Hence the “spiritual temptations” or struggles of conscience were of a character in many respects independent of this morbid state of fear.
They occur, however, on the one hand, in connection with other physical disorders, as in the case of the attack of the “English Sweat” or influenza which Luther had in 1529, and which was accompanied by severe mental struggles; on the other hand, they appear at times to excite the bodily emotion of fear and in very extreme cases undoubtedly tended to produce entire loss of sleep and appetite, cardiac disturbance and fainting fits. Luther himself once said, in 1533, that his “gloomy thoughts and temptations” were the cause of the trouble in his head and stomach;[346] in his ordinary language the temptations were, however, “buffets given him by Satan.”[347] He is fond of clothing the temptations in this Pauline figure and of depicting them as his worst trials, and only quite exceptionally does he call his purely physical sufferings “colaphi Satanæ,” they, too, coming from Satan. Now we cannot of course entirely trust Luther’s own diagnosis—otherwise we should have to reduce all his maladies to a work of evil spirits—yet his feeling that the “temptations” were on the one hand a malady in themselves and on the other a source of many other ills, should carry some weight with us.
It is also clear that, in the case of an undertaking like Luther’s, and given his antecedents, remorse of conscience was perfectly natural even had there been no ailment present. It was impossible that a once zealous monk should become faithless to his most solemn vows and, on his own authority and on alleged discoveries in the Bible, dare to overthrow the whole ecclesiastical structure of the past without in so doing experiencing grave misgivings. Add to this his violence, his “wild-beast fury” (J. von Walther), his practical contradictions and the theological mistakes which he was unable to hide. Hence we need have no scruple about admitting what is otherwise fairly evident, viz. that his ghostly combats stand apart and cannot be attributed directly to any bodily ailment.
It remains, however, true that such struggles and temptations throve exceedingly on the morbid fear which lay hidden in the depths of his soul. It must also be granted that neurasthenia sometimes gives rise to symptoms of fear similar to those experienced by Luther, as we shall hear later on from an expert in nervous diseases, whom we shall have occasion to quote (see section 5 below). Consideration for such facts oblige the layman to leave the question open as to how much of Luther’s fear is to be attributed to nervousness or to other physical drawbacks.
We do not think it desirable here to enter further into the views of the older Catholic polemics, already referred to, who looked upon Luther as possessed (as labouring under an “obsessio” or at least a “circumsessio”). The fits of terror he endured both before and after his apostasy seemed to them to prove that he was really a demoniac. As already pointed out above (vol. iv., p. 359), this field is too obscure and too beset with the danger of error to allow of our venturing upon it.[348] Quite another matter is it, however, with regard to temptations, with which, according to Holy Scripture and the constant teaching of the Church, the devil is allowed to assail men, and to discuss which in Luther’s case we will now proceed, using his own testimonies.
2. Psychic Problems of Luther’s Religious Development
From the beginning of his apostasy and public struggle we find in Luther no peace of soul and clearness of outlook; rather, he is the plaything of violent emotions. He himself complains of having to wrestle with gloomy temptations of the spirit. It is these that we now propose to investigate more narrowly. In so doing we must also examine how his nervous state reacted on these temptations, whereby we shall, maybe, discern more clearly than before the connection of Luther’s doctrine with his distress of soul.
Temptations to Despair
As to the temptations admitted by Luther to be such, we must first of all recall the involuntary thoughts of despair which occurred to him in the convent and the inclination he felt, against his will, to abandon all hope of his salvation and even to blaspheme God. Everybody in the least acquainted with the spiritual life knows that such darkening of the soul may be caused by the Spirit of Evil and often accompanies certain morbid conditions of the body. When the two, as is often the case, are united, the effects are all the more far-reaching. Now, on his own showing, this was precisely the case with the unhappy inmate of the Erfurt monastery. Luther felt himself compelled, as he says, to lay bare his temptations (the “horrendæ et terrificæ cogitationes”) to Staupitz in confession.[349] The latter comforted him by pointing out the value of such temptations as a mental discipline. Staupitz, and others too, had, however, also told him that his case was to some extent new to them and beyond their comprehension.[350] Hence, understood by none, he passed his days sunk in sadness. All to whom he applied for consolation had answered him: “I do not know.”[351] His fancy must, indeed, have strayed into strange bypaths for both Pollich, the Wittenberg professor, and Cardinal Cajetan expressed amazement at the oddness of his thoughts.
His theological system finally became the pivot around which his thoughts revolved; to it he looked for help. He had created it under the influence of other factors to which it is not here needful to refer again; particularly it had grown out of his own relaxation in the virtues of his Order and religious life.[352] His system, however, had for its aim to combat despair, overmastering concupiscence and the consciousness of sin by means of a self-imposed tranquillity. He was determined to arrive by main force at peace and certainty. Only little by little, so he wrote in 1525, had he discovered, “God leads down to hell those whom He predestines to heaven, and makes alive by slaying”; whoever had read his writings “would understand this now very well”; a man must learn to despair utterly of himself, and allow himself to be helplessly saved by the action of God, i.e. by virtue of the forgiveness won by fiducial faith.[353] How he himself was led by God down to hell he sets forth in his “Resolutiones,” in the account of his mental sufferings given above (p. 101 f.), a passage which transports the reader into the midst of the pains which Luther endured in his anxiety.