“The later Middle Ages,” says W. Friedensburg, speaking of the prevailing Protestant view, “seemed only to serve as a foil for the history of the Reformation, of which the glowing colours stood out all the more clearly against the dark background.” “As late as a few years ago the history of the close of the Middle Ages was almost a ‘terra incognita.’” Only through Janssen, Friedensburg continues, “were we led to study more carefully the later Middle Ages” and to discover, amongst other things, that the “majority of the people [sic] had not really been so ignorant of the truth of Christianity,” that “the Church had not yet lost her power over people’s minds,” that “towards the end of the Middle Ages the people had already been growing familiar with the Bible,” and that “sermons in the vulgar tongue had not been neglected to the extent that has been frequently assumed.” This author, like H. Böhmer, characterises it as erroneous “to suppose that Luther was the first to revive regard for Paul and to restore Paulinism” or “to insist upon the reform of godliness on the model of the theology of Christ.” Coming to Denifle, he says, that the latter “on account of his learning was without a doubt qualified as scarcely any other scholar of our time for the task he undertook. When he published his ‘Luther’ he could look back on many years of solid and fruitful labour in the field of mediæval Scholasticism and Mysticism.” From Denifle’s work it is clear that Luther was “but little conversant with mediæval Scholasticism, particularly that of Thomas Aquinas.”
“Denifle is right,” wrote Gustav Kawerau in an important Protestant theological periodical, “and touches a weak spot in Luther research when he reproaches us with not being sufficiently acquainted with mediæval theology.” An “examination of the Catholic surroundings in which Luther moved” is, so Kawerau insists, essential, and Protestants must therefore apply themselves to “the examination of that theology which influenced Luther.”
What is, however, imperative is that this theology be, if possible, examined without Luther’s help, i.e. without, as usual, paying such exaggerated regard to his own statements as to what influenced him.
Luther, moreover, does not always speak against the Middle Ages; on occasion he can employ its language himself, particularly when he thinks he can quote, in his own interests, utterances from that time. What W. Köhler says of a number of such instances holds good here: “Luther fancied he recognised himself in the Middle Ages, that is why his historical judgment is so often false.” In point of fact, as the same writer remarks, “Luther’s idea of history came from his own interior experience; this occupies the first place throughout.” If for “interior experience” we substitute “subjective bias” the statement will be even more correct.
In returning here to some of Luther’s legends mentioned above ( f.) concerning the Catholic past and the religious views then prevailing, our object is merely to show by a few striking examples how wrong Luther was in charging the Middle Ages with errors in theology and morals.
One of his most frequently repeated accusations was, that the Church before his day had merely taught a hollow “holiness by works”; all exhortations to piety uttered by preachers and writers insisted solely on outward good works; of the need of cultivating an inward religious spirit, interior virtues or true righteousness of heart no one had any conception.
Against this we may set a few Catholic statements made during the years shortly before Luther’s appearance.
Gabriel Biel, the “standard theologian” of his time, whose works Luther himself had studied during his theological course, in one of his sermons distinctly advocates the Church’s doctrine against any external holiness-by-works. Commenting on the Gospel account of the hypocrisy and externalism of the Pharisees and their semblance of holiness, he pauses at the passage: “Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees ye shall not enter the Kingdom of Heaven” (Mt. v. 20). “Hence, if we desire to be saved,” he says, “our righteousness must not merely be shown in outward works but must reside in the heart; for without the inward spirit, outward works are neither virtuous nor praiseworthy, though the spirit may be so without outward works.” After proving this he again insists: “Thus true service of God does not consist in externals; on the contrary it is on the inward, pious acts of the will that everything depends, and this presupposes a right judgment and the recognition of the spirit. Hence in the practice of good works we must expend greater care on the interior direction of the will.” The learned preacher goes on fervently to exhort his hearers to amend their lives, to be humble, to trust in Christ and to lead lives of real, inward piety.
Another preacher and theologian with whom Luther was well acquainted was Andreas Proles († 1503), the founder of the German Augustinian Congregation to which Luther had once belonged. In the sermons published by Petrus Sylvius, Proles insists upon the good intention and interior disposition by which works are sanctified. They are “smothered,” so he tells his hearers, “if done not out of love for God but with evil intent, for instance, for the sake of praise, or in order to deceive, or again, if done in sin or for any bad purpose.” “Hence ... in the practice of all his works a man must diligently strive after Divine justice, after a true faith with love of God and of his neighbour, after innocence and humility of heart, with a good purpose and intention, since every good work, however insignificant, even a drink of cold water given to the meanest creature for God’s sake, is deserving of reward in eternity.... Without charity neither faith nor good works are profitable unto salvation.”
At about that same time the so-called “holiness-by-works” was also condemned by the learned Franciscan theologian, Stephen Brulefer. “Merit,” so he emphasises, “depends not on the number of external works but on the zeal and charity with which the work is done; everything depends on the interior act of the will.” Amongst his authorities he quotes the far-famed theologian of his Order, Duns Scotus, who had enunciated the principle with the concision of the scholastic: “Deus non pensat quantum sed ex quanto.”
“God wants, not your work, but your heart.” So Marquard of Lindau writes in his “Buch der X Gepot,” printed in 1483. Before this, under the heading: “That we must love God above all things,” he declares, that, whoever does not turn to God with his whole heart cannot merely by his works gain Him, even though he should surrender “all his possessions to God and allow himself to be burnt.”
Thus we find in the writings of that period, language by no means wanting in vigour used in denunciation of the so-called “holiness-by-works”; hence Luther was certainly not first in the field to raise a protest.
From their preachers, too, the people frequently heard this same teaching.
Johann Herolt, a Dominican preacher, very celebrated at the commencement of the 15th century, points out clearly and definitely in his sermons on the Sunday Epistles, that every work must be inspired by and permeated with charity if man’s actions are not to deteriorate into a mere “holiness-by-works”; a poor man who, with a pure conscience, performs the meanest good work, is, according to him, of “far greater worth in God’s sight than the richest Prince who erects churches and monasteries while in a state of mortal sin”; the outward work was of small account. Herolt thus becomes a spokesman of “inwardness” in the matter of the fulfilment of the duties of the Christian life; many others spoke as he did.
Sound instruction concerning “holiness-by-works” and the necessary “inwardness” was to be found in the most popular works of devotion at the close of the Middle Ages.
The “Evangelibuch,” for instance, a sermon-book with glosses on the Sunday Gospels, has the following for those who are too much devoted to outward works: “It matters not how good a man may be or how many good works he performs unless, at the same time, he loves God.” The author even goes too far in his requirements concerning the interior disposition, and, agreeably with a view then held by many, will not admit as a motive for love a wholesome fear of the loss of God; he says a man must love God, simply because “he
is the most excellent, highest and most worthy Good; ... for a man filled with Divine love does not desire the good which God possesses, but merely God Himself”; thus, in his repudiation of all so-called “holiness-by-works,” he actually goes to the opposite extreme.
Man becomes pleasing to God not by reason of the number or greatness of his works, but through the interior justice wrought in him by grace; such is the opinion of the Dominican, Johann Mensing. He protests against being accused of disparaging God’s grace because at the same time he emphasises the value of works; he declares that he exalts the importance of God’s sanctifying Grace even more than his opponents (the Lutherans) did, because, so he says, “we admit (what they deny, thereby disparaging the grace of God), viz. that we are not simply saved by God, but that He so raises and glorifies our nature by the bestowal of grace, that we are able ourselves to merit our salvation and attain to it of our own free will, which, without His Grace, would be impossible. Hence our belief is not that we are led and driven like cattle who know not whither they go. We say: God gives us His grace, faith and charity, at first without any merit on our part; then follow good works and merits, all flowing from the same Grace, and finally eternal happiness for such works as bring down Grace.”
This was the usual language in use in olden time, particularly in the years just previous to Luther, and it was in accordance with this that most of the faithful obediently shaped their lives. If abuses occurred — and it is quite true that we often do meet with a certain degree of formalism in the customs of the people — they cannot be regarded as the rule and were reproved by zealous and clear-sighted churchmen.
A favourite work at that time was the “Imitation of Christ” by Thomas à Kempis. Thousands, more particularly amongst the clergy and religious, were edified by the fervent and touching expositions of the author to permeate all works with the spirit of interior piety. We know how strongly he condemns formalism as exemplified in frequent pilgrimages devoid of virtue and the spirit of penance, and how he does not spare even the religious; “the habit and the tonsure make but little alteration, but the moral change and the entire mortification of the passions make a true religious.”
The practice of works of charity, which at that time flourished exceedingly among both clergy and laity, offered a field for the realisation of these principles of the true spirit in which good works are to be performed. We have countless proofs of how the faithful in Germany despoiled themselves of their temporal goods from the most sincere religious motives — out of love for their neighbour, or to promote the public Divine worship— “for the love of God our Lord,” as a common phrase, used in the case of numerous foundations, expresses it.
G. Uhlhorn, the Protestant author of the “Geschichte der christlichen Liebestätigkeit,” also pays a tribute to the spirit which preserved charity from degenerating into mere “holiness-by-works.” “We should be doing injustice to that period,” he says of the Middle Ages generally, “were we to think that it considered as efficacious, i.e. as satisfactory, mere external works apart from the motive which inspired them, for instance, alms without love.” In support he quotes Thomas of Aquin and Pope Innocent III, remarking, however, that even such alms as were bestowed without this spirit of love were regarded, by the standard authorities, as predisposing a man for the reception of Grace, and as deserving of temporal reward from God, hence not as altogether “worthless and unproductive.”
Another fable concerning the Middle Ages, sedulously fostered by Luther in his writings, was, that, in those days man had never come into direct relations with God, that the hierarchy had constituted a partition between him and Christ, and that, thanks only to the new Evangel, had the Lord been restored to each man, as his personal Saviour and the object of all his hopes; Luther was wont to say that the new preaching had at length brought each one into touch with Christ the Lamb, Who taketh away our sin; Melanchthon, in his funeral oration on Luther, also said of him, that he had pointed out to every sinner the Lamb in Whom he would find salvation.
To keep to the symbol of the Lamb: The whole Church of the past had never ceased to tell each individual that he must seek in the Lamb of God purgation from his guilt and confirmation of his personal love of God. The Lamb was to her the very symbol of that confidence in Christ’s Redemption which she sought to arouse in each one’s breast. On the front of Old St. Peter’s, for instance, the Lamb was shown in brilliant mosaic, with the gentle Mother of the Redeemer on its right and the Key-bearer on its left, and this figure, in yet older times, had been preceded by the ancient “Agnus Dei.”
Every Litany recited by the faithful in Luther’s day, no less than in earlier ages and in our own, concluded with the trustful invocation of the “Lamb of God”; the waxen “Agnus Dei,” blessed by the Pope, and so highly prized by the people, was but its symbol. The Lamb of God was, and still is, solemnly invoked by priest and people in the Canon of the Mass for the obtaining of mercy and peace.
The centre of daily worship in the Catholic Church, in Luther’s day as in the remoter past, was ever the Eucharistic Sacrifice. The Lamb of God, which, according to Catholic belief, is there offered to the Father under the mystic elements, and mysteriously renews the sacrifice of the Cross, was as a well, daily opened, in which souls athirst for God might find wherewith to unite themselves in love and confidence with their Redeemer.
It was Luther who, with cruel hand, tore this pledge of hope and consolation from the heart of Christendom. Inspiring indeed are the allusions to the wealth of consolation contained in the Eucharist, which we find in one of the books in most general use in the days before Luther. “Good Jesus, Eternal Shepherd, thanks be to Thee Who permittest me, poor and needy as I am, to partake of the mystery of Thy Divine Sacrifice, and feedest me with Thy precious Body and Blood; Thou commandest me to approach to Thee with confidence. Come, sayest Thou, to Me, all you that labour and are burdened, and I will refresh you. Confiding, O Lord, in Thy goodness and in Thy great mercy, I come sick to my Saviour, hungry and thirsty to the Fountain of life, needy to the King of Heaven, a servant to my Lord, a creature to my Creator, and one in desolation to my loving Comforter.”
The doctrine that the Mass is a renewal of the Sacrifice of Christ “attained its fullest development in the Middle Ages”; thus Adolf Franz at the conclusion of his work “Die Messe im deutschen Mittelalter.” At the close of the Middle Ages it was the rule to “direct the eyes of the faithful, during the sacrifice on the altar, to the sufferings and death of the Redeemer in all its touching and thrilling reality. At the altar a mystery is enacted; Christ suffers and dies; the priest represents Him, and every act typifies Christ’s Passion; just as He expired on the cross in actual fact, so, mystically, He dies upon the altar.” Though some writers of the period dwell perhaps a little too much on the allegorical sense then so popular in explaining the various acts of the Mass, yet, in their conviction that its character was sacrificial and that it truly re-enacted the death of Christ, they were in perfect agreement with the past. In the explanations of the Mass everyone was reminded of his union with Christ; and our Lord’s sufferings “were brought before the mind of both priest and people”; by this means the “outward ceremonial of the Mass was made a fruitful source of inward edification.” “The abundant mediæval literature on the Mass is a proof both of the needs of the clergy, and of the care displayed by the learned and those in authority, to instruct them. In this matter the 15th century excels the earlier Middle Ages.” The very abuses and the formalism which Franz finds witnessed to in certain mediæval sermons on the Mass, chiefly in the matter of undue stress laid on the “fruits of the Mass,” reveal merely an over-estimation on the part of the individual of his union with Christ, or a too great assurance of obtaining help in bodily and spiritual necessities; of want of fervour or of hope there is not the least trace.
It is well worthy of note that Luther, if we may believe what he said in a sermon in 1532, even in his monastic days, did not prize or love the close bond o
f union established with Christ by the daily sacrifice of the Mass: “Ah, bah, Masses! Let what cannot stand fast fall. You never cared about saying Mass formerly; of that I am sure. I know it from my own case; for I too was a holy monk, and blasphemed my dear Lord miserably for the space of quite fifteen years with my saying of Masses, though I never liked doing so, in spite of being so holy and devout.”
In spite of this Luther succeeded in bequeathing to posterity the opinion that it was he who delivered people from that “alienation from God” imposed on the world in the Middle Ages; “who broke down the prohibition of the mediæval Church against anyone concerning himself on his own account with matters of religion”; and who gave back “personal religion” to the Christian.
Were Protestants to bestow more attention on the religious literature of the Later Middle Ages, such statements would be simply impossible. One of those best acquainted with this literature writes: “During the last few months the present writer has gone carefully, pen in hand, through more than one hundred printed and manuscript religious works, written in German and belonging to the end of the Middle Ages: catechetical handbooks, general works of piety, confession manuals, postils, prayer-books, booklets on preparation for death and German sermonaries. In this way he has learnt from the most reliable sources not only how in those days people were guided to devout intercourse with God, but also with what fervent piety the faithful were accustomed to converse with their Saviour.” Let Protestants, he adds, at least attempt to vindicate their pet assertions “scientifically, i.e. from trustworthy sources.”
The relations between the individual and God were by no means suppressed because the priesthood stood as an intermediary between the faithful and God, or because ecclesiastical superiors watched over and directed public worship and the lines along which the life of faith was to move. If the union of the individual with God was endangered by such interference on the part of the clergy, then it was endangered just as much by Luther, who insists so strongly on the preachers being listened to, and on the ministers taking the lead in things pertaining to God.
Collected Works of Martin Luther Page 726