LUTHER (Vol. 1-6). Grisar Hartmann
miserly idols, perjurers, apostates, sodomites, priapists, murderers, simoniacs and other countless monsters, a new house of impiety like to the heathen Pantheon of olden days.” He inveighs against the teaching of Rome with regard to the primacy; “if thieves are punished by the rope, murderers by the sword, and heretics by fire, why not proceed against these noxious teachers of destruction with every kind of weapon? Happy the Christians everywhere save those under the rule of such a Roman Antichrist.”[31] Prierias himself is described by Luther as a “shameless mouthpiece of Satan,” and as “a scribe held captive in Thomistic darkness, and lying Papal Decretals.”
In a similar fashion Luther, in his controversial writings, heaps opprobrious epithets upon his other opponents, Tetzel, Eck and Emser.
It is true that in their censures on Luther his opponents were not backward in the use of strong language, thus following the custom of the day, but for fierceness the Wittenberg professor was not to be surpassed.
Luther was not appealing to the nobler impulses of the multitude who favoured him when, in 1518, he sought to incite his readers against another of his literary opponents, the Dominican Inquisitor, Jakob van Hoogstraaten, and his fellow-monks, with the violent assertion that Hoogstraaten was nothing but a “mad, bloodthirsty murderer, who was never sated with the blood of the Christian Brethren”; “he ought to be set to hunt for dung-beetles on a manure heap, rather than to pursue pious Christians, until he had learned what sin, error and heresy was, and all else that pertained to the office of an Inquisitor. For I have never seen a bigger ass than you … you blind blockhead, you blood-hound, you bitter, furious, raving enemy of truth, than whom no more pestilential heretic has arisen for the last four hundred years.”[32] Is it correct to characterise such outbursts in the way Protestants have done when they mildly remark, that Luther fought with “boldness and without any fear of men,” and that, though his onslaught was “fierce and violent,” yet he was ever fearful “lest he should do anything contrary to the Will of God”?[33]
Luther, on the other hand, as early as 1518, made the admission: “I am altogether a man of strife, I am, according to the words of the Prophet Jeremias, ‘A man of contentions.’ ”[34]
Hieronymus Emser, who had met Luther at the Leipzig Disputation and before, might well reproach him with his passionate behaviour, so utterly lacking in calmness and self-control, and liken him to “the troubled sea which is never at rest day or night nor allows others to be at peace; yet the Spirit of the Lord only abides in those who are humble, in the peaceable and composed.”[35] In another work he laments in a similar way that, “in the schools and likewise in his writings and in the pulpit Luther neither displays devotion nor behaves like a clergyman, but is all defiance and boastfulness.”[36]
It was in vain that anxious friends, troubled about the progress of their common enterprise, besought him to moderate his language. It is true he had admitted to his fellow-monks, even as early as the time of the nailing up of his theses, his own “frivolous precipitancy and rashness” (“levitas et præceps temeritas”).[37] He did not even find it too hard a task to confess to the courtier Spalatin, that he had been “unnecessarily violent” in his writings.[38] But these were mere passing admissions, and, after the last passage, he goes on to explain that his opponents knew him, and should know better than to rouse the hound; … “he was by nature hot-blooded and his pen was easily irritated”; even if his own hot blood and customary manner of writing had not of themselves excited him, the thought of his opponents and their “horrible crimes” against himself and the Word of God would have been sufficient to do so.
Such was his self-confidence that it was not merely easy to him, but a veritable pleasure, to attack all theologians of every school; they were barely able to spell out the Bible. “Doctors, Universities, Masters, are mere empty titles of which one must not stand in awe.”[39]
2. The Veiling of the Great Apostasy
Besides his stormy violence another psychological trait noticeable in Luther is the astuteness with which he conceals the real nature of his views and aims from his superiors both clerical and lay, and his efforts at least to strengthen the doubts favourable to him regarding his attitude to the hierarchy and the Church as it then was. Particularly in important passages of his correspondence we find, side by side with his call to arms, conciliatory, friendly and even submissive assurances.
The asseverations of this sort which he made to his Bishop, to the Pope, to the Emperor and to the Elector are really quite surprising, considering the behaviour of the Wittenberg Professor. In such cases Luther is deliberately striving to represent the quarrel otherwise than it really stood.
If the cause he advocated had in very truth been a great and honourable one, then it imperatively called for frank and honest action on his part.
The consequence of his peaceable assurances was to postpone the decision on a matter of far-reaching importance to religion and the Christian conscience. Many who did not look below the surface were unaware how they stood, and an inevitable result of such statements of Luther’s was, that, in the eyes of many even among the nobles and the learned, the great question whether he was right or wrong remained too long undecided. He thus gained numerous followers from the ranks of the otherwise well-disposed, and, of these, many, after the true aims of the movement had become apparent, failed to retrace their steps.
In fairness, however, all the means by which the delay of the negotiations was brought about must not be laid to Luther’s charge, and to his intentional misrepresentations. It is more probable that he frequently assumed an attitude of indecision because, to his excited mind, the stress of unforeseen events, which affected him personally, seemed to justify his use of so strange an expedient. Be this as it may, we must make a distinction between his actions at the various periods of his agitated life; the further his tragic history approaches the complete and open breach which was the result of his excommunication, the less claim to belief have his assurances of peace, whereas his earlier protestations may at least sometimes be accorded the benefit of a doubt.
To the assurances dating from the earlier stage belong in the first place those made to his Ordinary, Hieronymus Scultetus, Bishop of Brandenburg. To him on May 22, 1518, he forwarded, together with a flattering letter, a copy of his “Resolutions,” in order that they might be examined.[40]
“New dogmas,” he states, have just recently been preached regarding indulgences; urged by some who had been annoyed by them to give a strong denial of such doctrines, but being at the same time desirous of sparing the good reputation of the preachers—for upon it their work depended—he had decided to deal with the matter in a purely disputatory form, the more so as it was a difficult one, however untenable the position of his opponents might be; scholastics and canonists could be trusted only when they quoted arguments in defence of their teaching, more particularly from Holy Scripture. No one had, however, answered his challenge or ventured to meet him at a disputation. The Theses, on the other hand, had been bruited abroad beyond his expectations, and were also being regarded as actual truths which he had advocated. “Contrary to his hopes and wishes,” he had therefore been obliged, “as a child and ignoramus in theology,” to explain himself further (in the Resolutions). He did not, however, wish obstinately to insist upon anything contained in the latter, much being problematic, yea, even false. He laid everything he had said at the feet of Holy Church and his Bishop; he might strike out what he pleased, or consign the entire scribble to the flames. “I know well that Christ has no need of me; He proclaims salvation to the Church without me, and least of all does He stand in need of great sinners. … My timidity would have kept me for ever in my quiet corner had not the presumption and unwisdom of those who invent new gospels been carried so far.”
When Bishop Scultetus thereupon declared himself against the publication of the Resolutions, Luther promised to obey; he even made this known to those about the Elector, through Spalatin the Court-preacher. On August 21, 1518, the work nevertheless appeared. Had Luther really been “released” from his promise, as has been assumed by one writer in default of any better explanation?[41]