III. MARTIN LUTHER READS THE ‘NOVUM INSTRUMENTUM’ (1516).
Letter from Spalatin.
In the winter of 1516-17, Erasmus received a letter from George Spalatin, whose name he may have heard before, but to whom he was personally a stranger. It was dated from the castle of the Elector of Saxony. It was a letter full of flattering compliments. The writer introduced himself as acquainted with a friend of Erasmus, and as being a pupil of one of his old schoolfellows at Deventer. He mentioned his intimacy with the Elector, whom he reported to be a diligent and admiring reader of the works of Erasmus, and informed him that these had honourable places on the shelves of the ducal library. It was, in fact, a letter evidently written with a definite object; but beating about the bush so long, that one begins to wonder what matter of importance could require so roundabout an introduction.
At length the writer disclosed the object of his letter:—‘A friend of his,’ whose name he did not give, had written to him suggesting that Erasmus in his Annotations on the Epistle to the Romans, in the ‘Novum Instrumentum,’ had misinterpreted St. Paul’s expression, justicia operum, or legis, and also had not spoken out clearly respecting ‘original sin.’ He believed that if Erasmus would read St. Augustine’s books against Pelagius, &c., he would see his mistake. His friend interpreted justicia legis, or the ‘righteousness of works,’ not as referring only to the keeping of the ceremonial law, but to the observance of the whole decalogue. The observance of the latter might make a Fabricius or a Regulus, but without Christian faith it would no more savour of ‘righteousness’ than a medlar would taste like a fig. This was the weighty question upon which his friend had asked him to consult the oracle, and a response, however short, would be esteemed a most gracious favour.[630]
Martin Luther reads the ‘Novum Instrumentum.’
This unnamed friend of Spalatin was in fact Martin Luther. The singular coincidence, that not only this letter of Spalatin to Erasmus, but also the letter of Luther to Spalatin,[631] have been preserved, enables us to picture the monk of Wittemberg sitting in his room in a corner of the monastery, pondering over the pages of the ‘Novum Instrumentum,’ and ‘moved,’ as he reads it, with feelings of grief and disappointment, because his quick eye discerns that the path in which Erasmus is treading points in a different direction from his own.
In truth, Luther, though as yet without European fame—not having yet nailed his memorable theses to the Wittemberg church-door—had for years past fixed, if I may use the expression, the cardinal points of his theology. He had already clenched his fundamental convictions with too firm a grasp ever to relax. He had chosen his permanent standpoint, and for years had made it the centre of his public teaching in his professorial chair at the university, and in his pulpit also.
The standpoint which he had so firmly taken was Augustinian.
Luther’s Augustinian tendencies.
During the four years spent by him in the Augustinian monastery at Erfurt, into which he had fled to escape from the terrors of conscience, he had deeply studied, along with the Scriptures, the works of St. Augustine. It was from the light which these works had shed upon the Epistles of St. Paul that he had mainly been led to embrace those views upon ‘justification by faith’ which had calmed the tumult and disarmed the lightnings of his troubled conscience. This statement rests upon the authority of Melanchthon, and is therefore beyond dispute.[632]