Another fable which owes its origin to the anti-Catholic inventions of the sixteenth century has it that Leo X did not devote the results of the Mayence Indulgence to the building of St. Peter’s, but poured them into the already well-filled coffers of his sister Maddalena, who had married a Cibo. There is no proof for this assertion. Felice Cortelori, the well-known keeper of the Vatican archives, declared, even in his day, that he was unable to find any confirmation of this story, which should therefore be rejected as fabulous, and Schulte, as a result of his own investigations, agrees with him.[915]
Owing to the abuses and the change in public opinion, the amalgamation of spiritual and temporal interests, as it appeared in the Indulgence collections, became untenable in the course of the sixteenth century. The Council of Trent did well, though rather late in the day, in relegating, as far as possible, the system of Indulgences to the spiritual domain, its original and special sphere, that of benefiting souls. But one who knows how to view the movement of the times and the development of the Church’s life from the standpoint of history, will be able to put its true value upon this apparently strange union of the temporal and spiritual in the Indulgence system of the Late Middle Ages, and will give due consideration to the fact, that in those days the spiritual and temporal domains were more closely connected than at any other period. They were thrown into mutual dependence, each supporting the other; that disadvantages as well as benefits resulted, was of course inevitable.
The preaching of Indulgences in accordance with the spirit of the Church, when rightly carried out, might be compared with popular missions of the present day. Besides the less desirable preachers many able and zealous men came forward wherever the cross, or the so-called Vesper-Bild, was erected as a sign of the preaching of the Indulgence. The crowds who streamed together, listened to the admonitions of speakers previously unknown to them and usually belonging to some Order, with more attention than at the ordinary religious services; many were led to a sense of their sins and to amend their life, as they could not receive the Indulgence without an inward change of heart; they were also glad to take advantage of the presence of strange confessors provided with ample faculties, to unburden their consciences by a good confession. The alms seemed little to them in comparison with the spiritual gain. And as hundreds came and experienced a similar spiritual renewal, their very multitude fired them with a common impulse to persevere in what was good. The researches of historians have hitherto been directed too much towards the abuses and outward disorders which accompanied these popular practices, which were for so long a great help to religion. It would be no loss if in future, so far as the special accounts which have been handed down admit, historians were to dwell more on the ordinary and little-noticed good results effected by Indulgences since they were first started.[916]
3. The Trial at Augsburg (1518)
In the course of September, 1518, Luther received the citation to appear before Cardinal Cajetan at Augsburg, as had been agreed with the Elector Frederick; already, on August 25, the General of the Augustinians had, in accordance with the earlier and more stringent instructions from Rome to Cajetan, forwarded an order to the Saxon Provincial Gerard Hecker, to seize Luther and keep him in custody. At the end of September Luther set out for Augsburg, where he arrived, with a recommendation from the Elector and an Imperial safe conduct, on October 7.
He had started on the journey with great inward tremors and was a prey to the same violent agitation at Augsburg. At a later date he attributes the evil thoughts which plagued him to the influence of a demon.[917] He seems from the first to have been determined to carry his cause with a high hand, as ostensibly that of Jesus Christ. He becomes more and more convinced of his mission from above, a persuasion which takes possession of his soul with suggestive force.
In the fragment of a lost letter from Nuremberg we find him writing of his journey on October 3-4, 1518, to his Wittenberg friends whom he wishes to encourage to remain steadfast. Faint-hearted people, so he says, had tried to dissuade him from continuing his journey, “but I stand fast; let the Will of the Lord be done; even at Augsburg, even in the midst of His enemies, Christ still reigns ... Christ shall live though Martin and every other sinner perish; the God of my Salvation shall be exalted. Farewell and be steadfast, stand upright because it is necessary either to be rejected by man or by God, but God is true and every man a liar.”[918] He certainly did not treat the matter lightly. To attribute hypocrisy to him, as though he merely played a part, would be to do him an injustice. It is true there are recent writers who look upon him as a mere comedian, but it would be nearer the mark to compare him to John Hus on his journey to the Council of Constance. Like him, he looked forward to death without any inclination to recant. The thought passed through him, he once said later: “Now I must die,” and he pictured to himself “what a shame that would be for his parents.”[919]
The two letters he addressed to Spalatin and Melanchthon a few days after his arrival in Augsburg and before his first examination, gave proof of the strange mystical tendency which also appears in the fragment mentioned above; they show how he overcomes the inward voice which urges him to submit, and also the importunities of his anxious friends; they also show how, even then, he was prepared to take a certain step, should the demands appear to him too great: “I shall assuredly appeal to a General Council.”[920] He admits that he was “wavering between hope and fear” and, in order to stimulate his own courage, he draws a picture in these letters of two of the terrifying qualities of these “Italians” before whose representative (i.e. Cajetan) he is to defend himself.
We must try to place ourselves in his position and to appreciate his prejudices.
In the first place, he relentlessly accuses his adversaries of avarice and greed in everything; unfortunately his knowledge of the Indulgence business had furnished sufficient cause for reproaches and complaints against the Church authorities in that respect.[921] Secondly, he finds fault with the “ignorance” of his opponents, and here he undoubtedly excites himself quite wrongly and unnecessarily over their supposed senseless and one-sided Scholasticism. In his letter to Melanchthon he exclaims, as though to reassure himself: “Italy lies in Egyptian darkness, her animosity to learning and culture is unbounded. So greatly do they misapprehend Christ and all that is Christ’s. And yet these are our teachers and masters in faith and morals. The anger of God is thus fulfilled in us where He says: ‘I will give children to be their princes, and the effeminate shall rule over them.’ Good-bye, my Philip, and turn aside God’s anger by holy prayers.” The supposed want of sympathy with learning and culture of which Luther accuses the Italians in this letter to Philip Melanchthon is surely most untrue, and was no doubt intended to strengthen Melanchthon, the weak and wavering Humanist, in his allegiance to Luther’s party, for Luther, notwithstanding his anxieties, had not lost his cunning. The reproach against Italy and Rome, where at that time Humanism was flourishing as nowhere else, can at most only apply to the stiffness of the old debased Scholasticism, and perhaps to a certain backwardness in biblical studies. Such blemishes afforded him a welcome handle. “I will rather perish,” he assures Melanchthon, the enthusiastic scholar, “than withdraw my true theses and help to destroy learning.” “I go, should it please the Lord, to be sacrificed for you and your young men.”