Collected Works of Martin Luther

by Martin Luther

  At the earliest inception of Luther’s theological errors other elements may however be perceived which help to explain more easily his growing antipathy to so-called holiness by works. First, there was the real abuse then prevalent in the practice of works. Here we find a weak spot in the religious life of the time, nor is it unlikely that grave faults and repulsive excesses were to be found even in the Augustinian monasteries with which Luther was acquainted. We have already drawn attention to the formalism which in many cases had affected the clergy and the monastic houses. The often one-sided cultivation of exterior works, which, for instance, by the Indulgence-preachers, were proclaimed unfailing in their effects; the popular excesses in saint-worship; far-fetched legends and exhortations to imitate the extraordinary practices of saintly heroes; the stepmotherly treatment meted out in the pulpit to the regular and ordinary duties of a Christian; the self-interest, avarice and jealousy rampant in confraternities, pilgrimages and other public expressions of worship, faults which had slipped in partly owing to the petty egotism of the corporations and Orders, partly to the greed of their members, partly to a mania for false piety; all this may well have made a painful impression on the Wittenberg Professor, and have called forth his eloquent reproof. His tendency to look at the worst side of things doubtless contributed, together with the above reasons, to fill him with distaste for good works in general.

  The extraordinary exaggerations of which he was guilty must, however, be imputed to himself alone. It has been said to his excuse that, as Rural Vicar, he had been able to acquire correct information regarding the state of things. But, as it happens, his frequent and unrestrained outbursts against abuses belong, at least in great part, to the time when he was a simple monk, who, apart from his journeys to Rome and Cologne and his stay at Erfurt, had seen little outside his cell beyond the adjoining walls of Wittenberg. His lectures on the Psalms and the Epistle to the Romans both offer strange examples of such exaggerations, though both were delivered before he had had any experience as Rural Vicar.

  Finally his own morbid personal condition must be taken into account; the after-effects of his passing fit of scrupulosity, and the lasting feeling of fear which sometimes quite overmastered him. His inclination to doubts concerning his election remained, and therewith also the moral results which the fear of being predestined to hell would naturally exercise upon his peculiar temperament. He remained an outspoken predestinarian of the most violent type. (See chap. vi. 2.) He had to come to terms with this fear of hell, and his system shows the result; in many respects it appears as a reaction against the oppressive burden of the thought of eternal rejection.

  His state of fear, however, as already indicated, proceeded not merely from the numerous temptations of which he himself speaks, but also from his own inward depression, from an affection, partly psychical and partly physical, which often prostrated him in terror. Only later, with the help of other facts of his inner life, will it be possible to deal with this darker side of Luther (vol. vi. xxxvi.). He imagined that during these fits, in which troubles of conscience also intervened, and which, according to his description, were akin to the pains of hell, he was forsaken by God, and sunk in the eerie night of the soul of which the mystics treat. He also considered them at an early period as a trial sent by God and intended to prepare him for higher things. In trying to escape from this feeling of terror, at the time of his change he embraced all the more readily ideas of false security which seemed to be offered by the appropriation of the merits of Christ, and the rejection of all attempt to acquire merit on one’s own account. Psychologically, it is comprehensible that this solution seemed to him to let a beam of sunlight into the darkness of his terror. Anxious to escape from fear he threw himself frantically into the opposite extreme, into a system of self-pacification hitherto unknown to theology. But even this new system did not serve to calm him in the first stage of his error. There was still something lacking, so he felt, in his doctrine, and to this he attained only in the second stage of the process by his discovery that the seal is set on inward peace by the doctrine of the absolute assurance of salvation imparted by Faith. (See chap. x.)

  Morbid fears prevented any childlike trust in God taking root in a mind so inexplicably agitated as his. With what great fervour he prepared himself for his priestly ordination, and for celebrating his first Mass, may here be illustrated by his own statement, that he then read Gabriel Biel’s book on the Mass (“Sacri canonis missæ expositio literalis ac mystica”) “with a bleeding heart.” So he himself says later, when he also speaks of the work, then widely used, as “an excellent book, as I then thought.” From the tone of his letter of invitation to his first Mass we can judge of his state of commotion. The confusion and trouble which he experienced at his first Mass, and the fear which seized him during the procession of the Blessed Sacrament, lead us to conclude that he was readily overcome by vain apprehensions combined with physical excitement. Here also belongs Luther’s later statement concerning the fears which he (and others too) experienced when in the monastery at the smallest ritual blunders, as though they had been great sins; such an assertion, though exaggerated and untrue, is probably an echo of his own troubled state during the liturgical ceremonies.

  It is possible that those fears may have been the cause of his great pessimism with regard to human works. They may have contributed to make him see sin in what was merely the result of fallen nature with its involuntary concupiscences, without any consent of the will. Such fears may have pursued him when he began to brood over the doctrine of man’s powers, original sin and grace; we speak of his “brooding,” for his inclinations at that time were to a melancholy contemplation of things unseen. The timidity which he had acquired in the early days of his boyhood and at school doubtless had its effect in keeping him in such moods, apart from his own temperament.

  On close examination of Luther’s theological studies we find that his preparation for the office of professor — so far as a knowledge of the positive doctrine of the Church, of the Fathers and of good Scholasticism is concerned — was all too meagre.

  He had not at his command the time necessary for penetrating deeply into dogma or into its presentment by earlier exponents. What was said above of his course of studies must, however, be supplemented by some further details.

  After his ordination in Erfurt, at Easter, 1507, he began the two-year course of theology to which alone the privileges of the Augustinians obliged him. In addition to the lectures, which, as was usual, were based on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, there was also the Office in Choir; the pupils of the Order were indeed on lecture days not obliged to attend Matins, Sext and Compline, but the latter had to be said by Luther privately, as he was a priest. While the lectures on the Sentences were still in progress, Luther was pursuing his scriptural studies. Before the full time had expired however, after about eighteen months of theological study, he was, as mentioned before, called to the University of Wittenberg at the commencement of the winter term, 1508, in order to deliver “Lectiones publicæ” on moral philosophy, i.e. on the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle. He was, it is true, expected to prosecute his theological studies at the same time by attending lectures, but for this he can scarcely have found much time, seeing that he had himself to give a daily lecture of one hour on so difficult a subject as the Ethics in the Faculty of Philosophy. A capable young man was needed by Staupitz to supply the requirements of the University, which was largely under his care, for the former lecturer on Ethics, Wolfgang Ostermayr, had, so it appears, suddenly left, and dire necessity caused the incompleteness of Luther’s philosophical training to be overlooked. Staupitz was the more willing to shut his eyes to what was wanting, as he was personally much attached to the highly promising lecturer, about whom moreover he had already his plans. That Luther was not particularly pleased at the way in which he was employed, we learn from his Table-Talk: “At Erfurt I was reading nothing but the Bible, when God, in a wonderful manner, and contrary to everyone�
�s expectations, sent me from Erfurt to Wittenberg; that was a nice come down for me.” The word actually made use of in the last sentence was a slang expression of the students and implied that his new position was not to his liking. It was less the overwork than his antipathy to philosophy and Aristotle that made him feel uncomfortable; he himself complains: “violentum est studium, maxime philosophiæ” in his letter from Wittenberg to Johann Braun in Eisenach (March 17, 1509). In this letter he also confesses that he is longing to exchange philosophy for theology. After a single term his professors thought him worthy of the degree of “Bacularius (Baccalaureus) Biblicus.” This was the lowest theological degree, and was conferred on him by Staupitz the Dean on March 9, 1509, according to the Dean’s Register of the Theological Faculty. Thus did he pass the two years of his course of theology.

  Besides the lecture on philosophy he had now also to discourse daily for one hour on portions of Holy Scripture, teaching being then considered a part of the course of studies. In addition to this he was obliged to attend the theological lectures and disputations. “Indeed a colossal task,” says a Protestant Luther-scholar, “which shows what great demands Staupitz made on the powers of his pupils.”

  The next degree in theology, that of “Sententiarius” was to have been conferred on Luther, as we know, in the autumn of 1509, when suddenly, owing to internal disputes, he was recalled from Wittenberg to his monastery at Erfurt. What prospect of quiet theological study opened out before him there? At Erfurt his preparation again consisted principally in teaching and in disputing in his own peculiar way. As soon as the University had accepted him as “Sententiarius,” he had at once to give theological lectures on the Sentences. He was also employed in the monastery, together with Dr. Nathin, as sub-regent of house studies, i.e. in the instruction of the novices in the duties of their profession. At the same time he not only continued his accustomed biblical reading, but, in order to be able to prosecute it more thoroughly, began to study Greek and Hebrew, in which Johann Lang, an Augustinian who has been frequently mentioned and who was a trained Humanist, rendered him appreciable service. The eighteen months he spent in the Erfurt monastery were distracted by the dissensions within the Order, by his journeys to Halle and then to Rome and his intercourse with Erfurt Humanists, such as Petrejus (Peter Eberbach). After his return from five months’ absence in Rome, the dispute in the Order continued to hinder his studies and finally drove him to the friends of Staupitz at Wittenberg, as soon as he had declared himself against the Erfurt Observantines. Thence the affairs of the Order carried him in May, 1512, to the Chapter at Cologne, where the degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred upon him. During his preparation for his doctorate he already began, urged on by Staupitz, to preach in the monastery church at Wittenberg, where the Elector once heard him and was filled with admiration. He was also always ready to assist others with their work, as for instance when he prepared for the Provost the address to be delivered before the Synod at Leitzkau. And when at thirty years of age, in October, 1515, he undertook, as Doctor, to deliver the lectura in biblia at the University of Wittenberg, this was not in his case the commencement of a career of learned leisure, but the filling of a position encumbered with the cure of souls, with preaching and much monastic business.

  In view of his defective education in theology properly so called, we may well raise the question how, without any thorough knowledge of the subject, he could feel himself summoned to undertake such far-reaching theological changes.

  “At the parting of the ways,” says Denifle, regarding Luther’s knowledge of theology, “and even when he had already set up his first momentous theses and declared war on Scholasticism, he was still but half-educated.... He knew nothing of the golden age of Scholasticism, and was even unacquainted with the doctor of his own Order [who followed the greater Schoolmen] Ægydius of Rome.” “He was a self-taught, not a methodically trained, man.” In spite of his self-reliance, a feeling of the insufficiency of his education seems to have tormented him at the outset. We should not perhaps be justified in accepting what he said in later years, that he had at first “been greatly afraid of the pulpit” even when (in his second stay at Wittenberg) it was only a question of preaching “in the Refectory before the brethren.” But according to his own statement, he expressed very strongly to Staupitz his fear of taking the degree of Doctor of Divinity, and two years later he declared that he had only yielded to pressure. But Staupitz, who urged him forward with excessive zeal, had said in his presence when Luther preached before the Elector: “I will prepare for Your Highness in this man a very special Doctor, who will please you well,” words which the Elector did not forget and of which he reminded Staupitz in 1518.

  The fact that Staupitz made such slight demands in Luther’s case regarding theological preparation may be explained from his own course of studies. His previous history shows his studies to have been anything but deep, and this is a matter worth noting, because it is an example of how a solid study of theology was at that time often wanting even in eminent men in the Church. After he had been entered at Tübingen in 1497 as Master of Arts, he commenced (October 29, 1498), the biblical course, and, a little more than two months later (January 10, 1499), began to deliver theological lectures on the Sentences. Half a year of this qualified him for the Licentiate, and, a day after, he became Doctor of Divinity. “These untrained theologians,” says Denifle, after giving the dates just mentioned, “wanted to reform theology, and looked with contempt on the theology of the Middle Ages, of which they were utterly ignorant.”

  CHAPTER IV

  “I AM OF OCCAM’S PARTY”

  1. A closer examination of Luther’s Theological Training

  It was not time only which was wanting in Luther’s case for a deep course of theological study, he was even denied what was equally essential, namely, a really scholarly presentment of theology such as is to be found in the best period of Scholasticism.

  The great Schoolmen of the Middle Ages, with their finished system, combining a pious veneration for the traditions of the Fathers with high flights of thought, were almost unknown to him; at least, he never esteemed or made any attempt to penetrate himself with the learning of Albertus Magnus, Thomas of Aquin or Bonaventure, notwithstanding the fact that in the Church their teaching, particularly that of Aquinas, already took the first place, owing to the approval of the Holy See. Luther frequently displayed his utter ignorance of Thomism, as we shall show later.

  The nominalistic philosophy and theology offered him by the schools he attended has, with reason, been described as a crippled parody of true Scholasticism. In this, its latest development, Scholasticism had fallen from its height, and, abandoning itself to speculative subtleties, had opened a wide field to Nominalism and its disintegrating criticism. The critical acumen demonstrated by John Duns Scotus, the famous Franciscan Doctor (Doctor Subtilis), who died at Cologne in 1308, the late-comers would fain have further emphasised. Incapable as they were of producing anything great themselves, they exercised their wits in criticising every insignificant proposition which could possibly be questioned in philosophy and theology. The Franciscan, William of Occam (Ockham, Surrey), called Doctor Singularis, or Invincibilis, also Venerabilis Inceptor Nominalium, was one of the boldest and most prolific geniuses of the Middle Ages in the domain of philosophy and theology. His great works, composed during his professorship, especially his Commentary on the Sentences, his “Centifolium” and his “Quodlibeta,” are proofs of this. On theological questions concerning poverty he came into conflict with the Pope, his Sentences were condemned by the University of Paris, he appealed from the Holy See to a General Council, was excommunicated in 1328, protested against the decisions of the General Chapter of the Order, and then took refuge with Lewis of Bavaria, the schismatic, whose literary defender he became. He wrote for him, among other things, his ecclesiastico-political “Dialogus,” and even after his protector’s death continued to resist Clement VI. Occam died at Munich in 1349,
reconciled with his Order, though whether the excommunication had already been removed or not is doubtful.

  He revived Nominalism in philosophy and theology. His teaching was so much that of the schools through which Luther had been that the latter could declare: “sum occamicæ factionis,” and speak quite simply of Occam as “magister meus.” It cannot, however, be said, as it recently has been, that Luther “prided himself on being Occam’s disciple,” and that he “would not give a refusal to his beloved master”; for it was more in irony than in earnest that he spoke when he said: “I also am of Occam’s party”; and when, as late as 1530, he still speaks of “Occam, my beloved master,” this is said in jest only in order to be able to accuse him more forcibly as an expert with the greatest of errors; nevertheless, he places Occam in point of learning far above Thomas of Aquin, the “so-called Doctor of Doctors,” whom he despised. Regarding, however, the esteem in which Occam was held in his youth, he afterwards said: “We had to give him the title Venerabilis huius sectæ [scholæ] primus repertor,” but adds: “Happy are you [my table-companions] in not having to learn the dung which was offered me.” He felt compelled, nevertheless, to praise Occam’s dialectic skill and his inexhaustible acuteness, and for his part considered him the most gifted of the Schoolmen (“summus dialecticus, scholasticorum doctorum sine dubio princeps et ingeniosissimus”). It was not only at a later period that he was ready to admit his weaknesses, for even at the beginning of his course, in the Commentary on Romans (1515-16), he attacks certain essential errors of Occam and his school.