LUTHER (Vol. 1-6). Grisar Hartmann
Bible, and likewise Apocalyptic dreams, were pressed in to serve the author of this lamentable literary production.
Yet, in spite of all these repulsive exaggerations with which his writings were crammed, nay, on account of these images of a heated imagination, the attack upon the old Church called forth by Luther served its purpose with all too many. Borne on the wings of a hatred inspired by a long-repressed grudge, his pamphlets were disseminated with lightning speed by discontented Catholics. Language of appalling coarseness, borrowed from the lips of the lowest of the populace, seemed to carry everything before it, and the greater the angry passion it displayed the greater was its success. What one man’s words can achieve under favourable circumstances was never, anywhere in the history of the world, so clearly exemplified as in Germany in those momentous days. Luther’s enthusiastic supporters read his writings aloud and explained them to the people in the squares and market-places, and the stream of eloquence falling on ready ears proved far more effective than the warnings of the clergy, who in many places were regarded with suspicion or animosity.
Spalatin, in the meantime, was engaged in trying to prevent Luther from incurring the only too well-founded reproach of openly inciting people to revolt against the authority of the Empire; with such a charge against him it would have been difficult for the Elector of Saxony to protect him.
As, during Spalatin’s stay at Worms, the burning of Luther’s books had already begun in various places, owing to the putting in force of the Bull “Exsurge Domine,” the courtier was at pains to advise his impetuous friend as to what he should do respecting such measures. He counselled Luther to compose a pamphlet addressed to penitents, dealing with the forbidden books, the matter being a practical one owing to the likelihood of people confessing in the tribunal of penance that they possessed works of Luther. It was no easy task to deal with this question of the duty of confession. Luther, however, felt himself supported by the attitude assumed by the Elector, at whose command, so he says, he had first published his new booklet against the Bull, “Grund und Ursach aller Artickel” (Ground and Reason of all the [condemned] Articles), in German and Latin.[137]
He therefore determined to carry his war into the confessional and, by means of a printed work, to decide, in his own favour, the pressing, practical question regarding his books. The flames were blazing in the bishoprics of Merseburg and Meissen, and to them were consigned such of Luther’s writings as had been given up by Catholics or halting disciples. Easter, too, was drawing near with the yearly confession. Many a conscience might be stirred up by the exhortations of pious confessors and be aroused to renewed loyalty to the Church. Luther’s pamphlet, entitled “Unterricht der Beychtkinder ubir die vorpotten Bücher” (An Instruction for Penitents concerning the prohibited books), which appeared in the earlier part of February, 1521, affords us an insight into the strategies adopted by Lutheranism at its inception.
The language of this tract is, for a writer like Luther, extremely moderate and circumspect, for its object was to enlist in his cause the most secret and intimate of all acts, that of the penitent in confession; its apparent reticence made it all the more seductive. In his new guise of an instructor of consciences, Luther here seems fully to recognise the Sacrament of Confession. He has no wish, so he protests, to introduce “strife, disputation and dissension into the holy Sacrament of Confession.”[138]
The penitent, who is in the habit of reading his works, he tells to beg his confessor in “humble words,” should he question him, not to trouble him concerning Luther’s books. He is to say to his confessor: “Give me the Absolution to which I have a right, and, after that, wrangle about Luther, the Pope and whomsoever else you please.” He encourages his readers to make such a request by explaining that these books, and likewise Luther’s guilt, have not yet been duly examined, that many were in doubt about the Bull, that Popes had often changed their minds upon similar matters and contradicted themselves, and that a confessor would therefore be acting tyrannically were he to demand that the books should be given up; this was, however, the unfair treatment to which he had ever been subjected. There was only one thing wanting, namely, that Luther should have repeated what he had shortly before declared, that, for the sake of peace, he would “be quite happy to see his books destroyed,” if only people were permitted to keep and read the Bible.[139]
He continues: Since it might happen that some would be conscientiously unable to part with his writings, owing to knowledge or suspicion of the truth, such people should quietly waive their claim to Absolution should it be withheld. They were nevertheless to “rejoice and feel assured that they had really been absolved in the sight of God and approach the Sacrament without any shrinking.” Those who were more courageous, however, and had a “strong conscience” were to say plainly to the “taskmaster” (the confessor): “You have no right to force me against my conscience, as you yourself know, or ought to know, Romans xiv.” “Confessors are not to meddle with the judgment of God, to whom alone are reserved the secrets of the heart.” If, however, communion be refused, then all were first to “ask for it humbly,” “and if that was of no avail, then they were to let Sacrament, altar, parson and Church go”; for “contrary to God’s Word and your conscience no commandment can be made, or hold good if made, as they themselves all teach.”
Such a view of the functions of a confessor and of his duty as a judge appointed by authority had certainly never been taught in the Church, but was entirely novel and unheard of, however much it might flatter the ears of the timid, and of those who wavered or were actually estranged from the Church. Most of his readers were unaware how shamelessly their adviser was contradicting himself, and how this apparently well-meaning instructor of consciences in the confessional was the very man who in previous polemical tracts had denied that there was any difference between priests and laymen.[140] Towards the close of this Instruction, however, the author reappears in his true colours, and whereas, at the commencement when introducing himself, he had spoken of confession as a holy Sacrament, at the end he describes it as an unjust invention of the priesthood, and, indeed, in his eyes, it was really a mere “human institution.” Towards the conclusion, where he relapses into his wonted threatening and abusive language, he “begs all prelates and confessors” not to torture consciences in the confessional lest the people should begin to question “whence their authority and the practice of private confession came”; as if his very words did not convey to the reader an invitation to do so. “The result,” he prudently reminds them, “might be a revolt in which they [the prelates] might be worsted. For though confession is a most wholesome thing, everyone knows how apt some are to take offence.” He points out how in his case the authorities had driven him further and further, well-intentioned though he was: “How many things would never have happened had the Pope and his myrmidons not treated me with violence and deceit.”[141]
The Easter confession that year might prove decisive to thousands. The little earnestness shown by too many in the practice of their religion, the laxity of the German clergy, even the apparent insignificance of the question of retaining or perusing certain books, all this was in his favour. In the above tract he set before the devout souls who were “tyrannised” by their confessors the example of Christ and His Saints, who all had suffered persecution; “we must ask God to make us worthy of suffering for the sake of His Word.” The more imaginative, he likewise warned of the approaching end of the world. “Remember that it was foretold that in the days of ‘End-Christ’ no one will be allowed to preach, and that all will be looked upon as outcasts who speak or listen to the Word of God.” Those who hesitated and were scrupulous about keeping Luther’s writings, seeing they had been prohibited by law and episcopal decrees as “blasphemous,” he sought to reassure by declaring that his books were nothing of the kind, for in them he had attacked the person neither of the Pope nor of any prelate, but had merely blamed vices, and that if they were to be described as blasphemous, then the same “must be said of the Gospel and the whole of Holy Scripture.”[142]
Thus, in this ingenious work, each one found something suited to his disposition and his scruples and calculated to lead him astray. The culmination is, however, in the words already adduced: Nothing against conscience, nothing against the Word of God! The “enslaved conscience” and the “commanding Word of God,” these are the catchwords of which Luther henceforth makes use so frequently and to such purpose. He employs these terms as a cloak to conceal the