Collected Works of Martin Luther

by Martin Luther

  While Luther was himself playing fast and loose with truth, he was not slow to accuse his opponents of lying even when they presented matters as they really were. When Eck published the Bull of Excommunication, which Luther himself knew to be authentic, he was roundly rated for saying that his “tissue of lies” was “the Pope’s work.” In fact, in all and everything that Catholics undertake against his cause, they are seeking “to deceive us and the common people, though well aware of the contrary.... You see how they seek the truth.... They are rascals incarnate.” In fighting against the lies of his opponents Luther, once, — curiously enough — in his writing “Widder die hymelischen Propheten” actually takes the Pope under his protection against the calumnies of his Wittenberg opponent Carlstadt; seeking to brand him as a liar, he declares that he “was notoriously telling lies of the Pope.”

  We already know how much Carlstadt had to complain of Luther’s lying and fickleness.

  This leads to a short review of the remarks made by Luther’s then opponents and friends concerning his want of truthfulness.

  2. Opinions of Contemporaries in either Camp

  Luther’s work against Duke Henry of Brunswick entitled “Wider Hans Worst” was so crammed with malice and falsehoods that even some of Luther’s followers were disposed to complain of its unseemliness. Simon Wilde, who was then studying medicine at Wittenberg, wrote on April 8, 1541, when forwarding to his uncle the Town Clerk, Stephen Roth of Zwickau, a copy of the booklet which had just appeared: “I am sending you a little work of Dr. Martin against the Duke of Brunswick which bristles with calumnies, but which also [so he says] contains much that is good, and may be productive of something amongst the virtuous.”

  Statements adverse to Luther’s truthfulness emanating from the Protestant side are not rare; particularly are they met with in the case of theologians who had had to suffer from his violence; nor can their complaints be entirely disallowed simply because they came from men who were in conflict with him, though the circumstance would call for caution in making use of them were the complaints not otherwise corroborated.

  Œcolampadius in his letter to Zwingli of April 20, 1525, calls Luther a “master in calumny, and prince of sophists.”

  The Strasburg preachers Bucer and Capito, though reputed for their comparative moderation, wrote of one of Luther’s works on the Sacrament, that “never had anything more sophistical and calumnious seen the light.”

  Thomas Münzer repeatedly calls his enemy Luther “Dr. Liar” and “Dr. Lyinglips,” on account of the unkindness of his polemics; more picturesquely he has it on one occasion, that “he lied from the bottom of his gullet.”

  Bucer complains in terms of strong disapprobation, that, when engaged with his foes, Luther was wont to misrepresent and distort their doctrines in order the more readily to gain the upper hand, at least in the estimation of the multitude. He finds that “in many places” he has “rendered the doctrines and arguments of the opposite side with manifest untruth,” for which the critic is sorry, since this “gave rise to grave doubts and temptations” amongst those who detected this practice, and diminished their respect for the Evangelical teaching.

  The Lutheran, Hieronymus Pappus, sending Luther’s work “Wider Hans Worst” to Joachim Vadian, declared: “In calumny he does not seem to me to have his equal.”

  Johann Agricola, once Luther’s friend, and then, on account of his Antinomianism, his adversary, brings against Luther various charges in his Notes (see above, vol. iii., ); the worst refer to his “lying.” God will punish Luther, he writes, referring to his work “Against the Antinomians”; “he has heaped too many lies on me before all the world.” Luther had said that Agricola denied the necessity of prayer or good works; this the latter, appealing to his witnesses, brands as an “abominable lie.” He characterises the whole tract as “full of lies,” and, in point of fact, there is no doubt it did contain the worst exaggerations.

  Among the writers of the opposite camp the first place is due to Erasmus. Of one of the many distortions of his meaning committed by Luther he says: “It is true I never look for moderation in Luther, but for so malicious a calumny I was certainly not prepared.” Elsewhere he flings in his face the threat: “I shall show everybody what a master you are in the art of misrepresentation, defamation, calumny and exaggeration. But the world knows this already.... In your sly way you contrive to twist even what is absolutely true, whenever it is to your interest to do so. You know how to turn black into white and to make light out of darkness.” Disgusted with Luther’s methods, he finally became quite resigned even to worse things. He writes: “I have received Luther’s letter; it is simply the work of a madman. He is not in the least ashamed of his infamous lies and promises to do even worse. What can those people be thinking of who confide their souls and their earthly destiny to a man who allows himself to be thus carried away by passion?”

  The polemic, Franz Arnoldi, tells Luther, that one of his works contains “as many lies as words.”

  Johann Dietenberger likewise says, referring to a newly published book of Luther’s which he had been studying: “He is the most mendacious man under the sky.”

  Paul Bachmann, shortly after the appearance of Luther’s booklet “Von der Winckelmesse,” in his comments on it emits the indignant remark: “Luther’s lies are taller even than Mount Olympus.”

  “This is no mere erring man,” Bachmann also writes of Luther, “but the wicked devil himself to whom no lie, deception or falsehood is too much.”

  Johann Eck sums up his opinion of Luther’s truthfulness in these words: “He is a man who simply bristles with lies (‘homo totus mendaciis scatens’)”. The Ingolstadt theologian, like Bartholomew Kleindienst (above, ), was particularly struck by Luther’s parody of Catholic doctrine. — Willibald Pirkheimer’s words in 1528 we already know.

  We pass over similar unkindly epithets hurled at him by indignant Catholic clerics, secular, or regular. The latter, particularly, speaking with full knowledge and therefore all the more indignantly, describe as it deserves what he says of vows, as a glaring lie, of the falsehood of which Luther, the quondam monk, must have been fully aware.

  Of the Catholic Princes who were capable of forming an opinion, Duke George of Saxony with his downright language must be mentioned first. In connection with the Pack negotiations he says that Luther is the “most cold-blooded liar he had ever come across.” “We must say and write of him, that the apostate monk lies like a desperate, dishonourable and forsworn miscreant.” “We have yet to learn from Holy Scripture that Christ ever bestowed the mission of an Apostle on such an open and deliberate liar or sent him to proclaim the Gospel.” Elsewhere he reminds Luther of our Lord’s words: “By their fruits you shall know them”: To judge of the spirit from the fruits, Luther’s spirit must be a “spirit of lying”; indeed, Luther proved himself “possessed of the spirit of lies.”

  3. The Psychological Problem Self-suggestion and Scriptural Grounds of Excuse

  Not merely isolated statements, but whole series of regularly recurring assertions in Luther’s works, constitute a real problem, and, instead of challenging refutation make one ask how their author could possibly have come to utter and make such things his own.

  A Curious Mania.

  He never tires of telling the public, or friends and supporters within his own circle, that “not one Bishop amongst the Papists reads or studies Holy Scripture”; “never had he [Luther] whilst a Catholic heard anything of the Ten Commandments”; in Rome they say: “Let us be cheerful, the Judgment Day will never come”; they also call anyone who believes in revelation a “poor simpleton”; from the highest to the lowest they believe that “there is no God, no hell and no life after this life”; when taking the religious vows the Papists also vowed they “had no need of the Blood and Passion of Christ”; I, too, “was compelled to vow this”; all religious took their vows “with a blasphemous conscience.”

  He says: In the Papacy “they did not preach
Christ,” but only the Mass and good works; and further: “No Father [of the Church] ever preached Christ”; and again: “They knew nothing of the belief that Christ died for us”; or: “No one [in Popery] ever prayed”; and: Christ was looked upon only as a “Judge” and we “merely fled from the wrath of God,” knowing nothing of His mercy. “The Papists,” he declares, “condemned marriage as forbidden by God,” and “I myself, while still a monk, was of the same opinion, viz. that the married state was a reprobate state.”

  In the Papacy, so Luther says in so many words, “people sought to be saved through Aristotle.” “In the Papacy the parents did not provide for their children. They believed that only monks and priests could be saved.” “In the Papacy you will hardly meet with an honest man who lives up to his calling” (i.e. who performs his duties as a married man).

  But enough of such extravagant assertions, which to Catholics stand self-condemned, but were intended by their author to be taken literally. He flung such wild sayings broadcast among the masses, until it became a second nature with him. For we must bear in mind that grotesque and virulent misstatements such as the above occur not merely now and again, but simply teem in his books, sermons and conversations. It would be an endless task to enumerate his deliberate falsehoods. He declares, for instance, that the Papists, in all their collects and prayers, extolled merely the merits of the Saints; yet this aspersion which he saw fit to cast upon the Church in the interests of his polemics, he well knew to be false, having been familiar from his monastic days with another and better aspect of the prayers he here reviles. He knew that the merits of the Saints were referred to only in some of the collects; he knew, moreover, why they were mentioned there, and that they were never alleged alone but always in subordination to the merits and the mediation of our Saviour (“Per Dominum nostrum Iesum Christum,” etc.).

  A favourite allegation of Luther’s, viz. that the Church of the past had regarded Christ exclusively as a stern Judge, was crushingly confuted in Denifle’s work. The importance of this brilliant and scholarly refutation lies in the fact, that it is principally founded on texts and usages of the older Church with which Luther was perfectly familiar, which, for instance, he himself had recited in the liturgy and more especially in the Office of his Order year after year, and which thus bear striking testimony against his good faith in the matter of his monstrous charge.

  It is a matter of common knowledge that, also in other branches of the history of theology and ecclesiastical life, Denifle has refuted with rare learning, though with too sharp a pen, Luther’s paradoxical “lies” concerning mediæval Catholicism. It is to be hoped that this may be followed by other well-grounded and impartial comments from the pen of other writers, for, in spite of their monstrous character, some of Luther’s accusations still live, partly no doubt owing to the respect in which he is held. Some of them will be examined more closely below. The principal aim of these pages is, however, to seek the psychological explanation of the strange peculiarity which manifests itself in Luther’s intellectual life, viz. the abnormal tendency to level far-fetched charges, sometimes bordering on the insane.

  An Attempt at a Psychological Explanation.

  A key to some of these dishonest exaggerations is to be found in the need which Luther experienced of arming himself against the Papacy and the older Church by ever more extravagant assertions. Realising how unjust and untenable much of his position was, and oppressed by those doubts to which he often confessed, a man of his temper was sorely tempted to have recourse to the expedient of insisting yet more obstinately on his pet ideas. The defiance which was characteristic of him led him to pile up one assertion on the other which his rhetorical talent enabled him to clothe in his wonted language. Throughout he was acting on impulse rather than from reflection.

  To this must be added — incredible as it may appear in connection with the gravest questions of life — his tendency to make fun. Jest, irony, sarcasm were so natural to him as to obtrude themselves almost unconsciously whenever he had to do with opponents whom he wished to crush and on whom he wished to impose by a show of merriment which should display the strength of his position and his comfortable sense of security, and at the same time duly impress his own followers. Those who looked beneath the surface, however, must often have rejoiced to see Luther so often blunting the point of his hyperboles by the drolleries by which he accompanies them, which made it evident that he was not speaking seriously. To-day, too, it would be wrong to take all he says as spoken in dead earnest; at the same time it is often impossible to determine where exactly the serious ends and the trivial, vulgar jest begins; probably even Luther himself did not always know. A few further examples may be given.

  “In Popery we were compelled to listen to the devil and to worship things that some monk had spewed or excreted, until at last we lost the Gospel, Baptism, the Sacrament and everything else. After that we made tracks for Rome or for St. James of Compostella and did everything the Popish vermin told us to do, until we came to adore even their lice and fleas, nay, their very breeches. But now God has returned to us.”

  “Everywhere there prevailed the horrid, pestilential teaching of the Pope and the sophists, viz. that a man must be uncertain of God’s grace towards himself (‘incertum debere esse de gratia Dei erga se’).” By this doctrine and by their holiness-by-works Pope and monks “had driven all the world headlong into hell” for “well-nigh four hundred years.” Of course, “for a man to be pious, or to become so by God’s Grace, was heresy” to them; “their works were of greater value, did and wrought more than God’s Grace,” and with all this “they do no single work which might profit their neighbour in body, goods, honour or soul.”

  A. Kalthoff remarks of similar distortions of which Luther was guilty: “Hardly anyone in the whole of history was so little able to bear contradiction as Luther; it was out of the question to discuss with him any opinion from another point of view; he preferred to contradict himself or to assert what was absolutely monstrous, rather than allow his opponent even a semblance of being in the right.” — The misrepresentation of Catholic doctrine which became a tradition among Lutheran polemics was in great part due to Luther. — With equal skill and moderation Duke Anton Ulrich of Brunswick, in his “Fifty Reasons” for returning to the Catholic Church, protests against this perversion of Catholic doctrine by Lutheran writers. He had observed that arguments were adduced by the Lutherans to prove truths which the Church does not deny at all, whilst the real points at issue were barely touched upon. “For instance, they bring forward a heap of texts to prove that God alone is to be adored, though Catholics never question it, and they teach that it is a sin of idolatry to pay divine worship to any creature.” “They extol the merits of Christ and the greatness of His satisfaction for our sins. But what for? Catholics teach the same, viz. that the merits of Christ are infinite and that His satisfaction suffices to blot out all the sins of the world, and thus they, too, hold the Bible doctrine of the appropriation of Christ’s merits by means of their own good works (1 Peter i. 10).”

  Two things especially were made the butt of Luther’s extravagant and untrue charges and insinuations, viz. the Mass and the religious life. In his much read Table-Talk the chapter on the Mass is full of misrepresentations such as can be explained only by the animus of the speaker. Of religious he can relate the most incredible tales. Thus: “On the approach of death most of them cried in utter despair: Wretched man that I am; I have not kept my Rule and whither shall I flee from the anger of the Judge? Alas, that I was not a sow-herd, or the meanest creature on earth!” On account of the moral corruption of the Religious Orders, he declares it would be right, “were it only feasible, to destroy both Papacy and monasteries at one blow!” He is fond of jesting at the expense of the nuns; thus he makes a vulgar allusion to their supposed practice of taking an image of the Crucified to bed with them, as though it were their bridegroom. He roundly charges them all with arrogance: “The nuns are particularly repreh
ensible on account of their pride; for they boast: Christ is our bridegroom and we are His brides and other women are nothing.”

  It is putting the matter rather too mildly when a Protestant historian, referring to the countless assertions of this nature, remarks, “that, in view of his habits and temper, some of Luther’s highly flavoured statements call for the use of the blue pencil if they are to be accorded historical value.”

  Lastly, we must point to another psychological, or, more accurately, pathological, element which may avail to explain falsehoods so glaring concerning the Church of former times. Experience teaches, that sometimes a man soaked in prejudice will calumniate or otherwise assail a foe, at first from an evil motive and with deliberate injustice, and then, become gradually persuaded, thanks to the habit thus formed, of the truth of his calumnies and of the justice of his proceedings. Instances of such a thing are not seldom met with in history, especially among those engaged in mighty conflicts in the arena of the world. Injustice and falsehood, not indeed entirely, but with regard to the matter in hand, are travestied, become matters of indifference, or are even transformed in their eyes into justice and truth.

  In Luther’s case the phenomenon in question assumes a pathological guise. We cannot but perceive in him a kind of self-suggestion by which he imposed upon himself. Constituted as he was, such suggestion was possible, nay probable, and was furthermore abetted by his nervous excitement, the result of his never-ceasing struggle.

  It is in part to his power of suggestion that must also be attributed his success in making his disciples and followers accept even his most extravagant views and become in their turn missioners of the same.

  The New Theology of Lying.

  Another explanation, this time a theological one, of Luther’s disregard for the laws of truth is to be found in the theory he set up of the permissibility of lies.