Fear, in reality, is contemptible; it “is there because sin prevails,” hence it is not found in the pious, not even in Old-Testament times.[1624] “Let us,” he cries, “cast at our feet all free-will.... Nature and free-will cannot stand before God, for they fear lest He should fall upon them with His club.... Where the Holy Spirit does not whisper to the heart the Evangelical promises, man looks upon God as a devil, executioner, taskmaster and judge.... To the devil with such holiness!”[1625] The above is no mere momentary outburst; it is a theological system and the expression of his deep psychological prejudice. We are carried back to his monastic days and to the theory which fear led him to invent to allay his own personal agitation, but to which he could hold fast only by dint of doing violence to himself.
When he came to see, that, to preserve the people from moral degradation, fear of the Judgments of God had to be preached, he urged that it should be emphasised and declared it quite essential. This he did particularly in his instructions for the Visitation of the Saxon Electorate, which accordingly contain what is practically a repudiation of his teaching. The reasonable and wholesome fear of the judge, which he would have preached to the “simple people” for the moving of their hearts, in spite of all his protests has surely a right and claim to work on the minds not merely of the “simple” but even of the educated, and accordingly to be urged even by the theologians.
Luther’s attitude here was as ambiguous as elsewhere, for instance, in the case of his whole doctrine of grace and justification, no less than in its premises, viz. unfreedom, concupiscence and original sin. Everywhere we meet with contradictions, which make it almost impossible to furnish any connected description of his doctrinal system.
Augustine as the Authority for the New Doctrine of Works.
We have an example of Luther’s want of theological acumen in his appeal to Augustine in support of his doctrine of works.
In order to understand this we must recollect that, from the beginning, Luther had described his new theology as simply that of Augustine the great Father of the Church. Of Augustine’s—of whom he said in 1516 that he had not felt the slightest leaning towards him until he had “tumbled on” his writings[1626]—he had merely read in 1509 a small number of works, and he became acquainted with what were for him the more important of this Father’s writings only after he had already largely deviated from the Church’s doctrine.[1627] Even later, his knowledge of Augustine was scanty. He was, however, as a monk, fond of identifying his own new doctrine of grace with Augustine’s;[1628] he tried to enlist the help of his colleague, Amsdorf, by a present of St. Augustine’s works; in this he was completely successful.[1629] On May 18, 1517, he wrote to Lang on the state of things at Wittenberg, the triumphant words already quoted: “Our theology and St. Augustine are making happy progress with God’s help and are now paramount at the University,” etc.[1630] From that time forward he was fond of saying, that Augustine was opposed “to Gabriel Biel, Thomas of Aquin and the whole crowd of Sententiaries, and would hold the field against them because he was grounded on the pure Gospel, particularly on the testimony of Paul.”[1631] To what extent he really in his heart believed this of Augustine must remain a moot question.
“Luther,” says Julius Köstlin, one of the best-known authorities on Luther’s theology, “could, indeed, appeal to St. Augustine in support of the thesis that man becomes righteous and is saved purely by God’s gracious decree and the working of His Grace and not by any natural powers and achievements [which is the Catholic doctrine], but not for the further theory that man is regarded by God as just purely by virtue of faith ... nor that the Christian thus justified can never perform anything meritorious in God’s sight but is saved merely by the pardoning grace of God which must ever anew be laid hold of by faith” [i.e. the specifically Lutheran theses on faith and works]. The same author adds: “Only gradually did the fundamental difference between the Augustinian view, his own and that of Paul become entirely clear to Luther.”[1632]
When this happened it is hard to say; at any rate, his strictures on Augustine and the Fathers in his lectures of 1527 on the 1st Epistle of St. John, and in his later Table-Talk prove, that, as time went on he had given up all idea of finding in these authorities any confirmation of his doctrine on faith alone and works.[1633]
However his convictions may have stood, he certainly, in his earlier writings, claimed Augustine in support of his doctrine of the absence of free-will, particularly on account of a passage in the work “Contra Julianum,” which Luther repeats and applies under various forms.[1634] There can, of course, be no question of St. Augustine’s having actually been a partisan, whether here or elsewhere, of the Lutheran doctrine of the “enslaved will.” “These and other passages from St. Augustine which Luther quotes in proof of the unfreedom of the will really tell against him; he either tears them from their context or else he falsifies their meaning.”[1635] He is equally unfair when, in his Commentary on Romans and frequently elsewhere, he appeals to this Doctor of the Church in defence of his opinion, that, after baptism, sin really still persists in man,[1636] likewise in his doctrine of concupiscence in general,[1637] where he even fails to quote his texts correctly. He alters the sense of Augustine’s words with regard to the keeping of God’s commandments, the difference between venial and mortal sin, and the virtues of the just.[1638] Denifle, after patiently tracing Luther’s patristic excursions, angrily exclaims: “He treats Augustine as he does Holy Scripture.”[1639]
Deserving of notice, because it explains both his repeated quotations from Augustine and his advocacy of the motive of fear, is a lengthy admonition of 1531 couched in the form of a letter on the defence of the new doctrine of faith alone and of works. The letter was written by Melanchthon to Johann Brenz, but it had the entire approval of Luther, who even appended a few words to it.[1640] While clearly throwing overboard Augustine, it is nevertheless anxious to retain him.