In view of the doubts raised in certain quarters we shall now submit to a closer scrutiny Luther’s utterances on the question of the “observance.”
On one occasion Luther complains of those who made so small account of obedience, though this virtue was the very soul of good works:
“Tales hodie esse timendum est omnes observantes et exemptos sive privilegiatos; qui quid noceant ecclesiæ nondum apparuit, licet factum sit; apparebit autem tempore suo. Quærimus autem, cur sic eximi sibi et dispensari in obedientia velint. Dicunt propter vitam regularem. Sed hæc est lux angeli Satanæ.”
Obedience is something which cannot be dispensed (non eximibilis, “Werke,” Weim. ed., 3, p. 155; O. Scheel, “Dokumente zu Luthers Entwicklung,” 1911, p. 74 f.; above, vol. i., p. 68 f.). Truth, so Luther argues, hides its face from the unwise and the particularist:
“Sic etiam omnibus superbis contingit et pertinacibus, superstitiosis, rebellibus et inobedientibus, atque ut timeo et observantibus nostris, qui sub specie regularis vitæ incurrunt inobedientiarn et rebellionem.” (Weim. ed., 4, p. 83; above, vol. i., p. 69.)
In the former text he was speaking of “all Observantines,” here he speaks of “ours,” presumably, of the more zealous Augustinians. These “observantes” are the same opponents whom he goes on to describe as “superbi in sanctitate et observantia, qui destruunt humilitatem et obedientiam.” The real meaning here of the words “observantia” and “observare” can scarcely escape the reader, particularly when Luther couples this “observance” with disobedience to superiors. Thus he says:
“Nostris temporibus est pugna cum hypocritis et falsis fratribus, qui de bonitate fidei pugnant, quam sibi arrogant, per observantias suas iactantes suam sanctitatem.” (Ib., 4, p. 312.)
“Observantia” means of course outward practices, but there can be little doubt that the word is here used in the more exclusive sense defined in the text first quoted. Thus he denounces those who defend their own “traditiones et leges,” which “usque hodie statuere conantur”; those who busy themselves about ceremonies and the “vanitas observantiæ exterioris”; he several times repeats the “usque hodie,” as though to show that the practices he had in view were present ones. (Cp. Weim. ed., 3, p. 61.)
It must be borne in mind that Luther delivered his Lectures on the Psalms (in which most of the texts in question are found) to an audience composed in the main of young Augustinians sent by the various priories to prosecute their studies at Wittenberg. Some of these may well have brought with them some of those stricter ideas which the seven “Observantine” priories had once championed against Staupitz. To one, who, as Luther now was, was against such ideas, it was an easy matter, even though in itself wrong, to make the question one of obedience, by urging either that their exemption from the jurisdiction of the Provincial was irregular, or that Staupitz had now abandoned his one-time projects.
Luther charges the other faction, not only with disobedience, but also with pigheadedness, e.g. in refusing to conform to the usages of the other priories, and in laying such stress on their own customs and institutions.