Luther, vol. 4 of 6

by Hartmann Grisar

Seeing that he was ready to misrepresent even the official proceedings of his own party, we cannot be surprised if, in his controversies, he was careless about the truth where the person of an opponent was concerned. Here it is not always possible to find even a shadow of excuse behind which he can take refuge. Of Erasmus’s end he had received accounts from two quarters, both friendly to his cause, but they did not strike him as sufficiently damning. Accordingly he at once set in currency reports concerning the scholar’s death utterly at variance with what he had learnt from the letters in question.[270] He accused the Catholics, particularly the Catholic Princes, of attempting to murder him, and frequently speaks of the hired braves sent out against him. Nor were his friends and pupils slow to take his words literally and to hurl such charges, more particularly against Duke George of Saxony.[271] Yet not a single attempt on his life can be proved, and even Protestants have admitted concerning the Duke that “nothing credible is known of any attempt on George’s part to assassinate Luther.”[272] Cochlæus merely relates that murderers had offered their services to Duke George;[273] beyond that nothing.

Far more serious than such misrepresenting of individuals was the injustice he did to the whole ecclesiastical life of the Middle Ages, which he would fain have made out to have entirely fallen away from the true standard of Christian faith and practice. Seen through his new glasses, mediæval life was distorted beyond all recognition. Walter Köhler gives a warning which is to the point: “Protestant historians must beware of looking at the Middle Ages from Luther’s standpoint.”[274] In particular was mediæval Scholasticism selected by Luther and his friends as a butt for attack and misrepresentation. Bucer admits in a letter to Bullinger how far they had gone in this respect: “We have treated all the Schoolmen in such a way as to shock many good and worthy men, who see that we have not read their works but are merely anxious to slander them out of prudence.”[275]

However desirous we may be of crediting the later Luther with good faith in his distorted views of Catholic practices and doctrines, still he frequently goes so far in this respect as to make it extremely difficult to believe that his misrepresentations were based on mere error or actual conviction. One would have thought that he would at least have noticed the blatant contrast between his insinuations and the text of the Breviary and Missal—books with which he was thoroughly conversant—and even of the rule of his Order. As a monk and priest he was perfectly familiar with them; only at the cost of a violent wrench could he have passed from this so different theological world to think as he ultimately did of the doctrines of Catholicism. Döllinger was quite right when he wrote: “As a controversialist Luther combined undeniably dialectic and rhetorical talent with a degree of unscrupulousness such as is rarely met with in this domain. One of his most ordinary methods was to distort a doctrine or institution into a mere caricature of itself, and then, forgetful of the fact that what he was fighting was a simple creation of his fancy, to launch out into righteous abuse of it.... So soon as he touches a theological question, he confuses it, often of set purpose, and as for the reasons of his opponents, they are mutilated and distorted out of all recognition.”[276] The untruthfulness of his polemics is peculiarly apparent in his attack on free-will. It is impossible, even with the best of intentions, to put it all, or practically all, to the account “of the method of disputation” then in use. That method, the syllogistic one, called for a clear and accurate statement of the opponent’s standpoint. The controversy round “De servo arbitrio” (fully dealt with in vol. ii., pp. 223-294) has recently been studied by two scholars, one a Protestant, the other a Catholic, and both authors on the whole agree at least on one point, viz. that Luther ascribed to his opponent a denial of the necessity of Grace, such as the latter never defended, and such as is quite unknown to Catholics.[277] Indeed, at a later juncture in that same controversy Luther even declared of the author of the “Hyperaspistes” that he denied the Trinity![278]

Instead of instancing anew all the many minor misrepresentations of the dogmas and practices of the older Church for which Luther was responsible, and which are found scattered throughout this work, we may confine ourselves to recalling his bold assertion, that all earlier expositors had taken the passage concerning “God’s justice,” in Rom. i. 17, as referring to punitive justice.[279] This was what he taught from his professor’s chair and what we find vouched for in the notes of a zealous pupil of whose fidelity there can be no question. And yet it has been proved, that, with the possible exception of Abelard, not one can be found who thus explained the passage of which Luther speaks (“hunc locum”), whilst Luther himself was acquainted with some at least of the more than sixty commentators who interpret it otherwise. Significant enough is the fact that he only reached this false interpretation gradually.

Luther also says that he and all the others had been told it was a mortal sin to leave their cell without their scapular, though he never attempts to prove that this was the general opinion, or was even held by anybody. The rule of his Order rejected such exaggeration. All theologians were agreed that such trifles did not constitute a grievous sin. Luther was perfectly aware that Gerson, who was much read in the monasteries, was one of these theologians; he praised him, because, though looked at askance at Rome, he set consciences free from over-great scrupulosity and refused to brand the non-wearing of the scapular as a crime.[280] Gerson was indeed not favourably regarded in Rome, but this was for other reasons, not, as Luther makes out, on account of such common-sense teaching as the above.

Then again we have the untruth he is never tired of reiterating, viz. that in the older Church people thought they could be saved only by means of works, and that, through want of faith in Christ, the “Church had become a whore.”[281] Yet ecclesiastical literature in Luther’s day no less than in ours, and likewise an abundance of documents bearing on the point teach quite the contrary and make faith in Christ the basis of all the good works enjoined.[282] All were aware, as Luther himself once had been, that outward works taken by themselves were worthless. And yet Luther, in one of the charges which he repeated again and again, though at the outset he cannot have believed it, says: “The question is, how we are to become pious. The Grey Friar says: Wear a grey hood, a rope and the tonsure. The Black Friar says: Put on a black frock. The Papist: Do this or that good work, hear Mass, pray, fast, give alms, etc., and each one whatever he fancies will help him to be saved. But the Christian says: Only by faith in Christ can you become pious, and righteous and secure salvation; only through Grace alone, without any work or merits of your own. Now look and see which is true righteousness.”[283]

Let us listen for a moment to the indignant voice of a learned Catholic contemporary, viz. the Saxon Dominican, Bartholomew Kleindienst, himself for a while not unfavourable to the new errors, who, in 1560, replied to Luther’s misrepresentations: “Some of the leaders of sects are such impudent liars as, contrary to their own conscience, to persuade the poor people to believe, that we Catholics of the present day, or as they term us Papists, do not believe what the old Papists believed; we no longer think anything of Christ, but worship the Saints, not merely as the friends of God but as gods themselves; nay, we look upon the Pope as our God; we wish to gain heaven by means of our works, without God’s Grace; we do not believe in Holy Writ; have no proper Bible and should be unable to read it if we had; trust more in holy water than in the blood of Christ.... Numberless such-like horrible, blasphemous and hitherto unheard-of lies they invent and use against us. The initiate are well aware that this is the chief trick of the sects, whereby they render the Papacy an abomination to simple and otherwise well-disposed folk.”[284]

But had not Luther, carried away by his zeal against the Papists, taken his stand on the assumption, that, against the deception and depravity of the Papal Antichrist, every weapon was good provided only that it helped to save souls? Such at any rate was his plea in justification of his work “An den christlichen Adel.”[285] Again, during the menacing Diet of Augsburg, when recommending the use of the questionable “Gospel-proviso,” he let fall the following in a letter: Even “tricks and failings” (“doli et lapsus”), should they occur amongst his followers in their resistance to the Papists, “can easily be atoned for once we have escaped the danger.”[286] He even adds: “For God’s Mercy watches over us.”

In the midst of the double-dealing then in progress Luther again appealed to Christ in his letter to Wenceslaus Link on Sep. 20, 1530, where he says: Christ “would be well pleased with such deceit and would scornfully cheat the [Papist] deceivers, as he hoped,” i.e. raise false hopes that the Lutherans would yield; later they would find out their mistake, and that they had been fooled. Here is my view of the matter, he continues, “I am secure, that without my consent, their consent [the concessions of Melanchthon and his friends at the Diet] is invalid. Even were I too to agree with these blasphemers, murderers and faithless monsters, yet the Church and [above all] the teaching of the Gospel would not consent.” This was his “Gospel-proviso,” thanks to which all the concessions, doctrinal or moral, however solemnly granted by him or by his followers, might be declared invalid—“once we have escaped the danger.” (See vol. iii., p. 337 ff.)

The underhandedness which he advocated in order that the people might not be made aware of the abrogation of the Mass, has been considered above (vol. ii., p. 321). Another strange trick on his part—likewise for the better furtherance of his cause—was his attempt to persuade the Bishop of Samland, George von Polenz, who had fallen away from the Church and joined him, “to proceed with caution”; “therefore that it would be useful for him [the Bishop] to appear to suspend his judgment (“ut velut suspendens sententiam appareret”); to wait until the people had consented, and then throw in his weight as though he had been conquered by their arguments.”[287] Couched in Luther’s ordinary language this would mean that the Bishop was to pretend to be wavering between Christ and Antichrist, between hell and the Evangel, though any such wavering, to say nothing of any actual yielding, would have been a capital crime against religion. At the best the Bishop could only hypocritically feign to be wavering in spite of the other public steps he had taken in Luther’s favour and of which the latter was well aware.