Luther himself, as early as 1518, alludes to opponents of his who descried in him the influence of the devil. In a letter to Trutfetter, his old master, he says: “They speak of me from the pulpit as a heretic, a madman, a tempter and one possessed by I know not how many devils”; but “let people say, hearken to and believe what, where and as much as they will, I shall do what God inspires me to do.”[1277]
Paolo Vergerio, the Nuncio, whose detailed account of his interview with Luther has already been related (vol. iii., p. 426 ff.), speaks, like Aleander, of his “strange look,” which, the longer he observed it, the more it reminded him of persons he had formerly seen whom some regarded as possessed; his eyes were restless and uncanny, and bore the stamp of rage and anger. “Whether he be possessed or not,” he says, “in his behaviour he is the personification of presumption, wickedness and indiscretion.”[1278]
The statements regarding Luther’s eyes made by various persons who knew him would appear to have furnished many with a ground for thinking him under some diabolical spell. “Luther’s dark and sparkling eyes, deep-set and keen ... must indeed have made an even greater impression than the best of Cranach’s portraits.”[1279]
While his friends, Melanchthon for instance, saw in them the expression of a high-minded and noble nature and a “leonine glance,”[1280] many Catholics, like Vergerio, saw the reflection of a spirit hostile to God. At Worms, as already related, Aleander had said, though only on the strength of hearsay, that Luther had “the eyes of a demon,” and a Spanish account from Worms also remarks: “his eyes forebode no good.”[1281] Cardinal Cajetan, in his examination of Luther at Augsburg, stated, that he would confer no more with him; “he has deep-set eyes and strange fancies in his head.”[1282] The University Professor, Martin Pollich, of Melrichstatt (Mellerstadt), seems to have let fall a similar remark during Luther’s early years at Wittenberg; he too mentioned his “deep-set eyes” and “strange fancies.” It may be, however, that Luther, who tells us this, erroneously puts into Pollich’s mouth the remark actually made by Cajetan.[1283] It was Pollich also who often declared, that this monk would one day overthrow the system of teaching which had hitherto prevailed in all the Universities.[1284] Johannes Dantiscus, a Pole, who visited Luther during a journey through Germany and who subsequently became Bishop of Culm and Ermeland, expresses himself very frankly. He says: His eyes were keen and sparkled strangely, as is sometimes the case with those possessed.[1285] Luther’s own pupil, Johann Kessler, also found something uncomfortable about his glance: He had “jet-black brows and eyes that sparkled and twinkled like stars, so that it was no easy thing to fix them.”[1286]
In the above statement concerning Luther’s look and the likelihood of his being possessed, Vergerio also has a passing allusion to a certain crude tale then current which quite befitted the taste of the age and which he gives for what it may be worth in his official report, viz. that Luther was begotten of the devil.[1287] This tale also found its way into several Catholic works written in that credulous and deeply agitated period.
It was not the first time such things had been invented concerning a person who was an object of ill-will in that age when prejudice told so strongly.
Luther himself was in the habit of speaking of the actual occurrence of diabolical births and of the “diabolus incubus”;[1288] he not only did not rise above the vulgar beliefs handed down by a credulous past, but even imparted to them, at least so far as the power of the devil went, a still worse shape. He never tired of filling the imagination of the reader with diabolical images (vol. v., xxxi., 4); and he spoke of persons possessed as though the world were replete with them.
If we could trust Cochlæus, Luther’s brother monks would seem to have partly been responsible for the report not merely of a diabolical possession (“obsessio, circumsessio”), but also of a certain wilful league with the devil entered into by the young Augustinian. They could not forget the “singularity” of the young monk, particularly that once, during his fit in choir whilst the Gospel of the man possessed was being read, he had cried out, “I am not he.” Cochlæus, who had some intercourse with the Augustinians at Nuremberg, hints in his Commentaries at the “secret intercourse with the demon” of which Luther was suspected, and immediately afterwards refers, though under a misapprehension, to Luther’s own remark about eating salt with the devil, and holding a disputation with him.[1289] The passage frequently attributed to Cochlæus, viz. that it was notorious “the devil Incubus was Luther’s father,” and son of the devil his “real name, therefore remain the devil’s son as long as you live,”[1290] was, however, never penned by him. But he was aware of the reports on this subject already in circulation and never saw fit to treat them with the contempt they deserved.
All the passages quoted above regarding Luther’s being possessed of the devil are in every instance quite independent of this stupid tale: they are based throughout on the character of Luther’s writings and on his public behaviour.