Collected Works of Martin Luther

by Martin Luther

  Bucer, who was unremitting in his efforts to secure that union which was his life-ideal, had already, at the Diet of Augsburg, paved the way for an understanding, not without some success. At the Coburg (September 25-26, 1530) he managed to win over Luther to his view, viz. that an agreement might be looked for with the Strasburgers regarding the Sacrament. He then travelled through Upper Germany and Switzerland with a plan for compromise, in which the contradiction between the denial and assertion of the Presence of Christ in the Sacrament was ably concealed; Melanchthon he met at Cassel in 1534, and on this occasion, ostensibly in the name of many South-German theologians, made proposals which seem to have satisfied Luther.

  After further preliminaries, peace negotiations were to have taken place at Eisleben in the spring of 1536, but as Luther, owing to illness and new scruples, did not appear, discussion was deferred till May 22, the delegates to meet at Wittenberg. Thither representatives of Strasburg, Augsburg, Memmingen, Ulm, Esslingen, Reutlingen, Frankfurt, and Constance betook themselves, accompanied by the Lutherans, Menius from Eisenach and Myconius from Gotha. No Swiss delegate was present.

  After protracted negotiations the South-German theologians accepted a number of articles drawn up by Melanchthon and known as the Wittenberg Concord.

  In this they recognised the practice of infant baptism; as regards Confession, they admitted that, though confession as formerly practised could not be tolerated, yet a humble private interview with the preacher, and private absolution previous to the reception of communion, were useful and wholesome. On the other hand, however, the main difference, viz. that concerning the Presence of Christ in the Sacrament, was only seemingly bridged over. It is true the South-German delegates accepted the formula, that in the Sacrament, the Body and Blood of the Lord are “really and substantially” present by virtue of Christ’s words of institution, so that even the “unworthy” verily receive the Body and Blood of Christ. The interpretation which they, headed by Bucer, placed upon the words showed, however, quite plainly, that they did not agree with Luther, but still clung to the view that Christ is not corporally present but only by that faith, which even the “unworthy” may have, and that He does not bestow on the communicant His Flesh and Blood, but merely His grace. “The Real Presence of Christ was to him [Bucer] after all only a spiritual presence.” At any rate “the South-Germans, under stress of political danger, rejoined Luther,” though some of the towns subsequently added conditions to their acceptance of the arrangements made by their theologians.

  Having been thus far successful Bucer, with consummate ability and eloquence, proceeded to try to win over the friendly Swiss Zwinglians to the Concord.

  The Swiss were not, however, to be so easily induced to take this step. In spite of several friendly letters from Luther they could not arrive at the same apparent agreement with him as the South-Germans. For this the blame rested to some extent on Luther’s shoulders, his conduct at this juncture, owing to political considerations, being neither well-defined nor straightforward. The Burgomasters and Councillors of the seven towns, Zürich, Bern, Basle, Schaffhausen, St. Gall, Mühlhausen and Bienne, addressed letters to him couched in conciliatory language, but Luther, in spite of Bullinger’s request, would not even enumerate in detail the points of difference which separated them from him. For the nonce he preferred the policy of leaving doctrine alone and of “calming down, smoothing and furthering matters for the best,” though all the time he was well aware of their theological views and firm in his repudiation of them.

  “The matter refuses to suit itself to us, and we must accordingly suit ourselves to it,” such was, for a long while, his motto. He is willing to hold out to the Zwinglians the hand of friendship without, however, consenting to regard the points in dispute as minor matters. Possibly he cherished the hope that, little by little, agreement would be reached even on these points.

  Luther’s attitude has rightly been considered strange, particularly when compared with his former severity. Even Protestants have instanced it as remarkable, that he should have contrived “to close his eyes to the differences which still remained in spite of the Concord, and to agree with people whose previous teaching he had regarded as dangerous heresy, requiring to be expelled by a determined testimony to the truth.” At any rate “the broadness manifested by Luther in this matter of faith” was something very foreign to his usual habits.

  The explanation of the change in his behaviour lies chiefly in his urgent desire “to become terrible to the Pope and the Emperor” by forming an alliance with the Swiss Churches and townships, a hope which he even expressed to his Wittenberg friends, adding, however, that “in men one can never trust,” and, “I will not surrender God’s Word.” To Duke Albert of Prussia he wrote full of joy, in May, 1538: “Things have been set going with the Swiss, who hitherto have been at loggerheads with us on account of the Sacrament.... I hope God will put an end to this scandal, not for our sake, for we have deserved it, but for His Name’s sake, and in order to vex the abomination at Rome, for they are greatly affrighted and apprehensive at the new tidings.” Considerations of policy had entirely altered Luther’s tone to the Zwinglians.

  The bridge, however, collapsed before its completion.

  The unrestrained language which Luther again employed towards the Swiss did much to demonstrate how little real foundation there was in the efforts at conciliation. The experiences he met with made him regret his passing opportunism, and in later life the tone in which he spoke of the Zwinglian errors and their supporters was violent in the extreme. When a letter reached him from the Evangelicals of Venice bewailing the dissensions aroused by the controversy on the Sacrament, he said in his reply, dated June, 1543: These Zwinglians and their neighbours “are intoxicated by an alien spirit, and their company must be avoided as infectious.”

  To his friend Link he wrote about that time: “These Swiss and Zürichers pronounce their own condemnation by their pride and madness, as Paul says” (Titus iii. 11). To Zürich itself he soon made no secret of his changed temper, writing in August that: he could have no fellowship with the preachers there; they were determined to lead the unfortunate people to hell; the judgment of God which had overtaken Zwingli would also fall upon these preachers of blasphemy, since they had made up their minds to follow Zwingli.

  In September of that same year appeared his energetic “Kurtz Bekentnis Doctor Martin Luthers vom heiligen Sacrament.”

  Complying with a need he felt he sought in this writing to give public testimony to his faith in the Eucharist; in order at once to disperse the ghosts of the Concord, and to bar the progress of the denial of the Sacrament which had already infected Melanchthon and other friends around him, he here speaks frankly and openly. In his usual vein he says, that it was his wish “to be able to boast at the Judgment Seat of the Lord” that “I condemned with all my power the fanatics and enemies of the Sacrament, Carlstadt, ‘Zwingel,’ [Œcolampadius, ‘Stinkfield’ [Schwenckfeld], and their disciples at Zürich and wherever else they be.” The fanatics, he says, make a “great to-do” about a spiritual eating and drinking, but they are “murderers of souls.” They have a “devilish heart and lying lips.” Whoever believed not the Article concerning Christ’s Presence in the Sacrament, could not believe in the Incarnation. “Hence there is no alternative, you must either believe everything or nothing.” Thus Luther himself at last comes to urge against his opponents what Catholic apologists had long before urged against him. They had said: If you set aside this or that article of faith on the grounds of a higher illumination, the result will be the complete subversion of the faith, for the edifice of doctrine is one inseparable whole; the divine and the ecclesiastical authority is the same for all the articles, and, if everything be not accepted, in the end nothing will remain.

  2. Efforts in view of a Council. Vergerio visits Luther

  Pope Clement VII. († 1534), though at first apprehensive, owing to his knowledge of what had happened in the time of the Refor
ming Councils, had nevertheless, towards the end of his life, promised the Emperor Charles V. at Bologna, in 1533, that he would summon an [Œcumenical Council. He had also sought to persuade the King of France, François I., on the occasion of their meeting at Marseilles in the same year, to agree to the Council’s being held in one of the Italian towns which Pope and Emperor had agreed on at Bologna. But while Rome showed herself willing enough, the King of France put great obstacles in the way of a Council, in the hope, that, by preventing it, he would prevent Germany from securing peace within her borders.

  Paul III., the successor of Clement VII., was more successful, though he too had to battle with his own scruples and to overcome obstacles greater even than those which faced his predecessor.

  Soon after beginning his pontificate he dispatched three Nuncios to pave the way for the Council, Rodolfo Pio de Carpi to France, Giovanni Guidiccione to Spain, and Pierpaolo Vergerio to Germany. The last of these found the Catholic Courts perfectly willing to support the Council; the heads of the Evangelical party, however, chose to observe an attitude to be more fully described further on.

  Charles V. having agreed to the choice of Mantua as the town where the Council was to be held, Paul III., in spite of the refusal of the Protestants, by his Bull of June 2, 1536, summoned the bishops to meet at Mantua on May 23 of the following year. Needless to say, the assembly and its procedure were to be governed by the same rules as in the case of earlier Councils of the Church.

  The journey of Vergerio, the Nuncio, through Germany deserves closer attention on account of his meeting with Luther.

  The Papal envoy, who hailed from Capodistria and was more skilful in Court transactions than in theology, commenced his journey on February 10, 1535. From Vienna he proceeded to visit the Bavarian Dukes and Suabia. He then travelled along the Main and the Rhine as far north as Liège, returning by way of Cologne through Saxony to Brandenburg. Coming south from Berlin he passed a night at Wittenberg, where he met Luther, and returned by way of Dresden and Prague to Vienna. Everywhere he did his best not only to secure consent to the Papal plan of holding the Council in an Italian town, but also, as he had been instructed, to combat the dangerous though popular opposite plan of a German national Council. He could talk well, had a sharp eye for business, and a fine gift of observation. His expectations as regards the Protestants were, however, far too rosy. The polite reception he met with from the Protestant sovereigns and the honours done him flattered his vanity, indeed, but were of little service to the cause he represented.

  What his intention was in going to Wittenberg and interviewing Luther is not clear. He had no instructions to do so. If he hoped to win over Luther to work for the Council and for reunion, he was sadly deceived. In reality all he did was to expose himself and his cause to insult and to furnish his guest a welcome opportunity for boasting. In that same year, in a work in which he held up the Council of Constance to derision, Luther told the people how little Councils were to be respected; by this Council the Church had said to Christ: “You are a heretic and your teaching is of the devil”; hence the Roman Church was possessed, “not of seven, but of seven and seventy barrelfuls of devils”; now at last it was time for Christ to uncover back and front the “raving, bloodthirsty scarlet woman and reveal her shame to the whole world” in order to put an end to “the insult which has been, and still is being, offered to our dear Saviour by the dragon heads which peer out of the back parts of the Pope-Ass and vomit forth abuse.”

  From Vergerio’s circumstantial reports as Nuncio, and from other sources, we learn the details of the historic meeting between the standard-bearer of the religious innovations and the envoy of the head of Christendom.

  On his arrival at Wittenberg, on November 6, the Nuncio, accompanied by twenty-one horsemen, proceeded to the Castle, where he was to be the guest of Metzsch, the Commandant. He sent an invitation by Metzsch to Luther to spend the evening with him, but the latter refused to come so late and the visit was accordingly arranged for the following morning. Luther dressed himself in his best clothes, put on a gold chain, had himself carefully shaved and his hair tidily brushed. To the astonished barber he said jestingly, that he must appear young in the eyes of the Legate so as to give him the impression that he was still able to undertake and accomplish a great deal and thus make them fear him at Rome; he was determined to read the Roman gentry a good lesson; they had molested him and his followers enough, now it was his turn to get his own back. As he sat in the carriage with Bugenhagen the pastor of Wittenberg, ready for the drive to the Castle, he said: “Here go the German Pope and Cardinal Pomeranus, the chosen instruments of the Almighty.”

  After being presented to the Legate, during which ceremony he doffed his hat (the only sign of respect he was willing to vouchsafe), he was invited to breakfast with him. During the conversation which ensued he was at pains to show his real feelings by a demeanour as hostile and threatening as possible. “During the whole of the meal,” as he himself related later to Justus Jonas, “I played the true Luther; what sort of things I said could not be put on paper.” At the first greeting he at once asked the Nuncio ironically, whether he had not perchance already heard him decried in Italy as a drunken German.

  Pope Paul III. being mentioned by the Nuncio, Luther said, that he might quite well be a prudent and honest man; such was the common report concerning the Farnese when he (Luther) was at Rome; but then, he added with a mocking smile, at that time he himself was still in the habit of saying Mass.

  Luther himself in the Table-Talk relates his reply to the proposal to attend the Council: “I shall come,” he said, “but you Papists are working and exerting yourselves in vain ... for, when in Council, you never discuss wholesome doctrine, the Sacraments, or the faith which alone makes us just and saves us ... but only foolish puerilities, such as the long habits and frocks which religious and priests are to wear, how wide the girdle shall be and how large the tonsure,” etc. The account goes on to say, that, at this sally, Vergerio, turning to his companion, said: “Verily he has hit the nail on the head.” It is difficult to believe that Vergerio actually made such a statement in this connection.

  Speaking of the [Œcumenical Council which had been summoned, we read in Vergerio’s report that Luther with insufferable arrogance exclaimed: “We stand in no need of a Council for ourselves or our followers, for we already have the firm Evangelical doctrine and rule; but Christendom needs the Council in order to learn to distinguish truth and error, so far as it is still held captive by false doctrine.” At this outburst the Nuncio expressed his astonishment: “Yes, I will come to the Council,” Luther interrupted him angrily, “I will forfeit my head rather than fail to defend my teaching against the whole world. What proceeds from my mouth, is not my own anger, but the wrath of God!” — Whoever knows the man can scarcely doubt that Luther would actually have gone to the Council under certain conditions, particularly if furnished with a safe-conduct, though, of course, only once again to “play the real Luther.” He certainly did not lack the audacity. He even declared himself willing to agree to any of the places proposed for the Council, whether Mantua, Verona, or Bologna; when it was pointed out that Bologna belonged to the Pope, Luther, in the presence of the Pope’s own representative, cried: “Good God, so the Pope has grabbed that city too!” Curiously enough, in the report he forwarded to Rome, the Nuncio declares himself satisfied with Luther’s readiness to attend the Council.

  Vergerio also led the conversation to Henry VIII., the King of England; as Robert Barnes, an emissary of his, was then staying with Luther at Wittenberg, he may have hoped to learn something of the King’s intentions. Luther, however, was extremely reticent. As he himself expressed it in a letter, he acted the part of Barnes’s representative with “most vexatious sayings,” i.e. with such as would most annoy and vex the Nuncio. When mention was made of the cruel execution of Bishop John Fisher — created Cardinal whilst awaiting his fate in prison — Luther ejaculated that his death was a judgmen
t from on high because he had won the Cardinalate by withstanding the Gospel.

  Vergerio coming to speak of the Wittenberg hierarchy, Luther admitted that, at Wittenberg, they ordained priests and that Pastor Bugenhagen, who was then present, “was the bishop appointed for that work; he ordained as St. Paul had taught”; all in vain had the “most holy bishops” of the Papists refused to ordain the Lutheran preachers. Alluding to his family, he said he hoped to leave behind him in his firstborn a great preacher, priest and teacher of the Evangel. The “reverend” nun “whom he had married had so far presented him with three boys and two girls.” Various religious practices came under discussion and Vergerio, hoping to please, remarked, that he had found much amongst the German Protestants different from what he had been led to expect. He also spoke of fasting, but Luther bluntly declared, that, just because the Pope had commanded it, they would refuse to observe it; if, however, the Emperor were to give the order, they would comply with it; he himself would be right glad were the Emperor to set apart two days in every week to be kept as strict fasts.

  Though all this, which, moreover, the Nuncio took quite seriously, made him angry, as is evident from his report, yet he found leisure during the conversation to observe his guest closely. He describes his dress: A doublet of dark camelot cloth, the sleeves trimmed with satin; over this a rather short coat of serge, edged with fox skin. The large, rough buttons used struck the Italian as peculiar. On Luther’s fingers he saw several rings and round his neck the heavy gold chain. He found that Luther did not speak Latin very well and ventured to surmise that certain books, couched in better Latin, were probably not really written by him. Of this, however, there is no proof. Luther admitted to him that he was not used to speaking Latin and that he was more at home in German. He looked strong, so Vergerio says, and though past fifty did not appear to be even forty years of age. He considered Luther’s features extremely coarse, tallying with his manners, which displayed “presumption, malice and want of reflection.” His way of speaking showed that “everything he did was done in irritation, annoyance and out of spite; he was a silly fellow, without either depth or discernment.”