He nevertheless seeks to give a more satisfactory answer, and admits, “that the word ‘alone’ is not found in either Latin or Greek text, ... at the letters of which our donkeys stare like cows at a new gate. They don’t see that the meaning of the text requires it.”[1242]—The last assertion may be taken for what it is worth. The principal thing, however, is that he introduced the interpolation with a meaning of his own, though he could not have held that his doctrine of a dead faith (for this was what his “faith alone” amounted to) really tallied with the Apostle’s teaching. On this point he is quite silent in his strange answers. He is far more concerned in parrying the blows with his rhetorical artifice. His appeal to the will of Dr. Martin Luther may be termed the feint of a skilful swordsman; his whole treatment of the matter is designed to surprise, to puzzle and amuse, and, as a matter of fact, could impress only the populace. It is not without reason that Adolf Harnack speaks of the “strange logic of his arguments, the faults of his exegesis and the injustice and barbarity of his polemics.”[1243]
The strange controversial methods of his rhetoric give, however, a true picture of his soul.
All this inconstancy and self-contradiction, this restless upheaval of assertions, now rendered doubtful by their palpable exaggeration, now uncertain owing to the admixture of humour they contain, now questionable because already rejected elsewhere by their author, all this mirrors the unrest of his soul, the zigzag course of his thought, in short a mind unenlightened by the truth, which thrives only amidst the excitement of conflict and contradiction. Moderation in resolve and deed is as little to his taste as any consistent submission of his word to the yoke of reflection and truthfulness. He abandons his actions as well as his most powerful organ, his voice, to the impulse and the aims of the moment. He finds no difficulty, for instance, even in his early days, in soundly rating his fellow-monks even in the most insulting and haughty manner, and in assuring them in the same breath of his “peaceable heart” and his “perfect calm,” or in shifting the responsibility for his earlier outbursts of anger on God, Who so willed it and Whose action cannot be withstood. All this we find in his letter in 1514 to the Erfurt Augustinians, where his singular disposition already reveals itself.[1244] No less easy was it to him at the commencement of his struggle to protest most extravagant humility towards both Pope and Emperor, to liken himself to a “flea,” and yet to promise resistance to the uttermost. He was guilty of exaggeration in his championship of the downtrodden peasants before the war, and, when it was over, was again extravagant in his demand for their punishment. With an all too lavish hand he abandons Holy Scripture to each one’s private interpretation, even to the “miller’s maid,” and yet, as soon as anyone, without the support of “miracles,” attempted to bring forward some new doctrine differing from his own, he withdrew it with the utmost imperiousness as a treasure reserved.
As in style, so in deed, he was a chameleon. This he was in his inmost feelings, and not less in his theology.[1245]
In one matter only did he remain always the same, on one point only is his language always consistent and clear, viz. in his hatred and defiance of the Church of Rome. Some have praised his straightforwardness, and it must be admitted, that, in this particular, he certainly always shows his true character with entire unrestraint. This hate permeates all his thoughts, his prayer, all his exalted reflections, his good wishes for others, his sighs at the approach of death. Even in his serious illness in 1527 he was, at least according to the account of his friend Jonas, principally concerned that God should not magnify his enemies, the Papists, but exalt His name “against the enemies of His most holy Word”; he recalls to mind that John the Evangelist, too, “had written a good, strong book against the Pope” (the Apocalypse); as John did not die a martyr, he also would be content without martyrdom. Above all, he was not in the least contrite for what he had printed against the doctrines of the Pope, “even though some thought he had been too outspoken and bitter.”[1246] In his second dangerous illness, in 1537, Luther declared even more emphatically, that he had “done right” in “storming the Papacy,” and that if he could live longer he would undertake still “worse things against that beast.”[1247]
Luther’s over-estimation of himself was partly due to the seductive effect of the exaggerated praise and admiration of his friends, amongst whom Jonas must also be reckoned. They, like Jonas, could see in him nothing but the “inspiration of the Holy Ghost.”[1248] Luther’s responsibility must appear less to those who lay due stress on the surroundings amidst which he lived. He was good-natured enough to give credence to such eulogies. Just as, moved by sympathy, he was prone to lavish alms on the undeserving, so he was too apt to be influenced by the exaggerations of his admirers and the applause of the masses, though, occasionally, he did not fail to protest.
This veneration went so far that many, in spite of his remonstrances, placed him not only on a level with but even above the Apostles.[1249] His devoted pupils usually called him Elias. He himself was not averse to the thought that he had something in common with the fiery prophet. As early as 1522 Wolfgang Rychard, his zealous assistant at Ulm, greets him in his letters as the risen Elias, and actually dates a new era from his coming. In this the physician Magenbuch imitated him, and the title was as well received by Melanchthon and the other Wittenbergers as it was by outsiders.[1250] In the Preface which Luther wrote in 1530 to a work by the theologian Johann Brenz, he contrasts the comparative calmness of the preacher to his own ways, and remarks that his own uncouth style vomited forth a chaos and torrent of words, and was stormy and fierce, because he was ever battling with countless hordes of monsters; he had received as his share of the fourfold spirit of Elias (4 Kings xix.), the “whirlwind and the fire” which “overthrew mountains and uprooted rocks”; the Heavenly Father had bestowed this upon him to use against the thick heads, and had made him a “strong wedge wherewith to split asunder hard blocks.”[1251]
When, in 1532, his great victory over the Sacramentarians was discussed in the circle of his friends, the words of the Magdeburg Chancellor, Laurentius Zoch, recurred to him: “After reading my books against the Sacramentarians he said of me: ‘Now I see that this man is enlightened by the Holy Ghost; such a thing as this no Papist could ever have achieved,’” and so, Luther adds in corroboration, “he was won over to the Evangel; what I say is, that all the Papists together, with all their strength, would not have been able to refute the Sacramentarians, either by authority [the Fathers] or from Scripture. Yet I get no thanks!”[1252]
Not his admirers only, but even his literary opponents contributed, at least indirectly, to inflate his rhetoric and his assurance; his sense of his own superiority grew in the measure that he saw his foes lagging far behind him both in language and in vigour.