Luther, vol. 2 of 6

by Hartmann Grisar

That it was indeed meant for all he showed by publishing, in 1531, in anticipation of the “war” and in order that his party might not become a “holocaust,” the “Warnunge Doctoris Martini Luther an seine lieben Deudschen.”[1131] In this work, while indulging in the most virulent abuse of the Reichstag, he declares, that in the event of a war or tumult no assistance was to be rendered to the Papists; legitimate self-defence demanded that such attacks should be met by resistance. The determination shown by Luther after the Diet of Augsburg to withstand the whole authority of the Empire is plainly manifest even now in the vehemence of the tracts which he proceeded to throw broadcast among the people. His purpose was to foster among the masses a spirit of opposition which should be a constant menace to peace.

Losing no time, he at once attacked the Imperial Abschied in a special pamphlet, “Auff das vermeint keiserlich Edict,”[1132] which immediately followed the “Warnunge” and was soon being read throughout the German lands.

It is true that at the beginning he here affirms that it is not his wish to “write against his Imperial Majesty or any of the authorities, temporal or spiritual.” Yet the whole work is nothing but a piece of frightful abuse against the decision arrived at by Charles V and against those Estates of the realm which had confirmed it. It is a mere artifice when he declares that he is merely inveighing against “traitors and other miscreants,” whether “Princes or Bishops, who work their deeds of wickedness in the name of the Emperor,” “particularly against that arch-knave, Pope Clement [VII] and his servant Campegius,” for all the while, now with satire, now in deadly earnest, he is really attacking the Reichstag and the authority of the Empire. Incidentally we may mention that, quite oblivious of the Imperial command, he had launched this pamphlet amongst the people without submitting it to the censorship, and that in the very title he speaks of the “supposed Edict,” though it was a question of an Edict issued in due form and signed and sealed by the Emperor. His distortions and misrepresentations, both of historical truth and of the Catholic doctrine as put forward at the Reichstag, are so gross that they deserve to be chronicled here.

Some of his misstatements were at once pointed out to him, in 1531, by Franz Arnoldi, parish-priest at Cöllen, near Meissen, in the “Antwort auf das Büchlein,” printed at Dresden, probably at the instance of Duke George of Saxony.[1133] “As many lies as words,” exclaims Arnoldi;[1134] “the devil, the father of lies and murderer of the human race,” was anxious to support Luther by means of the “dissensions, disagreements and revolts” which had already been stirred up, and, for this purpose, had sent this shocking booklet among the people through the agency of his “familiar and customary instrument and tool, Martin Luther, that barrel brimful of abuse and slander.” Over and over again Arnoldi expresses his conviction in the strongest and coarsest language, that “the apostate undoubtedly worked under the devil’s own direction.”[1135] Luther’s proceedings do not, however, stand out with sufficient clearness in Arnoldi’s tract; indeed, the author was not competent to grapple with the task he undertook. For instance, he fails to show by examples how Luther, all through his pamphlet, makes use of dishonest devices. Thus Luther represents the Imperial Recess as laying it down that everything which the Lutherans opposed was certain on the strength of the Gospel, or of a special inspiration received by the Pope, and that this applied even to real ecclesiastical abuses, to say nothing of certain pious customs not affecting the faith. Hoping to mislead the people, Luther tells them that whoever refuses to take Holy Water has, according to the Reichstag, fallen under sentence of death; that, according to the same source, “befoulment with holy things, pilgrimages and such-like” is a true revelation; that festivals and fasts, cowls and tonsure, payments to Rome and pious brotherhoods, come, according to the Papists, from the Gospel, in fact, constitute their only Gospel. By his “inspirations” the Pope sets himself above Holy Scripture, just as he makes himself Emperor and sets himself above the Emperor, particularly in “secular government.” In support of this last statement he cites the Decretals, though his references prove nothing of the sort but rather the reverse.[1136]

It will be worth our while to examine rather more closely Luther’s system of polemics as it appears in his work “Auff das vermeint keiserlich Edict.” Its utter unfairness was, indeed, calculated to rouse the masses to a pitch in which deeds of violence were to be expected.

Seeing that the Edict promulgated by the Reichstag merely leads people to “blaspheme God day and night,” it were better to be a Turk than a Christian under such a banner. The Edict “abuses and slanders the married state”—because it does not tolerate those priests who “live a dishonourable life or with dishonourable women.” It brings to nought the Word of God because it will not allow those to preach who teach, like himself, “that which is in accordance with faith in Christ.” It entirely degrades the authorities by inciting them only to “murder, burn, drown, hang and expel” the people. “Let no one,” he says, “be apprehensive of this Edict which they have so shamefully invented and promulgated” in the name of the pious Emperor, for in real truth it is the veriest devil’s dung.

Many other almost incredible misrepresentations accompany his stream of eloquence. Bishops, cardinals and popes were merely squandering Church property “on women of easy virtue, on feasting and debauchery,” whereas Luther and his followers employed for good purposes such possessions of the Church as they had appropriated. If they did not hold them in very high esteem this was because so much “blasphemy” still adhered to them. The monks were stifled in their holiness-by-works; they were convinced, for instance, that they had infallibly won heaven by merely donning the religious habit. The clergy were a mere herd of “hogs and debauchees.” Many of his statements were made expressly to excite the contempt and laughter of the masses. The clerical doctrine of good works, for instance, consisted in believing that whoever inadvertently swallowed a drop of water or a gnat before communion, was not permitted to approach the sacrament. According to him the clergy declared that “whoever had a smudge on his rochet was guilty of a mortal sin.” Of himself and his preaching on faith he has it, that “he insisted more upon good works than Popery had ever done”; nevertheless, he would not have men seek salvation in their works without Christ, as the Pope taught, and as the sophistical authors of the Edict, “those imperial clerks and poets,” believed.

Incidentally he seeks to lead the misguided people, who had no opinions of their own, to believe that the Catholic spokesmen who had rejected his doctrine of the slavery of the will, did not even know what the question at issue really was. They do not know “what free-will is; the Universities still disagree on the subject.... These great, rude, blockheads condemn what they themselves admit they do not understand”—as though, forsooth, a difference regarding the exact definition and meaning involved a doubt as to the existence of freedom.

In their Edict they condemn my doctrine of justification, he cries, though they themselves clearly recognise the contrary and, in the secret of their hearts, are on my side, knowing well that their boasts are but idle lies. In confident tones he asserts that he has been defamed by sophistical charges of supporting doctrines which were altogether strange to him and which he had never defended;—in point of fact, these charges were not levelled at him at all, but against the Anabaptists and others; he makes out the Edict to contain contradictions,—of which in reality not the slightest trace is to be found. The Catholic declaration that to receive communion under both kinds is in itself allowable, he distorts into a general permission. Because the giving of the chalice was no longer part of the discipline of the Church, he calls the Popes spiritual robbers of the faithful and overt enemies of their salvation. Add to this his misinterpretation of Bible passages, the pious tone artfully assumed here and there, his deliberate passing over in silence of certain questionable points, and his pretence of awaiting the decision of a general Council.

What has been quoted is sufficient to show the stratagems to which the author has recourse at the expense of truth, and the doubtful methods employed by him in his popular controversial writings. Yet this work is by a long way not the most violent and malicious specimen of Luther’s literary output.