“The man of God leaves himself entirely in God’s hands and does not attach himself to any works. His works are nameless at the commencement, though not at the end, because he does not act, but remains passive; he does not calculate with his own cleverness, or make projects, but allows himself to be led and does differently from what he had intended; thus he is calm and at rest in God. Whereas the self-righteous who abound in their own sense (‘sensuales iustitiarii’) are apt to despair of their own works—for they want to determine and name every word beforehand, and with them the name is the first thing and this they follow up with their works—the man of God on the contrary hurries forward in advance of every name.”
In the discourse which Luther wrote, probably in the autumn or winter months of 1515, for Georg Mascov, provost of Leitzau (see above, p. 65), and which was intended for a synodal meeting of the clergy, he says, in his most exaggerated fashion: “The whole world lies as it were under a deluge of false and filthy teaching.” The Word of God like a tiny flame is barely kept alive. Egoism, worldliness and vice are predominant. And the remedy? He will cry it aloud over the whole world: the only remedy is to preach “the word of truth” with much greater zeal. The greatest, “nay almost the only sin of the priests” is the neglect of the “word of truth” and it is much to be deplored, according to him, “that priests who fall into sins of the flesh make more account of them than of the neglect of the preaching of the word of truth.”[190]
The address deals further at great length with the holy regeneration of man in God. This is something which God works in us while we remain altogether passive: a man’s seeking, praying, knocking has nothing to do with it because mercy alone effects it. Man does nothing (“ipso nihil agente, petente, merente”); in this mystical regeneration by God, it is as with the natural generation of man: “he who is generated in both cases does not count, and can do nothing by his work or merits towards his begetting, but lies wholly in the will of the Father.”
As sons of God we must bear fruit—here the discourse becomes quite practical—and the purpose of this meeting is to demand it of the clergy. “We must not expose our Synod to the scorn of our enemies.” It is more important that chastity and every virtue should dwell in the priests than that statutes should be made with regard to readings, prayers, festivals, and ceremonies.
The vague, obscure mysticism which played a part in Luther’s spiritual development at that time, as well as his wrong, one-sided interpretation of the Epistle to the Romans, had, as already stated, led him into a heterodox by-way.
A cursory glance at the influence of Scholasticism and Mysticism on his mental progress, may perhaps be here in place.
4. Preliminary Remarks on Young Luther’s Relations to Scholasticism and Mysticism
In the years of Luther’s development the two great intellectual forces of the Middle Ages, Scholasticism and Mysticism, no longer exercised quite so powerful an influence as of yore, when they ruled over the world of intellect. Their influence on Luther’s views and his career was diverse. Scholasticism in its then state of decay, with its endless subtilties and disputatiousness, which, moreover, he knew only under the form of Occam’s nominalism, repelled him, to his own great loss. As a result he never acquired those elements of knowledge of true and lasting value to be found in the better schools, of which the traditions embodied the work of centuries of intellectual effort on the part of some of the world’s greatest minds. Mysticism, on the other hand, attracted him on account of his natural disposition, so full of feeling and imagination. He had been initiated into it at the monastery by the works of Bernard of Clairvaux, Bonaventure and Gerson, and, later, by the sermons of Tauler and the so-called German Theology. This study had been recommended him by Staupitz and also by his brother monks, especially by Johann Lang. It was, however, the more obscure and ambiguous writings and extracts from mystic works which appealed to him most, owing to his being able to read into them his own ideas.
As regards Scholasticism, his character predisposed him against it. Scholastic learning is founded on conceptual operations of reason; it aims at clear definitions, logical proofs and a systematic linking together of propositions. Luther’s mind, on the other hand, inclined more to a free treatment of the subject, one which allowed for feeling and imagination, and to such descriptions as offered a field for his eloquence. One of the chief reasons, however, for his lifelong dislike of Scholasticism was his very partial acquaintance with the same. He had, as we shall see, never studied its great representatives in the thirteenth century; he had made acquaintance only with its later exponents, viz. the Nominalists of Occam’s school, who gave the tone to his theological instructions and whose teachings were very prevalent in the schools in that day. He speaks repeatedly of William of Occam as his teacher. Of Luther’s relations to his doctrines we shall have to speak later: some of Occam’s views he opposed, others, which happened to be at variance with those of St. Thomas of Aquin, he approved. He would not have attributed to the latter and to other exponents of the better school of Scholasticism such foolish theses as he did—theses of which they never even dreamt—had he possessed any clear notion of their teaching. There can be no doubt that he also imbibed during his first years as a student at Erfurt, the spirit of antagonism against Scholasticism which Humanism with its craving for novelty displayed, an antagonism based ostensibly on disgust at the unclassic form of the former.