“Luther is the devil’s own bellows,” wrote Paul Bachmann, Abbot of Altzelle, in 1534, “with which the devil blows up a whirlwind of error, scandal and heresy.”[1254] He goes even further and appeals to what he had heard from Luther’s brother monks concerning the scene in choir, when, falling into a fit, Luther had frantically protested that he was not the man possessed (vol. i., p. 17).[1255]
Bachmann adds: “Luther is the cruel monster that John the Apostle saw rising out of the deep, with open jaws to utter abuse and blasphemy.” “This is no mere mistaken man, but the wicked devil himself to whom no lying, deceit or falsehood is too much.”[1256]
Even from men who had long sided with Luther we hear similar things; for instance, Willibald Pirkheimer of Nüremberg says bluntly: “Luther, with his impudent and defiant tongue, betrays plainly enough what is in his heart; he seems to have gone quite mad, or to be agitated by some wicked demon.”[1257]
Erasmus declared that people, rather than credit his calumnies, would say that he was steeped in vengefulness, mentally deranged, or possessed by some sinister spirit.[1258]
Even Luther’s brother monk at Erfurt, Johann Nathin, who had been struck with wonder at the young monk’s sudden conversion, remarked later, when the two had gone different ways, that “a spirit of apostasy had entered him,” which was corrupting all the clergy.[1259]
Johann Cochlæus thinks that Luther’s unholy doctrine resembles a dragon with seven heads; such a monster hailed, not from God, but from the devil.[1260] He allows himself to be carried so far away by his conviction that Luther was possessed, as to scorn all caution and to take literally a certain rhetorical statement of Luther’s, where he tells us that he had eaten more than a bushel of salt with the devil, and that he had held a disputation with him on the Mass.[1261] Cochlæus here lays great stress on the views and reports of Luther’s former associates in the monastery.[1262]
Under the impression made on him by the vehemence of Luther’s language and his whole conduct, Hieronymus Emser declared subsequently to Luther’s so-called “great Reformation Writings”: “This monk who has gone astray differs from the devil only in that he carries out what the wicked one inspires him with.”[1263] Emser, too, appeals to Luther’s former associates in the monastery: Luther “was possessed by the evil spirit from his youth upwards,” he says, “as is well known in his monastery at Erfurt, where he made his profession.”[1264]
Kilian Leib, a contemporary defender of the Church in the Eichstätt district, tells in his Annals of the impression made upon those present by Luther’s behaviour at the Diet of Worms: He displayed such pride in his manner and conduct that we seemed to have before us the image of the enemy of mankind. The latter must have dwelt within him and instructed him, if indeed he does not still do so.[1265] He quotes with approval Emser’s first statement, and, from Cochlæus, the passage where Luther speaks of his eating salt with the devil.[1266]