The Chautauquan, Vol. 04, January 1884 / A Monthly Magazine Devoted to the Promotion of True Culture. / Organ of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle.

by Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle; Chautauqua Institution

MARTIN LUTHER.

Martin Luther was born at Eisleben on the 10th of November, 1483, on the eve of St. Martin’s day, in the same year as Raphael, nine years after Michael Angelo, and ten after Copernicus. His father was a miner and possessed forges in Mansfield, the profits of which enabled him to send his son to the Latin school of the place. There Martin distinguished himself so much that his father intended him for the study of law. In the meantime Martin had often to go about as one of the poor choristers singing and begging at the doors of charitable people at Magdeburg and at Eisenach, to the colleges of which towns he was successively sent. His remarkable appearance and serious demeanor, his fine tenor voice and musical talent procured him the attention and afterward the support and maternal care of a pious matron, into whose house he was taken. Already, in his eighteenth year, he surpassed all his fellow-students in knowledge of the Latin classics, and in power of composition and of eloquence. His mind took more and more a deeply religious turn; but it was not till he had been two years studying at Eisenach that he discovered an entire Bible, having until then only known the ecclesiastical extracts from the sacred volume and the history of Hannah and Samuel. A dangerous illness brought him within the near prospect of death; but he recovered and tried hard to obtain inward peace by a pious life and the greatest strictness in all external observances.[C] He then determined to renounce the world, and in spite of the strong opposition of his father, became a monk of the Augustine order of Erfurt. But in vain; he was tormented by doubt, and even by despair, until he turned again to the Bible. A zealous study of the exact language of the gospels gave him not only a firm faith, but a peace and cheerfulness which was never afterward disturbed by trials or dangers.[D]

In the year 1508 the elector of Saxony nominated him professor of philosophy in the university of Wittenberg; and in 1509 he began to give biblical lectures. These lectures were the awakening cause of new life in the university, and soon a great number of students from all parts of Germany gathered round Luther. Even professors came to attend his lectures and hear his preaching. The year 1511 brought an apparent interruption, but in fact only a new development of Luther’s character and knowledge of the world. He was sent by his order to Rome on account of some discrepancies of opinion as to its government. The tone of flippant impiety at the court and among the higher clergy of Rome shocked the devout German monk. He then discovered the real state of the world in the center of the Western church. He returned to the university and took the degree of Doctor of Divinity at the end of 1512. The solemn oath he had to pronounce on that occasion, “to devote his whole life to study, and faithfully expound and defend the Holy Scripture,” was to him the seal of his mission. He began his biblical teaching by attacking scholasticism, at that time called Aristotelianism. He showed that the Bible was a deeper philosophy. His contemporaries praised the clearness of his doctrine. Christ’s self-devoted life and death was its center; God’s eternal love to mankind, and the sure triumph of Faith, were his texts.[E]

SALE OF PAPAL INDULGENCES—LUTHER’S RESISTANCE.

In the year 1517, the pope, Leo X., famous both for his luxurious habits and his love of art, found that his income was not sufficient for his expenses, and determined to increase it by issuing a series of absolutions for all forms of crime, even perjury, bigamy and murder. The cost of pardon was graduated according to the nature of the sin. Albert, Archbishop of Mayence, bought the right of selling absolutions in Germany, and appointed as his agent a Dominican monk of the name of Tetzel. The latter began traveling through the country like a peddler, publicly offering for sale the pardon of the Roman church for all varieties of crime. In some places he did an excellent business, since many evil men also purchased pardons in advance for the crimes they intended to commit; in other districts Tetzel only stirred up the abhorrence of the people, and increased their burning desire to have such enormities suppressed.

Only one man, however, dared to come out openly and condemn the papal trade in sin and crime. This was Dr. Martin Luther, who, on the 31st of October, 1517, nailed upon the door of the church at Wittenberg a series of ninety-five theses, or theological declarations, the truth of which he offered to prove, against all adversaries. The substance of them was that the pardon of sins came only from God, and could only be purchased by true repentance; that to offer absolutions for sale, as Tetzel was doing, was an unchristian act, contrary to the genuine doctrines of the church; and that it could not, therefore, have been sanctioned by the pope. Luther’s object, at this time, was not to separate from the church of Rome, but to reform and purify it.

The ninety-five theses, which were written in Latin, were immediately translated, printed, and circulated throughout Germany. They were followed by replies, in which the action of the pope was defended; Luther was styled a heretic, and threatened with the fate of Huss. He defended himself in pamphlets, which were eagerly read by the people; and his followers increased so rapidly that Leo X., who had summoned him to Rome for trial, finally agreed that he should present himself before the Papal Legate, Cardinal Cajetanus, at Augsburg. The latter simply demanded that Luther should retract what he had preached and written, as being contrary to the papal bulls; whereupon Luther, for the first time, was compelled to declare that “the command of the pope can only be respected as the voice of God, when it is not in conflict with the Holy Scriptures.” The Cardinal afterward said: “I will have nothing more to do with that German beast, with the deep eyes and the whimsical speculations in his head!” and Luther said of him: “He knew no more about the Word than a donkey knows of harp-playing.”

The Vicar-General of the Augustines was still Luther’s friend, and, fearing that he was not safe in Augsburg, he had him let out of the city at daybreak, through a small door in the wall, and then supplied with a horse. Having reached Wittenberg, where he was surrounded with devoted followers, Frederick the Wise was next ordered to give him up. About the same time Leo X. declared that the practices assailed by Luther were doctrines of the church, and must be accepted as such. Frederick began to waver; but the young Philip Melanchthon, Justus Jonas, and other distinguished men connected with the university exerted their influence, and the elector finally refused the demand. The Emperor Maximilian, now near his end, sent a letter to the pope, begging him to arrange the difficulty, and Leo X. commissioned his Nuncio, a Saxon nobleman named Karl von Miltitz, to meet Luther. The meeting took place at Altenburg in 1519; the Nuncio, who afterward reported that he “would not undertake to remove Luther from Germany with the help of 10,000 soldiers, for he had found ten men for him where one was for the pope”—was a mild and conciliatory man. He prayed Luther to pause, for he was destroying the peace of the church, and succeeded, by his persuasions, in inducing him to promise to keep silence, provided his antagonists remained silent also.

This was merely a truce, and it was soon broken. Dr. Eck, one of the partisans of the church, challenged Luther’s friend and follower, Carlstadt, to a public discussion in Leipzig, and it was not long before Luther himself was compelled to take part in it. He declared his views with more clearness than ever, disregarding the outcry raised against him that he was in fellowship with the Bohemian heretics. The struggle, by this time, had affected all Germany, the middle class and smaller nobles being mostly on Luther’s side, while the priests and reigning princes, with a few exceptions, were against him. In order to defend himself from misrepresentation and justify his course, he published two pamphlets, one called “An Appeal to the Emperor and Christian Nobles of Germany,” and the other “Concerning the Babylonian Captivity of the Church.” These were read by tens of thousands, all over the country.

Pope Leo X. immediately issued a bull, ordering all Luther’s writings to be burned, excommunicating those who should believe in them, and summoning Luther to Rome. This only increased the popular excitement in Luther’s favor, and on the 10th of December, 1520, he took the step which made impossible any reconciliation between himself and the papal power. Accompanied by the professors and students of the university, he had a fire kindled outside of one of the gates of Wittenberg, placed therein the books of canonical law and various writings in defence of the pope, and then cast the papal bull into the flames, with the words: “As thou hast tormented the Lord and His saints, so may eternal flame torment and consume thee.” This was the boldest declaration of war ever hurled at such an overwhelming majority; but the courage of this one man soon communicated itself to the people. Frederick the Wise was now his steadfast friend, and, although the dangers which beset him increased every day, his own faith in the righteousness of his cause only became firmer and purer.[F]