“On the other hand, it is plain that I may venture to boast in God, without arrogance or untruth, that, when it comes to the writing of books I am not far behind many of the Fathers.”[1200]
“In short the fault lay in this, that [before I came], even in the Universities the Bible was not read; when it was read at all it had to be interpreted in accordance with Aristotle. What blindness that was!”[1201]
But then my translation of Holy Scripture appeared. Whereas the Schoolmen never were acquainted with Scripture, indeed “never were at home even in the Catechism,”[1202] all admit my Bible scholarship. On one occasion “Carlstadt said to the Doctors at Wittenberg: My dear sirs, Dr. Martin is far too learned for us; he read the Bible ten years ago and now if we read it for ten years, he will then have read it for twenty; in any case, therefore, we are lost.” “Don’t start disputing with him.”[1203]
“Nevertheless I never should have attained to the great abundance of Divine gifts, which I am forced to confess and admit, unless Satan had tried me with temptations; without these temptations pride would have cast me into the abyss of hell.”[1204]
“The Papists are blind to the clear light of truth because it was revealed by a man. As though Elias, who wrought such great things against the servants of Baal, was not likewise a man and a beggar. As though John the Baptist, who so brilliantly put to flight the Pharisees, was not a man too. One’s being a man does not matter provided one be a man of God. For heroes are not merely men.”[1205]
Certain statements of contemporaries, both Catholics and Protestants, sound like interjections in the midst of Luther’s discourse. They point out how unheard-of was his demand that faith should be placed in him alone to the exclusion of all Christian authorities past and present. “What unexampled pride is this,” exclaims the learned Ulrich Zasius, who in earlier days had favoured Luther’s more moderate plans of reform, “when a man demands that his interpretation of the Bible should be given precedence over that of the Fathers of the Church herself, and of the whole of Christendom!”[1206] “He has stuck himself in the Pope’s place,” cries Thomas Münzer, and does the grand as though, forsooth, he had not come into the world in the ordinary way, but “had sprung from the brain.” “Make yourself cosy in the Papal chair,” is Valentine Ickelsamer’s comment, since you are determined to “listen only to your own song.”[1207]
Luther concludes his address to his followers by replying first of all to the frequent objection we have just heard Zasius bring forward:
“I, Dr. Martin Luther by name, have taken it upon me to prove for further instruction each and every article in a well-grounded work.... But first I must answer certain imputations made by some against me.” “They twit me with coming forward all alone and seeking to teach everybody. To this I reply that I have never put myself forward and would have been glad to creep into a corner; they it is who dragged me out by force and cunning.”[1208]
“But who knows whether God has not raised me up and called me to this, and whether they have not cause to fear that they are condemning God in me? Do we not read in the Old Testament that God, as a rule, raised up only one prophet at a time? Moses was alone when he led the people out of Egypt; Helias was alone in the time of King Achab; later on Helisæus was also alone; Isaias was alone in Jerusalem, Oseas in Israel, Hieremias in Judea, Ezechiel in Babylon, and so on.”[1209]
“The dear Saints have always had to preach against and reprove the great ones, the kings, princes, priests and scholars.”[1210]