Collected Works of Martin Luther

by Martin Luther

  Among the Wittenbergers, on the other hand, four theologians refused their assent: “Luther’s books,” they said, “were not positive; sometimes he wrote one way, sometimes another; besides which there were dirty spots and objectionable things in his controversial writings.” Such was the opinion of Widebram, Pezel, Moller and, particularly, Caspar Cruciger. The latter, a personal friend of Luther’s, called the Articles of Torgau “a medley of all sorts of things which Luther himself, had he been alive, would not have signed.” His fate like that of the three others was removal from his office and banishment from the country.

  Of the four former favourites at Court Stössel the Superintendent though he craved pardon was kept a prisoner until his death; the Court-preacher Schütz, in spite of his promise to hold his tongue, was shut up in prison for twelve years; the Privy Councillor Craco was flung into the filthiest dungeon of the Pleissenburg at Leipzig, tortured on the rack for four hours and died with mangled limbs on a miserable layer of straw (March 16, 1575). Finally Peucer, professor of medicine and history, who, owing to his influence, had once controlled the University, because he declared he would not “abjure the doctrine of the Sacrament that had been rooted in his heart for thirty-three years and adopt Luther’s instead,” was left pining in a damp, dirty dungeon in the Pleissenburg and was constantly harried with injunctions “to desist from his devilish errors” and “not to fancy himself wiser and more learned than His Highness the Elector and his distinguished theologians, who had also searched into and pondered over this Article [of the Sacrament].” He continued to languish in prison, after the death of his wife, Magdalene, Melanchthon’s daughter, sorrowing over his motherless children, until after wellnigh twelve years of captivity he was released at the instance of a prince. “The behaviour of the Elector and Electress and their advisers towards him gives us a glimpse into an abyss of injustice, brutality and malice made all the more revolting by the hypocritical religious cant and pretended zeal for the Church under which they were disguised. In spite of all the attempts made of old as well as later to excuse the course of the so-called cryptocalvinistic controversies, it remains — especially the case of Peucer — one of the darkest pages in the annals of the Lutheran Church and of civilisation in the 16th Century.”

  But the intolerance displayed by orthodoxy in that struggle had been taught it by Luther. As has been shown already, he had urged that, whoever advocated blasphemous articles, even if not guilty of sedition, should be put to death by the authorities; the sovereign must take care that “there is but one religion in each place”; above all, such was the opinion of his friends, — the sovereign should “put a Christian bit in the mouth of all the clergy.”

  The so-called formula of concord (1580)

  Owing partly to the wish of the secular authorities for some clearer rule, partly to the sight of the confusion in doctrine and the bad effects of the quarrels on faith, there arose a widespread desire for greater unity based on some new and thoroughly Lutheran formulary.

  The Confession of Augsburg and the Apologia were found insufficient; they contained no decisions on the countless controversies which had since sprung up. Thus it came about that “one German province and town after another attempted to satisfy its desire for unity of doctrine by means of a confession of faith of its own.… This in itself, in view of the dismemberment of Germany and the attitude of the Emperor towards the reformation, would necessarily have resulted in a splitting up of the Lutheran Church into countless sects unless some means was found of counteracting individualism and of uniting the Lutherans in one body.”

  It was, however, the politicians, who, in their own interests, were the chief promoters of union.

  Elector August of Saxony wishful of achieving the desired end “by means of a princely dictum” led the way in 1576 with the so-called Book of Torgau.

  This work was drawn up by the theologians Jakob Andreæ, Martin Chemnitz, David Chytræus, Andreas Musculus and Wolfgang Körner. The Book of Torgau was subsequently revised by Caspar Selnecker and reissued under the title of the Book of Bergen (1577). It was hoped that it would become the theological statute-book for all the Protestant Churches; the Protestant Estates of the Empire were to accept it and it was proposed by the theologians that all the Lutheran preachers and school-teachers should be required to give their assent to it.

  Selnecker supported this attempt by referring to the Council of Trent which had been successfully concluded in 1563. They ought, so he said, at last to draw up a “common body of doctrine” as an “evangelical counterblast to the damnable conciliabulum of Trent”; he adds frankly that this was essential, “in order to check the corruption of morals amongst the Evangelical people which was growing worse and worse”; at the same time he wished to see “a united front against the idolatrous Popedom and its devilish satellites the Jesuits, with all their verminous following.”

  Hopes of preserving Luther’s work by means of the new Formula had risen high since Frederick, the zealous Calvinistic Elector of the Palatinate, had been called away by death in Oct., 1576; his successor, the Elector Louis held Lutheran views and was determined to make a stand for Lutheranism.

  In spite, however, of the latter’s patronage, and notwithstanding the efforts of the Electors of Saxony and Brandenburg, the Formula, as Louis of the Palatinate sorrowfully admitted, was not approved by even one-half of the Protestant Princes and townships. One of the strongest objectors was Landgrave William of Hesse. He did not hesitate to abuse Luther’s memory in the rudest language, and asserted that the latter had written “contradictory things.”

  The Unionists, not satisfied with their partial success, published on June 25, 1580, the “Formula Concordiæ,” consisting of an “Epitome” and a “Solida declaratio.” This document occupies an important place in the history of Lutheranism.

  The doctrines of original sin, unfreedom, justification, the Supper, the ubiquity of Christ and of the “communicatio idiomatum” were taken as they had been by Luther, though they are often stated with deliberate ambiguity. Thrusts at Melanchthon, not to speak of Calvin, are found more particularly in the “Declaratio.”

  The permanent rift with Calvinism was as strongly emphasised, as that with the Papacy. One of the propositions taken from the Articles of Schmalkalden ran: “All Christians ought to shun the Pope and his members and followers as the kingdom of Antichrist, and execrate it as Christ has commanded.”

  The cement, however, which was to bind together the antagonistic Lutheran views and schools was not very durable. The fact that “Melanchthon’s memory had been completely blotted out,” or that the Pope had been condemned afresh, did not suffice to bring people together, nor did much good come of the smoothing over, toning down and evasions to which it had been necessary to have recourse in the work in order to arrive at a written basis of outward unity. Over and above all this it became known that the Protestant Estates were at liberty to add printed prefaces of their own to the Concord, in which they might, if they chose, set forth their own theological position, and thus interpret as they liked the text of the Concord, so long as they did not interfere with the text itself. It was also known that the father of the whole scheme, Jakob Andreæ, Inspector General of the churches of Saxony, had quite openly made of the acceptance of the Formula a pure formality and had told the Nurembergers who showed signs of antipathy that all that was required was their signature, and that this would not prevent their being and remaining of the same opinion as before.

  The authors of the Concord, however, displayed such mutual distrust, nay hatred of each other, as greatly to obscure even the origin of the Concord and to raise but scant hopes of its future success. Andreæ bewailed Selnecker’s “diabolical tricks”; he was very well aware that the latter would be delighted were he (Andreæ) strung up on the gallows. Selnecker, on the other hand, complained loudly of Andreæ as a dishonest, egotistical man; he accused Andreæ of calling him: “a damned rascal, a good-for-nothing scoundrel, an arch-villain and a h
ellish thief.” Andreæ was equally severe in his censure of the church-councillors and theologians for the part they took in the matrimonial questions: “After a theologian had dealt with marriage cases two years in the Consistory,” he said, “he would by that time be well fitted to be appointed keeper of a brothel.” We hear an echo of Luther in the coarse language his followers were in the habit of using against each other.

  In spite of all this the Concord constitutes the greatest and most important step ever taken by Lutheranism to define its position. The year 1580 gave to the Lutheran Churches a certain definite status, though, among the theologians, the controversies continued to rage as before.

  The Concord itself, the supposed new palladium, became a theological bone of contention. The following years were taken up with wild quarrels about the Formula of Concord. At Strasburg alone in three years the different parties hurled against each other approximately forty screeds, full of vulgar abuse, and the literary feuds had their aftermath in the streets in the shape of hand-to-hand scuffles between the students and the burghers. Even at Wittenberg the quarrels went on.

  The Calvinistic Count Palatine, Johann Casimir, notorious for his bloody deeds on behalf of the French Huguenots, instructed one of his theologians, Zacharias Ursinus, to draw up the so-called “Neustadt Admonition” in which the adherents of the Concord were accused of “making an idol of Luther”; it was a mere farce when the Concord professed to subordinate his books to Holy Scripture, because in reality they were exalted into a rule of faith and treated as the standard of doctrine; all subscribers to the Augsburg Confession were wont without exception to appeal to these writings whatever their opinions were; as a matter of fact, owing to the errors, exaggerations and contradictions they contained it was possible to quote passages from Luther’s writings in support of almost anything. His controversial works, above all, had no claim to any authority, though it was to these that the followers of the Concord preferred to appeal. “Here, as his own followers must admit,” so the “Admonition” declares, “he had been carried away into excitement and passion which exceeded all bounds and had been guilty of assertions which contradicted his own earlier declarations, and which he himself had often been under pressure obliged to withdraw or modify.”

  There was, however, a large party which did not make an “idol” of Luther, but openly rejected his teaching. It was in this that Aurifaber saw a fulfilment of Luther’s prophecy of the coming extinction of his doctrine among his followers. As early as 1566 he said that the master had not been wrong in his idea, that “the Word of God had seldom persisted for more than forty years in one place.” “The holy man,” he goes on, “had frequently told the theologians and his table companions that, though his teaching had thus far grown and thriven, yet it would begin to dwindle and collapse when its course was finished. And he had declared that his doctrine had stood highest and been at its best at the Diet of Augsburg, anno 1530. But that now it would go downhill.” That, as stated above, the Word of God seldom persisted in one place for more than forty years he had proved “by many examples” taken from the times of the Judges, Kings and Prophets; even the teaching of Christ had not remained pure and free from error for longer “in the land of the Jews, in Greece, Asia and elsewhere.”

  4. Mutual Influence of the Two Camps. Growing Strength of the Catholic Church

  One cannot but recognise in the history of the 16th century the religious influence indirectly exerted on one another by Lutheranism and Catholicism, an influence which indeed proved advantageous to both.

  Luther’s Churches

  To begin with the phenomena grouped around the Formula of Concord we may say, that the movement towards greater religious unity, among the Lutherans was largely stimulated by the brilliant and to Luther’s adherents quite unexpected example of Catholic unity resulting from the religious struggle and particularly from the Council of Trent. Selnecker had insisted that Protestants must endeavour to produce an “evangelical counterblast” to Catholic theology and the Council. In the case of many others too, it was the harmony and united front of the Catholics at the Council of Trent that served as an incentive to create a similar positive bond between their own Churches. Many once more mooted the question of a Protestant General Council, but others, as for instance Andreæ, pointed out how impossible this would be and what a danger it would involve of even greater dissensions. It was also of advantage to the Protestant writers on theology to have a clearly formulated statement of the Catholic doctrine set before them in the definitions of a General Council and explained in the “Roman Catechism.” Though Luther had distorted beyond recognition the Catholic doctrines he attacked, it was less possible than formerly to doubt — after so solemn a declaration — what the teaching of the despised Church was, or, with a good conscience, to deny how alien to her was the anti-Christian doctrine of which she had been accused. Catholic polemics, too, who were growing both in numbers and in strength, must necessarily have opened the eyes of many to the interior continuity, the firm foundation and the logical sequence of the Catholic propositions and, at least in the case of the learned and unprejudiced, led them to regret keenly the absence of clearness and logic on their own side. The latter holds good in particular of the untenability of the conciliatory Lutheran theology which sought to gloss over all the contradictions and which had given rise to the phantom of the Concordia.

  “In the work of unifying Protestant theology,” Janssen justly writes, “no slight service was rendered by the Catholic controversialists and apologists and also and especially by the Tridentine Council and the Roman Catechism. Those who opposed to the hurly-burly and confusion of the new teaching the settled, uniform system of a theology, harmonious and consistent in all its parts, thereby made manifest to the dissentient theologians the defects and the glaring discords which Protestantism presented both in its formal and material principles. The sharply defined terminology and the wealth of speculative matter which they offered stood here also in very good stead.”

  This thought also reminds us of the great store of spiritual treasure that Luther’s Churches carried away with them when they severed their connection with Mother Church. Who can question that Luther bequeathed to his Churches much of the heritage of mysteries which Christianity brought to mankind? Faith in the Holy Trinity; in the Father as Source of all being; in the Eternal Son as the Redeemer and Mediator; in the Holy Spirit as the organ of sanctity; again, in the Incarnation, in Christ and His works, miracles and Resurrection; finally a firm belief in an eternal reward, in the again-rising of every man and the everlasting life of the just; in short all the consoling articles of the Apostles’ Creed must be included amongst the treasures which Luther not only took over from the olden Church but, in his own fashion, even defended with warmth and energy against those who differed from him.

  On Catholic principles we may broadmindedly admit that countless well-meaning men since Luther’s day have found in the doctrine he preached the satisfaction of their religious cravings. Very many erred and still err “in good faith” and “with no stubbornness.” But wherever there is good faith and an honest conviction of having the best, there a religious life is possible. “This the Catholic Church does not deny when she claims to be the one ark of salvation. One would think that this had been repeated often enough to make any misapprehension impossible on the part of Protestants. As to how far this result is due to the Protestant Churches and how far to the Grace of God which instils into every willing heart peace and blessing, is no open question seeing that the Grace of God alone is the foundation of a truly religious life.”

  But if, on the one hand, Lutheranism owes much to the ancient Church, on the other, we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that the revival in the Catholic Church during the 16th century was indirectly furthered by Luther and his work.

  Progress and Gains of Catholicism

  There were Catholic contemporaries who pointed out that the going over to Luther of many who were members of the Church merely
in name, and whose lives did not correspond with her demands, had a wholesome effect on the Church’s body. This held good of the monasteries in particular. In many places relief was felt and a revival of discipline became possible when those, who had entered the religious life from worldly motives, took their departure in order, as Luther himself lamented, to seek greater comfort in the bosom of the new Church. “God has purged His floor and separated the chaff from the wheat,” wrote the Cistercian Abbot, Wolfgang Mayer. Augustine Alveld, the Franciscan, portrayed with indignant words the evil lives of many apostate monks and declared with relief that: “Those who were of the same pack and lived among us have now, thanks be to God, all of them run away from their convents and institutions.” In lesser degree the same was true of the laity.

  “Indirectly, though very much against his will, Luther helped to promote the regeneration of the Catholic Church by means of the Council of Trent.” It was his apostasy which made possible that gathering of the Bishops which hitherto external obstacles, shortsightedness, indolence and worldly aims had prevented.

  Theological studies profited by the struggle with Protestantism. More attention was bestowed on the question of man’s natural and supernatural equipment; the dangers with which the excessive spread of Nominalism had threatened the doctrine of Grace were effectually circumvented, and the indispensable need of Grace for any work meritorious for heaven was more strongly emphasised. Thus, on the whole, there was a gain which we must not underrate, a new development of theological lore and a clearer formulation of dogma on threatened points similar to that which had resulted from the great controversies in Patristic times.