Life of Luther. Julius Köstlin
about the Divine authority and infallibility of the Pope, nor crushed by any mere sentence of excommunication. And in raising them they had made no question of the Divine right of the Papacy. Was it not natural that, in the indignation excited by their wrongs, they should turn to the man who had laid the axe to the root of the tree which bore such fruit, and at least consider the possibility of profiting by his work? Luther, on his part, showed at first a singularly small acquaintance with the circumstances of their complaints, and seemed hardly aware of the loud protests raised so long on this subject at the Diets. But with the question of indulgences the field of his experience broadened in this respect. The care he evinced in this matter for the care of souls and true Christian morality made him the ally of all those who were alarmed at the vast export of money to Rome, about which he had already said in his theses that the Christian sheep were being regularly fleeced.
In another respect, also, the ecclesiastical policy of the Papal see was closely interwoven with the political condition and history of Germany. If in theory the Pope claimed to control and confirm the decrees even of the civil power, in practice he at least attempted to assert and maintain an omnipresent influence. And with regard to Germany it was all-important to him that the Empire should not become so powerful as to endanger his authority in general and his territorial sovereignty in Italy. However loftily the Popes in their briefs proclaimed their immutable rights, derived from God, and their plenary power, and took care to let theologians and jurists advance such pretensions, they understood clearly enough in their practical conduct to adjust those relations to the rules of political or diplomatic necessity.
In the summer of 1518 a Diet was held at Augsburg, at which the Papal legate attended. The Pope was anxious to obtain its consent to the imposition of a heavy tax throughout the Empire, to be applied ostensibly for the war against the Turks, but alleged to be wanted in reality for entirely other objects. The Emperor Maximilian, now old and hastening to his end, was endeavouring to secure the succession of his grandson Charles, and Caietan's chief task was to exert his influence with Maximilian and the Elector Frederick to bring Luther into their disfavour. The Archbishop Albert, who had been hit so hard by Luther's attack on the traffic in indulgences, was solemnly proclaimed Cardinal by order of the Pope.
Of Maximilian it might fairly have been expected that, after his many experiences and contests with the Popes, he would at least protect Luther from the worst, however unlikely it might be that he should entertain the idea of effecting, by his help, a great reform in the National Church. He did indeed express his wish to Pfeffinger, a counsellor of the Elector, that his prince should take care of the monk, as his services might some day be wanted. But he supported the Pope in the matter of the tax, and hoped to gain him for his own political ends. He opposed Luther also in his attack on indulgences, on the ground that it endangered the Church, and that he was resolved to uphold the action taken by the Pope.
This demand for a tax, however, was received with the utmost disfavour both by the Diet and the Empire; and a long-cherished bitterness of feeling now found expression. An anonymous pamphlet was circulated, from the pen of one Fischer, a prebendary of Wiirzburg, which bluntly declared that the avaricious lords of Rome only wished to cheat the 'drunken Germans,' and that the real Turks were to be looked for in Italy. This pamphlet reached Wittenberg and fell into the hands of Luther, whom now for the first time we hear denouncing 'Roman cunning,' though he only charged the Pope himself with allowing his grasping Florentine relations to deceive him. The Diet seized the opportunity offered by this demand for a tax, to bring up a whole list of old grievances; the large sums drawn from German benefices by the Pope under the name of annates, or extorted under other pretexts; the illegal usurpation of ecclesiastical patronage in Germany, the constant infringement of concordats, and so on. The demand itself was refused, and in addition to this, an address was presented to the Diet from the bishop and clergy of Liege, inveighing against the lying, thieving, avaricious conduct of the Romish minions, in such sharp and violent tones that Luther, on reading it afterwards when printed, thought it only a hoax, and not really an episcopal remonstrance.
This was reason enough why Caietan, to avoid increasing the excitement, should not attempt to lay hands on the Wittenberg opponent of indulgences. The Elector Frederick, from whose hands Caietan would have to demand Luther, was one of the most powerful and personally respected princes of the Empire, and his influence was especially important in view of the election of a new Emperor. This prince went now in person to Caietan on Luther's behalf, and Caietan promised him, at the very time that the brief was on its way to him from Rome, that he would hear Luther at Augsburg, treat him with fatherly kindness, and let him depart in safety.
Luther accordingly was sent to Augsburg. It was an anxious time for himself and his friends when he had to leave for that distant place, where the Elector, with all his care, could not employ any physical means for his protection, and to stand accused as a heretic before that Papal legate who, from his own theological principles, was bound to condemn him, Caietan being a zealous Thomist like Prierias, and already notorious as a champion of indulgences and Papal absolutism. 'My thoughts on the way,' said Luther afterwards, 'were now I must die; and I often lamented the disgrace I should be to my dear parents.'
He went thither in humble garb and manner. He made his way on foot till within a short distance of Augsburg, when illness and weakness overcame him, and he was forced to proceed by carriage. Another younger monk of Wittenberg accompanied him, his pupil Leonard Baier. At Nüremberg he was joined by his friend Link, who held an appointment there as preacher. From him he borrowed a monk's frock, his own being too bad for Augsburg. He arrived here on October 7.
The surroundings he now entered, and the proceedings impending over him, were wholly novel and unaccustomed. But he met with men who received him with kindness and consideration; several of them were gentlemen of Augsburg favourable to him, especially the respected patrician, Dr. Conrad Peutinger, and two counsellors of the Elector. They advised him to behave with prudence, and to observe carefully all the necessary forms, to which as yet he was a stranger.
Luther at once announced his arrival to Caietan, who was anxious to receive him without delay. His friends, however, kept him back until they had obtained a written safe-conduct from the Emperor, who was then hunting in the environs. In the meantime, a distinguished friend of Caietan, one Urbanus of Serralonga, tried to persuade him, in a flippant, and, as Luther thought, a downright Italian manner, to come forward and simply pronounce six letters—Revoco—I retract. Urbanus asked him with a smile if he thought his sovereign would risk his country for his sake. 'God forbid!' answered Luther. 'Where then do you mean to take refuge?' he went on to ask him. 'Under Heaven,' was Luther's reply.
To Melancthon Luther wrote as follows: 'There is no news here, except that the town is full of talk about me, and everybody wants to see the man who, like a second Herostratus, has kindled such a flame. Remain a man as you are, and instruct the youth aright. I go to be sacrificed for them and for you, if God so will. For I will rather die, and, what is the hardest fate, lose for ever the sweet intercourse with you, than revoke anything that it was right for me to say.'
On October 11 Luther received the letter of safe-conduct, and the next day he appeared before Caietan. Humbly, as he had been advised, he prostrated himself before the representative of the Pope, who received him graciously and bade him rise.
The Cardinal addressed him civilly, and with a courtesy Luther was not accustomed to meet with from his opponents; but he immediately demanded him, in the name and by command of the Pope, to retract his errors, and promise in future to abstain from them and from everything that might disturb the peace of the Church. He pointed out, in particular, two errors in his theses; namely, that the Church's treasure of indulgences did not consist of the merits of Christ, and that faith on the part of the recipient was necessary for the efficacy of the sacrament. With respect to the second point, the religious principles upon which Luther based his doctrine were altogether strange and unintelligible to the Scholastic standpoint of Caietan; mere tittering and laughter followed Luther's observations, and he was required to retract this thesis unconditionally. The first point settled the question of Papal authority. On this, the Cardinal-legate took his chief stand on the express declaration of Pope Clement: he could not believe that Luther would venture to resist a Papal bull, and thought he had probably not read it. He read him a vigorous lecture of his own on the paramount authority