“… pueri abecedarii in isto statu; sed heu quam plurimi hodie in illis indurantur, quia hæc putant esse seria, et magna ea æstimant. [Tamen] qui Spiritu Dei aguntur, ubi didicerint exterioris hominis disciplinas, non eas multum curant nisi ut præludium.”
True piety on the other hand consisted in allowing oneself to be ridden by God. The man of God
“vadit quocumque eum Dominus suus equitat; nunquam scit quo vadat, plus agitur quam agit, semper it et quomodocunque per aquam, per lutum, per imbrem, per nivem, ventum, etc. Tales sunt homines Dei, qui Spiritu Dei aguntur.”
The “holy-by-works” soil themselves with the seven deadly sins of the spirit. Hence, let us not befoul ourselves by making a rock of the “opera iustitiæ.” Let us leave that sort of thing to beginners to whom indeed we may teach
“multis bonis operibus exercere et a malis abstinere secundum sensibilem hominem, ut sunt [sic] ieiunare, vigilare, orare, laborare, misereri, servire, obsequi, etc.”
These words must have been addressed to men with some theological training, for, in this discourse, Luther dilates at some length on a text of Alexander of Hales; doubtless those present were members of his Order; but what then must we think of the teacher who thus proclaims a freedom from all the observances and traditional rules by which his fellow-monks were bound? Luther’s point of view was one, which, if adopted, spelt the end not only of the Observantines but even of Conventualism. Hence it is no wonder that it caused murmuring.
5. The collapse of the Augustinian Congregation
The fifth Council of the Lateran took measures against many abuses which had crept in among the mendicant Orders, particularly among the Hermits of St. Augustine. As we know, the German Congregation under Staupitz and with Luther as Rural Vicar was no better off than the other branches. It is from June 30, 1516, i.e. during the period of Luther’s “vicariate” that we find a curious note in the “Acta Generalatus Ægidii Viterbiensis.” (Above, p. 497.)
“Universo ordini significamus bellum nobis indictum ab episcopis in concilio Lateranensi, ob idque nos reformationem indicimus omnibus monasteriis.” [Cp. 2 Jan., 1517]. “Religioni universæ quæcunque in concilio acta sunt contra mendicantes per litteras longissimas significamus et reformationem exactissimam indicimus.”
In thus doing the Minister-General’s intention, to judge by the few scraps his Acts contain, was to bring back his people “ad communem vitam.” No doubt too many dispensations had been given for the sake of making study easier, or for other reasons. The reader may remember the incident (above, vol. i., p. 297, n. 1) of Gabriel Zwilling’s being sent to Erfurt and the words used by Luther in his letter to Lang. Zwilling, who, after leaving the Augustinians, became one of the Zwickau “Prophets” but afterwards accepted an appointment as Lutheran minister at Torgau, had joined the Augustinians in 1502 and matriculated at Wittenberg University in 1512; hence he had already been sixteen years an Augustinian at the time when Luther wrote that he had “not yet seen or learnt the rites and usages of the Order.” Does not this seem to prove that the Rule must have been greatly relaxed and that too many exceptions were allowed in the common way of life? Luther himself, as we know, had been dispensed in his student-days from attending Matins and had been assigned a serving-brother; this is proved by the manuscript notes of the Table-Talk made by Rörer. “(Staupitzius) absolvit eum a matutinis et addidit fratrem famulum.” (Kroker, “Archiv für Reformationsgesch.,” 1908, p. 370.) It has indeed been urged that Zwilling’s ignorance of the “rites” was due to the smallness of the Wittenberg monastery. But, as Luther wrote to Lang on Oct. 26, 1516, the house contained “twenty-two priests, twelve students, and, in all, forty-one persons.” (“Briefwechsel,” 1, p. 67). This was surely enough to allow of the carrying out of the “rites and usages of the Order.” Zwilling, moreover, was sent to Erfurt, not only to get a better insight into the ways of the Order, but, mainly, to learn Greek: “Ut et ipse et alii quam optime, i.e. christianiter, græcisent.”