Among the explanations given by Luther previous to the Disputation (“circulariter disputabimus”) the following are worthy of note: “We will not worship the Pope any longer as has been done heretofore.... Rather, we must fight against this Satan.”[1029] “The Pope is such a monstrous beast that no ruler or tyrant can equal him.... He requires us to worship his public blasphemy in defiance of the law; it is as though he said: I will and command that you adore the devil. It is not enough for him to strangle me, but he will have it that even the soul is damned at his word of command.... The Pope is the devil. Were I able to slay the devil, why should I not risk my life in doing so? Look not on the Pope as a man; his very worshippers declare that he is no mere man, but partly man and partly God. For ‘God’ here read ‘devil.’ Just as Christ is God-made-flesh, so the Pope is the devil incarnate.”[1030]—“Who would not lend a hand against this arch-pestilential monster? There is none other such in the whole world as he, who exalts himself far above God. Other wolves there are indeed, yet none so impudent and imperious as this wolf and monster.”[1031]
In this celebrated Disputation some of the objections are couched in scholastic language. Such is the following: According to the Bible, Antichrist is to be destroyed by the breath of God’s mouth and not by the sword; therefore armed resistance to the Pope and the Papists is not allowed. Luther replies: “That we concede, for what we say is that he will escape and remain with us till the end of the world. He is nevertheless to be resisted, and the Emperor too, and the Princes who defend him, not on the Emperor’s account, but for the sake of this monstrous beast.”[1032]—Another objection runs: “Christ forbade Peter to make use of his sword against those sent out by the Pharisees; therefore neither must we take up arms against the Pope.” The reply was: “Negabitur consequens,” and Luther goes on to explain: “The Pope is no authority as Caiphas and Pilate were. He is the devil’s servant, possessed of the devil, a wolf who tyrannically carries off souls without any right or mandate.” According to the report Luther suddenly relapsed into German: “If Peter went to Rome and slew him, he would be acting rightly, ‘quia papa non habet ordinationem,’” etc.[1033] Justus Jonas and Cruciger also took a part, bringing forward objections in order to exercise others in refuting them. This theological tournament, with its crazy ideas couched in learned terminology, might well cause the dispassionate historian to smile were it not for the sombre background and the vision of the religious wars for which ardent young students were being fitted and equipped.
What we have quoted from Luther’s familiar talks and from his disputations affords overwhelming proof, were such wanting, that the frenzied outbursts against the Pope we find even in his public writings, were, not merely assumed, but really sprang from the depths of his soul. It is true that at times they were regarded as rhetorical effusions or even as little more than jokes, but as a matter of fact they bear the clearest stamp of his glowing hate. They indicate a persistent and eminently suspicious frame of mind, which deserves to be considered seriously as a psychological, if not pathological, condition; what we must ask ourselves is, how far the mere hint of Popery sufficed to call forth in him a delirium of abuse.
In his tract of 1531 against Duke George he boasted, that people would in future say, that “his mouth was full of angry words, vituperation and curses on the Papists”; that “he intended to go down to his grave cursing and abusing the miscreants”;[1034] that as long as breath remained in him he would “pursue them to their grave with his thunders and lightnings”;[1035] again, he says he will take refuge in his maledictory prayer against the Papists in order to “kindle righteous hatred in his heart,” and even expounds and recommends this prayer in mockery to his opponent[1036]—in all this we detect an abnormal feature which characterises his life and temper. This abnormity is apparent not only in the intense seriousness with which he utters the most outrageous things, more befitting a madman than a reasonable being, but also at times in the very satires to which he has recourse. That the Papacy would have still more to suffer from him after he was dead, is a prophecy on which he is ever harping: “When I die,” he remarks, “I shall turn into a spirit that will so plague the bishops, parsons and godless monks, that one dead Luther will give them more trouble than a thousand living Luthers.”[1037]
No theological simile is too strange for him in this morbid state of mind and feeling. As in the case of those obsessed by a fixed idea the delusion is ever obtruding itself under every possible shape, so, in a similar way, every thought, all his studies, his practice, learning, theology and exegesis, even when its bearing seems most remote, leads up to this central and all-dominating conviction: “I believe that the Pope is a devil incarnate in disguise, for he is Endchrist. For as Christ is true God and true man, so also is Antichrist a devil incarnate.”[1038] And yet, in the past, so he adds with a deep sigh, “we worshipped all his lies and idolatry.”
He is very painstaking in his anatomy of the Pope-Antichrist.
“The head of Antichrist,” he said, “is both the Pope and the Turk; a living creature must have both body and soul; the Pope is Antichrist’s soul or spirit, but the Turk is his flesh or body; for the latter lays waste, destroys and persecutes the Church of God materially, just as the Pope does so spiritually.” Considering, however, that he had unduly exonerated the Pope, he corrects himself and adds: And materially also; “materially, viz. by laying waste with fire and sword, hanging, murdering, etc.” The Church, however, so he prophesies, will nevertheless “hold the field and resist the Pope’s hypocrisy and idolatry.” He then goes on to make a fanciful application of Daniel’s prophecy concerning the kingdoms of the world to the Pope’s downfall. “The text compels us” to take the prophecy (Apoc. xiii. 7) as also referring to the “Papal abomination.” “The Pope shall be broken without hands and perish and die of himself.”[1039]
That the Pope was spiritually destroying the Church he had already asserted as early as 1520 in his “Von dem Bapstum tzu Rome”: “Of all that is of Divine appointment not one jot is now observed at Rome; indeed, if anyone thought of doing what is manifestly such, it would be derided as folly. They let the Gospel and the Christian faith perish everywhere and turn never a hair; moreover, every bad example of mischief, spiritual and secular, flows from Rome over the whole world as from an ocean of wickedness. All this the Romans laugh at, and whoever laments it is looked upon as a ‘bon Christian’ [’cristiano’], i.e. a fool.”[1040]
The strength of Luther’s delusion that the Pope was Antichrist and shared the diabolical nature furnishes the chief explanation of the hopelessly bitter way in which he deals with all those who ventured to defend the Papacy. On all such he heaps abuse and assails them with that worst of the weapons at his command, viz. with calumny, calling into question their good faith and denying to them the character of Christians.