LUTHER (Vol. 1-6). Grisar Hartmann
to the Diet, this was alloyed with a certain amount of quite reasonable fear. He himself admits, that when summoned to Worms, he “fell into a tremble” till he determined to bid defiance to the devils there.[185] On his first appearance before the Diet on April 17, he spoke, according to those who heard him, “in an almost inaudible voice,” and gave the impression of being a timid man.[186] Later his enthusiasm and his boldness increased with the lively sense of the justice of his cause aided by the applause of sympathisers. There can be no doubt that he was stimulated to confidence not merely by the thought of the thousands who were giving him their moral support, but by the offers of material help he had received, and by his knowledge that the atmosphere of the Diet was charged with electricity. “Counts and Nobles,” he himself says later, “looked hard at me; as a result of my sermon, as people in the know think, they lodged in court a charge of 400 Articles [the ‘Gravamina’] against the clergy. They [the members of the Diet] had more cause to fear me than I to fear them, for they apprehended a tumult.”[187] It was his fiery conviction that he had rediscovered the Gospel and torn away the mask of Antichrist, combined with his assurance of outward support, that inspired him with that “mad courage” of which he was wont to talk even to the end of his life: “I was undismayed and feared nothing; God alone is able to make a man mad after this fashion; I hardly know whether I should be so cheery now.”[188]
The unfavourable accounts, circulated from early days among Luther’s opponents concerning his mode of life at Worms, must not be allowed to pass unchallenged.
Luther was said to have “distinguished himself by drunkenness,” and to have indulged in moral “excesses.” Incontrovertible proof would be necessary to allow of our accepting such statements of a time when he was actually under the very eyes of the highest authorities, clerical and lay, and a cynosure of thousands. We should have to ask ourselves how he came to prejudice his judges still further by intemperance and a vicious life. The accounts appealed to do not suffice to establish the charge, consisting as they do of general statements founded partly on the impression made by Luther’s appearance, partly on reports circulated by his enemies. That the friends of the Church were all too ready to believe everything, even the worst, of the morals of so defiant and dangerous a heretic, was only to be expected. The reports were not treated with sufficient discernment even in the official papers, but accepted at their face-value when they suited the purposes of his foes. Luther seemed deficient in the recollection looked for in a religious, though he wore the Augustinian habit; the self-confidence, which he never lost an occasion of displaying, had the appearance of presumption and excessive self-sufficiency; it may also be that the manners which he had inherited from his low-born Saxon parents excited hostile comment among the cultured members of the Diet; if he indulged a little in the good Malvasian wine in which his friends pledged him, this would be regarded by strangers as betraying his German love of the bottle; at the same time it is true that, when starting for Worms, and likewise during the journey, it is reported how, with somewhat unseemly mirth, he had not scrupled to indulge in the juice of the grape, perhaps to dispel sad thoughts.
Caspar Contarini, the Venetian ambassador, who was present at Worms, wrote to Venice: “Martin has scarcely fulfilled the expectations cherished of him here by all. He displays neither a blameless life nor any sort of cleverness. He is quite unversed in learning and has nothing to distinguish him but his impudence.”[189] Perhaps the remark concerning Luther’s want of culture and wit, on which alone the Venetian here lays stress, was an outcome of Luther’s behaviour at his first interrogation; we have already seen how another witness alludes to the nervousness then manifested by him, but over which he ultimately triumphed.[190]
The second authority appealed to, viz. the Nuncio, Hieronymus Aleander, writes more strongly against Luther than does Contarini. It is not however certain that he was an “eye-witness,” as he has been termed, at least it is doubtful whether he ever saw Luther while he was in the town, though he describes his appearance, his demeanour and look, as though from personal observation.[191] Aleander speaks much from hearsay, collects impressions and tittle-tattle at haphazard, and enters into no detail, save that he sets on record the “many bowls of Malvasian” which Luther, “being very fond of that wine,” drank before his departure from Worms. It is he who wrote to Rome that the Emperor, so soon as he had seen Luther, exclaimed: “This man will never make a heretic of me.” Aleander merely adds, that almost everybody looked on Luther as a stupid, possessed fool; and that it was unnecessary to speak of “the drunkenness to which he was so much addicted, and the many other instances of coarseness in his looks, words, acts, demeanour and gait.” By his behaviour he had forfeited all the respect the world had had for him. He describes him as dissolute and a demoniac (“dissoluto, demoniaco”).[192] Yet Count Hoyer of Mansfeld, who will be referred to more particularly below, and who blames Luther’s moral conduct after his stay at the Wartburg, alleging it as his reason for forsaking his cause, admits that, while at Worms, he, the Count, had been quite Lutheran; hence nothing to the prejudice of Luther’s morals can have reached his ears there. In the absence of any further information we may safely assume that it was merely Luther’s general behaviour which was rather severely criticised at the great assembly of notables.
A capital opportunity for a closer study of Luther’s mind is afforded by his life and doings in the Wartburg.
4. Luther’s sojourn at the Wartburg
The solitude of the Wartburg afforded Luther a refuge for almost ten months, to him a lengthy period.
Whereas but a little while before he had been inspirited by the loud applause of his followers and roused by the opposition of those in high places to a struggle which made him utterly oblivious of self, here, in the quiet of the mountain stronghold, the thoughts born of his solitude assailed him in every conceivable form. He was altogether thrown upon himself and his studies. The croaking of the ravens and magpies about the towers in front of his windows sounded like the voices which spoke in the depths of his soul.
Looking back upon his conduct at Worms, he now began to doubt; how, indeed, could an outlaw do otherwise, even had he not undertaken so subversive a venture as Luther? To this was added, in his case, the responsibility for the storm he had let loose on his beloved native land. His own confession runs: “How often did my heart faint for fear, and reproach me thus: You wanted to be wise beyond all others. Are then all others in their countless multitude mistaken? Have so many centuries all been in the wrong? Supposing you were mistaken, and, owing to your mistake, were to drag down with you to eternal damnation so many human creatures!”[193]
He must often have asked himself such questions, especially at the beginning of the “hermit life,” as he calls it, which he led within those walls. But to these questionings he of set purpose refused to give the right answer; he had set out on the downward path and could not go back; of this he came to convince himself as the result of a lengthy struggle.
This is the point which it is incumbent on the psychologist to study beyond all else. Luther’s everyday life and his studies at Worms have been discussed often enough already.
It is unheard of, so he says in the accounts he gives of his interior struggles in those days, “to run counter to the custom of so many centuries and to oppose the convictions of innumerable men and such great authorities. How can anyone turn a deaf ear to these reproaches, insults and condemnations?” “How hard is it,” he exclaims from his own experience, “to come to terms with one’s own conscience when it has long been accustomed to a certain usage [like that of the Papists], which is nevertheless wrong and godless. Even with the plainest words from Holy Scripture I was scarcely able so to fortify my conscience as to venture to challenge the Pope, and to look on him as Antichrist, on the bishops as the Apostles of Antichrist and the Universities as his dens of iniquity!” He summoned all his spirit of defiance to his aid and came off victorious. “Christ at length strengthened me by His words, which are steadfast and true. No longer does my heart tremble and waver, but mocks at the Popish objections; I am in a haven of safety and laugh at the storms which rage without.”[194]