Martin Luther

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Leader of thegreat religious revolt of the sixteenth century inGermany; born at Eisleben, 10 November, 1483; died at Eisleben, 18 February, 1546.

His father, Hans, was a miner, a rugged, stern, irasciblecharacter. In the opinion of many of his biographers, it was an expression of uncontrolled rage, an evident congenital inheritance transmitted to his oldest son, that compelled him to flee from Mohra, thefamily seat, to escape the penalty or odium ofhomicide. This, though first charged byWicelius, aconvert from Lutheranism, has found admission intoProtestant history and tradition. His mother, Margaret Ziegler, is spoken of byMelancthon as conspicuous for "modesty, the fear ofGod, and prayerfulness" ("Corpus Reformatorum", Halle, 1834).

Extreme simplicity and inflexible severity characterized their homelife, so that the joys of childhood were virtully unknown to him. His father once beat him so mercilessly that he ran away from home and was so "embittered against him that he had to win me to himself again." His mother, "on account of an insignificant nut, beat me till the blood flowed, and it was this harshness and severity of the life I led with them that forced me subsequently to run away to amonastery and become amonk." The same cruelty was the experience of his earliest school-days, when in one morning he was punished no less than fifteen times.

The meager data of his life at this period make it a work of difficulty to reconstruct his childhood. His schooling at Mansfeld, whither hisparents had returned, was uneventful. He attended a Latinschool, in which theTen Commandments, "Child's Belief", theLord's Prayer, the Latin grammar ofDonatus were taught, and which he learned quickly.

In his fourteenth year (1497) he entered aschool atMagdeburg, where, in the words of his first biographer, like many children "of honourable and well-to-doparents, he sang and begged for bread —panem propter Deum" (Mathesius, op. cit.). In his fifteenth year we find him at Eisenach.

At eighteen (1501) he entered the University of Erfurt, with a view to studyingjurisprudence at the request of hisfather. In 1502 he received the degree ofBachelor of Philosophy, being the thirteenth among fifty-seven candidates. OnEpiphany (6 January, 1505), he was advanced to themaster's degree, being second among seventeen applicants.

Hisphilosophical studies were no doubt made under Jodocus Trutvetter von Eisenach, thenrector of the university, andBartholomaus Arnoldi von Usingen. The former was pre-eminently theDoctor Erfordiensis, and stood without an admitted rival inGermany. Luther addresses him in a letter (1518) as not only "the first theologian andphilosopher", but also the first of contemporarydialecticians.Usingen was an Augustinianfriar, and second only to Trutvetter in learning, but surpassing him in literary productivity. Although the tone of the university, especially that of the students, was pronouncedly, even enthusiastically,humanistic, and although Erfurt led the movement inGermany, and in itstheological tendencies was supposedly "modern", nevertheless "it nowise showed a depreciation of the currently prevailing [Scholastic] system" (ibid.). Luther himself, in spite of an acquaintaince with some of the moving spirits ofhumanism, seems not to have been appreciably affected by it, lived on its outer fringe, and never qualified to enter its "poetic" circle.

Luther's sudden and unexpected entrance into the Augustinianmonastery at Erfurt occurred 17 July, 1505. The motives that prompted the step are various, conflicting, and the subject of considerable debate. He himself alleges, as above stated, that the brutality of his home and school life drove him into themonastery. Hausrath, his latest biographer and one of the most scholarly Luther specialists, unreservedly inclines to thisbelief. The "house at Mansfeld rather repelled than attracted him" (Beard, "Martin Luther and the Germ. Ref.", London, 1889, 146), and to "the question 'Why did Luther go into themonastery?', the reply that Luther himself gives is the most satisfactory" (Hausrath, "Luthers Leben" I, Berlin, 1904, 2, 22). He himself again, in a letter to hisfather, in explanation of his defection from theOld Church, writes, "When I was terror-stricken and overwhelmed by thefear of impending death, I made an involuntary and forcedvow".

Various explanations are given of this episode.Melancthon ascribes his step to a deep melancholy, which attained a critical point "when at one time he lost one of his comrades by an accidental death" (Corp. Ref., VI, 156).Cochlaeus, Luther's opponent, relates "that at one time he was so frightened in a field, at a thunderbolt as is commonly reported, or was in such anguish at the loss of a companion, who was killed in the storm, that in a short time to the amazement of manypersons he sought admission to the Order of St. Augustine". Mathesius, his first biographer, attributes it to the fatal "stabbing of a friend and a terrible storm with a thunderclap" (op. cit.) Seckendorf, who made careful research, following Bavarus (Beyer), a pupil of Luther, goes a step farther, calling this unknown friend Alexius, and ascribes his death to a thunderbolt (Seckendorf, "Ausfuhrliche Historie des Lutherthums", Leipzig, 1714, 51). D'Aubigné changes this Alexius into Alexis and has him assassinated at Erfurt (D'Aubigné, "History of the Reformation", New York, s.d., I, 166). Oerger ("Vom jungen Luther", Erfurt, 1899, 27-41) hasproved theexistence of this friend, his name of Alexius or Alexis, his death by lightning or assassination, a mere legend, destitute of all historical verification. Kostlin-Kawerau (I, 45) states that returning from his "Mansfeld home he was overtaken by a terrible storm, with an alarming lightning flash and thunderbolt. Terrified and overwhelmed he cries out: 'Help,St. Anna, I will be amonk'." "The inner history of the change is far less easy to narrate. We have no direct contemporary evidence on which to rely; while Luther's own reminiscences, on which we chiefly depend, are necessarily coloured by his later experiences and feelings" (Beard, op. cit., 146).

Of Luther'smonastic life we have littleauthentic information, and that is based on his own utterances, which his own biographers frankly admit are highly exaggerated, frequently contradictory, and commonly misleading. Thus the allegedcustom by which he was forced to change hisbaptismal name Martin into themonastic name Augustine, a proceeding he denounces as"wicked" and"sacrilegious", certainly had no existence in the Augustinian Order.

His accidental discovery in the Erfurtmonasterylibrary of theBible, "a book he had never seen in his life" (Mathesius, op. cit.), or Luther's assertion that he had "never seen aBible until he was twenty years of age", or his still more emphatic declaration that when Carlstadt was promoted to the doctorate "he had as yet never seen aBible and I alone in the Erfurtmonastery read theBible", which, taken in their literal sense, are not only contrary to demonstrable facts, but have perpetuated misconception, bear the stamp of improbability written in such obtrusive characters on their face, that it is hard, on an honest assumption, to account for their longevity. The Augustinian rule lays especial stress on the monition that thenovice "read theScripture assiduously, hear it devoutly, and learn it fervently" (Constitutiones Ordinis Fratr. Eremit. Sti. Augustini", Rome, 1551, cap. xvii). At this very time Biblical studies were in a flourishing condition at the university, so that its historian states that "it is astonishing to meet such a great number ofBiblical commentaries, which force us to conclude that there was an active study ofHoly Writ" (Kampschulte, op. cit., I, 22).Protestant writers of repute have abandoned this legend altogether.

Parenthetical mention must be made of the fact that the denunciation heaped on Luther's novice-master by Mathesius, Ratzeberger, and Jurgens, and copied with uncritical docility by their transcribers — for subjecting him to the most abject menialduties and treating him with outrageous indignity — rests on no evidence. These writers are "evidently led by hearsay, and follow the legendary stories that have been spun about the person of the reformer" (Oerger, op. cit., 80). The nameless novice-master, whom even Luther designates as "an excellent man, and without doubt even under the damnedcowl, atrueChristian," must "have been a worthy representative of his order" (Oerger, op. cit.).

Luther wasordained to thepriesthood in 1507. The precisedate is uncertain. A strange oversight, running through three centuries, placed thedate of hisordination and firstMass on the same day, 2 May, an impossible coincidence. Kostlin, who repeated it (Luther's Leben, I, 1883, 63) drops the date altogether in his latest edition. Oerger fixes on 27 February. This allows the unprecedented interval of more than two months to elapse between theordination and firstMass. Could he have deferred his firstMass on account of the morbidscrupulosity, which played such a part in the later periods of hismonastic life?

There is no reason todoubt that Luther'smonastic career thus far was exemplary, tranquil,happy; his heart at rest, hismind undisturbed, hissoul at peace. Themetaphysical disquisitions,psychological dissertations, pietistic maunderings about his interior conflicts, histheological wrestlings, his torturingasceticism, his chafing undermonastic conditions, can have little more than an academic, possibly a psychopathic value. They lack all basis of verifiable data. Unfortunately Luther himself in his self-revelation can hardly be taken as a safe guide. Moreover, with an array of evidence, thoroughness of research, fullness ofknowledge, and unrivalled mastery ofmonasticism,scholasticism, andmysticism,Denifle has removed it from the domain of debatable ground to that of verifiablecertainty. "What Adolf Hausrath has done in an essay for theProtestant side, was accentuated and confirmed with all possible penetration byDenifle; the young Luther according to his self-revelation is unhistorical; he was not the discontented Augustinian, nagged by themonastic life, perpetually tortured by hisconscience,fasting,praying,mortified, and emaciated — no, he washappy in themonastery, he found peace there, to which he turned his back only later" (Kohler, op. cit., 68-69).

During the winter of 1508-09 he was sent to theUniversity of Wittenberg, then in its infancy (founded 2 July, 1502), with an enrolment of one hundred and seventy-nine students. The town itself was apoor insignificant place, with three hundred and fifty-six taxable properties, and accredited the mostbibulous town of the mostbibulous province (Saxony) ofGermany. While teachingphilosophy anddialectics he also continued histheological studies. On 9 March, 1509, under the deanship ofStaupitz, he becameBaccalaureus Biblicus in thetheological course, as a stepping-stone to the doctorate. His recall to Erfurt occurred the same year.

His mission toRome, extending over an estimated period of five months, one of which he spent in the city ofRome, which played so important a part in his early biographies, and even now is far from a negligible factor inReformation research, occurred in 1511, or, as some contend, 1510. Itstrue object has thus far baffled all satisfactory investigation. Mathesius makes him go fromWittenberg on "monastic business";Melancthon attributes it to a "monkish squabble";Cochlaeus, and he is in the main followed byCatholic investigators, makes him appear as the delegated representative of seven allied Augustinianmonasteries to voice a protest against some innovations ofStaupitz, but as deserting his clients and siding withStaupitz.Protestants say he was sent toRome as the advocate ofStaupitz. Luther himself states that it was apilgrimage in fulfilment of avow to make a general confession in theEternal City.

The outcome of the mission, like its object, still remains shrouded in mystery. What was the effect of thisRoman visit on his spiritual life ortheological thought? Did "this visit turn his reverence forRome into loathing"? Did he find it "a sink of iniquity, itspriests,infidels, thepapal courtiers, men of shameless lives?" (Lindsay, "Luther and the German Reformation", New York, 1900). "He returned fromRome as strong in thefaith as he went to visit it. In a certain sense his sojourn inRome even strengthened his religious convictions" (Hausrath, op. cit., 98).

In his letters of those years he never mentions having been inRome. In his conference withCardinal Cajetan, in his disputations withDr. Eck, in his letters to Pope Leo, nay, in his tremendous broadside of invective and accusation against all things Romish, in his 'Address to the German Nation and Nobility', there occurs not one unmistakable reference to his having been inRome. By every rule of evidence we are bound to hold that when the most furious assailantRome has ever known described from a distance of ten years upwards the incidents of a journey throughItaly toRome, the few touches of light in his picture are more trustworthy than its black breadths of shade. (Bayne, "Martin Luther", I, 234)

His whole Roman experience as expressed in later life is open to question. "We can really question the importance attached to remarks which in a great measure date from the last years of his life, when he was really a changed man. Much that he relates as personal experience is manifestly the product of an easily explained self-delusion" (Hausrath, op. cit., 79).

One of the incidents of theRoman mission, which at onetime was considered a pivotal point in his career, and was calculated to impart an inspirational character to the leading doctrine of theReformation, and is still detailed by his biographers, was his supposed experience while climbing theScala Santa. According to it, while Luther was in the act of climbing the stairs on his knees, the thought suddenly flashed through hismind: "The just shall live byfaith", whereupon he immediately discontinued his pious devotion. The story rests on an autograph insertion of his son Paul in a Bible, now in possession of thelibrary of Rudolstadt. In it he claims that his father told him the incident. Its historic value may be gauged by the considerations that it is the personal recollections of an immature lad (he was born in 1533) recorded twenty years after the event, to which neither his father, his early biographers, nor his table companions before whom it is claimed the remark was made, allude, though it could have been of primary importance. "It is easy to see the tendency here to date the (theological) attitude of the Reformer back into the days of hismonasticfaith" (Hausrath, op. cit., 48).

Having acquitted himself with evident success, and in a manner to please both parties, Luther returned toWittenberg in 1512, and received the appointment of sub-prior. His academic promotions followed in quick succession. On 4 October he was made licentiate, and on 19 October, under the deanship of Carlstadt — successively friend, rival, and enemy — he was admitted to the doctorate, being then in his thirtieth year. On 22 October he was formally admitted to the senate of the faculty oftheology, and received the appointment as lecturer on theBible in 1513. His further appointment as districtvicar in 1515 made him the official representative of thevicar-general inSaxony andThuringia. Hisduties were manifold and his life busy. Littletime was left forintellectual pursuits, and the increasing irregularity in the performance of his religiousduties could only bode ill for his future. He himself tells us that he needed two secretaries or chancellors, wrote letters all day, preached at table, also in themonastery andparochial churches, was superintendent of studies, and asvicar of the order had as much to do as elevenpriors; he lectured on thepsalms andSt. Paul, besides the demand made on his economic resourcefulness in managing amonastery of twenty-twopriests, twelve young men, in all forty-one inmates. His official letters breathe a deep solicitude for the wavering, gentle sympathy for the fallen; they show profound touches of religious feeling and rare practical sense, though not unmarred with counsels that haveunorthodox tendencies. The plague which afflictedWittenberg in 1516 found himcourageously at his post, which, in spite of the concern of his friends, he would not abandon.

But in Luther's spiritual life significant, if not ominous, changes were likewise discernible. Whether he entered "themonastery and deserted the world to flee fromdespair" (Jurgens, op. cit., I, 522) and did not find the coveted peace; whether the expressed apprehensions of hisfather that the"call from heaven" to themonastic life might be a "satanic delusion" stirred up thoughts ofdoubt; whether his sudden, violent resolve was the result of one of those "sporadic overmastering torpors which interrupt the circulatory system or indicate arterial convulsion" (Hausrath, "Luthers Leben", I, 22), a heritage of his depressing childhood, and a chronic condition that clung to him to the end of his life; or whether deeper studies, for which he had little or notime, createddoubts that would not be solved and aroused aconscience that would not be stilled, it is evident that hisvocation, if it ever existed, was in jeopardy, that the morbid interior conflict marked a drifting from old moorings, and that the very remedies adopted to re-establish peace all the more effectually banished it.

Thiscondition of morbidity finally developed into formalscrupulosity. Infractions of the rules, breaches ofdiscipline, distorted ascetic practices followed in quick succession and with increasing gravity; these, followed by spasmodic convulsive reactions, made life an agony. The solemnobligation of reciting thedaily Office, anobligation binding under the penalty of mortalsin, was neglected to allow more ampletime for study, with the result that theBreviary was abandoned for weeks. Then in paroxysmal remorse Luther would lock himself into his cell and by one retroactiveact make amends for all he neglected; he wouldabstain from all food and drink, torture himself by harrowingmortifications, to an extent that not only made him the victim of insomnia for five weeks at one time, but threatened to drive him intoinsanity. The prescribed and regulatedascetical exercises were arbitrarily set aside. Disregarding themonastic regulations and the counsels of his confessor, he devised his own, which naturally gave him thecharacter of singularity in his community. Like every victim ofscrupulosity, he saw nothing in himself butwickedness and corruption.God was the minister of wrath and vengeance. His sorrow forsin was devoid ofhumble charity and childlike confidence in the pardoning mercy ofGod andJesus Christ.

Thisanger ofGod, which pursued him like his shadow, could only be averted by "his own righteousness", by the "efficacy of servile works". Such an attitude ofmind was necessarily followed byhopeless discouragement and sullen despondency, creating acondition ofsoul in which he actually "hatedGod and wasangry at him",blasphemedGod, and deplored that he was ever born. This abnormalcondition produced a brooding melancholy, physical, mental, and spiritual depression, which later, by a strange process of reasoning, he ascribed to the teaching of theChurch concerninggoodworks, while all thetime he was living in direct and absolute opposition to its doctrinal teaching anddisciplinary code.

Of course this self-willed positiveness and hypochondriacasceticism, as usually happens in cases of morbidlyscrupulous natures, found no relief in thesacraments. His generalconfessions at Erfurt andRome did not touch the root of theevil. His whole being was wrought up to such an acute tension that he actually regretted hisparents were not dead, that he might avail himself of the facilitiesRome afforded to save them frompurgatory. For religion's sake he was ready to become "the most brutalmurderer", "tokill all who even by syllable refused submission to thepope" (Sämmtliche Werke, XXXX, Erlangen, 284). Such a tense and neurotic physical condition demanded a reaction, and, as frequently occurs in analogous cases, it went to the diametric extreme.

The undue importance he had placed on his own strength in the spiritual process ofjustification, he now peremptorily and completely rejected. He convinced himself thatman, as a consequence oforiginal sin, was totally depraved, destitute offree will, that allworks, even though directed towards thegood, were nothing more than an outgrowth of his corrupted will, and in thejudgments of God in reality mortalsins.Man can besaved byfaith alone. Ourfaith inChrist makes Hismerits our possession, envelops us in the garb of righteousness, which our guilt and sinfulness hide, and supplies in abundance every defect of human righteousness.

Be a sinner andsin on bravely, but have strongerfaith and rejoice inChrist, who is the victor ofsin, death, and the world. Do not for a moment imagine that this life is the abiding place ofjustice:sin must be committed. To you it ought to be sufficient that you acknowledge the Lamb that takes away thesins of the world, thesin cannot tear you away from him, even though you commitadultery a hundred times a day and commit as manymurders" (Enders, "Briefwechsel", III, 208).

The new doctrine ofjustification byfaith, now in its inchoate stage, gradually developed, and was finally fixed by Luther as one of the central doctrines ofChristianity. The epoch-making event connected with the publication of thepapal Bull of Indulgences inGermany, which was that ofJulius II renewed in adaptable form byLeo X, to raise funds for the construction ofSt. Peter's Church inRome, brought his spiritual difficulties to a crisis.

Albert of Brandenburg was heavily involved indebt, not, asProtestant andCatholic historians relate, on account of hispallium, but to pay abribe to an unknown agent inRome, to buy off a rival, in order that thearchbishop might enjoy a plurality of ecclesiastical offices. For this payment, which smacked ofsimony, thepope would allow an indemnity, which in this case took the form of anindulgence. By this ignoble business arrangement withRome, a financial transaction unworthy of bothpope andarchbishop, the revenue should be partitioned in equal halves to each, besides a bonus of 10,000 gold ducats, which should fall to the share ofRome.

John Tetzel, aDominicanmonk with an impressivepersonality, a gift of popular oratory, and the repute of a successfulindulgence preacher, was chosen by thearchbishop as general-subcommissary. History presents few characters more unfortunate and pathetic thanTetzel. Among his contemporaries the victim of the most corrosive ridicule, every foul charge laid at his door, everyblasphemous utterance placed in his mouth, a veritable fiction and fable built about hispersonality, in modern history held up as the proverbial mountebank and oily harlequin, denied even the support and sympathy of his own allies —Tetzel had to wait the light of modern critical scrutiny, not only for amoral rehabilitation, but also for vindication as a soundly trainedtheologian and amonk of irreproachable deportment. It was his preaching at Juterbog and Zerbst, towns adjoiningWittenberg, that drew hearers from there, who in turn presented themselves to Luther for confession, that made him take the step he had in contemplation for more than a year.

It is not denied that adoctrine like that of theindulgences, which in some aspects was still a disputable subject in theschools, was open to misunderstanding by thelaity; that the preachers in the heat of rhetorical enthusiasm fell into exaggerated statements, or that the financial considerations attached, though not of anobligatory character, led to abuse andscandal. The opposition toindulgences, not to thedoctrine—which remains the same to this day—but to the mercantile methods pursued in preaching them, was not new or silent. Duke George of Saxony prohibited them in his territory, andCardinal Ximenes, as early as 1513, forbade them inSpain.

On 31 October, 1517, thevigil of All Saints', Luther affixed to the castlechurch door, which served as the "black-board" of theuniversity, on which all notices of disputations and high academic functions were displayed, his Ninety-five Theses. The act was not an open declaration ofwar, but simply an academic challenge to a disputation. "Such disputations were regarded in theuniversities of theMiddle Ages partly as a recognized means of defining and elucidatingtruth, partly as a kind ofmental gymnastic apt to train and quicken thefaculties of the disputants. It was not understood that a man was always ready to adopt in sober earnest propositions which he was willing to defend in the academic arena; and in like manner a rising disputant might attackorthodox positions, without endangering hisreputation fororthodoxy" (Beard, op. cit.). The same day he sent a copy of the Theses with an explanatory letter to thearchbishop. The latter in turn submitted them to his councillors at Aschaffenburg and to the professors of the University of Mainz. The councillors were of the unanimous opinion that they were of anheretical character, and that proceedings against theWittenberg Augustinian should be taken. This report, with a copy of the Theses, was then transmitted to thepope. It will thus be seen that the first judicial procedure against Luther did not emanate fromTetzel. His weapons were to be literary.

Tetzel, more readily than some of the contemporary brillianttheologians, divined the revolutionary import of the Theses, which while ostensibly aimed at the abuse ofindulgences, were a covert attack on the wholepenitential system of theChurch and struck at the very root ofecclesiastical authority. Luther's Theses impress the reader "as thrown together somewhat in haste", rather than showing "carefully digested thought, and delicatetheological intention"; they "bear him one moment into the audacity of rebellion and then carry him back to the obedience of conformity" (Beard, 218, 219).Tetzel's anti-theses were maintained partly in a disputation for the doctorate at Frankfort-on-the-Oder (20 Jan., 1518), and issued with others in an unnumbered list, and are commonly known as the One Hundred and Six Theses. They, however, did not haveTetzel for their author, but were promptly and rightfully attributed toConrad Wimpina, his teacher at Leipzig. That this fact argues noignorance oftheology or unfamiliarity with Latin on the part ofTetzel, as has been generally assumed, is frankly admitted byProtestant writers. It was simply a legitimatecustom pursued in academic circles, as weknow fromMelancthon himself.

Tetzel's Theses — for he assumed all responsibility — opposed to Luther's innovations thetraditional teaching of the church; but it must be admitted that they at times gave an uncompromising, evendogmatic, sanction to meretheological opinions, that were hardly consonant with the most accurate scholarship. AtWittenberg they created wild excitement, and an unfortunate hawker who offered them for sale, was mobbed by the students, and his stock of about eight hundred copies publicly burned in the market square — a proceeding that met with Luther's disapproval. The plea then made, and still repeated, that it was done in retaliation forTetzel's burning Luther's Theses, is admittedly incorrect, in spite of the fact that it hasMelancthon as sponsor. Instead of replying toTetzel, Luther carried the controversy from the academic arena to the public forum by issuing in popular vernacular form his "Sermon on Indulgences and Grace". It was really a tract, where thesermon form was abandoned and twenty propositions laid down. At the same time his Latin defence of the Theses, the "Resolutiones", was well under way. In its finished form, it was sent to hisordinary, Bishop Scultetus ofBrandenburg, who counselled silence and abstention from all further publications for the present. Luther's acquiescence was that of thetruemonk: "I am ready, and will ratherobey than performmiracles in myjustification."

At this stage a new source of contention arose.Johann Eck, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ingoldstadt, by common consent acknowledged as one of the foremosttheological scholars of his day, endowed with raredialectical skill and phenomenalmemory, all of which Luther candidly admitted before the Leipzig disputation took place, innocently became involved in the controversy. At the request of Bishop von Eyb, ofEichstätt, he subjected the Theses to a closer study, singled out eighteen of them as concealing the germ of theHussite heresy, violatingChristian charity, subverting the order of theecclesiastical hierarchy, and breeding sedition. These "Obelisci" ("obelisks", the odd printer's device for noting doubtful or spurious passages) were submitted to thebishop inmanuscript form, passed around among intimates, and not intended for publication. In one of the transcribed forms, they reached Luther and wrought him up to a high pitch of indignation.Eck in a letter of explanation sought to mollify the ruffled tempers of Carlstadt and Luther and in courteous, urgent tones begged them to refrain from public disputation either by lecture or print. In spite of the fact that Carlstadt forestalled Luther, the latter gave out his "Asterisci" (10 August, 1518). This skirmish led to the Leipzig Disputation. Sylvester Prierias, likeTetzel, aDominicanfriar, domestictheologian of the Court of Rome, in his official capacity asCensor Librorum ofRome, next submitted his report "In præsumtuosas M. Lutheri, Conclusiones Dialogus". In it he maintained the absolute supremacy of thepope, in terms not altogether free from exaggeration, especially stretching his theory to an unwarrantable point in dealing withindulgences. This evoked Luther's "Responsio ad Silv. Prierietatis Dialogum".Hoogstraten, whose merciless lampooning in the "Epistolae Obscurorum Vivorum" was still a living memory, likewise entered the fray in defence of thepapal prerogatives, only to be dismissed by Luther's "Schedam contra Hochstratanum", the flippancy and vulgarity of which one of Luther's most ardent students apologetically characterizes as being "in tone with the prevailing taste of the time and the circumstances, but not to be commended as worthy of imitation" (Loscher, op. cit., II, 325).

Before the "Dialogus" of Prierias reachedGermany, apapalcitation reached Luther (7 August) to appear in person within sixty days inRome for a hearing. He at once took refuge in the excuse that such a trip could not be undertaken without endangering his life; he sought influence to secure the refusal of a safe-conduct through the electorate and brought pressure to bear on the Emperor Maximilian and Elector Frederick to have the hearing and judges appointed inGermany. Theuniversity sent letters toRome and to thenuncioMiltitz sustaining the plea of "infirm health" and vouching for hisorthodoxy. His literary activity continued unabated. His "Resolutiones", which were already completed, he also sent to thepope (30 May). The letter accompanying them breathes the most loyal expression of confidence and trust in theHoly See, and is couched in such terms of abject subserviency and fulsome adulation, that its sincerity and frankness, followed as it was by such an almost instantaneous revulsion, is instinctively questioned. Moreover before this letter had been written his anticipatory action in preaching his "Sermon on the Power of Excommunication" (16 May), in which it is contended that visible union with theChurch is not broken byexcommunication, but bysin alone, only strengthens the surmise of a lack ofgood faith. The inflammatory character of thissermon was fully acknowledged by himself.

Influential intervention had the effect of having the hearing fixed during the Diet of Augsburg, which was called to effect an alliance between theHoly See, the Emperor Maximilian, and King Christian ofNorway,Denmark, andSweden, in thewar against theTurks. In the official instructions calling the Diet, the name or cause of Luther does not figure.

Thepapal legate, Cajetan, and Luther met face to face for the first time atAugsburg on 11 October. Cajetan (b. 1470) was "one of the most remarkable figures woven into the history of theReformation on theRoman side . . . a man of erudition and blameless life" (Weizacker); he was adoctor ofphilosophy before he was twenty-one, at this early age filling chairs with distinction in bothsciences at some of the leadinguniversities; inhumanistic studies he was so well versed as to enter thedialectic arena againstPico della Mirandola when only twenty-four. Surely no better qualified man could be detailed to adjust thetheological difficulties. But the audiences were doomed to failure. Cajetan came to adjudicate, Luther to defend; the former demanded submission, the latter launched out into remonstrance; the one showed a spirit of mediating patience, the other mistook it for apprehensivefear; the prisoner at the bar could not refrain from bandying words with the judge on the bench. Thelegate, with thereputation of "the most renowned and easily the firsttheologian of his age", could not fail to be shocked at the rude, discourteous, bawling tone of thefriar, and having exhausted all his efforts, he dismissed him with the injunction not to call again until he recanted. Fiction and myth had a wide sweep in dealing with this meeting and have woven such an inextricable web of obscurity about it that we must follow either the highly coloured narratives of Luther and his friends, or be guided by the most trustworthy criterion oflogical conjecture.

Thepapal Brief to Cajetan (23 August), which was handed to Luther atNuremberg on his way home, in which thepope, contrary to all canonical precedents, demands the most summary action in regard to the uncondemned and unexcommunicated "child of iniquity", asks the aid of the emperor, in the event of Luther's refusal to appear inRome, to place him under forcible arrest, was no doubt written inGermany, and is an evidentforgery (Beard, op. cit., 257-258; Ranke, "Deutsche Gesch." VI, 97-98). Like allforgedpapal documents, it still shows a surprising vitality, and is found in every biography of Luther.

Luther's return toWittenberg occurred on the anniversary of his nailing the Theses to the castlechurch door (31 October, 1518). All efforts towards a recantation having failed, and now assured of the sympathy and support of the temporal princes, he followed hisappeal to thepope by a newappeal to anecumenical council (28 November, 1518), which, as will be seen later, he again, denying the authority of both, followed by an appeal to theBible.

The appointment ofKarl von Miltitz, the youngSaxon nobleman inminor orders, sent asnuncio to deliver theGolden Rose to the Elector Frederick, was unfortunate and abortive. TheGolden Rose was not offered as a sop to secure the good graces of the elector, but in response to prolonged and importunate agitation on his part to get it (Hausrath, "Luther", I, 276).Miltitz not only lackedprudence and tact, but in his frequent drinking bouts lost all sense of diplomatic reticence; by continually borrowing from Luther's friends he placed himself in a position only to inspire contempt. It istrue that his unauthorized overtures drew from Luther anact, which if it "is no recantation, is at least remarkably like one" (Beard, op. cit., 274). In it he promised:

The whole transaction closed with a banquet, an embrace, tears ofjoy, and akiss of peace — only to be disregarded and ridiculed afterwards by Luther. Thenuncio's treatment ofTetzel was severe andunjust. When the sick and ailing man could not come to him on account of the heated public sentiment against him,Miltitz on his visit to Leipzig summoned him to a meeting, in which he overwhelmed him with reproaches and charges, stigmatized him as the originator of the whole unfortunate affair, threatened the displeasure of thepope, and no doubt hastened the impending death ofTetzel (1 August, 1519).

While the preliminaries of the Leipzig Disputation were pending, atrue insight into Luther's real attitude towards thepapacy, the subject which would form the main thesis of discussion, can best be gleaned from his own letters. On 3 March, 1519, he writesLeo X: "BeforeGod and all his creatures, I bear testimony that I neither did desire, nor do desire to touch or by intrigue to undermine the authority of theRoman Church and that of your holiness" (De Wette, op. cit., I, 234). Two days later (5 March) he writes to Spalatin: "It was never myintention to revolt from theRoman Apostolic chair" (De Wette, op. cit., I, 236). Ten days later (13 March) he writes to the same: "I am at a loss toknow whether thepope beantichrist or hisapostle" (De Wette, op. cit., I, 239). A month before this (20 Feb.) he thanks Scheurl for sending him the foul "Dialogue of Julius and St. Peter", a most poisonous attack on thepapacy, saying he is sorelytempted to issue it in the vernacular to the public (De Wette, op. cit., I, 230). "Toprove Luther's consistency — to vindicate his conduct at all points, as faultless both inveracity andcourage — under those circumstances, may be left to myth-making simpletons" (Bayne, op. cit., I, 457).

The Leipzig disputation was an important factor in fixing the alignment of both disputants, and forcing Luther'stheological evolution. It was an outgrowth of the "Obelisci" and "Asterisci", which was taken up by Carlstadt during Luther's absence atHeidelberg in 1518. It was precipitated by the latter, and certainly not solicited or sought byEck. Every obstacle was placed in the way of its taking place, only to be brushed aside. TheBishops of Merseburg andBrandenburg issued their official inhibitions; thetheological faculty of theLeipzig University sent a letter of protest to Luther not to meddle in an affair that was purely Carlstadt's, and another to Duke George to prohibit it. Scheurl, then an intimate of Luther's, tried to dissuade him from the meeting;Eck, in terms pacific and dignified, replied to Carlstadt's offensive, and Luther's pugnacious letters, in fruitless endeavour to avert all public controversy either in print or lecture; Luther himself, pledged and forbidden all public discourse or print, begged Duke Frederick to make an endeavour to bring about the meeting (De Wette, op. cit., I, 175) at the same time that he personally appealed to Duke George for permission to allow it, and this in spite of the fact that he had already given the theses againstEck to the public. In the face of such urgent pressureEck could not fail to accept the challenge. Even at this stageEck and Carlstadt were to be the accredited combatants, and the formal admission of Luther into the disputation was only determined upon when the disputants were actually at Leipzig.

The disputation onEck's twelve, subsequently thirteen, theses, was opened with much parade andceremony on 27 June, and theuniversityaula being too small, was conducted at the Pleissenburg Castle. The wordy battle was between Carlstadt andEck on the subject ofDivine grace andhumanfree will. As is well known, it ended in the former's humiliating discomfiture. Luther andEck's discussion, 4 July, was onpapal supremacy. The former, though gifted with a brilliant readiness of speech, lacked — and his warmest admirers admit it — the quiet composure, curbed self-restraint, and unruffled temper of a good disputant. The result was that the imperturbable serenity and unerring confidence ofEck, had an exasperating effect on him. He was "querulous and censorious", "arbitrary and bitter" (Mosellanus), which hardly contributed to the advantage of his cause, either in argumentation or with his hearers.Papal supremacy was denied by him, because it found no warrant inHoly Writ or in Divineright.Eck's comments on the "pestilential"errors ofWiclif andHus condemned by theCouncil of Constance was met by the reply, that, so far as the position of theHussites was concerned, there were among them many who were "veryChristian and evangelical".Eck took his antagonist to task for placing theindividual in a position to understand theBible better than thepopes, councils,doctors, anduniversities, and in pressing his argument closer, asserting that the condemnedBohemians would not hesitate to hail him as their patron, elicited the ungentle remonstrance "that is a shamelesslie".Eck, undisturbed and with theinstinct of the trained debater, drove his antagonist still further, until he finally admitted the fallibility of anecumenical council, upon which he closed the discussion with the laconic remark: "If youbelieve a legitimately assembled council canerr and haserred, then you are to me as aheathen andpublican" (Köstlin-Kawerau, op. cit., I, 243-50). This was 15 July. Luther returned sullen and crestfallen toWittenberg, from what had proved to him an inglorious tournament.

The disastrous outcome of the disputation drove him to reckless, desperate measures. He did notscruple, at this stage, to league himself with the most radical elements of nationalhumanism and freebooting knighthood, who in their revolutionary propaganda hailed him as a most valuable ally.

His comrades in arms now were Ulrich von Hutten and Franz von Sickingen, with the motley horde of satellites usually found in the train of such leadership. WithMelancthon, himself ahumanist, as an intermediary, a secret correspondence was opened with Hutten, and to all appearances Sickingen was directly or indirectly in frequent communication. Hutten, though a man of uncommon talent and literary brilliancy, amoral degenerate, withoutconscience orcharacter. Sickingen, the prince ofcondottieri, was a solid mercenary and political marplot, whose daring deeds andmurderous atrocities form a part of German legendary lore. With his three impregnable fastnesses, Ebernburg, Landstuhl, and Hohenburg, with their adventurous soldiery, fleet-footed cavalry, and primed artillery, "who took torobbery as to a trade and considered it rather anhonour to be likened to wolves" (Cambridge Hist., II, 154), a menace to the very empire, he was a most useful adjunct. With Luther they had little in common, for both were impervious to all religious impulses, unless it was their deadlyhatred of thepope, and the confiscation ofchurch property and land.

The disaffection among theknights was particularly acute. The flourishingcondition of industry made theagrarian interests of the small landowners suffer; the new methods ofwarfare diminished their political importance; the adoption of theRoman law, while it strengthened the territorial lords, threatened to reduce the lower nobility to acondition of serfdom. A change, even though it involved revolution, was desired, and Luther and his movement were welcomed as thepsychological man and cause. Hutten offered his pen, a formidable weapon; Sickingen his fortress, a haven of safety; the former assured him of the enthusiastic support of the nationalhumanists, the latter "bade him stand firm and offered to encircle him with . . . swords" (Bayne, op. cit., II, 59). The attack would be made on the ecclesiastical princes, as opposed to Lutheran doctrines andknightlyprivileges.

In the meantime Luther was saturating himself with published and unpublishedhumanistic anti-clerical literature so effectually that his passionatehatred ofRome and thepope, his genesis ofAntichrist, his contemptuous scorn for histheological opponents, his effusive professions ofpatriotism, his acquisition of the literary amenities of the "Epistolae Obscurorum Vivorum", even the bodily absorption of Hutten's arguments, not to allude to other conspicuous earmarks of his intercourse and association with the humanistic-political agitators, can be unerringly traced here.

It was while living in the atmosphere surcharged with these influences, that he issued his first epochal manifesto, "Address to the German Nobility". It is in "its form an imitation of Hutten's circular letter to the emperor and German nobility", and the greater part of its contents is an abstract of Hutten's "Vadiscus or Roman Trinity", from his "Lament and Exhortation", and from his letters to the Elector Frederick of Saxony. This seems to be admitted by competent Lutheran specialists. He steps from the arena of academic gravity and verbal precision to the forum of the public in "an invective of dazzling rhetoric". He addresses the masses; his language is that of the populace; histheological attitude is abandoned; his sweeping eloquence fairly carries the emotional nature of his hearers — while even calm, criticalreason stands aghast, dumbfounded; he becomes the hieratic interpreter, the articulate voice of latent slumbering national aspirations. In one impassioned outburst, he cuts from all hisCatholic moorings — the merest trace left seeming to intensify hisfury.Church and State, religion and politics, ecclesiastical reform and social advancement, are handled with a flaming, peerless oratory. He speaks with reckless audacity; he acts with breathless daring.War and revolution do not make him quail — has he not the pledged support of Ulrich von Hutten, Franz von Sickingen, Sylvester von Schaumburg? Is not the first the revolutionary master spirit of his age — cannot the second make even an emperor bow to his terms? The "gospel", he now sees, "cannot be introduced without tumult,scandal, and rebellion"; "theword of God is a sword, awar, a destruction, ascandal, a ruin, a poison" (De Wette, op. cit., I, 417). As forpope,cardinals,bishops, "and the whole brood ofRomanSodom", why not attack it "with every sort of weapon and wash our hands in its blood" (Walch, XVIII, 245).

Luther the reformer had become Luther the revolutionary; the religious agitation had become a political rebellion. Luther'stheological attitude at thistime, as far as a formulated cohesion can bededuced, was as follows:

The emperor is appealed to in his three primary pamphlets, to destroy the power of thepope, to confiscate for his own use allecclesiastical property, to abolishecclesiastical feasts,fasts, and holidays, to do away withMasses for thedead, etc. In his "Babylonian Captivity", particularly, he tries to arouse national feeling against thepapacy, and appeals to the lowerappetite of the crowd by laying down a sensualized code of matrimonialethics, little removed frompaganism, which "again come to the front during theFrench Revolution" (Hagen, "Deutsche literar. u. religiöse Verhaltnisse", II, Erlangen, 1843, 235). His third manifesto, "On the Freedom of a Christian Man", more moderate in tone, though uncompromisingly radical, he sent to thepope.

In April, 1520,Eck appeared inRome, with theGerman works, containing most of these doctrines, translated into Latin. They were submitted and discussed with patient care and critical calmness. Some members of the fourconsistories, held between 21 May and 1 June, counselled gentleness and forbearance, but those demanding summary procedure prevailed. TheBull ofexcommunication, "Exsurge Domine", was accordingly drawn up 15 July. It formally condemned forty-one propositions drawn from his writings, ordered the destruction of the books containing theerrors, and summoned Luther himself to recant within sixty days or receive the full penalty of ecclesiastical punishment.

Three days later (18 July)Eck was appointedpapal prothonotary with the commission to publish theBull inGermany. The appointment ofEck was both unwise and imprudent. Luther's attitude towards him was that of implacable personalhatred; the dislike of him among thehumanists was decidedly virulent; his unpopularity amongCatholics was also well known. Moreover, his personal feelings, as the relentless antagonist of Luther, could hardly be effaced, so that a cause which demanded the most untrammelled exercise of judicial impartiality andChristian charity would hardly find its best exponent in a man in whomindividual triumph would supersede the purelove ofjustice.Eck saw this, and accepted theduty only under compulsion. His arrival inGermany was signalized by an outburst of popular protest and academic resentment, which the nationalhumanists and friends of Luther lost notime in fanning to a fierce flame. He was barely allowed to publish theBull inMeissen (21 Sept.), Merseburg (25 Sept.), andBrandenburg (29 Sept.), and a resistance almost uniform greeted him in all other parts ofGermany. He was subjected to personal affronts, mobviolence. TheBull itself became the object of shocking indignities. Only after protracted delays could even thebishops be induced to show it any deference. The crowning dishonour awaited it atWittenberg, where (10 Dec.), in response to a call issued byMelancthon, the university students assembled at the Elster Gate, and amid the jeeringchant of "Te Deum laudamus", and "Requiem aeternam", interspersed with ribald drinking songs, Luther in person consigned it to the flames.

TheBull seemingly affected him little. It only drove him to further extremes and gave a new momentum to the revolutionary agitation. As far back as 10 July, when theBull was only under discussion, he scornfully defied it. "As for me, the die is cast: I despise alike the favour and fury ofRome; I do not wish to be reconciled with her, or ever to hold any communion with her. Let her condemn and burn my books; I, in turn, unless I can find no fire, will condemn and publicly burn the wholepontifical law, that swamp ofheresies" (De Wette, op. cit., 466).

The next step, the enforcement of the provisions of theBull, was theduty of thecivil power. This was done, in the face of vehement opposition now manifesting itself, at the Diet of Worms, when the young newly-crownedCharles V was for the first time to meet the assembled German Estates in solemn deliberation.Charles, though not to be ranked with the greatest characters of history, was "an honourableChristian gentleman, striving in spite of physical defect,moraltemptations, and political impossibilities, to do hisduty in that state of life to which an unkindProvidence had called him" (Armstrong, "The Emperor Charles V", II, London, 1902, 383). Great and momentous questions, national and religious, social andeconomic, were to be submitted for consideration — but that of Luther easily became paramount.

Thepope sent twolegates to represent him — Marino Carricioli, to whom the political problems were entrusted, and Jerome Aleander, who should grapple with the more pressing religious one. Aleander was a man of brilliant, even phenomenal,intellectual and linguistic endowments, a man of the world almost modern in his progressiveideas, a trained statesman, not altogether free from thezeal and cunning which at times enter the game of diplomacy. Like his staunch supporter, the Elector George of Saxony, he was not only open-minded enough to admit the deplorable corruption of theChurch, the grasping cupidity of Roman curial procedure, the cold commercialism and deep-seated immorality that infected many of theclergy, but, like him, he wascourageous enough to denounce them with freedom and point to thepope himself. His problem, by the singular turn of events, was to become the gravest that confronted not only the Diet, butChristendom itself. Its solution or failure was to be pregnant with afate that involvedChurch and State, and would guide the course of the world's history.

Germany was living on a politico-religious volcano. All walks of life were in a convulsive state of unrest that boded ill forChurch and State. Luther by his inflammatory denunciation ofpope andclergy let loose a veritable hurricane of fierce, uncontrollableracial and religioushatred, which was to spend itself in the bloodshed of thePeasants' War and the orgies of the sack ofRome; his adroit juxtaposition of the relative powers andwealth of the temporal and spiritual estates fosteredjealousy andavarice; the chicanery of the revolutionary propagandists and pamphleteering poetasters lit up the nation with rhetorical fireworks, in which sedition and impiety, artfully garbed inBiblical phraseology and sanctimonious platitudes, posed as "evangelical" liberty and purepatriotism; the restive peasants, victims of oppression andpoverty, after futile and sporadic uprisings, lapsed into stifled but sullen and resentful malcontents; the unredressed wrongs of the burghers and labourers in the populous cities clamoured for a change, and the victims were prepared to adopt any method to shake off disabilities daily becoming more irksome; the increasing expense of living, the decreasingeconomic advancement, goaded the impecuniousknights to desperation, their very lives since 1495 being nothing more than a struggle for existence; the territorial lords castenvious eyes on the teeming fields of themonasteries and the princely ostentation ofchurch dignitaries, and did notscruple in the vision of a future German autonomy to treat even the"Spanish" sovereign with dictatorial arrogance or tolerant complacency.

The city of Worms itself was within the grasp of a reign of lawlessness, debauchery, andmurder. From the bristling Ebernburg, Sickingen's lair, only six miles fromm the city, Hutten was hurling his truculent philippics, threatening with outrage and death thelegate (whom he had failed to waylay), the spiritual princes andchurch dignitaries, not sparing even theemperor, whose pension as abribe to silence had hardly been received.Germany was in a reign of terror; consternation seemed to paralyze allminds. A fatal blow was to be struck at theclergy, it was whispered, and then the famishedknights would scramble for theirproperty. Over all loomed the formidable apparition of Sickingen. He was in Aleander's opinion "sole king ofGermany now; for he has a following, when and as large as he wishes. Theemperor is unprotected, the princes are inactive; theprelates quake withfear. Sickingen at the moment is the terror ofGermany before whom all quail" (Brieger, "Aleander u. Luther", Gotha, 1884, 125). "If a proper leader could be found, the elements of revolution were already at hand, and only awaited the signal for an outbreak" (Maurenbrecher, op. cit., 246).

Such was the critical national and local ferment, when Luther at thepsychological moment was projected into the foreground by the Diet of Worms, where "thedevils on the roofs of the houses were rather friendly . . . than otherwise" (Cambridge Hist., II, 147), to appear as the champion againstRoman corruption, which in the prevailing frenzy became the expression of nationalpatriotism. "He was the hero of the hour solely because he stood for the national opposition toRome" (ibid., 148). His first hearing before the Diet (17 April) found him not precisely in the most confident mood. Acknowledging his works, he met the further request that he recall them by a timid reply, "in tones so subdued that they could hardly be heard with distincness in his vicinity", that he be giventime for reflection. His assurance did not fail him at the second hearing (18 April) when his expected steadfastness asserted itself, and his refusal was uttered with steady composure and firm voice, in Latin andGerman, that, unless convinced of hiserrors by theScriptures or plainreason, he would not recant. "I neither can nor will recant anything, for it is neither safe nor right to act against one'sconscience", adding in German — "God help me,Amen." Theemperor took action the next day (19 April) by personally writing to the Estates, that true to the traditions of hisCatholic forefathers, he placed hisfaith in theChristian doctrine and theRoman Church, in the Fathers, in the councils representingChristendom, rather than in the teaching of anindividualmonk, and ordered Luther's departure. "The word which I pledged him", he concludes, "and the promised safe-conduct he will receive. Be assured, he will return unmolested whence he came" (Forstemann, "Neues Urkundenbuch", I, Hamburg, 1842, 75). All further negotiations undertaken in the meantime to bring about an adjustment having failed, Luther was ordered to return, but forbidden to preach or publish while on the way. The edict, drafted (8 May) was signed 26 May, but was only to bepromulgated after the expiration of thetime allowed in the safe-conduct. It placed Luther under the ban of the empire and ordered the destruction of his writings.

It may not be amiss to state that the historicity of Luther's famed declaration before the assembled Diet, "Here I stand. I cannot do otherwise. So help me,God.Amen", has been successfully challenged and rendered inadmissible byProtestant researches. Its retention in some of the larger biographies and histories, seldom if ever without laborious qualification, can only be ascribed to the deathless vitality of a sacred fiction or an absence of historical rectitude on the part of the writer.

He left Worms 26 April, forWittenberg, in the custody of a party consisting mainly, if not altogether, of personal friends. By a secret agreement, of which he was fully cognizant, being apprised of it the night before his departure by the Elector Frederick, though he was unaware of his actual destination, he was ambushed by friendly hands in the night of 4 May, and spirited to the Castle of Wartburg, near Eisenach.

The year's sojourn in the Wartburg marks a new and decisive period in his life and career. Left to the seclusion of his own thoughts and reflections, undisturbed by the excitement of political and polemical agitation, he became the victim of an interior struggle that made him writhe in the throes of racking anxiety, distressingdoubts and agonizing reproaches ofconscience. With a directness that knew no escape, he was now confronted by the poignantdoubts aroused by his headlong course: was he justified in his bold and unprecedented action; were not his innovations diametrically opposed to the history and experience of spiritual and human order as it prevailed fromApostolic times; was he, "he alone", the chosen vessel singled out in preference to all thesaints ofChristendom to inaugurate these radical changes; was he not responsible for the social and political upheaval, the rupture ofChristian unity and charity, and the consequent ruin ofimmortalsouls? To this was added an irrepressible outbreak of sensuality which assailed him with unbridled fury, a fury that was all the more fierce on account of the absence of the approved weapons of spiritual defence, as well as the intensifying stimulus of his imprudent gratification of hisappetite for eating and drinking. And, in addition to his horror, histemptations,moral andspiritual, becamme vivid realities;satanic manifestations were frequent and alarming; nor did they consist in mere verbal encounters but in personal collision. His disputation withSatan on theMass has become historical. His life as Juncker George, his neglect of the oldmonastic dietetic restrictions, racked his body in paroxysms of pain, "which did not fail to give colour to the tone of his polemical writings" (Hausrath, op. cit., I, 476), nor sweeten the acerbity of his temper, nor soften the coarseness of his speech. However, many writers regard hissatanic manifestations as pure delusions.

It was while he was in thesesinister moods that his friends usually were in expectant dread that the flood of his exhaustless abuse and unparalleled scurrility would dash itself against thepapacy,Church, andmonasticism. "I willcurse and scold the scoundrels until I go to my grave, and never shall they hear a civil word from me. I will toll them to their graves with thunder and lightning. For I am unable topray without at the sametimecursing. If I am prompted to say: 'hallowed be Thy name', I must add: 'cursed, damned, outraged be the name of the papists'. If I am prompted to say: 'Thy Kingdom come', I must perforce add: 'cursed, damned, destroyed must be thepapacy.' Indeed Ipray thus orally every day and in my heart without intermission" (Sammtl. W., XXV, 108). Need we be surprised that one of his old admirers, whose name figured with his on the originalBull ofexcommunication, concludes that Luther "with his shameless, ungovernable tongue, must have lapsed intoinsanity or been inspired by theEvil Spirit" (Pirkheimer, ap. *Döllinger, "Die Reformation", Ratisbon, I, 1846-48).

While at the Wartburg, he published "On Confession", which cut deeper into the mutilatedsacramental system he retained by lopping off penance. This he dedicated to Franz von Sickingen. His replies to Latomus ofLouvain andEmser, his old antagonist, and to thetheological faculty of theUniversity of Paris, are characterized by his proverbial spleen and discourtesy. Of the writings of his antagonists he invariably "makes an arbitrary caricature and he belabours them in blind rage . . . he hurls at them the most passionate replies" (Lange, "Martin Luther, ein religioses Characterbild", Berlin, 1870, 109) His reply to thepapal Bull"In coena Domini", written in colloquial German, appeals to the grossest sense of humour andsacrilegious banter.

His chief distinction while at the Wartburg, and one that will always be inseparably connected with his name, was his translation of theNew Testament into German. The invention of printing gave a vigorous impetus to the multiplication of copies of theBible, so that fourteen editions and reprints ofGerman translations from 1466 to 1522 are known to have existed. But their antiquated language, their uncritical revision, and their puerileglosses, hardly contributed to their circulation. To Luther the vernacularBible became a necessary adjunct, an indispensablenecessity. His subversion of the spiritual order, abolition of ecclesiastical science, rejection of thesacraments, suppression ofceremonies, degradation ofChristian art, demanded a substitute, and a more available one than the "undefiled Word of God", in association with "evangelical preaching" could hardly be found. In less than three months the first copy of the translatedNew Testament was ready for the press. Assisted byMelancthon, Spalatin, and others whose services he found of use, with the Greek version ofErasmus as a basis, with notes and comments charged with polemical animus and woodcuts of an offensively vulgar character supplied by Cranach, and sold for a trivial sum, it was issued atWittenberg in September. Its spread was so rapid that a second edition was called for as early as December. Its linguistic merits were indisputable; its influence onnational literature most potent. Like all hiswritings in German, it was the speech of the people; it struck the popular taste and charmed the national ear. It unfolded the affluence, clarity, and vigour of the German tongue in a manner and with a result that stands almost without a parallel in the history ofGerman literature. That he is the creator of the new High German literary language is hardly in harmony with the facts and researches of modern philologicalscience. While from the standpoint of the philologist it is worthy of the highest commendation, theologically it failed in the essential elements of a faithful translation. By attribution and suppression, mistranslation and wanton garbling, he made it the medium of attacking the oldChurch, and vindicating his individual doctrines.

A book that helped to depopulate thesanctuary andmonastery inGermany, one that Luther himself confessed to be his most unassailable pronouncement, one thatMelancthon hailed as a work of rare learning, and which manyReformation specialists pronounce, both as to contents and results, his most important work, had its origin in the Wartburg. It was his "Opinion on Monastic Orders". Dashed off at white heat and expressed with that whirlwind impetuosity that made him so powerful a leader, it made the bold proclamation of a new code ofethics: thatconcupiscence is invincible, the sensualinstincts irrepressible, the gratification of sexual propensities as natural and inexorable as the performance of any of the physiological necessities of our being. It was a trumpet call topriest,monk, andnun to break theirvows ofchastity and entermatrimony. The "impossibility" of successful resistance to our natural sensualpassions was drawn with such dazzling rhetorical fascination that thesalvation of thesoul, the health of the body, demanded an instant abrogation of thelaws of celibacy.Vows were made toSatan, not toGod; thedevil'slaw was absolutely renounced by taking a wife or husband.

The consequences of such amoral code were immediate and general. They are evident from the stinging rebuke of his old master,Staupitz, less than a year after its promulgation, that the most vociferous advocates of his old pupil were the frequenters ofnotorious houses, not synonymous with a high type of decency. To us the whole treatise would have nothing more than an archaic interest were it not that it inspired the most notable contribution toReformation history written in modern times,Denifle's "Luther and Luthertum" (Mainz, 1904). In it Luther's doctrines, writings, and sayings have been subjected to so searching ananalysis, his historical inaccuracies have beenproved so flagrant, his conception ofmonasticism such a caricature, hisknowledge ofScholasticism so superficial, his misrepresentation ofmedievaltheology so unblushing, his interpretation ofmysticism soerroneous, and this with such a merciless circumstantial mastery of detail, as to cast the shadow ofdoubt on the whole fabric ofReformation history.

In the middle of the summer of this year (4 August) he sent his reply to the "Defence of the Seven Sacraments" byKing Henry VIII. Its only claim to attention is its tone of proverbial coarseness and scurrility. The king is not only an "impudentliar", but is deluged with a torrent of foul abuse, and every unworthy motive is attributed to him. It meant, as eventsproved, in spite of Luther's tardy and sycophantic apologies, the loss ofEngland to the GermanReformation movement. About this time he issued in Latin and German his broadside, "Against the falsely called spiritual state of Pope and Bishops", in which his vocabulary of vituperation attains a height equalled only by himself, and then on but one or two occasions. Seemingly aware of the incendiary character of his language, he tauntingly asks: "But they say, 'there isfear that a rebellion may arise against the spiritual Estate'. Then the reply is 'Is itjust thatsouls are slaughteredeternally, that these mountebanks may disport themselves quietly'? It were better that allbishops should bemurdered, and allreligious foundations andmonasteries razed to the ground, than that onesoul should perish, not to speak of all thesouls ruined by these blockheads and manikins" (Sammtl. W., XXVIII, 148).

During his absence at the Wartburg (3 Apr., 1521-6 March, 1522) the storm centre of the reform agitation veered toWittenberg, where Carlstadt took up the reins of leadership, aided and abetted byMelancthon and the Augustinian Friars. In the narrative of conventionalReformation history, Carlstadt is made the scapegoat for all the wild excesses that swept overWittenberg at thistime; even in more critical history he is painted as a marplot, whose officious meddling almost wrecked the work of theReformation.

Still, in the hands of coldscientificProtestant investigators, hischaracter and work have of late undergone an astounding rehabilitation, one that calls for a reappraisement of all historical values in which he figures. He appears not only as a man of "extensive learning, fearless trepidity . . . glowing enthusiasm for thetruth" (Thudichum, op. cit., I, 178), but as the actual pathbreaker for Luther, whom he anticipated in some of his most salient doctrines and audacious innovations. Thus, for example, this new appraisal establishes the facts: that as early as 13 April, 1517, he published his 152 theses againstindulgences; that on 21 June, 1521, he advocated and defended theright ofpriests tomarry, and shocked Luther by includingmonks; that on 22 July, 1521, he called for theremoval of all pictures and statuary insanctuary andchurch; that on 13 May, 1521, he made public protest against the reservation of theBlessed Sacrament, theelevation of theHost, anddenounced the withholding of the Chalice from the laity; that so early as 1 March, 1521, while Luther was still inWittenberg, he inveighed againstprayers for the dead and demanded that Mass be said in the vernacular German. While in this new valuation he still retains thecharacter of a disputatious,puritanical polemist, erratic in conduct, surly in manner, irascible in temper, biting in speech, it invests him with a shrinking reluctance to adopt any action however radical without the approval of the congregation or its accredited representatives. In the light of the same researches, it was the mild and gentleMelancthon who prodded on Carlstadt until he found himself the vortex of the impending disorder and riot. "We must begin some time", he expostulates, "or nothing will be done. He who puts his hand to the plough should not look back".

The floodgates once opened, the deluge followed. On 9 October, 1521, thirty-nine out of the forty AugustinianFriars formally declared their refusal to say private Mass any longer; Zwilling, one of the most rabid of them, denounced the Mass as adevilish institution; Justus Jonas stigmatized Masses for thedead assacrilegious pestilences of thesoul;Communion under two kinds was publicly administered. Thirteenfriars (12 Nov.) doffed their habits, and with tumultuous demonstrations fled from themonastery, with fifteen more in their immediate wake; those remaining loyal were subjected to ill-treatment and insult by an infuriated rabble led by Zwilling; mobs prevented the saying of Mass; on 4 Dec., forty students, amid derisive cheers, entered theFranciscanmonastery and demolished thealtars; the windows of the house of the resident canons were smashed, and it was threatened with pillage. It was clear that these excesses, uncontrolled by thecivil power, unrestrained by the religious leaders, were symptomatic of social and religious revolution.

Luther, who in the meantime paid a surreptitious visit toWittenberg (between 4 and 9 Dec.), had no words of disapproval for these proceedings; on the contrary he did not conceal his gratification. "All I see and hear", he writes to Spalatin, 9 Dec., "pleases me immensely" (Enders, op. cit., III, 253). The collapse and disintegration ofreligious life kept on apace. At achapter of Augustinian Friars atWittenberg, 6 Jan., 1522, six resolutions, no doubt inspired by Luther himself, were unanimously adopted, which aimed at the subversion of the wholemonastic system; five days later the Augustinians removed allaltars but one from theirchurch, andburnt the pictures andholy oils.

On 19 Jan., Carlstadt, now forty-one years of age, married a young girl of fifteen, an act that called forth the hearty endorsement of Luther; on 9 or 10 Feb., Justus Jonas, and about the sametime, Johann Lange,prior of the Augustinianmonastery at Erfurt, followed his example. OnChristmas Day (1521) Carlstadt, "in civilian dress, without anyvestment", ascended thepulpit, preached the "evangelical liberty" of takingCommunion under two kinds, held up Confession andabsolution to derision, and railed againstfasting as an unscriptural imposition. He next proceeded to thealtar and saidMass in German, omitting all that referred to itssacrificial character, left out theelevation of theHost, and in conclusion extended a general invitation to all to approach and receive the Lord's Supper, by individually taking theHost in their hands and drinking from thechalice.

The advent of the three Zwickauprophets (27 Dec.) with theircommunisticideas, direct personal communication withGod, extreme subjectivism inBible interpretation, all of which impressedMelancthon forcibly, only added fuel to the already fiercely burning flame. They came to consult Luther, and with good reason, for "it was he who taught the universalpriesthood of allChristians, which authorized every man to preach; it was he who announced the full liberty of all thesacraments, especiallybaptism, and accordingly they were justified in rejecting infantbaptism". That they associated with Carlstadt intimately at this time is doubtful; that he fully subscribed to their teachings improbable, if not impossible (Barge, op. cit., I, 402).

What brought Luther in such hot haste toWittenberg? Thecharacter given Carlstadt as an instigator of rebellion, the leader of the devastating "iconoclastic movement", has been found exaggerated anduntrue in spite of its universal adoption (Thudichum, op. cit., I, 193, who brands it "as a shamelesslie"); the assertion that Luther was requested to come toWittenberg by the town council or congregation, is dismissed as "untenable" (Thudichum, op. cit., I, 197). Nor was he summoned by the elector, "although the elector had misgivings about his return, and inferentially did not consider itnecessary, so far as the matter of bringing the reformatoryzeal of theWittenbergers into the bounds of moderation was concerned; he did not forbid Luther to return, but expressly permitted it" (Thudichum, op. cit., I, 199; Barge, op. cit., I, 435). Did perhaps information fromWittenberg portend the ascendancy of Carlstadt, or was there cause for alarm in the propaganda of the Zwickauprophets?

At all events on 3 March, Luther on horseback, in the costume of a horseman, with buckled sword, full grownbeard, and long hair, issued from the Wartburg. Before his arrival atWittenberg, he resumed hismonastic habit andtonsure, and as a fully groomedmonk, he entered the desertedmonastery. He lost no time in preaching on eight successive days (9-17 March)sermons mostly in contravention of Carlstadt's innovations, every one of which, as is well known, he subsequently adopted. The Lord's Supper again became the Mass; it is sung in Latin, at thehigh altar, inrubricalvestments, though all allusions to a sacrifice are expunged; theelevation is retained; theHost isexposed in themonstrance; theadoration of the congregation is invited. Communion under one kind is administered at thehigh altar — but under two kinds is allowed at a sidealtar. Thesermons characterized by a moderation seldom found in Luther, exercised the thrall of his accustomed eloquence, but proved abortive. Popular sentiment, intimidated and suppressed, favoured Carlstadt. The feud between Luther and Carlstadt was on, and it showed the former "glaringly in his most repellent form" (Barge, I, op. cit., VI), and was only to end when the latter, exiled and impoverished through Luther's machinations, went toeternity accompanied by Luther's customarybenediction on his enemies.

Luther had one prominent trait ofcharacter, which in the consensus of those who have made him a special study, overshadowed all others. It was an overweening confidence and unbending will, buttressed by an inflexible dogmatism. He recognized no superior, tolerated no rival, brooked no contradiction. This was constantly in evidence, but now comes into obtrusive eminence in his hectiring course pursued to dragErasmus, whom he had long watched withjealous eye, into the controversial arena.Erasmus, like all devotees ofhumanistic learning, lovers of peace and friends of religion, was in full and accordant sympathy with Luther when he first sounded the note of reform. But the bristling, ungoverned character of his apodictic assertions, the bitterness and brutality of his speech, his alliance with the conscienceless political radicalism of the nation, created an instinctive repulsion, which, when he saw that the whole movement "from its very beginning was a national rebellion, a mutiny of the German spirit and consciousness against Italian despotism" he, timorous bynature, vacillating inspirit, eschewing all controversy, shrinkingly retired to his studies. Popular withpopes,honoured by kings, extravagantly extolled byhumanists, respected by Luther's most intimate friends, he was in spite of his pronouncedrationalistic proclivities, his withering contempt formonks, and what was a controvertible term,Scholasticism, unquestionably the foremost man of learning in his day. His satiric writings, which according toKant, did moregood to the world than the combined speculations of allmetaphysicians and which in theminds of his contemporaries laid the egg which Luther hatched — gave him a great vogue in all walks of life. Such a man's convictions were naturally supposed to run in the same channel as Luther's — and if his cooperation, in spite of alluring overtures, failed to be secured — his neutrality was at all hazards to be won.

Prompted by Luther's opponents, still more goaded by Luther's militant attitude, if not formal challenge, he not only refused the personal request to refrain from all participation in the movement, and become a mere passive "spectator of the tragedy", but came before the public with his Latin treatise "On Free Will". In it he would investigate the testimony afforded by theOld andNew Testament as toman's "free will", and to establish the result, that in spite of the profound thought ofphilosopher or searching erudition oftheologian, the subject is still enshrouded in obscurity, and that its ultimate solution could only be looked for in the fullness of light diffused by theDivine Vision. It was a purelyscholastic question involvingphilosophical andexegetical problems, which were then, as they are now, arguable points in theschools. In no single point does it antagonize Luther in hiswar withRome. The work received a wide circulation and general acceptance.Melancthon writes approvingly of it to the author and Spalatin. After the lapse of a year Luther gave his reply in Latin "On the Servitude of the Will". Luther "never in his whole life had a purelyscientific object in view, least of all in this writing" (Hausrath, op. cit., II, 75). It consists of "a torrent of the grossest abuse ofErasmus" (Walch, op. cit., XVIII, 2049-2482 — gives it inGerman translation), and evokes the lament of the houndedhumanist, that he, the lover of peace and quiet, must now turn gladiator and do battle with "wild beasts" (Stichart, op. cit., 370). His pen portraiture of Luther and his controversial methods, given in his two rejoinders, are masterly, and even to this day find a general recognition on the part of all unbiased students.

His sententious characterization that where "Lutheranism flourishes thesciences perish", that its adherents then, were men "with but two objects at heart, money andwomen", and that the "Gospel which relaxes the reins" and allows averyone to do as he pleases, amplyproves that something more deep than Luther's contentiousness made him an alien to the movement. Nor did Luther's subsequent efforts to reestablish amicable relations withErasmus, to which the latter alludes in a letter (11 April, 1526), meet with anything further than a curt refusal.

The times were pregnant with momentous events for the movement. Thehumanists one after the other dropped out of the fray. Mutianus Rufus,Crotus Rubianus, Beatus Rhenanus,Bonifacius Amerbach,Sebastian Brant,Jacob Wimpheling, who played so prominent a part in the battle of the Obscure Men, now formally returned to the allegiance of theOld Church.Ulrich Zasius, ofFreiburg, and Christoph Scheurl, ofNürnberg, the two most illustrious jurists ofGermany, early friends and supporters of Luther, with statesmen's prevision detected the political complexion of affairs, could not fail to notice the growing religiousanarchy, and, hearing the distant rumblings of thePeasants' War, abandoned his cause. The former found his preaching mixed with deadly poison for the German people, the latter pronouncedWittenberg a sink oferror, a hothouse ofheresy. Sickingen's last raid on theArchbishop ofTrier (27 August, 1522) proved disastrous to his cause and fatal to himself. Deserted by his confederates, overpowered by his assailants, his lair — the fastness Landstuhl — fell into the hands of his enemies, and Sickingen himself horribly wounded died after barely signing its capitulation (30 August, 1523). Hutten, forsaken and solitary, inpoverty and neglect, fell a victim to his protracted debauchery (August, 1523) at the early age of thirty-five. The loss sustained by these defections and deaths was incalculable for Luther, especially at one of the most critical periods in German history.

The peasant outbreaks, which in milder forms were previously easily controlled, now assumed a magnitude and acuteness that threatened the national life ofGermany. The primary causes that now brought on the predicted and inevitable conflict were the excessive luxury and inordinate love of pleasure in all stations of life, thelust of money on the part of the nobility andwealthy merchants, the unblushing extortions of commercialcorporations, the artificial advance in prices and adulteration of the necessities of life, the decay of trade and stagnation of industry resulting from the dissolution ofguilds, above all, the long endured oppression and daily increasingdestitution of the peasantry, who were the main sufferers in the unbrokenwars and feuds that rent and devastatedGermany for more than a century. A fire of repressed rebellion and infectious unrest burned throughout the nation. This smouldering fire Luther fanned to a fierce flame by his turbulent and incendiary writings, which were read with avidity by all, and by none more voraciously than the peasant, who looked upon "the son of a peasant" not only as an emancipator fromRoman impositions, but the precursor of social advancement. "His invectives poured oil on the flames of revolt".

True, when too late to lay the storm he issued his "Exhortation to Peace", but it stands in inexplicable and ineffaceable contradiction to his second, unexampled blast "Against the murderous and robbing rabble of Peasants". In this he entirely changes front, "dipped his pen in blood" (Lang, 180), and "calls upon the princes to slaughter the offending peasants like mad dogs, to stab, strangle and slay as best one can, and holds out as a reward the promise ofheaven. The few sentences in which allusions to sympathy and mercy for the vanquished are contained, are relegated to the background. What an astounding illusion lay in the fact, that Luther had the hardihood to offer as apology for his terrible manifesto, thatGod commanded him to speak in such a strain!" (Schreckenbach, "Luther u. der Bauernkrieg", Oldenburg, 1895,44; "Sammtl. W." XXIV, 287-294). His advice was literally followed. The process of repression was frightful. The encounters were more in the character of massacres than battles. The undisciplined peasants with their rude farming implements as weapons, were slaughtered like cattle in the shambles. More than 1000monasteries and castles were levelled to the ground, hundreds of villages were laid in ashes, the harvests of the nation were destroyed, and 100,000 killed. The fact that one commander alone boasted that "he hanged 40 evangelical preachers andexecuted 11,000 revolutionists andheretics", and that history with hardly a dissenting voice fastens the origin of thiswar on Luther, fully shows where its source and responsibility lay.

WhileGermany was drenched in blood, its people paralyzed with horror, the cry of thewidow and wail of theorphan throughout the land, Luther then in his forty-second year was spending his honeymoon with Catherine von Bora, then twenty-six (married 13 June, 1525), aBernardinenun who had abandoned herconvent. He was regaling his friends with some coldblooded witticisms about the horrible catastrophe uttering confessions of self-reproach and shame, and giving circumstantial details of his connubial bliss, irreproducible in English.Melancthon's famous Greek letter to his bosom friend Camerarius, 16 June, 1525 on the subject, reflected his personal feelings, which no doubt were shared by most of the bridegroom's sincere friends.

This step, in conjunction with thePeasants' War, marked the point of demarcation in Luther's career and the movement he controlled. "The springtide of theReformation had lost its bloom. Luther no longer advanced, as in the first seven years of his activity, from success to success . . . The plot of a complete overthrow ofRoman supremacy inGermany, by a torrential popular uprising, proved a chimera" (Hausrath, op. cit., II, 62). Until after the outbreak of the social revolution, no prince or ruler had so far given his formal adhesion to the new doctrines. Even the Elector Frederick (d. May 5, 1525), whose irresolution allowed them unhampered sway, did not, as yet separate from theChurch. The radically democratic drift of Luther's whole agitation, his contemptuous allusions to the German princes, "generally the biggest fools and worst scoundrels on earth" (Walch, op. cit., X, 460-464), were hardly calculated to curry favour or win allegiance. The reading of such explosive pronouncements as that of 1523 "On the Secular Power" or his disingenuous "Exhortation to Peace" in 1525, especially in the light of the events which had just transpired, impressed them as breathing the spirit of insubordination, if not insurrection. Luther, "although the mightiest voice that ever spoke in theGerman language, was avox et praeteria nihil", for it is admitted that he possessed none of the constructive qualifications of statesmanship, and proverbially lacked the prudential attribute of consistency. His championship of the "masses seems to have been limited to those occasions when he saw in them a useful weapon to hold over the heads of his enemies".

The tragic failure of thePeasants' War now makes him undergo an abrupt transition, and this at a moment when they stood in helpless discomfiture and pitiful weakness, the especial objects of counsel and sympathy. He andMelancthon, now proclaim for the first time the hitherto unknown doctrine of the unlimited power of the ruler over the subject; demand unquestioning submission to authority; preach and formally teach the spirit of servility and despotism. The object lesson which was to bring the enforcement of the full rigour of thelaw to the attention of the princes was thePeasants' War. The masses were to be laden down with burdens to curb their refractoriness; thepoor man was to be "forced and driven, as we force and drive pigs or wild cattle" (Sammtl. W., XV, 276).Melancthon found theGermans such "a wild, incorrigible, bloodthirsty people" (Corp. Ref., VII, 432-433), that their liberties should by all means be abridged and more drastic severity measured out. The same autocratic power was not to be confined to mere political concerns, but the "Gospel" was to become the instrument of the princes to extend it into the domain of religious affairs.

Luther by the creation of his "universalpriesthood of allChristians", by delegating the authority "to judge all doctrines" to the "Christian assembly or congregation", by empowering it to appoint or dismiss teacher or preacher, sought the overthrow of the oldCatholic order. It did not strike him, that to establish a newChurch, to ground an ecclesiastical organization on so precarious and volatile a basis, was in its very nature impossible. The seeds of inevitableanarchy lay dormant in such principles. Momentarily this was clear to himself, when at this verytime (1525) he does not hesitate to make the confession, that there are "nearly as manysects as there are heads" (De Wette, op. cit., III, 61).

Thisanarchy infaith was concomitant with the decay ofspiritual,charitable, andeducational activities. Of this we have a fairly staggering array of evidence from Luther himself. The whole situation was such, that imperativenecessity forced the leaders of the reform movement to invoke the aid of the temporal power. Thus "the wholeReformation was a triumph of the temporal power over the spiritual. Luther himself, to escapeanarchy, placed all authority in the hands of the princes". This aid was all the more readily given, since there was placed at the disposition of the temporal power the vast possessions of the oldChurch, and only involved the pledge, to accept the new opinions and introduce them as a state or territorial religion. The free cities could not resist the lure of the same advances. They meant the exemption from all taxes tobishops andecclesiasticalcorporations, the alienation ofchurch property, the suspension of episcopal authority, and its transfer to the temporal power. Here we find the foundation of the national enactment of the Diet of Augsburg, 1555, "eternally branded with thecurse of history" (Menzel, op. cit., 615) embodied in the axiomCujus regio, ejus religio, the religion of the country is determined by the religion of its ruler, "a foundation which was but the consequence of Luther's well-known politics" (Idem, loc. cit.). Freedom of religion became the monopoly of the ruling princes, it madeGermany "little more than a geographical name, and a vague one withal" (Cambridge Hist. II, 142); naturally "serfdom lingered there longer than in any civilized country saveRussia" (ibid., 191), and was "one of the causes of the national weakness andintellectual sterility which markedGermany during the latter part of the sixteenth century" (ibid.), and just as naturally we find "as many newchurches as there were principalities or republics" (Menzel, op. cit., 739).

Atheological event, the first of any real magnitude, that had a marked influence in shaping the destiny of the reform movement, even more than thePeasants' War, wascaused by the brooding discontent aroused by Luther's peremptory condemnation and suppression of every innovation, doctrinal or disciplinary, that was not in the fullest accord with his. This weakness ofcharacter was well-known to his admirers then, as it is fully admitted now.

Carlstadt, who by a strange irony, was forbidden to preach or publish inSaxony, from whom a recantation was forced, and who was exiled from his home for his opinions — to the enforcement of all which disabilities Luther personally gave his attention — now contumeliously set them at defiance. What degree of culpability there was between Luther doing the same with even greater recklessness and audacity while under the ban of the Empire — or Carlstadt doing it tentatively while under the ban of a territorial lord, did not seem to havecaused any suspicion of incongruity. However, Carlstadt precipitated a contention that shook the whole reform fabric to its very centre. The controversy was the first decisive conflict that changed the separatists' camp into an internecine battleground of hostile combatants.

Thecasus belli was the doctrine of the Eucharist. Carlstadt in his two treatises (26 Feb. and 16 March, 1525), after assailing the "newPope", gave an exhaustive statement of his doctrine of the Lord's Supper. The literal interpretation of the institutional words ofChrist "this is my body" is rejected, thebodily presence flatly denied. Luther's doctrine ofconsubstantiation, that the body is in, with, and under the bread, was to him devoid of allScriptural support.Scripture neither says the bread "is" my body, nor "in" the bread is my body, in fact it says nothing about bread whatever. The demonstrative pronoun "this", does not refer to the bread at all, but to the body ofChrist, present at the table. WhenJesus said "this is my body", He pointed to Himself, and said "this body shall be offered up, this blood shall be shed, for you". The words "take and eat" refer to the proffered bread — the words "this is my body" to the body ofJesus. He goes further, and maintains that "this is" really means "this signifies". Accordinglygrace should be sought inChrist crucified, not in thesacrament. Among all the arguments advanced none proved more embarrassing than the deictic "this is". It was the insistence on the identical interpretation of "this" referring to thepresent Christ, that Luther used as his most clenching argument in setting aside theprimacy of thepope at the Leipzig Disputation. Carlstadt's writings were prohibited, with the result thatSaxony, as well asStrasburg, Basle, and nowZurich forbade their sale and circulation. This brought the leader of theSwiss reform movement,Zwingli, into the fray, as theapologist of Carlstadt, the advocate of free speech and unfettered thought, andipso facto Luther's adversary.

The reform movement now presented the spectacle ofRome's two most formidable opponents, the two most masterfulminds and authoritative exponents of contemporary separatistic thought, meeting in open conflict, with the Lord's Supper as the gage ofwar.

Zwingli shared Carlstadt's doctrines in the main, with some further divergencies, that need no amplification here. But what gave amystic, semi-inspirational importance to his doctrine of the Lord's Supper, was the account he gave of his difficulties anddoubts concerning the institutional words finding their restful solution in adream. Unlike Luther at the Wartburg, he did notremember whether thisapparition was in black or white [Monitor iste ater an albus fuerit nihil memini (Planck, op. cit., II, 256)]. Whether Luther followed his own custom of never reading through "the books that the enemies oftruth have written against me" (Mörikofer, "Ulrich Zwingli", II, Leipzig, 1869, 205), whether there was a tinge ofjealousy "that theSwiss were anxious to be the most prominent" in the reform movement, the mere fact thatZwingli was a confederate of Carlstadt and had an unfortunately dubiousdream, afforded subject matter enough for Luther to display his accustomeddialectic methods at their best.

A "scientific discussion was not to be conducted with Luther, since he attributed every disagreement with his doctrine to thedevil" (Hausrath). This poisoned the controversy at its source, because, "with thedevil he would make no truce" (Hausrath, op. cit., II, 188-223). That the eyes of the masses were turning fromWittenberg toZurich, was only confirmatory evidence ofdevilish delusion. Luther's replies toZwingli'sunorthodox private letter to Alber (16 Nov., 1524) and his nettling treatises came in 1527. They showed that "theinjustice and barbarity of his polemics" was not reserved for thepope,monks, or religiousvows. "In causticity and contempt of his opponent [they] surpassed all he had ever written", "they were the utterances of a sick man, who had lost all self-control". The politics ofSatan and the artful machinations of thePrince of Evil are traced in a chronological order from theheretical incursions into the primitiveChurch to Carlstadt,Œcolampadius, andZwingli. It was these threesatanic agencies that raised the issue of the Lord's Supper to frustrate the work of the "recoveredGospel". The professions oflove and peace held out by theSwiss, hecurses to the pit ofhell, for they are patricides and matricides. "Furious the reply can no longer be called, it is disgraceful in the manner in which it drags the holiest representations of his opponents through the mire". Indiscriminate and opprobrious epithets of pig, dog, fanatic, senseless ass, "go to your pigsty and roll in your filth" ("Sammtl. W.", XXX, 68) are some of the polemical coruscations that illuminate this reply. Yet, in few of his polemical writings do we find more conspicuous glimpses of a soundness oftheologicalknowledge, appositeness of illustration, familiarity with the Fathers, reverence fortradition — remnants of his old training — than in this document, whichcaused sorrow and consternation throughout the whole reform camp. "The hand which had pulled down theRoman Church in Germany made the first rent in theChurch which was to take its place" (Cambridge History, II, 209).

The attempt made by the Landgrave Philip, to bring the contending forces together and effect a compromise at the Marburg Colloquy, 1-3 October, 1529, was doomed to failure before its convocation. Luther's iron will refused to yield to any concession, his parting salutation toZwingli, "yourspirit is not ourspirit" (De Wette, op. cit., IV, 28) left no further hope of negotiations, and the brand he affixed on this antagonist and hisdisciples as "not only liars, but the veryincarnation oflying, deceit, andhypocrisy" (Idem, op. cit.) closed the opening chapter of a possible reunion.Zwingli returned toZurich to meet his death on the battlefield of Kappel (11 October, 1531). The damnation Luther meted out to him in life "accompanied his hated rival also in death" (Menzel, II, 420). The next union of the two reform wings was when they became brothers in arms againstRome in theThirty Years' War.

While occupied with his manifold pressingduties, all of them performed with indefatigablezeal and consuming energy, alarmed at the excesses attending the upheaval of social and ecclesiastical life, his reform movement generally viewed from its more destructive side, he did not neglect the constructive elements designed to give cohesion and permanency to his task. These again showed hisintuitional apprehension of theracial susceptibilities of the people and his opportune political sagacity in enlisting the forces of the princes. His appeal forschools andeducation was to counteract the intellectual chaos created by the suppression anddesertion of themonastic andchurchschools; his invitation to the congregation to sing in the vernacular German in theliturgical services in spite of the record of more than 1400 vernacularhymns before theReformation proved a masterstroke and gave him a most potent adjunct to his preaching; the Latin Mass, which he retained, more to chagrin Carlstadt than for any other accountable reason, he now abandoned, with many excisions and modifications for the German. Still more important and far-reaching was the plan whichMelancthon, under his supervision, drew up to supply a workable regulative machinery for the newChurch. To introduce this effectively "the evangelical princes with their territorial powers stepped in" (Köstlin-Kawerau, op. cit., II, 24). The Elector of Saxony especially showed a disposition to act in a summary, drastic manner, which met with Luther's full approval. "Not only werepriests, who would not conform, to lose theirbenefices, but recalcitrantlaymen, who after instruction were still obstinate, had atime allowed within which they were to sell theirproperty, and then leave the country" (Beard, op. cit., 177). Thecivil power was invoked to decide controversies among preachers, and to put downtheological discussion with the secular arm. The publication of a popularcatechism in simple idiomatic colloquial German, had an influence, in spite of the manyCatholiccatechetical works already in existence, that can hardly be over-estimated.

The menacing religiouswar, between the adherents of the "Gospel" and the fictitious Catholic League (15 May,Breslau), ostensibly formed to exterminate theProtestants, which with a suspicious precipitancy on the part of its leader, Landgrave Philip, had actually gone to a formal declaration ofwar (15 May, 1528), was fortunately averted. It proved to be based on a rather clumsilyforged document of Otto von Pack, a member of Duke George'schancery. Luther, who first shrank fromwar and counselled peace, by one of those characteristic reactions "now that peace had been established, began awar in real earnest about the League" (Planck, op. cit., II, 434) in whose existence, in spite of unquestionable exposure, he still firmlybelieved.

The Diet of Speyer (21 February-22 April, 1529), presided over by King Ferdinand, as the emperor's deputy, like that held in thesame city three years earlier, arrived at a real compromise. The two "Propositions" or "Instructions" submitted, were expected to accomplish this. Thedecree allowed the Lutheran Estates the practice and reform of thenew religion within their territorial boundaries, but claimed the samerights for those who should continue to adhere to theCatholicChurch.Melancthon expressed his satisfaction with this and declared that they would work no hardship for them, but even "protect us more than thedecrees of the earlier Diet" (Speyer, 1526; Corp. Ref., I, 1059). But an acceptance, much less an effective submission to thedecrees, was not to be entertained at this juncture, and five princes most affected, on 19 April, handed in a protestation whichMelancthon in alarm called "a terrible affair". This protest has become historic, since it gave the specific nomenclatureProtestant to the whole opposition movement to theCatholicChurch. "The Diet of Speyer inaugurates the actual division of theGerman nation" (*Janssen, op. cit., III, 51).

In spite of the successfulHungarian invasion of theTurks, political affairs, by the reconciliation ofpope andemperor (Barcelona, 29 June, 1529), the peace withFrancis I (Cambrai, 5 August, 1529), shaped themselves so happily, thatCharles V wascrowned emperor by his whilom enemy,Clement VII (Bologna, 24 Feb., 1530). However, inGermany, affairs were still irritant and menacing. To the hostility ofCatholics andProtestants was now added the acrimonious quarrel between the latter and theZwinglians; the late Diet of Speyer was inoperative, practically a dead letter, theProtestant princes privily and publicly showed a spirit that was not far removed from open rebellion.Charles again sought to bring about religious peace and harmony by taking the tangled skein into his own hands. He accordingly summoned the Diet of Augsburg, which assembled in 1530 (8 April-19 November), presided over it in person, arranged to have the disaffected religious parties meet, calmly discuss and submit their differences, and by a compromise orarbitration, reestablish peace. Luther being under the ban of the Empire, for "certain reasons" (De Wette, op. cit., III, 368) did not make his appearance, but was harboured in the fortress of Coburg, about four days journey distant. Here he was in constant touch and confidential relations withMelancthon and otherProtestant leaders. It wasMelancthon who, under the dominant influence of Luther and availing himself of the previously accepted Articles of Marburg (5 Oct., 1529), Schwabach (16 Oct., 1529), Torgau (20 March, 1530), and the Large Catechism, drew up the first authoritative profession of the Lutheran Church. This religious charter was the Augsburg Confession (Confessio Augustana), thesymbolical book of Lutheranism.

In its original form it met with Luther's full endorsement. It consists of an introduction, or preamble, and is in two parts. The first, consisting of twenty-one Articles, gives an exposition of the principal doctrines of theProtestantcreed, and aims at an amicable adjustment; the second, consisting of seven Articles, deals with "abuses", and concerning these there is a "difference". The Confession as a whole is irenic and is more of an invitation to union than a provocation to disunion. Its tone is dignified, moderate, and pacific. But it allows its insinuating concessions to carry it so far into the boundaries of the vague and indefinite as to leave a lurking suspicion of artifice. Doctrinal differences, fundamental and irreconcilable, are pared down or slurred over to an almost irreducible degree. No one was better qualified by temper or training to clothe the blunt, apodictic phraseology of Luther in the engaging vesture oftruth thanMelancthon. The Articles onoriginal sin,justification byfaith alone, andfree will — though perplexingly similar in sound and terminology, lack the ring of thetrueCatholic metal. Again, many of the conceded points, some of them a surprising and startling character, even abstracting from their suspected ambiguity, were in such diametric conflict with the past teaching and preaching of the petitioners, even in contradiction to their written and oral communications passing at the very moment of deliberation, as to cast suspicion on the whole work.

That these suspicions were not unfounded was amplyproved by the aftermath of the Diet. The correction of the so-called abuses dealt with in Part II under the headings:Communion under both kinds, the marriage ofpriests, the Mass, compulsory confession, distinction of meats andtradition,monasticvows, and the authority ofbishops, for obvious reasons, was not entertained, much less agreed to.Melancthon's advances for still further concessions were promptly and peremptorily rejected by Luther. The "Confession" was read at a public session of the Diet (25 June) in German and Latin, was handed to theemperor, who in turn submitted it to twentyCatholictheologians, including Luther's old antagonistsEck,Cochlaeus,Usingen, andWimpina, forexamination and refutation. The first reply, on account of its prolixity, and bitter and irritating tone, was quickly rejected, nor did theemperor allow the "Confutation of the Augsburg Confession" to be read before the Diet (3 August) until it had been pruned and softened down by no less than five revisions.Melancthon's "Apology for the Augsburg Confession", which was in the nature of a reply to the "Confutation", and which passes as of equal official authority as the "Confession" itself, was not accepted by theemperor. All further attempts at a favourable outcomeproving unavailing, the imperial edict condemning theProtestant contention was published (22 Sept.). It allowed the leaders until 15 April, 1532, for reconsideration.

The recess was read (13 Oct.) to the Catholic Estates, who at the same timme formed the Catholic League. To theProtestants it was read 11 Nov., who rejected it and formed theSmalkaldic League (29 March, 1531), an offensive and defensive alliance of all Lutherans. TheZwinglians were not admitted. Luther, who returned toWittenberg in a state of great irritation at the outcome of the Diet, was now invoked to prepare the public mind for the position assumed by the princes, which at first blush looked suspiciously like downright rebellion. He did this in one of his paroxysmal rages, one of those ruthless outpourings when calm deliberation, religious charity, politicalprudence, social amenities are openly and flagrantly set at defiance. The three popular publications were: "Warning to his dear German People" (Walch, op. cit., XVI, 1950-2016), "Glosses on the putative Imperial Edict" (Idem, op. cit., 2017-2062), and, far outstripping these, "Letter against the Assassin at Dresden" (Idem, op. cit., 2062-2086), which his chief biographer characterizes as "one of the most savage andviolent of his writings" (Kostlin-Kawerau, op. cit., II, 252). All of them, particularly the last, indisputably established his controversial methods as being "literally and wholly without decorum,conscience, taste orfear" (Mozley, "Historical Essays", London, 1892, I, 375-378). His mad onslaught on Duke George of Saxony, "the Assassin of Dresden", whom history proclaims "the most honest and consistentcharacter of his age" (Armstrong, op. cit., I, 325), "one of the most estimable Princes of his age" (Cambridge Hist., II, 237), was a source of mortification to his friends, a shock to the sensibilities of every honest man, and has since kept his apologists busy at vain attempts at vindication.

The projected alliance withFrancis I,Charles' deadly enemy, met with favour. Itspatriotic aspects need not be dwelt upon.Henry VIII of England, who was now deeply concerned with the proceedings of hisdivorce from Catherine of Aragon, was approached less successfully. The opinion about thedivorce, asked from theuniversities, also reached that ofWittenberg, where Robert Barnes, an English Augustinianfriar who haddeserted hismonastery, brought every influence to bear to make it favourable. The opinion was enthusiastically endorsed byMelancthon, Osiander, andŒcolampadius. Luther also in an exhaustive brief maintained that "before he would permit adivorce, he would rather that the king took unto himself another queen" (De Wette, op. cit., 296). However, the memorabletheological passage at arms the king had had with Luther, the latter's cringing apology, left such a feeling of aversion, if not contempt, in thesoul of his rival reformer, that the invitation was to all intents ignored.

In the beginning of 1534, Luther after twelve years of intermittent labour, completed and published in six parts hisGerman translation of the entireBible.

For years the matter of ageneral council had been agitated inecclesiastical circles.Charles V constantly appealed for it, the Augsburg Confession emphatically demanded it, and now the accession ofPaul III (13 Oct., 1534), whosucceededClement VII (d. 25 Sept., 1534), gave the movement an impetus, that for once made it loom up as a realizable accomplishment. Thepopesanctioned it, on condition that theProtestants would abide by its decisions and submit their credenda in concise, intelligible form. With a view of ascertaining the tone of feeling at the German Courts, he sent Vergerius there as alegate. He, in order to make the study of the situation as thorough as possible, did not hesitate, while passing throughWittenberg on his way to the Elector of Brandenburg, to meet Luther in person (7 Nov., 1535). His description of the jauntily groomed reformer "in holiday attire, in a vest of dark calmet, sleeves with gaudy atlas cuffs . . . coat of serge lined with fox pelts . . . several rings on his fingers, a massive gold chain about his neck" shows him in a somewhat unusual light. The presence of the man who would reform the ancientChurch decked out in so foppish a manner, made an impression on themind of thelegate, that can readily be conjectured. Aware of Luther's disputatiouscharacter, he dexterously escaped discussion, by disclaiming all profoundknowledge oftheology, and diverted the interview into the commonplace. Luther treated the interview as a comedy, a view no doubt more fully shared by the keen-witted Italian.

The question was raised as to what participation theProtestants should assume in the council, which had been announced to meet atMantua. After considerable discussion Luther was commissioned to draw up a document, giving a summary of their doctrines and opinions. This he did after which the report was submitted to the favourable consideration of the elector and a specially appointed body oftheologians. It contained the Articles of Smalkald "a real oppositional record against theRoman Church" (Guericke), eventually incorporated in the "Concordienformel" and accepted as a symbolical book. It is on the whole such a brusque rejection and coarse philippic against thepope as"Antichrist", that we need not marvel thatMelancthon shrank from affixing his unqualified signature to it.

Luther's serious illness during the Smalkaldic Convention, threatened a fatal termination to his activities, but the prospect of death in no way seemed to mellow his feelings towards thepapacy. It was when supposedly on the brink ofeternity (24 Feb., 1537) that he expressed the desire to one of the elector's chamberlains to have his epitaph written: "Pestis eram vivus, moriens ero mors tua, Papa" [living I was a pest to thee, O Pope, dying I will be thy death (Kostlin-Kawerau, op. cit., II, 389)]. True, the historicity of this epitaph is not in chronological agreement with the narrative of Mathesius, who maintains he heard it in the house of Spalatin, 9 Jan., 1531, or with the identical words found in his "Address to the Clergy assembled at the Augsburg Diet", in which he hurled back the gibes flung at thepriests who had enrolled under his banner and married. Nevertheless it is in full consonance with the parting benediction the invalid gave from his wagon, to his assembled friends on his homeward journey: "May theLord fill you with Hisblessings and withhatred of thepope", and the verbatim sentiments chalked on the wall of his chamber, the night before his death.

Needless to add, the Protestant Estates refused the invitation to the council, and herein we have the first public and positive renunciation of thepapacy.

"What Luther claimed for himself againstCatholic authority, he refused to Carlstadt and refused toZwingli. He failed to see that their position was exactly as his own, with a difference of result, which indeed was all the difference in the world to him" (Tulloch, "Leaders of the Reformation", Edinburgh and London, 1883, 171). This was never more manifest than in the interminable Sacramentarian warfare.Bucer, on whom the weight of leadership fell, afterZwingli's death, which was followed shortly by that ofŒcolampadius (24 Nov., 1531), was unremitting in bringing about a reunion, or at least an understanding on the Lord's Supper, the main point of cleavage between theSwiss and GermanProtestants. Not only religiously, but politically, would this mean a step towards the progress ofZwinglianism. At its formation theSwissProtestants were not admitted to theSmalkaldic League (29 March, 1531); its term of six years was about to expire (29 March, 1537) and they now renewed their overtures.

Luther, who all the time could not conceal his opposition to theZwinglians, even going to the extent of directing and begging Duke Albrecht of Prussia, not to tolerate any of Munzer's orZwingli's adherents in his territory, finally yielded to the assembling of a peace conference. Knowing their predicament, he used the covert threat of an exclusion from the league as a persuasive to drive them to the acceptance of his views. This conference which, owing to his sickness, was held in his own house atWittenberg, was attended by eleventheologians ofZwinglian proclivities and seven Lutherans. It resulted in thetheological compromise, reunion it can hardly be called, known as the Concord of Wittenberg (21-29 Mat, 1536). The remonstrants, technically waiving the points of difference, subscribed to the Lutheran doctrine of the Lord's Supper, infantbaptism, andabsolution. That theZwingliantheologians "who subscribed to the Concord and declared its contentstrue andscriptural, dropped their former convictions and were transformed into devout Lutherans, no one who was acquainted with these men more intimately canbelieve" (Thudichum, op. cit., II, 489). They simply yielded to the unbending determination of Luther, and "subscribed to escape the hostility of the Elector John Frederick who was absolutely Luther's creature, and not to forfeit the protection of theSmalkaldic League; they submitted to the inevitable to escape still greater dangers" (Idem, op. cit.). As for Luther, the "poor, wretched Concord" as he designates it, received little recognition from him. In 1539, he coupled the names ofNestorius andZwingli in a way that gave deep offence atZurich. AtWittenberg,Zwingli andŒcolampadius became convertible terms forheretics, and with Luther's taunting remark that "he wouldpray and teach against them until the end of his days" (De Wette, op. cit., V, 587), the rupture was again completed.

The internal controversies of the Lutheran Church, which were to shatter its disjointed unity with the force of an explosive eruption after his death, and which now only his dauntlesscourage, powerful will, and imperiouspersonality held within the limits of murmuring restraint, were cropping out on all sides, found their way intoWittenberg, and affected even his bosom friends. Though unity was out of the question, an appearance of uniformity had at all hazards to be maintained. Cordatus, Schenck,Agricola, all veterans in the cause of reform, lapsed intodoctrinal aberrations thatcaused him much uneasiness. The fact thatMelancthon, his most devoted and loyal friend, was under a cloud of suspicion for entertaining heterodox views, though not as yet fully shared by him,caused him no little irritation and sorrow. But all these domestic broils were trivial and lost sight of, when compared to one of the most critical problems that thus far confronted thenew Church, which was suddenly sprung upon its leaders, focusing more especially on its hierophant. This was the double marriage of Landgrave Philip of Hesse.

Philip the Magnanimous (b. 23 Nov., 1504) was married before his twentieth year to Christina, daughter of Duke George of Saxony, who was then in her eighteenth year. He had thereputation of being "the most immoral of princelings", who ruined himself, in the language of his courttheologians, by "unrestrained and promiscuous debauchery". He himself admits that he could not remain faithful to his wife for three consecutive weeks. The malignant attack of venereal disease, which compelled a temporary cessation of his profligacy, also directed his thoughts to a more ordinate gratification of hispassions. His affections were already directed to Margaret von der Saal, a seventeen-year-old lady-in-waiting, and he concluded to avail himself of Luther's advice to enter a double marriage. Christina was "awoman of excellent qualities and noblemind, to whom, in excuse of his infidelities, he [Philip] ascribed all sorts of bodily infirmities and offensive habits" (Schmidt, "Melancthon", 367). She had borne him seven children.

The mother of Margaret would only entertain the proposition of her daughter becoming Philip's "second wife" on condition that she, her brother, Philip's wife, Luther,Melancthon, andBucer, or at least, two prominenttheologians be present at the marriage.Bucer was entrusted with the mission of securing theconsent of Luther,Melancthon and theSaxon princes. In this he was eminently successful. All was to be done under the veil of the profoundest secrecy. This secrecyBucer enjoined on the landgrave again and again, even when on his journey toWittenberg (3 Dec., 1539) that "all might redound to theglory ofGod" (Lenz, op. cit., I, 119). Luther's position on the question was fullyknown to him. The latter's opportunism in turn grasped the situation at a glance. It was a question of expediency andnecessity more than propriety and legality. If the simultaneouspolygamy were permitted, it would prove an unprecendented act in the history ofChristendom; it would, moreover, affix on Philip the brand of a most heinous crime, punishable under recent legislation withdeath by beheading. If refused, it threatened the defection of the landgrave, and would prove a calamity beyond reckoning to theProtestant cause.

Evidently in an embarrassing quandary, Luther andMelancthon filed their joint opinion (10 Dec., 1539). After expressing gratification at the landgrave's last recovery, "for the poor, miserableChurch ofChrist is small and forlorn, and stands in need of truly devout lords and rulers", it goes on to say that a generallaw that a "man may have more than one wife" could not be handed down, but that adispensation could be granted. Allknowledge of thedispensation and the marriage should be buried from the public in deadly silence. "All gossip on the subject is to be ignored, as long as we are right inconscience, and this we hold is right", for "what is permitted in theMosaic law, is not forbidden in theGospel" (De Wette-Seidemann, VI, 239-244; "Corp. Ref.", III, 856-863). The nullity and impossibility of the second marriage while the legality of the first remained untouched was not mentioned or hinted at.

His wife, assured by herspiritual director "that it was not contrary to thelaw of God", gave herconsent, though on her deathbed she confessed to her son that herconsent was feloniously wrung from her. In return Philip pledged his princely word that she would be "the first and supreme wife" and that his matrimonialobligations "would be rendered her with more devotion than before". The children of Christina "should be considered the sole princes ofHesse" (Rommel, op. cit.).

After the arrangement had already been completed, a daughter was born to Christina, 13 Feb., 1540. The marriage took place (4 March, 1540) in the presence ofBucer,Melancthon, and the court preacher Melander who performed theceremony. Melander was "a bluff agitator, surly, with a most unsavourymoralreputation", one of hismoral derelictions being the fact that he had three living wives, having deserted two without going through the formality of alegal separation. Philip lived with both wives, both of whom bore him children, the landgravine, two sons and a daughter, and Margaret six sons.

How can this "darkest stain" on the history of the GermanReformation be accounted for? Was it "politics, biblicism, distorted vision, precipitancy,fear of the near approaching Diet that played such a role in thesinful downfall of Luther?" Or was it thelogical sequence of premises he had maintained for years in speech and print, not to touch upon theethics of that extraordinarysermon on marriage? He himself writes defiantly that he "is not ashamed of his opinion" (Lauterbach, op. cit., 198).

The marriage in spite of all precautions, injunctions, and pledges of secrecy leaked out,caused a national sensation andscandal, and set in motion an extensive correspondence between all intimately concerned, to neutralize the effect on the public mind.Melancthon "nearly died of shame, but Luther wished to brazen the matter out with alie" (Cambridge Hist., II, 241). The secret "yea" must for the sake of theChristian Church remain a public "nay" (De Witte-Seidemann, op. cit., VI, 263). "What harm would there be, if a man to accomplish better things and for the sake of theChristian Church, does tell a good thumpinglie" (Lenz, "Briefwechsel", I, 382; Kolde, "Analecta", 356), was his extenuating plea before theHessian counsellors assembled at Eisenach (1540), a sentiment which students familiar with his words and actions willremember is in full agreement with much of his policy and many of his assertions. "We are convinced that thepapacy is the seat of the real and actualAntichrist, andbelieve that against its deceit and iniquity everything is permitted for thesalvation ofsouls" (De Wette, op. cit., I, 478).

Charles V involved in a triplewar, with a depleted exchequer, with a record of discouraging endeavours to establish religious peace inGermany, found what he thought was a gleam of hope in the concession half-heartedly made by the Smalkaldic assembly ofProtestanttheologians (1540), in which they would allow episcopaljurisdiction provided thebishops would tolerate thenew religion. Indulging this fond, but delusive expectation, he convened areligious colloquy to meet atSpeyer (6 June, 1540). The tone of theProtestant reply to the invitation left little prospect of an agreement. The deadly epidemic raging atSpeyer compelled its transference to Hagenau, whence after two months of desultory and ineffectual debate (1 June-28 July), it adjourned to Worms (28 Oct.). Luther from the beginning had no confidence in it, it "would be a loss oftime, a waste of money, and a neglect of all homeduties" (De Wette, op. cit., V, 308). It proved an endless and barren word-tilting oftheologians, as may be inferred from the fact that after three months constant parleying, an agreement was reached on but one point, and that barnacled with so many conditions, as to make it absolutely valueless. Theemperor's relegation of thecolloquy to the Diet of Ratisbon (5 April-22 May), which he, as well as thepapal legateContarini, attended in person, met with the same unhappy result.Melancthon, reputed to favour reunion, was placed by the elector, John Frederick, under a strict police surveillance, during which he was neither allowed private interviews, private visits, or even private walks. The elector, as well asKing Francis I, fearing the political ascendancy of theemperor, placed every barrier in the way of compromise, and when the rejected articles were submitted by a special embassy to Luther, the former not only warned him by letter against their acceptance, but rushed in hot haste toWittenberg, to throw the full weight of his personal unfluence into the frustration of all plans of peace.

Luther's life and career were drawing to a close. His marriage to Catherine von Bora was on the whole, as far as we can infer from his own confession and public appearances, ahappy one. The Augustinianmonastery, which was given to him after his marriage by the elector, became his homestead. Here six children were born to them:

Catherine proved to be a plain, frugal, domestic housewife; herinterest in her fowls, piggery, fish-pond, vegetable garden, home-brewery, were deeper and more absorbing than in the most gigantic undertakings of her husband. Occasional bickerings with her neighbours and the enlistment of her husband's intervention in personal interests and biases, were frequent enough to engage the tongue of public censure. She died at Torgau (20 Dec., 1552) in comparative obscurity,poverty, and neglect, having foundWittenberg cold and unsympathetic to the reformer'sfamily. This he had predicted, "after my death the four elements inWittenberg will not tolerate you after all".

Luther's rugged health began to show marks of depleting vitality and unchecked inroads of disease. Prolonged attacks of dyspepsia, nervous headaches, chronic granular kidney disease, gout, sciatic rheumatism, middle ear abscesses, above all vertigo and gall stone colic were intermittent or chronic ailments that gradually made him the typical embodiment of a supersensitively nervous, prematurely old man. These physical impairments were further aggravated by his notorious disregard of all ordinary dietetic or hygienic restrictions. Even prescinding from his congenital heritage of inflammable irascibility and uncontrollablerage, besetting infirmities that grew deeper and more acute with age, his physical condition in itself would measurably account for his increasing irritation, passionate outbreaks, and hounding suspicions, which in his closing days became a problem more of pathological or psychopathic interest, than biographic or historical importance.

It was this "terrible temper" which brought on the tragedy of alienation, that drove from him his most devoted friends and zealous co-labourers. Every contradiction set him ablaze. "Hardly one of us", in the lament of one of his votaries, "can escape Luther'sanger and his public scourging" (Corp. Ref., V, 314). Carlstadt parted with him in 1522, after what threatened to be a personal encounter;Melancthon in plaintive tones speaks of his passionateviolence, self-will, and tyranny, and does not mince words in confessing the humiliation of his ignoble servitude;Bucer, prompted by political and diplomatic motives, prudently accepts the inevitable "just as theLord bestowed him on us";Zwingli "has become apagan,Œcolampadius . . . and the otherheretics have in-devilled, through-devilled, over-devilled corrupt hearts andlying mouths, and no one shouldpray for them", all of them "were brought to their death by the fiery darts and spears of thedevil" (Walch, op. cit., XX, 223);Calvin and the Reformed are also the possessors of "in-deviled, over-devilled, and through-devilled hearts"; Schurf, the eminent jurist, was changed from an ally to an opponent, with a brutality that defies all explanation or apology; Agricola fell a prey to a repugnance thattime did not soften; Schwenkfeld, Armsdorf, Cordatus, all incurred his ill will, forfeited his friendship, and became the butt of his stinging speech.

"The Luther, who from a distance was stillhonoured as the hero and leader of thenew church, was only tolerated at its centre in consideration of his past services" (Ranke, op. cit., II, 421). The zealous band of men, who once clustered about their standard-bearer, dwindled to an insignificant few, insignificant in number, intellectuality, and personal prestige. A sense of isolation palled the days of his decline. It not alone affected his disposition, but played the most astonishing pranks with hismemory. The oftener he details to his table companions, the faithful chroniclers who gave us his "Tischreden", the horrors of thepapacy, the more starless does the night of hismonastic life appear. "The picture of his youth grows darker and darker. He finally becomes a myth to himself. Not only dodates shift themselves, but also facts. When the old man drops into telling tales, the past attains the plasticity of wax. He ascribes the same words promiscuously now to this, now to that friend or enemy" (Hausrath, op. cit., II, 432).

It was this period that gave birth to the incredibilities, exaggerations, distortions, contradictions, inconsistencies, that make his later writing an inextricable web to untangle and for three hundred years have supplied uncritical historiography with the cock-and-bull fables which unfortunately have been accepted on their face value. Again the dire results of theReformationcaused him "unspeakable solicitude and grief". The sober contemplation of the incurable inner wounds of thenew Church, the ceaseless quarrels of the preachers, the galling despotism of the temporal rulers, the growing contempt for theclergy, the servility to the princes, made him fairly writhe in anguish. Above all the disintegration ofmoral and social life, the epidemic ravages ofvice andimmorality, and that in the very cradle of theReformation, even in his very household, nearly drove him frantic. "We live inSodom and Babylon, affairs are growing daily worse", is his lament (De Wette, op. cit., V, 722). In the wholeWittenberg district, with its two cities and fifteenparochial villages, he can find "only one peasant and not more, who exhorts his domestics to theWord of God and thecatechism, the rest plunge headlong to thedevil" (Lauterbach, "Tagebuch", 113, 114, 135; *Döllinger, "Die Reformation", I, 293-438).

Twice he was on the verge of deserting this "Sodom", having commissioned his wife (28 July, 1545) to sell all their effects. It required the combined efforts of the university, Bugenhagen,Melancthon, and the burgomaster, to make him change hismind. And again in December, only the powerful intervention of the elector prevented him carrying out his design. Then again came those torturing assaults of theDevil, which left "no rest for even a single day". His nightly encounters "exhausted andmartyred him to an intensity, that he was barely able to gasp or take breath". Of all the assaults "none were more severe or greater than about my preaching, the thought coming to me: All this confusioncaused by you" (Sammtl. W., LIX, 296; LX. 45-46; 108-109, 111; LXII, 494). His lastsermon inWittenberg (17 Jan., 1546) is in a vein of despondency anddespair. "Usury,drunkenness,adultery,murder, assassination, all these can be noticed, and the world understands them to besins, but thedevil's bride,reason, that pert prostitute struts in, and will be clever and means what she says, that it is theHoly Ghost" (op. cit., XVI, 142-48). The same day he pens the pathetic lines "I am old, decrepit, indolent, weary, cold, and now have the sight of but one eye" (De Wette, op. cit., V, 778). Nevertheless peace was not his.

It was while in this agony of body and torture ofmind, that his unsurpassable and irreproducible coarseness attained its culminating point of virtuosity in his anti-Semitic and antipapal pamphlets. "Against the Jews and their Lies" was followed in quick succession by his even more frenzied fusillade "On the Schem Hamphoras" (1542) and "Against the Papacy established by the Devil" (1545). Here, especially in the latter, all coherent thought and utterance is buried in a torrential deluge of vituperation "for which no pen, much less a printing press have ever been found" (Menzel, op. cit., II, 352). His mastery in his chosen method of controversy remained unchallenged. His friends had "a feeling of sorrow. His scolding remained unanswered, but also unnoticed" (Ranke, op. cit., II, 121). Accompanying this last volcanic eruption, as a sort of illustrated commentary "that the common man, who is unable to read, may see and understand what he thought of thepapacy" (Forstemann), were issued the nine celebrated caricatures of thepope by Lucas Cranach, with expository verses by Luther. These, "the coarsest drawings that the history of caricature of all times has ever produced" (Lange, "Der Papstesel", Gottingen, 1891,89), were so inexpressibly vile that a common impulse of decency demanded their summary suppression by his friends.

His last act was, as he predicted andprayed for, an attack on thepapacy. Summoned to Eisleben, his native place, a shorttime after, to act as an arbiter in a contention between the brothers Albrecht and Gebhard von Mansfeld, death came with unexpected speed but not suddenly, and he departed thislife about three o'clock in the morning, 18 February, 1546, in the presence of a number of friends. The body was taken toWittenberg for interment, and wasburied on the 22 Feb., in the castle church, where it now lies with that ofMelancthon.

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