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Luther and Lutherdom

From Original Sources

by

HEINRICH DENIFLE

Translated from the Second Revised Edition of the German

by RAYMOND VOLZ

VOL. I., PART I.

TORCH PRESS Somerseti O.

^

The original was published

Permissu

P. MAG. A. LEPIDI, O. P., MAG. S. PALATII

and bore the

" Imprimi permittitur "

of

DR. J. M. RAICH,

Cons. Eccl. Decan. Eccl. Cath. Mogunt.

Moguntiae, 14 Maii, 1904

Imprimatur JACOBUS JOSEPH Episcopus Columbensis

Copyrighted 1917 By RAYMUND VOLZ

LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM V

Foreword to the Second Edition

of the First Half of the First Volume

Contrary to expectation, I had early to see to the elabora- tion of a new edition of the first volume of my work, at a time in which I had thought it necessary to be busied with the completion of the second volume. Since from the beginning — I emphasize this at the outset advisedly, to clip the claws of false rumors and to tranquilize certain anxious politicians — / liad no intention of putting forth an "incendiary work" among the people, hut rather in plain, unbedecked honesty sought to write a hook for the learned, I supposed and said openly that it was likely to be a long time before the edition was exhausted. The result was to be otherwise. Thanks to the equally eager interest with which Catholics and Protestants alike hailed my research and its subject, the first edition ran out within a month.

The turn of the controversy for and against my book has made a repetition of the preface to the first edition superfluous. It is enough for once to have made clear the fact, and from the scientific point of view to have entered a protest against it, that hitherto, on the Protestant side, methods in handling Luther and his historical appearance, and in treating the Catholic Church, yea, Christ Himself and Christianity, have been entirely diverse. But Protestants are not the first to play this game. The Donatists did the same thing, giving St. Augustine occasion to say: "The Donatists have Donatus in- stead of Christ. If they hear some pagan defaming Christ, they probably suffer it more patiently than if they hear him

VI I^UTHER AND LUTHERDOM

defaming Donatus."^ Protestant professors could and can still treat of Christ quite according to their pleasure. Unmolested they can degrade Him to the level of a mere man. But there must be no jolting of Luther. In the measure in which Christ is abased, in the same measure is Luther ever exalted and glorified.

It still remains only too true that, on the side of Protes- tants, in their instructions and elsewhere. Catholic doctrine and establishments are systematically distorted. It was this melancholy fact that lent to my pen the sharp tone which was taken so ill in my preface. In these prudish times, however, it is worth while sparing the weak nerves of many a reader, all the more so as the facts anyhow speak loudly enough of them- selves. The very reception of my book again confirms, in classic fashion, the uncritical, undiscriminating partisanship of by far the greater part of our opponents.

The monstrous uproar, by which they put themselves quite out of countenance, the endless abuse and unproved assertions with which their press and their backers but ill concealed their inner embarrassment and anxiety, the means to which they had recourse, and the instincts to which they appealed in their readers, illustrate clearly enough how wholly assumptive those periodicals and savants, so given to proclaiming the liberty of science, can become in such questions. But it does not hurt them. Like Luther and his fellows, they can go their own gait. They know that the more blindly they rage against my book, the more esteemed they stand among their co-religionists. Because perpetrated in the warfare against it, the greatest blunders^ on their part are overlooked without further ado. Their intent to glorify Luther and therefore, by all means, to do away with my book, carries of itself the condonation of their

1 "Donatum Donatistae pro Christo habent SI audiant aliquem paganum detrahentem Christo, forsitan patienter ferant, Quam si audiant detrahentem Donate." (Sermo 197.)

2 These include, among other things, the charge brought against me by W. Kohler in "Christl. Welt," 1904, No. 10, p. 227, referring to my work Part 1, page 311 (where I am alleged to have said), that Luther was repeatedly unfaithful to his Kate. The author, moreover, in respect to the manner and method of his bringing up such accusations, has fully evidenced the debase- ment on which I threw light in my brochure against Seeberg, p. 60 sq.

LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM VII

unworthy behavior and sets them above the duty of considering my rejoinders or explanations. Theirs it is undauntedly to return again and again, with ever the same old charges against me.

In all the Lutheran high schools indignant voices were raised, from all the strongholds of Protestantism rang and rings again the warning summons to the defence of the discred- ited founder of the creed. Harnack in Berlin, who led the array, his colleague Seeberg, who followed him upon the field of action, then Haussleiter in Griefswald, Losche in Vienna, Walther in Rostock, Kolde and Fester in Erlangen, Kohler in Giessen, Kawerau in Breslau, Haussrath in Heidelberg, Ban- man in Gottingen — all strove, some more, some less, to do what was possible and exerted themselves to kill my book. The smaller fry, too, contributed their moderate mite to the noble cause.

And yet the list is not closed. Ministerial Director Dr. Althoff said at an evening session of the Prussian House of Deputies, April 14, (according to the "Post," No. 175) : "The effect of the book has been, that a distinguished Evangelical clergjTnan is elaborating a work on this subject." This "dis- tinguished Evangelical clergyman" is not to be looked for among those just named, for Herr Althoff adds : "Thus the arrow flies back upon the archer." No arrow has come flying back upon me. Eather must I, with my countryman Andreas Hofer, exclaim to those enumerated above: "Oh, how poorly you shoot!" The one to speed back the arrow which I let fly at Luther has yet to come. I am waiting for him.

Meetings of protest, with resolutions, also rose up against my book. If I was not alone, I always found myself in good company, to wit, the Jesuits and Bishop Benzler. I doubt much if these meetings will accomplish more than the would-be scientific refutations.

For a generation, at least, there have not been so many imbittered opponents taken up with the work of an author, searching it with such Argus-eyes to discover weak points^ mistakes and blunders — in fact, seeking to annihilate it. Fancy the unheard-of thing of a gnat being forthwith turned into an elephant to knock a book down and trample it — that is what

VIII LUTHER. AND LUTHERDOM

happened to my book on the part of the Protestant savants and of the "hack scribblers" of the Protestant press. In conse- quence of this, any impartial observer must feel the conviction forced upon him that, to Protestants, the appearance of my work meant an event. Now, of course, they seek to weaken this impression by means of a shameful subterfuge. My work is to be offset by the viewpoint of Niedriger — assume that Luther and Protestantism are not touched by it.

Violent attacks on the part of Protestants I expected. Of this prospect I never made a secret before the appearance of the work. The silence, too, of the accredited representatives of Catholic Church history and theology in Germany did not strike me unexpectedly. But all the more surprising to me was the talk of some Avholly unauthorized gentlemen. I believe that any Catholic who knows the Catholic priest, J. Miiller's "Keuschheitsideen" and his "Renaissance" (especially 1904, p. 96 sqq.), will pardon me if I have nothing further to do with him. Neither can his scurrilities against Thomas put me on the defensive against a critic who, only a few years ago, in his work, "Der Reform katholizismiis die Religion der Zukunft fur die Gebildeten alter Bekenntnisse" (1899), p. 77, confound- ing an objection with its answer, cites, with fabulous ignorance and superficiality, as St. Thomas' own teaching, an objection which St. Thomas (1 p., q. 1, a. 2, obj. 1) raises against theology as a science. This makes it easily conceivable how, to him, Scholasticism stood for the "chief bulwark of the backwardness of Catholics."

There is one point, at all events, which this so-called "Reform Milller" possesses in common with several Catholics of German university training — an itch for concessions. How far, by gradual use, this can lead an immature mind is shown with fearful clearness by an article in the review, "Die Fackel" (No. 145, Vienna, Oct. 28, 1903), on the Salzburg University question. This article is from a pen that openly calls itself Catholic and, after the appearance of my work, found it neces- sary elsewhere to take a stand against it. The author of the article in "Die Fackel" is a genuine product, a child, of this modern, eclectic time of ours, which, with sovereign pre- eminence derived from its "historical" ornithomancy, believes

LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM IX

itself competent to sit in judgment on anything and everything, even on the relation of man to the Divinity, as if man and not God had to determine those i)ositive laAvs. Whoever reads this article spuming with phrases, billowing into obscurest notions, scintillating with endless fantasies, and indulging in most cut- ting charges against the writer's oavh fellow-believers, asks him- self, all amazed: "Where, then, do Ave stand? Where are the confines at which science ceases to pass for Catholic f"

Of all the awry judgments in this article, I will quote only the most characteristic. According to its author (p. 3), "the Catholic element, as well as the Protestant, of the religious life of Germanic mid-Europe are equally legitimate." In keeping with this, he calls (p. 8), Protestantism and "Cathol- icism" "the two Christian religions," therefore two equally legitimate members of the one Christendom ! In fact, they are "tAvo religious persuasions tvhich, in their deepest being, com- plement each other and represent at most two diverse sides of Christian life!" Is not this breaking doAvn all dogmatic harriers ? Can one say that this savant still stands on Catholic ground? Yet Professor Martin Spahn, the author of this article, which Avholly denies the Catholic standpoint, got fairer treatment in some Catholic papers than I did. Or, rather, the article in question was met with a dumfounding silence instead of with animadversion calling attention to the religious peril to which students of such a professor, who has already given the most unequivocal proofs of his attitude, are continually exposed. The danger is the greater because, after the appear- ance of that article, the author himself was extolled as a "Cath- olic savant" and was taken up as a co-worker by Catholic news- papers and periodicals.

This fact proves a kinship in ideas Avith those Catholic circles in which Herr Spahn receives homage or favor. In September of the past year, sure enough, I found expressed in a Catholic newspaper, with which he is closely connected, about the same propositions on Protestantism and "Catholicism" as those just adduced. In consequence of present university education, or to gain substantial, practical advantages, or to strengthen civic peace between Catholics and Protestants, or on other grounds, a certain trend cannot resist the temptation

X LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM

at least to weaken, if not to give up, Catholic principles, and to bridge over tlie gap, dogmatic and historical, which must constantly separate the Catholic Church from Lutherdom. From this standpoint, but particularly from that of Spahn, it is naturally quite injudicious and signifies a derailment or departure from a historian's objectivity, to say an ill word against Luther, to speak of a Lutheran heresy, and to call Luther a heresiarch, as I, a Catholic man of letters, do. Be- sides, if Protestantism and "Catholicism" are two religious persuasions equally warranted, complementing each other in their inmost being and representing at most two different sides of Christian life, it follows that, if the one side be heretical, the other is also, and \dce versa. Therefore, neither the one nor the other is heretical. Certainly not. We have here rather to do with a mixed marriage, nothing less, in the confused brains of certain modern Catholic historians, who "let the two Christian religions work upon them" (naturally Protestantism in a greater degree). "Catholicism," possessing "an eminently feminine character" (Spahn, p. 4), enters into a covenant with Protestantism, Avhich complements it and must therefore be of an eminently masculine character! This view alone is worthy of the modern devotee of historical research !

It is by these wholly erroneous and dwindled ideas that the entire judgment of Luther and of Protestantism, as well as the critique on my book, are consequently influenced. In the latter, from this point of view, "subjectivity performs a dance disalloAved from the standpoint of scientific method."^ From this standpoint, Luther becomes the greatest German of his time, as Spahn called him as far back as 1898, and alto- gether the greatest of men, because he, yes, he first, as father of the "Evangelical Reformation," had rounded out "Cathol- icism" and discovered the other hitherto hidden, equally warranted side of the one Christianity. Dominated by those erroneous ideas, there are those who burst into admiration of

3 This was written in a higti-soaring article in tlie montlily "Hochland". (Jahrg. p. 221) by a young Catholic historian, A. Meister, who outwardly, at all events, has not gone the lengths of Spahn. Amid unworthy fulsome praises of the by no means objective leader of Protestant historians and lugging in by the hair an attack on the historian, E. Michael, Meister speaks of my "derailment."

LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM XI

Luther's greatness and of the mighty advantages for which we have to thank Protestantism. Being the historians they are, of a one-sided education, without philosophical training, to say nothing of theological — for some historians even boast of being no theologians — they do not observe to what fallacies they commit themselves. Is it possible the "Reformation" is good and to be extolled, because it was, for instance, the occa- sion of abolishing many prevalent abuses from the Church? What is then become of logic? What St. Augustine says of the study of the Scriptures, to which Catholics were driven by heretics, applies here as well: "Divine Providence permits variously erring heretics to arise, so that, Avhen they mock us and ask us things we do not know, we may at least shake off our indolence and desire to learn to know Holy Writ. Many are too lazy to seek, were they not, as it were, awakened from sleep by the hard pushing and reviling of the heretics, did they not blush for their ignorance and attain to knowledge of the danger of their inexperience." {De Gen. cont. Manichaeos, 1, N. 2). "By heresies, the sons of the Catholic Church are awak- ened from sleep as by thorns, so that they may make progress in the knowledge of Holy Writ" (Enarr. in ps. 7, n. 15) . "There is much good in the world which would not exist," teaches St. Thomas, "were there no evils. There would be no patience of the just, for instance, were there no malice of persecutors" {Cont. Gent. Ill, c. 71 and 1 p. qu. 22, a. 2, ad. 2). Shall we glorify evil, therefore, and extol the "Reformation," because they have been the occasion of much good in the Church?

Moreover, there are often benefits of the "Reformation" enumerated about which it is doubtful if they are benefits and not rather detriments, or about which it is questionable if they are owing to the "Reformation" as such. The post hoc, ergo propter hoc argument also plays a great role here. One thing is certain — "God, who turns all evils to the advantage of the good" (Augustine, Cont. Jul. IV, n. 38), would not have per- mitted the great fatality of Protestantism, like every other earlier heresy, were He not mighty and good enough to let some good arise therefrom for His own (Cf. Augustine, Enchi- ridion, c. 11 ) .

XII LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM

This is my reply to Spahn's critique of my work in tte Berlin "Tag," No. 31, of Feb. 24 of this year (1904). From the mere fact of its being in a Protestant sheet, it is already rather Protestant than Catholic. One sentence in the critique is true : "St. Augustine, even in his day, emphasized in heretics the note of greatness." This sentence, which Spahn adduces against me, he lifts from my work, (Part 11, C. VI) without saying a word. Be thivS also my reply to Ministerial Director Althoff's observation to the Prussian House of Deputies that, "out of the circles of Catholic savants" there appeared against my book, "with his contradiction, only one younger, very able academician, one not wholly unknown to you, Professor Spahn of Strassburg."

It is a sign of the times that the "Catholic savant," M. Spahn, writes in the "Tag" almost more spitefully and un- justly, and certainly more one-sidedly, than some of the Protes- tant professors already mentioned, namely Kohler of Giessen and Kawerau of Breslau. It is a duty of justice on my part to mention this here.

The former, although not less incensed and imbittered against me than others, writes : "With sovereign pride ( ?) Denifle spreads out before us his loiowledge of medieval schol- asticism and mysticism; he often pours out to overflowing a flood of citations, even when they are not further necessary to the matter in hand. This is conceivable ; herein lies Denifle's strength and the weakness of Luther research up to the present. Here we can learn from Denifle * * * The problem of Luther and the Middle Ages has (hitherto) been energetically raised from viewpoints most diverse and in isolated investigations has been discussed with success. Nevertheless, Denifle's book shows how much there is here still to he done and abashes one by the array of his observations." (Keferences follow in a note.) "Thanks to his amazing knowledge of medieval literature, he succeeds in establishing the medieval original in different isolated passages of Luther's, and so iu giving valuable sug- gestions to literary criticism. If, as he goes along, he re- peatedly exclaims to us Protestants: 'You do not loiow the Middle Ages at all,' we are honest enough, while deprecating the immoderateness of this controversy, to acknowledge a

LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM XIII

hernal of justification for it. Here indeed has Denifle tendered something new." {Die Ghristliche Welt, 1904, No. 9, p. 202.) Kohler furthermore concedes a series of propositions, and those for the most part extremely important, which are of great or fundamental significance in my demonstration against Luther, whereof I shall treat in the second half of this volume. He substantially accepts my literary critique of the Weimar ' edition and then observes : "His ( Denifle's ) acute discussion of the alleged prelections on the Book of Judges will also, I think, be met in the main with approval. He succeeded in making the happy discovery that whole passages, taken to be Luther's own, were borrowed word for word from Augustine, to a greater extent than had hitherto been known ! None too much of the 'genuine,' indeed, is left over, and whether this little is original with Luther appears very doubtful in the face of the arguments advanced by Denifle, though these are not all equally con- vincing * * * Possibly, as Denifle himself intimates, we have before us the revision of the notes of a course of lectures" (id., p. 203).

These latter observations had an influence on me in the revision of this second edition. It had been my intention to subjoin a detailed amplification of the critical notes on the Weimar edition, as an appendix, at the end of the first volume. But, as I saw that those laid down in the first edition were substantially accepted by one so clever in Luther research as Kohler, and since he declares that 'Denifle's book, it is hoped, will prove a stimulus to the collaborators of the Weimar edi- tion to put forth their best efforts in authenticating citations, and the like," all reason for carrying out my intention fell away. For, Kohler and others in the field of Luther research may believe me when I say that I have written and write nothing in my book purposely to offend them.

In the intention thus formed of entirely leaving out those notes in this second edition, I was confirmed by a subsequent discussion on the part of one of the collaborators of the Weimar edition. Professor Kawerau, in a review of my work {"Theol. Studien Und Kritiken," 1904, p. 450 sqq.). Headers of the first edition Imow that I often subjected this professor to crit- icism. Every one has the right to defend himself against my

XIV LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM

attacks as best h.e can. Kawerau does tMs fairly, and, at th.e same time, takes the part of Knaake and Buchwald, wlio had been hard pressed by me. Nevertheless he concedes, in the main, my critical results as to the Weimar edition — which does all honor to himself, his character, and his scientific knowl- edge. Besides, he is grateful and just. On page 452, he states that there is found scattered throughout the work, "out of Denifle's incomparable knowledge of ancient ecclesiastical and medieval literature, an abundance of thankworthy notes, in which he identifies citations of Luther's not easily discoverable or recognizable by others; just as, generally, the profound Denifle is revealed on almost every page, making many a valu- able contribution to our Luther-researches in particular de- tails." "If there is anj^thing about Denifle's book that I gladly welcome," he writes on page 460, "it is the service he has rendered to Luther-research by the identification of a consider- able series of quotations from Augustine, Bede, Bernard, the breviary, the liturgy, and so on." In view of such a situation, I forego contention with Kawerau about the excuses brought forward by him for his mistakes, several of these excuses hold- ing quite good, and, in the second impression of this work, my critical notes on the Weimar edition are omitted.

To that same degree of the relative impartiality shown my work by Kohler and Kawerau, no other Protestant critic has been able to rise, least of all, the one taken under the wing of Ministerial Director Althoff and glorified by him — Harnack — to whom I shall presently return. But there is one almost in a class by himself, with his clamors of distress in a brochure published against me : "P Denifle, Unterarchivar des Papstes, seine Beschimpfung Luthers und der EvangeliscJten Kirche, von Dr. Th. Kolde," 1904, the Protestant church-historian of Erlangen. Obviously I cannot afford to give space to many details in a preface. But to give a sample of the ignorance, rashness, and, at the same time, vainglory, with which some of my critics have taken up their task, I will only enumerate the blunders crowded within only six sentences upon a single in- complete page of the Erlangen University professor's work just mentioned.

LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM XV

Kolde takes pains (p. 65 sqq.) to uphold and even to corroborate his assertions, which I rejected, about contempt for woman in the Middle Ages. For, after adducing (p. 66) from St. Bernard several passages which he mis- understands, he goes on: "Why does Denifle hide the same Bernard's long- drawn inferences about the curse passing down from Eve upon all married women, about the slavish bonds and the intolerable misery of the married state, on the strength of which inferences, he seeks to recruit the monastic life?" Apart from the point that the passage, read with the context and without prejudice, yields a meaning quite different from that put into it by Kolde. he, as a church-historian, should have known what Bellarmine and Mabillon in their day (the latter in the edition used by Kolde, Migne, Patr. t. 154, p. 635) knew, that the work, Vitis Mystica, in which the passage occurs (p. 696 sqq.), was not written by St. Bernard at all. Its author was St. Bona- venture, a fact Kolde should have learned from the 0pp. S. Bonaventurae (Quaracchi) VIII, 159. This puffed-up church-historian would there have come to perceive that this work of Bonaventure's was afterwards greatly interpolated and extended, and that the passage in question does not even belong to Bonaventure, but to a later, unknown author (Ibid. p. 209 sq.)

The Protestant church-historian continues : "Why is the reader not made aware (in Denlfle's work), that Bernard also — and that is everywhere the reverse side of the matter — sees in woman, if she is not dedicated to God within the shelter of the cloister, only a vehicle of lewdness, and once says: 'always to live together with a woman and not to know the woman, that I hold to be more than to awaken the dead !' " Anyone sees that Kolde wishes to produce in the reader the impression of how well read he is in the writings of Bernard. Now in which of those writings is the passage quoted by him to be found? The church-historian does not know. Well then, Herr Kolde, I will tell you; it is found in Sermo 65 in Cant., n. 4. (Migne, Patr. 1, t. 183, p. 1091). But then, from what source did Kolde know the passage? With an air of superiority he tells me in the note : "I take the passage from one likely to be held trustworthy by Denifle, the loell knoic-n Jesuit, Peter de Soto (t. 1563) (Metlwdus confessionis, etc., Dil. 1586, p. 101). Herr Church- historian, / do not hold the "well known Jesuit, Peter de Soto," trustworthy I Why not? Because he is a Jesuit? On the contrary, liecause he is not a Jesuit! Any historian even somewhat measurably versed in the Reformation epoch, knows something of the well known Dominican, Peter de Soto, who really is the author of the work cited by Kolde (V, Quetif-Echard, II, 183, 184)*.

But if only Kolde were at least versed in Luther! What, after all, has the passage from Bernard to do with the case? It simply contains a maxim

* In historical matters of this kind, the Erlangen church-historian mani- fests fabulous ignorance. Thus, for example, he calls (p. 7) Conrad of Marburg my "celebrated confrere of the past", who nevertheless was a secular priest, as Kolde, were he not satisfied with Quetif-Echard, 1, 487, might have learned from E. Michael, S.J., "Geschichte des deutchen Volkes", H, 210, note 1, where further authorities are given.

XVI LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM

which is as old as the world's existence and will hold to the world's end: In the common run, for a single man to live with a woman is equivalent to putting straw and fire together and wishing them not to burn. And who says this? Listen, Herr Kolde, it is your father, Luther, who, in 1520, in his writing, "An den christl. Adel," explaining the motive of his desire that a pastor, who is in need of a housekeeper, should take a woman to wife, says that "to leave a man and a woman together, and yet forbid them to fall" is nothing else but "laying straw and fire together and forbidding that there be either smoking or burning" (Weim., VI, 442). If Bernard, according to Kolde's interpretation of the passage cited, "sees in woman only a vehicle of lewdness," unless she wishes to be "dedicated to God within the shelter of the cloister," Kolde must admit that Luther, too, sees in woman the same for a man, unless he marries her. With the bearing of Luther's hypothetical proposition on the one foisted by Kolde on St. Bernard, we have here nothing to do. But there is one thing true against Kolde, and that is, that the pass- age points only to the danger in which the illicit dwelling together of a man and a woman involves both parties. Of the "medieval contempt for woman," as asserted by Kolde and scored by him in the next sentence, there Is not the slightest hint to be found in the passage. If contempt is to be mentioned, it is rather charged against man than woman by both Bernard and Luther. As a rule, it is the man who, in this case, is weaker than the woman, yields to temptation, and causes the woman to fall with him.

Kolde now goes on (p. 67) with pathos: "Naturally the reader (of Denifle) must not learn, either, how Bernard's contemporary, Hildebert of Tours (1055-1134), sings of woman as the sum total of all abominations." For this, Kolde cites the poem, "Carmen quam periculosa mulierum faniiliar- itas" in (Migne, T. 172, p. 1429). SI taculsses! — if thou hadst but kept silent ! I shall not speak of the error in the citation, which should be T. 171, p. 1428 ; anyone, as a church-historian, nowadays using the poems of Hilde- bert of Lavardin according to the old editions, should know that, to keep from going astray, he must have recour.se to Les Melanges poetiques d'Hilde- tert de Lavardin par B. Haur^au, (Paris, 1882). In this work, the poems are critically handled, the genuine being separated from the spurious. Natur- ally the Erlangen church-historian had not the remotest idea of its existence. But he could have found the title of the work cited in my book, page 240, note 2, and still oftener in the Inventarium codicum manuscript. CapituU Dertusensis conferunt H. Denifle et Aem. Chatelain (Parisiis, 1896), where (p. 53 sqq.) we take up several poems and verses of Hildebert, correct them, and constantly refer to Haur^au's work. From the latter (p. 104, n. 4), Kolde might have ascertained that the carmen, the song, he cited, did not come from Hildebert, does not in the least breathe his spirit, and is to be attributed to a later author, (not a contemporary of Bernard), "certainement ne sans esprit et sans delicatess" — one "certainly born without wit and without delicacy."

This lapse, however, is not the worst. Kolde has the courage, or rather the barefacedness, to break off the carmen just where it is evident that the

LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM XVII

author of that song speaks of a particular vile woman I' That, of course, had to be kept from the reader! Only from the suppressed lines is it first apparent that the words of Kolde's quotation, alleged by him to be the singing of \yoman in general as the sum total of all abominations, are addressed by their author to a particular evil woman, a public harlot, by whose wiles he liad earlier been insnared. How shall one stigmatize so unbecoming a procedure, particularly in the case of one so puffed up as Kolde is?

It is even more unpardonable that, in the same breath, he repeats his method. For he writes immediately afterward : Naturally the reader must not learn, either, how Anselm of Canterbury (t. 1109) had already char- acterized woman, this dulce malum, this "sweet evil," as a faex Satanae — an "offscouring of Satan." Of course, be it remarked aside, this work, to which the church-historian refers, is again not of the author to whom he ascribes it. From the Hist. Lit. de la France, t. VIII, 421 sqq., IX. 442, he could have ascertained that the "Carmen de contemptu mundi," which treats of the duties of a Benedictine and the motives persuading him thereto, was written, not by Anselm, but by Roger de Caen, monk of Bee. That doesn't signfy, the blushing Kolde will retort, it is what is said that counts ! Very good. As a matter of fact, of what sort of tvoman does Roger speak in the original text which you, Kerr Kolde, quoted? In the passage adduced in your note, that is not to be ascertained. One finds too many dashes, blank spaces, there. Are these perhaps intended to show, what, of course, is withheld from the reader, that your Anselm speaks of an evil seductress?

5 Kolde quotes from the sources indicated :

Femina perflda, femina sordida, digna catenis. Mens male conscia, mabilis, impia, plena venenis, Vipera pessima, fossa novissima, mota lacuna ; Omnia suscipis, omnia decipis, omnihus una: Horrida noctua, puplica ianua, scmita trita. Igne rapaoior, aspide saevior est tua vita.

Kolde closes here with an "etc." but the Carmen goes on ;

Credere qui tibi vult, sibi sunt mala, multa peccata. O miserabilis, isatiabilis, insatiata! Desine scribere, desine mittere carmina Manda. Carmina turpia, carmina mollia, vix memoranda. Nee tibi mittere, nee tibi scribere disposui me, Nee tua jam colo, nee tua jam volo, reddo tibi te.

And thus the text continues, as anyone may investigate for himself. The meaning of the italicized words in the first part ought to be evident.

XVIII LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM

That Is just what he does I^ And, naturally, Kolde knows nothing of the beautiful and noteworthy letters exchanged between the true Anselm and women.

But this unqualifiable procedure has not yet reached Its limit. Kolde continues: "It had to be suppressed (by Denifle) that the leading exegete of the later Middle Ages, Nicholas de Lyra, (t. 1340), referred to for his like views by Johanu V. Paltz, not unknown to Denifle, annotates on Sirach (Ecclesiasticus 42, 13 sqq.) the primary authority for Romish contempt of woman: "Intimate association (co^iveisatio) with evil men is less dangerous than with good women." Is that true? Now what, in fact does Nicholas de Lyra say? The text (Sirach or Ecclesiasticus, XLII, 14) is: "For better is the iniquity of a man than a woman doing a good turn.'' The words, ietter is the iniquity of a man, are annotated : "i. e. less evil" ; the words, a woman doing a good turn, are annotated : "namely, to live with such. Hence this is referred to what precedes in verse 12 : 'tarry not among women.' For It is more dangerous for a man to dioell with a strange ivoman, even though she is good, than with an evil man"^. This is the reading both in the printed copies and in the manuscripts, as, e. g., the Codex Vat. I, 50, fol. 364 ; 164, fol. 44. Consequently Lyra says : "For a man, it is more dangerous to live together with, (not merely to be in the company^cojiversaiio — of) a strange, even though good woman, than with an evil man. Kolde therefore had again the barefacedness to cite against his opponent the gloss of Lyra without even having looked it up. More than that, he deceives by slipping in a Latin word, ostensibly belonging to the original text ; he sets forth Lyra's statement in another wording entirely and in an altered sense!

6 Kolde cites from Iligne, t. 158, 696 (not 636, as he has it) : Femina, dulce malum, mentem robusque virile Frangit blanditiis insidiosa suis. Femina, fax (Kolde fa ex) Satanae.

Here Kolde puts . But the author continues:

gemmis radiantibus auro Vestibus, ut possit perdere, compta venit. Quod natura sibi sapiens dedit, ilia reformat, Quidquid et accepit dedecuisse putat, Pungit acu, et fuco liventes reddit ocellos ; Sic oculorum, inquit, gratia major erit. Roger goes on with his description of how such a woman prinks, seeks to beautify her body, and the like and he says :

Mille modis nostros impugnat femina mentes, Et multos illi perdere grande lucrum est. The whole refers to the coquettish woman who is not modest and chaste (pudica), and seeks to beguile monks.

' In Sirach, 42, 14 (melior est enim iniquitas viri, quam mulier bene- faciens) he annotates, Mulier est iniquitas, viri, i. e. "minus mala" ; Mulier benefaciens, sc. ad cohabitandum. Unde istud refertur ad id quod premittitur (v. 12) ; in medio mulierum noli commorari. Magis enim periculosum est homini cohalitare cum muliere extranea etiam bona, quam cum viro Iniquo.

I.UTHER AND LUTHERDOM XIX

I hope the reader now forms the correct, that is an annul- ling judgment as to the church-historian, Kolde of Erlangen. It is with such dumfounding ignorance that his whole work is written. Just a few more examples here. As in his "Martin Luther" (I, 52) he does not know the difference between clerics and lay-brothers in the religious state, so that he consequently describes Luther standing in choir "with the rest of the lay- brothers," separated from the fathers, and "by himself quietly reciting the prescribed Paters and Aves"'* instead of the brev- iary, so, on page 39 of his work, he confounds the sacrament of baptism with the baptismal covenant, draws the most re- markable conclusions in consequence, and perforce absolutely misunderstands the entire doctrine of the "second baptism" (a term, I repeat, which St. Thomas did not use) . He is simply at sea in the matter.

In the same place, Kolde tries, among other things, to prove against me that, in Luther's time, at the convent of Erfurt, they knew about the "second baptism," although I demonstrate by Luther himself that it ivas first at another place his attention was called to it by a Franciscan, and to this I still hold. Kolde's sole argument against Luther and Usingen is Paltz's "Suppl. Celifodinae," Kolde's hobby, in which the subject of second baptism occurs. But whether the doctrine became the practice of the convent, or, what is here our only concern, if it was known in the novitiate and clerical course, Kolde naturally does not prove for us. In a word, on page 38, note 2, he cites, out of the work mentioned, a long passage in which Paltz refers to the familiar utterances of Bernard and Thomas,^ and which he concludes with the words : "The same is evident in autentica de monachis, where it is said that entrance into a monastery wipes away every stain"!". On this the Erlangen church-historian makes the comment, worthy of himself: "This is likely an allusion to a passage {to me unknown), in the Vitae Patrum, but not the one which Thomas had in mind, loo. citato. So autentica de monachis is to be referred to the Vitae Patrum"! Should not Kolde have surmised from the vs-ord autentica with the title, de monachis, that he had to do merely with a law book? If he is not as clever as the one on whom he wishes to sit In judgment, one who, even though only self-taught in law,

8 This absurdity was copied from him by A. Berger, "Martin Luther," 1 (1895), 64, and recently by A. Haussrath, "Martin Luther," 1, 23, although G. Oergel, "Vom jungen Luther," 1899, had called attention to the error.

5 On the occasion of a citation from St. Thomas, Kolde does not even know that there can be a "rationabilis opinio". So, by his silence, this church- historian asserts that all opinions are unreasonable.

1" Idem patet in autentica monachis, ubi dicltur, quos ingressus monas- terii omnem maculam abstergit.

XX LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM

had known forthwith that he had to do with the Novellae, why did he not seek counsel of one of his learned colleagues at the university? Well, Herr Kolde, I will have the goodness to instruct you. The passage occurs in the Liber NoveUanim sive Anthenticarum D. Justiniani, Const. V. de Monachis. Look it up. You will find, especially after comparison with the Greek text, that Paltz, your hobby, did not quote very accurately, and that the passage will hardly serve your purpose.

Not less unhappy is this incompetent university professor in his defense of Luther in regard to the sanctity of marriage and the "monastic form of absolution" (p. 46 sqq.). In my new edition he can learn more about this subject and then in his customary manner dispense his wisdom anew to the best advantage.

But I have already done Herr Kolde too mucli honor. Let us therefore close with his chief argument (p. 46), con- tending that "monachism, as the state of perfection, is the Catholic ideal of life." He writes : "It will have to be ac- centuated even more than it was in Luther's words, that 'monks and priests are in a better state than common Christians,' for, according to the Romish catechism, Romish bishops 'are rightly called, not only angels but gods,' and one cannot but wonder that it is not required to pay them divine honors as well. — " What stuff this man does heap up with his pen! Busied all his lifetime with Luther, he is nevertheless so little versed in his subject that he does not seem to be aware that his father and idol often calls the authorities, the secular superiors and judges, ^'dW — gods. To give only a few quotations, in Erl. 41, 20D, superiors were called "gods," "on account of their office, because they sit in God's stead and are His servants." Again, in Weim. XXVIII, 612 ; Erl. 64, 19 : "Therefore are judges called 'gods,' because they judge and rule in God's stead, after God's laAV and word, not after their own arrogance, as Christ gives testimony." In the same wise, Erl. 39, 228, especially 229 sq., 260 sq., where Luther similarly speaks of the authorities as "gods." Compare further Weim. XVI, 106; Erl. 35, 130 sq. Did Luther for that reason demand divine honors for them?

On his very title-page and then on p. 22, Kolde complains of my "abuse" of Luther and of the "Evangelical Church." But that, some years ago, he placed the Catholic Church on about the same level as heathenism, and thereby abused it more than

LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM XXI

I did Luther and Lutherdom, does not trouble this gentleman in the least."

The most interesting and, at the same time, the most char- acteristic thing in Kolde's pamphlet is its conclusion. Now, in Germany there are only two faculties of Protestant theology in which the Divinity of Christ is still taught— those of Er- langen and Rostock. What is Kolde's attitude to this teaching? On my averring in the foreword of the first edition that, in the face of the one Christian Church, any other Christian Church, the "Evangelical" included, was out of the question, and so too, therefore, any sister church, Kolde replied, p. 78, that "the Evangelical alone is built on Christ." Now let the following be heard : "Our opponent (Denifle) has himself lifted his visor and permitted us to look upon his rage-foaming face. — The necessity of the Evangelical Alliance and of the banding to- gether of the Evangelical Churches (How many, Herr Kolde? All built on Christ?) could not better be demonstrated than it has been by Denifle's book." And so the "Evangelical" pro- fessor, who, as professor of theology at Erlangen, should stand for the confession of the God-man, Jesus Christ, ends in the Evangelical Alliance,^^ in which only hatred and rage pre- vail against the true Christian, i.e., the Catholic Church, and the confession just mentioned is a standpoint that has been put down.

Walther's counter- work : "Denifle's Luther eine Ausgeburt rbmischer Moral" (1904) carries its own condemnation in its malicious and stupid title alone, and stands antecedently char- acterized as the effort of a lampooning, scurrilous pamphleteer.

11 "Der Methodismus uiid seine Bekiimpfung" (1886, p. 6). "The opinion of all non-partisans runs that the blessing and significance of Methodism for England and America cannot be fully expressed, it is an immeasurable one. According to human estimation, without it and the movement that went forth from it, Ecr.'and's churchdom of State would have declined to the point of being completely heathenized, or what in my apprehension makes no great difference, it would long ago gone down before Romanism!" Therefore, ac- cording to Kolde it makes no great difference if one is a heathen or a Catholic. And the same Kolde ("Luther in Worms. Vortrag gehalten zu Wiirzburg am 6 Marz, 1903." Miinclien, 1903, p. 3) laments "that, however quietly we (Protestants) go our way, the old strife is still renewed with oldtime ani- mosity," and he avails himself of the opportunity to quote Schiller (Tell) : "The godliest man cannot live in peace, if it please not his evil neighbor."

12 Kolde is even a zealous festal-day orator of the Evangelical Bund !

XXII LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM

I sliall take notice of it as soon as I come to speak of the Luther- dom pamphlets of the time of the Eeformation. Neither need I further be occupied here with the incoherence and incon- sistency of R. Fester in his "Religionskrieg und GescMchtswis- senschaft. Ein Mahnioort an das deutsche Yolk aus Anlass von Denifies ^Luther.'" (1904.) Answering Haussleiter's polemic articles in the AUgem. Ztg. (1904, n. 4 and 5, now also published separately under the title : "Luther im Romischen Urteil. Eine Studie. 1904), there appeared, besides myself (in my brochure, p. 70 sqq.), Paulus (Wissenschaftl. Beilage zur Oer- mania, 1904, n. 10, p. 77 sqq., n. 12, p. 94 sqq. ) .

On the reception accorded my replication I can also be brief, thanks to the conduct of the opponents whom I fended off. I had anticipated here taking a stand against the answers of the two professors of theology, Harnack and Seeberg. For I could not expect that they would lack the courage to take up the gauntlet which I had thrown down to them before the whole world in a special work — a work in which blunders of the worst description in so many passages of their defensive writ- ings were evidenced to them as under a spot-light, a work which did not merely warm over things already said, but con- tained numerous new ideas. The declaration of bankruptcy which, at the close of my brochure, I clinched upon Protestant Luther-research, especially that of Harnack and Seeberg, now counts the more against them.

There was an answer made, after a fashion, by both gentlemen, of course. Harnack, in his "Theolog. Literaturztg.," n. 7, issues tlie following declaration : "Denifle has just published a brochure — 'Luther in rationalistischer und christUcher Beleiichtung. Principielle Auseinandersetzung mit A. Harnack und R. Seelerg.' Inasmuch as therein he has not only not retracted the charge he made against me of lying, but by an infamous turn has kept it up (p. 46), / am done ivith the gentleman. I will give him an answer to the scientific questions which he proposed to me, as soon as he will expressly have revoked his accusation."

"A serious quarrel between two savants draws upon itself the attention of the scientific world" — thus was this declaration headlined by numerous Protestant papers. Can the quarrel be a serious one when, by so cheap a shift, one believes himself able to withdraw from the duty of a savant? But for a cause so slight, Herr Professor, you shall not give me the slip.

When you wrote that down, my most honored Sir, did you not wholly forget that you had already written a reply to my book, supposed to contain the charge of mendacity against you, and that my brochure is only a rejoinder

LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM XXIII

to it? Have you forgotten that you, in your reply, unconditionally proposed to keep in vieio a more copious scientific answer to my attacks? I ask you wliy did you not there let yourself be frightened away by the charge of "mendacity"? For, if your "declaration" had then been of avail in helping you out of your embarrassment and in releasing you from an answer, it certainly is not so today, now that you have, after all, descended into the arena.

Do not forget furthermore that, eveii though you feel yourself absolved from scientific relations with me on account of my llleged ill manners, you owe the public, yourself, and your scientific honor an answer to my weighty considerations. But to the memory of Luther, among whose admiring votaries you count yourself, you owe it still more, now that you have stepped out on the floor, so slippery for you, of the judging of this "great" man — (whether to his advantage or harm I leave it to others to decide) ! And even if you seek to proscribe my person, how can blame attach to the im- personal facts laid down in my brochure?

Besides, esteemed Herr Professor, where is the "infamous turn" that so stirred you up? Let us turn to page 46. To your bungled consequencing, which smuggled the word "lie" into my argumentation, i^ i there replied, first of all, iu a purely hypothetical form, that, for one still regarding Luther as a "reformer," such a lie would no longer be properly a sin. And that is surely correct. For, that at least Luther made little account of an untruth, you yourself will not be willing to deny, and that, after his apostasy, he admits the permissibility of "lies of utility," you are also aware and shall presently come to hear more on the subject. And then I asked in my replication, after I had again had the opportunity of exposing the precarious worth of your demonstrating operations, if I had really inflicted so grave an injustice upon you if I entertained "some doubts" as to your frankness? I, for my part, feel this to be a mitigation rather than a sharpening of the charge alleged to have been hurled against you. And that "some doubt" was not out of place I proved directly afterwards by a "false play" in your

13 As a matter of fact, on p. XXX of the first edition, I do not at all use the word "lie"- I ask : "if it was known to him that the expression, splendida vitia is not to be found in Augustine, why did he use it in an Augustinian expression?" This interrogation contains two equally justified possibilities: either it was not known to Harnack, and then he was not honest ; or it was known to him, and then he was unmethodical. For which possibility do I stand? For neither. I do not decide, I only ask. Harnack himself first hits a decision ; he decides for the first possibility in its crassest form, for the "lie". The arrow that he shot at me only flies back on himself. It is cer- tainly an enigma to me how Ministerial Director Althoff in that evening session could have placed enough reliance on Harnack's statement to say : "Had I known Denifle, I would not have begged further acquaintance with him after his work appeared and after he did not shrink from giving the lie to a man of whom science is proud. (Jenaische Ztg., n. 92, of April 30). The "Triersche Landeszeitung," n. 93a, of April 23, however, has characterized this expression of opinion on the part of the Ministerial Director, as well the one on Spahn in quite the right fashion.

XXIV LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM

polemics. However anxious I should liave been to learn what you have to show against my attaclis and reasoning, and how you counteract the force of my argument against your wholly distorted apprehension of Scholasticism, especially of St. Thomas, I regret to say, after what I have .set forth, that I am not in a position to be able to take anything back.

Meantime Seeberg also again presented himself to view. This was In the second supplement of the "Kreuzzeitung," N, 157 of April 3, in an Introduction to an article on "Komish Peace Piping." Not a word had he to say of ray oljective refutation of his arguments against me. He speaks only of my "well known smirch-work against Luther and Lutherdom" and of my not being able "to heap up enough nastiness with which to smut the countenance and raiment of the Reformer" ; my work is the "roaring of a lion." and I am a "master of vituperation."

How the eJTCited man In blind rage but smites his own face! Because of the frantic tone he has adopted, he has given up every right to complain of abuse. Should he hold it against me that I had abused him in my replication, the case is nevertheless vastly different. Whilst he pours a flood of vituperation upon me and my work, without previously having offered any proofs demanded by the discussion objectively, there being there- fore nothing to motivate his aluse in any manner whatever, the adverse opinion of Seeberg's achievement and powers of achievement in my brochure is, I take it. quite naturally the outcome of my antecedent argumentation. More than that, if to abuse means the unmasking of an opponent, then I, too, certainly did ahuse and propose to abuse still more^*.

And yet even better intentioned critics than Harnack and Seeberg have misunderstood me in so many respects. The com- mon reason lies in their mistaking the purpose of my hook. Thus I treated Luther's immoderate drinking only incidentally, and did not even attach importance to it, as anyone may see in my first edition. I "willingly concede that such immoderation was in many respects, particularly in Germany, a "weakness of that time and partly of an earlier period; but Luther, as the "founder of a creed," one allegedly sent by God, and His "chosen vessel," ought to have been superior to it. These epi- thets just quoted are contradicted by quite other facts than the one that, in drinldng, Luther "was a child of his day. Were nothing else kno"wn about him than that he used language of unexampled smuttiness, as I have sho"WTi in part 11, Chap. V,

1^ Seeberg's reply ( "Die Neuesten OfCenbarungen des Pater Denifle" ) , in "Kreuzzeitung," Nos. 203, 205, first came to my notice as I was at my revi- sion. I percieve that its author is beyond being taught and is incorrigible. From it there is nothing more to be learned than Luther's principle ( see below Chap. VI, H.) : ""Well do I know, when it comes to pen work, how to wriggle out (of a difficulty)." But that puts an end to all truth and objectivity!

LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM XXV

§ 2, and that he was the inspirational author of those nine, for the most part equally smutty pictures and the composer of the verses accompanying them (ahout which all the critics have very wisely maintained a discreet silence), this alone had been enough for the repudiation of Luther as a "reformer," "man of God," and the like, by any sensible man.

To obviate further misconstruction, it will be useful briefly and candidly to set forth the process of my research and the formation of my judgment of Luther.

After I had reached the point mentioned at the end and in the summing up of my introduction, it was my chief aim to take up, in the most objective manner possible, and to present the true, sound teaching of the Church before Luther's time as compared with Luthe^^s presentations of that same teaching. It was thus that I first hit on Luther's mendaciousness, which, as I then learned, pursuing my course farther, plays so great a part in his exposition of Catholic teaching, and is one of the keys to an understanding of the man." It was his treatise on the vows, my first reading, that first gave me the impression described, and as I read farther, I was the more confirmed therein. It was a good hit in several respects. The very polemics against my work have done more than anything else to make it plain that Protestant theologians up to the present hold to the standpoint of the later malevolent Luther. It mat- ters not that the utterances of the latter contradict those of the earlier Luther. It is assumed beforehand that what he says is right. For this reason there is no understanding ( among them) of perfection and the state of perfection, of the vows, of the

15 The matter here in hand is Lutlier's own practice. In the course of my work I saw that, in his commentary on Romans (1515-1516), lie had already made use of the "lie of necessity" in favor of his view, inasmuch as he falsi- fied passages from St. Augustine, as I showed in my first edition and shall further show in the second part of this edition. In theory Luther, in 1517, still held a white lie or a lie of necessity as not permissable and as a detesta- ble sin, as is shown in an essay, "Luther und die Liige," by N. Paulus ("Wis- senschaftl. Beilage zur Germania," 1904, n. 18). After his apostasy Luther, also in theory, stood for the permissibility of a lie of necessity, at least from 1524 on, as Paulus verifies by evidences from Luther's writings. We are also well aware that, as early as 1520, he holds "everything permissible against the cunning and wickedness of popedom, for the salvation of souls," and "for the weal of his church, even a good stout lie." See below, section II, chap. II, page 465.

XXVI LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM

Catholic ideal of life. Collectively and individually they have no idea of the essential point from which one must judge the old doctrine and maxims on entrance into an order, taking vows, and on the so-called "second baptism" — the point, namely, of a complete oblation of self to God. How could it be otherwise when this was the case with the "Reformer" himself? Had he had such an idea and had he actually realized such com- plete oblation of himself to God, there loould have been no Luther, in the modern sense, and no Lutherdom.

One has still to hear that the cowl has made the monk, "else why the variety of religious habits?" — just as if a military costume makes a soldier, because it is found in so many chang- ing styles. The worst achievement in this respect comes from one of the most sensible of my opponents, W. Kohler (loc. cit., p. 208.) On my observing that the principal thing about re- ligious profession is the complete interior self-oblation, he an- SAvers: "Really only this? Why any need at all, then, of a religious habit? Why is it the greatest wrong voluntarily to abandon it? Is not the case rather this: Thanks to the ex- piatory virtue of monasticism, it (profession) acquires a kind of sacramental character and that, as in all the Catholic sacra- m.ents, attaches to the institution as such, independently of the personal oblation!" And is therefore an opus operatum! This nonsense and this invective against the Catholic Church the university professor very naively bases on the fact that lay people have been buried in the monastic habit.^* We shall

18 This one instance characterizes the whole man. No longer do we marvel at his expatiating on the "inexorability of the monastic vows," and the "coercion of the vows," at his taking the "practice" of some few indi- viduals as the effect of a theory (as was the case in Lutherdom; at his try- ing to make us believe, with his citation (p. 200) from the Kirchen-Postille of 1.521, that Luther later still, as a rule, distinguished between perfection and the state of perfection, apart from the fact, that he (Kohler) wholly misses he meaning of the expression "to strive after perfection". But enough for here. These articles of Kohler's evidence the same superficiality as that with which at times he worked in in his otherwise appreciable book, "Luther und die Kirchengeschichte, I." Thus (p. 267) he seeks in vain in Tauler's ser- mons a passage quoted by Luther as Tauler's, and on the other hand, neglects to look up the booklet of 118 pages, Theologia Ductsch, edited by Luther as coming from Tauler. Here the passage occurs word for word, twice, in the text (Ed. I'feifCer, 188.5, p. 30). With the same superficiality he speaks (247) on hell and purgatory, and (p. 227) on Luther's expression "Thomist" as a "compiler," etc.

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also see in part second of this volume how Kohler, to save Luther, tones down and alters his utterances.

But the treatise on the vows makes the best introduction to my work. The reason of this is discussed in the opening chapters of the second section of this volume, where I have also more clearly shown the connection than it appears in the first edition. This connection throughout, up into the second vol- ume, is based on Luther's charges of justification by works, and service by works ; for, at bottom, it is from this calumny, or, if you will, from this false conception, that everything with Luther takes its beginning.

In my work, therefore, there is no intent of a Vita or life of Luther. I am no Luther biographer. In the face of renewed imputations to the contrary, I should like again and finally to have this strongly emphasized. Neither would it as yet be possible to write such a life. Up to the present, the history of Luther's life before his apostasy is largely built up on his later records. These must first be critically tested, and how much of them is useless dross there is, as yet, absolutely no knowing. In my first edition, I brought out repeated reminders that Luther's life in his Order, as he later depicts it, and his avowals concerning his vow, his penitential works, his starting-point, etc., belong, for the most part, to the domain of fable. The proof is not simple and demands a testing of Luther's state- ments and their coherence with his earlier days. It requires more extended research. In this, I think, is the strength of my work to be recognized.

Even more do the erroneous assertions and awry judgments of Protestant theologians and Luther-researchers demand dif- fuse discussions, by which the thread of our account will be broken. Possibly these may seem annoying and superfluous to the uninitiated, but there is no other course open in a scientific work. Along these lines of discussion there is little, pitifully little, offered, for instance, in the two histories of dogma by Harnack and Seeberg ; yet they are not thereby deterred from sitting in judgment on it all with the air of experts.

Nothing lay farther from me than the presumptuous in- tention of treating all that in any way had to do with the rise of Protestantism, or even of adducing all the Catholic witnesses

XXVIII LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM

of earlier date, all the pertinent evidences out of Luther'a works. How many volumes I should have to write! It has been said I am only a scholastic, not a historian. To this I assert that, in the discussions in the first volume with respect to Luther, I naturally had to come forward for the most part as a theologian, and the historian had accordingly to stand back. My proof of Luther's being in contradiction Avith earlier Church doctrine simply staggered the Protestant theologians, suddenly discovering to them, as it did, a terra incognita}'' Now they come and say that Denifle treats only one tendency (or current of events), that there were other tendencies as well. There were others, to be sure. So far as the contents of this first part are to be considered, those tendencies were the prac- tice of evil or simple, ignorant religious. Aside from that, how- ever, the later Luther, in his presentation of Church doctrine, is in contradiction, not only Avith it but Avith his earlier appre- hension of it, and it surely had not changed Avithin some few years. But to this point, as Avell, Luther-researchers had hitherto hardly given a thought.

It has also been said that, in my work, Luther has not been caught in historical setting. I dispute that absolutely. I have apprehended Luther, as he must be apprehended in this volume, in the setting of contemporary and earlier theology, upon the ground of the institutes of his Order. The investi- gation of other and further problems belongs to the following volume, AA'here the rise of Ltithcrdom is treated, but not to the theme of the first volume. Just as little, for the same reason, need there here be mention of Luther's talents and a number of good natural traits, Avhich I also understand very well and knoAV hoAV to value. But if one like the Protestant-Society member. Professor Hausrath, goes so far, in his militant, most inept introduction to his Luther biography, p. XIV, as to de-

1' This is especially apparet in the counterwritings of Harnack, Seeberg and Kohler, and more recently in Baiimann's "Denifles Luther und Luthertum vom allgemein wissenschaftlichen Standpunkt aus" (Langensalza, 1904). As in the first edition, so in the new I shall close the first volume with some side- lights on Harnack's Thomistic knowledge and shall extend the lighting up process to achievements along the same line by Baumann, Seeberg, and others. Several discussions, whose absence in this part the reader will notice, are re- served for the close of the volume.

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mand that, in a volume chiefly dealing with the psychological development of Luther's inner life, I take up the persecution of heretics by the Inquisition — goes so far as to make it a charge against me that I have left untouched the endeavors of my con- freres "to commit people to prison, to drown them, to burn them, to tear their tongues out, to brand them, to leave them kneeling in the glowing ashes of their burnt-up Bibles," why, he wholly forfeits every claim to be taken either scientifically or seriously. To stimulate Catholics and Protestants to a further pursuit of the course I have blazed and, with renewed zeal and unclouded vision, to bestow attention upon the questions already touched upon, is of itself an undertaking worthy of a reward. Here there would still be so much to do.

As to the difference between this edition and the first, in essentials they have both remained the same. But instead of the critical notes on the Weimar edition, about which I have already spoken, there is a chapter on Luther's views in respect to the religious state during his own religious life. The brief notices in the first edition on Luther's earlier penitential works have likewise grown into an extended chapter. Besides, in this edition, I have brought matters that belonged together into greater unity ; I have added to the number of citations and proofs, struck out the superfluous, amplified some parts, and improved others, not to the harm of the whole. On the con- trary, indeed, Luther in the new edition appears even more condemnable than he did in the corresponding parts of the old. In conclusion, I thank all my friends — and they are not few — who have encouraged and supported me by their prayers, words, and contributions of materials. I can assure them that I will stick to my part as long as God will give me health and strength.

Eome, 30 AprU, 1904. P. Heinrich Denifle, O. P.

LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM XXXI

FOREWORD TO THE FIRST EDITION

(Translated by Rev. Albert Reinhabt, O. P.)

The genesis of this work, of which the first volume is hereby published, has been given In the introduction, and needs, therefore, no further con- sideration.

My preparation for the work fell into a time in which, on the part of Protestant theologians and pastors, a bitter warfare against the Catholic Church had been inaugurated. I almost believed myself to have been rele- gated to that period of time in which Luther stigimatizes the Pope as the worst of scoundrels, worse than Attila, Antiochus, or any other tyrant, worse even than Judas Iscariot — a time in which this same Luther brought every charge of crime and villainy against any and all members of the Papal Curia, irrespective of persons. During the last few years the condition of affairs has been such that it must appear to every loyal son of Mother Church that he is living in the time of the Protestant pamphleteers of the sixteenth century, who served alone the purpose of railing against the Church and her institutions, of casting ridicule upon her and seducing their readers away from Rome. At the present time this same purpose is being served by the Evangelical Union, by an association of evangelizers, by strolling preachers with a full purse, by the press and multiplied leaflets — by these factors conjointly has the "Los-von-Rom" (Away from Rome) movement been called into being. The Protestant theologians are In the main the spiritual instigators of this strife, while many Protestant professors of other branches of science, and many Protestant laymen, be it said to their credit, are maintaining an attitude of unmistakable aloofness.

I say that in the main the Protestant theologians are the spiritual In- stigators, for they began the fight, while not infrequently Catholics were drawn into the fray, and were made the luckless scapegoats. Nevertheless, the aforesaid Protestants have the audacity to lay the blame of the whole affair at the feet of the Catholics, and to charge them with having disturbed religious peace. It is always the same old story. Even Luther, when he was blamed by those dreamers, Carlstad, Zwlngle and Oekolampadlus, for the disagreement In the Lutheran camp touching the doctrine of Communion, lamented : "It is with us as with the lamb which went for drink with a wolf. The wolf stood at the stream quite above the lamb. The wolf com- plained to the lamb that he was beclouding the water. The lamb replied: 'How Is this possible, since you are above me and are drinking from the stream before it flows to me? It is you who are disturbing the water.' In short, the lamb had to submit to the unjust complaint of the wolf. Even

XXXII LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM

so is it with my dreamers. They have started the conflagration — In fact they boast of having done so as a benefit to mankind, and now they wish to shunt the blame for disagreement upon our shoulders. Who asked Carlstad to begin? Who bade Zwingle and Oekolampadius write? Did they not do so of their own volition? We would gladly have preserved peace, but they will not admit this. And now the fault is ours ! That is the way."

Catholics may make this same reply to the Protestant Instigators, and with more justification than that which warranted Luther to complain of his fanatics and dreamers. These instigators wish to pose as the innocent ones, the mild, unoffending ones, when as a matter of fact it was they who troubled the stream, and provoked the quarrel by frequently flinging the gauntlet at the feet especially of Catholic theologians. They, who do not even stand on the ground of positive Christianity, do most insolently repre- sent Catholic teaching of dogmatic and moral character, especially that of justification, of the Sacrament of Penance and of the morality of the Catholic Church, as being essentially antichristian, whereas on the other hand they applaud Luther as the great Reformer, who being himself of Christlike character reestablished Christianity as a religion, wrested Germany from Catholic dominion, and thereby effected an emancipation of enormous and measureless significance.

The manifestation of this temper, so hostile and unpleasing, induced me to widen the scope and purpose of my original plan, and to subject not only Luther but occasionally also the most influential Protestant theologians to a searching criticism. I have never been able to go about on tiptoe ; I have never been taught this method of locomotion, and I shall not learn It now, for I am too old to learn any new tricks. Besides, it serves no purpose, but is really productive of harm. There need be no misconception on this point. Then, too, since the days of my childhood it has been impressed upon me that candor and sincerity must be the guiding principles of my dealings with my fellow man. In the past thirty years I have in divers fields disputed many a palm, and I believe I may say that my opponents will agree in this, that they always know where I stand and that they get invariably the expression of my unqualified sincerity without the slightest dissimulation or pretense. I take this to be worth something. If I recognize a thing as a lie, I call it a lie ; if I discover rascality, deceit or dishonesty anywhere, I call them precisely by those names. If I am confronted by ignor- ance, I simply do not call it anything else. And so in every point.

I fall to see why Luther should be accorded a different method of treat- ment. If any one tells me that this is reviling Luther, I will make the reply that in this entire work I have written nothing about Luther which is not undeniably authenticated, or which does not rest upon his own utter- ances, or conduct, and flow therefrom with an Iron and inevitable logic. If thereby he appears In a most unfavorable light, the fault is not mine but Luther's. He has reviled and disgraced himself. And if the effort should be made — as Indeed it has been — to prove that Luther was the founder of a new religion, he Is thereby subjected to an insult than which there could be none greater. The Christian religion was established fifteen hundred

LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM XXXIII

years before Luther. Jesus Christ, the Founder of this religion, promised to support it for all time — not for fifteen hundred years only. He builded it upon Peter, and made the promise that the gates of hell should not pre- vail against it, and He bequeathed to it His own teaching as a rich legacy. Now, if Luther be the founder of a religion, certainly it is not the Christian religion he founded. Now, tell me, who is it that is offering to insult Luther? Why, to be sure, the Protestants themselves, at least the liberal Protestant theologians. Positively they are permitted to impugn the early Christian dogmas, to repudiate the fundamental principles of Christianity, and to declare that the belief in the Divinity of Christ and the Trinity has become obsolete and brushed aside like so many nursery tales or childish fables. And all this is actually done by them in the pulpit and in their published writings.

But the unforgivable sin is to dare to touch Luther's personality. The Protestants, however, place Luther above Christ, nay even above God ; the salvation of the world is attributed to Luther and not to Christ, and the one organization in the world of real worth is said to be Protestantism, Luther's work, and not Christianity, the work of Christ.

Who is it that insults Luther in this fashion? Precisely the most cele- brated Protestant theologians — or are they so hopelessly obtuse that they cannot see that all the elements of an insult are found in their extravagant claims for Luther, especially since he himself protested against it all, and called it blasphemous, and a species of idolatry? But if they insist that Luther's emancipation of man from all ecclesiastical authority necessarily brought all these things in its train, I will concede the point ; but then, manifestly, Luther, who rarely foresaw the consequences of his acts, has in this case stultified himself egregiously — but the fault is his and not mine.

And again, if these same theologians make the excuse that they regard Luther as the founder of a religion only in so far as he eliminated from the Church the scandals and abuses, i will answer : Vtinam. But unfortu- nately the only thing he accomplished — as I shall show exhaustively in the second volume — was to fill the measure of degeneracy, and to complete the infamy of moral degeneracy and decay. Moreover, even though the motive of Luther had been purely to eliminate from the Church her scandals and abuses, it would have been unwarranted in him to pour out the child along with the bath ; for even Gerson, writing one hundred years before Luther to the heretics of his time, says : "They remind me of a foolish physician, who in his efforts to cure his patient of disease, robs him of life." This same Gerson was in 1521 declared by Melanchthon to be "a great man in all things."

And so it happened that in these efforts to exterminate existing evils other errors sprang into being. We shall hear Luther repeatedly deliver himself of this opinion, that a thing should not be destroyed because it is not free from abuses. Otherwise it would become necessary to kill all the women and throw out all the wine. Therefore Werstemius, a contemporary of Luther, wrote in 1528: "The unfortunate ones fail to see that if the Pope should commit an act that is wrong, this does not impugn the sacraments, the

XXXIV LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM

faith or established usage." He also says : '-The same holds of the unworthy- lives of certain cardinals, bishops, canonists, vicars and monks. If these be guilty of irregularities, it does not justify any Protestant, nor even Luther himself, to utter a syllable of protest. INIuch less to abuse, therefore, the whole Church."

By destroying the unity of the Church, they give the lie in the throat to Christ, as well as to St. Paul, and become themselves the originators of con- fusion, error, tumult and the desecration of the saints. "Error and sus- picion are rampant everywhere."

Luther himself was at one time of this opinion, for as far as we can trace him back, as I have repeatedly shown in the course of this work, he manifests a spirit of hostility to the abuses in the Church, and to the self- righteousness, singularity and superstition in religious Orders, and as well to the despicable rivalry existing between some of these Orders. But until 1519 it did not occur to him that he should destroy the unity of the Church, as I shall show in the second volume of this work. If Luther had set his face only against the abuses which were prevalent in the Church, the result would not have been an open rupture, any more than his attack on the real or imaginary abuses of indulgences cau.sed him to separate himself from communion with the Church ; for in this encounter his opponents were the same as in subsequent ones. But that which caused his separation was his antiscriptural doctrine of justification, and his stubborn insistence that it was altogether impossible for any one to resist the lusts of the flesh. This unresistance runs all through his doctrine, and is practically the funda- mental principle of it all. To a man of Luther's character and temperament his apostasy from the one true Church was inevitable ; it came, and Luther separated from the one true Church — the Christian Church. He cast aside all authority, and as a logical consequence there came about that state of affairs which in 1519 he deplored as a necessary result, "as many churches as there were heads." He and his were at an end with the one Church, and so are they to-day. There can be no thought of a Christian Church with them, or for that matter of any Church, much less of a sister Church to the Catholic, which is the one and only Christian Church. Now, then, who has defamed Luther? Has he not done so himself? I am merely reporting his conduct and his doctrine.

Possibly I may be charged with having disturbed the religious peace. Who has disturbed the peace? Is it not the Protestant theologians and pastors, especially the liberal element, who, in fact, are no longer standing on Christian ground, but who are continually challenging the Catholics to a conflict. They are continually flinging pitch at the Catholic Church; they charge her with immorality and degeneracy, and continually parade and emphasize Luther's speeches against the Church. They speak with ready tongue, and boldly distort Catholic doctrine in their pulpits, In pamphlets and tracts, in catechetical instruction and in their Sunday-schools. Now, if there be one who, as a Catholic scholar and in all candor and sincerity, critically proves their statements and then rejects them ; if he, having carefully ex- amined all the old and new sources, makes a psychological study and a true

LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM XXXV

and accurate presentation of this same Luther, whom it has been the fashion to paint in glowing colors, is this, I ask you, a disturbance of the peace? Does the religious peace become disturbed only when a Catholic scholar, in defence of Mother Church, attacks Protestantism and the founder thereof? Does the religious peace suffer no disturbance when the Catholic Church is attacked and openly insulted, trodden under foot, and blows upon blows fairly rained down upon her?

Professor W. Herrmann, of Marburg, fairly alive with prejudice, calls the morality of the Catholic Church "a degenerated Christianity," and states that she sets a premium on being conscienceless, that she leads millions of people into moral ruin, that it will be impossible for her to lift herself out of the marsh and find her way back to Christ. Harnack pushes his cynicism to the extent that, without any attempt at proof, he accuses the Jesuits of having converted all the mortal sins into venial ; that they are continually teaching persons how to wallow in the mire of filth, and how in the con- fessional to wipe out sin by sin ; he sees in their comprehensive and ex- haustive manuals of ethics only monsters of iniquity, and instructors in vile practices the mere description of which must call forth cries of disgust, etc. And, of course, all this is no disturbance of religious peace ! But when I turn aside all these and other unfounded reproaches, and upon the authority of undeniable and authentic sources fix them upon Luther and his work, when I discover the ignorance of Protestant theologians and their sinister motives, I am immediately accused of being a disturber of the peace. Now, then, I ask, who began the disturbance? With Luther, I reply — not we!

It is an ill omen for Protestantism that to-day the cause of Luther and his work is espoused precisely by those who are no longer standing on Chris- tian ground, and who perhaps were never more than half-hearted Christians. On the other hand, it is a testimony of the truth of a Church that she Is at- tacked everywhere, and this at the present time is the experience of the Catholic Church. St. Augustine says : "If the heretics disagree among themselves, they invariably agree in their opposition to unity. Heretics, Jews, Pagans, and Neo-pagans are all united against unity." How fully this statement finds verification in our own time ! Everywhere a stand is being taken against the Church, which like Jesus Christ, her Divine Founder, has become a sign of contradiction. And what will they accomplish by their being leagued against unity? They wish to set it aside, to destroy it abso- lutely, and in this attempt they betray the fact that they are enemies of Christ. According to St. Augustine : "Christ became Incarnate to draw all things to Himself. But you come to destroy." Tou are, therefore, opposed to Christ — you are Antichrist. There is a constant repetition of that which became manifest four hundred years ago, when Luther and his followers de- serted the one Church : a protest against unity, a protest against religious and ecclesiastical unity, a protest against that unity of which religious peace was born. And as if to prove to all the world that this Lutheranism which was protesting so against unity had really separated itself from the one Church, it became a party (one can hardly call it a Church) in which countless sects mutually hostile to each other sprang into being. But these

XXXVI LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM

sects in their united opposition to the Catholic Church witnessed to the truth of the words of St. Augustine quoted above. Protestantism, whether considered as a party or a Cliurch, is congenitally a disturber of the peace. The Catholic Church is the same since as before Protestantism, not as a party, but as unity itself. Christ did not found her as a party, but as unity, as the one true Church destined to bring all nations to unity in the one faith, the one doctrine, the one divine service, the one religion of Christ, under the one authority of Christ and His Vicar on earth, in order that all nations might enjoy that peace on earth which is centered in unity, and might in the end come to the one everlasting happiness in heaven.

Whoever separates from this unity, namely, the Catholic Church, or resists being received into her, stands as party against her, not as party against party, nor as unity against unity, but as a party against heaven- sent and divinely ordained unity. It is not, therefore, a matter of Catholicism against Protestantism, or of one party against anotlier, or of two different conceptions of one and the same thing, as in the fable of "The Three Rings," but it is simply a matter of the Catholic Church, of Catholic unity, against Protestantism.

Just as in the beginning not the Church, not unity, but Luther and his followers — Protestantism considered as a party — not only disturbed but abso- lutely destroyed in Germany all religious peace, so to-day a great portion of the Protestant theologians and preachers are working the same havoc, one might say, professionally. It is done by traveling vicars (who have others at their back) who carry this politico-religious strife into the adjoining states. Is it possible that they wish to proclaim to all the world the fact that they are the harbingers of Protestantism, which was born into the world as a disturber of peace?

On the contrary, the Catholic Church, the concrete expression of unity, carries within herself essentially the element of conservativeness. She teaches her members, in their intercourse and dealings with those of other creeds, to exercise tolerance and Christian charity — not to judge, despise or condemn any person. She impresses upon them the fact that obedience to civil authority is a most holy and sacred obligation, and in the discharge of this obligation they must not stray a single hair from unity, nor neglect to render to God all that is God's.

To be tolerant does not mean to be a lukewarm Catholic, such a Catholic as refrains from making an open confession of his faith, lest by so doing he offend or irritate the Protestants, and therefore hesitates to say openly: "I am a Catholic, I am a child of the Catholic Church, the Church of Christ." To be tolerant does not mean to repress and suppress one's religious confession, or to recognize all creeds as equal merely because the Government may say they are so. Least of all, to be tolerant does not mean »o accept in silence the defamation and misrepresentation of Catholic doctrine. Catholics do not become intolerant, disturbers of the peace, who insist upon and defend the unity of their Church. As a matter of fact, they are merely defending them- selves, and indeed they are under the most sacred obligation to defend their Church against the frightful misrepresentations of Protestants; should they

LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM XXXVII

fail in this tliey would be nothing short of cowards and traitors to their Holy Mother Church. Even though Protestants did not make the open at- tacks wliich have been the vogue in recent years, they would nevertlieless be consistently and systematically disturbers of the religious peace. From generation to generation they sow the seeds of discord by the text-books and the instructions given in their schools. Thus the child in the very dawn of its education becomes inoculated with prejudice against the Catholic Church. The child, naturally credulous, does not hear the true teaching and history of the Catholic Church, but instead is filled with detestable fictions and villainous misrepresentations, and this fact will be borne out by any one who has conversed with Protestants, or taken the trouble to look into their text-books.

The Catholic Church would be perfectly justified if she made a protest and demanded that Catholic doctrine, if it be at all presented in Protestant schools, be truthfully presented and not misrepresented ; that it be given to the children without bias or prejudice, so that their minds may be left open and free to the truth.

But if such a protest were ever made, how the Catholics would be de- nounced as intolerant fanatics and disturbers of the peace ! The whole world would be of one mind in this, that such a demand were impossible and absurd.

Why? Is it unreasonable to demand that the truth be taught in the schools? Possibly, in the case in point. For if Catholic history and Catholic doctrine were truthfully presented, it would be quite as much a menace to Lutheranism as the revelation of the true character and doctrine of Luther himself. To be sure, both in the high and in the low places all hands are busy trying to avert this catastrophe, the collapse of Lutheranism. Nevertheless they are sowing the wind, and they must inevitably reap the whirlwind.

I wish to say further to the Protestant theologians that I am not the chosen spokesman of any body of men. I am writing from my own convic- tions, and from a motive absolutely pure. I am not writing for applause or for an encomium in any historical year book. I have written solely for the sake of truth, and if but one of the many Protestant theologians will have become more considerate and prudent by reading this work, I shall not have failed of my purpose. For any human weakness which in making citations or comments may have crept into my work, I tender my humblest apologies. God is my witness that I intended to speak the truth and the truth only, and to make an accurate and unimpeachable presentation of the subject- matter. Since the true Luther cannot be presented without the scurrility in his speeches and writings which was a characteristic part of him, I had to make this presentation, unpleasant though it was, part of the undertaking. As a result, the book now being given to the public is not intended for the young. The fact is, indeed, a sad commentary upon Luther as he really was.

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May God in His infinite mercy deign to bless this my work, and may He open the eyes of at least those Protestants who are of honest mind and sincere purpose. Blay he cause them to see Luther and Lutheranism as they really were, and thus lead them back to unity, to the Catholic Church, so that in the words of Christ there may be but one shepherd and one fold.

FR. HEINRICH DENIFLE, O. P. Vienna, Feast of the Holy Rosary, Oct. 4, 1904.

LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM XXXIX

EXPLANATION OF SOME ABBREVIATOINS.

RdMERBRIEF or COMMENTARY ON the Epistle to the ROMANS means the "Commentarius D. M. Lutheri in epistolam Pauli ad Romanes ex autographo descriptus," in the Codex Palat, lat. 1 1826 of the Vatican Library. This Important commentary dates from 1515-1516 and will be pub- lished, as has been repeatedly announced, In the Weimar edition by Prof. Ficker of Strasburg, who first called attention to it.

The CODEX PALAT. LAT. 1825 contains Luther's commentary on Hebrews, 1517, also on the first epistle of John, etc., as is always indicated In the text below.

WEIM. means the Weimar edition, a complete critical edition of Luther's works (1883-1903). With some interruptions, the publication reaches 1529. Up to the present there have appeared volumes 1-9; 11-20; 23-30; 32-34; 36-37 :

ERL. means the Erlangen edition of the German works, which includes 67 volumes. I cite volumes 1-15 in this second edition. If, exceptionally, other further volumes are cited, I always state the fact.

This edition also includes, in part, the 28 small volumes of Opera exegetica latina, the Commentarius in ep. ad Galatas, ed. Irmischer (3 vols.), and 7 small volumes of Opera varii argumenti.

DE WETTE="Dr. Martin Luther's Briefe, Sendschrelben, und Bedenken mit Supplement von Leideman," 6 vols. (1825-1856), i.e. Luther's letters, cir- culars, and considerations, etc.

ENDERS^"Dr. Martin Luther's Briefwechsel (i.e. correspondence) In der Erlanger-Frankfort-Calwe^ Ausgabe" (1884-1903), of which 10 volumes have appeared, reaching July 17, 1536. For later letters De Wette must be used. De Wette is also the only one to give the German letters.

Other titles are given as they are used in the course of the work.

LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM XU

Contents p^oe

Foreword to the Second Edition V

Foreword to the First Edition XXXI

Explanation of Some Abbreviations XXIX

Contents XLI

Introduction L

FIRST BOOK

FUNDAaiBNTALS Ceiticai Examination of Peotestant Luthee-Reseabchers and

Theologians 29

SECTION FIRST

Lttthee's Teeatise and Docteine on the Monastic Vows, by Way

OF Inteoduction 31

CHAPTER I. — Beief Review of Luthee's Uttebances in Respect TO the Religious State Cubing His Own Life as a Re- ligious 32

Luther's then views, which are greatly at variance with those formed later. Never opposed to the essential idea of the religious state. Expresses himself on the reception of a novice from another order, a good intention being presupposed. Sends a fel- low religious, (G. Zwilling), studying at Wittenberg, to Erfurt, there to learn to linow convent life better. Luther himself at Wittenberg almost wholly absorbed in official duties and studies, so that he rarely has time to recite his canonical hours (office) and to celebrate mass. Yet he did not then contemn the religious life, and looked upon the vows as self-evidently licit, provided they were taken in the right manner (out of love for God and with a free will). Not that a man enter an order out of despair, thinljing that only there is salvation to be attained. The con- tempt widely shown for the religious state should never be per- mitted to deter one from entering; never was there a better time to become a member of an order. On the other hand Luther warmly inveighs against the idiosyncrasies and self will of some religious as contrary to obedience, but declares a violation of the vow of chastity to be a very great sacrilege. He calls the evangelical counsels certain means conducing to easier fulfil- ment of the commandments. For these reasons, an admirer, (Konrad Pellican), as late as 1520, hails him as the most quali- fied advocate of the religious life. His hatred of the Church, whose most powerful auxiliaries the religious were, first be- trayed him into his warfare against the orders and vows.

CHAPTER II. — St. Bernaed's Alleged Repudiation of the Vows

AND of the Monastic Life 43

To prove that the monastic vows contradict the teaching of Christ, he distorts two sayings of St, Bernard. He asserts that

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St. Bernard, once lying at the point of death, confessed only this : "I have lost my time, for I have lived an evil life." By these words he reprobated his whole monastic life and hung his frock on a peg. The passage identified ; it simply proves to be the humble confession of a contrite soul face to face with God. Stich a confession genuinely Catholic ; authorities quoted. Further argument. After those utterances St. Bernard still lauded the religious state and founded monasteries. CHAPTER III. — SuPERioEs Alleged to be Able to Dispense fkom Everything. Luthee's Assertion that he vowed the Whole

Rule 53

But St. Bernard teaches just the opposite. The other asser- tion that they vow the whole rule rests simply on distortion and perversion ; they really vow to live "according to the rule." Proof of this in the practice of the several orders. As the rule holds, so do the statutes of the different orders. By reason of his assertion Luther appears in a very dubious light. CHAPTER IV. — Object of the Year of Probation According to

Luther 62

This alleged to be to try one's self if one can live chastely. A declaration of Pope Innocent III to the contrary. So also the practice of the orders. CHAPTER V. — The Vows Alleged to Lead Away from Christ ;

THE Orders to Give a Leader Other than Christ 68

This assertion is contradicted by Luther's own earlier utter- ances. Also by the practice of his order. Therefore Luther's later assertion is wholly without foundation. On that account Staupitz, his superior, otherwise so favorably inclined, justly re- bukes him. Elsewhere Luther himself emphatically maintains that a whole cause must not be rejected on account of individual abuses. Just as he failed to hit the mark in censuring his own Order, so also did he miss it in the case of the others. Espe- cially the Franciscan. CHAPTER VI. — Luther's Sophisms and Monstrosities of Opinion in Respect to the Monastic Vows, Especially the Vow of

Chastity. His Trickery and Incitation to Mendacity 78

A. He deceives his readers on the end of the religious state

and of the voivs 78

As certain as it is, according to him, that religious seek their salvation by their works and vows, but not by faith. So false is it in fact, even though Luther researchers try to come forward in behalf of their hero. These defenders did not at all observe his false play. Although Luther, according to his own statement, was uncertain with what disposition he took his vows, he nevertheless affects to know hovif the many commonly take them, namely, so that the vows shall take the

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place of justifying faith, which, however, does not at all enter into consideration. He asserts that in every vow and in every order, faith and charity are equally excluded. This assertion critically examined.

B. Luther's Contradictions and Sophisms in Respect to the Counsels 86

The counsels concern chastity. More light on the sub- ject. Luther fails to take heed that, vowing something in obedience to a counsel, one is afterwards bound to fulfil his sacred promise. Luther must have known that, and did not know it after entering his Order, especially after his profession. Pertinent observations from Barth. von Usingen and from Saints Augustine and Bernard.

C. Luther a Leader into Hypocrisy and Lying 95

His advice on celibacy to candidates about to be ordained sub-deacons. His urgency in behalf of sacerdotal marriage is too mucli for even the Bohemian Brethren. His attempts to catch regulars and secular priests alike by his teaching.

D. The Votv of Chastity and Conjugal Chastity as Against "ImpossiMlity" 99

According to Luther a vow no longer binds just as soon as its fulfilment is made Impossible. He draws no distinction whatever between impossibility arising from external force and impo.ssibility culpably occasioned within one's self. He seeks to beguile monks and nuns into the latter state. He thereby digs the grave not only of the vow of chastity but of conjugal chastity as well. The reason of this was simply his empiric principle: "concupiscence is wholly irresistible."

E. The Open Door to Impossibility 106

Heedlessness and neglect of communion with God, which were particularly Luther's case. Luther and by far the greater part of his younger adherents given to immoderate drink.

F. Luther Scoffs at Prayer in Violent Temptatirin 113

According to him, whoso would pray to God to escape from the lust of the flesh is a blockhead. Luther places the satisfy- ing of fleshly lust on a like level with the heroism of the apostles and martyrs. He and his fellow apostates, in respect to warfare against the flesh, are like cowardly soldiers. St. Augustine on the difference, in respect to marriage, between being free or bound by a vow to the contrary. Luther's per- version of the Apostolic maxim : "It is better to marry than to burn," "melius est nubere quam uri." He parries the "pa- pistical" admonition to beg the help of God's grace against temptation, with the dilemina : "What if God did not wish

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PAOB

to be prayed to? Or, if one prays to Him, what if He does not wisli to liear?" <?. The Duping of Nuns ly Luther 121

Taking tliem away from tlieir convents was to be con- sidered, but they were first to be duped by writings. It was to be assumed, of course, that nuns were only unwillingly chaste and made shift to do without a man. Women were to be used either for marriage or for prostitution. Daily temp- tations are a sure sign that God has not given and does not wish to give the noble gift of chastity. Prayer, fasting, and self-chasti.sement, in which the "Papists" discern sanctity are a sanctity "all of which at once even a dog or a sow can practice daily." I£. Luther's Relation to Polygamy. "Conscience Advice," Dis- pensation, and Lying. "Conjugal Concuiine" 127

By his teaching on the impossibility of continency either in celibacy or in marriage, he paves the way to the sanction of a bigamic marriage, at least in the case of the Landgrave Philip von Hessen. In union with Melanchton and Bucer, Luther acts the spiritual adviser, with counsel pertinent to the matter in hand. On account of the sensation caused by the bigamic marriage, the Landgrave is recommended to deny it, but secretly he may keep the trull — "Metze" — as a "conjugal concubine." In principle, Luther had already enunciated these tenets after his interior apostasy from the Church. They only prove his bent and readiness with regard to lying, cun- ning, and deception.

/. Luther's Buffoonery 139

Rebuked by Melanchton. Is evidenced especially in his distortions and misinterpretation of names and designations.

CHAPTER VII. — Fundamentals of the Catholic Doctrine of

Oheistian Peefection and the Ideal of Life 146

Contrary to Catholic teaching, Luther, after his apostasy, makes no distinction, as a rule, between the state of perfection and perfection itself, or he explains them falsely. Views of the doctors of the Church especially up to Thomas Aquinas. St. John Chrysostom, the Synod of Aix-la-Chapelle, Peter Damian, Cassian, the rule of St. Augustine, of St. Benedict, of St. Ber- nard, Bruno von Asti, Richard of St. Victor, Ruppert von Deutz on perfection in general and life's ideal in particular — Saints Elizabeth and Hedwig.

CHAPTER VIII. — Doctrine or St. Thomas Aquinas and Others

DOWN TO LuTHEB ON THE IDEAL OF LlFE AND ON THE COUNSELS 151

A. From Thomas Aquinas to the German Mystics 151

St. Thomas likewise teaches that the ideal of life consists in that which even here on earth unites us with God, and

LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM XT^V

PAGE

that is charity. The commandment of loving God is not con- fined within limits ; it is not as if a certain measure of love satisfies the law and as if a measure greater than is required by the law fulfils the counsels. The counsels are a help to the hetter and more perfect fulfilment of the law. They are therefore only the instruments of perfction, and the religious state is a state of perfection only in the sense that it imposes an obligation of striving after perfection. The same is taught by Albertus Magnus, Bonaventure, David of Augsburg, God- frey de Fontaine, Henry of Ghent, Henry of Friemar.

B. The German Mystics Compared With Luther 165

Tauler, Luther's favorite author, propounds absolutely no other doctrine on the religious state than that of St. Thomas. He reprehends those religious who are such only in outward appearance and admonishes them not to be guided by tills or that one, but above all to heed what their own vocation is. Christian life in the world is just as much based on a voca- tion from God as life in an order. A similar strain of teach- ing is found in Henry Suso and Runsbroek, as well as in the book of the Following of Christ.

C. Succeeding Doctors Down to Luther 175

Gerhard Groote, Henry von Coesfeld, Peter d'Ailli, John Gerson, Matthew Grabow, Denis the Carthusian, St. Antoninus, Peter Du Mas, Guy Juveneaux, Charles Fernand, John Raulin, Mark von Weida, Geiler von Kaysersberg, Gabriel Biel, Bar- tholomew von Usingen, Kaspar Schatzgeyer, John Dietenberger, Jodok Clichtove, St. Ignatius Loyola, all these know only one ideal of life, the one common to all men. The opinion of the last named in particular finds expression in his Spiritual Exer- cises. He knew nothing about "habit and tonsure," being the only means of salvation, therefore did not even prescribe a distinctive garb for his Order. General result. CHAPTER IX. — Luther's Sophisms and Distoetions in Respect

TO Cheistian Pebfection 199

In the most important concern of life, salvation, he often conducts himself like the opponent in the philosophical or theo- logical disputations of the schools — thus in the following propo- sitions :

A. Monastic Yows Have Been Divided Into Essential and Ac- cidental 200

B. The Christian State of Life Is Divided iy Writers Into the Perfect and the Imperfect 203

No approved teacher in the Catholic Church achieved this division. The state of perfection (the religious state) cannot be set in opposition to the lay state as a state of imperfection. The question turns on a difference of degree and not on oppo-

XLVI I.UTHER AND LUTHERDOM

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Sites. Luther's censures based on the idea that what is better known and admitted makes anytlilng set in comparison or con- trast become evil. There is but one sole perfection of the Christian life and all must strive for it. C. In the Catholic Church, They See in Chastity the Highest Perfection. Consequences. The earlier Luther Against the

Later 210

St. Augustine even in his day said : "Better humble mar- riage than proud virginity." Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventure express themselves in similar terms. It is unjustly that Luther charges the corruption of a few to the whole state of life. This procedure he himself condemned in his earlier days. CHAPTER X. — Melanchton and the "Augustana" on the Re- ligious State. Newer Pkotestant Theologians 215

A. Melanchton and the Augustana 215

Melanchton blindly follows the hatred-breathing Luther in his exposition of the vows and the religious state. He even goes farther in his Loci communes, and has also worked his ignor- ance into the famous creed of Protestantism. Critique of the same, especially of Chapter 27.

B. Newer Protestant Theologians 224

Ritschl's idea of monasticism. The Christian ideal of life according to Seeberg. Harnack's views. Critique of the same.

C. Harnack's Errors in Respect to the Ideal of Life in the Different Epochs of the Religious Orders 229

His mistake concerning the Cluniacs and "their" Pope (Gregory VII) — concerning St. Francis of Assisi — concerning the mendicant orders' mysticism begetting a certainty of sal- vation, concerning the Jesuits. CHAPTER XI — Litthek on "Monastic Baptism." Thomas Aquinas

ITS Alleged Inventor 242

According to Luther, entrance into an order was universally made equivalent to baptism. Critique. Effect of the complete oblation of self to God. Of this Luther never speaks. Critique of his appeal to an epistolary utterance of a runaway nun. Of his appeal to a passage in the sermon of a Dominican. Refu- tation of the assertion that Thomas Aquinas made, and was the first to make, entrance into an order equivalent to baptism. CHAPTER XII. — Catholic "Monastic Baptism." According to Lutheran Exposition, an Apostasy from the Baptism of

Chbist 255

Luther saddles a wholly erroneous notion upon "monastic baptism" in order to have ground for the charge that it Is an apostasy from the baptism of Christ. Critique of the charge — of various declarations of Luther on his intention when he took his vows.

LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM XLVII

PAGE CHAPTER XIII. — Luther's Lie, that Maeeiage is Condemned by

THE Pope as Sinful. His Coebupting Peinciples on Maeeiage 261

A. Marriage Alleged to he Forbidden iy the Pope, hut Not Con- demned 262

B. Marriage Alleged to he Condemned hy the Pope as a Sin- ful, Vuchaste State 264

Luther's sophism that a religious by his vow of chastity renounces marriage as uncliastity. Critique of this contra- diction. To recognize something is higher and better does not mean reprobating tlie high and tlie good ; against Ziegler and Seeberg; reference to Augustine, Jerome, Ambrose, Thomas. By reason of the declaration of the Savior and of St. Paul, virginity has ever been held to be higher and more fit for the service of God. Luther's sophism that the Catholic Church holds the married state to be impure and sin, because she for- bids priests to marry.

C. Luther's Lies in Respect to His Earlier Vieics on Marriage. "273

His statement that he had been most surprised at Bona- venture's view that it was no sin if a man sought a woman in marriage — that as a young boy he had imagined one could not think of married life without sin. On the other hand, as monk and professor, before his apostasy, he had developed very beau- tiful and sound principles on marriage. Along with the Cath- olic Church, he had then recognized the threefold good of mar- riage.

D. The Practice and Tradition of the Church Refute the Calum- nies Leveled hy Luther Against Marriage 279

Marriage instituted in paradise. The ritual of a nuptial mass. Pertinent sayings from preachers like Berthold of Kegensburg, Peregrinus, and many others. Passages from prac- tical handbooks and German sermon collections. Utterances of Pope Pius II and Cardinal Nicholas von Eues — of the great monks, Bernard and Basil.

E. It Is Precisely According to Luther's Principles That the Marriage State Is Sinful and Illicit 289

This is evidenced by his utterances on the conjugal obli- gation. The same alleged to be in itself as much sin as harlotry is, only not imputed by God.

F. Luther's Wholly Material, Sensual Conception of Marriage; Kolde's Calumniations of the Catholic Doctrine 295

Luther alleges that of necessity must man cleave to woman and woman to man. Luther strips matrimony of its sacra- mental character and degrades it to an outward, bodily matter. According to Kolde, the Reformers had the lack, "which, of course, was an inheritance from Catholicism," of a full insight into the true moral principle of marriage. That the Reformers,

XLVIII LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM

PAGE

to help the male element out of distress of conscience, as- signed to the female the role of concubine, was only an "echo of the medieval contempt for woman." Refutation of this assumption. G. Contempt for Woman and the Demoralization of Female

youth a Sequel of Luther's Principles 303

It begins with the degradation of the Blessed among women and with the role, foisted upon woman, of being an instrument for the satisfaction of the "irresistible" sexual pas- sion of man. Thus were womanly modesty and morals worthy of honor lost. The Reformers themselves complain of the prevalent moral corruption. H. The Lewd and Adulterous Life, the Contempt of the Marriage State at That Time, Are Consequences of Luther's Course

and teachings 307

It is in vain that he disclaims the responsibility. For the reason that he trod his celibacy, the vow he had once sworn to God, under foot, marriages also came to be regarded as torture chambers, and the marriage vow counted for nothing. Light thrown on some marriages by Lutheran preachers of that time ; exchange of women. Luther's levity. The prevalent drunken- ness of the day as one of the causes of the extensive prostitu- tion and adultery. Luther's doctrine on faith also contributed to adultery. In like manner, his hatred of the Church actuated him to do the opposite of what the Church laws prescribed in regard to marriage and celibacy. As a sequel, not only con- tinency but the virtue of chastity could not but meet with contempt. All fear of God, too, had to cease in the hearts of the married. Luther's rejection of the marriage impedi- ments. I. How Conditions Were Bettered. The Sard Naturally Cath- olic, not Lutheran 325

Interposition of the secalar authority. Unconscious ap- proach of the more serious theologians to Catholic principles and doctrine on marriage. CHAPTER XIV. — Retkospect and Summing up. Luthek's Debased Stand in His Judgment of and Opposition to the Religious

State and its Members 327

Luther's distortion of Catholic teaching on the counsels and vows and his endeavors to bring them into contempt. His treat- ise on the vows and the verification of the saying : "Every apos- tate is a slanderer of his Order."

A. Luther's Wanton Extravagance and Vulgarity in His Judg- ment of Religious and Priests 33O

His explanation of "monk" and "nun." Thenceforth priests were only to be called "Shavelings." He married only to vex

LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM XUX

the (Jiigber) clergy, and he looked forward to vexing them eveft more.

£. (Aitjier'a Course to Mgve Religiqui to Apostatize 334

He fttta|ii§ l»is end by falsifications and contradictions, by cunning and sophisms. As late as 1516, however, the re- ligious state, according to his admission, was able to afford real contentment and peace of soul.

C. Luther's Tactics to Estrange the People From the Religious 340

He represents monks as gluttons, guzzlers, rakes, and loafers. On other occasions, however, he assails their "holir ness-by-works,'' and their excessively strict life, by which, he says, they only bring damnation npon tjien^selves.

D. JjUther's Calumny in Respect to the Monastic Form of All- solution ._ . 351

Alleging that monks were absolved from their sins only on the ground of their works, he adduces a form of absolution which really is not gucb at all, and he suppresses the true form. Accusations against the barefooters. Luther himself retained the Catholic form of absolution.

E. The Big Rogue Condemns the Little One. Luther's Detest- able Devices-^..- 358

He attacks the life of religious on a point in which he and hjs followers (particularly of his own order) had come to the very worst pass themselves. Luther's teaching on the im- possibility of resisting carnal lust was the prime drawing fopce — tp divert attention from it, he directs the gaze of the public towards the wrongdoings of the clergy, secular and regular. Defamations employed by him and his adherents to gain theip end. Pamphlets, lampoons. Caricatures (pope-ass, monk's calf),

F. huther's Roguery and Deadly Hatred of the Monasteries and Religious 374

His contradictory attitudes in at one time attacking their evil life and admitting their right doctrine, but at another time in being willing to shut his eyes to their evil living if they would but teach right doctrine. At one time he begins an agi- tation against the clergy, secular and regular, and again he ad- monishes them to have charity. His fundamental view after his apostasy is that all monasteries and cathedrals should be completely annihilated. Still he assumes that he bears the "Papists" no ill will. His courage rises on account of the behaviour of the bishops. Transition.

SECTION SECOND The Sta^tinq Point in Lxtthee's Development. His New Gospel. 384 Connection with the first section ; in consequence of Luther's teaching on justification and the forgiveness of sin by faith alone,

LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM

PAGE

Luther was obliged to reject not only the entire Christian life in general but also and above all the religious life as based on justification and merit on account of worlds. Justification by works and self-achievements were Luther's hobby. Hov? did he come by his doctrine? Protestant solutions of the question. CHAPTER I. — Pbeliminaby Inquibt into Luthee's Immodekate Self-Chastisements befoee his "Turn About," in obdeb to

Pbopitiate the Steen Judge 387

Luther's later admissions on his own "overdone" asceticism In his religious life and the erroneous object he had had in it.

A. Luther's Utterances on His Monastic Self-Chastisings in the

Light of the Austerity of His Order 388

He claims to have practised his mortifications twenty years, another time he says fifteen. The time could have been at most ten years, but was more likely only five. His alleged endurance of cold and frost, observance and night vigils. "Rigorous" fasting — pertinent mitigations of the constitutions by Staupitz.

B. Views of Catholic Reaches Down to Luther's Time on Self- Chastisements and Discretion 398

None of them aware that mortifications were practised to propitiate the stern judge, but all take the object to be (accord- ing to the purport of the word itself) the mortification (or sub-dual) of the flesh; they require above all things discretion. The wise preceptor, Cassian — Saints Basil, Jerome, Benedict, Peter Chrysologus, Hugo of St. Victor, Bernard. The Car- thusian Order — William of St. Thierry, Thomas Aquinas and his recommendation of discretion, David of Augsburg and Bona- venture. Observance in the Order of Augustinian Hermits. The German mystics and their recommendation of "discretion." Gerson and the little book, the Following of Christ — Gerhard von ZUtphen. Raymund Jordanis (Ignotus) and St. Lawrence Justiniani. St. Ignatius, Raulin, and the admonitions of med- ieval preachers. An echo from the popular poetry of the middle ages. A saying of Hugo of St. Cher. The sound doc- trine of the Ambrosiasts was taken over into the Glosses ; also that of Peter Lombard and of the recognized authority down to Luther's time, Nicholas de Lyra.

C. Luther Before 1530 on Self-Chastisement and Discretion 415

Is in agreement with the authorities In respect to the object of mortifications and discretion. Proof from a sermon preached by him before 1519. An admission by him in March of the following year. His stand for the relative necessity of fasting and mortification; important note. An interesting utterance of his as late as four or five years after his apostasy.

LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM LI

PAGE

He recommends fasting, yet it is not to be practised out of obedience to tlie Church, but as one thinks best for himself.

D. The Later Luther in, Contradiction With the Earlier and

With the Doctrine of the Order and of the Church 420

Luther researchers have made a failure of their test of the later utterances of Luther. Examination of this test ; the first five years. His novice-master required no unreasonable, im- moderate strictness. Luther himself was careful to practise outvpard obedience, even though violently assailed by self-will within. Besides, his patron, Staupitz, released him from vari- ous menial services ; it is not possible that he imposed immod- erate penances on Luther. Luther himself writes, 1509, that he was getting on well. Why is it that he expresses himself to the contrary only after 1530?

E. Solution of the Question 430

According to Luther's statement, 1533, the outer conven- tual practices and mortifications were supposed to have the object of enabling one straightway to find Christ and reach heaven. To become a monkish saint, as he expressed himself a year or so later, he applied himself to them most diligently. Against such a caricature of a monkish saint, a Christian teacher had protested as much as a thousand years earlier. If Luther made himself such a saint, it was only out of knav- ery. Only a second similar comedy is his late and ultimate recognition that Romans 1,17 is not to be understood of God's recognition that Romans 1, 17 is not to be understood of God's retributive justice, but of the passive, by which He justifies us by faith ; connection with the previous assertion. Neverthe- less he had always even in his earlier days expressed himself in this sense. Luther's later utterances belong to the chapter on "lies of convenience," the lawfulness of which he defends. Consequences for Luther biographers. CHAPTER II. — Pbeliminaby Inqxjiby into the Doctbine or the Chuech in heb Pkayebs on a Meeciful God and His Geace

AS against otjb Poweelessness 441

Proof chiefly from the missal, breviary, and Ordinarium of the Order of Hermits — books of which Luther had formerly made use ; they scarcely ever mention the stern judge, but con- tinually refer to God's mercy. Prominence constantly given to our own helplessness. God, Christ, and the Cross, the salvation and hope of the world. The true God says: "I desire not the death of the wicked, etc." The later Luther recoils upon him- self. Glories of 'God's grace. The Church our mother-hen, we her brood — the merit of Jesus Christ the sole ground of our salvation in life and in death. Luther speaks on the verdict.

Introduction

For years it was one of my added tasks, besides my labors on the University of Paris and the destruction of the churches and monasteries of France during the hundred years' -war, to sift out original materials for a study on the decline of the secular and regular clergy in the fifteenth century. In these, as in all my previous researches, there was no thought farther from my mind than that of Luther and Lutherdom. My interest was without bias and centered solely on the study of the two tendencies in evidence from the fourteenth century, at least in France and Germany — one of decline and fall in a great part of the secular and regular clergy, the other of a movement of moral renewal and reawakening in the remaining part. But it was especially the former to which my attention was directed. Accordingly I resumed my researches, but only those which, later inter- rupted, had been devoted some twenty years before to the re- form of the Dominican Order in the fifteenth century.

The farther I pursued the course of the downward trend, the more forcibly was I moved to ask in what its precise char- acter consisted and how it first declared itself. The answer, once the elements common to both tendencies were found, was not hard. Both those movements of downfall and of re- newal are bound up in our nature, in our baser and in our higher part, the antagonism between which St. Paul, in his day, described in his Epistle to the Eomans. For, just as in individuals, so does this struggle rage in the whole of hu- manity.

The characteristic note of the decline was to let one's self go, a shrinking from all effort, and the actual avowal : "I cannot resist." The law was felt to be a burden and a bar-

2 I.UTHER AND LUTHERDOM

rier; above all, the commandment, "non concupisces" — thou shalt not covet — seemed impossible to fulfill, and men acted accordingly. These principles found expression less in theory than in practice. Anyone of this tendency unresistingly gave way to his corrupted nature, particularly in the case of the commandment just cited, spite of his vows, spite of his sworn fidelity to God and his Church. Yet this was not in response to a party cry, not out of defiance of the teaching of Christ and of the Church, nor by reason of a theory, as with the Brethren of the Free Spirit, but out of weakness, in conse- quence of occasions not shunned, out of a lack of practical Christianity, and by force of habit which had come to be second nature. Many a one rallied but often only to relapse. In this tendency, self-subdual, self-command, self-discipline were almost meaningless words. In the fifteenth century, as before it, one finds here and there, now greater now lesser ecclesiastical associations, the greater part of many a diocese, and not rarely their shepherds included, revealing the marks described.'

The supporters of the other tendency corresponding to man's higher part, are those circles of the clergy, secular and regular, who, true to their calling and living in the following of Christ, longed to realize a reform of Christianity and sought by word, writings and example, at times with all their might, to check the decline. And they succeeded here and there, but not in general ; on the contrary, the stream against which they set themselves took its course undisturbed and in many cases but spread the more, so that not once only I asked myself: "Can the evil make further headway? Where is the end to be?" Still I had to admit to myself that the measure of the decline, in the form in which I had it be- fore my eyes, was not yet filled. Matters could even become worse. Only after the rejection of everything, when every dike and restraint has been broken through, and conscience,

1 An exhaustive account Is to be looked for in its proper place in the second volume of this work. In respect to Rhenish dioceses in the first half of the XIV cent. cfr. now Sauerland in Urkunden und Regesten zur Geschichte der Rheinlande aus dem Vat. Archiv. (Bonn. 1902), I, pp. XVI- XIX. See also Landmann, Das Predigtwesen in Westfalen in der letzten Zeit des Mittelalters (1900-), p. 193 sqq.

LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM 3

blunted to the utmost, no longer recognizes evil as such but rather lauds it as good, then do we stand at the close of the development, then is hope of renewal and reform cut off.

As a matter of fact, this, at least in the fifteenth century, was not yet the case. The evil priest and religious was still outwardly in accord with ecclesiastical authority. Of a breach on principle there was no question. If France largely, even as late as the sixteenth century, rose against the Pope, that was less to be freed from the highest ecclesiastical au- thority than to find it. Moreover my research did not trouble about the politics of the different countries. However much an evil priest or religious of that period might neglect to say mass, or celebrated it thoughtlessly and unworthily, he did not discard it. That did not enter his mind, however guilty he may have been of abuse of the sacred function. If he did not recite his office, he was nevertheless generally aware that he was grievously sinning against a grave obligation. Did he keep a concubine or several of them, in behalf of whom and their children he made considerate provision in his will or otherwise, he was often enough cumbered with scruples of conscience. He knew that the vow he made to God was no trick of the devil, rather that overstepping it was a sacrilege.

Of not a few, one reads that they rallied and broke off their illicit relation; but oftener, it must be admitted, the next occasion brought them to their downfall again. "Within me," writes one of these unhappy priests to his brother, who was a monk,^ "a constant conflict rages. I often resolve to mend my course, but when I get home and wife and children come to meet me, my love for them asserts itself more mightily than my love for God, and to overcome myself becomes impossible to me." Betterment nevertheless was never absolutely excluded, for where there is remorse of conscience, there is still hope. If a man in this con- dition went to confession, it did not, of course, do him any good, unless he earnestly resolved to avoid the occasion of his sin and to sever his sinful bond; but he was well aware that he himself was the culpable one, and he threw no stone

2 In Cod. lat. Mon. 3332, fol. 1, in Rlezler, Geschichte Bayerns, III, 844, to be found In the prologue of the printed "Lavacrum Conscientiae."

4 LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM

at confession. He did not regard his condition as one of serv- ing God, but as a life of sin before God and men. He per- formed few or no good works, not on principle, or as if these were useless to salvation, but rather out of weakness, habit, carelessness. The real ground of his conduct was always his corrupt nature, to which he gave the reins. Worse than all this was the evil example, the benefice hunting, and the neg- lect of the care of souls and of instruction.

Nevertheless this condition was not the fullness of wick- edness, although it was far from edifying. It was not a hope- less state. It was not believed to be such at the time; for, why was there a general clamor for reform, even on the part of the fallen clergy, secular and regular, if reform was not held to be possible?' The newly arisen religious congrega- tions as well as members of the old orders and some bishops, from the first decades of the fifteenth century, actually res- cued a number of those who had fallen, and even whole so- cieties, from the downward sweep to ruin, recalling them to peace with God and with their conscience.

But that was not stemming the tide of the movement. "What it lost in one place, as described, it gained in another. Such is the picture we have of it at the end of the fifteenth, and at the beginning of the sixteenth century. The satires of the Italian and German humanists on the degenerate clergy of the time did harm instead of good. They did not contribute the least towards reform. In their lives the most of those writers were themselves even more caught up by the movement towards moral decline. It was different, on the other hand, with a number of the French humanists, like Guy Jouveneaux, Charles Fernand, Jean Raulin. They did not the less regret the decline and write against it, but, not rarely, they chose a new state of life, the religious state, and there effecting their own regeneration, exerted an in- fluence upon their contemporaries in and out of their order.

In the first two decades of the sixteenth century, matters had come to such an evil pass in Germany that, in a book, "Onus Ecclesiae," bearing the name of Berthold Von Chiem-

^Of. Job. Rider, De reformatlone religiosorum liber, Parisiis, Jean Petit, 1512, II, 9, fol. 53.

LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM 5

see, there was a complaint that read: "Our whole inclina- tion runs to vanity; whatever evil comes to a man's mind, he dares perpetrate it Avith impunity" — (c. 40, n. 2) : "tota nostra inclinatio ad vanitatem tendit; quidquid mali unicuique in mentem. venerit, hoc impune perpetrare audet." The author complains that the Church is deformed in her members and that clergy and people in Germany are evil, and he fears a judgment of God. (Ibid. n. 1 and 3.) That does not say, of course that all are bad. Other observers of the time, Geiler of Kaisersberg (Cf. L. Dacheux, Un reformateur catholique k la fin du XV si^cle, Jean Geiler de Kaysersberg, 1876, p. 141, sq.), and Wimpfeling (Diatriba lacobi Wimphelingii Seletstatini, Hagenaw 1514, c. 11, fol. 9b; Eiegger, "Amoeni- tates literarii," Friburg, 1775, p. 280; 364), find in some dioceses in Germany, along with the evil, which they frankly disclose, not a few exceptions among the clergy and people,* as formerly Gerson had already done at the beginning of the fifteenth century in France.' Even in the worst period, im- partial eye-witnesses point to extant good." But the movement of decline was strong, and the book just mentioned speaks about it. Those of the clergy belonging to it were largely no longer conscious of their state, of their duties, of their task. There was a complete lack among them of asceticism and moral discipline. In a word, the inner spirit of the move- ment and they themselves permitted the worst to be feared. Luther, in 1516, a year and a half before the indulgence controversy, and so, at a time in which the thought of apos- tasy from the Church was quite alien to him, wrote about the

*A general description of the good and evil at the close of the middle ages is given by L. Pastor in Janssens Geschich. des deutschen Volkes, I, 17 and 18. Ed. (1897) pp. 674-754.

= 0pp. Gerson., Antwerpiae 1706, II, 632, 634.

8 Thus e. g., the serious Ehrfurt Augustinian, Bartholomew v. Usingen, replying to the calumnies of the preachers, drev7 attention to the many good secular priests and the numerous religious then living there. "Ecce quot sunt honesti viri sacerdotes per ambo hujus oppidi collegia ecclesi- astica, quot denique per parochias et coenobia, quos nebulones isti pessimi pessime diffamant, nugacissime conspurcant. Taceo virgines vestales, quas moniales vocamus, quae omnes virulentiae et petulantiae censuraeque lin- guarum istorum subjici cernuntur." Libellus F. Barthol. de Usingen, De merito bonorum operum. Erphurdie 1525, fol, J6. Cf. Paulus, Der Augus- tiner Barthol. v. Usingen, p. 58.

6 LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM

priests and religious in Germany, but, it must be admitted, in his pessimism, generalizingly and with exaggeration: "If coercion were removed from each and every one, and it were left to his choice to observe the fasts, and to carry out his prayers, church duties, and divine service, if all this were left to his conscience and only the love of God were to be the motive of his doing, I believe that, within a year, all the churches and altars would be empty. If a mandate were to be issued that no priest, except voluntarily, need be wifeless, tonsured, and dressed in ecclesiastical garb, and that none were obliged to the canonical hours, how many, think you, would you still find who would choose the life in which they now live? Theirs is a forced service and they seek their liberty, when their flesh covets it. I fear that nowadays we are all going to perdition.'"

Only from four to five years later, these words were rea- lized in a great number of these priests. From the beginning of the third decade of the sixteenth century, the movement of decline, at least in Germany, began to part into two branches; the one still bore the character of the decadent society of the fifteenth century, the other, far stronger, more resembles a sewer or a quagmire than a movement, and pre- sents a new, peculiar physiognomy. Thenceforward one meets troops of runaway religious, and fallen priests at every crook and turn. As though in response to some shibboleth, they threw overboard everything that up to then had been sacred to Christians and themselves. They violated the fidel- ity they had sworn to God and His Church, abandoned mon- asteries, churches and altars. They vied with each other in bringing contempt upon the Mother- Church, the mass, the breviary, the confessional, in a word, upon every church institution. In sermons, derisive songs, and lampoons, they poured their ridicule upon the monks and priests who had remained faithful, and assaulted them on the streets and in the very churches themselves. In discourses and writings they reviled the Pope as Aoiti-christ, and bishops and aU serving the Church, as rascals of the devil.

The vows which they had solemnly promised before God,

7 Epistle to the Romans, fol. 276b.

I^UTHER AND LUTHERDOM 7

they take to amount to a denial of Christ, wiles of the devil, opposed to the Gospel, and therefore they cried down as apostates those religious that remained true to God/ The concubinage of priests and religious is not characterized as concubinage by them, but is rather lauded as valid wedlock before God, because nature demands the cohabitation of man and woman. Marriage of the clergy, marriage of monks — that was the magic expression that was to enable them to continue concubinage, though it was held in universal and especially popular odium. Marriage sounds better than con- cubinage, and therefore it was their concern "that it should never involve infamy or danger, but be praiseworthy and honorable before the world."* Their supreme maxim runs that the instinct of nature is irresistible, it must be gratified. Not only is all this a matter of practice, as in the case of the concubinaries of the preceding century, or of the other groups, but it is preached in sermons and set up as a doc- trine.

"Scandal be pished!" is now the word; "necessity Imows no law and gives no scandal."" "By the vow of chastity, man denies that he is a man," is the exhortation given to one to lead him to violate his vow. "Cheer up and go at it ! Keep God before your eyes, be steady in your faith and turn your back to the world with its jolting and scratching and rumb- ling! Neither hear nor see how Sodom and Gomorrha sink behind us or what becomes of them!"" They are not Sodom, but such as are scandalized at their breaking the vows. In a blasphemous manner, the very words of the Apostle" are applied in favor of the violation of the vow of chastity. "Re- ceive not the grace of God in vain. For he saith:^^ In an accepted time have I heard thee, and in the day of salvation have I helped thee. Behold, now is the acceptable time, be- hold now is the day of salvation."" "It is only a matter of

sWeim. VIII, 604. sWeim. XII, 242. ifWeim. XI, 400.

11 Weim. XII, 243 sq.

12 2 Cor. 6, 1. 2.

13 Is. 49, 8. "Weim. XII, 244.

8 LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM

a little hour's shame; thereafter come none but years of honor. May Christ give His grace, that these words by His Spirit may have life and strength in your heart,"" i. e., to stimulate you to break your vow. These are challenges and doctrines, not of a concubinary of the old tendency, (he did not go to such lengths, in spite of his evil practices) ; they rather breathe the spirit of the Brethren of the Free Spirit, which such deeply degenerated priests and monks of the third decade of the sixteenth century had made their own. To such people, the consummated deed was equivalent to a dispensation from all vows and promises to God. "One finds many a devout pastor," we hear this company declaring," "whom none can blame otherwise than that he is weak and came to shame with a woman. Yet these two are so disposed in the depth of their heart that they would willingly remain with each other always, in true conjugal fidelity, if they could only do it with a good conscience, even though they would have to bear the opprobrium of it publicly. Surely these two before God are wedded. If they have quieted their con- science, let the pastor take her as his lawful wife, keep her, and otherwise live like an honest man, whether the Pope will or no that it is contrary to law of spirit or of flesh. As soon as one begins the married state against the Pope's law, it is all over with that law and it holds no longer; for God's commandment, which commands that none can separate man and wife, goes far above the Pope's commandment. Christ has made us free from all laws, if these are against the commandment of God."

This is the philosophy of the flesh, which has no regard for conclusions. Complete emancipation of the flesh is the motto of this new group of beings. We have reached the cul- mination of the wickedness of the decadent part of the clergy, which, like a stream, rolled out of the fifteenth into the six- teenth century. We have come to the evil at its worst, which the quagmire branch of that stream represents.

15 De Wette, II, 640. The one who wrote this made the contemptu- ous observation only a few years before : "Neiulones proverbio dicunt : 'Tis an evil hour that is on" — "es 1st umb eine bose stund zu tun." Weim. VI, 120, 2, ad an. 1520.

16 Weim. VI, 442 sq.

LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM 9

As a matter of fact, can one go farther than that mendi- cant monk who, in the beginning of the third decade of the sixteenth preached: "As little as it is in my power to cease to be a male, so little does it rest with me to be without a wife I"" The same monk had once at the altar solemnly taken the vow of continence; "but," he continues in his sermon,^' "the vow of no monk is of any account before God; priests, monks, nuns, are even bound in duty to abandon their vows, if they find that they are potent to engender and increase God's creatures." It is then, he says repeatedly, that they pass from the state of unchastity into that of chastity. To wive priests and monks, then, in spite of their vows, was looked upon as a work pleasing to God. Could matters have become any worse? How favorably, from among these priests and religious, does that concubinary stand forth, whose com- plaint we heard above, that, unfortunately, he preferred the love of the creature to the love of God. Now, for the sake of the gratification of the sensual instinct, the very violation of the fidelity sworn to God is glorified as an act of divine love.

We see a multitude of religious throwing off every check and every restraint. Unbounded license is their watch-word. Nothing lay farther from them than mortification. "The sub- dual of the flesh and tinder of their sins," writes Werstem- ius, "they leave to the women."" The vow of chastity seemed not only intolerable to them but a downright trick of Satan. "He who vows chastity does just the same as one who vows adultery or other things forbidden by God,"^° was the saying. "The body demands a woman and has need of the same."^^ "Chastity is not in our power. All are created for marriage. God does not permit that one be alone."^^ In their very catechisms "for children and the simple minded," they set

"Brl. 20, 58.

18 Ibid. p. 59.

I'Joannis Werstemii Dalamensis * * * De Purgatorio et aliis qui- busdam axiomatis Disputatio longe elegantissima. Coloniae 1528. Fol. Diijb; "Isti ut rectius expeditiusque serviant Evangelic, ut toti sint in spiritu, carnem suam domandam committunt mulierculis."

20 Weim. XII, 242.

21 De Wette, II, 639.

22 De Wette, II, 637 sq.

10 LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM

down the teaching that, "by the sixth commandment, the vow of all unconjugal chastity is condemned and leave is given, and even the command, to all poor consciences in bondage, deceived by their monastic vows, to pass from their unchaste state (thus was the religious state designated) into wedded life."^' And so was the exhortation given: "Dare it cheerfully; come out of the wicked and unchristian state into the blessed state of marriage ; there will God let Himself be found merciful.""

How did they come to such shocking doctrines? They surely did not always teach them? Certainly not. But any- one who had already been in the practical movement of de- cline— and the main group of the new tendency and view of life originated from it— had had a good novitiate to begin with. There was need only of a leap or two in advance to get into the new current, to be wholly swept into its moral quagmire. "Those who belong to this rabble," wrote the doughty Franciscan, Augustine Von Alfeld, in 1524, "are full mornings and evenings, and little sober meantime, and they wallow lilce swine iu lewdness. The ones who were of the same pack and of our number, have now absolutely all, God be praised, got out of the benefices and monasteries."^^ "God has cleaned His threshing floor and winnowed the chaff from the wheat," writes shortly afterward the Cistercian, Wolf- gang Mayer. ^* With the old concubinary as with the new, the maxim of life was the same : Concupiscence cannot be dominated, one cannot resist his nature. The old concubi- nary, therefore, presently found himself at home in the new society. There was no need of his exerting himself to get rid of everything. It cost him no pains to let himself go as far as the domaiu of corrupted nature reaches. To some this was already the object of their desire, and many another had only been waiting for a favorable occasion, for patterns and examples, which now confronted him in unqualified abundance.

"Erl. 21, 71.

2* De Wette, II, 675.

25 Lemmens, Pater Augustin von Alfred, Freiburg 1899, p. 72.

28 Votorum Monast. Tutor, in Cod. 1. Men. 2886, fol. 35b.

LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM 11

Meantime there were discovered in that miry branch of obduracy and degenerate Christianity elements — they denote the second group — ^which formerly were carried along by the current of reform. What about these? How did they get into the contrary movement, into the branch most diametri- cally opposed to reform? The manner of it is the same old story. First, it was by carelessness, especially in dangerous occasions; in the end, they fell. Concurrently they gave up practical Christianity by degrees. They neglected commun- ion with God. Prayer, whether liturgical or ordinary — meditation had become altogether a thing of the past — and confession as well, were a torture to them. And so because they Avere powerless and unsupported, they finally fell into the lowest part, to speak with Tauler, and they had nothing to sustain them against the other temptations assailing them at the time, or against the doubts of faith that pressed upon them in so desolate a state of soul. Luther himself, as early as 1515, had given warning and had fore- told them their condition in the words: "If a young person no longer has devotion and fervor to God, but gives himself a free rein, without caring about God, I hardly believe that he is chaste. For, since it is necessary that either the flesh or the spirit live, it is also necessary that either the flesh or the spirit burn. And there is no more certain victory over the flesh than flight and aversion of the heart in devotion. For, whilst the spirit is fervent, the flesh will soon die away and grow cool, and vice versa.'"'' A golden rule, worthy of a father of the Church, a voice that came echoing across from the opposite movement of regeneration. But it was no longer understood in the least by the profligate priests and monks. If one recalled to their minds that they had been able to be continent ten and fifteen years and more, and therefore it was their own fault that they now felt continency to be

2T Epistle to the Romans, fol. 93 : Quaecumque persona iuvenis non habet devotlonem et igniculum ad Deum, sed Ilbere incedit, sine cura Del, vix credo, quod sit casta. Quia cum sit necesse carnem aut spiritum vivere, necesse et etiam aut carnem aut spiritum ardere. Bt nulla est potior victoria carnalls, quam fuga et averslo cordis per devotlonem eorum. Quia fervescente spiritu mox tepescit et frigescit caro, et econtra.

12 LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM

sometMng impossible,^' and they ought again to h.ave recourse to prayer, that world power, begging God's grace, they would laugh, while saying : "Pulchre, beautiful ! And what if it is not God's will to be prayed to for that? Or what if one prays to Him, He does not hearken to the prayer ?"^° They even went so far as to assume an air of deep moral earnest- ness by disposing of the reference to prayer with the excla- mation: "That is the way to jest in matters so serious!"^" But as Luther put it," it is easy knowing the rogue who can- not hide his knavery.

It is no wonder, then, that to such as these the lust of the flesh, caused by their lack of communion with God, gave them much ado. As their spokesman exclaims: "I am in- flamed with carnal pleasure, while I ought to be fervent in spirit. I am on fire with the great flame of my unbridled flesh and sit here in leisure and laziness, neglecting prayer."^'^ Some time later, we naturally hear a still more shameless admission, which we do not wish to cite a second time.^^ Such contemporaries as had their eyes open grasped the con- ditions of that time quite correctly. "How many of the pious runaway monks and nuns has Your Excellency found," writes one prince to another, "who have not become common whores and rascals?"" It was these people who read in their fleshly lust a God-given sign by which they were called to marriage,^^ while at the same time, umnindful of their solemn promise made to God, they misused the saying of St. Paul:

28 Thus, e. g. Barth. de Usingen wrote to an apostate fellow member of his Order, John Lang, with whom he had lived in the same monastery: "Sed quero a te, si tibi possibilis fuit continentia carnis ad quindecim annos in monasterio, cur jam tibi impossibilis sit facta nisi tua culpa?" De falsis prophetls * * * Erphurdie, 1525, fol. H.

28Weim. VIII, 631.

so Weim. VIII, 631 : "Iste est modus ludendi in rebus tam seriis."

SI Erl. 43, 335.

32Enders, III, 189.

33 Ibid. V, 222.

3* Letter of Duke Georg of Saxony to Landgrave Philip of Hessen, 11 March, 1525, in Briefe Georgs. Zeitschr. f. hist. Theol. 1849, p. 175.

35 Der Briefwechsel des Justus Jonas, ed. Kawerau ; I, 77, is written by this priest and professor to John Lang, Nov. 1521 : "Dici nequit quam me hie exagitet tentatio carnis. Nescio an Dominus vocet ad ducendam uxorem. Hactenus quid carnis ignes sint, nescivi, ut in aurem tibi dicam, nam serio cupio ut pro me ardentissime ores * * * Dominus servabit, spero,

LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM 13

"It is better to marry than to burn.'"* Even as late as March, 1520, the words of Luther still rang forth to them: "The strongest weapon is prayer and God's word; to wit, let a man, when his evil desire stirs, fly to prayer, beseech God's grace and help, read and meditate the gospel, and be- hold therein Christ's sufferings."" On this latter point, he had written in 1519 : "If unchastity and desire assail you, remember how bitterly Christ's tender flesh is scourged, transpierced, and bruised."^^

Those wholly degenerated priests and religious had now sunk too deep to be impressed by any such counsels, as, for example, in the fifteenth century, John Busch had converted not a few concubinaries by his admonitions to them to be zealous for prayer and seriously to enter into themselves. But the reform movement in the sixteenth century accom- plished incomparably more with that group of evil ecclesias- tics that had not given in to self-induration. These did not fetch up in the quagmire state, but in a renewal of spirit, which, with its way first paved by the Council of Trent and continued by new associations, was effectuated in a countless number. Not in all, it is true; for, along with the good, there were always bad, and sometimes very bad priests in the Church, as there will always be to the end, who in nothing were behind the old concubinaries, and sometimes the new.^° But this was not in consequence of the teaching of their leaders, as in the case of the latter. With these the course ran counter to their faith.

Quod in me peccatore misserimo plantavit * * ♦ concerpe literas et perde." A few weeks later he wrote to the same, after mentioning that a number of priests had married: "Quid mihi faciendum putas? — quod tamen mi frater celabis — diaboli casses et catenas, quibus non in secretis cubiculis, nocturnis illusionibus, cogitationibus spurcissimis captives et saucios duxit, perrumpere et turn in aliis tum forsan etiam in me ostendere, quam cupiam extinctam diabolicam hypocrisin? Tu era Dominum, ut det sacerdotibus uxores Christianas." I, 83.

38 1 Cor. 7, 9.

3'W^elm. VI, 209.

88Weim II, 141.

88 Attention is here advisedly directed to A. Kluckhohn, "Urkundllche Beitrage zur Geschichte der Kirchlichen Zustande, insbesondere des sittlichen Lebens der Katholischen Geistlichen in der Diocese Konstanz wahrend des 16. Jahrhunderts" In Zeitschrlft f. Kirchengesch, XVI, 590 sqq. Kluckhohn'a conclusions are founded on prejudice.

14 LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM

In the new order, tlie worst representative, writing to an archbishop to urge him to marry, rose to words that would have made even the greatest profligate of the fifteenth cen- tury shake his head: "It is terrible, if a man were to be found at death without a wife, at least, if he had not had an earnest intention and purpose of entering upon marriage. For, what will he answer, if God asks him: 'I made you a man, who should not be alone but should have a Avife. Where is your wife?' "*° "Behold, how the devil swindles and hum- bugs you, teaching you so preposterous a thing !"*^ might well an old concubinary have exclaimed to him. Besides, up to that time there had only a baptism of desire been spoken of; now the plan of things is to be enlarged with a '^marriage of desire." This is quite logical. In the practice of that school, the saying of Holy Writ, "The just man lives by faith,"*^ has apparently the hidden sense, "the just man lives with a wife," for, "it is not God's will that there be any living outside of marriage." "Of necessity must a man cleave to a wife and a wife to a man, unless God work a wonder."*^

Matters came to so scandalous a pass that those elements of the party — the third group — who, led astray by the delu- sive notion that their leader would effect the long desired re- form and the correction of abuses, had suffered themselves at first to be swei)t along by the current, now gradually came to know they were in a Sodom and therefore, in great part, they abandoned the movement, either to go back to the Mother-Church or to pursue a way of their OAvn. Others however — they are the fourth category — the rationalists and free-thinkers, mostly laics, persevered in their class, despite the dissolute phenomena described. To be out of the Church, they were willing to let everything, more or less, be included in the bargain. They were even the authors of the creed- forms of the party.

Nevertheless those runaway monks and fallen priests, who had annihilated their own and other's decency, modesty, and honor, had the effrontery to come forward as preachers

*o De Wette, II, 676. *iErl. 25, 371. "Kom. I, 17. *3 Weim. XII, 113 sq.

LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM 15

of morality, even to call themselves the Evangelicals and, by their malevolent exaggeration of the evil condition of the Church, to cover their own infamy. Luther himself, some years earlier, had already said: "Heretics cannot themselves appear good unless they depict the Church as evil, false, and mendacious. They alone wish to be esteemed as the good, but the Church must be made to appear evil in every re- spect."" "They close their eyes to the good," said St. Augus- tine*^ in his day, "and exaggerate only the evil, real or imag- ined." And with it all they adopted, as usual, a dissolute fashion such as had never in earlier days been seen, not even in the most demoralized period of the schism — a fashion that was in vogue perhaps only among the lowest dregs of the people. Their conversation as well became like a sewer. I will spare the reader any examples. In the course of this work there will often enough be occasion to speak of them.

In all truth, Luther was right when he concluded his opinion of the priests and monks of his time with the words : "I fear Ave are all going to perdition." He knew whither their instincts were tending. He had reason to fear that the current of decline, or its greater part, had sooner or later to empty into a deep sewer. There was no more rescue then, for, "the wicked man, when he is come into the depth of sins, contemneth."*" Should ever a religious sin out of contempt, such is the teaching of St. Thomas, he becomes the very worst and most incorrigible at the same time.*'

What would Luther have said, if, in 1516, he had fore- seen what came to pass only a few years later — those wholly debased priests and religious, as if their own infidelity to God were not enough, co-operating with laics in tearing con- secrated virgins from their cloisters, after they had first cor- rupted them with their surreptitious writings, and simply forcing them into the violation of their vows and into mar-

<* Dictata in Psalterium. Weim. Ill, 445. Cf. also IV, 363.

*= Enarr. in Ps. 99, n. 12. He speaks of those who are in the religious state: "Qui vituperare volunt, tarn Invido animo et perverso vituperant, ut claudant oculos adversus bona, et sola mala quae ibi vel sunt vel putantur exaggerent."

"Proverbs, 18, 3.

*^ 2. 2. qu. 186. a. 10, ad 3 : "Beligiosus peccans ex contemptu fit pessimus, et maxime IncorrlgiblUs." Cf. S. Bernardus, De praecepto et dlspens., c. 8.

16 LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM

riage? How lie would have inveiglied against tliem as lecter- ous lieathens, barbarians, because anything like their conduct had till then been known only of the barbarians. It may occasionally have happened in the fifteenth century, as Nider informs us, that concubinaries, from their pulpits, exalted the married state above that of virginity, and kept many a maiden from entering the convent. That nuns were dishon- ored Avithin their convent walls had no doubt occurred more than once. But to ravish them from their convents, at times even crowds of them, was an achievement reserved to the con- cubinaries of the third decade of the sixteenth century. They glorified the nuns' violation of their vows and forsaldng their convents as nothing less than a divine action, for out of their midst came the book: "The Eeason and a Reply, Why Maidens May With Godliness Forsake Their Convents."*' It was for their own wiving that they wanted inviolate vir- gins. They believed they could find them in convents of women, although publicly they spoke all evil of them. Once the deed was done, they perpetrated the unheard of; they began a kind of traffic in profaned nuns, and did nothing less than put them up for sale. "Nine have come to us," writes one of the fallen priests to another; "they are beauti- ful, genteel, and all of the nobility, and among them I find not one half-centenarian. The oldest, my dear brother, I have set aside for you to be your partner in marriage. But if you desire a younger, you shall have your choice of the most beautiful ones."*° This is not unlikely the acme of the movement of decline and fall.

If, for the sake of carnal lust, the monastic vows were thus treated, and the violation of them was set forth as a work pleasing to God, it is evident that the storm would also put the indissolubility of marriage to the test and that adultery would no longer be considered a sin and a shame. And so it proved. Gates and doors were thrown open to adulterers, so that, as early as 1525, the complaint which was directed to the spokesman of that debased crowd, is

*8 Ursache und Antwort, dass Jungfrauen Kloster gottlich verlassen mSgen," Weim. XI, 394 sqq.

*BThus Amsdorf cited by Kolde, Analecta Lutherana (1883) p. 442.

LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM 17

urged upon one's ears : "When did ever more adulteries take place than since you wrote? If a woman cannot get preg- nant by her husband, she is to go to another and breed off- spring, which the husband would have to feed. And the same was done by the man in his turn.'"" One of the fallen crowd himself uttered a cry of distress to a fellow apostate: "By the immortal God, what whoredom and adulteries we have to witness together !"" The new teachers likewise carried on as madly as possible — did it in their very sermons. In one of these, the spokesman instructs his hearers on the married life as follows : "One easily finds a stiff-necked woman, who carries her head high, and though her husband should ten times fall into unchastity, she raises no question about it. Then it is time for the husband to say to her: 'If you don't want to, another does;' if the wife is unwilling, let the servant-girl come. If the wife is then still unwilling, have done with her; let an Esther be given you and Vashti go her way."^^ Quite logical : marriage under some conditions demands con- tinency no less than does the religious state. The underlying Epicurean principle of this tendency was, that continency was an impossible requirement, that there is no resisting the instinct of passion, and that resistance is even a kind of revolt against the disposition of God. Is it any wonder that precisely the one who had flung all these doctrines broadcast upon the world, after a few years, reviewing his whole society, had to admit that "libidinousness cannot be

50 Letter of Duke George of Saxony, Enders, V, 289, and its note, 13, where the authority for the words addressed to the spokesman is cited.

=1 Billicanus to Urban Rhegius, in Rass, Convertitentibilder, I, 56. Even a Nikolaus Manuel, about 1528, had to confess:

"Vil gitigkeit und huerery

Grosz schand und laster, biiebery Fressen, sufen und gotteslesterung

Tribend ietzund alt und iung."

Ehebruch ist ietzund so gemein Niemants sins wibs gelebt allein."

In J. Baechtold, Nlklaus Manuel (1878). p. 245, (line 255-262). "Erl. 20, 72.

18 LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM

cured by anything, not even by marriage ; for the greater part of tbe married live in adultery"?"

From sucb a state of affairs, it was only a step farther to polygamy. Several of these apostles of the flesh did go to that length, inasmuch as, faithful to their principles, they allowed, at times, two and three wives. Some, indeed, of these fallen priests and monks themselves had several women at the same time. Later it was their own leader who ac- counted polygamy among the ultimate and highest things of Christian liberty; he would not forbid "that one take more wives than one, for," he says, "it is not contrary to Holy Writ." "Only to avoid scandal and for the sake of decency one should not do it.""

After these apostles of the flesh had wallowed to their satisfaction in the slime of sensuality, then it was that they seemed to themselves to be the worthiest of forgiveness of sins. For sins were not to be little things or mere gewgaws, but good big round affairs. And how was forgiveness to be obtained? In confession? Oh no! The meaning of Catho- lic confession, contrition, purpose of amendment, and pen- ance had been lost upon the holders of such views. To them confession was a torture even greater than prayer. They had found a simpler means of seeing clearly through every obstacle — simple fiducial reliance upon Christ. "Is that not good tidings," their father taught, "if one is full of sins and

^2 The passage is offensive and therefore, in tlie German, I do not give it in full. It is to be found in 0pp. Eseg. lat, I, 212, in Genes, c. 3, 7. In 1536, the Reformer taught the following: "An non sentiemus tandem, quam foeda et horribilis res sit peccatum? Si quidem sola libido nuUo remedio potest curari, ne quidem conjugio, quod divinitus inflrmae naturae pro remedio ordinatum est. Major enim pars conjugatorum vivit in adulteriis, et canit de conjuge notum versiculum : nee tecum possum vivere, nee sine te. Haec horribilis turpltudo oritur ex honestissima et praestantissima parte corporis nostri. Praestantissimam appello propter opus generationis, quod praestantissimum est, si quidem conservat speciem. Per peccatum itaque utilissima membra turpissima facta sunt." With this cf. out of the year 153.5, in c. 5 ad Gal III, 11 (Ed. Irmischer) : "Quisquis hie (loquar jam cum piis conjugibus utriusque sesus) diligenter exploret seipsum, turn proculdubio inveniet sibi magis placere formam seu mores alterius uxoris quam suae (et econtra). Concessam mulierem fastidit, negatam amat." Therefore even the "Pii"?

5* M. Lenz. Briefwechsel Landgraf Philipp's des Groszmiitigen von Hessen mit Bucer, I, 342. sq. Note p. farther down.

LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM 19

the gospel comes and says: 'only have confidence and be- lieve / and tliy sins are tlien all forgiven tliee? With this stop pulled out, the sins are already forgiven, there is no longer need of waiting.'"'

The concubinaries of the fifteenth century had not pulled out this stop. The word of that same man had not yet forced its way to them : "Be a sinner and sin stoutly, but trust in Christ much more firmly, and rejoice in Him who is a con- queror of sin, of death, and of the world. Do not by any means imagine that this life is an abode of justice; sin must and will be. Let it suffice thee that thou acknowledgest the Lamb which bears the sins of the world ; then can sin not tear thee from Him, even shouldst thou practice whoredom a thousand times a day or deal just as many death blows.'"® Had the concubinaries of the fifteenth century heard this utterance, I believe that their iniquity would have reached its full measure then instead of in the sixteenth century. If religion dwindles down to mere trust, and if the ethical task, the moral striving, of the individual is neglected, or rather forbidden, the result can be only the ruin of all mor- ality.

What, indeed, could give greater encouragement to one to sin stoutly, to persevere unscrupulously in concubinage, that is, in wild wedlock, and thus finally to go down into the abyss beyond redemption, than the teaching: Why seek- est thou to exert thyself? It is not in thy power to fulfill the command: thou shalt not covet; in thy stead Christ has already fulfilled it as He has the rest of the commandments. If thou place thy trust in Him, all thy sins pass over upon Him. He is then truly the Lamb which beareth the sins of the world. Thou bearest them no longer. "Christ became the cover-shame of us all."" "The game is already won; Christ, the victor, has achieved all, so that it is not for us to add anything thereto, either to blot out sin, or to smite the devil, or to vanquish death; all these have already been brought under ;"^' for, "who believes that Christ has taken

55ErI. 18, 260. 58 Enders, III, 208. 5'De Wette, II, 639. 58Brl. 50, 151 sq.

20 LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM

away sin, lie is witliout sin like Christ.'"' "True piety, that avails before God, consists in alien works, not in one's own."°° Is not this truly a laying waste of religion and of the sim- plest morality, to use the words of Harnack;" a religion which conduces to moral beggary and rags, to avail myself of an expression by W. Hermanns, Professor at Marburg,^^ or rather is it not moral raggedness itself? Who will be sur- prised, then, if these so-called Evangelical teachers and preachers pointed to activity in good works as a pretence of holiness, and, gradually, as a hindrance to everlasting blessed- ness? If they preached that "to sleep and do nothing is the work of a Christian,"^^ if they made a mockery of all pious priests, religious, and lay-people, and stopped not at con- demning them, only because they wrought good works, could these preceptors still be called even "mongrel Christians?""* No, for that would still have been their encomium, that they were the refuse of humanity. It was not possible to go any farther.

The crown upon all, however, is the fact that these crea- tures eventually came to pose as saints, worthy of occupying the places of Saints Peter and Paul in heaven. The con- cubinaries of the fifteenth century, far from honoring them- selves as saints, were conscious of their sins and of their guilt, Itnowing there was no prospect of heaven as a reward in their case. The far bolder kindred spirits of the sixteenth century, on the other hand, spite of the fact that they also confessed themselves sinners, but on other grounds of course, taught through the mouth of the principal of their school"' that "we are all saints, and cursed be he who does not call himself a saint and glorify himself as such. Such glorying is not pride, but humility and thankfulness. For, provided thou believest these words: 'I ascend to my Father and to your Father,' thou art just as much a saint as St. Peter and

59Erl. 11, 218. 6» Erl. 15, 60.

81 Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschlchte, 3 Ed., Ill, p. 528, note. 02 Romische und Evangelische Sittllchkeit, 2 Ed. 1901, p. 50. esweim. IX 407.

«* One of Harnack's favorite expressions, e.g., op. cit., p. 537, note 2, Das Monchtnm, seine Ideale und seine Geschichte. 5 ed., p. 16. »= Erl. 17, 96 sqq.

LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM 21

all the other saints. Eeason : Christ surely will not lie when he says : "and to your Father and God." In this "your," those profligate priests and monks felt themselves included. The temerity of their view, to be sure, was not lost upon them. The passage quoted continues: "I am still studying the question, for it is hard that a sinner should say: 'I have a seat in heaven near St. Peter.' " But the conclusion reads: "For all that, we must praise and glorify this sanc- tity. Then it will mean the golden brotherhood.""*

In a word, the entire concubinage of the fifteenth cen- tury and its congeneric continuation in the sixteenth, with all its abominations, pale before the doings and the teachings of the fallen priests and monks who, in the third decade of the sixteenth century, had branched off from the old move- ment. "Monasticism now truly lies stretched out on the ground" writes Erasmus, who certainly was not less than edified by the earlier condition, "but if the monks had only put off their vices with their cowls f" * * * "it seems to me there is a new kind of monks arising, much more wicked than the former, bad as these were. It is folly to substitute evil for evil, but it is madness to exchange the bad for even worse."*' This, according to Luther, is what heretics do gen- erally. "They exchange the evils in the Church for others greater. Often we are unwilling to tolerate a trivial evil and we provoke a greater one."*^ Like many others, Pirk- heimer, who once had even joined the movement, wrote shortly before his death : "We hoped that Eomish knavery, the same as the rascality of the monks and priests, would be cor- rected; but, as is to be perceived, the matter has become worse to such a degree that the Evangelical knaves make the other knaves pious,"*" that is, the others still appear pious in comparison with the new unbridled preachers of liberty. But did not the father of the new movement himself acknowl-

68 Ibid.

87 Letter of the year 1529, in 0pp. Erasmi, Lugd. Batav. 1706, t. x. 1579.

88 "Heretici mutant mala ecclesia maioribus malis ; sepe malum parvum ferre nolumus et maius provocamus, sicut vitare cliaribdim, etc." Thiele, Luther's Sprichwortersammlung, (p. 24, 410).

89 Letter of Wlllibald Pirliheimer, 1527, in Heumann, Documenta literaria, Altdorfii, 1758, p. 59.

22 LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM

edge tliat "our (people) are now seven times worse than they ever were before. We steal, lie, cheat, cram, and swill and commit all manner of vices.'"" "We Germans are now the laughing-stock and the shame of all the countries, they hold us as shameful, nasty swine."" The same one that said this regrets to have been born a German, to have written and spoken German, and longs to fly from there, that he may not witness God's judgment breaking over Germany."

Finally, there is this also, in which the new current is distinguished from the old — its elements were united among themselves, they formed an exclusive, and therefore a so much the more dangerous society, whose members were dominated by the same ideas. Then it was necessary that this society should also have borne a name — anonymous societies were un- known in those days. What was the name of the association of fallen priests and religious, into which the stream of decline and moral corruption emptied? In the beginning, it was the Luther sect, the Lutherans," and soon Lutherism or Lutherdom. Luther sect? Lutherdom? Impossible! A Luther sect, a Lutherdom without Luther is inconceivable. This great mendicant friar and savant, whom we heard, in 1515 and 1516, expressing principles sprung from the con- trary movement of reform which had accompanied the evil branch into the sixteenth century — ^he surely could not give his name to such a crew!

And yet so it was. He was the precentor in that so- ciety. To his parole it firmly pinned itself. It set up those doctrines, which seemed, indeed, to snatch its members from the current of decline, but only to bear them into irretriev- able ruin. Luther, wrote Schenkfeld to the Duke of Liegnitz, has let loose a lot of mad, insane fellows, who lay in chains. It would have been better for them as well as for the common good, had he let them stay in chains, since now, in their

'"Erl. 36, 411.

"Erl. 8, 295.

TzErl. 20, 43.

" Thus from as early as 1519, In the tract : ArticuU per fratres Minores de observantia propositi reverendissimo Episcopo Brandenburgen. contra Lutheranos. * * * Prater Bernhardus Dappen, Ord. Minorum. This tract of six pages Is of the year 1519.

LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM 23

madness, they have done more harm than they did before or could do.'* In regard to his first runaway confreres and own messmates, Luther himself had to confess as early as 1522 : "I see that many of our monks have abandoned the monastery for no other reason than that for which they entered, for the sake of their belly and of carnal liberty, and through them Satan will cause a great stink against the good odor of our word.'"^ But nevertheless he accepted them as his first apostles.

Yes, truly, Luther's teachings were their inspiration. They lived, acted, and preached in accordance with them. Luther was the author of the above assembled texts for the violation of the vows, the wiving of priests and monks. He put the words on the prohibition of the vow of chastity into the large catechism. He set up the principle that God imposed an impossible thing upon us, that the (sexual) instinct of nature cannot be resisted, that it must be satis- fied. He depicted himself as burning with carnal concupis- cence, although some years before he had condemned it and discovered its genesis in the lack of communion with God ; he admitted that his own fervor of spirit was decreasing and that he was neglecting prayer. As his teachings were depopulating the monasteries, so he himself furnished the incentive to the abduction of the consecrated virgias, the perpetrator being called by him a "blessed robber," and com- pared with Christ, who robbed the prince of the world of what was his." He took one of the abducted nuns, put up for sale, as a witness of his gospel, as his concubine, and called her his wife. He severed the bonds of marriage and destroyed its indissolubility by his theory, which in practice found expression in the whoredoms and adulteries so bit- terly complained of. He did not forbid the taking of several

''* In Weyermann, Neue hist, biograph. artist. Nachricliten von Gelehr- ten Kiinstlern * * * aus der vorm. Reichstadt tJlm. 1829, p. 519 seq.

" Bnders, III, 323, of Mch. 28, 1522.

■^8 Weira. IX, 394 sq. The rape and abduction of the consecrated nuns was carried out by the burgher Koppe in the night of Holy Saturday, 1523. Luther carried his blasphemy so far, that he wrote to the abductor: "Like Christ you have also led these poor souls out of the prison of human tyranny at just the appropriate time of Easter, when Christ led captive the captivity of His own."

24 LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM

wives and declared that polygamy was not strictly opposed to the word of God." As a panacea for all sin, he prescribed only trust in Christ's forgiveness, without requiring love. He condemned the contrition, confession, and penance of the Catholic Church, reviled the Pope as Anti-christ, rejected the priesthood, the mass, the religious state and every good work. It was his teaching that good works, even at their best, are sins, and even that a just man sins in all good works. As he had imposed sin upon Christ, so also did he put the fulfillment of our prayers upon Him. And with all of that, he extols himself as a saint, and presumes, if he did not do so, he would be blaspheming Christ. If ever a doctrine had to lead to the acme of wickedness, it was such a one as this. It is not to be wondered at, that more than elsewhere, this became manifest to all eyes at Wittenberg, Luther's residence. As early as 1524, a former Wittenberg student, the Eotten- burg German grammarian, Valentine Ickelsamer, wrote to Luther : "What Rome had to hear for a long time, we say of you : 'The nearer to Wittenberg, the worse the Chris- tians.' '"' Luther's teaching brought the current of decline down to a state which he himself recognized and openly pro- claimed to be far worse than that under the Papacy. Of this he could make no concealment, for the facts spoke too loudly, no matter what ridiculous pretensions he might allege in ex- planation or extenuation of them.

Not once merely,^' but often he says that his Lutherans were seven times worse than before. "There was indeed one devil driven out of us, but now seven of them more wicked

'^Thus as early as the beginning of 1.524 (Enders IV, 283) and in 1527. "It is not forMdden tiiat a man miglit liave no more than one wife; I could not at present prohibit it, but I would not wish to advise it." (Weim. XXIV, 305.) Similarly in 1528, 0pp. var. arg., IV, 368, and later. Finally he also advised it. See below, I Book, section 1, in the sixth chapter (on Philip of Hesse's bigamic marriage). In this case, Luther and his associates were in accord with the Old Testament ; but when the Old Testament annoyed them, it was despised, Moses was even stoned, but of this there will be more in the course of our work.

'8 Klag Etlicher Briider an alle Christen. Bl. A4 ; and in Jager, Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt (1856) p. 488. Further details will be given below.

79 See above p. 22, notes 70, 71, 72. Of. besides the close of the first section.

LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM 2S

have gone into us."*° Even in 1523, lie had to acknowledge that he and his followers were become worse than they had been formerly/^ This he later repeats. "The world by this teaching becomes only the worse, the longer it exists; that is the work and business of the malign devil. As one sees, the people are more avaricious, less merciful, more immodest, bolder and worse than before under the Papacy."^^ He per- ceived that "wickedness and wanton license are increasing with excessive swiftness," and this indeed, "in all states," so that "the people are all becoming devils," but he meant knav- ish, "only to spite our teaching!"*^ "Avarice, usury, im- modesty, gluttony, cursing, lying, cheating are abroad in all their might,"" yes, more than of old under the Papacy; such disordered conduct on the part of almost everybody, causes gossip about the gospel and the preachers, it being said: "if this teaching were right, the people would be more devout."*' "Therefore it is that every one now complains that the gospel causes much unrest, bickering and disordered conduct, and, since it has come up, everything is worse than ever before," etc.*° Despite his assurance that his teaching was the genu- ine gospel, he still had to acknowledge that "the people op- posed it so shamefully that the more it is preached, the worse they become and the weaker our faith is."*' He and his fol- lowers with their preaching, he says, cannot do so much as make a single home pious f^ on the contrary, "if one had now to baptize the adults and the old, I think it probable that not a tenth of them would let themselves be baptized."*^

soErl. 36, 411.

siWeim XI, 190.

82Erl. 1, 14.

83 Erl. 45, 198 sq. Note the further course of this work.

8^ Or. as he says Erl. 3, 132 sq. : "Anger, Impatience, avarice, care of the belly, concupiscence, immodesty, hatred and solicitude for other vices are great, abominable mortal sins, which are everywhere abroad in the world with might and increasing rampantly."

85 Erl. 1, 192. Also 0pp. Exeg. lat, V, 37.

86 Erl. 43, 63.

8' Erl. 17, 235 sq.

88 Erl. 3, 141.

89 Erl. 23, 163 sq. in the year 1530, therefore at the time of the drawing up of the creed (Bekenntnisschrift).

26 LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM

Apart from Erasmus and Pirkheimer,"" others no, less impartial than Luther also pronounced the same judgment. The blustering apostate Franciscan, Henry Von Kettenbach, in 1525, preached: "Many people now act as if all sins and wickedness were permitted, as if there were no hell, no devil, no God, and they are more evil than they have ever been, and still wish to be good Evangelicals.""^ Another fallen Fran- ciscan, Eberlin Von Gtinzburg wrote similarly that the Evan- gelicals, in their riotous living, since they became free from the Pope, were become "doubly worse than the Papists, yes, worse than Tyre, Sidon, and Sodom.""^ If, according to the admission of Luther himself and his followers the moral con- dition of Lutheranism was far worse than that under the Papacy, the blacker the epoch before Luther is painted, the blacker must Lutherdom appear.

The condition was indeed such that, as early as 1527, Luther expressed a doubt whether he would have begun, had he foreseen all the great scandals and disorders."^" "Yes, who would have wanted to begin preaching," said he eleven years later, "had we known beforehand that so much misfortune, factiousness, scandal, calumny, ingratitude and wickedness were to follow. But now that we are in it, we have to pay for it."""

His complaints refer to Germany, which, however has de- clined into this sad state in consequence "of his evangel." Apostasy from Church and Pope led the Germans only into a cumulation of sins and into carnal license. "We Germans," writes Luther in 1532, "sin and are the servants of sin ; we live in carnal lusts and stoutly use our license up over our ears. We wish to do what we like and what does the devil a service, and we wish to be free to do only just what we want. Few are they who remember the true problem of how they may be free from sin. They are well content to have been rid of the Pope, officials, and from other laws, but they do not think

»°See above p. (19).

»iN. Paulus, in Kaspar Schatzgeyer (1898) p. 56, Note, 1. »2A. Riggenbach, Joh. Eberlin v. GUnzburg (1874) p. 242. Otlier quo- tations occur in tlie course of the work. 02a weim. XX, 674. 93 Erl. 50, 74.

LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM 27

on how they may serve Christ and become free from sin. Therefore will it come to pass that we shall not stay in the house, as servants do not stay in always, but we shall have to be cast out and lose again the gospel and liberty.'"* It is no wonder, then, that the Eeformer regretted ha^ong been born a German and lamented: "Should one now depict Ger- many, he would have to paint her like a sow.'"'^ He has now himself reached a sense of the corruption and, had his all too weak better self got the upper hand, he would yet have "coun- seled and helped that the Pope, with all his abominations, might come to be over us again."'^ He could now experience in his own life what he had once said : "When the great and the best begin to fall, they afterwards become the worst.""^

Luther, in fact, was not always thus. He was not only gifted, in many respects very gifted, but, at one time, he had the moral renewal of the Church at heart. He belonged to the reform party, even though it was not as Gerson did a century before. He followed the current which had been opposed to the one upon which he now set the seal of con- summation. Like many of his contemporaries, he had lived as an upright religious; at least there was a time in which he displayed moral earnestness. It is certain that he re- gretted the downward moving tendency, that he preached against it and, to speak in his own language, he "called a spade a spade" — nahm "Kein Blatt fur's Maul."^^ For, in that period of his life, Luther was the last one, using his expres- son again, "to let cobwebs grow over his mouth."^^ He spared no one, either high or low, in that current. How, then, did he get into the counter-flowing waters? How did he happen to become the formal inspirer and spiritus rector of the worst arm of that current? The solution of this problem, which is

** Erl. 48, 389. Even In 1529, he had voiced similar sentiments. "No one fears God, everything is mischievous * * * Each one lives according to his will, cheats and swindles the other," etc. Erl. 36, 300.

»5Erl. 8, 294.

88 Erl. 20, 43.

»'Erl. 8, 293.

S8 Erl. 43, 9 and often.

M Erl. 42, 238.

28 LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM

• «

also at the same time to explain, verify, and throw a stronger light upon what has already been said, will appear in the course of this work.

As is evident from the foregoing, I did not, in my re- searches, first meet Luther in his individual figure, in his own proper appearance as such, but in the Lutherdom named af- ter him. That was quite in keeping with the course of my investigation, which, starting from the decline of a portion of the secular and regular clergy of the fifteenth century, aimed to follow their fall to its conclusion. That object at- tained, the question — at what point did Luther and the move- ment underlying my research meet? — naturally occurred to me earlier than the other of Luther's individual development, about which in the beginning I had not thought at all. After I had discovered Luther in the midst of that company of the third decade, I could no longer keep out of his way, and I undertook to study him himself from that time back to his first studies, to the beginning of his first professional activity. It was only then, by way of checking my results, that I first entered upon the reversed course and followed him, year by year, in the process of the unfolding of his being. My chief aim was centered on ascertaining that point from which Luther is to fee understood, to find that unknown thing that slowly pushed him off into the current of decline, and finally made him the creator and the spokesman of that company which represented the decline in its full measure. In this wise, no doubt, we can be certain of the approval of that modern school which, in the face of environing social tenden- cies, whose agents and symptoms individualities are, pushes single personages into the background. The milieu in which Luther was finally found was not only created by him, but it also exercised a reacting influence upon him.

For the Luther study, my sources were only Luther's writings. In the beginning, I made no use of the expositions of Luther's life and teachings. These I took up only after my own results were firmly established.

The plan of the work, which did not seem clear to some, has been appended in analytical detail to the preface above.

FIRST BOOK

FUNDAMENTALS

Critical Examination of Protestant

Luther-Researchers and

Theologians

LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM 31

Section First

LuTHER^s Treatise and Doctrine on the Monastic Vows By way of Introduction.

Of enormous significance is that book of Luther's wMch dispeopled the monasteries of Germany, which Luther himself regarded as his best and as unrefuted, Melanchthon as a highly learned work, namely, "De votis monasticis Iitdicium — " "Opin- ion on the Monastic Vows," of the end of 1521. It had been pre- ceded in September, October, by themes or theses on the same subject (Weim. VIII, 323 sqq.), and by a sermon (Erl. 10, 332 sqq. ) . In the Lutheran "Church," this book or opinion enjoyed an authority that raised it far above a mere private work. Ac- cording to Kawerau, it belongs, in contents and successful re- sult, to the most important writings that proceeded from Luther's pen. It forms the basis of Luther's discussions else- where on the same subject. Melanchthon himself, Lang, Linck, and others made use of it and took excerpts from it. In the very beginning, it was twice translated into German, by Justus Jonas and Leo Jud. Kawerau undertook, in collaboration with Licentiate and Instructor in Theology N. Mtiller, to re- edit the work in the eighth volume, pp. 573-669, of the critical complete edition. Few of Luther's other writings offered an editor the wide field this one did, in which to prove what he could accomplish. Its publication did not even expose him to the danger of getting out something long knovsoi and hackneyed, for, in respect to this writing, Protestant theologians and Luther biographers had not as yet achieved anything scientific. On the contrary, up to the present day, they blindly and a priori accept what Luther there lays down. They note no fal- lacy, no error, rather do they discover in it "a theologically acute conception." What Luther sets forth as Catholic doc- trine, is such to them. The conclusions he then draws there- from, are likewise theirs.

It was the conscientious duty of a critical editor to achieve more in this writing of Luther's than in others, and here and

32 LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM

there to call attention to Luther's tactics, that his readers' eyes might be opened. Did Kawerau do this? In the introduction, to be sure, he did good work bibliographically. In the work itself, too, he displays an endeavor to do justice to scientific requirements. But it is immediately observed that this latter takes place only where it Avas easy. The thing that is there looked for in vain is precisely the chief thing, namely, meeting the requirements mentioned above.

It "vvas not on these grounds alone, however, that 1 placed this writing of Luther's at the head of my work. There is no other that better fulfills the purpose of introducing the reader to Luther's character, to his tactics and methods towards the Church, particularly if the questions connected with and in- volved in that writing are treated at the same time. To insure getting bearings, and to put into a clearer light the contrast between later and earlier, I will give as five chapters, Luther's utterances on the religious state prior to his apostasy, before he composed his "Opinion on the Monastic Vows."

CHAPTER I.

Brief Review of Luther's Utterances in Respect to the Religious State During His Own Life as a Religious.

Accounts of Luther's earlier religious life are most meagre. If I wished to rely upon those sources which Luther biographers have hitherto put forward wholly without criticism, namely upon Luther's sayings and utterances after his apostasy, but especially after 1530, and also upon his later table-talk, I could, of course, serve up many a little story. We should get the pic- ture of a monk unhappy in the "horrors of monastic life," who was able, day and night, only to howl and to despair, who stood in fear before God and Christ, and even fled from before them, and the like. But in the first edition of this volume, I already mentioned repeatedly' that Luther had made a romance of his earlier religious life. The incidental discussions in this volume ought to constitute the basis of, or the passageway to, the proof of my assertion, so that the proper corroboration of it may

iPp. 258, 373 sqq., 389, 393, sqq., 410, note 1, 414, note 2, 671 sq., 725, 758, sq., 381, and preface, p. XVI.

LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM 33

follow in the concluding section of the first book. In this chapter I take as my support Luther's contemporaneous testi- monies, without, however, overstepping the limits of a review.

In his Dictata on the psalms, of the years 1513 to 1515, he frequently speaks his mind on evil, self-willed religious, who stand upon their "regulations," to speak with Tauler; he con- demns the mutual quarreling of the orders, etc., but he is never against the essence of the religious state. In relation to mon- asticism, he pursues the same course as with regard to the Church. He laments and condemns the evil life of ecclesiasti- cal superiors, of the hierarchy; but at the same time there is hardly another who so stood for ecclesiastical obedience as he did. In like manner, he rebuked evil superiors and subjects in the monasteries ; but he absolutely insists that subjects cherish obedience, without Which there is no salvation; that they subordinate their private exercises to those which are general and monastic, i.e., prescribed by the statutes, or to obedience. With him it is a supreme rule that "no one is just save the obedient one,"^ and he continually vociferates against self-will.

2 Weim. IV, 405 ; "Justitia est solum humilis obedientia. Quare iudicium ad superiores, iustitia ad inferiores pertlnet. NulUis enim est Justus nisi oiediens. Sed superior non tenetur obedire, ergo nee iustus esse quoad inferiorem. Inferior tenetur autem obedire et per consequens iustus erit. Tu ergo iustitiam vis statuere in superior! et iudicium in in- feriori, scilicet ut tibi obediant, non tu illis. Igitur si Superiores sunt iniusti, hoc sunt suo superiori. Quid ad te? Tu subesto et sine te in ludiclo regere. Numquid quia llli iniusti sunt et inobedientes suo superiori, scilicet Christo, ideo et tu quoque iniustes fles non obediendo tuo superiori? Igitur vera differentia iustitie et iudicii est haec ; quod iustitia pertlnet ad in- feriorem vel in quantum inferiorem, quia est humilitas, obedentia, et resignata sunjectio proprie voluntatis superiori ; iudicium autem pertlnet ad superi- orem vel in quantum superiorem, quia est exeraptio legis et castigatio malorum ac praesidentia Inferiorum. Unde et apostolus Ro. 6 dicit eum iustificatum, qui mortuus est peccato. Et spiritus est iustus, quando caro ab eo iudicatur et subiicitur in omnem obedientiam, ut nihil voluntati et concupiscentils relinquatur. Quod autem dixi 'inquantum superiorem et inferiorem,' id est, quia medii prelati, sicut sunt omnes preter Christum, sunt simul superiores et inferiores. Igitur inferiorum non est expostulare iustitiam superiorum, quia hoc est eorum iudicium sibi rapere. Ipsorum est enim iustitiam expostulare inferiorum. Et horura est suscipere iudicium et obedire els, per quod fit in pace correctio malorum. Obedientia enim tollit omne malum pacifice et pacificum sinit esse regentem. Idem facit humilitas, quae est nihil aliud nisi obedientia et tota iustitia. Quia total- iter ex alterius iudicio pendet, nihil habet suae voluntatis aut sensus, sed omnia vilificat sua et prefert atque magnificat aliena, scilicet superioris."

34 LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM

On this theme one could compile a book from his Dictata, for, everywhere in Weim. Ill and IV, one hits upon greater or lesser passages evidencing what has been said.^

In the meantime he had not yet, at that period, discovered the gospel. This took place only after 1515, as appears from the next section. Nevertheless, even in this new epoch, he de- veloped no new principles with regard to the religious state ; on the contrary, those we have seen were emphasized only in a more manifold way. On June 22, 1516, he wrote to a prior of his Order, regarding the reception of a novice out of another order, that one might not thwart the latter's salutary inten- tion; on the contrary, it should be furthered and pushed, pro- vided that the case was one with, and in, God. Such a case occurs, "not if one accedes to the opinion and good intention of every one, but if one holds to the prescribed law, the ordi- nances of superiors, and the regulations of the Fathers, without which one may in vain promise himself progress and salvation, however good his intention may be."* Let it be considered that, on this particular point, there was not once question of the rule, ( the Eule of St. Augustine contains no provision perti- nent to the matter), but of something less important, the stat- utes and regulations of the Order.^

In what high esteem the latter were held, as well as the rites and practices of the Order generally, i. e. religious observ- ance, (to say nothing of the vows), is proved by the following fact. Gabriel Zwilling, a fellow member of the Order and a subject of Luther's at Wittenberg, was registered as an Augus- tinian in the university of that place as early as the summer semester of 1512.' After five years, i.e. in 1517, (March), by command of Vicar Staupitz, Luther sent him to the monastery at Erfurt. Why? Because, though living five years at Witten- berg with other brethren under Luther as his superior, he had "not yet seen and learned the rite and the practices of the

3Cf. Ill, 18, sq., 91; IV, 64, 68, 75, 83, 306, 384, 403, 406 sq.

*Enders, I, 42.

= Both the general ancient statutes of the Hermits of St. Augustine, and those of Staupitz, of the year 1504 treat of the case in Chap. XVI.

^ Forstemann, Album Academlae Vitebergen. (Lipsiae 1841), p. 41: "Fr. Gabriel Zwilling August."

LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM 35

Order. It will do him good," Luther thinks, "to conduct him- self in all things in a conventual manner.'"

This important passage shows one thing, at all events, that, at Wittenberg, where Luther lived from 1508 to the fall of 1509, and from the fall of 1511 through further years, no religious discipline prevailed, a fact that has hitherto been overlooked. It shows further that the brethren did not even live conventu- aliter in all respects, otherwise there had been no need of send- ing Zwilling to Erfurt. This explains much to us in the life of Luther and of his Wittenberg associates, particularly of the later assailant of the monasteries, Zwilling. His like were later the first ones who threw off the habit, assailed the mon- asteries, profaned the altars, etc. The younger religious en- joyed too much liberty at Wittenberg. They became little by little disaccustomed to the religious life, and gradually lost the spirit of the Order and of prayer. Of their asceticism we pre- fer to make no mention. And all this, too, befell many an older member of the Order at Wittenberg.

As early as 1509, in his first stay at Wittenberg, Luther became wholly engrossed in duties and studies.' But in the fall of 1516, he wrote to Lang at Erfurt : "I ought to have two secretaries, for / hardly do anything the livelong day hut write letters. For that reason I do not know if I am not always re- peating the same thing. I am (besides) conventual and table preacher. Every day I am desired to preach in the parish church. I am regent of studies, vicar of the district, and therefore eleven times prior. (Luther had eleven convents under him). I am in charge of the fisheries at Leitzkau, at- torney in the proceedings concerning the Herzberg parish church, lector (in the divinity school) on St. Paul, and collec- tor of the psalter. Seldom does full time remain for my re- citing the hours (of the divine office) and for celebrating mass. Besides, there are my own temptations of the flesh, the world,

^ Enders, I, 88 : "Placult et expedit ei, ut conventualiter per omnia se gerat. Scis enlm, (the addressee is Prior Lang), quod necduni ritus et mores ordinis viderit aut didicerit."

8 Enders, L 5.

36 LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM

and the devil."" The lack of monastic discipline at Wittenberg contributed its share towards this sad state, which did not per- mit him to reach either himself or God in prayer. Things naturally became worse and worse, and then had their proper culmination when he was precipitated into the thick of the combat. It was there that the ill consequences of the neglect of God's service stood revealed before all eyes. The case of the rest of his Wittenberger brethren was the same.^°

At that time, nevertheless, Luther was anything but one who despised the religious life. On the contrary, it is evident from the letters adduced above on the laws of his Order, that he was zealous for their strict observance, which also appears from his other letters of the same time.^^ One can justify the assertion, indeed, that Luther then treated the decrees and statutes (not dogmas) of the Church and of the Popes more harshly than he did the statutes of the Order.^^

8 The underlined words read : "Raro mihi integrum tempus est horas persolvendi et celebraudi." Tliis important passage, which gives us so mucli insight into Luther's inner life and discloses much, is translated by the "Nestor of Luther research," J. Kostlin, as follows : "Seldom have I the time to celebrate my hours properly" (Martin Luther, 3 ed., I, 133; 5, under the care of Kawerau, p. 125, 142. He found nothing to comment on in the notes.) So inexperienced are so many Protestant theologians in the usage of church language ! Since the XV century at least, the simple word, "celebrare," has had the meaning that it still has to-day, namely "to celebrate or read mass." In that sense Luther also uses it in Dictata super Psalt., Weim. Ill, 362 : "pejus mane orant et celebrant.", where he speaks principally of priests ; so also in his gloss on the Epistle to the Romans, fol. 67b : "sacriflco, celebro", occur in respect to the mass. The same meaning is given to the word by, e.g. Wimpheling (Gravamina germanicae nationis, etc. in Riegger, Amoenitates lit. Friburg. p. 510) : "sacrificare sive celebrare", thus Geiler v. Kaisersberg, Nav. Fat. turb LXXII, (alternately missam legunt and celeirant) : Thus also a century earlier Gerson, De preparatione ad missam. opp. Ill, 326, etc.

^^ St. Bonaventure in his day had written : "in omni religione, ubi devotionis fervor tepuerit, etiam aliarum virtutum machina incipit deficere et propinquare ruinae" Opp. ed. Quaracchi, t. VIII, 135, n. 10.

11 Cf. Enders, 1, 52, 53, 56, 57, 67, 99. Here and there he also enjoins good training of young religious.

12 After setting up an overdrawn notion of Christian liberty in the Epistle to the Romans, fol. 273, and before (spite of the fact that in con- tradistinction to the Plcards, he exacted obedience to the commands of the Church), he pleads, fol. 275, for the abolishment of fast days and a diminution of the feasts, "quia populus rudis ea consciencla observat ilia, ut sine lis salutem esse non credat." Then he continues, "Sic etlam

LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM 37

It is no wonder, then, that he accepted the permissibility of the vows as self-evident, provided that the solemn promise was made in the right way. He writes in the same year ( 1516 ) , that, spite of the liberty attained through Christ, "it is allowed every one, out of love of God, to bind himself to this or that fey a vow." And he exclaims : "Who is so foolish as to deny that! any one is free to resign his liberty to the discretion of another/ and to give himself captive, etc.?" But this may be done "only! out of love and with that faith by which one believes he is act-j ing, not out of a necessity of salvation, but out of free will and)) a feeling of liberty." On the other hand, as he says, the priests, religious, and lay people as well, commonly sin, who neglect charity and what is necessary to salvation.^^

If here Luther again shows himself pessimistic" and ac- customed to generalize, he is still not in error in respect to the essence of the matter. He continues to lay down the love j>t- Gqd asjthe obj ect of all vo^^^SaThe^ finds no difficulty in a vow in itself. He does not bluster as if it were against faith, or against the first commandment, and so on. Had this been his opinion, he would have been obliged to dissuade everybody from becoming a member of a religious order, for a religious without vows is unthinkable. But what do we hear from Luther's own lips ? A page later, he raises the question : "7s it good, then, to 'become a religious now?" And he replies:

utile esset, tottim pene decretum purgare et mutare, ac pampas, Immo magis oeremonias orationum ornatuumque diminuere, quia haec crescunt in dies, et ita crescunt, ut sub illis decrescat fides et charitas, et nutriatur avaritla, superbia, vana gloria, immo quod pejus est, quod illis homines sperant salvari, nihil solliciti de interne homlne." How little he himself was concerned about his inner man, we have just seen. But it lay in Luther's character always to see the harm wrought in others but not in himself.

13 Epistle to the Eomans fol. 274b : Quamquam haec omnia sint nunc Uberrima, taraen ex amore Dei licet unicuique se voto astringere ad hoc vel illud ; ac si lam non ex lege nova astrictus est ad ilia, sed ex voto, quod ex amore Dei super seipsum protulit. Nam quis tam insipiens est, qui neget, posse unumquemque suam libertatem pro obsequio alterius resig- nare, et se servum et captivum dare (ms. ac captivare) vel ad hunc locum, vel tali die, vel tali opere? Verum si ex charitate id fuerit factum et ea fide, ut credat, se non necessitate salutis id facere, sed spontanea voluntate et affectu libertatis. Omnia itaque sunt libera, sed per votum ex charitate offeribilia * * *"

1* See above pp. 5-6.

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"If thou believest thou canst not find salvation otherwise than by becoming a religious, do not enter. For thus the proverb is true: 'despair makes the monk,' yea, not the monk hut the devil." A good monk does he become "who will be such out of love, who, namely, contemplating his grievous sins and desiring again to do something great for his God out of love, voluntarily resigns his liberty, puts on this foolish habit, and subjects him- self to abject offices."^^

Once more, then, we have heard Luther lauding the re- ligious life in itself, and stating the object with which one should lay hold on the religious state and all that it offers — the love of God. But there is one thing that strikes us as strange — Luther's continually coming back to the warning that one should not purposely choose the religious life as if other- wise there were no salvation, which would be equivalent to becoming a monk out of despair. One is almost inclined to draw the conclusion that Luther himself entered the Order despairing of otherwise finding salvation, and that, as later was his wont, he charged his manner of action upon all. This would accord with the point to be treated in the second sec- tion, that Luther, in his life following thereupon, had as- spired to justice before God through his OAvn endeavors until about 1515, when his justice by works collapsed. But of this in its place. Let us rather stick to Luther's utterances on the religious state.

We hear him, in connection with the passage just cited, giving out the extraordinary statement: "I believe that, in two hundred years, it has never been better to become a re- ligious than just now," when members of the religious orders, because they are an object of contempt to the world and even to the bishops and priests, stand nearer the cross. "Having, as it were, obtained their wish, religious ought to rejoice if

1° Ibid. fol. 275: "An ergo bonum nunc rellgiosum fieri? Respondeo; Si aliter salutem te habere non pntas, nisi religiosus flas, ne ingrediaris. Sic enim verum est proverbium : Desperatio facit monachum, immo non monachum, sed diabolum. Nee enim unquam bonus monachus erit, qui ex desperatione eiusmodi monachus e.st, sed, qui ex charitate, scilicet, qui gravia sua peccata videns, et Deo suo rursum aliquid magnum ex amore facere voleng, voluntarie resignat libertatem suam, et induit habitum istum stultum, et abiectis sese subiicit officiis."

LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM 39

ttey are despised for the vow which, they assumed for God. That is why they wear a foolish habit. But many, wearing only the semblance of religious, comport themselves other- wise. But I know that, if they had charity, they would he the most happy, more blessed than those who were hermits," etc."

And yet these brilliant utterances occur in that time in which Luther already "felt himself wholly re-born" and had imagined that "he had passed open gates into paradise;" in which he had already given expression to the principle that concupiscence is wholly unconquerable, and to others in agreement with it, the impossibility of fulfilling God's com- mandments, the bondage of the will, justification by faith alone, without works, and so on. The fact lies heavier in the balance than if we find Luther happy in the first years of his religious life,^^ and only a few years later hear him^^ describ- ing the excellence of the religious life to his master Bartholo- mew, to strengthen him in his chosen calling as an Augustin- ian. "The door in St. Paul" had not yet been opened to him at that time as it was in 1515 and 1516.

In his commentary on the Epistle to the Komans, even more almost than in his Dictata, he declared against singu- laritates, he opposed the self-willed, opiniosos, capitosos,

^^ Ibid. fol. 275b : "Quamobrem credo, nunc melius esse religiosum fieri, quam in ducentis annis fuit, ratione tali videlicet, quod hucusque Monachi recesserunt a cruce, et fuit gloriosum esse religiosum. Nunc rursus in- cipiunt displicere hominibus, etiam qui boni sunt, propter habitum stultum. Hoc enim est religiosum esse, mundo odiosum esse et stultum. Bt qui hinc sese ex charitate submittit, optime facit. Ego enim non terreor, quod epis- copi persequuntur et sacerdotes nos, quia sic debet fieri. Tantum hoc mihi displicet, quod occasionem malam hinc (his ms. huic) damus displicentiae. Ceterum quibus non est data occasio, et fastldiunt monachos, nescientes quare, optimi sunt fautores, quos in toto mundo habent rellgiosi. Deberent enim guadere rellgiosi, tanquam voti sui compotes, si in suo isto voto pro Deo assumpto despicerentur, confunderenturque. Quia ad hoc habent habitum stultum, ut omnes alliciant ad sui contemptum. Sed nunc aliter agunt multi (ms. multo) habentes speciem solam religiosorum. Sed ego scio foeUcissinios eos, si charitatem haierent, et ieatiores, quam qui in heremo fuerunt : quia sunt cruci et ignominiae quotidianae expositi. Nunc vero nullum est genus arrogantius, proh dolor !

IT Enders, I, 1 sq. ; 6.

IS As Usingen himself relates, In Paulus, Der Augustlner Barth. Arnold! V. Usingen, p. 17.

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cervicosos, durae cervices, and waxed warm in behalf of obedi- ence, which he himself is at pains to practice, as shall be shown in the proper place in the course of this work. Let us rather turn back to his judgments on the religious state.

Although, iu 1518, touching on the celibacy of priests, he expressly adds that it is a matter of ecclesiastical rather than of divine institution, he nevertheless condemns the sin against it as a sacrilege, but on the part of religious, as a most griev- ous sacrilege, "since they have freely consecrated themselves to God, and again withdraw themselves from Him."^^

In 1519 and at the beginning of 1520, he already arraigns the Church, in respect to the celibacy of priests,^" on account of the ill state of affairs prevailing in all directions in con- sequence of it, but not a syllable of censure slips from his pen so far as the monastic vows are concerned.^^ He is opposed only if priests and religious observed ceremonial actions, and even chastity and poverty, in order to be justified and good through them. "He who would do so with this intention, is godless and denies Christ, since he, already justified, should use those means to purge the flesh and the old man, so that faith in Christ may grow and may alone reign in him and he may '^ thus become the Kingdom of God. Therefore he will do those things joyously, not that he may deserve much, but that he may be purified."" Luther here speaks, as he had already

19 Decern praecepta, Welm. I, 489 : "sacrilegium est, ubi iam non tantum castitas polluitur, sed etiam quae Deo soli fuit oblata, tollitur et sanctum prophanatur. Verum hoc ex institutione ecclesiae magis quam ex Deo est in sacerdotibus : sed in religiosis gravisslmum est, quia sponte sese consecraverunt domino et sese subtrahunt rursum." Of. 483, 21.

2° First revision of the Epistle to the Galatians, Weim. II, 616. In Feb. 1520 (Weim. VI, 147), Luther pleads for the marriage of priests, but is silent about the marriage of monks.

21 This he himself says in A. Lauterbach's Tagebuch auf das Jahr 1538. (Ed. Seidemann) p. 12: "De monachis nunquam cogitavi, quia sub veto erant, sed tantum de pastoribus, qui non possunt oeconomiam servare sine conjuge."

22 Weim. II, p. 562 sq. : "Ita sacerdos et religiosus, si opera ceremonl- arum, immo castitatis et paupertatis fecerit, quod in illis justiflcari et bonus fieri velit, impius est et Christum negat, cum illis, jam justificatus fide, uti debeat ad purgandam carnem et veterem hominem, ut fides in Christo crescat et sola in ipso regnet et sic flat regnum Dei. Ideo hilariter ea faciet, non ut multa mereatur sed ut purificetur. At, hui, quantus nunc in gregibus istis morbus est, qui et summo taedio nee nisi pro hac vita

LUTHER AND LUTHERDOM 41

done earlier, against excrescences and evil faint-hearted priests and religious, altliougli his tone has become sharper. One wonders all the more that his general arraignment of "monastic baptism" has not yet appeared in his plans. In that same year, 1519, he speaks more openly and violently about the liberty of the Christian man,^^ than he did in his commentary on Romans. From the end of 1518, he had re- garded the Pope as Anti-christ.^* He spoke thenceforward only of human institutions, recognized only three sacra- ments," and had taken the first step towards setting up a uni- versal priesthood.^^ Yet he still viewed the religious life with its vows, which is supposed to have been such a torment to him, as the shortest way to win the works of baptism.

Luther, in fact, only two years before writing his book "On the Vows", namely 1519, had preached : "Each one must test himself as to the state in which he may best destroy sin and combat nature. It is true, then, that there is no higher, better, greater vow than the baptismal vow ; for what can one vow beyond expelling sin, dying, hating this life, and becom- ing saintly? But, apart from this vow, one may bind himself to a state that will be a convenience and a furtherance to him in fulfilling his baptism. Like when two journey to the one city, one may take the foot-path, the other the highway, as seems best to him. He who binds himself to the married state walks in the cares and sufferings of that state, wherein he has burdened his nature, that it may be ha- bituated to love and sufferance, avoid sin, and prepare so much the better for death, which he might not so well be able to do out of that state. But he who seeks greater suf- fering and wishes shortly by much exercise to prepare him- self for death, and desires soon to attain to the works of his baptism, let him hind himself to chastity or to a re- ligious order; for a religious state, if it stands right, shall

religiosl et sacerdotes sunt, ne pilum quidem videntes, quid sint, quid faciant, quid quaerant." Thus in the exposition of the Epistle to the Galatians.

23 Ibid. p. 478, 479 ("Veritas Evangelii est scire quod omnia lieent") 572.

2*Enders, I, 316.

25 VV^eim. II, 713 sqq., Enders, II, 278.

29 Enders, loc. cit. p. 279.

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be of suffering and torment, that he may have more exercise of his baptism than in the married state, and that, by such torment, he may soon accustom himself to receive death joy- ously, and thus (soon) attain the end of his baptism.""

In accord with this, Luther the same year calls the coun- sels "certain means to the easier fulfillment of the command- ments; a virgin, a widow, a celibate fulfill the commandment 'thou shalt not covet,' more easily than one who is married, who already yields somewhat to concupiscence." Another time the same year, he similarly, here and there, calls the coun- sels "certain ways and shorter ways of more easily and hap- pily fulfilling the commandments of God.""^ Whether and to what extent Luther here spoke with theological exactness, I will investigate in chapter eight (A). It is enough now that two years before his conflict against the counsels and vows, he recognized their full right.

In these passages, Luther expresses the idea that there are various ways and one objective point, various means and one end. Among the shortest and best ways and means, he counts the religious state, especially the vow of chastity. And how much Luther had already given up in that year ! He was standing on the threshold of apostasy from the Church. But he had not yet sacrificed the religious life. In 1520, the year of his apostasy, after he was in the clutches of the syphilitic Hutten and of the incendiary Sickengen, then it was he first gradually went into the warfare against the orders. Spite of this, however, Luther, in the beginning of this year, was hailed by his zealous admirer, the learned Franciscan, Konrad Pelican of Basel (who had then already thrice read Luther's exposi- tion of the Epistle to the Galatians ) , as the most proper advo- cate and defender of the religious life and of the monks against the censures of certain Erasmians, who were inflam- ing a fearful hatred against the members of the religious orders.^"

27 Weim. II, 736. Abuse and pessimism are naturally not lacking.

28Enders,