Though quite full of the idea that his own doctrine was alone right, yet, as already shown, he went in early days so far as to grant to every man freedom of belief and the right to read Scripture according to his lights; for to him every Christian is a judge of Holy Scripture, a doctor and a tool of the Holy Ghost. The assumption underlying this, viz. that, in spite of all, the necessary unity of doctrine would be preserved, is not easy to explain. When, however, experience stepped in and disproved the assumption, Luther’s behaviour became even more inexplicable. He was by nature so disposed to ignore the claims of logic that the contradiction between his demand that all should bow to his doctrine, and such theories as that the Bible is, for all, the true and only fount of knowledge, and that no other outward ecclesiastical authority exists, never seems to have troubled him. Though he claimed to be the “liberator of minds and consciences,” he, nevertheless, called on the authorities to put down all other doctrines.[519]
The dignity of his chair at Wittenberg is exalted by him to giddy heights. “This university and town,” he said of Wittenberg, may vie with any others. “All the highest authorities of the day are at one with us, like Amsdorf, Brenz and Rhegius. Such men are our correspondents.” In comparison, the sects are simply ludicrous in their insignificance. Woe to those within the fold who dare to run counter to Luther, “like ‘Jeckel’ and ‘Grickel’; they imagine that they alone are clever and that they, like ‘Zwingel’ also, never learnt anything from us! Yet who knew anything 25 years ago? Who stood by me 21 years since, when God, against both my will and my knowledge, led me into the fray? Alas, what a misfortune is ambition!” This he said in 1540,[520] but already eight years before he had complained bitterly: “Each one wants to make himself out to be alone in knowing everything.… Everywhere we find the same Master Wiseacre, who is so clever that he can lead a horse by its tail.” Though one alone has received from God the mission of preaching the Gospel, yet “there are others, even among his pupils, who think they know ten times more about it than he.… Then, hey presto, another doctrine is set up.”[521] “Deadly harm” to Christianity is the result; nevertheless, according to Christ’s prophecy, “factions and sects” there must be; but their source is and remains the devil[522]—who, according to Luther, is the true God of this world in which indeed his finger can everywhere be seen. (See above, vol. v., p. 275 ff.)
Strange indeed is the frame of mind here presented to the observer. So much is Luther the plaything of his fancy and the feeling of the moment, that, at times he seems the victim of a sort of self-suggestion and to be following blindly the idea which happens to hold the field.
His judgment being seen to be so confused, it becomes easier to estimate at their right value certain of his ideas, particularly his conviction that he and his cause owed their preservation to a series of palpable miracles. He contrived to spread among his pupils the belief that “holy Luther” was the greatest prophet since the time of the Apostles.[523] Yet anyone who reflects how Luther could devote a special tract to proving that so everyday an occurrence as the “escape” of a nun from her convent was worthy of being deemed a great miracle for all time, can only marvel at the facility with which Luther could delude himself.[524]
Other Abnormal Lines of Thought and Behaviour
Luther’s action presents many other problems to the psychologist, for instance, in its waverings and contradictions. Strong in his belief in his Divine mission, he roundly abuses kings and princes in the vilest terms, and yet, at the same time, he teaches respect and obedience towards them and even sets himself up as a model in this respect, all according to his mood and as they happen to be favourable to him or the reverse. On the one hand, he presumes to incite the people to acts of violence, and, on the other, he preaches no less cogently the need of calmness and submission. He boasts of the courage with which he had dashed into the very jaws of Behemoth, and of his utter contempt for his foes; yet this same Luther is obsessed by the idea that his own life is threatened by poison and sorcery, just as his party is menaced by the hired assassins of the monks and Papists. While he extols the University of Wittenberg as the bulwark of theological unity, he is at the same time so distrustful of the doctrine of his friends that his intercourse with them suffers, and, to at least one of his intimates, Wittenberg becomes a “cave of the Cyclops.”
Such contradictions and many of the like combined to induce in him an abnormal state of mind. Harmony and consistency of thought and feeling was something he never knew. Hence the charge brought against him, not merely by opponents, but even by many of his own followers, viz. of being muddled, illogical and not sure of his ground.
While he is perfectly able at times to speak and write with such candour and truth that one cannot but admire the wholesome sense, and sober, witty, cheery style of his literary productions, yet their tone and character change entirely as soon as it becomes a question of his polemics or of his Evangel. Then his mind becomes overcast, his thoughts pursue one another like storm-clouds, assuming meanwhile the strangest shapes and the reader is over whelmed by a torrent of mingled abuse and paradox. His very proofs are caught up in the whirl and become so distorted that it is often impossible even to tell whether they are meant in earnest or are merely in the nature of a challenge.
According to Luther, to mention only a few of the strangest of his sayings, his doctrine of justification and the forgiveness of sins is present “in all creatures” and is confirmed by analogy.[525] The very doctrine of creation rests on the doctrine of justification as on “its foundation.”[526] “If the article of our souls’ salvation is embraced and adhered to with a firm faith, then the other articles follow naturally, for instance, that of the Trinity.”[527]