So pleased was the Elector of Saxony with the “Wider das Bapstum” that he helped to push it; he bought twenty florins’ worth of copies and had them distributed; this Luther hastened to tell Amsdorf with all the greater satisfaction, seeing that he had heard that others were expressing their disapproval of the book.[1689] It may be that the Elector also helped to spread the caricatures. If we may believe a sermon by Cyriacus Spangenberg, some of Luther’s own friends nevertheless made representations and begged him “to desist from publishing such figures, as of late he had caused to be circulated against the Pope.”[1690] Yet three years after Luther’s death the fanatical Flacius Illyricus, in bringing out a new edition of the caricature of the Pope on the sow, with a fresh description of it, characterised it as a “prophetic picture by Elias the Third of blessed memory,” and took severely to task all who felt otherwise.[1691] He has it, that “Many who walk according to the flesh rather than in the wisdom, piety and retirement of the spirit, did a few years ago [1545] actually dare to call these and certain other like figures shameless prints, and fancies of a brainless old fool.” The writer thinks he has proved, that, “far from being an outcome of wanton stupidity they proceeded from a ghostly, godly wisdom and zeal.”[1692]
Such attempts at vindication only prove that Luther was not alone in allowing himself to be dominated, and his mind darkened by such morbid fancies.
The psychology reflected in these much-debated woodcuts deserves more careful scrutiny.
Those undoubtedly take too superficial a view of the matter, who, in their desire to exonerate Luther, refuse to see in these caricatures anything more than the exuberant effusions of ridicule gone mad. On the other hand, some of Luther’s enemies are no less wrong in failing to see that the indignation which speaks from these drawings is meant in bitter earnest.
If, as is only right, we view this frivolous imagery in the light of Luther’s mental state at the time and of his whole attitude then, it will stand out as a sort of confession of faith on the part of the author, appalling indeed, but absolutely truthful, a picture of his deepest thoughts and feelings, steeped as they were in his sombre pseudo-mysticism and devil-craze. The same holds good likewise of the “Wider das Bapstum” of which this set of illustrations is a sort of supplement.
The revolting images which rise before his mind like bubbles to the surface of the fermenting tan, seem to him so true to fact that he protests that the cuts are in no sense defamatory; “should anyone feel offended or hurt in his feelings by them I am ready to answer for their publication before the whole Empire.”[1693]
So much had he brooded over the illustrations, that, as is shown by his answer to Amsdorf concerning the Furies, he could describe their every detail with an enthusiasm and minuteness such as few artists could equal, even when descanting on their own work. In the midst of his sufferings of body and mind and of all his toil, he finds leisure to explain to his friend how: The first Fury, Megæra, assists at the birth of the Pope-Antichrist, because she is the incarnation of hate and envy and thus shows that the Pope “as the true imitator, nay, ape, of Satan hinders all that is good”; the second, Alecto, according to classic teaching, has the special task of symbolising that “the Pope works all that is evil”; in this he is helped by the “old serpent of Paradise”; the latter it is who is to blame for all the misfortunes of the human race from the beginning, and for still “daily filling the world with new misfortunes by means of the Pope, Mohamed, the Cardinals, the Archbishop of Mayence, etc.; and who simply can’t cease its sad abominations”; as for the third Fury, Tisiphone, she is passive, she arouses God’s anger, whereby the tyrants and the wicked, as, for instance, Cain, Saul and Absalom, are punished for the doings of the two other Furies, etc. “Such is the devil of those possessed and of the insane, who also blaspheme God. This Fury rules more particularly in the opinions of the Pope and the heretics and in their blasphemous doctrines which fall under a well-merited reprobation.”[1694]
It is characteristic of the mental attitude of the writer that, in the very next letter to the same friend, he replies to a question of Amsdorf’s regarding a fox of abnormal shape recently caught; according to Luther “it might well portend the end of all things”; this end he will “pray for and await”; but “of any Council or negotiations” he is determined “to hear nothing, believe nothing, hope nothing and think nothing.” “Vanity of vanities,” such is his greeting to Trent; as for Germany, he can only discern “the spark of the coming fire prepared for its chastisement, the decline of all justice, the undermining of law and order and the end of the Empire.” “May God remove us and ours before the desolation comes!”[1695]
When in such a mood he is convinced that the fresh revelation of Antichrist in the new engravings constitute a grand service to the Kingdom of God. He knows already the exalted reward of their faith prepared for himself and his faithful followers. “I have this great advantage: my Master is called Shevlimini [see above, vol. iv., p. 46]; He told us: ‘I will raise you up at the last day’; then He will say: ‘Dr. Martin, Dr. Jonas, Mr. Michael, come forth,’ and summon us all by our names as Christ says in John: ‘And He calls them all by name.’ Therefore be not affrighted.” This he said shortly before his death, reviewing his last publications.[1696]
By a similar misuse of the words of the Bible he invites all his followers, and that too in the name of the “Spirit,” to do to the Pope just what the three rude fellows are doing over the inverted tiara of the Pope in the woodcut entitled “The worship of the Pope as God of the world.” The verses below the picture are scarcely credible: