Gœthe repeatedly called Luther a “great man.” But what, above all, prepossessed him in his favour was, first, his “Struggle against priestcraft and the hierarchy,” and, then, his translation of the Bible. “By him we have been freed from the fetters of intellectual narrowness … and have once more the courage to stand upright on God’s earth and to realise our own divinely endowed nature.”[1632] The poet, himself a true child of his age, had no eye for the truths defended by Catholicism against Lutheranism. In a letter to Knebel dated August 22, 1817, when the centenary of Luther’s promulgation of his Theses was being celebrated far and wide, he said: “Between ourselves, the only interesting thing in the whole business [the Reformation] is Luther’s character; it is also the only thing that really impresses the masses. All the rest is worthless trumpery of which we still feel the burden to-day.” As for the usual view of Luther he characterises it as mythological.
7. The Modern Picture of Luther
In the so-called Romantic School the picture of Luther tends to become as shifty as the character of the age.
The Romanticists, like the poets they were, were anxious, as in other fields so also in respect of Luther, to make a stand against the shallowness of the “Enlightenment.”
Zacharias Werner, while still a Protestant, wrote in Luther’s honour his drama “Die Weihe der Kraft,” and, then, as a Catholic, the drama entitled “Die Weihe der Unkraft.”
Novalis, who was deeply read in Luther’s works, was of opinion that he, like Protestantism itself, was something democratic; to him Luther appeared a “hothead.” Disgusted with Lutheranism and vaguely conscious of the beauty of the past he was anxious to see the scattered faithful once more united in a new Christianity. “Luther,” so he wrote, “treated Christianity as he liked, failed to recognise its spirit and introduced another letter and another religion, viz. the sacred principle of the Bible over all.” A “fire from heaven” had indeed presided over the commencement of his career; later on, however, the source of “holy inspiration had run dry” and worldliness gained the upper hand in Luther.[1633]
The religious spirit which had animated the Romanticists and had led them to cast yearning eyes at the Middle Ages was soon extinguished by the new criticism, historical and Biblical, and by the spread of infidelity.
The latest efforts to portray Luther
Luther had now to submit to being criticised by scholars who prided themselves on being dispassionate and were not slow to pass judgment on the characteristics, whether actual or imaginary, which they seemed to discover in him. What the Göttingen Church-historian, Gottlieb Jakob Planck, representing the so-called “Pragmatic” writers had begun—much to the disgust of the then Luther devotees[1634]—was pushed forward by many other Protestants. The lengths to which independent criticism has gone of recent years is emphasised in the Göttingen theologian, Paul de Lagarde. Typical of his remarks is the following: “That great scold Luther, who could see no further than the tips of his toes, by his demagogy threw Germany into barbarism and dissension.”[1635] It was particularly with Luther’s “coarseness” and tendency to indulge in vulgar abuse that the critics were disposed to find fault. Some indeed were inclined to excuse him. Hardly any other writer, however, in seeking to exculpate Luther has used language so startling as that of Adolf Hausrath the Heidelberg scholar who, in his Life of Luther (1904), “thanks God for the barbarism of these polemics,” and goes so far as to say that, “since Luther’s road led to the goal it must have been the right one.”[1636]