Life of Luther. Julius Köstlin
and particularly of the highest dignitaries of the Church, who thought themselves highly virtuous if they abstained from the very grossest offences; the wanton levity with which the most sacred names and things were treated; the frivolous unbelief, openly expressed among themselves by the spiritual pastors and masters of the Church. He complains of the priests scrambling through mass as if they were juggling; while he was reading one mass, he found they had finished seven: one of them once urged him to be quick by saying 'Get on, get on, and make haste to send her Son home to our Lady.' He heard jokes even made about the priests when consecrating the elements at mass, repeating in Latin the words 'Bread thou art, and bread thou shalt remain: wine thou art, and wine thou shalt remain.' He often remarked in later years how they would apply in derision the term 'good Christian' to those who were stupid enough to believe in Christian truth, and to be scandalised by anything said to the contrary. No one, he declared, would believe what villanies and shameful doings were then in vogue, if they had not seen and heard them with their own eyes and ears. But the truth of his testimony is confirmed by those very men whose life and conduct so shocked and revolted him. He must have been indignant, moreover, at the contemptuous tone in which the 'stupid Germans' or 'German beasts' were spoken of, as persons entitled to no notice or respect at Rome.
He was astonished at the pomp and splendour which surrounded the Pope when he appeared in public. He speaks, as an eye-witness, of the processions, like those of a triumphing monarch. But the horrible stories were then still fresh at Rome of the late Pope Alexander and his children, the murder of his brother, the poisoning, the incest, and other crimes. Of the then Pope, Julius II., Luther heard nothing reported, except that he managed his temporal affairs with energy and shrewdness, made war, collected money, and contracted and dissolved, entered into and broke, political alliances. At the time of Luther's visit, he was just returning from a campaign in which he had conducted in person the sanguinary siege of a town. Luther did not fail to observe that he had established in the sacred city an excellent body of police, and that he caused the streets to be kept clean, so that there was not much pestilence about. But he looked upon him simply as a man of the world, and afterwards fulminated against him as a strong man of blood.
All these experiences at Rome did not, however, then avail to shake Luther's faith in the authority of the hierarchy which had such unworthy ministers; though, later on, when he was forced to attack the Papacy itself, they made it easier for him to shape his judgment and conclusions. 'I would not have missed seeing Rome,' he then declared, 'for a hundred thousand florins, for I might then have felt some apprehension that I had done injustice to the Pope. But as we see, we speak.'
During his visit he also roamed about among the ruins of the ancient capital of the world, and was astonished at the remains of bygone worldly splendour. The works of the new art which Pope Julius was then beginning to call into existence, did not appear to have particularly engaged his attention. The Pope was then progressing with the building of the new Church of St. Peter. The indulgence, of which the proceeds were to enable the completion of this vast undertaking, led afterwards to the struggle between the Augustinian monk and the Papacy.
CHAPTER III.
LUTHER AS THEOLOGICAL TEACHER, TO 1517
On his return to his Wittenberg convent, Luther was made sub-prior. At the university he entered fully upon all the rights and duties of a teacher of theology, having been made licentiate and doctor. Here again it was Staupitz, his friend and spiritual superior, who urged this step: Luther's own wish was to leave the university and devote himself entirely to the office of his Order. The Elector Frederick, who had been struck with Luther by hearing one of his sermons, took this, the first opportunity, of showing him personal sympathy, by offering to defray the expenses of his degree. Luther was reluctant to accept this, and years after he was fond of showing his friends a pear-tree in the courtyard of the convent, under which he discussed the matter with Staupitz, who, however, insisted on his demand. He must have felt the more sensibly the responsibility of his new task, from his own personal strivings after new and true theological light. It was a satisfaction to him afterwards, amidst the endless and unexpected labours and contests which his vocation brought with it, to reflect that he had undertaken it, not from choice, but so entirely from obedience. 'Had I known what I now know,' he would exclaim in his later trials and dangers, 'not ten horses would ever have dragged me into it.'
After the necessary preliminaries and customary forms, he received on October 4, 1512, the rights of a licentiate, and on the 18th and 19th was solemnly admitted to the degree of doctor. As licentiate he promised to defend with all his power the truth of the gospel, and he must have had this oath particularly in his mind when he afterwards appealed to the fact of his having sworn on his beloved Bible to preach it faithfully and in its purity. His oath as doctor, which followed, bound him to abstain from doctrines condemned by the Church and offensive to pious ears. Obedience to the Pope was not required at Wittenberg, as it was at other universities.
Others, besides Staupitz, expected from the beginning something original and remarkable from the new professor. Pollich, the first great representative of Wittenberg in its early days, and who died in the following year, said of him, 'This monk will revolutionise the whole system of Scholastic teaching.' He seems, like others whom we hear of afterwards, to have been especially struck with the depth of Luther's eyes, and thought that they must reveal the working of a wonderful mind.
A new theology, in fact, presented itself at once to Luther in the subject which, as doctor, he chose and exclusively adhered to in his lectures. This was the Bible, the very book of which the study was so generally undervalued in School-theology, which so many doctors of theology scarcely knew, and which was usually so hastily forsaken for those Scholastic sentences and a corresponding exposition of ecclesiastical dogmas.
Luther began with lectures upon the Psalms. It is his first work on theology which has remained to posterity. We still possess a Latin text of the Psalter furnished with running notes for his lectures (a copy of it is given in these pages), and also his own manuscript of those lectures themselves. In these also he states that his task was imposed upon him by a distinct command: he frankly confessed that as yet he was insufficiently acquainted with the Psalms; a comparison of his notes and lectures shows further, how continually he was engaged in prosecuting these studies. His explanations indeed fall short of what is required at present, and even of what he himself required later on. He still follows wholly the mediaeval practice of thinking it necessary to find, throughout the words of the Psalmist, pictorial allegories relating to Christ, His work of salvation, and His people. But he was thus enabled to propound, while explaining the Psalms, the fundamental principles of that doctrine of salvation which for some years past had taken such hold on his inmost thoughts and so engrossed his theological studies. And in addition to the fruits of his researches in Scripture, especially in the writings of St. Paul, we observe the use he made of the works of St. Augustine. His acquaintance with the latter did not commence until years after he had joined the Order, and had acquired independently an intimate knowledge of the Bible. It was mainly through them that he was enabled to comprehend the teaching of St. Paul, and to find how the doctrine of Divine grace, which we have already alluded to, was based on Pauline authority. Thus the founder of the Order became, as it were, his first teacher among human theologians.
From his lectures on the Psalms Luther proceeded a few years later to an exposition of those Epistles which were to him the main source of his new belief in God's mercy and justice, namely, the Epistles to the Romans and the Galatians.
In the convent also at Wittenberg, the direction of the theological studies of the brethren was entrusted to Luther. His fellow-labourer in this field was his friend John Lange, who had been with him also in the convent at Erfurt. He was distinguished for a rare knowledge of Greek, and was therefore a valuable help even to Luther, to whom he was indebted in turn for a prolific advance in learning of another kind. Closely allied with Luther also was Wenzeslaus Link, the prior of the convent, who obtained his degree as doctor of the theological faculty a year before him. These men were drawn together by similarity of ideas, and by a strong and enduring personal friendship;