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Title: Luther Examined and Reexamined
       A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation

Author: W. H. T. Dau

Release Date: July 18, 2005 [EBook #16322]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Produced by Kurt A. Bodling, Ganser Library, Millersville
University, Millersville, PA, USA






Luther Examined and Reexamined
A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea
for Revaluation

By W.H.T. Dau,
Professor, Concordia Theological Seminary

St. Louis, Mo.
Concordia Publishing House
1917

PREFACE.
One may deplore the pathetic courage which periodically heartens
Catholic writers for the task of writing against Luther, but one can
understand the necessity for such efforts, and, accordingly, feel a real
pity for those who make them. Attacks on Luther are demanded for
Catholics by the law of self-preservation. A recent Catholic writer
correctly says: "There is no doubt that the religious problem to-day is
still the Luther problem." "Almost every statement of those religious
doctrines which are opposed to Catholic moral teaching find their
authorization in the theology of Martin Luther."

Rome has never acknowledged her errors nor admitted her moral defeat.
The lessons of past history are wasted upon her. Rome is determined to
assert to the end that she was not, and cannot be, vanquished. In the
age of the Reformation, she admits, she suffered some losses, but she
claims that she is fast retrieving these, while Protestantism is
decadent and decaying. No opposition to her can hope to succeed.

This is done to bolster up Catholic courage. The intelligent Catholic
layman of the present day makes his own observations, and draws his own
conclusions as to the status and the future prospect of Protestantism.
Therefore, he must be invited to "acquaint himself with the lifestory of
the man, whose followers can never explain away the anarchy of that
immoral dogma: 'Be a sinner, and sin boldly; but believe more boldly
still!' He must be shown the many hideous scenes of coarseness,
vulgarity, obscenity, and degrading immorality in Martin Luther's life."
When the Catholic rises from the contemplation of these scenes, it is
hoped that his mind has become ironclad against Protestant argument.
These attacks upon Luther are a plea _pro domo_, the effort of a strong
man armed to keep his palace and his goods in peace.

Occurring, as they do, in this year of the Four-hundredth Anniversary of
the Reformation, these attacks, moreover, represent a Catholic
counter-demonstration to the Protestant celebration of the
Quadricentenary of Luther's Theses. They are the customary cries of
dissent and vigorous expressions of disgust which at a public meeting
come from parties in the audience that are not pleased with the speaker
on the stage. If the counter-demonstration includes in its program the
obliging application of eggs in an advanced state of maturity to the
speaker, and chooses to emphasize its presence to the very nostrils of
the audience, that, too, is part of the prevailing custom. It is
aesthetically incorrect, to be sure, but it is in line historically with
former demonstrations. No Protestant celebration would seem normal
without them. They help Protestants in their preparations for the
jubilee to appreciate the remarks of David in Psalm 2, 11: "Rejoice with
trembling." And if Shakespeare was correct in the statement: "Sweet are
the uses of adversity," they need not be altogether deplored.

An attempt is made in these pages to review the principal charges and
arguments of Catholic critics of Luther. The references to Luther's
works are to the St. Louis Edition; those to the Book of Concord, to the
People's Edition.

Authors must be modest, and as a rule they are. In the domain of
historical research there is rarely anything that is final. This
observation was forced upon the present writer with unusual power as the
rich contents of his subjects opened up to him during his study. He has
sought to be comprehensive, at least, as regards essential facts, in
every chapter; he does not claim that his presentation is final. He
hopes that it may stimulate further research.

This book is frankly polemical. It had to be, or there would have been
no need of writing it. It seeks to meet both the assertions and the
spirit of Luther's Catholic critics. A review ought to be a mirror, and
mirrors must reflect. But there is no malice in the author's effort.

W. H. T. Dau.

Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Mo.
May 10, 1917.


TABLE OF CONTENTS.

   l. Luther Worship
   2. Luther Hatred
   3. Luther Blemishes
   4. Luther's Task
   5. The Popes in Luther's Time
   6. Luther's Birth and Parentage
   7. Luther's Great Mistake
   8. Luther's Failure as a Monk
   9. Professor Luther, D. D.
   10. Luther's "Discovery" of the Bible
   11. Rome and the Bible
   12. Luther's Visit at Rome
   13. Pastor Luther
   14. The Case of Luther's Friend Myconius
   15. Luther's Faith without Works
   16. The Fatalist Luther
   17. Luther a Teacher of Lawlessness
   18. Luther Repudiates the Ten Commandments
   19. Luther's Invisible Church
   20. Luther on the God-given Supremacy of the Pope
   21. Luther the Translator of the Bible
   22. Luther a Preacher of Violence against the Hierarchy
   23. Luther, Anarchist and Despot All in One
   24. Luther the Destroyer of Liberty of Conscience
   25. "The Adam and Eve of the New Gospel of Concubinage"
   26. Luther an Advocate of Polygamy
   27. Luther Announces His Death
   28. Luther's View of His Slanderers


1. Luther Worship.

Catholic writers profess themselves shocked by the unblushing veneration
which Luther receives from Protestants. Such epithets as "hero of the
Reformation," "angel with the everlasting Gospel flying through the
midst of heaven," "restorer of the Christian faith," grate on Catholic
nerves. Luther's sayings are cited with approval by all sorts of men.
Men feel that their cause is greatly strengthened by having Luther on
their side. Luther's name is a name to conjure with. Hardly a great man
has lived in the last four hundred years but has gone on record as an
admirer of Luther. Rome, accordingly, cries out that Luther is become
the uncanonized saint of Protestantism, yea, the deified expounder of
the evangelical faith.

Coming from a Church that venerates and adores and prays to--you must
not say "worships"--as many saints as there are days in the calendar,
this stricture is refreshing. Saints not only of questionable sanctity,
but of doubtful existence have been worshiped--beg pardon! venerated--
by Catholics. What does the common law say about the prosecution coming
into court with clean hands? If there is such a thing among Protestants
as "religious veneration" of Luther, what shall we call the veneration
of Mary among Catholics? Pius IX, on December 8, 1854, proclaimed the
"immaculate conception," that is, the sinlessness of Mary from the very
first moment of her existence, thus removing her from the sphere of
sin-begotten humanity. In 1913, the press of the country was preparing
its readers for another move towards the deification of Mary: her
"assumption" was to be declared. That is, it was to be declared a
Catholic dogma that the corpse of Mary did not see corruption, and was
at the moment of her death removed to heaven. The _Pasadena Star_ of
August 15th in that year wrote: "It is now known that since his recent
illness Pope Pius, realizing that his active pontificate is practically
at an end, has expressed to some of the highest dignitaries of the
Catholic Church at Rome the desire to round out his career by this last
great act." The _Western Watchman_ of July 3d in that year had in its
inimitable style referred to the coming dogma, thus: "What Catholic in
the world to-day would say that the immaculately conceived body of
the Blessed Virgin was allowed to rot in the grave? The Catholic mind
would rebel against the thought; and death would be preferred to the
blasphemous outrage." The grounds for wanting the "assumption" of Mary
fixed in a dogma were these: "Catholics believe in the bodily assumption
of the Blessed Virgin, because their faith instinctively teaches them
that such a thing is possible and proper, and that settles it in favor
of the belief. The body of our Lord should not taste corruption, neither
should the body that gave Him His body. The flesh that was bruised for
our sins was the flesh of Mary. The blood that was shed for our
salvation was drawn from Mary's veins. It would be improper that the
Virgin Mother should be allowed to see corruption if her Son was
exempted from the indignity." If any should be so rash as to question
the propriety of the new dogma, the writer held out this pleasant
prospect to them: "Dogmas are stones at the heads of heretics. . . . The
eyes of all Catholics see aright; if they are afflicted with strabismus,
the Church resorts to an operation. All Catholics hear aright; if they
do not, the Church applies a remedy to their organ of hearing. These
surgical operations go under the name of dogmas." The world remembers
with what success an operation of this kind was performed on a number of
Roman prelates, who questioned the infallibility of the Pope. The dogma
was simply declared in 1870, and that put a quietus to all Catholic
scruples. Some day the "assumption" of Mary will be proclaimed as a
Catholic dogma. We should not feel surprised if ultimately a dogma were
published to the effect that the Holy Trinity is a Holy Quartet, with
Mary as the fourth person of the Godhead.

The Roman Church is accustomed to speak of her Supreme Pontiff, the Holy
Father, the Vicegerent of Christ, His Infallible Holiness, in terms that
lift a human being to heights of adoration unknown among Protestants.
For centuries the tendency in the Roman Church to make of the Pope "a
god on earth" has been felt and expressed in Christendom.

This Church wants to preach to Protestants about the sin of man-worship!
Verily, here we have the parable of the mote and the beam in a twentieth
century edition. Catholic teachers would be the last ones, we imagine,
whom scrupulous Christians would choose for instructing them regarding
the sin of idolatry and the means to avoid it.

No Protestant regards Luther as Catholics regard Mary, not even Patrick.
Luther has taught them too well for that. Unwittingly the Catholics
themselves have immortalized Luther by naming the Evangelical Church
after Luther. Luther declined the honor. "I beg," he said, "not to have
my name mentioned, and to call people not Lutheran, but Christian. What
is Luther? The doctrine is not mine, nor have I been crucified for any
one. . . . The papists deserve to have a party-name, for they are not
content with the doctrine and name of Christ; they want to be popish
also. Well, let them be called popish, for the Pope is their master. I
am not, and I do not want to be, anybody's master." (10, 371.)

It is likely that the frequent laudatory mention of Luther's name,
especially in connection with the present anniversary of the
Reformation, is taken as a challenge by Catholics. If it is that, it is
so by the choice of Catholics. It is impossible to speak of a great man
without referring to the conflicts that made him great. "He makes no
friend," says Tennyson, "who never made a foe." "The man who has no
enemies," says Donn Piatt, "has no following." Opposition is one of the
accepted marks of greatness. The opposition which great men aroused
during their lifetime lives after them, and crops out again on a given
occasion. This is deplorable, but it is the ordinary course. Moreover,
it is possible that in a season of great joy like that which the
Quadricentenary of the Reformation has ushered in orators and writers
may fail to put a due check on their enthusiasm and may overstate a
fact. Such things happen even among Catholics, we believe, But they will
be negligible quantities in the present celebration. The proper
corrective for them will be provided by Protestants themselves. The vast
majority of those who have embraced the spiritual leadership of Luther
in matters pertaining to Christian doctrine and morals will prove again
that they are in no danger of inaugurating man-worship. The spirit of
Luther is too much alive in them for that. They will, with the Marquis
of Brandenburg, declare: "If I be asked whether with heart and lip I
confess that faith which God has restored to us by Luther as His
instrument, I have no scruple, nor have I a disposition to shrink from
the name Lutheran. Thus understood, I am, and shall to my dying hour
remain, a Lutheran." They will ever be able to distinguish between the
man Luther, prone to error and sin like any other mortal, and the Luther
who fought the battle of the Lord and had a mission of everlasting
import to the Church and the world. They have shown on numerous
occasions that they can be friends of Luther, and yet criticize him or
dissent from him. If they had not, there would be no Protestants whom
Catholics can quote as "opponents" of Luther. On the other hand, if any
one undertakes to enlighten the public with a view of Luther,
Protestants will insist that his estimate comport with the facts in the
case, and that the name of a great man who deserves well of posterity be
not traduced. Why, even the Catholic von Schlegel thinks Luther has not
been half esteemed as he ought to be.


2. Luther Hatred.

Catholic writers have found so much to censure in the character and
writings of Luther that one is amazed, after reading them, how Luther
ever could become regarded as a great and good man. Criminal blindness
must have held the eyes, not only of Luther's associates, but of his
entire age, yea, of men for centuries after, if they failed to see
Luther's constitutional baseness. Quite recently a Catholic writer has
told the world in one chapter of his book that "the apostate monk of
Wittenberg" was possessed of "a violent, despotic, and uncontrolled
nature," that he was "depraved in manners and in speech." He speaks of
Luther's "ungovernable transports, riotous proceedings, angry conflicts,
and intemperate controversies," of Luther's "contempt of all the
accepted forms of human right and all authority, human and divine," of
"his unscrupulous mendacity," "his perverse principles," "his wild
pronouncements." He calls Luther "a lawless one," "one of the most
intolerant of men," "a revolutionist, not a reformer." He says that
Luther "attempted reformation and ended in deformation." He charges
Luther with having written and preached "not for, but against good
works," with having assumed rights to himself in the matter of liberty
of conscience which "he unhesitatingly and imperiously denied to all who
differed from him," with having "rent asunder the unity of the Church,"
with having "disgraced the Church by a notoriously wicked and scandalous
life," with having "declared it to be the right of every man to
interpret the Bible to his own individual conception," with "one day
proclaiming the binding force of the Ten Commandments and the next
declaring they were not obligatory on Christian observance," with having
"reviled and hated and cursed the Church of his fathers."

These opprobrious remarks are only a part of the vileness of which the
writer has delivered himself in his first chapter. His whole book
bristles with assertions of Luther's inveterate badness. This coarse and
crooked Luther, we are told, is the real Luther, the genuine article.
The Luther of history is only a Protestant fiction. Protestants like
Prof. Seeberg of Berlin, and others, who have criticized Luther, are
introduced as witnesses for the Catholic allegation that Luther was a
thoroughly bad man. We should like to ascertain the feelings of these
Protestants when they are informed what use has been made of their
remarks about Luther. Some of them may yet let the world know what they
think of the attempt to make them the squires of such knights errant as
Denifle and Grisar.

It is about ten years ago since the Jesuit Grisar began to publish his
_Life of Luther,_ twice that time, since Denifle painted his caricature
of Luther. Several generations ago Janssen, in his _History of the
German Nation,_ gave the Catholic interpretation of Luther and the
Reformation. Going back still further, we come to the Jesuit Maimbourg,
to Witzel, and in Luther's own time to Cochlaeus and Oldecop, all of
whom strove to convince the world that Luther was a moral degenerate and
a reprobate. The book of Mgr. O'Hare, which has made its appearance on
the eve of the Four-hundredth Anniversary of Luther's Theses, is merely
another eruption from the same mud volcano that became active in
Luther's lifetime. It is the old dirt that has come forth. Rome must
periodically relieve itself in this manner, or burst. Rome hated the
living Luther, and cannot forget him since he is dead. It hates him
still. Its hatred is become full-grown, robust, vigorous with the
advancing years. When Rome speaks its mind about Luther, it cannot but
speak in terms of malignant scorn. If Luther could read Mgr. O'Hare's
book, he would say: "Wes das Herz voll ist, des gehet der Mund ueber."
(Matt. 12, 34: "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.")

Luther has done one thing which Rome will never pardon: he dared to
attack the supreme authority of the Pope. He made men see the
ignominious bondage in which cunning priests had ensnared them, and by
restoring them to the liberty with which Christ had made them free
Luther caused the papacy an irreparable loss. The papal system of
teaching and government was so thoroughly exposed by Luther, and has
since been so completely disavowed by a great part of professing
Christians that Rome cannot practise its old frauds any longer. Men have
become extremely wary of Rome. That is what hurts. The Catholic writer
to whom we referred sums up the situation thus: Since Luther "all
Protestant mankind descending by ordinary generation have come into the
world with a mentality biased, perverted, and prejudiced." That is
Rome's way of looking at the matter. The truth is: the world is
forewarned, hence forearmed against the pleas of Rome. It pays only an
indifferent attention to vilifications of Luther that come from that
quarter, because it expects no encomiums and only scant justice for
Luther from Rome. But it is the business of the teachers of Protestant
principles in religion, particularly of the church historians of
Protestantism, to take notice of the campaign of slander that is
launched against Luther by Catholic writers at convenient intervals. It
is not a task to delight the soul, rather to try the patience, of
Christians. For in the study of the causes for these calumnies against a
great man of history, and of the possible means for their removal, one
is forced invariably to the conclusion that there is but one cause, and
that is hatred. What can poor mortal man do to break down such a cause?
It does not yield to logic and historical facts, because it is in its
very nature unreasoning and unreasonable.

Still, for the hour that God sends to all the Sauls that roam the earth
breathing threatening and slaughter, the counter arguments should be
ready. No slander against Luther has ever gone unanswered. As the
charges against Luther have become stereotyped, so the rejoinder cannot
hope to bring forward any new facts. But it seems necessary that each
generation in the Church Militant be put through the old drills, and
learn its fruitful lessons of spiritual adversity. Thus even these
polemical exchanges between Catholics and Protestants become blessings
in disguise. But they do not affect Luther. The sublime figure of the
courageous confessor of Christ that has stood towering in the annals of
the Christian Church for four hundred years stands unshaken, silent, and
grand, despite the froth that is dashed against its base and the
lightning from angry clouds that strikes its top. "Surely, the wrath of
man shall praise thee." (Ps. 76, 10.)


3. Luther Blemishes.

When Luther is charged with immoral conduct, and the specific facts
together with the documentary evidence are not submitted along with the
charge, little can be done in the way of rebuttal. One can only guess at
the grounds on which the charge is based. For instance, when Luther is
said to have disgraced the Church by a notoriously wicked and scandalous
life, the reason is most likely because he married although he was a
monk sworn to remain single. Moreover, he married a noble lady who was a
nun, also sworn to celibacy. According to the inscrutable ethics of Rome
this is concubinage, although the Scripture plainly declares that a
minister of the Church should be the husband of one wife, 1 Tim. 3, 2,
and no vows can annul the ordinance and commandment of God: "It is not
good that man should be alone." Gen. 2, 18. Comp. 1 Cor. 7, 2, and
Augsburg Confession, Art. 27.

When Luther is said to have reviled, hated, and cursed the Church of his
fathers, the probable reason is, because he wrote the _Babylonian
Captivity of the Church_ and _The Papacy at Rome Founded by the Devil_.
In these writings Luther depicts the true antichristian inwardness of
the papacy. By so doing, however, Luther restored the Church of his
fathers, grandfathers, great-grandfathers in Christ down to the first
ancestor of our race. Luther's faith is none other than the faith of the
true Church in all the ages. Luther's own father and mother died in that
faith.

When Luther is said to have taught Nietzsche's insanity about the
"Superhuman" (Uebermensch) before Nietzsche, to have put the Ten
Commandments out of commission for Christians, and to have preached
against good works, the reasons most likely are these: Luther taught
salvation in accordance with Rom. 3, 25: "We conclude that a man is
justified by faith, without the deeds of the Law." Luther taught that a
person is not saved by his own works, and if he performs good works with
that end in view, he shames his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who is the
end of the Law for righteousness to every one that believeth (Rom. 10,
4), and he falls under the curse of God for placing his own merits
alongside of the merit of the Redeemer's sacrifice. In no other
connection has Luther spoken against good works. He has rather taught
men how to become fruitful in well-doing by the sanctifying grace of God
and according to the inspiring example of the matchless Jesus.
Concerning the Law, Luther preached 1 Tim. 1, 9: "The Law is not made
for a righteous man," that is, Christians do the works of the Law, not
for the Law's sake, but for the sake of Christ, whom they love and whose
mind is in them. They must not be driven like slaves to obey God, but
their very faith prompts them to live soberly, righteously, and godly in
this present world (Tit. 2, 12). But Luther always held that the rule
for good works is laid down in the holy Law of God, and only in that;
also that the Law must be applied to Christians, in as far as they still
live in, the flesh, and are not become altogether spiritual. Luther's
public activity as a preacher began with a series of sermons on the Ten
Commandments, and this effort to expound the divine norm of
righteousness was repeated several times during Luther's life. Luther's
expositions of the Decalog are among the finest that the world
possesses. Moreover, Luther wrote the Small Catechism. Hand any Catholic
who talks about Luther having abolished the Ten Commandments this little
book. That is a sufficient refutation. What Luther teaches in this book
he has given his life to reduce to practise in himself and others. He
says in a sermon on Easter Monday, 1530: "When rising in the morning, I
pray with my children the Ten Commandments, the Creed, the Lord's
Prayer, and some Psalm. I do this because I want to make myself cling to
these truths. I shall not suffer my faith to become mildewed with the
imagination that I am above these things (_dass ich's koenne_)." His
sermon on the First Sunday in Advent in the same year he begins thus:
"Dear friends, I am now an old Doctor, still I find every day that I
must recite with the children the Ten Commandments, the Creed, and the
Lord's Prayer, and I have always derived a great benefit and blessing
from this practise." (12, 1611. 1641.)

Luther is charged with mendacity, that is, he is said to have lied. The
reasons that will be given for this charge, when called for, will
probably be these: Luther at various times in his life gave three
different years as the year of his birth, three different years as the
year when he made his journey to Rome, and advised somebody in 1512 to
become a monk when he had already commenced to denounce the monastic
life: It is true that Luther did all these things, but it is also true
that Luther believed himself right in each of his statements. He was
simply mistaken. Other people have misstated the year of their birth
without being branded liars on that account. Sometimes even a professor
forgets things, and Luther was a professor. What Luther has said about
the rigor of his monastic life is perfectly true, but it was no reason
why in 1512 he should counsel men to become monks. He had not yet come
to the full knowledge of the wrong principles underlying that mode of
life. To adduce such inaccuracies as evidence of prevarication is itself
an insincere act and puts the claimant by right in the Ananias Club.

Luther is said to have been a glutton and a drunkard. "Let us examine
the facts. What is the evidence? Luther's obesity and his gout. Is that
evidence? Not in any court. It would be evidence if both conditions were
caused, and caused only, by gluttony and tippling. But this notoriously
is not the case. Obesity may be due to disease. A man may even eat
little and wax stout if what he eats turns into adipose rather than into
muscular tissue. As for gout, it is the result of uric acid diathesis.
Now uric acid diathesis may be, and very often is, caused by high
living, but often, too, it is due to quite different causes. Just as in
the case of Bright's disease. I do not deny that Luther drank freely
both beer and wine. So did everybody else. People drank beer as we do
coffee. . . . Moreover, in the sixteenth century alcoholic beverages
were prescribed for the maladies from which Luther suffered much--kidneys
and nervous trouble. We now know that in such cases alcohol proves a
very poison; but this Luther could not know. But intemperate . . . in
his use of strong drink Luther was not. Neither was he a glutton. Before
he married, he ate very irregularly, and often completely forgot his
meals. When he could not get meat and wine, he contented himself with
bread and water. . . . Melanchthon tells us that Luther loved the coarse
food as he did the coarse speech of the peasantry, and even of that food
ate little, so little that Melanchthon marveled how Luther could
maintain strength upon such a diet.--It is further a noteworthy fact
that, when we read the sermons of the day, we find nobody who so
frequently and so earnestly attacks the prevailing vice of drunkenness
as does Luther. Now, whatever Luther may or may not have been, hypocrite
he was not. Had he himself been intemperate, he would not have preached
against it in such a manner. Furthermore, Luther was under constant
espionage. His every move was noted. People knew how many patches there
were on his undergarments. Think you, think you for a moment, that the
Wittenbergians would have listened meekly to Luther's repeated assaults
upon the wide-spread sin of intemperance, had they known him for a
confirmed tippler? It is too absurd.--But the best evidence for the
defense comes from a mute witness--Luther's industry. He wrote more than
four hundred books, brochures, sermons, and so forth, filling more than
one hundred volumes of the Erlangen edition. There are extant more than
three thousand of his letters, which represent only a small proportion
of all that he wrote. Thus we know, for example, that one evening in
1544 Luther wrote ten letters, of which only two have been preserved. He
was, furthermore, in frequent conference with leaders in both Church and
State. He preached on Sundays and lectured on week-days. Now, a man may,
it is true, perform a considerable amount of manual labor even after
overeating and overdrinking, but every physician will admit the
correctness of my assertion, it is a physiological impossibility that a
man could habitually overindulge in food or liquor, or both, and still
get over the enormous amount of intellectual work that Luther performed
day to day" (Boehmer, _The Man Luther,_ p. 16 f.)

Most shameless have been the charges of lewdness and immorality against
Luther. His relation to Frau Cotta has been represented as impure. Think
of it, a boy of sixteen to eighteen thus related to an honorable
housewife! Illegitimate children have been foisted upon him. A humorous
remark about his intention to marry and being unable to choose between
several eligible parties has been twisted into an immoral meaning. The
fact that he gave shelter overnight to a number of escaped nuns, when he
was already a married man, has been meaningly referred to. Boehmer has
exhaustively gone into these charges, examining without flinching every
asserted fact cited in evidence of Luther's moral corruptness, and has
shown the purity of Luther as being above reproach. Not one of the
sexual vagaries imputed to Luther rests on a basis of fact. (Boehmer,
_Luther in Light of Recent Research,_ pp. 215-223.)

When the modern reader meets with a general charge of badness, or even
with the assertion of some specific form of badness, in Luther, he
should inquire at once to what particular incident in Luther's life
reference is made. These charges have all been examined and the evidence
sifted, and that by impartial investigators. Protestants have taken the
lead in this work and have not glossed anything over. Boehmer's able
treatise has been translated into English. Walther's _Fuer Luther wider
Rom_ will, no doubt, be given the public in an English edition soon.
Works like these have long blasted the claim of Catholics that
Protestants are afraid to have the truth told about Luther. They only
demand that the _truth_ be told.


4. Luther's Task.

One blemish in the character of Luther that is often cited with
condemnation even by Protestants deserves to be examined separately. It
is Luther's violence in controversy, his coarse language, his angry
moods. All will agree that violence and coarse speech must not be
countenanced in Christians, least of all in teachers of Christianity. In
the writings of Luther there occur terms, phrases, passages that sound
repulsive. The strongest admirer of Luther will have moments when he
wishes certain things could have been said differently. Luther's
language cannot be repeated in our times. Some who have tried to do that
in all sincerity have found to their dismay that they were wholly
misunderstood. What Jove may do any ox may not do, says an old Latin
proverb.

Shall we, then, admit Luther's fault and proceed to apologize for him
and find plausible reasons for extenuating his indiscretions in speech
and his temperamental faults? We shall do neither. We shall let this
"foul-mouthed," coarse Luther stand before the bar of public opinion
just as he is. His way cannot be our way, but ultimately none of us will
be his final judges. The character of the duties which Luther was sent
to perform must be his justification.

It is true, indeed, that the manners of the age of Luther were generally
rough. Even in polite society language was freely used that would make
us gasp. Coarse terms evidently were not felt to be such. In their
polemical writings the learned men of the age seem to exhaust a
zoological park in their frantic search for striking epithets to hurl at
their opponent. It was an age of strong feeling and sturdy diction. It
is also true that Luther was a man of the people. With a sort of homely
pride he used to declare: "I am a peasant's son; all my forbears were
peasants." But all this does not sufficiently explain Luther's
"coarseness."

Most people that criticize Luther for his strong speech have read little
else of Luther. They are not aware that in the, great mass of his
writings there is but a small proportion of matter that would nowadays
be declared objectionable. Luther speaks through many pages, yea,
through whole books, with perfect calmness. It is interesting to observe
how he develops a thought, illustrates a point by an episode from
history or from every-day life, urges a lesson with a lively
exhortation. He is pleasant, gentle, serious, compassionate, artlessly
eloquent, and, withal, perfectly pure in all he says. When Luther
becomes "coarse," there is a reason. One must have read much in Luther,
one should have read all of Luther, and his "billingsgate" will assume a
different meaning. If there is madness in his reckless speech, there is
method in it. One must try and understand Luther's objective and
purpose.

Luther had a very coarse subject to deal with, and Luther believed that
a spade is best called a spade. Luther never struck at wickedness with
the straw of a fine circumlocution. He believed that he had the right,
yea, the duty, to call coarse things by coarse names; for the Bible does
the same. Luther has called the gentlemen at the Pope's court in his day
some very descriptive names. He did not merely insinuate that the
cardinals of his day were no angels, but said outright what they were.
He did not feebly question the holiness of His Holiness, but he called
some of the Popes monsters of iniquity and reprobates. We shall show
anon that in that age there lived men who spoke of the same matters as
Luther, who told tales and used expressions that would render their
writings unmailable to-day.

The great men of any age are products of that age. Man is as much the
creature of circumstances as circumstances are the creatures of men--
Disraeli to the contrary notwithstanding. While men may create
situations, they may also be made to fit into a situation. Men have
become great for this very reason that they understand the spirit of
their age and were able to respond to its call. Back of both men and
circumstances, however, stands sovereign Providence, shaping our ends,
rough-hew them how we will.

No character-study is just that fails to take into consideration the
force of circumstances under which the subject of the study has acted at
a given moment in his life. In the case of Luther there is a more than
ordinary necessity for adopting this equitable method; for Luther has
declared hundreds of times that his stirring utterances and incisive
deeds were not the result of long premeditation, or the sudden outbursts
of uncontrolled passion,--though neither he nor we would have any
interest in denying that he could be angry and did become angry,--but
the answer to crying needs of the times. This answer was on many a
signal occasion wrung from Luther after much wrestling with God in
prayer. He was moved to action by the heroism of that faith which had
been kindled in him. He acted in harmony with the particular issue with
which he was called upon to deal. Deep compassion at the sight of his
suffering fellow-men put strong language on his lips. Between  the
pleading of friends and the storming of enemies he had no choice but to
act as he did. Luther often seems unconscious of the greatness of his
acts: he speaks of them as "his poor way of doing things," and invites
others to improve what he has attempted. We fear that many in our day
fail to see the greatness of the achievement while they stricture the
manner of achieving it.

Few men have so utterly lived for a cause, in a cause, and with a cause
as Luther. It is the heart of an entire people that cries out through
Luther; it is the soul of outraged Christianity that moans in anguish,
and speaks with the majesty of righteous anger through Luther. An age of
unparalleled ferment that had begun long before Luther has reached its
culminating point, and lifts up its strident voice of long-restrained
expostulation through Luther. Remove the conditions under which Luther
had to live and labor, and the Luther whom men bless or curse becomes an
impossibility.

In Luther's life-work there is discernible the influence not only of
good men, such as the scholarly Melanchthon, the faithful Jonas, the
firm and kind Saxon electors, the eager Amsdorf, the alert Link, but
also of evil men like the blunt Tetzel, the wily Prierias, and the horde
of ignorant monks which the monasteries and chancelleries of Rome let
loose upon one man. The course which Luther had to pursue was shaped for
him by others. We do not mean to suggest that Luther in his polemical
writings employed the cheap method of replying to the coarse language
adopted by his opponents in similar language; but it is fair to him that
this fact be recorded. Some people remember very well that Luther
addressed the Pope "Most hellish father!" and are horrified, but they
forget that the Pope had been extremely lurid in the appellatives which
he applied to Luther. "Child of Belial," "son of perdition," were some
of the endearing terms with which Luther was to be assured of the loving
interest the Holy Father took in him. That Luther called Henry VIII "a
damnable and rotten worm" seems to be well remembered, but that the
British king had called Luther "a wolf of hell" is forgotten. It goes
without saying that the contact with such opponents did for Luther what
it does for every person who is not made of granite and cast iron: it
roused his temper. It should not have been permitted to do that, we say.
Assuredly. Luther thinks so too, but with a reservation, as we shall
learn.

The "imperious spirit" and "violent measures" charged against Luther a
careful reader of history will rather find on the side of Luther's
opponents. They plainly relied on the power of Rome to crush Luther by
brute force. What respect could a plain, honest man like Luther conceive
for men like Cajetanus, Eck, and Hoogstraten, who were first sent by the
Vatican to negotiate his surrender? For publishing simple Bible-truth
the cardinal at Augsburg roared and bellowed at him, "Recant! Recant!"
Even at this early stage of the affair matters assumed such an ominous
aspect that Luther's friends urged him to quietly leave the city. They
did not trust the amicable gentleman from the polished circle of the
Pope's immediate counselors. At Leipzig, Eck had been driven into the
corner by Luther's unanswerable arguments from Scripture; then he turned
to abuse and called Luther a Bohemian and a Hussite, and finally left
the hall with the air of a victor to celebrate his achievement in the
taverns and brothels of the city, where he found his customary delights
learned from his masters at Rome. Can any language of contempt in which
Luther afterwards spoke of this doughty champion of Rome be too strong?
Among the attendants at the Leipzig Debate was Hoogstraten. This
gentleman followed the elevating profession of torturing and burning
heretics in Germany,--the territory especially assigned to him. It
looked as if he had come to Leipzig to follow up Eck's verbal thunder
with the inquisitorial lightning, and make of Luther actually another
Hus. When he found that he would not have an opportunity for plying his
hideous trade this time, he ventured into territory where he was a
stranger: he attempted a theological argument with Luther. He asserted
that by denying the primacy of the Pope, Luther had contradicted the
Scriptures and defied the Council of Nice, and must be suppressed.
Luther called him an unsophisticated ass and a bloodthirsty enemy of the
truth. Certainly, that does not sound nice, but such things happen, as a
rule, when fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

What was the papal bull of excommunication against Luther, with its list
of most opprobrious terms, but an unwarranted provocation of Luther, who
had a right to expect different treatment from the foremost teacher of
Christianity to whom he had entrusted his just grievance as a dutiful
son of the Church? Thus we might go on for pages citing instances of
reckless attack upon Luther, often by most unworthy persons, that drew
from Luther a reply such as his assailants deserved.

It is a gratuitous criticism to say that Christians must not revile when
they are reviled. Those who think that Luther did not know this rule of
the Christian religion, or did not apply it to himself, do not know the
full story of his life. He certainly did wrestle with the flesh and
blood in himself. He sighed for peace, but the moment he seemed to
become conciliatory and pacific, his enemies set up a shout that he was
vanquished. It seemed that they could not be made to comprehend the
issues confronting them unless they were blown in upon them on the wings
of a hurricane. As early as 1520 Luther replies to an anxious letter of
Spalatin, who thought that Luther had used too strong language against
the Bishop of Meissen, as follows: "Good God! how excited you are, my
Spalatin! You seem even more stirred up than I and the others. Do you
not see that my patience in not replying to Emser's and Eck's five or
six wagonloads of curses is the sole reason why the framers of this
document have dared to attack me with such silly and ridiculous
nonsense? For you know how little I cared that my sermon at Leipzig was
condemned and suppressed by a public edict; how I despised suspicion,
infamy, injury, hatred. Must these audacious persons even be permitted
to add to these follies scandalous pamphlets crammed full of falsehoods
and blasphemies against Gospel-truth? Do you forbid even to bark at
these wolves? The Lord is my witness how I restrained myself lest I
should not treat with reverence this accursed and most impotent document
issued in the bishop's name. Otherwise I should have said things those
heads ought to hear, and I will yet, when they acknowledge their
authorship by beginning to defend themselves. I beg, if you think
rightly of the Gospel, do not imagine its cause can be accomplished
without tumult, scandal, and sedition. Out of the sword you cannot make
a feather, nor out of war, peace. The Word of God is a sword, war, ruin,
destruction, poison, and, as Amos says, it meets the children of Ephraim
like a bear in the way and a lioness in the woods.--I cannot deny that I
have been more vehement than is seemly. But since they knew this, they
ought not to have stirred up the dog. How difficult it is to temper
one's passions and one's pen you can judge even from your own case. This
is the reason I have always disliked to engage in public controversy;
but the more I dislike it, the more I am involved against my will, and
that only by the most atrocious slanders brought against me and the Word
of God. If I were not carried away thereby either in temper or pen, even
a heart of stone would be moved by the indignity of the thing to take up
arms; and how much more I, who am both passionate and possessed of a pen
not altogether blunt! By these monstrosities I am driven beyond modesty
and decorum. At the same time, I wonder where this new religion came
from, that whatever you say against an adversary is slander. What do you
think of Christ? Was He a slanderer when He called the Jews an
adulterous and perverse generation, the offspring of vipers, hypocrites,
sons of the devil? And what about Paul when he used the words dogs, vain
babblers, seducers, ignorant, and in Acts 13 so inveighed against a
false prophet that he seems almost insane: `Oh, thou full of deceit and
of all craft, thou son of the devil, enemy of the truth'? Why did he not
gently flatter him, that he might convert him, rather than thunder in
such a way? It is not possible, if acquainted with the truth, to be
patient with inflexible and ungovernable enemies of the truth. But
enough of this nonsense. I see that everybody wishes I were gentle,
especially my enemies, who show themselves least so of all. If I am too
little gentle, I am at least simple and open, and therein, as I believe,
surpass them, for they dispute only in a deceitful fashion." (19, 482 f.
Translation by McGiffert.)

Nobody should make Luther any better than he makes himself. Still, the
question is pertinent whether violent polemics can ever be engaged in by
Christians with a good conscience. Luther has asserted that, while he
hurled his terrible denunciations against the adversaries of the truth,
his heart was disposed to friendship and peace with them. (16, 1718 f.)
Is a state of mind like this altogether inconceivable, viz., that a
person can curse another for a certain act and at the same time love
him? We think not. In his day this boisterous, turbulent Luther was
understood, trusted, and loved by the people. After the publication of
the Theses against Tetzel "the hearts of men in all parts of the land
turned toward him, and his heart turned toward them. For the religious
principles underlying the theses they cared little, for the arguments
sustaining them still less. They saw only that here was a man, muzzled
by none of the prudential considerations closing the mouths of many in
high places, who dared to speak his mind plainly and emphatically, and
was able to speak it intelligently and with effect upon a great and
growing evil deplored by multitudes. It is such a man the people love
and such a man they trust." (McGiffert, _Luther,_ p. 98 f.)

McGiffert has the right perception of the Luther of 1517-1519 when he
describes him as "the awakening reformer," thus: "He had the true
reformer's conscience--the sense of responsibility for others as well as
for himself, and the true reformer's vision of the better things that
ought to be. He was never a mere faultfinder, but he was endowed with
the gifts of imagination and sympathy, leading him to feel himself a
part of every situation he was placed in, and with the irrepressible
impulse to action driving him to take upon himself the burden of it. In
any crowd of bystanders he would have been first to go to the rescue
where need was, and quickest to see the need not obvious to all. The
aloofness of the mere observer was not his; he was too completely one
with all he saw to stand apart and let it go its way alone. Fearful and
distrustful of himself he long was, but his timidity was only the
natural shrinking before new and untried duties of a soul that saw more
clearly and felt more keenly than most. The imperative demands
inevitably made upon him by every situation led him instinctively to
dread putting himself where he could not help responding to the call of
unfamiliar tasks; but once there, the summons was irresistible, and he
threw himself into the new responsibilities with a forgetfulness of self
possible only to him who has denied its claims, and with a fearlessness
possible only to him who has conquered fear. He might interpret his
confidence as trust in God, won by the path of a complete contempt of
his own powers; but however understood, it gave him an independence and
a disregard of consequences which made his conscience and his vision
effective for reform."

McGiffert suggests a comparison of Luther with, let us say, Erasmus. Had
he been a humanist, he would have laughed the whole thing [Tetzel's
selling of indulgences] to scorn as an exploded superstition beneath the
contempt of an intelligent man; had he been a scholastic theologian, he
would have sat in his study and drawn fine distinctions to justify the
traffic without bothering himself about its influence upon the lives of
the vulgar populace. But he was neither humanist nor schoolman. He had a
conscience which made indifference impossible, and a simplicity and
directness of vision which compelled him to brush aside all equivocation
and go straight to the heart of things. With it all he was at once a
devout and believing son of the Church, and a practical preacher
profoundly concerned for the spiritual and moral welfare of the common
people." (p. 66f. 87.) Had Luther considered his personal interests as
Erasmus did, he would not have become the Luther that we know. Erasmus
in his day was regarded as the wisest of men; Luther in his own view,
like Paul, frequently had to make a fool of himself in order to achieve
his purpose. For instance, when he wrote against the dullards at the
University of Louvain, against the sacrilegious coterie at Rome that was
running the Church and the world pretty much as they pleased, or against
the brutal "Hans Wurst" (Duke Henry of Brunswick). Erasmus and his
school of gentle reformers always counseled a slackening of the pace and
the use of the soft pedal. Where is Erasmus to-day in the world's
valuation? Even Rome, in whose bosom he nestled, and who fondled him for
a season, has cast him aside as worthless. Luther lives yet, to the
delight not only of Coleridge, but of millions of the world's best men,
who, with the British divine, regard him this very hour as "a purifying
and preserving spirit to Christianity at large."

Luther was conscious of the difference in the method of warfare between
himself and his colaborer Melanchthon. He says: "I am rough, boisterous,
stormy, and altogether warlike. I am born to fight against innumerable
monsters and devils. I must remove stumps and stones, cut away thistles
and thorns, and clear wild forests; but Master Philip comes along softly
and gently, sowing and watering with joy, according to the gifts which
God has abundantly bestowed upon him," (14, 176.)

Dr. Tholuck, writing on "Luther's rashness," says: "What would have
become of the Church if the Lord's servants and prophets had at all
times done nothing else than spread salves upon sores and walk softly?"
He introduces Luther in his own defense: "On one occasion, when asked by
the Marquis Joachim I why he wrote against the princes, he returned the
beautiful answer: 'When God intends to fertilize the ground, He must
needs send first of all a good thunderstorm, and afterwards slow and
gentle rain, and thus make it thoroughly productive.' Elsewhere he says:
'A willow-branch may be cut with a knife and bent with a finger, but for
a great and gnarled oak we must use an ax and a wedge'; and again: 'If
my teeth had been less sharp, the Pope would have been more voracious.'
'Of what use is salt,' he exclaims in another passage, 'if it do not
bite the tongue? or the blade of a sword unless it be sharp enough to
cut? Does not the prophet say, "Cursed be he that doeth the work of the
Lord deceitfully, and keepeth back his sword from blood"?'"

One reflection suggests itself in this connection that goes far to
exonerate Luther: the language which the Bible employs against heretics
and ungodly men. It calls them dogs, Ps. 22, 20; 59, 6; Is. 56, 10;
Matt. 7, 6; Phil. 3, 2; Rev. 22, 15; swine, Matt. 7, 6; boars and wild
beasts, Ps. 80, 13; dromedaries and asses, Jer. 2, 23f.; bullocks, Jer.
31, 18; bellowing bulls, Jer. 50, 11; viper's brood, Matt. 3, 7; foxes,
Cant. 2, 5; Luke 13, 32; serpents, Matt. 23, 33; sons of Belial, 1 Sam.
2, 12; children of the devil, Acts 13, 10; Satan's synagog, Rev. 2, 9.
As regards its language, the Bible, too, agrees with the conditions of
the times in which it was written. When God, to express His righteous
anger, addresses the ungodly in such terms of utter contempt, He teaches
us how to regard them and, on occasion, to speak of them. This "coarse"
Luther is not more vehement and repulsive in his speech than the holy
Word of God.

We remarked before that we would not apologize for Luther's rashness and
coarse speech. Luther's acts are self-vindicating; they will approve
themselves to the discriminating judgment of every reader of history. We
can appreciate this sentiment of McGiffert : "As well apologize for the
fury of the wind as for the vehemence of Martin Luther." The Psalmist
calls upon the forces of nature: "Praise the Lord, fire, and hail; snow
and vapors; stormy wind fulfilling His word." (Ps. 148, 7. 8.) God has a
mission that our philosophy does not fathom for the mad hurry and
destruction of the whirlwind. How silly it would be to criticize a
cyclone because it is not a zephyr! We can imagine a scene like this:
The battle of Gettysburg is in progress and a gentle lady is permitted
to see it from a distance by a grim, warlike guide, and the following
conversation ensues:

"Why, they are shooting at each other! Did you see that naughty man stab
the pretty soldier right through his uniform?"

"Yes, madam, that is what he is there for."

"But is it not horrid?"

"Yes, madam, it is perfectly horrid. It is hell."

"But what are they doing this beastly work for?"

"Madam, they are fighting for a principle that is to keep this country a
united republic."

"Can anything be more horrid?--I mean, not the principle, but this awful
butchery."

"Yes, madam, there is something more horrid than that."

"What is it?"

"If there would be no one to fight for that principle."

War is never a pleasant affair. When men are forced to fight for what is
dearer to them than life, they will strike hard and deep. It is silly to
expect a soldier to walk up to his enemy with a fly brush and shoo him
away, or to stop and consider what posterity would probably regard as
the least objectionable way for dispatching an enemy. Luther was called
to be a warrior; he had to use warriors' methods. Any general in a
bloody campaign can be criticized for violence with as much reason as is
shown by some critics of Luther.


5. The Popes in Luther's Time.

To judge intelligently the activity of Luther it is necessary to
understand the state of the Church in his day and the character of the
chief bishops of the Church. When reading modern censures of Luther's
attacks upon the papacy, one wonders why nothing is said about the thing
that Luther attacked. Catholic critics of Luther surely must know what
papal filth lies accumulated in the _Commentarii di Marino Sanuto,_ in
Alegretto Alegretti's _Diari Sanesi,_ in the _Relazione di Polo
Capello,_ in the _Diario de Sebastiano di Branca de Tilini,_ in the
_Successo di la Morte di Papa Alessandro,_ in Tommaso Inghirami's _Fea,
Notizie Intorno Rafaele Sanzio da Urbino,_ and others. Ranke worked with
these authorities when he wrote his _History of the Popes_. What about
the authorities which Gieseler cites in his _Ecclesiastical History_--
Muratori, Fabronius, Machiavelli, Sabellicus, Raynaldus, Eccardus,
Burchardus, etc.? A compassionate age has relegated the exact account of
the moral state of the papacy in Luther's days to learned works, and
even in these they are given mostly in Latin footnotes. In the language
of Augustus Birrell, they are "too coarse."

Luther's life (1483-1546) falls into the administration of nine Popes:
Sixtus IV, 1471-1484; Innocent VIII, 1484-1492; Alexander VI, 1492-1503;
Pius III, 26 days in 1503; Julius II, 1503-1513; Leo X, 1513-1521;
Hadrian VI, 1522-1523; Clement VII, 1523-1534; Paul III, 1534-1549.

Speaking of this series of Popes, the historian Gieseler says: "The
succession of Popes which now follows proves the degeneracy of the
cardinals (from among whom the Pope is chosen) as to all discipline and
sense of shame: they were distinguished for nothing but undisguised
meanness and wickedness; they were reprobates."

Of Sixtus IV he says: "His chief motive was the small ambition to raise
his family from their low estate to the highest rank." Infamous
transactions which resulted in the murder of Julian de Medici while at
high mass in church and the hanging of the archbishop of Pisa from a
window of the town hall by the exasperated people, wars, conspiracies,
alliances, annulments of alliances, in short, all the acts that fill up
the turbulent life of a crafty and grasping politician, are recorded for
his administration. He did not scruple to employ the authority of his
exalted office for the furtherance of his political schemes. Thus he
excommunicated Venice and formed a warlike alliance against the city.
But the Venetians regarded his religious thunderbolts as little as his
physical prowess. "Vexation at this hastened the death of the Pope, who
was hated as much as he was despised."

Ranke, on the authority of Alegretti, relates of Pope Sixtus IV: "The
Colonna family, opponents of the Pope's nephew Riario, was persecuted by
him with the most savage ferocity. He seized on their domain of Marino,
and causing the prothonotary Colonna to be attacked in his own house,
took him prisoner, and put him to death. The mother of Colonna came to
St. Celso, in Banchi, where the corpse lay, and lifting the severed head
by its hair, she exclaimed: 'Behold the head of my son. Such is the
truth of the Pope. He promised that my son should be set at liberty if
Marino were delivered into his hands. He is possessed of Marino, and,
behold, we have my son--but dead. Thus does the Pope keep his word.'"

His successor, Innocent VIII, "in defiance of the conditions of his
election, sought with a still more profligate vileness to exalt and
enrich his seven illegitimate children." He had been elected on the
condition that he would make only one blood relative a cardinal, and
that certain other benefices of the Church should not be given to any
one related to him. The people called him Nocens (the Guilty One, or the
Harmful One) instead of Innocent, and immortalized the prolific
paternity of this saintly celibate in the following epigram:

     Octo Nocens genuit pueros totidemque puellas,
     Hunc merito poterit dicere Roma patrem,

that is,

     Nocens begat eight boys and an equal number of maidens;
     Rightly, then, Rome will be able to call this gentleman father.

"He carried on two wars with Ferdinand, king of Naples, until the year
1492, and brought forward Renatus, duke of Lorraine, as pretender to his
crown. True, he proceeded, as his predecessors had done, to encourage
princes and people to undertake expeditions against the Turks; but when
Dschem, the brother and rival of the Turkish Sultan Bajazet, was
delivered over to him at the head of an army against the Turks, he chose
rather to detain him in prison on consideration of an annual tribute
from the Turkish Sultan." The story how the Pope got possession of the
Turkish prince and refused 200,000 ducats ransom for him because he had
received an offer of 600,000 from another party, reads like a story of
professional brigandage.

Alexander VI, "the most depraved of all the Popes, likewise recognized
no loftier aim than to heap honors and possessions upon his five
illegitimate children, and among them especially his favorite, Caesar
Borgia." The nuptials celebrated for the Pope's daughter Lucretia--who,
by the way, was a _divorcee_--were "by no means peculiarly decorous."
The Latin chronicler who has related them reports in this connection
that the moral state of the clergy at Rome was indescribably low. The
example of the Popes had set the pace for the rest. From the highest to
the lowest each priest had his concubine as a substitute for married
life (_"concubinas in figura matrimonii"_), and that, quite openly. The
good chronicler remarks: "If God does not provide a restraint, this
corruption will pass on to the monks and the religious orders; however,
the monasteries of the city are nearly all become brothels already, and
no one raises his voice against it." Wading through the mephitic
rottenness of these ancient chronicles, one is seized with nausea.

Holy things, religious privileges, had become merchandise with which the
Popes trafficked. The chronicler Burchardus relates: "In those days the
following couplet was sung in nearly the whole Christian world:

     "Vendit Alexander claves, Altaria, Christum,
     Emerat ista prius, vendere juste potest."

The meaning of this satire is: Alexander sells the power of the keys of
heaven, the right to officiate at the altar, yea, Christ Himself; he had
first bought these things himself, therefore he has a right to sell them
again. Unblushing perfidy was practised by this Pope in his dealings
with kings who were his religious subjects. In a quarrel with Charles
VIII of France he threatened the king with excommunication, and sought
aid from the Turkish Sultan. "However, when Charles appeared in Rome,
the Pope went over to his side immediately, and delivered up to him
Prince Dschem; but he took care to have him poisoned immediately, that
he might not lose the price set upon his head by the Sultan." Thus he
conciliated the French monarch and filled his purse by one and the same
act. "By traffic in benefices, sale of indulgences, exercise of the
right of spoils, and taxes for the Turkish war, as well as by the murder
of rich or troublesome persons, Alexander was seeking to scrape together
as much money as possible to support the wanton luxury and shameful
licentiousness of his court, and provide treasures for his children." In
their correspondence men who had dealings with him would refer to him in
such terms as these: "That monstrous head--that infamous beast!" ("_Hoc
monstruoso capite--hac infami belua!"_)

"At length the poison which the Pope had meant for a rich cardinal, in
order to make himself master of his wealth, brought upon himself
well-deserved death." The Pope's butler had been bribed and exchanged
the poison-cup intended for the Pope's victim for the Pope's cup, and
the Pope took his own medicine.

On the basis of Alegretti's notes, Ranke has drawn a fine pen-picture of
the reign of terror which Caesar Borgia, the favorite son of Alexander
VI, inaugurated at Rome. "With no relative or favorite would Caesar
Borgia endure the participation of his power. His own brother stood in
his way: Caesar caused him to be murdered and thrown into the Tiber. His
brother-in-law was assailed and stabbed, by his orders, on the steps of
his palace. The wounded man was nursed by his wife and sister, the
latter preparing his food with her own hands, to secure him from poison;
the Pope set a guard upon the house to protect his son-in-law from his
son. Caesar laughed these precautions to scorn. 'What cannot be done at
noonday,' said he, 'may be brought about in the evening.' When the
prince was on the point of recovery, he burst into his chamber, drove
out the wife and sister, called in the common executioner, and caused
his unfortunate brother-in-law to be strangled. Toward his father, whose
life and station he valued only as a means to his own aggrandizement, he
displayed not the slightest respect or feeling. He slew Peroto,
Alexander's favorite, while the unhappy man clung to his patron for
protection, and was wrapped within the pontifical mantle. The blood of
the favorite flowed over the face of the Pope.--For a certain time the
city of the apostles and the whole state of the Church were in the hands
of Caesar Borgia. . . . How did Rome tremble at his name! Caesar
required gold, and possessed enemies. Every night were the corpses of
murdered men found in the streets, yet none dared move; for who but
might fear that his turn would be next? Those whom violence could not
reach were taken off by poison. There was but one place on earth where
such deeds were possible--that, namely, where unlimited temporal power
was united to the highest spiritual authority, where the laws, civil and
ecclesiastical, were held in one and the same hand."

Pope Julius, who came into power after the twenty-six days' reign of
Pius III, was a warlike man. "He engaged in the boldest operations,
risking all to obtain all. He took the field in person, and having
stormed Mirandola, he pressed into the city across the frozen ditches
and through the breach; the most disastrous reverses could not shake his
purpose, but rather seemed to waken new resources in him." "He wrested
Perugia and Bologna from their lords. As the powerful state of Venice
refused to surrender her conquests, he resolved at length, albeit
unwillingly, to avail himself of foreign aid; he joined the League of
Cambrai, concluded between France and the Emperor, and assisted with
spiritual and temporal weapons to subdue the republic. Venice, now hard
pressed, yielded to the Pope, in order to divide this overwhelming
alliance. Julius, already alarmed at the progress of the French in
Italy, readily granted his forgiveness, and now commenced hostilities
against the French and their ally, Alphonso, Duke of Ferrara. He
declared that the king of France had forfeited his claim on Naples, and
invested Ferdinand the Catholic with the solo dominion of his realm. He
issued a sentence of condemnation against the Duke of Ferrara. Lewis XII
strove in vain to alarm him by the National Council of Tours,--Germany,
by severe gravamina (complaints of national grievances against the Papal
See), and by the threat of the Pragmatic Sanction (an imperial order to
confirm the decrees of such reform councils as that of Basel). Not even
a General Council, summoned at Pisa by the two monarchs for the first of
September, 1511, with the dread phantom of a reform of the Church, could
bend the violent Pope." The Council of Pisa the Pope neutralized by
convening a Lateran Council, which at the Pope's bidding hurled its
thundering manifestos in the name of the Almighty against the Pope's
enemies. He died while this conflict was raging. Luther was in Rome
while the Pope was engaged as just related.

What elements of appalling greed and levity had entered the holiest
transactions of the Church can be seen from the following summing up of
the situation daring Luther's time: "A large amount of worldly power was
at this time conferred in most instances, together with the bishoprics;
they were held more or less as sinecures according to the degree of
influence or court favor possessed by the recipient or his family. The
Roman Curia thought only of how it might best derive advantage from the
vacancies and presentations; Alexander extorted double annates or
first-fruits, and levied double, nay, triple tithes; there remained few
things that had not become matter of purchase. The taxes of the papal
chancery rose higher from day to day, and the comptroller, whose duty it
was to prevent all abuses in that department, most commonly referred the
revision of the imposts to those very men who had fixed their amounts.
For every indulgence obtained from the datary's office, a stipulated sum
was paid; nearly all the disputes occurring at this period between the
states of Europe and the Roman Court arose out of these exactions, which
the Curia sought by every possible means to increase, while the people
of all countries as zealously strove to restrain them.

"Principles such as these necessarily acted on all ranks affected by the
system based on them, from the highest to the lowest. Many ecclesiastics
were found ready to renounce their bishoprics; but they retained the
greater part of the revenues, and not unfrequently the presentation of
the benefices dependent on them also. Even the laws forbidding the son
of a clergyman (!) to procure induction to the living of his father, and
enacting that no ecclesiastic should dispose of his office by will (!),
were continually evaded; for as all could obtain permission to appoint
whomsoever he might choose as his coadjutor, provided he were liberal of
his money, so the benefices of the Church became in a manner hereditary.

"It followed of necessity that the performance of ecclesiastical duties
was grievously neglected. . . . In all places incompetent persons were
intrusted with the performance of clerical duties; they were appointed
without scrutiny or selection. The incumbents of benefices were
principally interested in finding substitutes at the lowest possible
cost; thus the mendicant friars were frequently chosen as particularly
suitable in this respect. These men occupied the bishoprics under the
title (previously unheard of in that sense) of suffragans; the cures
they held in the capacity of vicars." (!)

In order not to extend this review too long, we shall refer only to one
other Pope, Leo X. It was in the main a prosperous reign that was
inaugurated by Leo X. A treaty was concluded with France, which had
invaded Italy. By a diplomatic maneuver the Pragmatic Sanction was
annulled, and the Lateran Council was ordered to pronounce its
death-warrant. France was humbled. "All resistance was vain against the
alliance of the highest spiritual with the highest temporal power. Now,
at last, the papacy seemed once more to have quelled the hostile spirit
which had grown up at Constance and Basel (two church councils which
tried to reform the papacy, but failed), and found its stronghold in
France, and at this very time it was near its most grievous fall." Two
years later Luther, not fathoming as yet the depths of iniquity which he
was beginning to lay bare, published his Ninety-Five Theses.

Leo X is the Pope that excommunicated Luther. Ranke describes the
closing hours of his life. The Pope had been extremely successful in his
political schemes. "Parma and Placentia were recovered, the French were
compelled to withdraw, and the Pope might safely calculate on exercising
great influence over the new sovereign of Milan. It was a crisis of
infinite moment: a new state of things had arisen in politics--a great
movement had commenced in the Church. The aspect of affairs permitted
Leo to flatter himself that he should retain the power of directing the
first, and he had succeeded in repressing the second." (This refers to
Luther's protest; the Pope was, of course, mistaken in the view that he
had put a stop to Luther's movement by excommunicating him.) "He was
still young enough to indulge the anticipation of fully profiting by the
results of this auspicious moment. Strange and delusive destiny of man!
The Pope was at his villa of Malliana when he received intelligence that
his party had triumphantly entered Milan; he abandoned himself to the
exultation arising naturally from the successful completion of an
important enterprise, and looked cheerfully on at the festivities his
people were preparing on the occasion. He paced backward and forward
till deep in the night, between the window and the blazing hearth--it
was the month of November. Somewhat exhausted, but still in high
spirits, he arrived at Rome, and the rejoicings there celebrated for his
triumph were not yet concluded, when he was attacked by a mortal
disease. 'Pray for me,' said he to his servants, 'that I may yet make
you all happy.' We see that he loved life, but his hour was come, he had
not time to receive the sacrament nor extreme unction. So suddenly, so
prematurely, and surrounded by hopes so bright! he died-'as the poppy
fadeth.'" In the record of Sanuto, who is witness for these events,
there is a "Lettera di Hieronymo Bon a suo barba, a di 5 Dec." which
contains the following: "It is not certainly known whether the Pope died
of poison or not. He was opened. Master Fernando judged that he was
poisoned, others thought not. Of this last opinion is Master Severino,
who saw him opened, and says he was not poisoned." (Ranke, I, 34 ff.;
Gieseler, III, 290 ff., at random.)

Out of such conditions grew Luther's work. But on these conditions
Catholic critics of Luther maintain a discreet--shall we not say, a
guilty?--silence. Few Catholic laymen to whom the horrors of Luther's
life are painted with repulsive effect know the horrors which Luther
faced. They are only told that Luther attacked "Holy Mother." They are
not told that "Holy Mother" had become the harlot of the ages.


6. Luther's Birth and Parentage.

Catholic writers make thorough work in explaining the reasons for
Luther's "defection" from Rome. They apply to Luther's stubborn
resistance the law of heredity: Luther's wildness was congenital. Some
have declared him the illegitimate child of a Bohemian heretic, others,
the oaf of a witch, still others, a changeling of Beelzebub, etc.

Many of these writers, giving themselves the airs of painstaking
investigators who have made careful research, repeat the tale of
Barbour, viz., that Luther was born in the day-and-night room of an inn
at Eisleben. If this is so, Luther's mother must have been a traveler on
the day of her first confinement. If this were so, the fact could, of
course, be easily explained without dishonor to Luther's mother: she
merely miscalculated the date of the birth of her first-born,--not an
unusual occurrence. Carlyle believed this story, but gave it an almost
too honorable turn, by likening the inn at Eisenach to the inn at
Bethlehem.

But this story of Luther's birth in a bar-room is not history; it
belongs in the realm of mythology. Nobody knows  to-day the house where
Luther was born. Preserved Smith, his latest American biographer, says
there is a house shown at Eisleben as Luther's birthplace, but it is
"not well authenticated." (p. 2.) There is a bar and a restaurant in
this particular building _now,_ for the accommodation of foreign
visitors. It is possible that in this mythical birthplace of Luther you
can get a stein of foaming "monk's brew" or a "benedictine" from the
monastery at Fecamp, or a "chartreuse" from Tarragona, distilled
according to the secret formula of the holy fathers of La Grande
Chartreuse. If you sip a sufficient quantity of these persuasive
liquors, you will find it possible to believe most anything. And the
blessing of the holy fathers who have prepared the beverages for your
repast will be given you gratis in addition to their liquors.

The journey of Luther's mother to Eisleben which compelled her to put up
at an inn is, likewise, imaginary. Melanchthon, Luther's associate
during the greater part of the Reformer's life, investigated the matter
and states that Luther was born at his parents' home in Eisenach during
their temporary sojourn in that city, prior to their removal to Mansfeld.

These stories about the place and manner of Luther's birth originated in
the seventeenth century. They were unknown in Luther's time. Generations
after a great man has died gossip becomes busy and begins to relate
remarkable incidents of his life. Lincoln did not say or do one half of
the interesting things related about him. He has been drawn into that
magical circle where myths are formed, because his great name will
arouse interest in the wildest tale. That is what has happened to
Luther. These "myths" are an unconscious tribute to his greatness. One
might let them pass as such and smile at them.

But the Catholic version of Luther's birth is needed by their writers as
a corollary to another "fact" which they have discovered about Luther's
father Hans. Hans Luther, so their story runs, was a fugitive from
justice at the time of his Martin's birth. In a fit of anger he had
assaulted or slain a man in his native village of Moehra, and abandoning
his small landholdings, he fled with his wife, who was in an advanced
stage of pregnancy. Color is lent to this story by the discovery that
the Luthers at Moehra were generally violent folk. Research in the
official court-dockets at Salzungen, the seat of the judicial district
to which Moehra belonged, shows that brawls were frequent in that
village, and some Luthers were involved in them. Now follows the
Catholic deduction, plausible, reasonable, appealing, just like the
"assumption" of Mary: "Out of the gnarly wood of this relationship,
consisting mostly of powerful, pugnacious farmers, assertive of their
rights, Luther's father grew."

This story was started in Luther's lifetime. George Wicel, who had
fallen away from the evangelical faith, accused Luther of having a
homicide for a father. In 1565, he published the story under a false
name at Paris, but gave no details. In Moehra nothing was known of the
matter until the first quarter of the twentieth century. This
circumstance alone is damaging to the whole story. Luther was during his
lifetime exposed to scrutiny of his most private affairs as no other
man. If Wicel's tale could have been authenticated, we may rest assured
that would have been done at the time.

In the eighteenth century a mining official in Thuringia by the name of
Michaelis told the story of Hans Luther's homicide with the necessary
detail to make it appear real. Observe, this was 220 years after the
alleged event. It had been this way: Hans Luther had quarreled with a
person who was plowing his field, and had accidentally slain the man
with the bridle, or halter, of his horse. Several Protestant writers now
began to express belief in the story. Travelers came to Moehra for the
express purpose of investigating the matter, _e.g.,_ Mr. Mayhew of the
_London Punch_. Behold, the story had assumed definite shape through
being kept alive a hundred years: the accommodating citizens of Moehra
were now able to point out to the inquiring Englishman the very meadow
where the homicide had taken place. It takes an Englishman on the
average two years and four months to see the point of a joke. By this
time, we doubt not, it will be possible to exhibit to any confiding
dunce the very horse-bridle with which Hans Luther committed
manslaughter, also the actual hole which he knocked into the head of his
victim, beautifully surrounded by a border of blue and green, which are
the colors which the bruise assumed six hours after the infliction. The
border may not be genuine, but we dare any Catholic investigator to
disprove the genuineness of the hole.

Writers belonging to a church that is rich in legends of the saints and
in relics ought to know how a tale like Wicel's can assume
respectability and credibility in the course of time. It is not any more
difficult to account for these tales about Hans Luther's homicide than
for the existence in our late day of the rope with which Judas hanged
himself, or the tears which Peter wept in the night of the betrayal, or
the splinters from the cross of the Lord, or the feathers from the wings
of the angel Gabriel, and sundry other marvels which are exhibited in
Catholic churches for the veneration of the faithful.

No historian that has a reputation as a scholar to lose to-day credits
the story of Hans Luther's homicide. It is improbable on its face. The
small landholdings of Hans at Moehra are not real, but irreal estate.
Nobody has found the title for them. There is, however, a very good
reason why Hans should want to leave Moehra. He was, according to all
that is known of his father's family, the oldest son. According to the
old Thuringian law the home place and appurtenances of a peasant
freeholder passed to the youngest son. McGiffert regards the custom as
"admirably careful of those most needing care." (p. 4.) Luther's father,
on coming of age, was by this law compelled to go and seek his fortune
elsewhere, because opportunity for rising to independence there was none
for him at Moehra.

If Hans was a fugitive from justice, he was certainly unwise in not
fleeing far enough. For at Eisenach, whither he went, he was still under
the same Saxon jurisdiction as at Moehra. He seems to have had no fear
of abiding under the sovereignty which he is claimed to have offended.
This observation has led one of the most exact and painstaking of modern
biographers of Luther, Koestlin, to say that the homicide story, if it
rests on any basis of fact, must either refer to a different Luther, or
if to Hans, the incident cannot have been a homicide. It should be
remembered that there is no authentic record which in any way
incriminates Hans Luther.

Lastly, this homicide Hans Luther, eight years after coming to Mansfeld,
is elected by his fellow-townsmen one of the "Vierherren," or aldermen,
of the town. Only most trusted and well-reputed persons were given such
an office. A homicide would not have been allowed to settle at Mansfeld,
much less to govern the town. Any rogue in the town that he had to
discipline in his time of office would have thrown his bloody record up
to him.

A Catholic writer says: "The wild passion of anger was an unextinguished
and unmodified heritage transmitted congenitally to the whole Luther
family, and this to such an extent that the Lutherzorn (Luther rage) has
attained the currency of a German colloquialism." Mr. Mayhew thinks that
"Martin was a veritable chip of the hard old block," the "high-mettled
foal cast by a fiery blood-horse." Catholic writers cite Mr. Mayhew as a
distinguished Protestant. If you have not heard of him before, look him
up in _Who is Who?_ most anywhere.

All this, however, is a desperate attempt to find proof against an
assumed criminal by circumstantial evidence. No direct evidence has ever
been available to implicate Luther's father in a village brawl. As to
the Lutherzorn, Luther has in scores of places explained the real reason
of it: Luther did not inherit, but Rome roused it. This Lutherzorn may
arise in any person that is not remotely related to the Luthers after
reading Catholic biographies of Martin Luther.


7. Luther's Great Mistake.

Catholic writers contend that Luther made a mistake when he became monk.
Protestants share this view, but put the emphasis in the sentence:
Luther became a monk, at a different place. In the Protestant view the
mistake is this, that Luther became a _monk,_ in the Catholic view, it
is this, that _Luther_ became a monk. Protestants regard monasticism
largely as a perversion of the laws of nature and of Christian morals.
In an institution of this kind Luther could not find the relief he
sought. His mistake was that he sought it there. Catholics view monkery
as the highest ideal of the Christian life, and blame Luther for
entering this mode of life when he was altogether unfit for it. They
regard Luther as guilty of sacrilege far seeking admission into the
order of Augustinian friars. When he was permitted to turn monk, that
which is holy was given unto a dog, and pearls were cast before a swine.

Catholics argue that Luther's cheerless boyhood, the poverty of his
parents, the hard work and close economy that was the order in the home
at Mansfeld, the harsh and cruel treatment which Luther received from
parents that were given to "fits of uncontrollable rage" induced in
Luther a morose, sullen spirit. He became brooding and stubborn when yet
a child. He was a most unruly boy at school. His character was not
improved when he was sent abroad for his education and had to sing for
his bread or beg in the streets. His rebellious spirit found nourishment
in these humiliations. Owing to his melancholy temperament and gloomy
fits, he made no friends. He felt himself misunderstood everywhere. Even
the little season of sunshine that came into his young life at the Cotta
home in Eisenach did not cure him of the morbid feeling that nobody
appreciated him. He began to loathe the studies which he was pursuing in
accordance with the wish of his father. To certain occurrences, like the
slaying of a fellow-student, an accident with which he met on a vacation
trip, and a sudden thunderstorm, he gave an ominous interpretation which
deepened his despondency. At last he determined, "inconsiderately and
precipitately," to enter a cloister. His friends "instinctively felt he
was not qualified or fitted for the sublime vocation to which he
aspired, and they accordingly used all their powers to dissuade him from
the course he had chosen. All their efforts were fruitless, and from the
gayety and frolic of the banquet" which he had given his fellow-students
as a farewell party "he went to the monastery." He was so reckless that
he took this step even without the consent of his parents. "He knew
little about the ways of God, and was not well informed of the gravity
and responsibilities of the step he was taking." "He was not called by
God to conventual life; . . . he was driven by despair, rather than the
love of higher perfection, into a religious career." Catholics feel so
sure that they have a case against Luther that in all seriousness they
ask Protestants the question: Did he act honestly when he knelt before
the prior asking to be received into the order?

Luther has later in life given various reasons for entering the
monastery. His case was not simple, but complex. One reason, however,
which he has assigned is the severe bringing up which he had at his
home. Hausrath is satisfied with this one reason, and many Catholic
writers adopt his view. But this remark of Luther is evidently
misapplied if it is made to mean that Luther sought ease, comfort,
leniency in the cloister as a relief from the hard life which he had
been leading. Luther had grasped the fundamental idea in monkery quite
well: flight from the secular life as a means to become exceptionally
holy. He sought quiet for meditation and devotion, but no physical ease
and earthly comforts. He knew of the rigors of cloister-life. He
willingly bowed to "the gentle yoke of Christ"--thus ran the monkish
ritual--which the life of an eremite among eremites was to impose on
him. His hard life in the days of his boyhood and youth had been an
unconscious preparation for this life. He had been strictly trained to
fear God and keep His commandments. The holy life of the saints had been
held up to him as far back as he could remember as the marvel of
Christian perfection. Home and Church had cooperated in deepening the
impressions of the sanctity of the monkish life in him. When he saw the
emaciated Duke of Anhalt in monk's garb with his beggar's wallet on his
back tottering through the streets of Magdeburg, and everybody held his
breath at this magnificent spectacle of advanced Christianity, and then
broke forth in profuse eulogies of the princely pilgrim to the glories
of monkish sainthood, that left an indelible impression on the
fifteen-year-old boy. When he observed the Carthusians at Eisenach,
weary and wan with many a vigil, somber and taciturn, toiling up the
rugged steps to a heaven beyond the common heaven; when he talked with
the young priests at the towns where he studied, and all praised the
life of a monk to this young seeker after perfect righteousness; when in
cloister-ridden Erfurt he observed that the monks were outwardly, at
least, treated with peculiar reverence, can any one wonder that in a
mind longing for peace with God the resolve silently ripened into the
act: I will be a monk?

We, too, would call this an act of despair. We would say with Luther:
Despair makes monks. But the despair which we mean, and which Luther
meant, is genuine spiritual despair. What Catholics call Luther's
despair is really desperation, a reckless, dare-devil plunging of a
criminal into a splendid Catholic sanctuary. That Luther's act decidedly
was not. By Rome's own teaching Luther belonged in the cloister. That
mode of life was originally designed to meet the needs of just such
minds as his. His entering the monastery was the logical sequence of his
previous Catholic tutelage. Rome has this monk on its conscience, and a
good many more besides.

As piety went in those days, Luther had been raised a pious young man.
He was morally clean. He was a consistent, yea, a scrupulous member of
his Church, regular in his daily devotions, reverencing every ordinance
of the Church. Also during his student years he kept himself unspotted
from the moral contaminations of the academic life. He abhorred the
students who were devoted to King Gambrinus and Knight Tannhaeuser. He
loathed the taverns and brothels of Erfurt. The Cotta home was no
_Bierstube_ in his day. The banquet-hall where he met his friends the
evening before he entered the cloister was no banquet-hall in the modern
sense of the term. That he played the lute at this farewell party, and
that there were some "honorable maidens" present, is nowadays related
with a wink of the eye by Catholics. But there was nothing wrong in all
the proceedings of that evening. It was indeed an honorable gathering.
Luther was never a prudish man or fanatic. He loved the decent joys and
pleasures of life. Luther gathered his friends about him to take a
decent leave of them. He did not run away from them secretly, as many
monks have done. He opened up his mind to them at this last meeting. The
conversation that ensued was a test of the strength of the convictions
he had formed. His was an introspective nature. He had wrestled daily
with the sin that ever besets us. He knew that with all his conventional
religiousness he could not pass muster before God. Over his wash-basin
he was overheard moaning: "The more we wash, the more unclean we
become." He felt like Paul when he groaned: "O wretched man that I am,
who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" (Rom. 7, 24.) He was
sorrowing for his poor soul. He was hungering and thirsting for
righteousness. "When will I ever attain to that state of mind that I am
sure God is pleased with me?" he mused distractedly. What he could not
find while engaged in his secular pursuits, that, he was told, the
cloister could give him. To obtain that he entered the monastery. If
ever Rome had an honest applicant for monkery, Luther is that man.

Nor did he act precipitately. As shown, the thought of this act had been
quietly forming in him for years. When he made his rash vow to St. Anna,
he still allowed two weeks to pass before he put his resolution into
action. Try and picture to yourself his state of mind during those
fourteen days! Moving about in his customary surroundings, he was daily
probing the correctness of his contemplated change of life. He fought a
soul-battle in those days, and the remembrance of his father made that
battle none the easier. From the Catholic standpoint Luther deserves an
aureole for that struggle. After entering the cloister, he was still at
liberty for a year and a half to retrace his fatal step. But his first
impressions were favorable; monkery really seemed to bring him heart's
ease and peace, and there was no one to disabuse his mind of the
delusion. After nearly two years in the monastery, while sitting with
his father at the cloister board on the event of his ordination to the
priesthood, he declares to his father that he enjoys the quiet,
contemplative life that he has chosen. Surely, he made a mistake by
becoming monk, but Catholics cannot fault him for that mistake. If the
life of monks and nuns is really what they claim that it is: the highest
and most perfect form of Christianity, they should consistently give any
person credit for making the effort to lead that life. In fact, they
ought all to turn monks and nuns to honor their own principles.


8. Luther's Failure as a Monk.

Monasticism is a pagan shoot grafted on a Christian tree. At its base
lies the heathenish notion that sin can be extirpated by severe
onslaughts upon the body and the physical life. It has existed in
Buddhism before some Christians adopted it. In the early days of
Christianity it was proclaimed as superior wisdom by the Platonic
philosophers. Like many a lie it has been decked out with Bible-texts to
give it respectability, and to soothe disquieted consciences. The
Scripture-sayings regarding fasting, sexual continence, chastity,
crucifying the flesh, etc., are made to stand sponsor for this bastard
offspring of the brain of Christian mystics.

With excellent discrimination Mosheim has traced the origin of
monasticism to the early Christian fathers. The earliest impulses to
monasticism are contained in such writings as the Epistle to Zenas,
found among the writings of Justinus, the tracts of Clement of
Alexandria on Calumny, Patience, Continence, and other virtues, the
tracts of Tertullian on practical duties, such as Chastity, Flight from
Persecution, Fasting, Theatrical Exhibitions, the Dress of Females,
Prayer, etc. These writings "would be perused with greater profit, were
it not for the gloomy and morose spirit which they everywhere breathe. .
. . In what estimation they ought to be held, the learned are not
agreed. Some hold them to be the very best guides to true piety and a
holy life; others, on the contrary, think their precepts were the worst
possible, and that the cause of practical religion could not be
committed to worse hands. . . . To us it appears that their writings
contain many things excellent, well considered, and well calculated to
kindle pious emotions; but also many things unduly rigorous, and derived
from the Stoic and Academic philosophy; many things vague and
indeterminate; and many things positively false, and inconsistent with
the precepts of Christ. If one deserves the title of a bad master in
morals who has no just ideas of the proper boundaries and limitations of
Christian duties, nor clear and distinct conceptions of the different
virtues and vices, nor a perception of those general principles to which
recurrence should be had in all discussions respecting Christian virtue,
and therefore very often talks at random, and blunders in expounding the
divine laws; though he may say many excellent things, and excite in us
considerable emotion; then I can readily admit that in strict truth this
title belongs to many of the Fathers. . . . They admitted, with good
intentions no doubt, yet most inconsiderately, a great error in regard
to morals, and pernicious to Christianity; an error which, through all
succeeding ages to our times, has produced an infinity of mistakes and
evils of various kinds. Jesus, our Savior, prescribed one and the same
rule of life or duty to all His disciples. But the Christian doctors,
either by too great a desire of imitating the nations among whom they
lived, or from a natural propensity to austerity and gloom, (a disease
that many labor under in Syria, Egypt, and other provinces of the East,)
were induced to maintain that Christ had prescribed a twofold rule of
holiness and virtue; the one ordinary, the other extraordinary; the one
lower, the other higher; the one for men of business, the other for
persons of leisure, and such as desired higher glory in the future
world. They therefore early divided all that had been taught them either
in books or by tradition, respecting a Christian life and morals, into
Precepts and Counsels. They gave the name Precepts to those laws which
were universally obligatory, or were enacted for all men of all
descriptions; but the Counsels pertained solely to those who aspire
after superior holiness and a closer union with God. There soon arose,
therefore, a class of persons who professed to strive after that
extraordinary and more eminent holiness, and who, of course, resolved to
obey the Counsels of Christ, that they might have intimate communion
with God in this life, and might, on leaving the body, rise without
impediment or difficulty to the celestial world. They supposed many
things were forbidden to them which were allowed to other Christians,
such as wine, flesh, matrimony, and worldly business. They thought they
must emaciate their bodies with watching, fasting, toil, and hunger.
They considered it a blessed thing to retire to desert places, and by
severe meditation to abstract their minds from all external objects, and
whatever delights the senses. Both men and women imposed these severe
restraints on themselves, with good intentions, I suppose, but setting a
bad example, and greatly to the injury of the cause of Christianity.
They were, of course, denominated Ascetics, Zealous Ones, Elect, and
also Philosophers; and they were distinguished from other Christians,
not only by a different appellation, but by peculiarities of dress and
demeanor. Those who embraced this austere mode of life lived indeed only
for themselves, but they did not withdraw themselves altogether from the
society and converse of men. But in process of time, persons of this
description at first retired into deserts, and afterwards formed
themselves into associations, after the manner of the Essenes and
Therapeutae.

"The causes of this institution are at hand. First, the Christians did
not like to appear inferior to the Greeks, the Romans, and the other
people among whom there were many philosophers and sages, who were
distinguished from the vulgar by their dress and their whole mode of
life, and who were held in high honor. Now among these philosophers (as
is well known) none better pleased the Christians than the Platonists
and Pythagoreans, who are known to have recommended two modes of living,
the one for philosophers who wished to excel others in virtue, and the
other for people engaged in the common affairs of life. The Platonists
prescribed the following rule for philosophers: The mind of a wise man
must be withdrawn, as far as possible, from the contagious influence of
the body. And as the oppressive load of the body and social intercourse
are most adverse to this design, therefore all sensual gratifications
are to be avoided; the body is to be sustained, or rather mortified,
with coarse and slender fare; solitude is to be sought for; and the mind
is to be self-collected and absorbed in contemplation, so as to be
detached as much as possible from the body. Whoever lives in this manner
shall in the present life have converse with God, and, when freed from
the load of the body, shall ascend without delay to the celestial
mansions, and shall not need, like the souls of other men, to undergo a
purgation. The grounds of this system lay in the peculiar sentiments
entertained by this sect of philosophers and by their friends,
respecting the soul, demons, matter, and the universe. And as these
sentiments were embraced by the Christian philosophers, the necessary
consequences of them were, of course, to be adopted also.

"What is here stated will excite less surprise if it be remembered that
Egypt was the land where this mode of life had its origin. For that
country, from some law of nature, has always produced a greater number
of gloomy and hypochondriac or melancholy persons than any other; and it
still does so. Here it was long before the Savior's birth, not only the
Essenes and Therapeutae--those Jewish sects, composed of persons with a
morbid melancholy, or rather partially deranged--had their chief
residence; but many others also, that they might better please the gods,
withdrew themselves as by the instinct of nature from commerce with men
and with all pleasures of life. From Egypt this mode of life passed into
Syria and the neighboring countries, which in like manner always
abounded with unsociable and austere individuals: and from the East it
was at last introduced among the nations of Europe. Hence the numerous
maladies which still deform the Christian world; hence the celibacy of
the clergy; hence the numerous herds of monks; hence the two species of
life, the theoretical and mystical." (_Eccles. Hist.,_ I, 128 f.)

One may well feel pity for the original monks. Their zeal was heroic,
but it was spent upon an issue that is in its very root and core a
haughty presumption and a lie. Exhaust all the Scripture-texts which
speak of indwelling sin, of the lust that rages in our members, of the
duty to keep the body under by fasting and vigilance, and there will not
be found enough Bible to cover the nakedness of the monastic principle.
Its fundamental thought of a select type of piety to be attained by
spectacular efforts at self-mortification flies in the face of the
doctrine that we are rid of sin and sanctified by divine grace alone.
Monkish holiness is a slander of the Redeemer's all-sufficient sacrifice
for sin and of the work of the Holy Spirit. It started in paganism, and
wants to drag Christianity back into paganism.

But monasticism in Luther's day was no longer of the sort which one may
view with a pathetic interest. The old monastic ideals had been largely
abandoned. Instead of crucifying the flesh, the monks were nursing and
fondling carnal-mindedness. The cloisters had become cesspools of
corruption. Because the reputation of monks was utterly bad, and monks
were publicly scorned and derided, Luther's friends tried to dissuade
him from entering the cloister. That was the reason, too, why Luther's
father was so deeply shocked when he heard of what his Martin had done,
and Luther had to assure his father that he had not gone into the herd
of monks to seek what people believed men sought in that profligate
company. For that reason, too, he had chosen the Augustinian order,
because a strong reform movement had been started in that order, and its
reputation was better than that of the other orders. Luther meant to be
a monk of the original type.

Since the days of Alexander of Hales, Albert the Great, and Thomas
Aquinas the Roman Church teaches that there is in the Church a treasury
of supererogatory works, that is, of good works which Christ and the
saints have performed in excess of what is ordinarily demanded of every
man in the way of upright living. We shall meet with this idea again in
another connection. It flows from the monastic principles. Monks must
have not only enough sanctity for their own needs, but to spare. Of this
superfluous sanctity they may make an assignment in favor of others. Do
not smile incredulously; monks actually make such assignments. Luther
may not have thought of this when he entered the cloister, but he
rejoiced in this scheme of substitutive sanctity later. He thought he
had found in monkery a gold-mine of holiness that would be sufficient
not only for himself, but also for his parents. While at Rome some years
later, he was in a way sorry that his father and mother were not already
in purgatory. He had such a fine chance there to accumulate
supererogatory good works which he might have transferred to them to
shorten their agonies, or release them entirely.

In order to make a successful monk, one must be either a Pharisee or an
epicurean. The Pharisee takes an inventory of the works named in the Law
of God, and sets out to perform these in an external, mechanical manner.
He adds a few works of his own invention for good measure. Every work
performed counts; it constitutes merit. On the basis of his two pecks
and a half of merit the Pharisee now begins to drive a bargain with God:
for so much merit he claims so much distinction and glory. He figures it
all out to God, so that God shall not make a mistake at the time of the
settlement: I have not been this, nor that, nor the other thing; I have
done this, and that, and some more. Consequently . . . ! The epicurean
is a jolly fatalist. Whatever is to happen will happen. Why worry? Go
along at an even pace; eat, drink, be merry, but for Heaven's sake do
not take a serious or tragical view of anything! Take things as they
are; if you can improve them, well and good; if not, let it pass; forget
it; eat a good meal and go to sleep.

Luther was never an epicurean. The seriousness of life had confronted
him at a very early date. The sense of duty was highly developed in him
from early youth. In all that he did he felt himself as a being that is
responsible to his Maker and Judge. Easy-going indifference and ready
self-pity were not in his character. For this Luther is now faulted by
Catholics. It is said he extended the rigors of monasticism beyond the
bounds of reasonableness. He was too severe with himself. He outraged
human nature. Quite correct; but is not monasticism by itself an
outrage upon human nature? Luther had endured the monastery for the very
purpose of enduring hardness. He did not flinch when the battle into
which he had gone commenced in earnest. Luther is said to have been
tardy and neglectful in the observance of the rules of the order.
Sometimes he would omit the canonical hours, that is, the stated
prayers, or some form of prescribed devotion, and then he would endeavor
to make up for the loss by redoubled effort, which overtaxed his
physical strength. Quite true. It is not such a rare occurrence that a
monk forgets the one or the other of the minutiae of the daily monkish
routine. The regulations of his orders extended to such things as the
posture which he must assume while standing, while sitting, while
kneeling; the movement of his arms, of his hands; how to approach, how
to move in front of the altar, how to leave it, etc. When his mind was
engrossed with the study of the Bible or some commentary of a Church
Father, it was easy for Luther to forget parts of the program which he
was to carry out. Whenever this happened, was it not his duty to
endeavor to repair the damage? Were not penances imposed on him in the
confessional for every default? Luther is said to have been led into
still deeper gloom by his study of the doctrine of predestination. True,
but even this study did not lead Luther off into fatalism. It terrified
him, because he studied that profound doctrine without a true perception
of divine grace and the meaning of the Redeemer's work. However, this
study did not at any time permanently affect his vigorous striving after
holiness.

When Catholics explain Luther's failure as a monk by such assertions,
they involve themselves in self-contradiction. By their own principles
monkery is not a natural life; yet, when a monk fails in his monkery,
they fault him for not being natural. First, they tell the applicant
that he must not be what he is, and afterwards they blame him for
wanting to be what they told him to be, and what he finds he cannot be.
If this is not adding insult to injury, what is? Francis of Assisi
became a great saint by that very inhuman treatment of himself for which
Luther is censured. But then Francis of Assisi did not quit his order
and did not attack the Pope.

The other reason why Luther failed is, because he could not make a
Pharisee of himself, which is only another name for hypocrite. The Law
of God had such a terrible meaning to him because he applied it as the
Lawgiver wants it applied, to his whole inner life, to the heart, the
soul, the mind, and all his powers of intellect and will. It is
comparatively easy to make the members of the body go through certain
external performances, but to make the mind obey is a different
proposition. The discovery which disheartened Luther was, that while he
was outwardly leading the life of a blameless monk, his inward life was
not improved. Sin was ever present with him, as it is with every human
being. He felt the terrible smitings of the accusing conscience because
he was keenly alive to the real demands of God's Law. The holy Law of
God wrought its will upon him to the fullest extent: it roused him to
anger with the God who had given this Law to man; it led him into
blasphemous thoughts, so that he recoiled with horror from himself. Does
the true Law of God, when properly applied, ever have any other effect
upon natural man? Paul says: "It worketh wrath" (Rom. 4, 15), namely,
wrath in man against God. It drives man to despair. That is its
legitimate function: No person has touched the essence of the Law who
has not passed through these awful experiences. Nor did any man ever
flee from the Law and run to Christ for shelter but for these
unendurable terrors which the Law begets. That was Luther's whole
trouble, and that is why he failed as a monk: he had started out to
become a saint, and he did not even succeed in making a Pharisee of
himself. If Rome has produced a monk that succeeded better than Luther,
he ought to be exhibited and examined. He will be found either an angel
or a brazen fraud. He will not be a true man.


9. Professor Luther, D. D.

Catholic writers greedily grab every opportunity to belittle Luther's
scholarship. Incentives to study at home, they say, he received none.
His common school education was wretched. During his high school studies
he was favored with good teachers, but hampered by his home-bred
roughness and uncouthness and his poverty. He applied himself diligently
to his studies, but gave no sign of being a genius. At the University of
Erfurt, too, he was studious, but he seems to have made no great
impression on the University. "He paid little attention to grammatical
details, and never attained to Ciceronian purity and elegance in speech
and writing." When he made his A. B:, he ranked thirteenth in a class of
fifty-seven. He did a little better in his effort for the title of A.
M., when he came out second among seventeen candidates. But Melanchthon
is declared entirely wrong when he relates that Luther was the wonder of
the University. His theological studies preparatory to his entering the
priesthood were very hasty and superficial. Still less prepared was he
for the work of a professor. His duties in the cloister left him little
time for learned studies. Yet he went to "bibulous Wittenberg," to a
little five-year-old university, and lectured "as best he could." By the
way, our Catholic friends seem to forget that "bibulous" Wittenberg was
a good old Catholic town at the time. All things considered, Luther's
advancement was all too rapid; it was not justified by his preparatory
studies, which had been "anything but deep, solid, systematic." "The
theological culture he received was not on a par with that required now
by the average seminarian, let alone a Doctor of Divinity." He accepted
the title of D. D. very reluctantly, being conscious that he did not
deserve it. A feeling of the insufficiency of his education tormented
him all through life. "It cannot be denied that he was industrious,
self-reliant, ambitious, but withal, he was not a methodically trained
man. At bottom, he was neither a philosopher nor a theologian, and at no
time of his life, despite his efforts to acquire knowledge, did he show
himself more than superficially equipped to grapple with serious and
difficult philosophical and religious problems. His study never rose to
brilliancy." Thus runs the Catholic account of Professor and Doctor
Luther.

We have not quoted the worst Catholic estimates of Luther's scholarship.
He has also been called a dunce, an ignoramus, a barbarian. Again it
seems to escape the Catholics that this ill-trained, insufficient,
half-baked Doctor of Divinity is a product of their own educational art.
Whatever advancement he received in those days was actually forced upon
him by Catholics. All his academic and ecclesiastical honors came from
Catholic sources, came to him, moreover, as a good Catholic. Also that
highest and noblest distinction which made him a duly called and
accredited expounder of the Holy Scriptures. If there is fault to be
found with anything in this matter, it lies with the Catholic method and
process of making a young man within the space of ten years a Bachelor
of Arts, a Master of Arts, a priest, a professor, and a Doctor of Sacred
Theology; it does not lie with the innocent subject to whom this presto!
change! process was applied.

But does this estimate of Luther square with the facts in the case? For
a dunce or a mediocre scholar Luther has been a fair success. His little
ability and scanty preparation makes his achievements all the more
remarkable. The most brilliant minds of the race, for whom the home, the
Church and the State, religion, science and art, had done their best,
have accomplished immeasurably less than this poor and mostly
self-taught country boy. God give His Church many more such dunces!

The net results of Luther's learning are open to inspection by the world
in his numerous works. Able scholars of most recent times have looked
into Luther's writings with a view of determining how much learned
knowledge he had actually acquired, even before he began his reformatory
work, They have found that Luther was "very well versed in the favorite
Latin authors of the day: Vergil, Terence, Ovid, Aesop, Cicero, Livy,
Seneca, Horace, Catullus, Juvenal, Silius, Statius, Lucan, Suetonius,
Sallust, Quintilian, Varro, Pomponius Mela, the two Plinies, and the
_Germania_ of Tacitus." He possessed a creditable amount of knowledge of
General History and Church History. He had made a profound study of the
leading philosophers and scholastic theologians of the Middle Ages:
Thomas of Aquinas, Peter Lombard, Bernard of Clairvaux, Duns Scotus,
Occam, Gregory of Rimini, Pierre d'Ailly, Gerson, and Biel. Two of these
he knew almost by heart. He had studied the ancient Church Fathers:
Irenaeus, Cyprian, Eusebius, Athanasius, Hilary, Ambrose, Gregory of
Nanzianzen, Jerome, and such later theologians as Cassiodorus, Gregory
the Great, and Anselm of Canterbury; Tauler, Lefevre, Erasmus, and Pico
della Mirandola. "He was quite at home in the exegetical Middle Ages, in
the Canon Law, in Aristotle and Porphyry." "He was one of the first
German professors to learn Greek and Hebrew." Moreover, Luther
possessed, besides knowledge, those indispensable requisites in a good
professor: "the faculty of plain, clear, correct, and independent
thought, resourcefulness, acumen" (Boehmer, p. 179 f.). He had the
courage to tell the Church that it was a shame, that a heathen
philosopher, Aristotle, should formulate the doctrines which Christians
are to believe and their pastors are to teach. He threw this heathen,
who had for ages dominated Christian teaching, out of his lecture-room,
and took his students straight to the pure fountain of religious truth,
the Word of God. He publicly burned the Canon Law by which the Roman
Church had forged chains for the consciences of men, and which she
upholds to this day. His lecture-room became crowded with eager and
enthusiastic students, and the stripling university planted on the edge
of civilization in the sands along the Elbe became for a while the
religious and theological hub of the world. The students who gathered
about Luther knew that they had a real professor in him. The world of
his day came to this fledgling doctor with the weightiest questions, and
received answers that satisfied. That part of the intelligent world of
to-day which has read and studied Luther endorses the verdict of
Luther's contemporaries as regards his ample learning and proficiency as
a teacher.

More learned men, indeed, than Luther there have been. Some of these
have also made attempts to introduce needed reforms in the corrupt Roman
Church. Rome met their learned and labored arguments with the consummate
skill of a past master in sophistry. Those learned efforts came to
naught. Rome will never be reformed by human learning and scholarship.
Scholars are rarely men of action. It is because Professor Luther taught
_and acted_ that Rome hates him. He would have been permitted to lecture
in peace whatever he wished--others in the universities were doing that
at the time--if he had only been careful not to do anything, at least
not publicly, against the authority of the Church. That was the
unpardonable blunder of Luther that he wanted to live as he believed,
and that he taught others to do the same. For this reason he is a
dullard, an ignoramus, a poor scholar, a poor writer, in a word, an
inferior person from a literary and scholarly point of view.

In Numbers (chap. 22) there is a story told of the prophet Balaam, who
went out on a wicked mission for which a great reward had been promised
him. He rode along cheerfully, feasting his avaricious heart on the
great hoard he would bring back, when suddenly the ass that bore him
balked. The prophet began to beat the animal, but it did not budge an
inch. All at once this dunce of an ass which had never been put through
a spelling-book began to talk and remonstrated with the prophet: "Am I
not thine ass? What have I done unto thee that thou hast smitten me?" To
his amazement the prophet was able to understand the ass quite well.
This dumb brute made its meaning plain to a learned man. It was an
intolerable outrage that an ass should lecture a doctor, and balk him in
his designs. Luther is that ass. Rome rode him, and he patiently bore
his wicked master until the angel of the Lord stopped him and he would
go no further. The only difference is that Balaam had his eyes opened,
left off beating his ass, and felt sorry for what he had done. Rome's
eyes have not been opened for four hundred years. It is still beating
the poor ass. It does not see the Lord who has blocked her path and
said, You shall go no further!

In 2 Kings, chap. 5, there is another story told of the Syrian captain
Naaman, who came to be healed of his leprosy by the prophet Elijah. With
his splendid suite the great statesman drove up in grand style to the
prophet's cottage. He expected that the holy man would come out to meet
him, and very deferentially engage to do the great lord's bidding. The
prophet did not even come out of his hut, but sent Naaman word to go and
wash seven times in Jordan and he would be cleansed. Now Naaman flew
into a rage, because the prophet had, in the first place, not even
deigned to speak to him, and, secondly, had ordered a ridiculously
commonplace cure for him. He stormed that he would do no such thing as
wash in that old Jordan River. He had better waters at home. Let the
prophet keep his old Jordan for such as he was. And he rode off in great
dudgeon. Rome is the leprous gentleman, and Luther is the man of God who
told her how to become clean. The only difference is this: Naaman
listened to wise counsel, and finally did what he had been told to do,
and was cleansed. Rome disdains to this day to listen to the ill-bred
son of a peasant, the theological upstart Luther, and remains as filthy
as she has been.


10. Luther's "Discovery" of the Bible.

Since Luther's study of the Bible has been referred to several times in
these pages, it is time that the righteousness of a certain indignation
be examined which Catholic writers display. They pretend to be
scandalized by the tale that in Luther's time the Bible was such a rare
book that it was practically unknown. With the air of outraged innocence
some of them rise to protest against the stupid myth that Luther
"discovered" the Bible. They claim that their Church had been so eager
to spread the Bible, and had published editions of the Bible in such
rapid succession, that in Luther's age Christian Europe was full of
Bibles. Moreover, that age, they tell us, was an age of intense
Bible-study. Not only the theologians, but also the laymen, not only the
wealthy and highly educated, but also the common people, had unhindered
access to the Bible. The historical data for Rome's alleged zeal in
behalf of the Bible these Catholic writers gather largely from
Protestant authors. For greater effect they propose to buttress, with
the fruits of the laborious research of Protestants, their charge that
Luther's ignorance of the Bible was self-inflicted and really
inexcusable.

What are the facts in the case? The whole account which we possess of
Luther's "discovery" of the Bible is contained in Luther's Table Talk.
(22, 897.) This is a book which Luther did not personally compose nor
edit. It is a collection of sayings which his guests noted down while at
meat with Luther, or afterwards from memory. From a casual remark during
a meal Mathesius obtained the information which he published in his
biography of Luther, _viz.,_ that, when twenty-two years old, Luther one
day had found the Bible in a library at Erfurt.

Now, we do not wish to question the general credibility of the Table
Talk, nor the authenticity of this particular remark of Luther about his
stumbling upon the Bible by accident. But it is certainly germane to our
subject to strip the incident of the dramatic features with which
Catholic writers claim that most Protestants still surround the event.
Did Luther say, and did Mathesius report, that up to the year 1505 he
had not known of the Bible? Not at all. He merely stated that up to that
time he had not seen _a complete copy of the Bible_. Luther himself has
told scores of times that when a schoolboy at Mansfeld, and later at
Magdeburg and Eisenach where he studied, he had heard portions of the
Gospels and Epistles read during the regular service at church. Some
passages he had learned by heart. Luther's guests would have laughed at
him if he had claimed such a "discovery" of the Bible as Catholic
writers--and some of their Protestant authorities--think that Mathesius
has claimed for him and modern Protestants still credit him with.

What Luther did relate we are prepared to show was not, and could not
be, an unusual occurrence in those days. "Even in the University of
Paris, which was considered the mother and queen of all the rest, not a
man could be found, when Luther arose, competent to dispute with him out
of the Scriptures. This was not strange. Many of the doctors of theology
in those times had never read the Bible. Carolostadt expressly tells us
this was the case with himself. Whenever one freely read the Bible, he
was cried out against, as one making innovations, as a heretic, and
exposing Christianity to great danger by making the New Testament known.
Many of the monks regarded the Bible as a book which abounded in
numerous error." (Mosheim, III, 15.) The spiritual atmosphere in which
Luther and all Christians of his time were brought up was unfavorable to
real Bible-study.

But before we exhibit the true attitude of Rome toward the Bible, it
will be necessary to examine the Catholic claim regarding the extensive
dissemination and the intensive study of the Bible among the people in
and before Luther's times. Before the age of printing one cannot speak,
of course, of "editions" of the Bible. The earliest date for the
publication of a printed edition of the Bible is probably 1460--
twenty-three years before Luther's birth. That was an event fully as
momentous as the opening of the transatlantic cable in our time. Before
printing had been invented, the Bible was multiplied by being copied.
That was a slow process. Even when a number of copyists wrote at the
same time to dictation, it was a tedious process, requiring much time,
and not very many would join in such a cooperative effort of Bible
production. Besides, few men in those early ages were qualified for this
work. A certain degree of literary proficiency was required for the
task. The centuries during which the papacy rose to the zenith of its
power are notorious for the illiteracy of the masses. It was considered
a remarkable achievement even for a nobleman to be able to scribble his
name. Among those who possessed the ability few had the inclination and
persistency necessary for the effort to transcribe the Bible. The
cloisters of those days were the chief seats of learning and centers of
lower education, but even these asylums of piety sheltered many an
ignorant monk and others who were afflicted with the proverbial monks'
malady--laziness. It is to the credit of the pious members of the Roman
Church in that unhappy age that they manifested such a laudable interest
in the Bible. The achievement of copying the entire Bible with one's own
hand in that age is so great that it palliates some of the glaring evils
of the inhuman system of monasticism. But if every monk in every
cloister, every priest in every Catholic parish, every professor in
every Catholic university, could have produced twenty copies of the
Bible during his lifetime, how little would have been accomplished to
make the Bible available for the millions of men then living!

Reading is the correlate of writing. The person who cannot write, as a
rule, cannot read. For this reason the Bible must have remained a sealed
book to many who had ample opportunity to become acquainted with it. The
wide diffusion of Bible knowledge which Catholic writers would lead us
to believe always existed in the Roman Church is subject to question. It
is true that in the first centuries of the Christian era there was a
great hunger and thirst for the Word of God. But that was before the
Roman Church came into existence. For it is a reckless assumption that
the papacy is an original institution in the Church of Christ, and that
Roman Catholicism and Christianity are identical. It is also true that
in the early days of the Reformation the people manifested a great
desire for the Word of God. It was as new to them as it had been to
Luther. They would crowd around a person who was able to read, and would
listen for hours. At St. Paul's in London public reading of the Bible
became a regular custom. But between the early days of Christianity and
the beginning of the Reformation lies a period which. is known as the
Dark Ages. No amount of oratory will turn that age into a Bright Age.
"From the seventh to the eleventh century books were so scarce that
often not one could be found in an entire city, and even rich
monasteries possessed only a single text-book." (_Universal Encycl.,_
2, 96.) These conditions were not greatly improved until printing was
invented. Luther had to do with people who were emerging from the sad
conditions of that age, the effects of which were still visible
centuries after. He writes: "The deplorable destitution which I recently
observed, during a visitation of the churches, has impelled and
constrained me to prepare this Catechism, or Christian Doctrine, in such
a small and simple form. Alas, what manifold misery I beheld! The common
people, especially in the villages, know nothing at all of Christian
doctrine; and many pastors are quite unfit and incompetent to teach. Yet
all are called Christians, have been baptized, and enjoy the use of the
Sacraments, although they know neither the Lord's Prayer, nor the Creed,
nor the Ten Commandments, and live like the poor brutes and irrational
swine." (Preface to the Small Catechism.) Remember, these people lived
in that age when Luther was born and grew up, which Catholic writers
picture to us as a Bible-knowing and Bible-loving age.

The invention of printing wrought a mighty change in this respect. This
glorious art became hallowed from the beginning by being harnessed for
service to the Bible. But even this invention did not at once remove the
prevailing ignorance. We must not transfer modern conditions to the
fifteenth century. In 1906, one of the many Protestant Bible Societies
reported that it had disposed in one year of nearly 80,000,000 Bibles
and parts of the Bible in many languages. The Bible is perhaps the
cheapest book of modern times. It was not so in the days of Gutenberg,
Froschauer, Luft, and the Claxtons. Even after printing had been
invented, Bibles sold at prices that would be considered prohibitive in
our day. When the Duke of Anhalt ordered three copies of the Bible
printed on parchment, he was told that for each copy he must furnish 340
calf-skins, and the expense would be sixty gulden. (Luther's Works, 21b,
2378.) But even the low-priced editions of the Bible, printed on common
paper (which was not introduced into Europe until the thirteenth
century), cost a sum of money which a poor man would consider a fortune,
and which even the well-to-do would hesitate to spend in days when money
was scarce and its purchasing power was considerably different from what
it is to-day. At a period not so very remote from the present a Bible
was considered a valuable chattel of which a person would dispose by a
special codicil in his will. For generations Bibles would thus be handed
down from father to son, not only because of the sacred memories that
attached to them as heirlooms, but also because of their actual value in
money.

Everything considered, then, we hold the argument that the Bible was a
widely diffused book in the days before Luther to be historically
untrue, because it implies physical impossibilities. With the
magnificent printing and publishing facilities of our times, how many
persons are still without the Bible? How many parishioners in all the
Catholic churches of this country to-day own a Bible? The modern Bible
societies are putting forth an energy in spreading the Bible that is
unparalleled in history. Still their annual reports leave the impression
that all they accomplish is as a drop in the bucket over and against the
enormous Bible-need still unsupplied. Catholic writers paint the
Bible-knowledge of the age before Luther in such exceedingly bright
colors that one is led to believe that age surpassed ours. They
overshoot their aim. Nobody finds fault with the Roman Church for not
having invented the printing-press. All would rather be