Collected Works of Martin Luther

by Martin Luther

  We might expect to find in the Commentary the most noticeable progress where he deals with preparation for grace, for this was surely the point on which he was bound to come into conflict with other doctrines. It is, however, hard to tell whether he realised the difficulty. It is true that much less stress is laid upon preparation for justification as the work proceeds, whereas at the commencement the author speaks unhesitatingly of the cultivation of the will which must be undertaken in order to bring down grace. (See above, .) This, however, might merely be accidental and due to the fact that, in the last chapters, St. Paul is dealing mainly with the virtues of the justified. Towards the end of the Epistle, in connection with what the Apostle says on charity and faith in the righteous, the nature of that “humilitas” which Luther so eulogises as a preliminary and accompaniment of the appropriation of the righteousness of Christ undergoes a change and appears more as faith with charity, or charity with faith. Luther’s manner of speaking thus varies according to the subject with which Paul is dealing.

  If we take the middle of the year 1515 as the starting-point of Luther’s new theology, then many of the statements in his Commentary on the Psalms, especially in its latter part, become more significant as precursors of Luther’s errors. The favourable view we expressed above of his work on the Psalms, as regards its agreement with the theology of the Church, was only meant to convey that a Catholic interpretation of the questionable passages was possible; this, however, cannot be said of the theses in the Commentary on Romans which we have just been considering. We now understand why unwillingness to allow any ability in man to do what is good is the point in which Luther’s work on the Psalms goes furthest. There the doctrine of his “profundior theologia” is: “We must account ourselves as nothing, as sinful, liars, as dead in God’s sight; we must not trust in any merits of our own.” There, too, we find paradoxes such as the following: “God is wonderful in His saints, the most beautiful is to Him the most hideous, the most infamous the most excellent; whoever thinks himself upright, with him God is not pleased.... In the recognition of this lie the pith of the Scripture and the kernel of the heavenly grain.” Such expressions are, it is true, not unlike what we sometimes hear from the Church’s theologians and saints, but in the light of the Commentary on Romans they become more important as signs of transition.

  We must not forget, in view of the numerous enigmas which the boldness of the Commentary on Romans presents, that it bears merely a semi-public character and was not intended for publication. In this work, destined only for the lecture-room, Luther did not stop to weigh or fine down his words, but gave the reins to his impulse, thus offering us a so much the more interesting picture of his inmost thoughts.

  Some important particulars, in which this work differs from other public utterances made by Luther about the same time, are to be explained by the familiarity with which he is speaking to his pupils.

  In the sermons on the Ten Commandments, published in 1518 but preached in the two preceding years and consequently intended for general consumption, he speaks differently of concupiscence than in the Commentary. In the sermons he declares that desires so long as they are involuntary are certainly not sinful. He even says to a man who is troubled on account of his involuntary temptations against purity: “No, no, you have not lost your chastity by such thoughts; on the contrary, you have never been more chaste if you are only sure they came to you against your will.... It is a true sign of a lively sense of chastity when a man feels displeasure, and it need not even be absolute displeasure, otherwise there would be no attraction; he is in an uncertain state, now willing, now unwilling.... In the struggle for chastity the little bark is tossed hither and thither on the waters, while [according to the gospel] Christ is asleep within. Rouse Christ so that He may command the sea, i.e. the flesh, and the wind, i.e. the devil.” In the public Indulgence theses of 1517, he is also careful not to express his erroneous views on grace and the nature of man. It is characteristic of him how he changes even the form of expression when repeating an assertion which is also made in the Commentary on Romans. In the Commentary he had written, that too great esteem of outward works led to a too frequent granting of Indulgences, and that the Pope and the Bishops were more cruel than cruelty itself if they did not freely grant the same, or even greater Indulgences, for God’s sake and the good of souls, seeing that they themselves had received all they had for nothing. This violent utterance here appears as the expression of his own opinion. In the theses, however, he presents the same view to the public with much greater caution; he says, these and similar objections brought forward by scrupulous laymen, were caused, contrary to the wishes of the Pope, by dissolute Indulgence preachers; one might hear “such-like calumnious charges and subtle questions from seculars,” and they must “be taken into account and answered.”

  The ideas contained in the Commentary on Romans are also to be met with in the other lectures which followed. Of this the present writer convinced himself by glancing through the Vatican copies. The approaching publication of the copies in the “Anfänge reformatorischer Bibelauslegung,” of Johann Ficker, a work which commenced with the Commentary on Romans, will supply further details. The character of the Wittenberg Professor is, however, such that we may expect some surprising revelations. Generally speaking, a movement in the direction of the doctrine of “faith alone” is noticeable throughout his work.

  In view of Ficker’s forthcoming edition it will suffice to quote a few excerpts from the Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews of 1517, according to the Vatican MS. (Pal. lat. 1825). They show that the author in his exegesis of this Epistle is imbued with the same idea as in the Commentary on Romans, namely, that Paul exalts (in Luther’s sense) the redemption in Christ, and Grace, in opposition to righteousness by works. They also betray how he becomes gradually familiar with the doctrine that faith alone justifies, without any longer placing humility in the foreground as the intermediary of justification as he once had done.

  On folio 46 of the MS. he says: “We should notice how Paul in this Epistle extols grace as against the pride of the law and of human righteousness (‘extollit adversus superbiam’ etc.). He proves that without Christ neither the law, nor the priesthood, nor prophecy, nor the service of angels sufficed, but that all these were established with a view to the coming Christ. It is therefore his intention to teach Christ only.”

  On folio 117 Luther sets forth the difference between “purity in the New and in the Old Testament.” In the New Law the Blood of Christ brings inward purification. “As conscience cannot alter sin that has been committed and is utterly unable to escape the future wrath, it is necessarily terrified and oppressed wherever it turns. From this state of distress it can be released only by the Blood of Christ. If it looks in faith upon this Blood, it believes and knows that by the same its sins are washed away and removed. Thus it is purified by faith and at the same time quieted, so that, in joy over the remission of its sins, it no longer fears punishment. No law can assist in this purification, no works, in fact nothing but the Blood of Christ alone (‘ad hanc munditiam ... nihil nisi unicus hic sanguis Christi facere potest’), and even this cannot accomplish it unless man believes in his heart that it has been shed for the remission of sin. For it is necessary to believe the testator when He says: ‘This Blood which shall be shed for you and for many unto the remission of sins.’”

  From Paul’s words he goes on to infer that “good works done outside of grace are sins, in the sense that they may be called dead works. For if, without the Blood of Christ, conscience is morally impure, it can only perform what corresponds with its nature, namely, what is impure....” Folio 117´: “It follows that a good, pure, quiet, happy conscience can only be the result of faith in the forgiveness of sins. But this is founded only on the Word of God, which assures us that Christ’s Blood was shed unto the remission of sins.”

  Folio 118: “It follows that those who contemplate the sufferings of Christ only from compassion, or from s
ome other reason than in order to attain to faith, contemplate them to little purpose, and in a heathenish manner.... The more frequently we look upon the Blood of Christ the more firmly must we believe that it was shed for our own sins; for this is ‘to drink and eat spiritually,’ to grow strong through this faith in Christ and to become incorporated in Him.”

  CHAPTER VII

  SOME PARTICULARS WITH REGARD TO THE OUTWARD CIRCUMSTANCES AND INWARD LIFE OF LUTHER AT THE TIME OF THE CRISIS

  1. Luther as Superior of eleven Augustinian Houses

  His election as Rural Vicar, which took place at the convocation of the Order at Gotha (on April 29, 1515), had raised Luther to a position of great importance in his Congregation.

  He had, within a short time, risen from being Sub-Prior and Regent of the Wittenberg House of Studies to be the chief dignitary in the Congregation after Staupitz, the Vicar-General. The office was conferred on him, as was customary, for a period of three years, i.e. till May, 1518. Of the eleven monasteries which formed the District the two most important and influential were Erfurt and Wittenberg. The others were Dresden, Herzberg, Gotha, Langensalza, Nordhausen, Sangershausen, Magdeburg and Neustadt on the Orla, to which Eisleben was added, when, in July, 1515, Staupitz and Luther presided at the opening of a new monastery there. As Staupitz was frequently absent from the District, the demands made on the activity of the new Superior were all the greater.

  At this time too his professorial Bible studies and his efforts to clear up the confusion and difficulties existing in his mind must have kept him fully occupied. In addition to this there was the dissension within the Order itself on the question of observance and of the constitution, a dispute which required for its settlement a man filled with zeal for the spiritual welfare of the monasteries, and one thoroughly devoted to the exalted traditional aims of the Congregation.

  The mordant discourse on the “Little Saints” which the fiery Monk delivered on May 1 at the Gotha meeting showed in what direction the influence of the new Rural Vicar would be exerted. Johann Lang, his friend who was present at the time, had a good reason for sending this discourse to Mutian, the head of the Humanists at Gotha; the bitter critic of the “uncharitable self-righteous” gave promise of the establishing of a freer ideal of life in the Order, and so original and powerful a speaker was certain to be strong enough to draw others with him.

  What has been preserved of Luther’s correspondence with the priories and the monks of his District is unfortunately very meagre; the remarkable rapidity with which the Lutheran innovations spread among the Augustinians speaks, however, at a later date very plainly of the powerful influence which he had exerted on his brother monks during the years that he held the office of Rural Vicar. The first result of his influence was to bring into the ascendant a conception of the aims of the Order differing from that of the Observantines. Hand in hand with this went the recruiting of followers for his new theological ideas and for the so-called Augustinian or Pauline movement, of which the Wittenberg Faculty was the headquarters.

  Johann Lang prepared the ground for Luther at the Erfurt monastery, whither he went in 1515 and where he became Prior in 1516. The Augustinian, George Spenlein, Luther’s Wittenberg friend, to whom he addressed the curious, mystical letter on Christ’s righteousness (above, f.), became, later on, a Lutheran preacher and parson at Arnstadt. Luther, during his Vicariate, had as Prior at Wittenberg his friend Wenceslaus Link, who was also Doctor and Professor in the Theological Faculty. He was, however, relieved of his office of Prior in 1516, left Wittenberg and went to Munich as preacher, whence he removed to Nuremberg at the beginning of 1517; in that town he became later a zealous promoter of the Reformation. The friendship which Luther had formed at Wittenberg with George Spalatin, the astute courtier in priest’s dress, was, however, of still greater importance to him in his work both within the Order and outside. Spalatin, who had received a humanist training under Marschalk and Mutian at Erfurt, came in 1511 to Wittenberg, where he entered the family of the Elector as tutor to his two nephews, and, in 1513, was promoted to the office of Court Chaplain and private secretary to the Elector. He readily undertook the management at Court of the business in connection with the priories under Luther’s supervision, and, later on, contrived by his influence in high quarters to promote the spread of the religious innovations.

  The letters which Luther wrote as Vicar he signed, as a rule, “Frater Martinus Luther,” though sometimes “Luder, Augustinensis,” usually with the addition “Vicarius,” and on one occasion “Vicarius Districtus,” which, needless to say, does not mean “the strict vicar” as it has been mistranslated, but refers to his office as Rural Vicar of the District.

  In these letters, chiefly in Latin, which Luther addressed to his monasteries, we meet with some pages containing beautiful and inspiring thoughts. There can be no question that he knew how to intervene with energy where abuses called for it, just as he also could speak words of consolation, encouragement and kindly admonition to those in fault. The letters also contain some exhortations, well-worded and full of piety, tending to the moral advancement of zealous members of the Order. The allusions to faith in Christ, our only help, and the absolute inadequacy of human effort, are, however, very frequent, though he does not here express his new theological opinions so definitely as he does in expounding St. Paul.

  To Johann Lang, who, as Prior of the Erfurt house, met with many difficulties from his subordinates, he writes comforting and consoling him: “Be strong and the Lord will be with you; call to mind that you are set up for a sign which shall be contradicted (Luke ii. 34), to the one, indeed, a good odour unto life, to another an odour of death (2 Cor. ii. 16).” At Erfurt, as the same letter shows, he had to intervene in the interests of discipline. In order that no complaints might be brought against the Prior by the brethren on account of the expenses for food and drink in entertaining guests and for the keep of those who collected the alms (terminarii) he orders an exact account to be kept of such expenses; the hostel for guests might, he says, become a real danger to the monastery if not properly regulated; the monastery must not be turned into a beer-house or tavern, but must remain a religious house. To uphold “the honour of the Reverend Father Vicar,” Staupitz, he directed that three contumacious monks should be removed, by way of punishment, from Erfurt to a less important convent. On the occasion of some unpleasantness which Lang experienced from his brother monks, Luther impressed on him that, after receiving this blow on the one cheek, he should bravely present the other also; “and this is not the last and worst slap you will have to endure, for God’s wisdom is as yet playing with you and preparing you for greater struggles.”

  “Be mild and friendly to the Prior of Nuremberg,” he says to him at a later date; “it is necessary to be so, just because he is harsh and unfriendly. One who is severe cannot get the better of a hard man, but he who is mild can, just as one devil cannot overcome another, but the finger of God must do this.”

  And again, “As regards the brother who has fallen away, take pity on him in the Lord. He has forsaken you, led astray by impiety, but you must not on that account be wanting in charity and turn your back upon him. Do not take the scandal too much to heart. We have been called, baptised and ordained in order to bear the burdens of others, for this reason the office clothes our own wretchedness with honour. We must, according to the proverb, ourselves cover our neighbour’s shame, as Christ was, still is, and for all eternity will be our covering, as it is written: ‘Thou art a priest for ever’ (Heb. v. 6). Therefore beware of desiring to be so clean that you will not allow yourself to be touched by what is unclean, or of refusing to put up with uncleanness, to cover it over and to wipe it away. You have been raised to a post of honour, but the task it involves is to bear dishonour. It is on the cross and on affronts that we must pride ourselves.”

  At the commencement of the autumn term in 1516, he complained that Lang was sending him too many brothers to study at Wittenberg, more in fact than
he was able to provide for, and later, as the reason for his concern, he mentions that the Wittenberg house already numbered 41 inmates, of whom 22 were priests and 12 students, “who all have to live on our more than scanty means; but the Lord will provide.”

  At that time it was feared that Wittenberg might suffer from an attack of the plague which was raging in the vicinity, and which actually did break out there in October. Luther reassures the troubled Prior of Erfurt, who had besought him to depart: “It is possible that the plague may interfere with the lectures on the Epistle to the Galatians which I have just commenced. But, so far, it only snatches away two or three victims daily at most, and sometimes even fewer.... And whither should I flee? I trust the heavens will not fall even should brother Martin be stricken. I shall send the brothers away and distribute them should the mischief increase; I have been appointed here and obedience does not allow of my taking flight, unless a new order be imposed on me to obey. Not as though I do not fear death, I am not a Paul but merely an expounder of Paul; but I trust that the Lord will deliver me from my fear.”

  When a member of the Teutonic Order sought for admission into the Augustinian house at Neustadt, Luther instructed the Prior there, Michael Dressel (Tornator) to observe very carefully the ecclesiastical and conventual regulations provided for such a case. “We must, it is true, work with God in the execution of this pious project,” he writes, “but we shall do this not by allowing the ideas of the individual, however pious his intentions may be, to decide the matter, but by carrying out the prescribed law, the regulations of our predecessors, and the decrees of the Fathers: whoever sets these aside need not hope to advance or find salvation, however good his will may be.”