He now threw himself once more into the struggle with his theological foes. A glance at these labours and at his lectures shows him working at high pressure, while, as his letters show, he retained his sense of humour.
He set to work immediately on the 32 articles which the Louvain Faculty of Theology had published with the object of enlightening Catholics on the nature of the Protestant doctrines.
Already in Aug. he had set up his 76 theses “Against the Articles of the Theologists of Louvain.”[1309] Here he does not take his opponents seriously, but, for the most part, simply pours forth his annoyance on them and their theses, sneering at them and scourging them with coarse invective. He calls them arch-idolaters, a school of blockheads, lazy bellies and rude asses, the accursed, hellish brew of Louvain; speaks of their mad, raving conceit; they are bloodthirsty incendiaries and fratricides, a stinking cesspool, a school of obscenity and muck, are these great, gross epicurean swine of Louvain. “They come straight from hell and teach what they have seen in the Mirror of Marcolfus,[1310] i.e. the ordure of man-made laws.” “For, instead of giving the people Holy Scripture, they do nothing else but cack, spew, belch forth and fling human filth amongst them.… And thus Holy Church is to be looked upon as no better than a latrine for the scamps of Louvain wherein they, playing the lord, may void their belly when over-full, and where, moreover, they slay and lay waste. This indeed may be termed foolery and raving!”[1311] The strange elation in which Luther penned so odd-sounding a “reply” is, again, not to be explained by any ordinary psychology.
In Sep. Luther commenced a work on a larger scale against the Louvain theologians and their Paris colleagues, which, however, he was not able to finish. The fragment “Against the Donkeys in Paris and Louvain,” which exists in two drafts, shows plainly enough what sort of book it would have been had death not interrupted his work. He urges that, whoever wishes to teach theology whilst refusing to acknowledge the truths taught by him concerning the Law, sin and Grace, is as well fitted to do so as an ass is to play upon the harp, as the Papacy is to govern the Church, or as the Louvain scholars to promote the cause of learning.[1312] In this work he fancied he had recovered his olden stormy vigour. To his friend Jacob Probst he candidly admitted: “I am more angry with these Louvain quadrupeds than beseems me, an old man and so great a theologian; but I want it to be said of me that I took the field against these monsters of Satan, even though it should cost me my last breath.”[1313]
He was busy at the same time on a revised edition of his Latin “Chronology of the World,” of which the aim was to show the near advent of Christ.[1314] On Oct. 16 he finished his Latin Commentary on the Prophet Osee, and sent a copy as a gift to Mohr, the dismissed pastor of Zeitz, with a kindly letter of religious consolation and encouragement.[1315] He also despatched a lengthy circular to the printers on the capture of Duke Henry of Brunswick, the enemy of the Evangel; this letter is a monument to his aggressiveness so nearly verging on the fanatical;[1316] in this he had been strengthened by the supposed intervention of heaven on his behalf against Henry and against the Pope and the Mass.[1317]
His intimate correspondence was also steeped in the new enthusiasm which had laid hold on him. “What a joyful victory has God, Who hearkens to our prayer, given us,” so he wrote on Oct. 26 to Jonas. “Let us believe and let us pray! He is faithful to His promises!… O God, do Thou maintain our joy, or, rather, Thine Own Glory!”[1318]
The jokes we had missed for a while now once more made their appearance in his letters. In the first epistle written after his return he hastens to tell Amsdorf of Mutian’s reading of the inscription “Soli Deo gloria” (viz. “To the Sun-God be glory”) on a tower belonging to the Archbishop of Mayence; after all the “Satan of Mayence” was perhaps right, so he says, in having the inscription taken down.[1319] In another letter he cheerfully relates the old tale of the peasant who, with hands devoutly folded, said to Satan: “Thou art my Gracious Master the Devil.”[1320] He is also delighted to be able to tell the story of a Popish preacher, who, before the war, exhorting the people to pray for the Duke of Brunswick, had said: “If he is worsted then 14 parsons will be had for the price of a penny.”[1321]
His last lecture was delivered just before Christmas, 1545, when he ended his exposition of Genesis. At its close he said: “Here you have our dear Genesis; God grant that, after me, someone may do it better; I am weak and can go on no longer; pray that God may grant me a happy deathbed.”[1322] But his “weakness” was merely temporary. A little after he wrote: “Whoever must fall let him fall if he refuses to listen to the Son of God. We pray and look for the day of our deliverance and destruction of the world with its pomps and wickedness. Would that it come speedily. Amen. I have taken the field against the donkeys of Louvain and Paris, but, nevertheless, feel pretty well, considering my advanced years.”[1323]
Impelled by the ardent desire to do something for the furtherance of peace within his camp, in spite of his bodily weakness and his distaste for worldly business, he undertook at the request of Count Albert of Mansfeld to act as arbiter in the dispute between the latter and his brother and nephew concerning the royalties from the mines and certain other legal claims.