Though all this, which, moreover, the Nuncio took quite seriously, made him angry, as is evident from his report, yet he found leisure during the conversation to observe his guest closely. He describes his dress: A doublet of dark camelot cloth, the sleeves trimmed with satin; over this a rather short coat of serge, edged with fox skin.[1436] The large, rough buttons used struck the Italian as peculiar. On Luther’s fingers he saw several rings and round his neck the heavy gold chain. He found that Luther did not speak Latin very well and ventured to surmise that certain books, couched in better Latin, were probably not really written by him. Of this, however, there is no proof. Luther admitted to him that he was not used to speaking Latin and that he was more at home in German. He looked strong, so Vergerio says, and though past fifty did not appear to be even forty years of age. He considered Luther’s features extremely coarse, tallying with his manners, which displayed “presumption, malice and want of reflection.” His way of speaking showed that “everything he did was done in irritation, annoyance and out of spite; he was a silly fellow, without either depth or discernment.”[1437]
Vergerio also fancied he saw in him something devilish. The longer he observed the piercing, uncanny glance of Luther’s eyes, so he writes, the more he was put in mind of certain persons who were regarded by many as possessed; the heat, the restlessness, the fury and frenzy expressed in his eyes were quite similar to theirs.[1438] He even casually refers to circumstances (which, however, he does not describe) of Luther’s birth and earlier years, which he had learnt from friends of Luther’s who had been intimate with him before he became a monk; they confirmed him in his belief that the devil had entered into Luther.[1439] Although Vergerio immediately after admits his doubt (“whether he be possessed or not”), yet in what he had written Contarini discovered sufficient to justify him in saying that Vergerio “found that Martin was begotten of the devil.”[1440] Contarini here is really building on a stupid fable, which, as will be shown later (vol. iv., xxvii. 1), is first met with in the writings of Petrus Sylvius, a Catholic author. What the Legate says concerning the circumstances of Luther’s parents is not of a nature to excite any confidence in the reliability of his information about Luther’s youth. In Rome people were already perfectly acquainted with Luther’s antecedents, as information had been obtained from reliable witnesses even before his final excommunication. The tittle-tattle of this new informant could accordingly have no influence on the opinion concerning him already prevailing there.
After Vergerio the Nuncio had returned to Rome in the beginning of 1536, full of extravagant hopes, he took part in the drafting of the Bull already mentioned, summoning the Council to meet at Mantua in 1537. In the same year he was consecrated bishop. He was not, however, employed in diplomacy as frequently as he wished. In 1541 unfavourable reports began to circulate concerning his attitude towards the Church; he was charged with Protestant leanings, though some of the witnesses in the trial which he had to stand at Venice protested his entire innocence. At any rate, towards the close of 1548 he openly apostatised and fled to the Grisons, where he placed his services at the disposal of the Swiss Reformers. His desire to distinguish himself next caused him to abandon the Swiss Zwinglians and to settle at Tübingen. After many journeys, undertaken with the object of thwarting the Church of Rome, this pushful and unrestrained man died at Tübingen in 1565, still at enmity with Catholicism.[1441]
3. The Schmalkalden Assembly of 1537. Luther’s Illness
The Schmalkalden League, established in 1531 (see above, p. 64 ff.), was in the main directed against the Emperor and the Empire. It had grown stronger by the accession of other Princes and States who bound themselves to render mutual assistance in the interests of the innovations. In the very year Vergerio started on his mission of peace in December, 1535, the warlike alliance, headed by Hesse and the Saxon Electorate, had been renewed at Schmalkalden for ten years. It undertook to raise 10,000 foot soldiers and 2000 horse for the defence of the Evangel, and, in case of need, to double the number.
To oppose this a more united and better organised league of the Catholics was imperatively called for; the alliance already entered into by some of the Princes who remained true to the older Church, required to be strengthened and enlarged. In 1538 the new leaguers met at Nuremberg; at their head were Charles V. and Ferdinand the German King, while amongst the most prominent members were the Dukes Wilhelm and Ludwig of Bavaria and the Archbishops of Mayence and Salzburg, whose secular principalities were very considerable.
Arming of troops, threats of war, and petty broils aroused apprehension again and again, but, on the whole, peace was maintained till Luther’s death.
The protesting Estates were desirous of deciding, at a convention to be held at Schmalkalden on Candlemas Day, 1537, upon the attitude to be assumed towards the Council convened by the Pope to Mantua. Hence, on August 30, 1536, Johann Frederick, Elector of Saxony, instructed Luther to draw up a preliminary writing; he was to state on Scriptural grounds what he felt it his duty to advance concerning all the Articles of his teaching as though he were in the presence of a Council or before the Judgment-Seat of God, and also to point out those Articles regarding which some concessions might be made “without injury to God or His Word.”
Luther therefore set to work on his “Artickel so da hetten sollen auffs Concilion zu Mantua,” etc., duly printed in 1538, with some slight alterations.
Here, whilst expounding theologically the various Lutheran doctrines, he gives his opinion on the Pope; this opinion is all the more remarkable because incorporated in a document intended to be entirely dispassionate and to furnish the Council with a clear statement of the new faith. The Pope, so Luther declares, is “merely bishop or parish-priest of the churches of Rome”; the universal spiritual authority he had arrogated to himself was “nothing but devilish fable and invention”; he roared like the dragon in the Apocalypse, who led the whole world astray (Apoc. xii. 9); he told people: “All you do is done in vain unless you take me for your God.” “This point plainly proves that he is the real Endchrist and Antichrist, who sets himself up against and above Christ, because he will not allow Christians to be saved without his authority.... This even the Turks and ‘Tatters’ do not dare to attempt, great enemies of Christians though they be.” “Hence, as little as we can adore the devil himself, as Lord and God, so little can we suffer his apostle, the Pope, or Endchrist, to rule as our Head and Lord. For his real work is lying and murder, and the eternal destruction of body and soul, as I have proved at length in many books.”[1442]