutual agreement and concord. But he would
recall none against his will and would accord full liberty to
depart or remain. " Certain I am that you will not do or
suffer anything to be done against the Gospel even if aU
monasteries are to go under. I do not think you can
prevent the departure of those who wish to go, and the best
plan to adopt at the forthcoming Chapter is, following the
example of Cyrus in the case of the Jews, to issue a public
declaration granting liberty to go or stay, expelling no one
and retaining no one by force/' 37 The Chapter, professing

34 Enders, iii. 229-230.

85 " Werke," viii. 596; cf. 603.

86 Enders, iii. 256-258, i8th and 2oth Dec.
37 Ibtd., iii. 258.

34 Luther and the Reformation

to be guided solely by Scripture and not by human tradi-
tions, and proclaiming the evangelical principle that whatever
is not of faith is sin, accordingly conceded to all members
of the Order liberty to continue in or renounce the monastic
life. A vow contrary to the Gospel is no vow but an
impiety, though no one should make use of this liberty from
carnal motives but solely on conscientious grounds. Those
who decide to continue in the monastic life may retain the
monastic habit and rule. In the matter of the retention
or the abrogation of ceremonies, respect should be had
to the weaker brethren and charity observed in the spirit
of Paul who became all things to all men, though the
Kingdom of God does not consist in eating and drinking,
but in righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.
Begging and masses for the dead in return for money are,
however, interdicted in deference to the Apostolic command
to abstain from all appearance of evil. Those who are
qualified shall teach the Word of God publicly and privately ;
the others shall engage in manual labour. 38 The decision
was thus in keeping with Luther's mind on the matter in
preference to that of extremists like Zwilling who had
demanded the radical abolition of the monastic system.
Practically, however, it effected this result as far as the
Augustinian Order at Wittenberg was concerned. When
Luther returned in the spring of 1522, Prior Helt was the
sole occupant of the monastery. The provision of 100 gulden
to each of the retiring monks had facilitated the process of
evacuation. 39

IV. COMMUNION IN BOTH KINDS AND THE ABUSE
OF THE MASS

Carlstadt again took the lead in agitating the question
of communion in both kinds. In an academic disputation
on the iQth July he not only claimed the right of such
communion for every Christian, but maintained that it is

38 " Opera Melanchthom," i. 456-458, wrongly dated Oct. 1521.
N. Miiller, " Die Wittenberger Bewegung," 147 f.
89 Hausrath, " Luther's Leben," i. 514.

Communion and Abuse of the Mass 35

sinful to partake of the bread alone and not of the wine.
" We are not Hussites, but true Christians who take the
cup as well as the bread." Only in so doing does the Christian
fulfil the ordinance of Christ, and it would be more salutary
not to take communion at all than to take it in one kind. 40
In another disputation held three days later he attacked
the ceremonial of the Mass and demanded its trenchant
reform. 41 The actual agent of this reform was, however,
not Carlstadt, but Gabriel Zwilling, a native of German
Bohemia and a member of the Augustinian Order, whose
Bohemian origin doubtless contributed to make him an
ardent votary of his teaching. Though inferior to him in
theological erudition he was gifted with a fiery popular
eloquence, and his sermons on the subject packed to over-
flowing the monastery chapel, and, it would seem, also
the parish church. His audience included professors and
students as well as townsfolk, and Melanchthon was a
regular hearer. So deeply was he impressed by these
sermons that he took part along with his students in a
celebration of the communion in both kinds in the parish
church on St Michael's Day (2Qth September). 42 Zwilling's
hearers spoke of him as " a second Luther " (alter Martinus)
whom God had sent to take the place of the exile at the
Wartburg. The excitement reached a climax on the 6th
October when the impassioned preacher delivered a long
harangue from the monastery pulpit, in which he denounced
the adoration of the Host as idolatry and contended that
the Mass was not an offering anew of the body of Christ in
satisfaction for sin, but a commemoration of His death
which He had instituted for the confirmation of our faith,
and which ought to be celebrated in accordance with His
institution. 43 Whereupon the majority of the monks refused

40 Barge, " Karlstadt," i. 290-291. 41 Ibid.* i. 292.

42 See the student Helmann's letter to a friend in Breslau, 8th Oct.,
" Theologische Studien und Kritiken " (1885), 132-135. See also
Nik. Miiller, " Wittenberger Bewegung," 15 f. The statement has
been questioned by Kolde, " Luther," li. 567, but is accepted by Barge, i.
312, and Kawerau, " Luther's Werke," viii. 400, and " Luther's Ruck-
kehr von der Wartburg," 66.

* s " Studien und Kritiken," 134-135, " Corpus Reformatorum,"
i. 460; cf. 466; Nik. Muller, 28.

36 Luther and the Reformation

to say Mass in the traditional form, and their sympathisers
among the students and the citizens determined to receive
the communion only in both kinds. 44 The monks persisted in
their refusal in spite of the remonstrances of representatives
of the University and the Chapter of the Castle Church, 45
and the intervention of the Elector who, on hearing of the
incident on the 8th October, sent his chancellor, Briick,
to deal with the situation. The chancellor appointed a
Commission of professors and members of the Chapter to
investigate, but he evidently did not take the incident
very seriously. In the conclusion of his report to the Elector
on the nth October he expressed the opinion that the
monks would not long remain refractory, since they would
erelong feel the consequences of their refusal to say Masses
for the dead in their kitchen and cellar and would think
better of it. 46 His cynical prophecy proved, however, to
be premature. On the following Sunday, the ijth October,
the indomitable Zwilling again inveighed before an over-
flowing audience on the abuse of the Mass in a harangue
lasting two hours, and supplemented it after the midday
meal with another lasting an hour, " so that all who were
present were amazed." 47 He was ardently supported by a
number of Augustinian monks from the Netherlands, and
the innovators became so insistent in their demand for
communion in both kinds that Prior Helt, in order to evade
this innovation, was fain to prohibit the celebration of Mass
in the meantime. 48

The excitement was intensified by another disputation
in the University, in which Carlstadt, while insisting on the
concession of the cup, now took the side of moderation, 49

44 " Studien und Kritiken," 135 ; " Corp. Ref.," 460.

45 " Corp. Ref.," i. 460. 46 Ibid., i. 460-461.

47 Letter of Burerius to Beatus Rhenanus, i8th Oct., " Zeitschrift fur
Kirchen Geschichte," v. 326; Nik. Muller, 33.

48 " Corp. Ref.," 1.475. Helt to the Elector, 3othOct. ; Nik. Muller,
56.

49 " Z.K.G.," v. 326. Burerius thinks that Carlstadt did so in order
the better to bring out all that could be said on the question. Others
think that he was playing the part of the weathercock. Barge defends him
against these suppositions and attempts to reconcile his somewhat
reserved attitude on this occasion with that of the theses of I9th July.

Communion and Abuse of the Mass 37

and Melanchthon and Jonas upheld the radical view. " We
must at last make a beginning/' argued Melanchthon, " other-
wise nothing will be done. He who has once put his hand
to the plough must not look back." 50 The report which
the Commission sent to the Elector on the 20th October
amply justified the demand for a reform of the Mass. As
currently celebrated, "it is one of the greatest sins on
earth." As originally instituted, it was a commemoration
and sign of Christ's death for the forgiveness of sin, " not
a good work whereby an offering is made to God for oneself
and others " This is an unwarrantable and utterly perverse
assumption of the blind papists. The multiplied celebration
of Masses is a mechanical performance which bad priests
undertake for the sake of money, and which burdens the
conscience of good men. In particular, Masses for the
dead ought to be abolished, though private Masses in which
the priest celebrates alone may be allowed to continue in
deference to weak brethren. Otherwise the original institu-
tion ought to be restored and communion in both kinds
established in accordance with the express direction of
Christ. In conclusion the Commission, assuming the right
of the Elector as head of the State to remedy ecclesiastical
abuses, exhorts him to take a hand in this reform in accord-
ance with the Gospel and pay no heed to the outcry of
" Hussite " or " heretic " 51

The Elector, it appeared, was by no means prepared to
act on this exhortation. In the face of the Edict of Worms
it was necessary to refrain as far as possible from further
religious agitation and avoid innovations that could only
aggravate the danger for himself and his subjects accruing
from his determination not to execute the Edict. To
countenance the demand for the reform of the Mass and other
abuses would be to court the active enmity of his immediate
neighbours, Duke George of Saxony and the Electors of
Brandenburg and Maintz, and risk the outbreak of a
religious war. The situation was undoubtedly a difficult
one, and a wary attitude, besides being in accordance with

50 Nik. Muller, 47-48 ; Barge, i. 323.

" " Corp. Ref.," i 466-470; Nik. Muller, 35 f.

38 Luther and the Reformation

his predilection for a cautious diplomacy, seemed the only
alternative from the political point of view. Hence the
instruction to his councillor, Dr Beyer, who replaced Briick
as negotiator, to submit the question to all the members
of the University and Chapter for judgment (25th October).
The matter, he was instructed to remind them, concerned the
common weal of Christendom and could not be precipitately
decided by a few Wittenberg theologians for the whole
Church. If the reform in question was really grounded on
the Gospel it would undoubtedly make headway and could
be accomplished with the common Christian consent.
Moreover, there was the practical consideration that the
abolition of the Mass would deprive the churches and
monasteries of the endowments originally granted for this
purpose and involve the Reformers in the charge of spoliation.
In addition, such a measure would inevitably provoke
discussion and tumult which were at all hazards to be
avoided. 52

The renewal of the discussion only led to a division of
opinion between the University and the Chapter. Whilst
the conservative majority of the latter declared against
the proposed reform, the former, in its final report on the
I2th December, renewed in more insistent terms its demaud
for abolition. 53

Meanwhile Luther had been taking a keen interest in the
discussions at Wittenberg. He had himself, he wrote to
Melanchthon on first hearing of the agitation at the beginning
of August, been considering the question of restoring com-
munion in both kinds and had determined to take up this
reform before all others on his return. 54 He had already
dealt with the subject in the " Babylonic Captivity," in which
he indicated the right of the Christian to the cup as well as
the bread, though he was prepared to submit to the tradi-
tional practice on the rather questionable assumption that
Christ had not made the use of either obligatory. This was

53 " Corp. Ref.," i. 471-474 1 Nik. Muller, 50 f

63 Ibid., K 493 f. ; Nik. Muller, 84 f. Some of the professors of the
Faculties of Arts, Law, and Medicine declined to vote on the ground
of their incompetence and left the decision to the Faculty of Theology.

54 Enders, iii 208.

Communion and Abuse of the Mass 39

the position which he still maintained in the letter to
Melanchthon, and he controverted the view of Carlstadt
that it was sinful to communicate only in one kind, whilst
approving a return to the original institution. On one
point he has decidedly made up his mind. He will never
again celebrate private Mass. 55 He expressed to Spalatin
his disapproval of the daily Mass said by the priest at the
Wartburg, and wished that these private celebrations should
be diminished if they cannot be at once abolished, since
the Mass is by institution a communion and a commemora-
tion which ought to be accompanied by the preaching of
the Word and celebrated publicly in the presence of the
congregation. 56 The communications both written and
verbal, which came to *him from Wittenberg, 57 led him in
the beginning of November to put his reflections on the
subject on paper for the purpose of instructing and confirm-
ing his fellow-monks at Wittenberg. Hence the work
" On the Abrogation of Private Mass," 5S which he dedi-
cated to them and dispatched to Spalatin on the nth
November. 59

He greatly rejoices in the movement they have begun,
which must expose them to opposition and calumny. He
knows by experience how difficult it is to challenge conven-
tion and oppose single-handed the doctrines and institutions
of centuries. " How often my trembling heart beat within
me at the thought of this formidable argument of theirs,
' Are you alone wise ? ' ' Has all the world erred and lived
in ignorance so many centuries ? ' ' What if you are wrong
and you drag along with you so many to eternal damnation ? '
But Christ at length confirmed me with His own sure and
faithful words, so that my heart no longer trembles or
palpitates, but defies these papistical arguments no less
than the rocky shore bids defiance to the rage and tumult
of the waves/' 60 A conscience grounded on the Word of

55 Enders, iii. 207-208.

66 Ibid., iii. 237, 7th Oct. 57 See " Werke," vin 411.

58 " De Abroganda Missa. Privata," " Werke," vin. 411 f. German
trans, by Luther himself, " Vom Misbrauch der Messe," ibid., viii.
482 f.

59 Enders, hi. 247. * " Werke, " vin. 412.

40 Luther and the Reformation

God as on the rock affords us the infallible certainty of
which we are in quest. 61

He starts by attacking the priestly power and denying on
scriptural grounds the papal claim to make laws contrary to
Scripture, in virtue of a succession from Peter whom Christ
appointed as His immediate successor, and to whom He con-
fided His priestly power. This assumption is a lying invention
of the devil. The New Testament knows of only one high
priest who offered Himself for us to God. 62 It knows of no
priestly order under an earthly high priest, but only of a
spiritual priesthood of all Christians in the sense that they
can directly approach God, pray to Him, and instruct
others. 63 He adduces the relative passages in support of
this contention and challenges Pope and priesthood to produce
a single iota of evidence to the contrary. 64 The Parisian
and Louvain theologians, Emser and others, who have
attempted it have produced only the figments of their own
arrogance and blasphemies. 65 With the fall of this pretended
priesthood the priestly Mass necessarily becomes nothing
but impiety and idolatry. It has no scriptural warrant
and is based on the traditions of men against which Christ
and the Apostles inveigh. 66 It is vain to defend it by saying
that it has been ordained by the Church and that what the
Church has ordained has been inspired by the Holy Spirit.
What certainty have we that priests and doctors have not
erred in this institution ? Only what the Word of God
manifestly proclaims is to be received as certain, and the
mere ordinance of the Church, or of those ordaining in its
name, is not necessarily authoritative apart from the
Word. 67 The New Testament knows of sacrifice, but only in
the spiritual sense of offering ourselves body and soul to
God in the mortifying of the flesh as our reasonable service
(Romans viii. 13 ; xii. i ; i Peter ii. 3). This spiritual

""Werke," viii. 412.

62 Ibid. t viii. 415. Unum et vero solum est nobis sacerdocium
Christi, quo ipse obtulit sese pro nobis et nos omnes secum.

88 Ibid., viii. 415. Hoc sacerdocium spirituale est et omnibus
Christianis Commune.

64 Ibid., viii. 415-416. 66 Ibtd,, viii. 418

65 Ibid , viii. 416-417. 7 Ibid., viii. 419-420.

Communion and Abuse of the Mass 41

sacrifice is not the office of shaved and anointed priests,
but of all Christians who walk the way of the Cross in self-
mortification. 68 Here again he challenges his opponents
to produce a single passage from the New Testament in
which the Mass is represented as an offering, a sacrifice to
God. It is only the memorial of Christ's sacrifice which it
celebrates. 69 Moreover, in the New Testament, the ministry
of the Word, the prophetic function is common to all who
have received a message from God and is not the exclusive
right and privilege of any class of functionaries. Has not
Christ said, " They shall all be taught of God " ? (Theodidacti,
John vi. 45). 70 Paul, indeed, commands women to be
silent in the Church and thus seems to deny that the ministry
of the Word is common to all. Paul's prohibition, he
answers, applies only to speaking " in the Church," not
elsewhere, and is meant to preserve order and decency in
the public assembly. Otherwise his command would be
contrary to the testimony of the Spirit who spoke through
the daughters of Philip and in the canticle of the Blessed
Virgin herself, 71

He then proceeds to examine the Apostolic writings in
order to show the antithesis between the New Testament
ministry and the Roman Catholic priesthood with its
graded hierarchy, its pomp-loving and pampered dignitaries.
He pictures this antithesis in vivid and sinister colours and
makes ample use of his gift of objurgation. This hierarchical
development is the work of Satan pure and simple, who has
craftily succeeded in thus transforming the Church into a
travesty of the Apostolic institution, and has deceived even
those good men who, he admits, have miserably been
seduced into accepting this travesty as Christian and
Apostolic. On the clear testimony of Scripture this develop-
ment with its distinction between cleric and laic, its assump-
tion of the indelible character of the clergy, its difference
of status and rank, its lust of pomp and power and luxury,

68 " Werke," viii 420-421.

* 9 Ibid., viii. 421. Christus semel se ipsum obtuht non denuo ab
ullis offem, sed memoriam sui sacrificii voluit fieri.

70 Ibid., viii. 422-424.

71 Ibid., viii. 424-425.

42 Luther and the Reformation

its greed and hypocrisy, its prohibition of the marriage of
the clergy, etc., is totally contrary to and subversive of the
simple evangelical ministry of the Apostolic age, when
bishop and presbyter designated the same functionaries
and these functionaries differed in nothing from other
Christians except in their specific office of ministering the
Word and sacraments, just as a magistrate differs in no
respect from other citizens except in his office of ruling the
city. 72 " Thus by the agency of the devil have they violated
the Church and the Word of God and by the guile of the
serpent have seduced the minds of Christians from the
simplicity and purity of Christ/' 73

He next examines the passages relative to the institution
of the Lord's Supper in disproof of the traditional conception
of it, which his opponents strive to substantiate by appealing
to the Fathers, the Church and its General Councils, the
papal decretals and the scholastic divines. His line of
argument is largely that of the " Babylonic Captivity,"
whilst steering clear of the scholastic philosophy and theology
and restricting himself to the evangelical evidence. From
the historic point of view, his plea for a return to the primitive
practice is a very forcible one. He condemns the superfluous
and meticulous observances regulating the celebration, such
as the exact repetition of the prescribed formulas, fasting
beforehand, the handling of the elements only with the
anointed fingers of the priest, etc. He can find no trace of
these in the original institution. Christ and the disciples
did not, for instance, celebrate the Eucharist fasting, but
after partaking of the evening meal. He will not insist on
the abrogation of these customs if the individual conscience
Is left free in this matter, and the Church refrains from placing
the omission of them in the category of mortal sins. 74 In
instituting the rite, Christ observed the utmost simplicity
and we are bound to follow His example in obedience to the
command, " This do in remembrance of me." To transform
it into a sacrifice is to radically change and vitiate His
institution. 75 The Sacrament is the New Covenant by

72 Werke," viii. 426-430. 7 * Ibid., vih. 431-434.

78 Ibid., viii. 430. 76 Ibid., viii. 434-436.

Communion and Abuse of the Mass 43

which Christ assured the forgiveness of sin through the
shedding of His blood, and the believer in commemorating
His death does not offer a sacrifice, but simply accepts in
faith His promise and pledge of forgiveness. 76 Both
grammar and common sense can read no other meaning
into the words of institution. He himself, however, hardly
observes the rules of grammar and common sense in assuming
that in instituting this memorial He actually changed the
bread and wine into His body and blood. 77 In this respect
there is still in his thought a remnant of the magical influence,
the superadded notions which he condemns so drastically
in the current view and practice. 78

To regard the Sacrament as a sacrifice, instead of a
pledge of God's love in Christ, is to beget doubt and fear
instead of confidence and joy. For who can be sure that
this so-called sacrifice is acceptable to God ? From his
personal knowledge he avers that this anxiety and un-
certainty is the prevailing feeling among the priesthood. 79
In this, as in other respects, the current religion is for
Luther a religion of fear and torment of conscience in
contrast to the joy and confidence which the gospel of
God's grace and love of which the Eucharist is the promise
and pledge begets in the believer. " O sweet and potent
promise in which His body and blood are given as the
pledge of our salvation and the remission of sin. Behold
these are the blessings which are shown forth to you in
the Eucharist. Think you that these can be exhibited by
an angry and implacable God, and not rather by a most
indulgent, loving, and solicitous Father? What greater
thing can He possibly promise than the forgiveness of sins ?
And what is the remission of sin but grace, salvation,
heirship, life, peace, eternal glory in God Himself ? But for
you, O mad and impious papist, how different is the God
you would propitiate by this sacrifice of yours in the Mass !
Desist, I beg you, from your worthless propitiations. There
is only one unique propitiation by which God is appeased,

7 " Werke," viii. 436-437.

77 Ibid., viii. 435, mutat panem in corpus suum ; cf. 438.

78 Ibid,, viii. 437-439.

79 I&id.t viii. 441-442.

44 Luther and the Reformation

so that no hope is left you in any other sacrifice or device
except in this one only . . . and faith alone in His body
given and blood shed avails." 80 In vain they seek refuge
in the reflection that it is incredible that Luther alone can
be right and that all others have erred. Let them remember
the prophet Micaiah and what happened to King Ahab
who refused to listen to him. 81

To the Canon of the Mass he opposes the plain words of
the Gospel, and he condemns its sacrificial formulary as the
adversary of the Gospel. The appeal to Gregory the Great,
Bernard, Bonaventura and others who approved and used
it is not valid against the clear testimony of Scripture.
Nothing under heaven is more dangerous than this appeal
to the example of the saints, if unsupported by Scripture.
The saints, on their own confession, were all sinners and
liable to error. Witness the " Retractions " of Augustine.
Even the great Fathers were no infallible oracles to be
blindly followed without the exercise of one's own judgment.
The wretched superstition which uncritically accepts the
legends of the saints and mere human doctrines, to the
neglect of God's Word, and of the principle of the Apostle
to prove all things has filled Christendom with error and
lies. No less superstitious is the belief in purgatory and
the eternal droning of Masses for the dead which ought
to be utterly abolished and the primitive institution
restored. 82

He adds a terrific indictment of the Papacy as a travesty
of both the law and the Gospel, the patron of every vice and
transgression forbidden in the Decalogue. 83 One feels that
on moral grounds at least this travesty deserves and has
invited this unmitigated castigation. The solitary seer,
hidden in the Wartburg by a cautious Elector and chafing
under the restraint of his pugnative spirit, lets himself go
on paper at least without the slightest consideration for
anything like judicial moderation. Theological bias as well
as moral indignation is doubtless reflected in this passionate
indictment. For Luther the worst sins of the Pope and the

80 " Werke," viii. 442. 2 Ibid., viii 449-457.

81 Ibid., viii 443. Ibid., viii. 460 f.

Communion and Abuse of the Mass 45

bishops lie in the realm of faith rather than of morals. 84
In this respect he still labours under the age-old belief,
reflected so tragically in ancient and mediaeval ecclesiastical
history, that a theological opponent must needs be a monster
of iniquity. This imputation his opponents were only too
prone to apply to him, and on the same assumption he pays
them back with compound interest. He hurls his accusations
against them in the passionate conviction that the beliefs,
which he holds to be deadly error, must necessarily produce
the most baneful moral effects. This is for the Church
historian an all too familiar feature of theological controversy
in periods of intense feeling and thinking in matters of
faith. In fairness even to Antichrist who sits in Peter's
chair at the beginning of the sixteenth century, we must
make due allowance for the theological bias as well as for
the volcanic temperament of the Wartburg seer, which
underlies this terrible indictment. Even so, there was
material enough in the state of things ecclesiastical under
the degenerate papal regime to substantiate this foregone
verdict, and with this material to work on, Luther's com-
mand of invective and his passionate conviction went straight
for the heart of the Antichrist. In spite of its proneness to
exaggeration and declaration, one cannot but feel the
marvellous fecundity of thought, the sheer moral and
spiritual force which were welling forth from this dynamic
spirit in the solitude of the Wartburg the waves of a religious
revolution. By this mysterious hand were being traced the
writing on the walls of the modern Babylon, as he termed
Rome. " God hath numbered thy kingdom and finished it.
Thou art weighed in the balance and found wanting " (Dan.
v. 26-27).

In conclusion, he exhorts his brethren at Wittenberg to
go forward in spite of the outcry of the papists, " Look
yonder, at Wittenberg, the worship of God has ceased ;
the Mass is no longer celebrated; they have all become
heretics and madmen." He hints that they may well also

84 Werke," viii. 464. Sed hoc detestor, hoc pugno quod, cum sint
vice pastorum lupos agunt et verbo rationeque ipsa docendi mandata Dei
solvunt, non solum minima sed ipsa maxima et prorsus universa, et sic
docent ac perdunt homines, Hie non in mores, sed in fidem peccatur.

46 Luther and the Reformation

turn their attention to that monument of superstition, that
Bethaven or house of idols in the Church of All Saints,
with its huge store of relics on which the Elector had spent
so much of his people's substance. How much better to
have spent it on the poor of Saxony ! With this hit at the
foolish zeal into which the papists have misguided him, he
adroitly mingles appreciation of the Elector's equitable
rule and the service he has rendered to the cause of the
Gospel. They have reason to thank God that he is no
tyrant or fool, but a lover of the truth, under whom they
can the better finish the work they have begun. He reminds
them of the old prophecy which he heard as a boy, that the
Emperor Frederick would erelong deliver the Holy Sepulchre
at Jerusalem. The prophecy is at last being fulfilled in
" our Frederick," whom the Electors assembled at Frankfurt
chose as Emperor. For the sepulchre to be delivered is the
Holy Scripture which the papists have buried and which,
under this Frederick, has been brought forth into the light.
What if he should glory that he himself has been the angel
or the Mary Magdalen that has been at the opening of the
Holy Sepulchre and has made Wittenberg another Jerusalem !
But enough of this word play. In very deed it has been given
to them to look upon the pure grace of the Gospel, and it is
theirs zealously to spread the light that others may see it
too. Only let them avoid discord and have respect to the
weakness of others in the spirit of the Apostolic injunction
that it is good not to do anything whereby thy brother
stumbleth, whilst following the dictates of conscience without
respect to the person or masks of men. 85

5 " Werke," viii. 475-476. Barge (" Karlstadt," i. 334 f.) sees in
this philippic an incitement to the forcible repression of the Mass. Karl
Muller, on the other hand, emphasises the passages counselling
moderation in disproof of Barge's conclusion (" Luther und Karlstadt,"
23, 1907). At all events the spirit of the work was bellicose enough.

CHAPTER II
LUTHER AT THE WARTBURG (2)

I. THE HALLE " IDOL "

WHILST advising his brethren to act considerately, Luther
was evidently at this stage in full sympathy with the active
reform party at Wittenberg. He was, in fact, by no means
satisfied with the Elector's attitude towards this party and
his dissatisfaction was intensified by what he deemed his
subservience, on grounds of expediency, to the Archbishop
of Maintz. The pointed reference to the Elector's
" Bethaven " at Wittenberg was doubtless suggested by
the fact that the archbishop had proclaimed an indulgence
in connection with an exhibition of the relics in the collegiate
church at Halle. To judge from the catalogue, the collec-
tion included thousands of articles dating back to the days
of Moses and coming down to those of St Thomas of
Canterbury, and invested with an indulgence efficacy which
was good for a truly fabulous number of years in the world
to come. This pious fraud drew crowds to take advantage
of the spiritual benefits to be derived from a visit to the
exhibition, coupled with fervent prayer and a contribution
to the Church. From these contributions the archbishop
hoped to pay off his debts and found a new University as
a rival to that of Wittenberg. 1 Verily, Luther had some
excuse for indulging in these diatribes against " idolatry "
which crowd his controversial works and sound so excessive
to the more delicate modern ear. Here was the archbishop
at his old trade of selling the forgiveness of sins by practising
on the superstition of the people ! And here were the people

1 See Welters, " Der Abgott zu Halle" (1876), and Hausrath,
" Luther," i. 48of.

47

48 Luther and the Reformation

as ready as ever to be gulled and fleeced by this wolf in
sheep's dothing ! No wonder that Luther waxed furious
and vowed to smash " that idol at Halle/* in spite of the
diplomatic caveats of the Elector conveyed to him through
Spalatin. " I will not be held back/' he wrote on the
7th October, " but will publicly and privately go for that idol
of the archbishop with his brothel at Halle." 2 He set to
work and dashed off a philippic " Against the Idol at
Halle/' 3

Meanwhile the archbishop had attempted through his
secretary, Capito, to induce the Elector to intervene, and
Capito had written to Luther himself begging him to desist from
his purpose. 4 Capito also paid a visit to Wittenberg in the
endeavour to influence Luther through Melanchthon. 5 As the
result of this diplomatic pressure came a letter from Spalatin
on the nth November, forbidding him, in the Elector's name
and in the interest of the public peace, to write against
the archbishop. Luther replied with a point-blank refusal.
" I will rather break with you and the prince and all men.
If I have resisted the Pope, why should I give way to the
Pope's creature? A fine thing indeed to talk about not
disturbing the public peace whilst you suffer the eternal
peace of God to be disturbed by these impious and sacrilegious
proceedings. Not so, Spalatin, not so, prince. But for the
sake of Christ's flock, this most grievous wolf must be
resisted with all our might as an example to others/' He
accordingly sent him the manuscript to be forwarded to
Melanchthon for revision and publication, and bluntly told
him to beware of keeping it back or trying to persuade
Melanchthon from complying with his wishes. His purpose
is fixed and he will listen to no argument to the contrary.
Did Christ and the Apostles seek to please men or flinch
before the opprobrium of the Gospel ? What if the students
have pelted a mendicant monk from Lichtenberg in the
streets of Wittenberg, about which Spalatin had evidently
written him as an example of the danger of public com-
motion ? Who can hope to bridle such occasional outbursts ?

8 Enders, iii. 237 ; cf. 240. 4 Enders, iii. 238.

" Wider den Abgott zu Halle." * Corpi Rcf>> j . ^ ^

The Halle " Idol "

49

The Gospel is not to be repressed because of such youthful
escapades. 6

Spalatin, nevertheless, retained the manuscript and
Luther determined to challenge the archbishop directly on the
subject in a letter on the ist December, which Melanchthon
forwarded to Capito on the nth. 7 Its tone was very different
from that of the two letters which, he reminds him, he had
humbly addressed to him on two previous occasions. It is
an ultimatum which bluntly treats him as a culprit and
threatens to expose his licentious private life, as well as his
conduct as a churchman, as the penalty of non-compliance
with his demand. Mayhap he has assumed that, now
that Luther has disappeared from the arena and is under
the imperial ban, he need have no fear of being called to
account by him. He is welcome to his assumption. " But
I beg your grace to know that I will do what Christian love
demands, in spite of the gates of hell, let alone popes,
cardinals, and bishops/' Now that the abuse of indulgences
has been proved to be nothing but fraud and villany, let
him cease to rob and deceive the poor people and show
himself a bishop instead of a wolf. From the small fire
which a poor mendicant monk kindled there has grown a
conflagration in which God has passed judgment on the
Pope, whose power grows daily smaller, though at first all
the world believed that the monk had undertaken a forlorn
enterprise. The same God lives still and will know how to
cast down a Cardinal of Maintz, even if four emperors were at
his back. Let him beware of despising and provoking Him
whose might knows no measure. This monk will strive so
mightily with God that He who has brought low the Pope
will begin a play with the cardinal that he wots not of.
He, therefore, gives him due warning. If he does not
forthwith suppress the idol at Halle, he will expose him
before the whole empire and show it the difference between
a bishop and a wolf. He adds the demand that the bishops
shall allow the clergy to marry and not tyrannically make use
of their power to penalise those who have entered or shall
enter into honourable wedlock. At least let them cast

Enders, iii. 246-247. ' " Corp. Ref.," i. 492.

50 Luther and the Reformation

the beam out of their own eyes and drive away their
own harlots before beginning to separate pious married
women from their husbands. In regard, in particular, to
the archbishop's own sins against chastity, he will no longer
observe silence, though he has no inclination or desire to
expose his shame and dishonour in this respect. But unless
in fourteen days' time he has a satisfactory answer, his
book against the idol will go forth to the world. 8

Within the prescribed interval (reckoning from the
nth December) the archbishop's reply, dated 2ist December,
was dispatched, along with a soothing epistle from Capito.
The archbishop now addresses him as " Dear Doctor " and
assures him that he has accepted his letter in good part and
avers that he had already removed the cause of it. He
adopts the tone of a penitent and promises to act henceforth
as becomes a pious churchman and Christian prince, as far
as God shall lend him His grace and strength to do so as a
poor sinner who can do nothing of himself. " I know well
that without God's grace there is no good in me, and I am
as profitless and stinking a piece of filth as anyone else,
if not more so/' He is more than willing to suffer brotherly
and Christian reproach and to comply with Luther's demands
and make amendment for the future, in reliance on the
help of a merciful God. 9

His abject capitulation is a striking evidence of the moral
influence which the outlaw in the Wartburg had come to
wield during the interval since he penned his humble petition
against the abuse of indulgences to the same high dignitary
four years before. This influence was due partly to his
own powerful personality, partly to the fact that behind
this personality was the force of an awakened public opinion
which it materially contributed to foster, and which the
archbishop had only too good reason to fear. Moreover,
behind Luther lurked the spirit of social restiveness which
was finding expression in popular declamation against the
overgrown and ill-used wealth, the extortion and tyranny
of ecclesiastics who were feudal magnates as well as
degenerate churchmen, and for whom the day of reckoning

8 " Werke," 53, 95-99 (Erlangen ed.). * Enders, iii. 266,

The Halle "Idol" 51

was about to dawn in social as well as religious revolution.
Assuredly it was high time to profess penitence and promise
amendment if the revolutionary spirit, on social as well as
religious grounds, might perchance thereby be conjured.

Luther had grave doubts about the sincerity of this
abject confession, and he was very unfavourably impressed
by the attempt of Capito in an accompanying epistle to
remove them. Capito, it seems, had been striving, after the
manner of Erasmus, to attain the same result as his bellicose
friend in the Wartburg. He had reason to believe that he
had made considerable progress in winning the archbishop
for his evangelical teaching, and besought him not to
endanger the good work by a precipitate and uncompromis-
ing attitude. 10 The reference to Erasmus was hardly fitted
to predispose him to self-restraint. He had recently, in a
letter to Spalatin, condemned what he deemed the time-
serving attitude of both Erasmus and Capito, u and he now
tells him that he can by no means approve the method of
promoting the cause of the Gospel by conniving at and
excusing the reprehensible conduct of princes, merely in
order not to provoke a conflict. This can only result in
flattery and denial of the truth. The spirit of truth cannot
but reprove and offend, as did Christ whose example we
are to follow. This is, indeed, to be done in the spirit of love
and in order to save souls. But it pertains to the ministry
of the Word, in the first place, to root out and destroy and
scatter. Does not Jeremiah pronounce a curse on those who
do the work of the Lord deceitfully (xlviii. 10) ? If the
cardinal really means what he writes, he would hail his
letter with the greatest joy and would be ready to prostrate
himself at his feet. If, however, as he suspects, he is
playing the hypocrite, he will not be deceived by these
tricks of Satan. The fact that he has released the married
priest of Kemberg, whom he had imprisoned, is no proof to
the contrary. For he has only released him after compelling
him to separate from his wife, contrary to the Apostolic
teaching, whilst shutting his eyes to the abominable clerical
immorality prevailing in his dioceses of Maintz, Magdeburg,

10 Enders, iii. 259-263. " Ibid., in. 229-230, 9th Sept.

52 Luther and the Reformation

and Halberstadt. His conduct in depriving Knaxdorff,
the reforming preacher at Magdeburg, is equally inconsistent
with these professions, and has intensified his doubts as
to his sincerity. " We will uphold true religion," he tells
him in conclusion, " with all our might, whether it offends
heaven or hell. There you have Luther, as you have always
had him, your most yielding slave if you are a friend of piety,
your most inveterate opponent if, along with your cardinal,
you persist in making a mockery of sacred things." 12 He
will not answer the cardinal's letter as long as he is unable
to decide whether he should denounce him as a hypocrite
or praise his sincerity. Capito bore him no grudge for this
plain speaking, and during a visit to Wittenberg in March
1522 a reconciliation took place between them 13

" Vague and uncertain reports " 14 of events at Wittenberg
caused him such anxiety that he determined to pay a visit
in order to learn at first hand how matters actually stood.
It was a dangerous venture, since the route lay in part
through the territory of his arch-enemy Duke George, alias
" the Rehoboam of Dresden " as he called him. Accom-
panied by his trusty attendant, 15 he descended on the 3rd
December at an inn at Leipzig, and is said to have been
recognised, despite his disguise, by a woman in the public
room before setting forward on his journey. 16 Next day
he rode incognito into Wittenberg and furtively alighted
at the house of Amsdorf in which Melanchthon was also
quartered. On the previous day the students, reinforced
by a number of their fellows from Erfurt and by a party
of the citizens, had burst into the parish church " with
knives under their cloaks/' wrested the Mass books from
the hands of the priests who were about to say Mass, and
driven them from the altar. Other priests, who in the
early morning were celebrating Mass in honour of the
Virgin, had been pelted with stones. On the following

ia Enders, iii. 279-284, iyth Jan. 1522.

18 See letter of Burerius to Beatus Rhenanus, " Z.K.G.," v. 333.
14 Enders, iii. 250.

16 The contemporary account given in " Z.K.G.," xxh. 124, says he
rode with three horses.

16 Seidemann, " Leipziger Disputation," 99-103.

The Halle " Idol " 53

day, that of Luther's arrival, they renewed the demonstra-
tion against the Mass by invading the Franciscan monastery
and using threatening and abusive language. As a precau-
tion against these threats the Town Council was fain to
send a guard to protect the monastery, 17 in front of which
the mob again demonstrated on the 6th. 18 In spite of this
electric atmosphere, Luther spent several happy days among
his friends and expressed himself in a letter to Spalatin as
completely satisfied with all that he had seen and heard. 19
He evidently did not regard these student escapades so
tragically as did the Town Council in its reports to the
Elector. The only vexing experience he records was the
discovery that Spalatin had not sent the manuscripts of
his philippics against monasticism, the Mass, and the idol
at Halle to Melanchthon for publication, as he had directed.
Several months before he had taken it very ill that the
Elector had intervened to prevent the public disputation on
a series of theses on auricular confession, which he had sent
to Wittenberg, and had at the time expressed his irritation
to Spalatin in no measured terms. 20 He now penned an
angry letter from Wittenberg to the delinquent who, in
consequence, while retaining " The Idol," was fain to send
the other two to be printed. " I am determined to have
what I have written printed, if not at Wittenberg, certainly
elsewhere, and if the manuscripts have been lost or retained
by you, my mind will be so embittered that I will write
much more violently." n

He relaxed so far as to agree to defer the publication
of " The Idol " in the meantime. But he strongly protested
against the policy of subordinating the cause of the Gospel
to political expediency. " For the Lord lives in whom
you, as is the way with courtiers, have no faith unless He
shall moderate His works to suit your convenience. . . .
I beseech you, if it is the truth that celibacy and monkery
are condemned by the divine Word, as is not doubtful,

u Corp. Ref.," i. 488 f ; Nik. Muller, 73 f.

18 Boehmer, " Luther im Lichte der Neueren Forschung," 120.

lf Enders, lii. 253. Omma vehementer placent quae video et audio.

20 Ibid., iii. 193, I3th July; cf. 199, I5th July.

81 Ibid., iii. 252-253,

54 Luther and the Reformation

why is it not permissible to attempt and carry out the
contrary ? Are we only to dispute without end concerning
the truth and always refrain from carrying it into effect ?
If we are to accomplish nothing more than we have hitherto
done, we should cease teaching the truth altogether." 22
Evidently he was determined, as the result of his visit, to
force the politicians at Lochau to abandon their elusive,
temporising policy and face the question of instituting a
practical reformation.

II. THE WARNING AGAINST REVOLT

At the same time his observation of the revolutionary
spirit on the way to Wittenberg had impressed him with
the imminent danger of a widespread upheaval on social as
well as religious grounds, and before setting out on the
return journey he had resolved to address to the people a
manifesto against precipitate revolutionary measures. 23
Throughout these months of solitary vigil in the Wartburg
rumour and his own reflections have borne in on his mind
the spectre of " some fearful tragedy which Satan has in
store for Germany/' 2 * Seer-like he perceives the gathering
clouds that portend the thunderstorm of a rising against
the dominant system in the Church, and, it may be, the
State, and he ever and anon warns his enemies to beware
of provoking the judgment of God. A series of riots at
Erfurt in the spring and summer of 1521, in which the
clergy were roughly handled, was symptomatic of the
religious passion which his evangelical teaching and his
excommunication and outlawry had quickened over a large
part of the empire. More furtive, but still more ominous,
was the widespread aspiration for emancipation from the
oppressive feudal system in the masses, which this teaching
tended to intensify, if it by no means originated. For the

22 Enders, iii. 254-255.

83 Ibid., iii. 253. Dorainus confortet spiritum eorum qui bene
volunt, quamquam per viam vexatus rumore vario de nostrorum quorun-
dam importunitate, prsestituerim publicam exhortationem edere quam-
pnmum reversus fuero ad eremum meam.

84 Ibid., iii. 230.

The Warning Against Revolt 55

social revolutionary spirit was an inheritance of long
standing which it did not create and which mistook in him
its prophet. The masses had, nevertheless, some reason
to see in him their emancipator from social oppression as
well as ecclesiastical abuse and error, and his disappearance
had only intensified the determination to have it out with his
enemies and theirs. He could denounce the rampant evils
in both Church and State with equal verve on occasion,
and did not always measure the consequences of his invec-
tive. He by no means approved of the use of violence in
behalf of either religious or social reform and expressed
his disapproval of the Erfurt riots. 25 But he took occasion
to point out the madness of the Romanists in ignoring then-
significance in the face of the signs of the time. "It is
obvious, as Erasmus writes, that the people neither can nor
will bear longer the yoke of the Pope and the papists. . . .
Hitherto they have sought to increase their power by force
and oppression. But whether they can maintain this
oppression we shall erelong discover by experience." 26
Certain he is that if the Pope persists in repressing the
Gospel, Germany will not be without a violent upheaval,
and the sooner he attempts it, the sooner will he and his
creatures perish and Luther return from the Wartburg.
Karsthans, i.e., Jack Mattock, the peasant, is awake, and
Germany has many Jack Mattocks, he adds ominously in
reference to the popular diatribe under this title against the
parsons, which had appeared in the previous year. 27 The
same foreboding appears in the dedication of his work on
" Auricular Confession " to Franz von Sickingen. Let the
papists take warning betimes from the fate of the Canaanites,
who spurned Joshua's offer of peace and were annihilated
in consequence. The people will not indefinitely bear their
tyranny and he disclaims all responsibility for the conse-
quences. All his efforts to reach a peaceful understanding
have been in vain. Force is their only alternative, and the
time is at hand when they will call for peace in vain. Another
will teach them, not like Luther with epistles and words,
but with deeds. 28

25 Enders, iii. 153, 158, 202. S7 Ibid,, iii. 164.

" Ibid.> iii. 153. afl " Werke," viii. 138-139-

56 Luther and the Reformation

It was the unmistakable portents of the coming up-
heaval, which he noted on the way between the Wartbuig
and Wittenberg, that led him on his return to pen his
" Faithful Exhortation to all Christians to guard themselves
from Tumult and Revolt/' He is not sorry to hear of the
alarm of the papists who have so shamelessly oppressed
the people in times bygone and have given Jack Mattock
ample cause to let them feel the weight of his flail and dub.
But let them fear more the wrath of God, whose judgments
they have provoked, and who will destroy them by the power
of His Word. In this matter God works by His Word and
Spirit, not by the sword. The falsity and lies of the Anti-
christian Papacy have been disclosed, and men have only
to understand the truth and the reign of Antichrist will
surely fall. The duty of initiating and carrying through
a reformation belongs to the secular Government and the
Estates, 29 not to the comman man. What is done by such
constituted authority in forbidding what is contrary to the
Gospel and enforcing obedience is not revolt or revolution.
Whilst it has the right to compel the acceptance of necessary
reform, it should eschew violence against the person and
not make use of the sword in the service of religion. Popular
revolt, on the other hand, is inadmissible. It cannot achieve
the betterment it seeks. " For revolt has no reason in it and
usually does more mischief to the innocent than to the
guilty. Therefore no revolt is right, however just the
cause. It results in more damage than betterment. Hence
the institution of government and the power of the sword
to punish the wicked and protect the good. Herr Omnes,
the revolutionary multitude, on the other hand, fails to
discriminate and allows itself to be hurried into the extreme
of injustice. Be guided, therefore, by the powers that be.
So long as they do not act and command hold heart, hand,
and mouth in check and attempt nothing on your own
account. If you can influence them to action, you may do
so. But if they will not, neither may you, and if you
nevertheless do so, you are guilty of wrongdoing and are
much worse than the other party. I hold and always will

a * Die weltlich Ubirkeit und Adel, die Fiirbten und Herren.

The Warning Against Revolt 57

hold with the party that suffers from revolt, however unjust
the cause it represents, and against the party that excites
revolt, however just the cause, since revolt can never occur
without innocent bloodshed and damage." 30

Moreover, revolt is a device of the devil in order to
discredit the cause of the Gospel. Hence the outcry of the
papists over the Erfurt riots, which they falsely ascribe to
his teaching. " Those who rightly study and understand
my teaching do not resort to revolt. They have not learned
it from me. That some do so under the pretext of our name,
how can we help this ? How much have the papists done in
Christ's name which He not only forbade, but which dis-
honours Him ? " 81 Shall they, then, undertake nothing for
the Gospel if the Government declines to act ? By no
means. Let them follow his example and spread the light
of truth as the mouthpiece of Christ. " Have I not done
more harm to the Pope, bishops, parsons, and monks with
the word alone and without the sword than all the emperors,
kings, and princes with all their power have ever been
able to do ? May not I and every one who speaks the
Word of Christ freely claim to be His mouthpiece ? Certain
I am that my word is not mine, but His. ... It is not our
work which is now moving the world, for it is not possible
that man alone can begin and achieve such a movement.
It has come to pass without any plan or counsel and it will
go on without these, and the gates of hell shall not hinder
it." 32 " Spread and help to spread the Gospel ; teach,
speak, write, and preach that human ordinance is nothing ;
prevent, counsel that none may become priest, monk, or
nun, and that whoever is in this state may forsake it ; give
no more money for bulls, candles, bells, pictures, churches,
but proclaim that a Christian life consists in faith and love.
Go on doing this for a couple of years and you will see what
will become of Pope, bishops, cardinaJs, parsons, monks,
nuns, bells, steeples, masses, vigils, cowls, shaven crowns,
rules and statutes, and the whole swarm and vermin of the
papal regime. They will vanish like smoke." ^

M " Werke," viii. 680. ** Ibid., viii. 683.

n Ibid., viii. 681. 83 Ibid., viii. 683-684.

58 Luther and the Reformation

At the same time he warns against mere superficial
bluster and pretension on the strength of having read a
couple of pages or listened to a single sermon. Such
pretentious talkers plume themselves on being " Lutherans/'
just as the opposite party boast themselves to be papists.
" I beg that people will leave my name out of the business
and call themselves Christians, not Lutherans. What is
Luther ? This teaching is not mine. I have not been
crucified for anyone. St Paul would not suffer it that the
Christians should be called Pauline or Petrine, but only
Christians. How could I, a poor, ill-odoured maggot sack,
entertain the idea that Christ's children should call them-
selves by my unsavoury name ? Not so, dear friend, but
let us cast away party names and call ourselves after Christ,
whose teaching we possess." u

Finally, whilst showing a firm front to the incorrigible
enemies of the faith, let them bear with the scruples of the
weak about the Mass, etc., for their sake and that of the
Gospel.

It may seem strange that Luther, himself the greatest
rebel against constituted ecclesiastical authority, the most
aggressive protagonist of new ideas, should thus appear in
the rfile of the thorough-going pacifist. One is inclined to ask
whether the " Exhortation " was not a belated tribute to
the Elector's policy of wait and see, a surrender to Spalatin
and the politicians, whose mouthpiece Spalatin was in his
letters to the Wartburg. Had the aggressive religious leader
been himself suddenly transformed into the calculating
politician ? The conclusion does not necessarily follow,
and there is no real reason for doubting, on this ground,
the sincerity of this manifesto on behalf of moderation.
For years he had been striving to rouse and educate public
opinion against the unref ormed Papacy. He had done so at
times in very inflammatory language which gleams like
lightning here and there in the works in which he challenged
and defied the power of the Roman Antichrist. He had
regarded himself as the instrument impelled by God to
prepare the way by his teaching for an evangelical Ref orma-

34 "Werke," viii. 685.

The Warning Against Revolt 59

tion. But whilst proclaiming the truth and staving to
win adherents for it, his root conviction had been that
God Himself through the power of His Word would establish
it. In the " Address to the Nobility " he had so far improved
on this indefinite programme as to appeal for the active
intervention of the State, in view of the failure of the Church
to reform itself and the futility of expecting such a reform
on the part of the ecclesiastical authorities. He had based
this appeal on the divine institution of the State and the
principle of the priesthood of believers, which entitled the
State to secure the commonweal in the religious as well as
the civil sphere.

This theory also underlies the " Exhortation " and it
rules out the irresponsible action of the people in either
sphere. While the people may and ought to agitate for
reform, it can only be accomplished by its lawful organs the
public authority as directed by the prince and the various
classes and bodies on which legislation and administration
devolve. He himself claims and has exercised the right of
agitation within legal limits and recognises this right in every
member of the community. His writings and his cor-
respondence with Spalatin and others furnish ample evidence
of the exercise of this right. But beyond this the individual
may not go, and it is because of the danger of irresponsible
violence on the part of his adherents and the revolutionary
spirit seething in the people that the initiation of actual
reforms by constituted authority is so emphatically stressed
in the " Exhortation." It was certainly not written merely
in the interest of the governing classes or for the purpose
of backing up the halting policy of the Elector and his
councillors. It was not the offspring of either servility or
insincerity.

Whether it was altogether logical or feasible is a
different question. One feels as if the writer of those burn-
ing appeals in behalf of individual liberty and right in the
" Babylonic Captivity," for instance, has lost somewhat of
the daring and the passion of an earlier time, and is besides
rather deficient in logic. To disown and defy the tyranny
of Antichrist and stress the right of the individual mind and
conscience to independence and freedom, and then inculcate

60 Luther and the Reformation

the duty of suffering and deny the right actively to use this
liberty to overthrow this tyranny seems rather tame as well
as illogical. Similarly one feels as if the subordination of
the individual to the State is too absolute and hardly
consistent with the emphasis on individual right, which is a
fundamental of his teaching. In this respect Luther's
view is rather limited. He concerns himself with liberty
in the religious sense and does not extend it beyond the
things of the spirit. Whilst agreeing with his general
principle that revolution has usually no reason in it, this
does not necessarily involve the conclusion that the indi-
vidual is to do nothing but preach, pray, and suffer, refrain
from all initiative in deference to constituted authority,
and be content to yield it unquestioning obedience. He
does not seem to realise that the tyranny of the State might
be or become as intolerable as the tyranny of Antichrist,
and if he has a remedy against the latter in the exercise of
the power of the State, he seems to have none against the
former. The great religious reformer has evidently not the
genius of the political or social reformer and is apparently
prepared to accept the status quo in the State, whilst revolting
and waging war against that prevailing in the Church,

Moreover, whilst relying on the power of an enlightened
public opinion to bring about, through the State, a trans-
formation of the Church, it is rather naive to assume that
the Christian community has not the right to reform itself
by organised and combined effort. Suppose the State
refuses to perform its function and remains inactive or takes
the side of the old order, what will happen to the reform
movement ? Is it sufficient to rely, in the face of a powerful
organisation like the Papacy and the mediaeval Church,
on the indefinite power of the Word, great as its effect may
be on the conscience and heart of the believer, if the believer
may not put his hand to the task of asserting and vindicating
his convictions ? One wonders whether, even in the religious
sphere, the prophet of Wittenberg has also the gift of organis-
ing the movement he has initiated and does not defer too
much to State intervention in this matter.

The New Evangelism 61

III. THE NEW EVANGELISM AND THE TRANSLATION OF
THE NEW TESTAMENT

It would be a mistake to see in the " Exhortation " any
slackening in his bellicose zeal against the Papacy. Any
doubt on this head is dispelled by the defiant philippic which
he hurled at the papal chair in the shape of an Address to
the Pope prefixed to his translation, with comments, of the
Bull, Ccena Domini, in which the Pope annually cursed all
heretics and other evil-doers at Easter. In that of the
preceding Easter (1521), Luther and his adherents were
included in the list of those thus publicly damned. In
response, the heretic sends at the beginning of 1522 to His
Holiness his New Year's Greeting in the sardonic effusion
which he entitled " The Evening Guzzle of the Most Holy
Lord the Pope." 35 The effusion cannot be said to be in
the best of taste. For Luther Rome has become the object
of unmitigated contempt and this contempt he seeks to
impart to the people in terms that would catch the popular
ear. The Latin of the Bull, which it has cost him such
trouble to put into intelligible German, is worthy of a
kitchen boy and can only have been written when the
Pope had supped too well. He trusts the Pope will give
him a cardinal's hat or a bishopric for the pains he has
taken in dressing up this drunken Latin in respectable
German. The translator ought also to get drunk in order
to do justice to the original. The bad language of the
Bull affords additional evidence of the drunken condition
of its author. For what else should one expect of a drunk
man but that he should curse and swear against all the
world without rhyme or reason. He proceeds to adduce
more proofs of the Pope's maudlin unreason in the detailed
comments on the various articles of the Bull, in which he
points out, with stinging sarcasm, the glaring contradictions
between its arrogant claims and lordly tone and the humility,
the lowly and loving spirit of Christ and the Apostles.
Discarding in conclusion the buffoonery of the preface and

" " Werke," viii. 691 f.

6 2 Luther and the Reformation

the comments, he reads the Pope and the papists a plain-
spoken lecture on the Gospel which teaches not to curse
but to love one's enemies, and on the parody of Christianity
which Roman greed and arrogance seek to uphold by force
and terror. He quotes from the Vulgate the words of Paul,
Radix omnium malorum avaritia, " The love of money is the
root of all evils/' and sardonically remarks that the first
letters of these four words spell " Roma." He adds an
exposition of the loth Psalm which, at the risk of being
himself accused of a forced exegesis, he takes as a forecast
of the wickedness and tyranny of the Roman Antichrist.

He was not content to rely on the popular pamphlet
or the controversial treatise for the furtherance of the
evangelical cause. The Word itself being for him the great
agent in overthrowing the Papacy and its institutions, it is
essential to instruct the people in the Word if the Gospel
is to assert its power in the regeneration of the Church and
the world. To this end he had, some time after his arrival
at the Wartburg, undertaken the task of writing in the
vernacular a series of sermons (Postille) on the passages
from the Gospels and Epistles which were read on Sundays
and Feast days throughout the year. 36 On the igth
November he dedicated the collection, which covered the
passages from the Gospels and the Epistles from Christmas
to Epiphany, to Count Albert of Mansfeld, and prefixed to
it " A Short Instruction on what we should seek and expect
in the Gospels." 37 He followed it up with a translation of
the Latin Advent sermons (Advent-pastille) which he had
written and sent to the press for the benefit of preachers
before the journey to Worms, and which he now revised
and enlarged in the vernacular for the benefit of the people. 38

Gospel preaching in the evangelical sense begins with
Luther. He deplores the lack of such preaching and

36 Enders, iii. 171, 190, 204, 214, 218, 220, 235, 240; cf. " Werke,"
viii. 343, where in the dedication of the Evangelium von den Zehn
Aussktzigen (lyth Sept.) he refers to the accumulating Postille.

37 " Werke," x., Pt. I. 1 These sermons fill the whole of this volume
of his works.

38 Enders, ni. 250, 256, 258. This series, which he completed towards
the end of Feb. 1522, is given in " Werke," x., Pt. II. 2

The New Evangelism 63

denounces the fables and scholastic subtleties with which
the parsons and monks delude and mislead the people.
" One blind man leads the other and both fall into the
ditch." 39 He claims that he has rediscovered the Gospel,
and his object in these sermons is to disentangle it from the
load of human doctrines with which the priesthood and the
schoolmen have overlaid it. Hence the polemic against
the current conception of the Gospel which finds expression
in these sermons, though the controversial element is only
incidental. Nor is the claim without foundation. He
undoubtedly strikes a new note, inasmuch as he bases his
message solely on the Word of God, as he interprets it, in
opposition to the mediaeval Church. No one but Luther,
or one taught in Luther's school, could have so preached.
Moreover, apart from the distinctive matter of these sermons,
the manner of them is characteristically Lutheran. They
reflect the personality of the preachei all through. The
preacher has no audience before him, for he is buried in the
solitude of the Wartburg. All the same, he writes just as
if he were addressing an ordinary congregation in the Saxon
vernacular. There is no rhetoric, no attempt at mere oratory,
for he is uttering thoughts, convictions on which, he is
absolutely convinced, his own salvation and that of his
hearers depend. But this strength of conviction imparts
to his discourse a spontaneous eloquence, an incisive, arrest-
ing power of appeal, a directness and clarity of expression
which only a preacher aflame with the prophetic fire and
gifted by nature with an utterance adequate to his message
can attain. Such a preacher does not study effect. He only
expresses himself in the conviction that he speaks God's
message, as did the prophets and Apostles of old. To be
thus convinced was undoubtedly the secret of the power of
these sermons. 40

At the same time, they have other features which
contribute to explain this power. The humanist has dis-
placed the schoolman. Luther has made solid progress in
the knowledge of the original languages since the time when

39 " Werke," x,, Pt, I. 1 , 37 ; cf. 50, 54, HO, ii, etc.

40 On Luther's power as a preacher, see Garvie, " The Christian
Preacher."

64 Luther and the Reformation

he began to expound the Bible to his students at Wittenberg.
He has studied the passages he expounds in the original
Greek, and he shows a remarkable skill in expressing the
meaning of the original in the vernacular. He has an
extraordinary gift, which not many scholars possess, of
making himself understood by the common man. He is a
master of simplification, of popular exposition, in the best
sense of the term. He uses the popular proverb and aptly
illustrates his theme from the life of the people. Himself a
son of the people, he strikes a democratic note which reflects
a warm sympathy with and an understanding of the common
man. He never loses an opportunity of showing how worthy
is the common life lived in a Christian spirit and of reminding
his hearers that the world and its wealth only too surely
tend to deflect the soul from God and eternity. 41 His
distinctive theology is reflected in these sermons. But it
is entirely divorced from the subtlety and the jargon of the
schools. It is no mere system of belief. It is brought into
living touch with religion. It is experimental. It reflects
his personal experience of the problem of salvation in the
face of God's righteousness and man's sin. It is doctrinal
in the sense that it seeks to inculcate the teaching of the
Word in the solution of this problem. In this sense it is
dogmatic enough, for, like Paul, the preacher is concerned
first and foremost with the answer to this problem and
knows of no other possible solution than that proclaimed by
the great Apostle of the grace of God in Jesus Christ. It
is emphatically Christo-centric, as Luther, following the
Apostle, has apprehended Christ. " To preach the Gospel
is nothing else than to bring Christ to men and men to
Christ." tt He knows nothing of the distinction between
the Gospel of Christ and the Gospel about Christ, of any
development of the teaching of Jesus by Paul or other
Apostle. The whole Bible, in fact, from beginning to end
is a testimony to Christ. In spite of his undoubted scholar-
ship he is still apt at times to read more into his texts than
they really contain, though his exegesis is in the main
relevant. What the New Testament writers do is simply to

"Werke," x., Pt. I. 1 , 70, 86, 89. Ibid., x., Pt. I.*, 14.

The New Evangelism 65

give full expression to what Moses and the prophets foresaw
and taught about Christ. " The whole of the Old Testament
has nothing in it but Christ/' te

He nevertheless recognises a certain progression in the
unfolding of the Christ revelation which, he thinks, reaches
its fullness in Paul. From this point of view he rates Paul
above the four evangelists. " I will venture to say that the
Gospel is clearer and more fully expressed in Paul's Epistles
than in the four Evangelists. The Evangelists have described
Christ's life and word. . . . St Paul writes nothing of
Christ's life, but he expresses clearly why He came and
how we should make use of Him." ** It is therefore, above
all, the Gospel according to Paul that he expounds with such
power and conviction in these sermons, in opposition to
the moralism which makes the Gospel a law and Christ a
second Moses, and to the ecclesiasticism in religion which
consists in the performance of prescribed " works," such as
fasting, repeating prayers, keeping vigil, almsgiving, found-
ing churches, saying Masses for souls in purgatory, etc.,
and which he equates with the Phariseeism of the New
Testament. 45 " St Paul teaches in this Epistle (Titus ii.
11-15) what Titus and every preacher shall preach to the
people, viz., Christ and nothing else, in order that they may
know what He is, why He came, and what He has accom-
plished." 46 Specifically to preach Christ is to proclaim the
fact of man's sin and the glad tidings of God's saving gift
to sinful man, received in faith unto salvation. The first
essential of the reception of this gift is the sense of sin,
the distrust of self, and all its works. Be a sinner in
order to become a Christian is the great paradox. The Gospel
is a message for sinners, not for the self-righteous or those
who seek salvation by these Pharisaic works.

This is the kernel of Luther's own preaching to the
people, of the new evangelism which, with a rare facility
and mastery of simple exposition, he expounds to the
common man in the common tongue, and which, as thus
expounded, was fitted to appeal to the popular mind. It

"Werke," x., Pt, I. 1 , 10; cf. 80, 81, 181.

"/taar.,x., Pt. I. 1 , 47-

Ibid., x., Pt. I. 1 , 17, 51- " -0**-. x -> Pt * I- 1 . J 9-

66 Luther and the Reformation

enables us to understand how the Lutheran Reformation,
in its primary religious form at least, was emphatically an
evangelistic movement, and why it made such a powerful
impression on the people. This evangelism is simply a
New Testament, or, more correctly, a Pauline theology as
moulded in Luther's own thought and experience in the
quest for a gracious God, and adapted to the common
understanding. It is born of his own experience of sin,
of the futility of "works," moral or ecclesiastical, for
salvation, of the sole sufficiency of Christ's work appropriated
by faith, the sole efficacy of God's grace in effecting the
regeneration of the soul and begetting the new life of faith,
from which works spring and which becomes the dynamic
of a practical Christian ethic. This ethic is the fruit of the
personal reception of Christ as Saviour, and manifests itself in
devotion to Him as Master. Luther's opponents had and
have much to say in criticism of the theological presupposi-
tions of this Evangelism as tending to Antinomianism, etc.
But Luther himself assuredly does not teach a cheap or
formal faith, though many of his adherents might too
easily in practical life overrate his principle of faith at the
expense of his Christian ethic. It is not, he insists, a fruit-
less faith that Christ brings to the receiving heart. The
whole of the Christian life, he reiterates, is but a purification
from sin. " For though faith redeems us forthwith from
all the guilt of the law and makes us free, there remains
the evil disposition in body and soul, which it is the work of
faith to purify wholly/ 1 47

In addition to instructing the people in the Gospel through
these sermons, he determined to put into their hands the
Gospel itself in the common tongue. He had evidently dis-
cussed the project of a translation from the original language
with Ms colleagues during his furtive visit to Wittenberg
in the early part of December. They urged that he himself
should undertake the task. 48 In his " Table Talk " he says
that Melanchthon in particular had urged him to undertake

" " Werke," x., Pt. I. 1 , 52.

48 Enders, iii. 256. Novum Testamentum vernacula donaturus quam
rem postulant nostri.

The New Evangelism 67

the work, 49 and his own sense of the superlative importance
of providing an accurate version for popular use disposed
him all the more readily to comply with the request. " I
long that every town should have its own interpreter/' he
wrote to Lang on the i8th December, after his return,
" and that the tongue, hand, eyes, ears, and hearts of all
should be occupied with this book alone." 50 Lang himself,
to whom he had owed his knowledge of the elements of the
Greek language, had already in the previous year published
a translation of Matthew from the Greek text of Erasmus.
While Luther encouraged him to continue what he had
begun, 61 his own plan embraced the whole Bible, not portions
of it. Such a translation in the common tongue was, indeed,
already in existence and had appeared in various editions
during the fifteenth century and early years of the sixteenth. 52
But this translation had been made from the Vulgate and
was thus but a translation of what was itself a faulty
rendering of the original, and Luther had the advantage of
being able to use for the New Testament the text of Erasmus
(second edition, 1519). He also used a text sent him by
Gerbel which was, however, practically that of Erasmus. 58
On this text he set to work within a few days after his
return. 54 He laboured with such intense assiduity that he
had worked through the whole of the New Testament by
the end of February I522. 55

Truly a herculean performance and a striking testimony
to his productive capacity which enabled him at the same
time to translate and enlarge his Latin Postitte. He felt at
times, as he wrote to Amsdorf, that he had undertaken a
burden beyond his powers. 56 It was not merely a question
of turning one literary form into another, but of rendering
it in an idiom which the people could readily understand
and which should, nevertheless, convey, in an apposite style,

49 " Tischreden," iv. 709.

10 Enders, iii. 256. 81 Ibid., iii. 256.

" Moeller, " History of the Christian Church," ii. 543.
fi Enders, iii. 241. " Ibid., iii. 258.

65 Ibid,) iii. 325.

* e Ibid., iii. 271. Interim Biblia transferam, quamquam onus sus-
ceperim supra vires.

68 Luther and the Reformation

the sense of the original. The variety and divergence of
dialects in German made the selection of a uniform medium
peculiarly difficult. As a basis he chose the official language
of the Saxon Chancellory, which had been adopted by the
other German courts and the Senates of the Free Cities
in their official communications. 57 His inborn gift of realistic
expression stood him in good stead in moulding it into a
fit instrument to express the meaning of the Greek original.
"Translation/' he says in his "Table Talk/ 1 "is a special
grace and gift of God/' 58 His German New Testament, from
which Melanchthon expected to profit more than from all the
commentaries of the learned, 59 is a striking monument of
this gift. Even so, he spent many a weary hour in struggling
to adapt his common medium to his purpose, and was fain
to supplement it from his intimate knowledge of the popular
Saxon, i.e., Low German speech. " Now I realise/ 1 he wrote
to Amsdorf on the I3th January, " what it means to be an
interpreter and why it has hitherto been attempted by no
one who considered only his own reputation/' 60 He felt
unequal to the task of translating the Old Testament
without the assistance of his colleagues, and suggested
that a secret lodging should be prepared for him at Witten-
berg, where they might work together at the task of giving to
Germany a worthy translation which all Christians could
read with edification, and which would be a real improvement
on the Vulgate. It is, he adds, a great and worthy work
which demands the labour of all, in view of its public utility
and its religious importance. 61

IV. THE RADICAL MOVEMENT AT WITTENBERG

The Elector had not only enjoined the Town Council
of Wittenberg to punish the authors of the disturbances in
the beginning of December. He had, in reply to the peti-
tion of the University of the lath of the month, directed

67 " Tischreden," iv. 57. " " Corp. Ref.," i. 563.

* Ibid., iv. 571. < Enders, iii. 271.

61 Ibid., iii. 271. An estimate of Luther's translation will be given
later in connection with the complete translation of the Bible.

The Radical Movement at Wittenberg 69

that no innovations should be made in the service of the
Mass without due deliberation and unanimous consent. 62
Undeterred by these injunctions and emboldened by the
growing demand of the citizens tt for a practical reformation,
Carlstadt, in the course of a sermon which as archdeacon
he delivered in All Saints on the 22nd, intimated that he
would dispense the communion in both kinds on the ist
January 1522. Anticipating the Elector's intervention, he
carried out his purpose on Christmas Day. After explaining
to his hearers that not confession and fasting, as hitherto,
but a firm faith was alone necessary for participation in
the sacred rite, 64 he read the introductory part of the service
of the Mass, and then, omitting the sacrificial passages and
the elevation of the host, invited the people to partake
of the bread and wine in the words of the original institution,
"Take, eat, etc." The daring thing in this celebration,
which he performed without priestly garments, was not
merely the giving of both kinds to the communicant, but
the invitation to take from the altar with his own hands
the elements which the priest alone had hitherto been
permitted to handle. 65

The sensation aroused by this daring contravention
of use and wont was heightened by another unseemly
demonstration on the previous night against the Mass in
both the parish church and AH Saints, which was also
reported in detail to the Elector by the Chapter. 66 Despite
the official request to refrain from this innovation, 67 he
repeated the innovation on New Year's Day, on the follow-
ing Sunday, the 5th January, and on Epiphany Day, and

fta " Corp. Ref.," i. 504 f. ; Nik. Miiller, 117 f , I5th and I9th Dec.

* 3 The active movement led by Carlstadt and Zwilling had the
support of a party among the citizens who had already, on the I7th Dec.,
presented to the Town Council a number of articles in favour of a radical
reform of the religious and social life of the community.

64 See the account of the sermon in Barge, i. 359-361.

5 See the letter of the Chapter of All Saints to the Elector, 29th Dec.,
in which this enormity is emphasised. Barge, n. 558-559; cf. " Corp.
Ref.," i. 512; Nik. Miiller, 131 f - ; Ulscenius to Capito, " Z.K.G.," v.
330. See also the contemporary account in ibid., xxii. 125.

66 See its Report in Barge, ii. 559; Nik. Miiller, 133-134.

7 " Corp. Ref./' i. 612-613, 26th Dec.; Nik. Muller, 125-126.

70 Luther and the Reformation

the increasing number of communicants showed that, at
Wittenberg at least, the people, if not the Government,
were ready to welcome it. His example was followed by
Zwilling who, after a series of violent sermons against the
Mass in the parish church at Eilenburg, dispensed the
communion in both kinds on New Year's Day in the castle
chapel under the patronage of Hans von Taubenheim and
other electoral officials. 68 Here again, unfortunately, the
rowdy element, roused by the reckless eloquence of the
fiery preacher, showed its indignation at the opposition of
the local priest by smashing the windows of the parsonage.
In Lochau and several other places, on the other hand,
the priests took the lead in introducing the evangelical
celebration. 69

Other innovations rapidly followed. Many ceased to
go to confession or to fast on Friday. On the igth January
Carlstadt publicly espoused Anna von Mochau, the daughter
of a poor nobleman resident in a neighbouring village, in the
exercise of his Christian liberty and as an example to the
priesthood, as he informed the Elector. 70 Justus Jonas,
the Provost of All Saints, and others erelong followed suit. 71
A number of the Franciscan monks left their monastery
and took to shoemaking or other trades in order to earn
their living and support their wives. 72 On the nth January,
the day after the conclusion of the Chapter of the Order,
the Augustinians, under Zwilling's leadership, startled the
citizens by removing the altars from the monastery chapel,
smashing the images, burning the pictures of the saints, and
thereafter distributing to the people the communion in both
kinds. 73 This dramatic proceeding started the demand for
the clearance of the churches of these " emblems of idolatry,"
which was vigorously abetted by Carlstadt in the pulpit

" See the contemporary accounts in " Z.K.G.," v. 327-329, and
xxii. 125-126.

'"Z.K.G.,"xxii. 122-123.

70 Ibid., v. 331 (Ulscenius to Capito) ; cf. ibid^ xxii. 125;
"Corp. Ref.," i. 538.

71 Ibid., v. 332; xxii. 121.
79 Ibid., xxii. 121.

78 Ibid., v. 332 ; Nik. Muller, 169, 212.

The Radical Movement at Wittenberg 71

and in a philippic against images. 74 Zwilling also fanned the
radical spirit by his fiery sermons on the subject and took
occasion to rebuke Jonas and Amsdorf from the pulpit
for their lack of zeal in the good cause. 76 Carlstadt, it
appears, would, like Zwingli, have gone the length of
eliminating instrumental music as well as images from the
churches. 76 Amsdorf, Aurogallus, and Melanchthon were
shocked by these iconoclastic excesses and thought of
leaving Wittenberg. 77

By this time the agitation had impressed the Town
Council, which had so far striven to carry out the Elector's
negative policy, with the necessity of averting the threatened
anarchy by making concessions to the active reformers. To
this end the new Burgomaster, Dr Beyer, who had acted
as the Elector's representative in the earlier stage of the
movement, entered into negotiations with the University.
The result of the united deliberations of Council and pro-
fessors, in which Melanchthon took a very active part, 78
was an ordinance regulating the social as well as the religious
life of the community on evangelical lines 79 (24th-25th
January). Its aim is not only to regulate public worship
in accordance with the Gospel, but to bring the spirit of the
Gospel into communal life. It accordingly directs that the
communion should be celebrated in accordance with the
institution of Christ. Such specified parts of the traditional
service as are contrary to this institution are to be omitted ;

74 Von der Anbetung der Bilder. A summary of it is given, by
Barge, i. 386 f. The dedication is dated 27th Jan.

75 " Z.K.G ," v. 331. 7 Barge, i. 49<>49i.

77 " Z.K.G.," v. 331 ; Nik. Mailer, 172-173

78 Ibid., v 331. Habentur cotidie concilia hie a prseposito (Jonas,
Provost of All Saints), Karolstadio, Philippo, rehqtioque clero et
magistratu de mutandis plurium rebus. Philippus ardentissime rem
agit.

79 Ain lobliche ordnung der Furstlichen Stat Wittenberg. Richter,
" Die Evangelischen Kirchenordnungen des i6 ten Jahrhunderts," ii.
484-485 (1871) ; " Corp. Ref.," i. 540-541. Beyer's summary, dated 25th
Jan., which adds some details. Sehling, " Die Evangelischen Kirchen-
ordnungen des i6 texi Jahrhunderts," i. 697-698 (1902). See also
*' Z.K.G.," xxh. 122. Clemen gives the oldest version, which he
discovered in the Zwickau Lib. in " TheoL Stud, und Kritiken," 1897,
820-821 .

72 Luther and the Reformation

the others are only retained "for the sake of those weak
in the faith." After sermon and consecration by the priest
in the vernacular, the communicant may not must, as
Carlstadt and Zwilling would have directed take in his
hand the bread and the cup and partake thereof, thus
evidently following the precedent set by Carlstadt in his
celebration on Christmas Day. To avoid idolatry the altars,
beyond the number of three, shall " in time " 80 be removed
from the parish church. Ecclesiastical revenues and the
vessels of the church are transferred to a common fund
to be administered by the Town Council for the benefit of
the poor certain benefices, which are only to fall to this
fund on the death of the incumbent, excepted. Compensa-
tion for those revenues immediately transferred is to be
paid to the priests at the rate of six gulden annually. All
begging, whether by monks, students, or others, is henceforth
forbidden, and the monks in particular shall work for their
living. Fraternities, i.e., social and religious associations,
twenty-one in number, are abolished and their income is also
made over to the common fund. Loans shall be made from
this fund to poor craftsmen out of work, without any charge
for interest. Orphans and poor children, especially young
girls, shall be supported out of it, and in case it does not
suffice for such objects, the citizens shall contribute. The
sons of poor parents who show sufficient ability shall be
assisted to remain at school in order to provide efficient
preachers of the Gospel and properly equipped servants of the
State. Those not of sufficient ability to serve the common-
weal in this capacity shall be trained as craftsmen. To
prevent extortion, citizens in need of loans shall receive such
out of the common fund at 4 per cent., instead of 5 or 6
charged by private lenders. Prostitution is forbidden.
Women of ill-fame must many or leave the town, and
keepers of brothels are liable to severe penalties. 81

* So in Beyer's summary.

81 According to Barge a special ordinance was drawn up regulating
in detail the administration of the common fund. It is given by Barge,
" 559-S6I. The question is whether this ordinance was not already
passed in Nov. 1521 at the instigation of Luther (this has been inferred
from a letter of Ulscenius to Capito, 3oth Nov. 1521, given by Hartfelder

The Radical Movement at Wittenberg 73

The ordinance is interesting and important as the first
attempt of the civic authority to introduce an evangelical
form of worship, to mould social and economic conditions,
and exercise a strict supervision of public morality in
conformity with the Gospel, and to secularise ecclesiastical
revenues for the common benefit. It has been decried as
visionary and puritanic as well as revolutionary by German
historians who see in it merely the fanatic radicalism of
Carlstadt and Zwilling. 82 Carlstadt and Zwilling doubtless
contributed to its inception, and the regulation of public
worship certainly reflects the hand of Carlstadt. 83 But its
composition was the result of the co-operation of the Council
and the University, of Beyer, Melanchthon, Jonas, and others,
as well as Carlstadt, and it is a mistake to see in it the fruit
merely of irresponsible fanaticism. On the contrary, grant-
ing the necessity of inaugurating the change from the old
order to the new, it is in the circumstances a moderate
and enlightened solution of a very difficult problem. The
secularisation of ecclesiastical revenues was, indeed, a daring
procedure. But it was not entirely new and it proceeds on
the principle of applying these revenues for the common
benefit, including education as well as poor relief. It leaves

in " Melanchthoniana Paedagogica," 120) who had already concerned
himself with the subject in the " Address to the Nobility," or whether
it was the result of the more general ordinance of 24th to 25th Jan. 1522.
Barge maintains the latter view, " Theologische Studien und Kritiken,"
1913, 461 f., and " Historische Vierteljahrschrift," 1908, 193 f. Karl
Miiller, " Historische Zeitschrift," vol. xcvi. 471 f., and " Luther und
Karlstadt," 31 f. (1907), and Kohler, " Gott. Gelehrte Anzeige," 1912,
524 f., maintain the former view. Winckelmann, " Hist. Viertel
Jahrschrift," 1914, 205 f., also maintains this view, but thinks that
the ordinance was not earned out and was, in any case, displaced by
the larger one of Jan. 1522.

M See, for instance, Kolde, " Luther," ii. 36 ; Hausrath, " Luther,"
i. 528; Kosthn-Kawerau, " Luther," i. 483.

83 Barge would ascribe its provisions mainly to Carlstadt, without
adequate justification, however, i. 385. Karl Muller (" Luther und
Karlstadt," 56 f.) shows that the ordinance was, in part at least, an
attempt to put in practice Luther's teaching in the sermon on Usury
and the " Address to the Nobility." Melanchthon also took an active
part in its composition in the hope apparently of regularising and
moderating the movement. Ibid^ 62 f.

74 Luther and the Reformation

benefices in the possession of the incumbents during their
lifetime and it allows compensation for the loss of income
from confiscated sources. The inhibition of begging on
economic grounds needs no apology, and the attempt to
reduce excessive interest on loans is economically defensible.
To put down public prostitution may be " puritanic." But
Luther himself had strongly advocated this course in the
" Address to the Nobility," and it is amply justified on the
ground of the public welfare and morality as well as Christian
duty. To denounce as Antichristian the Mass and image
worship and yet refrain indefinitely from abolishing these
abuses was neither logical nor advisable, if the Reformation
was to be something more than a theological controversy
within the schools. Moreover, whilst communion in both
kinds is made obligatory, the taking of the bread and the
cup in the hand of the communicant is, contrary to the
demand of Carlstadt, left optional. The removal of the
images is, according to the report of Beyer, not to be
precipitately carried out. Whilst all this is revolutionary
enough, the revolution is carried out in the interest of
order and the commonweal, and not merely at the dictate
of irresponsible fanatics. Carlstadt himself, in fact, though
preaching and writing in favour of a radical policy, did not
approve of popular violence, and had no desire to foment
it, though he was not disposed to take his orders in matters
of religion from the Government. 84 " For my person I assert
that I have followed the Scriptures, and I appeal for con-
firmation to the unsuspected evidence of my hearers. . . .
Therefore I will remain strictly on the foundation of God's
Word and shall not allow myself to be led astray by what
others teach. Woe is me if I preach not the Gospel."

Its authors had, however, not reckoned with the fact
of the antagonism of the Elector who had from the outset,

84 Letter of 4th Feb. to the Electoral Minister, von Einsiedel, who
had written a sharp reproof of his preaching. " Corp. Ref.," i. 544-547 ;
Barge, " Aktenstiicke Zur Wittenberger Bewegung," 13-15 (1912);
N. Muller, " Die Wittenberger Bewegung," 180 f. (1911). K. Miiller
(" Luther und Karlstadt," 68 f.) contests Carlstadt's disclaimer of
inciting the people to violence and Barge's assertion to this eifect,
i. 407-

The Radical Movement at Wittenberg 75

from political reasons, discouraged and opposed what he
regarded as a precipitate departure from the existing order.
In addition to his innate dislike of revolution, his fear of
provoking the resentment of the Imperial Regency (Reichs-
regiment) at Niirnberg predisposed him against such a
far-reaching measure. He had warmly professed his readiness
to further the cause of the Gospel and his profession seems
to have been sincere. But the wary politician instinctively
sought the path of least resistance in furthering the move-
ment, and this path seemed to lie in the direction of retarding
rather than hurrying change in the existing order.
Individual initiative like that of Carlstadt and Zwilling
against his declared will was both distasteful to his sense of
order and likely to involve him in grave conflict with the
central Government. And on the back of the news of
Carlstadt's daring innovation in the service of the Mass
on Christmas Day, came letters Irom Melanchthon, informing
him of the arrival at Wittenberg of certain disciples of
Thomas Mimzer Stiibner, Storch, and another whose name
is not given who had been driven from Zwickau as dis-
turbers of the peace Of these " prophets " Stiibner was a
former student of Wittenberg University and a friend of
Melanchthon ; Storch and his companion were weavers and
illiterates. 85 Melanchthon was at first impressed by their
knowledge of the Scriptures, their claim to direct
inspiration by the Spirit, and their pretension to foretell the
future by means of visions. He feared to condemn them
lest he might extinguish the Spirit and was greatly per-
turbed over their arguments against infant baptism, especi-
ally as they appealed to Luther's teaching in support of their
claims. 86 On reflection he expressed himself, in a report
to the Elector on the ist January 1522, as more sceptical
about their claims to inspiration, and suggested that the
matter should be referred to the judgment of Luther. 87

* B " Corp. Ref.," i. 513. Hue advolarunt tres viri, duo lanifices,
literarum rudes, literatus tertius est.

86 See his letters to the Elector and to Spalatin, 27th Dec. 1521.
'* Corp. Ref.," i. 513-515.

87 Ibid.i i. 533-534. Amsdorf also sent a report of a similar tenor.
Ibid., i. 534-535

76 Luther and the Reformation

The matter-of-fact Elector had already been informed
from Zwickau about the doings of these " prophets," 88
and on the and January sent von Einsiedel and Spalatin
to explain to Melanchthon and Amsdorf what he thought of
them. In his view they were religious anarchists and
fomenters of sedition, with whose vagaries it was not
necessary to trouble Luther, though to his credit he was
not disposed to use force against them. 89 Their presence
at Wittenberg seems, however, to have contributed to deepen
his suspicion and dislike of Carlstadt and Zwilling who, in
his eyes, were hardly less obnoxious revolutionaries. In
reality there is no evidence that either Carlstadt or Zwilling,
unlike Melanchthon, was seriously impressed by their
claims to supernatural enlightenment. 90 Their influence on
the Wittenberg movement seems to have been practically
negligible, and the passing excitement they created subsided
with their departure shortly after. Certain it is that there
is no trace of even a spasmodic influence on the practical
provisions of the ordinance.

What moved the Elector to challenge once more the
policy of the innovators was not only the dislike of revolu-
tion, but the knowledge that the Imperial Regency had
resolved to suppress the movement. At the instigation of
Duke George of Saxony it emphatically condemned the
innovations in the worship and the usages of the Church
(particularly the revolt against the celibacy of the clergy
and the obligation of monastic vows) as detrimental to
religion and ecclesiastical order, and requested the princes
to prohibit them within their territories under threat of
severe punishment, and to instruct the people by means of
skilful preachers to observe the old order until a Reichstag
or a Council should authoritatively determine the question.
In particular, the authors or adherents of these innovations
are to be visited with exemplary punishment if they persist

88 Letter of Hausmann to the Elector from Zwickau, i8th Dec 1521
" Z.K.G.," v. 323-325.

" Corp. Ref., i. 535-538.

90 See Barge, i, 402-405. Against the conventional view of a large
number of German historians.

The Radical Movement at Wittenberg 77

in maintaining them. 91 In this emergency there was only
one of two alternatives open to the Elector either to risk
an open conflict with the central Government, or to take
energetic measures against the innovators at Wittenberg
and elsewhere. Old and ailing, he seems to have been no
longer equal to the strain of the diplomatic fencing which
he had practised so successfully in defence of Luther against
the Pope and the Emperor. He was besides alienated by
the independent initiative of Carlstadt and Zwilling. He
therefore chose the latter alternative in spite of the fact that
his representative at Niirnberg, von Planitz, had strenuously
opposed the proposals of Duke George. As a preliminary,
Einsiedel attempted to silence the radical preachers at
Wittenberg. 92 Carlstadt, as we have seen, answered with
a spirited refusal, and Melanchthon, who was requested to
abet this demand, replied that he was powerless to stem the
tide of Reformation and hinted that it was time to show
a more active sympathy with the movement. 93 On the back
of these letters came the tidings that the people, anticipating
the promised action of the Town Council, had burst into
the parish church, torn down the images and pictures, and
smashed and burned them. 94 Though the Council arrested and
punished a number of the rioters, the incident brought upon
the innovators a sharp condemnation of the revolutionary
measures which had given occasion to such disorder. 95 In
this communication the Elector, whilst not absolutely
inhibiting the ordinance, enlarged on the danger of truckling

91 Barge, " Aktenstiicke," 3-6; Walch, xv. 4616-4619. For the
discussion at Numberg on this mandate see " Reichstagsakten," iii.
20-21.

""Corp. Ref.," i. 543-544; Barge, "Aktenstiicke," 11-13.
Letters to Melanchthon to bring Zwilling to desist from his aggressive
sermons, and direct to Carlstadt to refrain from such preaching, 3rd Feb.
Einsiedel seems to have acted on his own initiative in this matter.
Barge, " Hist.Vierteljahrschrift " (i9H) 7-8.

"Barge, "Aktenstiicke," 16-17; "Corp. Ref.," i. 544-546. Ich
kann aber das Wasser nicht halten, ware von nothen dass man zu solichen
Sachen die der Seelen Heil betreffen, ernstlicher thate.

" " Corp. Ref.,'* i. 550, 553, probable date 5th or 6th Feb.

"/&/., i. 549-552; Barge, " Aktenstucke," 25-30; Nik. Muller,
190 f., I3th Feb.

78 Luther and the Reformation

to revolution at the instigation of the radical preachers,
repeated his former caveat against precipitate action, and
demanded to be informed why they had acted in this matter
against his declared will. In reply, the University Commis-
sion accepted responsibility for the ordinance drawn up in
co-operation with the Town Council in the interest of the
public welfare, and while expressing disapproval of the
violent removal of the images, laid the blame on the obstruc-
tive tactics of the opponents of the Reformation 96 (the
Romanist section of the Chapter of All Saints). In a
supplementary statement, however, which was evidently
inspired by the pliant Melanchthon, the Commission resiles
to a considerable extent from this spirited vindication of its
action, and makes concessions in a conservative direction in
regard to the communion service, 97 In the interview between
its members and Einsiedel at Eilenburg on the I3th February,
Carlstadt went the length of promising to cease preaching,
and the more moderate Amsdorf undertook to exhort the
people from the pulpit of the parish church to observe
moderation, whilst Zwilling contributed to ease the situation
by retiring in the meantime from Wittenberg. 98

With this compromise the Elector was by no means
satisfied, and on the lyth February sent from Lochau an
emphatic condemnation of the religious innovations and their
authors, and a decisive expression of his will that the old
order should be restored, pending a general and authoritative
decision on the question. 99 He based his demand on the
imperial mandate of the aoth January and the intimation of
the Bishop of Meissen of his determination to execute it in
his diocese, which included part of the electoral territory. 100

" Corp. Ref.," i. 552-553 J Barge, " Aktenstiicke," 30-32 ; Nik.
Muller, 194 f. The editor of the " Corp. Ref." wrongly ascribes the
first part of this document to the Town Council.

""Corp. Ref.," i. 554-555. Barge, " Aktenstucke," 33-34; Nik.
Muller, 201.

" Corp. Ref.," i. 556-558 ; Barge, " Aktenstucke," 41 f.

"Corp. Ref./' i. 55^-559 ; Barge, "Aktenstucke," 44-46; Nik.
Muller, 206-208.

100 The bishop's intimation was dispatched to the Elector on the 7th
Feb. It is given by Barge, " Aktenstucke," 19-21, and, together with
the mandate, explains his decision to prohibit outright the innovations

The Radical Movement at Wittenberg 79

It might be the prudent course to adopt. But this kind of
tactic would hardly have produced the Reformation, especially
as Melanchthon, Justus Jonas, and Amsdorf in the face of
this impasse were at the end of their resources and also of
their courage. They were not made of the stuff of resolute
leadership, and Melanchthon, in particular, in the absence
of Luther's backing, had recently shown a lack of firmness
of resolution and purpose. He had, for instance, un-
doubtedly been impressed by Stiibner's arguments on behalf
of a subjective revelation, and then at the Elector's nod had
agreed to discard the prophets. He had also at Einsiedel's
request undertaken to reprimand Zwilling, 1 though he
had some days before written a eulogy of him to his friend
Hector Pomer at Niirnberg. 2 He had all along felt the
lack of Luther's presence and pined for his return. Whilst
Carlstadt would have stood by the ordinance, his only
expedient was to shift the responsibility for a decision of the
question on to Luther's shoulders. Hence the message sent
on the 20th February to the Wartburg urging his return to
Wittenberg.

at Wittenberg. The passage in which the Elector gives the reason for
his decision is lacking in the version of his missive to Einsiedel in the
" Corp. Ref.," i. 558-559. The full text is given by Barge, " Akten-
stiicke," 44-46, and Nik. Muller, "Die Wittenberger Bewegung,"
206-208. K. Muller (" Luther und Karlstadt," 76 f.) contests the
view that Frederick acted from apprehension of the central Government,
and ascribes his action to his conservative instinct and his conventional
method of evading responsibility in such matters. It does appear, how-
ever, from the concluding passage of his missive that the Elector was
really anxious on the score of the intervention of the central Government.
" Corp. Ref.," i. 546. a Ibid., i. 542.

CHAPTER III
LUTHER'S RETURN FROM THE WARTBURG

I. LUTHER AND THE ELECTOR

LUTHER had been following with a lively interest the progress
of the movement at Wittenberg since his return to the
Wartburg about the middle of December. He rejoiced at
the news of Carlstadt's marriage, and in a letter to Amsdorf
on the isth January had intimated his intention of bringing
him a present on his return after Easter. 1 He must have
known of the celebration of the communion in both kinds
on Christmas Day when he wrote in this friendly tone
concerning him, and though he mentions his intention to
return in a letter to Melanchthon of the same date, the
reason adduced is not the innovations in worship, not even
the advent of the prophets, but the furthering of his transla-
tion of the New Testament. 2 Some days later (i7th January)
he refers, indeed, in a letter to Spalatin to the innovations
at Eilenburg and Wittenberg as a reason for putting an
end to his enforced exile, and says that the matter demands
his return either to Wittenberg or some other place. But
he does not explicitly condemn them, and is concerned rather
to disarm the Elector's opposition to his purpose. 8 He does
not take the prophets very seriously, 4 and in the letters to
Amsdorf and Melanchthon of the I3th January advises them
to try the spirits. He expresses scepticism about their
professed revelations, and reminds the anxious Melanchthon
of the advice of Gamaliel. God sends no one without a
call through human agency, or without accompanying signs.
The prophets of old received and proved their vocation in

1 Enders, iii. 270-271. 8 Ibid., iiL 286.

* Ibid., iii. 277, * Ibid., iii. 286. Neque enim me movent.

So

Luther and the Elector 81

this manner. Subjective revelations by means of dreams
and visions and direct inspiration are not to be credited
without substantial attestation of this kind, even if these
prophets claim to have been caught up to the third heaven.
Nor is he impressed by their insistence on adult baptism
on the ground that infants cannot exercise personal faith.
God accepts the faith of the parents on their behalf (fides
aliena) and is able to inspire faith even in the infant mind.
More convincing is the argument that Christ received the little
children, and we should follow His example. Moreover, the
presumption is that " what is not against Scripture is for
the Scripture and the Scripture for it." 5 Satan is certainly
at the bottom of the movement. 6 Whilst he thus rejects
their pretensions and reasonings, he would not use force
against them. It would ill become the followers of the
Gospel to resort to persecution, and he charges Spalatin to
see that the Elector does not resort to it. 7

During the next five weeks there is a blank in his cor-
respondence, and at the end of this interval there is a
marked change in his tone in reference to the Wittenberg
movement. He has evidently received the letter of his
colleagues urging his return and revealing their utter im-
potence to cope with the situation in the face of the Elector's
drastic intervention. He has evidently been informed of
the danger to his cause that threatens from Niirnberg and
of the trepidation that reigns in the electoral court, as well
as the prevailing helplessness and confusion at Wittenberg.
His first impulse 8 was to dash off a note to the Elector in
his bluffest style without the usual deferential preamble.
With an ironic reference to the Elector's zeal as a collector
of relics, he tells him that God has sent him a whole cross
with nails, spears, and scourge to boot. He sardonically
wishes him good luck with this new acquisition to his

6 Enders, iii. 276. Quod ergo non est contra Scripturam pro Scriptura
est et Scriptura pro eo.

6 Ibid., iii. 271-277.

7 Ibid., iii. 286.

8 The so-called letter to the Wittenbergers towards the end of Feb.,
noted by Enders, is really the sketch of a sermon which he proposed
to deliver and which he made after his return. " Werke," x. 74 f.

82 Luther and the Reformation

collection and begs him not to let himself be frightened
thereat, but to act prudently and wisely rather than in
accordance with mere diplomatic reason and the outward
appearance of things (a hit at the Elector's predilection for
politic measures). Whoever will have the Word of God
must be prepared to find not only Annas and Caiaphas
raging, but Judas among the Apostles and Satan among
the children of God. Judas evidently stands for Carlstadt
and his associates, whose reforms are inspired by Satan.
High time, therefore, for him to be at Wittenberg in order
to frustrate these satanic wiles. He knows Satan's tricks
too well to be afraid of liim. " God willing I will straight-
way be there." fi

The letter, he tells us, was written in haste, and the
judgment strikes the reader as equally hasty. It was
evidently based on one-sided information about the reform
movement and coloured by his obsession of the devil's impish
doings, which the solitude of the Wartburg had intensified.
These reforms were the logical outcome of his own principles
though he had himself refrained from drawing the inevitable
practical conclusion and had warned others against doing
so. At the same time, he had frequently in his works incited
to revolt against the papal ecclesiastical system and had
evidently discovered nothing in the movement at Wittenberg
up to the middle of January to suggest the agency of Satan.
Nor had he taken the ebullition of popular feeling against
the old order there seriously. Even the ordinance of the
24th January had been initiated by the public authority
in accordance with his declared principle, and was therefore
not liable to the objection of being the fruit of irresponsible
revolutionary violence. Its provisions relative to the
practical reform of religious and social life (the simplification
of the Mass, usury, prostitution, poor relief, education)
were in keeping with his teaching.

What seems to have suggested the agency of Satan in his
reforming capacity was the active antagonism of the Elector,
under the influence of the Niirnberg mandate of 20th
January, and the failure of his Wittenberg colleagues to

9 " Werke," 53, 103-104 (Erlang. ed.).

Luther and the Elector 83

maintain the ordinance in the face of this antagonism.
Their lack of resource and nerve had certainly produced a
situation that called for his intervention. But while the
crisis might appear serious enough, it hardly justified him
in so hastily prejudging their work as satanic, or denouncing
Carlstadt as the Judas of the Reformation. Carlstadt had
only acted on the principle of his own letter to Spalatin in
the middle of December, in which he put the pointed question
whether they were to go on perpetually disputing on the
Word of God and always abstaining from putting it in
practice.

The Elector was, however, very nervous on the score
of his declared determination to intervene personally. In
his reply^ which took the form of an instruction to John
Oswald, his bailiff at Eisenach, he explained the situation
at Wittenberg from his point of view the prevailing dis-
union and anarchy which the innovations had produced,
the diminution of the number of students, the intervention
of the Council of Regency and of the Bishop of Meissen as
its mandatory. Whilst asking Luther to advise him in
this emergency, he adduces the difficulties and dangers to
which his resolution to return in the face of the papal and
imperial ban will expose both himself and him. If, how-
ever, he could be sure that it was the will of God that he
should take upon him this cross, he is prepared to do so.
Only things are in such a state of chaos at Wittenberg
that he is unable to see God's hand in these ongoings or
run the risk of grave complications for such a cause. Perhaps
Luther would do better to exercise patience for a time
and submit the case in writing to the forthcoming Diet. 10
The missive is very characteristic of the wary politician who
would fain prompt Luther to use his influence to put down
the radical movement at Wittenberg and thus obviate the
threatened intervention of the central Government and its
mandatory, the Bishop of Meissen, whilst transferring to him
the responsibility for the decision whether to return or not. 11

10 Enders, iii. 292-295.

11 Kawerau in the " Deutsche Literaturzeitung," xiv. 1584 f. (1893),
interprets the Elector's letter as a camouflaged invitation to Luther to
return and deal with the situation. He incorporated this interpretation,

84 Luther and the Reformation

When this missive reached Luther, he had already made
his preparations for his departure on the following day.
It did not alter his determination to start on the morrow,
and he had reached Borna on the way to Wittenberg before
he found time to answer it on the 5th March. The answer is
one of the most characteristic revelations of his dynamic
personality, and brings out in striking relief the contrast
between the calculating but worried politician and the
fearless and resolute reformer, who believes himself to be
commissioned and directed by God and moulds his course
in accordance with this conviction and no other. He starts
in an apologetic tone, for the Elector had evidently felt
the sting of his ironic reference to his mania for relic collect-
ing and his predilection for diplomatic calculation. He
had not intended to depreciate his distinguished gifts as a
ruler, whom he esteemed above all other princes, but only
to comfort him in the midst of the trouble which the ill-
conceived measures of the misguided innovators had caused
him " to the great dishonour of the Gospel." All the ill
done him hitherto by his enemies is as nothing compared
to this distortion of the Gospel, which cannot be excused
before God or the world and for which he will be held
responsible. Clearly the hand of the devil is in this game.
But the Elector need not worry himself about him or his
cause. He has received the Gospel, not from man but
from heaven alone through the Lord Jesus Christ. He
had offered to appear at the bar of the Diet of Worms not
because he had any doubt about the truth, but only that
by his humility he might draw others to it. Similarly he
had allowed himself for reasons of expediency to be buried
in the Wartburg. The devil knows only too well that he

which Berger adopts ("Luther," i. 431), in his edition of Moeller's
" History of the Christian Church," iii. 37 (Eng. trans.), but subse-
quently dropped it in " Luther's Ruckkehr," 44. Bezold, on the other
hand, contests this interpretation and concludes that the letter was rather
meant to discourage Luther's return and was not a mere roundabout
way of prompting him to do so, " Z.K.G.," xx. 202 f. The letter seems
to me to warrant the interpretation I have given in the text. It really
leaves to Luther the decision whether he shall return or not and does
not forbid his return.

Luther and the Elector 85

had not been actuated by fear in adopting this expedient.
Had he not defied him when he determined to enter Worms
even if there were as many devils within it as tiles on the
roofs ? And now that he is trying on his old game through
Duke George, shall he lose confidence in the Father of
Mercies who has made us, through the Gospel, lords over the
devil and death and over Duke George's fury as well ?
Verily not. For if necessity should call him to go to
Leipzig instead of Wittenberg, he would ride into it even if
it rained for nine days Duke Georges, and every one of
them were more furious than this one. He is going to
Wittenberg under a higher protection than that of the
Elector. He does not desire his protection, and if he
depended on such protection he would not go at all. In
this matter the secular power can neither counsel nor help.
God alone can provide without all human care and co-
operation. He who believes most will, therefore, have the
most protection. Since he observes that the Elector is
still all too weak in faith, he can by no means regard him
as the man to protect or save him. The Elector esteems
that he has done too little in this matter. Luther respect-
fully assures him that he has done too much and should do
nothing at all. For God will have this affair left in His own
hands and in no one else's. If the Elector has not this
faith, Luther has it and must leave him to worry in his
unbelief. And since he refuses to follow his direction,
he need have no responsibility for what happens to him.
Let him obey the imperial authority as is his duty. Resist-
ance to it is resistance to God, who has established it. He
trusts, however, that the imperial Government will act
with reason and recognise the divine hand in this cause.
But if not, and it seeks to seize him, let the Elector permit it
freely to do so. Christ has not taught Luther to be a
Christian at another's expense. If, however, it is so bereft
of reason as to command the Elector to arrest him, he will
then tell him what his duty is. Happily it is a different
man from Duke George with whom he has to do, though,
through his lack of faith, he has not yet seen the glory of
God. 12

13 " Werke," 53, 104-109 (Erlang. ed.).

86 Luther and the Reformation

The letter reveals Luther in his true character as the
prophet to whom God is everything, man, even an Elector,
is nothing, when it boots to vindicate what he conceives
to be God's will. The Elector was, however, by no means
minded to leave the political aspect of the matter out of
account. These heroics could hardly be adduced in a
diplomatic explanation to the Imperial Regency of the
reappearance on the scene of the redoubtable outlaw, for
which the Elector would be asked to account. Luther
must, therefore, be persuaded to drop his prophet's mantle
for the nonce and give a version of his action which the
Elector could use for diplomatic purposes. In a missive
to Schurf he accordingly requested that he should furnish
him with such a declaration of the reason of his return,
without his permission, as he could show to his fellow-princes
(Duke George and the members of the Regency at Niirnberg)
in his own exoneration, 13 and as far as possible that of Luther
himself. Luther had perforce, therefore, to exchange the
role of the prophet for that of the diplomatist, and in a
letter to the Elector, written on the yth March as of his
own accord, acknowledges that he had returned without
his " will and permission." In so doing he had not acted
in contempt of the authority of the Emperor or any other,
for although human authority is not to be obeyed when it
ordains anything against God, it is as a rule to be honoured
and not despised. Though Christ did not justify Pilate's
judgment, He did not gainsay it. He had returned for
three reasons : He had received a call from the Church at
Wittenberg and was bound in conscience to respond to it.
Satan had made an inroad into his fold and the situation,
which could not be remedied by letter, demanded his personal
intervention. Moreover, Germany was standing on the
brink of a great uprising. The people are apprehending the
Gospel in a fleshly sense and the tendency is all the more
dangerous, inasmuch as the powers that be, instead of
striving to mitigate this danger, are intensifying it by their
efforts to extinguish the Gospel. It was, therefore, im-
perative that he should seek, in co-operation with his friends,

18 Enders, iii. 297-298. Instruction to Schurf, 7th March.

Luther and the Elector 87

to counteract their insensate policy of force. " For your
Electoral Grace should know and be assured of this, that it is
altogether decreed otherwise in heaven than at Niirnberg,
and those who unhappily presume that they have swallowed
the Gospel will yet discover that they have not even learned
to say the ' Benedicite.' " The Elector is lord only over
material things and the body. Christ is the lord of the
soul, and in this sphere he must needs do His will who has
sent him and raised him up for this purpose. He hopes that
Christ will prevail over his enemies and will protect him.
But if not, His will be done. The Elector need have no
fear of incurring any danger or detriment on his account. 14
He evidently felt that this essay in diplomacy was hardly
up to the Elector's standard, and in a postscript he expresses
his readiness to alter the terms of it in accordance with
any changes the Elector may suggest, though he intimates
that this is the last time that he will pay such a tribute to
political expediency. The suggested amendments 15 proved to
be so material that in the final version of the letter, bearing
date I2th March, the prophet almost disappears behind the
plausible diplomatist. The Elector's decided opposition to
his return is more categorically asserted, and he now refers
to the Emperor as " his most gracious lord " instead of the
formal " imperial majesty." The rather contemptuous refer-
ence to the Imperial Regency is suppressed, the Elector's
forgiveness is asked for his disobedience to his express
will, and an undertaking is given to refrain with God's help
from all unseemly and insulting accusations. 16 The missive
is meekness itself compared with the high-spirited effusion
of the 5th March. It was wrung from him, as he wrote to
Spalatin, by consideration of the Elector's infirmity, and the
reference to the Emperor as his most gracious lord was very
much against the grain, since all the world knew that he was
his direst enemy and would only ridicule this manifest
pretence. The only salve for his conscience was that he was
merely using the conventional language of courtly address,

14 " Werke," 53, 109-112 (Erlang. ed.).

15 See the Elector's letter to Schurf, Enders, iii. 303-304-
18 " Werke, 1 ' 52, 114-118 (Erlang. ed.).

88 Luther and the Reformation

But he has had enough of this sort of subterfuge (fucus), and
no more of this make-believe is to be expected from him. 17

Neither the Elector nor Luther comes heroically out of
this diplomatic business. The situation was undoubtedly
a difficult one for the Elector who, as patron of the Reforma-
tion, had to face the possibility of forfeiting title and territory
for the sake of the Gospel, and had to consider every step
in the light of this possibility. Even so, the hesitation to
take risks in such a cause, which at heart he seems really
to have embraced, displays him too much in the light of
the victim of an excessive and rather helpless prudence.
As for Luther, the spirit of Worms, which had blazed up
in the letter of 5th March, has almost evaporated in the
effusion of a week later. And yet it is the self-same Luther
that had once more set out on a hazardous journey to do the
will of God in the face of the opposition of man and
devil, regardless of the difficulties and dangers of the enter-
prise. It is assuredly not a case of loss of nerve in the
face of the opposition, or mere truckling to political expedi-
ency at the expense of the cause of the Gospel. Whilst
going so far as to invite the ridicule of public opinion in his
desire to safeguard the timorous Elector, he has not the
slightest intention of belying his convictions or betraying
this cause by surrendering either at the behest of the Imperial
Regency. Even in the letter of I2th March he makes it
clear enough that he means to stand fast, without the protec-
tion of any human patron, for what he deems the cause of
God against its enemies at Niirnberg or elsewhere. The
diplomatic attempt to save the Elector is not an attempt to
save himself. He is not afraid to stand alone for the Gospel
even if he must equivocate somewhat for the Elector's sake.
The glimpse we get of him at Erfurt and Jena during the
journey in his now familiar disguise as Knight George reveals
no trace of trepidation or irresolution. In the inn at Erfurt,
according to Ratzeberger, he listens to the tirade across the
table of an ignorant parson against the great heretic, and
calmly begs him to tell him what this execrable Luther has
taught. The parson, more exercised in ranting than in

17 Enders, iii. 305-306,

Luther and the Elector 89

learning, being unable to specify one of the 100 heresies
which, he says, are to be found in Luther's writings, the
knight remarks that, though not a scholar, he had learned
to read and write and, having dipped into some of these
writings, had found that one of these 100 errors consisted
in his appeal to Scripture and especially to Paul. In the
inn at Jena two bedraggled students from Switzerland on
their way to Wittenberg seek shelter from the pouring rain
and a night's lodging. The friendly knight reading a book
at one of the tables offers them a drink and enters into
conversation with them. Recognising by their accent their
Swiss origin, he tells them that they will find at Wittenberg
fellow-countrymen in the jurist Schurf and his brother,
the professor of medicine. He talks to them about
Melanchthon and the other Wittenberg professors, and asks
news of Erasmus at Basle, where they have studied. One
of them picks up the book, and finding that it is a Hebrew
Psalter, avers that he would willingly give one of his fingers
to be able to read it. The knight replies that he shares their
desire and exercises himself daily in this language. The
innkeeper confides to one of the students, Kessler by name,
that the knight is none other than Luther himself. Kessler
concludes that he is pulling his leg and his companion is
of opinion that he has misunderstood the word Luther for
Hutten, to whom the appearance of the strange knight
would better apply. The knight leaves them under this
illusion. Anon two merchants enter the inn, one of them
carrying a book, which turns out to be Dr Luther's
Pastille. Whereupon the knight remarks that he also
will soon get a copy. The conversation at the meal, to
which the knight invites the two students at his own charge,
shifts to the assembled princes at Niimberg, who, instead
of discussing the religious condition of Germany, waste their
time in tournaments and other diversions. " And these
are our Christian princes," concluded the knight, adding
that he hoped the rising generation would improve upon
their elders as the fruit of the new evangelical teaching.
Luther, remarked one of the merchants, must be either an
angel from heaven or the devil from hell. In any case,
he would willingly give his last ten gulden for the privilege

90 Luther and the Reformation

of making his confession to him. At the close of the meal
the students thank him for his generosity and gave him to
understand that he is Hutten. The innkeeper boldly opines
that he is Luther " The students/' jocularly returned the
stranger, " hold that I am Hutten, you that I am Luther.
Before long I shall be taken for Marculf " (a well-known
creation of the popular humour). The knight ended the
colloquy by asking the students to clink glasses with him
in a bumper of wine. Rising from the table he shook
hands with them and asked them to carry his personal greet-
ing to Dr Schurf at Wittenberg. " Say only/' was the reply
to the question whom they should say had sent his greeting,
" he who shall come sends his greeting. He will soon
understand what these words mean/' 18

II. SERMONS IN BEHALF OF MODERATION

On the 6th March he rode into Wittenberg in the midst
of a cavalcade of horsemen who had joined him near the
town, 19 and dismounted unrecognised in the dwelling of Justus
Jonas. On the following Sunday, the 8th, he appeared in
the pulpit of the parish church to preach the first of a
consecutive series of eight sermons adapted to the situation,
besides a number of daily Lenten sermons on the Ten
Commandments

These sermons show Luther at his best as a preacher.
They are models of persuasive reasoning and reveal the
striving to calm excitement and restore harmony. He
addresses his hearers as his " dear friends " and eschews
recrimination, though he speaks his mind freely and mingles
on occasion reproof with exhortation. One of his hearers,
the student Burerius, writes enthusiastically of his kindly
and cheerful manner, his rich and sonorous voice, his
melting eloquence. If one hears him once, one wants to
hear him again and again, so lasting is the impression he
makes on the minds of his hearers, so powerful the appeal
of his personal piety in whatever he speaks, teaches, or

" Kessler's " Sabbata," 76 f.

19 " Z.K.G.," v. 332. Letter of Burerius to Beatus Rhenaaus.

Sermons in Behalf of Moderation 91

does, although his enemies represent him so differently. 20
Schurf in his account to the Elector is equally appreciative. 21
Faith, he explains in the first of these sermons, is the
essential for salvation from sin, and this essential of the
Gospel has been effectively preached in his absence. But
faith must be paired with love, and here his hearers have
been led astray. The kingdom of God consists not in words,
but in deeds. Love teaches patience and self-denial for the
sake of others. We may not do what we have a right to
do without considering whether it is serviceable to our
brother. Paul says, " All things are lawful for me, but
not all things are expedient." Some are strong in faith,
others weak, and the strong must have respect to the weak
in the matter of these innovations. The cause in itself is
good, but it has been more hastily promoted than he would
have sanctioned had he been present. He claims the right
to a say in this matter, since he was the first to begin the
work of God among them, and he complains that he has not
been consulted in regard to these changes. " I have not
been so far away that you could not have informed me
beforehand by letter/' They have overlooked the fact that
the responsibility for all that has occurred will be saddled
on him. In this respect they have not acted in the right
spirit, though they have shown a great knowledge of the
Scriptures. The Mass in the sense of an offering is un-
doubtedly an abuse which ought to be abolished. Private
Masses should also cease. But this is to be done by preach-
ing and working, not by force, for no one can change the
heart or mind of another except God alone. Force can only
make hypocrites or mechanical Christians. Persuasion is
the only effective instrument in religion and the individual
must be left to judge for himself. 22 Preach the Word and
leave the result to God, is Luther's remedy. By continuing
to preach, the Word wiU ultimately triumph. With those
who adopt other methods he will not co-operate. " Summa
Summarum I will preach the Word, will declare it, will
write it. But I will never force or press anyone with

a ' " Z.K.G.," v. 333.

21 Enders, in. 299-302.

" Sermon I., " Werke," x., Pt III., i f.

92 Luther and the Reformation

violence > for faith can only be willingly, unconstrainedly
nourished. Take an example from me. I opposed indul-
gences and all the practices of the papists. But not with
force. I have urged God's Word alone, preached and
written and done nothing else, and the Word has accomp-
lished so much, whilst I slept or drank a glass of Wittenberg
beer with Philip and Amsdorf, that the Papacy has been
rendered more impotent than any prince or emperor has ever
succeeded in making it. I have done nothing ; the Word
everything. If I had so wished I might have deluged
Germany with blood; yea, I might have started such a
game at Worms that the Emperor himself would not have
been secure. I have only let the Word act. Had I done
otherwise, I would only have done the devil's work for him.
Let them follow the example of Paul who, in his conflict
over the Mosaic law, was content with vindicating his own
freedom, and let them not take an example from the papists
who have mocked and oppressed us with thousands of
laws/' 23

The abolition of the Mass is certainly defensible on
scriptural grounds. But it has not been done in an orderly
manner, or without offence to others. Moreover, it has
been done without the consent of the Government (die
Obersten, die Obirkeit, i.e., the Elector) and cannot, therefore,
be of God. As far as the opposition of the papists is con-
cerned, he would not have hesitated. But it is incumbent
on them to forbear such changes for the sake of the weak
brethren and to distinguish between what is commanded and
what is left free in the Scriptures. Some things we may do
or not as long as faith is not endangered. But our liberty
in these things must always be conditioned by our obligation
to our neighbour. 24

Among the things that are left to the individual con-
science axe celibacy, the monastic life, abstinence from meat
on Fridays, the presence of images and pictures in churches,
communion in both kinds, confession. To make hard and
fast rules in regard to such matters, with which he proceeds
to deal in detail in the following sermons, is against God's

* 3 Sermon II. a * Ibid., HI.

Sermons in Behalf of Moderation 93

ordinance. Personally, he would wish all monks and nuns
to leave their monasteries and marry, and thus make an end
of monkery. But the decision must rest with the individual,
who must act with a clear conscience before God and not
merely follow the example of others. He would prefer to
have no images and pictures in the churches. But he denies
that it is forbidden to make images in the Old Testament.
It is only forbidden to worship them. The patriarchs had
their altars. Moses himself fashioned a brazen serpent,
and even in the Holy of Holies there were two cherubim.
If the people were really to worship these pictures and
images they ought undoubtedly to be destroyed. But he
questions this assumption, and thinks that it is sufficient
in this case also to preach against this practice, which he
is fain to confess is a serious abuse, as Paul did at Athens,
without violently laying hands on these emblems of idolatry.
Though wine and women, gold and silver bring many to
ruin, they are not, therefore, to be destroyed. Images are
neither good nor bad in themselves, and as long as it is
possible to make a good use of them they may remain as
far as he is concerned. Fasting should not be obligatory.
Every one should be free to eat flesh instead of fish on Fridays,
if his health requires it, or if he deems it necessary to protest
against papal tyranny and vindicate his freedom. On the
other hand, it is incumbent on the strong to reckon with
the infirmity, the prejudices of the weak in such matters
in order to win them to the use of their freedom, and on
this ground to restrict their own liberty. Thus St Paul
acted towards the Judaisers when he circumcised Timothy,
though he rightly refused to circumcise Titus in protest
against their attempt to constrain him. 25

In regard to the corfununion, the words, " Take, eat "
are not to be understood as if the communicant can only
communicate worthily by taking the bread and wine in
his own hands. To understand these words literally and
force on others a mere form of this kind is the height of
folly, and he feels so strongly on this point that he threatens
to leave Wittenberg if this sort of folly is persisted in. Not

25 Sermons III. and IV.

94 Luther and the Reformation

that the touching of the bread and wine by the communicant
is sinful. But it is not well to cause widespread offence
by departing for such reasons from the old usage, which
only allows the priest to handle the elements, and for which
he seems to have an innate reverence. Whilst recognising
communion in both kinds as the original institution, it is
not to be forcibly introduced nor to be regarded as a sine
qua non. Here, too, they are to beware of magnifying a
mere form into an essential. Though he has approved of
the introduction of such communion, he cannot endure this
hasty zeal which has made it an ordinance binding on all,
especially as it has been accompanied by much lightminded-
ness and hypocrisy. For it is esteemed to be an essential
mark of a good Christian to take the elements in both hands
and communicate in both kinds, and then go home and
get drunk. 26 Since the essential for participation in the
Sacrament is faith in Christ, the Saviour from sin, it is
foolish to turn it into an ordinance obligatory on all, as the
Pope has done. Nay, without this indispensable faith,
which few attain, it is far better to abstain, instead of
running helter-skelter to partake without the appropriate
spirit of fear and humility and the longing for the comfort
which it imparts. 27 The fruit of this communion is love, and
love is the grand test of the Christian spirit which he finds
is lacking in all these proceedings in his absence. They
have, indeed, the true Gospel and the pure Word of God.
But they have failed to bring forth its fruit because they
have been too much engrossed in self, too much swayed
by self-will instead of self-denial. 28 Confession of sin on the
part of one Christian to another is a New Testament practice,
which he would fain see revived in the Christian community,
and is not to be neglected, though he denies the right of
the Pope to exact confession to the priest. He has found
in his own experience in his spiritual conflict how helpful
and comforting it is thus to seek instruction and relief
in the midst of the trials of the spiritual life. " For I
none better know how much comfort and strength it has
brought me, who have often and sorely fought with the

" Sermon V. 27 Ibid., VI. Ibid., VII.

Sermons in Behalf of Moderation 95

devil. I would long ago have been throttled by the devil
but for this refuge of the soul. . . You have no idea what
a terrible thing it is to face and overcome the devil. But
I know what it means to eat salt with Satan. I know him
only too well and he knows me. If you knew him as I do
you would not so lightly give up confession and absolution."
It is on this practical ground that he presses for its retention,
whilst admitting that there is full absolution in the Gospel
and ample consolation in baptism and the Lord's Supper
apart from this practice.

The sermons thus reflect the radical-conservative attitude
of his writings in which, while attacking doctrines, institu-
tions, and usages, he had shown himself disposed to pay
tribute to religious expediency and limit the application
of his principles, if individual liberty to hold and enunciate
them were allowed. His doctrinal radicalism had in the last
resort been curbed by his conservative temperament when
it came to the practical question of discarding the old for
the new. He shares, moreover, the Elector's fear of revolu-
tion and his inborn reverence for the civil authority, though
he certainly does not speak merely as the mouthpiece of
the Elector's policy. There can be no doubt that in these
sermons he is voicing his own convictions in emphasising
expediency and moderation, limiting individual initiative,
and reserving this right for the civil authority. Equally
characteristic is his insistence on liberty in things not
essential to faith. In opposition to the intolerance of the
radical party, he appears as the advocate of religious
toleration, though he is not prepared to yield an inch to the
uncompromising enemies of the Gospel. He believes in
the power of enlightened public opinion and patient self-
restraint for the sake of others to vindicate the Gospel, and
ultimately overcome prejudice against it or lack of faith
in it. There is certainly force in the warning against the
tendency to substitute for the tyranny of the Pope the
literalism and the legalism which lay stress on the letter
rather than the spirit of the Word, and would magnify
certain forms at the expense of the liberty of the Gospel.

On the other hand, there is a trace of soreness (jealousy
would probably be too strong a word) over the predominance

96 Luther and the Reformation

of Carlstadt during his absence and a decided tendency to
assert his claim to sole leadership. He is not content
solely to argue on the question of the communion. He is
not prepared to make allowance for honest difference of
opinion on this subject, and threatens to leave Wittenberg
unless his will prevails. He is not quite fair in assuming
that the movement is the outcome of irresponsible fanaticism
in opposition to constituted authority, and inclines too much
to regard excesses which were only incidental, and which
he himself had not taken very seriously on his furtive visit
to Wittenberg, as its main characteristic. He overlooked
the fact that the ordinance was the combined work of
the University and the Town Council. He makes no
attempt to consider the document on its own merits as a
deliberate attempt to organise a new order in place of the
old. He ignores the fact that it had the sanction of the
local authority, even if it lacked that of the Elector. He
regards it as the fruit of mere violence and indiscriminate
zeal, while the fact seems to be that it did not include the
demands of the extreme radical party. He forgets that the
antagonism of the Romanist party, represented by the
majority of the canons of All Saints, had also some share in
fanning the popular excitement. He is rather too prone
to demand sacrifice in favour of the weak brethren without
asking himself whether, among these weak brethren, there
were not a few antagonists of the evangelical cause. He
is hardly fair to Carlstadt who was not disposed to yield
so much as he to religious expediency and who, if narrower
in his conception of the Gospel, had a keener sense of the
necessity of adopting and applying an active policy in the
interest of a practical Reformation. Moreover, there was
room for difference of opinion on some of the points at
issue, and he does show a tendency to treat rather lightly
the obligation to restore the original institution of the
communion and the need for drastic action against the
popular superstition, undoubtedly associated with images
and pictures and other conventional religious observances.
One feels that he is rather evading the issue, which sooner
or later he will be called on to face, in discouraging both
individual and communal action and relying solely on the

Sermons in Behalf of Moderation 97

Word to affect and vindicate a practical Reformation.
Would the Reformation, on the principle of merely preaching
the Word, have had much chance of maintaining itself
against the adherents of the old order, who, at the instigation
of Duke George and other active enemies, were taking steps
to repress it and with whose demands the Elector was fain
to comply ? It is not the case, as Barge contends, that
Luther was, albeit unwillingly, lending himself to the tactics
of his enemies. 29 He was not acting a prescribed part in
the pulpit of the parish church, but giving expression to
his own convictions and trying to grapple with the impasse
which the Elector's intervention and the lack of nerve
on the part of his colleagues had produced. Defiance of the
Romanists who would reassert their tyranny breathes
throughout those sermons. But whether in doing so he
did not adopt a too negative attitude in view of the vexatious
tactics of the enemy is a different question. From this
point of view one may fairly conclude that he would have
been wiser to adopt a more constructive and militant
attitude and thus give a definite practical lead, which many
of the weaker brethren would, probably, under his influence,
have followed. Moreover, he shows a rather pronounced
tendency in these sermons to make himself the measure
of the movement and to take too little account of the
convictions of others, more logical and less conservative
than he. One wonders whether he will be able to carry the
spirit of forbearance, which he inculcates so admirably,
the length of compromising, for the sake of the weak
brethren, on matters of doctrine as well as practice ? On
the questions of the Real Presence, baptism, free-will, for
instance.

Meanwhile, this compromise took the form of a modifica-
tion of the ordinance, heavily weighted on the side of
concessions to the adherents of the old usages. Whilst
private Masses were disallowed, the Latin Mass was restored
with the exception of the sacrificial passages. Pictures and

" Boehmer energetically rebuts Barge's version of Luther's interven-
tion, though in rather a one-sided fashion. " Luther im Lichte der
neueren Forschung," 129 f. See also K. Muller, " Luther und Karl-
stadt," 88 f.

98 Luther and the Reformation

images in as far as they had not been destroyed were
replaced in the churches, and confession and fasting resumed
at the discretion of the individual. Communion in both
kinds was conceded, but only privately, to those who might
desire it, whilst the provisions of the ordinance respecting
prostitution, the poor, and begging were allowed to remain
in force.

With this makeshift Luther had succeeded both in
satisfying the Elector and rallying his colleagues, with the
exception of Carlstadt, in support of the principle of religious
expediency. His success in handling the situation was
certainly a striking testimony to the power of the Word,
in the form of these sermons, in exorcising party spirit as
far as Wittenberg was concerned. Melanchthon staunchly
abetted his policy, 30 and Schurf in a letter to the Elector
voiced the general satisfaction that Luther had led his flock
back to the truth, from which it had strayed under the
influence of the now obnoxious preachers, "to the great joy
of both learned and unlearned/* a Capito, who had come to
Wittenberg to hear him, became a confirmed adherent in
spite of the strain which the correspondence on " the Idol
at Halle " had temporarily begotten. 32 Zwilling professed
penitence and was received into favour, 33 Only Carlstadt
remained obdurate and was forbidden to preach. 34 Luther's
victory thus at the same time brought the first rift in the
reforming ranks, which was unfortunately widened by the
confiscation of the book 85 in which Carlstadt sought relief
for his wounded feelings in an attack on the "tyrants,"
among whom he evidently reckoned his great fellow-reformer,
though he did not mention him by name. This philippic was
directed against the Romanist, Dungersheim von Ochsenf art.
But Luther indirectly came in for a share of the anim-
adversion of the angry author, and Luther was of opinion
that he was actuated by jealousy and the striving to assert
his own authority at the expense of his. 86 Most of his
modern biographers have too readily shared his judgment.

" Corp. Ref.," i. 566. * Ibid., iii. 315.

Enders, iii. 307. " Corp. Ref,,' 1 i. 570.

82 Ibid., iii. 307. " Ibid., iii. 326.

" Ibid., iii. 315.

Sermons in Behalf of Moderation 99

Carlstadt deserves at least the credit of maintaining and
developing his views single-handed in his own rather opin-
ionated fashion.

Although Luther had conceived a very unfavourable
opinion of the Zwickau prophets from the reports
Melanchthon had sent to the Wartburg, he reluctantly
consented to grant them an interview, 37 and along with
Melanchthon received Stiibner, Kellner (Cellarius), and
another, whose name is not given, early in April. Like
Stiibner, Kellner had had a university education at Tubingen
and Wittenberg and was intimate with Melanchthon.
Both professed to be in possession of a spiritual illumina-
tion independent of the Scripture, and were eager to
convert Luther to this higher revelation, directly inspired
by the Spirit. Kellner accordingly opened the interview
in very flattering terms Luther's vocation, he declared,
was superior to that of the Apostles. Luther declined to be
thus flattered at the expense of the Apostles, and proceeded
to admonish them in a friendly tone against being wiser
than the Scriptures and bade them beware of the wiles and
lies of Satan. Whereupon Kellner burst into a furious
tirade, during which Luther was unable to get in a single
word. " Go your way and do as you list/' he curtly
remarked when the storm of vituperation had subsided.
Stiibner was more composed, though equally opinionated,
and expostulated in an enigmatic and high-sounding jargon
on the new revelation. Luther, he said, needed to be
emancipated from the religious grossness in which he was
still entangled (grobigkeit). He was still not in the condition
of " immobility " (Unbeweglichkeit) in which the Spirit
made known the mind of God to the individual soul. Asked
to explain this jargon, he said that it could only be under-
stood by those apt to receive his teaching. In proof of
his inspiration he claimed to be able to tell at first sight
what was in men's minds. As a test of his power of thought
reading, Luther asked him to read his thoughts. " You
axe reflecting in your mind/' came the assured reply, " that

* 7 " Corp. Ref.," iii. 328, to Spalatin, I2th April. Prophetas istos
novos passus sum.

loo Luther and the Reformation

my teaching is true/ 1 As a matter of fact, the question
had suggested itself to him. But at once the words of
Zechariah flashed into his mind, "the Lord rebuke thee,
Satan/' and thus put on his guard against this devil's trick,
he stoutly refused to accept any revelation beyond Scripture
unless it were substantiated by a miracle. It was a crude
method of testing truth. Luther's limited conception of
inspiration left little enough room for the progressive
manifestation of truth in accordance with individual experi-
ence and enlightenment, though in theory he did assume
the possibility of such a revelation. He refused to admit
that these visionaries might possibly have discovered aspects
of the truth which he might have missed. To him the idea
of a subjective or a progressive revelation, apart from a
special miracle in attestation of it, was only one more devil's
wile, and Stiibner's didactic jargon was certainly not fitted
to convince him of their claim to have superseded the
revealed Word. In conclusion, Stiibner assured him that
the miracles he demanded would erelong be forthcoming.
" My God," retorted Luther, " will forbid your God to work
miracles." " God Himself," defiantly returned Stxibner,
" shall not deprive me of my doctrine." The heated colloquy
thus ended at daggers drawn, and the prophets decamped
to Kemberg, from which they sent him a letter exhorting
him to think better of the matter. " And so," adds Luther,
"good-bye, dear Marcus." 38 In the following September
he had a visit from Storch, who was accompanied by another
cultured convert, Dr Westerburg, a Cologne jurist. Storch
was more concerned with the question of adult baptism
than with that of a new revelation, in which he differed
from Stiibner. But neither his views on baptism nor his
personal character made a favourable impression. Of
Westerburg, on the other hand, Luther formed a high
opinion as an enthusiastic though impressionable seeker
after truth. 89

He had, however, by no means heard the last word on

8 Enders, iii. 328, 331; " Tischreden," ii. 306-307; iii. 13-16
(Weimar ed.).

*' IHd. t iii. 350; iv. 2.

Sermons in Behalf of Moderation 101

the subject, and Stiibner's boast of coming miracles was
erelong to verify itself in the startling development of this
subjective aspect of the Reformation movement, which
Luther vainly strove to stem by his appeal to the written
Word.

CHAPTER IV
LUTHER AT WITTENBERG

I. PROGRESS AS PRACTICAL REFORMER

LUTHER strove to win adherents outside Wittenberg for his
policy of moderation in letters to Hausmann, Duke John
Frederick, Spalatin, Lang, Link, John Hess, Giittel, and
others. 1 Very remarkable is the constant appeal in these
letters for liberty of conscience in matters of belief and
usage. In this respect Luther has emancipated himself in
a remarkable degree from the mediaeval conception of an
enforced uniformity in the service of religion. His own
experience of the Roman system had given him an insight
into the true spirit of the Gospel, all the more striking in
view of his dogmatic temperament and prophetic fervour.
He is still at this stage the thoroughgoing advocate of
toleration and a large-minded charity towards opponents
whether within or outside the reform movement. There are
golden passages in these letters which, in urging the policy
of moderation, nobly express this reaction against the
despotic mediaeval spirit. " See to it," he writes to
Hausmann at Zwickau in the spirit of the eight sermons,
" that you permit no innovations to be made by public
decree and oppressive methods. By the Word alone these
usages are to be impugned and overthrown, which our people
at Wittenberg have attempted to do by force and violence.
I indeed condemn the Mass as a sacrifice and a good work.
But I desire to lay hands on no one or to compel the un-
willing and the unbelieving by force. I condemn by the
Word alone. He wKo believes let him believe and follow
his faith. He who does not believe, let him not believe and

1 Endeis, iii. 311 f.; " Werke," 53, 118-119 (Erlangen ed.).

102

Progress as Practical Reformer 103

be left alone. No one is to be compelled to faith or to those
things which are of faith. He is to be drawn to the Word in
order that, believing freely, he may come of his own accord.
I condemn images, but by the Word ; not directing that they
may be burned, but that confidence may not be placed in
them, as has hitherto been the case, and still is. They
will fall of themselves if the people, properly instructed,
come to know that these things are nothing in the sight of
God. Thus I condemn the papal laws concerning confes-
sion, communion, prayers, fasting, but only by the Word
in order that I may set free the consciences of men. Where
these are liberated, where these are freed, they can observe
these things on account of the weak, or not observe them
among those who are strong in the faith. And thus charity
will reign in regard to these external works and laws." 2

In order to commend his policy to a wider circle, he
sent the gist of his eight sermons to the press under the
title, " On the Partaking of the Sacrament in Both Forms,"
which appeared shortly after the middle of April. 3 This
plea for moderation and toleration does not, however,
justify indifference to the Gospel on the part of believers.
There must, he insists in conclusion, be no betrayal of
Christ in the face of the enemies of the Gospel. If, in order
to evade persecution, the believer adduces the pretext
that he is no Lutheran, but an adherent of the Gospel and
the Holy Church, this is assuredly to deny Christ. It
matters not, indeed, what either Luther or the Pope thinks
of the Gospel, since neither has died for sinners as Christ
has done. Christ alone is lord and master. It matters not
whether Luther, Claus, or George preaches Christ. The
person of the preacher is nothing; his teaching is the
essential thing. But if the believer is convinced that Luther
has proclaimed the true evangelical teaching, he is bound
to maintain it against its persecutors, whilst following
Christ's example in loving his enemies and eschewing all
thought of revenge. 4

a Enders, iii. 312.

3 Ibid., iii. 319. 325, 33, 342; " Werke," 53, 119 (Erlangen ed.).
It is given in " Werke," x., Pt. II., 11 f. (Weimar ed.).
* " Werke," x., Pt. II., 39-41.

104 Luther and the Reformation

In behalf of this policy he undertook a mission to a
number of towns in Saxony at the end of April and the
beginning of May, and preached at Borna, Altenburg,
Zwickau, Eilenburg, and Torgau. The mission was also
designed as an offset to the visitation of Saxony by the
Bishop of Meissen, in accordance with the anti-Lutheran
mandate of the Imperial Regency at Niirnberg. He even
ventured to pass through the territory of Duke George
on the return journey from Zwickau to Borna, though he
took the precaution to doff his monk's habit and travel by
night. 5

At Altenburg he was brought face to face with the
practical difficulty of carrying out his policy of forbearance
towards conservative brethren. In the middle of April
the Town Council had applied to him for an evangelical
preacher for the parish church of St Bartholomew. 6 He
recommended the appointment of the repentant Zwilling,
whom he now warmly befriended. 7 The Council readily
accepted the nomination. But the Provost and Canons of
Our Lady on the Mount would not hear of the appointment
of the renegade monk and insisted on their right to appoint
to the benefice. Instead of waiving his nomination in
accordance with his own principle of reckoning with the
scruples of others, Luther, on his visit to Altenburg on the
28th April, drew up a memorandum to be submitted to
the Elector, in which he maintained the right of the Council,
as embodying the public authority, to choose an evangelical
preacher in spite of the opposition of the enemies of the
Gospel. The Provost and Canons, he urged, are not true
pastors, but wolves in sheep's clothing. They have forfeited
their right to their privileges and dues by their infidelity
to the Gospel, and it is the right and duty of the
Council, yea of every Christian, to resist their pretensions
on the principle, which Carlstadt had adduced in defence
of the Wittenberg innovations, that it is incumbent to
obey God rather than man. Hence the alternative to the

* Notices of the Visitation in Enders, iii. 346 f.

e Ibid., iii. 333-334-

7 " Werke," 53, 131-132 (Erlangen ed.).

Progress as Practical Reformer 105

Provost and Canons either to forego their privileges and dues,
or to preach the pure Gospel alone as the condition of retain-
ing them. 8 In a letter to the Elector he not only vindicated
the right of the Council, on scriptural and public grounds, to
change the religious order of things, but urged him as a
Christian prince to enforce it throughout his dominions in
spite of the opposition of recalcitrant clergy. 9 Though the
Elector was not disposed to favour the obnoxious Zwilling, 10
he agreed to Luther's demand that he should himself provide
an acceptable substitute and, in spite of the renewed clerical
opposition, on the 28th June appointed the evangelical
Link, who subsequently resigned his office as Vicar-General
of the Augustinian Order and introduced communion in
both kinds at Altenburg. 11

Luther was thus driven by the logic of the situation to
make use of other expedients than the preaching of the
Word in furthering the Gospel. This preaching inevitably
led to division and party spirit which sooner or later made
compromise toleration on Lutheran lines impracticable.
At Erfurt, for instance, the adherents of the old and the
new order were at bitter enmity. The former found an
unbending champion in Usingen, Luther's old teacher,
who had years before become a member of the Augustinian
Order ; the latter in Lang, who in April had renounced
his office as Prior, and in stating his reasons for so doing had
roundly and rashly denounced all priors as asses and
ignoramuses. His example was followed by many of his
brethren who inveighed from the pulpits of a number of the
Erfurt churches against the old usages in the spirit of a
Carlstadt and Zwilling, and gained a large following among
the citizens. Luther was very dubious about the wisdom
of these aggressive proceedings and the wholesale withdrawal
of the monks. It appeared to him, he wrote to Lang, that
many of the monks were leaving the monasteries for no

8 Enders, iii. 347-349.

" Werke," 53, 134-136 (Erlangen ed.) ; cf. Enders, iii. 351, where
he urges the same policy in reference to the church at Eilenburg, and
offers the choice of one of two suitable preachers.

10 Enders, iii. 354.

11 Ibid., iii. 354-355* 370-374, 379, 381, 434-435-

io6 Luther and the Reformation

other reason than that for which they had entered them,
viz., for the sake of the belly and carnal liberty. 12 Whilst
fearing that the result would be a repetition of the disorders
which he had suppressed at Wittenberg, he declined Lang's
invitation to visit Erfurt on the ground of the danger of the
journey in the case of one who was under the imperial ban.
He promised to write a public missive instead, and ultimately,
on the loth July, dispatched an " Epistle to the Church at
Erfurt." ^ He chose as his theme the invocation of saints,
one of the burning questions which was being discussed in
both the pulpits and the press. Whilst he has ceased to
attribute real validity to the intercession of the saints and
emphasises the sufficiency of confiding in Christ alone, he
will allow the weak brethren to pray to the saints if they
choose. He repeats his caveat against compelling others to
accept the Gospel and admonishes in characteristic fashion
the extreme preachers to moderate their zeal and eschew
mere popularity. His appeal fell on deaf ears. The
opinionated Usingen would not yield an inch. " Age,"
wrote Luther to Lang, quoting the vernacular proverb,
" avails not against folly." u In October he felt safe enough
in the ever-increasing number of his adherents to journey
to Erfurt in the company of Melanchthon and Agricola.
He was enthusiastically acclaimed and feasted 15 during his
stay of a couple of days (20th to 22nd October), and preached
several evangelical sermons appropriate to the situation. 16
On the return journey he spent a week at Weimar, and at
the request of Duke John and his son, John Frederick,
preached another series of evangelical sermons in the
presence of the court and the people. 17

His mission to Erfurt did not, however, succeed in
establishing a feasible compromise. Usingen, whose name
he parodied into Unsingen (Nonsense), continued on the war-
path , 18 and the two parties remained at daggers' ends. Nor

12 Enders, iii. 323-324- 14 Enders, iii. 403.

" " Werke," x., Pt. II., 164 f. " Corp. Ref.," i. 579.

16 Ibid.* i. 579. The sermons are given in " Werke," x., Pt. III.,
352 f.

17 " Werke, x., Pt. III., 371 f.

18 Enders, iv. 27.

Progress as Practical Reformer 107

did the policy of mutual forbearance ultimately prove a
success at Wittenberg itself, where the Chapter of All
Saints continued to sing Masses for the dead and to retain
the old order intact. Luther himself bore with increasing
impatience the incongruity of suffering this " Bethaven,"
or house of sin, as he called it, in the citadel of the evangelical
movement, and already, in a letter to Spalatin in July 1522,
urged that the Elector should forcibly intervene and apply
its revenues for the furtherance of the Gospel. 19 He repeated
his demand in the following December, 20 and on the and
January 1523 roundly declared that this forbearance with
the scruples of the papists had become a scandal and a
stumbling-block to the progress of the Gospel. He still
professes to respect the principle of liberty and would not
compel anyone to faith and piety. But their Masses and
their relic worship being, he rather questionably argues,
equivalent to spiritual fornication, it is the bounden duty
of the prince to abolish these Masses and deprive the Chapter
of its revenues, and thus make a beginning with the work
of reform. 21

The Elector was not disposed thus forcibly to intervene
in the interest of the Gospel. He had a partiality for the
foundation which his forbears had endowed and for the
collection of relics which he had spent so lavishly in aug-
menting from about 5,000 to 18,000 articles. As a politician,
he had, moreover, to walk warily in the matter in view of
the forthcoming meeting of the Diet at Niirnberg, and for
this reason he took up the same conservative attitude
towards Luther's demand as he had shown towards those of
the advanced reformers during his absence in the Wartburg.
A two-years' duel between him and the conservative members
of the Chapter on the one band, and Luther on the other,
ensued before he at last gave way at the end of 1524.
During this interval, Luther practically played the part
of Carlstadt over again in his insistence on the repression
of the scandal of this " idolatry." In the face of the Elector's
opposition and with the support of Jonas, the Provost of

Enders, iii. 417. * Ibid., iv. 46-47-

il Ibid., iv. 54. Ut fieret exordium aliquod rerum novandarum.

io8 Luther and the Reformation

the Chapter, he appealed to the canons themselves to
undertake the work of reform. 22 The canons referred the
question to the Elector. Whereupon Luther emphasised
the obligation of conscience and asked what the Elector
had to do with a matter of conscience, in which it behoved
them to obey God rather than man. 23 He submitted to
them a scheme of reform 24 which was supported by Jonas
in a missive to the Elector, 25 but which the Elector summarily
rejected. 26 Though the opposition in the Chapter had by
this time dwindled to what Luther calls " three or four
pigs and bellyservers," the Elector remained impervious to
further representations, and fully a year elapsed before
Luther at last determined to force a decision in an ultimatum
to the Chapter to suppress the obnoxious services, under
threat of forcible measures in case of refusal. 27 In response
to this appeal the Elector reminded him of his principle
of relying on the Word of God alone to bring about such a
reform. 28 For Luther, however, the principle, which he had
applied against Carlstadt and the advanced reformers two
and a half years earlier, was now out of date, and in spite of
the Elector's protest 29 he proceeded to enforce his ultimatum.
On the 27th November he preached a violent sermon on
the abomination of the Mass and called on all princes and
public authorities to put down the evil thing 30 if they
would escape the wrath of God. He was supported in
his demand by the Town Council and the University, 31 and
by the people who broke the windows of the obnoxious
Dean of the Chapter, Some days later the opposition gave

* Enders, iv. 89; " Werke," 53, 178-180 (Erlangen ed.), ist March
and nth July 1523.

" " Werke," 53, W

** Enders, Iv. 210-213, iQth Aug.

26 " Corp. Ref.," i. 628-638, 24th Aug. ; Kawerau, " Jonasbriefe," 86.

" ( : Corp, Ref.," i. 641, 4th Oct.

87 " Werke," 53, 269-270 (Erlangen ed.), i?th Nov. 1524.

29 Enders, v. 55, 24th Nov.

* Burkhardt, " Luther's Briefe," 76.

* " Werke," xv. 764 f. This sermon is the basis of his philippic
*' Vom Misbrauch der Stillmesse," which he published early in 1525.
" Werke," xviii. 22 f.

81 Walch, xix. 1453-1457.

Progress as Practical Reformer 109

way, the Dean informing the Elector that he could no
longer maintain the Mass. " We have at last compelled the
canons to agree to abolish the Mass," wrote Luther to
Amsdorf on the and December. 32 Shortly after the Dean
offered the Wittenberg monastery, of which he and the
Prior, Brisger, were now the only occupants, to the Elector,
who accepted the gift and, in return, presented it, along with
the garden, to Luther as a dwelling-house. 33

Meanwhile he had been approximating more and more
to the position of the advanced reformers in respect of
worship and usages. By the beginning of 1523 he had
come to the conclusion that the time had come for a more
radical reform of the service of the Mass in the parish church.
He was now prepared freely to concede communion in both
kinds in deference to the demands of those to whom the
current service was an offence. They had, he wrote to
Spalatin on the I4th January, practised indulgence towards
the weak brethren long enough. There are hardly any such
left, and it is now time to give free scope to the Gospel and
make use of their liberty in this matter, in deference to the
insistent and general demand for this reform. 34 On the 2$rd
March he took in hand the further reform of worship by
introducing daily services for edification in the parish church,
in place of the daily Masses which had been discontinued
since his return from the Wartburg. The evangelical char-
acter of this tentative reform is reflected in the " Order of
Worship/' which he shortly after drew up for the church at
Leisnig. 35 He finds three great abuses in the worship of
the church. God's Word is neglected. Many fables and

82 Enders, v. 80.

88 " Werke," 53, 278-279 (Erlangen ed.) ; Enders, v. 86.

84 Enders, iv. 63. Utramque speciem libere dandam et accipiendam
deinceps censeo. Satis enim hactenus infirmis indultum est, et ubique
res ista jam Cantata et nota, cum ferine assueti sint majora ferre. Texnpus
est ut evangelic locus fiat, et ferme jam non infirmi, sed potius pertinaces
qui rei tarn notse et cantatse usu offenduntur. Itaque libertate utamur
in hac causa.

85 Von Ordenung des Gottisdiensts inn der Gemeine, " Werke," xii.
35 f. ; cf.xi. 61-62, which informs us that at the end of his sermon on
the nth March he announced his intention of introducing daily service.
The Order is also given in Sealing, i. 2-3 (1902).

1 1 o Luther and the Reformation

lies have crept into it and it has been regarded as a means
of meriting grace and salvation, to the detriment of faith.
For the reform of these abuses it is essential that in every
assembly for worship the Gospel should be preached. Where
this is lacking, it were better that the people should abstain
from attending. The essential thing is the instruction of
the people in God's Word. To this end, therefore, the
congregation is invited to assemble morning and evening to
hear a portion of the Old and New Testament read and
expounded in accordance with the Apostolic practice (i Cor.
i. 27). The whole Bible is thus to be systematically read
and expounded in these daily services, which shall be
concluded with prayer and praise as the pastor shall select
from the liturgy, and the people thereby become versed in
the Scriptures. No constraint is, however, to be used.
The people are to be exhorted to come freely to these
services, not merely as a matter of obligation or merit, as
under the old system, but only for the glory of God and the
common good. They are to last no longer, as a rule, than
an hour, in order that those present may not be fatigued
and burdened, as in the monasteries and churches, with
wearisome and long-drawn out devotions (asses' work,
eselsarbeit, is the term he applies to them). On Sundays,
when Mass and Vespers are still to be sung and the Sacrament
of the Lord's Supper celebrated in accordance for the most
part with the liturgy, the reading and preaching of the
Word also form the main essential of the services. The
celebration of Saints' Days, with the exception of that of
the Virgin Mary, is abolished, though edifying passages
from the lives of the saints may be read on Sundays after the
Gospel of the day. " Other changes may be made in due
time. But the end should be that the Word should have
full sway and the service be no longer a mere droning and
drawling as has hitherto been the case. That Mary should
sit at Christ's feet and hear His Word is the better part.
His Word is eternal; the rest must pass away, however
much it may trouble Martha." 36

Among these eventual changes was the reform of the

" Werke," xii. 37; Sehling, i. 3.

Progress as Practical Reformer 1 1 1

Mass. During the summer of 1523 he was contemplating the
introduction of this reform, and was repeatedly urged by
Hausmann and others to undertake it. 37 Pressure of work
prevented him from carrying out his purpose till the autumn,
when he at length found time to realise it in the " Formula
Missae," or Service of the Mass, which he drew up for the
parish church at Wittenberg and printed for the guidance
of Hausmann and other reformers. On the I3th November
he wrote to Hausmann that the new form would very soon
be in operation at Wittenberg, 38 and on the 4th December
sent him a printed copy of the new Order, 39 which he
dedicated to him. The Order being designed for other
churches as well as that of Wittenberg, he disclaims any
desire to make precipitate changes, as in the case of the
radical innovators, and still professes to respect the scruples
of weak brethren. He retains, in fact, a large portion of
the old service, and whilst discarding what he deems
objectionable, leaves room for difference of view or practice,
and is ready to welcome suggested improvements from
others. At the same time, he does not hesitate to assert
that the celebration of the Lord's Supper, as instituted by
Christ, has been so deformed by human invention, that
nothing but the name remains. The additions of the Fathers,
who added certain Psalms and portions of the Gospels and
Epistles and the Kyrie Eleison, were altogether laudable.
Nor can any objection be taken to the addition of the
Gloria, the Hallelujah, the Nicene Creed, the Sanctus, the
Agnus Dei, etc. But the later additions, which he ascribes
to the ambition of power and the mercenary spirit of the
priesthood, and in which the Mass is conceived as a sacrifice
and a priestly monopoly (monopolium sacwdotale), he con-
demns aoid utterly rejects

With this general preface he proceeds to deal in detail
with the introductory part of the Mass, which led up to
the second part in which the actual communion takes place.
Whilst retaining the greater portion of the liturgy relative
to part one, he leaves to the minister or bishop (for so he

tf Enders, iv. 215, 253, 254-255, 259-260, Aug.-Nov.
8 Md., iv. 259. * 9 Ibid., iv. 261.

112 Luther and the Reformation

designates the celebrant in substitution for the term priest)
considerable discretion to omit or abridge. The celebrant
should avoid prolixity, which engenders tedium, and simplify
the liturgy as far as possible in order not to weary the
congregation. 40 He would prefer to introduce passages
from the Gospels and Epistles which emphasise faith in the
evangelical sense, though in the meantime the celebrant
may use the stated passages and supply this lack of evan-
gelical teaching in the sermon, which may be given at the
beginning of the service or after the repetition of the Creed.
Personally, he would prefer that it should be given at the
beginning of the service, since the sermon is an invitation
to faith in the Gospel, the Mass the actual appropriation of
the Gospel by the believer at the Lord's Table. It is at this
point that he mates the most radical change in the service,
in which the priest performs the supreme mystery of trans-
forming the elements into the body and blood of Christ and
offers them for the sins of the people. This part he suppresses
as "an abomination and idolatry," and whilst retaining
portions of the liturgy, proceeds to celebrate the rite in
accordance with the words of institution. He would have
these words, which the priest, in order to emphasise the
mystery of transubstantiation, repeated in a whisper,
recited in a clear voice in order that they might be heard
by the whole congregation. He would also, in deference to
the weak brethren, elevate the elements, though not for the
purpose of worshipping them. Thereafter follows, with
the appropriate liturgy, the communion in both kinds,
first by the minister and then by the people.

This order is, however, not to be received in the sense
of a law to be followed to the letter. Diversity of rites
has prevailed in the Church from early times, and Christians
are free to change and amend them as they may deem
advisable. " For although we cannot do without external
rites, just as we cannot do without food and drink, these
things do not commend us to God, but faith and charity.
In these, therefore, the word of Paul is to prevail, ' The
kingdom of God consists not in meat and drink, but in

* " Werke," xii. 210 ; Sehling, i. 5.

Progress as Practical Reformer 113

righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.' " 41
Similarly in the matter of vestments, candles, vessels,
music, incense, etc., freedom is allowable, though he dis-
allows the pomp and splendour of ceremonial with which
the celebration has been invested. Private Mass is in-
compatible with the conception of the Supper as a fellowship
or communion, and is, therefore, disallowed. While confes-
sion before communion is no longer obligatory, those who
desire to communicate shall make known their desire to the
minister, who shall satisfy himself by examination of their
knowledge and life that they are worthy to partake.
Notorious sinners, such as adulterers and fornicators, are to
be debarred from participation unless they give manifest
proofs of repentance. Communion in both kinds, in accord-
ance with the primitive institution and practice, is the
only form to be observed, and he will not agree to refer the
question to the decision of a Council. He would introduce
hymns in the vernacular, and looks forward to the time
when the whole Mass shall be said in the language of the
people and piously inspired poets shall enrich the reformed
Church with a vernacular hymnology. Meanwhile, let them
make use of such hymns, too few in number, as are already
available. For instance, " Gott sei gelobet," " Nun bitten
wir den Heiligen Geist," " Ein Kindelin so lobelich," which
should be sung not merely by the choir, but by the people.
He himself was erelong to supply this dearth of sacred
songs in the vernacular. The religious muse had already
in the course of this year inspired him to celebrate in verse
the martyrdom in the Netherlands of the first two victims
of the evangelical faith, on the 1st of February 1523, in the
poem beginning, " Ein neues lied wir heben an/' Before the
year was at an end he had given proof of his own gift as a
hymn writer in " Nu freut Euch lieben Christen Gemein,"
" Ach Gott vom Himmel sieh darein," " Aus tiefer noth
schrei ich zu Dir." He wrote to Spalatin and others
encouraging them to turn a number of the Psalms into verse
for the use of the people in worship. 42

In the meantime Luther left the baptismal service

* l " Werke," xii. 214; Sehling, i. 7. " Enders, iv. 273-

ri4 Luther and the Reformation

largely unchanged and contented himself with translating
it into German, and himself using the vernacular and
commending its use to others. 43 But he shared the current
conception of baptism as an act of regeneration, and felt that
its celebration in an unintelligible language tended to obscure
its significance and render it a more or less formal ceremony
on the part of the parents. Moreover, he believed that faith
is generated in the infant at baptism in virtue of the prayers
of priest and parents. He, therefore, added an exhortation in
which he impressed on them the necessity and the efficacy
of personal faith and earnest participation in these prayers.
The mere external and symbolic parts of the rite (the exor-
cism of the infant by the priest, etc,} were, by comparison,
of the least importance and altogether without profit to the
infant, apart from the new birth wrought by God's grace
in this sacrament. From this point of view he rates the
rite very high as the means whereby God regenerates the
soul, delivers it from the power of the devil, sin, and death,
and makes it the heir of eternal life. Though he would
fain simplify the ceremonial part of it, he leaves it in the
meantime practically intact in deference to the scruples of
the weak. 44

In issuing the reformed service of the Mass, Luther
assumes the right of the churches to make such changes
in virtue of their inherent powers. This right he had
already sought to vindicate at the instance of the church at
Leisnig in an important document dealing with the organisa-
tion of the Christian community. In this document, which
he issued in the spring of I523, 45 he elaborates the thesis
that, on the ground of Scripture, " the Christian congregation
or community has the right and power to judge of doctrine

Das Tauf Biichlein Verdeutscht, "Werke," xii. 42 f . ; Sehling,
i. 1 8 f. (1523). The translation appears to have been used shortly after
the " Order of Service."

44 A shorter form of the baptismal service in the vernacular, dated
by Walch 1523, in which more material changes were made, is also
ascribed to Luther. Kawerau adduces weighty arguments against its
ascription to Luther, who, it seems safer to conclude, only made such
changes in the revision of 1526.

< 6 He announced his intention to do so in a letter of 29th Jan., in
response to the request of the Leisnig church. Enders, iv. 69-71.

Progress as Practical Reformer 115

and appoint and depose its teachers." 46 What constitutes
for Luther the Christian community is the preaching of the
pure Gospel. His model is the primitive community which
the preaching of the Gospel called into existence, and of
which it was the directing force. It is not and cannot be
constituted by mere ecclesiastical law, since it is a spiritual
association to which temporal or human law does not apply.
" For the soul of man is an eternal thing, above all that is
temporal. Therefore it can only be constituted and ruled
by the divine Word." 47 With this fundamental and
radical contention he rejects the historic constitution of the
Church, with its developed hierarchy and ecclesiastical
ordinances, as a human organisation which is incompatible
with the spiritual character of the Christian association
or society. He finds the warrant for this conception in
John x. and other passages from the Gospels and Epistles.
Christ is the shepherd of the flock which hears His voice
and follows Him and refuses to follow the stranger. There-
with He gave to the flock the power to judge whether the
teaching is in accord with His voice or not. The voice of
the Pope, bishops, councils, with their man-made laws and
ordinances, has no validity against this fundamental principle
which involves a radical revolution of the ecclesiastical
constitution.

Since the preaching of the Gospel is an essential of this
community, and the bishops, under the present unchristian
regime, do not and will not provide preachers of the Gospel,
the community itself has the right and duty to provide such.
Every Christian, in fact, in virtue of the priesthood of all
believers, is entitled and commissioned to proclaim and
spread the Gospel, especially in places where there are no
true believers, without any call or commission from others.
Thus did Stephen, Philip the Evangelist, and Apollos, for
instance, proclaim the Word in the Apostolic Age without
any call from the Apostles. Even where a community of
believers exists, the individual believer is entitled to edify
or correct his brethren, if necessary, as long as he does
so decently and in order. How much more has the whole

" Werke," ad. 408 f. 4? Rid., xi. 409-

1 1 6 Luther and the Reformation

community the right to choose one to preach the Word in
place of the others. But did not Paul and Barnabas and
other Apostles appoint presbyters in the churches founded
by them ? Certainly, and if the bishops were really con-
cerned for the Gospel, they might also be allowed to do so.
But in these days the worldly minded bishops are wolves
in sheep's clothing, enemies of the Gospel, who are fitted
only to drive asses and lead dogs. Even if they were worthy
of their office, they would have no right to appoint preachers
without the will and choice of the community. For neither
Paul, nor any other Apostle, appointed a presbyter or deacon
without the choice of the community. And in these evil
times, when the bishops so glaringly belie the Gospel and
neglect and despise the highest function in the Church
the preaching of the Word the community can and ought
to do without their confirmation. 48

As in doctrine, so in organisation, Luther thus has
recourse to the Word and seeks to revive the primitive
community in place of the mediaeval hierarchic Church.
For this Church he substitutes the spiritual democracy of
the New Testament in his attempt to vindicate and organise
the everspreading evangelical movement which he has
started. He does so without concerning himself with the
rights and claims of the ecclesiastical or the civil power.
He boldly sets out to establish outside the Church and within,
but independent of, the State, a sovereign, self-governing,
religious community on thoroughly democratic lines, in
virtue of the Word and the spiritual priesthood of believers.
Truly a far-reaching and momentous project, which he
developed in the autumn of the same year in a work addressed
to the Bohemian Christians which, in response to their
request, appeared in November, 49

He not only maintained the right of the Christian
community to exercise its inherent powers as a religious
association. He invested it with the right to appropriate
the ecclesiastical revenues for the common good. Under his
guidance and with the co-operation of the Town Council and

Werke,"xi. 411-416.

49 Ibid., xii. 169 f. De instituendis Ministris Ecclesiae.

Renewed Polemic from Wittenberg 117

a local nobleman, Seb. von Kotteritz, the community at
Leisnig, to which he had paid a visit in September I522, 50
drew up, in January 1523, an ordinance on the lines of that
adopted at Wittenberg under Carlstadt's auspices. 51 In
this document all ecclesiastical property and revenues are
made over to a common chest for the support of the
evangelical clergy, the poor, education, etc. Luther added
a preface in defence of the appropriation of ecclesiastical
endowments for these purposes. This appropriation, he
contends, is justifiable on the ground of the misuse of these
endowments in the service of error and superstition. But
whilst depriving the priests and the monks of these revenues
and devoting them to the public good, he would not force
anyone to accept the new order, and would provide mainten-
ance for the priests and monks who adhere to the old order,
and assist those who decide to devote themselves to a secular
occupation. He would also assign a portion to the poor
descendants of pious founders on the ground that it is not
or should not have been their intention to deprive their
relatives of subsistence. At the same time, he warns against
the greed and selfishness of those who are out to enrich
themselves by laying hands on this property. The warning
was by no means superfluous. The Town Council and the
church at Leisnig were erelong at variance over the question
of its disposal, and Luther fears that his equitable plan will
stand a poor chance of realisation at the hands of those who
are on the outlook for a share of the spoil. " For greed is a
disobedient, unbelieving rascal." 52

II. RENEWED POLEMIC FROM WITTENBERG

These changes naturally intensified the antagonism of the
adherents of the old order and involved him in renewed
controversy with opponents old and new. This polemic
is lacking in the originality of the earlier period in which he
evolved his distinctive teaching in conflict with the scholastic

50 Enders, iv. 8 ; cf. 69.

51 Werke," xh. II f. Ordenung eyns gemeynen Kastens.
** Ibid., xii. 12.

1 1 8 Luther and the Reformation

theology, the Papacy, and the institutions of the Church.
In general, he merely reiterates and maintains this teaching
as the developing situation demands. In these later contro-
versial writings the prophet tends to disappear in the
protagonist of the ever-widening movement which the
prophet has called into being. He has little to add to his
prophetic message, except by way of expansion or vindica-
tion. There is, however, no diminution in the pugnative,
self-assertive spirit of the earlier writings. His confidence
in himself and his cause has, in fact, become intensified
since the Diet of Worms and the long vigil in the Wartburg.
He is no longer fighting with his back to the wall. He now
faces his opponents as the leader of an ever-widening, militant
movement, and while professing to rely on the Word to
assert and vindicate itself, is ever on the alert to parry or
strike a blow in its behalf. His return from the Wartburg
is that of the victor, not the vanquished, eager to face the
foe once more in open conflict, sure of ultimate victory,
though an outlaw in the midst of enemies, bereft of all
protection, except that of heaven. 63 " We believe/ 1 he
wrote to Link within a fortnight after his return, " that
Christ, the Son of God, is the Lord of life and death. Who,
therefore, is he that we should fear. We have the first
fruits of victory. We triumph over the papal tyranny
which hitherto has oppressed kings and princes. How
much more shall we conquer and spurn the princes them-
selves. He does not lie who has said, ' Thou hast put all
things under His feet/ " He foresees, indeed, that a struggle
between the friends and foes of the Gospel is inevitable.
The war of the pen, he fears, will erelong be followed by
the war of the sword. Satan will not rest till he has deluged
the whole of Germany in its own blood. 54 If the princes go
on deferring to that stupid brain of Duke George, there will
surely come an upheaval which will destroy rulers and
magistrates and will at the same time involve the whole
clergy. " The populace is everywhere in agitation. It has
eyes to see. It neither will nor can be suppressed by force.
It is the Lord who works these things and hides His threats

68 Enders, iii. 3I3-3I4- M Ibid., iii. 314.

Renewed Polemic from Wittenberg 119

and these forthcoming dangers from the eyes of princes.
Yea, through their blunders and violence He will bring these
things to pass, so that I seem to see Germany wading
in blood/' 65 For himself, though deploring these dread
portents, he was never so fearless and confident in the
triumph of his cause.

He began this active campaign from Wittenberg against
the enemy by issuing his " Caveat against Human
Teaching " 56 In this tract he develops afresh his funda-
mental principle that only what is taught in the Word of
God is authoritative and obligatory, and that what has
been subsequently added by men has no validity and is
to be considered as mere human invention. It is, therefore,
to be rejected as contrary to the Word. At the outset he
quotes Deuteronomy iv. 2 : "Ye shall not add unto the
Word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish
aught from it." But his appeal is not to Moses, but to
Christ and the Apostles, from whom he quotes a series of
passages in support of his thesis and argues from them,
with no little force, against the vast accretion of teaching,
ordinance, and usage which has been imposed on the Church.
It is of no avail to adduce against his thesis what Gregory,
or Bernard, or Francis, or any Pope has taught. Nor does
it invalidate his contention to appeal to the authority of
the Church itself, or quote Augustine that he would not
have believed the Gospel but for its authority. Augustine
in other passages ascribed the supreme authority to Scripture
alone, and to assume that he ascribed an equal authority
to the Church is to misinterpret his words. In any case,
Augustine, who frequently erred, has no monopoly of
infallibility. Christ is the supreme doctor of the Church.
" Neither be ye called masters, for one is your Master, even
Christ." The relative sayings of Christ are supported by

65 Enders, hi. 316.

66 Von Menschenlehre zu meiden, "Werke," x., Pt. II., 72 f.
He was busy writing it on the 24th May 1522, as he informed Spalatin,
and promised to send him the MS. next day, Enders, iii. 369. It was
printed by the end of the month, ibid., iii. 383. He later added a supple-
ment, " Antwort auf Spruche," apparently after writing his work against
Henry VIII. See " Werke," x., Pt. II., 61-62.

120 Luther and the Reformation

numerous passages from Paul's Epistles. The points par-
ticularly dealt with refer to fasting, abstinence from meat
and drink on certain days, the monastic conception of the
Christian life, and penitential works as a means of attaining
salvation. All this ecclesiastical accretion is an unwarrant-
able and unscriptural invention which has translated the
Gospel into a burdensome legalism, oppressive to the
conscience and subversive of Christian liberty. Moreover,
it substitutes for the Gospel the old system of work righteous-
ness which the Gospel displaced, and for which the Gospel
substituted salvation by reliance on God's grace through
faith, not on human merits, which cannot bring the assurance
of salvation. It is because this oppressive and unwarranted
system is a mere human invention and is incompatible with
the original teaching of Christ and the Apostles that he
rejects it, though he is prepared to admit additions of man
that are not contrary to the Gospel.

He followed it up with the philippic " Against the Falsely
Called Spiritual Estate of the Pope and the Bishops." 57 It
seems to have been written under the irritation produced
by the perusal of Henry VIII. 's book against him. It is a
furious blast of denunciation and defiance, the most choleric
and violent that had yet come from his pen. Since the
hierarchy has paid no heed to his repeated appeals for
reform, has, indeed, done its worst to destroy him and
his cause, he proclaims at the outset war to a finish against
it. He has wasted forbearance and humility on these
murderers and blasphemers. After his experience of
them at Worms and elsewhere, he will never again recognise
their jurisdiction or submit to their judgment. Compromise
or quarter is henceforth out of the question. They shall

87 Wider den falsch genannten Geistlichen Stand des Papsts und der
Bischofe, "Werke," x. f Pt. II., 105 f. This is, as the editors have
pointed out, a revision and an enlargement of the tract which he had
written against the Archbishop of Maintz and the indulgence at Halle,
but which he refrained from publishing at the instance of Spalatin.
He now (July 1522) changed it into a philippic against the Pope and the
bishops in general, and in spite of Spalatin's remonstrances (Enders,
iii. 435) sent it to the press immediately after. He was already working
at it in the beginning of July. Enders, iii. 426.

Renewed Polemic from Wittenberg 121

never have peace as long as he lives. Even if they kill him,
they shall much less have peace, for in the words of Hosea,
he will be to them a bear in the way and a lion in their path.
He is aggressively dogmatic as well as defiant. No one who
refuses to accept his teaching can be saved. It is God's,
not his. 58 His method of attack is to expose their iniquities
in the light of Scripture and the actual state of things. He
had a strong case from both points of view. As a body,
the hierarchy was very unlike the New Testament ministry
and it was undeniably corrupt. It was largely a refuge,
a career for the sons of princes and nobles, and Luther
characteristically and repeatedly uses the phrase, " Ecclesi-
astical Junkers." Its members were feudal magnates as
well as churchmen and exercised the rights and privileges
of such. They were a secularised caste, participating in
worldly pursuits and pleasures, living in state and luxury,
and in too many cases tainted with the vices of the age,
in spite of their profession of celibacy and the pretence
of exercising a purely spiritual function. Luther recognises
that there were some worthy men among them who would
fain reform the Church and took their spiritual duties
seriously. But as a class he represents them as a worldly
minded and oppressive set of hirelings who merely wear the
mask (larva) of bishops. They are usurpers, not true bishops
of the New Testament type. He has no difficulty in bringing
out the contrast between this secularised, feudalised episco-
pate and the Christian ministry of early times. He quotes
passages from Paul's Epistles, the Acts of the Apostles, and
other sources which delineate the early ministry, and bids
them look at themselves in this mirror. He can see no
vestige of a likeness between the two, and exhausts his rich
vocabulary of expletives in damning them as murderers
of souls and ministers of Satan. In as far as he confines
himself to the New Testament passages relative to the
ministerial office, he makes out a strong case for his conten-
tion. But he spoils it, for the modern reader at least, by
the violence and virulence of his language, though one
must not forget that he is confronting men who were in too

s* " Werke," x., Pt. II., 105-107.

122 Luther and the Reformation

many cases gravely unworthy of their profession and who
were only too eager to send him to the stake. Moreover,
he devotes too many pages to quoting and labouring irrelevant
passages from Paul and 2 Peter, in which they are made to
testify against the Roman hierarchy of his own time. He
would have been more effective if he had confined himself
to the actual facts of the case, instead of burdening the reader
with these arbitrary divagations on irrelevant texts. He
certainly shocks the taste of the modern reader by the
grossness of the language in which, in reference to the evil
effects of celibacy, he speaks of the operation of physiological
laws in matters of sex. Even though it is perfectly evident
that he does so from moral motives and that this freedom
of speech was a characteristic of his time, it does show a
lack of the sense of fitness to transfer this popular liberty
of expression to the printed page.

He undoubtedly tends, too, to consider the case in the
light of his own dogmatic convictions on faith and works
which the bishops have refused to accept, and which they
persist, at the Pope's behest, in spurning as heresy. They
must, therefore, perforce be enemies of God, wolves in sheep's
clothing. Under the influence of this theological obsession,
there is in the philippic a lack of reasoned restraint and a
tendency to exaggerate the evils he condemns, as when he
says that all religious foundations in which the inmates strive
to attain salvation by monastic works are much worse than
houses of prostitution and murder dens. 59 He is thus apt to
paint the picture all black under the influence of his theo-
logical prepossessions, and generalise a priori without duly
examining the facts in order to substantiate his conclusions.
But, then, Luther is no historian, but a religious reformer
with an extraordinary gift of explosive language, writing
under strong provocation and bent on the overthrow of a
regime which he regards as both unchristian and anti-
Christian. The philippic was a fiery cross summoning to
the death struggle with the Antichrist in Germany as well
as at Rome. At the same time, it is no mere case of swearing
at large, though he is too apt to rave and revile. He assumes

5 "Werke,"x., Pt. II., 148.

Renewed Polemic from Wittenberg 123

that the facts are so notorious that it is superfluous to
particularise. They are, he repeatedly says, common
knowledge, too well known to need proof, and may be left
to speak for themselves. What he does is to drive them
home and to found on them a demand for a trenchant
reformation at the hands of the people. Away with the
ungodly brood of usurpers of Christ's spiritual kingdom,
is his slogan. It is more than time that this sham, and the
scandal of this make-believe Christianity, which seeks to
combine God and the devil, were swept away. He clamantly
demands an uprising against them as tyrants and soul
murderers who live on the sweat and toil of the people, and
who, whilst enforcing celibacy, license concubines and prosti-
tution at so much per head, are generally a disgrace to
their profession, and, in their pursuit of power and gear,
deem it beneath them to preach the Gospel and study the
Bible. Not that the people shall hurl them down from their
usurped seats by force and the sword. They are simply to
renounce their jurisdiction, withdraw their obedience, and
their regime will fall of itself. To this end he assumes the
function of Pope and sends forth his own Bull of
Reformation. 60 In this Bull he would abolish the hierarchy
root and branch and substitute for it the bishops or presbyters
of the local Christian community in the New Testament
Church. Each congregation should have one or more pastors
or overseers, who preach the Word and tend the flock.
Even Irenseus, Cyprian, Ambrose, Augustine were bishops
of a single city, not feudal lords of large ecclesiastical
dioceses. " Let this be Doctor Luther's Bull, which gives
God's grace as a reward to all who hold and follow it.
Amen."

On the heels of this bellicose effusion came the equally
drastic reply to Henry VIII/s "Defence of the Seven
Sacraments against Martin Luther/' 62 King Henry had
some learning, could write Latin that evoked the praise of

" Werke," x., Pt. II., 148 f.

81 Ibid., x., Pt. II., 144-

62 " Assertio Septem Sacramentorum adversus Martinum Lutherum,"
1521. I have used the edition of 1523. There is an English translation
by T. W., 1687.

124 Luther and the Reformation

Erasmus, and was the patron of liberal studies. With this
culture he at this period combined a conservative adhesion
to the mediaeval faith and the Church as constituted under
its papal head, for he had not yet developed into the ruthless
antagonist of the Papacy, the most aggressive champion of
national independence of Rome. On the appearance of the
" Babylonic Captivity" in England in 1521, he threw him-
self into the breach in defence of the papal authority and the
Seven Sacraments. He had, in fact, been meditating an
attack on the arch-heretic a couple of years before the
publication of the " Captivity " in I52O, 63 and his perusal
of it sent him at once to his desk to carry out his purpose.
It was printed in July 1521, with a dedication to the Pope,
and copies were forwarded to John Clerk, his representative
at Rome, for presentation to Leo X. This Clerk did on the
2nd October in an oration loaded with abuse of Luther.
The Pope expressed his admiration in the most flattering
terms, and as a reward conferred on the royal author the title
of Defender of the Faith. On its merits it by no means
deserved this special distinction. It shows considerable
dialectic ability, and some familiarity with the stock argu-
ments of the theologians in defence of the teaching of the
Church, culled from the theological textbooks. It discovers
some weak points in Luther's armour. But it does little
more than reiterate the argument that the Church and the
Fathers have held such and such a doctrine, and that what
they have believed and maintained is true, and is, therefore,
obligatory on all. Though expressing a wish that Luther
may repent and return to the fold, it hopes that he may
yet be burned if he persists in his errors. Its tone is
vituperative and contemptuous Luther is inspired by the
devil, a hideous monster, an incurably scabbed sheep, a
man of corrupt and putrid heart, a hissing serpent. He
makes faith nothing but the cloak of a wicked life, and so
forth. We may take as a sample of Henry's estimate of
him the turgid sentence in which, towards the conclusion,
he sums up his feelings. " Alas, the worst wolf of hell has
surprised him, devoured and gulphed him down into the

" Brewer, " Reign of Henry VIII.," i. 601.

Renewed Polemic from Wittenberg 125

lowest part of his belly where, half alive and dying in death,
he belches forth out of the filthy mouth of that hellish wolf
those vile barkings against the chief pastor who has called
him back and deplored his perdition, which the ears of the
whole flock detest, abominate, and abhor." To the reader
there is a certain humour, in view of his own subsequent
attitude towards the Pope, in King Henry's complaint that
Luther, having first ascribed a certain power to the Pope,
afterwards denies it, and thus contradicts himself.

Luther, who first mentions the royal effusion in a letter
to Lang on the 26th June 1522, might well have afforded to
ignore it on its own merits. To judge from the tone of his
reference to it, he does not at first seem to have taken the
matter seriously. But the prestige of the writer, the pub-
licity which the dedication and presentation to the Pope
conferred on it, its widespread perusal seemed to demand
a reply. Moreover, he saw in it a covert attempt on the part
of his enemies to discredit him and his teaching, and errone-
ously ascribes its real authorship to Edward Lee, Henry's
chaplain and future Archbishop of York. 64 The appearance
of a German translation by Emser in the summer of 1522
finally decided him to set to work on a reply in the vernacular,
which appeared in the beginning of August, and one in
Latin, which he published in September. 65 In answer to
the charge of inconsistency and self-contradiction, he main-
tains that his fundamental teaching on faith and works, etc.,
has been the same throughout, and appeals to his published
works in support of his contention. In regard to the papal
power and ecclesiastical institutions, he admits that his views
have undergone development in the course of controversy. He
has only gradually discovered the falsehood of the whole papal
and ecclesiastical system in the light of the closer study of
Scripture, to which the conflict with his opponents has led

84 Enders, iii. 403, 426, and in the introduction to his reply.

s Antwort Deutsch auf Konnig Heinrich's Buch ; Contra Henricum
Regem Angliae, " Werke," x., Pt. II., 180 f. t and see editorial introduc-
tion, 175 f. The Latin work is dedicated to Count Schlick, an ardent
adherent of the evangelical movement on the border of Bohemia. The
contents of both are pretty much alike, though the latter is not a mere
version of the former.

126 Luther and the Reformation

him. For this reason he is ready to admit that his earlier
works contain admissions and concessions which he has
since been led to condemn and revoke. 66 But to change one's
opinion in the light of further knowledge does not fairly
lay one open to the charge of self-contradiction unless,
having changed an opinion, one refuses to acknowledge the
change and persists in maintaining it.

King Hemy's defence of the papal power and the
sacraments, he rightly points out, rests merely on the
reiterated assumption that what has been asserted and
believed by the doctors of the Church is bound to be true
and must, therefore, be accepted by all. He quotes in
reply the proverb, " Whatever has been wrong for a hundred
years was never right for one year/' and retorts that, on
this principle, the Turks and the Jews could argue with
equal or greater force in proof of the truth of their religion.
Nay, if age guarantees a belief or a practice, the devil him-
self would have the best right on earth, since he is over
5,000 years old ! The Fathers themselves have erred, and
even if they had not, they had no power to impose new articles
of faith. King Henry labours under the delusion that it is
sufficient to quote a passage from Ambrose or Augustine
or Aquinas to make a doctrine an article of faith. The
Scripture alone is the supreme, the exclusive authority on
such matters, and he reiterates his claim that since his
teaching is founded on this supreme authority, ajtid not on
mere human opinion, it is God's, not his, even if a thousand
Augustines and a thousand King Henrys maintain the con-
trary. In defending the traditional doctrine of the sacra-
ments, he has merely dished up the teaching of Aquinas on
transubstantiation, etc., at second hand, on the pretence
that it is the teaching of Christ and Paul. " You papists,"
he defiantly concludes, "shall never accomplish your purpose,
do what you will. The Gospel which I, Martin Luther,
preach, shall prevail over Pope, bishop, parson, monks,
kings, princes, devil, death, and all that is not Christ and
in Christ. Against it nothing shall avail." 67

" Werke," x., Pt. II., 229-233.
</., x.,Pt.IL, 262.

Renewed Polemic from Wittenberg 127

In thus rebutting in detail the royal attack, Luther shows
his superiority in dialectic skill, theological learning, and
passionate conviction. He rallies and ridicules his antagonist
with a supreme command of sarcasm and humour. Un-
fortunately he was unable to withstand the temptation to
cover him with abuse as well. He had received no little
provocation to call names. King Henry, he complains,
has applied to him more insulting terms than he himself
had used of his opponents in all his books put together,
and in his wrath he pays him back with compound interest.
He is not only a theological charlatan and a servile flatterer
of the Pope. In wilfully misrepresenting his teaching, he is
a liar, and what is worse, he makes God and His Word liars.
He is an unmitigated fool, and has amply proved the truth
of the proverb, that there are no greater fools than kings and
princes. He must have been drunk or dreaming when he
wrote such rubbish. But then what else can be expected
when an ass takes to reading the Psalter. It is not surprising
that he should take to defending the usurpation of the
Papacy, that Babylonian whore, seeing that he himself owes
his crown to murder and tyranny, and imagines that he can
silence Luther by scolding like a foul-mouthed harlot.

Unfortunately, Luther, in this choleric mood, was unable
to see that he was doing his cause little service by imitating
and even outdoing the King in the use of scurrilous language,
and that he would have done better had he adopted a more
dignified tone and stopped short at raillery and ridicule.
In this mood he cares not a straw whether his opponent
wears a doctor's cap or a king's crown. A fool is for him a
fool, whether he sits in a professor's chair, or even that of
St Peter, or on the throne of England, or the ducal throne
of Saxony at Dresden. He is only the more obnoxious as
the figurehead of the great pack of fools who cannot see
the truth beyond the mountain of lies and shams which they
have heaped in front of it. On his own confession many,
even of his friends, were aghast at his violence. 68 To one of
those who desired an explanation, he replied (forgetting that
he himself was very provocative at times) that he had had more

88 Enders, iv. I, 27.

128 Luther and the Reformation

than enough of these personal and libellous attacks, and that
he was determined henceforth not to mince words with these
slanderers and liars. Christ and the Apostles were not
always mild, and it is high time to shut the mouths of these
Pharisees who only revile the more the more gently they
are treated. 68 On his side King Henry, also forgetting his
own offences against decent controversy, complained in
letters to the Elector, his brother, and Duke George of the
scurrilities of the unconscionable monk. The Elector
regretted the cause of his chagrin, but, as usual, professed
his inability to intervene, and referred him to a future
Council. Duke George was more accommodating, and
brought the matter to the notice of the Imperial Regency,
whilst, besides Emser, Murner, Dietenberger, and Cochlaeus
in Germany, Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, and Sir Thomas
More in England, came to the rescue with counterblasts
in the same unparliamentary style. 70

Whilst Luther seems to have paid no attention to these
effusions, Cochlaeus (Johann Dobneck) succeeded in drawing
him into a skirmish in defence of his doctrine of justification,
which he had rudely attacked in a work on " Sacramental
Grace/' published towards the end of 1522. The work was
forwarded to Luther by his friend, the Frankfurt humanist,
W. Nesen. Like Eck, Cochlaeus, who was incumbent of
St Mary's at Frankfurt, was eager to distinguish himself
as the champion of orthodoxy with an eye to certain coveted
benefices. As a humanist he had at first been disposed to
favour the Lutheran cause, but had veered round to the
opposite camp and, as we have noted, had sought to make a
reputation at the Diet of Worms as the abettor of Aleander's
policy. 71 To this end he had challenged Luther to a disputa-

* " Werke," 53, i49-*5i (Erlangen ed.).

70 The anonymous effusion, professing to be written by W. Rosse, is
included in More's works, though More's authorship has been questioned
on what Mr Brewer thinks insufficient grounds. " Reign of Henry
VIII.," 608-609.

71 In his " Commentaria de Actis et Scriptis Mart. Lutheri," 39
(1549), he says that he went to Worms out of pure zeal for the faith.
He was, however, regarded by Luther and his friends as a scheming
busybody and self-seeker, and their judgment seems not to have been
unfounded.

Renewed Polemic from Wittenberg 129

tion on the absurd condition that he should first renounce
his safe conduct, and he now boasted that Luther had
declined his challenge. It was this boast that drew from the
Reformer a reply in the form of an open letter to Nesen,
which appeared in February 1523. 72 In this spirited philippic
he ridicules the would-be victor who had succeeded only in
making a laughing-stock of himself at Worms, and, glancing
at the Latinised name Cochlaeus, asks how a poor snail,
which draws in its horns at the slightest danger, could ever
think of such a thing as a disputation. He then proceeds
to vindicate his doctrine of justification by faith alone for
the benefit of those whom Cochlaeus tries to mislead. He
treats him as a type of those sophistic theologians who do
not understand Paul and, while making use of the Apostolic
language, wrest and misinterpret it in accordance with their
own assumptions and vicious dialectic. In his impatience
with " these blockheads/' he is unable to keep himself within
the limit of ridicule, and breaks into vituperation and
contemptuous invective. Cochlaeus retorted in similar
fashion 78 within a few weeks in a violent diatribe to which
Luther deigned no response. Henceforth he became one
of his most pertinacious adversaries, and ultimately in 1549
took his revenge in a history of Luther and his movement
which contained calumny as well as misrepresentation, and
became a quarry for his Roman Catholic detractors to
excavate from that day to this. 74

Luther's attack on celibacy inevitably provoked a counter-
attack, and involved him in controversy over this burning
question. The Franciscan, Caspar Sasger, or Schatzgeyer,
set the ball a-rolling with a " Reply," which appeared in
the autumn of 1522, and in which he ascribed the " De
Votis Monasticis " to the inspiration of Satan. It also
affords him clear proof that its author was bent on ridding
himself of the obligation of chastity which he was unable

72 Adversus armatum virum Cochleum, " Werke," xi. 295 f.

78 " Adversus Cucullatum Minotaurum Wittenbergensem," ed. by
I. Schweizer, " Corpus Catholicorum," iii. (1920).

74 " Commentaria " ; see also Kolde, "Cochlaeus/* in Herzog-
Hauck, "Encylopidie"; Kohler, "Das Katholische Lutherbild der
Gegenwart" (1922).

130 Luther and the Reformation

to observe. 76 Luther was too busy at the time 76 to refute
these assumptions which the good monk's brethren ascribed
to the Holy Spirit, and contented himself with submitting
the book to his friend and disciple, John Brissmann, another
Franciscan, who had taken his doctor's degree at Wittenberg
some months previously, and whose " Responsa " appeared
in March 1523. He merely added an epistle by way of
preface, 77 in which he controverted Sasger's contention that
what is not contrary to Scripture is in accord with Scripture,
and that, therefore, monasticism is scriptural. 78 Nor did he
deem it worth while to reply to the ponderous effusion which
John Schmidt or Faber,ihe vicar of the Bishop of Constance,
published at Rome in August 1522, and which Duke George
of Saxony reprinted at Leipzig in April 1523. Whilst Faber's
work was a general attack on Luther's teaching, it contained
a defence of priestly celibacy. 79 Tn this case he deputed the
task of answering for him to Justus Jonas on the ground
that, being recently married, he was more concerned and
better fitted to justify the blessings of priestly matrimony
than he. As for this tiresome compiler of quotations from
the Fathers and Councils, he had written nothing that he
had not already confuted. 80 With this contemptuous preface
Faber, who was eager to gain the fame of a reply from Luther
himself, had to be content, and Jonas did not fail to remind
him of his personal responsibility as episcopal vicar of
Constance for the scandal of priestly concubinage in the
diocese. 81 The reminder was certainly anything but flatter-
ing to his self-esteem or gratifying to his keen desire to acquire
notoriety at Luther's expense.

75 " Werke," viii. 567. On Schatzgeyer, who had shortly before
entered the arena against the Lutherans in a comparatively moderate
work, " Scrutinium Divinse Scripturse," ed. by Schmidt, see " Corpus
Catholicorum," v. (1922).

" Enders, iv. 105. Ego occupatior sim quam ut ipse respondeam.

" Ibid., iv. 104 f. ; " Werke," xi. 284 f.

" Werke," xi. 286-287. Sasger duly replied with an " Examen "
of Brissmann's work, to which neither he nor Luther seems to have
paid any attention. Of the polemics of the Dominican Dietenberger
and the Sorbonne doctor Clichthoven he took no notice. Both works
appeared in 1524. " Werke," viii. 568-569.

7 Ibid., xii. 82. Ibid., xii. 85. Ibid., xii. 83.

Renewed Polemic from Wittenberg 131

Luther himself, however, could not escape the task of
dealing with the question, which had a social as well as a
religious aspect, and was exciting a widespread practical
interest. His work on " Monastic Vows " had given an
impulse to the emancipation movement which, in the words
of Justus Jonas, was depopulating so many monasteries.
Requests for help and guidance poured in from monks and
nuns who, from conscientious scruples or other motives,
were bent on freeing themselves from the monastic yoke.
The baneful practice of destining children of both sexes to
the religious life particularly on the part of parents of
the higher classes as a means of subsistence, apart from any
religious vocation or inclination for the celibate state, tended
to sap the morals of many of the members of the monastic
Orders. Moreover, the evangelical movement had gained
not a few adherents in the monasteries, though Luther was
fain to confess that religious considerations were by no
means the exclusive factor in producing an increasing
alienation from the monastic system. In the face of the
growing revolt against it, he was erelong brought up against
the necessity of taking active steps to assist its victims to
regain their freedom, especially in the case of nuns whose
parents or relatives hesitated or declined to intervene in
response to their appeals. It was on this ground that he
felt bound to protect a number of nuns whom, at his
instigation, Leonard Koppe of Torgau and two accomplices
had succeeded in withdrawing from the convent at
Nimbschen, near Grimma, in the beginning of April 1523.
They were mostly members of noble families, and some of
them, including the sister of Staupitz and Catherine von
Bora, whose parents resided in the territory of Duke George
and were, therefore, unwilling to run the risk of harbouring
them, were conducted by Koppe to Wittenberg. In the
circumstances Luther did not hesitate to give them a tem-
porary asylum in the Wittenberg monastery until he could
communicate with their relatives and provide for their
future welfare. He wrote to Spalatin, begging the Elector's
assistance for their provisional maintenance on the ground
of the slender resources at his disposal. 82 It seemed a

" Enders, iv. 126-128.

132 Luther and the Reformation

compromising as well as a daring defiance of public propriety
thus to befriend a party of runaway nuns, and his action
was certainly open to misapprehension, and, from the
current ecclesiastical standpoint, animadversion. But he
did not allow himself to be swayed by such considerations,
and wrote a public letter to Koppe accepting responsibility
for his action, 83 repelling the insinuation of dishonourable
motives, and defending it as a justifiable deliverance from
priestly tyranny and an example and encouragement to
noble parents to free their children from this immoral and
irreligious bondage. These young women have acted from
conscientious motives in seeking deliverance from a condition
into which they had entered without due consideration or
voluntary choice, and after requesting their parents to
release them. But the scandal of it ! " Scandal here, or
scandal there/' retorts Luther, " necessity breaks iron and
cares nothing for scandal." 84

Nor was this example without due effect in encouraging
the emancipation movement. Two months later sixteen
nuns escaped from the convent at Widerstet, and five of
them were taken under the protection of Count Albrecht
of Mansfeld. To the Counts of Mansfeld he dedicated the
story of another fugitive who had escaped from the convent
of Neu Helfta at Eisleben. 86 In this document Florentina
von Oberweimar tells how in her sixth year she was placed
in the convent by her parents ; how at the age of eleven she
was consecrated to the life of virginity without her consent
and due knowledge ; how in her fourteenth year she dis-
cerned her unfitness for this vocation and vainly represented
to the abbess her desire for freedom ; how she was neverthe-
less formally received into the Order as a professed nun by
command of the abbess and against her will; how she
became acquainted with Luther's evangelical teaching and
wrote to him for instruction and counsel; how she was
betrayed by some of her fellow-nuns and was subjected to

" " Werke," xi. 394 f. Ursach und Antwort das jungfrauen Kloster
gdttlich verlassen mogen, April 1523.

** Ibid.* xi. 400.

85 Ein Geschicht wie Gott einer Kloster jungfrau ausgeholfen hat,
March 1524, " Werke," xv. 86 f.

Renewed Polemic from Wittenberg 133

a lengthy process of harsh treatment by the abbess, including,
besides severe and humiliating penance, imprisonment in
a cold cell ; how she communicated to her relative, Caspar
von Watzdorf , her miserable condition, was again betrayed,
cruelly beaten by the abbess and four other nuns, put in
irons for twenty-four hours, and again imprisoned ; and
how she managed to escape through the negligence of an
attendant in leaving the door of her cell unlocked. " From
this and many other cases," concludes Luther in the intro-
ductory epistle, " the world can see what a devilish thing
this monkery and nunnery is, in which they think to drive
and compel people to God with harshness and blows. God
will have no such enforced service/' 86 He calls on the
Counts of Mansfeld and other princes to remember the saying,
" No one cometh to me except the Father draw him," and to
see that freedom is allowed and exercised in the monasteries
within their territories.

Whilst he treated the polemics of a Sasger and a Faber
with contempt, he was compelled by such experiences to
appeal to public opinion on the question. Hence the series
of controversial tracts 87 in the vernacular on the married
versus the celibate state, in which he deals very freely
with the sex question. One is struck and sometimes
shocked by the freedom with which he discusses this delicate
theme. In his day people evidently spoke and even wrote on
sexual matters with far less reserve or refinement than the
cultured Christian of to-day is accustomed to observe, and
Luther, writing in the common tongue, does not hesitate
to enter into details which a modern reader, who dislikes
vulgarity, would prefer to assume rather than describe.
What appears to us gross or prurient does not seem to have
been so regarded in the sixteenth century, though a writer
of a more severe taste, like Calvin, would have shown a more
delicate touch in dealing with matters of this kind. In
Luther's case, at all events, the tone is drastically naive

* " Werke," xv. 87*

w Vom ehelichen Leben, 1522, " Werke," x., Pt. II., 275 f. ; Das
Siebente Kapitel St Pauli zu den Corinthern ausgelegt, 1523, ibid , xii.
92 f. ; Das Eltern die Kinder zur Ehe nicht zwingen noch hindern, 1524,
ibid., xv. 163 f.

134 Luther and the Reformation

rather than intentionally coarse. At the same time, there
was in him a vulgar grain which is rather unpleasantly
reflected in his style, especially in the more violent and
popular of his controversial works. It does grate at times
on a delicate ear, and he himself is fain to apologise for
inflicting these details on the reader. He would rather have
left the subject alone if the exigencies of the time had not
forced him to grapple with it. He condemns, too, the
flippant and sensual spirit in which the sexual question is
treated in certain humanist circles, which denounce marriage
as a conventional tyranny and shamelessly advocate free
love. But he cannot evade the necessity of exposing the
evils of a system which he regards as both false in itself and
detrimental to morality and religion. The low conception
of marriage as incompatible with the perfection of the
religious life, from which clerical celibacy sprang and which
it tended to foster, is to some extent reflected in his own
rather one-sided view of it as a necessity of the flesh, though
he does not fail to emphasise the married state as a high
vocation in reaction both from the sensualist writers of the
time and from the false, unchristian, and unnatural asceticism
imposed by the Church on the clergy. His object is, in
fact, to raise the standard of social morality and ensure pure
Christian living against both these tendencies, which he
regards as alike false and reprehensible on moral and
religious grounds. At the same time, he is apt to dwell too
much on the animal side of human nature, to overlook at
times or relegate to the background the more spiritual
aspect of wedlock in the union of two souls from other motives
than the gratification of the sensual instinct, of human
love as the expression of the finer emotions which may and
do have their part in this relation. In a word, in his
revulsion from and conflict with the unhealthy and un-
natural elements in the celibate system, he allows his
naturalism at times to blur his vision of the nobler side of
manhood and womanhood.

For him marriage is the law of God which is reflected
in the natural impulse to the cohabitation of man and
woman. It is a physical necessity in virtue of the constitu-
tion of the human body by the Creator. Every human being

Renewed Polemic from Wittenberg 135

is by divine ordinance subject to this law, and to ignore it is
pure foolery, which is bound to result in sins of the flesh. 88
No vow is valid against this law of Nature, which is also
the law of God. " Increase and multiply " is the divine
fiat, and the attempt to counteract this divinely implanted
impulse inevitably leads to fornication. There are, indeed,
exceptions to this law, as Christ has pointed out (Matt. xix.
12). Impotence, for instance, in which case he would allow
the married woman to seek satisfaction by agreement with
her husband, though in case of common bodily infirmity
both parties are patiently and dutifully to bear the cross.
There are also exceptional cases in which by the special
gift of God the body is so constituted that a man or woman
may feel no inclination for marriage and may freely devote
themselves to a purely spiritual life, as Paul commands
(i Cor. vii.). But these exceptions are few and they do not
warrant the segregation of men and women, without due
consideration of this fact, in monasteries and convents under
a man-made and artificial obligation to observe the celibate
state, which militates against the divinely ordained law of
human nature. Though he inclines at times to over-
emphasise the sexual side of marriage as a physiological
necessity to the obscuring of the more ideal aspect of it,
the married state is not to be conceived as incompatible
with the higher spiritual life, and it is false to assume with
St Jerome that the celibate state is superior to the married
state in God's sight. 89 While as a monk he himself is to a
certain extent influenced by the traditional monastic concep-
tion of the married state as a means of carnal gratification,
he would evidently have taken the side of Jovinian in his
opposition to this conception, as championed by Jerome and
his fellow-monks in the fourth century. As ordained by
God, it is a high as well as a legitimate and natural vocation
to be fulfilled in a Christian spirit, and not to be spurned
because of its conjugal obligations and its cares and trials,
or in preference for licentious living and unnatural lust,
as described by Paul in the first chapter of Romans and

Vom ehelichen Leben, " Werke," x., Pt. II., 276-277.
" Werke," xii. 99.

136 Luther and the Reformation

vaunted by the apostles of free love. God has ordained and
sanctified these natural functions, though the sexual im-
pulse is not exercised without sin, in virtue of the fall. He
has not created woman to be the slave of man's lust. Both
husband and wife are to carry into and exercise in the
maiiied state the spirit of service and obedience to God.
Following Paul, he insists on the necessity of self-control
and abstinence in the interest of the spiritual life, though he
objects to formal ecclesiastical regulation in such a matter. 90
In begetting children, rearing them in the fear of God, and
training them in the Gospel, they are performing the highest
service. They are the true bishops and apostles of their
children. There is no greater, nobler power on earth than
that in the hands of parents. 91 In fulfilling this vocation
they are exemplifying the more ideal side of the marriage
relation which the monastic conception ignores and rejects
in the interest of a false, unchristian, impossible, and
essentially hypocritical celibacy. It is, moreover, the only,
the indispensable safeguard from fornication, impurity,
which celibacy cannot guarantee. In its evil effects in this
respect the practice of the celibate life is, in fact, the strongest
argument for the necessity and the moral efficacy of marriage,
It practically imposes the licensing of concubinage and
frustrates its professed object, " for there is no more unchaste
class than those professing chastity, as daily experience
teaches/' tt It is a silly and futile device which causes
terrible misery of conscience among the clergy. 93 Without
a pure heart there can be no chastity. It is, too, utterly
reprehensible in as far as it is embraced merely as a refuge
from the duties and cares of married life. There is far
more spiritual benefit to be derived from the discipline
which gives scope for the exercise of faith and self-denial,
than from the immunity from the battle and burden of
common life which celibacy ensures. It is, in fact, in his
eyes a fundamental objection to it that it tends to displace
faith and foster religious formalism, belief in works, though
it is not necessarily incompatible with the life of faith. 94

Werke," xii. 103. M /^ xiL ^

91 Ibid., x., Pt. II., 301. " Ibid., xii. 107-108.

fi Ibid., xii. 93, 109, 112.

Renewed Polemic from Wittenberg 137

Moreover, on purely economic grounds, the married is vastly
superior to the unmarried state. The father of a family
must toil for his livelihood and contribute his share to the
common benefit. The celibate lives in and for himself.
" He is a lazy rascal who shuns work and lives on the labour
of others." 95

At the same time, while emphasising the necessity of
marriage as the indispensable safeguard against fornication,
he would, like Paul, leave all free to marry or not, and
commends the unmarried state where the gift of chastity
exists. He would, further, reform the common law relative
to the degree of relationship within which marriage is in-
admissible, since it forbids what Scripture allows and its
provisions can be easily overridden for a money payment. 96
He would allow marriage with non-Christians, i.e., Jews and
Turks, in accordance with the declaration of Paul and
Peter, who recognised the union of a Christian man or
woman with a heathen as valid. In the case of the refusal
of cohabitation by the wife, he holds that the husband
is justified in repudiating the wife and taking another, and
vice versa, and he would sanction separation on the ground
of incompatibility of temper, but without subsequent
marriage, 97 He favours early marriage as the surest means
of preventing youthful excess, and would limit the power of
parents to force children to marry at their behest and will,
and thus dimmish the danger of unhappy unions. 98

M " Werke," xii. 108. 7 Ibid., x, } Pt. II., 290-291.

B Ibid., x., Pt. IL, 280 f. 8 Ibid., xv. 163 f.

CHAPTER V
THE EMPIRE AND LUTHER

I. THE SPREAD OF THE MOVEMENT

LUTHER'S literary activity as the champion of an evangelical
Reformation during the three years, 1521-24, had made
a powerful impression in Germany. The long series of
controversial tracts or treatises in Latin and German is apt
to surfeit the modern reader who plods through them in
search of the distinctive ideas which he enunciated or
reiterated during this period in defiance of the imperial ban,
the counter-attacks and calumnies of embittered opponents,
new and old, and the head-shaking of hesitating or wondering
sympathisers. But these successive attacks on conventional
ideas and institutions had a power of appeal which to that
age was elemental. Luther's study at the Wartburg and
at Wittenberg is the centre of a spiritual cataclysm that
shatters the old, in the effort to create a new order. One
after another old beliefs, usages, laws, which have been
the religious palladium of centuries, crash under the blows
of this terrible iconoclast. His only weapon is the spoken,
written, and printed word, the pulpit and the press, the
sermon, the epistle, the treatise, the pamphlet. A voice
and a pen this is all. But there is more power in this
voice and this pen to shake and mould the world than in
all the Bulls of a pope or the armed strength of emperor and
kings. What Luther speais or prints is far more potent for
millions within and even without his native Germany than
papal Bull or imperial Edict, backed as they are by the
prestige of the Roman See and the material power of
the Holy Roman Empire. The testimony of Valdes, the
Emperor's secretary, is conclusive on this point. " I see

138

The Spread of the Movement 139

that the minds of the Germans are generally exasperated
against the Roman See, and they do not seem to attach great
importance to the Emperor's edicts, for since their publica-
tion Lutheran books are sold with impunity at every step
and corner of the streets and in the market-places/' * His
writings were as eagerly awaited and as widely circulated
as the most popular novel of our day. First editions were
exhausted as soon as they left the press, and were followed
by others as fast as the printing presses could turn them
out. 2 The business of printing them was so lucrative that
they were reproduced without his permission, and he found
it necessary to address to the printers a remonstrance against
the unauthorised versions of them put in circulation. 3 He
had created a public opinion which was insatiable in its
demand for more and ever more of this theological pabulum,
which may have for us at times only an antiquarian interest.
Its bulk was swelled by the increasing contributions of
his abettors in the press, which the Edict of Worms was
equally impotent to prevent. The Edict was, in fact,
followed by a notable increase of the very writings it was
designed to suppress. Between the years 1518 and 1523 the
output of theological controversial literature, to which
Luther himself contributed the lion's share, was increased
sevenfold, and Ranke hazards the estimate that four-fifths
of it were on Luther's side. 4 It largely monopolised the
German press, whilst Cochlaeus complains that anti-Lutheran
writers could only with difficulty find a publisher for what the
booksellers at the Frankfurt Fair and elsewhere derided
as barbarous and trivial stuff. 5 Among the middle class
in the Free Imperial Cities, in particular, these books found
enthusiastic readers, while the democratic note of the " new
Gospel " and its denunciation of Roman tyranny found a

1 Quoted by Lindsay, " History of the Reformation," i. 299.

* See the numerous editions of his works given in the bibliographical
introductions in the Weimar edition of his " Werke."

8 Enders, iv. 153, 269.

* " Deutsche Geschichte im Zeitalter der Reformation,*' ii. 79-80.
II. 62 of the new edition of the German Academy, 1925, by Marcks,
Meinecke, and Her. Oncken.

* " Commentaria," 58-59.

140 Luther and the Reformation

ready response on the part of the lower classes. 6 By dis-
carding more and more the language of the learned for that
of the common man, Luther and his collaborators widened
the appeal of this Gospel to the masses. The great con-
troversy thereby bursts the limits of the schools, within which
it had at first been confined, and is carried into the cottage,
the tavern, the market-place. Very significant in this
respect is the appearance of the popular pamphlet written,
mostly in dialogue form, in the vernacular for the common
man. These publicists skilfully brought the Lutheran
theology within the comprehension of the peasant who
becomes a theologian, takes the side of Luther against his
opponents, and puts the parson and the monk to the rout
with quotations from the Bible and Dr Martin. The common
man becomes keenly conscious alike of his own worth and
the corruption and oppression of the Church, which fleeces
him and keeps him in grinding poverty by its exactions for
the benefit of a worthless, lazy, unscriptural set of parasites,
who batten on the commonwealth. Among the most
effective and widely circulated of these effusions were
" Karsthans " (Jack Mattock), " Neukarsthans," " The Old
God and the New/' and the numerous series of pamphlets
issued by the ex-Franciscan, Eberlin von Giinzburg.
" Kaisthans " was directed against Murner, who had himself
indulged in this popular polemic against the evils rampant
in the Church and society before he became one of the
keenest of Luther's opponents. 7 On the ground of Scripture
and in the interest of the commonweal, he will disestablish
Pope and prelate, and will only recognise the lordship of
Christ over the Church, proclaims Dr Luther's doctrine of
the priesthood of believers, and finishes the discussion by
calling for his flail wherewith to vent his wrath on Murner's
detestable head.

" Commentaria," 57-58.

* It is given by Booking, " Hutteni Opera," iv. 620 f. On Murner
see Kawerau, " Th. Murner und die Kirche des Mittelalters," and " Th.
Murner und die Deutsche Reformation" (Niemeyer, Halle, 1890-1891).
Burckhardt ascribes " Karsthans " to Joachim von Watt. " Flugschriften
aus der Refonnationszeit," iv. i f. See also art., " Murner/' Herzog-
Hauck, " Encyclopadie."

The Spread of the Movement 141

In " Neukarsthans," which appears to have emanated
(September 1521) from Sickingen's circle (was the author
Oecolampadius or Bucer ?), the doughty knight of the
Ebernburg has turned a pious evangelical. 8 He spends the
winter evenings with Hutten and other friends reading the
Scriptures and Luther's works, and sets forth for the benefit
of his peasant visitor the main points of Dr Martin's teaching,
especially on its practical side. The supreme test of the
true theology and the true Church is the New Testament,
which Sickingen quotes profusely. The Church in its papal,
hierarchical form is as like that of Christ and the Apostles
as night is to day. Clergy and monks ought to be deprived
of their ill-gotten and ill-used wealth. The hour of their
undoing is about to strike. High time, bursts out Hans,
to go for them with our flails and mattocks ! Sickingen
counsels patience meanwhile, and says that it ought to be
done justly in the interest of the truth, not out of envy and
greed. Hans agrees, though he regrets that through their
lying and deceit he has so long been ignorant of the truth.
Now he will buy Luther's books and get some one to read
them to hiniv The thing cannot last much longer, remarks
Sickingen, since the common man has learned more from
the New Testament and Dr Martin's writings than all the
parsons who have preached and studied for ten or fifteen
years. The New Testament is the great teacher of the
common man, who is of Luther's opinion that the real
heretics are the Pope, the theologians, and parsons who
have twisted the Word of God to suit their own self-seeking.
There never was a time when people were more eager to
hear the preaching of the Gospel. The new Gospel age has
dawned. The laity has realised its rights and means to
enforce them against this oppressive regime of usurpers and
hirelings who buy their livings from the Pope. " We are
all the Church and no one more than another." 9

Under the author's tuition Hans is, on the whole, self-

8 It is given by Docking, " Hutt. Opera," iv. 651 f. W. Kohler
concludes that the author was Hutten (" Zeitschrift fur Deutsche Philo-
logie," 1898). Booking ascribes it to Oecolampadius. Kalkoff gives
reasons for assigning it to Bucer (" Hutten und die Reformation," 537 f .)

" Hutt. Opera," iv. 664.

142 Luther and the Reformation

restrained, though choleric. The impulse to go for the
parson and the monk with his flail is kept in check in defer-
ence, apparently, to Luther's " Exhortation against Revolt
and Tumult." Eberlin is far less prudent and tolerant in
the fiery appeal for a radical and violent Reformation which
he voiced in a series of pamphlets in 1521 and the following
year, though under the influence of Luther and Melanchthon
he subsequently struck a more moderate note. 10 This radical
tendency also found expression in the Thirty Articles,
printed along with the " Neukarsthans," in which Junker
Helfrich, Knight Harry, and Jack Mattock renounce the
regime of Antichrist, devote themselves body and goods to
bring about such a drastic Reformation, and swear undying
hostility to all Dr Luther's enemies. 11

Meanwhile the movement was spreading far and near
in virtue of its inherent power. Luther himself, as we have
noted, had no definite plan for the propagation of his teaching
and the organisation of its adherents. Hitherto he had
laboured to influence public opinion by means of the press,
the lecture, the sermon, and a vast correspondence. He
trusted to the power of the Word to establish a new order,
and the Word was doubtless powerfully working towards this
end. The publication, after revision with the assistance of
Melanchthon, of his translation of the New Testament on
the 2ist September I522, 12 was a factor of the first importance
in hastening its realisation. But in spite of his professed
reliance on the missionary power of the Word, the greatest
force in the spread of the movement was the personality and
the manifold activity of Luther himself. Though inferior
to Calvin as an organiser, his correspondence 13 during this

10 See the collection of his popular pamphlets edited by Enders
in the ** Flugschriften," 1898, 1900, 1902. On Eberlin see the works of
Reggenbach (1874), Radlkofer (1887), Julius Werner (1895), and the
art. by Kolde in Herzog-Hauck. Also Bezold, " Geschichte der
Deutschen Reformation," 357 f.

11 Given by Bocking, " Opera Hutteni," iv. 680-681. These violent
articles are ascribed by Kalkoffto the printer, Johann Schott of Strassburg.
Hutten's " Vagantenzeit und Untergang," 310-311.

11 Enders, iv. 4-5.

18 See the latter part of VoL III. and the whole of Vols. IV. and V
ofhis"Briefwechsel."

The Spread of the Movement 143

formative period proves that he was by no means so in-
different to the necessity of active, constructive effort as
his profession of reliance on the Word alone seems to imply
and his critics have often assumed. His activity as a
propagandist was not confined to the controversial tract or
treatise in which he maintained an incessant warfare against
the enemy, or defended his position against the enemy's
counter-attacks. He is ever immersed in the task of
winning adherents, encouraging and guiding the efforts of a
growing band of fellow-workers whom his teaching has
inspired with an Apostolic fervour. He addresses missive
after missive to individuals, to churches, to Town Councils,
or other governing bodies. He takes the lead in constituting
churches on an evangelical basis and instituting a reformed
order of worship. He responds to constant appeals for help
and advice and befriends the refugees from the monasteries
or the ranks of the secular clergy who flock to Wittenberg,
and for whom he strives to find maintenance and a vocation.
He provides evangelical preachers for the churches that
apply to him from far and near. He appeals to the civil
authorities or to the Elector and other magnates on behalf
of persecuted brethren, and writes letters of comfort and
encouragement to the communities in Germany and the
Netherlands which are suffering for the faith. Through
Spalatin he constantly strives to influence the Elector to
adopt a more energetic policy on behalf of the Gospel,
whilst disclaiming any desire to compromise him in his cause
with the Emperor and the Regency, He complains again
and again that he is overwhelmed by his enormous cor-
respondence in the effort to help and direct and encourage
what has become a national and even an international
movement. 14

In addition to his own titanic activity, the movement
owed much to the co-operation of his colleagues at Witten-
berg and to the scholars and theologians who became its
leaders in other universities and centres of enlightenment
at Erfurt, Niirnberg, Basle, Strassburg, and elsewhere.
Foremost among these collaborators stood Melanchthon

14 See, for instance, Enders, iv. 304, 328, etc.

144 Lather and the Reformation

who conferred on it the prestige of his rare humanist scholar-
ship and systematised in his " Loci Communes " (December
1521) the fundamental doctrines and principles which
Luther had enunciated and developed in his didactic and
controversial writings in rather haphazard fashion. Based
on his study of the Epistle to the Romans, on which he had
lectured to his students during the session 1519-20, and
divested of the conventional scholastic speculation, it
conveyed to the theological student, and, in Spalatin's
German translation, to the layman as well, a clear and
succinct comprehension of the Gospel of God's grace according
to Paul, and thus rendered a timely service to the Lutheran
cause both as an exposition and a vindication of the new
against the old theology. Its influence in furthering this
cause was both profound and far-reaching. Within four
years it passed through seventeen editions, besides several
editions of Spalatin's translation. 15

Equally potent was the influence of the students whom
the fame of the Reformer had attracted to Wittenberg in
increasing numbers during the previous half-dozen years.
From Wittenberg went forth many an ardent young disciple
to carry the Master's teaching over the length and breadth
of the empire and to other lands as well. It had, too,
gained many adherents among both the regular and secular
clergy, and in these clerical recruits it found ready made a
band of aggressive preachers. Very remarkable is the fact
that a large proportion of them came from the monastic
Orders. His doctrine of justification by faith found the
readiest response among those who, like himself, had
learned by experience to doubt the religious efficacy of the
burdensome formalism of the monastic life. His own Order
of the Augustinians furnished many enthusiastic recruits,
such as Wencelaus Link, its Vicar-General, John Lang, the
prior of the Erfurt monastery, Kaspar Giittel, prior of
Eisleben, Gabriel Zwilling, its most popular preacher, the
Netherlander, Jacob Probst, prior of Antwerp, and his
successor, Heinrich Holier, otherwise known as Henry of
Ztrtphea. From his own Order caine, too, the first martyrs

15 For the origin and gradual shaping of the work, see EHinger,
" Melanchthon," 123 f. (1902).

The Spread of the Movement 145

of the Gospel in two young monks, who, in the summer of
1523, endured the flames for their evangelical convictions
and whose heroism drew from Luther the first of his popular
religious poems and an inspiring missive to the Christians
of Holland, Flanders, and Brabant. 16 The other Orders also
contributed not a few missionary recruits. From the
Franciscans came Eberlin, Brissmann, Myconius, Pellican,
and Kempe ; from the Dominicans, Bucer and Blarer ;
from others, Oecolampadius, Urbanus Rhegius, Otto
Braunfels, Frosch. Equally remarkable the number of
recruits from the secular clergy who preached the new
Gospel and, where the pulpits of the parish churches were
denied them, took to preaching in the open air the church-
yards or the market-places, under the protection, in some
cases, of their armed parishioners. Laymen even took a
part in this evangelistic work where the priests were hostile.
" The Gospel," wrote Luther to Gerbel in May 1524, " takes
its course ever farther and more widely, the more they try
to prevent it." 17

Unfortunately these clerical recruits were not always
a credit or a benefit to the movement, and Luther at times
was fain to confess that purely spiritual motives were far
from being at the back of this secession from the old system.
Too many of the emancipated monks " have given occasion
to the adversary to blaspheme," through whom " Satan has
cast an evil odour on the fragrance of our teaching," and
who have embraced the Gospel " for the sake of the belly,
the freedom of the flesh." 18 The same is true of too many
of the nuns and the secular priests, and his testimony is
confirmed by that of Eberlin, Johann Hess, and others.
The transition from the cloister to evangelical freedom too
often meant, as Erasmus said, " freedom to live as they
please." Such converts were, as Grisar remarks, 19 only too
worthy products of the system that had nurtured them.
Some of those who became preachers were ignorant ranters
who repeated parrot-like Luther's teaching on faith and
works, and whose shallow vehemence was but the thin veil
of their lack of real knowledge and real moral earnestness.

" " Werke," xii. 73. 1S Ibid., iii. 323-324.

17 Enders, iv. 334. 19 * f Luther," ii. 127-128.

146 Luther and the Reformation

Without a due sense of the limitations and obligations of
freedom, which Luther as a rule emphasised, they were
totally unfitted to be its true exponents.

In contrast to this discreditable element stands the able
and cultured band of preachers to whom the proclamation
of the Gospel is a divinely imposed vocation and to whose
activity, next to that of Luther and his immediate associates,
the astounding progress of the movement during the years
1521-24 was mainly due. As the result of this spontaneous
and ever-widening missionary effort, it takes shape in the
establishment of reformed congregations all over the empire,
especially in the free cities of the south and the north. The
process is everywhere more or less identical. The parish
priest, an emancipated monk, an ardent layman, begins
preaching the new Gospel and inveighs against the old
doctrines and usages. The people usually welcome his
message and become ardent partisans, in spite of the
opposition of bishop and clergy. 20 This opposition excites
the popular spirit which here and there breaks into tumult,
as at Erfurt in 1521, Miltenberg in 1523, Augsburg in 1524,
Stralsund in the same year. The popular restiveness
necessitates the intervention of the civil authority, and this
intervention, especially in the free cities, is usually on the
side of the Reformers. The recurring friction between the
civic and the ecclesiastical authorities, the hatred of a corrupt
clergy, the keen impatience of ecclesiastical abuses which
injuriously affect the material interest of the burghers, the
influence (though only to a limited extent) of Hussite and
Waldensian sectaries, 21 the spread of the new culture, of
which Niirnberg and Augsburg were centres all these
factors predisposed the cities to welcome the evangelical
preachers. Hence the remarkable results of the preaching

10 For this early preaching in the cities, see the relative notices in
Luther's " Briefwechsel," in., iv., v. ; Ranke, " Deutsche Geschichte,"
ii. 65 f.; 1925 edition, ii. 51 f.; Bezold, " Geschichte der Deutschen
Reformation," 381 f. ; Kostlin-Kawerau, i. 610 f.

11 In the introduction to the Kirchenpostille of 1522, Luther refers to
the existence of a Hussite congregation at Sangershausen, near Eisleben,
by which, according to his enemies, he had been early corrupted
" Werke," x., Pt. L, 6-7. *

The Spread of the Movement 147

of Zell, Bucer, and Capito at Strassburg, Blarer at Constance,
Eberlin and Kettenbach at Ulm, Urbanus Rhegius and
Frosch at Augsburg, Johann Hess at Breslau, Theobald
Pellican at Nordlingen, Johann Brenz at Schwabischhall,
Erhard Schnepf at Wimpffen, Michael Stiefel at Eislingen,
Mirisch and Amsdorf at Magdeburg, Kempe at Hamburg,
Henry of Zutphen and Jacob Probst at Bremen. In the
far north-east, where the Teutonic knights held sway, the
Bishop of Samland espoused the cause of Luther, who sent
Brissmann and Paul Speratus to evangelise at his episcopal
seat of Konigsberg and elsewhere in Prussia. From Riga
came a request for help in the extension of the Gospel in
Livonia, 22 which was eager to renounce the kingdom of
Antichrist, and erelong turned almost wholly Lutheran. 23
Albrecht of Brandenburg, Grandmaster of the Teutonic
Order, himself ultimately accepted Luther's advice to
marry and transform Prussia into a secular duchy, 24 though
the main motive seems to have been personal and political
rather than religious. 25 Thus within little more than
three years after the proclamation of the imperial ban, the
evangelical movement had found corporate expression in a
large number of reformed congregations in the more important
centres of civic and industrial life from the Lake of Constance
to the Baltic.

Among the princely class there was as yet, on the other
hand, little active and open response to the appeal of the
new Gospel. The cautious old Elector continued for political
reasons to follow the policy of official neutrality in the face
of the Edict of Worms. His brother John and his nephew
John Frederick were far more responsive, 26 though not free
to contravene too openly the Elector's policy. Duke Henry
of Mecklenburg asked for an evangelist, 27 and so did Duke
Magnus of Saxe-Lauenburg, 28 whilst the Margrave George

22 Enders, iv. 11-12. Luther's reply in " Werke," xii. 147 f.

23 Ibid., iv. 270 ; cf. 296.

24 Ibid., iv. 359.

25 See the negotiations with Luther, Enders, iv. 4> 158, 285 f., 359,
and Luther's own missive to the Teutonic Order, " Werke," xii. 228 f.

2 * See, for instance, Enders, iv. 356-357.

7 Ibid., iv. 340. " Ibid., iv. 145

148 Luther and the Reformation

of Brandenburg-Ansbach sent a request for instruction on
the sacramental question and expressed his goodwill. 29
Duke Henry of Brunswick was also reported to be favourable,
but the report erelong turned out to be fallacious. The
same thing happened in the case of Duke Charles of Savoy,
whilst Duke Karl of Miinsterberg, though at first assuring
Luther of his adhesion, erelong became an ardent opponent. 30
Not a few of the higher nobility appear, in Luther's
correspondence, as declared patrons of his cause, among
them Counts Ludwig von Stollberg, George von Wertheim,
Sebastian von Passun, Henry von Schwarzburg, Edzard
von Ost Friesland, Albert von Mansfeld, Barth. von
Stahremberg. 31 Whilst, under the influence of Hutten and
Sickingen, a large number of the lesser nobility were pro-
fessedly Lutheran, mainly from class and political motives,
some of them, like Johann von Schwarzenberg and Hartmuth
von Cronberg, were whole-hearted and active converts. 32
After the promulgation of the Edict of Worms, Cronberg
gave up his imperial pension of 200 gulden, 33 and devoted
himself to the task of vindicating Luther in a series of
aggressive missives to the Emperor, the Pope, the Imperial
Regency, and others. 34 Luther wrote him a warm apprecia-
tion in March 1522, in which he thanked God that he had
found a disciple who, unlike too many others, not merely
professed the Word of Christ, but had whole-heartedly
received and actively championed it. 35 In Argula von
Grumbach he found a feminine protagonist who wrote a
spirited defence of his teaching to the University of Ingolstadt
and to Duke William of Bavaria on behalf of a young
Magister indicted for heresy. 36

" Enders, iv. 58. * Hid., iii. 408-410.

81 " Werke," 52, 132 (Erlangen ed.); Enders, iii. 433; iv. 2 and
160; iv. 26; iv. 40; iv. 168; v. 10.

* a For Schwarzenberg see Luther's letter to him, " Werke," 53
151-155-

88 Enders, iii. 149.

84 Kuck, " Die Schriften Hartmuth's von Cronberg," in Niemeyer's
" Neudrucke," Nos. 154-156 (1899); Walch, xv, 1955 f.

* " Werke," x., Pt. II., 53 f.

* Enders, iii. 397 ; i v . 279, 293-294, See also " Werke," xv.
no f., for Luther's own denunciation of the intolerance of the university.

Two Diets of Niirnberg (1522-24) 149

II. THE Two DIETS OF NURNBERG (1522-24)

Against this ever-widening movement the Pope and the
Emperor were powerless to enforce the Edict of Worms.
Luther's comparative moderation in opposing the radical
party at Wittenberg after his return from the Wartburg
had tended to conciliate the Imperial Regency and gained
him the goodwill of the majority of the Diet, which assembled
at Niirnberg in November 1522 and continued its session
till the beginning of March 1523 , 37 To this Diet the new
Pope, Hadrian VI., deputed Chieregati, Bishop of Tiramo,
as Nuncio to offer the reform of practical abuses in return
for the active repression of heresy. Before his unexpected
election as the successor of Leo X., Hadrian had been the
tutor of Charles V. and professor of the scholastic theology
at Lou vain, Inquisitor-General and joint-administrator, with
Cardinal Ximenes, of Spain, and latterly Vicar of the
kingdom during the young Emperor's absence in Germany.
As Inquisitor he had shown an inflexible zeal against heresy
and an active sympathy with Ximenes' policy of practical
reform, though, as a purely scholastic divine, he did not
share the cardinal's enlightened interest in humanism. 38
This policy he ardently espoused as Pope in an energetic
though vain effort to put down the corruption rampant in
the Roman Curia and to effect a drastic practical reformation
of the Church at large. In an Instruction to the Nuncio,
which was submitted to the Diet, he exposed and deplored
with commendable frankness the prevailing degeneration
of the Curia and the hierarchy, and promised an effective
remedy. But there must be no compromise with the heretic
and his followers. Luther has spread heresy and sedition
throughout Germany, has striven, like Mahomet, to corrupt
the minds and manners of the people, incited the princes
to seize ecclesiastical property and stirred up civil war,
has undermined all constituted authority, secular as well as
ecclesiastical, on the pretext of vindicating evangelical

7 " Deutsche Reichstagsakten," iii. 383 f.

88 For Hadrian's career before he became Pope and the history of
his short pontificate, see Pastor's " History of the Popes," ix. 34 f.

150 Luther and the Reformation

liberty, has attacked the faith of their fathers, condemned
them as heretics and consigned them to hell. Hadrian
denies that he has been condemned unheard, and, in
any case, in matters of faith no discussion is permissible.
In such matters he avers, in words that Luther himself
might have used, the Apostles, not the dialecticians are to
decide. But for Hadrian the faith is not merely what the
Apostles have taught, but what in addition the Fathers and
Councils have decreed as articles of faith, and it was just this
that Luther had so strenuously denied. He must, therefore,
share the fate of Hus if he will not renounce his heresy, and
the Edict of Worms must be promptly put in force against
him and his followers. 39

In his exposure of the inveterate evils in the Curia and
the Church, the Pope had gone far to justify Luther's revolt,
and the majority of the Diet did not lose the opportunity
of reminding the Nuncio of the fact. Moreover, he over-
looked the fact that public opinion in Germany had advanced
a long way since Hus's day, and was in no mood to accept
the deliverance of even a reforming Pope as to what con-
stituted heresy. The evangelical preachers at Niirnberg
did not hesitate to proclaim this heresy from the pulpit,
despite the Nuncio's demand for their repression, and the
Town Council stoutly refused to arrest and imprison them,
and intimated its determination to defend them if need
be. 40 The rising of Sickingen and the lesser nobility, pro-
fessedly in the cause of Luther, emphasised in addition the
extreme risk of attempting to enforce the Edict. In spite,
therefore, of the Nuncio's eloquence and the efforts of a
small minority, led by the Archduke Ferdinand, the Elector
Joachim of Brandenburg, and Duke George of Saxony,
the majority of the Diet resolved to refer the papal demands
to a couple of Committees. 41 On the strength of their report,
which reveals the influence of Luther's friend, Johann von
Schwarzenberg, the Diet declared its inability to comply
with the demand (5th February 1523). Whilst professing

3 'See the Instruction in " Reichstagsakten," iii. 393 f . ; cf. the
papal Brief directly addressed to the Diet, ibid., iii. 399 f.
* Ibid., iii. 410 f. Ibid., iii. 419 f.

Two Diets of Niirnberg (1522-24) 151

reverence for the Pope and the Emperor, they were not
prepared to execute the Edict against Luther and his
followers. In view of the strength of the Lutheran move-
ment, any attempt to do so would be regarded as an attempt
to crush evangelical truth and strengthen the corruption
and abuses rampant in the Curia and the Church, of which
they submitted a formidable statement, 42 and without the
reform of which there :ould be no hope of peace or the
extirpation of the Lutheran heresy. To this end, as well as
for the purpose of dealing with this heresy, they demanded
the convocation within a year of a free Christian Council
in some German city in which the laity should have a voice.
They would use their influence with the Elector of Saxony
to prevail on Luther and his followers to abstain meanwhile
from writing or publishing any controversial books in
Saxony. Whilst refusing the demand of the Nuncio for
the punishment of the Lutheran preachers at Niirnberg,
they would endeavour that all preachers should abstain
from controversial preaching and limit themselves to the
preaching of the pure Gospel as contained in Scripture and
received by the Christian Church, on pain of fit punishment
for disobedience by the ecclesiastical authorities, on condition
that there should be no attempt to hinder and suppress the
preaching of evangelical truth. They further undertook to
maintain a strict supervision of the press throughout the
empire, and authorised the punishment of married priests
and renegade monks and nuns by the ecclesiastical courts. 43
This deliverance was issued by the Imperial Regency as a
mandate on the 6th March. 44

This decision virtually amounted to a suspension of the
Edict of Worms and left the Lutheran movement to develop
meantime unhindered by any effective organised opposition.
It plainly revealed the conviction that it was too powerful
to be crushed at the Pope's fiat, and that any attempt by
either the Emperor or the Diet to do so would only lead to
a national uprising against Rome. At the same time, it
made no secret of the fact that, in the view of the majority
of the Diet, the reform of practical abuses was more important

43 " Reichstagsakten," iii. 645 f. " Ibid., iii. 447-

* 3 Ibid., iii. 435-

152 Luther and the Reformation

than the overthrow of Luther and his cause. " The doctrine
of Luther," wrote the Archduke Ferdinand to his brother
Charles on 27th January 1523, " has taken such deep root
throughout the whole empire, that to-day among every 1,000
persons there is not one who is not to some extent touched
by it." 45

To Luther the refusal of the Diet to do the Pope's bidding
was very gratifying. 46 The mandate embodying it was in
due course forwarded by the Elector. In reply, whilst
expressing his willingness to refrain from further controversy
pending the assembly of a free Council, exonerating the
Elector from all responsibility for his views, and disclaiming
any intention to excite revolt by his writings, he could not
undertake to keep silence under the attacks of a Faber and
an Emser, and would not admit that the mandate deprived
Mm of the right to defend evangelical truth. 47 In a
communication to the Imperial Regency at the beginning of
July he subjected the mandate itself to some criticisms,
and whilst warmly recognising its moderate spirit, protested
against the unfavourable interpretation put upon it by his
opponents. He strongly objected to the tendency to identify
the preaching of the Gospel in accordance with Scripture,
as received by the Christian Church, with the teaching of
the Roman Church, Aquinas, Scotus, and others of the
schoolmen. "Preach the Gospel as Christ Himself has
directed, and not as the scholastic theologians have devised,"
is for him the only safe standard to follow. He cannot,
therefore, accept the nominees of the hierarchy as the arbiters
of true Gospel preaching. Nor can he agree to desist from
translating and printing the Word of God in the vernacular,
nor, in view of the grave evils of the celibate life, approve

** " Reichstagsakten," iii. 911.

46 Enders, iv. 96. Wittembergse habemus decreta Nurmbergse per
imperil Proceres edita ad legationes papae, mire libera et placentia,
excusa autem habemus et latina et vernacula. He refers not to the
mandate of the Regency embodying the decision of the Diet, which
he had not yet received, but to the report of the Committees on which
the decision was based.

** Letter to the Elector, " Werke," 53, 164-167 (Erlangen ed.),
29th March.

Two Diets of Niirnberg (1522-24) 153

of any other punishment for married priests and emancipated
monks and nuns than excommunication. 48

Towards Pope Hadrian himself he is far less restrained.
The papal Nuncio had brought a number of Briefs to
Niirnberg, and one of these addressed to the Town Council
of Bamberg came into his hands. In this missive the Pope
denounced him and his teaching in very bitter and defamatory
style. Luther responded by translating it into German,
with short sarcastic notes, and addressing a brief letter
to the reader in which he in turn spoke his mind freely
about this obscurantist and sophistic product of Louvain
University who wore the tiara, reminding him that the
truth which the popes had so long suppressed by force
would no longer be stifled by such abuse and impotent
ravings. 49

Less defensible was the concoction in which, jointly with
Melanchthon, he exercised his ingenuity in expounding the
significance of certain portents, which naturally in that
superstitious age called for a providential interpretation,
and applying them to the Papacy and its satellites. Two
monstrosities were at his disposal. One, evidently of the
modern sea-serpent type, with the head of an ass, the breasts
and stomach of a woman, etc., had, it was believed, been
fished out of the Tiber in 1496. Another, also in semi-human
form, with a calf's head and something that looked like a
monk's cowl, had been born in Freiberg in Saxony. An
astronomer had seen in the Freiberg monster a presage of
Luther. 50 To Luther, on the other hand, it was a representa-
tion of the monastic orders and a clear indication of the
divine wrath against the papal-monastic deformation of
Christianity. Similarly, Melanchthon saw in the Tiber
monster an embodiment of the Pope, and the result of their
joint lucubration was the " Interpretation of the Pope-
Ass found at Rome and the Monks Calf at Freiberg." a
The ass's head on a human body, gravely expounds

48 " Werke," xii. 63 f. Wider die Verkehrer und Falscher kaiser-
lich.smanda.ts.

* Ibid., xi. 342 f. ; Walch, xv. 2652 f.

* Enders, iv. 57-58, 67.

" " Werke," xi. 375 f., March 1523 ; cf> Enders, iv. 64.

154 Luther and the Reformation

Melanchthon, signifies the human foundation of the Papacy
on which the Pope's power rests. " For as an ass's head ill
fits a human body, so little fitting is it that the Pope should
be head of the Church/' And so forth in detailed fashion
in regard to the other features of this monstrosity. Luther
is equally ingenious and equally outrageous in expounding
the distinctive features of the other monster as a providential
indication of the abominations of the Roman Antichrist
and his satellites, the monks. It was really too grotesque
a persiflage of the Papacy as represented by a man of the
high character and reforming though narrow zeal of a
Hadrian at all events. But it suited the taste of the age,
if it did not reflect credit on that of either Luther or
Melanchthon, and the concoction instantly leaped into
many editions. At the same time, it should not be forgotten
that the worst revilers of the memory of this exemplary
Pope were the brood of self-seekers who haunted the Curia. 52
Hadrian's successor, the papal Vice-Chancellor, Giulio di
Medici, who took the title of Clement VII., renewed the
attempt to enforce the Edict of Worms, through his Legate,
Cardinal Campeggio, at a second Diet which assembled
in the same city ^ in the following January-April 1524, It
met with little real success. Public opinion was too hostile
to Rome to admit of any organised and effective effort
to crush the Lutheran movement. It is significant of the
attitude of the people that, on bs official entry into Augsburg,
the citizens jeered at the Legate's benediction, 54 and that
he was fain to dispense with this formality on his arrival
at Niirnberg itself and straightway ride to his lodging. 55
In spite of his presence the sacrament was celebrated in
both kinds by the evangelical preachers to nearly 4,000
participants, among them being several members of the
Imperial Regency, whilst even the Emperor's sister, Isabella,
the ex-Queen of Denmark, partook in the same manner

" See, for the attitude of its members, Pastor, " Hist, of the Popes,"
ix. 222 f.

69 Lindsay mistakenly makes the Diet meet at Spires, " Hist, of
the Reformation,** i. 322.

64 " Reichstagsakten," iv. 137-138.

S5 Ibid., iv. 142.

Two Diets of Niirnberg (1522-24) 155

in the castle chapel. 56 The majority of the Estates, indeed,
in spite of the opposition of the representatives of the cities,
formally undertook to observe and fulfil the Edict " as far
as it was possible," and to repress objectionable literature.
But they renewed the demand for a free General Council in
Germany and decreed that, pending its convocation, a
national German assembly should convene in November at
Spires to discuss what was acceptable and what was objection-
able in Luther's teaching, and draw up a statement on the
subject to be submitted to the Council. Meanwhile, the
Gospel should be preached without controversy in accordance
with the interpretation of the doctors acknowledged by the
Church (i8th April). 57 While approving their declared
intention to enforce the Edict, Campeggio objected to the
proposed General Council and the preliminary national
assembly, without succeeding in altering the Diet's resolu-
tion. 58 The Pope shared the Legate's objection, and at his
instigation the Emperor issued an Edict on the I5th July
requiring the Estates to put in force that of Worms, condemn-
ing their interference with the prerogative of the Pope in
the matter of a Council, peremptorily forbidding the proposed
assembly at Spires, and denouncing Luther as a greater
enemy of the faith than Mahomet. 59

It was, however, too late in the day to attempt to repress
what had become a national movement by the absolute fiat
of the Pope, or the Emperor, or even the Diet. Luther had
become too potent a force to be treated with the contempt
and the obloquy which those in the seats of the mighty
still thought good enough for a foolhardy and rebellious
monk. The Emperor was, in fact, too deeply immersed
in the toils of international complications to do more than
issue impotent commands and threats. In any case,
Luther was as little disposed as ever to take his orders
in the cause of the Gospel from Pope, Emperor, or Diet.

66 Ranke, "Deutsche Geschichte," ii. I39-H; "- 105-106 (1925
ed.) ; Bezold, " Geschichte der Deutschen Reformation," 439.

57 " Reichstagsakten,'* iv. 603-605, in German, A Latin version
is given by Balan, " Monumenta Reformationis Lutherans," 320 f.

68 Balan, 332.

59 Walch, xv. 2705 f.

156 Luther and the Reformation

He was, in fact, at first not very anxious about the doings
of the Diet, He knew the ways of Satan too well, he said,
to worry over them. 60 The actual decision, which in reality
did not mean very much, seemed, however, in comparison
with that of March 1523, to be a serious blow to the Gospel,
and he gave unstinted vent to his wrath in a scathing
criticism. 61 He angrily points out at the outset the in-
consistency of the mandate of " these drunken and mad
notables " who have agreed to carry out the Edict of Worms
against an outlawed heretic, and yet propose to consider
and decide at Spires what is good and bad in his teaching.
With daring defiance and prophetic fervour he then arraigns
the blindness, the presumption, the stupidity of these
misguided notables, and finishes with an angry outburst
against the Emperor and other rulers. " Well, then, we
Germans must remain Germans and Pope's asses. It is
no use complaining, teaching, praying, and entreating.
Even our daily experience of extortion and oppression has
no efiect. Now, my dear princes and gentlemen, you make
haste to deliver my poor person to death, and when you have
succeeded you imagine that you will have triumphed. If,
however, you had ears to hear, I would tell you something
that would startle you. How would it be if Luther's life
has so much value in God's sight that, even if he were gone,
not one of you would any longer be sure of his life and
authority, and that his death would be the undoing of
every one of you? Go, then, merrily on; throttle and
burn. I will not give way if God wills it. Here I am.
But I ask you in friendly fashion to beware lest when you
have put me to death, you do not call me to life again and
have to put me to death a second time. God has not granted
me to have to deal with reasonable men, but with German
beasts who would tear me in pieces like wolves and bears.
I will at all events remind every one who believes that
there is a God to refrain from putting in force this mandate.
Although God has given me the grace not to fear death,

80 Enders, iv. 295.

81 " Werke," xv. 254 f. Zwei uneinige und Widerwartige Gebote
den Luther betrefiend, Aug. 1524. He first gives the Edict of Worms
and then the mandate based on the decision of the Diet of Nurnberg.

Two Diets of Niirnberg (1522-24) 157

as I formerly did, and will help me to die willingly, they
shall not bring it about before God wills it, rage and curse
as much as they please. For He, who has into the third
year preserved me against their will and beyond all my
expectation, can keep me in safety still longer, although
I have no great desire to live. And even if they kill me, it
will be such a death as neither they nor their children will
overcome. Of this I give them due warning. But what
does it help. God has blinded and hardened them. Never-
theless, I beseech you all, dear lords and gentlemen, gracious
and ungracious, for God's sake to have God before your eyes
and handle this matter in a different fashion. A great
calamity is at your door. God's wrath has begun to move
and you shall not escape if you persist in so acting. What
will ye, my dear lords ? God is too clever for you. He will
soon make fools of you. He is also too mighty and will
erelong destroy you. Have a little fear of His wisdom and
ask yourselves whether He has not put such thoughts and
lack of grace in your hearts in order that you may experience
what He is wont to do with great lords like Pharaoh. One
part of His song is, * God has cast down the mighty from
their seats/ Deposuit potentes de sede." **

As for that poor mortal " maggot sack/' the Emperor r
who imagines himself to be the true supreme protector of
the Christian faith, does not the Scripture say that Christian
faith is a rock, a divine force stronger than the devil, death,
and every other power ? And such a force shall need the
protection of a creature of death whom the scab or the
smallpox can to-morrow throw on a sick bed ! God help
us ! What a senseless world we live in ! So with Henry
VIII., the King of Hungary, and all other would-be defenders
of the Christian faith. Let all pious Christians join with him
in commiserating such mad, foolish, senseless, raging, insane
fools !

This is a sample of how Luther in his wrath can stand up
to his foes, even those of them who wear an imperial or a
royal crown. He smites them with that terrible pen of his
with the blast of God's wrath, before which all their armed

" Werke," xv. 254-255. " -W&. xv. 278.

158 Luther and the Reformation

omnipotence is only next door to death. Though the
apostrophe in his rough Saxon to the Emperor is rather
shocking to a delicate ear, one can hardly help thinking of
" Imperial Caesar dead and turned to clay/' or wondering
whether William Shakespeare might not have borrowed
something from Martin Luther.

If Campeggio failed to persuade the Diet to adopt a
more aggressive policy against the evangelical movement,
he succeeded in sowing the seeds of a reaction against it.
At his instigation the Archduke Ferdinand, the Dukes of
Bavaria, the Archbishop of Salzburg, and a number of other
South German bishops convened under his auspices 64 at
Regensburg at the end of June 1524 to consider and decide
on expedients for the defence of the Church and the reform
of ecclesiastical abuses. 65 The zeal of the Archduke and the
Bavarian Dukes was quickened by the concession of a tax
on the ecclesiastical revenues of their respective territories. 66
The fruit of the conference was the outbreak of persecution
in Austria and Bavaria, 67 whilst the Pope urged the Emperor
to deprive the Saxon Elector of his dignity, and place the
Lutheran cities under the ban. 68 The meeting at Regensburg
proved, in fact, the beginning of the disruption of Germany
into two organised religious parties. A reformed national
Church on evangelical lines was henceforth an impossibility.
Nothing came either of the national assembly at Spires or
the General Council* The Emperor, at the instigation of
Ferdinand, negatived the former project, whilst a number
of the cities, in a convention at Spires in July and at Ulna
in December, undertook to render mutual assistance against
any attempt to put in force the Edict of Worms. 69

14 Balan, " Monumenta," 328, 361 f.

86 Ranke, " Deutsche Geschichte," ii. 145 f . ; ii. 120 f. (1925 ed.) ;
Janssen, " Hist, of the German People," iv. 44-47, Eng. trans.

M Enders, v. 14.

87 Ranke, ii. 170-174; ii. 129 f. (1925 ed.).

* ft Bezold, ** Geschichte der Deutschen Reformation," 442-443.
89 Ranke, ii. 175; ii. 133 (1925 ed.); Bezold, 442; Janssen, iv.
58-60.

CHAPTER VI
LUTHER AND THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT

I. LUTHER, HUTTEN, AND SICKINGEN

THE rapid growth of the Lutheran movement during the
years 1521-24 was not due solely to the preaching of the
Word. Luther's revolt against the Papacy on national as
well as religious grounds was fitted to appeal to national
sentiment. National sentiment might not be very strong
in an empire which was rather a confederation of petty
states than an organic unit, and in which the central Govern-
ment, in virtue of the growth of the princely power, was
notoriously ineffective. " The Holy Roman Empire of the
German nation " was, in the words of Voltaire, neither Holy,
nor Roman, nor Empire. The national State in the modern
sense was, even beyond the borders of Germany, only in
the making. In theory the empire embodied, in fact, the
conception of the universal not the national State. It was
the political counterpart of the universal Church, and was
thus ill-fitted to develop a strong national consciousness.
But it had been associated with Germany and its history
for over 700 years, and was invested with a prestige that
contributed to preserve the sense of a common nationality
from the Vosges to the Vistula, from the Baltic to the Alps.
Even if this sense of a common nationality was weakened by
the particularism, the dissension to which the mediaeval
constitution gave scope, the empire was sufficiently homo-
geneous to respond to an appeal against an alien ecclesiastical
regime, which was generally felt to be detrimental to the
commonweal. The corruption and extortion of Rome
constituted a grievance affecting the general welfare, which
had found expression in the " Gravamina of the German
Nation," and for which redress had been demanded in

159

160 Luther and the Reformation

Diet after Diet. In view of the material evils which more
or less affected all classes, Luther's arraignment of the
Papacy had excited throughout the empire a keen and
sympathetic interest, 1 which the purely theological element
in the indictment would hardly have aroused. The
majority of the Estates at the Diet of Worms, for instance,
whilst professing acquiescence in the papal condemnation
of his teaching, had very significantly reserved the errors
and evils of a more practical character, the redress of which
they agreed with the national Reformer in demanding.
The princes and the nobility, high and low, might be ready
enough to profit from these abuses in providing Church
preferment for their needy dependents. They none the less
resented the greed and corruption of the Roman Curia,
which drained so large a portion of German wealth Rome-
wards in the form of papal dues and exactions. Their
resentment was shared by even the clerical order, which
was also the victim of Roman rapacity. In as far as the
Lutheran movement gave expression to this resentment,
it struck a truly national chord. In the face of this fact it
erelong appeared that the Emperor and the small papal
minority had gained only a Pyrrhic victory at Worms.
The national opposition to an alien and oppressive regime
had rendered the Edict practically a dead letter. It was
really a work of supererogation to incarcerate Luther in
the Wartburg. To enforce the Edict would have been to
conjure a civil war, if not a revolution.

As it was, the anti-Roman spirit was erelong to find vent
in an appeal to force to bring about a new order of things
in the State, the Church, and Society. Among a section of
the lesser nobility, the poorer element in the town population,
and the mass of the peasants, in South Germany in particular,
there was deep-rooted discontent with the old order. Hence
the existence of a widespread movement on behalf of political
and social as well as ecclesiastical reform. In Franconia
and the Middle Rhine region the lesser nobility resented the
growing power of the territorial magnates, ecclesiastical and

1 On the participation of all classes in the demand for the reform of
ecclesiastical abuses for which the Papacy was responsible, see Below,
" Ursachen der Reformation," 35 f.

Luther, Hutten, and Sickingen 161

secular, and envied the prosperity of the middle class of the
towns which had acquired affluence and political influence
as the result of a thriving industry and commerce. They
were a lawless, degenerate survival of the feudal age which
cherished the pride and arrogance of the feudal caste without
the power which, in palmier days, they had exercised under
the old feudal system. They arrogated to themselves the
right to maintain a predatory warfare on the commerce of
the cities. They held in contempt the higher clergy, on
whose wealth, to which their ancestors had materially
contributed, they cast longing eyes. 2 In the towns the
working class, whether organised in the artisan gilds or not,
was seething with discontent and striving to better its lot
in antagonism to the upper class, which usually absorbed
the municipal government and exercised it largely in its own
interest. Among the peasantry the movement on behalf of
social emancipation, which had periodically found expression
in spasmodic risings during the previous half century, had
been quickened by Luther's evangelical teaching and was
ripe for a final reckoning with the feudal social system.

Characteristic of this complex revolutionary tendency
was the anti-papal and anti-clerical spirit which saw in a
radical, practical reformation of the Church an indispensable
condition of the redress of both social and political grievances.
In this sense the movement was pro-Lutheran and assumed
a more or less religious aspect. Nolens volens Luther had
become the prophet of a social and political as well as a
religious revolution. Without sharing the revolutionary
aspiration as far as it concerned the redress of political and
social grievances, he had foreseen the coming cataclysm and
had again and again warned the ruling classes of its imminence.

The cause of the nobility found its literary champion in
Ulrich von Hutten, its would-be vindicator in Franz von
Sickingen. Hutten had anticipated Luther as a national

2 Below minimises their degeneration (" Ursachen der Reformation,"
62-64), and it seems that it cannot be maintained of the lower nobility
as a class. See also Lenz's criticism of Lamprecht's " Deutsche Ges-
chichte," " Historische Zeitschrift," 1896, 406-408. At the same time,
as Kalkoff points out (" Hutten und die Reformation," 126 f.), the evU
was more widespread than Below and Lenz assert.

1 62 Luther and the Reformation

ref onner in a series of effusions in dialogue and verse between
1517 and 1520, in which he had exposed and denounced the
corruption and tyranny of the Pope and the hierarchy, and
demanded a radical reformation. The main motive of his
reform programme was political, not religious. The impulse
to a purely national reformation came from a humanist
not a religious source. Hutten will vindicate the imperial
sovereignty and the national independence from an alien
ecclesiastical jurisdiction and will make an end of the rampant
abuses in the Church in the interest of the commonweal,
and more particularly, if not professedly, of his own order
of the lesser nobility. His programme of ecclesiastical
reform was not new. It does little more than re-echo the
demands which had found expression through the press and
the Diet, and Luther owed little, if anything, to his inspiration
in his championship of these demands. It owed its vogue to
the patriotic verve, the literary felicity with which he played
his part as a reforming publicist, at first in the language of the
humanists and later in the vernacular. It also owed some-
thing to the religious note which, under Luther's influence,
he ultimately blended with his appeal for reform on national
lines. If his influence on Luther has been greatly over-
rated, there can be no doubt about Luther's influence on
him in this respect. After the Leipzig Disputation he saw
in Luther the leader of a national revolt against Rome and
adapted his appeal accordingly. In his " Complaint and
Admonition against the Power of the Pope" (1520), he
ranges himself alongside the Wittenberg Reformer, and even
Hus against the Pope and the hierarchy, 8 and professes the
Lutheran conception of the Church and the supreme
authority of the Word. In the " Exhortation to the Free
and Imperial Cities " (1522), he appears as the defender of
his cause against the princes. 4 But this profession of zeal
for the Gospel according to Luther was little more than skin
deep, and his ill-regulated life as a humanist of the adventurer
type was hardly fitted to make him a credit to the evangelical
movement. We miss in his flamboyant polemic against
Rome and the hierarchy the note of passionate and perf ervid

* " Opera," iii. 506-507, 517* * Itod., iii. 536.

Luther, Hutten, and Sickingen 163

religious conviction which made Luther the prophet of a
new epoch in religion. He adopts the current evangelical
phraseology. In reality he is interested only in the political
aspect of the Lutheran movement as a means of vindicating
the national freedom from Rome and, at the same time,
furthering the interest of his own class. As a publicist,
he was quick to see and take advantage of its political
implications as he conceived them, and to render it the lip
service of the politician. In any case, the recourse to
violent methods in order to attain the end in view was
incompatible with Luther's conception of a reform by means
of the Word, and his problematic, impulsive, and reckless
polemic did not tend to inspire confidence in his capacity
as a leader in the cause of even national reform. He is the
type of the aristocratic hotspur, the militant ReicJisritter
as well as the enthusiastic votary of the new culture. He
will, indeed, reform both Church and State by means of the
constituted secular authority, as Luther was also prepared
to do. In the " Complaint and Admonition " he calls on the
Emperor and the Estates to take in hand the cause of the
oppressed Fatherland and the truth of God in the war
against Roman superstition and error, ecclesiastical corrup-
tion and exaction. 5 If reform can be achieved by peaceful
means, good and well. But if not, force must be used,
even unto bloodshed, against the whole clerical order as the
common enemy. Nothing less than an armed rising against
the Pope, the clergy, and the monks will avail, 6 though he
would exempt the more reputable clerics from violence,
and if the Emperor and the Estates will not unite in this
crusade, the nobility and the towns shall not hesitate to
strike for God, the Fatherland, and the truth.

" Now's the time to take in hand
The cause of freedom at God's command." 7

" Now then, ye pious Germans, now,
Much armour have we and much horse,
Halberds enough and also swords.
Should friendly warning not avail,
To these will we then have resort." 8

"Opera,** iii. 504-505, 522-523. 7 Ibid., iii. 506.

IHd., iii. 523. Ibid., iii. 525.

164 Luther and the Reformation

This, in the last resort, is the method of the robber-knight
in the guise of the national reformer. It was not the method
that appealed to Luther, who flatly refused to identify his
cause with this revolutionary violence. Though he had used
very incendiary language in his reply to Prierias and in the
" Address to the Nobility/' he had never contemplated an
irresponsible rising, and had summarily rejected the idea of
a war against the clergy in his letter to Spalatin in January
1521. His conception of a national Reformation was one
undertaken by the Diet, acting deliberately in the general
interest in virtue of its constitutional powers and its obliga-
tion, as a Christian institution, to repress evil and maintain
the common good. Otherwise, the Word of God, not the
sword of the Reichsritter, is the only weapon he will use in
behalf of the Gospel.

Moreover, Hutten's summons to a war against the Church
was, in part at least, motived by class interest. He is the
enemy not only of Rome but of the territorial magnate.
In the " Exhortation to the Free and Imperial Cities " the
crusade on behalf of a national Reformation becomes a revolt
of the towns, in alliance with the nobility, against the
princes, secular and ecclesiastical, who are a set of tyrants
and usurpers of the rights of the nobles and burghers.

" The poor nobility they devour,

The towns of freedom to deprive,
They daily strive with all their power." *

From these tyrants and usurpers and their artful jurist
advisers, justice cannot be had. They make the Imperial
Regency their catspaw, appropriate the powers of the
Emperor, and strive to crush Dr Luther and the Gospel.
The only remedy lies in the union of the knights and the
towns to vindicate the old rights and liberties and stem
this unconstitutional princely usurpation at their expense.
There was no little force, from the constitutional point of
view, in this indictment of the growing power of the terri-
torial magnates and of the misuse of their power for their
own aggrandisement. As we have seen, Luther, as well as
Hutten, is found on occasion denouncing their misgovern-

0peza,"iii. 529.

Luther, Hutten, and Sickingen 165

ment. But the idea of a union of the lesser nobility and the
towns for this purpose was, in view of their inveterate
antagonism, too visionary to be taken seriously. The
towns had suffered too much from the predatory lawlessness
of the robber-knight to see in this class the vindicators of
their constitutional rights and their interests against the
princes. Moreover, Luther was too conscious of his in-
debtedness to the territorial magnate, in the person of the
Elector of Saxony, to countenance such a fantastic scheme,
even if Hutten was ready to except the " pious princes "
from its operation. 10 Besides, the regime of the territorial
magnate, however self-seeking, was at least a check on the
egoism and lawlessness of the class to which Hutten belonged.
It stood for law and order within the princely territory, if it
tended to weaken the central imperial Government and the
empire as an international force. 11

The leader behind whom the nobility and the towns
should range themselves against the princes and in behalf
of Luther and ecclesiastical reform was Franz von Sickingen.
Like Hutten himself, and with still less reason, Sickingen has
been idealised by his modern admirers into the ardent
champion of German nationalism against its enemies,
both internal and external. Facts do not tend to confirm
this idealist acceptation of the man and his aspirations.
He is primarily the type of the freebooting Reichsritter on
the grand scale a combination of the robber-knight
and the military adventurer who, by a series of successful
military exploits, had acquired affluence and invested his
name with a widespread prestige. By the time that Luther
had begun his crusade against Antichrist he had, in fact,

10 "Opera," Hi. 529.

11 The older conception of Hutten as a national hero and a co-worker
with Luther in the cause of religious reform, which found classic expres-
sion in the work of Strauss (1858, revised ed., 1871) and in vol. vii. of
Strauss *s works, edited by Zeller (1877), has been greatly modified by
more recent research. Though this conception found supporters in
Szamatolski, " Hutten's Deutsche Schriften," " Quellen und Forsch-
ungen zur Sprach und Culturgeschichte," Heft 67 (1891), and others,
it has been subjected to a trenchant examination and criticism by Kalkoff,
" Ulrich v. Hutten und die Reformation " (1920), and Hutten's " Vagan-
tenzeit und Untergang " (1925).

1 66 Luther and the Reformation

become a force to be reckoned with in the imperial and
princely chancellories, and even in those of foreign rulers.
But his exploits as a German condottiere constitute a rather
meagre foundation for the hero worship that later trans-
formed him into a statesman of far-reaching vision, a leader
in the cause of national regeneration and religious independ-
ence of Rome. Seen through the critical microscope of
recent research, he does not seem to have risen much, if at
all, above the level of the enterprising military adventurer
who might shine in a freebooting raid, but had no real
military capacity, let alone political genius. Certain it is
that he proved a failure as the leader of the campaign on the
Meuse against France, with which the Emperor entrusted
him in the summer of 1521, and that the last of his raids
against the Elector-Archbishop of Trier in the following
year proved a fiasco and brought his meteoric career to a
sudden and tragic conclusion. 12

Through Hutten, Sickingen bad been made acquainted
with Luther's struggle with Rome, and in June 1520 he had
offered him a refuge in the Ebernburg. 13 Luther had no
desire to exchange the patronage of the Elector of Saxony
for that of the redoubtable condottiere. But at the Elector's
instigation he wrote him a couple of letters (2Qth June,
3ist August) requesting him to use his influence with the
Emperor in his behalf. 14 The request was seconded by
Spalatin's personal intercession (November 1520), and
Sickingen, who was then at Cologne in attendance on the
Emperor, readily undertook to present his " Erbieten "
and accompanying letter to the young monarch, whose
favour he had earned by a loan of 20,000 gulden. 15 In
April 1521 he attempted to deflect him from his resolution
to enter Worms by the renewed offer of a refuge in the
Ebernburg. The offer, as we have seen, was merely a

18 The more idealist conception of Sickingen as a national hero is
represented by Ulmann, " Franz von Sickingen " (1872). The more
critical attitude is taken by Boos, " Franz v. Sickingen und die Stadt
Worms," " Zeitschrift fur die Geschichte des Oberrheins," Neue Folge,
iii. (1888), and especially by Kalkoff in his two recent works on Hutten.

13 Enders, ii. 410.

M Ibid., ii. 426, 471. Ulmann, 163.

Luther, Hutten, and Sickingen 167

manoeuvre on the part of Luther's enemies to prevent him
from appearing before the Diet, and Luther was shrewd
enough not to fall into the trap. He does not, however,
appear to have suspected the good faith of his would-be
protector, and on the ist June he dedicated to him from
his " Patmos " in the Wartburg his work on " Confession,"
in recognition of the great comfort and help he had
experienced at his hands. 16 He addresses him, moreover,
as his " special lord and patron/' In view of his career
as a lawless marauder the designation can hardly be said
to have been well chosen. In his feud against Worms,
for instance, he had applied without stint in the neighbouring
region the barbarous method of forcing a capitulation by
every species of outrage and wanton cruelty. Luther must
have known of the rough deeds of the ferocious filibuster
whom he addresses so respectfully and appreciatively, and
even if such ferocity was an all too common feature of the
brutal warfare of the period, it does seem a stretch of
Christian charity to recognise in the lawless freebooter a
patron of the Gospel, even though he was now the com-
missioned leader of a mercenary army against the Emperor's
enemy. It may be said in exculpation of this myopic view
that to the solitary seer in the Wartburg, oppressed by the
impotence of exile, the strong man of the Ebernburg who,
under Hutten's tutelage, was glibly professing allegiance to
the Word of God as interpreted by Dr Luther, might at least
be destined to be the agent of God's judgments against the
enemies of the Gospel " the ecclesiastical junkers and
tyrants " who are striving to crush him and the truth of
God, and who in their blindness are courting their own
destruction. This is the contingency which Luther fore-
shadows in the dedicatory letter if these blind tyrants, who
have rejected all his pleas and efforts for a reformation by
discussion and reason, continue in their infatuated policy
of suppressing the truth by force. They are heading
straightway for disaster, and if they will not betimes change
their mad course, some one else will teach them their folly,
" not like Luther by letters and words, but by deeds."

" " Werke," via. 138-140*

1 68 Luther and the Reformation

He does not say that this is his method, which is expressly
that of proclaiming the truth. He had, in fact, promptly
rejected Hutten's plan of an anti-clerical war, and there is
no reason to suppose that he was deliberately inciting
Sickingen to undertake such a war. The dedication is, in
truth, directed rather to the enemies of the Gospel than to
Sickingen. It is sent forth as a warning to beware of the
consequences of the policy of persecution on behalf of a
doomed system of corruption and falsehood, which will
infallibly lead to violence and revolution.

In view of the growing restiveness which he had observed
during his furtive journey to and from Wittenberg in December
1521, Luther deemed it advisable to restrain the aggressive
revolutionary spirit which the reform movement, under the
influence of Hutten and other professed adherents, was
tending to develop. Hence the emphasis in the " Ex-
hortation against Tumult and Revolt " on the obligation
of all Christians to leave the reform ot religion to the secular
power and the operation of the Word. This caveat against
revolutionary violence entirely failed to deflect the hotspur
Hutten, against whom, according to Kalkoff, 17 it was
particularly directed, from his plan of a league of the
nobility and the towns against prince and priest.

After the failure of the expedition on the Meuse, Sickingen
was in a mood to try his fortune in any desperate adventure
on his own accord. An assembly of the Upper Rhenish
nobility at Landau on the I3th August 1522 elected him
Captain-General of their league to vindicate the rights and
privileges of their order. 18 Though the towns stood aloof

17 Kalkoff assumes that in writing the " Exhortation " he had in mind
the " Neukarsthans " with its appended thirty articles, in which Luther
saw the hand of Hutten (Hutten's " Vagantenzeit," 310). If so, he
was mistaken. The author of the " Neukarsthans " was, according to
Kalkoff, Bucer, not Hutten, and represents Sickingen as counselling
Karsthans to observe moderation and justice in carrying out the proposed
Reformation. This rather militates against KalkofPs assumption that
the " Exhortation " was primarily a counterblast to the " Neukarsthans,"
rather than to the unrest among the peasants, though the thirty articles
appended to it by the Strassburg printer, Schott, were certainly violent
enough and might well excite Luther's apprehension, if he had read them.

18 Ulmann t 250 f .

Luther, Hutten, and Sickingen 169

from this combination in spite of Hutten's specious appeal
to their self-interest, Sickingen took advantage of the situa-
tion to carry out a predatory raid against the Archbishop-
Elector of Trier, against whom he had a personal grievance,
and whose territory offered a rich booty. Hence the declara-
tion of war which he hurled from the Ebernburg against him
as an enemy of God, the Emperor, and the empire. 19 The
archbishop's delinquency as an enemy of God seems to refer
to his treatment of Luther at Worms. In reality the motive
of the expedition was the freebooting instinct of the robber-
knight, and the attempt of Kettenbach, Hartmuth von
Cronberg, and other zealous Lutherans to magnify it into a
crusade " against the unchristian yoke of the priesthood
on behalf of evangelical freedom/' as Kettenbach phrased
it in his manifesto in Sickingen's name, is purely an idealising
distortion of the reality. With Luther and his cause the
expedition had precious little to do, except in the make-
believe of such visionary partisans, whom Luther himself
had denounced beforehand. 20 Instead of inaugurating a
revolution, the raid speedily proved a fiasco. Richard von
Greiffenklau defended the walls of Trier against the raiders
so stoutly that Sickingen was fain to retire baffled in the
middle of September, to be in turn besieged in his castle
of Landstuhl by the archbishop and his allies, the Elector
Palatine and the Landgrave of Hesse, and mortally wounded
(30th April 1523) whilst standing in the breach of its walls
with his face to the foe. His premature death, the flight
of Hutten to Switzerland, and the expedition of the Suabian
League against the Franconian nobility gave the quietus to a
movement which, even if it had succeeded, would not have
inaugurated the millennium in Church and State. " Even
at that time," judges Ranke, " it was perceived that if the
power of the princes was overthrown and the constitution

" Ulmann, 283-284.

20 Kettenbach's manifesto was, in fact, composed after Sickingen's
death, Kalkoff, " Vagantenzeit," 320 f. The older accounts of Ranke,
Bezold, and others are written too much under the influence of the
assumption that Sickingen was the evangelical champion that these
enthusiasts represent. They should be compared with KalkofFs critical
treatment of the subject.

170 Luther and the Reformation

of the empire broken up, nothing was to be expected but an
exclusive, violent, and, at the same time, self-conflicting
rule of the nobles." 21 In the case of poor Hutten the
abortive rising had certainly not been a success. He, too,
shortly afterwards ended his stormy career at the age of
thirty-four, the victim of an ill-regulated life and an ill-
conceived political programme, which he had neither the
means nor the capacity to bring to fruition. " He left,"
pathetically says Zwingli, who befriended him in his forlorn
condition, " nothing of any value. He had neither books,
nor furniture, nothing but a pen." **

" This affair will have a very bad ending," wrote Luther
on hearing the news of Sickingen's adventure. 23 "God is
a just but a wonderful judge," was his comment on hearing
of his death. 24 His opponents regarded him as Luther's
ally, and Luther himself as the instigator of his attack on a
great ecclesiastical potentate. " That devil of a monk and
Franz von Sickingen are one and the same thing," wrote
Duke George's representative at Nurnberg. 25 " The anti-
emperor has fallen ; the anti-pope must soon follow,"
boasted the Romanists. 26 Both the implication and the
prognostication were unfounded. Whilst warning his
enemies of the danger to themselves of the policy of
persecution, and telling them that they will deserve the
fate they are courting, Luther had plainly enough con-
demned the propagation of his cause by lawless force six
months before Sickingen started his rash enterprise. True,
he himself in his angry moods had used very fiery language
in denunciation of the prelates in his philippic against the
falsely named Order of Bishops (July 1522). It is, he urged,
the duty of every Christian to maintain God's Word and
ordinance and to sacrifice body, life, goods, honour, and
friends, and all things to overthrow the devil's order, or if
they cannot do so, to shun and flee from it. All who thus

11 " Deutsche Geschichte," ii. 76; ii. 83 (1925 ed.).
M See Mackinnon's " History of Modern Liberty," ii. 67.
18 Enders, iv. 40. " Ibid., iv. 143.

" Deutsche Reichstagsakten," iii. 880; Gess, " Akten und Briefe
zur Kirchenpolitik Herzog Georgs," i. 401 (1905).
Ulrnann, 386.

Luther, Hutten, and Sickingen 171

strive to overthrow the bishop's ungodly rule are God's
children and true Christians, whereas all who support it
and are willingly subject to it are the devil's servants and
strive against God's ordinance and law. 27 This does sound
like an incitement to violence. But this explosion was not
in reality so revolutionary as it sounds, and was not meant
to incite the people to rise in arms against the bishops
and the clergy. It was the excited prelude to his Bull of
Reformation which contemplates no more than the exercise
of the right of the Christian congregation in every town to
elect an evangelical preacher on the Pauline model, and
forswear obedience to the episcopal rule which is striving
to crush the Gospel to the destruction of souls. 88 It was
certainly not intended to be an apology for the lawless
enterprise of Sickingen. At the same time, it must be
admitted that Luther did not always weigh the possible
implication of such violent language, or realise the effect
of such an outburst in an atmosphere charged with the
electricity of political and social as well as religious
revolution.

It was in the midst of this upheaval that he sent forth the
work in which he discussed the civil power and its claim
to the allegiance of the subject. 29 It was the systematic
presentation of the thoughts contained in a couple of sermons
preached at Weimar in October I522, 30 and was dedicated
to the Elector's brother, Duke John, His attitude to the
question is conditioned by that of the princes towards the
evangelical movement, and he disclaims any desire to
intrude into the purely political sphere. He writes as a
theologian, not as a political philosopher, and tends to
evaluate the government of the rulers according as they are
friendly or hostile to the Gospel as he interprets it. He
had, he reminds them, appealed to them in the " Address
to the Nobility" to take up the cause of Reformation.
The outcome of this appeal, in which he had recognised their
right to undertake this task, had been the Edict of Worms

" " Werke," x., Pt. II., 139-140. " Ibid.* x., Pt. II., 144.

89 Von Weltlicher Obirkeit, wie weit man ihr Gehorsam Schuldig
sei, March 1523, " Werke," xi. 245 f.
30 Enders, iv. 22.

172 Luther and the Reformation

against him and his adherents, which was based on the
assumption that they were entitled to lord it over the faith
and conscience of their subjects, and that their subjects were
bound to obey their decisions in spiritual things. 31 This
assumption he now emphatically denies, and he, who had
not feared to brave the Pope, cares not if he excites then-
wrath in plainly telling them so. The civil power is, indeed,
divinely ordained. Princes rule by divine right and their
subjects are bound to render obedience to their absolute
rule in things secular. Luther is no democrat like Zwingli,
and leaves no room for individual self-assertion under the
political constitution which he adduces from the Bible.
If all the members of the State were true Christians, the
sword of the ruler would be superfluous, since all would
mould their actions in accordance with the divine will, and
injustice and wrong would not exist. But as society, in
which the true Christians form but a mere fraction, is actually
constituted, the civil power is essential for the prevention
of anarchy and the punishment of evildoers. This being
so, the Gospel does not free the Christian from subjection
to it, as the extremists proclaim in the name of evangelical
freedom. At the same time, there is a limit to its jurisdiction,
and here Luther becomes the prophet of spiritual, if not of
political liberty, in reaction from the mediaeval conception
of the subjection of the individual mind and conscience
to priestly domination operating through the State. The
civil power has no right to intrude into the spiritual sphere,
were it even only as the agent of this priestly domination.
There is an absolute distinction between the spiritual and
the material which the civil power may not ignore. Its
jurisdiction extends only to material and external things.
It has no jurisdiction whatsoever over the soul, no right to
command and enforce its authority in matters of faith.
To do so is to encroach on God's prerogative and the
function of the Word, through which alone He rules the soul.
The prince, therefore, has no right to enforce the decisions
of the Church, the Fathers, or Councils, at the behest of an
ecclesiastical authority which has distorted the faith and

" " Werke," xi. 246.

Luther, Hutten, and Sickingen 173

which is not the Church according to God's Word, but the
apostle of the devil. For the individual soul God's Word
alone is the only standard of truth and obligation. More-
over, faith cannot be engendered by force. God alone can
evoke and nurture it in the soul. At most, force can secure
only an external conformity and foster hypocrisy. Hence
the proverb, " Thought is duty free/' It is, therefore, as
futile as it is contrary to Christ's teaching. " Heresy can
never be warded off by force. ... It can only be overcome
by God's Word. You may burn every Jew and heretic in
the world. You will not convert or overcome a single one
thereby/' 32 The princes, ecclesiastical and secular, who
will not see this are a set of blind fools and tyrants, oppressors
of the bodies and souls of their subjects, who are steering
straight for destruction, and whose misgovernment is ripe
for the judgment of God. Against these tyrants he boldly
maintains the right of the subject not to obey their tyrannical
decrees. He does not say that the subject may actually
resist. It is the duty of the Christian to suffer wrong and
violence, not to repel it. But he shall not yield a hairs-
breadth to their tyranny over soul and conscience in things
spiritual, and must be prepared to suffer gladly under it in
tie conviction that the tyrants will erelong find their judge.
Meanwhile he tells these tyrants in very drastic terms what
he thinks of them. " From the beginning of the world a
wise prince has been a rare bird, a pious one still rarer.
They are usually the greatest f ools, the worst scoundrels on
earth." 33 Whilst he inculcates passive resistance and
assigns their punishment to God, he warns them of the blind
folly of presuming too much on the long-suffering of the
common man, whom their misgovernment is surely driving
to desperation. He reminds them of the text, Effundit
contemptum super principes. " There are few princes whom
the people do not regard as fools and scoundrels. This
comes of their proving themselves to be such. The common
man is becoming intelligent and holds them in contempt.
He will not and cannot suffer your tyranny and arbitrary
rule indefinitely. Make your account with this fact, my dear

" " Werke," xi. 268-269. Ibid., xh 267-268.

174 Luther and the Reformation

princes and lords. God will no longer put up with your
tyranny. The world is no longer the world of the old days,
when you could hunt and harass the people like game. 1 ' 34
Though the prince rules by divine right, this does not imply
that he is entitled to rule as he pleases. They may only
use the sword in the service of justice, and should temper
force by law and reason, which is the highest law. They
shall model their government on the will of God, not merely
on the jurists and their law books, and rule for the common
good, in accordance with Christian duty, not for their own
aggrandisement. Whilst the princes shall show due
obedience to the Emperor as their overlord and be prepared
to suffer injustice at his hands, they are entitled to defend
themselves and their subjects from the aggression of other
princes, and in such a contingency their subjects are bound
to follow them in war. But if they wage war in an unjust
cause, their subjects are not bound to obey and aid them.
No one can be forced to act against the right, and in this case
they are bound to obey God, not man. 35 Though he
recognises the right of war, he urges the application of the
principle of arbitration and the Golden Rule as a surer means
of attaining a just decision and preventing disputes. 36

IL LUTHER AND SOCIAL REFORM

Luther's warning to the princes to beware of the effect
of their misgovernment on the common man erelong proved
to be only too well founded. Within little more than a
year the empire was in the throes of a revolution against
the feudal political and social system, on which the princely
regime was based. It was only the climax of a series of
violent attempts which had periodically occurred in Germany
during the previous half century. This pre-Reformation
revolutionary movement was social and political, not
specifically religious, though it more or less contained a
religious element. It was primarily a movement on behalf
of the emancipation of the masses from the feudal social
system, coupled with the aspiration for a more democratic

Wcrke," xi. 270. Ibid., xi. 277. Ibid., xi. 279.

Luther and Social Reform 175

order in the State in place of the feudal constitution, which
conferred power and privilege on the higher classes. The
striving of the peasants for emancipation from feudal
services and dues was to some extent influenced by the grow-
ing tendency on the part of the landowners to subvert the old
customary law by the application of the principles of the
Roman law, in support of the absolute right of the local
lord over the land and its tillers. Whilst the peasant was
striving to secure the abolition or the modification of his
servile or semi-servile status, his lord was attempting by
means of this expedient to counter this striving and thereby
aggravate and perpetuate his bondage. Similarly, within
the industrial cities there was active discontent on the part
of the working class with the regime of the master gilds on
the score of wages and hours of labour, and the preponderant
influence of the members of these gilds on the municipal
government. Moreover, the revolutionary spirit was intensi-
fied by the economic development which in the late mediaeval
age in Germany, in virtue of a thriving industry and com-
merce, was tending to raise prices and monopolise wealth
in the hands of the merchant class, especially the great
trading companies, to the detriment of the masses in town
and country. 87

17 The phrase " Rising of the Peasants " is, strictly speaking,
insufficient as a designation of the insurrection of 1524-25, in view of
this wider discontent which coalesced in the movement. The social and
economic conditions which produced the Rising have been expounded,
discussed, and summarised in a long series of works from that of Ranke
onwards. See the later works of Janssen, Lamprecht, Bezold, Kautsky,
Lenz, von Below, Schonlank, Bios, Schmoller, etc. One of the most
illuminating and judicial reviews of the subject is given in the recent
work of Stolze, " Der Bauernkrieg und die Reformation," II f. (1926).
The latest elaborate work on the pre-Refonnation movement is that
of Rosenkrantz, " Der Bundschuh, die Erhebungen des sudwest deut-
schen Bauernstandes," 1493-1517 (1927). In English the subject is
treated by Bax, " German Society at the Close of the Middle Ages " ;
Schapiro, "Social Reform and the Reformation" (1909); and in
my ' ' History of Modern Liberty, " i . ( 1 906) . Recent research has tended
to modify in some respects the views of Lamprecht and his school. See
the criticisms of Lenz, " Historische Zeitschrift " (1896), 385 f . ; von
Below/ M Ursachen der Reformation," 57 f., and his review of Kaser's
book in " Historische Zeitschrift " (1902), 100-103.

176 Luther and the Reformation

Very noteworthy is the antagonism to the Church as a
feudal institution in this pre-Reformation revolutionary
movement. Roman Catholic historians are quite mistaken
in their attempt to minimise or ignore the anti-ecclesiastical
element in this movement, and to ascribe that of 1524-25
largely or solely to Luther's influence. The anti-clerical
feature is discernible long before Luther's advent, and it is
highly probable that, even if he had not started the evangel-
ical Reformation, the revolutionary challenge in behalf of
" the Justice of God " (Gerechtigkeit Gottes), as opposed to
the existing oppressive and unjust social order and legal
system, would nevertheless have sounded over a large part
of the empire. " The idea of a great revolution had, during
the previous fifty years, become a fixed idea revolution of
society, revolution of the Church, for the two usually went
hand in hand, though the peasant was, of course, more
immediately concerned with the amelioration of his miserable
lot. Ominous prophecies, elaborate schemes of this great
transformation had passed from lip to lip, nay, had been
written down like any party programme of the present
day. A deliverer should appear (for long it was the
resurrected Frederick II. who should put his hand to
the task of a radical reform of empire and society), and the
outline of his work was ready to his hand. Such an outline
is ' The Reformation of Kaiser Sigismund/ to whom, when
the great Frederick came not, the popular expectation had
eagerly but vainly turned. Another, * The Reformation of
Kaiser Frederick/ had pinned the popular faith to Frederick
III., and then the hopes that the third Frederick disappointed
had sought their realisation in his son, the chivalrous
Maximilian. But the peasants were doomed to discover
again and again that, in spite of the favourable omens which
the astrologers read in the movements of the planets, each
prospective reformer on the imperial throne would not or
could not rise to the height of his humanitarian mission.
The peasant, it was patent, must help himself, must be his
own benefactor, and to this end must unite in a great Bund
or union, and secure by his own brawny arm the Reformation
which kaiser, prelate, prince refused to grant." w

88 Mackianon, " History of Modern Liberty," L 170-171.

Luther and Social Reform 177

During the five years preceding that in which Luther
nailed up his theses against indulgences, there were, in fact,
repeated local attempts to inaugurate this social trans-
formation in Wiirtemberg, Alsace, Baden, and other regions
of South Germany.

At the same time, it is obvious that the religious move-
ment started by Luther could hardly fail to quicken the
revolutionary spirit, ho\vever little he might intend to
sweep away the dominant political and social order by force,
and however much he might strive to dissociate the evangel-
ical movement from this spirit. He himself had appealed
in the " Address to the Nobility " to constituted authority
to take in hand the pressing task of social reform. He did
not lose sight of the subject in the course of nis absorbing
polemic against his theological opponents, and there can
be no doubt that he was genuinely interested in the social
betterment of the people, though he did not regard it as his
specific mission as a religious reformer to concern himself
with social, economic, and political reform, and professed
his unfitness to intrude into this sphere. In the very
summer of 1524 in which the revolution broke out, he attacked
the new commercial system in his tractate on " Commerce
and Usury/' 39 He does so more from the theological and
moral standpoint than in accordance with the new economic
outlook. In this respect his political economy is rather
antiquated, and while he shows a remarkable knowledge of
the business methods and transactions of his time, he has
not grasped the economic principles which were operating
the transformation from the mediaeval to the modern
commercial and financial system. What, as a Christian
moralist, he sees and condemns in this system is the tendency
to concentrate undue wealth in the hands of individuals and
trading associations. This tendency he ascribes purely to
the greed of the merchant class in which " there are few who
would rather be poor with God than rich with the devil." *
The new commercial system is, therefore, both unchristian
and detrimental to the commonweal, and he goes so far as

* Von Kaufshandlung und Wucher, in which he incorporated his
sermon on Wucher of 1520. " Werke," xv. 293 f.
40 Ibid., xv. 293.

178 Luther and the Reformation

to denounce the import trade with foreign countries like
England, Portugal, India, which drains Germany of its gold
for the benefit of the merchants and impoverishes the people,
and by raising prices diminishes its capacity to buy the
necessaries of life. He shares the idea that the wealth of
a country consists in money, and that its prosperity depends
on keeping its money within its own borders. The new com-
mercialism, he insists, has transformed the merchant class into
a set of extortioners and usurers and is incompatible with
Christian altruism, which seeks the good not of self but of
others. The rascally merchant, whose striving is to sell
his wares at as high a price as possible, lives by the plunder
of his neighbour, lends his ill-gotten wealth at a high
interest, which he would limit to the Mosaic standard,
sells his goods on credit, gets thereby the property of his
neighbour into his clutches, buys up certain articles in
order to monopolise the sale of them, and thus secures an
undue profit. The whole system is steeped in trickery,
is, in fact, pure swindling, which makes these swindlers
richer than emperors and kings. No one ought to have
the right or the power to charge more than a fair price.
Those who do so are thieves and robbers, and it is the duty
of kings and princes to take drastic measures against these
plunderers. The appeal to the Christian conscience being
ineffectual, the secular princes would, he thinks, act quite
rightly in seizing the goods of these financiers and rings and
driving them out of the country. 41 Unfortunately, kings
and princes are mostly hand and glove with these thieves
and robbers. They hang a thief who steals a gulden and
traffic with those who rob all the world. Hence the proverb,
" Great thieves hang the small ones/'

All this is, of course, one-sided and lacking in scientific
insight as a diagnosis of the economic development of the
time. 42 But it did bring into relief some of the
objectionable features of the new system and, as the dis-

41 " Werke," xv. 307.

48 See the Introduction to the tractate in ibid,, xv. 279 f., and the
special reviews of Schmoller, Wiskemann, Roscher, Uhlhorn, Kluck-
holm, Nathusius, etc. A summary of the tractate is given by Waring,
*' The Political Theories of Martin Luther," 213 f. (1910).

Luther and Social Reform 179

cussions and demands in the Diets at Niirnberg show, it
appealed to a widespread public opinion which, if equally
incapable of understanding the economic forces at work in
undermining the old system, was none the less resentful
and restive on this account. Whilst Luther seeks a remedy,
not in revolution, but in an appeal to conscience and
constituted authority (the Diet and the local governments),
he does not mince words in denouncing the system and its
abettors. The evil has become intolerable, and in flaming
language he proclaims the judgment of God on it and them.
God is at hand with His scourge. What if the people takes
the divine scourge into its own hands and starts the revolu-
tion which Luther would certainly not consciously encourage,
far less sanction ? He assuredly cannot be accused of
subservience to the rich middle class of the towns in the
interest of the evangelical movement, though this movement
found material support in this class.

In his attack on Rome he had also at times made use of
very revolutionary language. This attack, even within the
limits he had set himself, was revolutionary enough, and the
principles of the new theology undoubtedly contained demo-
cratic implications. The watchword of his religious teaching
was liberty liberty for the individual Christian from the
religious trammels of the past, from the domination of
Rome, and the Roman ecclesiastical system. His doctrine
of the priesthood of all believers involved the equal rights of
all Christians as such, the ideal of a spiritual democracy.
His conception of the autonomous religious community
freely recognised the right of its members to a controlling
voice in its government. In the early stage of the
evangelical movement it seemed, in view of these democratic
implications of his religious teaching, as if he were destined
to be the leader of a larger Reformation than he himself wot
of, or was really fitted to achieve. The people might well see
in him the long-looked for champion of the new order in the
State and society as well as in the Church, which the popular
seers had foretold and the popular agitator had vainly
attempted to realise. Again and again he had protested
against the oppression of the common man, pleaded for a
more equitable system of government, and warned prince

180 Luther and the Reformation

and prelate of the retribution which their misgovermnent
invited. It was, however, as the theologian and the religious
leader that he trenched on this wider sphere. As a theo-
logian and a religious reformer he sharply differentiated
between the spiritual and the temporal, the things of the
soul and the things of the world. Whilst he would Christianise
the State, and recognised its ethical function, he exempted
the individual soul in its relation to God from its domination.
Civil government has to do with the body, not the soul, and
the things of the body are of immeasurably less consequence
than the salvation of the soul, which is the thing that really
matters. Outside the religious sphere the Christian is called
on to suffer, to submit to his lot in an evil world, as part of
God's discipline, without demur- There is no necessary con-
nection between religious and social and political reform.

III. THE RADICAL PARTY AND SOCIAL REFORM

In this respect Luther did not really understand the
tendency of the religious movement he inaugurated, and
erelong the movement threatened to go farther and faster
than he contemplated to develop a more radical, subjective,
and democratic character. The result was the disruption
of the Reformation party, and this disruption is of great
significance for the connection of the social Revolution with
the religious Reformation. While, on the one hand, it
tended to set Luther against the revolutionary spirit with
which his radical opponents sympathised, and to which
he was otherwise by principle and predilection opposed,
it provided, on the other, a link between the religious and
the social movement. Carlstadt not only preached a more
radical religious Reformation than commended itself to
Luther, He had far more sympathy with the democratic
aspirations of the masses, though he was not an advocate
of revolutionary violence and had refused to make common
cause with extremists like Miinzer. 43 Similarly, reforming
preachers like Strauss at Eisenach, Schappler at Memmingen,

** Barge, ii. 14-16, 114-117.

Radical Party and Social Reform 181

Jacob Wehe at Leipheim, Hubmaier at Waldshut, Waibel
at Kempten, inveighed against the oppression of the masses
and actively abetted their demands for redress. Many of
the emancipated monks took the same side and preached the
necessity of a social as well as a religious Reformation.

Only the extreme left wing of this more advanced section
of the reform party went the length of advocating a blood-red
revolution and the forcible inauguration of the kingdom of
God. This extreme left had started into existence with
the prophets of Zwickau, whom Luther had repudiated from
the first. Its leading spirit was Thomas Miinzer, who had
been expelled from Zwickau in the spring of 1521, and had
actively pursued his vocation in various places as the divinely
commissioned emissary of the Holy Spirit. 44 He was no
mere fanatical windbag who, like the ordinary religious
ranter, claimed for presumptuous ignorance a monopoly of
divine wisdom. Like Stiibner he had had the benefit of a
university education at Leipzig and Frankfurt, and like
Luther himself, whose acquaintance he made at the Leipzig
Disputation and who in 1520 recommended him for a pastoral
charge at Zwickau, 45 he had been an earnest seeker after
truth in his own independent fashion. 46 At Zwickau he
still appears as his disciple, and started preaching against
the monks and priestly ecclesiastical usages and dogmas
at first with the approval of the Town Council and the
applause of the townsfolk. 47 From this beginning he quickly

44 On Munzer, see Seidemann, " Thomas Munzer " (1842) ; Enders,
" Flugschriften," x. (Niemeyer); Forstemann, " Neues Urkundenbuch
zur Geschichte der evangehschen Kirchenreformation " (1842) ; Kolde,
art. " Munzer" in Herzog-Hauck, " Encyclopadie " (1903); Nathusius,
" Christlich-Sociale Ideen der Reformationszeit " (1897). The latest
works on Munzer are those of Ernst Bloch, " Th. Munzer, Theologe der
Revolution " (1922) ; Zimmermann, " Thomas Munzer," a moderate and
careful biography (1925) ; Hohl, " Luther und die Schwarmer, Gesam-
melte Aufsatze " (1927), a detailed exposition of his teaching ; Boehmer,
" Studien zu Th. Muntzer " (1922), a valuable critical review ; Walter,
%< Thomas Munzer et les Luttes Sociales " (192?)-

45 Enders, ii. 404.

4i On his remarkable learning and keenness for study, see Boehmer,
" Studien zu Thomas Muntzer," 15-17*

47 See his letter to Luther, Enders, ii. 435-438, 1 3& J ul Y

i8a Luther and the Reformation

developed into the stormy petrel of the evangelical move-
ment and alienated the Lutherans of the town as well as
the orthodox clergy by his aggressive diatribes on behalf of
a purely spiritual religion. " A man born for schism and
heresies/' wrote Egranus, the reforming priest of St Mary's,
who was an enthusiastic disciple of Erasmus, and whose locum
tenens he had been before being transferred to the parish
of St Catherine. 48 From the same aggrieved source we
learn that, with the aid of laymen like the master weaver,
Nicolas Storch, and Stiibner, he had gathered round him
a zealous following which professed to be the true spiritual
Church, and appealed to the inner Word as a higher authority
than the Scriptures. 49 Like Luther, he had studied Tauler
and the mediaeval mystics and assimilated their teaching
on the inner light and the direct inspiration of the Spirit,
who makes use of laymen, in preference to the clergy, as His
mouthpiece. He now discarded the Lutheran doctrine of
the supreme authority of the written Word for that of the
direct inspiration of the believer in communion with God.
With this direct revelation by means of dreams and ecstatic
visions he combined the sectarian tendency to see in his
faction the elect people of God, from which all unbelievers
are to be excluded, by force if need be. His aggressive
spiritualism became so subversive of public order that the
Town Council determined to take proceedings against him
in April 1521. Rather than face the ordeal, he fled from
Zwickau and, along with Stiibner, betook himself to Prague
in the hope of finding in the land of John Hus and the
Taborites a more fertile soil for his subjective message.
On the 26th May he proclaimed himself in a public manifesto
the prophet of the living Word which God inspires in the
heart of the elect, and which is not confined to the Scripture,
but, as in the prophets of old, continues to illuminate the
pious soul throughout the ages. To this living Word the
Church and the Biblical theologians (Luther and his col-
leagues are meant, though not named) have been impervious,
and the time has come to revive it in the new Church of the

48 Enders, iii. 395. Egranus to Luther, June 1522.

49 Ibid., iii. 395. Qui neque amicorum consiliis, neque scripturarum
autoritatibus obsequatur, sed suo innixus spiritui meras factiones excitat.

Radical Party and Social Reform 183

elect which, since the days of the Apostles and their disciples,
has been corrupted by the spiritual adultery of the clerical
order. 60 The project of the new prophet was nipped in the
bud by the Town Council, which placed him under police
supervision. Thus baffled, though not disillusioned, he left
Bohemia, and during the next two years wandered about
Thuringia in search of a new sphere. In the course of these
wanderings he seems to have visited Wittenberg 51 and
consorted with Carlstadt, if not with Luther. Ultimately
he turned up at Alstedt, near Eisleben, in the spring of 1523,
and was installed by the Town Council as preacher in the
Church of St John. Here he introduced a reformed order
of worship in the vernacular on scriptural and evangelical
lines, in spite of his depreciation of the written Word. 52
It is a remarkable production from both the literary and the
devotional point of view. Had he confined himself to the
religious sphere, he might have rendered material service
to the Reformation as the exponent of a less dogmatic and
more experimental Christianity than Luther evolved. In
a conciliatory letter to the Reformer on the gth July, in
answer to one written apparently in a friendly spirit (Luther's
letter has not been preserved), he emphasises the conformity
of the will to that of the crucified Christ through suffering
and conflict, and the testimony of his indwelling spirit as
the test of truth and true piety. Whilst rating highly
scriptural revelation, with which all revelation must be in
conformity, he recognises the fact of a continued revelation
in communion with the living God, disclaims responsibility
for the opinions or professions of the prophets, maintains an
independent attitude, and complains of the calumnies of
Egranus and other enemies. He claims the right, on the
ground of John xvi. 13, " When the spirit of truth is come
he shall guide you into all truth," to believe in a personal

50 The manifesto is given by Zimmermann, " Thomas Munzer," 58 f.,
and by Walter, " Th. Munzer," 342 f. ; Walter differs from Zimmer-
mann in dating it ist Nov. 1521, " Th. Munzer," 80.

61 Luther (" Werke," xv. 214) speaks of Munzer's visiting Witten-
berg, and implies that he had had an interview with him, which Munzer
subsequently denied.

" The three liturgies composed by him are given by Sehling, i. 472 f .

184 Luther and the Reformation

revelation, and evidently will not tie himself down to a
dogmatic Biblicism, though he adopts a deferential tone
towards Luther personally. 63 There was more reason and
even more religion in his contention than the Reformer and
his fellow-theologians were able or fitted to perceive. On
Luther it made the worst possible impression. " Miinzer,"
he wrote to Spalatin on the 3rd August 1523, " must be either
mad or drunk." M The idea of a progressive revelation in
accordance with the intellectual development and the
religious experience of the believer was, nevertheless, not in
itself either irreligious or unevangelical. The danger lay in the
tendency, in ill-balanced minds like Miinzer and the prophets,
to self-deception and extravagant fancy, especially if it took
the form of a fantastic and fanatic apocalyptic. Luther's
test of a fresh revelation was, as we have seen, a miracle or
other incontestable proof of divine authentication. Dreams
and ecstatic visions were not for him necessarily reliable
credentials of divine illumination. The miracle test is a
narrow and artificial one, as a Savonarola had found to his
cost. In any case, revelation, whether new or old, must be
in accord with the rational and moral nature of man, especi-
ally if it would insist in intruding itself into the social and
political as well as the purely spiritual sphere. It is only
too evident from the sequel of his stormy and tragic activity
that, in preaching the repression of the wicked by the sword
and the violent reconstruction of the Church and society,
Miinzer was all too prone to substitute his own fanatic
fancies for the Decalogue and the ethical teaching of the
New Testament as the standard of right and wrong. Whilst
insisting, and doubtless sincerely insisting, that the individual
Christian life should be the concrete expression of the
indwelling Christ, he did appeal to the lower passions of the
masses and incite them to indiscriminate violence and
outrage against " the ungodly," as the indispensable pre-
liminary of the establishment of the new Church, the kingdom
of God's elect on earth.

The apologetic and moderate tone of the letter to Luther
evidently did not express the real spirit of the man or the

" Enders f iv. 169-172. Ibid., iv. 201 ; cf. 359.

Radical Party and Social Reform 185

whole content of his teaching. There can be no doubt
that, as the two effusions 66 which he issued from the press
early in 1524 show, he was conscious of a deep rift between
his teaching and that of the Wittenberg Reformer, though
he had learned much from him as well as from his own
independent reflection. Whilst Luther recognised no
supreme authority in religion outside the written Word,
Miinzer found this authority in the inner Word by which
God continues to inspire the individual believer, as in the
case of the prophets of old. Revelation is not confined
to the past, but continues in the immanent Word uttering
itself in the elect soul attuned to God. In virtue of this
immanent revelation the peasant may know more of God
than the most learned theologian, though it is necessary to
guard against deception. For Luther justifying faith,
operated by the Spirit through the written Word, or promise
of God in the Gospel, is the sole ground and medium of
salvation. For Miinzer the faith that saves is the fruit of
the direct revelation of God in the soul, not a mere second-
hand apprehension of the teaching of Scripture. The
Scripture is, indeed, " a testimony to faith." But it is not
the source or the inspiration of saving faith which is due
solely to the direct working of the Spirit in the troubled
heart that waits for the divine voice within to deliver it from
the misery and despair of an accusing conscience. Moreover,
such a "borrowed faith" as Luther proclaims as the sole
requisite of justification, to the exclusion of works, tends to
make the way of salvation too easy and leads the believer, in
self-deception and self-gratification, to shun the way of the
Cross. By stressing the Augustinian doctrine of the im-
potence of the will, Luther deadens the moral sense and
kills individual initiative. Again, for Luther the Church
is the invisible communion of the saints, and the use of force
in the interest of this spiritual communion is absolutely
inadmissible. For Miinzer it is the visible community of the
elect, strictly separated from and aggressively antagonistic
to the world, and the reign of the saints on earth which it

56 " Protestation oder Empietung Tome Muntzer's," 1524 (copy in
Edinburgh University Collection of Reformation pamphlets), and
" Von dem getichten Glawben," 1524*

1 86 Luther and the Reformation

is the object of this community to realise can only be estab-
lished by the repression or the destruction of the wicked.
In addition, infant baptism, which Luther would retain as
a divine ordinance, is emphatically rejected as a qualifica-
tion for membership of the elect community, though
Miinzer does not advocate adult baptism, like some of his
fellow-prophets, and only insists that children should
only be baptized after instruction in the true faith as he
interprets it.

In view of this radical divergence in important respects
from Luther's teaching, the specious tone of the letter of
the Qth July 1523 is, to say the least, misleading. In spite
of some affinities, it is evident that the Reformer of Alstedt
had, in his revulsion from the mediaeval Church, far outrun
the Reformer of Wittenberg in his programme of a new order
in Church and State, founded on the democratic regime of
the elect people of God. At Alstedt he set himself to
foment and organise a thoroughgoing revolution of both,
and in so doing not only denounced Luther's teaching, but pro-
claimed the gospel of violence by which alone the apocalyptic
kingdom of God could be established on earth. This gospel
he did not hesitate to preach in the presence of the Elector
himself and his brother, Duke John, in the castle of Alstedt,
on the i3th July 1524, in a sermon in which he inveighed
against the Biblical theologians (Luther and his colleagues)
and summoned the Saxon princes to draw the sword on behalf
of the true faith against its ungodly enemies in Church and
State. " The ungodly have no right to live farther than the
elect shall accord them." 56

This violent sermon, to which the Elector and his brother
listened with remarkable tolerance, brought Luther into the
arena with a " Missive to the Princes on the Revolutionary
Spirit/' 57 For Luther, Miinzer is clearly one of those false
prophets whom Satan has inspired to distort the Gospel,

" Summaries of the sermon are given by Zimmermann (" Miinzer,"
105 f.) and Walter (" Munzer," 126-127), from the version of it which
Miinzer published.

57 " Werke," xv. 210 f. Ein Brief an die Ffirsten zu Sachsen von
dem aufruhrischen Geist. Spalatin had sent the sermon to Luther,
Enders, iv. 371.

Radical Party and Social Reform 187

and who, like the Pope, have given rise to sects and heresies
throughout the centuries. He utterly rejects a superior
spiritual illumination which preaches the use of the sword
in the service of reform, the establishment of the kingdom
of God on earth by murderous violence. Did not Christ say
in the presence of Pilate, " My kingdom is not of this world " ?
The spirit that inspires these fanatic visionaries to burn
chapels, as at Mallenbach, is not of God, but of the devil.
The test of the possession of the Holy Spirit is not spiritual
arrogance and mob violence, but love, joy, peace, long-
suffering, meekness, as Paul teaches, and the keeping of
God's commandments. At the same time, he would not
deny them the right of their opinions. Let them preach,
argue, agitate without stint on behalf of the truth. The
truth will know how to take care of itself. Controversy,
conflict of wits in matters theological are inevitable, nay
indispensable. " Let them, therefore, preach as much as
they like and against whom they please. Sects there ever
will be, for the Word of God must take the field and fight.
. . . Allow opposing minds to draw and hit out on each
other. If some should be misled, well, this is the way of
war. Where there is strife, battle, some must fall and suffer
wounds in the melee. He that fights best will gain the
crown/' 58 Luther is still the champion of the free exchange
of opinion in the cause of truth, and Miinzer certainly did
not owe to him his doctrine of an armed crusade on behalf
of his apocalyptic kingdom of God. His appeal to force
in the repression of error is merely that of the mediaeval
Church applied from a different angle and for a different
end. But for Luther there is a limit beyond which tolerance
may not go. If the disputants will not be content to fight
with arguments on behalf of their opinions and will needs
have recourse to blows, then the princes must intervene
and forbid them their dominions, whether they are Lutherans
or non-Lutherans. " For we, who concern ourselves with
the Word of God, may not strive with our fists. We are
engaged in a spiritual strife, the object of which is to wrest
heart and soul from the dominion of the devil. To preach

8 " Werke," xv. 218-219.

1 88 Luther and the Reformation

and suffer is our office, not to strike blows and defend our-
selves by force. Christ and His Apostles did not burn
churches and throw down images. They won hearts by
means of God's Word, and thereby the temples and images
fell of themselves/ 1

In consequence of this missive and the excesses committed
by his adherents, Miinzer was summoned to a hearing at
Weimar on the 1st August 1524. A week later he deemed
it prudent to forestall a second inquisition by slipping out of
Alstedt and betaJdng himself to the free imperial city of
Miihlhausen, where the ex-monk Pfeiffer was preaching the
revolutionary crusade. Luther again intervened with a
warning to the Town Council, 60 which contributed to bring
about the banishment of both in the end of September.
Thence Miinzer betook himself to Niirnberg and south-west
Germany, preaching and writing against Luther in the most
violent terms as he went.* His agitation in behalf of his
fanatic gospel found little favour with the more moderate
preachers of a social Reformation in South Germany, and
it was only in Thuringia, after his return to Miihlhausen at
the beginning of 1525, that he ultimately succeeded in
impressing to a certain extent * his fanaticism on the local
revolutionary movement.

IV, THE RISING OF THE PEASANTS

This movement began in June 1524 at Stiihlingen in the
south-west corner of the Black Forest in the rising of the
peasants of the Count of Lupfen, in protest against the com-
mand of the countess to gather strawberries and snail shells in
harvest time. This particular grievance appears to have been

" Werke," xv. 219. o Md., xy. 23 8 f.

" Particularly in his " Schutzrede und Antwort auf das Geistlose und
sanft liebende Fleisch zu Wittenberg." Given by Enders, No. 118 of
Niemeyer's " Neudrucke," and in his " Ausgetriickte emplossrog des
falschen Glaubens." A summary of both is given by Walter, "Th.
Munzer," 350 f.

** As Zimmennann has shown, his influence on the movement, even
in Thuringia, has been considerably overestimated.

The Rising of the Peasants 189

merely the pretext for a revolt against the whole agrarian
system, and in a number of articles the peasants proceeded
to arraign this system. They complain of the seizure by
the lord of the common lands, his exclusive use of the forests
and streams, forced labour, which interferes with the proper
cultivation of the peasant's holding, and other servile
burdens, the strict preservation of game which destroys the
crops, the arbitrary administration of justice, etc. From
these articles it appears that the peasant is the victim of
intolerable oppression and injustice which he is determined
forcibly to amend or end, and for this purpose the people
of the Hegau and Kletgau in August 1524 band themselves
together over 1,000 strong under the agitator and ex-lands-
knecht, Hans Miiller of Bulgenbach, and march to Waldshut,
which Hubmaier had won for the Reformation, and which
was in revolt against the Austrian Government. The Wald-
shutters welcomed the rustic band as brothers in a common
cause, though the peasants were apparently not adherents
of the religious Reformation, and the articles are concerned
with the rectification of purely social abuses. The association
of the two movements is, however, symptomatic of the trend
towards the Christian Brotherhood into which the rising,
as it widened its area, was to develop in South Germany.
Equally significant the alliance of the agrarian with the
discontented element in the towns, which was also to become
a distinctive feature of the movement.

From this small beginning it spread during the autumn
and winter of 1524-25 by means of agitation and organisa-
tion over the whole of Upper Swabia and Wiirtemberg, as
far east as Memmingen and Kempten. The effort of the
Swabian League to temporise by means of negotiation failed,
and even the repulse of the exiled Duke of Wiirtemberg, who
sought to turn the movement to account in an attempt
to recover his duchy, did not overawe the insurrectionary
spirit. Duke Ulrich was compelled to halt in his march on
Stuttgart against the forces of the League by the desertion
of his Swiss mercenaries and seek refuge in his castle of
Hohentwiel (March 1525). The insurrection nevertheless
continued to extend. George Truchsess, Count of Waldburg,
the League's general, might rout a peasant band here and

190 Luther and the Reformation

there, which ran away at the first shot, and negotiate with
others. The attempt to localise the outbreak was hopeless,
and the forces of the League were helpless to cope with the
ever-swelling numbers of the insurgents. The war in Italy
had drained the country of troops, and after the victory of
Pavia large numbers of the returning landsknechts would
not fight against the peasant class, to which they belonged,
or joined their ranks. Moreover, it was no longer a question
of rebellion in Swabia. By the spring of 1525 the revolution
had spread north, east, west northwards into Franconia,
the Odenwald, the Neckerwald, Hesse, the Rheingau,
Thuringia, Saxony, Brunswick ; westwards from the Black
Forest and Baden into Alsace-Lorraine, Treves ; eastwards
into Salzburg, the Tyrol, Carinthia, Styria. The proletariat
in the towns as well as the peasants in the country were
seized by the revolutionary contagion. Two-thirds of the
empire were ablaze with revolution. Verily, Luther's
denunciation of the judgment of God against the princes and
the magnates had been fulfilled with a terrible swiftness.

It is difficult to generalise a movement so widespread
as this. We might call it a social revolution based on the
" divine justice " (the popular phrase) as revealed in the Bible,
and this description applies at least to some of the peasant
programmes, especially to the most famous of them, the
Twelve Articles adopted by the peasants of Upper Swabia
at Memmingen in March 1525 and very widely accepted.
Their authorship is unknown, but both Schappeler and
Hubmaier were credited with having a hand in them. 63
The influence of the religious Reformation is unmistakable
in the appeal to the Word of God, " the New Gospel/' as
the arbiter of social justice, and in the consciousness of the
rights of the individual Christian. The disclaimer of any
intention to overthrow all authority secular and spiritual
and establish a pure anarchy, which is a slander of their

11 See the contemporary testimonies in Boehmer, " Urkunden zur
Geschichte des Bauernkrieges," Kleine Texte, Nos. 50-51, 11-16 (1910).
See also the summary of the discussion on the question in Schapiro,
" Social Reform and the Reformation," 132 f. ; W. Mau, " Bait.
Hubmaier," 49 f. (1912) ; Karl Sachsse, " B. Hubmaier als Theologe,"
106-109 (I9H); Stolze, "Bauernkrieg und Reformation, " 82.

The Rising of the Peasants 191

Antichristian adversaries, is also in keeping with the profession
of the more moderate democratic preachers of the type of
a Schappeler. The Gospel, the peasants insist, is no cause
of rebellion, since it teaches only love, peace, patience, and
unity, and the aim of the articles is to ensure " that men
should hear the Gospel and live in accordance therewith/*
They are meant, in a word, to establish the ideal of a Christian
Brotherhood in place of an intolerable social order. To this
end the first article demands for the community, in accordance
with certain scriptural passages, the right to choose its
pastor, who shall preach the Gospel without any addition of
man, and, in case of unseemly life, to displace him. They
are willing, according to the second article, to pay the great
tithe of corn, which has the sanction of the Old Testament,
for the support of the preacher of the pure Gospel and of the
poor, and to devote any residue to the public service, in
case of war, in lieu of a general tax. The small tithe (of a
head of cattle) they will on no account pay to any lord,
spiritual or temporal, " since God has created the beast for
the free use of man." (More texts.) The third article declares
their determination to submit no longer to villainage, which
is incompatible with the Gospel. They do not disclaim
obedience to lawful authority, but as Christians they are
free, and free they will be. (More scriptural references.)
Further, by the fourth article, they are entitled, according
to the Word of God, to their share of game and fish, for
God hath given a right to all men to the fowls of the air and
the fish in the water. Anyone who cannot prove the
purchase of " a water " must restore it to the community,
and the excessive preservation of game by the lord must
cease. (See Gen. i., Cor. x., etc.) Similarly in regard to
the woods, the fifth article declares them forfeited to the
people in the case of lords who have not purchased them.
In the sixth article they insist on the diminution of the
oppressive services demanded by the lords (see Rom. x.),
and in the seventh, the lord shall observe the ancient agree-
ments with the peasants, shall not oppress them, suad shall
not require them to render service at an unseasonable time,
and even then shall pay them a fair price for this labour.
(References to Luke's Gospel and the Epistle to the Thessa-

192 Luther and the Reformation

lonians.) The eighth demands a fair rent for their holdings
(Matt, x.) ; the ninth protests against unjust punishments,
which contravene the ancient written law (four texts quoted) ;
the tenth against the usurpation of the common lands, which
they will take back in all cases where they have not been
honestly purchased. The eleventh denounces the death due
(heriot) as an unmerciful oppression of widows and orphans,
and demands its entire abolition. (More texts.) Finally,
they agree to resile from any of these articles that may be
found contrary to God's Word. 64

The moderate, persuasive tone of these articles is surpris-
ing. The peasants will not use force except in the last resort
and against glaring abuses, which were really indefensible
from the Christian standpoint. They are ready to reason
and compromise in a brotherly spirit. Brotherly love and
the Gospel are to decide in all contentious matters. Arbitra-
tion in a Christian spirit is the method they would fain apply.
The method is admirable. But it was one which the
privileged party was not minded to adopt where vested
interests clashed with demands based on ideal justice,
Christian equity, and in organising to enforce these demands,
if need be, the peasants were taking the only course that could
bring about their practical realisation. Unfortunately, in
view of the bitter spirit begotten by oppression and the
antagonism of the dominant class to a revolution based on
professedly Christian principles, there was little chance that
the Christian spirit of the articles would effectively avail
to restrain the rising flood of popular passion, now that it
had come to an actual trial of strength between the two
parties. It would simply be a struggle conducted with all
the expedients of pillage and plunder of mediaeval warfare.

Moreover, the Christian spirit is by no means so marked
in other revolutionary programmes. They are less scriptural
and more aggressive in tone and mingle political demands
with the redress of social grievances. The peasants of
Alsace-Lorraine, for instance, demand the preaching of the
true Gospel. But they also insist on their rights as men
and wfll amply take back the common lands without

Mackinnon, " History of Modern Liberty," ii. 80.

The Rising of the Peasants 193

discussion. They have political as well as social aspirations.
They are ready to own allegiance to the Emperor, but they
will not recognise any other authority that is not in accord
with the people's will. The men of Tyrol, as voiced by
Michael Gaismeyr, similarly demand, in addition to the pure
Gospel and the right to elect their pastors, the establishment
of popular government under the central authority of the
Archduke Ferdinand, the secularisation of ecclesiastical
property, the abolition of feudal institutions, secular and
ecclesiastical, and equal law and justice without distinction
of class. In a subsequent programme (June 1526) these
demands are amplified in a more radical direction, including
the uprooting of all godless persons who oppress the people
and hinder the general welfare In other programmes all
hereditary authority is abolished, and the idea of a republic
based on the sovereignty of the people, along with complete
social equality and the right to deprive and depose all rulers
and superiors, finds decisive expression. 85 In contrast to
such passionate appeals on behalf of the sovereignty of the
people is the statesmanlike programme of imperial reform
on the basis of existing institutions, formulated by Hipler
and Weigant, who adapted the so-called " Reformation of
Kaiser Frederick III/' to this end, and strove to organise
and direct the revolution by means of a central committee
at Heilbronn. It is couched in the spirit of the Twelve
Articles. But it is more constructive and its scope is much
wider. Whilst it demands the secularisation of ecclesiastical
property for the common good, it allows compensation for
loss incurred thereby. Here, too, the community shall choose
and support its pastor, who shall concern himself solely
with his spiritual functions. The old social hierarchy of
princes, counts, knights, squires, burghers, and peasants
shall remain. But the higher classes shall cease to oppress
the people and act towards them in a Christian spirit, shall
lose their feudal jurisdiction, and become imperial officials,
administrators of the central imperial authority. All leagues
within the empire shall cease, and equal law and justice be
meted out in accordance with natural right. To this end a

See " History of Modern Liberty," ii. 83 f.

194 Luther and the Reformation

series of courts, from the Supreme Imperial Court (Reichs-
kammevgerickf) downwards to the Court of the Rural Commune,
shall be established, and each class shall have its share in the
administration of justice. From these courts doctors of the
Roman law shall be excluded and be relegated to the lecture
rooms of the universities. Taxes, tolls, and other oppressive
exactions shall cease. The Emperor only shall be entitled
to levy a general tax every ten years, and the oppressive
monopolist companies be abolished. Finally, all classes in
this ref onned empire are to live in brotherly love and conform
to the law of God and nature as well as the law of the land.

Finally, there is the theocratic revolution which Miinzer
was striving to realise iii Thuringia from his centre at
Miihlhausen. Its root idea is a fantastic communism 66
to be established by the sword. Its redeeming feature is
the undoubted sympathy with the common man which
animates it, but which could only end in the establishment of
the worst form of tyranny that of the so-called theocracy
of the elect, the kingdom of God based on fanaticism and
force.

In most of these programmes the influence of the religious
Reformation is unmistakable. The Lutheran movement had
evidently taten a far-reaching grip of the people in Southern
and Central Germany. The appeal to " the Gospel " as
the standard of religious, political, and social institutions,
which makes itself so generally heard, is clearly a reflection
of the response of the common man over a large part of the
empire to his religioiis message. In this message the common
man has evidently seen the dawn of a new era in Church, in
State, and in society. For him the Reformation is not
merely a new theology and a reformed Church in accordance
therewith. It involved a new social system in the spirit of
" the Gospel," as Luther had rediscovered it, and warranted
him in applying, if need be, by force the right of revolt
against an unchristian regime, which was a principle
of mediaeval political thought, if not of Luther himself. The

i Certain of his utterances in his sermons and letters are susceptible
of a communist interpretation, Walter questions this interpretation
and concludes that he had not definitely worked out a communist recon-
struction of society, " Th. Munzer," 359 f.

The Rising of the Peasants 195

use of the term in these programmes may not necessarily
always denote the Gospel in the evangelical sense, or invari-
ably imply that those who appealed to the Gospel on behalf
of " the justice of God " were confirmed followers of Luther.
The general antagonism to the secularised Church, which
long before his appearance had characterised the pre-
Reformation revolutionary movement, is sufficient to remind
us that such antagonism was not necessarily an indication
of adherence to the evangelical movement. The common
man had appealed to the Gospel as the arbiter of social
justice before Luther's advent, and this appeal could quite
well consort with adherence to the Gospel in the traditional
sense. Moreover, the specific reforms based on the Gospel
were largely a reflection of those which are found in the
Reformation programmes of the fifteenth century. The
peasant Rising was undoubtedly inspired by mundane as
well as religious motives, and the generally accepted view
is that the former were primary, the latter only secondary.
At the same time, it is evident that the appeal to the Gospel,
especially in the Twelve Articles, which, with local variations,
were very widely accepted as the common aspiration of the
peasant bands, was inspired by Luther's teaching, as inter-
preted by the more advanced preachers. It is not without
significance in this connection that the insurgents submitted
these Articles for his judgment, in the belief that they em-
bodied the practical implications of his teaching. Moreover,
there is ground for the conclusion that the Rising was an
attempt to frustrate the reaction against this teaching
which the South German princes, secular and ecclesiastical,
had united at Ratisbon to bring about in their respective
territories, and which was already finding expression in the
persecution of the evangelical preachers and the adherents
of Luther in Austria and Bavaria. Recent writers like
Stolze 67 find, in fact, the main explanation of the actual
insurrectionary outbreak on a large scale in the widespread
determination of the common man to seize the opportunity
of the war between the Emperor and Francis I. to defend and
vindicate a movement with which he identified his own

7 " Bauernkrieg 1 und Reformation,*' 46 f. (1926).

196 Luther and the Reformation

cause, and in the triumph of which he saw the realisation
of his own aspirations. The reasoning which leads to this
conclusion may not always be convincing, especially in cases
where direct evidence is lacking. The striving for social and
political reformation was too deep-seated, too well founded
on the grievances of the common man against the oppressive
feudal system in Church and State to be a mere appendage
of the defence of the religious Reformation. Nevertheless the
evangelical influence was a very real factor in the moulding
of the insurrectionary movement. The appeal to the Gospel
in the Twelve Articles was no mere tag of the party and
class programme, but a serious attempt to achieve a new
social and religious order in the spirit of the new teaching,
and is by no means to be identified with the crude fanaticism
of a Miinzer, whose influence was very limited, and who
cannot fairly be taken as the type of the responsible peasant
leader.

Arbitration in the spirit of the Twelve Articles proving
visionary, the movement in the spring and summer of 1525
took the form of a trial of strength between the opposing
forces. The peasant bands conducted the revolutionary
campaign in accordance with the predatory warfare of the
time. In those days burning and plundering were accounted
fair tactics even in ordinary warfare. Not only had the
robber knight set them a bad example. Kings and their
generals, and even high Church dignitaries at times, had
committed ravage and arson in wartime all through the
Middle Ages as a matter of course. That the peasant bands
should do likewise is not, therefore, surprising in view of
the military practice of the age. If emperor, kings, princes,
and lords systematically indulged in this brutal practice in
regular warfare, it is hardly to be expected that the peasants
would observe a higher standard in their irregular operations,
though it certainly is not obvious that their mode of
operations could be made to tally with the divine justice
based on the Gospel which they professed to vindicate.
Specially noteworthy is the violence directed against the
property of ecclesiastical lords, against which the attack
was, in fact, in the first instance levelled. The peasant
bands sacked monasteries and even churches before directing

The Rising of the Peasants 197

their fury against the castles of the lords who actively
opposed the movement or refused to yield their demands.
They smashed images and relics, burned Mass books and the
tomes of the schoolmen, and even spilled the sacramental
wine, as emblems of Antichrist. They thus drastically gave
vent not only to their instinct for plunder, but to their
contempt for a feudalised and secularised Church which had
fatally neglected the real moral education of the people,
whilst tempting its covetousness by its overgrown wealth,
too often scandalously misapplied. Hatred of the Church
and its degenerate hierarchy is, in fact, a notable feature of
the Rising.

On the whole, however, apart from the actual fighting,
there was comparatively little wanton bloodshed. 68 In
this respect the German Rising of 1525 compares favourably
with the French Jacquerie of 1358 or the Rising of the
English peasants in 1381, for instance. The Weinsberg
tragedy was exceptional. The butchery of Count Helfenstein
and nearly a score of knights in the presence of the countess,
a natural daughter of the Emperor Maximilian, was the work
of the cutthroat Jacklein Rohrbach, and was perpetrated
against the orders of his superior, George Metzler. It was
a ruffianly deed. But its perpetrators had been exasperated
by the slaughter of one of the peasant bands under the walls
of Weinsberg and other outrages on the part of the count.
As a rule the peasants were content to make the lords who
fell into their hands swear the Articles and enrol themselves
in the Brotherhood. They were quite willing to accept
their superiors as their enforced allies and even as leaders,
and among the chiefs of these rustic bands (Haufen) were
men of knightly rank like Florian Geyer of Franconia,
Stephan Menzingen of Swabia, and Gotz von Berlichingen,
who filled the part of generalissimo of the united peasant
bands at Heilbronn. 69

88 On this point see Stolze, " Bauernkrieg und Reformation," 91-92.
Even in Thuringia under the auspices of the fanatic Mimzer, murder was
rarely perpetrated* Walter, " Th. Miinzer," 288.

* Mackinnon, " History of Modern Liberty," ii. 91-92.

198 Luther and the Reformation

V. LUTHER AND THE RISING

Among those who were horrified by the doings of the
peasants was Luther. In August 1524 he had, by direction
of the Elector and Duke John, undertaken a visitation of
Thuringia for the purpose of counteracting the activity of
Mtinzer and of Carlstadt, who had left Wittenberg in the
previous year and established himself as preacher at Orla-
munde, had renewed his crusade in favour of a more radical
reformation, and cleared the parish church of images and
altars. Carlstadt had, moreover, by this time discarded the
Lutheran doctrines of the Lord's Supper and Baptism, and
approximated Miinzer's view of individual spiritual illumina-
tion, whilst rejecting his appeal to the sword. At an
interview with Luther at Jena on the 22nd August, he
rebutted his charge of complicity with Miinzer's rabid gospel
and formally accepted Luther's challenge to a theological
duel by means of the press on the points at issue between
them. 70 In the course of a warm discussion at Orlamunde
on the 24th, his adherents argued against the Reformer with no
little force in defence of their action in removing the images. 71
The discussion ended in a rupture over this burning question,
and this rupture led to the expulsion from Saxony of Carlstadt
(i8th September) who, like Miinzer, betook himself to South
Germany, denouncing Luther by the way, 72 and is ultimately
found taking an active part on the popular side at Rothenburg
on the Tauber. Luther henceforth regarded him, with more
prejudice than reason, as the incarnation of Satan.
" Carlstadt," wrote he to Spalatin, on the isth September,
" is at last given over to a reprobate mind, so that I despair
of his return. . . . He is more hostile to me and ours than
any opponent I have yet met. There is not a single devil
that has not taken possession of him." ra In response to a
number of tracts against his doctrine of the Lord's Supper,
which this embodiment of all the devils issued from Basle

" " Werke," xv. 334 f.

71 Ibid*> xv. 341 f . ; cf. the notices of this discussion given by Luther
in his philippic, Wider die himmlischen Propheten, " Werke," xviii.
%$-%4i passim.

See Enders, v. 39, 42, 82, 153. Ibid., v. 23 ; cf. 102.

Luther and the Rising 199

in December, he hurled his most violent philippic, " Against
the Heavenly Prophets, concerning Images and the
Sacrament," 74 in January 1525.

In this embittered mood the fact that the more advanced
reformers were joining Carlstadt in playing an active part
on the democratic side doubtless contributed to prejudice
him 75 against the cause of the peasants, who sought his
judgment on the Twelve Articles. 76 This judgment he gave
in " An Exhortation to Peace in Response to the Twelve
Articles of the Peasants in Swabia" 77 (April 1525). He
expresses his satisfaction that they are willing, according to
the twelfth article, to receive instruction and be guided
by the Word, and whilst apprehensive of coming catastrophe,
still hopes for a peaceful accommodation. To this end he
addresses himself to both parties. His attitude is conditioned
to a certain extent by the fact that many of the princes
spiritual and temporal were opposed to the Reformation
and were already (after the second Diet at Niirnberg) striving
to repress it in accordance with the Edict of Worms, and that
the radical preachers, whom he detested, were identifying
themselves with the revolutionary movement. Hence the
pointed denunciation of the tyranny of the princes and
lords, and of the false teaching of these preachers in support
of a social as well as a religious revolution. He lays the
responsibility for the rising on the princes and lords, and
especially on " the blind bishops and mad priests and monks "
who rage against the Gospel. Moreover, they harass and
harry the common man to such a degree that he neither
can nor may longer endure it. Now the sword is at their
throats, and their blind confidence and pride will only break
their own necks in spite of repeated warnings. " I have
often enough proclaimed it to you, Beware of the text,
Effundit contemptum super principes." 78 This is what they
have been striving for, and this the signs and wonders in
heaven and on earth have been foretelling. It is the day of
the wrath of God. He it is who so works that the people
will no longer bear their fury. They must change their ways

" Werke," xviii. 62 f. " " Werke," xviii. 279 f.

75 See, for instance, Enders, v. 153. 7a Ibid., xviii, 294.
7 Boehmer, " Urkunden," 22-24.

200 Luther and the Reformation

and cede to God's Word, if not willingly, then in virtue of

force and ruin. " It is not the peasants, dear sirs, that

stand against you, but God Himself to punish your

madness." 79 Some have said that they will root out

Luther's teaching. Let them have a care lest they become

the prophets of their own undoing. This, say they further,

is the fruit of his teaching, forgetful that he has preached

against revolt and exhorted to obedience to their tyrannical

and oppressive government. They confound his teaching

with that of " the murder prophets," who have been busy

among the people and whom he has opposed might and

main. He does not desire merely to inspire them with fear

of the peasants. They are to fear God, whose judgment is

come upon them. He himself might see in all this a just

retribution for their opposition to his work and take pleasure

in their tribulation, and even by taking the side of the

peasants augment it. Instead of so doing, he will endeavour

to give them good counsel. Let them eschew wrath and

harsh methods, and reason with the peasants as with a drunk

or an erring man. Some of their demands are reasonable

even if they are acting only from self-interest. They have

a right to the preaching of the Gospel, and no government is

entitled to prescribe what anyone shall believe, whether it is

gospel or lies. It has as little right to oppress the people

in body or in soul in order that the upper classes may welter

in luxury and excess.

He then turns to the peasants. Princes and lords, he
admits, by their attitude towards the Gospel and their
oppression of the people, well deserve to be overthrown
by God. They have no excuse. If the peasants are acting
with a good conscience, God will stand by them, and even
if for a time they suffer defeat and death, they will gain
the victory in the end. A good conscience before God is
the main thing. Let them especially beware of listening
to the spirits and preachers whom Satan has inspired under
the guise of the Gospel, and of taking God's Name in vain
in professing to establish God's justice by violence. Let
them remember the Word of Christ that they that take the
sword shall perish by the sword, and the saying of Paul

'"Werke/'xviiL 295.

Luther and the Rising 201

who inculcates obedience to the powers that be. To rise
in rebellion and seek the forcible redress of grievances is,
therefore, contrary to God's ordinance. It is no justification
of rebellion to adduce their wicked oppression. To punish
such belongs not to the individual by divine and natural
right. To commit injustice in the attempt to obtain justice
is to wrong God's Word. For anyone forcibly to seek to
right his wrongs is to open the door to anarchy and murder.
This is not permissible to those who profess the Name of
Christ, whatever the false prophets say. Vengeance is mine,
saith the Lord, who commands obedience to wicked as well
as good princes. Christ teaches us to suffer, not to with-
stand injustice. " Suffering, suffering, cross, cross this is
the Christian'sright and no other." 80 To adduce natural right
in justification of the forcible redress of worldly grievances
is contradictory of this gospel of suffering. Let them trust
in God, as he himself has done, and behold what God has
accomplished for him, despite Pope and Emperor and all
other tyrants. Let them pray, exercise patience, and eschew
force. Any other attitude is utterly contrary to the Gospel,
which has nothing to do with temporal things. Even the
demand for the preaching of the Gospel is not to be enforced
against the will of the powers that be. The only remedy is
to remove to another place, where the Gospel is rightly
preached, as Christ teaches. From the Christian standpoint
the peasants have, therefore, no case. Even the demand for
the abolition of serfdom has no warrant in the GospeL
Serfdom is quite compatible with spiritual freedom. Did not
Abraham and the patriarchs practise slavery, and did not
St Paul exhort slaves to be obedient to their masters ? He
refuses to allow that Christianity has anything to do with
the contentions of either side. The whole movement is
purely a worldly matter. There are faults on both sides,
and he concludes by advising a friendly accommodation,
befitting worldly affairs, on the ground of mutual concessions.
Otherwise Germany will be overwhelmed with destruction
and misery. If both parties refuse to listen to this advice,
he disclaims all responsibility for the terrible consequences.
This advice was eminently sound if only in view of the

so Werke," xviii. 310.

202 Luther and the Reformation

lamentable issue of the appeal to force. It cannot be said,
however, that the train of reasoning that preceded it was
fitted to convince the peasants of the inadmissibility of this
appeal. He places the responsibility for the rising on the
intolerable tyranny of the princes and lords. He admits
that the position of the peasants is unbearable, and that
such a rising was inevitable. He states the case for them
and then runs away from it, telling them that, unbearable as
their lot might be, they have no right as Christians to rebel
in order to remedy it, because Christianity teaches obedience
to constituted authority, no matter how tyrannical it may
be, because it is a religion of suffering, because it has nothing
to do with worldly things. This was simply to strengthen
the iniquitous regime of the princes by admitting their
right to oppress their subjects without fear of active opposi-
tion on their part. He forgets, moreover, that the teaching
of Christ and the Apostles in this respect applied to a society
that was non-Christian, and that while it might be the
duty of the primitive Christian to obey and suffer at the
hands of such a society, it by no means followed that it was
equally a duty to do so in one that was professedly Christian.
The peasants might forcibly retort that the oppression by
one section of Christians, in a Christian State, of the mass
of their fellow-Christians was absolutely at variance with
Christianity, and that it was their Christian duty to put a
summary end to it, not abet it by submission and suffering.
He had not hesitated, in the " Address to the Nobility,"
for instance, to recognise this duty in reference to the reform
of the abuses in the Church, and even incited to revolutionary
methods against the oppressive papal regime. If, in a
Christian State, Christianity inculcated only submission to
scandalous social abuses, it was merely bolstering up and
perpetuating injustice and wrong and stultifying and
nullifying the Gospel. Luther was becoming too prone to
be the slave of the Word, to interpret it without due judg-
ment or discrimination. To threaten the princes with the
wrath of God was all very well, but such a threat would have
no effect in remedying the peasants' grievances, and they
might well aigue that God had chosen them, as he practically
admitted, to be the effective agents of His wrath. Equally

Luther and the Rising 203

inept, from the standpoint of the downtrodden peasant, the
contention that Christianity has nothing to do with the
worldly lot of the Christian. To calmly assert that it is
immaterial in a Christian society whether the Christian is
a serf or a free man, whether the laws and institutions
under which he Hves axe good or bad, whether he and his
family are ground in the dust in order that a privileged class,
which professes to be Christian, may live in selfish ease and
luxury, showed a lack of understanding of human nature and
what is permissible in a Christian State. Moreover, whilst
his denunciation of the princes was too much coloured by his
resentment at their antagonism to his religious teaching,
his animus against the more advanced preachers was in
itself sufficient to prejudice the peasants against him. He
writes on the assumption that all these preachers are of the
type of a Miinzer, and that, at all events, every reformer
who differs from him and champions a reformation in the
larger Christian sense is an enemy of the Gospel. In reality
the preachers who helped to mould the Twelve Articles
were not fanatical revolutionaries of the Miinzer type, and
their sympathy with the people was not likely to appear to
the peasantry in the light of the heinous offence that it was
to Luther. Nor was it likely that these peasants would
discard their guidance in deference to one who had the
bad taste to tell them that, because Abraham and the
patriarchs had slaves, they had no reason to seek emancipa-
tion from their servile or semi-servile status.

The " Exhortation " accordingly proved a failure as an
attempt to forestall the further progress of the movement.
The peasants ignored Luther in their preference for the
preachers of the right of rebellion, and Luther waxed furious.
The pillage of castles and monasteries was bad enough.
The Weinsberg tragedy and the fanatic vapourings of
Miinzer, who was spreading the revolutionary fever in the
Thuringian region, in spite of his efforts 81 to preserve the
peasants of this region from the contagion, led him to see in

81 He published, with a preface and a conclusion, the Articles of
Agreement between the Swabian peasants and Truchsess, which held out
the prospect of a peaceful conclusion of the conflict (22nd April 1525),
" Werke," xviii. 336 f.

204 Luther and the Reformation

it the work of the devil pure and simple. Hence the deplor-
able effusion, " Against the Robber and Murdering Bands
of the Peasants." tt The peasants have been false to the
Gospel they profess to follow, and are doing the devil's work
under the inspiration of "the arch-devil that rules at
Muhlhausen." This was to a certain extent true enough.
But he errs in taking Miinzer as a type of the peasant leader,
and in his savage mood overlooks the fact that the devil's
work was not all on one side. He errs, too, in ascribing
wholesale a bloodthirsty character to the movement. He
now sees in the peasants a set of wanton murderers, while the
fact is that murder was the exception, not the rule. He not
only reiterates his doctrine of unconditional obedience. He
commands every one who can to throttle a rebellious man
without further ado, as one would hasten to extinguish a
conflagration by every possible means. It is the devil in
person that is raging in the land. "Therefore strike,
throttle, stab, secretly or openly, whoever can, and remember
that there is nothing more poisonous, more hurtful, more
devilish than a rebellious man." ^ These are fine Christians
who appeal to the first chapters of Genesis in proof that all
are created equal, with an equal right to all things. In the
New Testament, Moses is of no account. The Gospel teaches
obedience to Caesar, and baptism makes not the body of
property but only the soul free. " I believe there is no
longer a single devil in hell. They have -all taken possession
of the peasants." Such devils the princes are entitled
without further parley to strike down. He adds, indeed,
that the Christian princes, humbling themselves before God
on account of their sins and in deference to the Gospel may
attempt to recall the peasants to their duty. But in case of
refusal the only remedy is the sword, and they must wield the
sword without mercy. In his previous effusion princes and
lords were a set of scoundrels for the most part. Now,
they axe all God's ministers and if they fall in the cause
they axe martyrs ; whereas whoever is killed on the peasants*
side will burn for ever in hell. 84 These axe wonderful times

83 " Werke," xviii. 344 f. Beginning of May 1525.
" " Werke/* xviii. 358.

84 Eyn ewiger hellebrand ist.

Luther and the Rising 205

when a prince can gain heaven by bloodshed better than by
praying. He interjects a few words in favour of mercy to
those who have been forced or led astray by others. But
he ends by repeating the savage summons to strike, stab,
throttle who can.

This savage conclusion is its own judgment, and the
judgment certainly goes against Luther as a Christian
theologian. In this wild outburst he outdoes even Miinzer
as the apostle of irresponsible violence. His realistic belief
in Antichrist and the devil, his mistaken assumption that
the whole movement was dominated by the spirit of a
Miinzer, his honest but indiscriminating revulsion from the
theory of force in the redress of grievances may explain,
but cannot excuse, the furious spirit of this incitement of
the brutal instincts of the feudal class against the mass.
Luther has clearly lost his head, if not his courage, in the
face of a situation which was indeed terrible enough, but
which his wild effusion, by giving scope to the spirit of
vengeance, could only make still more terrible. No wonder
that it excited protests on the part of some of his followers,
such as the Mansfeld Councillor Riihel and Hausmann,
the pastor of Zwickau. In view of these criticisms, he felt
compelled to write a defence in a circular letter to the
Chancellor of Mansfeld, Caspar Miiller, and attempted to
intervene in letters and sermons on the side of mercy. He
expresses, too, indignation at the cruelty with which the
princes are treating the peasants after they have won the
victory. But he would not retract a single word of his
pamphlet or apologise for it as the offspring of momentary
passion. " A rebel is not worthy to receive a reasonable
answer, for he will not accept it. With the fist one must
answer such foul-mouthed fellows, so that the blood spurts
from their noses. . . . Their ears must be opened with
musket balls so that their heads fly into the air." 85 "As
the ass will have blows so the mass will only be ruled by
force," 86 is his fixed conviction.

85 Ein Sendbrief von dem harten Buchlein wider die Bauem,
" Werke," xviii. 386; cf. his letters to Rflhel, " Werke," 53, 291 f.
306 (Erlangen ed.) ; and to Amsdorf, Enders, v. 182-183.

* Ibid., xviii, 394.

206 Luther and the Reformation

Luther's thirst for the blood of the insurgents was
destined to receive an early quenching. The princes were
preparing to take a terrible vengeance in the spirit of their
theological mentor. The peasants, though inspiring terror
far and near by the pillage of castles and monasteries, had
wasted their strength and their opportunity in these out-
bursts of violence. The movement was widespread, but it
was not cohesive. The hundreds of thousands in the field
were split into many bands, which engaged in local raids
and sieges, but did not co-operate in any general plan of
operations. There does not, in fact, seem to have been a
general plan, for the Committee at Heilbron never got into
proper working order, and had no firm grip on the movement.
This lack of cohesion gave their enemies the opportunity
of attacking in detail the ill-led and ill-disciplined peasant
armies which could not be taught to obey orders, and were
given to drinking and feasting whenever a chance offered.
These bands, it must be remembered, attracted the scum
as well as the more reputable element of the population.
" The peasants were always drunk," we are told, " and would
not be ruled by any man." 87 Moreover, the moderate
party, which was in favour of compromise, did not pull with
the extremists, who insisted on the complete concession of
the Articles. Thus in the early summer of 1525 the move-
ment was suppressed with much slaughter in Franconia,
and in the south and west in spite of an occasional peasant
success here and there. In the north the fanatic adherents
of Munzer were broken and dispersed at Frankenhausen
on the 15th May by the forces of the Landgrave Philip of
Hesse, Duke George of Saxony, and Duke Henry of
Brunswick, and their leader captured, tortured, and beheaded.
In the east, where the struggle lasted into 1526, the Tyrolese
mountaineers were at length forced to submit, and their
leader, Gaismeyr, was driven to seek refuge in Italy.

Over a large part of the insurgent area defeat was
followed by a terrible retribution, which was called bringing
the rebels to justice. A brutal revenge is the more fitting
term to apply to it in those regions at least where such savage

7 " History of Modern Liberty," ii. 96.

Luther and the Rising 207

reactionaries as the Duke of Lorraine and the Margrave
Casimir of Ansbach gave free rein to their brutality in
wholesale hanging, decapitating, massacring, maiming, and
devastation. In this orgy of vengeance such rulers forgot
their own sins and shortcomings as rulers and trustees of
the commonweal. Among the few who showed moderation
and humanity, the Landgrave Philip of Baden and the
Elector of the Palatinate deserve honourable mention, and
ultimately it began to dawn even on the more savage of
these princely repressers that a limit must be put to this
orgy of revenge, if only on the ground of self-interest. " If
all our peasants are done to death in this manner/ 1 wrote the
Margrave George to his brother Casimir, " where shall we
find others to grow our food ? It really behoves us to
consider the matter wisely." 8S Thus the gruesome drama
came at last to an end. But what an ending for the common
man ! Over 100,000 at the lowest computation had lost
their lives during the Rising and the retribution that followed
it, 89 and many thousands more sought safety in flight across
the Swiss border. The peasant sank back into his servile
condition and the boon of emancipation was relegated to
the far distant days of the French Revolution. Only to a
limited extent had he succeeded, as in Baden, in obtaining
any amelioration of his lot. In general the Rising resulted
in the aggravation of his oppression. For this result he
had himself, in no small measure, to blame. By his violence
and love of plunder, his lack of discipline, his bibulousness,
his inexperience in tactics, his proneness to panic in the face
of the trained soldier, he had lost what was in the main a
good cause and failed to vindicate claims, most of which a
more enlightened age has come to regard as rights.

The suppression of the Rising had an unfortunate effect
on the evangelical movement. The hope that this movement
would become the means of effecting a far-reaching social
reformation was blasted. The preachers who had worked
for this larger reformation were crushed in the general
crash. In those regions where the anti-Lutheran princes
triumphed, the ruffianly repression of the peasants sealed

Janssen, v. 348 (Eng. trans.). 8t Ibid., iv. 347.

20 8 Luther and the Reformation

at the same time the fate of the religious Reformation itself.
In a large part of the south Roman Catholicism shared
in the victory of the princes and lords, and thus Luther in
championing their cause against the people with such
reckless violence was in reality working into the hands of
his enemies. The hope of winning the whole empire was
thereby wrecked, and even if the movement continued to
make headway in the north, which had largely been exempt
from the revolutionary fever, it was not so much because of
its democratic appeal as of the play of princely self-interest
to which Luther had, if unwittingly, thirled it. Lutheranism
ceased to be a popular creed for the time being at least. 90
The people denounced him as " the flatterer of the princes," 91
and threatened to take his life. " All the lords, parsons,
and peasants are against me and threaten me with death,"
he wrote to Riihel on the I5th June. 92 Their ill-will, he adds,
does not trouble him, and he certainly made no attempt to
disarm it. The Rising had shattered his trust in the masses,
and he continued to reiterate his dogma that force is the
only remedy in dealing with discontented subjects. Even
long afterwards, when the passion begotten by the struggle
had had time to subside, he is found defending in his dogged
fashion the obnoxious philippic against the peasants. " It
was I, Martin Luther, who slew all the peasants during
the Rising, for I commanded them to be slaughtered. All
their blood is on my head. But I throw the responsibility
on our Lord God, who instructed me to give this order." w
He doubtless acted from a land of bovine conviction, and
not from any desire to gain the favour of the ruling class.
His previous denunciations of the princes and their mis-
government convincingly show that he was not actuated

to Von Below questions the generally accepted view of the adverse
effects of the repression of the rising- on the Lutheran movement (" Ur-
sachen," 55-56, 59-6o) against Karl Muller, " Kirchengeschichte," ii.
325-326; Hermelink, "Reformation und Gegen Reformation," 89;
and others. Stolze, " Bauemkrieg und Reformation," 119 f., also
questions the accepted view; whilst Ritter, another recent writer
(" Luther," 123-124 (1925)), supports the adverse conclusion.

fl Enders, v. 182, adulator principum.

* Werke," 53, 314; cf. 305 (Erlangen ed.).

* Ibid., 59, 284 (Erlangen ed.).

Luther and the Rising 209

by such a motive. He was in principle up to this period
opposed to the use of force in behalf of religious or any
other reform, and to him religious reform was the thing that
mainly mattered. Moreover, the revolution threatened to
engulf his cause in the general chaos which it was tendinp
to bring about, and on the rejection of his own wise proposal
of arbitration he might well see in a victory for constituted
authority the only guarantee of the preservation of law
and order. Even so, his sudden change from the role of
the wise arbiter to that of the raving partisan, who advocates
the wholesale slaughter of the insurgents and the restoration
of the old system, irrespective of Christian equity, shows a
lack of anything like statesmanship, let alone Christian
self-restraint. His influence over public opinion was
such that he might at least have moderated the havoc
and fury of princely retaliation. At all events, he himself
assumed that a word from him would have gone far to
turn the scale the other way. Even if nothing he could
have said or done would have prevented the tragic collapse
of the popular cause, it was not his province to proclaim so
dogmatically the political nullity of the common man in a
professedly Christian State, as an axiom of the movement of
which he was the leader, and inculcate unquestioning obedi-
ence to the absolute ruler, however oppressive his rule.
Unfortunately, under the influence of the revolutionary
scare, the Reformation in Germany, as directed by him,
henceforth contributed to strengthen the regime of the
absolute ruler, whether elector, duke, landgrave, or other
petty potentate, instead of developing into the larger and
more democratic movement of which it had at first seemed
to be the promise, and to which his theological teaching had
undoubtedly given an impulse. Luther, Melanchthon, Bucer
swam with the political current that was bearing the absolute
ruler to port in Germany, France, Spain. In the political
sphere they have no wide vision. They preach the doctrine
of divine right pure and simple. They dethrone an absolute
pope only to put in his place the absolute prince. Passive
resistance may be permissible in matters of conscience.
The Christian subject may not deny God at the prince's com-
mand. But he may not actively resist. Even this modicum

210 Luther and the Reformation

of right was denied by Bucer, who insists that subjects
must obey the commands of the prince even when contrary
to God's Word. 94

" See " History of Modern Liberty," ii. 103. For Melanchthon's
views see his ** Refutation of the Twelve Articles " which he wrote for
the enlightenment of the Elector of the Palatinate. ** Corp. Ref ," xx.
641-643 ; cf. Janssen, iv. 364-367 ; Ellinger, " Melanchthon," 211-212 ;
Richard, ** Melanchthon," 149-152. The literature on the subject of the
Rising" is voluminous. The older work of Zimmerrnann (1856) has been
edited by Bios (1891). A valuable collection of documents is given by
Baumann, " Akten zur Geschichte des Bauernkriegs " (1877) and
" Quellen zur Geschichte des Bauernkriegs in Oberschwaben " (1876).
More recent are the works of Stolze, * " Der Deutsche Bauernkrieg " (1907)
and " Bauernkrieg und Reformation " (1926) ; Gotze, " Die Artikel der
Bauern," "Hist. Vierteljahrschrift" (1901); Jaeger, "Die Pohtischen
Ideen Luther's," "Preuss. Jahrbucher" (1903) ; Zimmerrnann, "Thomas
Munzer " (1925), to mention only these out of a large number of recent
monographs. A luminous account is that of Von Bezold, ** Geschichte
der Deutschen Reformation." Janssen, " Hist, of the German People,"*
iii. and iv., is fuller, but prejudiced; and Ranke, "Deutsche Ges-
chichte," is also one-sided. Schapiro, "Social Reform and the
Reformation " (1909), and Waring, " Political Theories of Luther "
(1910), who rather feebly attempts a complete vindication of Luther,
are the most recent reviews in English. The work of Bax, " The
Peasants* War in Germany " (1899), is a popular account on the side of
the insurgents. So is that of Friedrich Engels, translated into English
by Olgin (1927). Other accounts in English are given in my " History
of Modern Liberty ** (1906) and in Oman's short survey in the " English
Historical Review " (1890).

CHAPTER VII
THE CONFLICT WITH ERASMUS

I. LUTHER AND EDUCATION

LUTHER'S warfare with the extremists included the sphere
of culture as well as of religion and politics. The emphasis
on the supreme value of the Word as the norm of truth
and on the right of the Christian community to judge of
doctrine, the exaltation of faith and the depreciation of
reason as the medium of a knowledge of the divine, the
antagonism to the scholastic theology, the denunciation of
the scholastic educational method, tended to foster in
ignorant and ill-balanced minds a contempt for all culture
the new as well as the old. The prophets saw in individual
illumination by the Spirit the infallible guarantee of truth,
and refused to attribute this exclusive prerogative to the
Word. Carlstadt, learned doctor though he was, turned
to the ordinary layman for the true interpretation of Scripture
texts. 1 In this he was not necessarily so eccentric as his
fellow-theologians were disposed to assume. Spiritual
intuition is no monopoly of learned doctors, whether Roman
Catholic or evangelical. Genuine religious experience in
the case of a weaver or a shoemaker may teach even the most
erudite scholar whose learning lacks the intuition which
experienced truth alone can give. The critics of Carlstadt
and even Miinzer are apt to forget that in the New Testament
community edification was the right of every member who
had something to say for the common enlightenment, not
the sole prerogative of apostle, prophet, or presbyter. On
the other hand, Carlstadt carried his predilection for this
laic, New Testament type of religion beyond the limit of

1 Barge, i. 416-417.
211

212 Luther and the Reformation

good sense in renouncing the practice of promoting candidates
to theological degrees, on the ground of the equality of
all Christians, and the command in Matt, xxiii. 8 to call
no man master. 2 The religious excitement of the time was
tending, like strong drink, to go to the heads even of learned
professors, not to speak of ordinary Christians, whilst many
of the emancipated monks, who had been ignorant obscurant-
ists before becoming evangelical preachers, were compromis-
ing Luther's doctrine of the supreme value and authority
of the Word by their superficial diatribes against the new
learning as well as the old scholasticism. At Erfurt, for
instance, these hotheads carried the war against their
scholastic opponents the length of depreciating the study of
the classics and proclaiming that, for an understanding of
the Scriptures, a knowledge of Latin and Greek was super-
fluous. 3 At Niirnberg, Basle, Strassburg, and elsewhere this
new obscurantism found expression in sermons or pamphlets,
to the distress of Melanchthon, Eobanus Hessus, and other
apostles of the new culture, who had espoused the cause
of Luther. Melanchthon was fain to confess in his " En-
comium Eloquentiae " that this depreciation of classical
studies was spreading like an infectious disease, not only
among the preachers, but among professors of law and
medicine. 4 " Good God," wrote he to Hessus in April 1523,
" how preposterously do those theologise who wish to show
their wisdom solely by their contempt of these good things !
What is this error but a new species of sophistry ? " 5
Similarly, Eobanus expressed his strong disapprobation of
this obscurantist tendency in a Latin elegy addressed to
Luther under the title of " Captiva." 6

Nor were these apprehensions merely the Jeremiads of
opinionated humanists who were inclined to see in the
study of the classics the exclusive medium of a liberal
education. They were substantiated by the growing lack
of interest in the higher education reflected in the general
decline of the number of students attending the secondary

2 Barge, ii. 12. * " Corp. Ref.," xi. 50 f.

3 " Werke," xv. 10. * Ibid., i. 613.

* Printed by Secerius at Hagenau, 1523, under the title of " Ecclesiae
Afflictse Epistola ad Lutherum," Enders, iv. 120.

Luther and Education 213

schools and the universities during this period. During the
five years 1521-25 the number of those matriculating at
Wittenberg University sank from 245 in the former year 7
to 171 in the latter. This decline is, in fact, apparent in all
the German universities, and in some of them it was more
marked than at Wittenberg. In the case of Leipzig, for
instance, the number sank from 339 to 102, of Cologne from
251 to 120, of Freiburg from 171 to 22. In 1526 only 9
students matriculated at Rostock, compared with 118 in
1521, whilst teaching at Greifswald was suspended between
1524 and 1539 f r l ac k of students. 8

The shrinkage plainly shows that the humanist movement,
which had contributed to fill the class-rooms during the
previous two decades, had passed its zenith and had given place
to a reaction under the influence of the evangelical Reforma-
tion. There can be no question that the religious excitement
which manifested itself in student riots at Wittenberg and
Erfurt took, in part at least, the form of a superficial tendency
to divorce religion from culture, under the mistaken belief
that the votaries of the new Gospel could afford to dispense
not only with the old theology and philosophy but with a
literary education. 9 Ulscenius, for instance, writes to Capito
in January 1522 that a number of the students had left the
University of Wittenberg as the result of this reaction, 10
whilst the Elector in a message to Luther at the Wartburg
shortly after anxiously noted the same fact. 11 At the same
time, this reaction against the new culture was not peculiai

7 Compared with 579 in 1520.

8 Eilenburg, '* Uber die Frequenz der deutschen Universitaten in
fruherer Zeit," "Jahrbucher fiir Nationaloconomie," Bd. 13 (1877);
Barge, i. 419-420.

9 For details see Albrecht, " Studien zu Luther's Schrift, An die
Ratherren," " Theologische Studien und Kritiken" (1897), 782 f.
Paulsen is mistaken in reckoning among these obscurantists John Lang,
4 * Geschichte des gelehrten Unterrichts," i. 190. Lang, in fact, preached
a sermon in May 1523 against these fanatic preachers, which was published
in the same year, and which Luther had probably read before issuing his
own famous address to the municipalities on " School Reform " in the
following year. See Albrecht, " Studien/' 737 f.

"Z.K.G.,"v. 331-
" " Corp. Ref.," i. 560.

214 Luther and the Reformation

to Wittenberg or Erfurt, It was by no means due merely
to the obscurantist influence of a Carlstadt or the ex-monks
who, as preachers, espoused the cause of Luther with more
zeal than wisdom. Its factors were economic as well as
religious. Begging, for instance, had hitherto been recognised
as a legitimate means of subsistence for students, even in
the case of those who belonged to well-to-do families, as
well as for the monastic Orders. As the reform ordinances
at Wittenberg and elsewhere show, one of the effects of the
evangelical movement was to discredit the practice and
create a more healthy self-respect in the rising generation,
as against this demeaning form of charity. The prospect of
securing a living, in the form of an ecclesiastical prebend, as
the result of a university education had, further, lost its
attraction for those who had forsworn the Pope and all his
works. In any case the secularisation of ecclesiastical
property threatened to dry up this source of income for
the needy scholar. Moreover, the changing economic
conditions of the age were tending to foster a more material
and practical view of life. An expanding commerce was
offering a more alluring prospect for the enterprising youth,
who, as Bucer deplores, were more concerned with the quest
of wealth than the things of the spirit. " Nobody/ 1 he com-
plains, " will learn anything nowadays except what brings
in money. All the world is running after those trades and
occupations which give least work to do and bring the most
gain, without any concern for their neighbour or for honest
and good report. The study of the arts and sciences is set
aside for the barest kinds of manual work. ... All the
clever heads which have been endowed by God with capacity
for the nobler studies are engrossed by commerce/' 12
" Things have become so deplorable in the last few years/'
complains the writer of the " Clag eines einfaltigen Kloster-
bruders/' "that no Christian mother can anymore send her
children to the schools, which either have been abolished
or are despised ; so all the young folk are turned into trades-
people, and the children of the poor, who are especially
God-forsaken, become petty craftsmen in towns and villages

18 Janssen, iv. 162-163.

Luther and Education 215

without much knowledge of these trades. Most of them
become small shopkeepers, pedlars, hawkers, all of which
varieties abound in excess." 13

That Luther should take the opposite side from the
extremists on the culture question was a foregone conclusion.
Though not a professed humanist, he had in his student days
found both pleasure and profit in reading the Latin classics.
When he entered the Augustinian monastery at Erfurt he
had carried his Virgil in his pocket. Under the influence of
Lang, Spalatin, and other humanist friends, he had gradually
learned to prize the study of the ancient languages as an
indispensable adjunct of the interpretation of the sources
of Christianity, and had, for this reason, availed himself of the
scholarship of Lef evre, and especially of Erasmus, in his early
exegetical work as professor of Holy Writ. He had sub-
mitted to the drudgery of learning Hebrew and Greek in
order the better to fit himself for this vocation. His transla-
tion of the Bible from the original languages is a monument
of his practical interest in the new culture, without which it
would not have been possible, as well as of his ability to
mould the vernacular idiom into a fitting medium to convey
to the common man the sense of the sacred writings. The
study of these languages was an integral part of the sketch
of educational reform contained in the " Address to the
Nobility." It is not surprising, therefore, that, in reply to
Eobanus Hessus, he emphatically rebutted the obscurantist
vapourings of the shallow and ignorant advocates of the
divorce of religion from culture, and that in his later negotia-
tions with the Bohemians he adduced, among other objections
to their theological teaching, their neglect of the ancient
languages in the education of their priests. 14 He himself,
indeed, had proclaimed the capacity of the individual
believer to attain, under the guidance of the Spirit, a
knowledge of the way of salvation, and even preach Christ,
from a perusal of the German Bible. But, as a rule, he
recognised and emphasised the value of an adequate
linguistic and literary training for the preacher as well as

13 Janssen, iv. 163.

14 In his treatise, " Von Anbeten des Sacraments," written for the
instruction of the Bohemians, " Werke," xi. 455-456 (April 1523)-

2i 6 Luther and the Reformation

the theologian. 15 " Do not give way to your apprehension/*
he wrote to Eobanus on the 23rd March 1523, " lest we
Germans become more barbarous than ever we were by
reason of the decline of letters through our theology. I am
persuaded that, without a skilled training in literary studies,
no true theology can establish and maintain itself, seeing
that in times past it has invariably fallen miserably and
lain prostrate with the decline and fall of learning. On the
other hand, it is indubitable that there never has been a
signal revelation of divine truth unless first the way has
been prepared for it, as by a John the Baptist, by the
revival and pursuit of the study of languages and literature.
Assuredly there is nothing I should less wish to happen
than that our youth should neglect poetry and rhetoric
(humanist studies). My ardent vow is that there should be
is many poets and rhetoricians as possible, because I see
:learly that by no other methods is it possible to train men
for the apt understanding, the right and felicitous treatment
rf sacred things. Wherefore I beg that you may incite the
fouth of Erfurt to give themselves strenuously to this study.
[ am often impatient that in this age of enlightenment
time will not permit me to devote myself to poetry and
"hetoric, though I formerly bought a Homer in order that
[ might become a Greek." 16 " I beg you," he wrote to
Strauss at Eisenach a year later (April 1524), "to do your
itmost in the cause of the training of youth. For I am
;onvinced that the neglect of education will bring the
greatest ruin to the Gospel. This matter is the most
mportant of all." 17

His sense of the value of a Christian education and of the
Dressing need of educational reform, in the interest of the
State as well as the Church, found more elaborate expression in
he famous "Appeal to the Municipalities of Germany " early
Q 1524. The "Appeal " is a monument of the enlightened
aterest in education which the Reformation, as inspired by

15 See, for instance, "Werke," xi. 455-456. On Luther and
umanism see the monographs of Schmidt, " Luther's Bekanntschaft
lit den Classikern," and Evers, " Das Verhaltnis Luther's zu den
[umanisten " (1895).

1S Enders, iv. 119-120. 17 Ibid., iv. 328.

Luther and Education 217

Luther, Melanchthon, Zwingli, and other reformers, in spite
of the obscurantism of the extremists, fostered not only
in Germany, but in all the lands in which the reformed dis-
placed the mediaeval Church. It reflects, too, the influence
of Melanchthon, the Praceptor Germanics, to whose humanist
learning Luther, and Germany along with him, owed so
much, and who had begun his career as Professor of Greek
at Wittenberg with an inaugural discourse on " The Improve-
ment of the Studies of Youth." 18 This plea in behalf of the
new, in opposition to the scholastic culture, and of the
imperative necessity, in the case of theology, of the study of
Greek and Hebrew for the true understanding of sacred
literature, made a powerful impression on Luther, though
its spirit was that of Erasmus rather than of the militant
leader of the evangelical movement. " When we go to the
sources we are led to Christ." In the six years that had
intervened between its delivery in August 1518 and the
" Appeal to the Municipalities/' Luther's appreciation of the
value of classical studies had deepened as the result of his
intercourse and collaboration with the brilliant young
scholar, who, on his part, had developed into the active
champion of evangelical as well as educational reform.

Although he has been for three years under the ban
of the Pope and the Emperor and an outlaw in the eyes of
men, no human authority will prevent him from fulfilling
his God-appointed mission to proclaim the truth. Accord-
ingly he begs the German municipal authorities at the
outset 19 to receive his message on the subject as the voice
of Christ. He acknowledges that the evangelical movement
has had an adverse effect on education. Now that the
monastic and clerical career is falling into disrepute as the
result of the preaching of the Gospel, parents are naturally

18 Ellinger, " Melanchthon," 88 f.

19 An die Ratherren aller stadte Deutsches Lands, " Werke," xv.
27 f., with valuable introduction by O. Albrecht. See also his " Studien
zu Luther's Schrift an die Ratherren," "Theolog. Studien" (1897),
687 f. ; Paulsen, " Geschichte des gelehrten Unterrichts," 197 f. ; and
" German Education, Past and Present," 53 f., Eng. trans, by Lorenz
(1908). Paulsen is rather unsympathetic, and underrates Luther's
significance as an educational reformer, in contrast to the more purely
humanist reformers.

21 8 Luther and the Reformation

enough asking what is the good of educating their children
in accordance with use and wont. Hitherto, he naively
explains, the devil was only too pleased to see the children
brought up in the error and falsehood of the monastic and
collegiate schools. But now that he is in danger of losing
their souls through the spread of the Gospel, he has changed
has tactics and descants on the futility of all education.
Ignorance and contempt of all knowledge will serve his
purpose equally well. In reality, the lack of a sound
education is a worse enemy of the commonweal than the
Turk, and if we give a single gulden for the defence of the
empire, we ought to give a hundred to educate even one
boy to become a right Christian man, in view of the value of
such an educated man to the country. Let the town
authorities, therefore, take to heart the importance of the
education of youth on which its highest well-being depends.
If they spend money in fortifying and improving the town,
why should they grudge spending in providing schoolmasters
for the purpose of securing this supreme object? The
individual citizen as well as the public authority has his
responsibility in this matter. If people formerly gave so
readily for indulgences, masses, pilgrimages, and other
rubbish, should they not be ready to devote a part of this
wasted expenditure to a sound training of the rising genera-
tion ? In giving the Gospel to the present age, God has
provided a multitude of men educated in the new learning
and gifted with the requisite knowledge and skill to impart
such a training. The present age is the year of jubilee for
Germany. Formerly we spent long years of drudgery in
the schools and learned neither Latin nor German properly.
The whole school instruction, he says, in his exaggerated
manner, produced only asses and blockheads and tended to
the corruption rather than the edification of youth. Rather
than revive this pernicious system, against which he has
evidently been biased by his changed religious standpoint,
he would prefer no education at all ! But now that God has
blessed Germany in such full measure with the pure Gospel,
let it take advantage of the opportunity and beware of
missing it. To neglect the education of youth is no less a
crime than to deflower a virgin, as the scholastic proverb

Luther and Education 219

has it. There is no greater danger to the common good
than an uneducated and ill-disciplined youth, and as
parents, as a rule, are unfitted or too busy to attend to the
education of their children, the schoolmaster is indispensable.
Hence the imperative duty of the public authority to
provide schools and teachers in the common interest. Nor
should it be content merely to establish elementary schools
for the instruction of pupils in German and the Bible. It
is in the interest of both Church and State to foster the study
of the classic languages as the best instruments of the higher
education, for the lack of which Germans are decried in
foreign lands (Italy is specially meant) as barbarians. By
neglecting these studies in the schools they will only too
well merit such supercilious gibes.

In the first place, for the understanding of the Gospel,
the study of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew and other Aries
Liberates is essential. The Gospel was revealed in these
languages, and to the widespread use of Latin and Greek
in the ancient world its diffusion was due. In this modern
age God has similarly brought about their revival, just
before the rediscovery of the primitive Gospel, in order that
it might thereby be better understood and the reign of Anti-
christ disclosed and overthrown. For this reason He allowed
the Turks to conquer Greece and thus bring about, through
fugitive Greeks, a wider knowledge of the language of the
New Testament. Let there be no mistake about it. Without
a knowledge of these languages Germany will not long retain
the Gospel. They are the scabbard wherein the sword
of the Spirit is sheathed, the shrine in which this treasure is
laid. Not only will it lose the Gospel ; it will fall back into
the old wretched educational system which, for Luther,
stands for barbarism in both religion and education.
Without a knowledge of them there can be no real knowledge
of the Word and no higher education worthy of the name.
With their decline in the ancient world true Christianity
began to fall and came under the power of the Pope. On
the other hand, their revival has brought about such an
enlightenment and has accomplished such great things that
all the world must acknowledge that we now possess the
Gospel in as pure and true a form as the Apostles had it,

22o Luther and the Reformation

and much more purely than in the days of St Jerome and
Augustine. 20 St Bernard, whom he prizes above all doctors,
old and new, as a spiritual teacher, often fails, for this reason,
to catch the true sense of the sacred text a failing which is
sometimes predicable of his own exegesis. But have not
many Fathers taught Christianity and attained to honour
without these languages ? True. On the other hand, how
many errors disfigure the exegetical writings of Augustine,
Hilary, and other Fathers who were ignorant of the original
languages of Scripture! Whilst a preacher may preach
Christ with edification, though he may be unable to read
the Scriptures in the originals, he cannot expound or maintain
their teaching against the heretics without this indispensable
knowledge. Luther here speaks from his own experience
as professor of Sacred Writ. This experience had both
revealed to him his own deficiencies as an exegete and
driven him to the serious study of both Greek and Hebrew.
He has travelled a long way from his early dependence on
Augustine and other Fathers, and has learned not only to
assign supreme authority to the Scriptures alone, but to
interpret them independently and to criticise unhesitatingly
even their patristic interpreters. In complaining of the
obscurity of Scripture the schoolmen were, he forcibly points
out, reproving their own ignorance of these languages,
and it is useless to try to make up for this ignorance by
quoting from the Fathers and reading the scholastic com-
mentaries. " As the sun is to the shadow, so is a knowledge
of the originals to all the commentaries of the Fathers. 1 ' a
What folly, then, to neglect or depreciate the study of them.
For this reason he cannot approve of " the Waldensians "
(the Bohemian Brethren) who despise this study.

In the second place, this study is essential in the interest
of the State as well as the Church. Apart from religion,
such a training is, on purely utilitarian grounds, of the
utmost importance for the State. " It is a sufficient reason
for establishing the best possible schools for boys and girls
that the State, for its own advantage, needs well educated
men and women for the better government of land and

u Werke," xv. 39- " Ittd., xv. 41.

Luther and Education 221

people, and the proper upbringing of children in the home." ffl
In view of the inestimable benefit to the State to be derived
from this education, he would radically change the old
educational method in a practical direction. He would,
therefore, discard the tyrannical memorising drill of this
system and make the task of learning a joy and a recreation
for the pupils. He calls to mind the useless drudgery of his
own schooldays at Mansfeld, Magdeburg, and Eisenach,
and of his student days at Erfurt. The recollection seems
to be rather overcoloured by his subsequent religious
experience, which inclines him to see only error and evil
in everything connected with the old system, as applied
under the brutal inspiration of the rod. " The schools were
no better than hell and purgatory, in which we were martyred
with the grinding of tenses and cases and neveitheless learned
nothing at all, in spite of the blows, trembling, terror, and
misery we suffered at the hands of our brutal schoolmasters.
. . . How much I regret that we did not read more of the
poets and the historians, and that nobody thought of teaching
us these. Instead of such study, I was compelled to read
the devil's rubbish the scholastic philosophers and sophists
with such cost, labour, and detriment, from which I have
had trouble enough to rid myself." 23 Happily, by God's
grace, a more rational, practical, and humane method bids
fair to introduce a new era in education under the influence
of the great religious transformation of which he has been the
instrument.

Not that he demands the higher education for all. But
he would place a sound elementary education, combined
with practical training in some useful craft, within the reach
of every boy and girl, and even make it compulsory. For
the training of talented boys for the service of Church and
State he would provide suitable instruction in secondary
schools. To the same end he would establish libraries in
the towns and fill them with useful books, instead of the
scholastic rubbish which he regards as so much lumber.
He would exclude from these collections the textbooks of
canon law and the scholastic theology and philosophy,

Werke," xv. 44. Ibid., xv. 46.

222 Luther and the Reformation

and in place of this " filth " install the Bible in the original
languages and in German and other translations, along with
the best ancient commentaries, the classic authors, both
pagan and Christian, and approved books in law, medicine,
and all the arts and sciences. He would add the best histories
and chronicles in any language, particularly those relating to
German national history, which are indispensable for a proper
understanding of the past, the ways of God as revealed in
the doings of men.

The " Address " is a remarkable performance. It has been
described as " the Charter of the German gymnasia," 24 or
high schools. Whilst formally it does not answer to this
description, it is so far appropriate inasmuch as it tends in
its own way to stress classical study, combined with religious,
historical, and scientific instruction, as the fundamental
principle of a sound secondary education. In this respect
it is a worthy example of the interest in education character-
istic of the Reformed Churches, of which Luther was the
inspirer in Germany, Zwingli and Calvin in Switzerland,
and John Knox in Scotland. In Ranke's judgment it is
as significant in its own sphere as the " Address to the
German Nobility." Contemporaries like Erasmus and
Cochlaeus, who lay the blame on Luther's shoulders for the
decline of the schools and universities, have certainly no
warrant for their accusations in this fervid appeal. It
alone suffices to rebut the sweeping Erasmian dictum,
" Wherever Lutheranism prevails, there the destruction of
letters takes place/* By 1524 Erasmus was becoming
more and more incapable of discriminating between the
good and the bad in the Lutheran movement. He represents
it far too much in the light of its extreme wing, as represented
by the obscurantist preachers, from whom Luther in this
appeal expressly dissociates himself. He forgets, too, that
humanism itself, as far at least as it tended to stress intel-
lectual culture at the expense of the practical and spiritual
side of education and to isolate itself from the life of the
people, could have learned more from it in this respect than

84 Schmid, " Encyclopadie des gesch. Erziehungs und Unter-
richtswesens," art. " Luther."

Luther and Education 223

it deigned to acknowledge. Moreover, as Hartfelder has
pointed out, the complaint of lack of interest in classic study
in the young generation was voiced by humanists like
Glareanus, Wimpheling, Rudolf Agricola, long before the
advent of Luther. The fact is that Luther, though primarily
a religious reformer, had several years before combined
educational with religious reform in the reform programme
addressed to the nobility. It redounds to his credit that he
realised the need for fanning the rather jaded zeal of the
municipal authorities which, with the development of
industry and trade in the later mediaeval period, had founded
and fostered these schools, but which were in danger of
neglecting them and devoting secularised ecclesiastical
property to other ends. The "Appeal " is assuredly no mere
afterthought, suggested merely by the necessity of saving
the Reformation from disaster and himself from the conse-
quences of his own reckless religious anarchism, as Paulsen,
who merely reflects Cochlaeus, assumes. 26 Along with
Bugenhagen he took steps to revive and reorganise the
Wittenberg school, which had been closed during his
absence in the Wartburg, and in response to his "Appeal IJ a
beginning was made with the work of establishing reformed
schools at Magdeburg, Nordhausen, Halberstadt, Gotha,
Eisleben, and Niirnberg within a year of its publication. 26

It was not without reason that Melanchthon in the
preface to the Latin translation by Obsopaeus warmly
commended it to the academic youth of Germany. 27
Though Luther's motive in penning it was mainly the
interest of the evangelical movement, he does not overlook
the material well-being of the nation or the value of education
as a good in itself. He strove to advance thereby the
national interest and to raise the national reputation in the

26 He calls it a " Notschrei der durch die Thatsache des pldtzlichen
und allgememen Niedergangs des Unterrichtswesens seit dem Anfang der
Kirchenrevolution ausgepresst ist," i. 197. Was, then, the sketch of
educational reform already outlined in the " Address to the Nobility '*
in 1520 a Notschrei or cry of despair ? In view of this fact Paulsen's
assertion that Luther's esteem for education " was very moderate
indeed " (" German Education," 48) is rather astounding.

* Albrecht, " Studien," 772-773-

a'** Corp. Ref.,"i.66f.

224 Luther and the Reformation

face of the charge of barbarism and grossness with which the
Italians besmirched it, and which, though exaggerated, he
regards as sufficiently well founded. At the same time the
supreme end of education is for him the furthering of the
Gospel as revealed in the Word, and the building up of
Christian character as the indispensable and the incomparable
foundation of the higher moral and spiritual life.

II. LUTHER AND ERASMUS

As has been previously noted, humanists of the type
of Hutten, after being contemptuous or indifferent towards
the Wittenberg movement, suddenly discovered in Luther
an ally in the war against the old culture. With the Leipzig
Disputation and the growing boldness of his challenge to
Rome, this militant monk became for Crotus, Hutten, and
other stalwarts of humanism the morning star on the horizon
of the new age. What attracted them was not the new
Gospel of justification by faith, to which they paid little
more than lip service, but the antagonism to the Papacy,
the hierarchy, and the scholastic theology and philosophy,
and the plea for liberty of thought and conscience as against
the Roman autocracy, to which the Wittenberg professor
was giving such resounding expression. Others, like Lang,
Melanchthon, Eobanus Hessus, Bucer, Oecolampadius, were
from the outset, or became, adherents on religious as well as
intellectual grounds. Luther, in fact, became the magnet of
an increasing circle of young scholars who whole-heartedly
acknowledged him as their master in theology, whilst owning
allegiance to Erasmus in the sphere of culture. Even when
in due course the time came to choose between adherence
to the militant reformer or the prince of scholars, the members
of this circle did not shrink from adopting the former
alternative. Erasmus thereby lost the unquestioned intel-
lectual dictatorship which he had exercised for nearly two
decades. Though no professed humanist, Luther had
deprived him of his supremacy over the republic of letters.
Truly a striking testimony to the strength of his personality,
the dynamic of his religious genius.

The crisis came in 1521-22 when, in spite of con-

Luther and Erasmus 225

damnation and outlawry, he persisted in and even widened
his attack on Antichrist and the institutions of the Church.
It was this development, in which the older disciples of
Erasmus saw the spectre of religious revolution and chaos,
that led to the parting of the ways. Without the profound
conviction, based on personal religious experience, and the
indomitable will power of the irrepressible outlaw, Mutian,
Crotus, Zasius, Pirkheimer, and others shrank before this
spectre, whilst Reuchlin disowned his grandnephew,
Melanchthon, who refused to abandon Luther. 28 The
attitude of Erasmus himself was a foregone conclusion.
It was difficult for one whose intellectual development,
temperament, and religious experience were so different
from those of Luther fully to understand or appreciate the
man and the movement, and Luther, as we have seen, was
early aware of the fundamental difference between their
theological standpoints. For some years, indeed, after
Luther's emergence as a religious reformer, his attitude was
on the whole sympathetic, if non-committal. Both were
at one in their warfare against the scholastic theology and
the obscurantism of the schools, in their appeal from the
schoolmen to the sources of Christianity, in their recoil
from the conventional religion, in their demand for a
comprehensive reform of ecclesiastical abuses. So much
had they in common that the opponents of Luther were also
the opponents of Erasmus, and regarded them as fellow-
workers in the same cause. The great humanist, they held,
was the inspirer of the great heretic. They even believed
him to be the author of some of Luther's writings.
" Erasmus/' it was said, " laid the egg that Luther hatched."
There was a certain amount of truth in the saying. Erasmus
by his critical labours paved the way to a truer knowledge
of the original sources, particularly the New Testament
writings, from which the evangelical reformers drew their
inspiration, though his edition of the New Testament is,
of course, very imperfect judged by the standard of modern
critical scholarship. 29 In " The Method of True Theology/'

" Geiger, " Johann Reuchlin," 466.

" Drummond, "Erasmus," i. 315-316, 345-346 (1873); Binns,
" Erasmus, the Reformer," 75-76 (1923); tf- P- Smith, "Erasmus,"
163 f. (1923).

226 JLuther and toe Ketormation

prefaced to it and afterwards published separately in
enlarged form (Ratio vera Theologiez), he anticipated Luther in
insisting on the importance of a knowledge of the original
languages for the understanding of the Scriptures, and in
exalting such direct knowledge above the scholastic theology,
of which the Apostles and the Fathers knew nothing and were,
indeed, the antagonists. 30 He emphasised the supreme
authority of Scripture and would even test the Apostles'
Creed by it, 31 if he also recognises the validity of ecclesiastical
tradition. For him, as for his friend Colet, belief in the
Scripture and the Apostles' Creed is sufficient, and he refuses
to submerge the mind in scholastic speculation. He would,
in fact, displace the scholastic by a scriptural theology, and
would accord liberty of opinion in theological speculation.
He shares Luther's denial of the right to impose such
speculations as articles of faith and his protest against the
excessive ecclesiastical regulation of the Christian life. The
Church has become Judaic in this respect, and with Paul,
as well as Luther, he would restore the liberty of the Gospel,
and holds that such regulation is not obligatory because it
is not voluntary. 32 He directs the shafts of his satire especi-
ally against the monks and the monastic life, which he
regards as a deformation of the Gospel, 33 and though he does
not, like Luther, carry his aversion the length of demanding
the abolition of monasticism, his exposure of its evils is equally
scathing. In his onslaught on this and other abuses he
undoubtedly prepared the way for Luther, though he later
found it convenient to ignore his responsibility in this matter.
In virtue of his tendency to criticise and ridicule the con-
ventional religion and theology, he has, in fact, been regarded
as the precursor of the modern freethinker, the Voltaire of
the sixteenth century, the ancestor of the age of enlighten-
ment, as the eighteenth century has been called. The

* Drumxnond, i. 326.

" Pineau, " itiasrae, sa Pensee Religieuse," 260-261 (1923). See
also Lindeboom, " Onderzoek naar zijne Theologie " (1909); Renaudet,
" firasme, sa Pensee Religieuse et son Action," 6 f. (1927).

"/&#., 234-235.

M Ibid., 221; Ernst, "Die Frommigkeit des Erasmus," "Theol.
Stud, und Krit." (1919), 72.

Luther and Erasmus 227

inference is rather far-fetched, if only in view of the fact that
a precursor of Voltaire would hardly have spent the greater
part of a laborious life in producing critical editions of the
New Testament and the Fathers for the purpose of contribut-
ing to the knowledge of early Christianity, in place of the
current ecclesiastical and scholastic development of it, and
thereby restoring and strengthening the Church and the
religious life. Whilst attacked and decried by his
obscurantist opponents and even accused by the Sorbonne
of heresy, he was hailed by his admirers, with exaggeration
no doubt, as the prince of theologians, and was a sincere
believer in the Christianity of the New Testament and the
Fathers, if not in its later scholastic and ecclesiastical
development. Moreover, it is rather hazardous to see or
seek in German humanism, as represented by Erasmus, an
anticipation of modern freethought. 34 It is in general too
much limited by its subservience to the mediaeval principle
of authority to anticipate a Bayle or a Voltaire, and there
is a danger in such judgments in unduly " modernising "
Erasmus. Ritter, in fact, contends, as against Dilthey,
Troeltsch, and Wernle, that Erasmus, in spite of his critical
and reactionary attitude towards the Church and its
institutions and theology, did not essentially go beyond
the standpoint of mediaeval piety. 35 At the same time,
there is undoubtedly a modern note in the tendency freely,
if tentatively, to apply the critical, rational method to the
interpretation of the New Testament and the dogmas and
institutions of the Church, which he owed to Laurentius
Valla, and to conceive of Christianity in the larger spirit
of a Ficino, Pico, 36 and the Italian Platonists who sought
to reconcile Christ and Plato.

It thus appears that there was a good deal in common

* 4 See Ritter, " Die Geschichtliche Bedeutung des Deutschen Hum-
anismus," "Hist. Zeitschrift " (1923), 416. "In der Geschichte der
Wissenschaft (von der Theologie sei hier zunachst abgesehen) bedeutet
der Humanismus noch nicht der Anfang des modernen Denkens ";
cf. 446-448.

" Ibid., 442-445-

* For the influence of Pico on Erasmus see Pusino, " Der Ein-
fluss Picos auf Erasmus," "Z.K.G " (1928), 75 f - ' and

228 Luther and the Reformation

between the standpoints of the two reformers. Up to a
point, they were undoubtedly allies in the same cause, and
to this extent there is plausibility in the assumption of their
opponents that, in the matter of what they deemed heresy,
Luther was simply the alter ego of Erasmus. Nevertheless,
the assumption was substantially baseless. A fundamental
difference lies in the fact that Erasmus came to his reforming
standpoint primarily from the humanist and only secondarily
from the religious approach. His progress as a reformer was
mainly on the line of critical, rational thought. " Erasmus/'
judges Mestwerdt in his recent book on the early religious and
intellectual milieu in which he grew up, " is neither exclus-
ively nor predominantly a religious character. Much rather
is the religious motive only one among many." 87 Luther,
on the other hand, was led to his reforming standpoint
almost exclusively by way of the religious approach. For
him the religious motive is the dominating one, the humanist
only of secondary importance. His activity as a reformer was
due first and foremost to his personal religious experience
to the struggle to find a gracious God in the face of the
overwhelming sense of human sin and the divine righteous-
ness, from which he had ultimately found deliverance in
his distinctive apprehension of the Pauline doctrine of
justification by faith. Erasmus, on the contrary, had known
nothing of this convulsive conflict with the problem of
human sin and divine righteousness. He had grown to
manhood in the religious atmosphere of the " Devotio
Moderna," as represented by the Brethren of the Common
Life or Lot, 38 which, while fostering a living personal piety
in contrast to the ecclesiastical type (the Devotio Antiqua),
and striving to reform the degenerate Church, kept essentially

540-451 . Pusino would assign to Pico the main influence in shaping his
ideas, as the "Enchiridion" shows, and to Colet the inspiration to
advocate a thorough practical reform of the Church. See also Renaudet,
" Prreforme et Humanisme & Paris " (1916).

57 " Die Anfange des Erasmus, Humanismus und * Devotio
Moderna/ " 10 (1917). This gifted young scholar fell in the war,
and the work, which was published after his death, was thus unfinished,

8i According to Prof. Whitney " Lot " is the more correct term.
Art. on Erasmus in the " English Hist. Review," 1920, in which he
also emphasises the debt of Erasmus to the Brethren.

Luther and Erasmus 229

within the limit of the traditional orthodoxy. 39 This " devo-
tion," coupled with his early religious training, became,
according to Mestwerdt, the dominating influence in
moulding his career as the greatest of contemporary scholars
and the protagonist of a practical reformation. Mestwerdt
tends, however, to exaggerate this influence, and Pusino,
whilst admitting its predominance in his earlier period,
argues with no little force that there is little trace of it in
his later years, and that his distinctive position as a reformer
was mainly fashioned in the humanist mould. 40

The historians have differed as to the character of this
reformation in view of his somewhat enigmatic personality.
There is, indeed, great difficulty in exactly fixing his position
as a religious reformer. Though he could be militant and
trenchant enough as a critic of manifest evils, he was char-
acteristically cautious and evasive when it came to anything
like a crisis for himself and his cause. Very unlike Luther, he
hesitated to declare himself decisively in such a contingency,
by reason of his innate prudence and fear of consequences.
When Luther would say, " Perish the consequences/' Erasmus
was disposed to ask, " What will be the consequences ? "
Whereas Luther, for example, stands up to the Sorbonne
doctors, who accuse him of heresy and blasphemy, and
pays them back in their own coin with compound interest,
Erasmus is prone to be apologetic and evasive. Hence,
in part at least, the divergence in judging his attitude to the
Church and determining his religious position. Neither
Roman Catholic nor Protestant writers are agreed on the

3 * Devotio moderna and Devotio antiqua are not to be identified with
the Via moderna and the Via antiqua as technically applied to the
controversy in the schools in the fifteenth century. These latter phrases
denote the distinction in method and matter between the Neo-Thomist
and the Occamist schools of theology and philosophy. The distinctive
contentions of these parties have been recently expounded by Ritter,
" Studien zur Spatscholastik," ii. (1922), in which the author con-
troverts Hermelink's theses (in " Religiose Reformbestrebungen des
Deutschen Humanismus," 1907) that German humanism was an indigen-
ous product and that it grew out of and was closely allied with the pre-
Reformation reforming movement within the Church. It is a masterly
exposition and discussion of the late scholasticism.

" {k Z.K G. " (1925), 625.

230 Luther and the Reformation

question. Whilst among Roman Catholics Neve regards him
as a consistent adherent of the Roman Church, 41 Janssen
denies him this privilege. 42 The Protestant Hermelink con-
tends that his thought does not outstrip the Roman Catholic
standpoint, 43 whilst other Protestant writers assign him a
middle position between the two, or assert his independence
of both. The fact seems to be that while his personal religion
was mainly shaped in the mould of the prevalent piety of
the Netherlands reforming circle within the limit of the
Church, he was a sort of free-lance in theology in the spirit
of a Valla, a Pico, and a Ficino, who, in spite of their free and
large-minded humanist standpoint, could accommodate their
criticism or their Platonism to the conventional orthodoxy.
It is, indeed, very characteristic of Erasmus that he could
with remarkable liberality apply on occasion the Pauline
axiom to be all things to all men, though hardly in the
Pauline spirit. He was ready to pay a large tribute to
opinion, and M. Pineau concludes that he would heartily
have subscribed to the saying of Montaigne, " The wise man
should retire within himself from the crowd and preserve
his soul in liberty to judge freely of things. As to the
external world he ought to follow entirely the received
fashions and forms." M This is perhaps too opportunist
a dictum to apply to him in view of his strenuous and even
militant attack on conventional religion. At the same time,
it might be almost paralleled from some of his own admissions
in the face of compromising and dangerous situations, and it
must be remembered that, in satirising and criticising
ecclesiastical institutions or dogmas, he was expressing not
merely his own but a widespread public opinion. What is
lacking in him, compared with Luther, is just the power of
passionate religious conviction, coupled with a dominating
will power, which underlies and inspires both thought and
action and expresses itself in imperative assertion.

In this respect also there could be no real fellowship

41 * La Renaissance des Lettres en Belgique " (1890).

42 * History of the German People," iii. 8 f.

41 * Die Religiosen Reformbestrebungen des deutschen Humanis-
mus,' 32(1907).

44 * Erasrne," preface.

Luther and Erasmus 231

between the impassioned and insistent monk and enigmatic
and rather opportunist scholar. Luther could not under-
stand or appreciate a man who was too prone to express
certain ideas and then, if need be, recede from them, and
whose " greatest audacities are tempered by restrictions/'
to use the words of Pineau. 45 Luther and his friends were,
however, apt too hastily to see in him only the dissembler
and the egoist. The self played, indeed, its characteristic
part in shaping his life. But his egotism was by no means
the thing that conditioned his attitude towards the Lutheran
movement. He believed in culture as a good in itself. He
believed, further, in its power to effect gradually the amend*
ment of the Church and society and raise both to a higher
plane. He relied on the informed reason, rather than on
the impassioned soul, for the enlightenment and betterment
of humanity. His mind was free alike from mysticism and
religious enthusiasm and was inclined to scepticism rather
than to dogmatism, whether scholastic or Lutheran. To
Luther his rationalism was Antichristian, his plea for a
rational faith an offence against the Gospel. He himself
could appeal to reason on occasion and exercise it critically
even on the Scriptures, but on the Occamist understanding
that reason was strictly subordinate to faith ; whereas
Erasmus would go the length of including Plato, Cicero,
Socrates among the saints. He refuses to believe, with
Augustine and Luther, that the virtues of these pagans
are only splendid vices. The great company of the faithful
is not confined to the Roman calendar. Above all, his failure
to appreciate the Lutheran distinction between faith and
works, or subscribe to the dogma of the unmitigated corruption
of human nature and the total impotence of the will, was in
itself an insuperable barrier to anything like a feasible
alliance between them. His conception of Christianity was
not conditioned by any such haunting sense of original and
actual sin. It is rather that of the Sermon on the Mount
than of the Epistles to the Romans and Galatians. For
him it consists in the knowledge of the divine will in Christ,
which is the norm and the inspiration of the Christian life.

s " rasme," 244.

232 Luther and the Reformation

His view of it is the moralist rather than the distinctively
Pauline one. For both, theology is the formulation of the
religious life, not of abstract dogma. But then the experience
of Erasmus differs materially from that of Luther, who was
incapable of seeing that any other formulation of it could
possibly be right. " The human/' wrote Luther to Lang
early in March 1517, " avails more with Erasmus than the
divine." 46 There is too much of free will and too little
of God's grace in him.

Moreover, like most of the humanists he had a nervous
dread of the people, of anything likely to excite " tumult/*
revolution. He lives apart from the common people. His
appeal is confined to the cultured class. He does not, like
Luther or Hutten, appeal to the masses in the common
tongue, 47 though it should not be forgotten that he wished
the Bible to be given to the people in the vernacular. As a
cosmopolitan he was a stranger to the national sentiment
which, even in Luther, contributed to nurture the militant
antagonism to Rome. To a man of Luther's bellicose
temperament this nervous dread of tumult, in the face of
the imperative necessity of appealing to the popular
intelligence as well as the cultured intellect, was nothing
but an evidence of moral weakness, culpable indifference.
In addition to irreconcilability on dogmatic grounds, this
was the thing that ultimately turned the scale of Erasmus's
judgment against the Wittenberg Reformer, in spite of the
fact that he himself had gone far to undermine some of the
institutions and dogmas of the Church. Reform, yes ;
revolution, never, is his characteristic position. He will
only countenance a gradual amendment of what is amiss
in the Church and in theology. Luther, on the other hand,
though temperamentally so conservative, will end, if he
cannot amend, and will in any case only amend on his
own conditions. In other words, if the Roman Antichrist
will not give way on the issue of a radical reformation of
doctrine as well as institutions, he will renounce his authority
and will be the instrument in God's hand of his overthrow,

" Enders, i. 88.

47 " Erasmus," says Mestwerdt, "zeigt sich als wiirdiger Schuler
fast aller Humanisten wenn er die Masse zu verachten lehrt," 208.

Luther and Erasmus 233

or die in the attempt. For Erasmus this alternative is a
sheer impossibility. If it comes to this he would, he said,
play the part of Peter over again. He preferred the more
comfortable belief that reason, in virtue of the diffusion
of true knowledge, the exercise of good sense, will ultimately
prevail in the warfare with corruption and error. A
problematic as well as a comfortable belief. For Erasmus,
as for Burke, change can only be the work of time. But
what if the fullness of time had come, when the issue was
not merely to amend but to deliver the Church from the
papal absolutism and the corruption and oppression for which
it stood ? Nothing short of a revolution could accomplish
this, however desirable it might be to change things by
force of argument and criticism. For this mission only a
Luther could suffice, and an Erasmus could at most only
contribute to pave the way for it. He was totally unfit
to face Nemesis, much less to be the instrument of it. This
heroic, elemental role is reserved for the prophet, not for
the critic and the scholar. 48

As we have seen, Luther had become aware of the funda-
mental difference between his theological standpoint and
that of Erasmus as early as 1516. Erasmus preferred
Jerome and Origen to Augustine. Luther's preference was
for Augustine and Paul whom, he thought, Erasmus mis-
interpreted. At the same time, he admired his learning and
acknowledged his merits as a reforming scholar. Whilst
dissenting from his theology, he refrained from publicly
criticising it in order not to appear to abet the enemies of
the great humanist and, in the letter to Lang in March 1517,
spoke of him as " Our Erasmus." 49 He himself at this stage
of his career had too many enemies to make one of Erasmus,
and under Melanchthon's influence he sent him a letter in

48 In his Hulsean lectures on " Erasmus the Reformer," Mr Binns
champions the Erasmian conception of reform. He seems to me to be
over-sanguine. Moreover, in his admiration for Erasmus, he is rather
unfair to Luther. His one-sided lecture on the great Reformer is evidently
not based on a first-hand knowledge of his writings, as in the case of
his study of Erasmus. It consists of a series of generalisations based
on second-hand sources.

49 Enders, i. 88. Richter, "Erasmus und seine Stellung zu Luther,"
8, erroneously says the letter was written to Spalatin.

234 Luther and the Reformation

March 1519, in which he begged him to recognise him as a
little brother in Christ. 50 On his side, Erasmus, in letters to
Lang and others, had approved generally of the theses
against indulgences and of his manful efforts to vindicate
them against his opponents, whilst deprecating aggressive
theological controversy and expressing his own neutrality.
To Luther himself he adopted the same tone in a rather
non-committal though kindly reply to his letter, and did
him the material service of strongly commending him to
the protection of the Elector of Saxony (i4th April 1519). a
Six months later he intervened in his behalf in a remarkable
missive to the Archbishop of Maintz, in which he vigorously
denounced the odious and shortsighted policy of persecution
adopted towards him by the theologians of Louvain and
elsewhere, who were also his own enemies. " Men who
above all others it beseems to practise meekness seem to
thirst for nothing else but human blood, so eager are they
that Luther should be seized and destroyed. Their conduct
is worthy of the butcher, not the theologian. If they wish
to show themselves great theologians, let them convert the
Jews, let them bring the pagans to Christ, let them amend
the morals of Christendom which are more corrupt than those
of the Turks. How can it be right that he should be dragged
to punishment who at first merely proposed for discussion
certain questions on which the schoolmen have always
disputed and even doubted ? Why should he be punished
who wishes to be taught, who is willing to submit himself
to the judgment of the Holy See, and has agreed to refer his
cause to that of the universities ? But if he will not trust
himself in the hands of those who wish rather to destroy
than justify him, this ought certainly not to appear strange.
... In former times a heretic was heard with due respect
and absolved if he gave satisfaction. If, on conviction, he
persisted in his errors, the extreme penalty was that he was
not admitted to catholic and ecclesiastical communion.

50 Enders, i. 490. In the preface to the " Commentary on Galatians "
he refers to him as Erasmo, viro in Theologia summo et invidiae quoque
victore. " Werke," ii. 449, Sept. 1519.

"Allen, "Erasmi Epistolse," iii., i4th April 1519; Kalkoff,
" Erasmus, Luther, und Friedrich der Weise," 36 f.

Luther and Erasmus 235

Now the crime of heresy is deemed much more serious, and
yet for any light cause forthwith they shout * Heresy/
' Heresy/ Formerly he was esteemed a heretic who
dissented from the Gospels and the articles of faith, or from
those doctrines which were held to be of equal authority.
Nowadays, if anyone differs from Thomas Aquinas, he is
decried as a heretic ; nay, he is a heretic if he demurs to any
disputatious effusion which some sophist yesterday fabricated
in the schools. Whatever they don't like, whatever they
don't understand is heresy* To know Greek is heresy. To
speak grammatically is heresy. Whatever/- they do not do
themselves is heresy. I confess that it is a grave crime
to vitiate the faith. But every subject ought not to be turned
into a question of faith. And those who treat of matters of
faith ought to be free from any species of ambition, greed,
hatred, or revenge." 52

He even ventured in an apologetic letter to the Pope **
(i3th September 1520) to asperse the reprehensible methods
of his opponents and, though disowning all complicity
with Luther's views, spoke approvingly of his gifts and
discriminated between his good and bad qualities. Even
after the papal condemnation he suggested to the Elector
Frederick the reference of his case to a commission of learned
men and exerted himself to win the imperial ministers for
his plan. 64

Whilst thus actively befriending him against his
opponents, who were also his own, and working behind the
scenes to further his cause even after the papal condemna-
tion, he was not prepared to follow him in his breach with
Rome. As between Wittenberg and Rome there could be
for him no question of neutrality. The dread of revolution,
his inability to see eye to eye with him in theology, the
shrinking also from personal risk, decided him to remain
within the fold of Peter. "If it comes to revolution (ad
extremum tumultum) and the state of the Church totters
from both sides, I will meanwhile remain firmly fixed on the

68 Allen, " Erasmi Epistolae," iii. 99 f. The whole letter is translated
by Drummond, " Erasmus," ii. 32 f. See also Froude, " Life and
Letters of Erasmus," 252-257.

11 Ibid., iii. 344-346- * 4 Richter, 22.

236 Luther and the Reformation

rock of Peter until it shall become clear where the Church
is. And so wherever there is evangelical peace, there will
Erasmus be/' 65 " I would certainly rather have Luther
corrected than destroyed," he assured the humanist secretary
of the Prince of Nassau on the I3th March 1521, " but I
shall not oppose if they roast or boil him. The fall of one
man is a small matter, but I am very much concerned for
the public tranquillity." 56 " Not all have sufficient strength
to face martyrdom/' he wrote to Pace after Luther's heroic
stand at Worms, " I fear I should act the part of Peter over
again. I follow the Pope and the Emperor when they
decide well, because it is pious to do so ; I bear their bad
decisions, because it is safe to do so/' 57 His opportunism
compares ill with Luther's heroism. Theology apart, Luther
is morally greatly superior to his timid, if critical, well-wisher
who, compared to him, is only an armchair reformer and
would never have left his armchair to defy the Pope and
face the Emperor and the Diet in defence of his convictions.
Whilst ready, if need be, to leave Luther to his fate,
he continued on occasion to protest against the outcry of
the obscurantist zealots, who were anti-Erasmian as well
as anti-Lutheran, and even to arraign the greed and tyranny
of the Roman Curia and the oppression of Christian liberty
by ecclesiastical ordinances. 58 He emphasised the folly
and futility of seeking to suppress religious conviction by
force. The love of the people for Luther was not so dead
as his enemies imagined, he informed the President of the
Grand Council at Malines. At Basle he hears that there
are more than 100,000 men (in Germany) who hate the
Roman See and approve of Luther. 69 He wrote to Duke
George of Saxony and others in a similar strain against the
policy of persecution. The Pope's Bull and the Emperor's
Edict have only made matters worse. 60 He refrained, too,

55 Allen, fv. 442.

68 Ibid., iv. 453 ; cf. 458. Froude wrongly dates the letter I9th Nov.
1521. " Erasmus," 300.

57 Ibid., iv. 541, sth July 1521.

18 Ibid., v* 44. Letter to La Mota, Bishop of Palencia, 2ist April
1522.

" find., v. 83, I4th July 1522.

Ibid., v. 126-128, Sept. 1522.

Luther and Erasmus 237

from entering the lists against the great heretic in spite of
repeated and urgent requests from Duke George, the new
Pope Hadrian VI., the King of England, and others, to
write against him. He declined on the score of his health
and his age the invitation of the Pope to come to Rome.
He refused to write against Luther on the ground that what
authority he formerly wielded availed not with either party,
and that whatever he might write would find acceptance
with neither. Of one thing he is certain. Force can be no
remedy in a business of this kind. It will only tend to
slaughter. Formerly it might prove serviceable against the
Wiclifites in England, though even there heresy was scotched
rather than killed. In Germany, where there is a multitude
of contending rulers, the thing is impossible. Let the Pope,
therefore, go to the root of the evil and before all begin the
work of healing by drastic reform. Let him proclaim an
amnesty to the erring. If God daily forgives the sinner,
why should not His vicar? He might with advantage
control the press, and the magistrates could effectively deal
with sedition. He could show the world that grievances
justly complained of will be redressed. He could restore
liberty, to which the people have a just claim, without
any real injury to religion. And he ends by suggesting
the convention of what was evidently meant to be an
international assembly of good men, though he breaks off
in the middle of the sentence and leaves the reader to divine
that he still contemplates the submission of the Lutheran
controversy to an impartial arbitration tribunal. 61

At the same time, the persistence with which his enemies
aspersed his orthodoxy and identified his position with that
of Luther, the fear that unless he declared himself against
the heretic the ecclesiastical authorities would proceed
against him as an accomplice, 62 the reiterated appeals from
his patrons in high places were forcing him to face the
alternative of publicly and definitely declaring himself for
or against the heresiarch. The decision to choose the latter
alternative owed something to the bitter attack of the

" Allen, v. 257-261, 23rd March 1523.

ta Kalkoff, " Die Stellung der Deutschen Humanisten zur Reforma-
tion/' " Z.K.G.," 1928, 318 f.

238 Luther and the Reformation

fugitive Hutten who, in passing through Basle, had solicited
and been refused an interview and avenged himself by
publicly denouncing him in July 1523 as a turncoat and a
coward. Hutten had some reason, apart from the personal
one, for pointing out the inconsistency between his former
trenchant attack on the Church and his present conservative
attitude, though it by no means necessarily followed, as he
contended, that it was due to cowardice and bribery. 63
Erasmus repelled those charges in a lengthy vindication
of his career as a reforming scholar and publicist, in which
he maintains that he had not changed his attitude either
towards the Church or towards Luther. 64

He had by this time determined, though with reluctance,
on an encounter with Luther himself. On the day after
the publication of the " Spongia " he informed Henry VIII.
that he was preparing an assault on the new dogmas. 65
This seemed to him the only expedient for disproving the
oft-repeated reproach of being a secret Lutheran. So far he
had received no direct provocation from Luther himself,
who disapproved of Hutten's violent polemic in his behalf as
well as of Erasmus's bitter rejoinder. 66 Luther was, however,
becoming impatient of what he deemed his lack of straight-
forwardness and his pinpricks. He would far rather, he
wrote to Spalatin on the I5th May 1522, have to deal with an
Eck, who openly attacked his enemy, than with this shifty
temporiser who played the part, now of friend, now of
enemy. 87 Whilst admiring his scholarship, he had no
great opinion of his ability as a theologian, and though he
had no desire to provoke his enmity, he would not hesitate to
take up the challenge if attacked. Erasmus will find in
him a very different antagonist from Lefevre, whom he
boasts of having vanquished. 68 He was becoming more and

63 "Expostulate," " Hutteni Opera," ii. i'8o f.

64 "Spongia Erasmi adversus Asperinges Hutteni," Sept. 1523.

65 Allen, v. 330. Molior ahquid adversus nova dogmata, 4th Sept.

66 Enders, jv. 234.

87 Ibid., iii. 360. Melior est Eccius eo qui aperta fronte hostera
profitetur. Hunc autem tergiversantem et subdolum, turn amicum,
turn hostem detestor.

68 Ibid., iii. 376. Letter to Borner, 28th May 1522.

Luther and Erasmus 239

more convinced that Erasmus was a mere trimmer in
religion. " What Erasmus holds or feigns to believe in
spiritual things," he wrote to Oecolampadius a year later
(aoth June 1523), "both his early and his recent books
abundantly testify. Although I feel Ms pricks here and
there, nevertheless because he publicly pretends not to be
an enemy, I also make-believe that I do not perceive his
craftiness, although others see through him more than he
reckons. He has performed the work for which he was
destined. He has furthered the study of the classics and
recalled men from impious sophistry. Perhaps like Moses
he will die in the land of Moab, for to the higher pursuit of
spiritual things he cannot lead. I could wish that he would
refrain from writing of Holy Scripture, because he is not
equal to this work, and only misleads his readers and hinders
their advance in scriptural knowledge. He has done enough
in exposing the evil. To show the good and lead men to
the promised land is beyond his capacity " 69

These letters came into Erasmus's hands and made
him angry with the writer. " I only wish," he wrote to
Zwingli on the 3ist August, " that he were the Joshua who
is to lead us all into the promised land, and I should be glad
to learn from you what are the spiritual things he speaks of.
For myself I seem to have taught almost all that Luther
teaches, except that I do not do this so savagely and that I
have kept clear of certain enigmatic and paradoxical
dogmas/' 70 " This outburst is the prelude to war," he
angrily wrote to Faber three months later. 71

The attempts of Zwingli and other friends to prevent the
impending rupture were futile. In issuing a new edition
of his " Commentary on Galatians," Luther suppressed the
appreciative references to Erasmus. To Pellican he retorted
that though he was sorry that his letters had been treacher-
ously handed to Erasmus, he had learned to stand alone
against the world and cared not for either his patronage or
his enmity, since he does not truly understand Christianity.
" Let Mm learn to know Christ and bid farewell to human

Enders, iv. 164. n Ibid., v. 349, 2ist Nov. 1523.

70 Allen, v. 329-330.

240 Luther and the Reformation

prudence. May the Lord illumine him and make another
man of him. I bear him no ill-will, but I truly pity him." 72
Six months later he told him directly, in a tone very different
from that of the humble epistle of March 1519, to refrain
from further concerning himself with him and his cause.
The letter is that of a superior to an inferior both morally
and spiritually. He bore him no grudge for siding with his
enemies, the papists, in writing books in which he had
bitterly attacked him in order to gain their favour or
mitigate their fury against himself. God had not given
him the fortitude to join with him in the battle with these
monsters, and he would not dream of asking him to attempt
what was quite beyond his powers. " We have chosen
rather to bear your weakness and venerate the gift which
God has given you. For the whole world cannot deny
that the progress and flourishing state of letters, which tends
to the true interpretation of the Bible, is a magnificent and
excellent gift for which we ought to render thanks to God.
I have never desired that you should give up or neglect
your true vocation by concerning yourself with a business
for which you have neither aptitude nor courage, and which
is entirely outside your sphere." Only he warns him not, by
continuing to asperse his method of conducting his cause
and his teaching, to make it necessary for him to join issue
with him. He sympathises with him in the sufferings which
the zealots have caused him, and admits that he himself
has written too bitterly against his opponents, though,
considering the provocation he has received, he thinks that
he has shown no little forbearance and clemency. He has
hitherto refrained from attacking him in spite of his persist-
ence in rejecting or misrepresenting his teaching, and will
continue to do so as long as he does not come out into the
open against him. His cause is now happily beyond the
power of an Erasmus to harm, and he begs him to recognise
the fact and abstain from his biting and bitter rhetoric
and become simply a spectator of his tragedy. Mutual
forbearance is the only fitting attitude. What a miserable
spectacle it would be if they should start to destroy each

71 Enders, iv. 334-235,

Luther and Erasmus 241

other, as it is most certain that neither really wishes ill to
piety. 73

In reply, Erasmus rebutted the assumption that he
had done nothing for the Gospel, for which he had effected
more than many who boasted the name of Evangelical.
What to Luther was weakness was to him a matter of
conscience and judgment. The Gospel had been made a
handle for sedition, the destruction of learning, and the
rupture of friendships. It bade fair to become the occasion
of a bloody revolution, and he can on no account consent to
make it a pretext for the play of human passions. He had
hitherto not written against him for fear of hindering its
advancement, and had contented himself with repudiating
the charge that he was in secret agreement with him in all
his opinions. If he had consulted his private advantage,
nothing would have brought him greater favour and fortune.
It might even be of more advantage to the Gospel to do so
in opposition to the writings of certain stupid scribblers,
who champion Luther's cause and bring discredit on the
Gospel. On this account alone he cannot consent to be a
mere spectator of this tragedy. 74

It did Luther no harm to be reminded that others had a
right to their opinions, even if they differed from him, and
that there might be more than one view of the Gospel and a
different way of serving it from that of the more rabid of
his professed adherents. On the other hand, by his heroism
in risking all for his convictions and spurning compromise
on the essential issue, Luther had certainly won the right
to rebuke him for his tendency to hedge on this issue
which he had himself contributed to raise, and telling
him to mind his own business and keep his opinion to
himself.

From the tenor of Erasmus's reply, it is evident that
he had made up his mind to join in the fray on the side of
Luther's opponents. The projected deliverance had, in
fact, in substance, if not in form, already taken shape,
though its actual composition occupied him but a few

78 Enders, iv. 319-322, middle of April 1524.
74 Allen, v. 451-453. 8th May 1524.

242 Luther and the Reformation

days. 75 The printing of the " De Libero Arbitrio " was
completed by Froben of Basle in August 1524, and in the
beginning of September Erasmus sent presentation copies
to Henry VIII., Pope Clement VIL, Wolsey, Duke George
of Saxony, and other high patrons. "The die is cast,"
wrote he to Henry. " My book on Free Will has seen the
light. An audacious villany, as things now stand in
Germany ! I expect to be stoned/' 78

III. ERASMUS AGAINST LUTHER

In choosing his theme Erasmus was attacking a central
position of Luther's theology. Luther's personal experience of
the fact of human sin and divine righteousness seemed
to him to necessitate the complete impotence of the will
and the worthlessness of human works for salvation, and
led him to formulate the conviction as a theological axiom
in the most uncompromising fashion. Both envisage the
problem from the theological rather than the philosophical
standpoint. It is not for either a question of the power of
the will considered in itself, but of its power from the religious
point of view. The specific point is whether and how far
the will contributes to the attainment of eternal life ? Luther
answers the question with an uncompromising negative,
and the negative is for him so vital that any attempt to
modify it (and this is what Erasmus attempted) seemed to
endanger his whole teaching. It lay at the root both of his
religious experience and his antagonism on dogmatic grounds
to the teaching of the Church and the schoolmen. Erasmus
alone of all his opponents, he said, had laid his finger on
the cardinal point of the whole matter and had seized him
by the throat. 77 Not only his reputation as a theologian,

"See von Walter, " De Libero Arbitrio," Introd. 11-12 (1910),
in " Quellen schriften zur Geschichte des Protestantismus." Zickendraht
shows that already in 1522 he was reflecting on the question of free will as
the differentiating point between him and Luther. See " Eine Anonyme
Kundgebung des Erasmus aus dem Jahre 1522," " Z.K.G.," 1908.

78 Allen, v. 541, 6th Sept. 1524.

77 " Werke," xviii. 786.

Erasmus against Luther 243

if not his work as a reformer, but his very salvation seemed
at stake.

In the introductory part of his work 78 Erasmus claims
the right to dissent from Luther, who himself exercises this
right in refusing to recognise the authority of the doctors of
the Church or even of Pope and cardinals. He is, therefore,
unable to understand why he and his adherents should
resent such a free discussion. His only object is to explore
the truth and he will (and on the whole does) conduct
the discussion in this spirit, though he is conscious of his
unfitness for such a task. He is by nature, he says, inclined
to scepticism, not to dogmatism, and whilst prepared
implicitly to receive the dogmas of the Church, even when
his reason revolts against them, condemns the opinionated
and non-objective controversial method of his opponents
He believes in a certain freedom of the will, and after reading
Luther's contention to the contrary, 79 has found no reason
to change his view. He recognises Luther's intellectual
power, and if his adherents draw odious comparisons between
Luther's gifts and his, let them remember that to their
master himself the enlightenment of the Spirit of God is
far more important than theological learning. He may have
misunderstood Luther's teaching. But they must allow
him to exercise his right to dispute with him, if only that he
may thereby learn to know better. It is as a seeker of
truth, not as a judge or a dogmatist, that he ventures on
this debate. This is the right attitude for moderately gifted
individuals like himself to adopt. There are difficult
passages in Scripture which are meant to impress on us the
inscrutable majesty of the divine wisdom and the limits
of human knowledge of divine things. Curious speculations
about these mysteries are reprehensible. The imperative
thing is to strive, in dependence on God's help, to overcome
sin, imputing the good to Him, the evil to ourselves, believing
in the justice and goodness of God and eschewing these
speculations about God's decrees and human freedom, etc.

78 " De Libero Arbitno Diatribe," edited by von Walter (1910),
and in vol. ix. of " Erasmi Opera " (1540).

7 * In the " Assertio omnium Articulorum," wbich he has particularly
in view throughout the discussion.

244 Luther and the Reformation

Many things have not been revealed or only partially made
known by God, and some things, even if fully known, it is
not expedient to proclaim to the multitude. This would
apply to Luther's teaching even if it were true, since it tends
to nurture moral laxity. As the Scripture is adapted to
our understanding, so the preachers of the Gospel ought to
refrain from presenting the extreme doctrine of the enslaved
will to the people in view of its pernicious effects.

Since Luther admits no authority outside the Scriptures,
Erasmus is saved the trouble of examining the opinions of
the Greek and Latin Fathers on free will. He will, therefore,
limit the discussion to the relative passages in the Old and
New Testaments. At the same time, he reminds the reader
that none of the ancients or the scholastic doctors has totally
rejected the freedom of the will except Manicheus and John
Wiclif. Though the vote of the majority is no guarantee
of truth, due weight should surely be attached to the opinion
of so many doctors, saints, martyrs, councils, popes, as
against the private judgment of one or two individuals.
Surely the Greek and Latin Fathers were better fitted by
their linguistic knowledge and their holiness of life to
interpret the Scriptures than these new evangelical preachers,
who cannot be compared to them in either respect. The
clarity of Scripture on this subject is disproved by the
variety of opinions throughout the ages. Even in Apostolic
times the gift of prophecy was necessary to interpret it.
His opponents appeal to the testimony of the Spirit of
God in them. But the Spirit is more likely to operate in
the ordained priesthood than in these claimants to its
exclusive possession, though he admits that in Scripture
it is promised to the simple and foolish in the eyes of the
world. In this case the injunction of Paul to try the
spirits is imperative at a time when both sides claim the
guidance of the Spirit. The age of miracles has ceased,
and would God we had in place of miracles the pure life of
the Apostles. To criticise the priesthood is no proof of the
exclusive possession of the Spirit, and it is impossible to
believe that it has allowed the Church to err for 1,300
years. 80

Q " DC Lib. Arbitrio," 1-18, von Walter's edition.

Erasmus against Luther 245

He proceeds to examine, in the first place, the passages
of the Old and New Testaments, which plainly establish the
freedom of the will, and, in the second place, to explain
those which seem to exclude it, on the principle that the
Scripture, being inspired by the Spirit, cannot contradict
itself.

Free will, from the theological point of view, he defines,
following Lombardus, as the power by which man may
apply himself to those things which lead to eternal life,
or turn away from them. 81 According to Scripture, man was
created free. But in consequence of the misuse of his
freedom he lost it and became the slave of sin. The light
of reason and the power of the will, which is denved from
reason, were, however, not thereby completely extinguished,
though the will was rendered inefficacious to do the good. 82
He retained a certain knowledge of God and power of
virtuous living, as the life and teaching of the philosophers
show, though he could not attain to eternal salvation without
the grace which comes through faith. The fact of the law
and man's responsibility for its transgression prove that he
retained the power of choosing between good and evil. If
the will was not free, sin could not be imputed to him.
Sin involves free will. Though the will received a wound
through the fall, and man became more prone to the evil
than the good, it was not completely destroyed. 83 Opinion
as to the extent of this freedom has varied, as a reference
to the views of Pelagius, Augustine, and Scotus shows,
and he declares the most probable view to be that which,
differing from Pelagius, ascribes most to grace and almost
nothing to free will in the attainment of salvation, whilst
not totally denying its freedom. This he evidently regards,
though not quite correctly, as the position of Augustine,
and he contrasts it with the determinism of Luther who
regards free will as an empty name (inane nomen), ascribes

81 "De Lib. Arbitrio," 19; "Opera," ix. 1002. Porro liberum
arbitrium hoc loco sentimus vim humanae voluntatis qua se possit homo
applicare ad ea quae perducunt ad aeternam salutem aut ab lisdem avertere.

82 Ibid.y 22. Ad honesta inefficacem esse factam.

83 Ibid.* 25. Quamquam enim arbitrii libertas per peccatum vulnus
accepit, non tamen extincta est.

246 Luther and the Reformation

both the good and the evil in man to God, and holds that
all that happens does so in virtue of necessity (mera necessi-
tatis). Against this extreme view he adduces a number
of passages from the Old and New Testaments, which plainly
imply the power to choose the good and the evil, and which
are wholly meaningless without this implication. The
frequent exhortations to do the good, the promise of reward,
the threat of punishment are indubitably addressed to those
who are capable of moral action, and are not merely the
mechanical instruments of the divine will. Moreover, sayings
of Jesus and Paul as well as of Moses and the prophets,
which he quotes and examines, allow of no other conclusion,
in spite of the contentions of Wiclif and Luther to the
contrary. 8 *

But what of the passages which seem to militate against
the freedom of the will and ascribe to God's decree all the
good and evil we do ? What, for instance, of the hardening
of Pharaoh's heart and Paul's reasoning in the ninth chapter
of Romans on this and similar passages of the Old Testament ?
In such passages Paul does seem to attribute nothing to
human agency and to exclude free will. It is absurd, he
replies, following Origen, to make God, who is just and
good, the author of human wickedness. God only makes
use of Pharaoh's wickedness to attain His purpose. In
virtue of this wickedness Pharaoh could only do evil, just
as rain can only bring forth thorns and thistles out of bad
soil and good fruit out of good. It depends on the disposition
of the individual what God does with it. God only foresaw
what would happen in Pharaoh's case. But he did not
foreordain it. Foreseeing a thing is not the same as fore-
ordaining it. He is not, therefore, the cause of Pharaoh's
action. The ultimate causality of God in relation to human
action is, indeed, a very difficult question. What God
foresaw He must in some way have willed, since He did
not hinder it, though it was in His power to do so. He
really willed that Pharaoh should perish, and justly so by
reason of his wickedness. Nevertheless, it was not because
of God's will that he persisted in his wickedness and perished,

" " De Lib. Arbitrio," 19-46.

Erasmus against Luther 247

but of his persistence in his evil course, due to his wicked
nature. God co-operates with human action. But the evil
in this action does not proceed from Him, but from the
human will. 85 To posit that man acts in virtue of a pure
and perpetual necessity is to take away the possibility of
merit and all distinction between good and evil. In opposi-
tion to this monstrous determinism he expounds this and
other passages in order to harmonise the fact of God's grace
and man's free will. 86 With the aid of Bishop Fisher's
" Confutatio/' 87 he then reviews the passages which Luther
adduces in his " Assertio J> on behalf of the dogma of the
total impotence of the will and the utter nullity of man's
works. He thinks that the overwhelming testimony of
Scripture is against this extreme dogma and, in virtue of
this test, claims to have the best of the argument. 88

In the concluding part he seeks to uphold his own
moderate position against the extremists on both sides
those who assume the complete freedom of the will, on the
one hand, and the total suppression of it, on the other. He
has no little sympathy with Luther's teaching, which tends
to lead man to depend wholly on God, to humble himself
before Him, to subject himself wholly to the divine will,
to magnify His immense mercy freely bestowed, to realise
his own weakness and misery, to confide entirely in God's
grace and not in his own merits, to give all the glory to His
grace and goodness, and frankly acknowledge the working
of His grace within him. All this evokes his whole-hearted
appreciation, and one feels that, but for this unfortunate
dogma, Erasmus is inclined to go with Luther rather than
his opponents, is really, as he himself confessed to Zwingli,
almost at one with his evangelical teaching, in spite of his
repeated prudent disclaimers to the contrary. But he
strongly objects to his determinism which makes man act

S6 "De Lib. Arbitrio," 53. Negari non potest quin ad omnem
actum concurnt operatic divina. . . . Ceterum actus malitia non
proficiscitur a deo, sed a nostra voluntate.

** Ibid., 45-61.

37 Zickendraht has shown his indebtedness to Fisher's book against
Luther's "Assertio," "Der Streit Zwischen Erasmus und Luther"

(1909)-

' De Lib. Arbitrio," 61-77.

248 Luther and the Reformation

in virtue of absolute necessity, represents him as so much
clay in the potter's hands, destroys the belief in his moral
personality, declares all his works, even the pious ones, to
be sinful, and does away with merit and reward. How can
this harmonise with the language of Scripture, which speaks
of God's children walking righteously before Him, which
praises those who keep His commandments and punishes
those who break them ? How can man be judged for what
he does if he cannot do otherwise than as God has decreed ?
What is the meaning of all these exhortations, threats,
warnings, punishments ? What is the use of praying for
anything, if He has resolved to give or not to give according
only to His pleasure ? Why speak of reward if there is no
such thing as merit ? How can it be just to give grace to
some and eternal damnation to others, if, on the theory of
the unfree will, all are incapable of doing anything good and
must do what they do in virtue of God's decree ?

He sympathises, too, with the emphasis laid by Luther on
faith as the source of and the important thing in the religious
life. But he holds that faith springs from love, if love also
springs from faith and is nurtured and maintained by faith.
Nor can he accept Luther's doctrine of original sin, which
exaggerates sin to such a degree that man by nature cannot
but hate God and that even the works of those that are
justified by faith are necessarily, in themselves, sinful.
All such exaggerations are obnoxious to him, and he depre-
cates Luther's tendency to dogmatise so rashly on the
divine decrees which are to us inscrutable and insoluble,
especially as Luther and his adherents (Carlstadt) are not at
one in their dogmatism. This dogmatism makes God a
cruel tyrant and is fitted to produce, and does indeed
produce, the worst moral effect. Luther in his just reaction
from the errors, exaggerations, and evils rampant in the
Church and the schools has gone to the other extreme and
himself fallen into error and exaggeration. Hence this
torrent of disputation and recrimination, this conflict between
Achilles and Hector, which, being waged with equal fierceness,
death alone can end. In the quest for truth this extreme
virulence is out of place, and for himself he will follow the
middle way of moderation. " Pelagius," he concludes,

Erasmus against Luther 249

" seems to attribute more than enough to free will ; Scotus
rather abundantly. Luther began by only mutilating it,
but, not content with this, erelong strangled it and rejected
it entirely. For my part, I prefer the opinion of those who
attnbute something to free will, but most to grace." 89
This conclusion, he thinks, is not antagonistic to the essential
part of Luther's teaching on faith and works, and whilst
warning against the rash rejection of the teaching of so
many doctors of the Church for the sake of so paradoxical
a dogma, ends, as he had begun, in a conciliatory tone. 00

The " De Libero Arbitrio " is in some respects a remark-
able performance. Erasmus adopts a reasonable and
moderate tone which lends a well-merited distinction to his
work compared with the theological polemics of the day.
He refrains from personal objurgation, and in this he shows
both his scholarly taste and a due sense of the true method
to be adopted by a searcher after truth. His rebuke of the
noisy and contentious dogmatism of some of the evangelical
preachers is, from this point of view, very much to the
point. Granting Luther's position, though not quite assent-
ing to it, that Scripture is the sole authority on a question
of this kind, he subjects the sources to a careful and scholarly
review, and strives to bring to bear on the solution of the
problem the testimony of the evidence relative to it. He
arrives at his conclusion as the result of this painstaking
investigation, and there is no reason to doubt that he is,
on this ground, a conscientious believer in the relative
freedom of the will, theologically considered. There can be
no doubt, for instance, that in emphasising the moral
character of the divine government of the world and the
indubitable evidence of the Mosaic law and the moral teach-
ing of Scripture in support of man's moral personality,
he was expressing a strongly felt conviction. 91 He strives

89 " De Lib. Arbitrio," 90. fl Ibid., 77-92.

" Zickendraht thinks that he was at heart a sceptic on the dogmatic
aspect of free will, and only entered on this aspect of the question, in
the main part of the work, in deference to the desire of his high patrons
that he should do so. But while, on his own confession, inclined to
scepticism, he does seem to be expressing certain definite convictions
on the subject.

250 Luther and the Reformation

to be fair to Luther and, in spite of the odium of his name in
orthodox and exalted circles, does not hesitate to emphasise
the good side of his teaching, and even betrays the fact
that he to a large extent sympathises with it and the
Reformation movement. On the other hand, it is evident
that his judgment of Luther and the evangelical movement
is not a purely objective one. He is incapable of understand-
ing or appreciating a train of thought springing from a
religious experience so different from his own, or a personality
which could only express itself and achieve its mission in the
elemental fashion so distasteful to him, Moreover, he is apt
to view Luther in the light of the personality and conduct
of some of his followers, and make him responsible for the
actions or excesses of which he disapproved and which he
explicitly condemned. To judge from his representation
of it the Reformation was pure and simple a destructive force,
an anarchic movement subversive of order and morality.
He ignored too much the constructive side of it, the profound
religious genius and high ethical ideal at the back of it, the
quickening of the spiritual and moral life which it brought
about in the case of the better type of its adherents. He
saw the shadow rather than the light. He does not realise
that Luther's conviction of the impotence of the will to do
the good sprang from his high ideal of the divine righteous-
ness as well as from a pessimistic and too dogmatic conception
of human nature, and that it was in the attempt to realise
the high standard of this righteousness in the sight of a
perfectly righteous God that he felt so keenly the utter
insufficiency and impotence of his efforts. He does not realise
the seriousness of the problem from this point of view,
because he had not, like Luther, wrestled with it in conflict
with the terrible reality that sin appeared to him, with his
vivid imagination and consummate command of drastic
expression. He is not, like Luther, obsessed with the necessity
of being sure of his salvation, and does not appear to under-
stand this frame of mind. Luther was no doubt guilty of
exaggeration. But for the deeper thing that lay behind
this characteristic and rather questionable gift, Erasmus
has no adequate understanding. He fails, too, to do justice
to the practical tendency of Luther's teaching. Luther is

Luther against Erasmus 251

not out to demoralise hi? generation by teaching a crass
and immoral determinism. He was not so much concerned
with the speculative aspect which, indeed, as he expounded
it, and as Erasmus himself pointed out, was fitted to lead
to very questionable results. He is out to bring man to God
in Christ and, whilst emphasising the divine as against the
human will, lays equal stress on the imperative necessity
of self-discipline and service for others, as the result of
the regeneration wrought by faith, which, if due to grace
and not to works, is inherent in the new relation of the
soul to God. Nor is Erasmus quite true to his principle
of keeping solely to the evidence of the sources in discussing
and judging the subject. While formerly waging war on
the scholastic theology, he shows himself in this work a
more receptive disciple of the schoolmen as well as the
Fathers. He works with the apparatus of the scholastic
theology as well as the original languages in interpreting
the evidence of the Scriptures. He makes use of the con-
ventional scholastic idea of prevenient, co-operative, effective
grace, and has, unlike Luther, made no original contribution
to the subject. He has, in fact, assimilated a good deal
from this interminable argumentation and has thus consider-
ably mitigated his former preference for the Gospel itself,
apart from later variations of it. His exegesis of certain
passages is sometimes fashioned to get over a difficulty
and his profession of absolute submission to ecclesiastical
authority, even against his reason, is irreconcilable with
his professed desire to seek only the truth. In his desperate
attempts to meet the objections or explain away the
difficulties that bristle around the problem, he is not always
consistent. The will, for instance, is inefficacious to do
the good, and is, because of the fall, the slave of sin, yet
we are told that its power of choice is not completely
nullified.

IV. LUTHER AGAINST ERASMUS

Luther by no means relished the " De Libero Arbitrio,"
although he did not consider it in itself a formidable per-

252 Luther and the Reformation

formance. 92 He had not read far, he tells us, before he felt
inclined to pitch the volume under the table. But the
reputation of Erasmus and the impression it made on both
friends and foes, if not its intrinsic importance, made it
necessary to reply to it. 93 Pressure of work and other cares
prevented him from carrying out his purpose for nearly a
year, and it was only in September 1525 that he found time
to devote himself to this task. 94 He worked incessantly
at it for the next two months, and in December it was issued
from the press under the title of " De Servo Arbitrio." 95

Whilst recognising his great literary and intellectual
gifts, and his own inferiority to him in this respect, he tells
him that his book contains nothing new 96 and is not to be
compared with Melanchthon's " Loci Communes/' He is
sorry that he has wasted his literary talent in such a concoc-
tion which has both disgusted and angered him. His
defence of free will is so worthless that he thanks him for
having thereby strengthened his own belief to the contrary.
He treats him as a novice in theology and vigorously rebuts
his dislike of dogmatism and his tendency to scepticism.
No one can be a Christian who is not certain of his beliefs
and prepared whole-heartedly to confess his faith before
men. " Take away this dogmatism and you deprive us of
Christianity/' 97 The Spirit is given in order that it may
convict and convince- Luther has no patience with the
tendency to see both sides of the question in an essential
matter of this kind. Scepticism is here absolutely inadmis-
sible. It is all the more reprehensible inasmuch as Erasmus
is prepared to accept the decrees of the Church even if he
cannot comprehend or agree with them, merely because
the Church prescribes what he is to believe and for the
sake of peace, or to avoid personal danger. In this respect
he is no better than sceptics like Lucian or Epicurus who

* s Enders, v. 46.

88 Ibid., v. 52. " Ibid., v. 245 and 247.

** " Werke," xviii. 600 f. It is also given in "Opera Latina,"
vi.. ed. by Schmidt.

* 8 Ibid., xviii. 600-601, in tanta re nihil dicis quod non dictum
sit prius.

7 Ibid., xviii. 603. Tolle assertiones et Christianisnium tulisti.

Luther against Erasmus 253

scoff at truth and regard all dogma as mere human opinion.
He may, if he pleases, imitate the example of those who
say, " They say and therefore I say ; they deny and there-
fore I deny." But this way is not the Christian way. The
Holy Spirit is no sceptic. 98 He holds that in all essentials of
Christianity, of which this dogma is one, the testimony of
Scripture is perfectly clear, though the enlightenment of the
Spirit is necessary for a true spiritual understanding of it,
and it contains obscure passages due to the difficulty of
understanding the true meaning of the words. Its teaching
is unmistakable and, in denying this, Erasmus is merely
reflecting the sophistic view of the scholastic theologians
who, under the inspiration of Satan, have displaced it by
their pestiferous philosophy and, under this false pretext,
have prevented the people from reading it. This is merely
to shut one's eyes and say the sun is dark." You should
quarrel not with Scripture, but with these sophists.

Erasmus raises the question of authority. The doctors
differ in their interpretation of Scripture. Where is the
absolute test of the truth ? Authority, replies Luther, is
twofold internal and external. It lies in the first place in
the judgment of the individual believer, enlightened by
God's Spirit, though he refuses to recognise the claim of the
Zwickau prophets to the enlightenment of the Spirit. " The
spiritual man judges all things." In the second place it
resides in the public ministry of the Word, by which we
judge not only for ourselves, but for others, and are thus
enabled to strengthen the weak and confute the opponents
of the Word. 100 Nor is it of any avail for Erasmus to say
that the Church cannot have erred. The Church which does
not err, replies Luther, is not the historic papal Church,
but the secret body of God's people the few whom He has
chosen, not the many. Moreover, the mere opinion of saints
and martyrs on such a subject decides nothing. As the
proverb has it, The souls of many esteemed to be saints and
deemed to be in heaven are now in hell. 1 Saints like
Augustine and Bernard forget and despair of themselves and

" " Werke," 605. Sanctus spiritus non est sccpticus.
* Ibid., xviii. 606-607.
" JMd.> xviii. 653 f . x Ibid., xviii. 641 .

254 Luther and the Reformation

their own will and merits when they approach God in prayer
and attempt anything in His service. Their only thought
is their dependence solely on God's grace. 2

To Erasmus the dogma of the impotence of the will is
merely a curious and superfluous speculation. To Luther,
on the contrary, it is of the very essence of the Christian
faith. " Without it neither God, nor Christ, nor the Gospel,
nor faith, nor anything is left us." 3 How can it be described
as a superfluous speculation to seek to know whether the
will can effect anything or not in regard to those things
which belong to man's eternal salvation. Erasmus himself
asserts both that without grace the will is inefficacious to
do so, and that, nevertheless, it can do something. At the
same time, he deems it superfluous to inquire whether it can
or not. What is this but weakly to evade a real and
fundamental problem in deference to human prudence ? 4

To Luther this is the vital and essential thing. 5 If we
are in ignorance on this point we can know nothing of
Christianity and are worse than pagans. <f For if I am
ignorant, what, how far, and how much I can do in relation
to God, I shall remain equally ignorant and uncertain what,
how far, and how much God can do and does in relation
to me." We cannot worship or serve God unless we know in
what relation we stand to Him and He stands to us. " Hence
the necessity of being able to distinguish definitely between
the power of God and our own, between His work and ours,
if we wish to live piously." 6 By evading this fundamental
problem Erasmus has written the most worthless book on the
subject, apart from its literary elegance, he has ever come
across. He is a mere rhetorician and is much inferior to the
schoolmen in his superficial treatment of the subject. Luther
will supply his deficiencies as a theologian and a meta-
physician by teaching him what the subject really means
and involves, in the hope of bringing him to repent of his
foolish venture.

Against " the figment " of free will he adduces the eternal
and immutable will of God, by which He foresees, determines,

4 " Werke," xviii. 644- * B>id.> xviii. 610. * Ibid., xviii. 611 f.
6 Ibid., xviii. 614. Cardo nostrae disputationis.
6 Ibid., xviii. 614.

Luther against Erasmus 255

and effects all that happens, and which excludes the assump-
tion that He foresees anything contingently. From the
immutable nature of God it follows irrefragably that what
He has willed is immutable, and that all that we are, all
that happens, happens in virtue of an immutable necessity,
as far as God is concerned, though it may seem to us mutable
and contingent. 7 In demonstration of this thesis he
proceeds to refute the distinction between absolute and
conditional necessity (necessitate consequently and necessi-
tate consequentis), which he pronounces to be a mere play
of words. Without the belief in this absolute necessity,
faith and the worship and service of God would be impossible,
since we could not trust God's promises or be certain of our
salvation, and the Gospel would cease to afford us any real
consolation amid the trials of this life. 8

It is from this point of view that Erasmus's teaching is
so obnoxious. It cuts at the root of faith and the Gospel.
It is, therefore, irreligious and even blasphemous, though he
admits that this is not his intention, and agrees with him
in so far as his scepticism applies to the vain and sophistic
argumentation of the scholastic theologians. But it is
absolutely inapplicable to the teaching of the Scriptures,
which is a very different thing from the theology of the
schoolmen, and he objects to being placed in the same
category with those hair-splitting sophists. He rebuts his
comfortable advice that the truth of Scripture should not
be indiscriminately preached to the people. If it is so
harmful to preach on this subject to the people, why has he
written a book on it ? Luther admits that some preachers
indulge in noxious ranting on this and other subjects. But
why should this prevent earnest and pious preachers from
expounding Scripture doctrine to their hearers or inveighing
against the tyranny of the ecclesiastical institutions, by
which the conscience is enslaved, merely for fear of the
abuse of liberty ? Luther refuses to suppress his convictions

7 " Werke," xviii. 615. Eo quo sequitur irrefragabiliter omnia quse
facimus, omnia quse fiunt, etsi nobis videntur mutabiliter et contingenter
fieri, revera tamen fiunt necessario et immutabiliter, si Dei voluntatem
spectes.

* Ibid. y xviii. 618*619.

256 Luther and the Reformation

for such opportunist reasons. He scorns the egotistic advice
to cease disturbing the world for the sake of peace on a
question which is not a mere speculation, but concerns the
salvation of the soul so vitally. For him it is a fundamental
question of faith and conscience, which concerns the glory
of Christ and God Himself, and on this serious, imperative,
and eternal issue he is ready to defy the whole world and
face death itself. 9 "By the grace of God I am not so
foolish or mad as to have undertaken this cause for money,
which I neither have nor wish, or for glory, which, even if
I desired, I could not obtain in a world so hostile to me,
or on account of the life of the body, of which I am not sure
one moment. Nor is it for objects of this kind that I have
maintained it with such courage, such constancy, which
you are pleased to call perversity, through so many dangers,
hatreds, snares, in brief, against the fury of men and demons.
Think you that you alone have a breast which is troubled by
these tumults ? We also are not made of rock or born with
skins of marble. But since it cannot be otherwise, we,
joyful in the grace of God, prefer to cause this violent
collision on account of the Word of God, which is to be
maintained with invincible mind, to being crushed with
intolerable suffering by an eternal tumult under the wrath
of God." 10 He will not, like Erasmus, sacrifice or destroy
the Word and the cause of Christ for the sake of peace
or the favour of Pope and princes. Christ admonishes us
rather to despise the whole world in such a cause. He
came not to give peace, but a sword. The function of the
Word is to change and make a new world as often as it
comes, and unless there were strife and tumult, we should
conclude that the Word was not in the world. It will
certainly not cease its function till the kingdom of the Pope
with all his adherents is overthrown. This tumult is far
more tolerable than the old and evil state of things, which
Erasmus himself has often enough exposed. How much
better to lose the world than to lose God. This tumult
is unavoidable, inasmuch as the Pope and the priesthood
will not grant a reasonable liberty from their tyrannical

* Werke," xviii. 625. * Ibid., rviii. 625.

Luther against Erasmus 257

laws, but insist on taking captive and binding the conscience
to their will and their human traditions. This is a conflict
between God and Satan, which must be fought out to the
bitter end. Has not Erasmus himself had to fight against
the obscurantist enemies of sound learning ? How much
more must we fight for the Gospel against its corrupters !
Not preach the whole Word of God to the people ? Did
not Christ command to preach the Gospel to all the world ?
And did not Paul say that the Word is not bound and that
God is no respecter of persons ?

He next deals with the awkward questions arising from
the dogma of the impotent will, which Erasmus had raised
in the last part of his introduction, and which showed the
danger of teaching such a dogma to the people. Who, asks
Erasmus, will strive to amend his life, if every one can only
act in virtue of necessity ? " No one," answers Luther,
" for no one can. Only the elect will amend themselves by
God's spirit. The others will perish unamended." Who,
asks Erasmus further, will believe that God loves him, if
he is condemned merely in virtue of a divine decree ? "No
one," answers Luther, " will or can believe except the elect,
but will perish in their raging and blaspheming against God,
as you do in your book." But, urges Erasmus, does not
such a doctrine open a door to impiety ? " So be it," answers
Luther. " This is part of the evil that is to be borne. But
at the same time there is opened for the elect a door to
righteousness, an entrance into heaven, a way to God." u
Without such teaching the people would not humble them-
selves before God, or despair of self and be led by fear to
seek His grace and live, and recognise that salvation depends
wholly on God's will, not on theirs. To all such objections
his answer is, God wills it so, and it is not ours to inquire
into the reason of His will, but simply to adore Him,
believing that He is just and wise and does injury to none.
It is a matter of faith and spiritual experience, not of
understanding, and the difficulties involved serve only to
stimulate faith. Formerly, as we have seen, the thought
of predestination had filled him with despair. Now that
he is sure of his salvation, it is an essential of faith, and the
"Werke,"xviii. 633.

258 Luther and the Reformation

thought that salvation depends solely on God's immutable
will fills him with an unfailing confidence.

He next proceeds to criticise and controvert in detail
Erasmus's conception of free will, as defined by him.
Erasmus has faultily defined what for Luther does not
exist. Free will, in the religious sense, man does not
possess. Being absolutely dependent on God for salvation,
as far as God does not operate in him, his works are neces-
sarily evil and he can do nothing for his salvation. 12 His
will is not in itself free. It is dominated either by God or
Satan. It is like a beast of burden. If God is seated in
the saddle, it wills and goes whither God wills. If the
devil is in the saddle, it wills and goes whither the devil
wills. Both are striving for the possession of it and it is
powerless to choose between them. 13 Free will is the
prerogative of God alone. 14 It is a misnomer when applied
to man, and only tends to deceive the people, to the greatest
danger of their salvation. Will power man has, and it may
be permissible to speak of free will applied to ordinary
things, though even in this case God is the ultimate disposer
of all. 15 But in relation to God in those things which
concern his salvation he is not free, but the slave of the will
either of God or Satan. Erasmus, while assuming a certain
measure of freedom in the will, says that it is inefficacious
to do the good without grace, and that it even became
through the fall the slave of sin. He thus, retorts Luther,
gives away his whole case. For, if the will cannot do the
good without grace, it is not free, but the slave of evil, and
cannot turn of itself or apply itself to what pertains to
salvation. 18 If Erasmus had not in their eyes the merit
of writing against Luther, the scholastic theologians them-
selves would condemn such stuff and send him to the stake. 17
There can be no attempt to do the good where there is no
power to will the good and man is the slave of sin. No
middle course is here possible, as Erasmus would have
us believe. If God is present in us, the devil is absent and
one cannot but will the good. If God is absent, the devil

11 " Werke," xviii. 634. " Ibid., xviii. 662 f.

" Ibid., xviii. 635. " Ibid., xviii. 636, 664-665.

14 Ibid., xviii. 636, 662. * 7 Ibid., xviii. 665-666.

Luther against Erasmus 259

is present and one cannot but do the evil. 18 Free will is
nothing but an empty name (inane vocabulum), since if the
will has lost its liberty by sin, it is a mere delusion of words
to speak of its liberty. 19 It is beside the point to appeal
to the law as a proof of free will. God has given the law
in order to bring home to us the moral impotence of human
nature. Nor does it avail to adduce the testimony of reason
and carnal wisdom, which only tend to nurture human pride
and mislead and blind us to the truth of Scripture. The
Scriptural passages by which Erasmus attempts to sub-
stantiate his case he interprets wrongly. Rightly inter-
preted they prove, not what man can, but what he ought to
do. 20 The radical weakness of his exegesis consists in the
fact that he fails to distinguish between the Law and the
Gospel. The Law commands and exacts. The Gospel
exacts nothing, but offers us the grace of God. 21 In thus
wrongly interpreting the Scriptures on behalf of a certain
measure of freedom in the will, Erasmus really lands him-
self in the same position as Pelagius, who believed in the
full freedom of the will, and from whom he nevertheless
dissents. 22 That the testimony of Scripture is against him
on this question he asserts in the most uncompromising
fashion. " Not only the Law, but the whole Scripture is
opposed to free will." w

He maintains this contention even in the face of passages
like Ezekiel xviii. 23, " The Lord willeth not the death
of the sinner, but that he should turn and live/' which
Erasmus adduces in evidence of the exercise of free will.
How can it be said that God willeth not the death of the
sinner, if it is true, as the opponents of free will insist, that
the sinner can do nothing but as God wills and works in
him, and that, therefore, the fate of those who are lost is
due to Him ? God, indeed, returns Luther, wills all to be
saved, to experience His grace. Scripture is replete with
this teaching, and he duly emphasises this fact, whilst

18 "Werke," xviii. 669-670. 20 Ibid., xviii. 671 f.

19 Ibid.* xviii. 670-671. 31 Ibid., xviii. 682.
"Ibid., xviii. 675; */ 683.

9 * Ibid., xviii. 684. Non solum omnia verba legis contra liberum
arbitrium, sed universam Scripturam contra illud pugnaie.

260 Luther and the Reformation

sticking to his determinist doctrine that it is only as He
wills and works in us that we are saved. But if God does
all and man nothing, and if He wills all to experience His
grace, how is it that some experience His grace and others
do not ? This, replies Luther, is a mystery. The solution
of this mystery He has reserved to Himself. He seems so
far to agree with Erasmus that the question of free will is
a baffling one, though he does not accept his conclusion that
it is, therefore, superfluous for us to trouble ourselves or
others with it. It is at all events not superfluous as far as
it concerns us to know whether or not we can do anything
to attain salvation. In spite of this ultimate impasse,
he will hold to his conviction on the subject and will believe
and adore where he cannot understand. He takes refuge
in the distinction between the revealed and the secret will
of God, between the Word of God and God Himself. 24 God in
His revealed Word wills and seeks all to be saved. But He
has not revealed His whole will in the Word. Behind the
Word is the realm of the divine majesty and nature, the
secret mind of God which is above our knowledge or compre-
hension, and of which it is not our business to dispute.
It is enough to quote the words of Paul, " Nay but, O man,
who art thou that repliest against God ? " ** (Rom. ix. 20).

In reply to Erasmus's contention that if man acts in
virtue of necessity, merit and reward are excluded, and
it is therefore useless for Scripture to speak of these, Luther
appeals from the Old Testament the Law and its threats
to the New, which proclaims the grace of God for the remis-
sion of sin, freely bestowed through Christ. The Gospel
excludes all thought of merit. Man merits only damnation,
and only as he is justified through God's mercy is he capable
of good works and actually exercises them in bearing the
Cross and the tribulations of life. " This is the sum and
substance of the New Testament, yea, even of the Old
Testament/' of which Erasmus with his moralism knows
nothing. He is thus incapable of understanding the new
birth, the regeneration, the renewal of corrupt human

**"Werke," xviii. 68$. Distinctio inter Deum praedicatum et
absconditum, hoc est, inter verbum Dei et Deum ipsum.
5 Ibid., xviii. 686,

Luther against Erasmus 261

nature by the Spirit and mercy of God. His assertion of
merit and reward, based on free will, agrees with this Gospel
as little as darkness with light. The children of God do
the good gratuitously and not for reward, in obedience to
the will of God and for the glory of God. They are prepared
to do so even if there were no heaven and no hell. 26 Our
works are not ours, but God's, from whom we receive all
that we do.

He next proceeds to vindicate his teaching on the unfree
will from the objections urged by Erasmus. 27 He dis-
claims the exegesis of certain Scripture passages which
Erasmus unjustifiably attributes to him. He maintains,
in reference to the hardening of Pharaoh's heart, that the
words of the text are to be taken literally and not merely
tropologically, as Erasmus asserts. Thus Paul interprets
them in the ninth chapter of Romans, and the testimony of
Origen and Jerome to the contrary proves nothing, since
among all ancient ecclesiastical writers none treated the
Scriptures more ineptly and absurdly than those two
Fathers. 28 God did not merely furnish the opportunity
for the hardening of Pharaoh's heart. He actually did so
for the purpose of showing His power through human
wickedness. There is no use of trying to evade this evident
fact by saying that God, being not only just, but good,
could not have acted thus. Nor to adduce the revulsion of
reason from such an interpretation. "As applied to the
works and words of God, human reason is blind, deaf,
impious, and sacrilegious in presuming thus to judge in
divine things." 29 From the standpoint of reason it would
be necessary to reject every article of the Creed as an
absurdity. These things are above reason and can only
be grasped by faith, and through the enlightenment of the
Spirit which enables us to believe that God is good, even
if He were to destroy the whole world. 30 God, he proceeds
to explain, is omnipotent will, whilst man, on the other
hand, is absolutely impotent to do His will and can only,
in virtue of original sin, which has corrupted his nature,

2 " " Werke," xviii. 696, *' Ibid., xviii. 707.

a7 Ibid., xviii. 699 f. co Ibid., xviii. 708.

t Ibid., xvui. 703.

262 Luther and the Reformation

will what is opposed to God. But he is not thereby removed
from the activity of God's omnipotent will, which embraces
all created things. In virtue of this omnipotence, God
acts in every creature, even in Satan and the wicked. He
does so as He finds them, though, as perfectly good, He is
not, in so acting, the author of evil. 31 The evil is in the
instrument, not the user of it, and is not to be ascribed to
Him, who is absolute good, but to corrupt human nature,
which He uses for His glory and our salvation.

Thus God, acting on Pharaoh's evil nature, which is subject
to His omnipotent will and which leads him to persist in
his wickedness, is truly said to harden his heart, to really
will that he shall perish. If you ask why God did not
change his heart, or why He did not intervene to prevent
the fall of Adam, Luther here also replies that this is an
inscrutable mystery into which we have no right to inquire,
though the elect will abide in their assurance that what
God wills is right. Our complaints cannot change God's
immutable purpose. No rule or limit can be set to His
immutable will. Otherwise it would not be divine. We
cannot say of it that it ought to will so and so and, therefore,
what it wills is right, but, on the contrary, because it wills,
it must be right. To distinguish between foreknowing, as
the scholastic theologians and Erasmus do, and fore-ordaining,
in order to get over the difficulty of ascribing to God's will
what seems evil, is a mere quibble. Divine foreknowledge
involves divine fore-ordination. Nor have we any right
to complain in reference to Paul's reasoning in the ninth
chapter of Romans that if God's will, in virtue of His
omnipotence, is irresistible, we are punished for acting
as He wills. God has the absolute right to do whatever
He wills. He owes us nothing ; has received nothing from
us ; has promised us nothing except as it pleases Him. 32
The reasoning of Paul puts this beyond question.

He admits that this is a hard doctrine and offensive to
natural reason and common sense. He himself, he tells us,
had formerly experienced the offence of it and had been

81 u Werke," xviii. 709. Quia ipse bonus male facere non potest.
sa Ibid-., xviii. 717.

Luther against Erasmus 263

driven to the deepest abyss of despair in wrestling with
the specious scholastic reasonings on the subject. Yea,
he had wished that he had never been born until he dis-
covered how salutary was this desperation in leading him
to trust the whole thing to God and how neax it is to God's
grace, 33 Natural reason itself would be compelled to come
to this conclusion, even if there were no Scripture to reveal
it. " For all men discover this doctrine written in their
hearts and acknov/ledge and approve it (albeit unwillingly)
when it is thus expounded to them. Firstly, that God is
omnipotent not only potentially, but actually. Otherwise
He would be an absurd God. Secondly, that He knows
and foreknows all things, nor can He err or be deceived.
These two principles being conceded by the heart and
understanding of all, they are compelled to admit the
inevitable conclusion that nothing happens by our will,
but by necessity, and that we do nothing by right of free
will, but as God foreknows and brings to pass by "His
infallible and immutable decree and power." 34

After dealing at length with the Scripture passages against
free will, which Erasmus had attempted to invalidate, he
confronts him in the concluding portion of the work with
Paul and John, and elaborates against his moralism his
doctrine of justification by faith alone. Paul, he holds, is a
convinced opponent of free will. For him free will and grace
are absolute antitheses. All men are by nature ignorant of
God, enemies of God, bent on evil and helpless to do the
good. From the religious point of view reason is blind and
the will impotent. Without the grace of God Satan rules in
man, even in his good works. Paul's words admit of no
exception or modification. They apply to the best as well
as the worst of mankind. " By the works of the law shall
no flesh be justified in His sight" (Rom. iii. 20). These
words do not refer only to the ceremonial law, as Erasmus,
following Jerome, contends. This is to misunderstand Paul
and falsify the Gospel. They include the whole Law, by
which comes the knowledge of sin. Here is the crushing
answer to the question, What is the use of the Law with its
precepts and threats, if free will is a delusion ? To give the

sa Werke," xviii. 719. 8 * Ibid., xviii. 719.

264 Luther and the Reformation

knowledge of sin, says Paul, not to prove the possession of
free will. 35 The Law makes us conscious of the disease of
our nature and brings us to despair of ourselves. It does
not help us or heal the disease. Here it is that the Gospel
comes in, proclaiming Christ as the deliverer from this
disease by making us partakers of the divine righteousness,
freely bestowed through faith and justifying us without the
works of the Law. For the righteousness that avails before
God, Christ alone suffices. The will of man may to some
extent promote the righteousness demanded by the civil
or moral law. It cannot suffice for the divine righteous-
ness. 86 To believers God gives His righteousness ; from
unbelievers He withholds it. Paul and Luther, as his
follower, conceive of righteousness from the divine, not
from the human standpoint. This righteousness is attain-
able only through faith, without which no righteousness
can avail in the sight of God. Any other is only sin in His
sight. Paul's alternative is, " Righteousness, if faith is
present ; sin, if faith is not present." " As you believe, so
you have." 37 " Justified freely by His grace " excludes
free will and merit and all the scholastic talk of meritum
condignum and meritum congruum in order to reconcile grace
and merit is a mere play of words. By ignoring the plain
teaching of Paul on grace and works, the Church and its
theologians have radically erred, and the testimony of the
Fathers and doctors of so many centuries is utterly worthless
as against the Apostle's explicit teaching. 38 The whole of
Paul's reasoning is based on the conviction that outside
faith in Christ there is nothing but sin and damnation, and
it is confirmed by that of the fourth Gospel. And what need
of Christ if our salvation is not solely due to Him and not to
us ? These champions of free will have transformed Christ
the Saviour into the terrible Judge who must be propitiated
by the intercession of the Virgin and the saints, by a whole
system of penitential works, rules, vows, etc., in order that
He may bestow His grace on us, which He has already
obtained for us by the shedding of His blood. 39

* "Werke," xviii. 766.

at Ibid.) xviii. 767-768. Ad justitiam Dei tamen non promovetur.

* 7 Ibid., xviii. 769. as Jbid^ xviii. 771. a Ibid^ xviii. 778.

Luther against Erasmus 265

In conclusion, he claims to have unanswerably proved his
case, and ends on a note of personal reminiscence which
clearly shows that this grim doctnne has its root, not so
much in his logic as in his religious experience. Even if
free will were possible and his salvation depended on himself,
he would rather not have it so, because he could have no
assurance thereby of acceptance with God. Not only would
the power of the demons, the trials and dangers of this life
be too much for him. Even if there were no demons, dangers,
adversities to face, he would be plunged into a sea of un-
certainty and vain strivings. The old question which had
haunted him in the monastery at Erfurt, How can I find a
gracious God ? would start up and rob him of peace of
conscience, and if he tried and worked to all eternity he
could never be sure of the answer by his own efforts. " No
matter how perfect the work, the old doubt would remain
whether it was sufficient to satisfy God and whether God
would not require something more, as the experience of all
who strive for salvation by works proves, and as I myself
learned through so many years of bitter suffering. But now
that God has removed my salvation beyond the power of
my will and has charged His will with it and has promised
to save me not by my works and ways, but by His grace
and mercy, I am serene and certain that He is faithful
and will not lie, and that no demons, no adversities can
prevail against His power and might and can snatch me
away from Him. . . . Thus are we certain and secure that
we are acceptable to God, not by the merit of our works,
but by the goodness of His mercy, promised to us, and that
even if we do little or evilly, He does not impute it to us, but
paternally pardons and amends. 1 ' 40

In this assured mood he thanks Erasmus that he has
not troubled him with such questions as the Papacy, purga-
tory, indulgences, and such trifles, with which his opponents
have hitherto in vain pursued him ; but, alone among them
all, has seen where the whole thing hinges and has seized
him by the throat. If the others had done so there might
now have been less sedition and division and more peace

*"Werke,"xviii. 783.

266 Luther and the Reformation

and concord. Now that he has vindicated his cause against
even an Erasmus, whose learning and genius he highly
extols, he hopes that he will return to his literary studies
and give up disputing on a subject for which God has not
endowed him. 41

In the " De Servo Arbitrio " Luther appears at his
best as a controversialist. It is moderate and measured
in style and free from the reckless abuse of too much of
his controversial writing. He treats Erasmus courteously,
though he at times asperses his lack of conviction and
what he considers his misrepresentation of the Gospel.
It is a sustained piece of reasoning of a high order. In
fertility of thought and dialectic power he is greatly superior
to his opponent. Erasmus is a scholar and a critic, rather
than a thinker. Luther is a thinker, rather than a scholar
and a critic. Erasmus has the inquiring, Luther the dog-
matic, temperament. To the one doubt is a condition of
the truth, to the other it is anathema. A teacher, says
Luther, must assert definitely what he believes and not
reason in a vacillating fashion. 42 Either we have free will,
or we have it not, is the alternative he constantly holds
before his opponent. Whilst Erasmus examines and weighs
the evidence and concludes accordingly, with an eye to both
sides and a distinct disinclination to commit himself too
definitely one way or the other, Luther thinks the matter
out with the most persistent grasp and resource, and will not
cease his grasp till he has got to definite results. He is far
more in earnest as well as more penetrative in thought and
logic than his opponent, and he is by far the more powerful
reasoner. With the eye of the experienced dialectician he
picks out the weak points of his opponent's arguments. He
constantly, for instance, points out the contradiction between
his admission of the enslavement of the will by sin, in conse-
quence of the fall, and the assumption of its capacity to
do the good. He shows again and again that even the
restricted freedom that he ascribes to it is practically equi-
valent to complete freedom. What Erasmus proves from
certain passages of Scripture is not a restricted but a full

" Werke," xviii. 786. Ibid., xviii. 720.

Luther against Erasmus 267

freedom. His reproach of the lack of logical consistency
is certainly not undeserved at times. Equally telling the
reproach of his principle of suppressing or evading the truth
for the sake of expediency. Truth is for Luther too great
a thing for trifling or diplomacy of this kind.

Erasmus treats free will as a speculative question. For
Luther it is primarily a soteriological question one with
which his personal salvation is vitally bound up. Its religious
aspect is ever present to his mind and he realises this aspect
far more vividly than his opponent. His exalted idea of the
divine righteousness seems to him to involve the utter
incapacity of man to attain to anything approaching it
or anything worthy of the name of righteousness ideally
considered, as embodied in God. He and Erasmus are on
a different plane in this respect, though both of them felt
a revulsion from the work-righteousness of the mediaeval
Church, which tended to foster a superficial religiosity and
was based on a low religious ideal, a wrong religious principle
so much reward for so much formal merit and a bargain-
ing with God for salvation on this principle. But Luther
took the ideal of the divine righteousness with desperate
seriousness, and was not disposed, like Erasmus, to accom-
modate himself to Church practice or teaching in this vital
matter. Real fellowship with a perfectly righteous God,
God alone can effect, is for Luther a fundamental axiom.
Where Erasmus is more matter of fact, more rational,
Luther is mystic, emotional. His soul is more attuned
to the ideal spiritual world which transcends sense and
reason. He has an overmastering sense of God and His
perfect righteousness, and a corresponding sense of man's
littleness, weakness, unrighteousness in relation to God.
For him the thought of God as the absolute good dominates
this relation. This thought is not a mere abstraction of
reason. It is the ever-present, haunting reality it was to
the Hebrew prophet at his best, and it conditions his attitude
on the question at issue. It is the religious, not the intel-
lectual or moral aspect of the question that appeals to him.
The old problem, started in the Erfurt monastery, How,
on what conditions can I find a gracious God and attain
the divine life? is the decisive thing. In view of what

268 Luther and the Reformation

God is and what man cannot be the perfect good the
conclusion is for him inevitable. God alone can make
me worthy of the divine fellowship, and only as God works
in me can I be assured of this fellowship. Every human
effort must necessarily fall short of the perfect good. There
is none good but God. Therefore only as God works in me
can I will the good in the absolute sense. The good in the
relative sense, even if it were possible, which he refuses to
admit, is of no avail in the realm of the highest, the absolute
good. So conceived, there can be no feasible relation
between him and God, except as God Himself creates it.
This is the strong side of Luther's position as against Erasmus
with his matter-of-fact notion of a certain efficacy in the
will, especially as he combines this notion with the assump-
tion of a total inefficacy in virtue of original sin. Logically
as well as religiously Erasmus's definition and his argu-
mentation were, from Luther's standpoint, inadequate, wrong,
impossible.

On the other hand, Luther's attempt to substantiate his
determinism to the extent not only of denying even a
relative good to man's action, but of asserting that God,
not the human will, is responsible for the evil as well as
the good man does, is far from convincing. Here he seems
to be arguing not from a necessary axiom, but from certain
prepossessions begotten of his personal religious experience,
his tendency to interpret all Scripture solely in the light
of this experience, rather than of its own testimony, the
mediaeval belief in demoniac agency, the influence of schol-
astic dogma, the theological assumption of the original
perfection of created man, the fall of Adam, and the effects
of original sin, which has influenced theology, especially
since Augustine's time. To represent man as the passive
agent of the divine decree is, to say the least, rather com-
promising for the divine righteousness. It does not suffi-
ciently answer objections on this score to protest that God
is nevertheless not the author of the evil in human action,
or to adduce the secret as distinct from the revealed will
of God, The secret will of God only puts the difficulty a
step further back. It does not remove it, since all the
same man acts by God's foreknowledge and decree. Is it

Luther against Erasmus 269

not far more reassuring to base the conviction of acceptance
with God, salvation on the divine love rather than on the
assumption of a mysterious divine decree, on which salvation
or damnation ultimately depends ? Nor does this determin-
ism accord with human personality. It practically reduces
man to the level of a machine in the hands of an inexorable
will outside himself. It destroys his personality in its most
essential point the expression of responsible moral action
even if Luther's object in thus destroying it is to recreate it
in a new relation to God. Thus to make man the object and
even the victim of a fore-ordaining omnipotent will is, in any
case, to make him a mere automaton, bereft of the power
of free self-development, neutralising his innate faculties of
reason and conscience. The possibility of the freedom of
the will, despite the handicap of heredity, is a cardinal
condition of the training of human character, of the develop-
ment of man's moral and spiritual nature. It is an essential
of the divine method of achieving the moral and spiritual
progress of the individual and the race. Without it the
race would remain static. Luther has no adequate concep-
tion of this side of the question. It is vain to look in his
purely theological reasonings for a treatment of the problem
from the scientific psychological point of view, as the modern
mind envisages it. His doctrine has, moreover, a question-
able pantheistic bearing in the objectionable sense of the
word. Luther rightly emphasises the immanence, the all-
working of God in the universe. But he leaves very little
room for human responsibility in transforming this imman-
ence into the realisation of an absolute decree of the divine
omnipotence, though his object is not really to destroy
human responsibility and worth, but to bring about a fuller
realisation of the divine life in man.

In doing so he disclaims all dependence on the scholastic
theology and follows Erasmus in professing to go by the
testimony of Scripture. But equally with Erasmus he works
with ideas borrowed from this theology. His whole reason-
ing on the subject is vitiated by the Scotist idea of God as
absolute, unlimited will. It is, as he admits, a sort of theo-
logical replica of the Greek Fate, though, of course, it excludes
the element of chance.

270 Luther and the Reformation

Nor does it invalidate the legitimate objections of reason
and conscience to denounce reason as a blind and impious
rebel and discant on man's natural ignorance of God and
the good. Here again his mind still works too much under
the influence of the scholastic (Occamist) antithesis between
reason and faith, science and religion. He forgets that
reason, though it may be abused, and, so abused, is a terrible
agent of error and evil, is nevertheless an essential equally
of divinity and humanity, and that it has its inherent rights
and responsibilities. An irrational faith cannot after all
be a substitute for reason, and reason in a question of this
kind cannot be silenced by the obscurantist objurgation,
when awkward problems are suggested for solution, to which
he is far too prone. His book is, in fact, a tour de force
of reasoning of a very remarkable order, and he himself
could find a place for reason with no little effect when
defending his cause at Worms and in other utterances,
though his general principle came to be that reason is the
enemy of God. " In divine things reason has no authority.
In these things only divine authority is valid/' ** Its
temerity is to be repressed. 44 By the neglect of reason he,
too, could be inconsistent and contradictory. His pessi-
mistic conception of it and human nature in general is
undoubtedly influenced by the mediaeval notion of the world
as the plaything of the devil, who is ever seeking to establish
his rule over it in his ceaseless conflict with God. This
conflict of good and evil may be true enough, though not in
his naive acceptance of the demoniac world in which the
superstitious spirit of his time saw the devil, in every
conceivable shape and form, in the ordinary happenings
around it. If the power of evil is indeed a terrible reality
in this misgoverned world of ours, we need not seek farther
for an explanation of it than in the misuse of human reason
and will, due to the ignorance, selfishness, self-will, and the
influence of heredity with which not God but man persists
in misgoverning himself and it. Even Luther does not as
a thinker always succeed in avoiding some of the pitfalls
which beset so passionate a seeker of truth and righteousness.

< 3 ' Wrrke, " xvin. 69-!. " Ibid., xvih. 695.

Luther against Erasmus 271

He does not, for instance, use it aright in identifying
Erasmus's position with that of Pelagius on this question.
Like Erasmus he can at times press his texts to yield his
conclusions, and does not always fairly face the arguments of
his opponent. Is it, for instance, a reasonable argument
to contend that in the passages of Scripture which seem
to teach free will God only makes use of such language in
order the better to make us realise our impotence, or to
spite the blindness and pride of an accursed reason ? Would
it not be much more forcible, in view of the evident meaning
of the text, to believe that He meant what He said, even if
it makes Him appeal to the responsible human will ? Again,
if the reason for rejecting the free will exegesis of a text is
that to grant it would be to acknowledge that Pelagius
was right, is this a sufficient proof that the anti-Pelagian
one must be right ? The question for the scientific exegete
is not whether Pelagius was right or wrong, but what the
writer actually meant.

Nevertheless, apart from such criticisms, the " De Servo
Arbitrio " is a great book great as a piece of sustained
reasoning, great as the offspring of a deeply religious spirit,
optimistic, in spite of its pessimism, in emphasising the love
and grace of God even in the face of this terrible, omnipotent,
and inscrutable divine decree, inciting to the highest moral
effort in reliance solely on God, wonderfully inspiring if
also at times greatly depressing. There is something grand,
heroic, in its attempt to see behind the universe the great
secret, the mystery of the divine will which is gradually
being unfolded in its history, though the process may appear
to us in a different light from that which fell upon the eyes
of Luther. Likewise of great historic, practical significance.
Luther takes the problem out of the academic atmosphere
of the schools. It is, as he rightly emphasises, not a merely
speculative one for the doctors to exercise their ingenuity
on. It lies at the root of morality and religion. Moreover,
his book did an immense service to the Reformation by con-
firming and strengthening it in the eyes of its adherents
and well-wishers. Its message, delivered in such assured
tones, that salvation depends not on the claims or preten-
sions of Pope or Church, but on the divine decree and the

272 Luther and the Reformation

operation of God's grace in the individual soul was a sledge-
hammer blow to the papal and priestly form of Christianity.
Hence the rather generous space we have allotted to the
controversy. 45

Erasmus felt the weight of the blow and did not relish
the book or its author. It exasperated him, and in spite
of Luther's comparative moderation towards him personally
he saw in its sledge-hammer arguments a violent personal
attack. His temper and his conservatism got the
better of his judgment, and his attitude was henceforth
irreconcilably hostile. God preserve me from Luther and
all his works, is the tone of the letter he wrote him on the
nth April I526, 4 * as well as of the counterblast which he
published under the title of " Hyperaspistes." 47 Pique,
as well as incompatibility of temper and tendency, doubtless
contributed to this result. Erasmus had been displaced by
a bigger personality as the leader of an international move-
ment Theology had taken the place of humanism in the
interest even of a large section of the cultured class, whose
idol and leader he had hitherto been. It was developing
a driving force which humanism lacked. The fact
contributed to prejudice him against the Reformation, in
which he could now only see darkness and destruction.
Formerly it had appeared to him as " a tragedy " of momen-
tous import. Now it was a comedy which (with a thrust
at Luther's marriage) ended in a wedding !

To Luther, on the other hand, Erasmus is now " a viper,"

48 The " De Arbitrio " is edited by Freitag with introduction and
notes for the Weimar edition of Luther's works. Translations in German,
in addition to that of Justus Jonas (1526), in Walch, xviii., by 0. Scheel
in Luther's " Werke," edited by Buchwald (1905), and Gogarten (1924).
English translations by Cole (1823) and by Vaughan (1823). Mono-
graphs by Taube, " Luther's Lehre uber die Freiheit " (1901) ; Katten-
busch f " Luther's Lehre vom unfreien Willen und von der Predestina-
tion " (1875); "Deus Absconditus bei Luther" (1920); Peisher,
" Zum Problem von Luther's De Servo Arbitrio," " TheoL Stud. und.
Krit." (1926), 212 f. ; Walter, " Das Wesen der Freiheit nach Erasmus
und Luther " (1906); Murray, " Erasmus and Luther " (1920), gives
a very summary account of the free-will controversy; P. Smith,
" Erasmus," 336 f.

Enders, v. 335-336. * 7 " Opera," ix.

Luther against Erasmus 273

an open and reprobate enemy of the truth. 48 He doggedly
held to his belief in the enslaved will, though, unlike Calvin,
he subsequently refrained from placing predestination, at
least in its more speculative form, in the forefront of his
teaching on this subject. 49 Fully ten years later there
were, he said, only two of his works that he would perhaps
not wish to consign to the waste basket the " De Libero
Arbitrio " and his " Catechism " 50 in reference to the
proposed collected edition of his works. The breach between
them was a sore trial to Melanchthon, who erelong dropped
Luther's determinist doctrine and would fain have healed
the breach between them in the interest of learning and the
Reformation. It is, however, debatable, in view of his
opportunist tendency, his ingrained fear of " tumult,"
whether it would have been of much practical service on
critical occasions to have Erasmus as a friend rather than an
enemy.

** Enders, v. 329. To Spalatin, 27th March 1526.
49 See Seeberg, " Dogmengeschichte," iv. 153-155.
60 Enders, XK 247. Luther to Capito, 9th July 1537.

CHAPTER VIII

CONSOLIDATION OF THE EVANGELICAL
MOVEMENT

I. THE FIRST DIET OF SPIRES

WITH the overthrow of the peasants, in which Romanist
and Lutheran princes had combined, the antagonism between
the two religious parties reappeared. On the part of the
Romanists, in fact, the work of repression was at the same
time a crusade against Lutheranism, to which they ascribed
the Rising. Luther might protest, in refutation of this
assumption, that Electoral Saxony had remained almost
free from the revolutionary contagion and that it was just
in the ecclesiastical principalities that the people had been
driven to desperation by the oppression and misrule of
their ecclesiastical overlords. 1 He would have served his
own cause better had he borne this fact in mind when
inciting the princes indiscriminately to slaughter the insur-
gents. In acting on this wild manifesto in behalf of
established authority, the Romanists were not slow to take
advantage of the opportunity to turn their vengeance against
his adherents even if they had taken no active part in the
revolution. Their victims included, for instance, not a few
of the evangelical preachers, and thus in inditing his sum-
mons to kill without mercy he was unwittingly giving scope
to the persecution of many of his own followers. Whilst
alienating the sympathy of the people by his violence, he
had failed to gain the goodwill of his antagonists among the
princes. The overthrow of the peasants had shattered the
hope alike of a national emancipation from Rome and the
establishment of a new social order which the evangelical

* " Werke," 63, 23 (Eriangen ed.) ; Hausrath, " Luther," ii. 92-93.

374

The First Diet of Spires 275

movement in its earlier stage bade fair to realise. Luther
was denounced by his old antagonist Emser as alike the
instigator and betrayer of the peasants, 2 and before the
butchery of the insurgents was completed, the Romanist
princes of the north, following the example set by those of
the south at Ratisbon in the previous year (1524), were
taking steps to vindicate the old faith as well as the old
social order. To this end, Duke George of Saxony, the
Electors of Brandenburg and Maintz, and the Dukes of
Brunswick-Wolfenbiittel met at Dessau in July 1525 to
concoct a league against the Lutherans. Six months later
they deputed Duke Henry of Brunswick to Spain to negotiate
the active assistance of the Emperor. 3

The international situation seemed favourable to the
speedy realisation of their project. Charles had not only
conquered and captured his rival, Francis L, at Pavia.
He had extorted from him, in the Treaty of Madrid, the
recognition of his supremacy in Italy and his co-operation
in the suppression of the Lutheran heresy in Germany
(January 1526).* The time had come for putting in force
the Edict of Worms, as well as convening the long-talked-of
Council for the reformation of ecclesiastical abuses.

The outlook seemed gloomy enough for the cause of
Luther, which had besides, by the death of the Elector
Frederick in the previous May, lost its most powerful
protector, who had so effectively promoted it by his skilful
diplomacy and his active goodwill, and who died a professed
evangelical Christian. Fortunately at this critical juncture
it found in his brother and successor, the Elector John,
not merely a prudent patron, but a confirmed and steadfast
champion. Still more fortunately, it had gained a formidable
recruit in the Landgrave Philip of Hesse, whom Melanchthon
had won over in the previous year. The Landgrave was a
man of forceful personality and a resourceful politician as
well as an ardent convert, and though his personal morality

* See Hausrath, ii. 64-65.

Gess, " Akten und Briefe," ii. 352-353; Ranke, "Deutsche
Geschichte," ii. 160161, 173-174, 180-181, 195-196 (19 2 S ed-) J
Hausrath, " Luther,'* ii. 91 ; Kolde, " Luther," ii. 221-222.

4 Ranke, ii. 245, 272 (1925 ed.).

276 Luther and the Reformation

did not tally too well with his new faith, the Lutheran
cause gained in him a gifted adherent whose political ability
materially contributed to save it from being overwhelmed
by the threatened reaction. Under his forceful auspices
a counter-league eventually took shape as the result of a
series of conferences at Torgau, Gotha, and Magdeburg,
which included, besides the Elector and the Landgrave, the
Dukes of Liineburg, Grubenhagen, and Mecklenburg, the
Prince of Anhalt, Count Albrecht of Mansfeld, and the city
of Magdeburg (i2th June I526), 5 Luther himself was
dubious about this militant policy, which was a distinct
departure from his principle of the inadmissibility of rebellion
against constituted authority and the use of force in the
service of the Gospel, 8 He believed in the co-operation
of the secular authority in furtherance of the evangelical
cause, and in his " Ennahnung " had assigned to it, not to
the people, the initiation of reforms. He had, in fact, at
the instigation of Christian of Denmark and in the hope of
securing the active co-operation of the English king, written
a humble apology to Henry VIIL for the violent tone of
his book against him. 7 But he was not yet prepared to
sanction the right of rebellion of the princes of the empire
against their overlord the Emperor even for the sake of
the Gospel.

The influence of this combination made itself felt in the
Diet which met a fortnight later (25th June) at Spires to
consider once more the religious question. In the absence
of most of the leaders of the anti-Lutheran League Duke
George, the Elector Joachim, the Dukes of Bavaria and
Brunswick-Wolfenbiittd the Lutheran princes and the
moderate Catholics obtained the upper hand. They not only
insisted on the effective reform of ecclesiastical abuses 8
the gravamina which had figured so conspicuously in the
deliberations of previous Diets they proposed a religious

Ranke, ii. 247-248, 274-277 (1925 ed.).

* See his tract, " Ob Kriegsleute auch in seligem Stande scin
kdnnen," " Werke," xix. 636 f. (1526).

7 Enders, v. 231-233, ist Sept. 1525. See also " Werke," xxiii. 17 f.,
for his retort to Henry's contemptuous reply (1527).

See the list in Walch, xvi. 250 f.

The First Diet of Spires 277

compromise between the two parties, which went a long way
towards the Lutheran standpoint. A committee of the
princes declared in favour of the marriage of the clergy,
of communion in both kinds, of a reduction in the number of
fast and festival days and of the mendicant Orders, of the
abolition of private Masses, of the use of the German as well
as the Latin language in the baptismal and communion
services, and of the principle, in the matter of preaching,
of the interpretation of Scripture by Scripture (Scriptura
Scriptures interpres). " Never before in any Diet," wrote
Spalatin, " was there such free and independent and out-
spoken criticism of the Pope, the bishops, the clergy, as in
this one/' 9 On the submission of these proposals to a
committee of all the Estates, however, the Emperor's
commissioners, chief of whom was the Archduke Ferdinand,
intervened with an instruction from the Emperor, of date
23rd March 1526, which vetoed any innovation of the tradi-
tional ecclesiastical usages, and demanded anew the execution
of the Edict of Worms. 10 In this deadlock the representatives
of the cities, who emphasised the impossibility of carrying
out the Edict, 11 drew attention to the fact that the inter-
national situation had undergone a complete transformation
since the issue of this reactionary missive. 12 And not without
reason. Not only had the French king broken faith with
the Emperor by disowning the Treaty of Madrid; the
Pope had absolved him from his treaty obligation, had
transferred his alliance from the Emperor to his enemy,
and had engineered a hostile league against him (the League
of Cognac, May 1526), which combined himself, Francis,
the Swiss, Venice, Florence, and Duke Sforza of Milan,
with the goodwill of Henry VIII. Pope and Emperor were
now, therefore, enemies instead of allies, and the alteration
in the international situation justified the assumption that
the imperial instruction no longer represented the religious
policy of the Emperor.

a Bezold, " Geschichte der Deutschen Reformation," 577 ; Hausrath,

ii*95-

10 Walch, xvi. 244-247, communicated 3rd Aug.

11 Ibid., xvi. 249-250.

14 Ranke, ii. 255, 284 (1925 ed.).

278 Luther and the Reformation

Nor was this assumption ill-founded. In this emergency
Charles was already considering the religious question in
the light of the altered political situation. By adopting the
expedient of a General Council he could embarrass the Pope,
and, by conciliating the Lutheran princes to the extent of
at least modifying the Worms Edict, he could secure their
co-operation in the struggle with the combination which
the Pope had formed against him. On his own initiative he,
therefore, dispatched a new instruction on the 27th July annul-
ling the penal clauses of the Edict and referring the further
consideration of the religious question to a General Council.

Meanwhile the Diet had reached a decision in virtue of
its own authority. 13 Whilst resolving to send a deputation
to Spain 14 to request the convention of a General, or at
least a national, Council and the suspension meanwhile
of the Edict of Worms, it simply decreed that, until the
convocation of this Council, each Estate should so act in the
matter of the Edict of Worms as its members should answer
to God and the Emperor. 15

This decision or Recess (Reichstagsabschiecl), as it was
officially termed, was undoubtedly but a temporary arrange-
ment. It was not, as Ranke assumed, 16 a constitutional
enactment which conferred on the Lutheran princes the legal
right henceforth to establish reformed territorial churches
apart from any further interference on the part of Emperor
or Diet* It expressly recognised, in fact, the responsibility
of the various Estates to the Emperor as well as to God in
this matter, and it is evident that neither Charles nor the
Romanist princes would forego their right to revise this
decision when the political situation should permit them to
do so. At the same time, it foreshadowed the principle on
which the religious problem in Germany was ultimately to

18 Ranke assumes that the Diet had received the second imperial
instruction before coming to its final decision, ii. 258, 288 (1925 ed.).
This was evidently not the case, as the Diet had already separated before
the arrival of the second communication to the imperial commissioners.

14 In the Recess of the Diet the Estates mention that they have sent
this deputation, Walch, xvi, 267. But it does not seem to have actually
gone.

15 Walch, xvi. 268.

16 "Deutsche Geschichte," ii. 261, 290 (1925 ed.).

The First Diet of Spires 279

be settled the principle of territorial sovereignty and was
in accordance with the dominant political tendency in the
empire. This tendency was, and had long been manifesting
itself in the growth of particular territorial sovereignties
at the expense of the general sovereignty of both the Emperor
and the Diet, and in the Recess of Spires we may see the
virtual, if temporary, recognition of it in the sphere of religion
as well as politics. As applied to ecclesiastical matters,
it was, however, a startling departure ; for whilst, politically,
the trend in the empire had been towards particularism, the
mediaeval conception of ecclesiastical uniformity had hitherto
been supreme, though the princes had been striving to assert
their power in matters ecclesiastical and the popes had been
fain to reckon with the fact. Moreover, on both political
and ecclesiastical grounds, it was the interest of the Emperor
to withstand the tendency towards disintegration which the
Reformation was thus threatening to intensify, and it was
not difficult to foresee that the alteration of the international
situation in his favour would be followed by a determined
attempt to reverse the Recess to the advantage both of the
imperial authority and the traditional Church.

Happily for the Reformation the respite afforded by the
Recess of Spires enabled the Lutheran princes to materially
extend the movement and consolidate it within their terri-
tories. It had, the year before the meeting of the Diet,
received a notable recruit in Albrecht of Brandenburg,
Grandmaster of the Order of Teutonic Knights, who, as we
have seen, transformed East Prussia into a secular duchy,
with which the King of Poland, whom he agreed to recognise
as feudal superior, invested him in April 1525. The
Brandenburg or Hohenzollern family furnished other influ-
ential recruits in the Margraves Casimir and George of
Ansbach-Baireuth. Within the next four years it extended
its sway over Silesia, part of Pomerania (one of whose dukes,
Barnum, became a Lutheran), Schleswig, Holstein, East
Friesland. The greater part of north Germany, as well as a
large number of cities in the south, was professedly
Lutheran. 17 It had penetrated to such outlying regions of

17 For the rapid extension of Lutheranism in the north during this
period, see Ranke, ii. 322 f., 354 f. (1925 ed,).

280 Luther and the Reformation

the empire as Bohemia and the Netherlands and had taken
a hold in lands beyond its borders in Denmark and Sweden,
in Scotland and England, in France, and even in Spain and
Italy.

Its rapid spread in the northern German principalities
was due in part to the preaching of zealous Lutheran
propagandists like Bugenhagen. It was due, too, to the
policy of secularisation, which transferred to the territorial
sovereign the ecclesiastical lands, and in too many cases
helps to explain the facility with which these petty sovereigns
professed submission to the Gospel. The greed of ecclesias-
tical property was not indeed all on the Lutheran side, and
it is significant of the mercenary spirit of an age in which
zeal for the old faith contrasts with zeal for the new, that
such professedly staunch Romanists as the Archduke
Ferdinand and the Duke of Bavaria were ready enough, on
occasion, to help themselves to the lands and wealth of the
old Church as the price of their devotion to the Pope and
the hierarchy. Even the Emperor was advised by his aunt
Margaret, the Stadholderin of the Netherlands, to propose
to the Pope the extensive confiscation of Church lands in
order to furnish the means for the war against the Turks, 18
and Charles's Spanish councillors are found suggesting the
seizure even of the temporal possessions of the Papacy, in
the imperial interest, in Italy. 19

II. THE ORGANISATION OF THE EVANGELICAL CHURCH

Luther's conception of the Church, of which the germ
is already apparent in his early lectures on the Psalms and
the Epistle to the Romans, i.e., before I5I7, 20 had gradually

18 Bezold, 564.

lf Ibid., 547 ; Berger, " Luther," ii., Pt. II., 122-125.

80 Holl, (< Aufsatze, J> 288f.,andwithhimKattenbusch, < DieDoppel-
schichtigkeit in Luther's Kirchenbegriff," " Theol. St. und Krit."
(1928), 197 f., maintain that he had already thus early attained to his
distinctive conception of the Church. Whilst this is so far the case,
as it was an implication of his doctrine of justification by faith, this
implication is not fully developed, and Luther, in writing of the Church
in these early works, is not conscious of any real divergence from the
current Roman Catholic one. He is not yet in conscious opposition

Organisation of the Evangelical Church 281

taken distinctive form in the conflict with his Romanist
opponents. This conflict had resulted, as we have seen,
in a complete revulsion from the papal-hierarchical conception
and the substitution of that of the community of believers,
directly subject to Christ, its head and lord. The Church,
as thus ultimately conceived, is the communion of saints
or believers (Communio Sanctorum aut Fidelium) of those
who believe in Christ through the Word of God, appropriated
by faith. In formulating this conception Luther thus
conjoins the two articles of the Apostles' Creed, " I believe
in the Holy Catholic Church, in the Communion of Saints,"
and, in accordance with his doctrine of justification, the
emphasis is on faith in the Word or Gospel as the source of
faith. In virtue of their common faith in the Word and
their mutual and active love, as the fruit of faith, believers
form a spiritual community 21 or people (Volk der glaubigen).
Otherwise expressed, they are a mystical body (corpus mysti-
cuni), of which Christ is the head and they are the members.
The great protagonist of individual faith in the sense that the
believer must for himself enter into direct personal relation
to God in Christ, Luther nevertheless does not lose sight of
the relation of the individual believer to other believers.
Hence, alongside the emphasis on individual faith, the
additional emphasis on the common faith in the Word, or
Gospel, which binds all believers together in the spiritual
community, the Church, or as he prefers specifically to
term it, the Christenheit? 2 in the sense of the sum total of
believers.

The Church in this spiritual sense is the necessary and
indispensable corollary of the personal faith which is shared
by all believers, and by which they are bound together in the
one communion or community. It is the antithesis of
the papal-hierarchical Church the visible, legally constituted

to the traditional Church even in criticising the abuses rampant in it, and
can, therefore, hardly be said to be fully conscious of the differentiating
principle of the Church that was to separate him from the Roman
communion.

11 For Luther communio and congregatio are identical terms.
Kattenbusch, 225,

* a Kattenbusch, 230 f.

282 Luther and the Reformation

institution through which grace, salvation is mediated by the
clerical hierarchy under its supreme head, the Pope. Being
based on faith in the Word, or Gospel, which belongs to the
spiritual sphere, it is essentially spiritual, invisible. To
differentiate between the invisible and the visible Church
is, therefore, really inaccurate, though Luther himself may
do so at times in speaking of the Church and its outward
form. The invisible and the visible are rather to be con-
sidered as two aspects or sides of the same thing. In so
far as it exists for the preaching of the Word and the dis-
pensation of the sacrament (the verbum visibile) by those
entrusted with this function, it takes a visible, external,
regulated, though not necessarily an identical form. 23

Luther's conception of the Church thus differs from that
of Zwingli, Calvin, and ultimately that of Melanchthon as
well as from that of the Romanists. Whilst the Romanists
identify the invisible with the visible Church, Zwingli,
Calvin, and Melanchthon differentiate sharply between them.
The former consists of the elect known only to God (soli
deo cognita), the latter is the actual Church as existing on
earth. For Luther, on the other hand, the invisible is at the
same time the visible Church inasmuch as it is both the
totality of believers in the Word, and therefore, faith being
spiritual, an invisible reality perceptible only to believers,
and the visible manifestation of this spiritual reality in the
common life of believers. 24

The practical result of this conception of the Church as
a spiritual association, based on the Word and bound together
by a common faith, would have been an organisation free
from State control, if to a certain extent accepting, for
practical reasons, the co-operation of the secular authority.
Theoretically the Church, which consists of all true believers,
is subject only to Christ and is ruled only by His Word, in
contrast to the papal hierarchical development of it and
the kingdoms of this world. It has nothing to do with either

88 Rietschel, "Luther's Anschauung von der Unsichtbarkeit und
Sichtbarkeit der Kirche," " Theol. Stud, und Krit." (1900), 404 f . ;
Kattenbusch, " Doppelschichtigkeit," ibid., 1928, 206 f.

34 In both cases it seems to be perceptible to, or apprehended only by
faith.

Organisation of the Evangelical Church 283

canon law or secular law. Canon law is the work of the
devil and must be destroyed root and branch, and in this
spirit he had thrown a copy of it into the flames along with
the papal Bull. Nor has it anything to do with civil or
common law, because it is a spiritual association. The only
rule pertaining to it is that which derives from the Word of
God, as expressed in the preaching of the Word and the
administration of the sacraments. So conceived, the Church
has no need of anything of the nature of a man-made
constitution, involving a legal, coercive jurisdiction. It has
all that it requires for its corporate life in the spiritual rule
of Christ and the Word and such organisation as is necessary
for the election and ordination of the pastor or bishop,
the maintenance of preaching and the administration of the
sacraments. According to this conception each congregation
is an independent spiritual unit, living its religious life and
regulating this life under the headship of Christ and in
accordance with His Word as its all-sufficient law, if main-
taining fellowship with all other communities of believers
in virtue of a common faith and love. Anything of the
nature of ecclesiastical law (Kirchenrecht) with the force
of State sanction behind it is inapplicable to it. 26 The State
has no coercive jurisdiction in relation to the Church, even
if its co-operation in furthering its interests may be
accepted

How, then, did it come about that Luther is found, in
his early period as a Reformer, assigning to the secular
power an active part in the Reformation of the Church and
ultimately inviting the Elector to direct the organisation
of the Saxon Church ? Sohm finds the explanation of this
difference between theory and practice in the fact that
Luther retained the mediaeval conception of the Church
and the State 26 as the two sides of the one Christian common-

25 This conception is elaborately worked out by Sohm, " Kirchen-
recht," i.46of. (1982).

86 " Kirchenrecht/' 542 f., particularly 558 f. See also his more
recent work, " Weltliches und Geistliches Recht " (1914). Luther
generally uses the term Obrigkeit to denote the secular power. It is in
this concrete fashion rather than in the modern sense of the State, which
did not exist in his day, that he differentiates between the two powers,
spiritual and temporal.

284 Luther and the Reformation

wealth or kingdom of God (the two swords or powers, the
ecclesiastical and the temporal). On this conception Rieker
based his thesis that at the outset (particularly in the
" Address to the Nobility") he contemplated the establishment,
not of a purely voluntary, autonomous Church of believers
independent of the secular authority, but of a Church in
close alliance with it as an integral part of the Christian
body (Corpus Christianum)? 1 * or, as Luther termed it, the
Christenheit in the medieval sense. It was, he thinks,
under the influence of this conception, that in the " Address
to the Nobility " he summoned the State to undertake the
Reformation of the Church. Whether Luther was so con-
sciously influenced by the mediaeval conception of the close
relation of Church and State as jurists like Rieker suppose,
is not explicitly apparent from the " Address " itself. The
reasoning on which he based the right of the State to intervene
in the affairs of the Church is theological, not juristic. The
jurists are, in fact, as a rule the objects of his special aversion.
This right rests mainly on his specific doctrine of the priest-
hood of all believers, by which the State, as an integral
part of the Christian body, is entitled, nay, is under obligation
to exercise its function in the Reformation of the Church,
which the ecclesiastical power had hitherto failed effectively
to undertake. In thus empowering the State to intervene
in matters ecclesiastical, Luther, according to Rieker, laid
the foundation of what ultimately became the accepted
ecclesiastical polity in the Lutheran principalities (Landes-
herrliche Kirchenregiment). This thesis has given rise to an
elaborate discussion on the question whether or not Luther's
ideal was a Reformed Church virtually independent of
the State. In this discussion both jurists and theologians
have participated down to the present time without reaching

27 " Die Rechtliche Stellung der evangelischen Kirche Deutschlands "
(1893).. Drews energetically, but by no means convincingly, controverts
his thesis. " Entsprach das Staatskirchenthum dem Ideale Luther's ? "
" Zeitschrift fur Theologie und Kirche" (1908), Erganzungsheft, I f.
See Hermelink's criticism, " Z.K.G." (1908), 479 f- Holl rejects
the phrase Corpus Christianum as not historically applicable to the
mediaeval conception of Church and State. This is merely a modern
expression. He thinks that respublica Christiana or populus Christianus
comes nearer to the mediaeval idea. " Aufsatze," 341-342.

Organisation of the Evangelical Church 285

anything like an exact agreement on Luther's view of the
relation of Church and State. 28 Miiller, for instance, contends
that in the "Address " Luther conferred on the secular power
only a very limited jurisdiction in matters ecclesiastical, and
carefully distinguished between the ecclesiastical and the
secular sphere. Whilst the secular power should take the
initiative in the reformation of practical abuses, its function
does not extend to purely spiritual things, which are reserved
for the reforming ecclesiastical Council to be convened
by the secular authority. 29 With this contention Holl
agrees. 30 Kohhneyer, on the other hand, argues that in
the "Address " Luther attributed to the State in relation to
the Church a wider jurisdiction in the matter of reform
than these writers are prepared to admit, and the evidence
seems to me to bear out his contention. 31 If the constituted
authorities of the Empire, to which the " Address " was
directed, had undertaken the Reformation to which he sum-
moned them, if they had accepted his evangelical teaching, the
State would evidently, in virtue of its evangelical character,
have acquired an intimate relation to the Church and played
an active part in its organisation and government, though this
is not definitely set forth in the "Address " itself. Luther,
for instance, in speaking of the ecclesiastical reorganisation
of the local community, assigns to the town authority an
important position in relation to this community.

The hope of such a Reformation in virtue of the active
intervention of the secular power proved, however, illusory.

88 See the works of Foerster, Sehling, Brandenburg, Karl Miiller,
W. Kohler, Rade, Troeltsch, Holl, Drews, Hermelink, and others.
For a careful review of the literature of the subject see Kattenbusch,
" Doppelschichtigkeit," and that of W. Kohler in " Z.K.G." (1917-18),
I f . Other recent discussions are those of Jordan, ' ' Luther's Staatsauffas-
sung " (1917); Meinecke, " Luther iiber Christliches Gemeinwesen,"
" Hist, Zeitschrift " (1920), I f. (an illuminating criticism of Holl's view) ;
Bredt, " Neues Evangelisches Kirchenrecht fur Preussen," i. (1921);
H. A* Preus, " Luther's Doctrine of the Church in His Early Writ-
ings," Edin. Univ. Thesis (1928).

** " Kirche, Gemeinde, und Obrigkeit nach Luther," 19 f. (19x0).

ao " Luther und das Landesherrliche Kirchenregiment," 26 (1911);
" Aufsatze," 326 f. (1927).

M " Entstehung der Schrift Luther's an den Christlichen Adel,"
21 f. (1922) ; Mackinnon, " Luther and the Reformation," ii. 245.

286 Luther and the Reformation

Within little more than six months from its publication,
the proceedings of the Diet of Worms proved incontestably
that the demand for an evangelical Reformation at the
hands of either the State or a General Council was merely
crying for the moon, in spite of the fact that the national
sentiment was largely favourable to his cause. No wonder
that Luther, in view of the hostile Edict of Worms and the
reactionary attitude of the Reichsregiment and the second
Diet of Niirnberg, abandoned the idea of a Reformation
carried out by the Estates of the Empire and became much
less disposed to recognise their functions in matters
ecclesiastical. In the tract on " The Secular Power " and
other writings of the years 1521-25, he sharply
differentiated, as we have seen, between the temporal
and the spiritual spheres. In the task of organising the
evangelical Church he now turns, not to the princes, but
to the community of believers, though he still leaves room
for the co-operation of the territorial or the local authority.
The secular power princes, counts, local superiors, town
councils may and, in fact, ought to co-operate to a certain
extent in this task. But to the Christian community itself
belongs primarily the right and the duty to organise and
govern itself under the lead of its pastor or bishop, with
the goodwill and, within certain limits, the co-operation of
the secular authority. His ideal of the Christian community
is a voluntary association of believers free from State
control, if, for practical reasons, accepting the assistance
of the secular authority in the actual work of organisation. 32
It was this ideal that he sought to realise in his missives
to the Church at Leisnig and to Hausmann, pastor at Zwickau,
in 1523, in which the organisation of the local community
is based on the Christian-democratic principle that its
members have the right to make the proposed changes. 88
Similarly in the missive to the senate and people of Prague,
written in the same year, he recognises the right of the
Christian community to elect and depose its ministers and
asserts the priesthood of believers, which invests them with

M See Holl, " Landesherrliche Kirchenregiment," 37 f. ; " Auf-
satze," 354 f-

" " Werke," xi. 408 f.; xii. 11 f,, 205 f.

Organisation of the Evangelical Church 287

the power to confer all ministerial functions on the person
or persons who perform them in their stead. 34 He was
even prepared to carry his ideal of an autonomous Church
the length of establishing at Wittenberg and elsewhere a
Church in the more spiritual sense within the Church in the
more popular sense. The former should consist of all real
Christians who are prepared to subject themselves wholly
to Christ and His Word ; the latter of all professed Christians
who have not attained to this advanced stage of the Christian
life. The former should have their particular assemblies
for worship and edification, and should submit to a strict
discipline exercised by the members over one another;
for the latter the ordinary services should suffice. The
former forms the Bekenntniskirche composed of those con-
fessing Christ in the fullest sense the latter the Volkskirche,
embracing the people in general. 35 He was, however, fain
to confess that this ideal was in present circumstances
impracticable, and was debarred from attempting to realise
it by the lack of the means to do so and the fear of thereby
fostering mere sectarianism. 36

Such attempts to devise and bring into operation a
democratic organisation of the local Christian community
did not, however, prove successful. Besides, the outbreak
of the Peasant War, which supervened on them, appears to
have shaken his faith in a religious democracy. 87 The Rising
not only intensified his mistrust of the people, but so
aggravated its misery and demoralisation that any further
practical attempt to organise the local community on a

M "De Instituendis Ministris Ecclesiae," "Werke," xii. 172, 178,
190-191.

B See the preface to the " Deutsche Messe," " Werke, " xix. 72 f.
(1526) ; Sehling, " Die Evangelischen Kirchenordnungen," i. 10 f.

See preface to " Deutsche Messe," 12; Holl, " Landesherrliche
Kirchenregiment," 37 f.; and " Aufsatze," 358 f.; Karl Muller,
39-40; Hermelink, "Luther's Gedanken fiber Idealgemeinden,"
" Z.K.G." (1908), 312 f.

7 Holl (" Landesherriiche Kirchenregiment," 41; "Aufsatze,"
361) and Hermelink ("Z.K.G." (1908), 320) think that the experience
of the Peasant Rising had no appreciable effect on Luther's undemocratic
organisation of the Saxon Church. This seems to me a very doubtful
contention.

288 Luther and the Reformation

democratic basis might well seem hopeless. Moreover, in
the work of organisation Luther had not entirely discarded
the co-operation of the secular power where this was avail-
able. Even if he had been disposed to revive the primitive
Christian ideal of a self-governing community wholly inde-
pendent of the State, he could not ultimately ignore the
territorial prince, if only because the territorial prince had
become the dominant power in the empire and without
his sanction and co-operation the Reformation could hardly
be consolidated. The territorial prince had, moreover, been
asserting his power in matters ecclesiastical long before the
Reformation, and this even with the papal sanction. 38 In
view of this tendency there was, in any case, not much chance
of the realisation of the theory of a purely spiritual Church
independent of the State and of any human polity. An
autonomous Church on the basis of the Word could hardly
develop in the face of the political trend towards princely
absolutism, especially as Luther, whilst emphasising the
distinction between the spiritual and the temporal sphere,
preached the divine right of the secular authority, the
Obrigkeit, and in the political sphere was a staunch supporter
of this absolutism,

It is, therefore, hardly surprising that he disapproved
of the democratic polity which was proposed by Francis
Lambert, the ex -Franciscan monk of Avignon, whom
Zwingli had won for the Reformation and who became
the Reformer of Hesse, at a Synod convened by the
Landgrave Philip at Homberg in October 1526. According
to this scheme, which is an anticipation of the Presbyterian
system of polity, the Church, which is founded on the Word
of God, consists of the whole body of believers. 39 It

11 Bredt, " Neues Evangelisches Kirchenrecht fur Preussen," i.
163 f. (1921) ; Pallas, " Die Entstehung des landesherrlichen Kirchen-
regiments in Kursachsen vor der Reformation " (1910) ; Dietrich Schafer,
"Deutsche Geschichte," ii. 38 (1916); Bezold, " Geschichte der
Deutschen Ref.," 565; Hashagen, "Die Vorreformatorische Bedeut-
ung des spatmittelalterlichen landesherrlichen Kirchenregiment,"
" Z.K.G." (1922), 63 f.; and " Landesherrliche Ablasspolitik vor der
Reformation," ibid. (1927), II f.

* Ecclesia autem dei congregatio fidelium, Richter, " Die Evange-
lischen Kirchenordnungen des i6 ten Jahrhunderts," i- 61.

Organisation of the Evangelical Church 289

recognised the right of each congregation to elect its pastor,
elders, 40 and deacons, and excommunicate unworthy members,
and committed the general oversight and government of the
whole Church to a synod or general assembly, consisting of
the pastor and elected representatives of each congregation,
which should meet once a year. For the supervision of the
churches of the various districts, visitors or superintendents
are to be appointed annually by the synod. The prince
and the nobles may attend the synod and vote, and the
prince fixes the place of meeting. But the Church, as a
religious association founded on the Word of God, is an
autonomous body. The scheme was an anticipation on paper
of what ultimately became the presbyterian system of Church
government. It contemplated the organisation of a practic-
ally autonomous Church in alliance with the State (the
co-operation of the prince in the government of the Church,
though not his supremacy over it, being recognised), and it
was ultimately destined to be realised in the Reformed
Churches of Switzerland, France, Holland, Scotland, America.
But it did not commend itself to Luther, who objected to
such an elaborate legislative scheme, 41 and owing to his
opposition it was not adopted in Hesse or in the other
Lutheran principalities. Ranke ascribes its rejection in
these principalities to the fact that the princes took an
active part in directing and controlling the establishment
of the Reformation, whereas in France, Holland, and Scotland
it was laigely a popular movement and it perforce acquired
a more democratic character. 42 He ought to have added,
however, that even in Germany the constitution and
organisation of the Church varied with the character of the
civil government. In the Free Imperial cities, for instance,
the government was based on the representative principle,
to a certain extent at least, and this principle made itself
felt in the government of the Church, which thus reflected the

40 He usually refers to the ministry of a congregation as consisting
of the bishop, i.e., the pastor, and the deacons (episcopus et diaconi).
But he refers also to elders (seniores, veteres, presbyteri), ibid., 60, 63, 66.

41 Letter to the Landgrave, 7th June 1527, " Werke," 56, 170
(Erlangen ed.) ; Enders, vL 9.

* 2 ".Deutsche Geschichte," ii. 37-3 8 ; " 34o f. (1925 ed,).

290 Luther and the Reformation

democratic spirit of Luther's teaching, in this matter, in a way
that could not apply in the States under absolute princely rule.
Despite his theoretical conception of the Church and his
doctrine of the priesthood of believers, Luther was thus fain
to make a virtue of expediency and to seek the aid of the
secular power in the organisation of the Church in Germany.
His recourse to the Elector was really a step towards the
subjection of the Church to the State and to a system of
Protestant ecclesiastical law imposed by the State and
dependent on it for its validity. The necessity of taking
measures to bring order into the chaos resulting from the
situation produced by the Reformation, rendered it impossible
to carry out the theory of the Church as a spiritual institution
on the basis of the Word alone. Moreover, Luther was
disposed to be less revolutionary in practice than in theory,
and was prepared, on certain conditions and on grounds of
expediency, to recognise what he combated in principle.
He was even prepared to tolerate the papal hierarchical
jurisdiction as long as the Gospel was preached and the
freedom of the individual conscience recognised. The
ecclesiastical constitution, though it rested on man-made
law, might be suffered to exist as part of the historic inherit-
ance, if the faith and conscience of the individual Christian
were left in freedom. The fact is that he had not the genius
of the ecclesiastical statesman and did not lay anything like
the same stress on ecclesiastical as on purely religious
questions. This was his strength, but it was also his
weakness. As Dollinger aptly says, " He was the founder
of a religion rather than of a church." In this respect he
differed from men like Calvin and Knox, who were born
organisers as well as reformers, and left their impress on
institutions as well as doctrines. 43 Luther, on the other hand,

48 Hennelink (" Z.K.G." (1908), 408) thinks that Luther had far
more organising talent than is usually ascribed to him. He thinks
that, in practical sense, he deserves a place alongside a Bismarck and
other great German Realpolitiker. This may be true in the sense that
he was remarkably ready to adapt himself to circumstances with a sort
of high-minded opportunism. But it is perfectly evident that he had not,
like Calvin or Knox, the organising genius in the sense of formulating
and systematically applying in practice a set of clear-cut constitutional
principles.

Organisation of the Evangelical Church 291

was less inclined to legislate in such matters. In the
preface to the German Mass of 1526, for instance, he still
emphatically disapproves of legislating uniformity of worship
in the Saxon Church. Though he would be glad to see this
uniformity freely adopted, he would not dream of restricting
the conscience of the individual by a general law on the
subject. 44 The personality and genius of the various
reformers had, in fact, not a little to do with the constitutional
form which the Reformed Church assumed in the lands in
which the Reformation triumphed. The existing political
situation was also a moulding factor. " Our decisions/'
said Melanchthon, " are mere platonic laws if the Court
does not give them its sanction and protection."

Luther saw in the decision of the first Diet of Spires
on the religious question the recognition of the right of
the evangelical princes to organise the territorial Church
on reformed lines. 45 Accordingly, in November 1526 he
besought the Elector John, as head of the State, to initiate
measures to this end within the Saxon electorate. 46 He
adduces the miserable state of religion and education in the
electorate as the result of the prevailing religious anarchy
and demoralisation. Now that the old system has been
undermined, the people are lacking in a sense of responsibility
for the maintenance of the preaching of the Word and the
education of their children. Each one is disposed to live
as he pleases. Hence the necessity for the prince to take
upon himself the lapsed ecclesiastical function of the bishops
as far as the work of organising a new order of things is
concerned. He seems, indeed, to have contemplated only
the temporary exercise of this function, until, that is, the
work of reformation and organisation should be completed
(Notepiscopaf),^ The prince, as the possessor of the
supreme power in the State, is to use his authority in the
interest of the Church, and is not assumed to exercise the
episcopal authority in purely spiritual matters. In reality,

44 Sehling, i. lo-n.

45 Sohm, " Kirchenrecht, 11 576.

48 " Werke," 53, 386-388 (Erlangen ed.), and the Elector's favourable
reply, Enders, v. 407-408.
47 Sohm, 585.

292 Luther and the Reformation

however, the prince takes the place of the bishop in taking
the initiative in ordering the affairs of the new Church, and
the first step is made in subjecting the Church to the
State. 48

In response the Elector appointed four visitors two of
his councillors, Planitz and Haubitz, and two Wittenberg
professors, Melanchthon and Schurf 49 and drew up an
" Instruction and Command " for their guidance. In this
document (i6th June 1527) the Elector assumes the right
as well as the duty to make such a visitation, which is
carried out by the visitors in virtue of his ordinance. They
are directed to investigate the teaching and life of the
clergy and schoolmasters, to displace those who are found
incapable, to punish those who preach error and all sectaries,
especially those who hold erroneous views of the sacrament
and thus disturb public order, with banishment in both
cases. The Elector professes, indeed, not to prescribe what
anyone is to believe and to disallow sects only in the interest
of order. 60 But practically he leaves no alternative but to
believe and act as he prescribes, or quit his territory, and
makes his will the arbiter of permissible belief. This in-
quisition is to apply to the laity as well as the clergy. They
are, further, to make an inventory of all ecclesiastical revenues
and teinds, on which, apparently, the nobility and the
municipal authorities are laying hands; 51 to provide for
the maintenance of the clergy out of these revenues, and
where these are insufficient, to arrange a yearly contribution
from the parishioners ; to introduce as far as possible
uniformity of worship ; to take measures for the proper
administration of the poor funds ; to appoint district

* 8 Burckhardt, Kawerau, and others see in the recourse of Luther to
the Elector a renunciation by him of his idea of the Church as a purely
spiritual institution. Sohm, on the other hand, combats this assumption
(587-588), andMuller and Holl agree with him in holding that it was
merely a temporary expedient, rendered necessary by the situation.

** Enders, v. 407-410, 26th Nov. 1526. He requested the university
to suggest two names, whilst he himself nominated the other two and
commissioned them on the 4th and I3th February 1527.

50 Sehling, i. 144.

51 Luther in his letter to the Elector, in Nov. 1526, expressly says
that this was the case, " Werke," 53, 388 (Erlangen ed.).

Organisation of the Evangelical Church 293

superintendents over the clergy ; and to see that public
order and morality are maintained by the local authorities. 52
In accordance with this Instruction the visitors carried out
a preliminary visitation in the summer of 1527. The
investigation revealed a shocking state of disorder and
demoralisation and emphasised the necessity for a more
thorough inquisition and a systematic organisation of the
Saxon Church. To this end Melanchthon, at the Elector's
request, drew up and Luther and Bugenhagen revised the
" Church Ordinance," or " Kirchenordnung," for a practical
and constitutional Reformation. 53 In the preface which he
wrote for it, Luther adduces, in vindication of the visitation,
the practice of the Apostles and the ancient Church, which
the bishops have neglected with disastrous results to religion
and morality. He would fain have invested the evangelical
preachers with this function. But the necessary authority
for making such changes being lacking, the Elector, following
the example of the Emperor Constantine in dealing with the
Arian heresy, must temporarily take it on himself in virtue
of his divinely ordained office as head of the State. At the
same time, he expressly disclaims his right " to teach and
exercise spiritual rule," and bases his action on the duty
of the prince " to prevent division, sects, and tumult among
his subjects/' M This limitation is not, however, in keeping
with the terms of the " Instruction," in which the prince
does assume the right not merely to prevent division and
tumult, but to direct, sanction, and enforce the reformation
of teaching and ecclesiastical institutions as well as practical
abuses. Luther evidently did not approve of this far-
reaching extension of the secular jurisdiction over the
Church, and sought by this disclaimer to safeguard its
spiritual rights. For him it is merely a temporary and
exceptional measure. Practically, however, in spite of his
caveat, the " Kirchenordnung " is the work of the Elector

" Sehling, i. 35, 142 f.

*' "Unterricht der Visitatoren, 1528," Sehling, i. 149 f-; Richter,
" Die Evangelischen Kirchenordnungen des i6 ten Jahrhunderts," i.
77 f. ; " Corp. Ref.," xacvi. 48 f. ; Lietzmann, " Der Unterricht der
Visitatoren, 1528," Kleine Texte, 87 (1912).

" SehliDg. i. 151.

294 Luther and the Reformation

and the officials appointed by him, and marks a farther step
in the direction of subordinating the Church to the State, 55

Whilst striving to preserve the independence of the
Church, as an ideal at least, Luther has become less tolerant
of conscientious religious opinions that differed from his
own. In 1524 he was still prepared to allow even the
prophets to express their views and to leave truth to vindicate
itself. In 1526 he stresses the necessity of unity of belief,
and supports the Elector's policy of penalising dissent from
approved doctrines and institutions. In February 1526, for
instance, he tells the Elector, in reference to the recalci-
trant canons of Altenburg, that it is his duty to suppress
the old ceremonies. " A secular ruler may not tolerate that
disunity and division should be fostered by insubordinate
preachers. Revolt and sectarian dispeace would be the
inevitable result. Therefore only one doctrine should be
preached in every place. With this argument the Niirn-
bergers silenced the monks and closed the monasteries/' 56

The " Kirchenordnung " forms alike a confession of
faith, a directory of public worship, and a scheme of educa-
tional reform. The doctrinal sections set forth in simple
language the main points of Luther's evangelical teaching,
which the pastors are to teach the people. They are to
preach the whole Gospel and nothing but the Gospel of
repentance, the forgiveness of sins through faith in Christ,
the helplessness of the will and man's dependence on God,
etc. It is, however, evident that his doctrine of faith and
freedom had to be somewhat modified in accordance with
the condition of the people. The visitation revealed in truth
a lamentable state of demoralisation an ignorant, starved,
indifferent, immoral clergy ; a peasantry still more ignorant
and largely estranged from religion. No wonder, after the
bloody repression of the emancipation movement, that the

55 K. Muller's attempt (" Kirche," etc., 72 f.) to reconcile Luther's
preface with the Instruction is not very forcible, and Holl recognises
(47 f. ; " Aufsatze," 373 f.) that the Instruction practically established
the territorial Church under the Elector's supremacy.

" " Werke," 53, 386 (Erlangen ed.). On Luther's lapse from his
characteristic principle of toleration from 1526 onwards, see Murray,
" Erasmus and Luther/' 255 f

Organisation of the Evangelical Church 295

people in Spalatin's words, " despise us as they formerly
despised the Papacy/' Hence, whilst the characteristic
evangelical doctrines are enunciated, the stress laid on the
necessity of preaching the law as well as the Gospel, which
gave offence to zealous Lutherans like Agricola, who angrily
challenged Melanchthon's legalism and was with difficulty
meanwhile pacified by Luther. The Ten Commandments
are to be diligently taught and stress laid on works, a good
Christian life, practical piety as the fruit of faith. The people
is evidently in a state of rudeness and ignorance in which
the gospel of freedom is apt to be mistaken for a gospel of
licence. The late rising, which is pointedly referred to,
explains the emphasis laid on subjection to the Obrigkeit
and the dominant social system. Any attempt to revolt
against the law of the land is to be denounced and exemplarily
punished as a subversion of the divine ordinance, though the
Obrigkeit is reminded of the duty of ruling justly, and against
those who would repress the Gospel the command to obey
God rather than man is emphasised. In regard to the
sacraments, that of penance is retained, but whilst repentance
is emphasised and confession is to be made to the pastor
before communion, the doctrine of penitential satisfaction
is rejected and the satisfaction made by Christ substituted.
Baptism is to be performed in the fashion hitherto usual,
without quarrelling about chrism, on the understanding
that the true chrism is that of the Holy Spirit. The sacra-
ment of the body and blood is explained in the sense of
consubstantiation, and communion in both kinds is to be
positively preached and practised, with liberty, provisionally,
to weak brethren, who have conscientious objections, of
communion in one kind. Those who adopt an attitude of
obstinate opposition to such teaching are, however, to be
debarred from communion. The Mass, on the occasion
of the communion, is to be sung by preference in German
on the model of the German Mass composed by Luther for
this part of the service in I526. 57 But Masses for the dead
and prayers to the saints are abolished, though the saints
may be honoured as examples of God's grace and for the

17 Deutsche Messe und Ordnung Gottesdiensts, " Werke," xix 44 f.

296 Luther and the Reformation

quickening of faith and good works. The chief Church
festivals are to be observed as giving greater opportunity
for instruction in God's Word, not as if they were in
themselves a special means of grace. Prayer, the importance
of which is dwelt on, does not consist in repeating so many
paternosters and psalms, but in diligently seeking the fulfil-
ment of God's promises in faith and sincerity of heart*
Such ordinances are to be observed as having the sanction
of the civil authority, though it is not the function of the
Obrigkeit to ordain a new worship (which, however, it
practically does), but to enforce the observance of them
for the maintenance of peace and love among its subjects.

In the matter of worship, the people are to assemble every
morning in the church to sing these psalms in Latin or
German, to hear the Word of God read, followed by the
Lord's Prayer, a German hymn, and a collect. Similarly in
the evening, with the addition of the singing of the
Magnificat, or the Te Deum, or the Benedictus, or Quicumque
Vult. On Wednesdays and Fridays, besides Sunday, and
on special festival days, sermons are to be preached in
which the Gospel, the Ten Commandments, the Creed, the
Lord's Prayer are to be explained. In their sermons the
preachers shall refrain from vituperation against the Pope
and the bishops, and only refer to such subjects in as far as
this is necessary for instruction and example. Those guilty
of notorious sins are not to be admitted to communion and,
after several warnings, are to be excommunicated, if they
do not amend their conduct. There is to be no disputing
on practices indifferent in themselves. On, for instance, the
practice of ringing the church bells as an invitation to
prayer on the outbreak of storms, which may be continued.
The pastor shall, however, instruct the people against the
superstitions connected therewith the notion, for instance,
that in virtue of consecration the ringing of the bell has the
effect of driving away the storm.

In order that the Word of God may be purely and faith-
fully preached, the sacraments rightly dispensed, and a good
Christian life in subjection to the Obrigkeit maintained, the
superintendents shall exercise a careful supervision of the
clergy. They are empowered to instruct those of the clergy

Second Diet of Spires and Protestation 297

who are lacking in doctrine and life and, in case of dis-
obedience, to advise the local officials who shall bring the
matter to the notice of the Elector. In the case of the
filling of vacant churches, they are to examine those
nominated by the patron to vacant charges in order that
the people may have capable and fit preachers.

Finally, for the better education of the clergy and also
in the interest of the service of the State, the training of the
children must be improved. To this end an outline is given
of a scheme of lessons adapted to the various stages of
instruction in the schools. The course includes, for the
lower classes, besides a careful grounding in the Latin
grammar and portions of Latin authors, religious instruction
and singing. In the highest class the more apt pupils shall
receive intensive instruction in Latin, including the reading
of Ovid, Virgil, Cicero, and a training in dialectic and
rhetoric.

The visitation was not only the beginning of an urgently
needed practical reformation of the religious life. It proved
to be the first step towards the establishment of the consis-
torial constitution which invested the government of the
Church, under the supremacy of the territorial prince, in a
body of State officials or consistory, composed of theologians
and jurists. The definite introduction of this system into the
Saxon Church dates from 1538, though it was only subse-
quently developed. Under the Roman Catholic system
the government of the Church was in the hands of the
bishops and ecclesiastical lawyers under the supreme
authority of the Pope. Under the reformed Lutheran
organisation this system was so far retained in the regime
of a consistory of theologians and jurists under the supremacy
of the State,

III. THE SECOND DIET OF SPIRES AND THE PROTESTATION

Whilst a beginning was thus being made with the
organisation of the evangelical churches, the Landgrave
Philip was striving to negotiate an extension of the league
in their defence against the day of reaction. To this end he

298 Luther and the Reformation

entered into communication with the south German cities,
with Zwingli, with Zapolya, the rival of Ferdinand for the
crown of Hungary, with Denmark and Sweden, and even
with Francis I. of France. With the political activity of
the Landgrave, which Zwingli actively seconded, the
Reformation enters as a force into international politics from
the side of the reformed party itself, and this party tends
to become a political as well as a religious one, with which
the European rulers are fain to reckon. It is no longer
merely a case of the Reformation being a movement to be
used for political purposes by a Charles V, or other potentate.
It tends to become a political power which was erelong to
find corporate expression in the Schmalkald League and to
make its weight felt in the chanceries of Europe.

The Spires Recess, which enabled the Lutheran princes
to consolidate and organise the evangelical movement, left
the Romanists free to repress it within their territories, and
the continuation of the persecution of the Lutherans, the
beginnings of which we have already noted in Austria, 58
Bavaria, and the Netherlands, and which inspired one of the
most rousing of Luther's songs, 59 seemed to emphasise the
necessity of the Landgrave's precautionary diplomacy. A
meeting of the leaders of the anti-Lutheran party Duke
George of Saxony, the Elector Joachim of Brandenburg,
and the Archduke Ferdinand at Breslau in May 1527,
aroused the suspicion of an aggressive Romanist combination,
and this suspicion, though in reality unfounded, seemed
to find confirmation in the revelations of Otto von Pack,
an official of Duke George's chancery. This adventurer
produced a document purporting to be a copy of an agree-
ment between the leaders of the anti-Lutheran party for a
concerted attack on the Elector of Saxony and the Landgrave,
and the confiscation of their territories. 60 The document
was a forgery, but the impulsive Landgrave, who paid the
forger 4,000 gulden, without taking the precaution to test
its genuineness by making representations to the parties
concerned on the subject, set about concerting a counter-

5 * See Ferdinand's mandate against the Lutherans in Walch, xvi. 433.

89 Ein neues Lied wir heben an.

* See the document in Walch, xvi. 445-452.

Second Diet of Spires and Protestation 299

attack with the Saxon Elector. The Elector went the
length of collecting a force, but refrained from actually
beginning hostilities in deference to the opposition of Luther
who, as usual, deprecated the use of force and urged the
desirability of at least waiting until they were attacked. 61
The Landgrave was, however, less pliable, and whilst sending
the compromising document to his father-in-law, Duke
George, threatened, on the strength of his intrigues with
Zapolya and Francis L, to invade 62 the bishoprics of Maintz,
Bamberg, and Wiirzburg (May 1528). He discovered too
late that he had been the dupe of a crafty scoundrel, whose
concoction Duke George and the other members of the
would-be conspiracy indignantly rebutted, 63 and aggravated
his blunder by making the bishops pay the costs of the
preparation for his impulsive policy.

His rashness, which only intensified the persecution of
the Lutherans in Romanist territories, was all the more
impolitic in view of the international situation. Charles
had once more had the best of it in the renewed war with
his rival, Francis. The Pope had paid dearly for his hostility
in engineering the League of Cognac in the capture and sack
of Rome in May 1527, by a German-Spanish force under
Bourbon, and his flight to Orvieto. Charles's brother,
Ferdinand, had succeeded in getting himself elected King
of both Bohemia and Hungary in 1526, and in thus founding
the Austro-Hungarian state in spite of the opposition of
Zapolya and the ill will of the Duke of Bavaria. In these
circumstances the fugitive Pope was fain to enter into a
negotiation with the Emperor, which was concluded at
Barcelona in June 1529 and included the co-operation of both
in a crusade against the Turks and the heretics. Francis was
disposed to follow suit, and ultimately came to terms with
his rival in the Treaty of Cambrai (August 1529). 64 The
international situation had, therefore, once more taken an

61 " Werke," 53, 447 f. and 54, i (Erlangen ed.) ; cf. Enders, vi.
258 f.

64 He did not actually invade Wurzburg, however, as Ranke asserts

(in- 34)-

63 See their disclaimers in Walch, xvi. 457 f.

* For these negotiations see Pastor, " History of the Popes," x. 32 f.

300 Luther and the Reformation

adverse turn for the evangelical party in Germany, which
was both divided and discredited by the Landgrave's rash
enterprise and lost the support of Duke Henry of Mecklenburg
and the good will of the Elector Palatine.

Charles was thus free to attempt, without any effective
opposition, to reverse the Recess of Spires at a second Diet
which convened in the same city in March 1529. To this
end he directed his commissioners to promise the speedy
convention of a General Council, which he has reason to
believe that the Pope will agree to summon, to require,
in virtue of his imperial authority, the various Estates
of the empire to maintain meanwhile the traditional
faith and usages under pain of the imperial ban, and to
declare the Recess of the former Diet null and void. 65
The autocratic tone of this communication, which was an
unwarrantable infringement of the rights of the Estates,
was ill-fitted to rouse the enthusiasm of the assembly. But
the Romanist party was present in full force on this occasion,
and in its zeal for the faith, which was intensified by recent
events, was not disposed to resent this unconstitutional
imperial dictation. The evangelical party, on the other
hand, was weakened by the doctrinal differences which
had begun to estrange the adherents of Luther from those
of Zwingli, who by this time could count on a considerable
following in the south German cities. Its representatives on
the Grand Committee, to which the discussion of the question
was, in the first instance, referred, were in a hopeless
minority, and were powerless to prevent a reactionary
decision which, though it did not go the length of ostracising
the evangelical faith outright, allowed it to exist only on
sufferance. Whilst in Roman Catholic States the Edict of
Worms was to remain in force as heretofore, no further
innovations were to be made on the Lutheran States, pending
the meeting of the promised Council or, failing this, a German
national assembly. In these States Roman Catholics were
not to be prevented or forbidden to attend Mass in the
traditional form, which shall not henceforth be abolished,

5 Kaiserliche Proposition presented to the Diet by the Archduke
Ferdinand and his fellow-commissioners, isth March 1529, Walch,
xvi. 318-322.

Second Diet of Spires and Protestation 301

evidently even in cases where the local congregation might
adopt the evangelical faith and desire to observe the evangel-
ical rite. Zwinglians, who deny the real presence, and
Anabaptists as fomentors of sedition, shall not be tolerated
throughout the whole empire, and the Anabaptists shall be
summarily punished in accordance with an imperial mandate
to this effect. The decrees of the Diets of Niirnberg relative
to preaching and the press shall be rigorously observed.
Nor shall any Estate presume to infringe the rights of another
under penalty of the imperial ban a proviso which
might enable the episcopal jurisdiction to be restored in
the Lutheran principalities and cities in which it had been
practically abolished. 66

Without actually declaring the illegality of the evangelical
faith, as the Emperor demanded, the decision of the Com-
mittee assured the exclusive supremacy of the old religion
in the Romanist States and paved the way for a Romanist
reaction within the Lutheran principalities and cities, whilst
absolutely prohibiting the profession of any other form of
the evangelical faith. The differentiation between Lutherans
and Zwinglians was a skilful device for playing off the one
against the other and thus paralysing the evangelical
opposition. In his alarm for the future, the nervous
Melanchthon, 67 who accompanied the Elector John, was
ready to play the game of the Romanists and advised him
to sacrifice the Zwinglians- This pusillanimous tactic was
happily frustrated by the Landgrave Philip, who was less
hampered by dogmatic bias than the theologians, and realised
the importance of presenting a united front to the enemy.
At his instigation the evangelical princes, at the sitting on the
I2th April, united in appealing, on their own behalf and that
of their subjects and all adherents of the Gospel, against the
decision of the Committee, on conscientious grounds, and
also on the strength of the Recess of 1526. In this Appella-
tion, and the reasons adduced in support of it, they aver that
they are actuated solely by consideration of the honour of
God and His Word and the salvation of their souls and by

e Walch, xvi. 323-328.

7 For his anxiety see letters in " Corp. Ref.," i. 1039 f. ; Ellinger,
" Melanchthon." 238 f.

302 Luther and the Reformation

fidelity to conscience. Whilst they are ready to render
due obedience to the Emperor and to further the welfare and
peace of the empire, they cannot act against their conscience
in a matter involving the honour of God and their salvation.
Nor can they be a party to the execution of the Edict of
Worms even in the territories of the Romanist princes,
since such acquiescence would be equivalent to the approval
of the Edict on their part and the condemnation of what
they hold to be the truth. Nor, further, can they agree
to the restriction of their liberty relative to the Mass, which
they hold to be contrary to the plain teaching of the Word
of God and which, as contrary to the institution of Christ,
they cannot conscientiously suffer to exist within their
territories. Such demands are unjust and are incompatible
with the Recess of 1526, which they have undertaken to
observe and the majority of the present Diet has no right to
override, pending the meeting of a General Council, to which
both parties have agreed to relegate the religious question.
On these grounds they cannot accept the proposed Recess,
though they are ready to come to an arrangement relative
to the Anabaptists and the control of preaching and the
press. 68

These arguments failed to shake the Romanist majority
of the Diet, which voted in favour of the decision of the
Committee (i2th April), and on the igth the Imperial
Commissioners formally accepted it in the Emperor's name
and requested the opposition to acquiesce. 69 Whilst the
evangelical princes retired to consider their answer, they
abruptly left the sitting. Whereupon the princes handed in
a Protestation, in which they declare their determination
to adhere to the Recess of the former Diet ; protest against its
unwarrantable supersession by the present Diet, without
their consent ; deny the right of the majority to impose its
decision in this matter on the minority, and refuse on
conscientious and constitutional grounds to recognise its
validity or regard it as binding on them. Otherwise they

68 Walch, xvi. 364 f. ; Ney, " Die Appellation und Protestation der
Evangelischen Stande auf dem Reichstag zu Speier" (1529), 27 f.
(" Quellenschriften zur Geschichte des Protestantismus," 1906).

" Walch, xvi. 380 f. ; Ney, 46 f.

Second Diet of Spires and Protestation 303

are prepared to accept the clauses of the new Recess relative
to the Anabaptists, the censorship of the press, and respect
for the rights of the various Estates. They request that the
Protestation be included in the Acts of the Diet, and declare
their intention to forward it to the Emperor and publish
it along with a detailed statement of the reasons of their
refusal to recognise the decision of the majority. 70 In
the vain hope of securing the reconsideration of this decision
they sent the Protestation on the following day to King
Ferdinand, who forthwith returned it. Equally vain the
negotiation with the representatives of the more moderate
members of the majority, the Margrave Philip of Baden
and Duke Henry of Brunswick, to bring about an accom-
modation, which the evangelical princes were prepared to
accept. King Ferdinand and the majority rejected the
proposed modification of the terms of the Recess, and at
the sitting of the 22nd April, from which these princes
absented themselves, it was finally signed and sealed and the
request for the inclusion of the Protestation in the acts of
the Diet refused. 71

The Protestation bore the signatures of the Elector of
Saxony, the Margrave George of Brandenburg, the two
Dukes of Liineburg, the Landgrave Philip, and Prince
Wolfgang of Anhalt. On the 25th of April it received the
formal adhesion of fourteen cities, including Strassburg,
Niirnberg, Ulm, and Constance, and three of them
Strassburg, Niiniberg, and Ulm joined the Elector and
the Landgrave in a secret pledge to support one another in
its defence. Whilst Luther approved of the Protestation
and joined with Melanchthon in adducing reasons in support
of the Elector's attitude, 72 he strongly disapproved of any
alliance in its defence. He was content to entrust the
maintenance of his cause to Providence, who would know
how to defend the right. His conscience would not permit
him to defend the Gospel by force. Nor did he believe that
the Romanists had either the force or the heart to face a
civil war. Moreover, such a league would only beget a

70 Walch, xvi. 383 f. ; Ney, 50-53.

71 Walch, xvi. 387 f. ; Ney, 53 f-
71 Walch, xvi. 360-364,

304 Luther and the Reformation

counter-league and might easily lead to a conflict which they
would otherwise rather avoid. He was, too, afraid, after the
experience of the previous year, that the impulsive Landgrave
would mate use of such a combination for attack instead
of defence. In any case, an alliance with the south German
Zwinglians, who differed from him on the Sacramentarian
question, and whom he intolerantly regarded as " enemies
of God and His Word," was for him absolutely indefensible. 78

From the constitutional point of view, the contention
of these " Protestants, 1 ' as they came to be termed, that
the majority of the present Diet could not reverse the
decision of the previous one, or require their adherence to
a deliverance of this kind to which they had not consented,
was of dubious validity. 74 The Recess of 1526 was after
all but a temporary agreement, and though it was to hold
till the convention of a Council, it left the Emperor, who had
not consented to it, free to convene another Diet to deliberate
anew on the question. It evidently did not contemplate
the final disruption of the Church by the establishment of
independent evangelical churches in Lutheran territories
and cities. Moreover, it was within the province of a
regularly constituted Diet to legislate further, or not, on
the question, if the Emperor should submit proposals for its
consideration, and revise or reverse the law according as
the majority should decide.

The real strength of the Protestation lay, not in the
right of the minority legally to defy the will of the majority,
but in the appeal to the higher law of conscience, to the
duty of obeying God rather than man in the matter of
the soul's salvation. " We fear God's wrath more than we
fear the Emperor's ban." It was in opposing this conviction
to the will of the majority that the real significance and
the real justification of the action of the minority lay. It
was the repetition on a larger scale of the protest of Luther
at Worms on behalf of the individual conscience, of which
it was the fruit, and though it was still but the protest of a
comparatively small minority, the principle for which this

71 " Werke," 54, 72-74. Letter to the Elector John, 22nd May 1529.
74 Ranke adopts the view of its validity, *' Deutsche Geschichte,"
iii. 107-109. Also Hausrath, " Luther," ii. 233 f., and others.

Second Diet of Spires and Protestation 305

minority stood had made a very material stride towards its
ultimate vindication.

Unfortunately its champions had not advanced to a
true apprehension of the principle they professed. They
rightly objected, on conscientious grounds, to be deprived
of the right henceforth to abolish the Mass in their territories
in favour of the evangelical faith should the local congrega-
tion so desire. They forcibly pointed out the injustice
and intolerance of prohibiting the evangelical faith in
Romanist territories, whilst obliging them to maintain the
Mass in their territories, and disallowing their right to debar
anyone from participating in its celebration. Roman
Catholic historians like Janssen in charging them with
intolerance conveniently ignore the intolerance on the
other side. But apart from this aspect of the question,
their assumption of the right to override the conscience of
their Romanist subjects in the matter of the Mass was
entirely inconsistent with their insistence on the imperative
claims of conscience in their own case. Moreover, while
protesting on behalf of liberty of conscience for themselves,
they declared their readiness to acquiesce in the repression
of Anabaptists, though happily their names do not appear
in the list of those who signed the savage mandate which
consigned them to fire and sword, and which the Diet
accepted, 75 and it found at least one dissident in the
Landgrave Philip, who appears to have protested against it.

76 Walch, xvi. 351 f. On the Diet of 1529 see, besides the documents
in Walch and Ney, Ranke, " Deutsche Geschichte," iii. ; Janssen,
"Geschichte des Deutschen Volkes," iii.; Ney, "Geschichte des
Reichstags zu Speier, 1529 " (1880) ; Brieger, " Der Speierer Reichstag "
(1909) ; and the older works of Muller, " Historic von der Evangelischen
Standte Protestation und Appellation " ; and Jung, " Geschichte des
Reichstags zu Speier."

CHAPTER IX
THE DISRUPTION OF THE EVANGELICAL PARTY

I, THE SACRAMENTARIAN CONTROVERSY

THE cleavage in the evangelical party had its origin in the
divergence of view on the question of the real presence in
the Lord's Supper. In the " Babylonic Captivity " Luther
had controverted the doctrine of transubstantiation and
substituted for it that of consubstantiation, i.e., the bodily
presence of Christ in the bread and wine, not the miraculous
transmutation of their substance into the body and blood.
On his own testimony he had first been led to doubt the
traditional doctrine on reading a passage in D'Ailly's
commentary on the Sentences, and had finally rejected it
for the more rational one of consubstantiation. More
rational, that is, in so far as it enabled him to discard the
artificial distinction between the substance and the accidents
of the bread and wine by which the scholastic theologians
had sought to render plausible the notion that while the
substance of the bread and wine was miraculously changed
into the body and blood of Christ, their accidents form,
colour, taste, etc. remained intact.

But the theory of consubstantiation, if simpler and
comparatively more rational, was still mysterious and
irrational enough, and Luther would fain have found a
still simpler explanation of the words, " This is my body "
(Hoc est corpus meum). Only the difficulty of wholly
emancipating himself from the scholastic teaching on the
subject and his ingrained reverence for the letter of Scripture
kept him from advancing a step farther and accepting the
words of institution in a spiritual, symbolic sense. This
step was taken by the Netherland jurist Hoen, or Honius,
who, under the influence of Wessel Gansfort's treatise on

306

The Sacramentarian Controversy 307

the Eucharist, interpreted the words in this sense. In the
summer of 1522 (the probable date) he argued, in a letter
to Luther, in behalf of this interpretation, and along with
the letter sent him the works of Wessel. 1 Christ, he explained
in words that show that he had read Luther's sermon on
the Sacrament (1520), had ofttimes promised His disciples
the forgiveness of sins, and in the Last Supper He gave them
a pledge (pignus) in confirmation of this promise and for the
strengthening of their faith. The words, "This is my
body," are, however, not to be taken literally, but
figuratively. The " is " here means " signifies," " repre-
sents," as in other figurative sayings of Christ, and must
be read in the light of the Eucharistic discourse in John vi.
and other figurative passages. Christ is present only in a
figurative sense to believers for whom He has given His body
and blood, and who distinguish between the bread received
into the mouth and Christ Himself, whom they have received
in their hearts by faith. The passage does not, therefore,
warrant the doctrine of transubstantiation, which is a
figment of the scholastic theologians. 2

Luther was by no means prepared to accept this
interpretation. He had already expressed doubts about the
view of the Bohemian Brethren, 3 who emphasised the
spiritual rather than the bodily presence of Christ, though
he was disposed to leave the question of the adoration of
the host, to which they objected in particular, an open
one.* These communications from Hoen and the Brethren

1 He entrusted the letter and Wessel's works to his friends Rode
and Saganus who were proceeding to Wittenberg, Enders, iii. 423.
There is not sufficient ground for questioning (with Gobel, " Studien
und Kritiken," 332, 1842) Hoen's authorship of the letter and regarding
it as the composition of Wessel himself. See Enders, iii. 424. The
probable date is, as Dieckhoff has shown, 1522 (" Die Evangelische
Abendmahlslehre im Reformationszeitalter," i. 278 f.) ; Enders, iii.
424-425. Clemen thinks it was written in the spring of 1521 , c< Z.K.G.."
xviii. 353 f.

a Enders, iii. 412-421.

9 Ibid., iii. 364.

4 Ibid., iii. 363-364, 397-399. Letters to Speratus, i6th May and
1 3th June 1522, on the Bohemian view, on which his correspondent had
written to him, and which, as these letters inform us, was communicated

308 Luther and the Reformation

impressed him with the necessity of clearly defining what
he deemed the true doctrine. Hence the treatise, " On the
Adoration of the Sacrament of the Sacred Body of Christ/'
which he addressed to the Brethren in the spring of 1523^
In the first half of it he joins issue with Hoen in his most
dogmatic tone, though without actually naming him. 6 The
words, " This is my body, 1 ' are not to be figuratively but
literally understood. That reason cannot comprehend how
the real body and blood can be in the bread and wine does
not invalidate the plain testimony of these words. That we
cannot understand the fact of the real presence is no reason
why we should not believe it on the strength of this testimony.
Without an express declaration of Scripture to the contrary,
we are bound to accept the passage as it stands, and have
no alternative but to believe in the bodily presence. To
substitute without this warrant " signifies " for " is " is to
deal arbitrarily with the text, and this principle of exegesis
would endanger the whole truth of Scripture. He further
controverts the argument for a spiritual interpretation
based on the words of Paul in the loth and nth chapters of
I Corinthians, to which Hoen appealed, and concludes a
laboured argumentation by insisting on the literal sense as
the only admissible one against both the Spiritualists and
the Romanists.

Carlstadt, on the other hand, was disposed to adopt a
more receptive attitude on this, as on other questions on
which he differed from Luther. It is not quite clear whether
he had read Hoen's letter, 7 though this seems to me probable.
At all events, from 1523 onwards he appears as the convinced
champion of the spiritual as against the bodily presence,
and as the result of the interview with Luther at Jena,
he attacked the Lutheran position in the series of tracts which

by a deputation of the Brethren. In these communications he assumes
that the Brethren believe in the real presence, though he is not satisfied
with their mode of expression on the subject, especially their tendency
to interpret it m the light of John vi.

* "Von Anbeten des Sacraments des heiligen Leichnams Christi,"
" Werke," xi. 431 f.

" Werke," xi. 434 f-

1 See Barge, " Karlstadt," ii. 150-151.

The Sacramentarian Controversy 309

he published at Basle after his banishment from Saxony
in the autumn of 1524. Christ's sacrifice, he contended,
was made on the Cross on which He gave His body and blood
for our redemption, not in the Supper, and the breaking of
the bread, the drinking of the wine, are a symbolic and
commemorative celebration of this sacrifice. In proof thereof
he explained that Christ in the words, " This is my body
which is given for you," did not refer to the bread, but
pointed to his actual body. This exegesis is certainly a
strained one in view of the preceding words, " Take, eat,"
etc. But while explaining the words differently from Hoen,
he agrees with his contention that there can be no bodily
presence of Christ in the bread and wine. Christ can only
be spiritually present, since the body in which He ascended
is in heaven and will not reappear on earth till He come
again. Luther's doctrine of the real presence is merely the
Romanist doctrine in a modified form, and is both un-
scriptural and unevangelical. He draws the same conclusion
from the relative passages in I Corinthians, John vi., etc. 8

Carlstadt's doctrine was keenly discussed by the
Strassburg theologians Capito, Bucer, Hedio, and their
colleagues who, on the 23rd November 1524, wrote to
Luther on the subject. Whilst condemning Carlstadt's
personal attitude towards him, they clearly indicated that
they practically shared his view of the spiritual presence,
and begged him to explain his position with a view to the
cessation of this distressful strife, which was causing such
jubilation among the Romanists. 9 In reply he sent a letter
warning them against this radical teaching. 10 At the
same time, he confesses that he would fain have adopted the
spiritual view and that it had cost him a hard struggle to
reject it. " I confess that if Dr Carlstadt or any other
could have convinced me five years ago that there is nothing
in the Sacrament but bread and wine, he would have done
me a great service. I have been sorely tempted on this
point and have struggled hard to bring myself to look at
the matter in this light, because I saw that I could thereby

Barge, ii. 151 f. 10 " Werke," xv. 391 f., ijth Dec,

9 Enders, v. 59 f.

310 Luther and the Reformation

deal the Papacy the hardest blow. I read the views of two
writers who treated the subject more skilfully than Carlstadt
(i.e., Hoen and Francis Kolb, pastor at Wertheim), and did
not wrest the Word in accordance with their own imagination.
But I am taken captive and cannot believe otherwise. The
text is too mighty for me and will not be wrested from its
sense in this fashion. Yea, if to-day anyone would show
me on sufficient ground that there are only bread and wine,
it would not be necessary to attack me with so much
animus as Carlstadt has done, since I am only too disposed
to believe it as far as the old Adam is concerned. But
Carlstadt's vapourings have only led me to hold more strongly
the opposite view/' u

He promised to deal more exhaustively with the question
in a future work, and this promise he straightway fulfilled
in his counterblast, "Against the Heavenly Prophets,"
which is alike a vindication of his relations with Carlstadt
during the previous two years and a counter-attack on his
radical teaching. 12 The Strassburg theologians had begged
him to eschew his opponent's acrid style and discuss the
subject without animus. Unfortunately by this time the
very name of Carlstadt, who ascribed to him his expatriation
from Saxony and had latterly denounced him as a new
papist, a false teacher, and a follower of Antichrist, had
become as the red rag to the bull. He belabours him with
abuse as well as argument in his most objurgatory style.
Carlstadt is the very devil who strives, through him, to
subvert the divine ordinance and the truth of Scripture.
He hotly resents and refutes the charge that, while he has
rejected the Mass as an offering, he has retained the word in
his modified liturgy and also the elevation of the host, and
has thus perpetuated the old superstition. In striving to
maintain this contention, Carlstadt shows himself an
ignoramus in both Greek and Hebrew. He makes sport
of his exegesis of the words, " This is my body," and insists
anew that they must be taken as they stand without evasion

11 "Werke," xv. 394.

" Ibid., xviii. 62 f. It appeared in two parts, at the beginning and
end of Jan. 1525 respectively.

The Sacramentarian Controversy 3 1 1

or exegetical sophistry of this kind. " It is a hard and
clear saying which compels assent by its own plain
testimony." 13 It is confirmed, not invalidated, by Paul
in the ist Epistle to the Corinthians. How, he asks, for
instance, can they who eat and dnnk unwittingly be guilty
of the body and blood of the Lord, if these are not in the
bread and wine ? To appeal to reason against such an
interpretation is to subvert faith and fall into the sophistry
of the schoolmen. In thus rationally reading the text in
the light of John vi. 63 and other passages, which seem
to tell against the real presence, Carlstadt has surrendered
himself to the wiles of Frau Hulda, that " devil's bride/' u
as he calls Reason, who is the personification of demonic
lying and error. It is this hellish seducer that suggests
a variety of sceptical questions in confutation of the real
presence. Carlstadt asks, for instance, how the real presence
consists with Christ's saying, " The flesh profiteth nothing " ?
Luther replies that the saying refers not to Christ's sacra-
mental flesh, but to the fleshly disposition of the Jews,
though he had previously referred it to Christ's own body.
This certainly is suggestive of a tendency to make the text
suit the argument. Again, how could Christ call the bread
His body, if, on Luther's own reasoning against tran-
substantiation, the bread nevertheless remained bread ? The
schoolmen had attempted to solve the puzzle by miraculously
transmuting the substance of the bread into the body,
leaving only the accidents, and thus practically eliminating
it altogether. Luther, in discarding transubstantiation and
substituting for it consubstantiation, had previously
attempted to render his doctrine intelligible by the illustra-
tion of red-hot iron which constitutes both fire and iron.
Since his opponent persists in rejecting this illustration, he
now resorts to the figure of speech known among the
grammarians as Synecdoche, 13 by which, whilst speaking
of the whole of an object, we really have in mind only the
part. Christ in using the word " This " means that His body
forms part of the object in question, and it is this part
(body) that He emphasises without thereby excluding the

"Werke," xviii. 148. " Ibid., xviii. 205. Ibid., xviii. 186 f.

312 Luther and the Reformation

other (bread). He uses the term " This " inclusively, not
exclusively. Both body and bread are there and mike up
the whole, though the emphasis at the moment is on the
part rather than on the whole. This exegesis as proof of
the real presence seems, however, to the dubious reader as
far-fetched as that of Carlstadt in proof of the spiritual
presence, though it was destined to become a distinctive
feature of the Lutheran argumentation on the subject.
Again, Carlstadt, under the prompting of that seductive
devil's bride, asks how the real presence in the Sacrament
harmonises with Christ's saying that it is needful for Him
to go away and that He would only come again at the
last day ? Christ's glorified body, retorts Luther, is not
limited to any place. It is ubiquitous, everywhere present,
and His presence in the Sacrament is an indispensable
source of comfort to the believer. For this reason also he
controverts Carlstadt's contention that Christ obtained for
us the forgiveness of sins on the Cross, not in the Sacrament.
Whilst this is true, it is in the Sacrament that He com-
municates it to the believer, who eats His body and drinks
His blood, and thus imparts to him an inestimable consola-
tion in the face of the recurring sense of sin and condemna-
tion. Hence the cardinal significance, the absolute necessity
of the literal, as against the symbolic interpretation of the
words of Christ, which Carlstadt by his imaginary spiritual-
ism, his emphasis on the inner Word at the expense of the
outward Word, would rob of its supreme validity and
substitute for it his own arbitrary subjectivism.

Once more in this lengthy effusion, written with red-hot
conviction, Luther gives proof of his wonderful dialectic
resource. In his onslaught on the mediaeval sacramental
system, he had strongly opposed the notion of inherent
grace in the Sacraments, and emphasised faith as the essential
which renders them efficacious as means of grace. Now the
accent is on the Sacrament itself as embodying grace in
virtue of the real presence, though faith is indispensable
to a participation in this sacramental grace. In controversy
with Carlstadt he seems to have reverted to the idea of
inherent sacramental grace, whilst repudiating its mere
mechanical operation To us this seems a lapse towards

The Sacrament arian Controversy 313

mediaeval materialism. To Luther it was a vital element of
the religious life, inasmuch as it is in the Sacrament that
the Word of Christ becomes effective in saving and
sanctifying the soul. Hence the fierceness, the implacable
intolerance with which he pursues his opponent throughout,
as if his salvation depended on the interpretation of a single
text. As in the case of the controversy with Erasmus it is
a question of only one alternative. As to believe, with
Erasmus, in free will, so to believe, with Carlstadt, in a
merely spiritual presence is to play the devil's game and be
damned accordingly.

As in the one case, so in the other, Luther's one-sided
vehemence tended to defeat itself. The Strassburg theolo-
gians had asked him to give them a dispassionate discussion
of the subject. Instead of this, he had allowed his one-sided
dogmatic predilections to betray him into a wild, if brilliant
philippic against Carlstadt, which was in some respects
unfair to his opponent as well as outrageously vituperative.
The luckless Carlstadt had, indeed, given him no little
provocation in the matter of abuse and misrepresentation.
But apart from this particular controversy, the question
at issue was exciting widespread interest and concern,
and to overwhelm Carlstadt by his brilliant dialectic and
fierce invective was by no means to say the last word on
the subject. Carlstadt's exegesis might be absurd. But
Luther's was not necessarily irrefragable or fitted to carry
conviction to others, who might find it difficult to share
that of either. Moreover, Luther's contempt for reason,
in spite of his own wonderful dialectic, his way of turn-
ing on the devil's bride when confronted with awkward
questions was certainly not likely to commend itself to those
who, like Zwingli, had been trained in the school of Erasmus.

Zwingli, as well as the Strassburg theologians and
Oecolampadius of Basle, was, in fact, very unfavourably
impressed by the violent and one-sided tone of the discussion.
On the question of the spiritual versus the bodily presence
they agreed with Carlstadt, if not with his exegesis, and thus,
instead of disposing of the question, Luther had merely
widened the controversy over it.

In Zwingli it brought into the field a more formidable

314 Luther and the Reformation

opponent than Carlstadt. His early teaching on the subject
was influenced by that of Erasmus, 16 whose disciple he was
before he became the active evangelical reformer of Ziirich.
Erasmus, whilst not directly attacking the doctrine of
transubstantiation, went beyond the schoolmen to Augustine
and Paul, and in his Paraphrases on the New Testament and
the " Enchiridion " emphasised the symbolic, commemorative
aspect of the Sacrament, the mystical union and communion
of the soul therein with Christ, who, to faith, is really present
in the elements, the fellowship of believers with one another,
and the ethical significance and value of the rite. This is
the teaching that is reflected in the writings of Zwingli up
to 1524, in addition to the open rejection of transubstantia-
tion. So far, he had reached the conclusion that the Lord's
Supper is a commemoration, not a repetition, of the sacrifice
which Christ offered once for all on the Cross and by which
He obtained for the believer the remission of sin. In it
Christ is really present, and the believer in a certain sense
(not exactly defined) eats His body and drinks His blood.
"There is no dispute/' he says in the Exposition of his
sixty-seven Schlussreden, or Articles (July 1523), " whether
the body and blood are eaten and drunk (for no Christian
doubts this), but whether it is a sacrifice, or only the com-
memoration of the sacrifice on the Cross." Christ is really
present in the bread and wine to faith, which is thus the
essential thing and which brings the believer into a mystical
union and communion with Him. The bread and wine
are, therefore, for him not yet purely symbols of Christ's
body and blood, but are evidently apprehended in the
Lutheran sense of the real presence. He is, in fact, on his
own confession, at this period in agreement with Luther. It
is thus hardly accurate, as far as the early period is con-
cerned, to say, with Seeberg, that for Zwingli " the Sacrament
is merely, on the one hand, a commemoration of the redemp-
tion wrought for us by Christ, and, on the other, a confession
of adherence to Him in the face of the congregation and
thereby an obligation to live a Christian life." 17 It evidently

"Staehelin, "Zwingli," ii. 220-223 (1897); Kohler, "Zwingli
und Luther, '* i. 51 (1924).

17 " Dogmengeschichte," iv. 378; cf. 377 (1917).

The Sacramentarian Controversy 315

involved a more mystical experience than these words
suggest. 18

In the supervening period of controversy with Luther
and his adherents (1525-29) it is, however, the symbolic,
commemorative aspect of the Sacrament that is in the
foreground. In his early period Zwingli had already arrived
at a spiritual interpretation of the words of institution.
But he had not attained to an exegesis of the text which
would establish this conviction This exegesis he found
in the letter of Hoen, which was brought to him by Rode
and Saganus in the summer of 1523 19 The letter made a
profound impression on him, and, unlike Luther, he at once
adopted the equation of " is " with " signifies " as the
correct exegesis. He was not the man to surrender his
reason, in deference to a dogmatic conviction, to what
seemed to him an irrational interpretation when a more
rational one was open to him. He was not disposed to
divorce reason from faith in deference to Luther's dis-
paragement of rational criticism. In this respect he
remained a humanist after he became an aggressive
evangelical reformer.

Apart, however, from the difference in their attitude
towards reason and rational Scriptural interpretation, the
difference between their respective theological standpoints
could hardly fail to bring the two reformers into collision
on this question. Zwingli maintained that salvation is

18 The standard work on Zwingli 's early conception of the Sacrament
is that of Walter Kohler, " Zwingli und Luther," i., 1924. He shows
by an elaborate investigation that in his earlier teaching Zwingli,
following Erasmus, held the doctrine of the real presence, and that
only after becoming acquainted with the view of Hoen did he expressly
enunciate the symbolic interpretation of the words of institution. In
his review of the book in the " Theolog. Blatter " (1926), Karl Bauer
contended that Zwingli held from the outset the symbolic interpretation.
Kohler's reply in the " Z.K.G." (1927), 397 f., seems to me to have
disproved his contention. See, however, Bauer's reply, *' Z.K.G."
(1928), 97 f, A recent discussion in English is Barclay's Ph.D. Thesis
of Edin. Univ. (1926), published under the title of " The Protestant
Doctrine of The Lord's Supper " (192?).

19 The letter could not have reached him as early as 1521, as Bauer
(" Zwingli's Theologie," ii. 279) contends. See Staehelm, " Zwingli,"
ii. 228-229; Clemen, " Z.K.G.," xviii. 346 f. ; Barclay, 54 (51-52).

316 Luther and the Reformation

attainable by faith in the atoning death of Christ on the
Cross, and is not conditioned by any belief such as that of
the bodily presence in the Sacrament. Faith needs no
material prop of this kind to attain the assurance of the
forgiveness of sins and eternal life accruing from Christ's
sacrifice. Salvation comes through faith in this sacrifice,
not through the Sacrament, though in the later phase 20
of his teaching he again laid more stress on its mystical
aspect. Luther, on the other hand, could not quite shake
himself free from the mediaeval notion of the inherent efficacy
of the Sacrament, the necessary channel for the operation
of God's grace in the soul, though faith is necessary to the
reception of the grace which it conveys. Thus, while to
Zwingli it is a commemoration, a consecration, and a
communion with Christ, who is spiritually present to the
believer, to Luther it is the objective embodiment of
the sacrifice of Christ, who is bodily present and with whom
the believer comes into actual contact actually eats His
flesh and drinks His blood and experiences the grace of
forgiveness which it conveys. " The antagonism of the two
views," says Staehelin, " appears in the fact that Zwingli
places the meaning of the Sacrament in the historic atoning
death of Christ, Luther in the communication of the bodily
present Christ to the believer. According to Zwingli, Christ
instituted in the Lord's Supper the memorial of His suffering
and death ; according to Luther, a communion in which
He continually offers Himself to man as the Word became
flesh for his salvation, in order not only to strengthen his
faith through this objective presentation of His redeeming
work, but also in this miraculous fashion to communicate
Himself to him bodily in His whole human-divine being/' a
Moreover, whilst he regarded the notion of the real presence
in the bread and wine as a materialising one and derogatory
to the transcendental, spiritual nature of God, to Luther
it was a comforting and convincing assurance of the divine
mercy and goodness towards helpless, fallen humanity.
However much stress he might lay on faith as the means of

In the " Brief Exposition of the Faith," dedicated to Francis I.,
-
" Zwingli," ii. 237.

The Sacramentarian Controversy 317

salvation, he could not give up the notion of a substantial
and sensuous experience of it, though he had cast away
belief in the miracle of transubstantiation by priestly
incantation.

The excitement aroused by the Carlstadt-Luther polemic
impelled Zwingli to declare himself. He wrote a letter to
Matthew Alber, one of Luther's adherents in the controversy
with Carlstadt, 22 in which, whilst finding fault with Carlstadt's
exegesis and adopting that of Hoen, he expressed his approval
of his spiritual conception of the ordinance and, on the
ground of the figurative meaning of the words of institution
and the saying of Christ in John vi. 63, condemned the
doctrine of consubstantiation. He expounded his own view
more at large in a treatise on " True and False Religion "
(1525). His patronage of Carlstadt as much as his attack
on the real presence called Luther into the arena, who,
unfortunately, had no first-hand knowledge of his writings, 23
and in his wrath identified his teaching with the extreme
tendency of the prophets and declared both alike possessed
of the devil. His embitterment was increased by the fact
that many of the south German as well as the Swiss theolo-
gians, and of the south German cities preferred Zwingli's
teaching to his and became its strenuous propagandists.
The result was a fierce pamphlet warfare in which, besides
the two principals, Oecolampadius 24 of Basle, and with
some modification the Strassburg divines, Bucer and
Capito, took an active share on the side of Zwingli ;
Mdanchthon, Osiander, Brenz, and Bugenhagen on that of
Luther.

The two main questions on which the controversy
turned were the ubiquity or omnipresence of Christ's body, 25

98 " Opera," iii. 569-603, Nov. 1524.

M On this point see Kohler, " Zum Abendmahlsstreit zwischen
Luther und Zwingli,*' " Lutherstudien zur 400 Feier der Reformation, '*
115 .(1917).

** On the part taken by Oecolampadius in the controversy up to the
end of 1526, see " Briefe und Aktep zum Leben Oecolampads," ed. by
E. Staehelin, i. (1927). His chief contribution to the subject up to this
time is his " De genuina verborum Domini Expositione " (1525).

* ft Luther had already touched on this question in his philippic
against Carlstadt, " Werke," xviii. 206, 211.

318 Luther and the Reformation

and the relation of the two natures the divine and human
in Him, which was involved in the former question. Zwingli,
in a series of controversial tracts against Luther, 26 denied
that Christ's body, which is in heaven, can also be in the
bread, and maintained that what is said about His flesh
and blood has reference to His divine, not to His human
nature. He sought to make out his point by adducing the
figure of speech known as Alloiosis (rhetorical exchange,
Gegenwechsel)^ by which in speaking of the one nature in
Christ we use the terms that properly belong to the other.
Luther, on the other hand, maintained the omnipresence of
Christ's body and denied the contention that what is said
of the flesh and blood is to be referred only to the divine
nature. Whilst Zwingli emphasised the distinction of the
natures, which excluded the notion of Christ's bodily
ubiquity, Luther emphasised their union, which made the
bodily ubiquity possible, and strove to give plausibility to
his contention in terms borrowed from the scholastic
theology (Occam and Biel) in which, unlike Zwingli, he was
an expert. Zwingli's contention that what is said of the
flesh and blood really applies to the divine nature is an
unwarrantable invention suggested by that devilish enchant-
ress Frau Hulda (godless reason).

Luther's contributions 28 to this paper warfare were
marked by his characteristic vehemence as well as by his
resourcefulness in argument. For him Zwingli and
Oecolampadius are not only possessed by the devil. He
denies them the name of Christians and regards them as
no better than Miinzer and worse than the papists. Although

24 The series comprises " Underrichtung vom Abendmahl " (1526) ;
" Friindlich Verglimpfung " (1527); " Dass dise Worte Christi," etc.
(1527) ; " Ueber Luther's Buch Bekenntnis " (1527) ; " Opera," ii. and
iii. For a detailed examination of them see Staehelin, ii 289 f.

27 Or Commutatio idiomatum, " Opera," iii 525 ; iv. 379.

28 The two "Vorreden zum Schwabischen Syngramm " (1526),
" Werke," xix. 447 f. The " Syngramma Suevicum " is a statement of
their belief issued by Brenz and a number of Swabian preachers, of which
Luther approved. " Sermon von dem Sacrament des Leibes und Blutes
Christi, wider die Schwarmgeister " (1526), " Werke," xix. 474 f. (1526) ;
"Das diese Worte Christi noch fest stehen" (1527), " Werke, " xxiii. 38 f. ;
" Vom Abendmahl Christi Bekenntnis " (1528), " Werke," xxvi 241 f.

The Sacramentarian Controversy 319

he had so stoutly denied the right of the Romanists to make
of transubstantiation an article of faith, he insists on their
accepting his own view of the real presence, which was
little less irrational, as an essential of the Gospel, and would
have no fellowship with such perverters of the Gospel. " The
fanatics throttle Christ and God the Father in His words,
and my mother Christianity and my brethren in addition.
They would furthermore have me dead, and after that they
say I shall have peace and that they will live in charity
with me." 29 " Cursed be such charity and such unity to
the very bottom of hell, since such unity not only miserably
disrupts Christianity, but makes sport and foolishness of it
in devilish manner/' 30 In view of such outbursts the
fanaticism of which he accused his opponents might more
forcibly be retorted against himself. So fanatical and
furious was he, that he was ready to stake the whole reform
movement on the acceptance of the notion that the com-
municant actually eats the body and drinks the blood of Christ
under the semblance of a morsel of bread and a sip of wine.
Zwingli, on the other hand, whilst giving vent to his
indignation under the strain of such outrageous vituperation
and stoutly vindicating his own view as the Scriptural and
truly evangelical one, was ready to tolerate difference of
opinion on the subject in deference to the obligation of
Christian charity and for the sake of unity. If he insisted
as dogmatically as Luther on his view of the question, he
felt still more keenly the detriment and discredit which
the controversy was bringing on the evangelical cause, and
the clamant necessity of agreeing to differ and uniting in the
defence of the essentials of their common faith. The con-
troversy was driving the wedge of sectarian dispute into the
ranks of the evangelical party at a time when it was suffering
from the shock of the social revolution and exposed to the
menace of an aggressive Romanist reaction. It was on this
ground that, in spite of Luther's vituperative and irreconcil-
able attitude, he eagerly welcomed the proposal of the
Landgrave Philip to hold a conference on the subject at
Marburg in the beginning of October 1529.

* " Werke," xxiii. 82. 30 Ibid., xxiii. 80.

320 Luther and the Reformation

II. THE MARBURG CONFERENCE

In proposing this expedient the Landgrave was actuated
by concern for the defence of the Reformation, in its bearing
on the political situation, rather than by a keen interest in
the theological question at issue. 31 He saw the expediency
of widening the defensive union, which the hostile decision
of the second Diet of Spires had forced the Protestant
princes and cities to form, so as to include Zurich, Berne,
and the other Swiss Protestant cities as well as those of
south Germany. On the other hand, the active antagonism
of the Roman Catholic cantons to the evangelical cause,
backed as it was by the Hapsburg power, emphasised for
Zwingli the urgent desirability of an alliance on religious
as well as political grounds between the south German
cities and the Protestant cantons. In his apprehension of
an aggressive Romanist reaction he even contemplated the
disruption of the Swiss Confederation and the political as
well as the religious union of the Protestant cantons with
south Germany. Hence the alacrity with which he wel-
comed the proposed Marburg Conference as a means not only
of putting an end to the threatened schism of the evangelical
party, but of cementing a great Protestant combination
against the aggressive designs, both in Switzerland and in
Germany, of the Emperor and the Romanists. Luther,
on the other hand, could only with difficulty bring himself
to confer with an antagonist who, in his eyes, was a diabolic
enemy of the faith and, whilst ultimately yielding to the
Landgrave's insistence, backed by the Elector John, ex-
pressed his conviction that no good would come of the
meeting. 3 * He had, moreover, no liking for the policy of
defending the evangelical cause by force, and had not this
additional motive to whet his zeal for union, which appealed
so powerfully to the more robust, practical Swiss reformer.

51 On the negotiations and the motives underlying them, which
preceded the Marburg Conference, see Von Schubert, "Beitrage zur
Geschichte der evangelischen Bekenntnis und Bundnisbildung "
(1529-30), " Z.K.G." (1908), 323 f.

" Enders, vii. 121-123, 29th June 1529.

The Marburg Conference 321

The conference, which took place in the castle at Marburg
and lasted from the ist to the 3rd October, 83 brought together
all the more notable divines on either side. With Luther
came Melanchthon, Justus Jonas, Cruciger, Myconius, Brenz,
Osiander, Agricola; with Zwingli, Oecolampadius, Bucer,
and Hedio. The brunt of the debate was, however, borne
by Luther on the one hand, and Zwingli and Oecolampadius
on the other, after Melanchthon had spent the first day
conferring privately with Zwingli and Luther with
Oecolampadius. 34 The Wittenberg theologians were sur-
prised to learn that their opponents were not the fanatics
and heretics they had taken them for. Zwingli emphatically
averred his adherence to the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds,
and admitted a spiritual manducation by faith, and thus
reverted to the more mystical view of his earlier teaching.
His declarations on these subjects tended to produce an
atmosphere more favourable to friendly discussion. 35

In public conference on the 2nd, Luther from the outset,
however, declared that he would abide by his conviction
of the bodily presence and the real manducation, though,
like Paul, he was ready to give a reason for his faith. On
the table before him he had chalked Hoc est corpus meum>
which he insisted on taking in the literal sense.
Oecolampadius reminded him of the use of figurative
language in Scripture, and quoted John vi. 63, " It is the
spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing," in
proof of his contention that Christ could only have spoken
figuratively of eating His body, and that He referred to
spiritual not to carnal eating. Luther denied that this
interpretation applied to the words of institution, and
maintained that the Christian is not to ask for explanations
of Christ's assertion, but implicitly to believe it. If God

88 Jackson wrongly says that it began on the 30th Sept., " Huldreich
Zwingli," 314 (1901).

s *Enders, vii. 169.

3 * This private discussion ranged over the main doctrines of the
Christian faith, besides that of the Lord's Supper, and thus served the
useful purpose of showing Luther and Melanchthon that, apart from
this doctrine, the parties were in general agreement on these doctrines.
Von Schubert, " Z.K.G." (1908), 377 f.

322 Luther and the Reformation

ordered him to eat dung he would do it and ask no
questions. 86

Zwingli took exception to such an unreasonable notion
of what is required of faith. He maintained that Scripture
must be collated with Scripture in order to arrive at the
meaning of such figurative expressions. So doing, the words
of institution could only be rightly understood by substituting
" signifies " for " is." John vi. 63 showed conclusively that
this is the only possible interpretation. Luther had demanded
that they should prove their contention, and Zwingli held
that this was proof positive that in the Sacrament the
believer could only eat Christ's body spiritually and not
actually. " The words Hoc e$t corpus mewn" retorted
Luther, doggedly, " are not ours, but Christ's ; da kan
der teuffel nicht ftir, the devil himself cannot make it
otherwise. I ask you therefore to leave off your tamper-
ing with the Word and give glory to God." "And we/ 1
retorted Zwingli, " ask you to give glory to God and leave
off your quibbling." 37 At this point the discussion became
so hot that the Landgrave was fain to intervene, and the
sitting had to be adjourned till the afternoon.

On resuming, Luther, in reply to Zwingli's objection to
the real manducation, maintained that while we actually eat
the body, it is not food in the ordinary sense and is not
digested like other food. Nevertheless it transmits itself
to us. The discussion then turned on the question of its
ubiquity. Oecolampadius quoted the passages referring to
Christ's going away, and adduced the finitude and limitation
of His human body. " How/' he asked, " can one and the
same body be in different places at the same time ? " *
" I care not for mathematics/' returned Luther. " God is
able to effect that the body is in heaven and at the same
time in the Sacrament. I believe that it is in both and I
stick to the words, Hoc est corpus meum. I care not that
this belief is contrary to nature. It is not against faith." 89
" It is against faith," replied Oecolampadius, " for Christ
was made like unto us. He is one with us in our humanity,

" " Werke," xxx., Pt. III., 116. " Ibid., xxx., Pt. III., 128, 130.
" Ibid., xxx., Pt. III., 122. " Ibid., xxx., Pt. III., 130-131.

The Marburg Conference 323

whilst consubstantial with the Father in His divinity, and only
as divine can He be omnipresent." " I care not for your
distinction in this matter," was the reply. " Christ is
substantially in the Sacrament just as He was born of the
Virgin, and He does not cease to be both in heaven and in
the bread." Zwingli adduced in support of his colleague's
contention additional passages of Scripture, especially
Hebrews iv. 15, " He hath in all points been tempted like
as we are, yet without sin/' Luther again retorted that,
in the face of the words chalked before him, mathematics
could not apply.

On resuming on the following morning, Sunday, 3rd
October, Zwingli asked for proofs of the ubiquity. " My
dear sirs," replied Luther, again pointing to the text, " since
the words of my Lord Jesus stand there, I really cannot go
beyond them, but must confess and believe that the body
of Christ is there." " Surely," interposed Zwingli, " the
word ' there ' is an adverb of place." " The words,"
retorted Luther, "are ' this/ not ' there ' is my body.
God can make a body to be in more places than one when
He pleases." The schoolmen had argued that this was even
mathematically possible, as he tried to show by examples.
Zwingli then quoted Augustine and Fulgentius in support
of the view that a body must be in a definite space. Luther
admitted that these Fathers were against him on this point,
but contended that Christ is not present in a spatial sense,
and that other Fathers agreed with him. Moreover, the
Fathers are only to be believed in as far as they speak in
accordance with Scripture. Besides, if, on the assumption
of his opponents, Christ's divinity did not suffer as well as
His humanity and He could not therefore be in the Sacrament
both as God and man, such a Christ would be of no use to
him. " If," returned Oecolampadius, " He is not present
in a spatial sense, He cannot be bodily in the Sacrament,
which must, therefore, be a symbol of His body," They, too,
received the Scripture as the only authority, and they had
only quoted Augustine to show that they taught nothing new.

By the Sunday evening the disputants had argued them-
selves to a complete deadlock, and agreed that further debate
was hopeless. Thereupon the Chancellor of the Landgrave

324 Luther and the Reformation

appealed to both sides to think better of it and make another
attempt to reach an understanding. " The only way to
reach an understanding," replied Luther, "is for you to
give honour to the Word of God and believe as we do." 40
" As you refuse to bend to our interpretation of the text/'
was the retort, " so we refuse to accept yours." " Well,
then/' replied Luther, " we commend you to God and His
judgment." In a more softened tone he thanked them
for their courtesy in conducting the discussion, and asked
Zwingli's forgiveness for having indulged in some acrid
expressions in the course of it, seeing he was but flesh and
blood. Zwingli similarly begged his forgiveness for some
harsh expressions and with tears in his eyes professed his
ardent desire for friendship and fellowship. There were no
men in the world whose friendship he more eagerly desired.
Oecolampadius urged him for God's sake to have respect to
the afflicted Church, and Bucer vindicated the orthodoxy
of the Strassburg theologians which he had aspersed. Luther
replied with a repelling negative. " You have a different
spirit from us. There can be no community of spirit between
us and you who profess to accept the Word of Christ, and
nevertheless condemn, controvert, and seek to undermine
it with all kinds of sacrilegious arguments." ffl " Pray God/'
he added in conclusion, " that you may be converted."
" Pray God yourself," returned Oecolampadius, " for you
stand equally in need of being converted." tt

Despite this impasse, the Landgrave, after the formal
dose of the debate on the afternoon of the 3rd October,
made a final effort to secure unanimity. He besought both

* " Werke," xxx., Pt, III., 149.

41 Ibid., xxx., Pt. III., 150.

** Ibid. , xxx., Pt. Ill ., 144. For the discussion seethe various reports in
" Werke/' xxx., Pt. III., 92 f., by Hedio, an anonymous writer, Collinus,
Osiander, Brenz, and another anonymous writer. For the reports of
Justus Jonas and Melanchthon, " Corp. Ref.," i. 1095 f. See also
Schirnnacher, " Briefe und Akten zu der Geschichte des Religions-
gespraches zu Marburg/' 3-29 (1876); Von Schubert, " Bekenntnis-
bildung und Religionspolitik," 1529-30 (1910); W. Kohler,
" Zwingli und Luther," i. The facsimile of the Marburg Articles as
deposited in the Archives at Zurich is given by Usteri in " Theolog.
Studien und Kritiken " (1883), 400 f.

The Marburg Conference 325

parties to consider in private the possibility of finding a
formula which both could subscribe. Luther and his
colleagues expressed their willingness to do so, and Luther
drew up a formula which, while asserting that " the body of
Christ is truly," i.e., essentially and substantially, 43 " present
in the Sacrament and not merely in the remembrance of the
partaker," waives further discussion on the question as to
the mode of its presence, i.e., " whether bodily or spiritually,
naturally or supernaturally, spatially or non-spatially." On
this understanding he and his colleagues were prepared to
recognise their opponents as brethren. 44 This was un-
doubtedly a considerable concession on Luther's part and,
at first, Bucer was disposed to accept it as a feasible solution
in the private discussions on the subject which took place
on the following day, the 4th October. Zwingli and
Oecolampadius, on the other hand, and under their influence
ultimately Bucer, could not bring themselves to admit
the real presence in the Lutheran sense, and held to their
view that Christ is present only in a spiritual sense
(spiritualiter)** Luther's formula thus failed to reconcile
the contending parties. The bodily presence, as he under-
stood it, could not be harmonised with the spiritual view of
the presence as Zwingli conceived it. Moreover, the Swiss
theologians objected to such terms as " essentially and
substantially present " as unbiblical and likely to mystify
and mislead the simple believer and lead to a crass notion
of the presence, 46

In view of Luther's passionate conviction of the bodily
presence and his previous argumentation, his final concession
represents a real stretch of principle for the sake of union.
At the same time, the bodily is distinctively emphasised
as against the spiritual presence, which to Zwingli is the

4S Essential iter et substantive,

44 " Werke," xxx., Pt. III., 150. Osiander's Report. See also
Von Schubert, " Beitrage," " Z.K.G." (1909), 67-68.

4G Enders, vii. 354.

4 * For the details of this private negotiation see Von Schubert,
" Beitrage," " Z.K.G." (1909), 60 f. He gives from the Correspondence
of the brothers Blaurer, edited by Schiess, i. (1908), the actual formula
as drawn up by Luther at Marburg, which Osiander only imperfectly
paraphrases.

326 Luther and the Reformation

only feasible one. On this cardinal issue the intellectual
and religious standpoints of the two chief disputants in-
evitably led to a collision. Luther's disposition to divorce
faith and reason clashed with Zwingli's tendency to harmonise
them as much as possible. For Luther the bodily presence
is an essential of saving faith one of the relics of mediaeval
belief which he carried into the Reformation. For Zwingli
it is both an unscriptural and irrational encumbrance of
faith, on which salvation does not depend. Such a materialist
view is not consonant with a reasonable and experimental
piety. " We confess/ 1 he wrote a few weeks afterwards,
in words that reflect his distinctive position, " that the
body of Christ is present in the Holy Supper, not as body
nor in the nature of body, but sacramentally to the mind
which is upright, pure, and reverent towards God/ 1 47

The next best thing, in the interest of the Landgrave's
policy of a Protestant League, was to emphasise the points
on which they agreed, and to this end he persuaded Luther to
draw up a series of fifteen articles, 48 embracing the main
doctrines of the reformed creed. For this purpose he used
a previous set which had been drawn up at Schwabach
as a basis of a prospective alliance of the Lutheran princes
and cities. In that treating of the Sacrament both sides,
whilst expressing agreement on a number of specified points,
confessed their inability to see eye to eye on the question
of the bodily presence. At the same time, they undertook
to exercise Christian charity as far as conscience would allow,
and to pray God for further enlightenment with a view to
an ultimate understanding. To these articles Zwingli and his
associates as well as Luther and his adherents subscribed,
although in the matter of original sin and some other points
they did not exactly express the convictions of the Swiss
theologians. They were willing to compromise to this
extent for the sake of union, in the hope that the conference
might thus result in a defensive league against the common
enemy, and obviate the scandal and weakness of disunion
within the reformed ranks. This spirit of compromise

<* " Opera," viii. 549; Jackson, " Zwingli," 334-335-
4 * " Werke," xacx., Ft. III., i6of.

The Marburg Conference 327

should not be ascribed, as is sometimes done, to mere
opportunism, since Zwingli held that where there was
substantial agreement on the evangelical faith, it was
legitimate as well as advisable, for such urgent practical
reasons, to agree to differ on the issue in dispute.

Both sides also agreed to refrain from controversial
writing. In spite of Luther's relentless refusal to recognise
the Swiss as brothers, whilst agreeing to observe peace
and charity, 49 the conference thus had not been an absolute
failure. If he refused to give the hand of fellowship to
Zwingli and his colleagues as brethren, he had at least dis-
covered that they were not the heretics and extremists he
had denounced in his writings against them. In view of the
mischievous fireworks of the previous three years, the
agreement to cease controversy was a substantial gain.
It tended to make further negotiation, if not with Zwingli
himself, who fell at Kappel two years later, at all events
with the south German theologians, and paved the way
for the Wittenberg Concord of 1536. Although Luther and
his colleagues saw in Zwingli's eagerness for fellowship a
proof of his superior debating power, and on this ground
claimed the victory, 50 he was more impressed by some of
his arguments than he cared to own, and was genuinely
desirous of an agreement. Melanchthon, too, if not attracted
by Zwingli, who was as convinced of the truth of his own
contentions as Luther was of his, and also claimed the victory,
had been favourably impressed by some of those of
Oecolampadius, with whom he maintained a correspondence.
He ultimately, in fact, abandoned the literal interpretation
of the words of institution and the oral eating, which he
already in the following year ignored in the Augsburg
Confession. At the same time, the failure of Luther and
Melanchthon at Marburg to give the hand of fellowship to
the Swiss, in spite of a difference of opinion on a question
of exegesis, which after all admitted of two possible inter-

40 Enders, vii. 169.

co See, besides the reports of the Lutheran writers, his letters to
Agricola, I2th Oct. (Enders, vii. 169), and to Link, 28th Oct. (ibid., vii.
179 J cf. 353-354 letter to Jacob, provost of the church at Bremen, ist
June 1530).

328 Luther and the Reformation

pretations, and which Zwingli and his colleagues rightly
held should not prevent them from recognising one another
as brethren, perpetuated the spirit of division between the
Swiss and the Lutheran Church. It also started within the
Lutheran Church the tendency to a narrow and narrowing
dogmatism on this question, and helped to obscure the initial
grandeur of the Lutheran Reformation as an emancipation
movement. Whilst engaged in the struggle for toleration
for himself and his adherents, Luther had nobly championed
the principle of freedom. With the growing strength of his
cause he was, unfortunately, showing a corresponding
diminution in tolerance and an increasing tendency to
regard his own convictions as the exclusive norm of truth
a tendency which was to be only too fiercely perpetrated by
the zealots of the Lutheran party against Melanchthon as
well as against the Swiss. Whilst himself protesting, in his
controversy with his Roman Catholic opponents, against
the error of making the dogma of transubstantiation an
article of faith, he was untrue to his own contention in
practically demanding acceptance of his own doctrine of
consubstantiation as an essential of faith.

INDEX

"Address to the German Nobility,"
20, 59, 164, 171, 177, 222, 284-
285

Agricola, John, 2, 4, 106, 295, 321

Rudolf, 223
Alber, Matthew, 317
Albrecht, Archbishop of Maintz,

2, 4, 19, 37, 47 f, 234, 275

Albrecht of Brandenburg, Grand-
master of Teutonic Knights, 147,
279

Aleander, papal Nuncio, 2-4, 10,
13, 17, 128

Alsace, 190, 192

Alstedt, 183, 1 86, 188

Altenburg, 104-105, 294

Ambrose, 123, 126

America, 289

Amsdorf, 2, 4, n, 52, 67, 68, 71,
76, 73, 79, 80, 92, 109, 147

Anabaptists, 301, 305

Anhalt, Prince of, 276, 303

Ansbach, Margrave Casimir of,
207, 279

Margrave George of, 207, 279
Antwerp, 144

Aquinas, Thomas, 126, 152, 235

Arius, 17

Articles, the Thirty, 142

the Twelve, 190-192, 193, 195-
197, 199

Augsburg, 6, 146-147

Confession, 327
Augustine, St, 7, 44, 119, 123, 126,

220, 233, 245

Augustinian Order, Chapter of,
33-34

Aurogallus, professor at Witten-
berg, 13, 71

Austria, 158, 19$, 298

Avignon, 288

" Babylomc Captivity, The," 17,

32, 38, 59, 124, 306
Baden, 190
Landgrave Philip of, 207,

303

Bamberg, 153, 299
Barcelona, Treaty of, 299
Barge, 97
Basle, 89, 143, 198, 212, 236, 242,

309, 313
Bavaria, Duke William of, 148,

158, 276, 280, 299
Bavaria, 158, 195, 298
Bayle, 227
Beheim, Hector, 2
Berlepsch, Hans von, i, 9
Berhchingen, Gotz von, 197
Bernard, St, 23, 119, 220
Berne, 320

Bernhardi, Barth., 19-20
Beyer, Dr, 38, 71
Biel, scholastic theologian, 318
Black Forest, the, 188, 190
Blarer, 145, 147
Bohemia, 35, 183, 280, 299
Bohemians, 215, 307
Bora, Catherine von, 131
Borna, 104
Bourbon, 299
Brabant, 145
Brandenburg, Margrave George

of, 303
Brandenburg- Ansbach, Margrave

of, 148

Braunfels, Otto, 145
Brenz, 147, 317, 321
Breslau, 147, 298
Brisger, Prior, 109
Brissmann, John, 130, 145
Bruck, Chancellor, 36, 38
Brunswick, 190

329

33

Index

Brunswick, Duke Henry of, 148,

206, 275-276, 303
Bucer, 3, 141, 145, 209-210, 214,

224,309*317,321,325
Bugenhagen, 24, 223, 280, 293, 317
Bulgenbach, 189
Bull, Ccma Domini, 61
Burerius, 90
Burke, 233

Calvin, 222, 273, 282

Cambrai, Treaty of, 299

Campeggio, Cardinal, I54-I55*
158

Canterbury, St Thomas of, 47

Capito, 48-52, 98, 147, 213, 309,
317

Caracciolo, papal Nuncio, 3

Carinthia, 190

Carlstadt, 20-21, 34 .,69 f., 82-83,
96, 98-99, 104-105, 107-108, 117,
149, 150-151, 160, 166, 180,
198-199, 211, 214, 248, 299 f,
308 f.

Cellarius, 99

Charles V., Emperor, 10, 87, 139,
143, 148, 154 f., 164, 174, 193-
195, 217, 236, 275 f.

Chieregati, Bishop of Tiramo, 149

Christian, King of Denmark, 276

Cicero, 231, 297

Clement VII., Pope, 154-155, 242

Clerk, John, 124

Cochlaeus, 128-129, *39, 222-223

Cognac, League of, 277, 299

Cologne, 1 66, 213

Communion in both kinds, 35 f . ;
Opposition of the Elector to its
introduction at Wittenberg, 36 f.,
69 f. ; made obligatory by
Luther, 113

Constance, Bishop of, 130

town of, 147, 303

Constantine, Emperor, 293

Corpus Christianum, 284

Cronberg, Hartmuth von, 148, 169

Crotus Rubianus, 224-225

Cruciger, 321

Curia, Roman, 149-151, 160

Cyprian, St, 123

D

D'Ailly, 306

" De Libero Arbitrio," 242 f.

" De Servo Arbitrio," 252 f.

Denmark, 280, 298

Dessau, 275

" Devotio Moderna," 228-229

Antiqua, 228

Dietenberger, 128

Dilthey, 227

Dollinger, 290

Dresden, 4, 127

Dungersheim von Ochsenfart, 98

Dtirer, Albrecht, 3

Eberlin von Gimzburg, 140, 145,

147

Ebernburg, 141, 166-167, 169
Eck, John, 10, 128
Egranus, 182

Eilenburg, 70, 78, 80, 104
Einsiedel, von, 76, 77, 78, 79
Eisenach, I, 7, 180, 216, 221
Eisleben, 132, 144, 183, 223
Eislmgen, 147

Emser, 7-8, 40, 125, 128, 152, 275
England, 178, 280
Eobanus Hessus, 212, 215-216, 224
Erasmus, 33, 51, 67, 89, 124, 145,

182, 215, 217,222, 224 f., 3H
Erfurt, 8, 11, 52, 55, 88, 105-106,

143-144, 146, 212 f., 265, 267

Faber, John, 130, 133, 152, 239

Ferdinand, Archduke, 150, 152,
158, 193, 277, 280, 298-299
(King of Hungary), 303

Ficino, 227, 230

Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, 128,
247

Flanders, 145

Florence, 277

"Formula Missae," in f.

France, 280, 289, 298

Francis, St, 119

Index

33

Francis I., 195, 275, 298-299

Franconia, 169, 190, 206

Frankenhausen, 206

Fiankfurt, 46, 128, 139, 181

Frederick, Elector of Saxony, 2,
13. 19* 32, 36-38, 44, 46, 48, 53,
58,68f., 80 f., 92, 95 f,, 104 f.,
128, 143, 147, 152, 158, 165-166,
186, 198, 213, 234-235, 275

Frederick III., Emperor, 176, 193

Freiberg, 153

Freiburg, 213

Fnesland, East, 279

Frosch, 145, 147

Froben, 242

Gaismeyi, Michael, 193, 206

Gansfort, Wessel, 307

George, Duke of Saxony, 4-5, 10,
37, 52, 76-77, 85-86, 97, 104,
118, 128, 130-131, 150, 170, 206,
236-237, 242, 275-276, 298-299

Gerbelhus, 3, n, 24

Geyer, Florian, 197

Glareanus, 223

Gotha, 223, 276

" Gravamina of the German
Nation," 159, 276

Gregory I., Pope, 119

Greiffenklau, Archbishop of Trier,
166, 169

Greifswald, 213

Grimma, 131

Grisar, 145

Grubenhagen, Duke of, 276

Grumbach, Argula von, 148

Giittel, Kaspar, 102, 144

H

Hadrian VI., Pope, 149 *-, 237

Halberstadt, 52, 223

Halle, 47-48, 53

Hamburg, 147

Hartfelder, 223

Haubitz, 292

Hausmann, Lutheran preacher,

102, ni, 205, 286
Hedio, 309, 3x5, 321

Hegau, the, 189

Heilbronn, 193, 197, 206

Helfenstein, Count, 197

Kelt, Prior, 34

Henry VIII. , 121, 123 f., 157, 237-

238, 242, 276-277
Hermelink, 230
Hess, John, 102, 145, 147, 212
Hesse, 190, 288
Hesse, Landgrave Philip of, 169,

206-207, 275-276, 288, 297 f.,

301 f ,319*-
Hilary, 7, 220
Hipler, 193
Hoen (Honius), Dutch jurist,

306 f.

Hohentwiel, 189
Holland, 145, 289
Holstein, 279
Homberg, 288
Hubmaier, 181, 190
Hungary, 298, 299
King of, 157
Hus, John, 17, 150, 182
Hussites, 7,35,37, n6, 146
Hutten, Ulnch von, 89-90, 141,

161 f., 224, 232, 238
Hymns, 113
" Hyperaspistes," 272

India, 178

Ingolstadt, University of, 148

" Instruction and Command " of

Elector John, 292
Irenaeus, 123

Isabella, sister of Charles V., 154
Italy, 190, 206, 280

Janssen, 230, 305

Jena, 88, 308

Jerome, 7, 220, 233, 263

Joachim, Elector of Brandenburg,

4-5, 37, 150, 275-276, 298
John, Duke of Saxony, 106, 147,

171, 186, 198, 275-276, 290 f.,

298-299, 301 f,, 320

33 2

Index

John Frederick, Duke, 102, 106,

147

Jonas, Justus, 13, 37, 70-71, 73 f.,
79, 107-108, 130, 321

K

Kalkoff, 168

Kappel, Battle of, 327

Karsthans, 55, 140

Kellner, 99

Kemberg, 19

Kempe, 145, 147

Kempten, 181, 189

Kessler, 89

Kettenbach, 147, 169

Kletgau, 189

Knaxdorff, Lutheran preacher, 52

Knights, the Teutonic, 147

Knight George, Luther as, I, 9,

88

Knox, John, 222
Kohlmeyr, Piofessor, 285
Kolb, Francis, 310
Konigsberg, 147
Kotteritz, 117
Koppe, Leonard, 131-132

Lambert, Francis, 288

Landau, 168

Landstuhl, 169

Lang, John, 33, 67, 102, 105-106,

144, 224, 233

Lateran Council, Fourth, 15
Latomus, Luther's confutation of,

5
Lee, Edward, Archbishop of York,

125

Lefevre, 215, 238
Leipheim, 181
Leipzig, 3, 6-7, 18, 52, 85, 130,

181, 213

Disputation of, 224
Leisnig, 109, 117
Leo X., Pope, 124, 149
Lichtenberg, monk of, 48
Link, Wencelaus, 33, 102, 144
Livonia, 147
Lochau, 70, 78

" Loci Communes," 144, 252

Lorraine, 190, 192

Duke of, 207

Louvain, 7, 18, 40, I49> 234

Luneburg, Duke of, 276, 303

Lupfen, Count of, 188

Luther, arrival at the Wartburg, i ;
first letters to his friends, 2, 4-6 ;
rumours about his disappear-
ance, 2-3; expositions of
Psalms, 5-7; the Bible his
battle-cry, 7-8 ; illness at the
Wartburg, 8-9; excursions, 9-
10 ; his encounters with the
devil, 10- 1 1 ; his interest in the
work of his colleagues, n ;
letter to Melanchthon urging
him to take his place as preacher
of the Gospel, 12; "Be a
sinner and sin vigorously,'* 12;
his tendency to impulsive, com-
promising utterance, 12-13 ; in-
terest in reorganisation of the
University, 13 ; his work on
Auricular Confession, 13-16;
translates Melanchthon's phil-
ippic against the Sorbonne
doctors with his own preface
and conclusion, 16-19; letters
on the question of priestly and
monastic celibacy, 20-22 ; theses
on monastic vows, 22-24; the
" De Votis Monasticis," 24 f . ;
urges Spalatm to have it pub-
lished, 32-33; prompts the
Chapter of Augustinian Order
to decree freedom to renounce
the monastic life, 33-34; his
interest in the discussion at
Wittenberg on communion in
both kinds, 38 ; his work on the
* * Abrogation of the Mass , "
39 f . ; his sympathy with the
active reform party at Witten-
berg, 47 ; the Indulgence at
Halle, 47-48; Luther demands
its suppression and writes
" Against the Halle Idol," 48 ;
resists the attempt of the Elector
to prevent its publication, 48-49 ;
challenges the Archbishop of
Maintz directly on the subject,
49 ; the Archbishop's humble and

Index

333

Luther, Martin contd.
submissive reply, 50 ; his answer
to Capito, 51-52 ; secret visit to
Wittenberg, 52-53; reproaches
Spalatin for hindering the
publication of his controversial
writings, 53 ; writes his " Warn-
ing against Revolt," 54 f . ; criti-
cism of his teaching on the
subject, 58 f. ; his sardonic
New Year's Greeting to the
Pope, 61-62 ; his sermons for the
instruction of the people, 62 f . ;
his translation of the New
Testament, 66-68 ; his col-
leagues summon him to return
to Wittenberg, 79; his early
attitude towards the innovations
at Wittenberg and towards the
Zwickau prophets, 80-8 1 ; his
first letter to the Elector on the
Wittenberg situation, 81-82 ; the
Elector's reply and its indefinite
character, 83-84 ; Luther's strik-
ing response, 84-85; his
attempts at diplomatic com-
position, 86-88 ; experiences in
the inn at Jena, 88-90 ; sermons
at Wittenberg in behalf of
moderation, 90 f. ; appreciation
and criticism of them, 95-97 ; his
modification of the Ordinance,
97-98 ; his attitude to Carlstadt,
98-99; his interview with the
prophets, 99-101 ; progress as
practical reformer, 102 f. ; pub-
lishes his eight sermons, 103;
mission in Saxony, 104-105 ;
epistle and visit to Erfurt, 105-
106 ; demands and enforces sup-
pression of Mass in All Saints,
Wittenberg, 107-109; Order of
Worship for Leisnig, 109-110;
the*' Formula Missae," 111-113;
the baptismal service, 113-114;
model organisation for the
Church at Leisnig, 114-116;
visit to Leisnig, 117; renews
polemic from Wittenberg, 119;
sure of ultimate victory, 118;
" Caveat against Human Teach-
ing," 119-120; "Against the
Falsely Called Estate of Pope

Luther, Martin contd
and Bishops," 120-123; his
Bull of Reformation, 123 ;
Henry VIII. 's " Defence of the
Seven Sacraments " and
Luther's reply, 123-128; bout
with Cochlaeus, 128-129; Sasger
and Faber, 129-130; protects
escaped nuns, 131-132; Luther
and Florentina von Oberweimar,
132-133; series of works on
marriage, 133-137; his potent
influence, 138-139 ; rapid sale of
his works, 139 ; great increase of
controversial literature, largely
pro- Lutheran, 139-140 ; the
popular pamphlet, 140 ;
" Karsthans," "Neukarsthans,"
140-142; Luther's titanic ac-
tivity, 142-143 ; Melanchthon's
4 * Loci Communes," 143-144;
Lutheran preachers, 144 f. ; pro-
cess of the spread of the Lutheran
movement, 146; recruits from
the princes and the nobility,
147-148; Pope Hadrian de-
nounces Luther, 149-150; atti-
tude of the first Diet of Nurnberg
towards Luther, 150-152;
Luther's attitude towards it,
1 52- 1 53 ; towards Pope Hadrian,
153; how he interprets certain
portents, 153-154; the second
Diet of Nurnberg and Luther,
1 54- * 5 5 > Luther's denunciation
of Emperor and Diet, 155-158;
Hutten and Luther, 161-163;
Sickingen and Luther, 166-167 ;
Luther on the Sickingen Rising,
170; his work on the Secular
Power, 171-174; Luther and
social reform, 174 f. ; his sermon
on "Usury," 177-179; demo-
cratic implications of his teach-
ing, 179-180; the advanced
Lutheran preachers and social
reform, 180-181 ; Luther and
Miinzer, 183-184; wherein their
teaching differs, 185 - 186 ;
Luther's " Missive on the
Revolutionary Spirit," 186-188;
banishment of Miinzer, 188;
Luther and Carlstadt, 198 ; his

334

Index

Luther, Martin contd.
exhortation to the peasants,
199 f. ; his violent philippic
against them, 204 f . ; suppres-
sion of the Rising and its
effects on Luther and the
Lutheran movement, 207 f . ;
Luther and education, 21 if.;
highly values the new culture,
215-216; his "Address to the
German Municipalities," 216 f. ;
Erasmus on the unfavourable
influence of Lutheramsm on
culture, 222 ; attitude of human-
ists to Luther, 224-225 ; Erasmus
paves the way for Luther, 225-
226; difference between their
standpoints, 227-228; Erasmus
and the " Devotio Moderna,"
228-229; his attitude as a
reformer, 229-230; his dread
of tumult, 232-233; Luther's
early relations with, 233-234;
Erasmus befriends him, 234-235 ;
but will not run risks, 235-236 ;
his method of dealing with the
movement, 236-237 ; Hutten
accuses him of cowardice, 238 ;
Luther's criticisms of him come
into his hands, 238-239; acri-
monious correspondence between
them, 239-240; Erasmus pub-
lishes his " De Libero Arbitrio,"
242 ; examination and evaluation
of this attack, 242 f.; Luther
replies with the " De Servo
Arbitrio," 251 ; examination
and criticism of the work, 252 f. ;
the complete breach between
them, 272-273; by his violent
attitude towards the peasants
Luther unwittingly furthers the
persecution of his adherents,
274-275; not yet prepared to
sanction active defence of the
Reformation, 276; decision of
the. first Diet of Spires
favourable to the Reformation,
277-278 ; Luther's conception
of the Church, 280-282 ; Church
and the secular power practically
independent, though they may
co-operate, 282-283 ; the discus-

Luther, Martin contd.
sion on his earlier view and the
lack of agreement on the ques-
tion, 283-285 ; his view of the
distinction of the temporal and
spiritual spheres in his work
on the Secular Power, 286;
his democratic Church constitu-
tion, 286-287 ; its lack of suc-
cess, 287-288; disapproval of
Lambert's sketch of a democratic
polity, 288-289 ; fain to seek the
help of the secular power, 290 ;
lacking in ecclesiastical states-
manship, 290-291 ; the clamant
need for organisation, 291-292 ;
turns to the Elector John, who
issues his " Instruction and
Command," 292-293; the
" Kirchenordnung " or Church
Ordinance and Luther's attempt
to preserve the autonomy of the
Church, 293-294; the Church
Ordinance alike a confession of
faith, a directory of public
worship, and a scheme of educa-
tional reform, 294-297; Luther
again disapproves of active
defensive measures after the
second Diet of Spires, 303-304 ;
Luther's theory of consubstantia-
tion, 306-307; rejects Hoen's
figurative interpretation of the
words of institution, 307-308;
Carlstadt's interpretation and
Luther's violent attack " Against
the Heavenly Prophets," 308-
313; Zwingli's early view of
the real presence, 313-315;
discards it for the figurative
view, 315 ; difference between
Luther's theological standpoint
and his, 315-317; acrid con-
troversy between him and
Zwingli, 317-319; the Marburg
Conference, 320-321 ; prelimin-
ary private interviews, 321 ; the
two days' public debate and its
failure to bring about an agree-
ment, 321-324; Luther refuses
fellowship, 324; at the Land-
grave's instigation Luther draws
up a formula of agreement which

Index

335

Luther, Martin contd.
fails to secure the assent of the
Swiss theologians, 324-326 ;
agreement on the Marburg
articles which Luther draws up,
326-327 ; the Conference thus
not a total failure, though the
lack of agreement on the sacra-
mental question had unfortunate
results, 327-328

M

Madrid, Treaty of, 275, 277
Magdeburg, 19, 51-52, 147, 221,

223, 276
Magnificat, Luther's exposition of,

5

Mahomet, Luther a second, 149

Maintz, 299

M alines, President of the Grand
Council of, 236

Mallenbach, 187

Manicheus, 17

Mansfeld, 205, 221

Count Albrecht, 62,132-133,
148, 276

Marburg, Conference of, 319 f.

Marculf , 90

Margaret, Stadholderin of Nether-
lands, 280

Mass, Luther's German, 291

Mathesius, 9

Maximilian, Emperor, 176, 197

Mecklenburg, Duke Henry of, 147,
276, 300

Medici, Giulio di, 154

Meissen, Bishop of, 19, 78, 83, 104

Melanchthon, 2, 4-5, 8, 11-13,
20-22, 24, 35, 37-39 48-49,
52-53, 66, 68, 71, 73, 75-79,
80, 89, 92, 98-99, 106, 142-144,
153-154, 209, 212, 217, 223-225,
233, 252, 273, 275, 282, 291-
293, 295, 301, 303, 317, 321, 327-
328

Memmingen, 180, 189-190

Menzingen, Stephan, 197

Mestwerdt, 228-229

Miltenberg, 146

Mirisch, 147

Mochau, Anna von, 70

Moller, Heinrich, 144
Monasticism, Luther's theses and

works on, 22 f.
Montaigne, 230
More, Sir Thomas, 128
Muhlhausen, 188, 194
Muller, Caspar, 205

Hans, 189

Karl, 285
Municipalities, Luther's appeal

to, 216 f.

Munsterberg, Duke Karl of, 148
Miinzer, Thomas, 75, 181 f., 194,

198, 203 f., 318
Murner, Th., 128, 140
Mutianus, 225
Myconius, 145, 321

N

Neckerwald, 190

Nesen, W., 128-129

Netherlands, 113, 143, 230, 280,

298

Neu Helfta, 132
*' Neukarsthans," 140 f.
Nimbschen, 131
Neve, 230
Nordhausen, 223
Nordlingen, 147
Niirnberg, 75, 77, 79, 81-82, 86,

87-89, 104, 107, 143, 146, 149 *">

170, 179, 188, 199, 212, 223, 286,

301, 303

Oberweimar, Florentina von, 132

Obsopaeus, 223

Occam, W., 231, 270, 318

Odenwald, 190

Oecolampadius, 13, 141, H5 22 4,

239i 3i3 317-318, 321 f.
Ordinance, Saxon Church, 293 f .
the Wittenberg, 71-74, 77, 78,

82, 96-98, 214
Origen, 233
Orlamunde, 198
Oryieto, 299
Osiander, 317, 321
Ost Friesland, Edzard von, 148
Ovid, 297

336

Index

Pace, English envoy, 236

Pack, Otto von, 298-299

Palatine, Elector, 169, 207, 300

Paris, 7, 16, 18

Passau, Sebastian von, 148

Paulsen, 223

Pavia, Battle of, 190, 275

Pelagius, 245, 259

Pellican, Theobald, 145, 147,

239

Pfeiffer, radical preacher, 188
Pico della Mirandola, 227, 230
Pineau, 230-231
Pirkheimer, 225
Planitz, von, 77, 292
Plato, 227, 231
Pomer, Hector, 79
Pomerania, 279
Duke of, 279
Portugal, 178
Postille, 5, 62 f., 67, 89
Prague, 182, 286
Presbyterian Church polity, 288
Probst, Jacob, 144, 147
Protestants, the, 304
Protestation at second Diet of

Spires, 302-303
Prierias, 164
Prussia, 147, 279
Psalms, Luther's expositions of,

5-J
Pusino, 229

Ranke, Leopold von, 139, 169-170,

222, 278

Ratisbon, 195, 275
Ratzeberger, 88
Recess of first Diet of Spires, 278-

279

of second Diet of Spires, 300 f.
Regensburg, 158
JReichskammergenckt, 194
Reichsregiment, 75, 76, 83, 86-87,

104, 128, 143, 148, 149, 152, 154,

164, 286

Reinhardtsbrunn, 9
Reuchlin, 225
Rheingau, 190

Rieker, Jurist, 284

Riga, 147

Ritter, 227

Rohrbach, Jacklein, 197

Romans, Luther's commentary on,

32
Rome, 7, 17-18, 61-62, 124, 130,

166, 179, 224, 235, 299
Rostock, 213
Rothenburg, 198
Ruhel, Councillor, 205

Salzburg, 190
Archbishop of, 158
Samland, Bishop of, 147
Sasger, Caspar, 129-130, 133
Savoy, Duke Charles of, 148
Saxe-Lauenburg, Duke Magnus

of, 147

Saxony, 190, 198, 309
Schappeler, Lutheran preacher,

180, 190
Schleswig, 279
Schnepf, Erhard, 147
Schurf, 2, 86, 89-90, 98, 292
Schwabischhall, 147
Schwarzburg, Henry von, 148
Schwarzenberg, Johann von, 148,

150

Scotland, 222, 280, 289
Scotus, Duns, 152, 245
Secular power, Luther on the,

171 f., 286

Seeberg, German theologian, 314
Sforza, Duke of Milan, 277
Shakespeare, W., 158
Sickingen, Franz von, 2, 55, 141,

148, 150, 161, 165 f.
Sigismund, Emperor, 176
Silesia, 279
Social reform, 174 f.
Socrates, 231
Sohm, Jurist, 283
Sorbonne, the, 16 f., 40, 227,

229

Spain, 149, 275, 278, 280
Spalatin, i, 2, 4-5, 9, u, 13, 20,

32, 39, 48-49, 5 1, 'f 59, 76,

80-81, 87, 102, 107 184, 198,

238, 277

Index

337

Spires, 158

first Diet of, 276-279

second Diet of, 297 f., 320
Staehelm, biographer of Zwingli,

316

Stahremberg, Barth. von, 148
Staupitz, 131
Stiefel, Michael, 147
Stolberg, Count Ludwig, 148
Stolze, 195
Storch, 75, 182
Stralsund, 146
Strassburg, 3, 143, 212, 303, 313,

324
Strauss, Lutheran preacher, 180,

216

Stiibner, 75, 79, 99-101, 181-182
Styna, 190
Suaven, Peter, 24
Swabian League, 169, 189-190
Sweden, 280, 298
Switzerland, 169, 222, 289, 320

" Table Talk," Luther's, 10, 66,

68

Taborites, the, 182
Taubenheim, Hans von, 70
Tauber, 198
Tauler, John, 182
Thuringia, I, 2, 183, 188, 190, 194,

198, 203
Tiber, 153

Torgau, 104, 131,276
Trier (Treves), 166, 169, 190
Troeltsch, 227
Truchsess, Count of Waldburg,

189

Tubingen, 99
Tyrol, 190, 193

U

Ulm, 147, 158, 303
Ulscenius, 213 ,
Urbanus Rhegius, 145, 147
Usingen, 105-106
Usury, Luther's sermon on, 177-
179

V

Valdes, secretary of Charles V.,

138

Valla, Laurentius, 227, 230
Venice, 277
Virgil, 297

Voltaire, 159, 226-227
Vulgate, the, 68

w

Waibel, Lutheran preacher, 181

Waldensians, 146, 220

Waldshut, 1 8 1, 189

Wartburg, i, 3, 5-8, 10, 13, 32,
44-45> 50, Si. 55, 56, 63, 79, 82,
84, 99* io7, 109, n8, 138, 149,
167, 213, 223

Wehe, Jacob, 181

Weigant, 193

Weimar, 106, 171

Weinsberg, 197, 203

Wernle, 227

Wertheim, Count George, 148,
3io

Westerburg, Dr, loo

Wichf, 17, 246

Wichfites, 6, 237

Widerstet, 132

Wimpheling, 223

Wittenberg, 2-5, 11, 13, 24-25,
32-34, 45-46, 47-48, 52, 53, 64,
66, 68 f., 80 f., 90 f., 102, 104,
106, 109, in, 117, 119, 130131,
138, I43-I44, M9, *68, 183, 198,
213-214, 217, 223-224, 235,
287

Wolsey, Cardinal, 242

Worms, 2-3, 5-6, 8, 13, 24, 33, 37,
62, 84, 88, 118, 128, 139, 148,
I54-I55* 158, 160, 166, 199, 270,
275, 277-278, 300, 304

Wiirtemberg, 189

WUrzburg, 299

Ximenes, Cardinal, 149

Index

Zapolya, 298, 299

Zasius, 225

Zell, Lutheran preacher, 147

Zurich, 314, 320

Zutphen, Henry of, 144, 147

Zwickau, 102, 181-182, 286

Zwickau, prophets of, 75-76, 99-

101, 181, 199
Zwilling, Gabriel, 25, 34, 35 f.,

70 f., 98, 104-105, 144
Zwingli, 3, 170, 217, 224, 239, 247,

282, 288, 298, 300, 313 f.,

321 f.
Zwmglians, 301