Holy Scripture, to which he had always devoted himself with so much energy, even now engrossed him. He felt keenly its obscurity and depth. The last short note he made was on the Book of Books and the difficulty of reaching its innermost meaning. After instancing the difficulty of rightly understanding even Virgil or Cicero, it proceeds: “Let no one think he has sufficiently tasted Holy Scripture, unless, for a hundred years, he has ruled the Churches with prophets such as Elias, Eliseus, John the Baptist, Christ and the Apostles.”[1424] By this significant admission he had of course no intention of repudiating the principle, whereby in the stead of the teaching authority of the Church he had put the written Word of God as the clear and final rule for each individual. At this time, just before his death, he was less inclined than ever to retract one jot of his doctrine. Nevertheless the fact that he himself was compelled to admit in such terms the depth and the difficulty of the Bible seems scarcely to bear out his usual contention, viz. that Holy Scripture is the one and all-sufficient guide and master for all.
On Feb. 17, the first symptoms showed themselves of the attack which was to carry him off before the next dawn.[1425] During the day he was very restless; once he said: “Here at Eisleben I was baptised, how if I were to remain here?” In the evening he felt the oppression on the chest of which he had had to complain in previous illnesses; he therefore had himself rubbed down with hot flannels and, as soon as he felt better, went off to supper. During the meal he was, as usual, talkative and in good humour; he told some humorous anecdotes and also spoke of more serious things, and ate and drank heartily. He casually said that, were he to die as a man of sixty-three, he would have attained a quite respectable age, “for people do not now live to be very old. Well, we old men must live so long in order to be able to look behind the devil [i.e. learn his wickedness] and experience so much malice, faithlessness and misery in the world that we may bear witness what a wicked spirit the devil is.” With the pessimism peculiar to him he concludes: “The human race is like the sheep being led to the slaughter.”
According to Ratzeberger, the Elector’s medical adviser, who collected the latest particulars concerning Luther, the latter, on the evening of the 17th, “when about to lie down to sleep after supper,” wrote “with a piece of chalk on the wall the verse: In life, O Pope, I was thy plague, in dying I shall be thy death” (cp. above, vol. iii., p. 435). If we may trust this account, then, on this occasion Luther again used the words which had once before served him under similar circumstances at Schmalkalden. Those actually present at Eisleben make, however, no mention of this, and, in his funeral address, Jonas merely says, that these verses were Luther’s fitting “epitaph” which he had once written for himself. Cœlius also, in his panegyric on Luther, says that though dead he still survives in his books; “he will also after his death, please God, be the death of the Pope, thanks to his writings, just as he was his plague during life.” As no mention of the writing on the wall is made by either of these two, nor yet in the account of his death given by his three friends, though there was no reason for their omitting it, Ratzeberger’s account stands alone and must be taken for what it is worth.[1426]
The following is based principally on the narratives of Jonas, Cœlius and Aurifaber, though the fact that it emanates from enthusiastic friends of Luther’s has not been overlooked. Even though, as is highly probable, the three writers in question made the most of the edifying traits they were able to mention, yet this is no sufficient ground for rejecting their account as a whole. Even the short prayers which they put on Luther’s lips may not be pure inventions.
After supper Luther betook himself rather early to his sitting-room and, as his custom was, said his prayers at the open window. Another severe attack of heart oppression then came on; his friends hurried to his assistance and again tried to mend matters by rubbing him with hot cloths; he was, however, only able to get an hour’s sleep on a sofa in the room. He refused to have the doctors called in as he did not think there was any danger. For the next two or three hours, viz. till 1 a.m. he slept in his own bed in the adjoining bedroom, after telling his anxious friends and his two sons, Martin and Paul, to go to rest. Jonas, the principal witness at his death, had a couch in the same room as Luther.
About one o’clock Luther suddenly felt very unwell. “Oh, my God, how ill I feel,” he said to Jonas, and, getting out of bed, he dragged himself into the sitting-room, saying he would probably die at Eisleben after all, and repeating the prayer: “Into Thy hands I commend my spirit.” He complained of an intolerable burden on his chest. Two physicians, one a doctor and the other a master of medicine, were now summoned in haste. Before they arrived the patient seems to have suddenly collapsed; they found him on the sofa, unconscious and with no perceptible pulse. Recovering consciousness he said, all bathed in the cold sweat of death: “My God, I feel so ill and anxious, I am going,” and then, according to Jonas, he said a short prayer of thanks to God for having revealed to him His Son Jesus Christ in Whom he believed and Whom he had preached and confessed, whilst the hateful Pope and all the ungodly had blasphemed this same Christ; thereupon, all trustfully, he commended his soul to the Lord. No less than three times, according to this witness, did he repeat in Latin the familiar Bible text: “God so loved the world that He gave His Only Begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” This text (John iii. 16) he had, indeed, always esteemed highly, and seen in it the seal of his doctrine. He is also said to have repeated other Bible texts while medicines were being given him. Count Albert and his relatives, who had come in, also offered him various remedies. Soon after he seemed again to lose consciousness. In spite of the confessions just mentioned Jonas and Cœlius shouted once more in his ear the question, whether he remained steadfast in the faith in Christ and His doctrine which he had preached; to which they caught the reply “Yes.” That was his last word.—To all appearance his death was due to an apoplectic seizure.
All things considered, it is very odd that Luther apparently never gave a thought to his life’s partner, whom he had left at Wittenberg, and that, at least as it seems, his sons were not with him at his death. The argument from the silence of his friends on this point is not devoid of force, for it would have been so easy for them to supply what we here miss. Their silence might even be adduced in support of the substantial reliability of their narrative. The best explanation of Luther’s apparent oblivion is probably to be sought in the result of the stroke which stupefied him and blotted out the memory of those dear to him.[1427]
Towards 3 a.m., after drawing a last deep breath. Luther yielded up his soul into the hands of the Judge. This was on Feb. the 18th.
At the demand of both the physicians the apothecary of Eisleben was sent for, either immediately after death had taken place, or possibly just before, to administer a stimulant by means of a clysteral injection. The apothecary, Johann Landau by name, was a Catholic and a convert, a nephew of the convert polemic Wicel. He drew up a report of his visit which has become famous in the discussion of the question stupidly broached anew of recent years as to whether Luther committed suicide.[1428] We here give the principal passages of his very realistic narrative. He speaks of himself in the third person.