[2. Luther’s Fanatical Expectation of the End of the World. His hopeless Pessimism]
The excitement with which Luther looks forward to the approaching end of the world affords a curious psychological medley of joy and fear, hope and defiance; his conviction reposed on a wrong reading of the Bible, on a too high estimate of his own work, on his sad experience of men and on his superstitious observance of certain events of the outside world.
The fact that the end of all was nigh gradually became an absolute certainty with him. In his latter days it grew into one of those ideas around which, as around so many fixed stars, his other plans, fancies and grounds for consolation revolve. To the depth of his conviction his excessive credulity and that habit—which he shared with his contemporaries—of reading things into natural events contributed not a little.
A remarkable conjunction of the planets in 1524,[886] “other signs which have been described elsewhere, such as earthquakes, pestilences, famines and wars,” a predicted flood[887]—“all these signs agree”[888] in announcing the great day; never have “more numerous and greater signs” occurred during the whole course of the world’s history to vouch for the forthcoming end of the world.[889] “All the firmaments and courses of the heavens are declining and coming to an end; the Elbe has stood for a whole year at the same low level, this also is a portent.”[890] Such signs invite us to be watchful.[891] Over and above all this we have the “many gruesome dreams of the Last Judgment” with which he was plagued in later years.[892]
He describes to his friends quite confidently the manner of the coming of the end such as he pictures it to himself: “Early one morning, about the time of the spring equinox, a thick black cloud, three lightning flashes and a thunder-clap, and, presto, everything will lie in ruins,” etc. “I am ever awaiting the day.”[893] “Things may go on for some years longer,”[894] perhaps for “five or six years,” but no more, because “the wickedness of men has increased so dreadfully within so short a time.”[895] “We shall live to see the day”; Aggeus (ii. 7 f.) says: “Yet a little while and I will shake the heaven and the earth”; look around you; “surely the State is being shaken ... the household too, and even the very mob, item our own very sons and daughters. The Church too totters.”[896]
“All the great wonders have already taken place; the Pope has been unmasked; the world rages. Nor will things improve until the Last Day comes. I hope, however, now that the Evangel is so greatly despised, that the Last Day is no longer far distant, not more than a hundred years off. God’s Word will again decline ... and the world will become quite savage and epicurean.”[897]
Reason and Ground of Luther’s Conviction of the near End of the World
The actual origin and basis of this strange idea are plainly expressed in the statement last quoted: “The Pope is unmasked” as Antichrist, such was Luther’s starting-point. Further, “the Evangel is despised,” by his own followers no less than by his foes; this depressing sight, together with the sad outlook for religion generally, formed the ground on which Luther’s conviction of the coming cataclysm grew, particularly when the fall of the Papacy seemed to be unduly delayed, and its strength to be even on the increase. The Bible texts which he twists into his service are an outcome rather than the cause of his conviction concerning Antichrist, while the “signs” in the heavens and on earth also serve merely to confirm a persuasion derived from elsewhere.
The starting-point of the idea and the soil on which it grew deserve to be considered separately.