LUTHER (Vol. 1-6). Grisar Hartmann
the Office for the seven days of the week on the Saturday and adds the historic comment, that, owing to his fatigue from the Saturday fast and consequent sleeplessness, they had been obliged to dose him with “Dr. Esch’s haustum soporiferum.”[729] It is therefore quite possible that his statements as to the circumstances under which he dispensed himself from the Breviary may contain some truth; all the facts point to the violent though confused struggle going on in the young Monk’s mind.
Yet Luther speaks ably enough in 1517 of the urgent necessity of spiritual exercises, more particularly meditation on the Scriptures, to which the recitation of the Office in Choir was an introduction: “As we are attacked by countless distractions from without, impeded by cares and engrossed by business, and as all this leads us away from purity of heart, only one remedy remains for us, viz. with great zeal to ‘exhort each other’ (Heb. iii. 13), rouse our slumbering spirit by the Word of God, reading the same continually, and hearing it as the Apostle exhorts.” Not long after he is, however, compelled to write: “I know right well that I do not live in accordance with my teaching.”[730]
The exertions which his feverish activity entailed avenged themselves on his health. He became so thin that one could count his ribs, as the saying is. His incessant inward anxieties also did their part in undermining his constitution.
The outward appearance of the Monk was specially remarkable on account of the brilliancy of his deep-set eyes, to which Pollich, his professor at the University of Wittenberg, had already drawn attention (p. 86). The impression which this remarkable look, which always remained with him, made on others, was very varied. His subsequent friends and followers found in his eyes something grand and noble, something of the eagle, while, on the other hand, some remarks made by his opponents on the uncanny effect of his magic glance will be mentioned later. Anger intensified this look, and the strange power which Luther exerted over those who opposed him, drew many under the spell of his influence and worked upon them like a kind of suggestion.[731]
Many remarked with concern on the youthful Luther’s too great self-sufficiency.
His then pupil Johann Oldecop describes him as “a man of sense,” but “proud by nature.” “He began to be still more haughty,” Oldecop observes, when speaking of the incipient schism.[732] He will have it that at the University. Luther had always shown himself quarrelsome and disputatious. Oldecop could never forget that Luther, his professor, never held a disputation which did not end in strife and quarrels.[733] Luther’s close connection with Johann Lang, the Augustinian and rather freethinking Humanist, was also remarked upon, he says. We know from other sources that Lang encouraged Luther in his peculiar ideas, especially in his mysticism and in his contempt for the theology of the schools.
3. Luther’s Ultra-Spiritualism and calls for Reform. Is Self-improvement possible? Penance
It is clear from the above, that the passionate zeal for reform which inspired the Augustinian proceeded chiefly from his pseudo-mysticism. It would, however, be incorrect to attribute all this zeal simply to mysticism, but neither would it be in accordance with the facts of history were we to deny the connection between his repeated complaints and calls for reform and his spiritualistic ideas.
It may be worth while to listen here to what the youthful Luther had to say of the reforming notions which already inspired him, for it opens up a wide horizon against which his psychology stands out in clear relief. Plans so far-reaching can only have been the result of the exaggerated and one-sided spiritualistic point of view, from which he regarded the perversity of the world at large. The following passages show what were the motives which urged him on. He declared it to be the duty of ecclesiastical superiors to show more indulgence to those who scorn their position and “the rights and privileges of the Church,” and this from the motive of mystical resignation; theologians ought to teach, in place of their traditional science, how we are “humbly to sigh after grace”; philosophy must for the future be silent because it is nothing but “the wisdom of the flesh”; lay authorities, moreover, who now begin to see through our wickedness, ought to seize upon the temporalities of the Church in order that she may be set free to devote herself entirely to the interior Christian life. Luther’s view of the position and actual character of the worldly powers at that time was absolutely untrue to life, and one that could have been cherished only by a mystic looking out on the world from the narrow walls of his cell. A strange self-sufficiency, of which he himself appears to have been utterly unaware, and which is therefore all the more curious, was at the root of these ideas.
Such a tone unmistakably pervades the projects of reform expressed not only in the Commentary on Romans, but also in his exposition of the Psalms; but a comparison of these two works shows the increased stress which Luther lays upon his own opinion in the later work, and the still greater inconsideration with which he rejects everything which clashes with his views, a fact which proves that Luther was progressing. In his Commentary on Romans he appeals formally to the “apostolic authority” of his Doctor’s degree, when giving vent to the most unheard-of vituperation of the highest powers, ecclesiastical and lay. He declares it to be his duty to reprove what he finds amiss in all, and almost at the same moment denounces the bishops who defend the rights of the Church as “Pharaonici, Sathanici, Behemotici”; so convinced is he that their supposed abuse of power entitles him to reprove them.[734]
The language in which the mystic unhesitatingly passes the severest possible judgments could scarcely be stronger.
“We have fallen under a Jewish bondage ... our preachers have concealed from the people the truth regarding the right way of worshipping God, and the Apostles must needs come again to preach to us.”[735]
“When shall we at last listen to reason,” he cries,[736] “and understand that we must spend our valuable time more profitably [than in the study of philosophy]? ‘We are ignorant of what is necessary,’ thus we should complain with Seneca, ‘because we merely learn what is superfluous.’ We remain ignorant of what might be of use to us while we busy ourselves with what is worse than worthless.”[737] He speaks thus because others were not alive to the state of things, or had not the courage to open their mouths: “Perhaps they would not be believed, but I have spent years in these studies, have seen and heard much and know that they are vain and perverse” (“studium vanitatis et perditionis”). Therefore let us rise and destroy them! “We must learn to know Jesus Christ, and Him Crucified.... Is it not a strange madness to praise and belaud philosophy, a doctrine which is merely the perverse wisdom of the flesh advocated by so-called wise men and theologians!”
“Those fools” who do not even know what grace is.... “Who can bear with their blasphemous ideas?” “They do not know what sin or remission of sin is.” “Our theologians see sins only in works, and do not teach us how to change our minds and how to implore grace with humble sighing.... They make proud men, men who after due performance of their works look on themselves as righteous, and seek not to fight against their passions. That is the reason why Confession is of so little use in the Church and why backsliding occurs so frequently.”[738]
His hatred for theology leads him to make the following false and bitter charges: “The Scholastics teach that it is only necessary to fulfil the law outwardly,