At a later period, when rationalism had made some headway, Protestant biographers of Luther as a rule preferred to say nothing about the apparitions Luther had met with, or to treat them as pious, harmless jests misinterpreted by his pupils. This, however, is not at all in accordance with historic criticism. Luther admirers of an earlier date, on the other hand, went too far in the contrary direction and showed themselves only too ready to follow their master into the other world, or to represent him as holding intercourse with it. Cyriacus Spangenberg (1528-1604), a Luther zealot, is an instance in point. In his “Theander Lutherus,” speaking of Luther “the real holy martyr,” he says: He deserved to be termed a martyr on account of the visible hostility of the devil; one or two devils had been in the habit of accompanying him in his walks in the dormitory in order to attack him, and his illnesses were caused simply by the devil. Needless to say, he does not allow the incidents mentioned above to escape him: Satan had tormented him at the Coburg in the shape of a fiery star and in the garden under that of a hog; he had tried to deceive him in his cell under the dazzling image of Christ, had affrighted him in the Wartburg by making a devilish noise with the nuts, and, finally, even in his monkish days had driven the student at a late hour from his studies by the din he made.
It is a fact worthy of note that the older Protestant writers, when speaking of the apparitions Luther had, never mention any such or any revelations of a consoling character, but merely terrifying stories of devils and diabolical persecutions. This agrees with the observation already made above ( f.). It is evident that as good as nothing was known of any consoling apparitions; nor would the mild and friendly angels have been in place in the warlike picture which his friends transmitted of Luther. That he did not think himself a complete stranger to such heavenly communications has, however, been proved above, and it may be that his imagination would have had more to relate concerning this friendlier world above had he not had particular reasons for being chary about speaking of such visions.
The Disputation with the Devil on the Mass
In Spangenberg even Luther’s famous disputation with the devil on private Masses is also made to do duty among the other apparitions. He, like many others, takes it as an actual occurrence and represents it as further proof of the “real martyrdom” of his hero. As, conversely, this disputation also plays a part in the works of Luther’s adversaries, it may be worth while to examine it somewhat more narrowly. It is urged that Luther admits he had been instructed by the devil regarding the falsity of the Catholic doctrine of the Mass, and, that, by thus tracing it back to the devil, he stamps with untruth an important portion of his teaching, seeing, that, from the father of lies, nothing but lies can be expected.
What then are we to believe concerning this disputation, judging from Luther’s own words which constitute our sole source? The only possible answer is, that Luther is merely making use of a rhetorical device.
It is true, that, in his “Von der Winckelmesse” (1533), Luther speaks in so elusive a way of his dispute with the devil, and of the truth he had learnt from the latter, that the incident was taken literally, not merely by Spangenberg and other of Luther’s oldest friends, but actually by Cochlæus too, and was, at a later date, made the subject of many disquisitions. Yet, if we look into the matter carefully, we shall find he speaks from the very outset not of any actual apparition of the devil, but merely of his inward promptings: “On one occasion,” so he introduces the story, “I woke up at midnight and the devil began a disputation with me in my heart,” such as he has with me “many a night.” He then goes on, however, to describe the disputation as graphically as had it been a real incident.
Luther’s object with the writing in question is to fling at the Papists his arguments against private Masses under a new and striking form. He pretends that the Papists would be at a loss to answer Satan, but would be forced to despair “were he to bring forward these and other arguments against them at the hour of death.” Hence he introduces himself and shows how the devil had driven him into a corner on account of his former celebration of Mass. As for the arguments they are his usual ones. Here, put in the mouth of the devil, they are to overwhelm him with despair for his former evil wont of saying Masses. The only reason he can espy why he should not despair is that he has now repented and no longer says the Mass.
He himself alludes to the artifice; writing to a friend, he says, that by the introduction of the devil he intends to attack the Papists “with a pamphlet of a new kind”; even those friendly to the Evangel would be astonished at his new way of writing; they were, however, to be told that this was merely a challenge thrown to the Papists; that it only represented himself as driven into a corner by the devil on account of the Masses he had formerly said, in order to induce the Papists to examine their consciences and see how they could vindicate themselves with regard to the Mass. — Thus, for once, the devil might well figure as an upholder of Luther’s doctrine.
In the course of the drama the devil never grows weary of proving, that, owing to the Masses Luther had said, and the idolatry he had thus practised, he had been brought to the verge of everlasting destruction. The devil’s arguments are given at great length and Luther concedes everything save that he refuses to despair. The statement that he should, so he urges, is worthy of the devil, who, in his temptations, constantly confuses the false with the true. Luther, here, even introduces the devil in a quasi-comic light: “Do you hear, you great, learned man?” etc. “Yes, my dear chap, that is not the same,” etc. In a similar tone Luther then turns on the Papists who say to him: “Are you a great Doctor and yet have no answer ready for the devil?”
Certain Protestant writers, even down to our own times, have, however, insisted that, at any rate inwardly, the devil had sought to reduce Luther to despair on account of his celebration of Mass as a Catholic; that the spirit of darkness had attached so much importance to the suppression of the Gospel, that he attempted to disquiet Luther with such self-reproaches. It is true Luther once says that the devil reproached him with his “misdeeds, for instance, with the sacrifice of the Mass,” and other Catholic practices of which he had formerly been guilty. On other occasions, however, he quite absolves the devil of any change concerning the Mass. He says, e.g.: “The devil is such a miscreant that he does not reproach me with my great and awful crimes such as the celebration of Mass,” etc. Thus he had persuaded himself quite independently of the devil that the Mass was a grievous crime. We have, in fact, in Luther’s statements concerning his inward experiences a crying instance of his changeableness. We shall return below to his self-reproach on account of his celebration of Mass (see section 4).
Possession and Exorcism
We may conclude our examination of diabolical apparitions by some statements concerning the exorcisms Luther undertook and his treatment of cases of possession.
His first followers believed he had been successful in 1545 in driving out Satan in the case of a person possessed. The testimony of two witnesses of the incident must here come under consideration, both young men who were present on the occasion, viz. Sebastian Fröschel, Deacon at Wittenberg, and Frederick Staphylus, a man of learning who afterwards abandoned Lutheranism and became Superintendent of the University of Ingolstadt. The latter knows nothing of any success having attended Luther’s efforts, whereas the former boasts that such was the case, though he somewhat invalidates his testimony by saying nothing of the embarrassing situation in which Luther found himself at the close of the scene. According to both accounts the incident was more or less as follows:
A girl of eighteen from Ossitz in the neighbourhood of Meissen who was said to be possessed was brought one Tuesday to Luther, and, while at his bidding reciting the Creed, was “torn” by the devil as soon as she reached the words “and in Jesus Christ.” Luther hesitated at first to set about the work of liberation and expressed his contempt for the devil whom he “well knew.” The next day, after his sermon, he caused the “possessed” girl to be
brought to him in the sacristy of the parish church of Wittenberg by the above-mentioned Fröschel.
We hear nothing of any regular examination as to whether it was a case of possession, or not rather hysteria, as seems more likely. At any rate, the unhappy girl when passing from the church through the entrance to the sacristy, was seen to “fall down and hit about her.” The door of the sacristy, where several doctors, ecclesiastics and students were gathered, was locked. Luther delivered an address on his method of driving out the devil: He did not intend to do this in the way usual in Apostolic time, in the early Church and later, viz. by a command and authoritative exorcism, but rather by “prayer and contempt”; the Popish exorcism was too ostentatious and of it the devil was not worthy; at the time when exorcism had been introduced miracles were necessary for the confirmation of the faith, but this was now no longer the case; God Himself knew well when the devil had to depart and they ought not to tempt Him by such commands, but, on the contrary, pray until their prayers were answered. Thus Luther, not unwisely, refused to perform any actual “driving out of the devil.”
The Church’s ritual for exorcism was, however, not so ostentatious as Luther pretends, and combined commands issued in a tone of authority in the name of Christ (Matt. x. 8; Mark xvi. 17) with an expression of contempt for the devil and reprobation of his evil deeds. Fröschel noted down the address in question together with everything that occurred and said later in a sermon, that Luther’s action ought to serve as a model in future cases.
In the sacristy the Creed and Our Father were recited, two passages on prayer (from John xvi. and xiv.) were also read aloud by Luther. Then he, together with the other ecclesiastics present, laid hands on the head of the girl and continued reciting prayers. When no sign appeared of the devil’s departure, Luther wished to go, but first took care to spurn the girl with his foot, the better to mark anew his disdain for the devil. The poor creature whom he had thus insulted followed him with threatening looks and gestures. This was all the more awkward since Luther was unable to escape, the key of the sacristy door having been mislaid; hence he was obliged, he the devil’s greatest and best-hated foe on earth, to remain cheek by jowl with the Evil One.
The satirical description Staphylus gives of the situation cannot be repeated here, especially as the writer seems to have added to its colour. Luther was unable to jump out of the window, so he says, because it was protected with iron bars; “hence he had to remain shut up with us until the sacristan could pass in a strong hatchet to us through the bars; this was handed to me, as I was young, for me to burst open the door, which I then did.” In place of all this, Fröschel merely says of the girl, who was taken home the following day, that afterwards “on several occasions” reports came to Wittenberg to the effect that the evil spirit no longer “tormented and tore her as formerly.”
In the pulpit the Deacon immortalised the incident for his Wittenberg hearers and made it known to the whole world in his printed sermon “Vom Teuffel.”
Luther himself says nothing of it, though disposed in later life to lay great stress on stories of the devil. Earlier than this, in 1540, he had hastened to tell his Katey of the supposed deliverance of a girl at Arnstadt from the devil’s power through the ministrations of the Evangelical pastor there; the latter had “driven a devil out of the girl in a truly Christian manner.” He does not, however, mention this incident in his published works.
On the other hand we have in the Table-Talk a full account of his treatment of a woman “possessed,” or, rather, clearly ailing from a nervous disorder. Her symptoms were regarded, as was customary at a time when so little was known of this class of maladies, as “purely the work of the devil, as something unnatural, due to fright and devil-spectres, seeing that the devil had overlaid her in the shape of a calf.” Luther, on visiting the woman thus “bodily persecuted by the devil,” again laid great stress on the need of praying that she might be rid of her guest, though this time he did not scorn the use of the formula of exorcism. “The night after, she was left in peace, but, later, the weakness returned. Finally, however, she was completely delivered from it;” in other words, the malady simply took its natural course.
Another much-discussed case which occurred after the middle of the ‘thirties was that of a girl at Frankfurt-on-the-Oder, a report of which came to Luther from Andreas Ebert, the Lutheran pastor there (see above, vol. iii., ). In his reply to the circumstantial account of how the “possessed” girl was able to produce coins by magic Luther shows himself in so far cautious that he is anxious to have it made clear whether the story is quite true and whether the coins are real. Nevertheless, he does not hesitate to declare, that, should the incident be proved, it would be a great omen (“ostentum”), as Satan, with God’s permission, was thus setting before them a picture of the greed of money prevailing among certain of the princes. He was loath to see exorcism resorted to, “because the devil in his pride laughs at it”; all the more were they to pray for the girl and against the devil, and this, with the help of Christ, would finally spell her liberation; meanwhile, however, he expresses his readiness to make public all the facts of the case that could be proved. In his sermons he spoke of the occurrence to his hearers as a “warning.”
Theodore Kirchhoff, who, in the “Allgemeine Zeitschrift für Psychiatrie,” mentions “Luther’s exorcisms of hysterical women folk,” not without bewailing his error, points out that it was in part his own fancied experience with the devil which led him to regard “similar phenomena in others as diabolical”; “his many nervous ailments,” he says, “strengthened his personal belief in the devil.” “Indeed, so far did he go in his efforts to drive out the devil that once he actually proposed that an idiot should be done to death.” “Such a doctrine [on the devil’s action], backed by the authority of so great a man, took deep root.” It would be incorrect, writes Kirchhoff, to say, that Luther inaugurated a healthier view of “possession”; on the contrary his opinion is, “that, owing to Luther’s hard and fast theories, the right understanding and treatment of the insane was rendered more difficult than ever; for, if we consider the immense spread of his writings and what their influence became, it is but natural to infer that this also led to his peculiar view becoming popular.” Needless to say, other circumstances also conspired to render difficult the treatment of the mentally disordered; long before Luther’s day they had been regarded by many as possessed, and as the physicians would not undertake to cure possessions, this condition was neglected by the healing art. In many instances, too, the relatives were against any cure being attempted by physicians.
4. Revelation and Illusion. Morbid Trains of Thought
One ground for considering the question of Luther’s revelations in connection with the darker side of his life lies in the gloomy and unearthly circumstances, which, according to his own account, accompanied the higher communications he received (“sub æternæ iræ maledictione”), or else preceded them, inducing within his soul a profound disturbance (“ita furebam.”…), “I was terrified each time.”
A further reason is the unfortunate after-effect that the supposed revelations from above had upon his mind. Outwardly, indeed, he seemed an incarnation of confidence, but, inwardly, the case was very different. Chapter xxxii. (vol. v.) of the present work will have shown how it was his new doctrines, and his overturning of the Church which accounted for his “agonies of soul,” his “pangs of hell” and “nightly combats” with the devil, or rather with his own conscience. “Why do you raise the standard of revolt against the house of the Lord?… Such thoughts upset one very much.” His irritation, melancholy and pessimism were largely due to his disappointment with the results of his revelations. “They know it is God Whose Word we preach and yet they say: We shan’t listen.” “We are poor and indifferent trumpeters, but to the assembly of the heavenly spirits ours is a mighty call.” “My only remaining consolation is that the end of all cannot be far off.” “It must soon come to a head. Amen.” And yet, for all
that, he insisted on his divine mission so emphatically (above, vol. iii., ff.).
The revelations which confirmed him in the idea of his mission deserve more careful examination than has hitherto been possible to us in the course of our narrative.
That Luther ever laid claim to having received his doctrine by a personal revelation from God has been several times denied in recent times by his defenders. They urge that he merely claimed to have received his doctrine from above, “in the same way that God reveals it to all true Christians”; in this and in no other sense, does he speak of his revelations, nor does he ascribe to himself any “peculiar mission.”
It is true Luther taught that the content of the faith to which every true Christian adheres had come into the world by a revelation bestowed on mankind; he also taught that the Holy Ghost lends His assistance to every man to enable him to grasp and hold fast to this revelation: “This is a wisdom such as reason has never framed, nor has the heart of man conceived it, no, not even the great ones of this world, but it is revealed from heaven by the Holy Ghost to those who believe the Gospel.” — This, however, is not the question, but rather, whether he never gave out that he had reached his own fresh knowledge, and that reading of the Bible which he sets up against all the rest of Christendom, thanks to a private and particular illumination, and whether he did not base on such a revelation his claim to infallible certainty?
Collected Works of Martin Luther Page 859