Collected Works of Martin Luther

by Martin Luther

  The third view is also incorrect which has it that it was rivalry between two Orders, viz. dissatisfaction and envy on the part of the Augustinians against the Dominicans, which set the Monk on his career. The Augustinians, it was said, were annoyed with the rival Order because the preaching of the Indulgence had been entrusted to its members and not rather to so capable a man as Luther. Notwithstanding the early date at which this charge was made, even by Luther’s own contemporaries, the fact remains, that not only were there Augustinian Indulgence-preachers, as, for instance, Johann Paltz, but that Luther’s erroneous teaching had already made its appearance before he had as yet commenced his struggle with Tetzel, and before he had even thought of the Dominicans Prierias and Cardinal Cajetan. Jealousy against his adversaries, the Dominicans, afterwards added fuel to the flame, but it was not the starting-point.

  Moreover, in treating here of Luther’s starting-point, we are not seeking to determine, as was the case with the three views mentioned above, the origin and points of contact of the whole movement comprised under the name of the Reformation, but only of the first rise of Luther’s new opinions on doctrine. These originated quite apart from any attempt at external reform of the Church, and were equally remote from the idea of breaking away from the Pope or of proclaiming freedom of belief or unbelief, though many have fancied that these were Luther’s first aims.

  Points of contact have been sought for not only in Humanism and its criticism of Church doctrine, but more particularly in the teaching and tenets of Hus, Luther’s starting-point being traced back to his deep study of the writings of John Hus, which had ultimately led him to revive his errors; most of Luther’s theses, so we are told, were merely a revival of Hus’s teaching. This view calls for a closer examination than the others.

  A priori we might easily fancy that he had been led to his teaching on the Church by means of the writings of Wiclif and Hus, for here we do find a great similarity. But it is precisely this teaching on the Church which is not to be found amongst his earlier errors; he reached his views on this subject only as a result of the conflict he had to wage, and, moreover, even then he brought them forward under varying aspects. Erasmus, it is true, thought it fair to say, not merely of his teaching on the Church, but of his teaching in general, that if “what he has in common with Wiclif and Hus be removed, there would not be much left.” Erasmus does not analyse Luther’s assertions, otherwise he would certainly have experienced some difficulty in bringing out in detail his supposed dependence. We do not, however, deny that there may be some connection on certain points.

  Luther himself is absolutely silent as regards having arrived at his ideas through Wiclif and Hus. He evidently considers himself quite independent. In his earlier years he even speaks very strongly against the Bohemian heretics and the Picards, as he frequently calls the Husites. In his Commentary on the Psalms he regards them simply as heretics, and in his lectures on the Epistle to the Romans he once instances the “hæresis Pighardorum” as an example of the wilful destruction of what is holy. Later, however, at and after his public apostasy, and even shortly after the Leipzig Disputation, he defends some of Hus’s doctrines, and the result of his perusal of Hus’s work, “De ecclesia,” was to make him more audacious in upholding the views it contains. This quite explains the great sympathy with which he afterwards speaks of Hus and his writings in general, and the passionate way in which he blames the Catholic Church for having condemned him. He says in 1520: “In many parts of the German land there still survives the memory of John Hus, and, as it did not fade, I also took it up, and discovered that he was a worthy, highly enlightened man.... See, all ye Papists and Romanists,” he cries, “whether you are able to undo one page of John Hus with all your writings.” That book of Hus’s sermons which he found as a young student of theology in the monastery library at Erfurt (), he declares that he laid aside because it was by an arch-heretic, though he had found much good in it, and had been horrified that such a man had suffered death as a heretic; as he had at that time convinced himself, Hus interpreted Scripture powerfully and in a Christian manner. We also know that Luther relates that Staupitz had told him of Proles, his predecessor, how he disapproved of Johann Zachariæ, one of the most capable opponents of Hus, and that Staupitz had agreed: the latter also held that “Zachariæ had gone to the devil, but that Hus had been unfairly treated.” This opinion reinforces that of Grefenstein, mentioned above. Nor does Luther, when speaking of his later development, ever admit having read Hus and other heretical books, or being in any way indebted to them. On the other hand, he tries always to place himself above Hus. What Hus, according to him, discovered was quite insignificant (“minora et pauciora”); he only commenced bringing the light which had in reality to come from him (Luther). He only “reproved the abuses and the life of the Pope,” he says on a later occasion, “but I put the knife to his throat, I oppose his existence and his teaching and make him merely equal to other bishops; that I did not do at first,” i.e. I did not commence that way. It is certainly true that at the beginning he made no attempt to oppose the Papacy and the power of the Church.

  At any rate, and this is what is most true in the above statements regarding Luther’s connection with Hus, the feeling against Rome which Hus had stirred up, and the memory of the latter, proved of assistance to Luther when he came forward and brought him a speedier success; he himself says on one occasion: “It is a tradition among honest people that Hus suffered violence and injustice,” and calls the belief that Hus was condemned by false judges “robustissima,” so that no Pope, or Kaiser or University can shake it.

  Protestant biographers, as is well known, are fond of representing the inward process through which Luther went in the monastery, agreeably with his own descriptions in later years. Unable to find peace of conscience and assurance of salvation in the “works” of his monastery life or of the Papacy, his one aim had been to arrive at the knowledge of a “merciful God,” and for this purpose he had been obliged to unearth in Holy Scripture the long-forgotten doctrine of justification by faith. Some Protestant writers dwell not so much upon his longing for certainty of salvation as upon his desire for virtue and true righteousness. “Oh, when wilt thou become pious and do enough?” Others again complete the picture by laying stress upon his recognition of the concupiscence which is always reigning in man and which is sin, and of man’s inability to keep the commandments; it was his recognition of this which “produced Luther’s theology; his whole doctrine of justification culminated in the warfare against sin.” All these descriptions are, however, based on an uncritical acceptance of Luther’s later accounts of his life in religion, accounts plainly inspired by his polemic against the old Church, and intended to illustrate his false assertion that, in the cloister and in the Papacy, the way to obtain grace from God was utterly unknown.

  Here we will mention only cursorily some of Luther’s later statements, purporting to give a picture of his life as a monk.

  To these belong the assertion that in the monastery he had not prayed with faith in Christ, because “no one knew anything” about Christ: that there the Saviour was known only as a strict Judge, and that he had therefore wished there were no Saviour: “I wished there had been no God.” “None of us” believed at all that Christ was our Saviour, and, by dint of works, we “lost our baptism.” We were always told: “Torment yourself in the monastery ... whip yourself until you destroy your own sin; that was the teaching and faith of the Pope.” “It was a cursed life, full of malignity, was the life of that monkery.”

  The apostate monk’s object in all those statements regarding his interior or exterior experiences in the monastery was to strike at the Catholic Church.

  We certainly cannot accept as historic the picture of religious practice, or malpractice, given in the following: whenever his eyes fell upon a figure of Christ, owing to his popish upbringing, he “would have preferred to see the devil rather than Christ”; he had thought “that he had been raised to t
he company of angels,” but found he had really been “among devils”; he had “raged” in his search for comfort in Holy Scripture; he had also continuously suffered “a very great martyrdom and the task-mastership” of his conscience. “Self-righteousness” only had counted for anything; so great was it that he had been taught not to thank God for the Sacrament, but that God should thank him; but, notwithstanding all these errors, he had always sought after a “merciful God” and had at last found Him by coming to understand His gospel.

  The birth and growth of this fable in the mind of Luther as he advanced in years will occupy us later. The present writer may point out, that no convincing answer has been given to the objections against the legend which he made public even prior to the appearance of Denifle’s first volume, and which were repeated therein independently, and at considerably greater length. On the Protestant side, too, much more caution is now being observed in the use of Luther’s later descriptions of his own development, the tendency being to use contemporary sources instead. This is seen, for instance, in the studies by Braun on Luther’s theory of concupiscence and by Hunzinger on Luther’s mysticism, which will be quoted later.

  In explanation of the inner process through which Luther went, the primary reason for his turning away from Catholic doctrine has been attributed by some Catholics to scrupulosity combined with an unhealthy self-righteousness, which by an inward reaction grew into carelessness and despair. How far this view is correct, and how far it requires to be supplemented by other important factors, will be shown further on.

  Meanwhile another altogether too summary theory, a theory which overshoots the mark, must first be considered.

  2. Whether Evil Concupiscence is Irresistible?

  Formerly, and even in recent times, many writers on the Catholic side have endeavoured to prove that the principal motive for Luther’s new opinions lay in worldliness, sensuality, and more especially sins of the flesh. In order to explain his teaching attempts were made to establish the closest connection between Luther’s views with regard to the survival of sin in man without his consent, the covering over of man’s guilt by the merits of Christ and the worthlessness of good works on the one hand, and on the other a nature ravaged by sinful habits, such as was attributed to the originator of these doctrines. The principal argument in favour of this view was found in the not unusual experience that intellectual errors frequently arise from moral faults. When, however, we come to examine Luther’s character more narrowly, we at once perceive that other factors must be taken into consideration in his inward change, so that, in his case, it is not easy to decide how far his new ideas were produced under the pressure of his own sensuality. It was taken for granted that, owing to habitual moral faults, and through constant indulgence in the concupiscence of the flesh, he had been reduced to a state of utter inward degradation. Now, in point of fact, beyond what has been already quoted nothing can be found regarding his moral conduct previous to his change of view. No other circumstances are known concerning Luther than those already mentioned and those to be given later. It is true that history does not possess the all-seeing eye of Him who searches the heart and the reins; the sources containing information concerning the youth of Luther, before and after his profession, are also very inadequate; nevertheless, we must admit that the only arguments upon which the assertion of his great inward corruption could historically be based, namely, actual texts and facts capable of convincing anyone, are not forthcoming in the material at our command.

  If Luther did actually teach the fatal invincibility of concupiscence (of this we shall have more to say later), yet he might well have arrived at this view by some other way than that of constant falls and the abiding experience of his own weakness and sinfulness. It is at least certain that sad personal experience is not the only thing which gives rise to grave errors of judgment.

  Nor does the manner in which Luther represents concupiscence prove his own inward corruption. He does not make it to consist merely in the concupiscence of the flesh, and when he says that it is impossible to conquer concupiscence he is not thinking merely of this. When he speaks of concupiscence, and of a “fomes peccati” in man, he usually means concupiscence in the wide theological sense, i.e. as the attraction to every transgression which flatters our imperfect and evil nature, in particular to selfishness, as the centre around which clusters all that is sinful — pride, hatred, sensuality, etc.

  Luther certainly teaches, even at the outset, as we shall point out later, that the will of man, by Adam’s Fall, has lost in our ruined nature even the power to work anything that is good or pleasing to God, and therefore that it is impossible for man, in his own strength, to withstand sin and its lusts.

  But he does not bring forward this doctrine under circumstances and in words which give us to understand that he was guided by the intention of showing any indulgence to concupiscence; on the contrary, he would like to encourage everyone to oppose concupiscence by means of grace and faith. Numerous texts might be quoted which clearly show this to have been the case.

  In what sense then does he allow the irresistibility of concupiscence? We shall find the answer in what follows.

  He frequently expresses the truth, taught by faith and experience alike, regarding the continuance of concupiscence in man, even in the most perfect, and he does so in terms so strong that he seems to make concupiscence invincible. We can also see that he has a lively sense of the burden of concupiscence, that he cherishes a certain gloomy distrust of God’s readiness to come to man’s assistance — a distrust connected with his temptations on predestination — and that he undervalues the helps which the Church offers against evil desires. Finally, he sees in the very existence of concupiscence a culpable offence against the Almighty, and declares that, without grace, man is an unhappy prisoner, who in consequence of original sin is in the fullest sense incapable of doing what is good.

  In his Commentary on the Psalms (1512-15-16) he still, it is true, upholds the natural freedom of man as opposed to his passions. In the Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (1515-16), and frequently in the sermons of that period, he indeed sacrifices this freedom, but even there he insists that the grace of God will in the end secure the victory to those who seek aid and pray humbly, and he also instances some of the means which, with the efficacious assistance of God, may help to victory in the religious life. To this later standpoint of the possibility of resistance with the assistance of grace he adhered to his end. Exhortations to struggle not only against actual sins, but also against the smouldering fire of concupiscence — which must be extinguished more and more in the righteous until at length death sets him free — occupy many pages of his writings. The jarring notes present in the above teaching do not seem to have troubled him at any time; he seeks to conceal them and to pass them over. Never once does he enter upon a real theological discussion of the most difficult point of all, the relation of grace to free will.

  Luther also speaks of our freedom and our responsibility for our personal salvation in his Commentary on the Psalms: “My soul is in my own keeping; by the freedom of my will I can make it eternally happy or eternally unhappy by choosing or rejecting Thy law.” Therefore Psalm cxviii. 109 says, “My soul is always in my hands,” and although I am free to do either, yet I have not “forgotten Thy law.” He defends the principle of the theologians, that God does not refuse His grace to him who does his best (“facienti quod est in se, Deus non denegat gratiam”). He teaches also that it is possible to prepare for grace which is always at hand.

  “Whoever keeps the law,” he writes in the lectures on the Epistle to the Romans, at a time when he had already denied the freedom of the will for good, “is in Christ, and grace is given him according as he has prepared himself for it to the best of his power.” Without grace man is, it is true, unable to do anything that is good in God’s sight, but “the law of nature is known to everyone, and therefore no one is excusable” who does not follow it and fight against evil. Grace, ac
cording to him, sets the enslaved will in the righteous free again to work for his salvation. “After he has received grace, he has been set free, at least to work for his eternal salvation.” This remarkable passage together with its continuation will be considered later when we deal more fully with the Commentary on Romans. We may also draw attention to the fact, that in his Notes on Tauler’s sermons, written about the same time as the Commentary, quite against the supposed utter inability of the will for good, he acknowledges the natural inclination in man towards good — the so-called Syntheresis, or moral good conscience.

  In his lectures on Romans he insists that, “by means of works of penance and the cross,” concupiscence must be fought against without intermission, forced back and diminished; “the body of sin” must, according to the Apostle, be destroyed. Luther must therefore certainly have regarded man as capable of resisting his evil passions, at any rate with assistance from above.

  Of his later statements it will suffice to mention the following: “If I will not leave sin and become pious,” he says of the struggle against evil, “I may indeed strive to become the master, and God’s property, and to be free, but nothing will come of it.” Or again: “As long as we live here, evil desires and passions remain in us which draw us to sin, against which we must strive and fight, as St. Peter says (1 Peter ii. 11 f.). We must therefore always exercise ourselves and pray always and fight against sin ... as often as you feel yourself tempted to impatience, pride, unchastity or other sins ... you must forthwith think how best to withstand these arrows, and beg the Lord Jesus that your sin may not gain the upper hand and overcome you, but that it may be conquered by His grace.” “Do you wish to keep all the commandments,” he says later, “to be free from your evil desires and from sin, as the commandments require and demand, then see you believe in Christ.”