In his accusations against the religious life we find him making statements which, from his own former experience, he must have known to be false. For instance, when he says, that, in their hypocritical holiness, they had regarded it as a mortal sin to leave their cell without the scapular (“Werke,” Erl. ed., 44, p. 347; 38, p. 203; 60, p. 270). Denifle proves convincingly (1², p. 54), that all monks were well aware that such customs, prescribed by the Constitutions, were not binding under sin, but merely exposed transgressors to punishment by their superiors.—Luther also frequently declared, that in the Mass every mistake in the ceremonies was looked upon as a mortal sin, even the omission of an “enim” or an “æterni” in the Canon (ibid., 28, p. 65), and that the incorrect use of the frequently repeated sign of the cross had caused such apprehension, that they were “plagued beyond measure with the Mass” (ibid., 59, p. 98). And yet his own words (“Werke,” Weim. ed., 6, p. 164) show he was aware that such involuntary mistakes were no sin: “cum casus quispiam nullum peccatum fuerit.”
[327] “Das Zeitalter der Reformation,” Jena, 1907, p. 221.
[328] “Cinquante raisons,” Munich, 1736, 29, p. 37. Above, vol. iii., p. 273, n. 2.
[329] “Werke,” Erl. ed., 60, p. 395 ff.
[330] Cp. ibid., 31, p. 279.
[331] “Opp. lat. exeg.,” 1, p. 227.
[332] “Werke,” Erl. ed., 5², p. 430 f.: “Yet how few can ever have had such a thought, much less expressed it?” Denifle-Weiss, 17², p. 774. Speaking of this passage, Denifle rightly remarks: “I have frequently pointed out that it was Luther’s tactics to represent wicked Catholics as typical of all the rest.” Here again Denifle might have quoted Luther against Luther, as indeed he often does. In one passage (“Werke,” Erl. ed., 17², p. 412) Luther points out quite correctly, that to make all or even a class responsible for the faults of a few is to be guilty of injustice.
[333] “Theol. Stud. und Krit.,” 1908, p. 580.
[334] “There are passionate natures gifted with a strong imagination, who gradually, and sometimes even rapidly, come to take in good faith that for true, which their own spirit of contradiction, or the desire to vindicate themselves and to gain the day, suggests. Such a one was Luther.... It was possible for him to persuade himself of things which he had once regarded in quite a different light.” Thus Alb. M. Weiss, “Luther,” 1², p. 424. Ad. Hausrath rightly characterises much of what Luther says that he had learnt of Rome on his trip thither, as the “product of a self-deception which is readily understood” (“Luthers Leben,” 1, p. 79). “During a quarrel,” aptly remarks Fénelon, “the imagination becomes heated and a man deceives himself.”
[335] “Werke,” Weim. ed., 1, p. 510 f.; “Opp. lat. exeg.,” 12, p. 200 seq.