That he avoided “any superfluity of words” later in life is not apparent. What he says of himself in the Table-Talk, viz. that he resembled an Italian in liveliness and wealth of language, holds good of him equally at a later date; on the other hand, his remark, that Erasmus purveyed “words without content” and he content without words,[1237] is not true of the facts.
An example of his rhetorical ability to enlarge upon a thought is found in the continuation of the sentence already mentioned (p. 331): “Before my day nothing was known.”
“Formerly no one knew what the Gospel was, what Christ, or baptism, or confession, or the Sacrament was, what faith, what spirit, what flesh, what good works, the Ten Commandments, the Our Father, prayer, suffering, consolation, secular authority, matrimony, parents or children were, what master, servant, wife, maid, devils, angels, world, life, death, sin, law, forgiveness, God, bishop, pastor, or Church was, or what was a Christian, or what the cross; in fine, we knew nothing whatever of all a Christian ought to know. Everything was hidden and overborne by the Pope-Ass. For they are donkeys, great, rude, unlettered donkeys in Christian things.... But now, thank God, things are better and male and female, young and old, know the Catechism.... The things mentioned above have again emerged into the light.” The Papists, however, “will not suffer any one of these things.... You must help us [so they say] to prevent anyone from learning the Ten Commandments, the Our Father and Creed; or about baptism, the Sacrament, faith, authority, matrimony or the Gospel.... You must lend us a hand so that, in place of marriage, Christendom may again be filled with fornication, adultery and other unnatural and shameful vices.”[1238]
A particular quality of Luther’s “rhetoric” was its exaggeration. By his exaggeration his controversy becomes a strangely glaring picture of his mind; nor was it merely in controversy that his boundless exaggeration shows itself. Sometimes, apparently, without his being aware of it, but likewise even in the course of his literary labours and his preaching, things had a tendency to assume gigantic proportions and fantastic shapes in his eyes. Among his friends the aberrations into which his fondness for vigorous and far-fetched language led him were well known. It was certain of his own followers who dubbed him “Doctor Hyperbolicus” and declared that “he made a camel of a flea, and said a thousand when he meant less than five.” This is related by the Lutheran zealot, Cyriacus Spangenberg, who dutifully seeks to refute the “many, who, though disciples of his,” were in the habit of making such complaints.[1239]
His “rhetoric,” in spite of a literary style in many respects excellent, occasionally becomes grotesque and insipid owing to the utter want of taste he shows in his choice of expressions. This was particularly the case in his old age, when he no longer had at his command the figures of speech in which to clothe decently those all too vigorous words to which, as the years went by, he became more and more addicted. In the last year of his life, for instance, writing to his Elector and the Hessian Landgrave concerning the “Defensive league” of those who stood up for “the old religion,” he says: God Himself has intervened to oppose this league, not being unaware of its aims; “God and all His angels must indeed have had a terrible cold in the head not to have been able to smell, even until this 21st day of October, the savoury dish that goes by the name of Defensive league; but then He took some sneeze-wort and cleared His brain and gave them to understand pretty plainly that His catarrh was gone and that He now knew very well what Defensive league was.”[1240] Luther does not seem to feel how much out of place such buffoonery was in a theologian, let alone in the founder of a new religion. Even in some of his earlier writings and in those which he prized the most, e.g. in the Commentary on Galatians, a similar want of taste is noticeable. It is also unnecessary to repeat that even his “best” writings, among them the work on Galatians, are frequently rendered highly unpalatable by an excess of useless repetitions. Everybody can see that the monotony of Luther’s works is chiefly due to the haste and carelessness with which they were written and then rushed through the press.
In considering Luther’s “rhetoric,” however, our attention perforce wanders from the form to the matter, for Luther based his claim to originality on his art of bringing forward striking and effective thoughts and thus charming and captivating the reader. In his thoughts the same glaring, grotesque and contradictory element is apparent as in his literary style and outward conduct. Much is mere impressionism, useful indeed for his present purposes, but contradicted or modified by statements elsewhere. Whatever comes to his pen must needs be put on paper and worked for all it is worth. Thus in many instances his thoughts stray into the region of paradox. Thereby he seemed indeed to be rendering easier the task of opponents who wished to refute him, but as a matter of fact he only increased the difficulty of dealing with him owing to his elusiveness.
Even down to the present day the incautious reader or historian is all too frequently exposed to the temptation of taking Luther at his word in passages where in point of fact his thoughts are the plaything of his “rhetoric.” Anybody seeking to portray Luther’s train of thought is liable to be confronted with passages, whether from the same writing or from another composed under different influences, where statements to an entirely different effect occur. Hence, when attempting to describe his views, it is essential to lay stress only on statements that are clear, devoid of any hyperbolical vesture and frequently reiterated.
He was not, of course, serious and meant to introduce no new rule for the interpretation of Scripture when he pronounced the words so often brought up against him (“sic volo, sic iubeo”) in connection with his interpolation of the term “alone” in Rom. iii. 28;[1241] yet this sentence occupies such a position in a famous passage of his works that it will repay us to give it with its context as a typical instance:
“If your Papist insists on making much needless ado about the word ‘alone,’ tell him smartly: Dr. Martin Luther will have it so and says: Papist and donkey is one and the same. ‘Sic volo, sic iubeo; sit pro ratione voluntas.’ For we will not be the Papists’ pupils or disciples, but their masters and judges, and, for once in a way, we shall strut, and rap these asses’ heads; and as Paul boasted to his crazy saints, so I too will boast to these my donkeys. They are Doctors? So am I. They are learned? So am I. They are preachers? So am I. They are theologians? So am I. They are disputants? So am I. They are philosophers? So am I. They are dialecticians? So am I. They are lecturers? So am I. They write books? So do I. And I will boast still further: I can expound the Psalms and the Prophets; this they can’t do. I can interpret; they, they can’t.”
He proceeds in the same vein and finally concludes: “And if there is one amongst them who rightly understands a single preface or chapter of Aristotle, then I will allow myself to be tossed. Here I am not too generous with my words.”—And yet there is still more to follow that does not belong to the subject! Having had his say he begins again: “Give no further answer to these donkeys when they idly bray about the word ‘sola,’ but merely tell them: ‘Luther will have it so and says he is a Doctor above all the Doctors of the Papacy.’ There it shall remain; in future I will despise them utterly and have them despised, so long as they continue to be such people, I mean, donkeys. For there are unblushing scoundrels amongst them who have never even learnt their own, viz. the sophists’, art, for instance, Dr. Schmidt, Dr. Dirty Spoon [Cochlæus] and their ilk. And yet they dare to stand in my way.”