“No, not against that, but against everything which I have seen and heard.”
“For example? Do you mean eating and drinking?”
“Yes, that also.”
“How petty-minded you are! I speak of the highest things, and you talk about eating and drinking. Fie! Martin! you are a meat-rejector and a wine-eschewing Turk! But I accept your challenge. Our Lord Christ allowed His disciples to pluck ears of corn on the Sabbath; that was against the law of Moses, and was disapproved of by the Pharisees.... You are a Pharisee. But now I will also remind you of what Paul writes to the Romans—the Romans among whom we count ourselves; perhaps as a German subject, you have not the right to do that. Well, Paul writes: ‘You look on the outside.’”
“Pardon me, that is the Epistle to the Corinthians.”
“Oh, you look on the outside too. But Paul says further, ‘All things are lawful to me, but all things are not profitable. All that is sold in the market-place, that eat and ask nothing for conscience’ sake; for the earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof.’ Those are clear words, and a Frenchman would call them liberal-minded. But you come here like a Pharisee, and wish to rebuke your superiors for trifles; and the ordinances of men are more to you than God’s command. Fie! Martin! Remember your own words: ‘We should obey God rather than men!’ You conceited slave of the letter, you should read Paul.”
Luther was not yet so familiar with the Holy Scriptures as he afterwards became, for in the convent he had chiefly studied the Corpus Juris, Aristotle, Virgil, and the comedies of Plautus, and was somewhat depressed after his severe inward conflicts. Therefore he gave no answer, but chafed internally.
“Have you any other question for me?” began the Augustinian again, with an affected air of sympathy which irritated Luther still more. “I can understand that our national customs have annoyed you as a—foreigner. Every country has its own customs, and we keep our Roman Carnival by making ridicule of the dead gods of the old heathen, if one can call them gods! I believe you do the same in Germany, though in a coarser way. You must put up with that. As regards the ‘Festival of the Ass,’ that had originally a beautiful significance, since the poor animal was honoured with the task of carrying our Saviour and His mother into Egypt. But, as you know, the common people drag everything that is great and beautiful into the dust. Can we help it? Can I do you any service? Do you want anything?”
“Nothing; but I thank you!” Luther was again alone, and the fiends of doubt were again let loose upon him. The man was certainly right from his own point of view, and he had strengthened his assertions by arguments and by citations from Paul. But his point of view was false;—that was the matter. How, then, was one to alter one’s point of view? That was only the effect of faith through grace, and therefore not the work of man.
Then his introspective mind, which had been trained in the Aristotelian dialectic, began to examine his opponent’s point of view. A merciful loving Heavenly Father might very well smile at the follies and weaknesses of His human children; why, then, should we not be able to do the same? Why should we be stricter than He? As long as we live in the flesh, we must think according to the flesh, but that does not prevent the spirit obtaining its due rights.