1518]

Luther at Augsburg

133

laid on him who hated publicity, who loved to keep quiet and teach his students and preach to his people, to stand forth as he had felt compelled to do. The patriot, the prophet of a new era, the humble, almost shrinking Christian monk - all these characters appear in his correspondence with his intimates in the autumn of 1518.

The Diet, which had just closed when Luther reached Augsburg, had witnessed some brilliant scenes. A Cardinal's hat had been bestowed on the Archbishop of Mainz with all gorgeous solemnities; the aged Emperor Maximilian had been solemnly presented with the pilgrimage symbols of a hat and a dagger, both blessed by the Pope. His Holiness invited Germany to unite in a crusade against the Turks, and the Emperor would have willingly appeared as the champion of Christendom. But the German Princes, spiritual and secular, were in no mood to fulfil any demands made from Rome. The spirit of revolt had not yet taken active shape, but it could be expressed in a somewhat sullen refusal to agree to the Pope's proposals. The Emperor recognised the symptoms, and wrote to Rome advising the Pope to be cautious how he dealt with Luther. His advice was thrown away. When, after wearying delays, the monk had his first interview with the Cardinal-Legate, he was told that no discussion could be permitted, private or public, until Luther had recanted his heresies, had promised not to repeat them, and had given assurance that he would not trouble the peace of the Church in the future. Being pressed to name the heresies, the adroit theologian named two opinions which had wide-reaching consequences the 58th conclusion of the Theses and the statement in the Resolutiones that the sacraments were not efficacious apart from faith in the recipient. There was some discussion notwithstanding the Cardinal's declaration; but in the end Luther was ordered to recant or depart. He departed; and, after an appeal from the Pope ill-informed to the Pope to be well-informed, and also an appeal to a General Council, he returned to Wittenberg. There he wrote out an account of his interview with the Legate the Acta Augustana - which was published and read all over Germany.

The interview between the Cardinal-Legate and Luther at Augsburg almost dates the union between the new religious movement, the growing national restlessness under Roman domination, and the humanist intellectual revolt. A well-known and pious monk, an esteemed teacher in a University which he was making famous throughout Germany, an earnest moralist who had proposed to discuss the efficacy of a system of Indulgences which manifestly had some detrimental sides, had been told, in the most peremptory way, that he must recant, and that without explanation or discussion. German patriots saw in the proceeding another instance of the contemptuous way in which Rome always treated Germany; humanists believed it to be tyrannical stifling of the truth even worse than the dealings with Reuchlin; and both humanist and patriot believed it to be another

134

Mission of Miltitz to Germany

[1518-9 instance of the Roman greed for German gold. As for Luther himself he daily expected a Bull from Rome excommunicating him as a heretic.

But the political condition of affairs in Germany was too delicatethe country was on the eve of the choice of a King of the Romans, and possibly of an imperial election- and the support of the Elector of Saxony too important, for the Pope to proceed rashly in the condemnation of Luther which had been pronounced by his Legate at Augsburg. It was resolved to send a special delegate to Germany to report upon the condition of affairs there. Care was taken to select a man who would be acceptable to the Elector. Charles von Miltitz belonged to a noble Saxon family; he was one of the Pope's chamberlains, and for some years had been the Elector's agent at Rome. His Holiness did more to gain over Luther's protector. Frederick had long wished for that mark of the Pope's friendship, the Golden Rose, and had privately asked for it through Miltitz himself. The Golden Rose was now sent to him with a gracious letter. Miltitz was also furnished with formal papal letters to the Elector, to his councillors, to the magistrates of Wittenberg, and to several others letters in which Luther figured as "a child of Satan." The phrase was probably forgotten when Leo wrote to Luther some time later and addressed him as his dear son.

It

Miltitz had no sooner reached Germany than he saw that the state of affairs there was utterly unknown to the Roman Curia. was not a man that had to be dealt with, but the slowly increasing movement of a nation. He felt this during the progress of his journey. When he reached Augsburg and Nürnberg, and found himself among his old friends and kinsmen, three out of five were strongly in favour of Luther. So impressed was he with the state of feeling in the country that before he entered Saxony he "put the Golden Rose in a sack with the Indulgences," to use the words of his friend, the jurist Scheurl, laid aside all indications of the papal Commissioner, and travelled like a private nobleman. Tetzel was summoned to meet him, but the unhappy man declared that his life was not safe if he left his convent. Miltitz felt that it would be better to have private interviews before producing his official credentials. He had one with Luther, where he set himself to discover how much Luther would really yield, and found that the Reformer was not the obstinate man he had been led to suppose. Luther was prepared to yield much. He would write a submissive letter to the Pope; he would publish an advice to the people to honour the Roman Church; and he would say that Indulgences were. useful in remitting canonical Satisfactions. All of which Luther did. But the Roman Curia did not support Miltitz, and the Commissioner had to reckon with John Eck of Ingolstadt, who wished to silence his old friend by scholastic dialectic and procure his condemnation

1519]

Disputation with Eck at Leipzig

135

as a heretic. Nor was Luther quite convinced of Miltitz' honesty. When the Commissioner dismissed him with a kiss, he could not help asking himself, he tells us, whether it was a Judas-kiss. He had been re-examining his convictions about the faith which justifies, and trying to see their consequences; and he had been studying the Papal Decretals, and discovering to his amazement and indignation the frauds that many of them contained and the slender foundation which they really gave for the pretensions of the Papacy. He had been driven to these studies. The papal theologians had confronted him with the absolute authority of the Pope. Luther was forced to investigate the evidence for this authority. His conclusion was that the papal supremacy had been forced on Germany on the strength of a collection. of decretals; and that many of these decretals would not bear investigation. It is hard to say, judging from his correspondence, whether this discovery brought joy or sorrow to Luther. He had accepted the Pope's supremacy; it was one of the strongest of his inherited beliefs, and now under the combined influence of historical study, of the opinions of the early Fathers, and of Scripture, it was slowly dissolving. He hardly knew where he stood. He was halfterrified, half-exultant, at the results of his studies, and the ebb and flow of his own feelings were answered by the anxieties of his immediate circle of friends. A public disputation might clear the air, and he almost feverishly welcomed Eck's challenge to dispute publicly with him at Leipzig on the primacy and supremacy of the Pope.

Contemporary witnesses describe the common country carts which conveyed the Wittenberg theologians to the capital of Ducal Saxony, the two hundred students with their halberts and helmets who escorted their honoured professors into what was an enemy's country, the crowded inns and lodging-houses where the master of the house kept. a man with a halbert standing beside every table to prevent disputes becoming bloody quarrels, the densely packed hall in Duke George's palace, the citizens' guard, the platform with its two chairs for the disputants and seats for academic and secular dignitaries, and the two theologians, both sons of peasants, met to protect the old or to cleave a way for the new. Eck's intention was to force Luther to make such a declaration as would justify him in denouncing his opponent as a partisan of the Bohemian heresy. The audience swayed with a wave of excitement, and Duke George placed his arms akimbo, wagged his long beard, and said aloud, "God help us! the plague!" when Luther was forced, in spite of protestations, to acknowledge that not all the opinions of Wiclif and Hus were wrong.

So far as the fight in dialectic had gone Eck was victorious; he had compelled Luther, as he thought, to declare himself, and there' remained only the Bull of Excommunication, and to rid Germany of a pestilent heretic. He was triumphant. Luther was correspondingly

136

Luther's writings

[1520

downcast and returned to Wittenberg full of melancholy forebodings. But some victories are worse than defeats. Eck had done what the more politic Miltitz had wished to avoid. He had made Luther a central figure round which all the smouldering discontent of Germany with Rome could rally, and had made it possible for the political movement to become impregnated with the passion of religious conviction. The Leipzig Disputation was perhaps the most important episode in the whole course of Luther's career. It made him see clearly for the first time what lay in his opposition to Indulgences; and it made others see it also. It was after Leipzig that the younger German humanists rallied round Luther to a man; the burghers saw that religion and liberty were not opposing but allied forces; that there was room for a common effort to create a Germany for the Germans. The feeling awakened gave new life to Luther; sermons, pamphlets, controversial writings from his tireless pen flooded the land and were read eagerly by all classes of the population.

Three of these writings stand forth pre-eminently: The Liberty of a Christian Man; To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation concerning the reformation of the Christian Commonwealth; and On the Babylonish Captivity of the Church. They were all written during the year 1520, after three years spent in controversy, and at a time when Luther felt that he had completely broken with Rome. They are known in Germany as the three great Reformation treatises. The tract on Christian liberty was probably the last published (October, 1520), but it contains the principles which underlie the two others. It is a brief statement, free from all theological subtleties, of the priesthood of all believers, which is a consequence of the fact of justification by faith alone. The first part shows that everything which a Christian has can be traced back to his faith; if he has faith, he has all if he has not faith, he has nothing. The second part shows that everything which a Christian man does must come from his faith; it is necessary to use all the ceremonies of divine service which have been found helpful for spiritual education; perhaps to fast and practise mortifications; but these are not good things in the sense that they make a man good; they are all signs of faith and are to be practised with joy, because they are done to the God to Whom faith unites man.

Luther applied those principles to the reformation of the Christian Church in his book on its "Babylonish Captivity." The elaborate sacramental system of the Roman Church is subjected to a searching criticism, in which Luther shows that the Roman Curia has held the Church of God in bondage to human traditions which run counter 'to plain messages and promises in the Word of God. He declares himself in favour of the marriage of the clergy, and asserts that divorce is in some cases lawful.

1520]

Appeal To the Christian Nobility

137

The Appeal To the Christian Nobility of the German Nation made the greatest immediate impression. Contemporaries called it a trumpet blast. It was a call to all Germany to unite against Rome. It was written in haste, but must have been long meditated upon. Luther wrote the introduction on the 23rd of June (1520); the printers worked as he wrote; it was finished and published about the middle of August, and by the 18th of the month 4000 copies had gone into all parts of Germany and the printers could not supply the demand. This Appeal was the manifesto of a revolution sent forth by a true leader of men, able to concentrate the attack and direct it to the enemy's one vital spot. It grasped the whole situation; it summed up with vigour and directness all the grievances which had hitherto been stated separately and weakly; it embodied every proposal of reform, however incomplete, and set it in its proper place in one combined scheme. All the parts were welded together by a simple and direct religious faith, and made living by the moral earnestness which pervaded the whole.

Reform had been impossible, the appeal says, because the walls behind which Rome lay entrenched had been left standing-walls of straw and paper, but in appearance formidable fortifications. If the temporal Powers demanded reforms, they were told that the Spiritual Power was superior and controlling. If the Spiritual Power itself was attacked from the side of Scripture, it was affirmed that no one could say what Scripture really meant but the Pope. If a Council was called for to make the reform, men were informed that it was impossible to summon a Council without the leave of the Pope. Now this pretended Spiritual Power which made reform impossible was a delusion. The only real spiritual power existing belonged to the whole body of believers in virtue of the spiritual priesthood bestowed upon them by Christ Himself. The clergy were distinguished from the laity, not by an indelible character imposed upon them in a divine mystery called ordination, but because they were set in the commonwealth to do a particular work. If they neglected the work they were there to do, the clergy were accountable to the same temporal Powers which ruled the land. The statement that the Pope alone can interpret Scripture is a foolish one; the Holy Scripture is open to all, and can be interpreted by all true believers who have the mind of Christ and come to the Word of God humbly and really seeking enlightenment. When a Council is needed, every individual Christian has a right to do his best to get it summoned, and the temporal Powers are there to represent and enforce his wishes.

The straw walls having been cleared away, the Appeal proceeds with an indictment against Rome. There is in Rome one who calls himself the Vicar of Christ and whose life has small resemblance to that of our Lord and St Peter; for this man wears a triple crown