[425] “Sermons,” ed. Hamberger, 2, p. 131; in the sermon on Luke xv. 8 ff. Cp. Zahn, p. 343 ff. “Ueber die Prüfungen im mystischen Leben.”
[426] “Schol. Rom.,” p. 135 seq., p. 138: “Charitas Dei, quæ est purissima affectio in Deum, quæ sola facit rectos corde, sola aufert iniquitatem, sola exstinguit fruitionem propriæ iustitiæ. Quia non nisi solum et purum Deum diligit, non dona ipsa Dei, sicut hipocritæ iustitiarii.” P. 139, again against the “hipocritarum charitas, qui sibi ipsis fingunt et simulant se habere charitatem.... Diligere Deum propter dona et propter comodum est vilissima dilectione, i.e. concupiscentia eum diligere.” God is to be loved “propter voluntatem Dei absolute,” otherwise it is not the love of the children of God, but the love of slaves. He overlooks the fact that it is possible to recommend the higher without altogether repudiating the lower.
[427] 2-2, q. 188, a. 5.
[428] “Werke,” Weim. ed., 1, p. 123 f., quoted by Hunzinger, “Luther und die deutsche Mystik” [”Neue kirchl. Zeitschr.,” 19 (1908), Heft 11, pp. 972-88], p. 984, who remarks: the passage shows “how great the danger was at that time of Luther becoming lost in these speculations”; this is the “most extreme mystical utterance to be found in his writings.” When he says: “What is here described as a via crucis is genuinely Neo-Platonic,” all will not agree with him. Hunzinger, p. 975, also considers it a proof of Neo-Platonism when, in his Commentary on the Psalms, Luther follows St. Augustine and urges man “avertere se a visibilibus et convertere se ad invisibilia et intelligibilia.” One is more inclined to agree with his concluding sentence: “No one will wish to assert, after taking note of this proposition, that Luther in his mystical period never left the path of the ethical.”
[429] See below, viii. 2.
[430] “Briefwechsel,” 1, p. 74 f.
[431] April 8, “Briefwechsel,” 1, p. 28. See above, p. 88.
[432] Recently edited (1908) by H. Mandel according to Luther’s edition with additions from MSS.; see “Theol. Literaturztg.,” p. 493 (1909). Mandel says in the preface: “It is obviously not correct to represent Luther’s well-known experiences in the monastery [which?] as directly connected with his fundamental ideas of reform. Rather it is evident, and acknowledged by Luther himself, that he learnt his root ideas in the school of Tauler and the ‘Theologia Deutsch.’” It is true that his misapprehension of the same strengthened his mistaken notions. The very first chapter in the booklet disproves the assertion frequently made that it is decidedly Pantheistic in tone; there a definite distinction is made between God and the creature as the “perfect” and the “divided” essence: “of all the divided none is perfect. Hence the perfect is no part of the divided.” In the light of this the obscure sentence which occurs in the “Theologia Deutsch,” that God, the Perfect, is the essence of all things, without which and outside of which there is no real being, must not be understood in the Pantheistic sense. The book, in fact, contains no sentence which cannot be understood in an orthodox fashion when taken in conjunction with others.
[433] “Werke,” Weim. ed., 1, p. 137.
[434] Cp. W. Köhler, “Luther und die Kirchengesch.,” 1, 1, p. 244, who quotes Tauler in the above sense from his sermons in Hamberger’s edition (Frankfurt a/M., 1826), volume i., p. 261 ff.; volume ii., pp. 408, 410, 428. Köhler remarks (p. 239) that “however much Tauler had in common with Luther ... the latter overlooked the differences”; on p. 244: “his severity to self-righteousness is a point which Luther learnt from Tauler.”