Life of Luther

by Julius Köstlin

Luther however persisted in repeating to himself and his friends the warning of the Psalmist, 'Put not your trust in princes, nor in any child of man, for there is no help in them.' Nay, when Spalatin, who had gone with the Elector to the Emperor, told him how little was to be hoped for from the latter, he expressed to him his joy at finding that he too had learned the same lesson. God, he said, would never have entrusted simple fishermen with the Gospel, if it had needed worldly potentates to propagate it. It was to the Last Day that he looked with full confidence for the overthrow of Antichrist. And, indeed, his idea that Antichrist had long reigned at Rome was connected in his mind with the belief that the Last Day was close at hand. Of this, as he wrote to Spalatin, he was convinced, and for many strong reasons.

And in fact the Emperor Charles, before leaving the Netherlands, on his journey to Aix-la-Chapelle to be crowned, had already been induced by Aleander to take his first step against Luther. He had consented to the execution of the sentence in the bull, condemning Luther's works to be burnt, and had issued orders to that effect throughout the Netherlands. They were burnt in public at Louvain, Cologne, and Mayence. At Cologne this was done while he was staying there. It was in this town that the two legates approached the Elector Frederick with the demand to have the same done in his territory, and to execute due punishment on the heretic himself, or at least to keep him close prisoner, or deliver him over to the Pope. Frederick however refused, saying that Luther must first be heard by impartial judges. Erasmus also, who was then staying at Cologne, expressed himself to the same effect, in an opinion obtained from him by Frederick through Spalatin. At an interview with the Elector he said to him, 'Luther has committed two great faults; he has touched the Pope on his crown and the monks on their bellies.' The Archbishop of Mayence, Cardinal Albert, received directions from the Pope to take more decisive and energetic steps against Hutten as well. The burning of Luther's books at Mayence was effected without hindrance, though Hutten was able to inform Luther that, according to the account received from a friend, Aleander narrowly escaped stoning, and the multitude were all the more inflamed in favour of Luther. The legates in triumph proceeded to carry out their mission elsewhere.

Luther, however, lost no time in following up their execution of the bull with his reply. On December 10 he posted a public announcement that the next morning, at nine o'clock, the antichristian decretals, that is, the Papal law-books, would be burnt, and he invited all the Wittenberg students to attend. He chose for this purpose a spot in front of the Elster Gate, to the east of the town, near the Augustinian convent. A multitude poured forth to the scene. With Luther appeared a number of other doctors and masters, and among them Melancthon and Carlstadt. After one of the masters of arts had built up a pile, Luther laid the decretals upon it, and the former applied the fire. Luther then threw the Papal bull into the flames, with the words 'Because thou hast vexed the Holy One of the Lord, [Footnote: It is obvious that he refers to Christ, who is spoken of in Scripture as the Holy One of God (St. Mark i. 24, Acts ii. 27), not, as ignorance and malice have suggested, to himself.] let the everlasting fire consume thee.' Whilst Luther with the other teachers returned to the town, some hundreds of students remained upon the scene, and sang a Te Deum, and a Dirge for the decretals. After the ten o'clock meal, some of the young students, grotesquely attired, drove through the town in a large carriage, with a banner emblazoned with a bull four yards in length, amidst the blowing of brass trumpets and other absurdities. They collected from all quarters a mass of Scholastic and Papal writings, and especially those of Eck, and hastened with them and the bull, to the pile, which their companions had meanwhile kept alight. Another Te Deum was then sung, with a requiem, and the hymn 'O du armer Judas.'

Luther at his lecture the next day told his hearers with great earnestness and emotion what he had done. The Papal chair he said, would yet have to be burnt. Unless with all their hearts they abjured the Kingdom of the Pope, they could not obtain salvation.

He next announced and justified his act in a short treatise entitled 'Why the Books of the Pope and his disciples were burnt by Dr. Martin Luther.' 'I, Martin Luther,' he says, 'doctor of Holy Scripture, an Augustinian of Wittenberg, make known hereby to everyone, that by my wish, advice, and act, on Monday after St. Nicholas' day, in the year 1520, the books of the Pope of Rome, and of some of his disciples, were burnt. If anyone wonders, as I fully expect they will, and asks for what reason and by whose command I did it, let this be his answer.' Luther considers it his bounden duty, as a baptized Christian, a sworn doctor of Holy Scripture, and a daily preacher, to root out, on account of his office, all unchristian doctrines. The example of others, on whom the same duty devolved, but who shrank from doing as he did, would not deter him. 'I should not,' he says, 'be excused in my own sight; of that my conscience is assured, and my spirit, by God's grace, has been roused to the necessary courage.' He then proceeds to cite from the law-books thirty erroneous doctrines, in glorification of the Papacy, which deserved to be burnt. The sum total of this Canon law was as follows: 'The Pope is a God on earth, above all things, heavenly and earthly, spiritual and temporal, and everything is his, since no one durst say, What doest thou?' This, says Luther, is the abomination of desolation (St: Matth. xxiv. 15), or in other words Antichrist (2 Thess. ii. 4).

Simultaneously with this, he set out in a longer and exhaustive work the 'ground and reason' of all his own articles which had been condemned by the bull. He takes his stand upon God's word in Scripture against the dogmas of the earthly God;—upon the revelation by God Himself, which, to everyone who studies it deeply and with devotion, will lighten his understanding, and make clear its substance and meaning. What though, as he is reminded, he is only a solitary, humble man, he is sure of this, that God's Word is with him.

To Staupitz, who felt faint-hearted and desponding about the bull, Luther wrote, saying that, when burning it, he trembled at first and prayed; but now he felt more rejoiced than at any other act in all his life. He now released himself finally from the restraints of those monastic rules, with which, as we have remarked before, he had always tormented himself, besides performing the higher duties of his calling. He was freed now, as he wrote to his friend Lange, by the authority of the bull, from the commands of his Order and of the Pope, being now an excommunicated man. Of this he was glad; he retained merely the garb and lodging of a monk: he had more than enough of real duties to perform with his daily lectures and sermons, with his constant writings, educational, edifying, and polemical, and with his letters, discourses, and the assistance he was able to give his brethren.

By this bold act, Luther consummated his final rupture with the Papal system, which for centuries had dominated the Christian world, and had identified itself with Christianity. The news of it must also have made the fire which his words had kindled throughout Germany, blaze out in all its violence. He saw now, as he wrote to Staupitz, a storm raging, such as only the Last Day could allay; so fiercely were passions aroused on both sides.

Germany was then, in fact, in a state of excitement and tension more critical than at any other period of her history. Side by side with Luther stood Hutten, in the forefront of the battle with Rome. The bull he published with sarcastic comments: the burning of Luther's works of devotion he denounced in Latin and German verses. Eberlin von Günzburg, who shortly after began to wield his pen as a popular writer on reform, called these two men 'two chosen messengers of God.' A German Litany, which appeared early in 1521, implored God's grace and help for Martin Luther, the unshaken pillar of the Christian faith, and for the brave German knight Ulrich Hutten, his Pylades.

Hutten also wrote now in German for the German people, both in prose and verse. During his stay with Sickingen in the winter at his Castle of Ebernburg, he read to him Luther's works, which roused in this powerful warrior an active sympathy with the doctrines of the Reformation, and stirred up projects in his mind, of what his own strong arm could accomplish for the good cause.